Stop Mocking Me!!

During the course of building a car from scratch you tend to do everything at least three times. Plan your attack, fabricate the parts, mock them up with surrounding parts to make sure everything jives then take it all apart for cleaning and paint. Finally when everything is completed and shiny it can all go together, hopefully for the last time. Here we are test fitting the our seriously modified fenders to make sure that we have clearance for our tires. Keeping in mind that the front end will lower an inch or two once we add 600+ pounds of big block to the equation. The other thing to consider in the nose dive effect that occurs when the brakes are applied hard at the end of the track. There are no interference issues for straight line action but the return road often comes up sooner than you'd like and is generally a pretty sharp corner. Keeping this in mind we decided to take a "safety slice" out of  the lower corners. We're also planning on eventually scoring some Super Cushion front tires which are about two inches taller than the existing fronts. Since I had the fenders in place it seemed silly not to test the bumper, grill support and grill. Additional mounting holes were required and it's nice to get them all drilled before final paint.Now take it apart and get to work.

Tick, Tick and Tick

Just banging things off the list in anticipation for Spring since the snow is receding every day. Now watch, it will snow a foot over night. Any-who, we completed the fuel system tonight, running 1/2" aluminum line from the fuel cell to the pump and filter and all the way up to the nifty aluminum fuel log that Chris constructed. Everyone is really happy that he's been practicing his aluminum welding. From there we will be running braided steel line with one regulator for each carb but not until the motor is in place.

We then moved on to stringing the cables for the emergency brake system. Why on Earth would you run an E-brake in a race car I find you asking. Well, when you tend to trailer your car for hundreds of miles in order to find one flat stretch of track, your car tends to bounce and wiggle along the way. Since the original E-brake worked perfectly it seemed a shame not to put it back in place, just a bit shorter since the rear axle now lives a foot forward.
After that we proceeded to fabricate mounts for our 90/10 front drag shocks, also from Calvert Racing but not adjustable like the rears. We'll have to clean up all the fresh welds then touch up the paint before mounting them for real. The list is getting shorter which means that I can no longer procrastinate doing body work. Kill me now.

It's a Roller

Well we finally got the car off of the rotisserie today after finishing the fuel line from cell to pump and up to the new fuel rail that resides on our inner fender, using 1/2" aluminum line. We also strung our heavy guage power wire from back to front and finished plumbing the brake system which we in turn bled.

Now it's actually starting to look like a car again and we're beginning to empty boxes of shiny new items which is always really exciting. We installed our Calvert Racing nine way adjustable shocks as well today and started building  some of our steering components. This will be our next big Wednesday mission. Until then I will continue to prep the doors, then move onto the fenders that appear to still require some clearancing. Here you can see the driver's fender mocked up and it almost contacts the tire. We don't plan on running these tiny fronts so bigger rubber will definitely have an interference fit.

Sausage Party

 Get your mind out of the gutter. Chris has been perfecting the art of homemade sausage making lately and I have been firing up my little Brinkman smoke'n'grill the past week or so since I discovered that our local hardware store has a stash of lump charcoal in their basement. It seemed like a no-brainer for a casual Sunday afternoon of wrenching. The outcome was spectacular with some whole seed wine mustard that I have been saving for just an occasion.

Mad Progress

Back from holidays and ready to rumble. Though a few more days swimming in the Caribbean wouldn't have been the worst idea. Now that there is paint down on the car we can start bolting down some parts that have been shelved for a long time and free up some shop floor space.

  We got the front brake system including the line lock, master cylinder and wheel cylinders all plumbed in with new steel and flex lines. Finding replacement drums for our van axle was looking like a futile chore but we remembered that the drums from my '67 Polara were also 11" so Chris excavated them out of a snow bank and turned them up on his lathe. We'll get that all assembled next week.

Next we finished welding in the eight point roll bar so the car is officially safe and hard to get in and out of. The front straight axle assembly and rear axle housing with super stock springs are all mounted in place and I made some aluminum straps to mount the fuel cell.

Visualizing this car go down the track this Summer is seriously motivating the project along. At this point there are around a dozen sub-projects that are happening simultaneously to achieve the final goal. It seems a bit confusing at times but being able to check big items off the list feels good. Our next big goal is to see the car off the rotisserie as a rolling chassis. It won't be long now.