With the firewall in place, the next step is the frame rails. These are the rails that the engine compartment is built on. Ideally, I would do this with a frame jig, so I just bolt them to the jig and drop them in place and I have them exactly where they should be. I don’t have a jig, so I need to do a little more work. Fortunately, Jo Daddy’s Garage Youtube channel has some great videos on how to do this.

First step is to drill all the holes for the plug welding. The welding assembly manual shows 2 rows of 5 evenly spaced spots on each of the 3 sides of the floor support channel. Additionally, there are 4 welds on the flanges against the firewall. There is an upper flange also, so I put a weld there too.

I didn’t take a picture, but to get the rail in the right spot up and down, I jacked a 1 inch square tube against the bottom of the floor support channel, extended out to the end of the front of the rail. The gap between the top of the tube and the bottom of the front of the rail should be 5 5/8″. To make it easier to ensure I am keeping the gap, I welded a section the proper length to the end of the tube in an L shape. This made a post for the front to keep the proper placement without me having to mess with the tape measure frequently.

To make sure I have the right gap between them, I bolted the cross member in place. It has special self centering bolts that are tapered so it should be good at getting the spacing correct. I also placed the radiator support in place to make sure it will fit when it’s time to install it later.

I’m pretty happy with the results. I also feel I am getting better with welding. Or maybe I am just getting familiar with the knobs and settings on the machine.

As a bonus, I clamped on the parts of the apron and shock towers I have so far, just to see how the puzzle is going to look. It also helps to understand just how much work I am going to have to do to tune the parts in order to get them all working. The shock tower arms are going to be an issue. Maybe enough to make me do the work to use the originals. That’s a problem for future me though.

It’s going to be some work, but I can see where it’s going. Next, all of that has to come off and get put aside while I finish assembling the torque boxes.