I found this too late

[Tim Whittaker]

I could be "all wet' here guys, so bear with me .......

When fitting the firewall, some have found that the passenger side needs to be trimmed to get it to fit to the body. After all was said and done, I measured all four corners of the car with chassis level side to side and measured to the floor. I did this to position the rear of the body so that it was level.

What I found was that even with the passenger side door sill being rasied about .180, ( had to do this to get the rear deck level ) the passenger side was still low by about 3/16" at the firewall/cowl to the shop floor. Thats some of what I had to trim off the firewall on the upper passenger side.

It's my opinion that if the "notch" in the footbox front ( lower firewall, passenger side ) was raised ( or notched out higher ) about 1/4", that would allow the body, in the firewall area, to be raised by that much. This would not only allow the cowl to be level from left to right but the firewall probably wouldn't need to be trimmed.

My guess is that if you measure your car at the rear, cowl area and the front "arms" that pass under the suspension "A" arms, you will find you car body isn't level to the chassis. Looking at one "high end" build that is on these pages, I see it in his pictures as well.

Just wanted to pass this on to see what you guys think. Might help a future builder or maybe can be inserted by FFR to take this measurement as part of the build process. They could then modify the manual when they make a more detailed one whenever...

Wish I had found this earlier. I had my radiator grill cut by .750 on the passenger side to "square it up " and could have made it all level before drilling the firewall to the body and trimming the firewall.

Just some rambling thoughts ...... Comments ?

[68GT500MAN]

Jim,
What do you mean by:

"Wish I had found this earlier. I had my radiator cut by .750 on the passenger side to "square it up " and could have made it all level before drilling the firewall to the body and trimming the firewall."

Did you remove material from the radiator or the grill? I have seen the post by HRL and he removed about that mauch material from the driver side of the grill.

Thanks,
Doug

[Tim Whittaker]

Thanks Doug. I meant the grill. I edited the post and removed the part about the floor. The notch moves up, not the lower firewall.

I'd like to hear the results if others will either measure or check for a level condition. In my case, the level and the measurements from the floor showed the same results, the cowl needs to be moved up ( passenger side on my car ) to make it level. Rear can be leveled no problem but the screws under the door sill can't be in on the passenger side to do so.