i had one of these cars when i was 17.... drove it everywhere till i bought a boost controller and went crazy....r.i.p. poor buick

 

I got the front suspension hung under the car today. I had to make some new upper spring locators because the coilover springs are much smaller than the stock spring bucket. TRZ sells some for $100, but I've got more time than money so I made my own.
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Freebie. My Father-in-law gave me a BOP TH400 yesterday.

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I got my control arms assembled and tacked together today. I also spun out an inspection/filler cap for my rearend.

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Really nice work so far. I am interested in your rear axle. How are you going to fixture the tubes/housing ends for welding? Is the alignment rod used during welding or just as a gauge?

 

Here is how the jig works. You have to have an empty 9" centersection first. You put the two pucks (shown on the left) in where the carrier bearings would normally go. Then put the centersection in the housing. Then you put the bar through the pucks. This extablishes the center axis for everything. The process for building a complete housing is:
1st. install axle tubes
2nd install back brace
3rd install brackets
last install housing ends

To install the axle tubes, you need a puck that has an OD that is the same as the ID of the axle tubing. I don't have the axle tube pucks shown in my picture.
To install the housing ends, you need a puck that has the same OD as the axle bearing. 3.150 for a big bearing ford. That is what is shown on the right side of my bar.

The red JBRC (Jerry Bickel Race Cars) jig is a pinion center gauge. It is used as an measuring point to make sure the housing is built to the right width and pinion offset.

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If you decide to sell the wheels let me know please.

Thanks
JL

 

I sold the stock wheels a couple months ago.

 

Thanks for the explanation. I'll keep an eye on the build, a lot to learn from here.

 

Looking good!

 

I got my steering sorted out today.

I made my outer tie rods. I had measured center to center on the stock tie rods before they went in the trash, and I made these to match.
I started with 1" hex stock.
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The spindles I used don't come with an integrated steering arm like most spindles. The 67-69 camaro, a-body, chevy II, etc... spindles use a different bolt on steering arm depending on what car they go on. A few places make billet steering arms, but they all seem to use the camaro geometry which isn't quite right for a g-body. The stock spindles have pretty good geometry, so I copied that and made a few small changes to reduce bump steer.


I measured the stock spindle and the new spindle and drew them up in autocad. I used that to design the new steering arms.
The chunk of aluminum is what I started with.
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I layed out all the radiuses and holes in the mill.
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Then I cut away anything that wasn't a steering arm.
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Three hours later, the semi finished product. I'm still going to cut some more material out to reduce the weight.
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I had to put a wheel on to see how it's going to sit.
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I finished the steering arm. Now I have to make the mirror image of it for the other side.

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I love how you make/fab up your own parts...

 

Front brakes are done. I went with a wilwood vented front kit with 11" rotors. They come in pieces, so I had to assemble them. Hopefully I'll have the money to order the rear brakes this week. Then I can start welding the rearend together.
Some safety wiring
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The finished rotors
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On the car
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With a wheel
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Update!

 

Last weekend I buttoned up the front suspension and made some lug nuts.
Instead of the standard lugs, I made aluminum spacers to locate the wheel and used arp 1/2"-20 12pt. nuts. It's just as strong as the standard lug nuts, but much lighter. I also think it looks cleaner. I've got temporary spacers between the wheel and hub, but with those out the studs are flush with the end of the nuts.
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This weekend I'm working on the rearend. I had the center section sand blasted. I cut the axle tubes to length, faced the ends and cleaned the mill scale off of them.
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This morning I beat them into the rearend housing with a 2lb. sledgehammer. My ears will be ringing for a while.
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Amesome build. You have some serious skills.

 

Super serious skills, amazing build!!

 

I've been waiting for my wilwood rear brakes for two weeks now so progress is a little held up until they come in. I spent a few hours today cutting out my backbrace, an o-ringed drain plug and vent for the rearend.

As soon as the brakes come in, I can mock it all up and check for length before burning it all together.

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I made some trans cooler fittings today for fun. They are -6 to 1/4" NPSM. The NPSM (straight pipe thread) is not real common so the fittings are a little expensive. They can be bought from ATI, but it was a good excuse to cut some threads on the lathe so why not make my own.
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Wow dude, your the real deal, keep the pics coming!