C3 - Body to chassis Alignment

[72vet]

Ever removed your door sill’s plates off your C3 and thought what the hell the orange plugs were for? Apparently  they are for alignment of the body to the chassis.




Remove the plug on the right hand side “rear”, have a look through the hole and you’ll see the chassis has a .015mm dia hole through it. The left-hand side “front” plug also has the same.

If you find that the holes are offset then the body is not sitting square on the chassis.




To fix the problem it’s going to take a few hours, 8 Body mount bolts to be loosened along with all the front and rear bumper brackets, disconnect the steering rag joint.

You’ll need 2 X 13mm dia rod bar, say around 0.200 in length to use as locating pins in the holes, along with a bit of muscle to move the body around.


Right side


Left side


I spent a few hours with straight edges moving the body around, every time I adjusted the rear of the car the front would move.  

Thanks to club member Jim H for informing me on how to fix the problem.
 I’d still running around in circles.:bang:

[sirfixalot]

Well you learn something new every day

[wabco40]

To fix the problem it’s going to take a few hours, 8 Body mount bolts to be loosened along with all the front and rear bumper brackets, disconnect the steering rag joint.

You also need to loosen the 2 bolts that pass through the front cross member and into the lower radiator support panel (for a chrome bumper car anyway).
Given the accuracy of these cars does not mean its going to perfectly straight though.

[bfit]

Interesting fact
This week I have been runing wiring  to the rear and have had all  this uncovered  
seeing the plugs
I just thought they were there to keep the dust out

every bit of info helps Thanks

B Fit

[gtc]

Looked this up in my 1970 Assembly Information manual. The only reference I could spot was on page K125 where they are described as "align guide pin holes"




No mention of the tell-tale orange plugs/caps though! :bang:

And well done Jim!