follow up. Pro28 measured his pacer front end as 63 " hub to hub. My pontiac measures 59" Might work with some skinnies, but not my old Cragars. My frame does have a "bump out" for the upper spring hangars. Pacers and Mustang II's appear to be put on straight frame rails. Pasadenahotrods - Can you explain the upper shock mount statement, or better yet show pics. My knee action shock is bolted to the frame right over the spring. Then the upper A frame is bolted to the top center of the knee action shock. To get rid of the knee action shock, I would need new upper a frames and a frame mounts. Is there an alternative place to mount the shocks? I assume they had to go inside the spring?
...a Pacer front will be a lot of work on your frame; you'd need to trim the framerails to get them to sit down over the Pacer front, along with removing that huge orig. crossmember. ...The early Camaro/Firebird clips(67-9) and 68-74 Nova/clone front clips work great in these cars; they are rear-steer, so no radiator clearance problems. These are getting harder to locate, but are still around. Maybe you can find someone with subframe experience in your area to help get your Pontiac updated.
I think you are right, the pacer is out. The gm stub is too much for me to handle right now. Guess I can start scrounging parts for the future, and building up points with some one in San Antonio that can help me with this. Anyone got some 41 poncho drums and shoes I can use till I get to this job? somebody must have stubbed one of these before.
One of my friends has two '35-'37 Chevy trucks with the Pacer Cross-member and such under them. It looked smooth...but parts...yes that would be a problem. I liked the idea because there wasn't nearly as much frame hacking in the process.
draggin ass... why what? Why sub it, or why fix the brakes until I can get to the job of sub framing it?
How similar is the brakes on your Pontiac to a '40 to '48 Chevy? Chassis Enginering makes a disc brake kit for those Chevys using the stock spindle. Adapts '70 to '77 GM intermediate calipers and rotors. If you're happy enough with handling and braking is your main concern this might be a bolt on solution. If the Chevy is different they may be able to make you an adapter for the Pontiac. Give them a call. They may also be able to supply a bolt on Mustang I.F.S. Good Luck!
i put a pacer frontend in my 30 chevy sedan.it was a nightmare finding replacement parts.absolutely no rack could be found.the bushings are sky high,bearings are a crap shoot,and the rotors were more than a camaro clip. go mustang and save some bucks
Pacer is too wide, as has already been stated. In my opinon, a couple of guys I know who installed a mustang II didn't like it because of this reason: they welded in the crossmember level instead of tipped back a degree or so. When welded in level, the front end will dive really bad under braking, giving the allusion of being too light duty. tipping the crosmember back keeps it from doing that...so I've been told. So, I think Mustang II's are great, I plan on putting one in my 38 chevy coupe using the Chassis engineering bolt-in setup. Hopefully bolting it in will prevent me from screwing it up.
I'm in Minnesota this week, where I have full access to a yard, and some cousins who know their stuff. One just put an Heits (sp)MII in a 39 Chevy, so I got a good look at the finished deal. Also a fatman in a 55 that he is not happy with. We measured some GM subs and it looks like that is the way to go. But I'm not doing that until the car is ready for a frame off redo, maybe a year or two. For now, I'm going to fix the brakes with later hubs and drums and bigger wheels cylinders. I picked up a 7 in booster and 2 stage Master cylinder out of a metro, along with the pedal assembly. Looks like an easy install that would also help the brakes (man, it's nice to have ayard full of stuff to scrounge through). Anyone have any experience with these units? My Poncho will have 1 1/16 wheel cylinders in front and 7/8 in the rear, with a prop valve. My cus says they use them a lot in falcons, so they should work. Any opinions, or concerns?
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