Watching and reading with great interest; with the grace of God goeth I in short order (now that I've moved/retired, I am back to the project).

Thank you for all your pictures - and bravery - Teamo!

 

Hey that whole process sounds very familiar. Used all the same stuff from the same places. How about that!
R

 

The work has been a little slow lately with the end of the school year and doing stuff with the kids. I keep chipping at it though even if it is only for a half hour at a time in the evening. Got the left side brake and vapor fuel line installed. Had to do a bend in the vapor line where it goes up over the frame rail in the front near the brake distribution block. Other than that it went pretty smooth. I just need to paint some bolts and put the #2 cross member back in. I primed the mounting bolts for the cross member and I wasn't sure what I would use for the top coat. I looked through my paint supplies and I have a can of Eastwood black zinc coating, I think I will use that. Waiting for some parts from Wilcox to arrive (should be tomorrow) so I can put in some foam seals and lower the body back down on the left side. Next up is tearing apart the rear suspension/trailing arms so I can paint/restore/replace all of the worn parts, bushings, etc.

 

Started to put the rear suspension back together the last couple of days. There is a problem with ride height. I cleaned, painted, and put new liners on my 10 leaf spring. The spring has all curved leaves unlike the 9 leaf springs with the flat upper sections. The ride height was pretty good before I took everything apart but when I reinstalled the spring it is sitting way too high. I do not want to go with a longer bolt. I would prefer fixing the problem even if that means a new spring. Everything in the rear suspension is back together. I haven't done a final torque on all of the bolts yet. I have the car on it's wheels but it hasn't settled down at all. There is about 5 1/2 inches between the wheel well and the top of the tire. Should I just scrap the spring and order a new 9 leaf from Eaton or one of the other spring companies?

 

No , you have unloaded all the leafs so it will sit way higher until you load them back up again , usually just driving it settles them down .

 

Ok I'll continue on with my work. It will be quite a while before it gets back on the road. Thanks.

 

Pretty cool thread here as I'm in the middle of replacing my fuel lines too. Yes we have to get the body up high enough to get the fuel lines into the frame kick up area. So I am lifting only one side of the body at a time since I'm not replacing the brake lines (surprisingly good condition). But I had a #3 caged nut just spin on me so I tried a different route. I attached some pix and hope you all can see the problem cage nut well enough.

It's kinda humorous when I see the wooden wheel lifts and read about needing a welder. I worked through then same problems. I have pix of my HF 3 ton floor jack with a 5" adapter to get the car up to 30". And I shopped until I dropped for a new welder too.

Bought some nice aluminum jack stands from Jeg's that are nearly twice as tall as my previous jacks. I needed a adapter to the floor jack to get the car high enough and had to upgrade to a 3ton HF jack as the adapter only works on the larger HF floor jacks. Man I got at least 20 years out'a that 2.5 ton HF floorjack and it was still working great - my neighbor now has a very good floor jack for free.

So #3 caged nut on pass side just spins. So instead of cutting the bolt head off and lifting the body then try and removed whats left of the caged nut, I drilled a 2" hole on the door well. Used a 2&1/8" hole drill to cut through the fiberglass then a 2" metal hole drill to drill through the frame. I found the caged sheet metal had opened up and no longer caged the body nut.

Now to recage the body nut I beat the metal sides of the cage back up and started shopping for a welder to fit inside that small 2" hole. Fluxcore torch was the only torch likely to fit. That cheap HF flux core welder ($100 minus usual 20% discount) has too large a cup and you can't weld w/o it.
Finally decided on a Eastwood welder. Don't know who makes it for them but it has fully adfjustable voltage (and speed) where the other cheapie welders have only 2 settings. And it uses all TWEECO torch parts which Lowes stocks (tips and cups). The TWEECO fluxcore cup was near perfect for this job as it necks down to the tip. So for $270 I got a great MIG welder that I'm using with flux core wire. It does weight 50lbs though and shipping was $50. But it way more welder than I need and very happy with it. Ya know fluxcore welding is so cheap and easy it's gonna really have to be important before I buy a gas bottle for the MIG welding.

The welder worked great and the nut cage is now a cage again and the bolt is out leaving the nut where it belongs.

I guess the lucky part of my story is the other body bolts all came out. But I can't let them stay as is knowing what can happen. I'm gonna lift the body one side at'a time and weld the seams of the caged metal so they can't separate as the one did. Hey all the bolts had to come out anyways. Yes my #4 body mount had some good corrosion too but not enough to need replacement. So I already covered it with POR15 to stop the process.

Take a look at my pix and tell me what ya think.

Good luck teamo, your not alone here.

 

Pretty ballsey drilling a 2" hole in your frame. I'd be afraid it'd lessen the structural integrity too much. Are you going to be able to reweld the removed steel back in without damaging the surrounding fiberglass areas?

I'm glad this older thread was resurrected, gave me lots of information and advice from DUB is like gold in my book!

Paul

 

Be warned on the #4 reinforcements...I just replaced mine and I was glad I did. One looked perfect on the outside and one appeared to have a spot of scale rust on the outside. A couple of the rivets had broken so I pulled the reinforcements to clean them up and replace the rivets. It turns out they had both rotted from the inside.

I wish I had pictures of them before I took a hammer to them to break up the rust.

Attachment 48357414

Attachment 48357415

He didn't drill through his frame, but he did go through his rocker channel. I wouldn't see an issue with the strength as long as he patches the hole.

 

Cardo, I wish I had bought a better welder like you did. Those Eastwood welders are priced right for us home mechanics and have some good features that you would pay a lot more for with one of the top brand name welders. I ended up with a HF welder and it is adequate but after doing some work with it on the Corvette cage nuts, I started another project replacing floor pans in my 67 Ford Truck. The Eastwood welder with the adjustable voltage setting vs the tap switch settings would have served me better doing the welding on the floor pans. I did use the shielding gas which was a much better weld than the flux core. If I had to do the cage nuts again I would definitely go with the gas shielding instead of the flux core wire. Keep plugging away it's looking good.

 

Making some good progress this past few months. The weather hasn't been overly hot this summer so I've been able to get some stuff done. Here are some pictures of the rear suspension all back together. The rusty looking stuff on the rear spring bolts is copper anti seize. I took the picture as soon as I installed the spring and didn't wipe everything down yet. Pay no attention to those rusted rims. I'll restore the rims when I replace the old tires when the car is ready to drive.

 

looking real nice under there , a lot of work for sure

 

Thank you. It's a lot of work and much more to do but I am enjoying every minute of it.

 

working on getting the rear suspension finished up. Here is the gas tank painted and ready to go back in. I used Eastwood Rust Converter and their Tank Tone paint. The silver finish is a little dull and it scratches easily but it's supposed to be zinc rich to help with future rust. After I install it I'll touch up any areas that need it.

 

Congratulations on your progress. I've learned a lot from your thread. Thanks for posting.

 

Thank you for your encouragement. The gas tank might be my last project before the winter sets in. It's been pretty cold this couple of weeks up here in the Northeast.

 

Gas tank is in but I still need to put the clip on the overflow hose that bolts to the rear cross member. This is for the 1975 model year. I've seen earlier diagrams of 1974 model year which was different and shows the hose going to the rear of the tank with a spring installed inside of the overflow hose. For 1975 the hose goes over the front of the tank and down to the cross member. The only threaded hole that I can see in the cross member that the AIM diagram shows appears to be smaller than the 5/16-18 bolts used for the clips. Several of the vendor catalogs show the bolt size to be 5/16-18.

 

1. #4body mount reinforcement. There is some space in between the steel support/ reinforcement and the fiberglass body. Are you supposed to place filling compound or adhesive or leave it without and simply riveting to the body?

 

#4 mount
I believe it is just the steel to fiberglass riveted. I'll take a photo of mine in the AM and post it for you.

 

The number 4 support bracket is just riveted to the body. The cage nut from above will secure the body to the frame.

RVZIO