No Going Back now. 70 LT-1

[Lynn]

And that is the problem. I do not have a perfectly flat surface.
I have a couple of friends that have body shops. I may contact one of them to see if they can put it on a frame machine and check for twist.
Everything is square just measuring from the bottom. I have it upside down right now.

[Rsconv68]

Very nice. I helped a friend do his 72 in his garage. He had everything figured out except how to get the body back on. I called a friend with his tow truck and half the neighborhood was there taking bets whether it would work. We lowered it on the frame in less than 15 minutes, rolled it back in the garage, and crowned ourselves kings of the world.

[Lynn]

Usually more than one way to get things done.

[Kurt S]

You could use a laser level. They are cheap on Amazon. Set on one mount and measure at the other mounts....

[Lynn]

Kurt. Thanks a million for this suggestion. Bought one on Amazon for $55. Didn't take long to set up. Was able to check the spare frame for twist, and was pleasantly surprised. No measurable twist!!! That meant I could go ahead and start work on this baby.

Today was a good day. I got all the little bagged and tagged parts off my work benches, and into a large storage cabinet that I picked up at a surplus auction for $15.

I made some adapters to bolt the body jig to one of my body carts, so I could roll the body around. Got it off the lift and Sherri helped me roll it into a spare bay. I hate having the lift tied up. I won't be doing any body work (it needs almost nothing other than the headlight bar replaced) until I have the rolling chassis fully ready to go. I plan to use the old frame, and whatever rolling parts I don't use to make an extra roller so that i can bolt the body to it temporarily. That way I can roll it on my trailer and take it to a paint shop for final paint, and I DON'T have to worry about any overspray on my freshly restored chassis.

One of my pet peeves is the obligatory giant dent in the subframe on almost all c2 & C3 Corvettes (and first gen Camaros) caused by using a floor jack without a 2x6 on top of the jack. My spare frame is no exception. I repaired that dent 12 years ago before putting my Z back together. Took the same approach on this one, except that I welded in a couple supports and welded a long piece of steel to the underside of the plate after getting it back into the right shape. My reinforcement metal is almost double the thickness of the frame metal. My hope is that even if some moron jacks it up by the subframe, it won't bend again. You can see I got good penetration on the welds.
Not quite done yet, but got it roughed in. Sorry; forgot to take a "before" pic. Trust me; it was hideous.

Also; after working for 8 hours on Corvette stuff, I pulled the distributor in the Spitfire and ran the oil pump with a drill. Now has oil pressure when cranking!!! Will post in that thread.

[dykstra]

Pretty slick reinforcement!