good question I should have thought to address that issue with my intial story. The camaro column is exactly the same diameter as the skylark column. I will reuse both the instrumnet cluster, and the lower panel. However, The cluster will be HIGHLY modified. In fact, I will post a little on that tonight.
69GS400, I most definately have a "thing" for 68/69s. Mother GM never made a car more succeptible to mild custom work, that looked as trick as a 68/69 skylark. Except maybe a 66/67 Riv? In my opinion, this is by far the most beautiful musclecar ever produced.
And about the wheels. They are absolute crap!!! They were on the car when I bought it. They appear to be FWD wheels. I used a dolley to tow it home. The wheel backspacing is so extreme, that it actually sheered the lug nuts off the left rear axle, and tweaking my perfectly straight, rust free quarter panel. hence the pontiac wheel on the left rear (bought from a pick-n-pull, and put on the car on the side of I-15, Riverside, during rush hour. Ulimately, this car will get Verde wheels, "Bullet" wheels (new mustangs got em too) in 17x8.
Oh, and about the steering column, this swap was sooooo easy. I spent a total of about 2 hours on it. Using hand tools, a hack saw, a grinder, and took it to the neighbor to spot weld the sleeve. Anyone could accomplish it.
promised pics Here are the pics I promised yesterday of the column to firewall instal. This shows the bracket from the inside, under the dash.
firewall mount And here is what it looks like on the motor side. As you can tell, I nice, clean, professional looking installation.
firewall mount And here is what it looks like on the motor side. As you can tell, I nice, clean, professional looking installation. After all the modifications are completed, All this will be dissasembled to clean the firewall, and smooth all the remaining holes and bumps. Then painted, with any luck it will look like Mother GM designed her this way.
Wiper motor OK, spent some time being frustrated by something as stupid as a wiper motor today. A few wrinkles, some extra time, and some extra fabrication. To start with, the Buick wiper motor offset sets the shaft further into the cowl than the camaro, about 1/2 inch. This will require fabricating a new arm to attach the motor to the wiper transmission. I started by finding a wiper motor. I selected one from an 89 Camaro. Be sure to grab the delay harness, and the motor harness off the donor car as the newer motor has the weather tight plugs (a definate plus). here are some pics of the two next to each other.
i dont know if you considered this or not ....but.... i think the camaro wiper motor is a "depressed park" style motor .....when you have your wipers on delay .... the wipers will be stickin part way up the windshield ... if you were to use a wiper motor from an early 80s chevy/gmc truck,... the wipers would stay down out of your line of site except when actually wiping.
Thanks Yuk, I realize that, but I just want the delay portion. I may look into mid 80's trucks though, I didn't realize they would be any different. Cool, learn something new every day.
69 skylark GS400 hybrid Notice the actual motor on the camaro unit (cylinder) is 1 and 1/4" smaller in diameter, and 3/4" longer than the skylark motor. This will require the recess in the firewall to be modified slightly. No problem, a ball peen Chevy wrench should do the trick. To help counter the decreased offset of the camaro shaft, I also removed the skylark motors mounting bracket, leaving a 3x5" hole in the firewall. I will later cover this by screwing a sheetmetal cover over the hole, cut out to fit the camaro motor.
This firewall pic shows the "hump" that needed to be indented. Right above, and to the left of the steering column. I dented it in about 1/2", and trial fit the motor a couple times. I then "mocked up" the new motor, attatched the wiper trans, and ran some wire to a battery, to ensure it wouldnt bind on the wiper transmission. It did not. What I did find out is that the camaro motor seems to have less travel than the skylark motor, giving me only about a 1/4 sweep. :af: To attempt to compensate, I may try several things, 1: make a longer arm, shorter transmission arm to give it more sweep. 2: construct a pivot, with a short end to the wiper motor, long end to the wiper trans, to gain more sweep. Either way, it sounds like a headache. I will keep yall posted.
dash Here is a bit on the dash. I started out with the stock bezel, completely stripped of all gauges and switches.
dash I then used a dremmel with a cutoff wheel to remove the buick inserts both left and right of the original speedometer.
dash I then used posterboard to "template" my inserts. In the end, the dash will have polished aluminum inserts (the yellow posterboard) with 3 and 1/4" Autometer "phantom" tach and speedometer. I will be using "phantom" 2 and 1/16 fuel, water temp, oil pressure, and voltmeter also. bright and turn signal indicators will be supplied by Jegs, in 1/8" diameter. The lower inserts will be completely empty. All switches will be relocated to hidden locations. (ie, wipers on column) The radio hole wll be welded shut and smoothed. I wil be using Custom Autosounds "Secret Audio" sysetm (completely hidden). The ash tray will be welded to another, and hinged. creating a hidden panel for headlight switch and vintage air heater control panel. The glove box will be welded shut and smoothed, and I will be installing vintage air's new "Slyder" air conditioning vents in the lower dash. I will post all this as I accomplish it.
Thats all for now folks, Hopefully more tomarrow. I will post pics on the wiper motor fabrication, assuming I get it to work.
UPDATE Ok, solved the wiper problem. The camaro motor is a No-GO. Here is why: The camaro motors shaft is offset, not in the center of the motor, and the arm does not spin around, the motor turns, and just pulls the arm back and forth. The skylarks motor shaft is centered, and spins the arm a full 360 deg. here is a sorry sketch, that shows what I mean.
Back to the junkyard, to find a suitable motor. Chevy trucks have a wiper motor that spins 360, but it seems that delay wasn't an option until 88. All passenger cars are designed similar to the camaro, as early a 76 caddy (the oldest I found with delay motor). Every 88 and newer Chevy I found already had the wiper motor gone. I finally settled on a 2000 S-10 Blazer wiper motor. Which by the way is even more compact than the Camaro motor, and has the 360 deg. swing I need. Also standard with delay wipers, and easily wired the the Camaro column, as all GM shares the same column wiring. Here is a pic
mounting bolts are in slightly different locations, so I had to drill new holes. I mocked the motor up to see that the stock skylark arm would clear, and fit to the wiper trans. I did have to drill the skylark wiper actuator arm, as the skyark motor had a rectangle shaped shaft, and the S-10 used a press fit shaft with small teeth all the way around. I drilled it to 5/16", pressed it on. Now, the Blazer has a "mist" option. To ensure that I put the arm on at the right angle, I applied batt/ground to the black wire, and the yellow wire to activate the "mist". This shows me the proper position of the arm, for the wiper motor to stop in the down position. I then tightened the nut to press the arm firmly on.
