Adding the Radius to a '67 Header Bar
Thread Starter
Melting Slicks
Joined: Feb 2015
Posts: 2,570
Likes: 1,126
From: Huntsville AL & Hills of Southern TN
Adding the Radius to a '67 Header Bar
Order my new replacement front end from Sermersheim back in the Spring. Told them I didn't want it until late Fall to do a Winter front end replace. At some point in her life she had a left front incident. Bumb is very accommodating allowing me to send my stock fender skirts to be assembled to my new surround and fenders. I particularly wanted to keep the original left front skirt with the holes for the TI reinforcing that it was originally the BB car.
So... since this is a hobby I wanted to go back with an original 63-66 header bar instead of the only new production '67 header from Paragon. I searched but no joy on an original header bar in good shape. A local vette friend has lots of accumulated "stuff" and he loaned me an original, very rusty header to get formed radius of the 63-66 bars.
Hopefully the rusty original image is above. My idea was to machine a spherical die on our lathe and push it into the new Paragon header. Our fabrication shop lead came up with the idea of using stock ball bearings.
He made a backing die to hold the header and used our 20 Ton press to push first a 15/16" ball into the square punched stock hole. Then finish formed the radius with a 1" ball bearing.
The finished header with the radiused header holes. So now when someone feels inside my surround with the hood open they'll feel a radiused header just like the original. It's not exact because the non-radiused hole is larger to match the '67, but no one's gonna stick a caliper into my nose. Not perfect but a very simple process that "kinda" makes her like when she left the factory. Since it was relatively simple to do it was worth it to me. FWIW, I have the dies and ball bearings now that I'll be glad to loan if anyone wants to repeat this. Cheers
So... since this is a hobby I wanted to go back with an original 63-66 header bar instead of the only new production '67 header from Paragon. I searched but no joy on an original header bar in good shape. A local vette friend has lots of accumulated "stuff" and he loaned me an original, very rusty header to get formed radius of the 63-66 bars.
Hopefully the rusty original image is above. My idea was to machine a spherical die on our lathe and push it into the new Paragon header. Our fabrication shop lead came up with the idea of using stock ball bearings.
He made a backing die to hold the header and used our 20 Ton press to push first a 15/16" ball into the square punched stock hole. Then finish formed the radius with a 1" ball bearing.
The finished header with the radiused header holes. So now when someone feels inside my surround with the hood open they'll feel a radiused header just like the original. It's not exact because the non-radiused hole is larger to match the '67, but no one's gonna stick a caliper into my nose. Not perfect but a very simple process that "kinda" makes her like when she left the factory. Since it was relatively simple to do it was worth it to me. FWIW, I have the dies and ball bearings now that I'll be glad to loan if anyone wants to repeat this. Cheers
Team Owner
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 58,061
Likes: 7,146
Army
Very clever, in the case of my 63 - the body shop owner and I called in more personal favors and scrounged through more ads and swap meets than I care to recount. My car has an original 63 header bar in it now, with the zinc chromate on it...and an original radiator core support and nose support rods.
The use of repro parts for these things are 'tell-tales' of body work...
It pays to have friends, who have friends, that know a guy....whose cousin MIGHT have an original "xxx" part.
Nice job.....but if its all the same to you, I don't want to borrow your *****.
The use of repro parts for these things are 'tell-tales' of body work...
It pays to have friends, who have friends, that know a guy....whose cousin MIGHT have an original "xxx" part.
Nice job.....but if its all the same to you, I don't want to borrow your *****.
Last edited by Frankie the Fink; Sep 29, 2017 at 11:30 AM.
Copy that. Frankie's a negative on touching my *****. 
