more new parts

got a bunch more parts in. these include:

seats
radiator
coilovers
steering wheel
weld in threaded bungs and tie rod ends
upper ball joints
wiring harness
some other little things

heres pics of a few of them:

one completed corner of suspension

Well after being at the shop all weekend, i have...(drumroll please....)...one corner of suspension done. thats three less than i was planning on having done. oh well. the left rear suspension is completely welded up and kind of assembled. its held on with tie rod ends and weld in threaded bungs from the unbuilt wishbones, buts its attached to the car! i moved it through its paces and it looks great. i still have to weld on the pushrod attachment, but the hard geometry part is done. its starting to look more and more like a car!

i ordered the front upper ball joints and they will be here tuesday. my coilovers should be coming late this week or early next week, so HOPEFULLY (no promises) the car will be sitting on its own feet in two weeks

here's pics

(the soda can demonstrates full bump [the car would be bottoming out] and the wood demonstrates normal ride height)







total fab time: i finally lost count. 55+ hours for sure

Suspension begins

well after looking online for four, five-foot sections of 1" pipe, i discovered it was gonna be $160.

i checked in to a local place, and they said it would be $8.32. so i doubled the order (for chassis reinforcements) and it ended up being $26 for 40ft. works for me.

so now i got more metal to continue work. first item of business was to weld in the triangular braces on the sides of the passenger compartment. to be honest, as these are just braces, the dimensions werent completely accurate to each side, but thats okay.

after that, i went in today to work on the suspension wishbones. the upper fronts are the simplest, so i started with those. i made up a jig out of wood so the dimensions would be accurate on each wishbone. i accounted for weld in threaded bungs and rod ends that will make up the ends of the wishbones.

here's pics from yesterday and today:





total fab time: 39.5 hours

Gauge Cluster

picked up this used cluster for $150.

quite a bit smaller than i thought...

cool nonetheless.

How much does it weigh?

i keep getting asked this.

i also get people saying "oh thats gonna be heavy" when i tell them im making it out of mild steel instead of some ultra low weight carbon fiber kevlar nonsense that they think it should be made out of.

well..maybe this pic helps:
weigh so far-191 lbs.
fab time so far-31.5 hours

(my shirts not tucked in...just small)

Welding

even with a crappy welder at the shop (still trying to find a better one) i was able to get out a few good looking welds. here are some of the better ones.

Milestone #1--a completed chassis

Well today was a big day for me. I spent another three hours at the shop. first item of business: welding and grinding down the faces of the firewall and the front bulkhead that the beam rails would be welded too.

next up i coped (or "fishmouthed") the ends of lower center rails that go through the firewall so they could be welded to the lower rear crossmember. this was a little tricky, and i got it wrong three times and and grind it down farther each time. i wasnt using the right tools, which would have helped.




once all of that was properly aligned, and the frame was aligned against a wall, i set the lower side rails (complete with unwelded crossmembers) on the ground against each subframe. the lower rails were tacked, then the crossmembers. next i positioned clams to hold the upper rails and dash crossmember up while i tacked it in place. all in all, after my three hours of work, this is what i have:

while it's still not 100% complete (i still need to add all the 1" pipe triangular bracing, and gusset plates), it is everything i could do with my initial shipment of metal. so everything that was once just a pallet of rough cut steel, is now a part of this chassis somewhere. next up is triangular bracing and suspension wishbones.

total fab time to date:
25 hours

-gecko