im wondering if anyone has put any of the mid 50's buick bodys on a later model chassis. i have a 54' special and was wondering what i could do with an 85' regal chassis i have or if any other chassis's are a good swap. even if anyone knows of any pontiac or chevy guys swaping their 50's bodys would be helpful.
My neighbor put an 87 Regal drive train in his 54 Special years ago. Kept the original chassis though. He sold it a few years ago though. Another one I saw had a Chrysler sub frame in the front end with torsion bars and an olds rear end and engine. So just about anything is possible but takes a lot of work I think. And a few do overs too I suspect. Maybe you can find an old school guy in your area and pick his brain. Not easy I'm sure.
I saw a 57 Super that was put on a 71 or 72 Estate Wagon chassis. The owner said it was an easy swap. He used the 455, the TH400 and the complete drive line.
my plan is to make this car a safe,reliable daily driver so i want to update everything to this day an age. power brakes,discs in the front,power steering,and a more modern rear end. im putting in a 455 i have (buick of course) with a th400 tranny and im also bagging the whole car. im just trying to decide if its better to just fab everything for the factory frame or drop the body on a more modern one depending on the ammount of fab work.
aren't there brand new frams being produced for chebby tri-fives? perhaps one of these will fit with a bit of "help"
Safe and reliable? That kind of takes the fun outta driving a classic! Ha! I'm keepning my chassis, but upgrading where I can. I too want a nice reliable driver, but you have to remember that they used to drive these old cars all over the place with the old technology as well. I'll probably keep my non-power steering and non-power drum brakes for now, but will upgrade or replace those parts that are worn or "iffy". I'm not worried about keeping anything original.. but that Buick is a pretty nice car and a pretty stout one ta-boot! Good luck with yours. Keep us updated please! :beers2:
http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=145006 Here's an old similar thread on this subject. Notice the black 2 dr ht that I included in a reply. Bid on it on ebay a couple of years ago. It's the one with the Chrysler front sub frame and Olds 403 engine. These little 54s can be quite attractive!:kodak:
I met a guy last year at a car show who had a 55 Chevy that he had put on an 85 LeSabre frame. He said that is was almost a "Bolt-in". o No: It couldn't be all that much different with your 54 Super. Check the tread width and the wheel base. Oh, and don't forget to take and post pics. :TU:
well i did a little measuring tonight on my 85' regal and my special. bolth frames are roughly the same length. their within a couple inches of each other. the width is the same deal measuring from body mount to body mount. the actual special frame itself is narrower because there are 6in brackets on the outside of the frame for the body to mount to. the regal body bolts through the frame. the big problem ended up being the wheel base. theres about a 17in difference. it seemed like a doable swap at first but the wheel base is a problem im not quite sure how to overcome. plan B,if i cant do the body/frame swap,is sub-framing my special. i'll cut the front clip off my regal and fab it to my specials frame
Justin, you could always extend the frame with some "C" channel. I read an article about that very thing, several years ago. If you PM me your phone number, I'll make a copy and send it to you. :idea2:
Hello, I new to this site and was just reading your thread. I'm currently working on a project very much like what your asking about. I have a 1953 Buick Special 2dr sedan that I am putting on a 1979 Pontiac Bonneville Chassis including the Pontiac floorboards since mine where rusted out. The swap is going very smoothly and fits very nice. The only down fall to my donor car is the wheelbase came up short. 116" versus the needed 121.5" , so I'm having to stretch the frame. I have a full build thread on another site if your interested in seeing photos.
It seems like a lot of work to do a complete frame swap, then change front and rear suspension to accept air bags and then do an engine and trans swap. even if you use the later chassis, the suspension for airbags to make them 'layframe' usually requires extensive modification. If I were going that route, I think I would keep the orig frame,look into an aftermarket Mustang II front end including crossmember(they make them plenty strong for this stuff and set up for 'bags) and just swap the front and rear out-making your own rear susp, then the engine trans. The chassis on these cars are much stronger than a mid 80's Gbody such as the Regal/Cutlass/MonteCarlo etc...and probably even the big Bbody cars like the Roadmaster/Caprice etc... You could always just do dropped spindles up front and shorter coil springs in the rear if you are just looking to drop 2-3 inches. But, if the car is running and you decide to get rid of the whole chassis, let me know. I might be able to use it.
The car in my Avatar is on a 67 Buick Sportwagon frame. The main thing is to have the donar frame within an inch of the wheel base of the body you are using. The frame I used was quite a bit wider than the 53 frame but the mounting holes in the body were still outside the frame rails. There are a lot of aftermarket parts for the abody frames which makes it easy to do upgrades to the suspension and brakes. Good Luck.:TU: Bob H
I have a 58 buick special riv. and I am using the floor out of it for a 58 special conv. I am then putting the 58 hardtop onto a 1992 buick roadmaster it will be channeled onto the floor and both floor and frame will be stretched just under 7" to match the 121.5" wheel base. I have been told that there was an artical in a car mag. that was along these lines using a early 80's delta 88. If anyone has an idea of what mag. or links that can help give me some info as well so I can remove some of the trial and error it would be greatly appreciated.
