David clark
Member
I did my a bodie did not grind a thing now I'm starting on my new e bodie project I have the whole kit for this one for it's going to have 800 ponys
Any tips on fitting the US Car Tool Sub Frame connectors?
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WymanV
..you said "member"...
I lined them up where I wanted them to be, marked the points where I needed to modify them with a magic marker, grind & test fit until I got a nice snug fit. It was rather easy when the car is upside down-you can sit on the car's floor so there isn't a lot of moving back and forth.
Ken
I paid a welder friend to install mine. B Body. He said it was relatively easy. He also ended up in the er with a hell of a rash from grinding off the undercoating. Protect yourself during the prep.
The welded in USCartool subframe were the single best upgrade ever for my ride. Solid on washboard roads more like a modern car. Put them in before other upgrades.
The welded in USCartool subframe were the single best upgrade ever for my ride. Solid on washboard roads more like a modern car. Put them in before other upgrades.
Dragnut
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the info... I got them in this weekend also put in the torque boxes. Hardest part was the damn undercoating.
oi81b4uu812b4
Well-Known Member
Interesting, you quoted me from a completely different thread and replied in the wrong one
And yes, removing the undercoating is the easiest part of the whole USCT subframe installation. Reading comprehension is important, I didn't say it was easy, I said it was the "easiest part". As in, by comparison it's easier than doing the fitting, grinding, and welding needed to install those connectors.
Anyone can scrape undercoating, it requires no special skills, knowledge, or equipment. It's just messy and time consuming.
oi81b4uu812b4
Well-Known Member
Interesting, you quoted me from a completely different thread and replied in the wrong one
And yes, removing the undercoating is the easiest part of the whole USCT subframe installation. Reading comprehension is important, I didn't say it was easy, I said it was the "easiest part". As in, by comparison it's easier than doing the fitting, grinding, and welding needed to install those connectors.
Anyone can scrape undercoating, it requires no special skills, knowledge, or equipment. It's just messy and time consuming.
Interesting that you claim they require a lot of “fitting, grinding and welding”. I would say there really wasn’t much fitting and grinding. As with any sheet metal work on an old car, the most work is prepping the old metal to weld the new onto.
And there are a lot of different undercoatings that owners applied on our cars over the years. Some of those have to be chiseled off, they come off harder than just a “scrape”. So yeah, there is special knowledge that people have to have when removing it. I’ve heard of many people ending up in the ER when messing around with it, as did the comment from the poster above. Some of those undercoatings will pick the hell out of your skin, give you a nasty rash, and the gas from burning it will give chemical burns and respiratory issues. And not to mention breathing in the dust which is toxic too.
Dragnut
Well-Known Member
Well I just installed a set of these this weekend and my back says ...Yes there is a lot of fitting and grinding and welding to get these in.. of course I myself am kind of a perfectionist and that could have been some of the problem.
If the car is on a rotisserie, try this the next time around for under coating removal---Flip car over. Spray it liberally with a petroleum distillate such as PB Blaster. Let it set overnight. Turn car back to 90 degrees. Hold a garbage can near work & scrape undercoating into garbage can with a plastic paint scraper. Use a bottle of Dawn & a couple scotch-brite pads to clean the underside. Rinse & repeat (if nesc.) Sit back with a beer & admire your bottom.
oi81b4uu812b4
Well-Known Member
This works on petroleum based under coatings and on some rubber based, but not all. Asphalt based undercoatings are where people struggle. People that live in snow states are aware of how hard asphalt undercoatings are to remove.
We might see snow flakes in Michigan, but generally they live in California.
oi81b4uu812b4
Well-Known Member
Dragnut
Well-Known Member
You can’t weld em to the floor sheet metal in a continuous bead...I burned thru a couple times just stitch welding.
Well the set I installed on my '71 Dart definitely required a lot of fitting and grinding to get satisfactory gaps for welding. It took longer to do the fitting and grinding than it took for the surface prep, including removal of the factory undercoating. Heck the undercoated areas were easier to prep than the areas without undercoating because of the surface rust removal needed on the spots without undercoating. The factory undercoating was a piece of cake to remove, just a putty knife and some elbow grease. You can see the nice sharp edges left by the putty knife, plus the extensive coverage of factory undercoating on my '71 from the Windsor plant. I did a quick wire wheel following the putty knife for surface prep, but that was pretty quick.
The tolerances on these cars aren't all the same, so I'm sure they install easier on some cars than others, just like everything else. And compared to a tubular set of frame connectors they require a TON more welding, at least if you fully seam weld them. From a strength perspective that's probably not necessary because you're just welding to sheet metal, a skip or stitch weld with a decent amount of coverage would probably max out the stiffening effect gained. Somewhere between spot welded and fully seam welded you'll hit a point of no additional gain.
I wouldn't say "can't", but you shouldn't anyway. Like any long stretches of welding on sheet metal you should break it up and move around to minimize warping. I was doing ~4-6" stretches on mine depending on how flat or contoured the floor was and moving back and forth between the left, right, front and back.
oi81b4uu812b4
Well-Known Member
If you lay your weld on the sub frame connector and roll it onto the floor pan you will reduce your burn through.
Plug welds would be TREMENDOUSLY stronger. Do they instruct to stitch weld?
Dragnut
Well-Known Member
Yes that is how I did it...still get a few spots of burn thru.. no big deal to fix that.
Dragnut
Well-Known Member
I’m not sure how you would plug weld a seam?
I set the SFC’s on four jackstands. Lowered the car onto the SFC’s, threw some bags of concrete inside, put a few welds on the frame points and floor pan, then Rotisseried it around to do the rest of the welds.
oi81b4uu812b4
Well-Known Member
I’ve seen your fab and weld skill, you seem to struggle with it quite a lot. Maybe 72bluNblu you should farm it out to a real fabricator. I’ve put US Car Tool sub frame connectors on quite a few Mopars now. It took maybe 2 hours to fit up to the floor. I spent more time fitting new rocker panels on a car over this past Memorial weekend. Maybe your cars are more tweaked up, but I really have not seen many pre fabbed parts that are as much of a struggle to install as you claim.
I never fit these on a rotisserie jig. I fit them with weight on all 4 tires and force them up into the floor pan with a floor jack, It really doesn’t take much force either. Some areas need to be pushed down from the interior side. Then I just place a few stitches around them. For final full weld you can put it up on a rotisserie of doing overhead welds isn’t your skill. The funny thing is when I’m done the floor always looks flatter than with out the sub frame connectors installed. If you start with the car flipped over on a rotisserie they probably will take a little more fitting, but why waste your time?
I think you are leading people to believe they need to grind these to fit the areas of their floor pans that flex and “oil can”. Seriously, it’s a floor pan, those ribs that are stamped into them by nature make them not perfectly flat and vary car to car. They flex under your carpet just from human traffic.
I installed them the same way. Weight on the suspension, bottle jacks holding the USCT connectors in place with some tension on them to snug them up to the floor and take some flex out of the pan. They still required grinding and fitting to achieve the fit I wanted on my car. Like you said, the floor pans are not perfectly flat and the fit does vary from car to car, so it shouldn't take much imagination to figure out that not everyone will have the same amount of work to do. I'm not trying to lead anyone to believe anything, I just said what I had to do to get them to fit on my car, plain and simple. You mileage may vary.
I don't struggle with my fabrication. It's true, I don't get enough torch time anymore to be as proficient a welder as I once was, but I'm just a hobbyist at this point working on my own cars. And as such, I don't give a crap what you think about my skills. I'm not trying to impress anyone.
Why don't you post up pictures of some of your numerous subframe connector installs for the rest of us to see? You know, show us amateurs how a real professional does it. Surely you must have some pictures if you've done as many as you say.
oi81b4uu812b4
Well-Known Member
Unlike you I don't waste all my time on here blogging about crap, I'm actually in my shop painting right now. And not just a front clip. You would be amazed! I painted the entire car.
Funny thing is, you could have posted a picture just as fast as you typed up that post.
So seriously, how about you post up some pictures of one of your many subframe connector installs so the rest of us can see what's so great about your installation? You know, help the rest of us amateurs improve our builds and contribute something meaningful to this thread instead of just coming in here and crapping on other people's work?
Or maybe they're aren't any pictures because you're just making all this up?
Cool, Another FABO pissing match
1969superbee
Well-Known Member
This is an interesting article. They use 3M structural adhesive to bond the connectors to the floor instead of welding them. Super solid and pretty innovative.
Don’t Drop In A Hemi Until You Do These 4 Chassis Mods! - Hot Rod Network
On the ease of installing the SFC's, I can say mine took a lot of fitting and grinding to get a good enough fit to weld. I had mine off and on at least a dozen times, tweaking the fit each time. It made them much easier to weld, especially considering the thin sheet metal floor pans, and made for a better looking finished product. I'm with 72blunblu on the amount of fitting needed. Not difficult, just time consuming. Glad others seem to have had an easier time of it.
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