great thread Lot's of good creative stuff in here. I'd like to hear how you make out with the vintage heater setup. Not sure if you are planning ac or not. I called them (vintage) last year for a heating system for my 69 skylark and they told me they didn't have anything to offer for an interior that big. Goodluck
Darryl, Earlier in this thread I posted about the front brakes and the proportioning valve, I chose to use a Classic Performance Products disk/disk combination valve. This includes the proportioning valve, stop-light switch, metering valve (to apply pressure to rear brakes before front, and a 10 psi. residual check valve. Thier combination valve was around $65. The only issue that I had with it was that the rear brake line fitting was 10mm. I had to find an adaptor from 10mm to 5/16". Took about 45 minutes of rooting around the brake line fittings behind the counter of the local Autozone.
GDBuick, I didn't use Vintage, for the same reason you quoted. I went with Hot Rod Air. I chose the "Elite Deluxe" evaporator, (recommended for large sedans and station wagons). With Heat, Air, Defrost, and the optional fresh air vents. All I have done with it so far is to fit the "thru-dash" vents, aluminum bulkheads, and evaporator. I will cover it in detail as I get to it. Hot Rod Air gauranteed me that this setup would "freeze me out," and keep the car warm/windows de-fogged in the winter.
Still truckin Sorry it's been so long since I posted, I been busy doing the "thankless" stuff, like putting in body bushings and the like. I installed graphite impregnated Plolyeurothane bushings from Performance Suspension Technologies. They don't have a kit for our Skylarks, so I ordered a kit for a Chevelle convertable (14 bushings instead of 10). The kit cam with 2 styles of bushings the 4041 with the 4044 endcap, and 4042 with the 4045 endcap. The kit came with 4 4041 bushings (which fit our cars, and 10 4042s (Skylark only uses one pair of them and 8 4041s. If you want to go this route, I suggest asking them if they can substatute 4 of the 4042s for 4 extra 4041s, this will make it a bolt in kit. I had to trim the 4042s out to the diameter of my hardware with an exacto knife, a painstaking process. I did talk to their R&D about making a skylark kit, but they showed no intrest in packaging it (even though they already make the correct parts). :af: I also finished up the rear brakes. The modifications I mentioned before are the only ones required, ecept that I did have to grind just a hair on the caliper brakcket for sufficient rotor clearance (the caddy rotors sit slightly closer to the axle flange than they did on the caddy). But everything works beautifully :beer here is a shot of the finished and installed rear brakes.
wipers I also finished up the installation on the wiper motor. I made an aluminum panel to cover up all my trial and error mistakes, kinda looks trick though, huh?
Interior And I have been working the interior, getting things placed, mounting seats, center console, ect. The seats are from a 2003 Buick Regal, they are heated/power, full leather, and COMFORTABLE. I wouldn't recommend using them because they were a LOT of work to make fit right. I wound up modifying the front seat frames to get them moved outward. The rears required some cutting and re-routing of the lower seat frame. The rear top went in pretty nicely though. The center console is from a 2000 Chevy Blazer with a 4-speed auto. This will work perfectly for my 200r-4.
Dash layout I still havn't gotten around to welding the dash insert, hopefully next week. Here is the layout for the instruments, left to right: trans temp boost volts speedo (160) Tach (8000rpm) water temp oil pressure fuel gauge Fuel pressure will be under the hoodscoop. That's right, a boost gauge. I have been doing some serious research on Turbocharging. This car will now run a Garrett T4-TO4R turbo with .83 a/r and a "P" wheel. It will be intercooled by a Garrett 24/12/3.5" air/air intercooler, and should be capable of 725 RWHp on 15lbs boost. :Brow: It should keep the local Chubbys at bay.
Last post for the day To keep the personality of a skylark I decided to keep the GS emblems, and even put a set of repro 69 Stage 1 emblems on the hood, check em out.
That's just badass. That about sums it up really well. Too bad my unit is gay (I'm in the National Guard) and they won't let me work on my car there. I'd actually have room then! Oh, btw I love the pic with the chock block in it. It just looks so funny behind a normal car, instead of something military. Keep up the good work! :beer
Good job skyman I'm workin on a 71 skylark myself,I also am removing the drip rails and thought about the front and back window mods also.I think it really smooths things out really well.Cant wait to see the finished product.
I am impressed with your work. :TU: Seeing your car progress makes me anxious to start on my Buick, but it is number three in line. ou:
Thanks guys. I am kinda staggnating lately, what with needing christmas presents for 3 kids AND the wife. I keep pluggin away slowly but surely though.
Rear Seat How did you mount the rear seat? I have swapped the front seats from a late model Riviera into my convertible 8-way, power, leather, yummy. They make a world of difference in the driving comfort. The rear seat is the right width but the mounting is completely different. So... how'd you do it?
That was some work. I used 2003 Regal leather/heated/power. The fronts were actually more work than the back. The top of the seat is taller than the stock ones obviously, and the lower seat was too thick (top to bottom). On the upper, I ground off the skylarks "hooks", (the regal seat had hooks on it facing the other way) and cut slots in the vertical portion of the package tray. Then I built 2 spacers out of 16 gauge sheet metal for the lower bolts, height on the spacers is 5/8". then I just drilled and bolted it in. The lower half needed some work. I wound up cutting some of the wire framing (and re-welding it further into the foam), then trimmed about 1" off the bottom of the seat foam. once it fit, I ground off the factory skylark hooks (they were in the wrong place) and fabbed up some new ones from 16 gauge sheetmetal and welded em in. The whole process only took me a couple hours.
