Installing mini-tubs, DSE Quadra Link, and more

[jerhofer]

My son has a 1969 SS Camaro that he has owned for 12 years. Over the years he has installed Vintage Air, Tremec 5 speed, and a fuel injection system that he designed and built from scratch.

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In an attempt to reduce the stress cracks that appear from twisting of the body under torque, he had decided to replace the rear frame pieces and install heavy duty frame connectors. We are also going to mini-tub it and install the DSE Quadra-Link rear suspension.

My neighbor had two extra stalls and graciously allowed me to take my cars there so we would have the entire garage for this project. Today my son hauled all of the various parts to my house. After unloading them from his sagging '79 El Camino, we trial assembled the rear disc brakes along with his new 15x10 Torque Thrust wheels. Everything fit as it should.

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To make cutting out the frame members, wheelwell sheet metal and the metal for installing the frame extenders, he bought a plasma cutter. He has been practicing with it in making some of the gussets that will be needed.

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Tomorrow he is bringing the car over and we will begin taking out the interior, remove the rear end, springs, gas tank, etc. It should be interesting.

[jpdeuce]

Take your time, protect your paint finish and good luck!!

[jerhofer]

Take your time, protect your paint finish and good luck!!

Any suggestions on protecting the paint finish?

[sr73bu]

wow! love the injection! way cool!

I like the 15" TT too, its going to have a nice vintage trans-am/pro-street/pro-touring look to it.... good luck with the updates!

-Sean

[Wiedo]

PAINT PROTECTION
We use 3M # 05916 welding paper. Its got a sticky back & works very well. Wiedo

[jerhofer]

PAINT PROTECTION
We use 3M # 05916 welding paper. Its got a sticky back & works very well. Wiedo

Thanks.

[jpdeuce]

I have a local source for very heavy paper that works great. Get some really good 3M masking tape for all of your edges. I use a couple of layers over the trunk and tail panel edges because climbing in and out of a 69"s trunk is not such an easy task.

[jordanh]

I'm curious on the brands of the steering wheel and seats? PM me if you dont want to post here.

[jerhofer]

I'm curious on the brands of the steering wheel and seats? PM me if you dont want to post here.

Those are Recaro seats and it is a MOMO steering wheel. Matt installed the steering wheel not long after he got the car. I found the seats and installed them while I had the car. I also installed the Cal Tracs while I had the car so we both have time invested in this car.

The pictures of Matt's engine on the original post were old photos. I took some of the current setup today. He made all of the carbon fiber pieces you see with the exception of the valve covers. I got a call from him from France and he told me he needed some measurements of the Hilborn intake manifold. He wanted me to use a ruler to show the scale. I happened to have a very purple and white ruler which showed up great in the photos. From these 30 photos, he designed all of the linkage, the sizes he need to make the trumpets, where the injectors would go after he drilled the holes, and to allow enough clearance for the hood to clear all of this. On top of that, he built an oven in his garage to cure the carbon fiber pieces. He said he nearly burnt down his French garage.

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It was a long day but we accomplished a lot today. Matt decided it would be best to mock up the axle with the brakes and lines to make sure everything fit. All was well on one side, but the other presented a problem. He could not install the long bolt that holds the brake pads as it interfered with a bracket on the axle. Our first thought was to drill a hole in the bracket so we could pass the bolt through it. However, as luck would have it, the place we needed to drill a hole was exactly on one of the welds. Time for plan "B"

After some discussion, it was decided that we would have to install the caliper with pads to the mount and then install the mount to the axle. This presented another problem as the nuts were not accessible once we mounted the rotor. The solution was to weld nuts on the back side of the mount so we could install the bracket. This makes changing the pads on this side a royal pain in the !@#. However, since rear brake pads wear so slowly, it was a compromise we could live with.

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We also had to modify the brake line holder to accomodate the fitting with it's locating keys. Matt also welded on a stud to hold the distribution block for the brake lines. Once he was sure everything fit, he removed all of the parts so he could have the axle housing either painted or powder coated.

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[jerhofer]

While Matt was working on the axle, I was preparing the trunk and interior. Everything had to come out of the trunk including the battery and the NOS bottle.

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Now it was time to remove the seats, carpet, electronics, rear side panels, seat belts, etc. He had the floor pans replaced about three years ago but a problem surfaced on the passenger side. It appears condensation is leaking from the AC system and is pooling in that footwell. We will have to look into that. The pans under the rear seats are original and have some very slight surface rust. Overall, it looked better than Matt expected. We are going to replace all of the original insulation pieces with Dynamat. After pulling the carpet and seeing how faded and worn it was, I now know what his Christmas present will be!

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He uses a Tec 3 computer to control the fuel injection.

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After lunch at Mickey D's and his fourth stop at Ace Hardware to buy fasteners, we began to attack the bottom. First thing to go was the exhaust, then the drive shaft and the gas tank. He is replacing the brake lines so we cut out the old ones rather than trying to remove the rusted fittings.

Time to get the big heavy rear end out of there. Matt was very concerned about the change in the balancing point once we removed the axle and leaf springs. We sure did not want the car to tip off the hoist so we tied the car to the hoist with tie down straps. Good thing because even with the straps in place, the rear of the car came up off the supports. We had to ratchet the straps even tighter. Plus the driver's door now did not want to close. To put some weight on the rear, we put three five gallon pails in the trunk and filled them with water. The door now closed. When we are cutting and fitting everything, we are going to use my tall jack supports under the front end to make sure the car stays in alignment.

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We remounted the wheels and tires, removed all of the fasteners, and then simply raised the car away from everything. Worked like a charm and it was now 6:30PM and time to quit for the day.

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[Part Time]

Very nice car. Can you give me a few details on your new rear wheels and tires? Back space? Tire size, also what is the width of the rear from DSE? Keep up the great work and glad to see a father son project.

[jerhofer]

Very nice car. Can you give me a few details on your new rear wheels and tires? Back space? Tire size, also what is the width of the rear from DSE? Keep up the great work and glad to see a father son project.

Thanks. 3 1/2" backspace with 295/50's. The axle length is 54.5".

[jerhofer]

Progress slowed dramatically the past two days. My son had an appointment Wednesday morning concerning his new job that begins later in December. Once he was back from the appointment, we hauled the new 9" rear end to my body guy to have it painted. It will be ready next week.

After lunch, we tackled the next item on his list. According to his research, if you install sub-frame connectors, you should also install solid front sub-frame bushings. We purposely raised the car by the rocker panels so we could first loosen and then remove the old bushings. Here is where our forward motion hit the pause mode.

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Five of the six mounts had substantial rust damage on the front sub-frame. Enough rust that Matt had to install reinforcing plates. This presented an opportunity for using his new plasma cutter which worked great. After cutting the pieces, drilling the center hole for the bushing and then welded in each plate. Including the time it took to get some necessary parts, most of yesterday and today was spent on this project. This discovery may have caused some of the flexing that he has noticed. Fortunately, the rust was limited to the sub frame area as the body area at each mount was in good shape.

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While Matt was doing repairs, I was cleaning up some of the items we had taken off and out of the car. A few years back, he had installed stainless steel fuel lines and an aftermarket fuel tank for his fuel injection. A little scrubbing saw both of them clean up nicely.

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Other items needing cleaning was his computer brain, his Alpine amp that had been under the passenger seat, the fuel filter assembly and his seat belts. The rear seat belts cleaned up nicely but the fronts showed some significant wear and he ordered a set to replace them. Probably a good move. All of the belts were had 1969 on the tags.

I also rolled out the pressure washer and cleaned up the old 12 bolt rear end that he is going to put on Craigslist. Since his car is a real SS, it came with this rear end from the factory. It still has the Cal-Trac's on the leaf springs as well as the original drum brakes.

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Below are some photos of the bottom of the car with everything removed. Tomorrow we are going to spray the bottom of the car with engine degreaser, let it sit for an hour or so and then use the pressure washer to clean it up as best we can before we begin cutting. Matt and his family are going away for a few days for a much needed vacation. We will resume work the middle of next week, although I will continue to clean up his seats and other sundry items while he is gone.

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[LeighP]

Nice work.....some great additions going into the car.

[jerhofer]

Messy day today!! We lined the walls with plastic, sprayed the bottom with degreaser and used the high pressure sprayer to clean up the bottom of the car. Matt's family came over around noon to celebrate a late Thanksgiving.

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[jerhofer]

Lots of grunt work being done to make sure we don't have a fire when we begin cutting. To that end, we needed to remove the undercoating in the cutting areas as well as others for cosmetic clean up. Matt bought a power scraper that worked very well in removing most of the undercoating.

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To get the rest of it, we began brushing on Aircraft Remover, scraped the areas and then used paper towels to remove the excess. This did the trick in the areas we completed today. We still have some additional areas to clean up tomorrow and then the cutting will begin.

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[bonecrrusher]

That intake is bad ass looking - you and your son should bring your cars to RTTH's next year.

[jerhofer]

That intake is bad ass looking - you and your son should bring your cars to RTTH's next year.

Son says thanks. Below is a picture my son took while he was in France building the fuel injection system. That is his son who was helping.

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We should try to make RTTH as that happens not far from us. Matt may have a bit more time for that type of thing this coming year.

[jerhofer]

After taping the edges of the car for protection, the engineer in my son came forth. After finding some string for his plumb bob, we proceeded to mark on the garage floor the four reference points on the car. These measurements will show the relative position of the front subframe to the rear of the car. Matt wanted to make sure we had a car that was within factory specs before he began cutting it up. One each side of the car there is a hole near the front body mount and at the rear lower area. He suspended the bob from each of these holes while I marked the spot on masking tape on the floor. The measurement should be 54.5". Our measurement showed the front subframe to be 1/4" towards the front of the car and was consistent on both sides. That was within spec and, at least in Matt's mind, preferred as moving everthing 1/4" to the rear would make the engine even closer to the cowl. So all was well here.

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Now on to the cutting!!!!

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[jerhofer]

Plasma cutters are amazing!! I have never seen one in action. It truly cuts metal like butter. The first cut was the rear frame on the driver's side. Matt began the cut at the bottom on the front edge and ended this section near the top of the rail. Once it was out of the way, he then cut the rest of the rail in sections. This was necessary in order to get the cutter in place. I manned the ladder with a hose to douse a couple small fires in the trunk area. The most difficult part was at the rear as the access in this area is poor. Eventually, everthing was lying on the floor.

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The plasma cutter makes remarkably clean cuts but grinding was necessary to both smooth out the cuts and prep for welding.

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The replacement frame piece is made of much heavier material and is supposed to exactly fit. Not exactly!! Matt had to do three pie shaped cuts in order to make it fit snuggly to the body. The last thing he did today was bevel the edges of each of these cuts to prep them for some spot welds to hold the piece in place. That will be the job one tomorrow.

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More cutting and fitting to come tomorrow.

[CruizinKev]

looks great! good work so far! can't wait to see the new wheel under there! :twothumbs

[jerhofer]

looks great! good work so far! can't wait to see the new wheel under there! :twothumbs

Thanks. We can't wait to see the wheel in place as well.

After test fitting the new frame rail, Matt decided it needed one more pie cut to make it fit well. Now that he was satisfied, he welded each of the pie cuts, supported the frame rail with floor jacks and then screwed it to the panel above for temporary fitting.

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Since the next step involved cutting away some of the floor pan from inside the car, we decided it was time to apply the 3M welding paper to protect the interior and exterior. It has a slightly adhesive back and was easy to install.

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The leaf spring pockets are re-used and are a mounting point for the new suspension. Some of the holes in the original spring pockets were distorted so Matt ordered new ones. These pockets are held in place with three bolts using blind nuts. Two of these nuts are mounted to the body while the third one is mounted in the frame rail. To mount the nut in the frame rail, Matt had to cut a rectangular hole in the side of the frame rail and drill a hole in the bottom for the bolt. Another chance to use the plasma cutter!!! After some filing to clean up the hole, we slipped in the blind nut and bolted the spring pocket in place.

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The floor pan is being cut so Matt can install a 3"x4" frame connectors. The price for this piece was right...FREE!! Red Bull Racing used these pieces in constructing their cars. To make the cars as light as possible, they would mill these pieces as thin as they could go and still be legal. These particular pieces had been milled too much and, since they would not pass tech inspection, they gave them to Matt.

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They are perfect for frame connectors as they are very strong. However, their size requires the floor pan to be cut and they will protrude into the back seat footwell area. The only person who occasionally rides back there is Matt's 11 year old son Garrett. Matt feels Garrett can adapt to a little less footroom. First up Matt had to enlarge the opening when the frame rail meets the body. Eventually there will be an additional approximately 10" 2"x2" piece of steel installed side by side at the bottom of the frame rail for additional support. These two pieces will perfectly match the dimensions of the frame connector and will all be welded together as one piece and then installed.

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Next we had to cut some metal to make the frame connector fit.

[jerhofer]

Now we are ready to cut the floorpan. We chalked lined the bottom for the 4" wide hole we would need. Since Matt was going to cut from inside the car, he drilled two holes along each side of the chalk line as guide holes. Inside the car, he lined up a straight edge with two of the holes and clamped it in place. This gave him his cutting line. Out comes the plasma cutter again. We purposely cut the hole bit by bit to make sure we did not remove any more metal than was necessary.

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After many cutting and fitting sessions, we got to the point where we could cut the frame extender to length. It lines up with the bottom of the frame rail and the bottom of the floor pan. At the front it rests on top of the rear most part of the front subframe. To make sure the front subframe could be removed in the future, Matt will weld 1/8" steel plates on each side and the bottom to connect the front subframe to the frame connector. Since the rear part of the front subframe steel angles towards the front of the car at the bottom, to remove the subframe, you would simply cut the center of each plate. As Matt said, since it is so easy to cut metal with the plasma cutter, it would only take a few minutes to free the subframe from the frame connector.

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Tomorrow we will tack weld the frame connector to the rear frame member, remove the frame member and connector as one piece and then weld them together. After welding is completed, it will be time to weld everything in place.

[LeighP]

Heck of a solid looking frame connector. I hope your using solid body mounts for the sub-frame?

[rickpaw]

Very detailed write up. Can't wait to see more

[jerhofer]

Heck of a solid looking frame connector. I hope your using solid body mounts for the sub-frame?

Yes, the body mounts are solid.

We were hoping that today would be the day we welded the new frame in place. We came close but no cigar. Should be done tomorrow.

Since it is in the same area where the frame connector goes through the body, Matt decided to cut out the pocket for the four link connection to see how everything was going to fit together. DSE provides a template which was very accurate. After making sure it fit correctly, Matt drilled weld holes in the large flat side. Later I drilled those holes through the floor panel so the hole welds will penetrate the panel.

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The next project was making a relief in the frame member for the bolt head for the spring pocket. This is the bolt that will hold the trailing arm into the pocket. Out came the plasma cutter yet again.

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Matt felt that the four link pocket should have more support so he cut a piece of 2"x2" steel to weld to the lower frame member. We then sprayed the all fo the area that would be under the frame with primer.

Now we had all the pieces ready to tack weld the frame, the frame connector and the suport piece together. We supported the pieces with jacks, Matt tack welded them and then we removed it all as one piece so he could complete the welding all the way around. After finishing up the welding, we placed the now one piece unit back in the car. The last thing we did was prepare all the surfaces for welding and prepared the gussets that we will use to weld the frame connector to the front subframe. With all of these thing completed, the next step will be welding the complete unit to the car.

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[jerhofer]

My son asked me to ask a welding question. We will be welding the somehat heavy frame connector and the four link pocket to rather thin sheetmetal on the floor. He wonder is anyone would have some suggestions for the best way to do that and not blow through the sheet metal while getting the heavier metal hot enough to weld.

[MrQuick]

My son asked me to ask a welding question. We will be welding the somehat heavy frame connector and the four link pocket to rather thin sheetmetal on the floor. He wonder is anyone would have some suggestions for the best way to do that and not blow through the sheet metal while getting the heavier metal hot enough to weld. practice. concentrate on the heavier gauge and let the puddle flow to the lighter stuff. Also make sure the thin material is clean. also watch out when you weld gavinized metal, the gases released is not good for you.

[jerhofer]

practice. concentrate on the heavier gauge and let the puddle flow to the lighter stuff. Also make sure the thin material is clean. also watch out when you weld gavinized metal, the gases released is not good for you.

Thanks for the info.

[69bigblok]

Enjoying your project build and thanks for posting great detailed pictures and info!

[jerhofer]

Welding, welding, welding. Matt welded in the left frame, the left frame connector and the pocket for the four link while my wife and I finished up some Christmas shopping. We also bought him a leather welding coat and heavier welding gloves as his fabric weld jacket was being penetrated by sparks. Ouch!! He installed heavy gussets where the frame extender met the front subframe. We drilled a hole in the bottom gusset for access to the body mount.

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Now it was deja vu all over again as we had to do the same thing to the right side. This new right frame rail was off even more than the left one. Matt had to make three pie cuts to correct it lengthwise and two additional pie cuts to correct it from side to side. In the end, he made it fit even better than the left one.

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I had the opportunity to make my first plasma cut today. After removing the right side frame rail, Matt had me cut off the bracket for the emergency brake line. I practiced on the rest of the piece before making the cut. Lined up the cutter along the edges of the bracket and off it came. I then spent some time preppeing it and the one he had removed a few days ago. Time to hit them with some primer and they are ready to be welded in place.

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First thing tomorrow, Matt will be tack welding the pie cuts, removing the frame rail from the car and then welding up each of the pie cuts. After that we will repeat the steps used on the left side to install the frame connector, etc.

By the way, Matt refers to me as the paparazzi!!! I don't understand where he's coming from!!!

[jerhofer]

Today we made good progress towards getting the right side frame rail and frame extender installed. Since the photos for the right side look a lot like the left, I will not bore you with them. When Matt cut out the hole for the DSE four link pocket, I did get some photos of the DSE template and the subsequent cut. I also have a pic of both frame extenders as they now appear in the interior.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12511pockettemplatesm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12511pockettemplate2sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12511pockettemplate3sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12511frameextenderssm-1.jpg

Tomorrow we should be finishing up welding in the frames rails and the extenders. We did discuss how we are going to run the fuel and brake lines. The frame extenders complicate getting those lines to the rear. At this point our plan is to run them inside the frame extenders. To do that, we will have to make access points in the left extender for the brakes lines and in the right one for the fuel lines.

If all goes well tomorrow, we may be making the cuts for the mini-tubs.

[jerhofer]

Both frame rails are in!!!

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12611bothframessm-1.jpg

Matt fabricated an entrance for the fuel lines on the right frame extender. The lines will enter there and exit at the rear next to the frame rail. He will be making a similar entrance on the driver's side for the brake lines.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12611fuellineholes3sm-1.jpg

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https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12611fuellineholes2sm-1.jpg

We will begin the installation of the mini-tubs tomorrow. Would have begun today but we ran out of steel for fabrication and had to make a run for parts. Big holes will soon appear.

[jerhofer]

Yesterday and today were days of making big holes and then preparing to fill them. Since we are installing the Quadra Link rear suspension, the next step was installing the shock tower brace. This required cutting a large hole in the trunk area. The plasma cutter made short work of this but it did take some trimming and fitting to get the brace to fit into the hole. It will be welded in later.

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Next Matt used a sharpie to mark the cut lines for the inner wheel well. Before we could cut it out, we had to drill out the welds on the bracket that supports the trunk lid hinge and the rear seat bracket where it attaches to the wheelwell. Matt purchased a special bit for this step. It helped but separating the bracket from the wheel well still took some persuading. To remove the inner wheewells, DSE recommends drilling out all of the welds. After seeing how long it took to do the two small brackets, we decided to skip this step and use the plasma cutter to remove the wheel well. Even with the plasma cutter,this step took awhile requiring Matt to get into the trunk (For your information, a body will fit into the trunk of a Camaro!!) and contort his bodyto get the cutter where it needed to be. Part of it is also cut out from the interior. Eventually, we had our large hole.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif

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Today we began the process of filling the hole in the wheel well. As usual, getting the tub to fit required some cutting and trimming. We trimmed a little bit at a time to make sure it fit as well as possible. Once we had it fitting like it should, Matt had to make plates to cover the openings above the frame rail. The instructions also called for cutting into our new frame rail. Before we closed up the frame rail, Matt cut a 3/16" plate and welded it inside the frame rail. He then fabricated the frame rail cover from 1/8"steel plate. At the narrowest part, there were basically three plates welded back to back. It should be plenty strong. We still have one more plate to fabricate tomorrow morning and then we will be ready to weld in the tub at the holes I drilled earlier today.

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[jerhofer]

More progress today. Matt finished up the small insert piece and the welded in the tub. It came out great and fit really well.


https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12911tubleftsm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12911tubleft3sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12911tubleft2sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12911tubleft4sm-1.jpg

Other than seam seal, all that remained was modifying the trunk lid bracket by shortening it and re- attaching the rear seat back to the tub.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12911trunklidsupportsm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12911trunklidsupport3sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12911trunklidsupport2sm-1.jpg

We finished the day with Matt removing the right side inner fenderwell panel. You can see the cut line of 2 3/4" below.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12911cutlinesm-1.jpg

I shot the video below of the last piece that Matt cut out today. A little bit of Chop, Cut, Rebuild action!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2qJnBJuESs

Tomorrow we fit the right side tub, make the fill-in panels and, with any luck, weld it in.

Getting closer.

[jerhofer]

First up today was fitting the tub in our newly cut hole. I did not count the holes, but I drilled many of them into the tub. Once that was done, Matt fabricated the filler panels for the frame rail and the area above it.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121011tubsm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121011tubrightsm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121011framerailrightsm-1.jpg

Before we welded in the tub, it was time to install the panhard bar bracket to the frame rail and to the shock tower brace. Since the tub would hide the welding areas for the bracket, Matt welded it in and also welded those areas of the shock tower brace that would have been difficult once the tub was in.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121011shocktowerbracesm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121011panhardrodmountsm-1.jpg

Tomorrow the tub will be welded in. This will complete the major fabbing. Before Matt does his finishing welding, we are going to mock up the rear suspension and make sure everything fits. So tomorrow we should see those fat wheels under the car!!!

[LeighP]

Wow, you guys are really getting stuck into it!

[jerhofer]

Those big wheels and tires were under the car today...at least for a little bit. We installed the axles in the housing, slipped on the disc brakes and mounted the wheels and tires. Next we attached the suspension arms. Then we rolled the axle under the car and hooked everything up. We needed to get the car at approximate ride height so we set the tires on wooden blocks. Once we had the axle located laterally and longitudinally, we installed the shocks so we could locate the mounts on the bottom of the shock tower brace. After tacking the shock mounts, we disassembled everything and Matt began the finish welding. He welded from 11AM to 6PM until he ran out of wire. More welding tomorrow, then it will be time to lay some seam sealer, paint the pieces, and begin putting the car back together. We are on the downhill run now.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121111suspension3sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121111suspension2sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121111suspension8sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121111suspension4sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121111suspension7sm-1.jpg

[ROACHZ28]

Wow! You guys are doing a great job. Your camera takes great picks. Looking forward to seeing the final product!

[CruizinKev]

wow nice work so far!!!

[DirtShark]

Nice, that is a lot of rubber under that car!!!

[jerhofer]

Matt spent nearly all day yesterday welding, making some gussets for the shock tower brace and wire wheeling some areas in preparation for painting.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121311shockmountsm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121311shockmount2sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121311bottom3sm-1.jpg

About seven years ago Matt had back surgery. All of the work of the past three weeks is beginning to take a toll on his poor back. One of the next jobs was installing the pumpkin in the axle assembly. He had a meeting this morning so, while he was gone, I pushed the container holding the pumpkin to the area below my overhead hoist. We then used the hoist to first lift the pumpkin and then lower it onto the axle. Saved both of our backs.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121311pumpkin2sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121311pumpkin3sm-1.jpg

Now we were ready to paint the bottom. First we went over the entire bottom with brake cleaner to remove the remaining dirt. We used POR15 and began with their Prep & Ready material. We brushed on the Prep & Ready and let it sit for about 15 minutes. For paint, we decided to brush on the POR15 as we wanted really good penetration in the welds and other seam areas. This material has the best coverage of any type of paint material we have ever used. It only took a little over a pint to paint the entire bottom from the transmission back.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121311bottom8sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121311bottom9sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121311bottom7sm-1.jpg

Tomorrow we are going to address some areas on the interior, paint the trunk area and use seam sealer on all seams. After that, we can finally begin to put the car back together. Won't be long now.

[bonecrrusher]

Are you going to put anything over top of the por15?

I know there is no UV protection on it - and last time I used it - most of it flaked off over time from the chassis.

[jerhofer]

Are you going to put anything over top of the por15?

I know there is no UV protection on it - and last time I used it - most of it flaked off over time from the chassis.

It is interesting that you mention this. Matt was online last night and discovered this same issue. Seems that POR15 adheres better if you have lots of rust. Guess we will see what happens. At this point, he does not have time to apply anything else as he starts his new job on Monday, the 19th.

He did apply the seam seal to all seams today. He also sprayed the wheelwells with a textured finish. We then installed the Quadra Link suspension pieces. Everything fit well. Since we have not installed the gas tank, the interior, the exhaust and the drive shaft, I stood in the trunk while Matt set the ride height. He will probably have to adjust it once we have everything installed. After preparing the trunk area, he painted it with the factory gray/white spot paint. He still has to apply the clear to the trunk as the paint was not dry by the time we were ready to quit. As you can see below, we masked off the entire car to prevent overspray so I do not have a good picture of the car's stance.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121411wheelwellsm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121411ontheground4sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121411trunksm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121411onthegroundsm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121411ontheground3sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121411ontheground2sm-1.jpg

We spent a good deal of time today cleaning up my garage. Three weeks of cutting, grinding, and sanding pretty much trashed it. However, it cleaned up well.

Tomorrow we plan on installing the drive shaft, the exhaust, the fuel tank, run some fuel and brake lines, bleed brakes and hopefully drive it.

[sixfivepost]

Are you going to put anything over top of the por15?

I know there is no UV protection on it - and last time I used it - most of it flaked off over time from the chassis.

Did you use POR 15 rust preventive paint or POR 15 Chassicoat Black? The latter is much harder and resists chipping and flaking much, much better than the former. You can apply it over regular POR 15. It also has UV resistance unlike regular POR 15.

[Richio1]

Great write up. It is coming along nicely! Best of luck getting it out on the road tomorrow... By this weekend for sure. :-)

[bonecrrusher]

SixFivePost - honestly man - it was over 7 years ago when I painted the chassis - I have no idea... lol.

[jerhofer]

Did you use POR 15 rust preventive paint or POR 15 Chassicoat Black? The latter is much harder and resists chipping and flaking much, much better than the former. You can apply it over regular POR 15. It also has UV resistance unlike regular POR 15.

After hearing your experience and doing some research, Matt is planning on painting over the POR15. He is off Christmas week and may do it then. Since his job starts Monday, the priority now is to get it running again.

After applying the clear coat to the trunk today, we spent a good bit of time removing the masking tape from the car and the suspension. The trunk came out great. Matt's research told him that the drive shaft would be a inch short with the Ford 9". The pumpkin is basically a NASCAR unit built by one of Matt's friends. His friend had a one inch longer yoke so Matt picked it up yesterday evening. It is a Roush NASCAR piece and it fit perfectly. One major worry down on the driveshaft.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121511trunksm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121511pumpkinsm-1.jpg

Next we installed the brakes and the brake lines on the axle. Now it was time to hook up the emergency brakes. The brake kit Matt bought to fit within 15" wheels uses brakes from a Cadillac Eldorado. The emergency brake applies the brake piston to the rotor. The kit came with the necessary lines. Earlier on in this thread, you may recall I cut out the emergency brake mounts from the inner wheel well. Matt modified these slightly and mounted them to the lower part of the frame rail.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121511brakessm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121511suspension2sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121511suspension5sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/12411firstplasmacutsm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121511bracketsm-1.jpg

At the end of the day, we were running the new brake lines and had routed one of the fuel lines. While Matt was doing some of these things, I cleaned up Borla exhaust and clamps that he has had on the car for over 10 years. I also installed the rear interior side panels during one of the few times the car was on the ground and cleaned up the seats. Still a fair amount of work to do but the end is near.

We knocked off early today and took my wife out to dinner for her birthday. 39 again!!!!

[bonecrrusher]

Looking good Jerry!

[BrianP]

Looks like a fun project.
One question: where did you get the frame rails?

[jerhofer]

Looks like a fun project.
One question: where did you get the frame rails?

Matt has gone to bed so I cannot answer where the frame rails came from. I will ask him tomorrow.

Still working on it. Matt ran the brake lines and fuel lines today. He cut two slots in the left frame rail for the brake line. The fuel lines were run inside the right frame rail through the openings he had previously installed. We installed the fuel tank and he hooked up the filter and the fuel lines.

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Next up was the exhaust. After installing the fuel tank, we knew we were in trouble running the exhaust to the rear. The left side had clearance, but the right side would have been a problem because of the track bar mount. DSE sells a special gas tank with the right side of it angled for exhaust clearance. Since we had to deal with what we had, we began brainstorming. Matt has alway kind of wanted the exhaust to exit just ahead of the rear wheels. The mufflers had resided in the cavity under the rear seats. Matt was talking about having to create a 180 degree piece that would circle back and then out the side. Sounded kind of complicated to me. After looking everything over, I suggested placing the mufflers under the front seat area instead. After checking for clearance issues, this is what we did. We cut up the existing exhaust system to make pieces that would work for the side exit. By the end of the day, Matt had welded the entire system together.

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Tomorrow morning, early I expect, he will make the two hangers so the exhaust can be completed. All that will remain is to put the interior back in the car, install the trunk lid and battery and bleed the brakes. Tomorrow will be a short day as we are having our Christmas for our family at our house. To further complicate that, we are having photos taken of the entire family tomorrow afternoon. So we will have to quit by noon. It may be Sunday before we have it all back together.

[Blown73]

Really nice work! Very inspiring thread to read!

[stillridin]

Nice thread. Love all the pics and that is one impressive garage. I think it's cleaner than my house!

[Kenova]

If you wanted to move the mufflers closer to the rear, I believe there are some Corvette mufflers that have the pipes inter and exit on the one end of the muffler.

Ken

[jerhofer]

Nice thread. Love all the pics and that is one impressive garage. I think it's cleaner than my house!

Thanks. The garage is fairly clean now but it was a disaster earlier in the week. When you are cutting and grinding for almost a month, the residue is everywhere. We spent most of a day doing a cleaning up but I still have some more to do. By the way, my buddy thinks my garage is dirty and messy. And it is compared to his.

Matt got up early this morning and completed the exhaust. He welded threaded studs to the frame rails and then attached the exhaust clamps to it. He is not happy with the way it looks at the exit and is planning on doing any angle cut a little further back.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121711exhaust3sm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121711exhaustsm-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121711exhaust2sm-1.jpg

He spent some time hooking up the battery, his vacuum pump in the engine bay, and installing the speakers on the rear shelf. Once he had the trunk work finished, we installed the trunk lid.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121711trunksm-1.jpg

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, my Christmas gift to Matt was new carpet. His gift to me was letting me install it!! What a guy!! He hates doing fiddly things like this so he was very happy to see me putting the carpet in. Those of you who have done this know it is not simply laying the carpet on the floor. You have to fit it, trim it, cut out the holes for the seat bolts, the seat belts and, in Matt's case, cut holes for the screws that mounted his amplifier under the passenger seat. I spent all morning doing this, installing the amp, the seats and the modified backer that goes behind the rear seat. It had to be shortened due to the tubs. Once Matt completed his other jobs, he installed the new seat belts. When we removed his old ones, they showed serious wear as they were the original ones. The new ones have inertial belts and are a modern setup which does away with the multiple belts of the original system. The rear seats will have to be modified to clear the tubs.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121711interior5sm-1.jpg

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To check out the radio speaker wiring, he turned on the ignition. The vacuum pump was hooked up and whirring away. He unhooked it so we would not have to hear it. Later, we had a puddle of brake fluid at the junction Matt installed which hooked up the new rear lines to the original lines. We assume he did not get the double flare made correctly and will have to re-do that. We also have some fluid dripping from the rear end and will have to check that out. We did start the car just to make sure everything else worked. It sounded great through his newly designed exhaust. Once we chase down the gremlins tomorrow and bleed the brakes, it will be time to test drive it. And not a minute too soon as he his new job begins on Monday.

[jerhofer]

As I predicted, Matt was in the garage early and re-did the flares on the brake lines. He also completed all of the adjustments on the rear end before I made it to the garage. We removed the wheels and proceeded to bleed the brakes. He tightened up the bolts on the pumpkin and appeared to halt the leaks there. We then took a very short test ride, a little longer test ride, and then a longer test ride with each ride followed by putting the car on the lift. All was well. So after loading up some miscellaneous stuff, he was off to his family. The nearly four week adventure was over. The past few weeks have been so intense for him that he said he may put the car in his garage and not even look at it for a couple weeks.

Some post-mortem observations:

1. The car is very solid as evidenced by the sound the doors make when closing them. The frame connectors and the shock tower brace are doing their job.

2. The car sounds great with the side exit exhaust.

3. The back end felt very stable with a good ride. He did bottom out the rear suspension one time on the way home but we had loaded the trunk with various parts, tools, etc. Plus the car had settled after our test rides. He will raise it some to get the ride height set properly.

4. Matt nearly bit off more than he could chew. It was a bigger project than he had visualized. Thus the many hours. As my buddy mentioned, for him this would have taken the entire winter.

5. We had a good time!!


https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121811camaro5sm-1.jpg

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https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2011/12/121811Camaro-1.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIv8ra6IuKk

[jerhofer]

Looks like a fun project.
One question: where did you get the frame rails?

Autoweld in PA.

Matt had to modify them considerably to make them work. Not sure if Matt's car was off or the car that Autoweld used was off. Keep this in mind if you buy a set of the rails.

[jerhofer]

Many more photos at: http://s188.photobucket.com/albums/z76/jerhofer/1969%20Camaro%20Rear%20End%20Project/

[sr73bu]

That came out awesome!... I'm thinking of doing a side exit on my chevelle, how bad are the fumes, in-car at idle/driving?

-Sean

[jerhofer]

That came out awesome!... I'm thinking of doing a side exit on my chevelle, how bad are the fumes, in-car at idle/driving?

-Sean

Thanks.

We did not notice any fumes.

[jerhofer]

That came out awesome!... I'm thinking of doing a side exit on my chevelle, how bad are the fumes, in-car at idle/driving?

-Sean

Thanks.

We did not notice any fumes.

[sunoco67]

Anymore information on this build. Have you wished you would of done something different? I am still debating as whether or not to install mini tubs in my 67 camaro. This was a very informative build. Thanks for taking the time to photograph the process.

[jerhofer]

Anymore information on this build. Have you wished you would of done something different? I am still debating as whether or not to install mini tubs in my 67 camaro. This was a very informative build. Thanks for taking the time to photograph the process.

Matt is not happy with the emergency brake setup on the brakes he bought. Because they use the piston as the emergency brake as well, it is very difficult to adjust them so the E-brake works and there is no drag on the rotor.

He has ordered a Wilwood E-Brake kit and will install an emergency brake lever in the tunnel. We are planning on installing them next week.

Other than that, everything is working out well. With the stronger frame rails, the large frame extenders and the shock tower brace that ties the two frames together, the car is much stiffer. You can hear the extra stiffness when you close the doors. Nice solid thunk. The rear suspension is much better with the ride quality being good and it still has good traction.

It was a bigger job than he orginally anticipated. We were very close to not having it finished by the time he began his new job. But, all's well that ends well.

I have spent the past couple days cleaning up the garage and still have another day of work tomorrow. Basically, I am wiping down everything including the walls. There was grinding dust everywhere!! Should be back to normal tomorrow.

[sunoco67]

Thanks for the update. Remember to take photos of the e brake install if it's not too much trouble. Thanks again for the build photos.