Need advice from you structural gurus on how to proceed :)

[Dave27]

Just have a question on structural integrity and the way to proceed.The previous owner Installed a fiberglass tilt nose frontend. He removed the origonal hood, fenders, inner fenders, and core support. I plan to put it back to its former glory. I have ordered all the above parts and I have removed all of the terror he inflicted apon this car  accept two diagonal braces and are currently waiting for the above parts to arrive from AMD, probly tuesday next week.The previous owner welded two diagonal braces one on the left side and one on the right side from the firewall to the top of the frame picking up the shock tower I think to take the place of the inner fenders support it provides when installed.My question is would it be safe for me to cut out the diagonal braces so that I am all prepped and ready when the new parts arrive.Or would it tweak anything from just the weight of the car/engine.I would assume the frame is plenty strong but the shock towers with no support of the inner fender would they tweak. Or should I raise the front end off the ground set jack stands underneath the frame in the front so no weight is on the towers until the inner fenders are in. Also does anyone have a picture from the manual or critical point measurements of how far the core support goes from the firewall,frame measurements.....etc....Any advice appreciated.....Thankyou....Dave...Here is a picture of the braces

[Tilar]

I don't claim to be a structural guru by any means but if it were me I would get it up off the ground and block it up good so the frame behind the firewall is solid on blocks and do the same with the front end under the K-Frame, At least at that point you are still at the same measurements you are at now. HemiGeno has some engineering drawings for 69's and he may be able to look up and give you the measurements you're asking for.

[Dave27]

So your saying put the entire car on jack stands correct so the whole car is even.Cause I was thinking of just pulling the front tires and putting the front frame on jack stands and leaving the tires on the ground but if you think putting the entire frame up on stands is better I can do that. Its a 68 dodge charger with a 440 by the way.Thankyou....Dave

[Patronus]

Jacking up and blocking the entire car would be a must for my taste. I'd also temp in some steel inside to brace the structure.

[tan top]

have you got any more close up pictures to see whats been done ?   

[Ryan]

Some pictures would be great for us to help you better.
Are you planning to pull the motor?

I would support the car at the rear, the torsion crossmember and the front. I would pull the engine also.

[Dave27]

Trying to add a few more pictures but the site says they are to large. Not planning on pulling the engine.

[JB400]

I think you should just plan on pulling the engine.  It will let you get in there and do a better quality job and will save you a lot of hassles and headaches.

[Dave27]

Sorry but I just dont have it in me to pull another engine. My other 3 cars in my colection one was a body off and the other two were engine pulls and full restores.Thats what made this car so appealing to me when i bought it. Allthough the guy did some we'll call it "special things"    to this car he did do some good things that I left. The engine is completely fresh as well as a rebuilt trans and he owned it since 1977 and it lived in the garage.The underneath of the car looks anywhere from new in places to just slightly weathered and the car is completely rust free. It does have very nice heavy duty frame exensions the guy installed.(good thing)I removed his back to the future switch panel he cut a hole in the headliner and siliconed to the roof braces ......anyway one freind loaned me his new wirefeed welder and another friend was a commercial welder for 20 years and said he can weld just as good standing on his head as he can upright hes just not a body guy so I would have to tac it in place. So given all of that if its up off the ground is the only problem just working around stuff. I plan to throw a welding apron type thing over the engine and it hasnt had fuel in it in awhile the tank doesnt even smell like gas.

[Dave27]

lets see if this works

[Dave27]

Heres one more dont pay attention to the black lines I did something wrong and cant remove them....lol

[JB400]

At least he left the flanges on so you can put the inner fenders back on.  Looks like you may have to remove the front ends of the rails to mount your core support back on.

What's with the square hole in the frame rail?

[Mike DC]

      
These cheapy trailer jackstands are useful for supporting the car during work like this.  They aren't very strong individually, but the point is to put like 8 of them underneath the car at once from one end to the other.  The huge difference from using normal jackstands is the screw adjustability, which allows you to get the car evenly supported across a bunch of them all at once.   (Whereas with traditional jackstands you can't get more than 4 of them holding the car's weight at once.)

You may wanna give the threads/nut a squirt with spray paint once the car is leveled so you know exactly how high each one was adjusted when the car was level.  That protects against accidentally bumping them.

[Dave27]

At least he left the flanges on so you can put the inner fenders back on.  Looks like you may have to remove the front ends of the rails to mount your core support back on.

What's with the square hole in the frame rail?

LOL.....Square frame hole    Are you sure you want to know.That falls under some of the "special" mods he did that I removed. I was lucky enough to have one on each side He made that hole then screwed a plate to it so he could put bulkhead ftgs on the plate and then ran the Hydarulic lines inside the frame that hydraulically raised and lowered the tilt nose.needless to say i removed everything and will be fitting steel plates inside the hole and welding them .When i'm done youll never know the hole was there.I was wondering if I would have to remove the plate on the end of the frame to get the cor support mounted correctly. Thats what my Dotco is for

[Dave27]

     
These cheapy trailer jackstands are useful for supporting the car during work like this.  They aren't very strong individually, but the point is to put like 8 of them underneath the car at once from one end to the other.  The huge difference from using normal jackstands is the screw adjustability, which allows you to get the car evenly supported across a bunch of them all at once.   (Whereas with traditional jackstands you can't get more than 4 of them holding the car's weight at once.)

You may wanna give the threads/nut a squirt with spray paint once the car is leveled so you know exactly how high each one was adjusted when the car was level.  That protects against accidentally bumping them.

Great Idea I have 4 really good jackstands but yah some of those would be good as well.Thanks.....Dave

[Tilar]

So your saying put the entire car on jack stands correct so the whole car is even.Cause I was thinking of just pulling the front tires and putting the front frame on jack stands and leaving the tires on the ground but if you think putting the entire frame up on stands is better I can do that. Its a 68 dodge charger with a 440 by the way.Thankyou....Dave

I would definitely have the whole car off the ground. Those stands that Mike DC suggested would be a good idea to get things square.

[Charger-Bodie]

The engine can stay in , you just need to block the unibody so the weight is not suspended. Those adjustable stands would work well or simply wood blocks.

[Mike DC]

     
There is one other downside to the trailer jackstands that I forgot to mention - look at the tops of those things.  They are basically a flat surface.  There is nothing that really cradles whatever the stand is supporting (unlike a regular jackstand), which makes the risk of knocking the car off the stands or knocking the stands out from under the car more of a threat. 

I've used regular stands at the four commonly used locations inside the wheelbase, and added the adjustable ones to the ends of the car.  Be careful setting up the trailer ones; it's easy to start turning with too much force on the adjustables and start accidentally lifting the car with them.  You want the trailer jacks resting against the underside of the car and then maybe give them a little portion of a turn more.  Just enough to wedge it in there with some weight on it but not enough to start taking weight off the inward regular stands.   

[Dave27]

Thanks for the info on the stands. I wonder if Harbor Freight has those they allways cary a bunch of one time use cheap stuff allthough usually good enough to accomplish what you need done.So on jacking the car basically just get the fram so its exactly level mine is alittle lower in the front. The wheels wouldnt neccesarily have to leave the ground corrrect as long as the car is level and supported in say 6 places. So I'm thinking 2 stands in the back,2 stands in the front and 2-4 inbetween under the unibody.I'll probly pick the cheapo stands up tonight and get her all jacked up and level and those tubes cutoff this weekend. My parts are supposed to be here by next tuesday :icon_smile_tongue:Hopefully I can find some measurements to set the core support.

[70 sublime]

If you leave the motor in how are you going to paint the pannels on the inside ?
You could paint them first but every place that you weld the paint will be burnt off and start to rust the metal

[Dave27]

Yah you have a point there. I was at an all mopar car show a couple weeks ago and I dont know if its only common to chargers that the engine bay be painted the color of the car but I saw many mopars with their engine bays painted gloss black,satin black,and even flat black.Allthough it does look nicer the color of the car I think a satin black will look nice. I plan to enjoy the car this summer for awhile hence another reason why I dont want to pull the engine but next year when I get it painted who knows well see......Dave

[Dave27]

Cool my picture worked. Heres my other two cars I just completed. Theres a few small things left to do to both but there allways is Adjust hinges on Nova,couple trim pieces on the vette,vette needs new front shocks picking them up today.The 68 vette looked just like the charger when I started no frontend from the doors foward.My friend used to work for corvette for 20 years doin their body work did the nose for me on that one and all of the bodywork on the car,stripped the whole thing down to the fiberglass.Then my other freind who paints show cars gell coated it and painted it for me.It got 23 coats of primer with the ;last coat a primer pink to make the red pop then 7 coats of red...fun fun fun

[ACUDANUT]

Cool my picture worked. Heres my other two cars I just completed. Theres a few small things left to do to both but there allways is Adjust hinges on Nova,couple trim pieces on the vette,vette needs new front shocks picking them up today.The 68 vette looked just like the charger when I started no frontend from the doors foward.My friend used to work for corvette for 20 years doin their body work did the nose for me on that one and all of the bodywork on the car,stripped the whole thing down to the fiberglass.Then my other freind who paints show cars gell coated it and painted it for me.It got 23 coats of primer with the ;last coat a primer pink to make the red pop then 7 coats of red...fun fun fun

So you have (math) 30 coats of paint ?

[JB400]

I'm sure most of that primer was sanded off.  The engine compartment was body color from the factory on the Mopars.  Chevy had the compartments black

[Tilar]

I think my arm would fall off after half that many coats.