79 Cutlass Wagon G-machine build

[SRD art]

Now that the hitch was in and tied the rear frame rails together, the big highlight of today was pulling the body. Woohoo!

There are 12 body mounts on the wagon, 10 of them are bolted in, 2 are pushed in. 7 of the 10 bolts came out easily. 2 of them, both 4th back from the front, were so rusted that there was pretty much nothing left of them. I'm surprised they didn't just fall out of the car. number 3 bolt on the driver's side froze up after a few turns. Then it started spinning freely. I thought the bolt broke but actually the tapped plate started spinning inside the body and karate chopped through the floor sheet metal. I cut around it to peel up the sheet metal and spot welded the plate back down. After that and a bigger impact gun it came right out. Notice the torn sheet metal at the top of the photo, wow.

We have a rolling electric winch on beam track that spans the shop. Using a heavy tow strap I found the balance point in the rear door openings and pulled it up. I wish I could tell you guys how exciting today was. After fixing a couple things and some fabrication to beef up the frame it will head to the sandblaster. Once it's back and painted it's all bolting on parts from here on out. This was a huge milestone and I'm totally stoked. And yes, I know the front tires are on backwards. 😉

 

[Longroof79]

Give it hell, Ben.
Lookin' good man.. it's comin' along.

 

[SRD art]

Thanks Jack, I'm a tryin'!

 

[78mali350]

Love seeing the updates to your build. Always look forward to what creative idea you have in store.

 

[SRD art]

Thanks!!

Progress for today...

I always stay as late as I can to work in the shop so most everyone was gone when I pulled the body off yesterday. I feel like I spent half of shop time today explaining over and over what I plan to do with the frame.

I did strip off all the brake and fuel lines and unbolted the rear shocks. The driver's side rear spring cup was torn, so I got this welded up too.

Then I addressed the retarded G-body trans cross member. Unless you can fab up something you're going to be out about $150+ for a cross member with a driver's side exhaust tube clearance. I looked at a couple aftermarket and a few custom dealios on the net and decided that the easiest and cheapest thing to do was modify mine.

Quick and dirty, the hand held plasma cutter hacked the thick tube easily. Unless you have a surgeon's steady hands, which I clearly don't 🙂, you end up with something like this.

A couple minutes with the grinder smoothed it enough to weld. I think with keeping about 1/2" of the vertical sides it should be structurally strong enough to hold the tail of the transmission. To box and finish it I grabbed a scrap of 18 ga sheet, bent it to the shape of the void and welded it on. I could've stopped there but I wanted it to look like it was supposed to be like this from the factory so I took some time and metal finished it instead. Once it's painted it should look like it was formed that way. Here are a few shots from different views. I'm pretty happy with the end result.

Tomorrow I start boxing the frame!

 

[clean8485]

Looking good Ben. Keep up the good work.

 

[Blake442]

I like the idea of tucking the hitch up behind the bumper... My Class 3 hangs pretty low under my bumper.
My only concern is having all the stress on the three bumper shock bolts.
I'd hate to see one of those ears crack after a hard tug from a car in tow... I'd brace that area as much as you can.
Keep up the nice work!

 

[SRD art]

You're right, I have that on the agenda. I'll be building brackets that tie it to the frame rails about 10" back so the pulling force is steered away from those weak 1/8" thick brackets. If I left it the way it is I can see it stretching like taffy when I pull something, lol!

 

[SRD art]

Someone on another forum asked if I thought the trans cross member was strong enough the way I modified it. Really, with the front motor mounts holding up the bulk of the weight, there isn't much weight on the trans cross member. It's almost more like a resting spot to bolt down the trans. Just to be safe I had my good friend Jay stand on it for me. It flexed about 1/8" but at 260 lbs. Jay probably weighs twice what a TH350 does.

 

[SRD art]

Updates...

I went to the local metal supplier and bought some more 1/8" sheet stock and some sections of 1", 3/16ths wall tubing from the scrap area. 37 lbs total at .79 per pound.

First job was tack weld the trans cross member nuts to the member so that I don't need a wrench anymore to install the bolts. I then straightened the frame rails where a floor jack had bent them up a little and prepped them for welding by grinding the surface rust off.

A design cue and one issue to deal with here- Notice I put the sheet stock in the brake to bend it slightly, matching the design cues from the front frame rails. Just a little added visual touch that only took a couple extra minutes.

Also the body mount area needed some working. It's curved at the top and you need to leave it open so you can get a body bushing up in there. After welding on the longer sections, I made the smaller body mount sections using the table mounted plasma cutter. Once they were tacked into place it was fairly easy to get them to contour to the curved upper rail.

I'll have the open gaps where the factory boxed rails meet mine boxed in tomoorow, and then it's on to building some bracing into the frame...