Need to "Center" Front clip- How much do i need to remove? [Archive] - Chevelle Tech

: Need to "Center" Front clip- How much do i need to remove?


RAMBO
May 21st, 03, 12:56 PM
The front clip on my 70 Elky is not centered- It is about 1/4"-1/2" over to the passenger side- (you can see this by looking at the front bumer spacing on either side- and also by looking at the inner fenders and how they sit over the frame.
The frame is NOT bent.

The previous owner(who had all the bodywork done) had dinky 15x7 rims with small tires on them so he never had a problem- I run 15x8s on it- and since the car is lowered- my drivers side tire likes to rub going around corners. I had to switch to a 225/60 front tire to keep it from rubbing on the drivers side where it is pulled over too far.
I want to get this re-centered and solve my problem.

In order to re-center the front clip- How much stuff do I need to remove/take off? Can I just loosen the radiator support to frame bolts and slide it all over? Or do I need to loosen all the bolts holding the front end together?

Thanks-
Ben

scooter67
May 21st, 03, 2:56 PM
I would crawl under the car and take some measurements to be sure that the rest of the car's body is centered and square on the frame. It could be just a hair off at the firewall, and that would cause it to be off your .25" to .5" at the front of the car. Maybe I'm just being overly cautious, because that isn't really all that much, but it would suck if your body lines got thrown off and the car looked like it had a "kink" in it. I don't have any experience with this, so take it with a grain of salt. To answer your question, to slide the front clip over, I would take the core support bushings loose and loosen up the fenders at the body to enable it to move a little more freely. Then slide it over and tighten everything back up.

scooter67
May 21st, 03, 4:46 PM
I just thought of something else. You should search for MARTINSR's basics of body panel alignment. It would be helpful. Good luck.