'72 firebird with solid subframe mounts..

[revhead]

Anyone done this? My car has them, and it loosely assembled. I went ot take apart the front end for painting and he has the fenders spaced way away from the core support.. Not sure what is going on yet, but as I looked further I noticed there might be a problem with the mounts. Unlike the camaros the front nose it attached to the subrame, not the core support or fenders , so what have people done to make it line up? apparently my solid mounts raise the subframe an inch or something.. I'm still trying to find out exactly what I have.. tey are gold anodized aluminum. any help or ideas would be great.

[Lowend]

Gold anodized is the original Herb Adams units which are designed to lower the body onto the frame

[79T/Aman]

on a 72 bird the nose is attached to the core sopport and brackets to the frame, the nose is the bumper so it has to be connected to thew frame, there should be a bushing between the frame and the core support, if you bolt on the fenders and set your fender to door gap it will set the fender where core support needs to be.

[revhead]

yeah it bolts to both the frame and core support like you said, but the bushings move the core support relative to the frame, so holes don't line up. When I took it apart there was about a 1/2 inch gap between the fenders and core support.. Is that how it should look? if so I might just go back to regular solid mounts that don't lower the body.

[HWYSTR]

I'll have to look at mine again, but I know when my body guy was lining my fenders/door gaps, he actually had to change the arch on the rear lip of the fender and a little on the door to make the gap right. My core support sits right on the frame, no bushing, think just a washer. The brackets for the frame/nose are slotted, and you can enlargen the slots for more adjustability. I know my body guy was totally obsessed with getting it right, and he swore for weeks doing it! Like I said, he finally gave up and changed the panels. It's all metal, and even with the fenders and door off you can't tell....

[79T/Aman]

a strait 1/2" lower bushing usualy never causes this type of problem, ut the old Herb Adams bushings were made to "wedge" the body, the only way to realy have a fender alignment issue is if the the bushings are mixed up and the front of the fender will go up in relation to the frame.
The simplest way to imagine this is the frame is moved under the body panels and not the panels moved over the frame, if you have a gap at the front core support, the rear bushing is not tall enough to tilt the front of the frame up, remember that when you "wedge" the center two bushings act as a pivot point.

[HWYSTR]

Well, it's been years since this was done, working from memory, and I'm actually going to be replacing some of this over the winter, so I'll verify the bushing heights for sure. I understand what your saying, though in my case it's the opposite as you describe, like the bushings in the rear most part of the subframe would be the tallest ones. Like I mentioned, the core support on mine is actually sitting on the frame rails, maybe just a washer in there. To make it worse, if there is a mix-up with the bushings, I have no choice but to put it back the way it is, because of how the fenders & door were modified. Stinks if that's the case.

[revhead]

oh.. I see now. I thought it just raise the entire subframe up the same amount. Seems like a mess if it tilts it. Sounds like they were put in wrong in my car. In the front I have huge mounts (1 1/2" maybe), the middle are maybe half inch, and I haven't seen the rears yet. I'm not married to these things, and I plan on pulling the subframe out for powedercoating anyway.. so I might just ditch them and get some new ones.

[cdoggy81]

Any pics?

[79T/Aman]

yep, the 1 1/2" would go in the rear position