Archive for March 2010

Well I ended up final welding the suspension stuff this weekend.  I kept on running into situations where it would be useful to have the car on the ground with the engine installed and whatnot, so I finally broke down and spent a while welding today.  By “situations”, I mean things like wanting to mount the ebrake lever, but really I need the driveshaft and the shifter in place to do so.  Things like wanting to do the steering column, but I need the engine in place so I make sure I don’t interfere with the engine placement or exhaust.  Etc.  Anyways, it was pretty gratifying to have the car supporting its own weight, and bouncing up and down on it for a good while was fun too!

In other news, I figured out how to route the e-brake cable without hitting the frame or re-doing the caliper e-brake brackets or swapping RH and LH rear uprights and upper control arms.  Unfortunately, I think I messed up the passenger side e-brake by messing with it (trying to disassemble it) last week.. the lever pulls freely without engaging the brake, so I’ll have to take care of that at some point.

I also spent some time figuring out the mounting for the steering rack.  The solution I came up with is really simple, though not the prettiest I’ve seen.  I’m using some angle iron to support a rectangular frame which the steering rack bolts to.  I need to cut the rack down to 18″ (from approximately 24.5″), so I’ll be ordering the factory service manual soon so I can make sure I disassemble the rack correctly.  I’m also going to wait till I’ve cut the rack to the right length before I weld in the rack mount/bracket.

The control arms and shock mounts are all fabricated finally! They’re just tac-welded at the moment but I like to leave final-welding for days when I don’t feel like doing anything that requires design/engineering.  I also got in some more parts, including the passenger seat, steering wheel, nose cone, and others that are less picture-worthy.

Tonight I started on the parking brake and discovered that the cable is wanting to go into my frame at the moment due to my rear wheels being so far forward.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do to fix this, but I have a feeling it will involve disassembling the rear brakes and fabricating a new set of e-brake brackets for the rear calipers.

As another locost builder once said, my favorite color is UPS brown. I got a bunch of parts last week and more coming this week.. Shocks/springs are in, as well as the radiator. Also on order are the steering wheel/hub, passenger seat/cover, heater, fuel system fittings/lines, brake lines, wheel spacers, and some other things I might be forgetting. I’m also getting tires installed today at Gran Turismo East.

I ran into a snag with the rear suspension; the shock body hits the rear upper control arms when its installed. I’ll upload pictures of this issue but I’ve already come up with a fix, and have one of the two RUCAs re-done already. Also, tapping tubes is a huge PITA! I spent a whole evening just tapping two tubes for M16 threads.. I didn’t have a 14.5mm drill bit, just a 9/16″, so the hole was a bit too small but only by a tiny bit.. I guess it makes a huge difference because I had to work up quite a sweat to tap those things! At any rate they’re done so the front upper control arms ought to be done in the next couple days. I think I’ve said this a couple times lately, but I ought to have a roller soon

Pics as described in the previous post.