Underneath that big air cleaner was a four barrel Holley carburetor. With the original distributor and coil, this beast would be hard to start when cold. It also pinged under hard acceleration. The manifold also has a broken ear on one corner and really needs to be replaced, it just hasn't arrived yet.
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First upgrade was to install an MSD distributor.
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We had to check and reset the timing as it wasn't right.
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Once everything seemed good, we rolled it outside the garage. Betsy got to catch some rays of winter sun while the Chevelle took over her bay for the day.
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We also upgraded the intake manifold to an Edlebrock for a 4 barrel carb, required by the fuel injection upgrade. The old intake had an exhaust crossover under the carberator to warm the carb. Fuel injection would not seal to this exhaust passage. Normally an air gap manifold could be used, but there was not enough height below the hood. This intake will provide better performance and is lighter. We added a heater to the front as we needed 4 ports for sensors and water outlets. We had to drill and tap the bottom port.
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Our friend is 6'5" and just didn't have enough leg room. We used 3/8" plate steel and grade 8 bolts to move the seat tracks back 3 inches.
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Nice to see it back on the road.
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The Chevelle went home for a few shows and some enjoyment time as we were neck-deep in getting the Ranchero ready for paint. While at home, the owner completed the fuel injection conversion, with some minor tuning assistance.
Then in November 2020, with the Ranchero mostly complete, the garage remodel mostly done, and a slight rearrangement of cars, the Chevelle came back for the much needed transmission and brake conversions.
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Being 6' 5" made getting into the lowered height a problem, so he wanted it back to stock height. To do that we planned to refresh the springs and shocks on all four corners. To see the difference we measured from the ground to the wheel arch as she sat.
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The stock ride stance for a Chevelle is with a slightly higher nose than rear.
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All four corners were written down on tape on the windshield for easy reference. Note the difference in the heights on the rear corners.
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Time now to dig into the suspension and see exactly what needs to be replaced and figure out what the previous owner did to lower the height.
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Our friend decided to do the 4-wheel disc brake conversion at this time, since we were already had to pull the tire to do the suspension work. This is the original drum brakes, springs, and shocks. Note the cracking paint on the lower control arm. The arm is actually bent. This will need to be replaced.
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We learned something - Edelbrock used to make shocks. We had never seen one before.
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The original front spring and the replacement front spring. The spring was cut to lower the ride height. The new spring is also a larger diameter wire than the old one, which will give a stiffer ride than the previously longer spring.
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The orignal spindles were removed, cleaned up, and reinstalled. One of the steering arm mount holes had to be enlarged to fit the planned new disc brakes.
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The complete disc upgrade for the front was prepped for installation.
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The new 6 piston Wilwood front brake setup.
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The new rear spring and original drum from the rear.
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The original Edelbrock shock and the new Hotchkis shock.
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The old rear spring and the new spring. Again, to lower the height, someone cut the old springs.
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The new power brake booster is ready to be installed.
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The new shocks have been installed. While we were working here we noticed that not only was the lower control arm bent, but all the bushings were worn out. We replaced the upper and lower control arms and all the bushings.
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Since the upgraded brakes will require larger wheel studs, we had to pull the axles to remove and replace the studs. As this is a C-clip axle, the differential had to be drained and opened to remove the C-clip to pull the axle. So we pulled the differential to make this job easier. Which helped even more when we discovered one of the axle shafts was worn and needed to be replaced.
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New brake lines were run across the rear end for the newly installed rear disc brakes.
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Once the new upgraded differential cover arrived, it was time to reinstall the rear end.
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The 4 piston Wilwood rear disc brake setup.
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The rear rims arrived with the new rubber. What a big difference in look. The new tire size is 275/40 R17 versus the original 235/60 R15.
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Our friend also reported that the stock headlights were dim. Most of the original headlights are dim when compared to modern H4 headlights. We pulled the headlights to do a conversion to H4 headlights.
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The first H4 bulb from Hella goes in. Unfortunately, we found that we had 3 original headlight buckets and 1 replacement. The 1 replacement required slight modifications for the plug on the back of the new H4 replaceable bulbs to fit.
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