Shiney new parts

Again... not a lot of work has been done on the car in the last couple of months. Finding the time gets harder and harder. Hoping to take a week off soon while the kids are still in school and get a few solid days of work done.

I have managed to order some shiney new parts for the car. I bought a Wilwood Mustang II spindle and brake set. I built them up and have them ready for when I manufacture the front suspension. They look pretty slick and should have more than enough braking power for what will be a very light car. I've not been very good at taking photos of progress. I haven't taken any pictures for a while now. I need to get some pictures of the spindle / hub / brakes as they looking sexy.

I also bought a bunch of parts to make the front suspension. For the lower arms I got some screw in ball joint collars that I'll weld onto some steel arms. For the upper arms I bought a screw in ball joint collar but it also has a screw thread and clevis mount. This allows for adjustment of caster and camber after its put together with some fairly easy adjustments. At the chassis side I got some hiems that can mount onto some cross member mounts I bought. Problem is that the cross member doesn't really well so I might have to make my own mounts. Finally the tubes for the upper a-arms, I bought weld in threaded bungs. One side will be left handed thread and the other side right handed so I can simply twist to adjust and then hold in place with jam nuts. That's the theory anyway.

I also turned my attention to the engine again for a little bit. I finally got around to pulling the belt off and removing the airconditioning compressor which I won't be needing. I need to buy new shortened belt now the compressor is gone. I also pulled off the headers. I'm trying to get as much off the engine as I can so I can get some decently accurate measurements. I need to build the transmission tunnel and want as much foot room as I can. Its going to be critical to have just the right amount of clearance so I can get as much foot space as possible. Its going to be pretty tight for the pedals.

Now I've got the spindle made up and had a chance to measure the distance ball joint to ball joint I'm going to try to finalize the suspension design. Once done I'll order some steel tubing and the coil over shocks. I'd like to think that early summer I'll have the car able to sit on all 4 wheels. Doesn't sound like much but it would be nice to not need the construction table at the new house.

On the new house, we hope to be contacting contractors this week to find out the cost and timeline to do the work we want done. I'm also getting them to check the garage as there is some pretty major rot in sill plates. Its going to be a big job to repair. Depending on the cost I might just demolish the garage and build a new one. If we go for a new one I'll likely push the back of it out 10-15 feet which will make it a nice deep garage where I can have 2 cars side by side plus room for the workshop / project car at the back.

Off to design the front suspension!