A friend of mine owns two Buicks, a 1970 Skylark convertible and a 1956 Special. I have never seen the Special but I have seen the Skylark and have plans to install a correct and complete 1970 Buick 350 into it in place of the 1975-ish Buick 350 that is in it now. So the idea is to use the 75-ish 350 and one of several Buick TH350's or a TH200R4 as a engine and transmission in the Special. The big question at the moment is what is involved in going from the torque tube style drive train to a more modern one like what is in a Buick or the 60's or 70's? The owner ran into a guy at a car show that said, "I have one with a El Camino drivetain in it and it works great." What is said at a car show isn't exactly reliable IMHO. I have so many stories about so many topics I could spend days writing them down. But I suspect that someone here has done something similar and I'd like to find out more from them. Thanks in advance for the assistance. And I will try to check in every couple of days to see what has been suggested thus far.
I wanted to update the transmission in my 59 and had to contend with this very issue. The cheapest way to do it, and keep costs down is to get a 61-62 FULL size Buick 3rd member. Buick used the same rear end and spline count from 56-62. Buick converted to a open driveline in 61 but just made a open 3rd member for the rearend. Next is to mount the rearend. You can try to retrofit a universal 4 link kit, but I got a special rear end mounting kit specifically designed for 50s Buicks for this very reason. New they are like $1200. I took my kit off when I sold the car. I still have it if your friend needs it. Then you have to contend with a driveshaft. I am not certain, but I think 56 used a x frame design. For my 59s K frame I ended up using a 2 piece driveshaft from the 66 the transmission came out of and retrofitted it. 56 might only need a 1 piece. The trans mounting should be straight forward since Buick used massive thrust plates bolted to the side of the frame rails (for 59 at least). A universal or used cross member should be fairly simple to modify to fit. Things can get very pricey if you opt for swapping rear ends or frames, and that is why I chose to go this route (keep stock suspension and components, while changing just what I had to, and to keep costs down).
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