1986 Regal to GN Tribute car conversion

[rtanner68]

Hello everyone.

Just by a stroke of luck I found and purchased my dream car for $1,400/ Its a base 86 Regal with the 307 Olds. Complete with column shift and 60/40 bench seats. Somebody had it painted a nice looking, but still mediocre blue paint job. They even replaced the half targa top. Regardless, this is again my dream car.

So, I wanted to buy one of these cars and make it a GN tribute car for a long time. Now that I can, I am looking for some advice here. Firstly, the column to floor shift. I wanted to get a hurst shifter for it. But my main point is on cuttin up the floor pan and fabricating or buying the linkage. Anyone ever do this and can offer some advice. Maybe a diagram of what the actual floor shift looks like so I can make my cuts identicle.

Second is the bench seat. I want to install buckets. Anyone know of some good used buckets for this car? Wheather its from a GN, Regal, Monte Carlo, or Olds- its all good.

Also, I wanted to find out the paint color for the body, bumpers, and the trim pieces. I want to do the GN blackout- but I want it to be factory quality. Not just a rattle can trim over.

Any thing I'm missing, please feel free to let me know. And ps, its freaking awesome to finally have a potential muscle hot rod. These cars have so much potential, and lets face it- their bad *ss.


RT

 

[3XBrownCutty]

Best way to get measurments for the shifter is to look at another G-body at a junkyard, or find somebody here thats using your shifter.

As fas as buckets, I love the GN Black with grey inserts, they will come up sooner or later on here, but you could find them easier at turbobuick.com or the like.

Powdercoating is always good for trim parts 8)

 

[Jg85350Regal]

My car is pretty much what your looking to do. Mine had the buckets/console to begin with but I added a B&M shifter, there mostly all cable contolled so there isnt really much hacking involved just a 1" hole for the cable. I bought a repro gn spoiler which is junk and I recomend finding a real gm one if at all possible. I kinda fell into a gn hood on ebay because the guy didnt want to ship and it was about an hour away and I just picked up a set of front air dams last month. I pulled off the vinyl top and some chrome trim (wheel wells) but decided to leave what was left chrome.

 

[anakputa]

Thats what I am doing now, but SBC and a 5 Speed

 

[Blake442]

Since your car has the 60/40 bench, buckets will bolt right up in the stock floor mounts.

 

[dogsht]

If interested PM me I have a factory original coated black front bumper. Very good condition only it needs the rubber strip.

 

[rtanner68]

The chrome bumpers on the Regal and the black bumpers on the GN are the same, right? I mean that they are exact same piece, just painted. If I'm wrong, please let me know.

 

[anakputa]

Exactly the same, direct bolt-on etc.

 

[rtanner68]

I am going to strip the chrome and paint the bumpers body color, but I just wanted to make sure that they would be the same found on the GN- not just a look-alike.

Also- the color of the grille, headlight bezels, and tailight bezels- are they a low gloss black or the same high gloss as the body color?

 

[dogsht]

Metal is the same. Stripping chrome, primering, and painting with special thick gel like paint that doesn't stone chip in another thing. I was thinking like for what you might have in materials.