The great thing about buying a beat-down classic A-body is that you don’t need to hock household items or sell off family members to medical science to afford one. The bad thing is that it has a low buy-in for a reason. Lots of wear, lots of tear, but then again making treasure out of trash is what this hobby is all about.
The suspension under this...
The suspension under this ’67 suffered from a terminal case of being old and worn out. Over the years the springs had sagged to the point where spacers had to be added to keep the fenders off the front tires.
A good example is Chris Gordziel’s ’67 El Camino. He picked up this hunk of classic Chevy iron for a measly $1,500. Of course, for that meager sum, it barely ran, had a few bashed-in panels, and was sketchy to drive on roads that weren’t laser straight. His first task was to get it running by dropping in a freshened-up big-block and fixing some of the body panels. With this complete, it was time to address the items that were conspiring to make driving the Elky a real buzzkill, namely the poor handling and brakes.
Stuffed into the handling category are the steering components. After all, even a car with a top-shelf suspension package will suck to drive if it has vague, unresponsive steering. For handling we decided to go with Classic Performance Products’ (CPP) Stage II “Pro Touring” kit (PN 6467PTK2). Included are front and rear tubular control arms, front QA1 coilovers and rear shocks and drop springs, along with front and rear sway bars. Gordziel’s ’67 was rolling on tired four-wheel manual drums and he lived in constant fear of eating the bumper of the car in front of him. The solution to this was CPP’s Big Brake kit (PN 6467FRBKBB) that included rotors, calipers, hubs, spindles, parking brake cables, brake lines, brackets, and everything else needed to convert over to four-wheel disc. To finish off the upgrade we added in a 500 series steering box (PN CP50004) and a power brake booster kit (PN 6772CBB4), which included the proper disc/disc proportioning valve.
Now a big pile of new parts is cool and all, but we wanted to see what the gain would be from dropping such a big stack of cash. We realized before starting this adventure that the stock 15-inch rims would never clear the new binders so we picked up a set of Vintage Wheel Works wheels and wrapped them in some street-friendly Nitto rubber. After all, we wanted to test the suspension/brake upgrades and the only way to do that fairly would be on the same tires.
With all the parts on hand we grabbed our tools and headed over to Best of Show Coach Works in Escondido, California, for a little quality time on their lift.
Before the new parts could...
Before the new parts could go on the old junk had to come off. One area that gave us problems was the driver-side lower control arm bolt. To get it out we had to dent in the header a bit. (It’s OK, they were pretty ugly already.) If they were nice we would have needed to unbolt it from the head and lift it up a bit to clear.
They look sweet, but more...
They look sweet, but more importantly these new TIG-welded tubular control arms from Classic Performance Parts (CPP) are much stronger than what was originally placed on the ’67. The arms are made from 1.25-inch 0.120 wall DOM tubing and have thick 1.5-inch 0.188 wall pivot barrels. This ensures the pivots stay true even under stress. The arms come preassembled on new billet chromoly 4130 cross-shafts and pivot sleeves. These sleeves capture both sides of the bushing, unlike the stockers that are only retained on one side. As a result they’re much stronger and better resist flex. As a safety measure the control arms incorporate an interlocking shaft and sleeve design so that the bolts can’t work loose. The fact that they came with new ball joints already installed saved us the hassle.
CPP’s coilover system is based...
CPP’s coilover system is based around billet QA1 single adjustable shocks. Before going in the car we dabbed the shock threads with some antiseize and installed the ride height adjustment rings. With that done we installed the QA1 shock with its 10-inch 550-pound spring. The coilover shock assembly was bolted to the lower control arm, raised up and through the frame, and then secured with the supplied hardware.
With the new control arms...
With the new control arms installed the rest was easy enough for a caveman to do. The main reason for this is the front spindle, hub, steering arm, and brake parts came completely pre-assembled from CPP. The bearings were packed, brake pads installed, and all we had to do was place the assemblies between the control arms and lock them down with castles and cotters.
The twin-piston calipers will...
The twin-piston calipers will be a huge leap forward from the old drum brakes and the zinc washed, drilled, and slotted rotors should work as good as they look. The powdercoating and zinc cost a few bucks extra, but they ensure that the parts will stay looking great for a long time.
Here you can see the difference...
Here you can see the difference between the dainty solid stock sway bar and the 1.25-inch hollow CPP replacement bar. A bigger bar is the quickest way to tame body roll in any car and the big-block ’67 badly needed help in this area.
With the sway bar installed,...
With the sway bar installed, the front suspension was put into the done column. When the Elky was back on the ground we set the ride height using the coilover system.
Check out this vintage rear...
Check out this vintage rear suspension; it’s all original with the exception of the air shocks. The exhaust system was cut off in order to fit the larger rollers onto the car for the initial baseline testing. Chris Gordziel assures us that he’ll fix the line routing once the install is complete.
For the stock drums to come...
For the stock drums to come off the car, we had to pull the axles on the 12-bolt. To do this, we removed the pin-retaining bolt and dropped the pin. Just make sure that you don’t turn the axles at all with the pin out or else the gears will fall out of place. With the pin out, we removed the C-clips and carefully slid out the axles.