Thread: New to W bodies, possible engine swap.

I've been in the Bonneville world for over ten years now having owned, parted out, fixed and sold over a dozen of them. I've been out of that for a couple years now but recently came across a 2001 Monte Carlo SS and a 2005 Buick Century.

Long story short, digging into the Monte Carlo more and more I'm going to walk away from this one and sell it, just not worth the work it needs to be a good driver. The Century is super clean and only 109,000 miles on it but has been sitting for six years after blowing head gaskets. The work has all been done to replace them as well as heads were checked and milled before I bought it. Now I just have to finish it up which isn't much, belt driven accessories, upper intake etc...

So, I am tossing around the idea of keeping the drivetrain out of the Monte and swapping it into the Century as well as building a nice L67 for it. I'll be looking for a more specific section to get into detail but that's what I have planned for now.

Brown death is part of it, but mostly it's everything else it needs. I only paid $350 for it and planned to do rust repair on it myself as I want to teach myself body work and painting. What killed it for me was realizing it needs both front wheel bearings, all tie rods, shocks / struts all around. I would have easily another $600 or so in parts just to make it a good driver, just not worth it for a rotted pile haha!

Paid $250 for the Century and the body is very clean with some minor surface rust underneath and just a little rot on the passenger rocker, well worth fixing up I think.

I just don't want to drive my 3/4 ton diesel in winter again. Big tunes with built trans, bigger injectors and more boost makes for hard starts when it gets crazy cold and smoking out the parking lot at work for a bit, not so much fun!