The Silver Buick's well Silver Buick!

[SuperBuickGuy]

...and now back to your regularly scheduled thread...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news - but this thread rarely stays on track - it's how you can get 218 pages out of an X body.

[langleylad]

totally stink bug stance or as we used to say " like a cat in heat " !

[silver_bullet]

Air bags and Assassin Traction bars to level it out ..Stink bugs not required...

[TheSilverBuick]

Pulled the Skylark into the shop today to do some preventative maintenance. The itinerary included changing out the right front wheel bearings since the left front failed on me in CA last month, as well as change out the left front inner bearing and race since there was a scuff mark on the race, then change out the front brake hoses as one of them was starting to look rough.



The race on the left was the scuff one and the new bearing was showing signs it was effecting it. The one on the right seemed a bit worn, but could of been my imagination. I changed out all the races and cleaned all the old grease out and slammed it back together with out any trouble.


Then I changed out the brake hoses, which since I did them last in 2009 fortunately weren't rusted or stuck (and since it was a so. Cal car weren't rusted in 2009!), they changed out fairly easily. Bleeding the brakes went fairly straight forward, since I have speedi-bleeders (ones with a check valve) I pulled the bleeders entirely and let gravity do it's work for a bit, then pumped them several times over, but still wasn't happy with the pedal feel. So I pulled the rear tires and bled the rear and the pedal didn't seem to get any better. Some research implied moving the brake pedal rod lower would firm up the pedal feel. So I drilled a hole in the pedal, ran a grade 8 bolt through it with a nylon lock nut to move it lower. The results were AWESOME!! The pedal firmed up nicely! I may make one more hole a bit higher up to bring the pedal up a hair and fine tune the feel a bit more. Now I know this winter I need a new custom oil pan because my oil pressure zero's out when hauling down as fast as it can (it could before too, but it's much easier now).



So, after these results, I thought to myself, I bet the Firebird's brake pedal rod is in the wrong hole because that pedal is rock hard to press and tough to stop the car (manual brakes, drums all the way around), and sure enough the rod was in the lower hole.


Moved it to the upper hole and damn, the car stops awesome and with half the effort! Piece of cake.


I feel so educated =P

[Deaf Bob]

EUREKA?..

[Beagle]

Good timing on the bearings... looks like the one on the left is ugly and well on it's way to "Dammit!"

[TheSilverBuick]

Already made it to "Dammit!" back in July on the Anti-Tour, I just didn't have the tools to change out the race, so I put a new bearing on that race and drove the next ~700 miles or so knowing I'd change it out again later.

[squirrel]

that reminds me...better make sure I have a punch in my tool box....

[Deaf Bob]

I use a beveled brass drift to install my races.. Sure saves the "OOPS" moments..

[TheSilverBuick]

I didn't have a brass drift with me in CA and I use a race installer/driver at home.

[Sneke_Eyez]

What a neat, off the wall car. I never liked the Skylark's other X-Body platform mates from the era - my buddy had a Nova and my grandfather's buddy had a Ventura and I thought both of them were ugly - then one day I saw a Skylark at a show and it was a sight for sore eyes! I looked for one for a little while on the local CL, but then my Mopar blue blood started to boil.

Nice to see someone keeping one going strong - I love the looks with those Buick Rallyes.

[Deaf Bob]

I believe Camaro is an upgrade for Nova platformed cars like this.. Something niggs my foggy brain.. Seems Randll would have already done that if it s true...

[squirrel]

The F body (camaro) was basically a shorter version of the X body (Nova etc). They changed parts at different times, the 67-69 Camaro is very similar to the 68-74 Nova, the 70-79 Camaro is very similar to the 75-79 Nova (and Randal's Skylark). The Cadillac Seville was also built on the same platform, with some upgrades...like 5" bolt pattern wheels, rear disk brakes, etc.

[TheSilverBuick]

F%%*$%;*$%;(% this forum software! It just wiped two paragraphs of text on me.

The short of it is, the front sub-frame is like a 2nd gen F-body, the rear like a 1st gen F-body. The Seville uses the same subframes as the x-body, just a longer body and got the big brakes and 8.5" rear axle instead of the 7.5". I've left A LOT of detail out, but I'll be damned if I'm going to write it all out again.

I like the Skylark's look over the other X-bodies because the front corner lights and rear tail lights wrap around the corners.

[squirrel]

The Skylark is one of the better looking of the "boxy" late 70s X body cars.

I prefer the looks of the 1965 Skylark....but that may be because a friend had one years ago, and later I had one for a little while. Back then, the Skylark was an A body.