We have been building up a 1967 Skylark for my wife the last couple years. We swapped in a solid lifter cam and a 4 speed but still needed a better rear end. I had a 64' BOP 3.08:1 Posi axle from a Pontiac in my stuff that we were going to install but someone had cut the brackets off for some custom install then welded them back on poorly so I was not that excited to install it. Back in September a buddy spotted a 71' 8.5 for sale and let me know. It was too far away for me to get but I just happened to have another friend on holiday in the area on holiday so arranged for him to pick it up at the bargain price of $100 Canadian. I ended up picking it up in October and got at prepping it for the car. We blasted it and painted it up. I ordered up new brake goodies to rebuild the brakes from Rock Auto. The rear was a 2.73 open differential out of a 71' Cutlass. I found a good used set of GM 3.42 gears along with a Moser rear cover that the guy with the gears had left over from a project. I ordered up a rebuild kit and a Yukon Eaton style Posi for it. My wife and I did the rebuild on it and it came out great. We did the install into the car over this past weekend. She did a great job of helping out and did some of the projects herself such as the brakes. I had to shorten the driveshaft 3/4" to make it all work. I had a "No Hop bar" kit and thought we would give it a try on this build. The brackets did not fit the 8.5" axle so I used the brackets from the kit and made a template to make some brackets that fit. I have a buddy that does pattern cutting so he burned them for me out of 5/8" plate. They came out real nice. Adjusting the axle to centre and getting the pinion angle right took some time. Overall we are pretty darn happy with the project and are looking forward to leaving two black strips on the road. Greg
Looks great! What were your old no-hop bars from? I’m looking for a pair that fits the single rib of the 8.2” Buick. The ones for the 8.5” and 12-bolt Chevy don’t have the notch in the correct location.
I actually don't know what they fit. I am going to guess a 10 or 12 bolt Chevy. I bought them at a swap meet. The guy said he had them on his 66' Chevelle. If they are for a 12 bolt then they should fit my car as I have a 66' Chevelle 12 bolt in my 66' Skylark. One day when I am feeling limber I will climb under my car and see if they will fit. I could get some burned for a BOP 10 bolt easy enough. I would just have to make a cardboard template like I did for these ones. I was thinking these would be easy to make a bunch of them. I wanted to see how these perform before making some more. Greg
