The shim plates between the front body mounts and the stub frame on my '67 Monaco had severe rust expansion in the middle portion, causing them to deform pretty badly in the space between the 2 mounting bolts. These plates are about 6.5 inches long, almost 3 inches wide.
The portion of the plates around the bolt holes to the outer edges did not suffer this rust expansion, I was able to buff that part clean to get thickness measurements.
There are 4 plates, but 2 of them are very thin (not due to rust, at least not where I measured them).
Left and right plate arrangement is identical.
I'm wondering if at the factory they would have just been placed there according to standard proceedure without any sort of measurement or adjusting? Just based on knowing the car make/model they were dealing with and the known required frame offset to match design spec for door, fender alighnment etc?
The 2 thick plates are exactly 0.125 inch (1/8 inch) each, the 2 thin plates are 0.035 inch (poss. 0.030) each, somewhat close to 1/32 inch. Adding all that up, total shim thickness is 0.3125 inch (5/16 inch or 7.94 mm).
The 2 thin shims were basically rust-disintegrated (expanded) in their middle portion, one of the thicker shims was rust-eroded to the point of having holes in the center portion. The rust-expansion caused the body metal in that area to rise up under the force and was mostly rust-eroded away. The parts where the nuts are welded seem fine, part of a somewhat complex box structure that eludes my direct observation.
I'm going to weld a plate arrangement under there to strengthen that area. I'm going to add another bolt/nut there also:
So this it what it will look like:
The portion of the plates around the bolt holes to the outer edges did not suffer this rust expansion, I was able to buff that part clean to get thickness measurements.
There are 4 plates, but 2 of them are very thin (not due to rust, at least not where I measured them).
Left and right plate arrangement is identical.
I'm wondering if at the factory they would have just been placed there according to standard proceedure without any sort of measurement or adjusting? Just based on knowing the car make/model they were dealing with and the known required frame offset to match design spec for door, fender alighnment etc?
The 2 thick plates are exactly 0.125 inch (1/8 inch) each, the 2 thin plates are 0.035 inch (poss. 0.030) each, somewhat close to 1/32 inch. Adding all that up, total shim thickness is 0.3125 inch (5/16 inch or 7.94 mm).
The 2 thin shims were basically rust-disintegrated (expanded) in their middle portion, one of the thicker shims was rust-eroded to the point of having holes in the center portion. The rust-expansion caused the body metal in that area to rise up under the force and was mostly rust-eroded away. The parts where the nuts are welded seem fine, part of a somewhat complex box structure that eludes my direct observation.
I'm going to weld a plate arrangement under there to strengthen that area. I'm going to add another bolt/nut there also:
So this it what it will look like:
