On a 56 buick can i unbolt the enclosed driveline housing and just swap out the driveshaft for a new one ? Or do i need to swap the whole rearend ? Im posting this for a buddy of mine , not sure how buicks are set up , when i went to his house the driveline housing was still bolted together so i wasnt able to see the next step .... Any knowlage will help . Thanx
no yes the search function is not up to speed yet, but the swap was on hamb before. Someone might have saved the link to that.
A '61-'62 Buick rear end was an open drive line and the center section will bolt in place of the '56 torque tube. I'm getting ready to do mine this winter, I have a 1961 rear to work with and a turbo 400. There is a ton of tech threads on here of other swaps people have done. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
???? Not sure what you mean exactly, but the rear can be converted to open drive with some work, but the 61 style center section is an easier way if you can find a donor. Also, like an early Ford, the rear is located by wishbones. You will need to modify them to work with an additional crossmember or use a different system like trailing arm, ladder bar, four bar etc...
Those "wishbones" are tubing that somewhat stabilizes the axle housing with the torque tube but they are no way near strong enough to use to locate a rear axle in one of those cars with open drive and it's just wrong to tell the guy that they can. I had a 55 that I put a lot of miles on and blew one rear end out of and remember those tubes well. From the 1956 National Service data book: Read the "caution" down the page a ways. Dirtyrottendiesel, what is the actual problem he has with his driveline now? If we know what the problem is someone may be able to come up with a viable rather than a bs fix. You may be able to swap center sections to go to open drive if you were swapping transmissions and the new one was open drive but some guys make suggestions without reading the actual question and don't give a real solution. I'm thinking that you can take the torque tube off the axle housing and pull the actual driveshaft off and change it if it is damaged but have never done it to know for sure. I copied some pages out of the 1956 National service data book on the 56 Buick rear axle and torque tube assembly, one part was above. My copier doesn't do too great so I took photos of sections of the pages. i'd suggest looking through the pages in the link below and saving the ones you think will help. I didn't do the whole section though just what I thought you could use. Here is the blowup of the rear end showing how the drive tube inside the torque tube connects to the pinion gear: Here is the link to that album: http://s173.photobucket.com/user/mr... Buick rear axle and drive tube?sort=2&page=1 It might take a minute or two to sort it out as i took photos of the pages by quarter page.
You are correct. They should not be used soley to locate the rear. But they can be MODIFIED to do so. Several solutions are possible. ONe is to add bridging to them to make them stronger, many early ford setups were done this way. Another is to use them as a lower set and make uppers to match making a four bar set up. Or you could use a torque arm similar to 80s-90s Camaros, Firebirds, Buick GNX and many asphalt modifieds. There are plenty of ways to skin a cat. The purpose was not to make anyone think that a quick fix is necessarily safe. The purpose was to make sure they realize that SOMETHING needs to be done to locate the rear if the torque tube is removed. Sorry to get you wound up.
Thank u so much man , the info u posted is total help , thanx again for takin the time to share all that , effin rad
His driveline is fine ,he is slammin his car on the ground and he (unfortunatly) is replacing the nailhead with a sbc and a turbo 400, i posted it for a guy i know. And i know how knowlageable the hamb'ers are so i told him we can figure out all our options here
I understood u totally man , wer gona go with a 4 bar anyway just because of the extra power from the new engine
They aren't much stronger than exhaust pipe so why argue on something that won't work. Your "bridging is actually building a pair of ladder bars. True they look pretty stout on the car but when you unbolt them they are pretty flimsy. The torque arm idea would most likely be the simple way but as the car is slammed and part of the problem is the torque tube being bent by the floor board after he raises the drive shaft tunnel enough to clear the simple solution is probably to run a truck bar setup that many of the slammed bagged car guys already run. That would be simple to set up and they don't intrude into the floor of the car like changing over to a 4 bar would on that particular car. It wouldn't entail changing the rest of the rear suspension greatly either.
It has been mentioned before, but you could use a 60-72 Chevy truck axle and trailing arm setup. I would think this might be the simplest and quickest way to make a buick with open driveline.
Yup, truck arms would be great. But he said he is going with a 4 bar set up which would be best if using an airbag suspension as it doesnt alter the pinion angle at different ride heights like the other systems will.
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