Hello Everyone, I just purchased my grandmother's 72, Skylark Custom Convertable and I am looking to do a restoration/upgrade. The first order of business was to put it on a lift to get a better look at the underside and low and behold, the frame is so rusted that it can not be put on a standard lift. It turns out that the brake line on the drivers side of the frame had been leaking for years and had rusted the frame to at least 3 feet back of the wheel well. What are my options? 1. Am I better off to purchase a new frame or try to repair this one? 2. What other boxed frames will be a fit for this application? BTW, as a side note and as it involves the frame, I have the original engine, but had a complete 455 drop into my lap and am considering the swap. I will continue to read other posts to help me decide what path to take, but man, is that 455 swap tempting. Thanks for all of your help.
The best way to fix it is to replace the frame. I find it hard to belive that the brake fluid alone rotted the frame. What happens to vert frames, especially in the northeast is that sand, dirt, salt and muck got inside the boxed frame and rotted it from the inside out. Either way, repairing it isnt going to be feasible. i wouldnt be surprised if frame isnt comprimised in other areas. Best way to find out is with a ball peen hammer and listen for the difference in tone In any case, a frame from another 68-72 A body convertible is what you need. I would say $1500- $2000 for a clean, rust free convertible frame is in the ballpark. Unless you have a particular attachment to this car, your going to get upside down financially pretty quickly if your going to try and restore this car. Something to think about before you get into a situation that will be difficult to extricate yourself from
Unfortunately, I do have an attachment to the car, I purchased it from my grandmother's estate as I have fond memories of it from when I was a child. So, that brings me to the restoration. The car is in B condition otherwise, top is near perfect, strong engine and decent paint. I just need to tackle the frame to make sure the car is safe before I begin anything else. Thank you very much for your help, now all I need to do is find a frame
The easy way to do this would be to find a complete, rolling frame and restore it separately. Then you can do the actual swap, barring any unforseen complications, literally in a weekend.
That may not be a good deal. If the heat was really intense, and it looks like it was, then the strength/temper may have come out of the steel frame. I would certainly not trust that one. You could always do what I did, cut out the boxed sections of the conv frame and weld them into a coupe frame. All you are doing is basically building another convertible frame. Duane
You could get a regular coupe frame and have that "boxed." Or try here. http://www.gmsportssalvage.com/?q=node/704
That looks good. My only concern with boxing a coupe frame is the sturdiness of the frame. If at some point I decide to drop the 455 I have into it, would a non-factory boxed frame require additional strengthening in order for it to take the torque load of the new engine configuration?
A convertible frame is only a std coupe frame with the 3"-4" center brace removed and a set of boxed sections welded in. They use the thinner "Skylark/Malibu/Tempest/Cutlass" non-boxed c-section frames and weld the boxes to them. That is how ALL the convert frames were done. If you use a GS/442/SS/GTO coupe frame as a starter (with the thicker c-sections) you will end up with even more strength but it's not really needed. That is what we did on my 70 Chevelle conv, the c-channels/front area are off a 70 Stage 1 car that was scrapped then the boxes from the original convert frame were welded in. The tail section of the frame is off a 72 Skylark that we scrapped years ago. We used the pieces we had laying around to build what we needed. Duane
I have a 71 Skylark convertible parts car. It has a great frame that I will sell for $1500 if you are interested. It is in Dallas, Texas. Another board member may be able to assist in transporting the frame, but I'm not sure where you live. http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.p...TN-area-in-2-or-3-weeks&p=2187679#post2187679
