Okay no one really read my question in the question section so hopefully some one will here and give me some advice okay I have a 51 Buick special. My question is this and hopefully some one here can help. Now I am pulling my straight eight motor and putting in a 350. (It has been rebuild and has barley any miles on it if any one wants to buy it) Now I know that I am going to have to change my rear-end because I am not going to use the Dynaflow transmission any more. I am putting in a 350 turbo transmission. Now if any one knows about Buicks you know that there is a shock arm and coils all around and that includes the rear-end. I eventually want to air bag it but want to know if any one has done this with a Buick and how they did it. Did you pull out the shock arm and coils in the back? Just how do you do this and get a different rear-end on the car? Please if any one has any info let me know because I hopefully will be putting the 350 in with in the next few weeks. Thanks in advance.
Based on what I can glean from your bad spelling and grammar, the man you want to talk to is Glen. He put a Chebby in his Buick and used a Camaro or Firebird rear with the big ladder bar type thing on it.
Asher: Hopefully Glen will see your post as he worked this out on a 40s Buick (same type of closed drive setup). My buddy put a 350/350 combo in his 50, he is using a late 80s Firebird rear end that comes with trailing arms, a panhard rod and a forward facing torque rod that mounts to the rear of the*******. To install this he notched out the frame for the swing arms right where the frame kicks up to go over the rear axle. This was a LOT of work, the guys helping him were very careful with measurements etc... it is still not done, it is a big undertaking and if he had it to do over again I think he would go with a four link setup. Some other pitfalls he ran into: He tried EVERY stock manifold for the SBC he could find to clear the steering box and not one worked, he tried all kinds of aftermarket headers, none fit, now another friend of ours is going to have to custom fab some headers to clear the steering box (he is lucky that our buddy can do this as it would probably be big $$$ to have it done by a shop). If I remember right he also had to chop up the floor and redo the******* tunnel to fit the turbo hydro but I'm not positive on this. Not trying to put you off doing this project just wanted to let you know that from what we have seen this is a BIG**** UNDERTAKING on those early 50s Buicks. It is not a swap that can be done easily or on the cheap, the rear end is the real pain so look into a four link set up and have some friends who are damn good fabricators to help out. If I can get some pics of my friends car at some point I'll post his setup for you. I have also seen these cars dropped on a late model chassis so you get the whole set up with out the aggro of reengineering the running gear. Ted
My brother-in-law built a 53 Buick Using a Firebird front clip and rear end as priviously stated, BIG**** UNDERTAKING! The car runs and handles great but it was a lot of work and money. I have seen people use universal cross members for the engine and******* and run a paralell leaf spring rear end with air shocks. Talked to them and found that they spent alot less time and money doing it that way. If I were you, I might consider that route seeing as you mentioned that you where on a tight budget. Grap a tape measure, go to the junkyard and start measuring rear ends and talking to people that have done conversions of this type on vehicles similer to yours. Just make sure whatever plan you decide to go with that you stick to that plan and don't start changing your mind part way through. The time to go over all your options is before you start cuttin' things up and laying out money for parts.
Hey I know my spelling*****s I need to use spell check more often I promise that in the future that it will be better. On that note thanks for the info. It really helps and if any one else has any more suggestions please let me know. I was looking at my car today and thought gosh dang this is going to be a pain. But I need to do it. I cant relay on a straight eight forever and Buick parts are near to imposable to come by now a days. You guys rock thanks for the help.
Asher, I think you said something about your engine being rebuilt? If it runs good those motors are good motors. The biggest drawback is the dynaslush and if yours is not shot I'd just drive it and enjoy it. Parts for those cars are actually pretty readily available from the right sources. The******* is expensive to rebuild and parts are not cheap for them but they are available.
The trany is shot. The main seal is leaking and the trany cooler is shot. The motor runs good but I want power, performance and reliability. It would cost me more to get the dyaflow rebuilt then it would be to swap out the motors. I really like the straight 8 but I want some thing thats not going to cost an arm and a leg to get parts for. I am looking at the long term investment and in the long run to keep the straight 8 would cost a lot more then the 350. I could buy a bunch of cars with the repair costs that the straight 8 would bring.
As much as I hate the idea of putting a chev into a noble ol' Buick. I'd hate more for you to get half way into this project and decide to ditch it because it's too much of a pain. Here is a reprint of a post from another board dealing with retaining the torque-tube and rear end when using a TH350/400/700R4. It is full of bad grammar and is somewhat hard to follow, but it may save you some time and help your conversion. If you have other questions, I can forward you the contact info for the individual who wrote the instructions. Remember, It would be just as easy to install a Nailhead as it would a chev. <font color="red">This works with a transmission with the 3 mounting holes in the output tailshaft. the area's where you see *asterics* are a point where you could do this or not, i did not venture in the option discussed, and i am not sure it will work but once i bring you to each point, you will understand more, and you might have some idea's about it. ultimetly you will understand it better as you bring the car to each level. with the torque tube still sitting there, and the motor and trans. out. you hopefully have one half of the univeral shell cover that went onto the transmission and you should have the other half of that universal shell cover still around the collar of the torque tube. if you take the free half shell and flip it around and spoon it together with the one that is on the torque tube, you end up with a captured torque tube bell end within the sandwiched spooned halfs of these two shells. i hope i explained that correctly! eventually you will clean both of these items and you will be pumping heavy axle grease between these two spooned shell piece's when you final****emble everything. also there was a half loop/or saddle style bracket that was also an original piece...save that piece too, as your 2 shell piece's spoon together, this half round saddle bracket will support this entire union....* it also has the insulated support/mount to the cross member, save all that also. ok with all that stuff above out of your way, you look down at the torque tube end, and inside you see the spline end, the only critical changes here will be. finding a slip yoke end to match the spline of this tube, they are available! you need a good driveshaft company locally to get this for you, you can save the old universal, and take it with you to find your match, the slip yoke style will be mirror imaging the one that you will find on the end of your new transmission, they typically are 4-5inches long. so what you have here is 2 back to back slip yoke's basically! the only problem i was concerned about was, the torque tube will be secured in one spot, and the engine and transmission will be basically secured in one spot, so i didn't want the yoke to oscillate back and forth so what i did was i looked at the end of the torque tube spline shaft it has a center mark from when it was originally made, so i drilled and tapped it, right where it sits, i used the bolt from the old transmission spline end that was used to hold the old universal onto the outputshaft of the old transmission. then, since both slip yoke's have different splines to them, i did not****emble the universal until i floated the engine and transmission in. so im sitting there with half the yoke on the torque tube side, and depending on the yoke you get the interior of the yoke now becomes critical, cause the bolt and washer now has to be screwed into it to hold it in place, and my memory says depending on the yoke length, and how far it slips down inside the torque tube compared to how far the original one slipped down it, you might have to use a little common sense here so it does not bottom out here, i used some machined washers to drop down inside if the yoke before i slid the yoke onto the torque tube spline, you may not have to do this but be looking for this yoke and the fact that it might hit a non-spinning collar inside, what your attempting here is to secure this half of the yoke onto the end of the torque tube spline, and allowing for and spline shaft front to back movement that is not present with everything at rest but it will move slightly front to back when in motion, and you only need to allow maybe an 1/8 in im guessing, that worked for mine. i secured the bolt inside of this yoke, and then tack welded the bolt head and then made sure the bolt head cleared the universal yoke when it would finally go together..it was just a slight grinding the bolt head needed. no problem. before you do this you should have noticed the spline originally has a manufacture steel and rubber seal floating on a spring, it kept the transmission oil in the torque tube from spilling out, as you probably have seen it already, make sure the seal is good, get a new one if not! and put it in before you get your half yoke in there and bolted down, and tac-welded. at this point take your half clam shell and go to your local plumbing shop, believe it or not, if they have a variety of steam fittings there, they will have a steam ring that if you can picture these larger valves that get held together with long bolts to hold a fitting together, well that's all you need! i found one the exact diameter, and i could not believe it but the 6 hole's in the half shell matched up almost dead on with the steampipe clamp ring holes. this ring is pretty beefy the one i found was an in thick. so now we return to the site , and before cleaning up you want to cut the 2 spooned shells in a little scallop at the very top for clearance so you can install the yoke halfs and be able to get at it.you'll know how much to scallop both halfs as they sit together, it's all common sense, for practical clearance to put the yoke's together. now clean everything up, put axle grease between the two shell halfs, keep the spooned halfs together temporarily with a couple of ty-wraps****emble the two yoke half's and grease the fittings. i band sawed the steam ring in 2 equal parts. right down the middle leaving a nice equal bolt pattern 3 per side equally of the steam ring. you can now find bolt to temporarily bolt everything together to give you an idea where everyhing will end up, that 1/2 saddle *support will sit where ever you want it, i put it on the rear side of the spooned clam shell halfs, facing the rear-end, and the steam ring halfs now, will fit onto the other side of the spooned clam shells on the transmission side. you can put 4 temporary bolts in now, 2 at top, and 2 at bottom through all these components as they sit. at this point you have your engine dangling on the hoist from the front still, and you hopefully have already removed both original motor mounts perches. that are bolted to the inside of the frame 4 bolts each. now you can settle the engine down inside as low as you can go, without hitting the steering column or the steering mechanism with the oil pan. 2 things here, the exhaust manifolds have to be replaced with advanced adapter header manifolds, (http://66.220.22.198/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=2090&czuid=1065112861636 they are real small and fit down between the steering column tightly, and port out to the rear. the oil pan? not sure, mine fit just right and cleared all steering gear. you may have to use a reverse oil pan. the front of the motor must be nestled as far down in front on the motor mounts as you can go, and the rear, or, (the transmission cross bar support that you will be making must support the transmission rubber mount pad as high off the frame as possible),...you'll need to judge this positioning of the transmision support bar and height, by looking down the torque tube specifically to see how the tube passes through the X member frame opening. the torque tube needs to be towards the top of this X member center frame opening, but not touch the top, mine has a 1/2" inch clearance from the top, this position is also critical for centering also it will actually determine how your rear tires track in accordance to the body, it is called the rear thrust angle, i just made sure it was center and towards the top.... the reason your doing all of this is to center it, and try to get the most angle here, because of the 1-3 degree angle differential required. you have to try and obtain this 1-3 degree difference between the transmission angle, compared to the torque tube angle, 1 degree minimum and 3degree's maximum is a required standard, for proper universal loading, and operation. now you can see why the engine needs to be nestled down as far as it can go. the mounting holes of the engine mounts are in close proximity to where the original engine perches go, this is your choice here, i cut my original perches down to exact height and welded a top plate in at a slight angle to match the motor mounts on the engine, you can offset the plate on the engine, which means if you get a heavy plate bolted onto the engine itself and it extends further to match the perch tops, now you can see how to mount your engine and where you need to put the isolator mounts, this is pretty much your call, i just wanted to tell you i cut of the original straight eight engine perches. you may want to save your original engine perches and just make something that lines up with the hole mounts in the frame....it'd your call... the other brace you need to design is exactly where your transmission single rubber mount falls, you will need to install a cross brace here, it's your call, home made, or a factory brace that is cut off to fit between the frame at that point, what ever is easiest. now that the engine mounts you have installed and the transmission cross bar support is in, you can finish off the last connection. going back to the split steam ring, this is what your looking for, 2 steel plates will sandwich those 3 holes on the tailshaft of the transmission, the plates will be large enough but not bigger that the 3 hole dimention vertically just large enough to hold a washer and nut as a threaded rod goes through each hole and out each plate side, your just making a sandwich here, with 3 threaded rods and nuts, now the secret is how long should this plate extend? it will separate the yoke slip shaft 3/4 of an inch away from the end of the tailshaft, this is a normal factory distance, if you shove the yoke all the way up into the tail shaft and hit home, you pull it back about 3/4 of an inch. then then you'll know how long these plates need to be. the plates need to extend right to the steam ring surface and then turn outward, if you put a 90 degree bend on each plate outward it will cover the face of the steam ring half, you then mark the point where the plates need to extend to then remove the plates and put a 90 degree bend in each plate, and put them back on, then mark the point of how they sit onto these steam rings, then mark the point where the sit onto these rings and remove them again, and weld them to the rings, dont forget to make sure the 3/4 " space is there on the yok and the tailshaft end still. once you weld the plates to each steam ring half you can grind any extra metal out of the way, i left 1-1/2 inches sticking out after the bend so i had plenty of material to work with. after i weld it, i ground down the excess, and painted it. once you reassemble everything it's pretty self explanatory, but the optional ideas of the way that saddle braket gets rubber mount to the cross frame thats already there is up to you, it needs to be firmly spaced to where it gets finally positioned and you may have to drill other holes into that cross member that is there because it does not line up exactly as it was connected from the original position, but use your best judgement, space it out and isolate it with rubber somehow, this will help support this union. </font>
All of you who have Buicks around my year will agree that the straight 8 though classy and cool is not very reliable or cheep to fix. I understand about trying to keep a car original but if you cant drive it whats the point right?
The inline is probably not the issue. Most likley you are turned off by the Dynaflow. A friend has a '41 Buick with the straight 8, dual carbs and 3 on the tree and it's a blast to drive. It is his daily driver most of the year, it gets reved WAY higher than a motor with a crank that size should and still comes back for more. Maybe you should just look into finding a manual trans.
I built a 39 buick a few years back and it is basically the same frame. I used a 76-77 camaro front steer car as my donor car. I used the rearend brakes,pedal ,perportioning valve, column and aeverthing else I could off of the car. It was not that bad. I kept the coil springs and tracking bar off of the orinal rearend.On that particular car the sub-frame really needed to be narrowed a couple of inches but it worked fine with zero offset wheels in the front. The rearend was perfect. Find a camaro in the junkyard and do some measuring. The first cut is the hardest to make. Or buy a trans adapter from Bendtson and run the I-8.
Ok, here is another opinion. All of this info comes from my 48 swap and I have no idea what the dimensions are under your 51. The 3rd generation f body axle was like a direct bolt in on my 48, If i didnt know better I would think GM was using the same dimensions 45 years later. The Buick coil spring pockets are the exact same width as the Camaro, so the air spring will bolt directly in. The trailing arm of the Camaro are the exact same width as the fully boxed Buick frame rail, so I just Cut it open and slide the trailing arm inside, boxed it there and drilled a hold thru the frame for the locating bolt for the trailing arm. Done. I even used the stock panard rod and just made a small bracket down off of the frame to bolt the rod to. Done. One area I failed, I didnot know the torque arm needed the same pivot point length as the drive shaft and I caused some binding using the stock camaro torque arm. ElPolacko ( hamb member and shop owner ) set me straight and fabbed a new torque arm for me with a new pivot point that was actually better than the stock Camaro arm. I definitely would not use a 4 link, I think they ride rough and when using air ride they have too much swing therefore moving the wheel inside the opening, and causing geometry issues. The torque arm rides nice, limits pinion angle movement to a minimum with air ride, and eliminates having to cut your floor up for the upper bar of a 4 link when putting one in the weeds. the only other way I would consider would be a trailing arm setup like the 64-72 GM pickup design IE nascar style. Which i have good pics of on my site if you look at my truck project. The Camaro rear end was passed on to me by a friend so I cant take the claim on the measurements. But I now know a bunch of guys running this setup because of my website. I did document most of the good stuff on my site check it out. The motor and******* are easy, you will have to cut the floor out for the bigger trans. while your in there run a 700r4 or do like I did and run a 200 r4 they are shorter in length and wont give you any trouble around the X member. Check out my site and then post back with any concerns or questions I will be glad to measure anything for you. I have an extra axle here if you need any measurements. If I had to do it again, I wouldnt change a thing, BTW the camaro also comes in rear disc brake setups!
[ QUOTE ] All of you who have Buicks around my year will agree that the straight 8 though classy and cool is not very reliable or cheep to fix. I understand about trying to keep a car original but if you cant drive it whats the point right? [/ QUOTE ] My straight 8 is the most reliable old car engine I've ever had, and that includes several SBCs. Never blown up a Straight 8.
My 50 Buick still has it's origional inline 8 and still is as strong as a horse. Plus it's not just a little cool it is WAY cooler than a SBC. You need to think about swapping in A 700R4 trannie behind that I8 and a modern drivetrain/rear end. It's all about leverage and that seat of the pants feel. An I8 is never going to be the fastest car in town but if you want to have that you are starting with the wrong car anyways. It'd take 800 hp to keep up with a roadster or coupe that has a mild 200-300 hp. My opinion, well my engine has NEVER been rebuilt and it has been running for over 53 years......how much more reliable do you want it? The whole "SBCs are so reliable" thing doesn't hold any water with me. You can make ANY engine last you 100,000 miles if you just change the frikkin' oil and keep it cool.
asher, i just did the same swap on my 51 special this last summer, and it even though it was a big pain in the****, took a lot of funding and time, i have to say that i actually like driving my car again. as far as the clearance with the steering box, you'd be best off fabricating motor mounts which come directly off the frame. if you get the motor high enough with those mounts, and use some block hugger headers, you can clear the box (with about an inch of clearance). for the mounts, we used 3/8 inch steel plate, positioned the motor so it would clear the box with the headers on, and made a template for the mounts. once we fabbed up the mounts, we welded em in just in front of the upper A arms. the other problem you're gonna find is with the rear end. i used a 57-58 inch wide ford 9 inch with a triangulated four link setup, with the outer (parallel) bars on the underside of the rails, and the middle (triangulated) bars positioned on top of the rails directly below the rear seat (we had to cut out sections of the floor to allow room for the link brackets). i stayed with a coil spring setup, and just welded plates with keepers on top of the rearend, with stock 53 hudson springs. if you get a kit from air ride it runs about 500 bucks, but comes with all the brackets and links (which you'll have to modify to make them fit). we also used 88 KYB mustang shocks, fabbed up an upper mount, and mounted the lower part of the shock to the lower four link brackets. like a few guys said before, you're gonna have to cut a nice hole in the floor to make the******* fit in there. the thing that will take you the most time is gonna be the rearend (everything including rear end,*******, motor took us about a month of constant work to complete).
thanks for the info Every thing that every one gave me for advie and info has been great. I am hoping to do this soon. I want to beable to enjoy drving my car with out worrys.
I built a 50 with a firebird clip and rear end and simply used the stock mounts with the new open drive rear. Had to cut a pipe spacer to take up the slack (different diameter axle tube) but once lined up I just welded it in. I split the stock trailing arms and mounted them to the frame with tie rod ends much like any split bones and as far as I know it is running around New York somewhere.
Firebird (same as Camero), Can't recall the exact year but it was a "formula 400". It was a front steer model, maybe someone else can tell you when they switched from rear to front steering. Used a tilt column out of a donor car, 73 Buick Limited. Used the 455 and******* out of the same. Mounts and all.
Asher, Don't know if everything, or anything is the same, but I just swapped a 350/350 into my 55 Buick Special. Retained the original Buick rearend, fabbed a open driveshaft adapter (from an idea from Tagman) used a 4-link and got rid of the knee action shocks and attached new shocks to the 4-link and a U channel bolted to the frame. Put air bags all around. Exhaust system was a bit of a challenge, had to cut some holes in the frame rails to tuck the pipes, but it all worked out. Did have to make new motor mounts for the front , and made disc brake adaptors for the front also. Hav'nt got a lot of road time on it, so can't speak much about problems ,but seems ok so far. PM me for more details if you're interested. Pappy
Doesnt the '80s Camaro rear have a smaller bolt pattern than the Buick? Is there enough meat for it to be redrilled in the Buick pattern?
[ QUOTE ] What did you use as an adaptor to put the 700r4 behind you motor? [/ QUOTE ] Dont you still have to adapt the rear end or change it out to work with the open drive line One enginehouses 50 buick a 73 chevy truck rear end was use with trailing arms that i had to weld back on for him. its still the orginal front end, powered by a 350. it was a 700r4 trans now its a 350/350 combo.
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