I’m approaching my 64th birthday in a couple of weeks, Thanksgiving is coming right up, and I’m pretty thankful for my wonderful family, beautiful grandson, great home with a (semi) warm shop, a collection of some pretty neat cars, a couple of fun projects, time to devote to them, and a wife who supports this obsession of mine.
The Riviera is coming along pretty well, the brake conversion is done. I got the correct pins, and the spindles and brakes are on the car for good. Lines are next, and the new master cylinder needs to go in. I pulled the original gas tank, and have the poly ’93 Cadillac tank that was under our old ’48 Pontiac convertible to replace the original. A new sending unit and Walbro fuel pump compatible with the pressure requirements of the LS is an easy swap, then lines for that, and the car will be, hopefully, a runner. It turns over with the key, all the systems are “hot”, so I think I’m getting close.
I’m very happy with the headlight installation behind the parking lamp towers in the fenders, it’s a HUGE improvement of the clunky, last minute botch the factory did with them in the grill. The ’65 finally got the clamshell lights, and the clean grill (I used a ’65 grill), but this will be a good, low dollar substitute for that one year only, complicated and hard to find conversion.
I used the headlight buckets that came out of the ’59 Thunderbird (which were replaced by ’63 Cadillac units), the were on the shelf, complete with the Halogen bulbs. I’d originally thought of new projector style bulbs, but they ‘re expensive, they’d be hard to adapt and make the adjusters for, and might look odd behind the lenses. This seems to be a more sensible approach to what’s going to be a period style car.
Happy Holidays everyone, get out in the shop and make something!
Cool McCool's Garage 
Great post as always 🙂
Hi. I enjoy your posts, I have a beautiful 63 riviera that I am contemplating putting a ls into, I have gone the swap with a g body 83 elcamino and that was straight forward and well documented, but this is a whole different game! I was wondering if you could share what you did about the steering linkage and pan (any pan) interference keeping ground clearance in mind, also any cross member issues also keeping hood clearance manageable, what tranny did you use? Any floor clearance issues and any driveshaft problems I assume a custom built one piece? Sorry for so many questions but I suspect you crossed them all!
Thanks. If you go back through the site you’ll find lots of posts about it. Briefly, I used a GM engine swap pan, which fit fine after it was sectioned an inch in front. The steering link was easy, I cut the center out and flipped it 180, so the “bow” faces forward. The cross member was sectioned an inch to get engine down, I’ve got an inch of hood clearance with the truck intake and high alternator mount. I have a 4l60, it fits in the trans tunnel well, my car is actually a ‘64, I don’t know if yours will be different with the Dynaflo. Haven’t addressed the driveshaft yet, hoping to be able to use the 4l60’s yoke and use the original 2 piece shaft.
Reblogged this on Automotive American.
Thanks! Just saw your c