New guy, with a new project.

[Requ21]

Hey everyone! Just wanted to give a quick intro on my project and myself.

I'll start with myself, although I'm not all that interesting. I'm your typical full time work/full time college student. I work nights at a trucking company doing maintenance and repairs on heavy trucks, and I attend Missouri State University during the day, majoring in Physics, and minoring in applied mathematics.

Anyways, the new project (and the back story that makes it significant)

When I was young [12-13 years old] my grandpa on my moms side gave me a 1977 Buick Skylark with a 350 sbc in it. At the time we lived in a fairly bad part of Birmingham Alabama, and it was sort of a "mess with this instead of going out and committing crimes and getting shot" sort of thing... Obviously I never got to drive it, but I would take parts off, put them back on, listen to it idle... yada yada yada... I feel I should mention that I have been exposed to various areas of automotive maintenance, repair, and restoration ever since I developed the muscle control to hold a wrench.. Gasoline runs in the blood, on both sides of the family... During the time that I had this car, my mom and grandparents owned a shop, doing basic oil changes, brakes, custom exhaust, and the like... At 12 years old I would work there after school to save up money to buy things for my car, I did oil changes, and various little stuff... I'm not really sure about the legal aspects of it, but by the time I finally moved back to MO (where I grew up, and where my dad lives) I was 13, and could bend custom exhaust and weld it all up (under supervision obviously)... I basically said all this to say that I'm not "new" to the automotive scene...

Fast forward to today

My current (hopefully) project is a 1976 Buick Skylark that I'm in the process of trying to purchase from my dad... He bought it as a drag car.. It was a pretty solid low 9 second street legal car... However, he decided to remove the monster Buick 455 to install it in a 1995 Buick Roadmaster station wagon...

So what he is left with is a Buick skylark with no motor or transmission, and that is in the process of having the Ford 9 inch removed, and the wheels/tires...

Which doesn't sound like there is much of a car left, but alas, I am attempting to buy it, along with a few various parts from our own personal "salvage yard" (We basically just have various projects and different levels of completion, and we move parts from one to the next)

So, my purchase list will hopefully consist of the following.

1976 Buick Skylark (2 door)
10 bolt posi from a 97ish firebird (lt1 car, not sure of year)
I may also buy the front subframe from the firebird as well.

Then my other plans would be

355 small block build, fairly basic, old school (college budget)
I would love to do a 5 speed swap, but may end up going with an auto for now, either 700r4, or 2004r
I also need to figure out if the torque bar(?) that came off the 10 bolt in the firebird can be used with leaf springs, or if I need to swap it to coils
Also going to look into using the rack and pinion off the subframe...
Beyond that its going to be little bits of interior and body work to get it going.

I don't know as of now what will and will not end up happening, but I have a plan, and I'm going to continue working towards it.

I've always liked the pro touring segment, but I've never been able to actually build one, usually due to the fact that there has been 100% overlap between my project, and my daily driver... Which is less than ideal.

This car will never be a show winner, but I'm really hoping to get it put together to do autoX, and driving (safely, within the posted speed limit) on crooked back roads... Then using it as a platform to attempt to learn about aspects of building pro touring cars that thus far I have only read about.

It will be slow going, and I'll ask a lot of dumb questions along the way, but I will attempt to avoid becoming insufferable... I've never done much work on suspension on american cars... my only really good handling car I've owned was a 1992 Honda Prelude... that handled like a go kart from the factory, so improving on it was really just buying parts... which is not the case with an Xbody.


Anyways, if you're still with me, this is what it looks like as of now... so Just picture it with no wheels/tires, and without a rear end... and without a random gas tank on the roof.



Thanks for reading!
Requ21

[Spiffav8]

Welcome to

[BMR Sales]

Welcome! I thrashed 70's Skylark for a while. I don't think I ever Title'd it!

[Sieg]

Welcome aboard, looking forward to your journey.

[WSSix]

Welcome Requ! Sounds like a fun and different build. I would suggest not using a 4th gen fbody rear though. I think you'll find it's cheaper and easier to go with a 10 bolt from a second gen. It's stronger and made to work with leaf springs already. I'm not sure about rearend width needed for the Skylark(X-body?). If you have to narrow either of the 10 bolts, it would be better to go with a 9 inch due to how easy/cheap it is to narrow those housings. Others may have even better ideas than me though so be sure to ask. Good luck with the build and school!

[Requ21]

Thanks everyone!

Originally Posted by WSSix

Welcome Requ! Sounds like a fun and different build. I would suggest not using a 4th gen fbody rear though. I think you'll find it's cheaper and easier to go with a 10 bolt from a second gen. It's stronger and made to work with leaf springs already. I'm not sure about rearend width needed for the Skylark(X-body?). If you have to narrow either of the 10 bolts, it would be better to go with a 9 inch due to how easy/cheap it is to narrow those housings. Others may have even better ideas than me though so be sure to ask. Good luck with the build and school!

I considered this, but as of now, I'm planning to get rid of the leaf springs entirely... my plan as of now (again, it will be a slow project)

I'm planning to use the f body rear, and utilize the entire rear suspension, axle, trailing arms, torque arm, sway bar, coils and shocks... recreating as close as posible the geometry of a 4th Gen f body... the only change will be mounting the torque arm to a separate cross member on the sub frame connectors, instead of to the tail housing.

I know that the torque arm set up isn't the best rear suspension there is, but it is way better than the leafs... plus, by recreating the geometry and mounting of the f body, upgraded shocks, swaybars, springs (with modified spring rates) will all be a matter of choosing from the countless 4th Gen f body options.

I'm planning to do the same with the front subframe. Although that seems a bit more difficult, but still not impossible.

The key for me is not getting in a hurry, and doing the labor myself...

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