Well I havnt been updating this thread as much as I had hoped, mainly because Ive been so busy working on the car!
Progress has been immense!
Starting where I left off last time:
About a week after I dropped the stuff off for the coupler, It was complete.
Assembled with lose joining bolts:
Untitled by
AdamBrunette, on Flickr
Mating Surfaces(ignore crack in taper bushing):
Untitled by
AdamBrunette, on Flickr
I got the frame back from the body shop about a week after I dropped it off. I ended up being quite messed up. Not to mention, every time he made a pull on the frame, another weld would let go. All said and done, It ended up costing me $422.20 to strighten the frame to within 1/16" of original specs. This is pretty good when you read the spec sheets and door gap tolerances are +/- 0.125"
I got the frame back the 1st week of August and left on vacation the second and fourth week, So not much work got done in August.
During the second week of my vacation, we hauled a 5x8 enclosed trailer down to Carlisle, PA to the Corvettes of Carlisle car show and sold $1330 worth of parts at the swap meet. We ended up spending $1710. This included some Light weight 1999 C5 corvette seats, a New aerodynamic hood, 1 wheel, some little parts, fiberglass rear leaf spring, and the biggest thing we were trying to get, Manual rack and pinion conversion! It was a good week.
New Hood:
Untitled by
AdamBrunette, on Flickr
BTW, both new seats weigh less then 1 original seat.
So the next weekend after we got back we started work on the frame again. Wer started by welding all the seams and fixing any cracked welds. The we sand blasted the entire frame to get ready for paint.
We primed the frame with an etching primer to get good adhesion on bare metal and then put down 2 coats of high gloss black urethane on the frame and any frame parts.
Frame ready for primer:
Untitled by
AdamBrunette, on Flickr
All Primed:
Untitled by
AdamBrunette, on Flickr
Nice Shiny Black!
Untitled by
AdamBrunette, on Flickr
So this past week, alot of stuff was installed back onto the frame. Almost the entire front end is back together. I have also prototyped the bracket that will hold the light weight calipers on the spindles.
Frame with Front Suspension:
Untitled by
AdamBrunette, on Flickr
Composite Front spring:
Untitled by
AdamBrunette, on Flickr
Next things im working on finishing up are the rear suspension and rebuilding the rear differential. I will also be having the adaptor plate waterjet cut out of 2.5" piece of 7050-T7 aluminum. Then hopefully next weekend I can start building my motor mount!
Adapter and Motor"
Motor and Plate Assy Back by
AdamBrunette, on Flickr
-Adam