Projects Turning a lemon into lemonade - Very rusty 55' Chevy onto a Caprice frame...

This guy done it over a fuel injected caprice and drove it on Power Tour a few years ago. I dont know if he ever finished it out or just drove it.
I thought of doing it to a 55 I had, and even contacted this guy for pointers but my plans fell through.
You can do it!

 

Gee, I don't know about that ! (OK, going past looks STUPID). Shown here, my '48 Pontiac 'vert on an '89 or '90 Cad Fleetwood frame clip, and my '51 Pontiac wagon an a Caprice '94 frame clip. I LIKE the tires pushed out the edge of the body line, looks aggressive low enough to look lowered but not broken. I say do it.

In Hot Rod mag a year or so ago was a feature on some guy who dropped a '57 wagon body on an early '90's Caprice Police frame/floor, and wow'd the troops on the PowerTour. Do it.

 

OK, it's a '56, but you get the idea...

 

prototyperesearch.com makes reproduction '55 and '57 chevy convertibles that fit original '55-'57 frames as well as the Caprice/Impala/Parisienne ch***is

 

I'd go for it but use the floorboard out of the ch***is doner or at least as much of it as possible.

I would not pull the sway bars off unless I was replacing them with the HD police car units. I've had a bunch of daily drivers with that same ch***is and the sway bars front and rear are what make it a great highway ch***is.

If the 350 and 700R 4 are in good shape I don't see the wisdom of changing them for the sake of change as the whole package makes for a road burner on the cheap. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If you don't go wild with goodies it sounds like the makings of a great driver that will sit as low as you want it too with full suspension under it.
<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">

 

I really don't care what car or style someone is going for. I think the tire needs to be as close to the outside of the fender as possible and fit well.
The obverse is to have a rod that looks like all of the late 80's early 90's GM's. Those big fat *****es seemed to leave a foot outside each tire to the lip and looked like a bunch of pregnant sea donkeys.....
Have you ever seen a purpose built set of chrome revs' leave all of that real estate unfilled. The downfall of fitment happened when the art of backspacing went out the door.

 

ok that is like the number one thing i hate about bad subframes and frame swaps!!! tires are too far out

 

I might be getting the rear sway bar since I don't already have one, with the 8.5" rear for the donar ch***is. It has a little 305 that runs great and a TH700 in it.

I will look at how the floors are in the parisienne, but I think they are pretty soft. Also, because the body is a wagon, and the donar ch***is isn't, I don't think it will work well.

 

O.K. I guess I misunderstood your post,I thought you were using the floors and everything from the pontiac to keep from buying all the floor repair panels.............as far as the wagon/trunk part of the floor dont cut it out just mate it to the pontiac floor under the rear seat or kick up behind the seat somewhere.

 

For what it's worth, I tried a similar swap years ago that ended up stillborn - 51 Chevy on '79 Buick fullsize. One thing I found was you could cut the spotwelds in the rocker panels, and leave the inner rocker in place with the floorpan. Was going to save me some fab work until I figured out the track was way too wide in the front for the 50 Pontiac nose I put on it. But other than that, it fit pretty good on there, the firewall lined up, the wheels lined up, the seat and steering were in the right places relative to the dash and doors. I don't know why a '55 would be any harder to do.

That Parisienne, watch for rot aroud the jack locator hole under the back doors. They all rot there sooner or later, and here they won't p*** inspection once they start.

As far as using the floors in the donor, the Caprice wagons use the same floors from the wheel arch forward. The wagon floor probably would be harder to adapt to this swap because the gas tank is in the fender, I think. I had one, it's been a while though. They have a third seat which doubles as a hidden storage area where the gas tank would be that you'd probably end up eliminating or have to make a gas tank to fit around it.

Using the existing floors if they're in good shape saves you some fab work if nothing else, seat mounts, seat belt anchors, that sort of thing. It would just be a matter of adding a flat deck in the rear and if you want to make the back seat fold down (or even install one) in the process.

 

I did a similar swap on a car I am driving now. I used a 1977 Monte Carlo ch***is under this 56 Chevy. The wheel base was the same, I can't remember if the track width was the same, but I think it was close. If I had to do it over again I would have fixed my original ch***is. I was young and broke and wanted to drive the car so we made it happen. We should have channeled it, but we didn't know what we were doing the way it was. It does have some nice features though, disk brakes, front and rear sway bars, and steering stabilizer. I don't like that the frame shows. It never used to bother me, now its starting too. This car will go back on its original ch***is with a straight axle sometime in the near future. I say go for it with the ch***is swap, if its done right you will like it, but keep your old ch***is around just in case. Good luck.

 

That frame showing would bother the hell out of me. It looks like a 3" or 4" channel would fix it however.

That would preclude me from using the parisianne floors most likely.

 

I commend you for doing this. I think it's an awesome project. You're giving new life to an otherwise wasted vehicle. Don't even bother with an old frame, or trying to buy a reproduction of an old frame. Run with the updated mechanicals and enjoy a better handling/ driving car.

 

I started taking the 55' apart and its unrepairable. After pulling down the headliner, the underside of the roof is seriously rotted. There is literally not one single good part on the car. I am s****ping the piece of ****.

Colorado car, my ***!

Other people need to learn from my mistake. Always look at a car before you fork over any cash - especially on an internet purchase because you can't trust anyone anymore. This was a $2500 lesson on my part from a liar and an ***hole.

 

Sorry that your 55 turned out to be a mess. But for anyone contemplating something similar I understand narrowed A-arms for Camaro-Nova subs will work on Caprice frames also. Should pull the front wheels in to where they look more at home on the earlier cars. Never did it myself, but would be worth looking into.

 

Looks like surface rust covering the entire roof, what do you mean by underside of the roof?
Drip rail rusted out?

 

You could do this.

 

If you really, seriously are going to s**** this car out, please save the doors and cut the door pillar out with a good length of quarter panel left, plus save the gl***. Someone out there has a 4 door wagon that they want to make into a handyman and it would be a shame to see those peices go to waste. I'd have a hard time believing the door pillar isn't useable, and that's a tough piece to find since it's different from the 4 door pillar.

That's really a shame if it can't be fixed.

 

In the pics you posted, the Caprice looks to be in pretty good shape. This may be OT for the HAMB, but I say stick a 454/TH400 in the Caprice with some low gears and have a sleeper. A lot cheaper than trying to rebuild a too far gone tri-five. Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

Door pillar has serious rot to about half way up. There are no floor pans, no inner or out rockers, floor braces, or lower quarterpanel skins left at all to give you an idea of how rotten this car is.

The bottom 6" is missing and the rest is pretty floppy. The entire quarter panel moves when you shut the door since its not attached at the bottom any more. The entire quarterpanel and whats left of the inner structure is hanging out in the breeze from the rear wheelwell forward. The doors themselves are pretty bad. The gl*** is all delaminating, except the hatch gl***. I can't open both doors at the same time or they won't ever close again - I made that mistake when I was picking up the car and had to use a comealong to pull the car back together so both doors would close (the p***enger still has a habit of randomly popping open).

The more I look into this car the worse it gets. I got ****ed big time. I will take anything that might be savable off the car. This peice of **** didn't even have a ***le when I bought it - I had to get one.

My friend still wants me to try to fix it - its not his money that would be spent.

 

mr57 has a interesting rare canadian pontiac on here, he mentioned trading it for a 56 chevy wagon on another post so he might sell it???

 

Is the tailgate and hatch saveable?

 

Anything can be saved if you have the time and the tools.

I know where there is a decent 57' Pontiac delivery, and a real rotten one for sale, but I don't have the money to buy the decent one, and the rotten one is worse than my 55'. I would love a 55-57 Pontiac delivery to go with my 57' Pontiac Laurentian, but they are rare and I already have the 55' chevy wagon.

I made the mistake of going to the shop with some friends. The 55' looked better as the case of beer got lighter. By the end of the day we had the donor car pretty much stripped and measured everything. By the next day there was a bunch of 1x1 and 2x1 box tube sitting on the floor of the shop, waiting for the 55'.

Tomorrow I should have the 55' body braced, and its doors and tailgate removed. Then we are just cutting the remains of the floor out of it and lifting the remains of the body off like a funny car body! I will take lots of pics. I hope to have the body mounted on the new frame by sunday.

I have to move some cars around this weekend (finally sold the camaro, and the old dodge has to come home to make room at the shop) so I don't know if I will make my goal.

 

Glad to here it man, just lay with it and you will reach the finish line

 

I didn't get the 55' off the frame this weekend since I was running around moving cars.

We measured up the caprice frame and its going to fit surprisingly well. Wheelbase is within about 3/4", and the front and rear track is within 1" from quick measurements. The firewall between the two cars is actually in the same place measuring from the spindle back. The caprice motor is mounted about about 1" farther forward in comparison to the firewall. That is good since it means I can use the stock 55' firewall with no modifications.

The perimeter frame of the caprice measured out that it would fit width wise almost perfectly. I don't have the measurements in front of me, but it was something like 8" narrower than the body and would fit just inside the rockers (if there were any on this body).


I am going to box the caprice frame its pretty floppy without the body. Here are some pics.

The 55' sitting outside the shop...


Drivers side front floor...


Drivers side rear floor...its rotted up to about the door bumper on the rear door pillar. This is the more solid side.


P***enger side floor... actually worse than the drivers side. Its rotten halfway up the pillar. When I took the door off, the hinge plate for the lower hinge just fell off. I didn't actually have to unbolt anything.


Some of the floor in the back...other side is just as bad. You can see where the frame is twisting because of the rear leaf spring mount. Its that rotten.


Drivers side rear frame rail rust...p***enger side is worse and has holes like this in multiple spots. This is the same frame that the seller had the balls to try and lie to my face about - "It was fine last year - its because you took so long to pick it up its rotted out!"


Here is a quick picture example with the frame of the caprice sitting with the wheels lined up to the 55. They line up perfectly. The angle of the camera makes it look like they don't (I was a little towards the front of the car.

I am going to sand blast the frame this weekend and box it before dropping the 55 body onto it. You can see how much longer in the front and rear the caprice frame is past the axles. Lots of chopping there to get it to length.

 

should have kept the floor pan and fire wall and just patched that into the 55

 

Yeah she's rusty alright, but people have started with worse.

It's a great start for a drag car and I'd be real tempted.

Good luck

 

Already looked at that. With the channel I am planning to do, it is not a good fit and would be more work than to build a new floor. Plus this gives me an excuse to get a bead roller.

 

Glad you are going for it Rick! If I could have found a scabby ol 55 that was realisticly priced around here I would be doing the same thing, its only steel get the good quality rockers and start patchin whe ya get her on the Parisinne frame, I even have the Parisienne sittin here and its got real nice floors and frame ,too nice to cut up if it were worth anything!! Just cant find a crusty 55 Chevy...hell Id even take a Canadian Pontiac!!
Please keep us updated on your progress.

 

I am going to get it mounted to the frame, then new rockers and maybe lower quarters. It might end up with radiused wheel wells. The inner structure I think I will be fabricating, and the entire floor and floor braces are going to be built from scratch. I don't think I will have a back seat. Just a low flat area to the rear of the front seat, like a sedan delivery, with a couple of storage compartments underneath.