Okay... I've been thinking about how to adapt and change this setup under this car, and ideally - I'd like to change it over to a later model rear end, but I'm in the money saving idea right now. Discs may come later - possibly even sooner - but right now, I'm trying to just get it 'close' to what I want it to be. My question is this: If I have the rear 4 lug axles redrilled for a 5 lug pattern, is there a drum that will have the regular small GM bolt pattern that will fit right over the stock '63 Skylark brakes and use the stock wheel cylinders and backing plates? This is possibly going to be the easiest setup to run - for now - but I need to square things away as easily as possible. I still want to update the front to 5 lugs and discs, but I'll worry about that as I go along.
The answer is to see what the brake shoe interchange is. Or determine the diameter of the drum, the depth of the drum, and see what else is the same size. But if you're not updating the front at the same time, why bother? I know there's room to carry two spare tires, that just doesn't make much sense. Slap some full size hubcaps on there and don't worry about it - plenty of small cars running around with 4-lug rims, it's not like it's not safe.
Oh I will be updating the front as soon as I can get stuff going my way. I just wanted the ideas for doing the rear and if I was in my 'right mind' figuring out if that idea'd work or not. I'm planning a long trip to the parts store to see my buddy this weekend and see if/what we can find out about what ball joints would interchange, and then what vehicles can be matched to fit them. Right now, I'm just looking at a safe shorcut to square the rear end away, and then spend more time and money updating the front end. I figure if I can find what'll fit the control arms, I should be able to then adapt and match up some 5 lug discs and spindles as well. I know the 4 lug wheels are fine. They are 13" though, and those tires are becoming harder to find, and I fear they'll soon be phased out completely. I'm wanting to go up to a 15" tire and wheel combo - and possibly even a 16" if the price is right - and a lower profile sidewall. I'm wanting to fill the wheel opening up a bit more for an aesthetic look rather than looking currently like someone threw a hot dog down a hallway.
Your stock brakes are 9" rather than the later and much more common GM 9 1/2". If you redrill your hubs just have your stock drums redrilled at the same time. The drums are a LOT easier to drill than the hubs! I don't think you will find another spindle that will swap onto your balljoints. Each GM division was pretty much on its own when designing the small cars like yours, i.e. F85, Tempest and Special. They all were given the size and basic platform of the '60 Corvair to work with. The divisions were just starting to share more designs then. They developed separate engines (215 V8, 4 cyl pontiac and V6 Buick). I think they all made different automatic transmissions, too. The brake systems were all 9", I think, but even there the shoes were not all the same. I think all this non-interchangability led to the '64 versions of these cars sharing as much ch***is stuff as possible.
What what you would spend on redriling everything, you could possibly get another rear in 5 lug and weld on new brackets. Just something to consider.
I haven't been under many '63 Skylarks, but you might consider some 5-lug early Nova pieces that may possibly be a close fit. It would be worth eyeballing up just to get an idea. You might even get lucky to find someone with an early Nova that is being upgraded and would be willing to sell the stock parts. If the Buick has a leaf spring rear, it may not be that difficult to do. But expect at some point to have to resort to having parts adapted or fabricated for it. If you're leaving the drive train stock, why go through all that work? I believe that there are 14" wheels available for your car. Bob
'61-'63 Pontiac Tempests had 5-lug 15-inch wheels on them. Scarebird Cl***ic Brakes offers a disc brake installation kit for that Skylark for $125. Personally, I'd convert to discs up front, leave the drums out back (overhauled, of course) and live with the four-lug rims. A 14 or 15-inch four-lug wheels shouldn't be impossible to find.
I'd second the idea of converting to disks up front using the scarebird brackets and keeping stock drums in the back. I have a friend that did the four wheel disk swap with his '63 olds f-85 and scarebird brackets and he didn't think that the rear conversion added much stopping power. Another type of rearend is only needed if you are 1) adding alot of power, 2) worried about replacement brake parts (they're out there but not as plentiful, or 3) you want posi. If you end up swapping in a another rearend, I'd check measurements on the 2wd S-10 compared to the stock--it should be very close in size. Weld on the stock Buick four line brackets to the Chevy rearend and you're set. Up front, the 5 lug hubs from a Late model Corvair 65-69, early Camaro and some other GM cars from the same era have the same bearing. I know someone that used 68 Camaro drum hubs and had no problem working with Scarebird to get the scarebird brackets setup to match.
I did a little more research and I need to correct my earlier post: The '61-'63 Buick Special/Skylark and F85s had 9 1/2 inch brakes. The fronts were 9-1/2 x 2 and the rears 9-1/2 x 1-3/4. The same number shoes were used on both cars. The Pontiac Tempest and Corvairs of the same era used 9" brakes. Both used 9 x 1-3/4 front and rear, but different shoe numbers are listed for each car. Autozone says the bearings and seals are different between [1] early (4 bolt) corvairs, [2] late (5 bolt) Corvairs, [3] 61-63 Tempests and [4] 61-63 Buicks. That is 4 DIFFERENT sets of bearings and seals. Napa says all these cars share the same bearings but use different seals. I know for sure that early and late Corvair hubs can't be swapped because of different bearings. The Corvair guys swap the entire spindle to get 5 bolts AND 9-1/2" brakes. I would like some specs on the late Corvair bearings vs. the Buick bearings to see how they could allow swapping of the hubs. Anyone have a bearing catalog with specs?
I'm thinking what I'm going to do in the next month or so is pull the entire front end out from under this car as it is hung under this car with what looks similar to a K-frame type member. I've been told that some of the early GM F body stuff will interchange, so I'm planning to pull the upper and lower control arms off and see if they'll come close to matching some of the uppers and lowers from the F body stuff. If they'll match - or get pretty close - I'll probably swap to the uppers and lower control arms, and that way I'll have access to an entire slew of different disc brake spindle setups. I've got a buddy who has Camaro stuff by the truckload, and we'll be able to tear mine down and match the parts up side by side to see if they'll interchange. Tentatively right now I'm planning to go with an S10 disc braked rear and make custom spring mounts on the unibody frame. As I go, I'll keep ya'll posted.
If I remember right I was told the early Chevy 2/Nova spindle will swap, just something to consider looking into before swapping the entire front.
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