Hi Mike,

What solid body bushings are you using... are they SpeedTech? I installed mine just for mockup, and I'm pretty sure that they're supposed to be stock height because I couldn't see any drop bushings on their site at the time, but the radiator core support is definitely a lot higher than it was even with saggy squished rubber bushings, and I can't figure out why...

It also looks like your bushings are short, are they the drop bushings? My bushings definitely look taller, and I can't figure out what, if anything, I'm messing up on the quarterpanel re-assembly.

PS all the rest of the work looks killer... I might have to make an interior BC roadtrip when my car is finished (whenever the heck that'll be)!!!

Cheers,
Joe

Thanks Joe. The body mounts are Speedtech's. I spoke to Roger at Speed Tech and they said they were finding issues with their mounts on a Nova. They are not drop mounts, they are the standard ones that Speedtech has for the novas. Once I got the stock bushings and put them in, everything fit way nicer. Definitely let me know if you make it down this way.

i will be installing the sub in the shop nova this week end, but with no bushings. also moving the motor back 2.5 inches, htis will require removing the entire tunnel, but hey why not??? it's not like it has to be finished by July 20th for a track day or anything like that.
i will post up some pics after the week end

Can't wait to see some pics of you Nova Blake. I'm sure it will be amazing.

I finally got the passenger seat mounted. I sat beside the car staring at how to get these damn seats in and I found that the bolts were just too close to the bracket and a pain to try and use them, so I solved that issue.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000415.jpg

Once the bolts on the floor were gone, I could put new ones anywhere I wanted. I finally decided on a very easy, but time consuming, set up.

I started by welding in a small piece of steel onto the ends to give some area to weld into.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000411.jpg

Once those were in place, I made some brackets.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000414.jpg

And welded it into place.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000419.jpg

Did the other three corners.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000418.jpg

I then put some bolts into the bracket holes and put it into the car. After some measuring, I tacked the bolts, removed the bracket and finished welding the bolts into place. I wanted to get the bolts as flush to the floor as possible, but found that welding the bolt, with the heads, to the floor was the easiest and probably stronger. I plan on welding in some washers around the bolt heads so the brackets are not just resting on the bolt heads.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000421.jpg

Attached the bracket back to the seat and tried it out.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000422.jpg

When looking at the brackets, they are set up quite high right now. I'm almost positive that when I get some power hooked up, the seats will come down putting them closer to the ground. Right now, the bottom of the seats are just under 6" from the floor...way too high. I was looking at a bunch on ebay, and they all look quite a bit lower.

Here's how high they sit right now.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000423.jpg

Next week I hope to get the driver's side done and then onto the rear.

I just got an email back from the guy I bought the seats off. He confirmed that they were shipped in the raised position so will come down quite a bit :)

Nice progress Mike. Glad you got it figured out. The back should be some fun.

:thumbsup: Looking great Mike!!

Thanks guys.

So after I got the passenger side seat put in, I sat in it and it felt like it wasn't square. I didn't think much of it until I was laying in bed a few nights later and realized that it wasn't square. When I measured the frame, I measured from the back points of it, not taking into consideration that one side was longer than the other. You can see it in this picture here. The top left frame rail is longer than the one on the right.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000418.jpg

So I ended up cutting out the bolts that I had welded in. This turned out to be a good thing anyways as I decided to put in 3/8" bolts instead of the 7/16" ones that I had. The 3/8" fit nicer and have more room to turn the nuts. Once I had the bolts welded into place, I didn't like the idea of the seat brackets sitting on the head of the bolts and off the floor. I took some washers and cut out the centers so they would fit around the bolts. I had to grind some of the welds, but they fit around the bold nicely. I then filled in the holes with more weld and the brackets had a more solid place to sit.

Picture of the washer. The two holes are just to plug weld to the floor. I thought I took pics of them welded in place, but I guess I didn't.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000425.jpg

I then got the driver's side put in. The passenger side is not bolted down that's why it's leaning to one side.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000427.jpg

I think I have most of the wiring figured out, except for two wires that were connected to the side of the seat. Does anyone know where these two wires hook up. It's the white connector and the yellow connectors that I'm wondering about.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000426.jpg

Along with realizing that the seat was crooked, I also started thinking about my steering column (had a hard time sleeping that night). I went out and checked my suspicion and was right. A while back in this thread, I mentioned how the Flaming River column bracket would not work. Well I couldn't have been more wrong (and if anyone from Flaming River is reading this, my sincere apologies for the emails I sent). When I was trying to fit the bracket, I had the stock bracket in there as well. No s**t it's not going to fit with the 2 brackets in there :awkward:

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...columngoes.jpg

So I cut off the exhaust tube that I welded onto the column. It left a few scratches on the nice polished column, but hopefully none of them will be seen anyways.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d.../PICT00433.jpg

Hooked up the bracket that Flaming River supplied and it fit quite nicely.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000430.jpg

:slap::slap::slap::doh::doh::doh:

Once I had the bracket in place, I want to see how the floor mounts would look. I realized that the hole in the firewall is not quite in the right spot as the inside floor mount doesn't sit flush, although it's not far off. I'm just going to grind the top part of the mount so the column fits through and the mount will sit flush. I'm not that concerned about the angle as I will be running two u-joints from the column to the r&p.

You can see where the top of the column is hitting the mount.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000431.jpg

One thing that was a pleasant surprise, I was cleaning up in the shop and found a Goodmark box. I looked at the side and it came back to me. When I ordered some Goodmark stuff off Nightshade, Goodmark shipped a deck panel to me also, which I didn't order. Nightshade checked his records and he hadn't been charged either. So we agreed that I will keep it. This works out great as I was looking at my deck panel and where it connects to the quarters, it's rusting through. So I have now added 'replace deck panel' to my list of to dos.

And finally, some of you may have saw the thread I had about wondering if I could remove the post in the center of my shop. The main reason for this was I was getting sick of working around it. If I wanted to work on the inside of the car, I would have to push the car forward and then back when I was done. If I wanted to work on the driver's side, I would have to turn the wheels, push car forward, turn wheels again, push back, turn wheels, and on and on. I'm sure you get the point. As I don't have the steering column hooked up, I had to literally turn the front wheels and since everything is new and tight, was harder to do while on the ground. So yesterday I found a cheap and easy solution. Not sure why I didn't do this before.

Car dollies:

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1000432.jpg

Car rolls around quite easily now. Hopefully more updates next week. On a good note, my job will be changing in the next couple weeks. My new position will be more overtime opportunities and will be making more money. More money = more parts.

Looking good Mike. I believe the yellow connector is for the seatbelt retractor device. My understanding is that in newer. airbag equipped cars, the seatbelt has a little explosion of it's own to tighten down some more. If you follow these wires, they should go right to it at the seatbelt location. It's a steel tube. There should only be two wires since all the switches are on the seat - power and ground. Anything else should be internal. If you need more info, I can compare what you have to my GTO seats when I get home tonight.

Thanks Joe. Any idea what the white connector's for. I know the bigger white one plugs into the side controls, but what about the other one. You're right...the yellow wire runs back to the seat buckle on the side of the seat. I guess if I took the seat belts out, I might find some more plugs.