[“Nut Driver” is a new series that will feature updates on Dave Nutting’s attempts to daily drive his 1987 Chevrolet Monte Carlo in Massachusetts 365 days a year]
We last left off with an introduction of the car from when it was purchased in September. In this installment, we’re going to fast forward to the week before Thanksgiving, also known as “The weekend that I completely screwed up a suspension install and left my car on jackstands for days”. This is going to be fun.
It’s been said that you cannot truly understand an event until you also understand the people and events that led up to it, so let me fill in a little backstory:
Cruising around in an “older” car (I say “older” as I know that there are more than a few BangShift readers that are daily driving vehicles manufactured decades before 1987; let me just say that you rock) has been a blast. The car has dead-nuts reliable and it’s been great to finally feel like I’m getting my money’s worth when using a parking spot:
However, there’s definitely been a few readjustments in my driving style going from a 2003 Subaru WRX to the LS, mainly due to the drastic difference in acceleration, braking, and handling.
With 2.41 gears in the rear, I am convinced that the person who ordered this car realized the gearing needed for a competitive run at Bonneville but failed to grasp the importance that horsepower played as well. 160 horsepower and those gears translates to a driving style that is less “shoot the gap” (AKA “typical Boston driving”) and more “put on your blinker and hope that you have enough running room to slowly slide over into the next lane” when slogging through the typical highway commute.
The gearing and lack of horsepower also makes for interesting stop light encounters: Ever had an elderly woman in a late 90’s Crown Vic give you a knowing smile and then try to holeshot you? That’s my Wednesday.
That said, once up to speed the LS absolutely loves cruising at highway speed; I really need to hook up a tach to see what I’m running for RPMs, but with the 2004r and a lockup converter I’d bet that the engine isn’t even sweating at 70-75 MPH.
So, the acceleration is on par with a cruise liner, and the handling and braking aren’t much better: While the SS and other F41-equipped G-bodies at least had the semblance of a handling package, my non-F41 optioned Monte came sans rear sway bar and with a set of softer springs designed to float over bumps (Difficult to find the actual spring rates, but they look to be in the 350 pound range for the front springs and 105 range for the rear). Along with the “Grandma” spring and shock package, the LS came with the standard 10.5 inch front discs and terrible front suspension geometry, which is a whole ‘nother blog post in of itself, so forgive me for glossing over it at this time. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t be taking off-ramps at speed as-is.
As I haven’t had much luck in tracking down a 7.5 inch 3.42 posi rear from an early Monte Carlo SS or an affordable 8.5 inch from a Grand National or 442 locally, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to positively affect the acceleration of the car anytime soon. But, with a little bit of work I knew that I could change my suspension and braking woes and decided to rummage through my assortment of G-body parts that I had leftover from my Monte Carlo SS. That car has been through multiple suspensions throughout the years, and I knew that I had a B-body brake setup and a set of Eibach springs collecting dust on a shelf in the garage. I also found an inexpensive set of 16×8 Iroc wheels on Craigslist and purchased a set of Bilstein shocks locally.
For those that don’t know, the B-body brake “swap” consists of a set of B-body spindles from a car equipped with twelve inch rotors, combined with the twelve inch 1LE rotor from a thirdgen F-body to keep the bolt pattern 5×4.75 (The bolt pattern of the B-body twelve inch rotor is 5×5) and a “tall spindle” control arm designed for use with the roughly one inch taller B-body spindle. There are several manufacturers of this style control arm, but I happened to have a used set of Hotchkis upper control arms, which are no longer made, that I would be using.
(On a side note: I’m never a fan of the installation stories in magazines where the author just “happens” to find parts on a shelf somewhere and calls them “freebies”. For full disclosure, I bought the complete brake swap used for $400 about six years back and paid retail for the Eibach springs around the same time. The arms are no longer made, but Hotchkis does make other great G-body suspension components, just not the “tall spindle” arms that I am using. The springs can still be purchased from your favorite speedshop. The shocks, steering components, and ball joints were purchased online.).
So, with the car being in perfect working order but lacking a little in the fun department, of course I got the itch to start replacing parts. After all, isn’t this why I bought an old car in the first place? Sure, the days were getting shorter and temperatures dropping, but what could possibly go wrong with a quick weekend thrash? Of course, in my case “weekend thrash” meant “starting on Sunday morning at 10 AM” and there was heavy rain in the forecast for that afternoon…
Getting to the good stuff, we’ll continue in typical Bangshift-style with photos and captions.
My SS is currently occupying my garage space, and with my driveway full I decided to pack up all of the parts and some tools and bring them to my parents’ house across town. After all, one-day job, right?
Ah, more parts. To recap, the plan was to replace the rear springs and shocks with Eibach springs and new Bilstein shocks, and to replace the front springs, shocks, spindles/brakes, ball joints, and upper and lower control arms. While I was in there, I planned on replacing the steering linkage as well.
Here’s a photo of the stock ride height, which measured in at 27 1/2 inches front. Not shown is the rear ride height, which was at 28 3/4 inches.
Knowing that it would be the easier job, I quickly ripped into the rear suspension. The drums and shoes had plenty of life in them, but looked original. Check out all of that undercoating; it’s about a half inch thick in spots and covers the entire frame. While it kept the car from rotting away, I would come to hate its existence shortly.
Quick comparison of the new Bilsteins and what are presumably the original shocks, as I didn’t find any paperwork stating that they had been replaced like the rear springs were. The original shocks weren’t doing much judging by the tendency for the car to wallow over bumps at speed.
New versus old springs (Which had been replaced sometime in the late 90s). The Eibachs are a tad bit shorter, but also firmer at 135 lbs/in vs ~105 lb/in for the stockers.
Breaking away from the photo montage for a minute: The rear suspension install went without a hitch, but it was now 11 AM. Keep in mind that sunset was around 5 PM and the rain was forecasted to start around 3 PM. I had yet to even break loose a single nut on the front suspension…
So here we have it, the front suspension. Unequal length upper and lower control arms, coil springs, and single piston 10.5″ brakes, all covered in a thick layer of undercoating. Somehow I was still optimistic at this point.
The passenger side upper control arm came out without any drama, so I took the time to replace the rubber bushings, one of which was completely cooked from being too close to the header on my SS.
The bushings themselves easily slide out once the nut and washer are removed.
Quick shot of the cooked bushing next to a new one.
The cross-shaft itself is offset, which is important to note as you’ll want the arm to be “shorter” when installed to avoid having to excessively shim the arm for camber and caster adjustments. Side note: Yes, the paint on the arms is hammered. Do I care? No: used parts going on a winter beater, remember?
You know it’s never a good sign when you need to break out the sawzall. Having to cut out the passenger side shock was a sign of things to come.
The driver’s side was much of the same story. More sawzall (To remove the sway bar end link and shock), along with undercoating everywhere.
This is where the photos stopped for the time being, as the process of “remove a part, clean all of the undercoating off of my hands, take photo, repeat” was really slowing me down. Plus, at this point I knew that I was in serious trouble as it was around 1 PM and I had only removed the shocks, upper control arms, and one spring. I still had half of the disassembly to take care of, plus all of the reassembly, with only a few hours of daylight left and rain on the way. Fudge.
Still, I was determined at this point to get everything together, so I called up a good friend of mine who brought over some air tools and we went to town. No photos as we were in full-on thrash mode, and the rain started to come down shortly after. A few hours in, it became apparent that A) Working in the rain sucks and B) I wasn’t going to get the car finished that night, which meant that I needed to figure out a way to get to work, which completely destroyed my plan of keeping this car reliable for every day use.
Note: I am famous for completely misjudging my ability to get a job completed on time and always start a project the night before, hence the reason why Lohnes is shown under my car in this photo attempting to help fix a botched rear control arm install that was stalled due to a bolt that wouldn’t torque and needed to be cut out. This was the day before I was supposed to leave for the GM Carlisle show. No, the car didn’t make it to the show.
This, my friends, is what defeat looks like. Nothing like the sight of your daily driver up on jackstands in the soaking rain at 7 PM on a Sunday to cap off your weekend.
This is the point where I confess (Ok, ok Chad and Brian twisted my arm and made me fess up) that I needed to borrow a car to get to work on Monday as my SS was also on jack stands due to another project. While I wish that I was adding this in for comedic effect, the only vehicle available was my mother’s Toyota Highlander, complete with scented air freshener and all ten radio presets set to easy listening (I didn’t even know that there were ten easy listening stations in the Boston area. You learn something new every day). A perfect 100 on the Lame-O scale, I know, and I deserve all of the grief that you can dish out in the comments for it.
Moving on, I took a day off of work later on in the week and managed to bang out the remainder of the uninstall that day and the install of all the new parts that following weekend. My friend Dundy is a hero for contributing his time and air tools. Lohnes’ sole contribution was a small sledgehammer and an extra pickle fork, both of which he threw at my head before peeling out of my driveway. Here’s the dumping ground for all of the old parts as they were removed.
Here’s the finished product, which is already caked in salt after a few days of driving. Still a single piston caliper, but the combination of a bigger piston and larger diameter rotor equates to more stopping power up front. While the rear drums aren’t bad, I want to figure out the braking bias and see if it’s worthwhile to install rear discs eventually as well.
Shot of the Bilstein shock and Eibach spring installed. As the Eibach springs are much shorter than the stock springs, they went in easily without a spring compressor.
While the taller B-body spindle provides a better camber curve, here’s one of the drawbacks of the B-body spindle: Increased bumpsteer due to the change in position of the steering arm and the angle of the tie rod. Since this is a street car, the added braking outweighs an increase in bumpsteer, at least for me.
I stripped down the Iroc wheels and painted the centers a Gunmetal grey using Duplicolor paint. The centercaps are from a PT Cruiser.
Here’s the car back on all four wheels. The tires are a set of 245/50R-16 Falken all-seasons and will be swapped out soon for 15″ wheels and snow tires.
I think that the car looks lower, but after measuring I found that it’s sitting at the exact same height (27 1/2″) up front and only 1/8″ lower in the rear with the new springs, so the new tire height may be a factor in the new appearance. That said, the ride quality is firmer with the new shocks and springs, which is a good thing. No more porpoising over bumps.
Lohnes told me to keep the mudflaps or I’m fired. To put that statement in perspective, I typically get fired about once a week.
While the car still isn’t ready to take on an autocross (Or even an offramp at higher than the posted speed limit, to be honest), a decent set of tires with the new shocks and springs went a long way toward improving the handling. The alignment is current set at -0.5 degree camber, +4.5 caster, and 1/8″ toe in.
So, there we have it! After one botched install, an embarrassing stint as a Toyota Highlander driver (That won’t be happening again), and several days worth of thrashing to finish the job, my car is back in business as a daily driver. Nothing new planned for the coming weeks other than swapping over to the snow wheels and tires, but I’d love to hear all of your thoughts on where you’d like to see this car go. I’ve got a few other budget suspension plans for the Spring, but my main theme with this car is to keep it relatively low buck and with the LG4 and 2004R in place for a while longer as it is slow but reliable.
‘Til next time!
I’ll take the old parts off your hands..
Sorry, those are long gone as I had a friend who claimed them immediately for a project of his.
Doesn’t the IROC wheels have different offsets for front and back? Remember there is also the 3.42 rear from 83-84 SS. Does the bumpsteer alter the way drive the car as a commuter?
They do, but I managed to snag four Fronts. One thing that I neglected to mention is that the B-body brake swap pushes out the front wheels about half an inch, which allows you to run Rear fitment F-body wheels on the front of the car.
G-bodies seem to have a good amount of bump steer from the factory, so the added bump steer isn’t anything worse than what I was used to previously. I guess that the real answer is, “Still not good, but not terrible”. If this car was anything more than a commuter, I’d recommend sticking with the factory spindle and taller upper and lower ball joints to get a better camber curve. This is what I did with my SS.
many now use the 2nd gen blazer 2wd spindle and c4 rotors..
you still have the old g body parts?
I say keep this high school student cheap….low buck, craigs list, trades, beg borrow steal…
Also, this thing is way to nice to be sludging around in all that salt…I dont miss that aspect of living up north…
Don’t you need to make it go faster before you make it stop faster? I am missing something here?
You’re missing the fact that a 3600 lb car with 500 HP cruising at 75 MPH takes the same distance to stop as a 3600 lb car with only 160 HP traveling at the same speed.
Typical muscle car mistake to upgrade the engine before the brakes and suspension.
The brakes and suspension are already upgraded, he isn’t running 9″ drums up front, he has disc and he has sway bars on it. That thing should be a G machine compared to a ’66 Chevelle
The Monte Carlo is looking better with the wheel/tire swap, I agree with AngryJoe,keep everything on the cheap.
Looks great Dave! I don’t even know the last time I’ve seen a Monte LS in that kind of shape here in MA. Make sure to rinse that undercarriage of the salt whenever you can!
the 2004r I got out of a junkyard, the monte ls was as clean.. it was there because of the 5.0 and no oil.. car was clean.. gray with blue gut.. I wanted the whole car but they didn’t have a title.. cars still there.. so Dave p.m. me if you need parts and I’ll give you the local of it.. it’s been picked over but you never know what someone might need..
Looking at your tie rod photo (read: bumpsteer) wouldn’t it be possible to drill the knuckle out, flip the tie rod over, add a conical spacer to take up the taper, and reinstall the tie rod from the top? That looks like it would put your tie rod and lower control arm on the same plane, and minimize the bumpsteer.
That’s a really interesting idea!
There’s a good number of G-body guys that are still using the B-body brake swap (Or 2nd gen F-body spindle, which I’ve heard is similar), and one of them modified his centerlink such that he could use a helm joint and stud to lower the inner tie rod.
Without having actually gotten under the car recently and looked, I think that there may be some interference between the outer tie rod and sway bar when the suspension is compressed. I’ll definitely take a look and confirm, though!
One other thing that may help would be to increase the positive caster, as this should raise the steering arm a little as well. Right now the caster is +4.5 degrees, but there are a few G body guys that are running a few degrees more with good results. Part of this you can do with upper and lower arms with moved ball joint plates to avoid excessive shimming.
My first car that was actually mine was an ’81 MonteCarlo. Where I live the lowest snow average is higher than Masachusetts highest snow average. So if I could do it when I was 17 I don’t see why an experienced adult couldn’t.
I only wished I had replaced the open diff for a limited slip one before changing the weak 305 for nice 350.
I still miss it and I’ll get another g-body when the kids are a bit older.
Keep the salt off it or bye bye, you must know since you have another but the dam door bottoms rot right out. Spray some oil or something on them.
Been there with suspension upgrade half done, it starts raining and having to go to work. I didnt make the mistake of digging in that without my other car up and running. My friend listened to me to me vent my frustration and came over in the rain and the finished the job for me. Out in the rain. I bought a couple 12 paks of Stella Artrois for his kindness.
Looks great.I always liked the IROC wheels. I say toss the mudflaps… but that’s just me
A right rear end will magicly appear, and get you in the range your looking for. Parts cars are always great, Find a driver with the right rear swap rear ends and then sell it again for what you paid. Voila free rear end
I’ve got an ’87 Grand Prix that I will be daily driving once the weather breaks. I’ll be following your build with great interest!!!
It’s kool to see another simple car build. But where’s Buford the Caprice at? It’s like it went to project car hell or Siberia. I mean I like the Monte and can’t hardly wait for the next installment. But why is such great ideas start but never finish? I hope this thing doesn’t ship itself off to some derelict driveway robbing corner fed hole in the wall spot leaking oil on cement gathering place. We need to see this thing at least once a week….Boom Boom.
Don’t worry, Buford is not forgotten!
Brian has plans for the Caprice, trust me.