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Hi Wrencher, great project. The other poster is talking about the braces from #3 crossmember to the rear kick up. I don't know exact date but it appeared from the factory on 69 production cars. Triangulated the rear portion for strength.
Hi Wrencher, great project. The other poster is talking about the braces from #3 crossmember to the rear kick up. I don't know exact date but it appeared from the factory on 69 production cars. Triangulated the rear portion for strength.
I'd have to look at a 69 and see just exactly what you are referring too. I'm not much of a welder but I do have a little MIG set-up. Guess I could practice on something and see if I could do it, but all I planned on doing was making the tranny x-member removable, so in case I did need to do some clutch work it wouldn't be such a PITA.
No, close, I guess on 69 they braced that #3 cross-member on a diagonal to the rear frame where it kicks in a couple of inches, but I don't have anything to look at to get the dimensions, so if I did decide to add them they wouldn't interfere with anything else. I figure if it ain't broke, don't fix it. 320 HP 327 hasn't twisted the frame up yet, so I don't think I have a problem. Of course for the first 30 years of it's life, it only had about 290 HP, but I don't plan on dropping no big inch Tq monster engine in there in my life-time. That picture you posted shows the bracing I think they are talking about, but I can only see a little of it in the top right of the photo
Now I got me a rust free frame, after two days of throwing wire wheels, abrasive disks, flapper wheels, and sanding disks at it, who needs chemicals, old school never fails.
Now she is looking pretty, no mods yet, had to get some paint on her, cuz she has to stay outside.
Now she is looking pretty, no mods yet, had to get some paint on her, cuz she has to stay outside.
Decided to take a break from painting, so decided to take the diff apart because shortly before the tear down begun, I remember a one-time hard thunk that felt like the rear end was going to drop in the street. Well when I got the cover off I found that three of the ten bolts that hold the ring gear on were sheared, one more was backed out and the rest weren't all that tight. Only one tooth on the ring gear had the inside corner broke off, and another tooth had the outside corner shaved off. Can't see anymore damage than that, pinion looked good, but the bearing felt pretty rough. I guess I got kind of lucky that it didn't do anymore damage. So I will need a set of 3.08 gears and bearings. Good thing I decided to tear it down and inspect. Frame-off means look at everything so you don't have to revisit later on.
It would be a good thing to add those two braces to the rear frame....old metal gets fatigued. Even GM realized that it need to be done.
It's on my list for my '68 project.
Still waiting for someone that has a 69 or later to give me some dimensions on how far over on the cross member it goes, and where exactly it mounts to the kick-in of the frame, and what kind of brace it is. As far as I can tell it looks like channel iron and looks like it starts at the slotted hole in the cross member, but that is about all I know from what I've seen. I don't want to weld something in that will interfere with the battery box or cargo box.
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Still waiting for someone that has a 69 or later to give me some dimensions on how far over on the cross member it goes, and where exactly it mounts to the kick-in of the frame, and what kind of brace it is. As far as I can tell it looks like channel iron and looks like it starts at the slotted hole in the cross member, but that is about all I know from what I've seen. I don't want to weld something in that will interfere with the battery box or cargo box.
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If you look at the picture Rvzio posted, in the top right of it you can see the brace connected to the crossmember. It goes up at approx. a 45 degree angle to the frame rail.
If you look at the picture Rvzio posted, in the top right of it you can see the brace connected to the crossmember. It goes up at approx. a 45 degree angle to the frame rail.
08-01-2015, 12:09 PM
