Getting ready to install my motor in my 68 Cuda. The car is already painted so I don't want to have to weld the L brackets in. Going to need to bolt them in. Any ideas as the best way to do this?

I was thinking of using a small hole saw to cut the bottom of the frame. Then grab the top frame with some grade 8 hardware and thick washers.....

Also do they make a stud kit that has the Allen head on the end, that screws into the block that the plate can slide on?

You can bolt some angle iron onto the top of the frame the way your talking about I have used long bolts all the way through the front sub frame also with flat washers on the bottom, but you can't tighten them up a bunch so your way would be better
Are you going to use the block water pump holes on a BB or a SB motor or the stock mounting ears on the block? If on the water pump on the BB you will need to cut the water pump housing the same amount that the plate is thick to keep the pulley alignment correct
I have used studs in the front to be able to work on the cam timing in the car
You can buy long Allen head bolts also so it is your choice on how to do your car

If it was me I'd use Rivnuts in the top frame rail. You can install Rivnuts after paint. Put a couple of Rivnuts in each rail and then bolt the L bracket to the Rivnuts and bolt the motor plate to the L bracket.

How well does the plate fit the frame now?

I did as Andy suggested. makes it a breeze to install.

I think the frame meets the firewall and limits room for the tool for rivnuts dosen't it?

Is there any chance that a rivnut can get pulled back out? Also does the rivnut set flat to the frame rail, so that the L bracket sets flush with the frame?

any pix??

I made angle iron brackets, bolted in with thick wall tubing spacer inserted in drilled hole in frame.

The Rivnut has a flange on it so the bracket will sit on the flange. The flange isn't very thick, maybe 0.060 or so depending on the type of Rivnut.

A Rivnut can be pulled out but it would take a bunch of force. It isn't going to come out of there under any normal situations. If you run the car into a concrete wall at 150 mph the engine might yank the Rivnuts loose but anything short of that shouldn't pull them out.

I did it this way:

i. Mount tabs welded to plate
ii. plate bolted thru rails with crush tubes welded in
iii. alum tubes welded to alum plate with the correct ID for the urethane bushes.

I prefer doing it this way as the steel sleeve that goes through the bush and locates the mount bolt helps isolate vibration from the engine to the chassis.

It make it even a cleaner install when the alum tube in the plate is welded in from behind.

It works really well.



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the bracket is bolted to the frame forward of the engine. to r/r, by removing the "L" bracket it allows me to pull the engine straight forward, and up. no tilting etc... The iron head mill is slightly shorter than my W8 set up, so I have a pair of shims and that motor slides right into place