reasons. (Photo Courtesy Bill Garcia)
Disassembly
If you are planning to remove the body from the frame, leave the doors on the car for now. They will add rigidity to the body when it is lifted from the frame.
Whether you plan on removing the engine now or later is up to you. The engine and driveline could be left in place and removed once the body is lifted from the chassis. I remove every body I restore from their respective frames, mount them on a cart or a straight donor frame, and send them over to my body shop. In the case of the do-it-yourself restorer, you may want to leave the body on its frame while you do all the bodywork and panel replacement or welding, as this will ensure the body does not move or flex while off the frame. If not, when you try mounting the body back onto the frame you may find things not lining up. When completed, or at the very least when in primer, you can then remove the body and restore the rolling chassis.
This rolling chassis is in final prep stages to remove the body. On this particular car, the engine and transmission have been removed prior to removing the body. As long as all physical connections between the body and the driveline have been disconnected, it is simply a matter of choice whether to remove the engine and/or transmission beforehand.
At this early stage of disassembly, all front sheet metal has been removed, cooling and engine oil drained, radiator support removed, and all wiring disconnected and removed that would hinder removing the body. Note in this instance the windshield and rear window have been removed before taking the body off the frame. Do whatever works for you.
Set the engine and transmission aside for now. Put the engine on a stand, tape and seal up all of the openings, and leave it for now. There is no sense in rebuilding the engine and having it gather dust in your shop/garage while you are doing body or chassis work. It will be a while before you are ready to fire it up and get it running properly. If there are some hard-to-find items missing such as the A.I.R. system, correct intake or exhaust manifolds, carburetor, distributor, or brackets/braces/pulleys, now would be the time to start the search for those pieces. Until then, hold off until you are close to putting the engine and transmission back in the chassis.
The same goes for the transmission. If you have made notes on what needs to be repaired or replaced, leave it alone until it comes close to reassembly time.
CHAPTER 4
CHASSIS, SUSPENSION, AND BRAKE WORK
The chassis is usually one of the dirtiest and most worn-out parts of the restoration you will encounter due to the fact that it is mostly out of sight and therefore neglected. The undercarriage is usually in very bad shape with pitting, many bent areas due to previous wrecks or hastily put floor jacks, welds showing ill-gotten repairs, oily residue, and cracked or worn-out bushings, just to name a few of the problems. All of these issues will have to be addressed on a restoration.
Chassis Disassembly
To what length you decide to take it will be up to you, taking into account whether the car will be a daily driver or a trailer queen. It will also depend on how much time and money you are willing to spend on that part of the restoration. Many people will not put much emphasis on the chassis due to it being unseen, while others will expect the same attention to detail on the chassis as will go into the body. Regardless of your intentions, keep a notebook and pen handy and make notes of your findings and, more importantly, document which parts will need to be found or purchased as you remove the defective part from the car.
Cleaning and Inspecting the Frame
The body has likely been removed prior to this task, so this will leave the chassis fully exposed for you to now start your inspection and restoration. It is highly recommended you begin with a good pressure wash to get as much of the oily film, road grime, and remaining residue removed from the car before you begin the teardown.
Before you begin to pressure wash the frame, look for any factory tags or decals and document them. Keep in mind that all of the removed grime will have to go somewhere, and it is illegal in most residential areas for these types of contaminants to go down the storm drain in the streets. You may want to drag it to the local self-wash car wash, as they generally have catch tanks designed for this runoff, and they are legal.
One of the most neglected parts of your Chevelle is the frame, and it will require a lot of work to bring it back to its original condition. Make sure to fully document its state with photographs before you disassemble the frame.
Make special note of items such as the frame motor mount with regard to how the bolts are oriented. Some plants installed them with the bolt head on the top side, while others installed them with the nuts and lock washers on the top (shown).
This is an example of the frame decal that the author has personally only ever found on the driver-side rear axle hump. The decal has always been inverted likely due to the frame being assembled upside down. These are often obliterated by road grime or are missing altogether. If still in place, it should read XU for coupe, XV for convertible, and XX for El Camino, at least for 1970.
After a good cleaning and scraping, photograph every part of the frame and its bolt-on parts for component placement, damage, brake and fuel-line placement, the location of specific clamps, cracks, inspection marks, and stampings, just to name a few. Do an initial inspection and photograph it. Do it again when it is fully disassembled for areas that may have been missed. Not all frames were assembled the same throughout the seven different plants, so if you are reasonably sure that your frame has been unmolested, document its assembly, especially motor mount-to-frame bolt orientation, crossmember-to-frame bolt orientation, the different types of clamps used on the brake and fuel lines, etc.
With regard to VIN stampings on the frame, keep in mind, these VIN stamps were put there by assembly workers. It was a general practice and a federal mandate that they all be stamped, but for reasons unknown, not all plants or line workers did what they were supposed to. Most plants stamped the frames with VIN numbers (some at least three times), while other plants, such as the Kansas City Leeds plant, rarely did, at least not in 1970.
It is a good idea to start a separate file within your car’s main restoration file and call it something like “Frame and Chassis Components” so that you can easily track all the facts and progression of the restoration. If you are doing a concours restoration and the condition allows for it, make sure to document any component parts that have decals still attached and the type of finish that particular component may have had.
Authentication
You will also want to carefully clean and document the frame part number, assembly date stamp, manufacturing code, and VIN (if found). The VIN can usually be found on a variety of places on the rear half of the frame and usually on the top side. You may not find any, or you may find as many as three stamps. When originally stamped, they were very faint even when new; after almost 50 years of weathering, they can be difficult to find. Some plants did not follow
