Well, here's my 71 Skylark Convertible I finally was able to buy last year. Lime mist poly with dark green interior and A/C. Took me a little while to get on here and talk about it but I finally have a chance to talk about it. I got it on Ebay from a gentleman in N. Carolina that I guess had given up on it. Already had a low mile 76 455 in it and front disk brakes, interior is nice, no rips or cracks really, but needs a full or at least partial restoration. The floorboards need patching/replacing as well as the rear quarters, wheel houses, and some trunk floor patching...maybe some fender and lower door patches as well. Other than those areas which are pretty commonly rusted, she's a pretty solid car. So far I've installed a new gas tank, Stage 2 hood scoop and metal front spoiler. It runs ok but needs a carb rebuild or replacement and the rear main seal needs a re-do. I just bought a 3" Flowmaster exhaust, new trunk floor, new rear quarter panels for a coupe, and 18" wheels for it. My goal is to get the body/sheet metal taken care of first and foremost as I'm due to move overseas for a few years starting in February. At least if I can get the body good before it gets stored, I won't have to deal with worsening rust when I get back to her. My goal is more of a pro-touring GSX replica. All I mostly care about is a modernized 455 with a modern 5 or 6 speed manual. I want to be able to make this a car I can drive a lot and still get decent gas mileage. Nothing some roller engine parts, fuel injection, and the manual trans should be able to make possible. I'm deployed until October, so until then its just collecting parts and day dreaming. I've got 8 other cars that want my attention too, but this one has always been my dream car ever since I was probably 14...didn't help that I drove a GSX convertible 4 speed/455 show car to its storage warehouse back when I was around 19 years old. I had a 71 Skylark 350 in college that I miss dearly, sold it to a friend so I could downsize to a more affordable Datsun to get me thru college back in 1997. This Skylark will probably replace my 69 Sport Wagon 400 that's kept my A body fever at bay for the last 13 years, but I don't know if my wife will let me get rid of the Wagon. Hopefully my brother in law will help me R&R the quarter panels when I get home...that's gonna be fun.
Ordered hopefully the last of the body panels needed to start working on the body. Had to get patches for the left door and front fender, and the upper dash panel. I still have to get the floor pan(s) and whichever wheel houses are rotted out, but I can't do that until I either get better pictures from my wife or I get home in Oct. The left/drivers side of the car seems to be the worst as there is also a spot on the frame on that side I'll have to do a little cut and weld to replace a little bit of rot. Everything else was pretty solid as far as I can remember. I also ordered the GS rear spoiler too. Will be sending the carb off to get rebuilt when I get home, and hopefully buying a set of headers and X pipes too at some point. Why can't BBB headers be cheaper?!!!
always nice to see a skylark on the trail back to looking great. Send pics Good luck and keep your head down while deployed God Bless
Well, I made it back safely. Got the quadrajet rebuilt with electric choke conversion. Car did not want to idle right and had a miss. Vacuum leak somewhere so since its a smog motor I started eliminating vacuum hoses no longer being used. Now has basic vacuum lines, distributor, brakes, trans. Also made a egr block off plate and now it runs like it should finally but is still a slug. Headers arrived a few days ago and 3" exhaust is enroute. I will build my exhaust myself using only v bands at all connections. Only problem now is getting the manifolds off. They are on there! So I need to pull the engine to get them off. I also figured with the engine out maybe I should do the heads too to get some compression with earlier heads. I might be able to snag a decent pair of heads for a good price, otherwise I may have to make a early Christmas present with some aluminum heads, we will see. I want to drive it now that the vacuum leaks are gone but weather is too nasty. Maybe later this week.
Thanks! Its even faster now but no quarter mile tracks near me and second gear is gone on the 200-4r.
Spent the afternoon prepping engine for removal and removing the rotted old 2" exhaust. I can't help but dream of doing engine work with the engine out. Its a bone stock 76 455 in need of heads, intke, and a good cam but I want to do it once. Even some stock early heads would be good but some peeps aren't answering PM's so I can't do much there. I am going to put a new heater core in at least and degrease the engine with it out maybe even paint it. Well now I have to wait for help to take the hood off then the engine and trans should come out hopefully easy. Will also see if I can get the radiator cleaned out good with it emptied and removed, it keeps cool with ease already so I want to keep that up. I am so tempted to get some aluminum heads. I wonder what the compression ratio would be with some ta or edelbrock heads? Also got some 3.42 gears for it and it needs a posi bad...all in due time.
I know the direction I want to go with this engine, and have been very tempted to at least throw a small can in or a budget rebuild since I got it half disassembled but I stay the course. Scored an Edelbrock intake, a good set of 73 heads for a great price that are ported matched with bowl work, exhaust valve seals added, 3 angle valve job with back cut and milled down a good bit too. Also tapped the AIR holes in the heads with 3/8 x 16 plugs and high temp thread locker. Should wake up quite a bit...left the bottom end all alone since its in great shape and I will upgrade it all later anyways when I can do it right. Eventually will go mild roller cam, ported Edelbrock heads, 10.5:1, and EFI. Got the engine all pretty and painted up and ordered some TA chrome moly pushrods as 4 or 5 old ones were scuffed up a and too long with these milled heads. I spent some time prepping the distributor for power timing by welding up a block of metal on the vacuum advance to limit it to 8-10* and installing a recurve kit into the HEI. Hopefully the initial won't be too high after setting total advance. I wonder how much horsepower this baby will crank out now with the new headers too. I am guessing a good 50 to 75 more than it was. Now to focus on the frame...
Separated the body and frame. Entire trunk needs replacement so I have to sell the trunk pan I bought. In fact I just spent about $2k on new metal, hopefully all I will have to buy, new floors, repair pieces for the cross braces on the floor, wheel wells, just a bunch of stuff. Today I finished wire wheeling the frame, welded in some frame boxing metal on the rear most sections of the frame since verts are nearly already 100% boxed except for that part, so now it is fully boxed. Not sure if it will make any noticeable difference or not, but figured anything helps a car this old and flexible. Also welded on repair metal on 10 of the body mounts, and welded up a few blemish holes from the factory. Finally I cut out the only 4" square of rot on the frame so I can repair that part right behind the driver side wheel. Tomorrow I will strip the frame down the rest of the way to prep for POR15 treatment.
dont forget to add some cross braces to that car before cutting it up. Its a convertible so it will flex some if you don't then you will have a hard time lining everything up later. Also post some pictures of the car when you get a chance. would love to look at it, and see where you started at and what it will look like in process. I know if you seen one body rebuild you have seen them all but I like to watch others people progress. Gives me motivation
I used to be more religious with picture taking, now I slack on it. Today I replaced the rotted frame section with proper 1/8" thick metal. The repair wrapped around a bend in the frame so I used two flat pieces to make the bend and welded it all up, turned out nice. Ordered some Eastwood internal frame coating to do the inside of the frame, 4 cans was almost $100, but if it buys another 50 years of frame integrity so be it. Started modding the headlight buckets for projectors. The cheaper EBay projectors don't fit for crap, no matter how much modding I did, I would've rendered them unusable so I went with some nicer ones. Only problem is they're 9006 low beams only so I guess I will figure something out with them. Tomorrow not sure what to tackle as I am still waiting on parts, maybe repair a fender and cut out quarter panels part way.
Got this stuff called Internal Frame Coating by Eastwood. Sprayed 2 layers of it inside the entire frame, turned out good. Dead tired now 330am going to bed.
The inside of the frame is coated, just finished now doing POR 15 on the outside of the frame too, got one more coat to apply before its done. That stuff spreads pretty well and makes a big mess too but the frame looks 100 times better now. Also the trunk floor and all the sheet metal we ordered is now here too so we can get started on that tomorrow hopefully too. I plan on putting stuff all over the new panels too, should I use POR 15 on new panels too I wonder?
Man that POR 15 is pretty cool, much more glossy than I thought it'd be, the frame looks amazing. Installed the brake and fuel lines and restored one other fuel line today. Not much else as we are having a decent snow storm today.
Got the back of the trunk separated, working on the sides and front now. There's so many spot welds though! It seems like such a daunting task at times but just gotta keep going! The Chevelle trunk is different just above where the bottom of the trunk latch mount. Have to reuse the rear most cross brace as its different from the Chevelle. Hopefully I can get the trunk floor out tomorrow. Do I need to brace anything before pulling it out? Any tips?
Finally able to work on it some more. Spent recent time restoring the rear end. Stripped it down and pulled the axles and drum brakes and rusty lines off. Installed rotojoints in the uppers after burning out the old rubber bushings. Did POR 15 on the rear end and painted the new disc brake hardware with caliper paint. Also upgraded the wheel studs in the axles to 12mm x 1.5 lugs to match the front C5 brake setup so I don't have two different sized lug nuts on the car, plus they are slightly larger diameter/stronger, and lugs and lug nuts are MUCH more available in 12 x 1.5 than 7/16 x 20 or whatever. Going to try to get a posi unit in it before putting it back together. Will keep 2.73's in her until I can afford a better transmission setup with overdrive so I can still get decent mileage and lower revs. Here's a few pics: The frame when I started: The freshly re done rear end, POR 15 worked great here. Axles getting cleaned up and new 12mm x 1.5 studs from 80s-2000 Hondas Help! part # 610-269 needed a little opening up with a 15/32 drill bit. The grill and front core support are repaired, painted, and ready to go. 76 455 with freshly rebuilt and milled down, ported 73 heads ready to go back in with some heat wrapped TA full length headers. Here's the rear part of the frame that I boxed in.
So, mostly finished the rearend of the Skylark today. Converted it to a posi trac differential, cleaned it up internally, new stainless brake lines and hoses, POR 15'd the whole thing, upgraded the wheel studs to larger 12mm x 1.5 studs, and installed a disc brake conversion kit with drilled/slotted 11" rotors. Still needs a girdle eventually but its good for now. Cant wait to see how well this car brakes with the modern big brakes it has now!
Frame is back under its own weight, rear end I stalled and wheels back on. Need to order the new tubular pillow ball control arms and coilovers already!
