1969 Chevelle Build

[Andy Friar]

With the car stripped back to the firewall, it was time to sand the front frame section and the firewall and clean off 45 years of rust, grease, lacquer paint and. Cut off a few 70's era added brackets on the frame and weld up a bunch of not used or previously added holes on the firewall. I welded up a few holes and fixed some dents in the heater box too since I was there.

Onto the seats and belts. I went with Kirkey 18" width drag seats with vinyl covers, and Gforce camlock belts. I bought the kirkey universal seat mounts and then made 2 steel brackets the bolt to the floor and the aluminum brackets. I am 7" taller than my Dad, but we were able to find a seat position that will work for us both, so at anytime the other one could jump in the car and make a pass, with out unbolting or moving the seat around. On the outboard side I used the existing bench seat mounts on the floor. I used some flanged base weld nuts on the 1" sq tubing to bolt the aluminum brackets too. I pie cut the boxed tubing to follow the floor, rather than make it a full weld joint. On the inboard side steel mount, I poked a hole through the newly installed floor patch reinforced it on the bottom side with a 4" sq pc of .125" thick 4130 fully welded to the floor. I made the 'C' shaped clearance cut to clear the large washers and nut that Jim had welded into the car 40 years to mount a driveshaft loop. Rear 1"sq tube mount ties into the floor crossmember and I will just run a large diameter, hardened washer and grade 8 nyloc on it.

We have the new steering wheel, fuel cell, shifter, shifter cover, fuel cell mount kit and bunch of other parts in a UPS/ Fed Ex pile in the house garage. Always more to do....