I don’t think I’ve posted much about the front clip. In fact, I don’t think I’ve really covered it. I’ve actually done a little work for a long time on it.
One — U2
One — Mike Dawes cover of Metallica (<<< this is what doing the work for this post felt like… watch him play it)
One — Johnny Cash cover of Metallica
One — Creed
One — Three Dog Night
Hit me baby one more time — Scary Pockets cover of Britney Spears
Although this is one post, it’s a very long post…covering a long period of time. There’s probably 2 weeks of work it in. Doing this over (some) weekends and nights that’s a very long calendar time.
Here’s the very starting point.
I did find a wrench in it.
Looking back, that was an omen of things to come… a wrench in the works…
Yummy crunchy and weird tar-ish flappy rubber grommet thingy?
After media blasting and priming, it looked a bit better. However, it definitely has some missing metal.
Yep more body work…
Since I’ve changed from leaf to radius arm suspension with coil-overs a sway bar is needed. It’ll go here.
From disassembly there were a few bolts that just didn’t want to release, so they got shorter via grinder. That’s gonna need some attention.
the rust cancer ate a few nuts.
I bought some square weld-in nuts to replace the cronky ones from McMaster Carr. I can’t recommend them enough. From this post I was worried about getting what I needed. They fixed the order in no time flat. I’ll keep using them for a long time to come.
Yep. body work. The back half of the front clip is actually in worse shape just due to rust.
More shrapnel from disassembly. Will replace.
Based on trial and error, I think I’ll need to add a hole for a support for the condenser here on the top.
I also got a tap so I could clean up the nuts where dust/paint/whatever gets in it.
does this look better? The bolts in the nuts were there to hold the weld-in-nut while I welded it in.
Oof. Yep more to redo
It seems to never end!
It’s ok, I’m on the job!
The healing bench (welding table) doing it’s job.
Nooooo!
Radiator supports. Will need bracketry too.
A detail not easy to notice:
- The Top support metal cup points down (won’t hold water)
- The bottom one has the sides pointing down to shed water
- the bottom supports will have a piece of metal bar stock under them which will weld to the radiator supports
Mocked up…
Some details of how the rad will be held at the bottom. This is just tacked in. It’ll get more beef.
This is a wee bit close to the steering box. Might need to lop that knob off the top.
chop chop!
Radiator (without condenser) looks pretty tight!
Condenser is gonna fit. Really. It’s gonna fit… :squeeky tight:
Mocked in support for condenser:
Here it is tacked in. Yes, I’m using a screwdriver to hold it all in place. ha!
What to see here:
- Radiator is in place. Need to add just a little structure to add some down-pressure to the radiator.
- condenser is mocked in place. Needs some further adjustments but it’s there.
A second shot. It deserves like 20 shots. This is almost $2k in parts mounted which were ordered from measuring tape measurements.
Man… this makes me wanna get done and drive it!
This shot shows more than what’s apparent.
1- There is a support for the radiator (yes, I need to tie the left and right side together, but this was enough to test.
2- The marks on the front clip were some mods to clearance the sway bar.
Similarly on the other side:
1- there is the matching radiator support patch.
2- I used relief cuts in the body to clearance the sway bar. These relief cuts made sure that it bent where expected. then I re-welded them.
Oh man, new bolts are pretty.
Also the shaky marks are the landing spot for the horn support! I’ll add a weld in bug below so the horns will just bolt in later.
I bought a “u build it” kit which gives me lots of options. It came from Paul Horton’s (now welderseries.com). We’ll see how it goes.
After a dry fit, I’ll need to get this sucker to land on the frame where one end is fully boxed. For that reason I welded on a stud and drilled a hole (for the bolt through side).
Here’s the driver side
… and the passenger side…
These clamps (in my case outside of the bushings) hold the sway bar roughly in place left to right.
Now to weld the arm bungs on the arms..
If the closer one looks a bit shorter and shinier… well… it’s a bit embarassing… I welded the bung on the wrong side..and had to cut it off and reweld. Yep, it’s like that some days.
Steering clearances are tricky. Here on the passenger side from above, you can see from the end of the arm down to the hole to the right of the steering links… that’s where the sway bar drop link will go. JUST enough room.
Here it is with some threaded rod going through the hole for demonstration.
I’m feeling pretty good about it at the moment. I know they will interfere with the old bumper support. I’ll have to deal with that when I reassemble the next time.
Ok. Let’s get the front clip done!
Further put together the radiator support.
cover up that crappy welding with some self etching primer!
Of course, I was working on the rad support and thought “hey, I could use that little scrap of angle iron to help support underneath! Of course, that was one of the pieces I’d cut out for the condenser support. Dang. To add some fun to this, it was the last piece of my small angle iron. Put that on the shopping list. Since I’m now 100% sure the radiator will not interfere with the motor, I can take the effort over to the healing bench to make it more accessible.
A few days later, it’s time to get the condenser in.
A few weeks later, I’m still working on it.
Question: How hard is it to fit a bit of very sensitive (fragile) aluminum into a space barely big enough for it? When nothing is pinned down it kind of fits!
Answer: Can be particularly tough.
My guilt (why did this take so long?):
- I wasn’t thinking about the need for separating the steel from the aluminum. Galvanic action is a pain.
- 1/2″ clearance isn’t really enough space for rubber isolation when there are still lots of degrees of freedom in movement for the part.
- I super under estimated how much of a pain it is working with fragile aluminum. Any time there is something risky I remove the condenser and radiator to a safe part of the shop:
- When grinding, the sparks will embed in the AL.
- When welding, the steel will embed in the AL.
- When bending (hammers are bad for AL) Mistakes can happen.
- When fitting, any wayward bump can collapse the fins which reduces the utility of the cooling.
- The final-tacks for supports also require use of the welding blanket to keep any wayward sparks from eating your lunch e.g. fiberglass fragments in your forearms is a pain
- Sometimes it takes 3 prototypes before the 3rd one works.
In my defense:
- I am being good about putting the most important things in first (radiator) before worrying about the less-important things (A/C condenser)
- I started remembering about galvanic action as I started to finalize the supports. It wasn’t “at the end”… and finally it is going where I wanted it to
- Although it’s true it would fit in the space, the supports weren’t firmed to the front clip, so “getting it in there” had some extra degrees of freedom
- I’m still super excited it’s done, albeit quite a bit later than hoped
- I’m shoving a crazy amount of cooling in a tight space.. and it’s gonna work
For reference, here was the “safe space” I took the radiator and condenser to whenever I was working. Yes, I kept them covered in cardboard.
Let’s get this done! You’re getting the short version until the 3rd because they didn’t work.
Prototype 1: Use angle iron bolt the little holes on the side of the condenser up to the angle iron.
2 days of effort… because it’s so tight, there’s not much room and every little trim took time and thought.
The idea was to hang the curvy ends from the front clip and fasten the steel to the aluminum and isolate it with some rubber. After crafting these I found that there wasn’t enough clearance once I removed the degrees of freedom (the condenser wasn’t just floppy, it got a rigid connection).
Here’s one side attached. couldn’t get the 2nd to work without having contact somewhere.
Here is a subset of the little snippets of steel I trimmed:
I had to set it down for a bit.
Prototype 2: Build a pocket for it to sit in and just pinch something on the top
So I made a couple of pockets and figured out how to line them with rubber.
To tall I couldn’t figure a tidy way to attach it without it just looking like the cluster it was. Yeah, butt ugly, and honestly way over engineered. Couldn’t even get the condenser in to test fit it.
Yep, more trimed pieces:
Prototype 3: Just isolate and capture it
Finally, I took the approach of just giving the condenser a stop with rubber on it and rubber attached directly to the front clip. It’s the only way I could get it to fit without just absolutely destroying the top of the front clip.
Here’s the start of 3, with Prototype 2 in the foreground. Just no good way to do 2.
The big clamp wasn’t to give strong force, it was to have a deep enough throat to hold the rubber down with some silicon adhesive under it. Yes, I know that will prohibit paint later. I was “hopefully” careful not to spread the silicon disease too far.
The condenser is at an angle, so I don’t think I’ll need anything super special to hold it at the bottom. I could be sadly mistaken and have to revisit this later. For the top, I made some pockets that would hold the rubber. There is an end piece that keeps the rubber from shifting out to the “left’.
Here is how it will be used. it will capture the top corner of the condenser. Note how close this is at the top with just rubber holding it off the bottom of the front clip. Oof. No room at the inn.
I’ve nearly worn the primer off the bottom of the front clip putting things in/out. Here’s basically the first attempt at a landing pad. In the end, the bottom pad will be larger but this is the first go.
I crafted some top-caps that will snugly fit onto the front clip top, but also touch the top pockets. Here is the driver side in progress:
there is almost no room to do anything else without a lot of destruction. The passenger side is even tighter.
One thing I learned is that although the front (from the outside) looks symmetric, it is not symmetric at all on the back side.
One of the other confounding things was I needed to have a way for hoses to exit the front clip for the A/C coolant (no longer freon) to flow through this… so one more dimension of tedious attention to detail…
For the tack that holds the pockets onto the top cap, I needed to put that tack through this gap… and at the time a welding blanket was also draped over the condenser. I couldn’t get a picture of the tack with the blanket… not enough room! This is a pick without the blanket, but it’s at the angle I had to take to get the tack in.
There may have been some prayers… Here’s the pocket tacked to the top piece. Given the whacky angle I think it’s apparent why the horrible tack situation was needed. It needed a snug fit.+
The hole will be used with a body bolt to hold it down.
The passenger side was much more complicated in terms of shape. This is the side where the hoses need to come through the clip so it needed to be “barely” offset to the passenger side.
Basically, I started with a piece that’s too big, do some marking, put a bend in and start coping it to size and shape. Relief cuts were needed.
Trim a little, bend a little, relief cut a little…
From another angle…
I use a variety of marks for “cut this off” and “bend here”. You can also see where I’m using a witness mark to allow me to re-orient the piece repeatedly to the same position as work on it. One thing I’ve learned is that you make those marks in the spots where you know are spot on and you won’t need to cut/grind/weld those spots so that they don’t get sanded off half way through fitting a piece.
Here’s a similar “tack weld” shot from the passenger side. This one was tougher. (no surprise) the tack didn’t stick well. Fortunately it was “good enough” that I could tell orientation after removed the parts from the bad tack splatter and shape. In the end it worked out.
Finally, the condenser is in, with supports and it feels nice and tight.
Here’s a pile of trim from this the 3rd and final form:
OK! Here’s a test fit that includes the condenser and the radiator.
Dang this is tight, but looks good to me.
All that’s left is to finish attaching the support for the top of the radiator. I couldn’t finalize this until I was 100% on the condenser’s structure and location.
I welded a short length of angle iron into the back lip of the front clip, then tacked 3 weld-on nuts onto the front clip. One top dead center, 2 at either end of the angle iron. This forms a triangle which can be used to give some down-strength to the radiator support.
Here’s a test fit along the way.
The big black thing is shroud from the old ’63. I may be able to use this to cover up my ugly structure! I will wait until it’s in the truck to be sure I have all the clearances right. It’s pretty beat up but I think salvageable? I’m thinking something like this:
A bit more structure for strength and lots of crappy weld cleanup later I added paint:
All together now… Grinder, sander, primer and paint… makes me the welder I ain’t? (Well, this doesn’t have final paint)
I did dress it up with allen-head button bolts as the hex bolts were a bit tight around the head.
I’ll have to keep thinking about the shroud…
I’m glad that’s done… for now…
wrenchingseason 