61 Bel Air

[Jon69RagTop]

I've been working on the car here and there, but must admit family time has crept in and the weather has really sucked. All good stuff, this is my winter project.

I went ahead and kept the Moser rear end, that slight surface rust cleaned right up so I painted everything and installed it. Bolted in with no issues, they must have a good fixture for the positioning of the brackets they weld on. No complaints at all.

This cart I made for the LS as I assembled it worked out nice for getting the rear end underneath the car with minimal effort.


I had to move the engine forward from the installation position I started out with. Originally I tucked it too close to the firewall which in turn did not give me enough room in the tunnel to raise the rear of the transmission high enough to net the optimum driveline angle. Had a slight vibration that would have driven me nuts on the Power Tour. Luckily I had originally purchased the Dirty Dingo mounts which that have three mounting positions, so after disconnecting the exhaust and the motor mounts I slid the motor forward to the next position on the adapter plates. This game me enough room to raise the tranny up 1/2" and netted me 4 degrees at the first u-joint. I also had sliced off 3/8 of an inch from the base of the carrier bearing, this helped bring the driveshaft angle down as well at the first u-joint.

So today I redid the initial connections of the exhaust, fixed a couple issues I wasn't pleased with from the first attempt. Looks much better now and gives me room to redo the fuel line and keep it away from the exhaust. You'll notice in the pictures I ran a flexible line from front to back, this is only temporary as I recently bought some hard line from Mark at Bent Fab.




Later this week I'll finish up the drivers side connection and then proceed to finish out the tail pipes.

[Zoomin]

Love the flat top 61's, just so unique.

What are you doing for instruments?

What engine mounts did you use?

Killer project man.

[Jon69RagTop]

Not sure on the gauges yet, currently running auto meter for keeping tabs on oil pressure and water temp.

Might have the speedometer converted to electronic.

I used the Dirty Dingo motor plates, the ones with 3 mounting positions and then used Energy Suspension motor mounts, OE style buy out of urethane.

[kwhizz]

How does it sound with the Magnaflow's......??????????

[Jon69RagTop]

This is my second set, the first ones were chambered and bad drone. These are much better, both ends offset.

[ProTouring442]

A piece of unsolicited advice. Clean and re-weld the factory lower control arm mounts where they attach to the frame. You might even consider bracing the lower arm mounts.

Because of the three link design, a hard shift causes the rear to want to pivot on the upper link, putting added stress on the lowers. How do I know this? Because when I was younger, a nice second gear ripped the right lower control arm mount right off the frame, with near disastrous effects. To this day, I cannot tell you how I kept the car from flipping, as it kept trying to bounce completely sideways each time the now liberated control arm dug into the pavement. I crossed two lanes to my right, then back again and into the turn lane before I got the damned thing stopped.

This occurred on car on which my father had performed a frame off restoration, including cleaning and painting the frame. After my little bucking bronco of a ride, we opened a section of the rear floor board (under the rear seat if I recall correctly) to reattach the mount. There were no signs of rust, and neither the frame itself, nor the mount had torn. The then 30 year old weld had simply failed given the shock of a good second gear shift (admittedly, I was running a bored and stroked 409 (482 cubes) and a muncie 4 speed), but add the additional twisting forces of urethane bushings (which it looks to me like you are running), and those lower mounts might not be long for this world.

I added a second upper link when I repaired mine, but you really can't do that with urethane bushings. It still might be something to think about.

Please don't take this as a dig on your build, I am very much enjoying it, but I nearly lost my car that night to a simple, have a little fun hard throttle second gear. I'd just hate to see lose their car over something so easy to prevent.

[Jon69RagTop]

Thank you for the advise, I truly appreciate you taking the time to post your experience.

I will put that on my list of things to do.

[Zoomin]

Originally Posted by Jon69RagTop

Thank you for the advise, I truly appreciate you taking the time to post your experience.

I will put that on my list of things to do.

Me too. Don't need that happening.