I put both fenders on and begrudgingly trimmed away parts of the grille shell and inner fenders to give them the appropriate clearance over the spring perches. After I got all that finished I was able to begin mocking up the radiator, one of the parts of the build I have been really dreading.
This brace in the front interferes with the new air conditioning condenser, located on the front of the radiator, so it will have to be cut. Most guys seem to cut these out but I am going to reshape it so it will still be there. I think I will have to make a center bolt in piece to the brace because the grille must mount from the inside before the radiator goes in and must slide into place behind the brace.
After I had the fenders, grille shell and inner fenders bolted on I had to go back and shave a bit more from the grille shell, as indicated by the line drawn here.
After some test fitting I realized I would have to trim some of the bottom pan out of the grille shell for the bottom of the condenser to have clearance.
I also had to notch the bottom of the grille shell pan a bit more to clear the transmission cooler lines, which, since the transmission cooler and radiator are made together, exit out of the bottom of the radiator.
I was very scared that I was going to have clearance issues with the radiator and it would cause all kinds of problems, possibly causing me to have to completely switch front drives and change to a Corvette or Firebird style. As you can see, I wound up having plenty of room, which is good because I will also have to fit the electric fans between the engine and radiator. I also found that although it will be a tight fit, I will be able to run my cold air induction from the original 265 style breather over the top of the radiator, which will bring in cold air from in front of the radiator rather than drawing in hot air from behind it. These fuel injected motors are very sensitive to the air temperature coming into the engine.
