67 Dart 270...Project Old School
I was off work for the last week and managed to spend part of that time in the garage. The first order of business was to cut the section of the torsion bar cross member that protrudes into the drive line tunnel. I used an air saw to cut the section out. You need to take your time and use a fine tooth blade. The blades I used had 32 teeth per inch. The surprise inside the cross member is the piece of flat steel bent to form a tube on each end. The two tubes pass through the bolts for the lower transmission mount/cross member and keep you from crushing the cross member when you crank down the bolts. The air saw is good at cutting a single sheet of metal, but it can be a handful to cut multiple layers.
The is the section I removed from the car:
The section is spot welded to the tunnel at the highest point. I drilled out the spot welds and used a chisel to do the final removal. Now for a good visual of why this work is necessary:
I used a 3/16" piece of flat steel to form the new section. This was the thickest piece of metal I could bend in my vise. Here I am using the old section to create the shape for the new section:
Here I am test fitting the new section in the tunnel:
In order to prepare for welding on the floor boards I needed to remove the interior.
I also realized none of the heater/AC controls worked in the car, so that led me to pull the heater/AC boxes from the car:
Which led me to re-route some wiring including the speaker wires and adding line level cables for a "possible" sub-woofer in my future.
Which also led me to remount the shifter with special bolts from the bottom so none of the bolts would hang down in the tunnel. This also allowed me to level out the shifter instead of having it lean backwards. This led me to rethink my console's Velcro to carpet mounting system (yes it wobbles...). While I have the interior out and a welder handy it seems like a good time to fab a mount...which will have to be custom due to the Hurst shifter.
And that led me to run out of time...
I was off work for the last week and managed to spend part of that time in the garage. The first order of business was to cut the section of the torsion bar cross member that protrudes into the drive line tunnel. I used an air saw to cut the section out. You need to take your time and use a fine tooth blade. The blades I used had 32 teeth per inch. The surprise inside the cross member is the piece of flat steel bent to form a tube on each end. The two tubes pass through the bolts for the lower transmission mount/cross member and keep you from crushing the cross member when you crank down the bolts. The air saw is good at cutting a single sheet of metal, but it can be a handful to cut multiple layers.
The is the section I removed from the car:
The section is spot welded to the tunnel at the highest point. I drilled out the spot welds and used a chisel to do the final removal. Now for a good visual of why this work is necessary:
I used a 3/16" piece of flat steel to form the new section. This was the thickest piece of metal I could bend in my vise. Here I am using the old section to create the shape for the new section:
Here I am test fitting the new section in the tunnel:
In order to prepare for welding on the floor boards I needed to remove the interior.
I also realized none of the heater/AC controls worked in the car, so that led me to pull the heater/AC boxes from the car:
Which led me to re-route some wiring including the speaker wires and adding line level cables for a "possible" sub-woofer in my future.
Which also led me to remount the shifter with special bolts from the bottom so none of the bolts would hang down in the tunnel. This also allowed me to level out the shifter instead of having it lean backwards. This led me to rethink my console's Velcro to carpet mounting system (yes it wobbles...). While I have the interior out and a welder handy it seems like a good time to fab a mount...which will have to be custom due to the Hurst shifter.
And that led me to run out of time...