i agree its an ambitious project but good to see another olds being resurrected I'm doing a 72 vert myself and its definitely a labor of love.

 

I did a trial fitment of the SPC upper control arms and tall ball joints to check for clearance issues. These SPC arms are the coolest! They adjust the caster and camber by turning the hex-shaped adjusting sleeves, the jamb nuts lock it into place to hold the alignment. When combined with taller ball joints, its possible to improve the camber gain of the car so as the suspension compresses in a turn the tire bites into the road instead of leaning out on the outside edge of the tire. I had to grind down the front most brace from the control arm mount to provide clearance for the SPC arm. I sent the frame off to be powder coated and wanted all the grinding finished before getting it powder coated. I sent the rear end to Pyle Bros. in Baytown, TX to assemble the new Torsen carrier and ring and pinion. I bought the parts from JIm (Monzaz) with plans to build it myself, but I decided I had better things to do than assemble (and reassemble...probably multiple times) the rear end. I hope to pick up the frame and the rear end on Monday...then the fun begins. Reassembly time! It's been a little more than a year since I pull this car out of a cow pasture and the assembly phase is long overdue! Stay tuned for more pics.

You can see the 0.9" tall upper ball joint. I'll have to come up with a way to keep a boot on this ball joint to keep dirt and water out. The bottom ball joint is 0.3" taller than stock as well which will correct the inherent factory bumpsteer (also lowers the car 0.3" too!


Checking camber gain with a torpedo level as I move the suspension up and down. This is really cool!

 

Looks about like the 72 I picked up in Houston in 2009. I just this year started turning wrenches on mine though. Good work there keep it up

 

Very cool adjustments instead of playing with shims. When I first looked at those pics, I thought "What the heck? How come only the A frame was cleaned and finished?". Duhhh. So this was a dry fit just to check how the suspension went together. Funny that SPC wouldn't have provided a boot to protect the open areas of the ball joints.

 

Allen:
Yeah, this was a trial test as I wanted to make any modifications to the frame prior to powder coating. I hope to pick up my frame on Monday. The ball joints are from Howe racing, and i found out after placing my initial order that they sold the boots separately. I've since ordered the boots from Howe, only problem is they are made to fit a standard length ball joint and don't cover the stud completely. I'm thinking of using a piece of heater hose to slip over the stud to keep the boot pressed down on the ball joint. More on that to come. I can hardly wait to begin re-assembly!

 

I took half the day off from work today to pick up my frame and differential! Rented a $40 trailer from U-Haul. I'm so excited to start putting things back together. The big bummer here is that I leave for vacation in 2 weeks and probably won't find the time to work on the car before vacation because of all the trip preparations. It's gonna kill me to have to wait 4 weeks before I can get back to work on the car.

The frame on the powder coater's rack. Thirty percent gloss is just the right amount of sheen - not too shiny but not too dull, it's just right!


Loading the frame - don't want to scratch it!


Nestled into the trailer for the ride "home".


Back in the shop, waiting for reassembly.

 

That looks awesome. What a huge difference from this:

 

Wow!

 

Almost makes ya want to go back and start over doesn't it Ted?

 

I applaud Rodney for taking this project on...I think it is an inspiration to others(myself included).

Allan....not a chance......I would be coming to live with you if I had taken the 442 resto farther than I did

 

Looking good Rodney!

 

Looking VERY good! Excited to see what happens next!

 

Bernard did a great job on that frame. Looks like brand new. Looking forward to the progress going forward.

Sean

 

This one is going to be a beauty.
Rod, we need an update on 'Lazarus'.

 

Adam:
Unfortunately, I will be otherwise pre-occupied for the next 2-3 weeks so you won't see much progress. I will definitely be posting pics of the reassembly process. I'm going to look at an OAI hood this evening that I hope is in good condition and reasonably priced. Stay tuned, and wish me luck!

 

Wishing you GREAT luck Rod.
Looking forward to a cruise.

 

WOW great job! Don't know if I would have had the drive to tackle a project like that!

 

Motivation thread! Great work...

 

Thanks to everyone who has posted encouraging words about my project. I’ve questioned my choice to proceed with this car at least a dozen times over the past 2 years, but now that I’ve started the assembly process, I don’t think I’ll be looking back with regret. I used my $50 Harbor Freight bench-top press to press in new wheel studs in the front hubs. I used Dorman 610-114 studs which were about ¼” longer than the factory studs I removed. I wanted a little more thread length here because I’m mounting C4 Vette rotors on these hubs which are thicker than the factory drums I took off. I managed to lay out some of my brake lines and frame-related parts before leaving for vacation. I just couldn’t go without doing something to the newly powder-coated frame; it called out to me in my sleep like some kind of spooky, horror movie (remember the Stephen King movie “Christine”?)

I bought all the brake and fuel lines from InLineTube and was very impressed with the huge box they used to ship. Nothing got bent-up during shipping! I had my engine frame mounts powder-coated with Anthracite Gray matte to mimic the original factory phosphate coating. It’s pretty close in color, maybe a little bit lighter than the phosphate but looks good to me and should last longer than the phosphate. I can see how guys go crazy with powder-coating, it looks so good you want to PC everything – LOL. Next up is to paint the differential, press in the control arm bushings, and start bolting things back together. I’ve already read in other’s posts about not tightening the suspension bolts until I have the full weight of the car on the ground. I can’t wait to get back from my vacation and get to work!

Ready for reassembly


Pressing in the wheel studs.



Frame Motor Mounts

 

Mine as well. My car was also built in the last week of march in Lansing.
Also a convertible. Close cousins for sure!

 

What an amazing build thread. Awesome work! Keep up the great progress.
And thank you for sharing so much useful information as you go...
Can't wait to see more.

 

Ces:
Thanks for the compliments and sharing your car's "birthday" info. FYI - I sent you an email yesterday with some pics of the 15" SSII wheels. LMK if you want them, I need to sell off some of my extra parts to fund my project - LOL.

 

cdrod,
I want to buy the rims, pending seeing some decent pics, please.
I replied twice to your PM here on CO.
It doesn't seem to have reached you.
This site has been giving me major problems since i first rediscovered it 4 months ago!
I even saved a copy of my last sent message to you and its not there.
point is:
please email me at cesoner@gmail.com

thanks very much

 

to be clear, please send as many good pictures as you can so I can buy them, sight unseen in person.

right on

 

What you have done with what you started with is amazing. Fortunately mine isn't that bad or I'd never have started it. Mine's the same color combo as yours, but a 71.

What did you do about the inside of the frame? I'm thinking about powder coating it as well since I can get it blasted and coated for around $400. Doesn't seem to make sense to paint it for that price. Can't wait to see it done.

 

DewChugr:
$400 for blasting and powder-coating is a good price. I paid $500 to do my frame. I seriously considered having the entire frame hot-dipped galvanized, as this would flow up inside the frame rails ensuring a complete encapsulation; but after discussing with several Chevelle guys I learned that there was a serious risk of warping the thinner sections of the frame because of the 850-degree temps of the galvanizing tank. Glavanizing and painting the frame was about the same cost as powder coating, and since my car has spent it's entire life in Texas (the frame wasn't rusted all to hell) I opted to powder-coat. I asked the powder-coater to blast up inside the frame rails as much as he could, and he also sprayed powder up inside as well. It's not coated inside as much as I would have liked, but I think it will be just fine and the frame looks amazing - looks brand new. I may try Eastwood's internal frame coating if I get worried about the inside of the frame.

I had the rear control arms powder-coated along with the frame and I will be painting and installing the rear end this weekend as well as '01 Blazer rear disc brakes. Then I'll start on the front-end installing the steering gear and fabricating some brackets to put 12" C4 Vette discs brakes up front. I'm happy with the way it's finally coming together. After 2 years of taking apart and tagging and bagging all the parts, it's nice to be putting things back together again.

 

What is involved in putting blazer brakes on the rear? I could source those at the the junkyard a lot cheaper than c5/c6 brakes.

I hadn't heard about the Eastwood frame coating stuff, looks interesting. I'll have to see what else they have I don't know about. My car has lived in Illinois it's whole life, but hasn't been driven in 20-25 years I bet. I was expecting much more rust than I have, I feel lucky so far.

 

'98 - '01 2WD Blazer rear discs have a 11.6" dia. rotor and are a bolt-on conversion - a couple of spacers and some light welding and you're good to go. Here's what you need:
1. 1/4" spacer between the axle tube and the Blazer backing plate to align the caliper and rotor.
2. Longer bolts to mount the backing plate (it's thicker than the stock drum plate).
3. 9/16" curved spacer behind the axle retainer to hold the axle bearing and grease seal in place.
4. Shorten the brake lines that run along the axle tube.
5. Weld on a brake line bracket to mount the caliper hose.
6. Custom parking brake cables (or shorten some stock Blazer cables to fit the Olds parking brake mounts)

I'm still working out some of the details, but they should match-up well with the 12" C4 Vette brakes I'm putting on the front. I didn't want to use the kits by Right Stuff and others, because they use a ratcheting style parking brake that has caused adjustment problems for many people. The Blazer parking brake uses a small shoe that fits inside the rotor that is completely separate from the caliper. There's no way the brakes can get out of adjustment because of the parking brake mechanism. Here's some pics of the Blazer parts:

 

Man this is a good thread.

 

I worked out some of the alignment details with the SPC tubular upper control arms. The SPC arms came with nuts and bolts and some 1/4" steel plate spacers for the ball joint mount, these are necessary to clear the top of the frame as the factory arms have a significant downward curve which the SPC arms do not. The SPC arms also did not include a bump-stop, which I found surprising as the install docs strongly caution about potential damage and suspension jacking if the arm contacts the frame rail. So, the first order of business was to design a bump stop and make sure of frame clearances; second item, ensure the suspension travel isn't limited or restricted; third item, reduce the unsprung weight as much as possible to improve ride/handling quality.

I made a bump stop out of 5/16" plate steel that bolts on top of the ball joint plate. It contacts the factory rubber bumper throughout the range of caster adjustment. This added almost 1 lb. of weight (10 oz.) not helping with my #3 goal.

Now on to suspension travel. I bolted up the factory upper control arm to take some baseline measurements to compare with the SPC arms. With 2 of the 1/4" ball joint spacers the suspension cleared the frame rails with about 1" less travel on rebound. Since I'm using the factory lower arms with the bolt-on bump stop, there was no change in suspension travel in compression.

To reduce the unsprung weight, I made some 1/2" ball joint spacers out of T6 aluminum to replace the pair of 1/4" steel spacers. The steel spacers weighed 1/2 lb. (7 oz.) where as the aluminum spacer weighed only 2.5 oz. The assembled upper arm (with ball joint) weighs 8 lbs. compared to the old factory arm which weighs in at 11.5 lbs. That's a 30% reduction in weight. Here's some pics:

SPC arms with the supplied ball joint spacers


My upper bump stop plates


Aluminum ball joint spacer


Assembled LH SPC arm

 

I've assembled all the parts and pieces to the front suspension. I'm using all Moog parts except for the ball joints (Howe), tie rod adjusters (Hotchkis) and of course the upper control arms (SPC). I had the steering gear box rebuilt by a great local shop (Adco Steering Gear), they quickened the ratio to 12:1. Combined with a smaller diameter sport steering wheel, the car should be pretty responsive.

Everything fits well with the exception being the tie rods seem to be too long. With the adjusters turned all the way in (shortest length) I measured 67-1/2" inches across the front side of the rims and 66" across the backside. Maybe because I'm using the Hotchkis billet adjusters. Are they longer than the stock adjusters? There is clearly more thread visible on the outer tie rod end so looks like I need to trim about 1/2" off the outer tie rods to allow for some adjustment range.

It looked like the clearance between the upper ball joint and the rim is way too close - kinda freaked me out until I realized that I did't have the rotors installed on the hubs. The rotors will add about 3/8" of an inch to the clearance pushing the rims out a bit more, and I'm using a 15" rim for mocking up purposes but I plan to run 17" rims for better brake caliper clearance. Once I get the tie rods cut down, I'll set the toe at 0" and then play with the caster and camber curves before installing the springs. I want to get it dialed in close enough to drive to the alignment shop (whenever that day finally comes).

One thing that I'm uncertain about is how much camber gain do I need for a daily street driven car. The reason I switched to the SPC arms and Howe ball joints was to move the pick-up points higher, similar to using a taller spindle, so the suspension will tilt the wheels inward at the tops as the suspension compresses. This will give a better tire contact patch when cornering. The stock suspension does exactly the opposite; as the suspension compresses the tire tilts outward at the tops, so as the car leans and the weight shifts to the outside wheel the suspension tilts the tire onto the outer edge losing grip. I'm thinking 2-3 degrees of camber gain should work for my purposes, but I would love to hear comments from others with more knowledge than myself.

Here are some pics:

Passenger side at ride height


Driver side at full droop


Close up of ball joint clearance

 

Hmmm, I just installed new tie rods on my 71, and the nominal length was just shy of 20", if your tie rods in the pic are screwed all the way in you might want to check P/N's, I have about 1.5" between tie rods in the adjuster sleeve, with a fairly close toe in adjustment.

 

I'm using Moog part# ES406L and ES406R for the tie rod ends and DS749 for the centerlink. Are these not the correct numbers?

 

Yes, those #'s are correct, if each tie rod is around 20" you should be alright. Are you saying the tie rods are adjusted all the way in? Stock steering arms?

 

With the Hotchkis adjusters my tie rods are about 17-3/4" long when measured from the pick-up points, center-to-center. The steering arms are what I was thinking about checking next. Is it possible to install them on the wrong side - LH-RH swapped? Don't they curve slightly to where the tie rod connects? Maybe I've got them on the wrong sides. Things to check. Thanks!

 

Maybe this help

 

Huge undertaking, my hat goes off to you. You have anymore of those bump stop plates laying around, I could use a set...lol

 

I got what I think was a pretty good deal on a full set of calipers, brackets, pads and rotors from an 08 vette with 5k on them so I'm going to try to make those work without breaking the bank. Thanks for posting that information.

 

Finally got the Blazer rear disc brakes installed. I had to make some 1/2" spacers to keep the bearings and axle seals held into the axle tubes. The Blazer discs set-up needed a 1/4" spacer to "push" the caliper out enought to align with the Olds axle flanges. The Blazer backing plate is 3/8" thick which kept the bolt-in axle retainers from holding in the bearings. Here's some pics:

2001 Blazer Backing Plate.


Bearing Spacer - before cutting in half.


Spacer sandwich fits inside backing plate between seal and 4-bolt retainer.


Flange spacer to align caliper with rotor.


Trial fitting parts before installing axles.

 

The bearing spacer fits around the axle inside the backing plate. Here's the finished product.

Without the bearing spacer.


Bearing spacer installed.


With rotor and caliper mounted.