on my 50 pontiac someone installed a camaro clip on it at some point , now the welding work is great , bu he left the tails of the sub frame on , after he welded the front and made crossovers to weld it to in the back . I was wondering , if I cut the tails off and plated the bottom of the rails to the camaro sub covering the holes , would this be strong enough ?? the plate would go 2-3 inches over the camaro sub in the front and connect to 12 inches of the pontiac frame in the rear I'll include the pictures of how it sits now .
just to let you know yes I am going to plate the inside over the welded joint like they did the other side . the other option is since the member its welded to hooks into the x portion of the frame just cut the tails off there ? and remove the angle iron and extra tail ??
I welded ( gas ) a clip on a Chevy about 25 yrs ago and it doesn't look as strong as yours. Still works good with over 80,000 miles on it.
I like the tails for added strength in a situation where the donor and original frame match in width, b/c you have the opportunity for about 6 feet of weld on each side, but with that setup, it looks like all the builder gained was a good place to hang a trans crossmember.
Greetings! The hub-to-hub width of the Camero/Nova subframe, at 61-62" is too wide for your car. To fix this problem you either need to start over with a replacement frame or re-clip the frame you have with a 79-85 G-body stub which is 58" wide.
Junkman hate to say this but the tires fit perfect no hanging out on the front end and no scrapping . and thats on stock camaro rims ( 15x7) so my 15x5's will look great with the 3.5 Bs I got . and its not the question I asked
and the member is too low and too far forward , the trans will not line up with the hole for the drive shaft .
I dunno....not broke-don't fix. put yer wheels back on and go for a drive....the only people who will ever see it will have to be pretty damn flat. those welds look nice, looks like it'll do just fine as is.
I am 6'4" and can see it when I am about 15 feet away from it thats why I was asking what should I do , its not going to be a goldchainers car , but not a true jalopy look ( almost a every day looker with big tires and motor ) , but I do want it to look nice , built several real Nhra drag cars and have kind of a "looks" bug that bothers me the wheels are on . BUT.... no motor, brakes or electrical system yet , the P.O. removed it all and parts of the floor too, so I have to do some fixing before it will see the streets , right now its a 2 man power vehicle to get it going , but flinstone brakes . the quality of who did it is good , welds have penetration and nice look too them ( not cold or hot ) looks like stick welds so they knew how to weld , and the drivers side they plated , this side will get plated also so it looks right and for strength . I guess I will leave the tails for now . as long as they do not interfer when I put the motor and exhaust in .
Greetings! Yes, I understand I didn't answer the original question because I was thinking ahead a little bit, like why worry about the "tails" on the subframe when it is too wide in the first place. To answer your question, yes, cut those "tails" off, they'll end up dragging on the ground every time you go in and out of a steep driveway not to mention they're just ugly. Please keep in mind my advice to use a G-body stub is based on my experience with the same year Chevy, on the Chevy the tops of the front fenders are "hooded" or "closed" at the top, if a Camero stub is used the front wheels rub on the front fenders. On your Pontiac the front fender openings are more "Open" or "rounded" at the top which explains why your tires aren't rubbing. Best of luck with your project.
I wish my gfs 50 Pontiacs previous owner would of done the nova sub frame in it like yours was done all they did was cut the engine/suspension cross member out of each frame and welded just that section of the nova into the Pontiacs frame amazingly it goes down the road straight we've owned it now for 3 years and soo far no problems but it might get 500 miles put on it a year
Ok that explains why they would want the narrower track on a chevy (upper fender opening is squared vs being rounded like the BOP's, I looked in a fisher body Book after you mentioned it . ) , also the chevy frame I looked at at the one freinds isn't x framed like mine is , ( and it is flexable , but lighter) will tell the freind about the g body for his , he has a f body sub frame but hasn't gotten the courage to start cutting yet , so I will pass the info on . with these cars I am finding about each ones quirks in design , chevys front MC , Pontiac is rear , which I have to figure something out , as I want the floor style not the under dash hung style . but the headers might cause problems sorry for being a little harsh . now anyone know were I can find floor braces so I can replace my floors??
my gfs Pontiac rolls on 225 75 15's all four 15x 7 rims and sits at just about stock height the front wheels are about an inch inside the wheel openings doesn't rub id try ems for the floor pieces
I mated a '77 Camaro subframe to my '38 Ford Coupe frame and removed the tails before tig welding it all together. It was nice and strong (way stronger than the stock setup), with no flexing and gave the old coupe a nice stance and I didn't have to fabricate engine mounts. My vote is cut em off!
no motor in it so it sits high right now, we set a bare engine ( pontiac 400) case in there and stacked a set of heads on it and it went down a good bit ( lower than stock height , right now things on hold as I have some bills that have to be taken care of and the car is not a priority .and its not at the house so I cannot do any major work on it .
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