Day 57 - Finish welding crossmember, modify steering column and build that front suspension!

OK so on Saturday Jesse came over and finished welding the front cross member and rad support. I had to help my dad sand and stain my mom's deck so I was busy during that, but then afterwards we watched the Rod and Custom "how to" DVD again and got started on the steering column and front suspension. This is just a dry build, we're still going to remove the suspension again so that we can paint underneath. The frame rails are being painted with por-15 rust preventative paint. Once that paint is applied we will rebuild the front suspension and steering and then it will be final!

1. Modifying the steering column:

a. Cut the old steering shaft from the steering box (it's a fixed shaft)

b. Put the shaft back in the column at it's original position and take a measurement from the top of the shaft to the top of the column.

c. Place the shaft next to the column at that same length.

d. The splice joint needs to be at a minimum of 1" inside the column, the splice joint is 4" long total, so you want 2" of extension and 2" of original shaft inside the splice (with the splice itself at least 1" up into the column).

e. Weld the splice joint together to extension and shaft.

f. Install bearing retainer, weld into place.

g. Slide black locking collar over, alan wrench on (prevents the shaft from moving up and down column).

OK so with the steering column modified and ready to go we set it aside. We're not ready to install it yet, still have a lot more cleaning and grinding to do, plus painting!

Next we started our dry run of installing the suspension and steering.

This is a pretty detailed process. The first thing we did was install the lower A-arm (control arm).

There's a long bolt that goes through the cross member, coat the shit out of this was anti-seize compound.

Then what you want to do is install it and make it level with the cross member by using a clamped straight edge underneath the cross member. This is needed to position the sway bar so that you can weld the sway bar brackets onto the frame rails. Here's what that process looked like:

Note: Cover any painted items in foil anytime you're welding near them.

With the sway bar bracket in place, we proceeded to built the upper a-arm (control arm), put the tie rod ends on, and put the spindle in place to make sure it all fit, and guess what:

Boo ya! Oh happy day!

Day 53 - Finishing the Cross Member

Last night Jesse came back over to finish the cross member. It was a time consuming effort because the tops of the sides of the cross member hold the upper control arms and is where all the adjustments are made for alignment. It's really gotta be right on.

We also fit the fenders on top of the sheet metal, going to the rad support, just to verify that we made our measurements correctly. Everything looks awesome:

Note: The only reason I don't have a beer in my hand is because I'm a boss and I already downed mine and chucked it (while still balancing) into the trash bag. GET SOME.

Side Note: Sorry Jesse........

Days 42 - 51 - A lot of freaking work!

WELL it's been about 10 days since the last post, mostly due to the fact that I got the flu. It sucked. I'm still not completely over it, but whatever. Luckily work didn't completely stop. Between the extremely talented Jesse Fast from Fix it Fast Auto Care and my other buddies John Welsh and Brian Hopkins, they got a lot of stuff done while I just supervised with my hot tea in hand!

Before we get into it, here's an updated pic!

As you can see we're starting to have a front end! We started right before I got sick, here's what we did:

1. So first thing we did was cut the driver's side frame rail. We did this so we could remove the rest of the front end. We decided we were going to replace both frame rails at least 25 inches back, both of the front fender aprons, and the entire front radiator support.

We cut the driver's side frame rail back the same distance we cut the passenger side back (22.5" from the end of the outter frame rail). This ended up not mattering because we decided to go a little further later, but we will get to that. We also had to make a quick cut at the top between the two fender aprons:

2. We went back AND LEVELED THE CAR AGAIN. Seriously guys, do this often. Measure 400x, cut once. Why let any mistakes get made? The more we measure, the surer we are. In the picture directly above you can see we made a datum line with wood along the floor. On the previous post we posted a link to the measurements from the datum line you must use to level the car. We also bought a 6 foot level and leveled from every possible angle we could over and over again.

3. Next we had to finish the disassembly. Yes, there was still a couple things to be done.

Removing the Heater Assembly.

a. Cut the hoses at the firewall (they will be replaced anyway) these hoses run from the engines coolant system to the heater core inside the car.

b. Disconnect the 2 wire harnesses from the heater box inside the car:

c. Remove the bolt from the main hanger found above the door handle on the heater assembly (NOTE: hanger has a gray ground wire to it, mine was cut, and mine also had 2 nuts behind the bolt... major pain in the ass to remove):

d. Remove the defroster tension cable from the defroster unit (runs to the heater controls):

e. Remove the 4 bolts from the heater fan motor (in the engine bay):

f. Once the heater assembly drops to the floor you can access the remaining 2 tension cables for the rest of the heater controls. Remove them AND BE SURE to label everything.

4. Removing the Window Chrome Strips (and Drip Rail Chrome Strips)

First thing you want to do is remove the phillips screws that hold the inner rails on, there are 10 on each. Plus there's a little clip for the molding.

After that these basically come off with some force, TRY NOT TO DESTROY THEM... apparently they don't make reproductions of the inside ones (eeeek)

Once we finished there we scrapped all the old seal out from the inside of the drip rails.

5. Remove the Rear Brake line and Fuel Line

In my case both need to be replaced (for the larger engine and larger disc brakes). But still... be gentle, right John?

Mostly it's held up with clips that need to be pryed open. In the front there's a couple bolted clips as well.

6. Remove the Gas Pedal

To do this there's just 2 bolts in the engine bay that hold the clips in place that hold the gas pedal in place. Then in the inside of the car there's a single screw on the back of the gas pedal. Remove that and slide it out.

7. Remove the Speedometer cable

At this point it was just hanging there and in the way. Pull it out... (normally connected from transmission to the instrument bezel).



At this point I got super sick and nothing happened for a few days. Until Jesse Fast from Fix it Fast Auto Care came and helped me out. The man is a God send. Here's what the process looked like...

I don't want to go into too much detail about the exact measurements we used BECAUSE EVERYONE WILL DO THIS DIFFERENTLY. The key to this process is to cut back as far as you need to to get rid of all the rust that's eating through your frame rails. Rust is like a cancer and it WILL SPREAD. So we went back pretty far and did what we had to do to make the new frame rail extensions fit.

We used .030 welding wire, gas shielded. You must must must make sure everything is 100% level and size correct. Use existing measurements, factory manuals, and the internet forums for reference.

Also what we did was try and make our repairs inside the center of where our new cross member is welded into place. The cross member is 9 inches wide and acts as a coupling around the frame rails. You can't see it yet, but there are tops to those new cross members and once they are welded into place it will make a complete seal around the areas of the frame rails where the patches are making a complete coupling around all repairs. This is ideal, keep your patches hidden and double patched if possible. We may also in the future add more strength by putting in horizontal cross members at the tops of the engine bay as well as triangulation in the front. Stay tuned!