This is a link to suggestions I made for reinforcing the front crossmember
http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/foru...ad.php?t=67187


This is my finished engine compartment. This is the gussets added to the back of the cross member and the full welding of the towers. I rock guard and then spray gloss black. Even under the frame motor mounts is plated over and welded solid

This is the front reinforcing of the lower A arm attachment points. This area is double strapped and welded solid. No more sandwiching the frame for the front lower mount

This again shows the front strapping but you can also see the boxed frame for the sway bar and this is highly recommended to prevent flex in the factory C channel. The factory really made this area flimsy with holes and lack of full weld plus leaving a wall the frame off. It also shows a front gusset

This shows a big notch in the firewall. The firewall was cut out to make room for installing heads over studs. Stock you can not slide the heads over the studs and it is a pain pulling all the studs and then the heads. Anything to make maintenance easier. Since there is metal in this location I cut the metal, formed a heavy C shaped insert and carefully welded it back to the original metal in the firewall and then glassed over the area, smoothed it, bondo and then gloss black spray paint.
All these things can be hard to see with the gloss black but hopefully they look stock to the untrained eye

 

Tonight the 540 is restin on it's mount in the engine compartment, the tranny is dialed in, installed, new starter motor and the heads are sitting on the block ready to be bolted down.
I spend 6 hours locating the location and angle for the 4 extra head bolts and will run a post on this tomorrow.

 

Ttt

 

looking good...but what happened to the front cross shaft mounts? not sure I like that.

 

Are we talking about he lower A arm front mount?? I really reinforced that rear around it? Is that what we are talking about?

 

This is the post on reinforcing the lower front mounts
If you look at the stock attachment for the front of the lower A arm you will find it is a block on top of a lip. They use the block as a double nut and sandwich the lip of the frame between the cross shaft and the block.
The first thing I did was remove this block, thoroughly clean the frame in this area and the block itself. Mig welds will not stick to painted surfaces. I did not mention rust since it has no place on my car. LOL
After cleaning the frame and block I put a pair of short scrap 7/16 fine bolts back in that didn’t stick through and clamped the blocks back into place.


I then welded the block into place filling the gap behind the block tying it into the frame. I welded all around to it has a good hold on the frame


I then used a heavy duty piece of angle iron and cut it to fit over the block, between the bolts and to the top of the frame. I then welded this piece into the frame and block. I use angle iron because it has a thicker cross section at the 90 degree bend.


I then used 1inch by ¼ inch hot rolled flat stock and using the torch bent it at almost right angles. I then cut it so one end rested on the original block and the other end went over the frame. This tied the block to the top of the frame. I welded this securely in place.


Of coarse the next step is grinding the welds, smoothing them out, deburring, wire brushing , rock guarding and finally painting so they blend in and look like that is how the factory intended them to be.
I removed the bolts, run a tap through the holes and rebolt the lower A arms back up into position.
I had totally dropped the front of both arms by removing the front bolts completely and loosening the rear until the A arms could be swung out of the way.
I do have coilovers so they were removed earlier to guarantee no weld spatter got on the shock rods. It also makes it possible to easily drop the a arms.
Hope this doesn’t tear out. LOL

I then went on to the towers themselves but that is another post.

 

yes that, it sure is sturdy but I'm not too keen on welding it in, what if the nut plate strips out? Why didn't you weld on the strap on the front completely? I think it would look better than w/ the gap you have there now.

 

If I ever strip the block out I would just run a 1/2 inch tap through the hole and move up a size. Stock is just sandwiching a block on top of the frame lip and the 2 7/16th bolts just pass through the lip of the crossmember.
I did weld full length on the back strap and put another front strap so if it pulls down the load is transferred to the top of the crossmember.
Once the rad is back in you will have a hard time finding the mount.
I feel it looks good, looks strong and is an improvment over stock.
Turtlevette actually planted the idea in my head.

 

I would have welded the entire thing, it probably would look a bit better..but that's just me, surely I have done things on my car that you wouldn't have done it is a good idea to reinforce that area...I have to do that still, probably going to double up the metal or integrate it to the rack mount I have there.

 

Hey Norval, I was just wondering how many hrs of drilling holes went into your car.

 

I spent hours and hours with a hand drill. First I lay out a pattern, then center drill the entire pattern and then slowly increase the drill size until I am happy with the holes. My front end lost about 50 pounds this way. If I could find something else to drill I would do it. I would spend the rest of my life drilling if I could drop weight.
After drilling and de burring my son powder coats everything for me. He runs the assembly line for powder coating and can get anything done including an entire frame if I wanted.