|
01-14-2018, 06:05 AM
|
|
Senior Member
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Indiana
Posts: 305
Thanks: 9
Thanked 64 Times in 26 Posts
|
|
As promised, it’s time for the rear suspension. When I started this project my original plan was to get the rear frame kit from ABC Performance so I could stuff 335s out back. After thinking about it for a while I decided that if I’m going to go through all this work I wanted to try something different. During my dealings with Ron Sutton while I was at Ridetech, I learned about his suspension kits, specifically his offset three-link. After some discussion and numerous emails, a big ol brown box showed up on my door step with this stuff in it…
10015 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
After having cut the front end apart with a 4 ½” grinder, I broke down and bought this Eastwood plasma cutter. It was relatively cheap, has a better warranty than the big names, and it works awesome! So far it has been able to cut ¼” plate without the slightest hiccup. Highly recommended if you’re in the market for a plasma cutter.
10020 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
With the old 9” in place, I located the stock rear axle centerline using a good old fashioned plumb bob. (I added the red line to show the plane I was using)
00012.1 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
With the centerline marked, I removed all the rear suspension and started measuring for the new parts.
10027 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
Wanting to keep the body mount, I was able to do some fancy cutting thanks to the plasma!
10028 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10029 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
With all my cuts made, the engine hoist made quick work of getting the old stuff out of the way.
10030 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
The first thing I did was get the new crossmember tacked in place so I could start fitting the new rear frame rails. After spending too much time trying to get these rails in the proper position…
10031 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
…I got in contact with Ron and he sent me a new set of rails that were a better fit for me. He’ll probably chime in with more details, but I think these are now the standard rails in his rear kits. A couple of cool features is the holes for the watts link crossmember and sway bar tube are already in place, and there’s a line cut to locate the axle center line.
10032 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10033.1 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
The next step was getting the new rear end housing in place so I could locate the suspension brackets.
10033 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
Here the watts link crossmember and sway bar tube are tacked in.
10034 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
Lower shock mounts tacked in.
10035 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
Third link tacked in.
10036 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10037 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
__________________
Herb
1966 El Camino LS408/T56Magnum
1966 Chevelle 509/T56Magnum
1963 C10 454/4L80
PHR CHP CHP Youtube
|
01-14-2018, 06:09 AM
|
|
Senior Member
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Indiana
Posts: 305
Thanks: 9
Thanked 64 Times in 26 Posts
|
|
Driver side watts bracket tacked on.
10038 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
It’s slowly starting to take shape. You can see in this photo the back brace is tacked to the rear housing. Down the road you’ll see I had to modify it to clear the coil overs.
10039 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
From this angle you can see there’s about ½” of space between the back of the rear end housing and the watts a-frame.
10040 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
I made these gussets to help reinforce the joint between the rear frame rails and crossmember.
10041.1 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10041.2 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10042 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
At this point just about everything is welded in permanently except for the housing brackets.
10043 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10044 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
I added this rear crossmember which I cut from the original frame rails that Ron sent me.
10045 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
With all that done, it was time to connect the original frame horns to the new rails. They didn’t turn out quite as pretty as I imagined them, but they’re pretty sturdy and put both bumpers where they should be.
10046.1 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10046.2 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10046.3 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
I tried to make both sides as similar as possible.
10046.4 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10046.5 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
The bumper fits nice and doesn’t bounce around!
10054 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
__________________
Herb
1966 El Camino LS408/T56Magnum
1966 Chevelle 509/T56Magnum
1963 C10 454/4L80
PHR CHP CHP Youtube
|
01-14-2018, 06:12 AM
|
|
Senior Member
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Indiana
Posts: 305
Thanks: 9
Thanked 64 Times in 26 Posts
|
|
Here’s the front…
10046.6 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10046.7 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10046.8 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10046.9 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
And then I made a pair of boxing plates and welded them in. (For some reason this is the only picture I took)
10046.91 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
The next big hurdle was permanently welding the suspension brackets to the rear end housing.
10046 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
Here you can see how I shortened the back brace to clear the coil overs.
10047 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10048 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
With all the brackets welded on, I made a trip to Moser and had them weld on the Baer floater ends and cut axles for me.
10049 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10053 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10050 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
I also picked up some gear oil and axle seals.
10051 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
And some Redline grease for the axle bearings.
10052 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
With everything welded, I put the housing back in to see how it all fits.
10055 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
__________________
Herb
1966 El Camino LS408/T56Magnum
1966 Chevelle 509/T56Magnum
1963 C10 454/4L80
PHR CHP CHP Youtube
|
01-14-2018, 06:14 AM
|
|
Senior Member
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Indiana
Posts: 305
Thanks: 9
Thanked 64 Times in 26 Posts
|
|
Here’s the Ridetech coil over with a spring in place.
10056.1 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10056.2 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
Plenty of room!
10056 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
With the rear wheels and tires in place, the track width is 72” just like it was before. With these little 10” wide wheels and 295 tires, there’s 7 ½” between the inner side wall and the frame rail so I have lots of room to fit a 12” wide wheel with 335s!
10058 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10059.1 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
__________________
Herb
1966 El Camino LS408/T56Magnum
1966 Chevelle 509/T56Magnum
1963 C10 454/4L80
PHR CHP CHP Youtube
|
01-14-2018, 06:54 AM
|
|
Senior Member
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Indiana
Posts: 305
Thanks: 9
Thanked 64 Times in 26 Posts
|
|
A while back I came across a set of Jake’s Rod Shop C6 tubular arms being sold by Jon (Jtomas801) here on Lateral-G. The price was right and I liked the way the lower arm was designed for a coil over vs the factory arm which requires a weak (IMO) trunnion to mount a coil over.
10059 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10060 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10061 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
Here’s the Jake’s Rod Shop arms mounted along with the new Ridetech Track 1 C7 hubs.
10063 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
Now things are starting to get fun! Just to help me visualize things, I put my P-Ayr mock-up engine in place. In this position, it’s about 12” rearward of the stock location. The plan is to get the engine behind the front axle centerline.
10062 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10064 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
For the most part the front suspension is all in place. I did a quick check of the alignment and I have 5* of caster on both sides, -1.5* of camber on one side and -1.4* of camber on the other. Not too bad as a starting point.
10065 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10066 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
It’s finally starting to look like a real chassis!
10067 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
Now you’re all up to date. I still have a few little things I need to get done on the frame but the next big step is test fitting the body. Due to the rear suspension, I’m going to have to cut out some sections of the rear seat area and trunk floor. Before I can do that, I have to get the interior stripped. To get myself motivated, I took the rear wheels off the Z06 and put them on the frame to see how some big meats would fit…
10072 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10073 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10074 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10075 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10070 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
10071 by Yelcamino, on Flickr
The Z06 rear wheels are obviously too wide for the front and they have too much backspace. However, they actually turn quite a bit so that tells me 11” wheels (with the proper backspacing) and 315s will fit! They fit great out back but again, due to the offset, they actually narrow the rear track width by 2".
__________________
Herb
1966 El Camino LS408/T56Magnum
1966 Chevelle 509/T56Magnum
1963 C10 454/4L80
PHR CHP CHP Youtube
|
01-14-2018, 09:44 AM
|
|
Lateral-g Supporting Member
|
|
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Scottsdale, AriDzona
Posts: 20,642
Thanks: 504
Thanked 1,077 Times in 385 Posts
|
|
Well played Sir!!!
Smart choice going with the de-coupled 3 link !! While I haven't driven a car with that setup - my new race car (Sutton Track Warrior) will have that. I'm hoping for some major mechanical grip.
|
01-14-2018, 10:06 AM
|
|
Lateral-g Supporting Member
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Ma
Posts: 8,424
Thanks: 908
Thanked 336 Times in 229 Posts
|
|
Impressive work Herb, nice job.
|
01-14-2018, 02:37 PM
|
Member
|
|
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 34
Thanks: 0
Thanked 3 Times in 1 Post
|
|
Think you'll have to notch your front crossmember for the pulleys/balancer?
|
01-14-2018, 03:03 PM
|
|
Senior Member
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Indiana
Posts: 305
Thanks: 9
Thanked 64 Times in 26 Posts
|
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by GregWeld
Well played Sir!!!
Smart choice going with the de-coupled 3 link !! While I haven't driven a car with that setup - my new race car (Sutton Track Warrior) will have that. I'm hoping for some major mechanical grip.
|
Thanks Greg! I didn't get the de-coupled 3 link, just the offset 3 link. IIRC, Ron said I could always upgrade to the de-coupled version down the road.
__________________
Herb
1966 El Camino LS408/T56Magnum
1966 Chevelle 509/T56Magnum
1963 C10 454/4L80
PHR CHP CHP Youtube
|
01-14-2018, 03:04 PM
|
|
Senior Member
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Indiana
Posts: 305
Thanks: 9
Thanked 64 Times in 26 Posts
|
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by waynieZ
Impressive work Herb, nice job.
|
Thanks Wayne!
__________________
Herb
1966 El Camino LS408/T56Magnum
1966 Chevelle 509/T56Magnum
1963 C10 454/4L80
PHR CHP CHP Youtube
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:36 AM.
|