Mastr Fab

I am in the process of putting a 66 body on an after market frame. When shimming the body what am I looking to align? I have the radiator support bolted down with no shims and it appears the front of the body needs to come up to line up with the holes in the side of the support. Should this be done by shimming the body mounts at the front of the doors or should the whole body be raised? The transmission crossmember is hitting the floor so I appears the whole body needs raised. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

BarryK

see if this helps:

http://www.lbfun.com/warehouse/tech_...0C2%20Body.pdf

Mastr Fab

Thanks. That looks like a good place to start.

wombvette

First thing to do is to bolt that radiator support up to the body.

DansYellow66

Is it a coupe or convertible body?

Mastr Fab

The body is a coupe. If I had bolted the radiator support to the body before setting it on the frame it would have forced the front fenders up possibly cracking the fiberglass and/or the paint.

RestoMike

Not sure what the issue would be as with any body drop at the factory and or my shop, radiator support is in place to support front end.

Vette Daddy

These cars are actually in somewhat of a bind when assembled new. The front and rear is adjusted up or down in order to help gap the doors.

UberLegend

Thanks for the tip ^^

wombvette

Don't want much of a bind, especially with a coupe.

If the front end with the radiator support attached will not fit the frame with a fair amount of shims in the correct places, there is something wrong. You cant use the support bolting to the fenders as a crutch for fitting the body. Other things will not be right then. Bolt er up and set it down. See what you have.

DansYellow66

My 2 cents - and I've only done this once. I figured the coupe birdcage structure was fairly rigid and the four corners of it (at firewall and by rear frame kickup) needed to be worked out first so the birdcage sat on the frame without binding or stressing. I put an equal number of shims at each of those four mounts and set the body the body on the frame and looked to see which mounts were in firm contact and if any still had a gap to fill. After studying things I decided if it would be better to subtract shims from the mounts that were in firm contact or simply add shims to the ones that still had some gap. I did this with the idea of ending up with at least one shim in all of the 4 mounts and avoiding having any with an excessive no. of shims. Then I looked at the rear and put in enough shims to fill the gap and one more to take out some of the very slight sag from the weight of the rear. Then I basically did the same for the front radiator support as for the rear - making sure to slightly more than fill any gap showing so that the front was slightly overshimmed to take the strain of the natural sag off of it. It seems to have worked out fine as I haven't noticed any ill effects on the body after about 18 years.

Some members say you can influence the fit of the doors on the coupe with shimming adjustments. That was not my impression when I was working on mine. The birdcage surrounding the doors just seemed too rigid to permit any tweaking like can be done on the convertible. I could move the rear up and down a little and I could move the front end up and down quite a bit - but I couldn't see any noticeable difference in the door fit. But others disagree and have more experience with this than I do.

vettsplit 63

Dan, I have had about 5 midyear coupes that I have either had the good fortune or misfortune, however you look at it, to work on shimming the body after resto. The method you describe to adjust the body to the frame is pretty much been my experience. The coupe bodies all seemed to me to be very rigid, and I just shimmed til I was able to get all the air gaps filled, except for the front, which just needs, as you say, to have the stress taken out of it. I did notice that I was able to get the nose to align a little better somewhat with the front edge of the hood by putting a little upward pressure on the front radiator support mount. Never found that I was able to influence any of the door gaps by shimming.

ragtopman

let me add 3 more cents to this:

.....first thing you have to do is level the frame front to back, left to right, that's the foundation to the body so if the frame isn't level.....

Then install the body on the frame and see how it sits and how everything fits. Your going to do the same thing again, level the body to the frame front to back/left to right. As you level the body to the frame, your going to be adding or subtracting shims in all locations and thru out the whole process watching how the doors open and close and what your gaps look like. After many hours have passed, you will be able to stand back and see nice gaps, doors open and close nice and your level tells you that everything is 'bubble on'.

Mastr Fab

That's the way I started with everything level. It sounds like bottom line is it's a process of trial and error with no specific criteria other than panel alignment and not putting anything in a bind. Thanks to all who responded.

DansYellow66

[QUOTE=ragtopman;1579740060]let me add 3 more cents to this:

.....first thing you have to do is level the frame front to back, left to right, that's the foundation to the body so if the frame isn't level.....
QUOTE]

Good point. That was the second thing I did - setting the frame up on jackstands and leveling it by laser. The first thing I did was have a frame shop check out my frame out and tweak it back to factory specs. Probably not necessary in all cases but mine had taken a hit in the pass side front at one time.