1964 Buick Skylark Convertible mild custom project

I gutted the differential to get it ready for the new gear set. All the bearings are new so I only need the ring and pinion, spacer, shims and seals. I received a $50 off code in the mail from Summit Racing just in time to place an order for the diff stuff and a new carb.

With the tail in the air I loosely installed the pipes from the mufflers back. I planned the pipes to run through the rear bumper but once I mocked it all up it wasn't the look I hoped for.

I ended up trimming to imbed about a third of the tip into the bottom edge of the bumper. I could go more but the contour of the bumper wouldn't look good with these large tips. I will need to trim about 1/4 inch more to allow for the pipes to swing and vibrate on rubber hangers.

 

I have the ring and pinion ready to go back in and I can't find the correct seal for the pinion so I will finish up the trunk while I search.

The inside of the trunk was painted over the original white with blue and then white again. The blue was painted over poorly prepped paint so I tried a little paint remover and it lifts off easily. The factory Red Oxide primer was left untouched by the remover but yet it sands very nicely making this a faily easy and cheep strip job.

 

The paint remover made the seam sealer soft so it lifted out with a simple push of a flat blade screw driver.

 

With the seams cleaned out I found that the trailing edge of the trunk lid had a little surface rust starting. I sprayed a couple of coats of Rust Converter over that area to help seal up the rust before the final sealer goes back on. I have a few areas in the trunk that will need to be sealed back up so once I have these areas ready I will spread the sealer then coat the full tail in epoxy primer.

 

I wire wheeled the rubber trunk seal channel and found some nice little rust holes. It's been years since I brazed but to my surprise I had everything so I melted in some brass.

 

With all the seams in the tail cleaned out I smoothed on the peanut butter looking stuff.

Now it's ready for the epoxy primer but the garage is way too hot so I will be working on the rear diff (again), the brakes (again), Carb tuning (again) and then the air suspension is going back in for the last time.

 

Nice work. :TU:

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am changing the gears to better fit the overdrive. The tech guys at Summit Racing did get me the correct gears but some poor quality issues and some poor fitment has made the job h*ll. I don't blame Summit, it was their suppliers that messed up.

First, the tech guys told me to keep my posi carrier and install a 3/8" spacer for the new ring gear. This is the spacer...

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/MRG-900A/?rtype=10

I followed the torque specs and three bolts let loose. Fortunately the ring gear threads were OK but the bolts were trashed. Summit gave me a $25 gift card as a refund and I picked up some Grade 8 bolts at a local bolt store for $7.

I also purchase an install kit from Summit and it had the wrong pinion seal. I exchanged it for another brand kit that also had the wrong seal. I did finally find the correct seal at Kanter.

My first assembly attempt (without the crush sleeve) came up a little short on the pinion gear and from some articles I have it looked like the pinion was a .012 shim off and to my surprise it was right.

Comparing to Richmonds images the patterns look good for both forward and reverse.

 

WOW, I don't think I will ever try that again on jack stands. If you have ever crushed a sleeve on a pinion shaft you understand the leverage needed to twist that pinion nut. Not easy in this small space.

 

The rear disc set I had installed was used and off from a 96 Camaro. The rotors needed to be turned but Summit has low cost drilled and slotted sets so I add them to my ring and pinion order. Now they match the front.

 

Cleaned, etched and coated all the bare metal in the trunk with POR 15 then topped the innerfenders with heavy coats of undercoating to help take the tin can noise out.

 

Finally, the car is in it's first full primer coat (almost a year off from the original plan of primer). Two light coats of epoxy and two heavy coats of surfacer. I also sprayed the last bit of the trunk with epoxy and then shot on some semi-gloss black (the black is still wet in the photo so it looks shiney).

I can finally put all the air suspension stuff back in the trunk.

 

Got all the air suspension stuff back in the trunk (hopefully for the last time). You can see the access panels I had to cut to get to the top of the air bag for the rear spring tower. The front air lines pass down into the frame all the way to the front air bag so there is no possibility to drag or burn the lines.








These are the electronic level sensors for the Dakota Digital computor to keep the car level side to side as well as keep the desired hieght. They would bind up when the car was full up the first time I installed them so I added some small extensions and now they have good travel full up and full down.

 

Very Nice! :TU:

 

this is the first time i saw this thread, very nice work. i would just keep an eye on those ring gear bolts. i don't care for spacers that much. eaton make a new posi carrier for those rears and your ratio. you could get one of those and sell your current unit for a good price since they don't make them any more.

 

Thanks Eric.

I do have concern about the spacer and the ring gear bolts being the week link, especially after the original bolts stripped. My final decision was the little engine and how I plan to use the car. If I added dual turbos or dropped in a big block (or even better, a big block with turbos) then I would definitely look at the Eaton carrier or more upgrades, but for now the car is a cruiser. I know there will be a time when the tires will start spinning and I will be listening for those rpms to over rev after pops and snaps, but that is why I carry towing insurance.:Brow:

 

With all the bodywork done and in final primer I decided to do a final fit of all body panels, grille, head lights, tail trim and bumpers. I want to make some minor tweaks to the grille and head light bezels fitment and those depend on the front bumper fitment. The front bumper has some dents that need to be smoothed out and since the bumper is tucked and tightly fitted I want it in its final finish to finalize the grille area. If the smoothing and chroming process changes the bumper fit in any way I can adjust for it before paint. I have also twisted and tweaked the rear bumper in many areas so it is far from original specifications, it will also go to chrome.

I have gotten to know a fantastic custom car designer / builder by the name of Dave Kindig. His shop puts out some of the finest cars in the country (Check him out at kindigit.com) so I asked him where he gets his chrome work done. He told me to go to Ogden Chrome Plating so I packed up all the parts and drove up to see them.

Ogden Chrome Plating does triple plate show chrome at very good prices. Charlie, in their office, told me that most bumpers can be smoothed and chromed for $350 to $400. Since my bumpers need some custom fill and smoothing (with care not to change my modified shapes) they needed some extra attention so Charlie quoted $500 each. I also brought all my pot metal parts to have them looked over and get prices to refinish. I have 4 grilles to choose from and Charlie picked out one with very poor chrome to rework. The grille that I thought he would use is a nice driver so that one will go one eBay to help pay some of the chrome bill.

Charlie told me my bumpers will be done in two weeks and they will deliver them to my door. They are offering fee pick up and delivery within the 48 states at no extra charge. (Check out their web page at ogdenchrome.com) I will let everyone know how the bumpers look when they arrive.

 

The master cylinder I had been using was from a 76 Chev truck that had been setting around the shop for years. It's been working great but it has started to leak and mess up my paint so I purchased a rebuilt master, cleaned, painted, installed and got the air out.

Brakes done... again. :beer







I purchased a new Summit Carb to replace the Throttle body I played with and gave up on.

Took about an hour to start the little thing up. I had to pull all the plugs and clean all the black crud off to get it started. The TBI had been spraying way to much fuel.

Running... again. :beers2:

 

Very Nice Work! :TU:

 

Thanks Bulldog