BUILD THREAD The Mullet Maurader, The Epic of the LS swapped Buick

[Northernregal]

Farther down the rabbit hole today. Got the front end fully disassembled. Takes a lot longer when you bag and tag everything. Got a pretty good feeling about reassembly though, I was pretty thorough on labeling. Hopefully get the interior gutted between tonight and tomorrow and maybe get the body lifted off by Monday. Pretty big benefits to working 2 weeks on and one off.

So far I haven’t found any more problems or rust. Things are rolling along.

Met a few more local forum members yesterday. Was pretty cool to see Cam’s 88 MCSS that’s pretty close to done with a LS swap. Sold Nate some of the brake stuff off my car since I’m gonna upgrade, nice to help out when you upgrade.

 

[lilbowtie]

If you plan on racing it's a good time to put your car on a diet. Too late now but I always drill 1/8 in guide pin alignment holes to make assembly easier. you can do it to your door hinges before removal.

 

[Northernregal]

If you plan on racing it's a good time to put your car on a diet. Too late now but I always drill 1/8 in guide pin alignment holes to make assembly easier. you can do it to your door hinges before removal.

That's genius! Awesome tip, thank you!

I don't think its gonna go full race. Just street/strip with partial interior. Probably needs a bit of a diet though.

 

[lilbowtie]

Found this in my documents, give you some ideas. Every 100 lbs reduction is worth about a .010 ET

 

[Northernregal]

Found this in my documents, give you some ideas. Every 100 lbs reduction is worth about a .010 ET

View attachment 90532

Love the info! Got a few spots I'm gonna look at our of this! Thank you!

 

[Northernregal]

Things are starting to show up again. Work is slowing progress but it does provide the funds....

BTR stage 2 Turbo cam and some chineseuim 304 stainless headers. 😁

 

[Northernregal]

Well. They are separate. First time in almost 32 years I reckon.

So far only look like the rear quarters were eaten by rust as suspected. Body mount under the AC has some surface scale but nothing to worry about. Slow progress lately but I’ve been avoiding this day for fears of something catastrophic happening. I feel like from here progress will speed up, until body work day of course. Hahaha. God I’m not excited about that. ☹️

I guess every day can’t be the glory of big cams and high flowing head swaps. Some days you have to slug it out in the trenches to earn it the hard way.

Was gonna go see some drag racing tomorrow but if my buddy bails I’m building the body cart and gonna get this frame done. Budweiser time.

 

[Rktpwrd]

I guess every day can’t be the glory of big cams and high flowing head swaps. Some days you have to slug it out in the trenches to earn it the hard way.

You got that right Duke. 98-99% of bringing a car back to life or building a new vision is tough, dirty, unglamorous and under appreciated work. The trick is to stay focused on the end result and the glory will follow.
Congrats on achieving that milestone man, things are looking good. You’re making great progress.
👍🏻

 

[Northernregal]

Mid day water break update.

Body stand built and functional.

Frame cleaning underway.

 

[Northernregal]

Frame is almost ready for the boxing to be welded in, it needed a lot of cleaning and rust scale removal.

I knew that the quality was crap in the GM cars of the 80’s, and I’m not a welder by trade but this frame has some of the worst welding I have ever seen. It’s like they ran out of mig gas and didn’t notice until mid way through the work shift. ☹️

Pretty sure I’m gonna grind a bunch out and re-stitch them. Just wow. 😳