[weranc55]

There is a place in FL that can rivet your new upper balljoints in. I had them do a set on my Camaro and it looks factory. I think he charged me 50 per side to rivet them and I supplied the ball joints.

[njsteve]

Got the frame painted and partially assembled. I had the wife help me gently lower (read that as drop) it off of the saw horses and onto the ground after taking the photos. It was getting a bit too heavy up on the stands. Now at least all the hard work is done and the rest of the steering and other stuff can go on. It's also much more handy to be able to roll it around the garage on a set of tires.

And yes, I am still using that "Abdominizer 5000" as a partial frame stand. It will be available for rental once I'm done with this project.

[njsteve]

I repainted the control arms exactly as they came off, I also touched up the original marks on the rotors. You can see the stamped date codes on the upper control arm.

[njsteve]

I left the spindles exactly as I found them. I cleaned them and then sprayed a wax preservative on them to delay any rusting. The rotor dust shield were power washed, which returned them nicely to their original galvanized condition.

[njsteve]

The car still had its original rotors, which were cleaned and resurfaced.

[Larry Navarro]

excellent.
I'm saving these pics for reference, if the SD gets "a makeover".

[njsteve]

Here is the rolling subframe.

[njsteve]

Passenger side view:

[njsteve]

Rear view:

[njsteve]

I took out the rear end and springs today. Pretty amazing. The stenciled part number is still on the top of one of the springs. The odd thing is it looks like the factory stenciled the "PL 481612" over another number that was in smaller font size. Here's a shot of the leafs. It looks like they have never been out of the car. All of the factory bushings were still present, including the zinc strip that goes between the bottom of the leaf spring and the lower rubber saddle bushing.

[njsteve]

Here's a close up of the spring part number. You can faintly see the smaller size numbers "492547" and a very large "RN" under the "PL 481612" numbers. Very interesting!

[njsteve]

Once the rear end was out I got some more photos of the underside, emission lines, brackets, clamps etc. All the factory GM hoses were still there (dry rotting away). Here is a shot from the rear looking forward down the tranny tunnel. I am just loving California cars more and more as I go deeper into this project. The original finish is just amazing.

[njsteve]

Here are the original fuel/emission rubber lines. Note the yellow stripe on one and the date codes on the others. An added warning: I didn't cut these lines, they crumbled when I went to pull them off! Let that be a warning to those who would want to maintain their original fuel and brake hoses that are 35 years old. It's an accident or fire waiting to happen!

An added observation: notice that there are no clamps on any of the emission hoses. I guess the factory didn't think the hoses were under enough vapor pressure to require the extra clamping force to retain the hoses in place.

[njsteve]

Passenger side fuel/emission lines.

[njsteve]

Emission/fuel lines driver's side.

[njsteve]

Rear brake hose.

[njsteve]

Here is the rear end after I cleaned the grease off. The center section has an orange "E" on the bottom with a green paint daub near the rear end cover. The entire rear is unpainted, including the inspection cover.

[njsteve]

There is a green paint mark on the driver's side axle tube, on top.

[njsteve]

There is an orange paint mark on the passenger side of the center section, on top.

[njsteve]

The yoke has yellow paint on the pinion end and a light blue paint daub at the top of the yoke. It also had some orange paint at the outer part of the yoke as seen is the "before" cleaning photo.