Underside work starts up again in 2003

(03/15/03) Sometime during the winter I got a set of poly body bushings from ESPO (made by Energy Suspension.)

I set them out on the table to sort them out and try to make sense of things. I realized later that the order I had them in had no bearing on reality.

One of the hardest things to find was the bolts for the bushings. They are metric and aren't sold by the bushing manufacturers. I finally had to go to a specialty bolt and nut supply house.

I got this info from Ernie G on the El Camino Mailing List:
GM used ten M10x1.5x80 and two M10x1.5x55 bolts for the body mounts.
The bolts are 10mm in diameter with a 1.5 thread pitch. The last number is the length of the bolt in mm.

(03/15/03) Ol' man winter seems to have left, so I finally got back to work on the cars. I started in where I had left off by jacking up the body and separating it from the frame slightly. I did this so that I could put the body bushings in.

Here's one of the new ones in place. I would have taken more pics of this, but they're kinda hard to see. I finally got all of them replaced. I used a Port-a-Power to lift the body on the right side. It made things MUCH easier.

(04/15/03) Then it was time to start on the front suspension. Here's what was staring me in the face.

The first thing I did was pull the brake calipers off. They're pretty yucky looking.

I wire brushed as much of the rust off as I could, gave it a coat of self-etching primer and then sprayed it with Duplicolor High-temp engine enamel.

Here's the results...at least until they get good and hot. Then we'll see how they hold up. But at least they're Chevy orange, and not Ricer Red.

Then it was time to put the fuel tank back in place. My son was gonna help me with it but he was off some where on an errand. Did you know that you can hold a half-full fuel tank in place with your legs while you start the nuts on the retaining strap bolts if you're desperate enough?

The next step was to finish the Rustoleum Safety Red coat that extended from the underside up to the top of the firewall. Here's what it looked like after a couple of hours of cleaning and prepping the surface.

I applied the paint with a 1 inch brush, working very slowly and carefully. It left very few brush marks and came out pretty nice.

Then I started disassembling the suspension, since I had plans for a lotta stuff in there. In this pic the balljoints are loosened, the upper one disconnected and the lower control arm lowered with a floor jack.

Then I popped the spring out and the control arms just kinda hung in around.

Eventually I got all the parts off the frame and could start cleaning things up. It was a hell of a mess.

Next page: Rebuilding the front suspension.

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