long shaft/short shaft? I got the shaft?

[Professor SS]

This is a question of economics as well as sanity. I have always been a chevy guy so I'm not up to speed on these Buick's and this one seems to have my number or something. Long vent short. Trying to help college student son fix up a 1972 Buick skylark. Neat looking car, but man is it different from what I'm used to. Problem #1 is he's broke and I keep footing the bill. I've replaced the floor pans, the hood, wheels, tires, gas tank and trunk lid as well as patching inner and outer rear fenders. Well shortly after locating and helping, actually doing while he watched, install a 4 barrel intake and a new 4 barrel carb and a HEI setup for it the transmission goes south on the thing. It runs great in reverse but has no forward gears. It is a turbo 350 with the standard short shaft. I've got three Chevy 350 turbos in the shed, but of course they won't work. Well we call all over heck's half acre and can't find a Buick 350 tranny for less than what he paid for the car. Then we see an ad in the paper for a 1973 350 Buick transmission for 100 bucks. So without thinking about it I send the boy with 100 of my hard earned dollars to get it. Turns out it has a tail shaft about 13 inches long. I look the thing up on the Internet and it says that tail shaft is rare and usually only available on trucks and heavy stations wagons. My fault, lesson learned. This car has it in for me I'm convinced.

So now what do I do? I don't want to discourage the kid but I'm 3 grand into this and there is no end in sight. Should I attempt to gut the two transmissions and put the tail assembly of the short shaft into the long shaft transmission? How hard is that to do? BTW, I've never been inside an automatic and the $600 quote to rebuild the one in the car, assuming the core is still good is several hundred more than I'm willing to put into it. I ordered a book on rebuilding the transmission and it looks a bit intimidating. Should I just junk the long shaft transmission and start the search over again? Should I look into shortening the drive shaft for the longer tail-shaft? Would that even work? I don't want to put much more into this.

Other than hurling myself off the roof or paying someone to steal the car what do you guys think?

Ok, I'm feeling better now...

Thanks in advance for your input

[bob k. mando]

alternative solutions to more / rebuilt trannies:

a 70's Camaro / Firebird driveshaft may fit.

you could always have your existing driveshaft shortened. i'm not sure how much that would be, but i would hope it was cheaper than a 'new' junkyard tranny.

[Professor SS]

thanks

I just need to step away for it for awhile I think.

[bobc455]

Ouch. Sounds painful for sure.

The good news is that if you ask your transmission rebuilder for a quote to rebuild a 1998 Taurus transmission, $600 will be very cheap!

I assume you asked the transmission shop if they can swap the tail sections? Might be less than the $600.

Will keep my fingers crossed for you.


-Bob C.