Introducing: Project 1/2-TRAK

[Damn True]

Originally Posted by rwhite692

That is a neat trick, you should send it into PHR.

I've used a porta-power hydraulic tool to open them up but that is simpler and no special tools required. Nice

Camaro Performers is free to use the tech-tip.

[Damn True]

Well, I couldn't get to an update last night. Had to go buy a new mattress last night. Those things have gotten EXPENSIVE!

Anyway....

Topics: Subframe and Core Support Paint, review of Eastwood products and installation of DSE subframe mounts.

So here is what we began with on the subframe. 40 years of gunk, thankfully no rust though.



A bit of time spent with the wire brush prior to sandblasting allowed me to inspect for cracks to make sure the subframe was still useful.



I did find a couple of cracks in the welds surrounding the Upper Control arm mount stands so if you are going this route check there first. Pretty simple though to grind out the old weld and into the substrate a bit to find fresh steel and re-weld it. YMMV of course.

After sandblasting and all the welding I've outlined previously the material on the subframe looked like this.



and the core support (also sandblasted) looked like this...



Hindsight being 20/20 I should have painted the core support as soon as I got it back from the sandblaster. It would have saved me some time. It sat for a few weeks and developed a bit of surface rust. Nothing bad at all, but it cost me some wire-wheel time that I would have preferred to spend in other ways. Oh well, it's an opportunity to further evaluate the Eastwood stuff right? I'll keep telling myself that.

[Damn True]

So....on to the Eastwood stuff. I ordered the following material from Eastwood:

- "Pre" surface cleaner/degreaser
- Eastwood "Rust Converter"
- Eastwood "Rust Encapsulator"
- Eastwood "Chassis Black" (gloss)
- Eastwood "Underhood Black" (satin)
- One of those "Can-gun" gizmos

Really easy to order from them. I used their online ordering this time and it was pretty painless. I have ordered by phone from them as well and it went well too. You get a confirmation email with tracking number so you know when the stuff will arrive.

After calling them for more info about the rust treatment products I felt that I didn't have any rust that I felt worthy of using the Rust Converter on. So for these two bits I used the Rust Encapsulator, Chassis Black and Underhood Black only. I have some deeper surface rust in a couple of places that I'll try the Converter on later. Nothing serious though....I may blow it off and just flap-disk it down to fresh steel. We'll see.

Anyway, I am really pleased with the stuff. As I mentioned previously this stuff is better than any rattle-can material I have ever used. The "Rust Encapsulator" was used as a primer and I followed that with the Chassis Black on the subframe and the Underhood Black on the Core Support.

The Encapsulator and Chassis Black cans both have spray nozzles that project the material in a nice, tight 5" fan pattern at the 8"-10" spray distance called out in the instructions. There is really minimal overspray and it's very easy to control where the material goes, especially with the use of the "can-gun". Additionally, it was easy to ensure that enough material was deployed for coverage w/o getting so much as to experience runs.

Overall I am really happy with the result. Yes, a pro with a paint gun could get better results. Nit-pickers will see the occasional bit of dust in the paint. Yup, my garage isn't 100% clean. But this is the subframe and core support on a track/auto-x car. It's more than good enough for me.

So let's have a look at the results:

After two coats of the "Rust Encapsulator" the subframe looked like this...





It lays on shiny when wet but dries to a flat black finish. If you top-coat within 36 hours you can spray right over it. Longer than that and Eastwood recommends a light scuff with 300 grit or a red scotch-brite pad. I wound up having to do both due to time constraints and in each case the top coat turned out pretty darn nice.





The flash and the florescent lights in my garage conspire to play hell with the color rendering in a few of these photos so some, like this next one look a bit grey. The surface is a uniform, gloss black though.

[Damn True]

More images per post please. Truncating these posts due to the 5 image limit is a bit of a pain.









One other thing about the Eastwood stuff.....since the overspray is minimal the dusting of "other stuff" in the garage is nil and the airborne material is minimal as well. There is a bit of "solvent smell", but with the garage door open while spraying it was not oppressive at all and after 1hr was difficult to detect. Good stuff. Especially if your wife has concerns about such things or you have kids or animals around.

[Damn True]

....and onto the Core Support.

Again, I coated the Core Support first with the Rust Encapsulator and then the Underhood Black.

The Underhood Black lays out in a nice satin finish. It does not appear to have a porosity though so I'm thinking it will be pretty resistant to the "greasy fingerprint" that some flat/satin finishes are susceptible to. I did accidentally grab the core support with some oil on my hands. I was able to wipe the oil off with a bit of alcohol on a rag. No mark remained.



And in the following photos you can see the difference between the satin Underhood Black and the gloss Chassis Black.

[Damn True]

....and finally, the installation of the DSE (Detroit Speed & Engineering) solid body bushings.

From DSE:

Detroit Speed and Engineering's solid body mounts provide a simple approach to eliminating the flex that occurs between the body and subframe connection. This will improve vehicle handling response by increasing chassis stiffness. These mounts should be used when installing subframe connectors for maximum torsional rigidity.

Detroit Speed and Engineering's uniquely designed body mounts are CNC machined from billet aluminum. The mounts are then hardcoated, not bright anodized. The hardcoating process resists corrosion that can occur between steel and aluminum surfaces with regular bright anodizing. CNC machined stainless steel bevel washers are included. 17-4 stainless steel flanged body bolts are also available as an option.

Our mounts are available in either 1/2 height or stock height.

The body mount kit includes:

- 2 core support mounts with stainless steel bevel
washers

- 4 body mounts with stainless steel bevel washers



Optional stainless body bolt kit includes:

- 2 polished 17-4 stainless steel bolts and nuts for
core support mounts

- 4 polished 17-4 stainless steel bolts for body
mounts

I opted for the standard height units. A lot of folks go for the 1/2-height but from what I've seen the 1/2-height mounts often cause interferance problems between the transmission and tunnel and between engine and hood if you aren't using a cowl induction hood....which I am not. So full height bushings it is. I don't want the car too low anyway. Real life includes driveways, speed bumps, rough roads and trailer ramps. I'll leave the "slammed" look to the fairgrounds guys.

The install of these things is really dead simple and a one-man job as well provided your back/shoulders will allow you to bench press the subframe. The interlocking bushings install above through the subframe mount pads sandwiching the subframe material and providing a rigid interface between the subframe and the body tub. A bit of anti-seize on the stainless bolts is a good idea.

I installed the bushings and bolts hand tight and pulled the jack out of the way.





The next step is to align the subframe to the body tub so that the chassis is square. Also a simple task.

Start by dropping a plum-bob from the aft most mount hole for the lower control arm and make a mark on the garage floor. You can see the red marks here on bits of tape placed on the floor. Repeat this on both the left and right side of the subframe.

[Damn True]

At the rear of the car, just aft and outboard of the forward leaf spring eye is a flanged oval shaped hole. Drop a plum-bob from this point and again, mark the spot on the floor.



[roadbike, mountain bike and downhill bike gathering dust in the background....they hate me]

Once you have your marks you then measure diagonally between the marks (left-rear to right-front & right-rear to left-front). The values are sure to be different at first which is why I left the body bushing bolts hand-tight above. You'll have to bump, tweak and nudge the subframe around until the measurements are close to or equal. It'll take a few times to get it right but be patient and make small adjustments. Mine came out exactly equal at 90 1/16" from corner to corner.

I compared this to the measurements I took when I disassembled the car. The factory left the differential at 90 3/16" and 89 15/16". A 1/4" out of square condition. I guess that too explains the disparate alignment shim stacks.

I left the bushing at the Core Support hand tight to allow me to nudge it around when I put the bodywork back on the car at a later date.




Next step will be the installation of the DSE subframe connectors. I'm starting on that tonight so we should have at least a preliminary update to this thread in a few days.

[wiedemab]

Nice posts - keep up the good work. The subframe looks good!

[Damn True]

If you've never cut a big freakin hole in a somewhat valuable car you should try it. It's a rather liberating experience.

[Damn True]

Been quite a while since I've made an update to this thing. I cut the openings for the subframe connectors just before Thanksgiving and that's when things ground to a screeching halt. Thanksgiving, a ton of work before a Christmas shutdown, then two weeks of gift shopping, food shopping, cooking, cleaning, wrapping, visits hither and yon, house guests, a trip to Phoenix for New Years and then a ton of work to make up for no work over the last two weeks....cripes!

Well, I did eventually get a little time to finish the subframe connectors. Read on.......

As I mentioned previously, it's a liberating experience to cut your first big hole in an old car!



Cutting the holes was pretty straightforward. I used a cutoff wheel on a 4.5" angle grinder. It made pretty short work of it. I think a cutoff on a pneumatic would be easier, but since the compressor I bought is not up to the task it had to do.





The only real concern here is to be very careful to cut the hole undersized and sneak up on the fitment of the connector. I used a grinder to whittle away at the material until the connector just fit. My welding is pretty bad so I wanted the gaps as tight as possible. Not too bad.



Then it was just a simple matter of welding it in (yeah, right!). Welding the seam on the inside of the car was pretty simple. Though 18ga to 3/16 steel requires a bit of fiddling with voltages and wire speeds. It wasn't awful though.




Where it got tough was underneath. The outboard bit wasn't too bad but the inboard side was a horror show. It's still technically a "T-joint" but the floor pan has those rolled beads in it and one of them directly abuts the subframe connector. So instead of a straight 90degree angle the joint looks like a lower case "h" and you are trying to do your welding up inside the bottom of that lower opening. Really tough work. I burned through the floorpan in a few places and had to patch it but eventually got it all done.



The fwd spring hanger blocks a bit of the joint between the connector and the rear frame rail so I'll have to zip a bit more of that together later.

The next step is the installation of the Detroit Speed mini-tubs. These will allow as much as a 335 section tire, but I won't be going quite that wide. I'm only going to be able to fit a 275 up front and don't want a super wide disparity so I'll probably stick to a 315 or so out back. But I'll have room for more.

The first step of this process was to remove the rear suspension assembly. It came out absurdly easily. Seriously, I didn't even need to break out any penetrating oil or even so much as a breaker bar. Everything came apart with a 3/8" drive ratchet and minimal effort. God bless my grandparents for keeping this thing garaged for 35 years. It's spent more nights outside since Ive owned it (2000 on) than it has in it's entire live. The bolts looked literally brand new when I took them out.



The 4x4 patch of tape on the fender has marks on it identifying the axle centerline. This will be important for locating bits of the 3-link but more on that later.





I'm not going to go into excruciating detail on the tub install. This thread outlines the process better than I ever could and it would be redundant to go over it in detail again. http://www.pro-touring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46900

I'll post a few photos here and there though.

Anybody need a complete rear suspension and 10-bolt rear for a 1968 Camaro? Free, if you come pick it up. Otherwise I'm tossing it.