winter changes/upgrades

[Bruce69Camaro]

I got to remind myself to tell Jason to get plenty of pictures of your car at the track......

Do you ever venture up to Maple Grove?

Bruce

[DOTracer]

Yes, I have raced at MG before, just not very often. The RAM series ran there once last season, and were supposed to run up there 3 more times this coming season I believe.

[DOTracer]

Just a quick update showing the work completed today. I got the anti-roll bar remounted as well as completing the upper control arm bracing and the X over the shock mounts. The only structural tubes left out back are the two going from the shock uprights to the trunk which will incorporate bungs to allow weight bars to be attached.

[John_Heard]

Todd I'm curious why you chose to mount your shock heims with the bolts front to back instead of side to side of the car. Since it's a 4 link, I understand it shouldn't change pinion angle much to make it a problem like it might on a leaf car but do you think you'll have enough movement there? I'm more than curious how much angle they can take like that as that's how Kurt mounted my top shock mount. On mine, I'm a bit worried it might bind when the pinion rotates up.

[DOTracer]

Todd I'm curious why you chose to mount your shock heims with the bolts front to back instead of side to side of the car. Since it's a 4 link, I understand it shouldn't change pinion angle much to make it a problem like it might on a leaf car but do you think you'll have enough movement there? I'm more than curious how much angle they can take like that as that's how Kurt mounted my top shock mount. On mine, I'm a bit worried it might bind when the pinion rotates up.

Hey John,

The adjustable mount came that way from TRZ so I made the lowers the same direction to match. I'll have to check my shocks, but I believe the psherical bearing has a fair amount of rotation. I also have the mounts setup with misalignment spacers. On my car, the pinion doesn't change near as much as a leaf spring car would, so my thinking right now is it shouldn't be a concern on my deal.

[John_Heard]

Yeah, you should be good, I was just curious. I'm probably going to change my top mount as I've seen things that lead me to believe the pinion on mine moves a LOT at the hit - mainly from witness marks where the anti-roll bar mount was hitting when the pinion rotates up. Do you have any idea how much your four link moves?

[Speedster]

Your project has been fun to watch. and like said earlier "shop porn"

[DOTracer]

Yeah, you should be good, I was just curious. I'm probably going to change my top mount as I've seen things that lead me to believe the pinion on mine moves a LOT at the hit - mainly from witness marks where the anti-roll bar mount was hitting when the pinion rotates up. Do you have any idea how much your four link moves?

I measured the pinion rotation one time, but don't think I saved the measurements. As I recall, under normal travel, I don't think the pinion moves 1 degree. Now under travel from fully extended to fully compressed I don't think it rotated any more than say 3 degrees.

[DOTracer]

Not a whole lot to report other than I got the two rear bars installed. I then completed the top welds on the cage.

I've had a few ask me how I was gonna complete those welds in the roof area. What I did was lift the body up 4" which gave decent room to finish the tops of all the welds. Being a full frame car made this much easier compared to a unibody car where this wouldn't be possible.

[DOTracer]

No real pictures to post as any progress is small and barely noticeable to most. Some more metal cut out as well as removing the factory outer wheel wells since full tubes will now be installed. This also required the removal of the stock trunk lid hinges and a new Glasstek fiberglass trunk lid purchased.

The rear floor crossmember was removed to make the new rear sheetmetal easier to fabricate. This also entailed removing two body mounts. I needed to fabricate and new smaller plate body mount to weld between the body & frame. The area of the inner rocker where the floor crossmember attached was rusted out on the passenger side. This area needed to be cut out so I could plate it with heavier metal to weld the new body support to. This meant the body needed to be lifted once again to do the repair & plating of the inner rocker. More time lost doing this as well as the time consuming process of repositioning the body again.

All of this cleanup work is done and I'm ready to begin the sheetmetal work this coming weekend. This will be a slow process to come out nice as I have envisioned in my head. The new tubs should be here in the next day or two, so hopefully the next few weeks we'll have the rear sheetmetal mocked up.

This past Friday the new Holeshot wheels arrived as well as the Strange Ultra center section and brake kit. I got the tires mounted up yesterday and last evening mocked up the wheel/tires to verify my calculations for the axle housing width. I filled out the Strange order sheet and we should have the axles ordered in the next day or so.

The next project after the sheetmetal work is to mount the seats, remount the steering column and new pedals, parachute lever, then mount the fiberglass dash and gauges. Once that's done I can do the cage engine compartment bars and remount the front motor plate. The last thing will be installing the door X-bars and gussets. We leave these out till last to make doing the inside work easier by not having to crawl over those bars all the time.

Then the f/g doors & deck lid, etc, etc, etc.

Still a long way to go. Starting to question if I'll have this ready for the beginning of the 2011 season.

[DOTracer]

hey guys,

Not a whole lot to show, but here's this week/weekends progress report.

I'm on the beginning phases of the sheetmetal work. The two rear floor pans are rough fit and cleco'd in place. Next up was to fabricate some mounts for the floor section where the back seat bottom used to be. Being the car is a body on fram construction, but not a back half, I chose to make the floor elevated off the frame like it was from the factory. This creates some extra work in having to make supports to hold the floor up.

Once that was done I began to make supports to hold the vertical portion of the tub. That took some time, but I got that done this evening. Next up is to do the final positioning of these tubs backs and cleco them in place so I can take measurements for the curved template and continue with the tub install. For me, the positioning of the vertical portion of the tube takes a fair amount of time to make sure they are the same height, as well as the same position front to back. If they are not identical, it will show when you fabricate the surrounding sheetmetal pieces.

Once the tubs are done I'll go back and work on the rear floor tunnel section, then the sheetmetal pieces in front of the tubs and the package tray and rear firewall. I'll hold off on the rear trunk floor till I mount the fuel cell, battery & fuel pump.



















Lastly, the new back wheels with a pair of old Hoosier 315 drag radials for mockup.

[wikd69]

Man, I gotta say it again - your welds are absolutely beautiful. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I used to be pretty good with stick, but still nothing like what you're laying down there.

Nice work.

[John_Heard]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you do great looking work Todd...

[DOTracer]

Well, not as much progress as I'd like to report, but it is what it is.

Saturday I worked on the tub fabrication. The first tub fought me terribly. I simply could not get the tub up inside the car. I'm placing the tub on the centerline of the new inner frame rails, not in line with the stock frame rail inner skin. This means the tub has to go in and over the stock frame to get to the mounts on the new inner rails. This was done so that down the road I could cut the stock frame rail pieces out and gain 1 to 1 1/4" of room and not need to redo the tubs.

Also, the stub I created up at the top to hold the tub was in the way and kept the tub from sliding in place. I had to cut this stub out and sleeve it so it could be welded back in after the tub was in place.

Very frustrating day as the drivers tub was the first one I worked with and the first few attempts at installing it, the tub started to get bent up and dented from that stub. Once I found the problem and solution the tub trimming wasn't too bad, but I did have to take some time to straighten the tub back out and hammer/dolly a few small dents out. The passenger side went in very quick compared to the first side.

The tubs are just cleko'd in place and need to be welded one evening this week.

This morning I installed the #18 lower vertical cage support bars which had been left out intentionally to allow easier fabrication of the rear floor pans. Once these bars were installed I was able to create the cutouts to clear those bars and re-install the rear pans.

The last job of the day was to begin the rear floor sections starting with the piece between the tubs on the interior side. I got that piece made up and am now ready to continue with the couple more pieces behind the main hoop as well as the rear trans tunnel section.

Oh yea, I also took time to put the alignment jig in the TRZ housing and weld the housing ends in place.

[Dave Yonemura]

I agree, sweet work!!!!