The Royal Coupling!!!!! - Body mounts Chassis - only on Pay Per View. IT'S A CAR AGAIN.....almost.

One year to the month we dropped the frame, we have now successfully mated the body back to the frame, thereby achieving a major milestone.  Stephen, my wife's godson, who also was my sole help dropping the frame last year, and Todd, a friend from church and  fellow Corvette owner, and I got the frame on the chassis this afternoon.  We used the engine hoist and thought like ancient Egyptians and managed to get it back together. We didn't measure for shims, align the frame/body gauge holes, or install the body mounts yet.  That's for next week. We accomplished quite enough...besides, the "ingenuity" we used to get the body off the very high rolling table and onto the frame required some fancy work arounds that wore us out and it was definitely Miller time...actually, Pilsner Urquell time.  The lifting techniques we used are not for the weak of stomach, so pix will not be published to protect the ignorant. 





The motley crew, minus one.

Answer to comment by Anonymous: For some reason your comment didn't appear on the blog when I approved it. Since I'm answering in some detail that may interest others, I decided to answer in a post.

I used the motor mounts from Speedhound; they're dba as VettAid.com now. If you plan to use a mechanical clutch linkage, get their Z-bar bracket. The factory LS manifolds will not work with a mechanical clutch and I think that the Melrose headers are the only headers designed for this conversion that will allow the use of the mechanical clutch linkage. I know that when Trey worked at the old Speedhound, he designed the headers so mech linkages could be used. (Melrose makes them based on his design)


Hurst-drivelines.com sells the Tremec deluxe kit for C3s. I got mine from them and it was a direct drop-in. Their tech support is great. Their website has an rpm calculator that you enter your tire diameter, rear end ratio, and desired cruise speed to get the rpm for your set up.

Josh at Custom Image Corvettes helped me with a lot of advice when I started this a couple of years ago. He's now gone into business full time. He makes a great AC compressor bracket. Joshes AC bracket is designed to fit the Fbody brackets/pulleys. You'll need to mod the water pump; heater hose outlets, specifically. If the LS3 wp is the same as the LS2, you may want to get a LS1 wp. I did because the LS2 pulley doesn't ft the 98-02 Fbody accessories and brackets. If the LS3 Corvette accessories are the same as the LS2, and they probably are since they fit in the same engine compartment, you'll have to use the 98-02 Fbody accessories, brackets, pulleys, harmonic balancer, ps and water pump, AC compressor, etc.
 
I think I should do a post on the engine accessories and other mechnical considerations after I get the body on the chassis since I'll be doing engine compartment work and test runs.  I initially posted what I was going to do and brushed by what I actually did, so I think an engine acessory and clutch linkage post is due.
 

Up Against The Wall

The firewall took much longer than anticipated.  I'll keep the story short...the upper cowl shown in the earlier post was so cracked and damaged in areas that would have been practically impossible to repair.  I decided to get a new one.  After a long search, I found one at Dr. Rebuild (a Corvette restoration parts vendor), and fortunately for me, the warehouse is five miles from my house.



The firewall finally repaired and looking pretty.

The metal plate is where the upper bolts of the brake/clutch pedal assembly attach. It had to be removed from the old upper cowl and riveted to the new one.

The reenforcement plate for the windshiled wiper motor.  It, too, had to be removed from the old and rivetted to the new. Not pictured here is the pass side hood latch attaching plate that also had to be removed and rivetted.  All metal hardware was sandblasted and coated with POR-15.

All ready for installation.

This was my first attempt at using fiberglass/SMC adhesive. So I took DUB's advice and ran rehearsals, determining where clamps and weights had to go, and how long it would take.  Then before the installation, I did a trial mix of  the adhesive and hardener ratio to determine the working time I would have in the temp/humidity conditions and mixed it so that it would not rock up before my working time to lay the adhesive and install the cowling.  Taped to the winshield is a pic of the clamp/weight configurqation to use during the final install.  It all went like a charm.

Exhausting Work

I know it doesn't look like much progress since the last engine start video...I did take a long break during the winter, after all!!  After fretting about the exhaust system; deciding to install factory side pipes, selling the headers I had, finding out the fine state of CT won't register my car since the only year for C3s with factory side pipes was '69 (fortunately, I had not sold the MagnaFlow exhaust system I had), and deciding to go with headers again.  Phew!! I have got to get this thing done...I have too much time to think and change plans.

Anyway, the Melrose headers were supposedly designed to mate up with the factory exhaust. Well, they don't.  As you can see in the pix, they hang way low and out board of where the factory pipes would normally be. On the C3s the exhaust pipes run through two holes in the tranny cross member on either side of the tranny mount bracket.  In fact, the tranny mount and the exhaust bracket share the same mounting holes. 

This caused quite a dilemma since I had to figure out a way to fabricate the connection between the headers and the exhaust pipe.  It called for two 45 deg bends to go from the header collector to the pipes in the cross member, basically an ess bend going up from the collector and inboard toward the center of the cross member.  The dilemma was that I don't have access to a local shop that can mandrel bend.  Eventually, I found a vendor on EBay that provided two 2 1/2" pipes per side.  Steve Makos, the manager of the local Midas shop, worked with me by expanding the pipes on one end to 3" to fit the collector and the other end to fit over the other 2 1/2" pipe.  I had to cut each pipe to custom lengths to fab the connector pipe.  The pix below the video will show all this. 

Since I went to all the trouble, I JUST had to hear the new exhaust system.  The first engine start video in an earlier post was with the factory manifolds only - no exhaust.  In this video I have the Caddy CTS-V dbw pedal installed in the car and connected to the computer (ECM).  The ECM and the temp ignition switch are sitting on the little table between the car and the chassis. It sounds real nice.  (the ticking at the beginning of the vid is a vent fan in the garage)

                                            

The gap between the header collector and the exhaust pipe at the cross member.



Two elbows used to form the new exhaust pipe.



Fitting, cutting.

                        

...and installed for mock up.  Steve Makos at the local Midas shop expanded the ends for me, in spite of all the measure once - cut twice trips I took to his shop.  Couldn't a done it with out him.  Yesterday I practiced welding on scrap pieces of pipe and today I tacked the two pieces and pulled them to weld and paint.  BTW, my very first weld job - they looked like crap, but I ground them to look passable. This pic shows them BEFORE my weld job.

The MagnaFlow muffs.  The twin pipes will fit in the stock exhaust ports.