56 pontiac 4x4 Project coming soon

xjsaretheway

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I've got a 1956 pontiac 4 door that the brakes just went south on and the engine's got a ton of blow by...so i'd like to throw the body on a frame like a blazer or something.

ai182.photobucket.com_albums_x267_bjharding_2007_PICT0139.jpg

I believe the wheelbase is around 120"

so guys, any ideas? I'd prefer chevvy powered, and i'll just throw the body on top kind of like this guy did with his mustang, although i'm only looking to run some 33's or 35s

ai182.photobucket.com_albums_x267_bjharding_2007_mustang.jpg
 
for that kind of wheelbase, and weight of the vehicle, you need to start out with the frame of an old suburban or maybe a grand wagonner.... i'd go with a burb, and if the burb is a little too long u can always cut it down, just start looking in the bone yards


Then again, u can always throw some new axles under then car, with new drivetrain and your ready to go.
 
i used the $300 macco on my 72 skylark, and it was great....although i did ALL the prep work and all, so all they had to do was tape off the windows and paint.

as for fixing it or selling it, not going to happen. was bought for some spare parts for our other 56 pontiac 2dr nice one. we're going to repaint it ourselves, i've already re painted a few that came out nice. My dad thinks it would be neat to have the nice 2 door all original with 29K miles and then this one modified to be a nice beach cruiser painted to match. I think a suburban will probably be the best.

we had thought of a resto rod, throwing in a 350/t400 combo, but i think this way will be more unique. theese 4door posts aren't really worth anything, even correctly restored, so it's a lot more valuable as a fun car we can cruise down the beach in and get tons of attention, or take both matching cars to a show and see what type of attention we get
 
and i just realized if i get it on a suburban chassis, it would make a GREAT tow vehicle to tow my beast up to uwharrie or tellico...or the other 56 pontiac to car shows
 
Ah gotcha. Carry on then!
 
Grand Wagoneer wheelbase hits at around 110". Suburban is going to be much longer. I'm thinking standard bed pickup would probably be the best. Reinforce the frame significantly. Chevy frames flex like hell, and if the body is hard-mounted to it, it may cause some serious cracking issues.

The biggest problem I see with this project is doing it and making it look good. Now you could jack the body a couple of feet off the frame and make everything "fit", but to do it right and get bigger tires under it, you're going to have to destroy those rear wheelwells. I'd hate to see that, but if that's what you want to do, it's your car.
 
i was thinking of having it lifted enough so that the rear wheels hardly go into the wheel well, and like 3" of body lift off the frame, or as minimal as possible with it still working. i don't want no 6" blocks between the body and frame
 
It would be cool to see it as a tow vehicle! something different for sure! But on the other hand it would be a cool RAT ROD, chopped, flat black paint, dark windows and a BIG A$$ motor!
 
I had been driving it as is for a little until the brake master cylinder went south, and just having a parking brake for a huge car with 4wheel manual drum brakes and manual steering wasn't enough. It was bought mainly as a parts car for our other one, but after tinkering with for a few days i had it running, and couldn't bring myself to just completely stripping it like planned.
Things have come up though, so this project will probably be on hold till the summer or later.
 
well like i've said, we've already stripped off parts from this thing for our other one which looks like this
ai182.photobucket.com_albums_x267_bjharding_2007_1956PONTIACSTARCHIEF.jpg

my dad is a bit of a pontiac guy, which is why the chassis it's going on is going to be GMC, not chevy.(anybody know why?) also, like said before, it's primary use will be the tow vehicle to get that one to a car show, or for my mom and dad to take a ride down to the beach in. it's going to be painted to match the other one, and will not see any mud or trails.

hasn't your mommy told you if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all?

it's not like i'm trying to do something like this. http://z.about.com/d/4wheeldrive/1/0/1/J/1/Binderbird_KS_68pontiac_1RR.jpg
that's retarded to do with such a nice car.
 
I would think your best bet is pick up something with the running gear you want and build a custom frame. Modifying a frame to fit right and not look super :gay: is going to be a ton of work. I recently modified a wagoneer frame to go under a willys wagon and would have come out hours and $$ ahead to build it from some box steel. If you built it custom you can set the wheelbase and tuck the frame under the body.

I would tub out the rear wheel wells and make it so the wheels sit under there. You said beach/tow rig so there is no reason to pull the tires way down out of the body. You aren't going for an articulate rock crawler. Pick up some 3x6 box steel and a 3/4 ton doner truck. Cut, weld, and bend until it looks like it could have been a factory option geared for the trailer park.

edit: with wanting to tow the above vehicle to the show, you really want a 3/4 ton donor truck. Using a blazer or similar will put you with a rig that isn't capable of safely towing that much weight.
 
Down&Dirty said:
I would tub out the rear wheel wells and make it so the wheels sit under there. You said beach/tow rig so there is no reason to pull the tires way down out of the body. You aren't going for an articulate rock crawler. Pick up some 3x6 box steel and a 3/4 ton doner truck. Cut, weld, and bend until it looks like it could have been a factory option geared for the trailer park.
edit: with wanting to tow the above vehicle to the show, you really want a 3/4 ton donor truck. Using a blazer or similar will put you with a rig that isn't capable of safely towing that much weight.
Click to expand...

Yeh my dad was thinking that it needed to be tubbed, and i didn't think about a blazer not being enough. I'm going to look at a gmc pickup with a 454 in it that has been rolled, mabybe it will work?
 
If you found a GMC 1 ton 454/400/205/D60/14BFF, that would be a sweet platform to put that body on! Just add an overdrive like a gear vendors for the highway. The 1 ton frame would be beefier than a Waggy or 1/2 ton frame. You could move the rear spring hangers to line up with the Pontiac's wheelbase and cut the excess off the rearend of the frame. Then run a Blazer (or suburban if it'll fit) fuel tank mounted behind the rear axle. Seems like it would probably require a 3" body lift (and some floorboard modification a-la Petersen's UA Cummins Jeep) to clear the bump up of the frame. That mix of body lift and floorboard mods would avoid having too much body lift (3" is the absolute max you'd want to go) or too much floorboard mods (if you had to step up the floorboards enough to fit without body lift, it seems like it would start to compromise interior space). Just an idea, hard to tell how hard it would be without seeing it in person!:confused:

A 3/4 sub chassis might also work but, the 1 ton truck will have a D60 front and a Fullfloating 14 bolt rearend vs the sub's 10 bolt front and 14 bolt semi floater. (The sub would also have a flatter frame in the rear floorboard area as the rear axle bump-up is farther back though.) I'd stay away from anything 1/2 to though, that looks like a heavy car and you want to tow too, too much for a 1/2 ton!

Anyways, I think it's a cool idea for a unique tow rig! Good luck with everything, keep us updated!:popcorn:
 
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