Body Mounts: Preliminary

First step was to find good examples of used hardware to refurbish. I do keep all the little odd bits off of parts cars. Some of the hardware is either too rusted away or just plain broken so it pays to keep hard to find hardware like this.

I bought a new body mount kit for the '66. But holy cow the pieces in the box are all extras. Seems like such a waste.

First round of hardware refurbishment, still much to do.

Body Mounts and Bumper Bracket Hardware

Just thought I'd continue with the body mounts and bumper hardware. What a time vampire this turned out to be.

I try to replace the generic hardware but the specific hardware gets sandblasted, blackened and clear coated, or sand blasted and powder coated and even the new hardware gets cleared for rust protection since it's just zinc plated with colourant. I did use some stainless bits and the beauty of 304 SS is it needs no additional work done to them for this type of application.

The other problem is whilst you can buy the body mounts for the '65-'68 the mounts are really generic and you have to modify them to work properly.

I'll break this down to certain mounts at a time. These are the 4 firewall mounts.

Here's the problem. The old mount is pictured in the upper left. You are not given enough of the proper rubber pucks to make that mount. You have to use 2 of the same rubber pucks (lower left) for each mount. The lower original mount (upper middle) has a little extra moulded piece in the middle. I had to add that. It keeps the mount and body from slipping on the stud and the stud hitting the side of the body itself and making noise. So I had to get creative with a boat load of extra rubber tubing and found #6 air con barrier hose would work well, but I still had to drill out the middle for 7/16" since #6 ID is 3/8". Then I rubber cemented that in place on the lower rubber puck (right hand side upper and lower example).

Here's the new lower modified mounts. Now the body can rest on top of that.

And here's the top half that sandwiches the body steel in place.

These are the front radiator support mounts. Now I did reuse the old rectangular blocks as I found a set from some '66 that were in stellar condition. The new kit does not come with the rectangle blocks AT ALL so if you need them you have to use one of the round extra pucks and slice the sides off making the round mount rectangular plus slice a little groove for the original metal washer ear to rest in and hold the rubber from slipping.

Now the original upper mounts (right hand side) had steel fender like washer in them and also have a moulded nipple section that keeps the metal tube liner from hitting the metal frame and making noises. The new kit does not come with this either. I had to take a standard tall extra puck (left hand side) they give you and grind it down to size then insert some rubber/silicone hose to fill the large centre opening and create the extruded nipple as the original one had (centre). I also used an AN fender washer of the appropriate outside dimension and bored the ID to work, then power coated it. (above the middle mount).

There's the radiator support mount installed.

Then the upper portion just to put them loosely on so I know where they are.

Here's another one to be modified. These mounts reside next to the rear torque boxes on the chassis.

Continued in next post.