1970 Buick Skylark - Budget and slightly unorthodox build

[carter_eng_fab]

Hello all. I'm excited to share the beginnings of my project. This Skylark is the "B" in my Trailer park "BOP" collection, and as I start my side business I hope this will eventually become a business card of capability.

So to begin, I randomly found a 1970 Skylark roller on marketplace but the owner was very hard to deal with. After much frustration the deal soured but I found myself no longer searching for any project and searching specifically for a 1970 Skylark.

Enter this gem, sitting in a junkyard on blocks with a broken frame and lots of rust. It was in the "private collection" of a junkyard, among the cars the owner had stored for parts to use on his personal projects. I asked if he would sell it whole and to my surprise he said yes, clear Mi title and all, for what I thought was a fair price.

So the deal was made and honestly it had everything I wanted: clear title, all the glass, and all the body panels even if they were super rusty. Another guy wanted to buy it and put it on a blazer body so frankly in my mind anything I do is better than that!

This was in February 2024 so I'll continue to catch up the progress until now.

[carter_eng_fab]

So the first step once home was to get it off the trailer and assess just what kind of mess I'm getting into. No steering column made this tricky but I basically chained it to a tree and drug the trailer out from under it. Whatever, it worked haha.

The wheels and specifically the wrong lug nuts on the thing were just downright scary. I can't believe it was driven like that eeek.

I got the trunk open with a drill shaped key and filled a trash can with relics from the 80s. The moldy house carpet, nuts, mouse nests, etc. was just nasty.

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[carter_eng_fab]

So the only thing I knew at this point (early March '24) was that I wanted to run 19s and after some searching decided on 305-30-19 fronts and 255-35-19 rears. A cheap pair of eBay tires were purchased for something of a mockup to see how it could look.

It's mostly a visual aid activity and something to motivate myself to continue. So far it's working :twothumbs

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[carter_eng_fab]

So this is where it goes a bit off the rails. I knew from my other cars kind of what I wanted and it boils down to this:


Decent disc brakes
Confident steering
Strong axle (not the 8.2!) with lsd
Very low functional ride height
Air ride (though I'm still on the fence with this)
commonly available repair parts


So I've done C5/LS1 brakes before and they worked well. And I've sourced a gm 8.5 with bolt in axles from a 71-72 BOP and built one of those. The problem is when I added up all the parts it started to get more than a little ridiculous to build a rolling A-body chassis. The fact that my frame is a rusty and cracked mess and used clean frames are expensive made me pursue alternatives.

As much as a turn key chassis would be awesome, I can't justify it. I started looking at what full frame vehicles still exist and the only one that makes sense to me is the Panther platform from 2003-2010 (Crown Vic, Town Car, Marauder, etc.) Parts are everywhere and cheap! An overlay of the two frame drawings found online says it should work out. It needs shortened by ~3" but the biggest wrinkle is the width.

I found a place that makes crossmembers and they identified a steering rack from a specific year Lincoln MK 8 that works when narrowed. They are aimed at F100s but the info is good (team321, I'll add the link once allowed)

Seems reasonable to me so I found a roller that was going to be a derby car off Marketplace and brought it home. Early thoughts included saving the floor pan but I quickly decided that wasn't worth it and off to scrap it went.

So the plan(ish) will be to:


Narrow the aluminum crossmember and frame for width
Shorten frame length
Narrow rear axle suspension brackets to match frame, and narrow the rear to explorer width to use 31spline LSD and axles
Re-use all crown vic brakes
Add ridetech air-ride coilovers to the front
Drill and tap the air bags where the integrated solenoid was, hook to standalone controller


I searched to see if this had been done before and there's a build thread on this site with a GTO/Lemans but he stopped posting. It may very well end up smarter to start from nothing and build a complete frame but for now I think this is a plan for me.

That said I can probably part out the roller and break even with what I've done so far so I'm not worried yet. Some concerns exist with Ackerman and bump steer but I'm choosing to deal with that later...

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[carter_eng_fab]

OK, so the latest push just a few weeks ago over the July 4th holiday was to get the body off the Buick frame and the body on a cart by itself.

Surprisingly most of it came apart pretty quickly with a 3/8" impact. The plasma cutter came out for all the body bolts as they all either rounded off or spun. Why can't they brake when you want them to?!

The roller was put on Marketplace and should be going to a new home very soon. And then I think I'm going to strip the Crown Vic frame and figure how to get it on my steel table to start the narrowing process.

Updates will definitely be slower from this point on...

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[68Formula]

Another guy wanted to buy it and put it on a blazer body so frankly in my mind anything I do is better than that!


Thank you for saving it from that hideous fate. :lmao:

[68Formula]

Towncar frame is another 3" longer than the Vic/Marquis which is already 2.7" longer than the Skylark. So you're going to have some extra shortening to do.

Before you do though, do a caster alignment on the chassis with the Kenny Brown spec. and then test fit. The additional caster will change the effective wheelbase (shorter by a hair). So you can center the wheels in the wells with the added caster taken into account, and have less shortening to do. Bob Bondurant even recommends as high as +7.0*.

Kenny Brown:
Camber = -0.5
Caster = +6.0
Toe = 0

[Josh@Ridetech]

Very cool build. I look forward to seeing it go together!

[carter_eng_fab]

Thank you for saving it from that hideous fate. :lmao:

Happy to!


Towncar frame is another 3" longer than the Vic/Marquis which is already 2.7" longer than the Skylark. So you're going to have some extra shortening to do.

Before you do though, do a caster alignment on the chassis with the Kenny Brown spec. and then test fit. The additional caster will change the effective wheelbase (shorter by a hair). So you can center the wheels in the wells with the added caster taken into account, and have less shortening to do. Bob Bondurant even recommends as high as +7.0*.

Kenny Brown:
Camber = -0.5
Caster = +6.0
Toe = 0

Good call on the frame length! I'll put that in my notes for sure.

Regarding caster, it looks like the factory spec is already +6.0°±0.75° from what I have been able to google? I can't post links but that's from a crown vic forum. That said rechecking before I do the final cut and weld is good advice.

214087

You did send me down a rabbit hole of alignment specs and adjustment, camber eccentrics, etc. It looks like caster is adjusted with the rear bushing on the lower control arm using shims (blue arrows) and the front bushing can telescope in the control arm. The camber is adjusted with the front eccentric bolts on the lower control arms (green arrows), and there is no adjustment in the upper arms.

This all sound right? More positive caster would make the wheelbase longer?


Very cool build. I look forward to seeing it go together!

Thank you!

[68Formula]

You're correct, it's the lower that moves therefore it'll move the tire more forward. Whereas the GM sets move the upper which makes it shorter.

[carter_eng_fab]

Hopefully this is cool to add here. The frame finally made it into the shop to get started on the shortening & narrowing process.


https://youtu.be/dpfanlZleDY

[AngryBird75]

Awesome build concept. Look forward to seeing the progress.

[kawasakii]

Cool build. I look forward to seeing it go together!

[carter_eng_fab]

Cool build. I look forward to seeing it go together!


Awesome build concept. Look forward to seeing the progress.

Thanks guys. The vision is slowly coming together, I think this is going to be fun.

[lwilliams]

Very cool build! also interested to see how it all comes together!

[carter_eng_fab]

Another weekly update that mostly pertains to the Buick build. The frame has been shorted to correct the wheelbase and is ready for welding. I’ll come back and load some pics but if you would like to check out my YouTube video please do.

I would love to hear any comments or feedback. The whole YouTube thing is new for a super introverted engineer like me haha


https://youtu.be/GnKDbBOnY7w?si=XHb9JoasTPLvv6k5

[boss_hoss]

Great videos, Very smart to cut the frame at the rear where the rails transition into the rear frame section. I'm sure a lot of other would have probably just taken out a chunk in the middle of the frame rails and called it good. This will be much cleaner and probably much stronger in the long run.

[carter_eng_fab]

Great videos, Very smart to cut the frame at the rear where the rails transition into the rear frame section. I'm sure a lot of other would have probably just taken out a chunk in the middle of the frame rails and called it good. This will be much cleaner and probably much stronger in the long run.

Thank you! I’m doing a budget approach but not cutting any corners on the process.

[carter_eng_fab]

https://youtu.be/6KJvQ3Y9c8w?si=oJEz2PCyDlBE2Gt1

Another week, a little more progress.

[carter_eng_fab]

A few pics for this week: 216792216791216793216794216795216796216797

[carter_eng_fab]

I'm pretty pumped to get enough suspension under the frame to set ride height and test fit the body, at least one fender, and bumpers. The wide steel wheels with OE-esque center caps should look pretty tough.

The plan is a very low ride height so likely a full tunnel redo but I have a pretty nice console so maybe I'll try to figure out how to keep the front of the tunnel area and just raise it up. I think the main areas of concern are more behind the transmission mount anyway but once I finally pick a motor and trans and set some angles.

My budget says something very basic like 5.3 and th400 but I really want to use the 8hp70 trans with a Maxxecu. Time to start saving up...


https://youtu.be/MqD0e7XnheI?si=46slIT6pCX6boIPx

[68Formula]

216798

[carter_eng_fab]

216798

hahahaha sir! That's amazing...

You're not wrong though. I broke out the scale and the combo has much gravity (76 lbs). Probably a 20lb+ penalty over a good aluminum wheel as it sits. That said I'm into the set of 4 what one forged wheel would cost so... '

216799

[Vimes]

Speaking of weights, I see no place to put balancing weights except right on the face of the wheel where they will be very visible. If the center were more towards the center, there would be room for weights on the backside of the wheel.

[68Formula]

hahahaha sir! That's amazing...

You're not wrong though. I broke out the scale and the combo has much gravity (76 lbs). Probably a 20lb+ penalty over a good aluminum wheel as it sits. That said I'm into the set of 4 what one forged wheel would cost so... '

216799

:-)

216811

I do like your low-buck approach though. And it did come out pretty slick.

Wondering if you should have checked the rotational balance before mounting the tires.

[carter_eng_fab]

:-)

216811

I do like your low-buck approach though. And it did come out pretty slick.

Wondering if you should have checked the rotational balance before mounting the tires.

Ha... but yes. And thanks . These are going to get broken back down and powdercoated but the whole project is a ways off from that. Balancing just the wheel is a good idea and there's clearly enough meat to grind down and get it balanced out.

They are mounted now to do a leak check (they passed!) and more importantly see how well the vision matches reality.

[carter_eng_fab]

https://youtu.be/bZLvOsk4dj4?si=4nyFRvtiG1xVAFBM

Lots of issues identified and ohh so much work remaining but it looks like a rolling car again! The 305's look very thicc on this thing :drive:

[carter_eng_fab]

I know some people prefer pictures and that's cool. I'm pumped to see this thing back on the body and after publishing the video I realized I had the tie rod ends installed on the top side (wrong) so that's a good explanation for a bit of my clearance issues.

It looks like I will need to clearance the floor pans to get the frame to set down on the body. That's not scary. The real challenge is the frame frail and front body mount locations are currently metal to metal and the frame is still 3" below the rocker. So something is going to have to get some serious surgery.

But at least the 305-30-19's look tough. Aside from time the budget is still pretty reasonable so we will continue!

[68Formula]

They are meatier looking than I would have expected a 305 to be. Definitely aggressive.

[Pedigry]

Thats a good look, I like it when the tire is larger than the rim. It reminds me of the 70's transam cars. definetly a good look.

[carter_eng_fab]

Thanks guys. I agree on the Trans Am cars, I'm a fan and can't wait to make more progress on this thing.