66 How many body shims to start with?

[Thomas H.]

Shortly we will be re-introducing the body to the frame, after a long separation, on this 66 I've started reassembling. When the body was removed, there was no record kept of the number of shims at each body mount location - water under the bridge.

So.... is there a rule of thumb for the number of shims to start with?

Tom

[David H.]

Re: 66 How many body shims to start with?

Shortly we will be re-introducing the body to the frame, after a long separation, on this 66 I've started reassembling. When the body was removed, there was no record kept of the number of shims at each body mount location - water under the bridge.

So.... is there a rule of thumb for the number of shims to start with?

Tom

Tom

In "stickies" section above are restoration pdf. One is Shimming a C2 Body - link below.

Shimming a C2 Body (ncrsmac.org)

Dave

[Gary B.]

Re: 66 How many body shims to start with?

[Richard M.]

Re: 66 How many body shims to start with?

Gary I went back and found that post. It's HERE.

Rich

[Thomas H.]

Re: 66 How many body shims to start with?

Thanks for the input guys. Rich has always been a treasure trove of info!

This body was removed maybe 10 years ago, its all primed and has the jambs blown in. I "volunteered" to re-assemble the frame and drivetrain, I like doing it anyway - sort of therapy - plus a nice project for my new garage.

I'm sure there will be more questions as I progress but so far so good.

Tom

[Gary B.]

Re: 66 How many body shims to start with?

Tom,

Can you keep us updated on how the shimming goes? I’d love to know if starting with 2 or 3 at the center locations is workable. Not based on any personal experience whatsoever, starting with 4 just sounds unnecessarily high.

Also, I’d love some photos of how you tape the shims with masking tape.

Gary

[Thomas H.]

Re: 66 How many body shims to start with?

Sure, I expect to do the body drop sometime in May. We have an early June body shop date to meet.

Could make an interesting newsletter article for our chapter newsletter as well......

Tom

[Patrick B.]

Re: 66 How many body shims to start with?

The 1966 Chevrolet service manual has a drawing of a perfect frame with the levels of all the body mounts and a couple of reference points. If you had such a frame it would work without any shims or with equal shims at all body mounts. With the aid of a pendulum mounted laser level you can measure how your frame differs from the perfect frame and thus determine the number of shims needed at each point before you mount the body. The laser level is a common carpentry tool that projects a horizontal level red laser light line on walls. They probably sell or rent them at Home Depot. A handy man friend loaned me one when I measured my 67 frame.

I am not home to consult my shop manual, but as I recall there were two holes in the front sides of the frame as reference points and there were rear reference points of some sort. First put the frame on 4 jack stands and adjust/shim each jack stand so that each front reference point and each rear reference point are at the same level side to side and the difference between the front reference level and the rear reference level is what the the diagram in the shop manual shows. If the frame the slightly twisted use the average of the front elevations and the rear elevations to gage the difference in front to rear reference levels. If the frame twist is more than slight, fix the frame before trying to mount the body.

With the frame is this level position. Place a good metal yard stick on each body mount and read the height of the level laser light line. (You would have used the same yard stick with the laser level to level the reference points in the first step.) With the height measurements, you can compare the relative heights of each body mount to the drawing of the perfect frame. Determine which body mount is the highest relative to the drawing. From that point determine how far each other body mount need be shimmed to reach the relative levels of the body mounts in the drawing. You can add one or two shims to every location if you want to have that many shims at the highest body mount. This method will get you very close the final shim count. The next step is to add or subtract shims after the body is on to try to perfect the door gaps, but that may not be necessary if this is done carefully enough.

[John F.]

Re: 66 How many body shims to start with?

Wow! I would really like to see a step-by-step video of this.