I'm pulling the body off my '72 GS right now. To be fair, it was a California car with little rust but it does have 223,000 miles on it. For the most part the body bolts came out pretty easily, but several wouldn't cooperate, until... "say ello to ma li'l friend"... the MAP torch! Heated them up and they came right out! MY QUESTION FOR YOU: There's one bolt on each side that I cannot get out. Big surprise, right?!?! It's just behind the front wheel on the outside where the frame begins to turns inward. (see picture below. Driver's side) There's an access window in the firewall to get at the top nut, but it's buried directly below the master cylinder, almost up against the inner wheel well, and no way to get at it. I took all the bolts out of the inner wheel well but can't move it more than just a wiggle in any direction. Do I need to pull the fender, to pull the inner wheel well, to get at that damn nut? Any tips, thoughts, (prayers?) would be appreciated!
You removed the 3 in the top, 4 in the rad support, ones along the lip and the two behind the tire, and the plastic apron? If all the bolts are in fact out you still have to get a little physical with it. But it will move enough to get in there
Take the two bolts out of the bottom of the fender, that will make it much easier to work with,...if those bolts come out, being a Cali car your chances are good
Those 2 locations have loose nuts on top. You will have to take the inner fenders off to get a wrench or socket on them. Duane
Bingo - Inner fenders will have to come off or at a minimum be pulled to the side. I just went through this a few weeks ago on my car (Soutwest car similar to yours). These four up by the cowl were far and away the most time consuming part. I was able to get mine out by pulling the wheel on each side, taking out all of the inner fender bolts/accessories mounted to them, and sliding them as far out of the way as I could. Even with the inners in that position, it was still EXTREMELY tight quarters to turn a wrench in. Be ready with some four letter words and a lot of patience.
Thanks for the ideas. After a lot of consideration and some 4 letter words I decided since I was pulling the body I might as well pull the whole front clip as one piece first. A little bit of disconnecting and labeling wires but overall not a bad process. Remind me of that in a few months when it's time to put it all back together again
Those nuts are not easy to get a wrench on. Firewall tilts funny. There should be 4 on a Buick not two. If your car was built in Flint the nuts are hex. Save them as they cannot be bought anywhere. GMAD plant built cars I believe all have square nuts there.
i use needle nose vice grips, but i soak them with sea-foam deep creep..on a car like that a day of soaking and they should almost fall out.. its inside the cowl mount/box and hard to get to..this is what youre looking for..i had the front clip off as parts car, and i just ran a sawz-all in there between the frame and the mount, and whacked them off..its never going back together so it didnt matter..i keep saying i'm going to make a wrench for it..but just never have..
if your going to pull the body off.....your going to take the fender and inner well off anyways ......like magic easy access galore
All the chevelles that parted in the past used the square nuts 1" in size. Most bolts came right out. Usually wire brushed the bolt tip and used wd40 before removing. Believe the torque boxes on the front corners of the firewall were the same across entire A body line. Good information to know that some cars used standard hex nuts on those mount bolts.
Thanks Dave. You're right, my car was built in Flint, Mi and has hex nuts (11/16 nuts on 5/8 bolt heads) The 2 on the inside, closest to the transmission, I could get at with an angled head ratchet through that small window on the bottom of the firewall, but it was a bitch (but I didn't know I was going to pull the front clip) The other 2 on the outside were impossible without removing front clip, or at least inner fender wells... which takes about the same amount of time as pulling the whole front clip. Good news is they're finally off! Once I got all 10 of the body bolts out I cut two 2x4's about 5' long and cut a groove on the table saw to support the entire side of the body without the weight being on the pinch weld (see top pic below). Then two 4x4's across the body in the front and rear supported those. I slowly jacked up each corner and supported it with jackstands and eventually got it high enough to roll the frame out. I wasn't expecting to have to lift it as high as I did, but the top of the tires are about 26". I could've taken the tires off and put the frame on skates but I wanted to be able to roll it into the other side of the garage and need to clean and paint the underside of the body anyway. The way it sits now is VERY stable which surprises me. I thought it might want to tip back but even when I push on the rear it doesn't budge. Happy Happy! Fun project! 1st timer! Sure appreciate everyone's help. I hope this helps someone who is considering it yourself. Best of luck!
