snuck out at 10 tonight to do a little work. Managed to get the new front support cut and welded in place. Now I can finally start creating mounts for the top of the bumper and the headlights.
Dan
Tuesday night I shortened the front strut tubes by 3/4″. With the new ball joints I will be able to lower the car and keep a reasonable camber curve, or hopefully one that at least doesnt go positive. So they are all reassembled and back in the car just waiting for the axles and knuckles.
I also reamed out the holes in the knuckles for the new ball joint studs.
After two annoying and long nights of screwing around I finally finished up the new jackshaft bracket. The old one I had made sorta sucked for reasons I wont go into. (for non j-body people the 2.2 never came with a jackshaft. I adapted the V6 setup to work on the 2.2)
Anyway, here is the new one.
Modified the stock V6 bracket and welded some nuts in place to make bolting it together easier.
The rediculous bracket. Its only two pieces… a piece of rectangle tube and a flat 1/8" plate.
So I just need to install the front knuckles and the axles and the whole front suspension will be back together. Then the car can come off jackstands and I can finish up a few little thigns on the rear.
Dan
So cool.
Progress has been slow as of late, but not for a lack of trying. Took me a bit to figure out just how I was going to mount the bumper cover. Its more or less done now. I just need to add a couple alignment pins at the top that will connect to the bumper tube.
Im SOOO glad that I went with the Skybolt camloc type hardware. They were a bit pricier than dzus at almost $7 per set, but so easy to install and the adjustable socket made adjustments a snap.
Few pics of the progress
Dan
Little update, no new pics unfortunately. Ive been sick for a couple weeks so progress has been quite slow.
I have the front suspension all together, finally, after battling (and ignoring) a clearance issue with my monoball plates. The only exception would be the pass side axle. I had it all in and then realized that a hole magicaly developed in the outer boot while resting in my shed the last two years. So Im still tracking down the right boot.
Also finally got a replacement rear wheel bearing with the right size splines for my ARP studs and got those pressed in sunday. I dont know whats with some of these mfgs using oversized splines.
Tonight Im planning on getting the rest of the rear suspension together, minus shocks, so I can get it on the ground and, a. figure out how much it weighs, and b. modify the rear shock spacers for the new suspension geometry.
After that Ill just need to scale and align it and it will be mechanically complete. Then I think all I will have left is to finish up the front end: mount headlights, redo some wiring, etc etc.
With any luck it will be tuned sometime in early May.
Dan
Got the car down on monday night, finally. Still a lot to do but its nice to see it on the ground (or the scales as it might be). Current weight is 2330, but I have 18lbs or so of exhaust to put on still. So it should end up ~2350.
Finished up mono ball plate
Wooo… wheels down!
Yes, the one rear shock is missing.
Still a crap ton to do, but at least progress is moving forward again.
Dan
Looking good man, lets get these things finished!
Amazing, your quality of work is just about unrivaled around here.
Not sure if you talked about it at all, but since I have been doing a lot of research into roll center and am about to start replacing my ball joints with monoballs, I was wondering how did you determine the angle you mounted your monoball at and how did you determine the length of spacer between the monoball and spindle? Thanks, and as always keep up the incredible work.
As for the angle I just copied the stock ball joint angle. As for how many spacers, I just put all I could in. With as low as Id like to run my car I need all the control arm angle I can get to keep a decent camber curve. Ill probaby measure that in the next week or so, along with bumpsteer.
Took the day off of work today and got a crap ton done.
Finally made up my mind about the rear shock spacers and got them made, painted and installed.
Next I pretty much got all the rear suspension together: shocks in, swaybar all tightened (at least on one side until I can scale and align everything), K brace bars in. I mainly just need to get the brakes finished up, but Im not gona mess with it until after the rear alignment is done, which is a total pain unbolting the hubs to change spacers.
Then I bolted the battery back in, and did a little touch up painting where I cut the hinge brackets out on the inner tire wells.
This afternoon and tonight I worked on my alignment setup. I was totally tired of having to setup the string bars on jackstand and double check them everytime I roll the car or whatever. The front is all done. I have most of hte rear done, at least all the welding. I need to pick up two conduit elbows in the am to finish it up. Should be pretty slick and very easy to setup and make repeatable measurements with. The best part is it didnt cost much at all. Conduit and the parts are just so cheap.
I cut a compression union in half and welded two to the front bumper tube, and two to the rear frame rails. To make the Ts, I just used the cheaper unions and ground out the little nipple inside, then welded a short piece of conduit on.
Im planning on working on the car most of the day tomorrow. Hopefully awesome progress continues.
Dan
Thanks. Got a little more done today, tho it wasnt as productive as yesterday.
Finished up the alignment setup. Its hard to tell but there is a string there, acutaly fishing line (obviously)
I also painted the exhaust that I have done so far, bolted the tie rods up, installed the pass side engine area splash guard thing, redid some wiring in the trunk, and cleaned the hell out of the rest of my garage, hah.
Dan
:tup:
Awesome work!
Like always great work!
No progress today. I did pick up some 2x10s to make into platforms for around the scales. This way I can at least roll it a little between adjustments. Ill be back at it tomorrow night.
Dan
Finally got to the headlight mounts. They are basically done, I just need to do the final welding and drill and tap the lower bracket where it bolts to the bumper tube.
I think the pics explain it well enough.
Dan
Looks great. You should paint that piece black when you are all done with it, so that it hides it!
x2.
Looks amazing!
I spent a bunch of time today finishing up the headlight mount. I still need to adda few tabs for the grill, but Ill have to get to that mon or tues.
Ended up with a few more fasteners than I wanted but it still comes out pretty quicky. Two qr pins on the main bar, 2 1/4" bolts for the upper rad support and 2 1/4" bolts under the headlights.
All in all Im pretty happy how it turned out.
Dan
So much work into this… it looks fantastic
Last night I added tabs for the grill mount to the headlight assembly, and added two more tabs for two more camlock fasteners to the bumper cover. No pics to show for it yet, I pulled it back out to do tonights work.
Tonight was huge. I finally cleaned up the chassis where I removed the stock core cupport, primed, painted and cleared it all (spraybom). The color match isnt exact, and I didnt try to blend it or anything. Maybe next winter Ill redo the whole engine bay, until then this will do.
Also primed, painted and cleared the bumper tube… again with spraybom. Which, I must say turned out fantastic for a spraybom job.
I cant wait to start assembling after the holiday.
Thats it til next week.
Dan