1970 Chevelle Frontend Revival

The new radiator support doesn't include the brackets that mount to the frame, so you'll either have to order up a new set or transfer over the ones you have. In our case, this is one of the few parts we still had in our possession; it's tightened down with three 1/2-inch bolts.

To attach the base of the radiator support to the framerails, it's just a matter of dropping in the 7/16-inch bolts and placing the upper and lower bushings in between the washers. Do know that until the fender tie bar is secured, there isn't a whole lot of support and it will move around.

We could have used the factory radiator hold-down, but we opted to bend a piece of scrap 1/16-inch aluminum from a previous project and make one instead.

Each side of the radiator core support utilizes a four-bolt bracket that attaches to the fenders. Here, we reused what we had in our stock and loosely fitted the brackets, which would allow us to adjust for final fender fitment.

There are five attachment points when mounting a fender, one on the inner front portion of the door, so prior to mounting the fender, be sure to open the doors for ease of access and to just be able to see what you're doing in general.

With the fender resting in place, we started by snugging the 5/16-inch bolts up front to fasten the fender to the core support, which was then followed by the bolt near the cowl, the two lower fender bolts, the bolt in front of the door, and the one within the engine bay.

With the 'Velle resting on the ground, we can see the initial fit is pretty good and it seemed like we only needed to bring down the fender to match the height of the door itself.

For final fitment, you'll need to add shims with a variety of thicknesses between the fender and the mounting points. In our case, there was little fender-to-door gap on the driver side, which we'll point out how to eliminate in the following caption. Here, placing shims under bolt A will lower the bottom edge of the fender and reduce the amount of contour, making it flatter.

Up top, bolt B will adjust the fender-to-door gap, whereas bolt C will raise the fender, and similar to bolt A, it'll also reduce the amount of bulge and help flatten the fender.