The 14 Car Performance Therapy Project Rushforths, Baers, Yokohamas, and more

[NOT A TA]

With the subframe and suspension in place so the car could sit on four wheels it was time to start fitting sheet metal. Trunk lid was first up and with some tweaking the new (used) lid lines up nicely. So I moved on to the front end where my first task was to figure out if the 81 subframe would work with the 70 core support.

The later frame mounting holes for the core support are farther apart than on the early frame and the directions for the PTFB solid body mounts say they can't be used with the 70-73 Firebird core supports. BUT, I paid for the solid mounts and I'm using them! I marked and opened up the body mount holes in the subframe to fit the sleeves that come with the PTFB solid mounts. While opening up the holes for the solid mounts I found that the bushings wouldn't sit flat inside the frame rail because of the way the frame is made (like the rear most body mounts) so I welded in some sheet metal pieces I made.







Next used my tram gauge to measure and mark the core support for the new body mount location and larger diameter. Then opened up the holes in the core support for the mounts. I made the holes slightly bigger than necessary to allow a bit of side to side and fore/aft adjustment of the core support.

I had poly body mounts previously I installed back in the 90's. At the time I used a 1/2" thickness bushing between the frame and core support as instructed. I always had a lot of shim stacks to get good fender/bumper/hood gaps and so I'm test fitting the body panels with the thick 1" bushing between the frame and core support to see if things fit well with them (if not I'll switch to the 1/2" and test fit again). If the 1" bushing doesn't work out I'll come back and modify this post.

[gofastwclass]

Originally Posted by NOT A TA

Thanks Flash!

gofastwithclass, Thanks also and you should start a thread about your car. At least post a couple pics and description so folks can see what you've got if they look up your previous posts. I'm curious, whatcha got?

On with updating!!!

In brief it's a 1961 Impala 2 door Sport Coupe (hard top / bubble top) with an LSx swap, big brakes, tubular suspension, lowered and 18" wheels, in the process of a rustoration / update. Lots of fabrication and lots of small one-off custom touches.

The plan is improved handling and ride that will be driven (and beaten on) cross country at any random point with new car reliability.



That is an excellent tip on the fasteners. One of the places to save money on a car is not in fasteners.

The spoiler is looking great. Very nice job getting the height you need and keeping a factory look for the uninitiated.

Your thread is giving me some really good ideas. Thanks again.

[WSSix]

I'm curious to see how the spoiler turns out. That's something I've thought of doing in the future. Thanks for the updates John.

[NOT A TA]

Originally Posted by gofastwclass

In brief it's a 1961 Impala 2 door Sport Coupe (hard top / bubble top) with an LSx swap, big brakes, tubular suspension, lowered and 18" wheels, in the process of a rustoration / update. Lots of fabrication and lots of small one-off custom touches.

The plan is improved handling and ride that will be driven (and beaten on) cross country at any random point with new car reliability.

Sounds like a cool car and I'm sure others like myself would love to see it. If you don't want to make a project thread then at least add it to the garage built thread with the description you wrote above copied and pasted. I had a very low miles 64 Biscane back in the 90's, not as cool as a bubble top though and was the last of the Chevy X frames.