Mine is an Iowa car (LOTS OF SALT), however, it has not seen a winter in over 15 years. So it has not gotten worse..... I was just out there soaking the bolts. #6 on the pass side was the one that broke off on its own. After careful inspection, #7 on the pass side is nearly ready to break. My hope is to be able to drill the broken ones out and replace them. I'm not prepared to do much more than that this year..... After all, Power Tour is only a couple months away! 🙂 I'll take it NICE AND SLOW. The more time I take, the more cigars I can enjoy while working on the car!
Replacing body bushings on 1979 Monte Carlo
- Thread starter rmorman
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I would also like to do this soon. I had a few questions.
If the frame mount is rusted completely out, do you have to line the repair washer up to exactly where the old hole was? What size are the frame holes/what size washers and thickness?
For the body side, I'm not sure exactly what the mount bolts into as I haven't tore the carpet up yet. Is it like a sheet metal cage? And if this is rusted out, what is the best way to repair the damage?
I would like to get a feel for what I may have to do when I tackle it this summer and what materials/tools I should have.
If the frame mount is rusted completely out, do you have to line the repair washer up to exactly where the old hole was? What size are the frame holes/what size washers and thickness?
For the body side, I'm not sure exactly what the mount bolts into as I haven't tore the carpet up yet. Is it like a sheet metal cage? And if this is rusted out, what is the best way to repair the damage?
I would like to get a feel for what I may have to do when I tackle it this summer and what materials/tools I should have.
Just going thru this on my car too, It hasn't seen salt since 94, and still had 3 bolts break and 1 cage nut spin. Had to repair the frame holes too. I wonder if some of holes are just rusted out, but wore out from the body mounts moving relative to the frame. I got my frame repair washers from Fastenal.
The factory bushings have these sheet bmetal inserts that rust out quickly and usually react to the frame holes causing them to rust out too. The OEM bushings are a poor design that causes frame damage.
I was lucky that there was enough metal left on my rusted out #2 so I could easily line up the repair washer that I got from Kirban. I went to my local Fastenal to get washers and they didn't stock any of the correct size. The clerk spent 90 minutes looking for it, ended up going with Kirban.
With the #2 you can just jack the front corners of the body up high and squeeze a MIG gun in there. The other mounts would require removing the body completely off of the frame to repair. Body bushing replacement can easily snowball badly.
I regret helping you after you gave me a dumb rating.
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I was lucky that there was enough metal left on my rusted out #2 so I could easily line up the repair washer that I got from Kirban. I went to my local Fastenal to get washers and they didn't stock any of the correct size. The clerk spent 90 minutes looking for it, ended up going with Kirban.
With the #2 you can just jack the front corners of the body up high and squeeze a MIG gun in there. The other mounts would require removing the body completely off of the frame to repair.
I regret helping you after you gave me a dumb rating.
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Chances are if you have bolts that are breaking off that you have further rust issues including the diamond nut board inside the sheet metal cage attached to the body. I hate to be a bearer of bad news but after parting about 30 cars, and designing the new aftermarket parts, it seems you have the start of something that will require more than just replacing bolts. For example...if you break a bolt off into a body mount nut board...how are you going to remove the rusted part of the bolt? The answer is a complete repair of the body mount nut board and surrounding area. I have done it....but was also performed on a rotisserie. Good luck, I'd bet a few thousand you will need to not only repair the body mounts, but also the frame.
It's a pretty involved job that I have performed on more than on occasion. The frame repair washers we had created
are 2.75"x1.5 IDx1'8"
I like to lay the washer down, trace, carbide burr it out, weld the new in, grind and paint.
Hello,
Spent a good bit of yesterday and today researching what I need to do to replace the body bushings after I noticed that the bolt on #6 passenger side had rusted completely through. See this link: Body Bushings
I have found LOTS of good threads here, including these:
https://gbodyforum.com/threads/body-bushings-replacement.20146/
&
https://gbodyforum.com/threads/body-bushing-replacement.50739/
I have already ordered the complete bolt set from Dixie Monte Carlo and the Poly Energy suspension from Rock Auto.
I have a couple questions:
What all do I need to remember to loosen/remove/prepare before separating the body & frame (just enough to perform the changes)? Bumpers? ???
What are the torque Specs for the new bolts?
Has anybody built the "teebar" from the link above?
Is there a thread that shows detailed pictures using the teebar or completing the installation?
This will be by first go at this, so ANY AND ALL advice is GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks,
Russ
look through some of my posts on frame off 442 restoration. There is plenty of frightening photos there for you to observe what I had to do to the car to get it correct.
another problem area is this area behind or under the back seat. There is a body mount in this area as well that goes to hell quick
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