Cars | Life of Pat and Nat

The first step in this is to loosen the bolts on all of the mounts. There are four going to the car’s body and two on the radiator support. After they’re all loosened I removed the bolt from the left side by the firewall. This is a picture of my rig to jack the body away from the subframe. It consists of two 8″ scraps of 4×8 post resting on a block of 2×8. I took the extra step of sliding a plate of 1/4″ steel between the body and subframe for the blocks to rest on.

Once there was enough clearance I slid out the remains of the old bushing. That let me get a good look at the mounting point.

rusted subframe mount at the firewall on 1968 camaro — So I think THIS is what all those rusted out ones looked like.

Uh oh. That’s rusted through. There should be a 1 1/2″ hole there. Instead it’s almost 2 1/2″ across. The bushing falls through. I have repair parts ordered for that now in addition to the bushings I was ready to put in.

Snowballs in April? How about a snowballing project.

First the motor mounts. Symptoms suggested they were tired and needed to be replaced. Removing them showed that the problem was they weren’t bolted in properly. Okay, one project done.

On the first drive afterwards I noticed antifreeze dripping on the passenger side floormat. Dangit. Heater core. Well, while the dash is apart I can fix the lights on the dash that have been burned out for so long Natalie didn’t even know they existed.

Putting the heater core back in properly took a bit more work that I anticipated. I needed to remove the right side inner fender. Counting bolts, shims, and other issues turned out to be more work than I wanted to tackle but I was kinda stuck.

Perfect. I can fix some of the air leaks coming through the firewall.

Hard to believe this was easier than taking one inner fender off.

It's a little tempting to crawl around under this cleaning and polishing. — It’s a little tempting to crawl around under this cleaning and polishing.

At the end of it all the exhaust manifolds will have been ceramic coated, new bolts will hold the exhaust together, and there will be a new water pump keeping the cool. Also the radiator is going to have to be cleaned and resoldered because it shows a leak. The heater core will be new and well mounted. Lights in the dash will work and one of the heater controls has been disconnected for some time. Oh and a major vacuum leak will be fixed.

If I get lucky and a parts store employee comes through the car may also get power steering. That’ll help Nat drive her own car.

Category: Cars

Replacing the front subframe bushings.

I can fix this.