Mid 50's Special/Century and First Gen Rivis - Marriage made in Heaven or

This ad has got me to wondering - just what all would be involved in using running gear and frame parts from the early Rivieras in a '54 - '56 Special/Century. Not that I plan on doing it myself mind you, just wondering and thought it would be be a good subject for discussion (or a fist fight)

1965 Buick Riviera 401 Nail Head Engine, 3.07 Posi Rear Parts Car

1965 Buick Riviera 401 nail head engine with a Holley 4bar carb on it, automatic transmission, 3.07 Posi rear end, tilt steering column, A/C etc..... This car has a clear and open Tennessee title. The car is pretty rusty and is just a parts car. The engine turns over freely with a battery and the key (you can hear and see it turn over). It has a 3.07 Posi Rear end in it. It has a full set of Buick chrome rally wheels. It has the big Aluminum brake drums on the front (thumb drums). The seats are with the car but are rusty. The right front fender is in good condition. The left front fender has some bondo in it. The door skins are both good. The trunk floor is about 90% there and would be excellent to use to patch a rusty trunk floor in another Riviera. The interior floor board are rusty. All of the glass is there. Some of the chrome is missing but most of it is there. The front hide away headlight system is completely gone. An excellent parts car if you have one of these early Riv's. It weigh's 4550lbs. so you can take what you want off of it and junk the rest and get back some of your investment. Price is $1150.00. For more info call Curtis @ 813-732-six zero six eight. When the car is paid in full .... I can deliever this car up to 50 miles from Brandon for $1.00 per mile.

Mr. Earl,

It depends on what all you want to do. The wheelbase on the Century is five inches longer than the Riviera's and the Riviera's frame is a cruciform (X) frame not a ladder frame like the 56's. In other word "no body swaps." If you wanted to use the 56's existing transmission with the 401, you would have to remove the bellhousing from the '56 and discard it. Geta bellhousing from a '61-'63 and bolt it to the 56 dynaflow. Then you can use the existing transmission with the later engine. (The early bell housing has a larger circumference than the 364-401/425.)

A better option would be to get a trans from a 59 that still had the torque tube; it will bolt to the '65 engine if you do some machine work on the crank flange and the flex plate.

To use the '65 transmission, you'd need to discard the entire rear end assembly from the '56. Take the rear end from the '65 along with the trailing arms and track bar. Weld brackets to the frame of the '56 for the 65's trailing arms and track bar. Have a one piece driveshaft made to connect the trans to the rear end (the Riv has a two piece driveshaft connected via two constant velocity joints. To use it, you'd need a center carrier bearing. Yech)

Ditch the front end and attach a Fatman fabrications front subframe. 5" bolt circle, 12" disk brakes, rack and pinion steering. Cool beans baby. I would imagine that you could cut the front suspension parts off the '65 and weld them to the '56 but you'd need to be an excellent fabricator to do something like that.

Good luck and keep us updated on your thoughts / actions.

Ed

for $1k, you can't go wrong! That is the smoking setup for modifying a 54 to a 57 Buick. It is the correct track width, bitchin brakes, still a nailhead. I'd grab it if it was nearby. The 65 also has the SP400 tranny (sorry dynaflow lovers!) Now the riv frame is an hourglass and I don't know if it would lend itself to adding side rails with body mounts for a 50's Buick- but it might just work if the wheelbase was the same. The 64 to 66 riv is what you need for upgrading a 54 to 56!

I also LOVE early 60's power steering!!!

The riv has a 119" wheelbase, the 54 Century 122. 3 inches is just enough to completely goof up a straight up body transfer. Could you snip off the front end transfer it? It might be feasible, but now you have to completely strip the car and then you will need to rebuild the front end and do quite a bit of tweaking. I do like the riv front end, but it's still a lot of heavy metal. The up side would be a cost savings, but these hot rod kits are so cheap and so adaptable that savings might not be there after all the trouble. The panhard bar is on the opposite side on the rear end. Unfortunately the idea of flopping a 50's body onto a 65 riv frame isn't looking very promising as a quick and easy do, but it would be cool to see if someone has done it.

The riv has a 119" wheelbase, the 54 Century 122. 3 inches is just enough to completely goof up a straight up body transfer.

Even worse that you thought. As I said in my first post, the difference is five (5) inches.

year weight wheelbase front track rear track length width height

1963 4190 lb. 117.0 in. 60.0 in. 59.0 in. 208.0 in. 76.3in. 53.0 in.

same for 64 and 65.

Most unfortunate, but note the rear end is 59". Difficult width to find, the early nailheads don't have much room to play with and 59" is perfect. I googled 119" wheelbase but that could be a different year, 5 inches may as well be 5 feet. The riv has some very impressive engineering, I like the whole setup. They definitely upgraded all the weak points on the 50's cars. I really wanted just to chop the front and back and put the century frame in the middle but then you have to strip down a donor car and repair all the moving parts. These hot rod kits are complete and cheap but I am a little bummed that it isn't all Buick. I suspect the riv is a pretty nice handling car, and quick

If you're going to go with the FatMan front end with the disk brake option and you'll have to do some fabricating to set up a rear end, take a look at the 8.8" Ford rear end from a Ford Explorer. They're 59" wide, they're posi-track, come with disk brakes and usually come with a 3.73 rear and can be found with 4.11 gears. The only thing you'll need to do is redrill the axles for the 5 on 5" bolt circle. They're used behind the high hp Mustangs and will take most anything a street car is capable of dishing out. If you're going to that much trouble, put the 200-4R transmission behind the nailhead (adapters from Bendtsens) so you can make use of the high numerical rear gear and still have a highway cruiser when in o/d. Some guys will try to bash the 200-4R but remember that's the trans that the GNX's used. Some of those little V6's are putting out up to 1400+ hp (Here's a link showing one making 1476 hp at the wheels.) from a 231 cid Buick V6 with "hair dryers."

There's a thread on one of the Buick forums from a guy trying to find enough commitments to have some HD sway bars made for the 54 - 56 Buicks. With the poly bushings, and all the other goodies, you could find yourself driving a '54 Buick rollerskate.

Ed

Mr. Earl,

It depends on what all you want to do....................................Good luck and keep us updated on your thoughts / actions.

Ed

As I said Ed, I'm not planning on tackling such a major project myself. But I sure am enjoying hearing how it could be done.

Dude how did you figure out all this and gather so much valuable information.?

I'm looking into installing a 200-4R in my '64 Riviera. I'm not much of a fabricator, but I'm really good at research. Reading lots of articles on the web, in magazines, other forums, etc.; you can find out almost anything. It's measuring twice, thinking about it, re-measuring twice again, before even looking for parts.

If someone does decide to go this route, look for a 200-4R from a BOP, not a Chevy. The Chevy has bumps on the flexplate and the converter is flat. The BOP's have bumps on the converter and the flexplate is flat. When you install a 200-4R behind a nailhead, you'll have both the original flexplate, a spacer and a torque plate. The torque plate is flat as are the flexplates on the BOP's. There are lots of articles out there that will tell you which 200-4R's are better than others. Buick GNX's are the best followed by the Hurst Olds/442.

Ed

I do not know if the 200-4R BOP will mate to a nailhead without an adapter. If it does, then that would be a dream come true. I suspect not, when they dropped the nailhead they put the starter on the passenger side. I suspect you will still be OK on space, but let me know if you are aware of any tranny other than a st400 that will mate directly to a big block nailhead (other than a dynaflow). Given the adapter, a gear vendors overdrive might be an easier do.

just did some investigating, the nailhead has a unique pattern and the sp-st400 is the only decent tranny that mates up to it. switching a riv to a 200-4R is going to be a big project, but inquiring minds want to see!

There is also a "switch pitch" torque converter on the Buicks. I hope someone can chime in, as there is an electric connector that changes the stall speed. I have heard that the 425 with the 307 rear end will smoke the tires off (assuming you want to do that). I'll keep a set of cheesy back wheels for the burnouts- might be tough on spoke wheels. Anyone have any comments on using the switch pitch on the 400 tranny?

I just did some investigating, the nailhead has a unique pattern and the sp-st400 is the only decent tranny that mates up to it.

The Dyaflows from 53 - 63 and the ST400's from 64 - 66 are the only transmissions that will bolt to a nailhead without an adapter. It's not so much the bolt pattern on the bellhousing/transmission as this: The nailhead has part of the bellhousing cast into the rear of the block. The flexplate and part of the converter slide into that. That given, the transmissions themselves are shorter in length. There's no compatibility with other transmissions with out an adapter, spacer, and torque plate to put everything in line.

In other words. If you put a 200-4R, 700-R4, BOP or Chevy TH400 on a nailhead with out an adapter, the torque converter would not reach the flexplate. If you installed an ST400 from a 64 - 66 on a Chevy, Pont, Olds or whatever; the converter would bolt to the flexplate, but the transmission itself could not reach the back of the block.

Here are some pictures of a 200-4R attached to a nailhead with an adapter, flexplate, spacer, and torque plate. This setup puts the new flexplate (torque plate) in line with the back of the bellhousing built into the nailhead's block.

Ed

excellent info. The up side is not everyone will do this, keeping it more unique. The nailheads just look cool!