Been a long day, on my back, under the car! Started my day with a trip to the metal supply shop to get the tubing for my roll bar... That'll be another post !

I finished the drivers side connector today. Happy with the result, and thought of a few more tips to put in here. Make sure your front subframe is nice and square, because after you weld these in, you're done. There's no adjustment after that. Another thing I should mention is that the weight of the car should be on the suspension. Believe it or not, the body/chassis will sag differently if say you have the car on jackstands on say the frame. I initially put stands under the axle and under the front subframe, but before I welded everything solid, I put the car down onto it's wheels on a set of old rims. That way everything is sure to be sitting where it wants to be. Of course the ground should be level as well, and all the 'blocks' the same height. (I used a set of old 9 1/2" wide wheels)

Boxing in the rear subframe was fairly straight forward. First I removed the bracket for the park brake cable. (I have aftermarket rear brakes which use fully sheathed cables. This step could be skipped with stock cables, you'd just have to make the filler box accordingly)

I made a corner piece out of tubing, trimmed it to fit perfectly, (this takes time of course, many trips from under the car to the bench and back) and then cut it in half. I had to cut it in half length ways so that I could weld it in fully. After it was in 2 pieces I used a welders magnet to hold it back into it's original shape, held it in place, then tacked in only the upper piece. I pulled out the lower piece and fully welded in the upper piece. After that was done I used the magnet again, held in the lower piece, and welded that in.


I made another corner piece for the other side and welded that in as well.

From the inside I stitched in the floor to the tubing.

The last thing I did was finish weld the front subframe tube to the 2x3 connector. (Again being sure everything was straight.) - I should note here that there are alignment holes on the front subframe that line up with the body. The drivers side is where the body mounts near where your feet would be. This line up hole is a round hole in the subframe and a round hole in the body. On the passenger side there is a round hole in the subframe, and a slotted hole in the body (slotted left to right). I was extra careful to make sure these were aligned.
A quick coat of paint and it's time to do the other side.

 

I like your ILtis, used to fix those a few years back. Cool jack stand BTW.

 

Man that car is looking AWESOME !!!

 

Picked up my new Eaton True Trac and Moser Axles yesterday, along with bearings and seals etc... Man do I hate crossing the border...It used to be no prblem, but I tell ya, it seems like everyone is paranoid now. When I came back across the Canadian border guy asked me if I had opened the boxes that my stuff came in. I said no, just looked at the packing slips. He went on and on about "well, what if someone put a bag of coke in there? Don't you think that transporting a package across an international border without checking its' contents is maybe a problem?!?" wow. I said I guess I'm just naive to American shipping habbits... He made me open my boxes. Nope, no coke...
I welded in my roll bar mounting plates today. Time to start bending tomorrow!

 

Measured up the car for the main hoop today. Measured about 150 times. tried several different methods to get angles and measurements and by the end of it instead of using a bending program, I used a home made radius wheel and a tape measure. Got the main hoop bent and tacked in. the upper bends are 60 degrees, the lower ones are 35 degrees. I think I could have gone slightly less on the bottom bends, maybe 1 or 2 degrees, but the bend does follow the interior very nicely.

 

sweet build man! i love the 1970-1973 camaro's. i plan on having one one day. but mines gonna be a tt 408/t56.

 

Nice! I am allready planning my next motor for this car. TT LS7 ....

 

Time consuming day today. Cut the holes for the rear down tubes. Made the tubes, and plates. Mocked them up.

 

I got my rear tubes all done today. I painted them where no welding would be before I installed them as I know it's going to be really tough to paint them later. I tacked them in, and as I had mentioned before, I pulled the whole thing forward to finish welding the down tubes to the hoop. I TIG welded them and even with the bar forward it was very difficult. It didn't help that my headliner is in and I had cardboard in between it and the bar. I then painted the welds, then put the hoop back in place and started welding it in. Got sick of welding so moved on to making a crossbar for the hoop. I sat my seats in to be sure that I could recline without hitting it, and that if someone did sit back there the could actually do so although their legs would be around the bar on the right side.

 

Bit more work done... It's sick how long this is taking!


Belt bar for behind the drivers seat. I machined collars out of 7/8 solid stock and welded them into the bar.

Tied in the main rollbar hoop to the frame connectors.

A sneak peak of my door bars. Thanks goes to Mikey for finish welding these for me!

 

Great work. Have you ever tried to make a roll cage before? ( If you answered this before, sorry) I am persoally glad you started updating this thread again.
thanks,
Jim

 

You made a mistake on the part number. Thanks for your postings!! I ordered everything from Summit for less then $75!!!

 

Jimbo, No, I haven't made a cage before. This is my first attempt.

Ban, Thanks for pointing that out! I fixed that post. Glad you caught it and didn't order the wrong parts!

 

Finished the roll bar. Before you guys get all crazy, I know that the door bars aren't legal height. The main purpose of the bars in my car is for chassis rigidity. The main hoop is good for safety of course, and I did bring up all my mounting plates to the legal 6x6 size (or at least the 36 sq. inches anyway) But again, I didn't mean to have it pass tech anywhere. I will use the car for the occasional road course track day, maybe an auto cross or two, and definitely some on road corner shredding. (I hope).

Here's my way too labour intensive door bars. I built them like this to tie in the front subframe mounting points to the roll bar which is also tied into the rear subframe and the subframe connectors. I wanted my entry and exit from the car to remain unobstructed.






Here's my good friend Mikey tig welding where I lack the skills and apparent flexibility. He must be a good friend...considering he's in my trunk. And, yes, he's a full size human being. 6' even! If anyone needs any kind of fabrication or welding done, even maintenance, the guys here at Custom Metalcraft can do it all. http://www.custommetalcraft.ca

 

great update like usual! keep up the good work

 

Mark,
Very impressive

 

love the build man, the more pics the better

 

Been a bit since the last post. I finished up the roll bar, and installed the rear seats, surrounding panels, and carpet. Also installed the front seats. Put a day permit on it and DROVE it home!!! I even put it through our local emissions test (aircare) on the way home. ( Cheated a little by removing the supercharger drive belt and ran it on factory tuning ) Passed with flying colours. I was so excited I insured it fully the following Saturday and put 40 miles on it. Total mileage so far, 47! The power steering pump is leaking. That sucks, but it was off of a high mileage 99 F-body so I ordered a new one. Still have lots of stuff to do, but at least I can drive it to the parts store now.

 

huge congratulations on getting to drive it. was it everything you were hoping it'd be?
btw, in the pictures it looks like no one is going to be sitting in your backseat with the rollbar there. Does it just look that way or is there some reason you didn't pull the seats out for weight reduction?