With the old frame out from under the shell, next order of business was to remove the f41 bars and reinstall on the good frame. They’re quite crusty, but still solid.
Your build is great, looks very entertaining! Builds that take months instead of years are a lot more fun. Plus the end result will be a car you can drive anywhere anytime just like we used to. I’m doing a 68 in a similar vain myself. Bummed you guys are so far away, would love to do a three-way shoot out! What is your ETA for the first drive? Steve weim55 Colorado
That is the goal. Slam it together and have fun. Hoping to have it completely road worthy (my version) by April.
New brake hardware on 12 bolt along with new 373 gears and posi unit ! New shocks in , should be able to jamb it back up in there this week !
Idk what's bad on the orig. frame (exc. the now missing rear crossmember), but don't scrap it. I think it'd be quite possible & not that difficult to take the LR section w/the BBB part # and the BBB front horns/crossmember & merge them w/a good SBB frame. Great build btw! Looks like fun!
From the rear end back is paper thin. I could bend the rear spring perch metal with a pair of pliers. Some holes up front where mice had a nest also.
I’m at a crossroads. With the body tub up in the air sans the frame, I need to tackle the trunk floor. Hate like heck to just tack weld the pan in and call it good. I think a couple of days, a couple spot weld drill bits, and a grinder could make this a fairly easy job. I’ve had this trunk pan since 08 or 09. Having this car all one piece again will certainly help with the clutter in my parts stash. I find something that was purchased for the car long forgotten about nearly every day.
I’m gonna drive the hell out of it. Pan is going in for sure. I was debating on doing it fast or doing it right. Probably gonna cut all the old out and put it in right. It’ll only add a couple of days anyway. Stay tuned.
Welp, as I suspected, this just snowballed. This has somewhat derailed into actually fixing something right. Original plan was to run a dozen or so self tapping screws and call it. But I can’t bring myself to do it. So this is where I am. This whole rear section of trunk was cut out of a 70 4 door skylark, trunk drops and all. In the pic you can see where I planned to splice it into the original trunk floor behind the back seat. So now, all the welding will get finished up in the trunk and the pan will go in last. When I did this work, I’m pretty sure the AMD chevelle trunk floor hadn’t been on the market yet. I can see me chasing the rust all the way to the firewall now.
Tim: I did the same thing with my Katrina car a few years back. Once I cut out the old crusty floor, I wire-wheeled the braces and painted them black. Before doing the plug welds on the floor, I sanded the paint from the flanges then sprayed them with weld-thru primer.
Looks good, Rick. This was all in the plans when I first started the project 12 years ago. Time will tell if all this sheet metal work will burn me out or not.
Not too much progress to report. I did manage to dissect this piece out of the old donor skylark crew cab I cut up 10 years ago. This took a couple of spot weld bits, and grinder, and a bunch of patience.
This will be the last time I cut parts out of another car and splice them in pieces. With that said, I have made some progress on the trunk floor. The piece I previously posted was the original front section of the trunk floor of the donor. I cut it there because I assumed that piece was not rusty in the car, and I didn’t want to get into cutting all the way into the interior floor section because it was still bolted to the frame. Well, I was wrong. The ends where the trunk floor is spot welded to the inner wheel houses were paper thin. This piece fits so much better. But I guess it should since the butted ends match well. It’s held in now with a few tacks on the floor and spot welds to the inner wheel house. I will finish stitch welding and it will be hard to tell it was ever done.
While I tackle finally getting a ceiling put up in my shop, I thought I’d post some pics of the the rehab of the body tub that I actually started back around 2014. Some of you following this will wonder why I didn’t just part the car out. I was under the impression that this car was ordered new for a doctor here in town by my dad, who was a salesman at the local Buick dealer. He wanted a loaded skylark to pull a camper. The doc checked off all the boxes for the power equipment, windows, locks, driver seat, tilt wheel, etc. He didn’t want a/c because he thought it would rob power while towing. After the car came in, the doc upgraded the 2.93 rear with a 4.30 ring and pinion, but still a non posi. This is the story I got from the guy I bought it from, as he had bought it from the original owner. Everything he had told me has been accurate. I still have the 4.30 open rear. Wayne’s docs also prove the car was ordered sold, just not at my dad’s dealership. Bummer, but at this point, I’m in it to win it. With the tulip panel removed, you can see where a mouse nest had actually rotted the under structure. Both corners of the package tray were also rotten.
