dennisbernal91z

iTrader: (2)

Like the title says, my car is 100% gutted, nothing in it at all and I would like to install a 4 point bar and sfc. It would be a ton of work to reinstall the motor, tranny, doors, rear and front suspension, before putting in the structure items. I feel like I have seen many builds put these items in with gutted cars.

Any trick to doing this, or were all those other builds doing it wrong?

BOTTLEDZ28

iTrader: (9)

If that was me, I would either fill sand bags with sand or fill 5 gallon buckets with rocks/sand and place them in the engine bay and inside the car to simulate the weight of what you removed.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

You don't have to do ANY of that.

All you need, is to make sure the frame is STRAIGHT. I.e. not one corner higher than the others or the like. You could set it up on 4 floor jacks and tram it if you are doing it at home. Here's the dimensions.







A good way of doing it is to bolt the body to a race car jig. That's how mine were put on, with the car COMPLETELY gutted. No drive train, no interior. Worked perfectly fine.

BOTTLEDZ28

iTrader: (9)

Apparently, your capitalization of the word "any" in your comment means you're saying that my suggested method of adding ballast weight is foolish and a waste of time. I guess you think that all of us have race car jigs just hanging around our garages and we always have a helper just waiting around to hold the tape measure to take long measurements across the body of the car. SMH.

Dennis, put the car on 4 jack stands and just make sure the car is square and level. You're just installing a 4 point so it wont be so bad

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

Yes that is correct; that is exactly what I meant.

Of course we do. Right? Actually I had a friend who had one. But, there's somebody in most every town that builds cars; not too hard to track one down and make an arrangement.

Exactly what I told him to do, except that with floor jacks, it's AHELLUVALOT eeeeeezier to get it right. Jack stands usually have about ½" steps, at best, meaning if the floor isn't PERFECTLY flat, that's as close to "perfect" as you are then limited to.

dennisbernal91z

iTrader: (2)

All I have is jack stands. I can get my wife to help me measure stuff. I don't have any fancy race car stuff nor do I know anyone that does. I would like to not have to get the body towed around for this. It is just a cruiser. Not going to be racing.

The ballast weight idea is not bad, just not not very precise. I have no idea what everything weighs. The car has no suspension, wiring, steering... nothing. Just the unibody and some old sfc that I want to get rid of.

I will see how square and true it is looking at the dims on the drawings.

Not sure how to guarantee the body is level. As for the jack stands only having rough steps, thin plywood squares could be placed under them to raise them up as needed.

Oh, I have two floor jacks too. Maybe I can put the axle back in, with springs and if that is level left to right, keep it in place with jacks. Then us the two floor jacks as fine adjustment up front?

BOTTLEDZ28

iTrader: (9)

If the body has sfc on it already then leave them in while you weld the bar in. Then, weld temporary door bars in to triangulate the hoop which will stop the body from flexing. Then you can remove one SFC at a time and weld the new one in.

sofakingdom, thinks we all have race car jigs to work on our cars!

Night rider327

iTrader: (13)

Making way too big of a thing out of this. Non of these cars are perfect square anymore, heck I have my doubts about them leaving GM perfect square.

You can hang plumb bobs from points on car to almost floor level so a single person can measure a long span. You can get those for $3-10. I have a whole drawer of them set up with magnets, string, loops, etc to hang them from anything. Run your tape on floor and hang the plumb bobs and read the measurement off.

Or even little lazer levels/pointers. They are cheap now. That would make pulling a measurement easy. Stick a magnet on a lazer pointer and stock pointer on X point of car shinning beam down to floor, tape measure on floor.

The car don't need to be loaded, it just needs to be as level and square as can be.

Jack the car up and put jackstands under the 4 corners on the "frame" of car. Use a level and shims to shim up the jack stands to get car sitting level left to right and front to rear.

I put my cage and sfc in out in a dirt yard on jackstands. Just shimmed the stands with plywood and sheet metal under the base of stands to get car level.

dennisbernal91z

iTrader: (2)

Where did you put the level to check that things were level front to back and side to side?

I can buy plumb bobs and laser pointers no problem. Good idea. I have the car in my garage now, on 4 jack stands. Being held up by the frame. Pretty sure the old SFC were put in without the body "loaded" as well, so they won't really help. If anything they could be screwing things up.

So best to image the car without them for these purposes. I put the old ones in 15 years ago when I was not careful about anything, so I am sure they are not correct.

Like I said earlier, there is nothing in the car. If I could just figure out where to place the level, then I can get rolling.

Just for my own sanity, does the level importance come from trying to setup a solid datum plane for the vertical measurements?

Thanks for all the help so far.

articwhiteZ

iTrader: (56)

don't over think this...keep it simple. like what was posted just make sure it's straight. it's just a 4 point (to start with)

SlickTrackGod

This is very simple for anyone wanting to do this in the future whether the car is loaded or not- does not matter once the car is jacked off the ground and held on these 6 points.

Easy steps.

1) set the car in the garage floor you wish to jack it on.
2) drop plumb bob points (you can do this by eyeballing for the most part) on the ground under the six circled areas I show in the drawing.
3) move the car out of the garage
4) place jack stands in these 6 areas- you need to have the flat portions of the stands clocked for the ability to level each set of 2 stands "side to side" ONLY!
A) the front set should be aprox23" off the ground and level them sideways(Shim under the stands with thin metal plates accordingly to get the floor level)
B) the second set or middle set of stands should be aprox 14" off the ground and level side to side.
C) Simply level the pad areas of the 3rd or back set of jack stand areas by shimming the ground with metal plates if necessary. these stands will however be shimmed in height and placed in position ONLY AFTER THE FRONT TWO SETS HAVE THE CAR RESTING ON THEM.

5) Move everything and reposition the car back into the exact area to be jacked up. Place front 4 jackstands beck into positions and level. Lower car onto them and see of the car rests on all four accordingly. If one seems to have a gap then place sand bags on the chassis right above it until it is weighted enough to rest on this point firmly (Note: you will have to place sand bags on the diagonal opposite point as will in order to prevent tetter-tottering of the frame lifting off another point.)

6) Now carefully measure the rear points of the car off the leveled shim pad points to see if they match level off the ground. If they do then you may want to add the rear #5 and #6 jack stand positions simply for safety and just snug them into place lightly. ...If they do NOT match then the rear of the car is twisted. Bring them up to where the lower of the two is snug- then duplicate that height with the other side and weight the top of that point with sand bags until it rests evenly. When finished, make sure the front 4 stands have not lifted any of them off points.

You now have a squared chassis to begin welding on.
Note that this may take a LOT of sand bags to weight it enough to bend the chassis into squared state, but it works.

dennisbernal91z

iTrader: (2)

This is great advice.

I just have the problem that the car is already gutted and I have no place to put it to level the stands.

I have a cherry picker, 6 jacks stands and 2 jacks.

The car is sitting on 4 jack stands now being held up around the front 4 locations you have circled. I have a two car garage, if I had a bunch of friends over I am sure we could lift the body and move it out of the way for a bit, but I don't see this happening.

I guess I could lift the nose enough to get a long level across the tops of the jack stands and level them and raise them. Then put the nose down and do the same for the back. This is a job I could do alone.

I will try this out when I get to this step in a couple weeks. Thanks!

Night rider327

iTrader: (13)

Wheel'ed trailer jacks work to move a gutted car around. Or even some HD casters.
You have welding and cutting tools. Buy some tubing and weld up a mount bar and wheel setup that you can bolt onto the front and rear suspension points or bumper crash bar mounting points.

I like the trailer jacks cause you can lift and lower the body of car as needed, depending on how you build the mount bar..

A gutted third gen only weighs around 700-1400 lbs depending on how much is still left on the car.

dennisbernal91z

iTrader: (2)

I do have 4 wheeled roller dollies. Not sure what they are called, but I used then to move the car back when it was together. Maybe I can use those somehow. I will dive into this with two feet once I finish my fuel cell install. Thanks for the advice.