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It is heated, just no air. Seriously thinking about air and a dehumidifier.
Sam, I know what you're talking about with the heat this summer. Same here next door in Ontario. About 2 months ago I couldn't stand it any longer. Didn't ask the wife ... just came home with an air conditioner for the garage. She noticed it by the time I had it installed and blowing 65F air LOL. After a nice bottle of wine and dinner she was talking about other things and hasn't mentioned it since :-) Cheers, Bill
I love this thread. I realize what a complete hack I am with my skill set. After reading it from the first post, I will have to get a few hours of extra sleep since I am worn out. We picked up a new frame for our build and now I know we are going to measure every possible angle. I am guess by using the stock drive train and suspension we will avoid 90% of the potential problems you have encountered. You have done an amazing job so far. Good Luck (especially with the wife's continued support).
Well I got some spare time this week so I raced out to the shop to work on the car.
I had to look and see what my last post was to figure out where I left you guys. I had set the body on the chassis. In doing so, I had to cut some sections out of the floor to accommodate my chassis changes. And the last thing I posted was my repair to the floor in the rear around my shock mounts.
On to the drive shaft tunnel. (talking about the fiberglass tunnel that covers the metal safety tunnel. After close evaluation. Mocking up how big the fiberglass tunnel would have to be and then checking to see if I had room left for my seats I discovered that "No", there was not going to be enough room for the seats. I made the steel safety tunnel a little to large. So in this post I will show how I modified the safety tunnel to narrow it up. The real problem was the space needed on the passenger side of the car. There was plenty of space on the drivers side for the driver seat, but because the drive shaft is not centered in the car, space was lacking on the passenger side for the passenger seat.
About the only thing that I could do to narrow the safety tunnel up was eliminate the flanges that held the two halves together. I kept the same tunnel width as previous (3-1/2" wide). So I cut the flanges off, lengthened the sides of the safety tunnel, and re-did the mounting points. Below are some comparison pictures.
This is the old safety tunnel. Notice the large flanges on the sides. These are where the two halves bolted together. Also notice the two arms that extend out from the transmission cross member. These end up being changed. This is the new safety tunnel. The flanges are gone. I extended the sides down. Later, after the body has been removed, I will build a plate that bolts on to the bottom. Also notice how the arm that is attached to the transmission cross member is now offset. I used the same mounting points in the front and the rear. These changes narrowed the safety tunnel by about 1-1/2". New tunnel. Everything is tacked and welded pretty solid. I will finish welding everything when the body has been removed again. I re-used the old brackets. These I changed so that they are offset.
Nice work, how much space did you lose in your rear storage area to keep the kick ups from the newer frame.
I have a 74 frame I am converting and have yet to decide to remove those kick ups or keep them. I don't see the glass work as a big deal but losing the space might be.
The kick ups on their own will not take up as much space as taken up in my picture. The kick up is to the right of the line. In the circle is the very top most part of the kick up that sticks out into the rear storage area. From that top point it goes down at an angle. I boxed off the rest of it to clear the shock mount and to just simply square everything off and make it look nice. In reality you would not lose as much as I lost. FYI, I used 1/2" plywood around everything to give myself a 1/2" of clearance.
Sam, This project is absolutely epic! Thanks for taking the time to write about your mods in detail. This elevates the hobby to an entirely different level. Always look forward to the updates. Carry on.
Thanks for the notes on the Kick Up Sam, as soon as I saw your picture tonight I remembered you detailing that build for left and right side. Dang, if I could only remember the things I thought I had learned it would make things easier.
I appreciate the repeat information. Your Kick Up area is looking factory. Nice work.
New to your thread and am sure I will reference it a lot when I get to my '65 refurb.
I'll go through it page by page, but what engine did you decide to put in it?
I am old school with a modern flare. That said, I found a 1965 396CID block and built a motor (should say that I had my engine guy build a motor). It is not a corvette 396, but its twin. In 1965 Chevrolet built two different 396 motors. Both 4 bolt mains, both 425HP, both pretty much identical except for the engine code. The corvette engine code was "IF", the other engine code was "IE". Mine is an "IE" block. Anyway, enough of the history lesson.
I had a 396 built. Stock crank, custom .030 over/10:1 pistons (custom because no one makes 396 pistons. When you find any they are either 8.5:1 or 11:1) All roller valve train (cam, lifters, and rockers) aluminum heads, and a multi port fuel injection system. All that backed with a Tremec 5 speed.
On to the fiberglass tunnel. I spent a couple days cutting 1/2" plywood and shaping it to fit around the safety tunnel. I fastened it all together with screws, tape, and cardboard. Then I spent two more days laying fiberglass. I laid two layers on the first day, I let it harden, then I laid two more layers on the second day. When the body comes back off, I will remove all the plywood from the bottom of the car and then apply a couple more layers of fiberglass. After that I will do some sanding and shaping and then decide how much more fiberglass is needed and where. FYI, I used clear packing tape on everything to keep the fiberglass from sticking. I had done a test last year using that and it seemed to work really well.
Next I will work on repairing the area in the transmission tunnel. You may notice a plywood mold in the top of that. I needed a little more clearance for the Tremec transmission.
You may also notice a steering column propped up in the the drivers area. That is a steering column from a C6 that I am trying to make work. I like the style. It has tilt and power telescoping. I only paid $100 for it. A 1965 column with tilt and telescoping is over $1000. The trick will be to make it work with my clutch and brake pedal assembly. I had also bought the brake and clutch pedal assembly from a C6 but there is no way that is working. I think that I can make the C6 column work with the stock 1965 pedal assembly, but I am still working on it. I will let you know how that turns out later.
Plywood mode and frame work. I used cardboard to form the round top. The whole thing including the cardboard was covered with clear shipping tape. This is the finished product after 4 layers of fiberglass. ------ ------
Just an update. I got the transmission tunnel fiber glassed up. I only have a couple of layers on this at the moment. Most of this was re-attaching the section that I had cut out. I will apply a couple more layers on the bottom, on the seams later after the body has been removed from the chassis again.
09-06-2018, 03:34 PM
