another 69 shim question

[Kelly Burnside]

My restorer pulled the body off of my 69 corvette Friday. Today I went down to look at the car. As an after thought, I decided to look for the shims from the car. When I got done, it was apparent that the car only had one shim under the #4 mount. All others did not have any. I looked at the aluminum spacers and all but one (which is the one with the shim) had tape over them from where they were taped to the frame with no shims. I also did not observe any shim marks on the frame. The one that had a shim I did not see any mark and I believe that that is because of surface rust probably erased the mark.
Now the question: How unusual is it to have a vette with only one body shim? (The perfect frame??)
Second and main question: When the manufacturer had no shims to add onto the frame, did they mark it with a "0" or did they leave it unmarked?
Another question I have is, if it goes back on the body and still does not require shims and I decide to not mark a "0", what will NCRS say if there are no shim marks on almost the whole car!! (I hate to have a car with a bunch of zeroes all over it!!)
Of course, when the restorer puts the body back on the car, he will reshim it as needed.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated as I think that I do have an unusual frame. One last thing, the body has never been off of the car and everything was aligned perfectly.

[Tom R.]

Re: another 69 shim question

Kelly:

This question just came up in the last week or two so you may want to search on shims but I recall the suggestion is that you use the digit you actually reshim with rather than the original...and 0 counts as such! Don't shoot blanks!

[Kelly Burnside]

Re: another 69 shim question

Actually, I started the shim question on the 69 corvette. Now since the body is off I was just wondering how common it was to have a corvette with only 1 shim on the body. I am also asking, if there were no shims, should I go ahead and mark it as "0" on the car? I have heard that if there were no shims then it may not be marked. Thanks

[Chuck S.]

Re: another 69 shim question

Kelly, there was one location on my frame with no shims, and it was marked with a zero. I don't know why the marking procedure would be different for a "perfect frame" than for an average frame.

If it were me, I think I would ask myself how I knew the body had never been off the frame. If I was certain the frame had not been "restored", and original shim marks removed and painted over, I would put the frame back like I found it. The one location with no tape, one shim, and no marks is atypical and would make me a little skeptical.

I wouldn't worry about having a "bunch of zeroes" all over your frame...when the body is on the chassis, I believe the only place ANY shim marks can be see are near the Number 4 mounts at the rear.

[Kelly Burnside]

Re: another 69 shim question

When I looked on the frame, I could not find any shim marks at all. That may be because of surface rust but I thought that I would find a least one mark. Also, the manufacturers painted on part number could not be seen. The tape was present on all but one of the spacers which is the one with the shim. I looked at the shim itself and see no tape but it could be stuck to the body and not to the shim. Showing that the state of the uluminum spacers (and the frame), the body has not been off before. They are definately corroded and my restorer had a heck of a time getting the bolts out and ended up cutting all of them. I asked him if he thought the body was off before and he stated no. He has restored many corvettes over the years and he know when a car is original so I am pretty sure it has not been pulled before.
I was looking at the TIM manual and it does state that sometime the shim marks were not put on the car. Interestingly, when I talked to the restorer, he also stated that he has seen cars that did not have shim marks.
When I go to resore the chasis, I may not put the shim mark numbers on the chasis as I believe that it did not have any to begin with. The TIM also states that they may not be present.