Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

[Richard M.]

Here are (warning) many photos of what I've been up to lately......a '66 convertible which almost blew up. I've seen worse, but this is very scary. This all started due to a rotted fuel line and many gallons of fuel on a garage floor.



As was once a line in a Indiana Jones movie when he saw the dead monkey and grabbed the "bad" prune......

.............."Veddy Dangerous"

Every body mount square nut had to be held with cold chisels and crowbars so I could break the bolts off. Some actually unscrewed.


This frame is not salvageable. I think it's lost about 50 pounds of metal over the years. After the bad parts were extracted, or broken off, or Sawzall'd off, here's what's left. The trailing arm bolts and shims were rust-welded together.


Both trailing arms were badly rusted at the seams, both bad spindles, and the DS spindle housing is egg-shaped from a bad bearing. There was about a tenth inch of play in the bearing. These are being rebuilt at my outside shop. I asked them if they could weld new pivot ends on the arm shafts, but they said that may be a bit difficult.



Some of the pieces...






Old rusty bare frame and brand new reproduction bare frame..... Vette Products of Michigan to the rescue.


Rich

[Gary R.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Rich
Looks like another complete project for you, gotta love doing it!

I am looking at moving soon and like your garage setup. How high are your ceilings to get the lift in place. How about floor thickness?

Thanks
Gary

[Greg H.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Hi Richard,

Please reveal you trick method for attaching your lift arms to the body sill channels. I did see this same plank / wood beam looking support when you were working on your Black big block roadster. I tried to enlarge those photos in an attempt to see your secret bits, no luck. Looks like a simple way to lift and replace the body. My project has standard exhaust so I have all of the rocker panel attachment brackets in place.

Thanks Greg

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Rich
Looks like another complete project for you, gotta love doing it!

I am looking at moving soon and like your garage setup. How high are your ceilings to get the lift in place. How about floor thickness?

Thanks
Gary

Hi Gary, Yes another one to have fun with. Not as intense as the last one(the black '67 BB), as the '66 is not a TF candidate but has it's great running original engine and nice BC/CC paint. Thankfully the birdcage is good otherwise it would not have been sensible to replace the frame. We looked a long time for a nice used frame, but all had issues of some kind. Then we decided the best way to save this car was a VPM high quality brand new made in USA piece. It's very nice. It's heading to the Powdercoating shop on Monday, along with some of the big pieces for blasting.

The Garage: Powerbilt Steel of Virginia Beach, VA. 30' x 33' Steel, 2" wall insulation, 3" at the ceiling. A big Erector Set. I love it. I built it myself, with 2 big strong buddies. It's plumbed for 3/4 bath with shower, wastewater grinder/lift station piped 225' to my septic system out front, hot & cold water, 100A electric(professionally supervised and assisted by my best Corvette buddy Chuck McSheehy, retired Master Electrician), A/C, Heat(for those chilly Florida February mornings), telephone(need a wire-line as cellphones don't like steel cans), Cat5 Internet, etc.

Ceiling is apx 15' at the peak and 14' at the eaves. My 2 post lift height is just under 10'. I went with 10' high doors so the tracks run above it. This way I can open the doors when a car is high on the lift. Floor is apx 5 to 6 inches thick, with about 12" thick perimeter footing to support columns. We used road mat and rebar to engineering specs as reinforcements. Being in Florida, the building meets wind code requirements, 140MPH. Up there, your roof snow load is your issue.



Some ceiling shots under const....


More after completion with a few of the doors a lift. I also added a 4 post on the left bay(where the wife's jag is). At one time I had seven cars inside to test the storage capability. Not much room to walk around though. I wanted to do it as a test for inclement weather preparation if ever needed to get everything under cover. Note I didn't use the "H" word!



===

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Hi Richard,

Please reveal you trick method for attaching your lift arms to the body sill channels. I did see this same plank / wood beam looking support when you were working on your Black big block roadster. I tried to enlarge those photos in an attempt to see your secret bits, no luck. Looks like a simple way to lift and replace the body. My project has standard exhaust so I have all of the rocker panel attachment brackets in place.

Thanks Greg

Hi Greg. I use a 4x4 with a 1x1 along the top edge. I set them on the lift arms so the 1x1 catches the inside of the sills. Once raised, this allows the inside width of the sill to be free for my modified dolly with 2x8's to catch the sills on the insides.

I remove my arm extensions and place the 4x4's in position. You can't see the 1x1 strip as it's under the outside edge of the sill.


After the body is raised, I roll the frame out and the dolly in. The black car was N14 side exhaust, the red car also, but added so the brackets were there. It's 2x8's are now notched for the rocker brackets. THis is a later car so it only has 3 brackets per side. Earlier cars had 6 per side. Note that horizontal 2x4 gets removed. That was just a parts paint hook holder.


Found some better pics from the black car. Here you can see the 1x1 to catch the sills on the outside edges. The free area in the sills you see is where the dolly 2x8's rested. When the body was on the dolly, it allowed me to recoat the sills(to be lifted byt the 4x4's with zinc chromate. I then lift the body with the 4x4's on the lift arms, paint the sill area previously blocked by the dolly 2x8's. This way I get the sills fully covered.


My dolly is made for 53-62 but I modified to use it for the C2's also. Not ideal, but it works fine. A much better C2 dolly would have fully adjustable sliding posts to catch just the sill body mounts.

Rich

[Gary R.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Rich
Great shop you have in your backyard. I am looking at a 3 car garage with 9' ceilings. I would like to get a lift to go with my Kwik-lift and then a Bridgeport, surface grinder, and lathe. Everyone tells me to move out of CT but been here too long I guess.

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Rich
Great shop you have in your backyard. I am looking at a 3 car garage with 9' ceilings. I would like to get a lift to go with my Kwik-lift and then a Bridgeport, surface grinder, and lathe. Everyone tells me to move out of CT but been here too long I guess.

Gary, Sounds nice. I had a chance to buy a Bridgeport a while back but no room here. Very inexpensive, but 3 Phase.

Whatever you build, try to make it bigger than your plan. Never enough room. 9' ceilings might be a bit low for a 2 Post lift though.

Rich

[Greg H.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Hi Richard,
Thanks for your quick response and your detailed photos. I am now off to get some 4x4’s and I will follow up with photos of what I have put together. I have just replaced both of my sill channels and that task required me to support my body by the door hinge a pillars and strikers. I built a tube steel platform to span my lift arms and that allowed me to lift the body and work overhead and remove and replace the bird cage sills.

Thanks Greg

[Greg H.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Hi Richard,
Please look over my 4 x 4 and tell me if this will work for lifting my body. I have notched clearance holes so I can bypass the side panel hangers.

Thanks Greg

[Tony S.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Hi Richard,
Please look over my 4 x 4 and tell me if this will work for lifting my body. I have notched clearance holes so I can bypass the side panel hangers.

Thanks Greg

Greg that looks fine. Clever idea to scallop out for the brackets.

One other thing. You may want to add some 1 x 1 along the top between the brackets to prevent side to side movements of the beams. This will also lock the beam into the sill. A 2 post lift causes a bit of a "jerkiness" when raising so if you add more features to stabilize the beams it will ease stress......on the lift operator.

Rich

[Gary R.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Rich
Did you ever use a 4 post to pull a body? I have see some guys raise the ramps over the body with slings and do it? I will probably end up with a 4 post lift in that 9' ceiling garage.

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Rich
Did you ever use a 4 post to pull a body? I have see some guys raise the ramps over the body with slings and do it? I will probably end up with a 4 post lift in that 9' ceiling garage.

Hi Gary, No I haven't but others have. A friend used his but made special horizontal hooks to grab the sills and attached them to the post ramps using straps.

You have to ensure you have enough free lift space to free the body and clear it from the engine so you can roll the frame out. Here's a quick shot of my 4 post and I don't think there would be enough lift to clear it from the frame. I don't think I could get the ramps down far enough and then clear the chassis for rollout.

Mine has 84" high columns but the ramps at the underside only reach to 68-70"" from the floor. In this shot the underside is only 63" high from the floor as it's not fully raised to keep the car above my 59 on that dolly away from the overhead door. I have a nice head-bump/lump as I forgot it's a bit lower than normal.


They do make "High-Rise" lifts to get a PU Truck underneath. That may be one to consider.

Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Today I got the bare frame back from the Powdercoat shop. Nicely done, semi-gloss. Since this will be a nice driver, it's a preferred method for longevity.



All new chassis parts due in UPS today too, and Bair's called me a while ago and shipping the rebuilt trailing arm assemblies tonight. Funny how it all comes together...... sometimes.

All chassis pieces that will be reused are a work in progress. Mostly all are now ready for paint. Front control arms at the media shop along with the new(used) rear differential crossmember and original driveshaft. I asked the sandblast guy if he could save the nice original green inspection stripe mark on the driveshaft after I scraped undercoating off of it, but he said NO.

I sent out the front control arms and half shafts on the last project due to time constraints, but on this project I'm doing the rebuilding on those items, so I'll cover those tasks in this thread.

Yesterday and this afternoon I'm having fun with half-shaft u-joints. Note that you MUST use a reinforcing plate on the outer flanges or the flange can bend or break in the press. I put some 7/16" flat washers behind it to keep it flat due to the backside circular protruding ring which sticks out a bit.


Rich

[Greg H.]

Thanks Greg