Full Ground Up Restoration

I’m preparing to reassemble this one. It’ll require some effort to restore, but I’ll begin at the bottom and progress toward where the body is suspended. The project came with numerous loose parts and a couple of coffee cans filled with bolts for assembly.

This car from the Midwest has significant frame issues. Fortunately, I stumbled upon a donor frame that was intact and still had most of its hardware attached.

The donor frame originated from a 1968 Malibu four-door. Although the body mount holes are slightly misaligned, they should suffice. Additionally, the rear of the frame needs to be extended by approximately 3 inches, and the rear mounts must be relocated from the center of the rail to the outside. The front also requires shortening and narrowing by a few inches.

This is the rear section of the original frame for comparison.

Apart from the brake line traversing the front cross-member, the rust is primarily superficial.

Cleaned and painted

The front drum brakes are being replaced with disc brakes, modern tubular A-arms with urethane, and new OEM springs are being installed all around. The calipers have been upgraded to a dual-piston Wilwood conversion, which directly bolts up to the factory discs. The donor disc brakes were disassembled, sandblasted, polished, and painted. New seals, bearings, end caps, rubber lines, and hard lines have been installed for the front cross-member.

At this juncture, it’s much simpler to invert the frame and install the lower arms than to struggle with them without the support of a fully assembled car’s weight.

This should help for stopping power! No more fade!

The front steering linkage was replaced with Moog components, while the rear arms were upgraded to feature adjustable upper arms and square tubing lowers with urethane bushings.

The rear axle underwent cleaning, inspection, and received fresh fluid. Additionally, the rear brakes were cleaned, with parts blasted, and equipped with new wheel cylinders, shoes, axle bumpers, and pinion bump stops. KYB Gas-a-just shocks were installed on all four corners.

Copyright 2022-24