57 buick frt clip

[1957 buford]

Has anyone installed a modern frt suspension in a 57 buick, if so which one
Thanks Skip

[nailheadnut]

Jim Day "Mr. Buick" in northern California got everything modern for his '57 Caballero by sitting the '57 body on the frame from a '79 Century wagon. It has disc brakes, modern front end geometry, and parts are readily available. Probably shares the frame with Cutlass, Lemans, and Chevelle. Same wheelbase and tread. You'll just have to put in motor mounts. Jim runs a 340 hp 425 backed up by a TH400 Transmission. If you google 'Jim Day Caballero' you can see pictures and read about it.

Ed

[1957 buford]

Thats more than I want to get into. I'm going to put a late 60's early 70's camaro frt clip with power disc and steering.And also convert to open drive at the same time

[Buford26]

Do you plan on keeping the original engine? Does your car currently have a Dynaflow automatic trans? The easiest thing to do would be to use the upper and lower control arms and spindles from a '59-'60 Buick without the air ride option (this gets you better and cheaper ball joints) and then get the disc brake brackets for a '59-'60 Buick from Scarebird:

http://www.scarebird.com

You can add the power boster. Direct Fit Brakes also sells disc brake brackets for the front and rear and you can get the booster from them:

https://dfbrakes.com/

You can add factory power steering if you don't have it. All you need is the gear box, pump, and pulleys. What you are talking about involves lots of work changing the front suspension, a transmission change, and replacing the rear suspension and rear end. At that point, it would probably just be easier to do a frame swap as mentioned above. An open drive center section from a '61-'62 fullsize Buick will fit a '57 rear end but you will still need to deal with the rear suspension if you eliminate the torque tube. You can use the '61-'63 Dynaflow with the open drive, but you will probably have to build a trans mount. But if you are swapping the trans, would you really want to use a Dynaflow anyway? You can get an adapter for a modern trans from Bendtsen's, but they aren't cheap:

http://www.transmissionadapters.com/Pricing.htm

and you will also need to make a new trans mount if you go this route.

[1957 buford]

I've tried the frame swap a couple of times on other cars seems things just don't always work out.I think it's still easier to do a frt clip.Yes I will be keeping the nailhead and using a switch pitch turbo 400 out of a 65 buick,I will try and use the 57 rear end with the 61-62 center and fab some trailing arms,or go to a 9in ford rear

[Buford26]

Buick started using posi rear ends in '59 so you should be able to find one in a '61-'62 if you want posi.

[telriv]

No, really, Buick started using & had as an option a posi in '56

[1957 buford]

Thanks guys for the info, my car has a complete airride system on it now from Chevs of the 40's and I'm going to remove it when I do the frt clip thing. It is a 4-way system frt-back,side-side,plug and play.It will be for sale, $850.00 plus shipping