396/425 L78 sway bar mounting holes in the chassis. All 65's or L78 only

[Gary C.]

Do all 1965 chassis have mounting holes with integral nuts inside the chassis or were they added for the L78?
Thanks,
Gary

[Patrick B.]

Re: 396/425 L78 sway bar mounting holes in the chassis. All 65's or L78 only

Early 1965 model frames do not have the dent in the front crossmember for the big block damper so they would not have the sway bar mounting nuts. I do not know about later 65 frames, but my 70 LT-1 small block frame has the rear sway bar mounting provisions.

[Gary C.]

Re: 396/425 L78 sway bar mounting holes in the chassis. All 65's or L78 only

So we could assume that both the dent and rear sway bar mounts were installed on all chassis from around the time they introduced the L78.

[Patrick B.]

[Mike T.]

Re: 396/425 L78 sway bar mounting holes in the chassis. All 65's or L78 only

I've got that front crossmember 'dent' on my 65 L75 Coupe, VIN#4212 and it was the same dent on my Dad's L75 PG A/C Coupe, VIN#7739.
Pics attached is back in the mid 80's when we had my 65's body off the frame.
As to the rear sway bar, only found on Bigblocks in 65/66/67, my 65 L78 has the threaded holes on the underside of the rear frame but my 65 Coupe does not. Curious why they would have anticipated and allowed for that dent to clear the BB balancer up front but not add the threaded sway bar holes out back until the actual Bigblocks were in production.
What raised this question for Gary and myself was me finding another possible L78 to add to our list and like so many other midyears,
lotsa things have been changed over the years, not just the drivetrain being changed out. In the case of this other potential L78, it does have a few telltale items like the drivers side battery (and no sign of factory A/C), drivers side wheel well access panel, high redline tach and 80 pound oil pressure gauge but since the cluster was sent out and refurbished by a previous owner there is no 'old' white sticker with the LB stuck to the back of the cluster. It no longer has the rear sway bar but does have the two threaded holes for the sway bar brackets while my early 65 Coupe only has a single slot in that area. His VIN, by the way, is up over #13K.DSCN6666.jpg
So, any members with 65 Smallblock Corvettes that have the two threaded holes on each side of the frame out back?
Thanks,

[James W.]

Re: 396/425 L78 sway bar mounting holes in the chassis. All 65's or L78 only

My late production L79 equipped '65 has them.

James

[Mike T.]

Re: 396/425 L78 sway bar mounting holes in the chassis. All 65's or L78 only

James - I just took a pic of that rear frame area on my 66 L79, VIN in the 5400 range, and the two threaded holes are present while my 65 Coupe VIN#4212 does not have them. IMG_4109.jpg