Brent's '72 Custom/10 SWB stepside build

[Hart_Rod]

Originally Posted by brossow

That would certainly explain it, if the later frame is taller and ECE sent me the wrong part. I didn't see a '73-87 part listed on their site, but....

They are 73-87 stands, that's all the offer. They are the same ones I used on my frame.

[lolife99]

So would the "72 only" stands work better?

[brossow]

Originally Posted by Hart_Rod

They are 73-87 stands, that's all the offer. They are the same ones I used on my frame.

Then I'm really confused ... if one frame is taller than the other, then how can these be expected to fit as bolt-ons? Rhetorical question. Hopefully ECE can shed some light on this tomorrow....

[brossow]

Talked to Stan at ECE this evening and he told me that the proper method of installation for the Gen III motor mounts is to bolt them in place at the top using the existing holes. Then use the bottom holes in the stands as templates to mark and drill two holes (per side) in the crossmember. According to Stan, the existing holes in the crossmember are not used for these mounts and if they do line up, it's just coincidence. The slight overhang at the back is normal.

So ... looks like I'll be drilling even more holes.

[msgross]

at least you found a way to make it work now.. how's the pan issue?

[brossow]

Originally Posted by msgross

at least you found a way to make it work now.. how's the pan issue?

Located a complete setup last night for $180 shipped. Just trying to decide if I can scrape together the money to write a check or if I should pay 4% more to put it on the plastic via PayPal.

[my67chevytruck]

project is coming along well.

[Hart_Rod]

Originally Posted by brossow

Located a complete setup last night for $180 shipped. Just trying to decide if I can scrape together the money to write a check or if I should pay 4% more to put it on the plastic via PayPal.

I'm glad you got it figured out. You'll be VERY happy with the caddy pan and you should be able to recoup more than half of your cost when you sell the camaro pan. If you need anymore help or have anymore questions, let me know.

R/

[Ackattack]

I used some tubular engine stands with 73+ motor mounts and homemade adapters. With the camaro oil pan and camaro headers everything fit great.

[brossow]

Not a bad day overall. Bought a CTS-V oil pan and windage tray for $100, installed the ECE motor stands on the frame, and bolted the mounts to the block (after going out to buy #$^%& metric bolts and being thankful the hardware store had stayed open a few minutes past the posted closing time). Also got the fuel tank mounted (again) a few inches back from its previous location. Pictures will follow after a shower.

[brossow]

Attached are a few pics of the ECE Gen III motor stand installation. Hope they save someone the frustration I had to go through due in large part to lack of specific directions from ECE.

Circled in red (and indicated by arrows in one pic) are the four holes that need to be drilled, two per side. Per Stan at ECE, I bolted the stands in place using the top two bolts in the factory position, then marked and drilled the lower two holes on each side. I touched up the holes with paint, gave it some time to set up while I went inside to grab a beer, and then bolted everything in place.

I can't set the engine in place until I get the CTS-V oil pan, unfortunately.

[brossow]

After finishing up the motor stand installation, I moved to the back and addressed the fuel tank situation. Last winter I bought myself an ECE rear crossmember because I wasn't happy with how close the fuel tank was to the brake line bracket and, more importantly, it interfered with the rear swaybar installation. The new crossmember let me move everything back a bit.

Tonight I drilled new holes to locate the tank further back, as close to the new rear crossmember as possible without actually touching it.

(First pic is a continuation of the above thread showing the ECE motor stands after they were installed.)

In the last pic, you can see how much room I gained. The red arrow indicates where I had to clearance the brake line bracket in order to clear the fuel tank in its previous location.

If you look close, you'll also notice the ECE 4" drop rear leaf springs, now properly installed. With the new springs installed, the e-brake cables now reach the brackets where they clip in place, which for some reason they didn't do previously with the 2" drop springs. Maybe I had the springs installed the wrong direction. Who knows? (If anyone needs a zero-mile pair of VERY nice custom-made 2" drop leaf springs, let me know.)

[LooseCannon]

Nice detail on the frame.

[brossow]

Originally Posted by LooseCannon

Nice detail on the frame.

Thanks! I've tried, anyway.

[hgs_notes]

Glad to see you're back at it. It's looking good. BTW, i won't need the front spindle parts we discussed before. I got a good deal on a 72 chassis for parts. My chassis just got sandblasted and painted today. I just need to borrow a trailer to bring it home. We are at about the same stage of our builds, though mine is a much simpler, mostly stock build.

[brossow]

Got the rear swaybar permanently installed this evening after an otherwise wasted lazy Saturday. Very happy with how it turned out; no interference with anything now (thanks to moving the fuel tank rearward by a couple inches, which in turn was made possible by the ECE rear crossmember). You can see in the last pic that it doesn't hang any lower than the bottom of the fuel tank except for the end link bolts. Next step is to finally suck it up and order some stainless brake lines from Inline Tube.

Man, I sure hope all of my work can make things easier for someone else!

Pics follow....

[msgross]

nice and clean...

[brossow]

Made a bit of progress on the truck today, though most of my time was spent on my Camaro instead (new rear brakes, new front left ball joint and spindle/hub assembly, then an alignment).

Yesterday my stainless brake line set from The Right Stuff Detailing and I'm quite pleased with the quality and price. However, I'm having a LOT of trouble figuring out the front brake line routing, having nothing to go by, and so if anyone has any help I'd really appreciate it. There's a thread started here for this problem.

FedEx showed up with my CTS-V oil pan setup, so as soon as I get the brake lines routed I can work on swapping oil pans and dropping the engine back onto the chassis.

Pics follow. In the third you can see the CTS-V pan (foreground) compared with the F-body pan. The slight angle of the photo is a bit misleading, but there's a significant difference in forward clearance with the CTS-V pan. After that pic is the brake line kit, and finally the master cylinder and prop valve I powdercoated last fall, now with the new stainless lines installed.

[brossow]

Quick brake line update: I've figured out where everything goes, but I'm retracting my praise of the quality of the lines. The bends seem approximate at best. Maybe this is inherent to all such brake line kits, but I'm wondering if I should have paid another $30-50 for the Inline Tube kit instead. The materials are fine, but some of the bends look like one of my kids did 'em. I'll make the stuff work, but it's not as "plug-n-play" as I had hoped for the money spent.

[ChuckDriver]

It's coming together very nicely!!

[brossow]

Just ordered new braided stainless hoses and a complete brake line clip set from Inline Tube. Should (had better!) be here by the end of the week.

[brossow]

Placed a couple orders today. The first was described above. The other was for nearly a complete bed from Mar-K. 10% off and free freight made it too hard to resist. Already have a bed wood kit, an NOS tailgate, and a pair of dealer take-off fenders, but everything else is gonna be brand-spankin'-new with polished stainless strips and hardware. I considered all my options and the idea of not having to do anything except minor bodywork was just too tempting.

Scary to think that one of these years I'm gonna have to decide on a color. I like the factory Medium Blue, but there are a helluva lot of those out there. Hmm....

[msgross]

sweet!

[brossow]

Aaargghhh!!! Why can none of these brake line companies get it right?!

Got the braided stainless hoses and clip set from Inline Tube today. The hoses are magnificent! But the clip set was built completely wrong! Wrong size bolts and clips with tabs -- and according to the tech I spoke with at IT, their own instructions on building the kit specify NO TABS (and no holes in the frame for said tabs)! That means I can't secure the brake lines, which means I can't really do anything else as I'm waiting until that's done to drop the engine and tranny onto the chassis.

So in the meantime, clips or no, I decided to install the hoses and connect the remaining lines. No problem until I got to the driver's side line that runs from the hose to the brass tee. I tried and tried to get the fitting started into the hose, and finally it dawned on me that it wouldn't start because the fitting was THE WRONG SIZE! So now I have to call "The Right Stuff" (a very misleading name!) tomorrow and try to get them to send me a new line. Obviously I won't get any of this stuff in time for the weekend, so it's another gorgeous weekend shot to hell. Needless to say, I'm not happy.

Maybe it's time to start prepping the bed wood kit....

[brossow]

A few pics. First is the clip kit from Inline Tube, almost entirely wrong. Then the stuff I was happy with. Then the @#$^&% line with the wrong end. Guess which picture I took with my camera phone and which were taken with the Canon.