Made a little more progress this weekend. All parts are painted up. Crossmember is welded upon the rear. Slowly putting the parts back on tightening up the bolts for the last time (I hope). Subframe connectors have been capped off, aluminum body mounts were cut down 3/16 to fit the TA front crossmember and subframe has been realigned (not shown). I also dropped off my driveshaft to have the u-joints changed and rebalance to match the 1350 yoke on the 9" center sections. Luckily I don't have to change the length of the shaft at all, I was shocked to see there was still ~1" clearance at the trans with it test fitted with the old u-joint.
Still need to pack the rear wheel bearing, tighten all the bolts on the rear rotors and do the final mount on the rear calipers but decided to do this on the car after the front brakes are all installed. Tonight I'll be installing the pumpkin in the rear and installing the TA.
I also bit the bullet and purchased the new 6 piston/12.88 front brake kit from MCB on Friday. I opted for the 2nd gen Camaro kit but decided to swap from 1.1 rotors to 1.25 by swapping out the Rotors to the Spec 37, changed the hat offset and swapped the calipers. I also changed from the standard pads to the Poly-E compound to match the rear. To match the kit I decided on a manual 7/8 tandem MC and picked up some bulk 3/16 line to rerun for the entire car. Thinking of lines, I'm probably going to run all new 3/8 fuel lines and a new fuel/axle vent setup while I'm at so it all looks pretty and make me feel more comfortable.
I will be tying the frames back together but I'm going to wait until I finish installing the front Chicane coilover bracket just in case there are any issues. I'm not going to weld them back because I need to be able to drop the front frame in order to swap the trans. I didn't know this when I bought the kit but it should not impact me too much. I'm planning to weld 4 pieces of 1/4" x1-1 1/4" flat bar to the front subframe then use some ~6" Grade 8 bolts to thru bolt it to the subframe connector stub that's remaining. I wish I could weld it back but since I saw something similar on Stielow's car I'm pretty comfortable with bolting it...
Is this somehow due to transmission choice or the design of the rear TA kit that requires the front subframe to be removed in order to pull a transmission? Thanks.
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Trey
Current rides: 2000 BMW 540i/6 and 86 C10.
Former ride: 1979 Trans Am WS6: LT1/T56, Kore 3 C5/6 brakes, BMW 18in rims
It's a combination of things I think, hopefully I can explain it ok. I have 1/2 height alum body mounts which already makes it tight to even get the trans x-member in. The trans I also a T56 Mag which extends very close to the front TA x-member. I could not pull the trans with the x-member in since I need to pull the input shaft out of the bellhousing and droop the rear of the trans. On top of this the DSE connectors are welded in and tight to the floor like the front subframe now is. The front x-member for the T/A is almost like a c-channel and wraps around a floor support where body mounts are and uses the body mounts/bolts to hold it up. Its a nice design in that it's very tight to the floor and avoids issues with exhaust clearance other systems have. Problem with the c-channel is the sides are too tall to get past the floor support without dropping the frame due to the smaller body mounts. With the back 2 frame mounts removed removing/installing the TA x-member is very easy.
I'm considering the torque arm for my '71 however the trans situation could be a deal breaker.
So do you think if you had stock height body mounts it would solve the issue?
Do you have to remove that "torque arm crossmember" (for lack of correct name) regardless?
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SCOTT
71 Camaro project. "Mulletmobile"
66 el camino "Pye Wagon"
69 Camaro. sold
I think it would work with stock body mounts but it is tight. I never asked Blake or Roger when I purchased the kit because I didn't think it was an issue. I'd recommend asking them to be sure. I was very frustrated when I discovered it was an issue. Sucks to buy a bolt in kit then hack up the car to make it fit. Hopefully my plan will work out ok becuase I do like how well the x-member fits the floor as compared the to issues Carbuff ran into with the JRS kit. I thought to remake the crossmember with weld on mounts to the frame like was done for "Stance" but decided it was easier to reweld the frame later than to have to buy another x-member if I screw it up.
All in all I am happy with the kit. If it was being put on a completely stock car it would be easy. Only 3 things that have frustrated me so far are the front x-member, bad pics in the instructions (I will be sending Roger some pics from my ride to see if it helps) and the large gap I had to fill in to mount the rear x-member for the coilovers/panhard bar. All seem to have a solution that was not too difficult