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Excited! Body going on! Questions?
Well lm pretty excited about the body going on but I have a few questions. I have glued down the rubber matting on to the frame. Also reenforced my ceiling rafters at four points where I’m going to be lifting the body from the fenders. So questions are, should I take off the hood and the trunk lid for weight reduction or just leave them on. I know there not that heavy. Also should I take the headers off the motor and take the radiator as well. Any other tips would be appreciated. Wish me luck!!
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I left the hood and trunk on when I put my body on. Of course I had 4 people helping. (one on each fender)
Definitely pull the radiator and headers. (Don`t forget to make a hole for the shifter) If you`re running a small block there`ll be plenty of room for the headers BUT its always best to have as much clearance as possible. Once the body is on (and it sounds like you might be doing this solo) TAKE YOUR TIME and walk all around the car seeing how the tires line up in the fenders. I know the manual says to drill and rivet the body to the frame. I drilled and tapped for 3/8 x 16 bolts. Body hasn`t moved a smidge in the 3 years I`ve had it on the road. |
Make sure you know what you are doing, with the rafters. I saw a redneck dirt tracker with a 6" x 8" x 8' laying across the trusses break 4 trusses and nearly collapse the building. The sheeting was the only thing holding the trusses up.
He was lifting a SB Chevy. He had done it dozens of times, but it took its toll. |
Thanks for the responses. I have a small block Ford so I’ll try to put the body on with them on, but I’ll measure the width of the headers and the under body before I drop body on. Also each point that I’ll be lifting from on the rafters are secure in three different spots for each position and all are going all the way to the roof. I have tested that as well by hanging my 230lb body from each point and nothing seam to creek or pop. So I hope it’s all good, don’t want to drop the body, too much money there.:D
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Not sure about the SBF but in my car the body would not clear the headers. I had a group of friends come over and dropped the body on the frame with the engine mounted but no headers.
Congratulations on getting to this step. This is a really exciting part where the car really starts to look like a Cobra! |
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The body has landed. It went pretty well. I took the headers off to make it a littler easier to drop the body on. I just have a few question. I noticed the the either the front driver side fender is either not as wide as the passenger side fender or something else is off a little. I did noticed that the inter piece where the radiator fits up into is closer to the driver side frame, like right against it and the passenger side has like a 2in gap. That’s how I get the front fenders to get even with the tires. Any one run into issues similar to this. I still need to play around with the body alignment later this week. Here are a few pictures of the install.
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Without a proper front end alignment, it`s gonna be hard to go by how the tires line up in relation to the fender edge.
Your frame came shipped with some shims for the upper control arms. (Camber) When I put mine on the road and got it aligned, the shimming required was about quadruple what the car came with from A&C. As far as the radiator rubbing on the inner part of the body, I`ll have to check when I get home (at work now). I do remember having to do a little "notching" to get the radiator fit. I can`t remember which side it was though. |
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Well after some investigation I found what seems to be the issue. The mouth opening where the radiator sits in between is closer to one side, which is the drivers side. It’s hitting the bumper support and won’t move over because of the contact. If I center up the radiator opening between the bumper supports then the fenders are way off, at least an inch or more. Also the bumper brackets won’t be in the proper location as well. The fiber glass looks to be warped on both sides of the opening where radiator fits between. I might have to do some cutting and fiber glass work to get it right. Here are a few pictures of what I’m trying to explain. Let me know your thoughts.
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That looks awesome! Congratulations getting the body on! That's an exciting step! :)
I ran into the same thing as HROD. I had to get a bunch of shims from Summit for the front control arms. Just to get mine to rough 0 alignment I had to use longer bolts, too. For the radiator - I ran into the same thing . If I recall, the drivers side sits closer to the support than the pass. I also observed a slight "warped" area where the "shelf" or body mount reaches the radiator tunnel (so to speak). I thought perhaps it was a defect mine but maybe they're all like that. It doesn't really hurt anything but it did make securing the front body mounts a challenge with getting the bolts through. I'm not sure what rad you're running but mine is huge and I had to tilt it what I want to say about 25 or so degrees back towards the engine to make it fit. I should have run a ran about 1" smaller in every dimension as I did have clearance issues on one side of the body when I mounted it. |
Where did you get those valve cover? I really like them. What engine do you have there?
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The valve covers I bought thru Summit, cast aluminum and very well made. Motor is a SBF 302 stroked to 347 and AFR heads with a Edelbrock Air Gap manifold. I’m looking for a nice oval air cleaner that match’s the valve covers.
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