Radiator core support recommendations
 

The core support in my 69 GTO is in pretty rough shape and I am considering buying a new one instead of repairing the one I have.
I see there are several vendors offering replacement supports. What are the opinions on how well these fit? Is it better to buy a new one or repair the old one?


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Curious about this also ... I have a repop I bought about 15 years ago. I've heard bad things about them. Will actually be trying to install it in a couple of months.

I just bought a repop to address some fitment issues I was having, and right away I can tell you that the angle of the top is all wrong. I have the front bolt for the fenders in, but the rear holes are 1/2" off of the core support.

So discouraging!
I need one for my 68 project and was hoping it was worthwhile

I read a thread on here at one time that said it was less trouble to do rust repair on an original than fix the repops. I know they sell a ton of them.

What I hate is you have to have the car 3/4 assembled before you know if it's crap or not, then you have to pull the thing back apart to fix it, rinse and repeat.

I assume the older one I bought is probably worse than whatever they are making now.

Heck, if the angle is that far off I'd clamp it up side down on my welding bench and get out the hydraulic porta power bend the whole thing.

I found this post in the 70-72 forum. He seems to be happy with it. Not sure how far he has assembled the front clip.

New Core Support for '70 GTO - Review

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?sha...p%3Ft%3D793615

In another post they recommend cutting a new on up to repair the original piece.


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Never thought of that .... a repop might make a nice source of multiple "patches" for an original.

Wish I had an original to work with .... last one I had my hands on years ago I threw away because I figured I'd use a repop. Live and learn.

I'll still be trying my repop, all I have to work with right now.

When I built my car back in 2012, I purchased an aftermarket core support from The Parts Place. I did not test fit it before I painted and installed it, only to find that the original core supports are built with a slight tilt forward and the aftermarket stood straight up from the mounts, causing the fender mounting holes to be way out of location. Even with the mounting bolts loosened, I couldn't pull the core support far enough forward to make it work, so I scrapped the aftermarket and rebuilt my original. I used to have pictures that I took showing the difference between the two, but I can't seem to find them on my computer and fear that I may have deleted them.

I know in the northeast a usable core support would be a very hard thing to find ... so it would end up being shipped from the southwest.

I'd seriously probably end up trying to bend a repop before trying to source an original. Maybe tack weld the entire top down to a beam and pull on the bottom with a winch :)

Or you could remove the spot welds on the bottom brace, move the support to the correct angle and then re weld it in the proper position.


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I know that it has been a while since this thread was posted, but I found the photos of my core original core support. The photo of the aftermarket installed on my car shows that the core support stands straight vertical on the car, with no lean forward. The top and bottom plates are parallel to each other. The photo of my original on the concrete shows the bottom plate of the core support is fabricated at and angle, thus allowing for the forward lean. You would have to loosen the mounting bolts and pull the aftermarket forward a long way to get the fender bolts to line up, but the rubber grommets between the frame and core support wouldn't like it much.

I know the OEM units had some lean installed ... but surely not nearly that much. Heck, the radiator would be 3" close to the fan at the bottom.

Someone needs to scare up a photo of an original unit installed but everything else except fender stripped off.

I don't have a side-on view but I do have these. There is definitely a substantial lean..I recall that from when put mine back together. It looks almost wrong if you aren't aware of it.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1559892184

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1559892184

I got lucky and found a good original 69 radiator support. Looks to have a number stamped in the bottom of the latch area.

I do have a 68 rad support that is fixable on bottom rail.

[email protected]

The original 68 core support has a substantial forward lean. Here’s some side view pics. Also can tell the angle by the profile of the top plate over radiator.

Why do I feel like I'm settin on my ear. :D

Here you go...

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...5&d=1559917162

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...6&d=1559917170

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...7&d=1559917177

Thanks KK68 ! Very nice by the way, thanks for posting.


Frank

Thanks for setting me upright!

Jeez, I forgot the radiator is held by the upper fan guard mount ... yeah that makes more sense.

I'll have to look at my fenders .... but is the fender to core support flange on the fender angled that much?

I guess I will fix the one I have since the repops are not angled correctly.
Can anyone provide me with a measurement of the center to center distance on the holes where the frame mounts are?

I would set the new mounts in the frame and then measure the distance between holes

Look at the pic I posted above. The fender has a downward curve approaching the front that the support is designed to follow. They will match.

Looks like I'll have another project to do tweaking the re-pop core support.

And what are you doing up this late, I thought I was the only one that did that.

I can't remember the last time I was in bed before 4:30am and haven't slept more than 4 hours in one stretch in years. Comes from years of working weird shifts.
I noticed before that you were online a lot in the wee hours of the night.

Yep ... three days a week I work 9 to 5 .... that's 9pm to 5am :) Like you've I've been doing it for many years, and like you I don't sleep more than about four hours at a time.

I've worked all over the clock. Even my last dayshift job used to start at 4am and end at 2:30pm, meaning I would get up at about 2:45am... For the last year, I've worked midnights. The job I have now varies in location and shift but I asked to stay on this one because I hate going from night shift to day shift...It really blows your weekend when you don't get up on Saturday until 11am and have to go to bed early on Sunday night to get up early Monday... and besides, on this shift I can get a lot done during the day.

Bringing this thread back to the top. I am now in the process of doing a first fit on the dreaded repop core support. Unbelievable they are selling this piece of shiit as a usable part, it's not even close.

I'm going to start with .... can someone get me the lean angle of the top of the core support? It would require and angle/level of some kind, just set on top of a flat area of the core support top.

And so I am clear .. the bottom rail that takes the mounts IS supposed to be horizontal and the rest of the core support comes off it at an angle. So the problem with these repops is that the bottom rail is manufactured parallel to the top, instead of at the proper angle. I can fix it, about 8-10 welds to drill out ... leave it attached at the front, bend the flange down in the back ... reweld, add metal where necessary.

Also ... do these have to be drilled for the 68 fan guard? There is not one hole that matches up to my 68 metal fan guard. I haven't cut the "Lip" off yet ... but I can already tell there are no bolt holes for the 68 guard.

Here is a scan from page 254 in the 69 Assembly Manual.

I think the 1.890 reference at the top is the difference from vertical for reference points BC and BD if I'm reading the print right. They didn't do angle back then I guess :)

I added the red lines to replace what I think are reference lines that didn't show up in the crappy copy.

If I had an angle measurement on the top plate I could do the trig and see if this 1.890 is the actual difference between those two points.

I'm not sure if there is an actual stamped or drilled reference point on the repops, or even if there was on the original part.

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...8&d=1573755556

This is not the most accurate approach, but I would expect it to be reasonably close. I put a protractor up to the screen over the picture of my OEM core support that I posted in post #11 and it checks at 10 degrees forward lean.

Very interesting. Thank you sir.

I imported the scan from the Assembly Manual into AutoCad, created a vertical line, came off the bottom of the vertical line with another matching the lean in the drawing and got 9 degrees .... so very close.

These pages in the manual appear to be copies of mechanical drawings, so they should be fairly accurate.

That puts me in the ball park, the mounts will flex enough to go plus or minus a couple of degrees.

Update: Just imported a high rez scan into AutoCad and scaled it to match perfectly (meaning for instance 6" shown on drawing, measures 6" in AutoCad) and came up with 9 degrees again ... jeez, can't believe you got that close holding a protractor up to your screen :) Scaling these manual drawings into AutoCad seems to be a great way to get measurements that aren't listed ... I'd say accurate to about 1/16"

Did anyone else have to drill holes to mount their fan guard?

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...9&d=1573759186

Just for kicks, I checked the angle of my core support when I got home from work tonight. Assuming that my car it sitting reasonably level on the concrete floor of my shop and the core support mounts are parallel to the floor, I got a measurement of 9-10 degrees across the top plate..

Thank you ... we now have a consensus ... 9-10 degrees is a settled fact :) 99% percent of the scientific community agrees.

I think I can clamp that support to my very flat and level welding bench and get it just right. In the drawing above you can certainly see where the repop has gone wrong ... the bottom rail is certainly not parallel to the top plate ... and on the repops it certainly IS.

I can't believe the vendors are selling this piece ... that is a MAJOR flaw, not sure how anyone without a metal shop is even able to use them. I hope there are no other major problems.

Checked the Ames site ... yep, no holes for the fan guard, it just keeps getting better :)

Shame I can't send this back since I bought it about 20 years ago.

Surprised the mfgr or supplier doesn't chime in here.

Well all the suppliers are using the same part so everyone is in the same boat.

In the next week or so I'm going to modify it and hope that it will work. I'll document everything and post it with pictures.

So far the list for a 68 is:

Remove upper lip
Remove two clips on the front below the top plate
Remove and reweld bottom plate for proper lean
Drill holes to mount the fan guard (no holes at all in repop)
Locate and re-drill holes for AC condensor

I’ll be following along myself, I was also banking on using a repop. Luckily I didn’t junk my old one, I repaired it however wasn’t very happy with how it turned out. Would the 9-10 degree angle be the most important factor in getting front end fitting properly?

So, from my perspective, the pics of the original support show the top cover plate level and running parallel to the ground when the core support is at the correct forward lean.

So if I remember correctly this piece is intended for a 70 and must be modified for a 68 or 69. My question is, does the original core support for a 70 also lean forward?

Yep, the top cover/fan guard, where it holds the rubber upper radiator mounts looks like it should be close to level/horizontal.

Kind of a Jedi mind trick ... I always picture the core support straight up and down with the radiator fitting INTO it ... in reality the radiator is not really IN the core support ... the radiator is straight up and down and offset towards the engine.

Good question ... I have no idea. But it's certainly a BIG stretch to call this a 1968 GTO part.

I think it's a 68-70 part.
Yeah, the radiator sits on the core support at the bottom but attaches to the fan shroud at the top, well rear of the forward tilted support.

For my 68 I used a core support made by Golden Star that I bought from NPD.
I don't know if it was made with the "lean angle" in it but it works fine for me without modification (except for the trimming required up top for 68 car.

Would love to see some close ups of that part.

Wonder if they have fixed the newer ones .... would be a very simple fix from the manufacturing point of view.

Easy enough to spot the problem with most of them ... if it stands straight up when bolted to the frame it's not going to work without either major modifications or ... my guess is some people leave the frame bushings loose, yank it forward at the top to make it bolt to the fenders and then tighten up the frame mounts ... but that still leaves the lower radiator mounts all messed up at the wrong angle.

They must've fixed it...I can't imagine anyone getting that one the work the way it was with no 'lean'. It's pretty pronounced.