78 Plymouth Volare wagon... F body into an F body

Picked up a 1978 Plymouth Volare Premier wagon back in January with plans to LS swap it and take in on Power Tour this year. Got it torn apart, and the k member and frame was in worse shape than i was hoping, especially compared to the rest of the wagon.  Picked up a 4.8 LS for a decent price, and had a BTR LS1 stage 2 cam at the house that is going to go into the little 4.8.

That is when a great idea came to me. I happen to have a 2000 camaro laying around. some quick measurements says the front frame is close to the volare, and can be made to fit. So it looks like a GM f-body camaro is going to be mated to the Mopar f-body.  Going with the camaro set up is going to make the LS install much easier, and have better suspension. The stock wagon k member has a goofy steering set up, which would have made the LS install quite hard.

Bought a new BMR tubular k member to help with room, and got everything cleaned up in both cars ready to cut. The plan is cut from the firewall forward on both cars, and use what I can in the wagon, and fab up what doesnt quite fit right. More updates to come as i get more done. 

F body + F body ? F yes! 

Yes, this will be wicked.  

I like where this is going.

I wonder if a Disco Volante theme might fit here? Maybe not, but Spectre's yacht does look kind of station wagon ish.

But I'll be interested in seeing how the Camaro subframe grafts in. The Volare front end had some pretty weird geometry.

progress has been slow, but have enough done now for an update. Bought a tubular K member and all new suspension parts, got it assembled. Cut off the front clip of the camaro, and dissassembled the front of the wagon, and cut off the frame rails on it. 

Mounted the k member into the camaro clip, and cut off everything that wasnt needed. A buddy had an old 5.3 block laying around that i borrowed for mock up. everything is looking good, except the tranny tunnel on the wagon is not centered. nothing a hammer can't fix for making tranny clearance. 

Had to do a bit more cutting on the wagon frame, put on an old set of heads to check for clearance, and also ordered a set of headers, also for clearance checking. after a lot of measuring, the camaro front clip was welded into the wagon. Still needs some more welding done, fish plates, tubing, etc, but it is now sitting on its own weight. 

outstanding!

Just...Wow! Some of you guys on this forum are nuts, ambitious, fantastic!

Additional details on how the mismatched frame rails were joined would be awesome. Pics!

Following!

I will have to get some pics of the joints later this week, but the inside to inside frame width of both cars was within 1/2",so it matched up pretty nicely. The camaro frame is quite a bit bigger than the wagon, so used some 1/4" plate to weld both frames to. Going to trim the excess off, along with some fish plates for extra strength. Going to run 1" tube around the strut towers to give them more strength as well. 

Hello Elmer,  I am a bit of a Mopar F body Colllector / ultradork so....... If you are close enough and you have some usable F body parts you are lookin' gettin' rid of..  I am happy to help take them off your hands.

Nice project to save another one of the wagons.

Good Luck with the whole shebang!

Greg

slantsix said:

Hello Elmer,  I am a bit of a Mopar F body Colllector / ultradork so....... If you are close enough and you have some usable F body parts you are lookin' gettin' rid of..  I am happy to help take them off your hands.

Nice project to save another one of the wagons.

Good Luck with the whole shebang!

 

Greg

I am located just south of Cincinnati. As of right now, only parts I have that I'm not reusing are the tires/wheels, some of the electronics that mount in the firewall, the slant six/tranny, and the k member (which is pretty rusty but may have usable components on it). All of the body panels, grill, bumper, etc I'm putting back on. 

Cool, That's only 3 hours from me.

I will take any or all of the cast offs for some useful projects here.

Yes I figured the skins and bumper would get reused to keep the flavor of your project correct.

message me and we can get something worked out!

Olds wheels, with center caps on a Volare?

I had to chuckle, only on GRM.

Keep going!