July 2013

Rear Seats

I decided to redo the interior of the car while the major things were done, the problem though with a 4-door, is that parts are not so easy to come by. The only pair of rear seat covers were from Eckler’s Chevelle part # 630761. But the problem is they cost $289 for about $20 in fabric & vinyl.rear-seat-top

So outside of the Hog Nose rings, pliers, foam, burlap this is all the material I need. I’m looking for vinyl and fabric now. But I don’t need much.

Update 1: 8/6/13. Turns out it’s a little too difficult for the seat covers (time consuming) so I ordered a 71AS4D10S from Summit Racing. Not the pricing I wanted but oh, well… Turns out the Concours Wagon is the same seat. I might try searching for these parts vs. 4-door Chevelle.

Ride Height

I have a new set of Hotchkis Springs 1″ lowers in the front and the rear. However my rear is a little low. The Hotchkis part numbers are 1901R, or 19930003 springs, but I’m going to install something that give me a little higher rear as the front springs are a little too much of a pain to change.

rideheight-before

Trying out a pair of Moog, 5413’s, they should arrive from Amazon.Com tomorrow. I’ll show the after photo later.

Decided against the new rear springs instead went with Air Bags and I kept the Hotchkis 1″ lowering springs.

chevelle-ride-height2

You can see the bug is a little higher, but not too much so, overall I’m happy with the look/stance for now. Next year I’ll probably cut the springs.

Update 4: The bags I have are these  and officially they are called Drag Bags.

dragbags.

Update 5: My tires on the front and rear are 28″ tires. 275/60 R15s on the rear, and 235/70 R15’s on the front. I could lower the front by putting on a smaller tire, but the tire would also ride below the wheel well.

Front Coil Installation

I purchased a set of Hotchkis 1901F’s and installed in my Chevelle. The ride height looks a little high, I am wondering if I need to cut the coil or re-clocking it will help.

front-coils-reclock

If you see the above picture, the end of the coil should be at the 9 o’clock position, but it’s at 5 o-clock.

To install I used the following mechanism.

  1. Unbolted lower shock, but left it in.
  2. Chained the coil to the frame (big-a$$ chain)
  3. Jacked car and put on stands.
  4. Put floor jack under lower control arm.
  5. Jacked it up.
  6. Removed spindle bolts.
  7. SLOWLY lowered lower control arm.

Of course cutting re-clocking means another alignment… Arr…

Update 1. I reindexed the right front coil to the correct position and guess what, the car is about an inch higher in the front after moving to the correct position. Hopefully driving it around will fix it a little, if I remember it settled about an 3/4″ after a few months. I’ll probably do this again next spring and cut a coil to lower the front.

Update 2. Learned about spring seating. Here’s how it’s seated.

spring-seating

Here’s how it looks from the top, and it looks like it needs to move over a bit, because it looks like it’s on the lip.

coil-top

Update 3: I ended up cutting a third off the right spring. I know sounds crazy, but it actually leveled the car. I drove it and it seems fine though the right camber is a little off and I’ll need to shim it again (but not this year). Next year I’ll lower it a little more and even them out. p.s. Hotchkis Actually Recommends Cutting Their Springs.

Fuel Line Leak

I had a fuel line leak today when trying to uncover my “Chevelle Lean”. In the process I learned two things about the fuel tanks.

1) I received from watching a video on removing the leak.

The second from a post a chevelles.com, which talks about a fuel vent.

fuel vent

After Market Disc Brakes & Wheel Studs

In the process of changing out my stock disc brakes (below).

brakes-before

With my new brakes from Jegs (below).

bakes-after

I had a little glitch by stripping one of the with the Wheel Studs, NO-REPLACEMENT PARTS.

The brake set that I purchased from Jegs was http://www.jegs.com/i/Right+Stuff/965/AFXDC01CSX/10002/-1.

Right Stuff Detailing, this is a local Columbus company but they didn’t even know what studs they came with. Turns out the studs they came with don’t exist, my guess is they were from China and they re-tooled the blank with a 7/16″ thread and just threw them on there. The stud had a V752 on the head. (Updated see below).

wheel-stud

The replacement stud that I found which was the closest match is a NAPA 6413210.

wheel-stud-2

Now because this is an M12-1.25 vs. 7/16-20, I had to buy some new lugs.

UPDATE!

I just spoke with Jason from Right Stuff and he said they have a part number for this, it’s WS04.

Greetings

I’m restarting this blog. it’s about my 1971 Chevelle Malibu 4-Door Sports Sedan (hardtop).

Over the coming weeks/months I’m going to walk you though what I’ve done since 2009 and update with photos, part numbers, how-to’s and other videos.