can anyone give me some tricks of the trade to replacement my body mounts on my 73 coupe. i was stupid and got the car repainted before i really took a hard look at the body mounts. the door spacing is between fender and door is larger then i like and i dont know if its due to body sagging. when i had the car repainted i asked the mech. to check the door gap he advised me thats as good as it going to get. not sure how to upload photos to the site yet or i would send pic.
i heard if not done right i could crack the body panels due to flexing of body. any suggestion would be great thanks

scott

 

the only think i can tell you is to soak the bolts/nuts for several days. I just bought some acetone today and will buy some ATF tomorrow to make the 50/50 mix for home made penetrating oil (that I learned on here), and will be soaking those along with other bolts that I will need to attack in the not too distant future...

 

My job started out as a simple body mount replacement but I ended up doing a full body off and rocker channel replacement.
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I couldn't agree more with Silva here, but I'd soak those bolts for a month or more, shooting that 50/50 mix of acetone and trans fluid- the best known penetrant known-every day for that month. And still that might not be enough to break them free. The possibility of the caged nuts being rusted down to a smaller size than original, spinning in the cage, or the cage itself being rusted out is not only common but normal.

There is a good chance of the actual body mounts themselves are rusted out, and you might not find that out until you lift the body off the frame a little. You can see some of that in the mount at the front door pillar after you take off the kick panel inside the car to look. That's real problems there, but not without being able to fix them. There are body channels and mounts made for them by Caledonia, but that's something for a later discussion. I can tell you on my 73, I had all the above, but I plated in the mounting areas flush with some painful overhead MIG welding, and lots of grinding, then drilled new holes! I replaced the #4 body mounts with new shells and correct aluminum rivets as they were rusted away, too.

When you get the bolts out, hopefully more successfully than me, you should make every effort to take the shims out and write down the count of each shim in every mounting spot, so you can return to original set ups. Don't forget, the seat mount strap that loops around the driveshaft will prevent you from lifting the body, so take one side off! But as said above, go easy!

 

On the other hand if Your Car is not rusted, and yes there are cars out there that are not, the Job may go better than exspected. Mine did. I losened all the Bolts and then just lifted one side at a time, maybe two inchs. Plan on replaceing the Fuel Line no matter what when you do this, as you will have to do it all over again when it goes.

 

Just cut them off with a sawzall and put in new ones. do one side at a time and it does not really take long at all.

 

thanks for all the great info

scott

 

I am at this point on my 68. I was lucky enough to unbolt 5 of the 8 after applying PB Blater for a couple of days. The guys are correct about the cage nut at numbers 4 & 8, I bought new cage nut and will cut them this weekend. Number 7 I am work on know, just took a break and checking the forum as always. Good luck and take your time.