L81 Corvette

I have a copy of the assembly manual which details the torque to be applied so here is my list of torque applied with the torque wrench

Upper A Arm strut to frame bolts. Purchased new grade 8 bolts lock washers and nuts and shims from Ecklers.

These bolts are torques per the manual 54-75 so I set the torque wrench to 65.

Three stops this morning to get Grade 8 replacement hardware.

I don’t know how it got to be that I have three jack stands instead of a set of four since they typically bought in a pair but also realizing the car is sitting on this mismatched set of three jack stands.

A grade 8 bolt is stronger than the more commonly used grade 5. It is made of alloy steel and has six radial lines on the top of the bolt head. Grade 8 bolts have a tensile strength of 150,000 pounds per square inch. We recommend using grade 8 nuts, flat washers and high alloy lock washers with any grade 8 bolts / hex cap screws.

I started to sort through the hardware looking for sets of bolts and other bits. Logically there should be an even set of each bolt, nut, washer, fitment, etc. I counted up the bolts and bits and there are some discrepancies despite what I thought was a careful effort to sort and bag these bits as they were removed from the car. I am a bit nervous putting one side together and then getting to the other side and missing pieces. Once missing piece is a small machined part about three inches long that has holes drilled and threads cut in two places. I have one but need two to complete the set. I could probably get away with using a nut in its place to get the car but the alignment will definitely suffer if I don’t get the proper piece in place.

Trying this again

So the parts came in earlier than expected and looking forward to first steps. The car has no front end hardware and the parts were old and worn.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton