Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

[Edward C.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

The "Veddy Dangerous" line came when Sallah saw the Asps down in the Ark room. Then he said, "You go fust". When the monkey died he said, "bad dates"...

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

The "Veddy Dangerous" line came when Sallah saw the Asps down in the Ark room. Then he said, "You go fust". When the monkey died he said, "bad dates"...

Right! Good catch!

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Fun part.....Assembly. Warning. Picture heavy as usual.....

[Leif A.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Damn, you do nice work, Rich...as usual!!

[Bob W.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Rich super job and great photos. What brand of silver paint are you using looks great.

Bob

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Thanks....

Bob, I'm using Duplicolor Cast Iron Engine Paint on the steering parts, driveshaft, and halfshafts, differential, etc. Eastwood Silver Cad on those caliper brackets. This one's a nice hotrod driver Corvette so not worried about the points issues.

Yesterday I cleaned the dirty nasty functional rear differential and today after a lot of wire brushing and Acetone'ing with rags, it got a fresher appearance. Also took the new Eaton 9-Leaf rear spring apart and spritzed up each leaf with some Machinery Gray. Before reassembly I swedged the lower cups to the main leaf using a press. The original differential crossmember was beyond it's usable life so I acquired a nice used piece. We couldn't powdercoat due to the 400*F oven bake as it could damage the rubber mounts, so I had to shoot it with Semi-Gloss Enamel.


before...


after...

[James G.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

You are having too much fun Rich.

I notice how the bays look ''MOTORHOME'' friendly when you ''get old''. Will a nice PROVOST diesel pusher fit?

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Hi Jim, Sorry no big MH in my future. I wanted the high doors to reach over the lifts.

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Chassis just about done. Next up is the Fuel Tank and brake calipers, then the power train assembly will be reunited after a exterior freshening up.

All hardware to be torqued and cotter pinned later.


Some before and after shots.....

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The cable clevis was upside down, and the cable was tied to it using a knot.


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Original caliper rivets drilled free from the hubs, restored hubs with Timken USA bearings, then new USA rotors assembled then brake lathed to spec.
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[Donald O.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

The original differential crossmember was beyond it's usable life so I acquired a nice used piece. We couldn't powdercoat due to the 400*F oven bake as it could damage the rubber mounts, so I had to shoot it with Semi-Gloss Enamel.

Why didn't you remove the rubber mounts, get it coated, and then install new rubber mounts?
Just curious is all.

Richard, you really do some great work!

Don

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Why didn't you remove the rubber mounts, get it coated, and then install new rubber mounts?
Just curious is all.

Richard, you really do some great work!

Don

Hi Don, Thanks.....

Yes good point, it was a rock and a hard place.....

When I brought the frame and crossmember to the Powdercoat shop, about 1.5 hours round trip, is the time when I found out the 400* would hurt the rubber. I never did a Powdercoat before on anything. Rather than taking it back, pulling the rubber mounts, then another round trip to the Powdercoater, it was more economical to refinish it right here by myself using a good primer and semi-gloss black. The rubber mounts were fine and came from a non-oily environment. It was a nice dry stored original piece I bought to replace the badly rusted part on the original frame.

Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

After flushing the 4 calipers with denatured alcohol,(switching to DOT 5 silicone), all were given a external cleanup and a semi-gloss black refinish. I used some paper cups over the pistons to keep paint off of the rubber seals. Cleaned all bleeder and hose ports/threads and installed new bleeders. All new hoses and hard lines will make for a much safer brake system.

Front hub & rotor assemblies completed with new grease packed USA Timken bearings and seals then bearings adjusted to spec. I did a final runout check on both. Both at ~0.002". The brake pads are also new. All 4 corners done.

The Lone Star boxes were just paint supports.




I had a helper, so we removed the decklid to prepare me for the ugly task of removing the spring towers. This is always a unfriendly task. The fear of broken bolts is always a haunting memory. Fortunately after about a hour of body twisting and ooo's and ahhh's and uhoh's, both towers were out.

On the driver side, when I tilted the tower to the side to remove it, the spring snapped right off of the tower hook. It grabbed the courtesy light wire when it popped off.....funny. The spring was going to pop off, likely only after a few more decklid cycles so caught this one just in time. The was the worst rust of any convertible decklid tower I've experienced. The DS underbody tower bolt square nut had broken away from the #4 mount before, and someone had it off in the past.

New springs will be installed after some repairs to the lower tower hooks. I'll fabricate some new metal after media blasting. I have new square nuts and nut cages, which will be attached using my machine screw method. More on that later.

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

This morning I repaired that nasty decklid spring tower piecewith a self fabricated part. There are repros available but this repair was pretty simple. I hand formed a .090" thick piece of stock to match the good side from a template I made and welded it to the prepared remaining piece. I shot them both with some protective color, stretched the new springs using my shop press, inserted spacers(wood sticks) to keep them lengthened, and loaded them in the towers. Swung the tower arms, removed the spacers.....All fixed.

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

Here's the repair of the #4 body mount nut sand cages. The DS rubber mount and washer was rust seized to the mount. After some chiseling it was free. Nasty. The body mount is actually okay and will be protected from further rust with a coating of rust blocker. Normally I'd replace these but for this task, it's driver status only.


Using my 90* angle drill and a #25 drill bit, I drill out the old aluminum cage rivets and right through the #4 mount lower section. I then tap the 2 holes for#10-24 x 1/2"L stainless steel machine screws. I use a flat and lockwasher also. My tap wrench is a ratcheting type to get into the tight area, but a non ratchet type can be used albeit a tad slower as you have to slide and swing the bar at every turn.


DS done. The ends of the screws sit flush under the mount so as to not interfere with the body mount rubbers and shims.


Here you can see the ends of the 2 screws after prepping the mount for paint. The square nut will be spot welded back on. This captures the lower lid spring tower 5/16-18 bolt. 2 rivets wer gone and will be replaced.


Pass side showing area before drilling.


Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

More body related issues are delaying the re-connection of the 2 major pieces of this car. It's amazing something very bad didn't happen during use.

Some of the issues.....
Interesting accelerator pedal installation method. The underbody nutplate reinforcement lost it's weld-nuts long ago. Pretty yellow drywall anchors were devised to keep the pedal firmly affixed(not) to the floor....I mean carpet heel pad.


Corrections: New parts. The replacement carpet from many years ago never fit the floor properly, but had to remain offset. Functionality prompted the use of pop-rivets and backup washers. Not typical, but preferred in this case. To help line up the floor wooden/fiber reinforcement block and pedal to the underbody nutplate reinforcement, I use studs to maintain alignment and replace one at a time with the Phillips 1/4-20 screws.


As I was under the dash, I noticed a wire spliced into the Orange brake light swictch feed. It went down to the fuse panel and was plugged into the POWER WINDOW (unfused) terminal. Someone bypassed the COURTESY/BRAKE lamp fused feed. I pulled the fuse(which should be a 10A, but was a 20A), and tested continuity.......intermittent, when I wiggled the fuseclip. So I had to go all-in. I removed the fuse panel. Found heavy corrosion on the fues clip wire. The Brown ACC feed was also corroded. I carefully cut them away as the wires are short in the harness.
If the courtesy lamps or brake lights shorted out, a fire would have ensued as the fused circuit was bypassed.


I removed the suspect clips, media cleaned, silver solder tinned them, tested spring action with a fuse, and resoldered them to the wires. I then installed the correct 10A fuses to the panel.


New tunnel insulation after replacing some rusted clips. I know, I know, I cheated again using pop-rivets.


Next up was getting the engine prepped for installation. Found a problem in the clutch fork to throwout bearing. You may want to save these pictures for future reference. This is what happens when the fork clip is incorrectly installed to the bearing.


I did manage to do something somewhat constructive without having to fix previous errors. Fresh engine paint and misc cleanup.


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[Richard M.]

Re: Another Bad Frame - 1966 Chassis Restoration

More body prep and some final chassis related activity.

The luggage stop panel carpet was loose when I removed the rusted seatbelt reinforcement cables so I wanted to check something. All six of the panel rivets were corroded and broken free from the steel plate. This is a common problem with convertibles.

You cannot get a drill into the underbody area straight enough to drill them out, and there was nothing to drill into from the inside. So I cut the rivet heads on the outside of the underbody using a small sharp cold chisel and popped the remaining pieces out forward with a punch.


Again, my trusty atypical pop-rivet gun using 3/16" rivets and backup washers returned secured functionality to the luggage stop panel. The panel must be flush to the body when fastening is done. It was about 1/4" from being flat, so I had to use wood wedges against the seat bottom rear frame to keep it flush during riveting. A few body holes had cracks, likely from body twist over time. This cars' early life in upstate New York took it's toll in many ways.


Chassis is done waiting for the body prep.
.


One last thing before the body goes back on. I convinced the chassis that something didn't look very good. The old Hurst Competition shifter just didn't look right on this newly restored frame, and it was old and loose and rusty. The chassis talked back and said, yes, you're right, I don't want that 70's hot rod look on me any more when my driver shifts me around. I'd really rather have that "stock" shifter handle look.


So I found this nicely refurbished Hurst Muncie top loader and a nice slightly used T handle to go with it. The chassis said thank-you.


Next up will be body drop after some final underbody cleanup and rust removal/refinishing.

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