77 body removed

This week we removed the body from the 77. My wife finished painting the chassis black coating over the POR-15. That stuff is great! It paints right over the rust, just as advertised, and looks very good. We have the firewall forward yet to paint on the chassis, and will tackle that as soon as we get the bumper support bent back into shape. The frame was slightly bent in the front of the car, and we have been hammering it back into place.The body mount bushings were shot on both cars, so we had to order some new ones. I have read all of the posts regarding body mounts and mods, but we decided to go the the energy suspension bushings. I know that they will be slightly stiff, but that is ok. The Roadmaster has the soft ride suspension, so I hope the body mounts will even out the suspension and make it hande better.


We still have a long way to go with this project. The electrical system is going to be alot of fun to piece together! We have determined what items we plan on keeping and which ones need to go. We are keeping the buick steering wheel, with the VATS security key, as well as cruise control, and other things. We also have alot of work to do on the heating/ AC system. The next step is to get the new bushings, and mount the 77 body to the 94 frame. Have a great holiday! We will post again next year!

Grinding, Painting, and Wiring

This weekend we were able to spend some time working on the frame prep, car wiring, and Impala body removal. My wife finished the grinding, and started painting the frame with POR-15. She managed to get the stuff on her hands, face, and eventually into her hair! This is some nasty stuff, and believe me it doesn't come off easily. I wasn't even painting and managed to get some on my fingers. The frame is looking good, and is ready for another coat of paint. My wife did this while I managed to get through some of the wiring harness, and took the Impala apart, preparing for the body removal. Here are some pictures of our progress. Notice the big pile of wires that was trimmed from the wiring harness! No need for the power locks, windows, mirrors, or seats! Less weight = Faster!

Selling parts not needed

I have been selling many parts from the project cars that I will not be using with the swap. I have already sold close to $550 worth of parts via E-Bay and other online forums. Thank you for all that have purchased from me! I am continuing the process, and hope to have the rest of the doors and interior sold by the end of next week. I haven't had much time to work on the project over the holiday week, nor this week. It seems that everything is happening at once and our days are all booked! I hope to have some time this week and perhaps this weekend to tackle some dismantling of the 77. It is our goal to have the frame spruced up and the 77 body installed within the next month. Then is the tricky part of converting some of the newer car parts and integrating them into the 77. Just look at the wiring harness that came from the Roadmaster!

"RoadSmasher" Body Removal

The smashed up Roadmaster has now been stripped down to the bare frame. We removed the bubbly body from the chassis last night... oh what fun! I managed to pick up the body without removing the driveshaft crossmember, and almost made a costly mistake! That would have broken off the yoke or possibly the rear of the transmission, but luckily I caught it before any damage happened. After removing the crossmember, my trusty 1962 Clark Forklift didn't break a sweat lifting the bulky body off of the chassis that it was set on 13 years ago.

I think that we have really come a long way since the start of this project, and i think that now is the point of no return... My wife and I are going to being the cleaning up the frame and drivetrain, and get some of that ugly rust off of our chassis. I wish we could just bring the whole setup to a media blaster and have at it! We have done some work to the Impala, blasting parts and repainting them such as the battery tray, inner fenders, and other items that fit in our small blasting cabinet.

I have been selling alot of parts on E-Bay, so if you happen to need something, let me know! We hope to sell parts from the car in order to fund our project. So far we have made $360 from parts, and we have many left to sell. The car was $1600, so only $1240 left to go!

Below are the pictures of both cars, and the body coming off. We also included some "Flintstone style" pictures of us goofing around!

Roadmaster Dismantled

We have been working hard with the wrenching, busily taking apart our donor car, the Roadmaster. It has taken a few weeks worth of evenings and weekend hours to carefully take the car apart, and saving everything that we plan to reuse in the project. The electrical system is going to be the most challenging part of the process, now that we have it totally out of the car it is going to be alot of fun tying it all back together. I guess that is what the shop manuals are there for! Lots of reading, planning, and trial and error ahead! Our next step is to take the shell of the Buick off of the frame to begin work on the drivetrain and suspension systems. I hope to sand and repaint most of the chassis, and sandblast most of the a-arms and other parts that will fit into my blasting cabinet. I have some items that I have listed on E-bay if anyone is interested in some Buick Roadmaster parts. Here are pictures of the progress as of today:

Wrenches, Rust, & Sweat

The teardown process has started, spending much time and effort to get all the pieces off and set the fasteners into each piece so they don't get lost. My wife and I have been having fun taking both cars apart, and prepping each part that will be reused on this frankenstien project. I almost feel bad taking the old engine and drivetrain out of the old Impala, as everything works beautifully (for sale if anyone is interested 305 with a 350 turbo trans 120k on engine, 20k on transmission)!

Most of the front end is off of the Impala now, as you can see it still runs. I had to put a 2x4 in the engine bay to hold up the radiator, but she still runs and pulls herself into the garage! I think that this will be one of the last times it will be self propelled until we hook up the new drivetrain. I have a permanent location for the swap, and should be in it by the end of next week.

I guess I haven't posted any pictures of the actual body that we will be using for the project! Here are a couple of the car as it sits currently: