protrash63

Exactly...all my 60's Chevy pickups have had discs installed but I always ran manual brakes to keep my right thigh in shape! LOL I liked the feel of it along with manual steering too. No 8 tracks I have to admit.

Havent done it and not planning it but have seen it done and there are a few different routes to be taken. One is a Xmember swap to MII or equivalent. The other route I have seen is sectioning the factory Xmember for clearance, batwing pan on the trans AND flipping the spindles from left and right to make a front steer. Not kidding. I researched quite a bit before buying a Riv and decided that I would go with the expense of the engine rather than all the other work to swap it. Guess it depends on ones skills and parts availability. I believe the Roadster Shop makes a replacement frame allowing all the stuff to work.

Didnt get my hardware cleaned up so I will try to get the springs in tomorrow morning or so. Going QA1 for the rear shocks as well. Coils from Coil Springs Specialties.

Headed out today and finally wrestled the rear end on to the link kit. Started with the trailing arms and the 'upper link'. Its pretty dicey pushing things around and getting the urethane bushings crammed in. Also had previously expanded the mounting areas for the panhard bar as it needed 2" to get in and the factory was at 1.75". Used threaded rod, nuts, and washers to expand the mounts. Went pretty well with the usual trying to line up bolts thru all the brackets. Used grade 8 stuff everywhere but forgot to get lower shock bolts....never fails! I wonder how many hours I've wasted getting hardware for stuff I've built. Anyway, check it out.......and Happy New Year.

I just took this junction apart a few weeks ago and the clip was actually the hardest part for me!

I will get it on the engine stand and be able to do that. Just started looking at things to see what I could find. Its so far looking used, of course, but not horrible. I'll get the intake off and the valley pan...and the trans.

Getting curious about my engine replacement and have started taking things apart to assess what going on with the 65 401. It turns but gets stuck just over 365* rotation. Rockers have been replaced on the drivers side, pulled the dizzy and the oil pump turns. The plugs didnt look too bad actually...I was expecting much worse. I'm wondering if something has fallen in a cylinder as it did not have a carb. Spent less than an hour on it so far but will figure it out eventually.

Still making progress and I put a coating of paint and undercoat to freshen things up. Its drying now and this week I will start assembling the rear suspension.

No....and I dont golf or wear berets either.

Yes, but I have a new tank and sender. I planned on testing it because the 'new' one in my 66 Chevy pickup sank shortly after driving it....I need to yank the tank and am not looking forward to the whole thing.

The only thing I saw stamped was on the top and bottom in roughly 1/2" tall numbers that showed '70'. I didnt totally turn it over as I had it on jack stands...it was slightly precarious!

The axle.............

I'm still kickin'! I'm so busy that if I listed all the stuff going on you'd think you were on a home improvement web page... So in between home and work I have managed to pick off a few things and I will definitely have the suspension together by the new year. It's gettin' close... Yanked out the tank shortly after the rear axle. It really hangs on until one realizes the vent tube is behind the bumper! LoL!! Little bit of ultra-violence popped it off there... Then proceeded to blow out the rear frame rails which were filled with an endless supply of rat turds. My shop looked like a turd bomb had gone off and there are still some rolly polly pieces around. Yuck! Also cleaned up the rear axle housing, which is extremely boring BTW. Lots of nooks and crannies to try and clean. I went ahead and gave it a coat of hammered black to make it presentable and it is now ready to go back in. Its amazing that I have actually removed every brake fitting on this car without messing up one...they all came apart! Need to source some more odds and ends and paint under the rear of the car. Thats next.

The Shiftworks option looks good, but if someone was willing to do at home project I would attempt a mold and then use some epoxy to mold a new piece. I am a scale moseler and people do this all the time to make duplicates of certain parts. I have also seen silicone used out of a tube to fill in a mold. Just an idea, anyway.

Does any one know a source for the rear brake drums? The usual suspects I imagine? I haven't searched yet but think mine might be too far gone. Thanks.

Nothing big to report as I did quite a bit of yard work today as it was beautiful. Once I made it out to the shop I yanked the brakes apart and disconnected the emergency cables, freed the u-joint and rolled the rear out from under the car. Started working on freeing up the gas tank hangers... I'm starting to see the light here on my first big projects and will be glad to have this thing back on the ground.

I'd buy that for a dollar! Seriously, looks very nice!

Interesting. I get tons of emails full of exuberance about their products....stopped looking cuz out of stock. I cancelled my Wilwood brake kit from them and got it somewhere else.

Thanks for the info on these...always nice to have a little heads up on things before getting in to them. I will be sticking with manual operation as I dont want to add electric to anything, just to keep it simple.

Yes, I'm going lower but not too much...planning on 2'' roughly. I have jacked the car up with the coilovers on but cant get any sense of height with the engine pulled out. If you get QA1's the instructions tell you to lower the coil to the bottom and it wont work with these control arms, hence my call to tech. They sent me pics and the coil rides about 1/2 way up the body to get everything bolted together which was easy... I have the BCFab kit and it will be going in with 3" dropped coils. They said you cant do it so I am going to do it . The lower link is about 1" taller than the stock arm and then I'll adjust the front to get it level or so.... the coils will bolt right on as their arm is wider than the factory link. I like bags, they ride nicely but I'm impatient....when I want to go just go. No screwing around with ride height etc and the automatic systems are too pricey for me...I think about all the other stuff I can get done with that money. I'm planning on doing the rear suspension within the month so I will post pics as it goes together.

For those interested in the QA1 topic, this is the cross shaft at the bottom of a coilover that bolts to the control arm. .75" in diameter.

Thanks! As a longtime member of a truck forum I ran into much bad info about stuff and so I started documenting certain things and figured I would do it here as well. I'm pretty inspired by the Riv and want to see it going again and make some improvements along the way. Its a serious hobby for me and I just do stuff the way I see it. Thanks for the weather stripping info. I've rebuilt a couple sets of truck vents and they were easy but I did pop for an aircraft rivet pressing tool which made things nice. Not sure if these need them or not as I haven't looked but I'm pretty sure these have been baked by desert sun into petrified chunks. I want to get it sealed up eventually. I saw the viking kits also and almost went for it but Evil bay QA1s popped up by someone who decided not to use them. I figured what the hell!!! If they dont work or cause too many issues I'll put them in my 66 El Camino. I've been busy with many job requests and so havent made quite the progress lately but I will have time off during the holidays and get some more done....currently working on the rear axle and trying to extract it out from under the rear.

Yep, you are correct. However they are not 'small screws' but grade 8 bolts and QA1 designed the mounting for the shock with an extremely heavy cross shaft. The cross shaft sits on TOP of the control arm as opposed to the shock bolting on the bottom. This is the correct application for this vehicle and one of their techs did the trial as he owns a 63 Riviera. They emailed pics to me as I had questions about the install.

I recently did a search for this service and came up with FCRC I believe. Sent an email inquiring and got no response....they are happy to take your funds and then tell you where to ship. I dont have that much faith and wanted to know time frame and if they have the parts. So my decision was to go with it as one end was good and one end was a bit sloppy. I can get it done later if I so choose.

I do think the whitewalls look good on the early 60's cars....so I guess I'm back pedaling somewhat!! Thats what I was talkin bout up there^^^^^ .......looks good!