New Here

[sgath92]

I'm a first time hearse owner, but this is not by any means by first B-body. Needed a car to come home after someone who didn't know what a brake pedal was destroyed my car in a town five hours away. Luckily I was able to find this near by, and I miss my last b-body and have been quite happy with it so far.

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It's done by Alberter, and is the cheaper of the two conversions they did. No divider, stock wheelbase [it's all after the rear axle]. Came with all the trim for the inside & out, so if I wanted to bring it back to original condition [unlikely] I have everything down to the hubcaps & hubcap tool. However, I couldn't find any of the original paperwork pertaining to the conversion in the car anywhere so all I know about its history is that it was sold through Shields in Atlanta at some point [explains the lack of rust].

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Cosmetically it really needs to have the headliner redone, and the repaint on it was really poorly done. It looks like they decided to make it white by using overspry to paint the vinyl roof, and then they put a layer of filler over the original paint job and then put too thick of a base coat over it. It's spider cracking bad on the hood and near all the chrome trim parts. However I have been going over it with magnets and have not found any obvious hidden holes covered up with filler, so it at least appears to be a solid metal body.

Mechanically the ac is probably in need of work. There is no belt on it, which is a no-no on the 307 [known to cause belt throwing problems and squeal]. I won't mind spending what I did to buy the car to have the AC restored & converted to R13a. My last b-body had an all original working AC and it was the coldest AC I've ever had in a car. The weatherstripping is also bad, like it is on every B-body I've seen in recent years [if anyone knows a source I need it for multiple vehicles] but isn't yet bad enough where I get soaked while driving it in heavy rain.

Gas mileage both highway and city has been better than the last b-body I owned, which wasn't a hearse, and I have more than one set of rims & tires in the back right now [the originals were included with the sale so I could go back to using the original hubcaps if I wanted]. In practical terms its the second most fuel efficient car I've owned.

Is it common for the original window curtains to have shrunk with time? Some of them don't appear to be long enough to snap to the interior door panels as they should. I also don't think the interior has been cleaned since it was still in service.

[Abnorml]

Welcome to the site.

[sgath92]

Tonight was the first time I had driven it in the dark, and found that the outside pillar light on the driver's side does not work. The one on the passenger side does. Normally in my state any exterior lights "present" must work properly so I am going to need to either repair or replace it. Is this a sealed throw-away light or is there a way to open them up to replace the light bulb(s) inside?

[Guest]

I guess it depends, but with mine, you had to remove a couple of screws, then the lens comes off and you can replace the bulb.

[sgath92]

There are no visible screws on the lights, so I don't know how to get into it yet. I am hoping its some off the shelf part given that the coach builder was a buick dealership in western PA. They intentionally named their two coach designs "Regal D'Elegance" and "Alberter D'Elegance" so that they could use off the shelf gm emblems on their hearses without having to have any custom made [as seen in my picture in the first post the regal part is a normal Buick regal emblem, the D'Elegance is a normal caddy emblem iirc, and for alberter I am guessing they used the cheap badges they had made up to stick on all the cars they sold through the dealership]. Seems short of cheap on their part considering that they were willing to have some custom made pieces for their coaches, like that rear door. Then again they were supposed to be cheap first call cars.

Did GM have any "opera lights" on their normal 80s luxury sedans like Lincoln did? Figure that would be a place to start looking to see if I can find a tare-apart diagram. I really DON'T want to break one trying to get into it without knowing how to replace it. I'm guessing the odds of finding another alberter hearse for parts is pretty close to zero

[Chace]

I have a 90 model Buick Eagle and the plastic for the pillar lights on it screw in, however I have had some Caddys where they just clip in and can be popped off with a screwdriver...the bulbs on mine are the same as the wagon pillar lights on the Fords/Mercury wagons...which is weird. Some of my Caddys have been the same as the sidemarker running lights...so it really does just depend. But the lens iteself on mine seems to be unique to Eagle, so yeah.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help, and good luck!

[Guest]

also, when i first got my coach, the opera lights were fake - meaning they didn't actually light up and weren't wired to anything.

[sgath92]

These work, at least on the pass side. Took the drivers side apart today by gently removing the lens which revealed two tiny little light bulbs that had burnt out. Found that the rear driver's brake light was half way filled with water so the lens seal might be shot. At least I hope its something simple like that. Reverse lights not coming on, which will require some further investigation tomorrow.

[sgath92]

The tiny small light bulbs for the opera lights were 2721's. The sockets seemed to be fairly corroded, and one was missing the rivet that holds the socket together & makes contact with the bulb. I think the next time I have problems with them I will remove the bulbs for a string of LEDs to put behind the lens. Need to test the rear air ride tomorrow if I can remember. They put a nipple under the rear plate holder that you would use to pressurize the system with an air hose. Not sure why, because the car has the B-body air ride compressor under the hood.

[sgath92]

Ok next thought: In taking the car apart to put in a new radio, I see that it was originally gray and probably had a black roof [not sure on that part however]. When the car was repainted white it looks like they put filler over the original paint job & then painted over that. Which explains all the paint cracking all over that only goes as deep as the repaint job [doesn't go into the original gray coat]. Unfortunately when they did the repaint they painted the roof white by using either overspray or simply rattlecanning it. The texture of the roof is ok to the touch, but the paint coat they put on it is so thin that you can see the original black peeking out.

I am actually liking the white on the car but I need to do something to make the roof look better before I go about taking off the crappy repaint job so I can do it the right way. I do not want to take that roof off since its physically in ok shape. Any ideas? I was thinking of getting a white shoe polish ok for synthetic materials to rub over it so it won't look like the roof was painted with overspray. This is commonly done with black shoe polish to clean up & colorize worn vinyl coatings on electrical equipment [like old amps & speaker enclosures with that fake leather covering]. Has anyone tried something like this before?

[sgath92]

Just received the set of nameplates I ordered from Names Unlimited. I am very, very happy with them and it was well worth the money & time to have them make my set.





I was originally going to have my DA portfolio url done up in a nameplate but it used so many characters that it just didn't make sense, so I ultimately decided on YMMV inside their wreaths. Can't makeup my mind on whether I like them better centered in the window, or centered in the curtain opening.

[hotroddwayne]

MONEY WELL SPENT!!!
Names Unlimited do excellent work. Very nice people to talk to and deal with and a product well worth the wait. I'd love an invite from them someday to tour their shop since they're 20 minutes from my house! Your nameplates look awesome. I always center mine to the curtains & not the window itself.

[sgath92]

I had a landau bar fall off this week. Luckily I still have all the parts. It looks like Albeter attached them by using two large pop rivets to hold a nut on the side of the car. The bar's "knobs" would screw by hand into those. The driver's lower "knob" was missing the pop rivets & nut, and looks like it has been for quite some time so the knob must have just been sitting there & finally decided to fall out. Not sure what to do next. The threads on the knob are so long that I would have figured it would havepenetrated the side of the car and had another nut behind the interior. But apparently not so. Is this really how they're usually held on?