When you take a body off a frame, how do you get it back on straight? The assembly manual shows the factory used two guide pins at the no.1 and no.4 body mount bushings to get it straight. Do you use the original guide pin holes in the frame and line them up with the original guide pin holes in the body? Or is there some other way you have to do it. I have not done this yet, but I might one of these days.
That is exactly how you do it. There is also another alignment hole at the very back of the frame too. Once lined up with those you can sure the car is pretty square. Some tweaking may be needed to make it perfect (ie if the rad support is way over and can't get front panels square etc a small adjustment of the mian body will give you some extra). We actually used a plumb bob on one of the positions as the body ws guided down, that helped but is not required. later Tim
Thanks Tim. Question about the alignment hole in back. I couldn't find a reference to it in the assembly manual, but then maybe its been deleted or I'm not looking in the right place in the manual. Where is it in back? Just more curous than anything else. I will probaly just wind up using the alignment holes at the No.1 and No.4 positions. I'm guessing when the factory built these they just plopped the body down on the frame using the alignment holes and used the built in play in the fenders and other parts to get them close to right. They were probaly building them to fast to worry how "perfect" they were.
The one at the back is not in the manual for some reason. Anyway, it is on the drivers side, very aft corner. You can tell as it has the two small slots cut out 180 degrees apart. Perhaps it was only meant for frame alignment purposes. If everything is straight, two pins in will line up the third as well. On my ragtop, we needed to tweak the body over just a touch to get an extra 1/4" on one side to center it between the front frame rail and the rad support. Well within limits, and original mounts showed signs of being tweaked slightly too. No sign of serious accident damage at any time so who knows. I'm being totally fussy though...and after that the holes still lined up so there is some slop there to play with. Maybe the factory pins are more accurate, we used resto shop pins. later Tim
