I searched the internet and could not find anything coherent in how to do this so this thread is what I did. Going to show all the mistakes so everyone else can skip them. This is a really big project. Getting to and removing rusted 46 year old body bolts is not for the week of heart. You will need a cut off wheel. Just got an electric one at Harbor Freight for $20. My first step is to remove the right front fender and liner. Pick your favorite rust buster/blaster and spray every nut you can see. Won't work on all of the bolts but you may get lucky. I didn't. Next step is remove the core support. Most likely you will have to cut the right side bolt for the cushion out, but could get lucky on the left side. Right side was easy for me because the whole mount was totally rusted out. Lucky me.
OK, first step is a big deal. You have 5 more bolts to go. No that you have the fender and liner off you can spray the two nut on top of the front two cushions. I took a propane torch and put some heat on those nuts and resprayed with penetrate. It seems to suck up more of the juice with the heat. I let the stuff work overnight. The nuts are 1 inch squares. Usually these are in good shape and will come out if you have someone hold the wrench on them as you hit the 5/8th bolt.
I moved the back next. Take off the bumper and open the trunk. Again you can try to get something to free up the nut and bolt. In the trunk you will see a hump above the nut. Drill a hole and go ahead and soak that with your rust agent. Patience is you friend. Does not work for me.
Since I have neither patience or luck it did not work for me. Next step is to get out the grinder and cut the u outlined in the last picture and pry it up. After seeing what it looks like i think this is really the way to go. There need to be lots of clean up on my car and probably yours. Looks ugly under there. You will have to cut the side of the nut cage and bend that back to get a wrench on it.
Number 8 you get to from the very back after the bumper is removed. Same deal, drill a hole and spray. Wait for it to work. Put a wrench on it and spin the nut(at least in my case.) Get out the grinder and cut. Can you see the mistake I made on the cut?
Here is the one inside the car. It is pretty much in line with the front bolts for the seat. You will see the bump for the bolt between a rectangle formed by 4 spot welds. This should be a good candidate for the hole in the bump and some blaster. If you open it up do not make the mistake I did and use the spot welds for cut lines. Come inside those lines about a 1.4 inch or you will be into a cup they put the special cage bolt in. All of you are smarter than me and knew this. Anyway this area really needed some clean up. Was also able to use a torch to apply heat and more blaster so bolt eventually came out.
Everything is loose and now it is time to lift the body. I took a 3 ft chunk of 4X4 and cut a 1/4 inch slot about 1 inch in from the side, and inch deep. The slot will fit on the body seam and give you a good jacking point. Make sure to check for anything attached before jacking.
Jacked it up slowly and seems to work good. No stress on the body, door opens and closes fine. Done for a while as I am waiting for paint and cleaning places that could never get too before. Hope this will help a few people. Please post any other hints for all of us doing this for the first time.
I just finished this on my 70. My firewall mounts were just regular shouldered nuts with no evidence of any captured squares like the other mounts. The worst of mine were the ones by the front seats. Also I didn't remove my core support, just pulled the inner fenders and battery. Also you can easily remove the rear mounts without removing the bumper. There are 3 alignment holes for the body to the frame all on the drivers side to make sure everything is squared up. One between the two firewall mounts, one in front of the rear wheel by the corner of the frame before it goes up and over the axle and then one just inboard of the last mount behind the bumper.
As far as I can tell the front two mounts did not have the captured nuts like the other nuts. The stock ones are the 1 inch square ones. I am going to use stainless nylocs on those when I put it back together. If you are lucky enough that the nut does not spin you can get to that last bolt without removing the bumper. I have decided that I am going to open up all of them so they can be cleaned and the rust taken care of.
Cars built at Flint are hex shoulder (flange) nuts stock, (they are not reproduced), not the square ones
Flint cars used a different bolt on the core support mount bolts as well. Bigger oversized hex head with no shoulder. Most are destroyed by battery acid on right and water sitting in the core support on left.
Went to the drivers side and again had to cut open sheet metal to get bolts out. I only had two bolts that would just come out without help. With the front two it was a lot easier to get the reciprocating saw out and just cut away. Took about 30 seconds that way. Things I have learned, rust sucks. Even if your all your bolts come out they more than likely set in a bed of rust. All the bolts coming out is not likely. If you do not want to open up the sheet metal you still need to drill the 1/8 hole and spray the nut area. Have more patience than me and do it every day for a long time. Good luck on that. At this point I could just lift and replace the bushings. But......
Hi, Can you give us the info regarding were you purchased body mounts and cushions. Also were all the body mount bolts the same length? I'm just curious because I will need to tackle this job in the future and need to purchase correct parts. Thanks
The bolts under the doors were a little shorter or they would bottom out. Core support bolts were longer. I like to use the core support bolts at the firewall to give more insurance in not backing out. There is plenty of room there anyway.
