For anyone that's interested, here's a few after pics of my passenger side long that we reinforced with a clamshell from Restoration Design. I also added some of the chassis stiffening kit. I didn't take any before pics but my jack hole and bottom of the long was pretty rusty. I had stress cracking at the junction of the long and the shock tower. Hopefully this will hold things together for a while until I can add some support for the shock tower and suspension ear.

and

and

and

looking good, but the pictures are TOO SMALL

how did the parts from Restoration Design fit? any required ???
Andy

Is that an oil/water pipe going through the heater pipe?

Was it hard to get in there? I was considering something similar for my water lines.

l8r,

Fiid.

That last pic is where i found a crack in my long. I might do what you did to strengthen it up. Thanks for sharing

COOL. The Restoration Design pieces look MUCH better than the rust repair pieces that BradM sells.

While your at it.. run pieces along the inside of the frame rail (in the cabin)

The outside piece that you welded too is really just a cover for the outside of the frame rail. The true strength in the car is on the inside rail.


B

Brad,
How long do you think it would take to this to my car? Ballpark number...??? Few hours?

Andy; the clam shell and jack pad from Restoration Design fit perfect. I drilled holes in the clamshell so we could weld it and suck it up to the existing long and not have any hollow space. The chassis stiffening kit needs to be contoured to fit.
Fiid; that is my oil line going up to the front oil cooler through the heater duct.
Brad; Thanks for the advise on the inside rail. I'll include that in phase 2 of this project.

Brad,

Reinforce just the side of the inner long or the top too?
What guage do you recommend?
What kind of hole spacing for the welds?

I'm looking to stiffen up the cabin but don't want the intrusion of a cage.

Chris

You can do the the top also. 16 gauge just like the chassis stiff kits.

I would space the holes approx. 1 inch apart. I would also weld every 1 inch or so along the top of the metal and the bottom.


B

I once read a technical report of a spot weld study published in a welding journal. The spacing of electric spot welds in automotive panels with a pinch weld configuration was analyzed. The conclusion was that a spacing of about 1 1/2" was most effective, IIRC. Closer spacings did not improve performance in failure tests. Generally speaking, MIG welds introduce more heat than electric spot welds into the panels. Greater shrinkage/warpage is likely to occur when MIG welds are closely spaced.
I have always thought that the spacing of the holes in many of the available reinforcing kits is much too close. Considerably less welding is just as effective at holding these panels together and achieving the desired result, without creating shrinkage distortion.

On the clamshell cover from restoration design, do you leave whats left of the outer rocker in place???

Is this made to go over everything???

Rich

It's made to go over everything and it fits like a glove. But, in order to use the whole clamshell you have to take quite a bit apart. I cut the top return off because I didn't want to remove my door sill and I cut the front 12" off because I didn't want to take my front fender off which is fiberglass and glued on. My problem area was the jack hole and the clamshell reinforced it real nice. I just got back from a weekend at Willow Springs raceway and the car handled great. I set my fastest time today! I'm a happy camper and I couldn't have done it without the clamshell.

how much does all that steel add to the weight of the car?

clamshells? xxx lbs
rear kit? xxx lbs

thanks,
dr

I guess I should have weighed it but I didn't. I'm sure if you call Restoration Design they could tell you the weight of the clamshell. Probably someone in the club has an unused reinforcement kit that they could weigh and post. I'm gettin my car corner balanced soon but I've made a lot of changes since last time so that won't give me just the weight of the added steel.

Did you happen to get pictures of what you trimmed away? I tried to link to a pic on the RD website... but they really need some technical help with thumbnailing pictures.

-Rusty

Lawrence; here's a pic of the front section of the clamshell that I cut away and didn't use. I also trimmed off the upper lip along the top because you have to remove the door sill to weld that and I didn't want to tear down that much of the car right now. On the RD website the best pics are if you click slideshow. Hope this helps.