The 1963 Corvette chassis assembly continues out here at the shop.  We have finished up assembling the front suspension and have moved on to installing brake lines, hoses, and steering.  This is a great accomplishment as now the Corvette chassis begins to look like and actual chassis instead of a bare frame.

1963 Corvette Front Sway Bar

We installed the sway bar on the front of the chassis.

1963 Corvette Idler Arm Zinc Removal

Unfortunately our Corvette did not come with a original idler arm, so we purchased a reproduction to use until we locate an original.  The reproduction came with a zinced mount which is incorrect so we stripped the zinc off to bring it back to as cast look.

1963 Corvette Idler Arm Zinc Removal

Here is the idler arm installed on the chassis.

1963 Corvette Steering Box

We fully rebuilt the steering box for the Corvette and refinished it in bare steel.  These could be either painted black or bare steel.  Being that most people paint every part they can, we chose to refinish it in bare steel to set our car apart.

1963 Corvette Steering Linkage

The relay rod and tie rods all installed.  This means our chassis now has steering and is halfway to being a rolling chassis.

1963 Corvette Brake Lines

We installed our brake lines and clips.

1963 Corvette Brake Lines

The brake line running to the rear of the vehicle.

1963 Corvette Trailing Arm Hardware

Next up we wanted to get the trailing arms installed so we could finish up installing our brake lines.  Here we have the original trailing arm pivot bolts and the strut rod adjuster bolt/cams.  Here is a quick note on the 63 Corvette chassis.  On the 63 chassis for approximately the first 16,500 cars the trailing arms were installed with bolts, flat washer, lock washer and nut – as seen on the center bolts above.  After this VIN, they switch to a bolt with two flat washers and a castle nut with cotter pin.  If you refer to the GM assembly manual, you will notice that the drawing is of the later castle nut style setup and doesn’t show the original setup.  You’ll also not that the GM drawing was noted as being redrawn and revised in the foot notes.  If you get a reproduction set of hardware, it will likely be the castle nut setup.  The key here is to keep your original hardware and restore it, or you will be out of luck.  This is twice that we have found the bolts to be 7/16 fine thread with a “M” head-mark.

1963 Corvette Trailing Arm Hardware

To refinish the hardware we blast it to remove all rust, then soak it in sulfuric acid to remove any old zinc.

1963 Corvette Refinished Trailing Arm Hardware

We then refinish it in either black oxide or zinc depending on what it was originally.  Notice the strut adjuster bolts are black oxide while the washer cam is zinc.  If you order the reproduction of this it will likely come as all zinc.  Look back at the earlier photo to see what it was originally.

1963 Corvette Bushing Cup Flaring Tool

Next up we needed to install the bushing cups in the rear leaf spring and trailing arms.  To flare the cup we made a nice little flaring tool to use with our press.

1963 Corvette Bushing Cup Flaring Tool

Here you can see the center pin aligns the tool while pressing and we machined in a shoulder to prevent over flaring.

1963 Corvette Bushing Cup Flaring Tool

The tool in action.

1963 Corvette Flared Bushing Cup

The tool does a great job of flaring the bushing cups.

1963 Corvette Trailing Arms Installed

Here the trailing arms have been installed on the chassis and the brake lines have all been hooked up.  Next up we’ll get our rebuilt differential installed so we can fully assemble the rear suspension.