'66 Malibu N/SA

[HandOverFist]

If you need backing plates Dave we may have some lying around.

[Dave Muller]

I have them but they need to have the holes opened up to fit the larger bearings in the axles on the Moser rear. With a little luck I'll have them back Friday.

But I'll keep you in mind if I have something along those lines that comes up.

Actually, I am missing the kick panel vent for the right-hand side. The one that's controlled by a knob via cable. The car only came with the left one. But I'm sure I'll track one down somewhere.

[Dave Muller]

At this point I have the patch panel welded in with one of my usual ugly welds, and I'm most of the way through grinding the welds down. Of course if I were a better welder I'd be done with that now! And damn, MIG welds are hard!

But this morning I test fit the slicks. Later today I'll put the jack under the rear to move the tire up into the wheel well in case that results in a tight spot I haven't seen yet, but so far it looks pretty good. The front bottom corner is a little tight. I am considering trimming that back a bit:



It looks like I'm a bit limited to how much I can lower the rear but I think I'll be okay here too:



Finally the inside looks like about 3/8" minimum clearance. I might consider a very thin spacer to move it out just a bit depending on how the outside looks when I jack up the rear:



I also might have to tweak that body mount behind the tire just a bit, but I suspect that will not be necessary either.

[Geerhead55]

Dave,,, as I'm scrolling down looking at the pictures, I was thinking about your inside clearance, since we have to run a spacer behind the wheels on my son's '72 Malibu. You look to be a little tight there as well, so I guess a '66-67 inner well is no different. By the way, which engine combo are you leaning towards?
Nice project,, good luck with it.
Danny Durham

[Dave Muller]

Originally Posted by Geerhead55

Dave,,, as I'm scrolling down looking at the pictures, I was thinking about your inside clearance, since we have to run a spacer behind the wheels on my son's '72 Malibu. You look to be a little tight there as well, so I guess a '66-67 inner well is no different. By the way, which engine combo are you leaning towards?
Nice project,, good luck with it.
Danny Durham

You're probably right. I'll see how the outside is when I raise the rear, if there's more clearance there than the inside that will settle the issue.

It'll be a 283/200 engine.

[Dave Muller]

This is the minimum ride height that I could imagine running. Clearance starts to disappear pretty quickly as it goes lower. Inside clearance looks to be about 1/2", outside clearance about 3/8". Front and rear are the tightest here as well, with 3/4" in front and 1/2" at the rear.



The picture below shows the tire at approximately the ride height I would expect to use. The inside clearance here is still about 1/2", all other clearances improve substantially.



I think the body mount itself is fine, but I may have to do a little work on the lower inside corner of the inner wheel well.

As the body comes up further all clearances except the inside improve. The inside drops to 3/8" in some cases. Overall I think I like the wheel and tire exactly where it is, I don't think I'll use a spacer. If I do try one it'll be the thinnest one I can find.

And finally, here's the rear anti-roll bar that I just got. This should take care of that issue once and for all.

[Mark Yacavone]

David, That first picture is plenty low. It appears that the center line of the axle is above the top of rocker panel (bottom of door) which is where the factory intended it to be.
If it was me, I'd make a little curved pie cut in the front and push the lip forward to meet the quarter.
Oh boy..More migging.
You can probably get away with what you've got , with radials.
I'd grind away a bit of that body mount, and then a generous application of a Ford tool will fix it all right up.

[Dave Muller]

Originally Posted by Geerhead55

Dave,,, as I'm scrolling down looking at the pictures, I was thinking about your inside clearance, since we have to run a spacer behind the wheels on my son's '72 Malibu. You look to be a little tight there as well, so I guess a '66-67 inner well is no different. By the way, which engine combo are you leaning towards?
Nice project,, good luck with it.
Danny Durham

Sorry, I meant to say it's a 283/220.

[Wayne W]

Nice. Back in the 70s I ran a 66 Malibu SS 283/220 4 speed car. I had a lot of fun with it.

[Dave Muller]

This weekend I got (possibly) all of the welding on the sheet metal done. Just a bunch of small jobs; welding up a patch on the hood, patching the antenna hole in the fender, replacing a missing mounting tab on a fender and welding up some cracks I hadn't even noticed before in the front of one fender.

Here's the front of the hood after cutting out the worst of it.





There's still a ways to go with this. In fact I'm still not certain that I can get this good enough, I may yet just buy another hood. We'll see how it comes out in the end.

Here's the mounting tab and crack that I welded up:


The anti-roll bar is also partially mounted, but I have to work out the details of mounting to the frame cross-member before completing it.