Chassis Engineering Mustang II Crossmember Install - Part One

Isn't it amazing how a few hours turns into the whole day? 

Powered up the compressor and got my air chisel out. There's a little bullhorn bracket on either side that has to come out. It was a bit stubborn, but once I'd woken up the neighbours they both came out. 

Next, I test fitted the crossmember. Actually, I drove over to my buddy John's place and borrowed another 2 pairs of stands and a bigger jack. Mine is just too small. Anyway, I was ready to go, so I went ahead and lifted the crossmember into place and put the hats on. And... wow... it was NOT a perfect fit, and I really had to play with it to get it to sit right. Reason, is that we're dealing with a 61+ year old car. It was only off by about 1/4 inch side to side. 

I marked the holes and drilled out the new holes and enlarged the ones reqired. You've GOT to do this before you start bolting it in - because the two inner rear bolts will NOT be accessable to a drill once the tophats are on. 

Once the crossmember and top hats were in place, I passed the drill back through all of the holes, to clean them up. Then, bolt, lockwasher, locktite and the bolt. Torquewrench and... 

voila!

I need to give it another coat of paint, and now that the crossmember is done, I'll be pulling the lower rad support and the old swaybar (I have a new one). 

There's still a TONNE of work to do, but I[m happy with the progress so far. 




Tomorrow, I'll probably try to get the control arms painted and installed. Woohoo!

PS: DISCLAIMER- I don't know what I'm doing, I'm learning and making it up as I go along. Would NOT have been able to do this without the guys on ChevyTalk.com