Quote:
Originally Posted by HardcoreZ28
Hey guys I'm working on a 68 for a guy right now that another shop completely hacked up. Trying to get everything right for my customer. My first question is Firebird specific. It appears as if the tailpanel was replaced on the car and the area where the bumper runs across is curved in at the center above the license plate area. It's curved in probably a good 3/4" or more. I've never looked at one close enough to know if this is correct or if the other shop misaligned the panel and then just pushed the center in to be able to weld it to the trunk floor. Anyone know?
Second question is just first and possibly second gen related. The front mounts for the leaf springs are held up with 3 bolts that go up into the floor pan. I'm trying to remove them and they are just spinning. I'm assuming there's a cage nut above the mount that's spinning. I can't figure out a way to get them out aside from cutting that portion of the frame open to somehow stop the nut from turning. You can't get to it from inside the car because it's a double panel. Anyone know a trick for this?
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Regarding the second issue-
They are actually 3 J-nuts. Like these bad boys:
http://www.firewheelclassics.com/sto...ID=&SKU=RLS28A
They break at the two tabs and then it's happy happy fun times.
I approached the problem this way. Granted, it's probably not the only way but I didn't want to cut the floor up to get at them from the top. I couldn't get the springs out so I ended up just cutting the spring eye buckets with a cutoff wheel and replacing them. I got a used set for $30.
Once the spring eye was out, I tried sticking a big flat bladed screwdriver in the hole to try and mechanically jam the nut and keep it from turning. I was able to get a few of the bolts out and fished the remains out of the frame with a telescopic magnet. For the ones I couldn't get, I used the cutoff wheel to cut an X across each bolt head, hit them with a chisel, and then used a magnet to pull the nut and bolt remains out.
Again, not the only way, but how I was able to do it without cutting anything that doesn't bolt on.