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The original piece I cut out had a factory drain hole that was punched. This left about 1/4" of material raised inside the frame. This seemed to me to just be a place for water to accumulate, waiting to evaporate. I ground down the raised portion to help drainage.
Using c clamps, and hot tacking, I slowly worked the original piece back. ( hot tacking is when you tack weld, then while its still hot, hit it with a hammer to mold it. Sometimes take multiple attempts.)
Welded out, and done
A bit of advice here: This is very thin material, and you need to be careful when welding. If, like most, your using a wire feed, or MIG, make incrementally closer tacks, till there all about 1/2" apart before trying a full seam weld. If, like me, using stick rod, be very careful. It's so thin, you'll blow a hole just firing up a rod. I broke the flux off a 5p rod, and used it as a filler rod to gain more metal to work with.
In the effort to keep the build moving forward, I have been pre ordering parts for the build. However, I had to change vendors. I am stuck waiting for my parts from VBP, since I've already paid for them. But in the future, I hope things move faster. I am trying Zip with the next order. Hope it works out better. I asked VBP for a discount code, assuming they would want to keep me a customer, as I will be spending around 6k$ on parts alone. This was after I had already made a purchase of nearly $1k. I never even got a response, nothing. Just an FYI, and a chance for me to vent. I'll never use VBP again
Hi badapplegolf,
Wish I had read this post earlier I would have advised you not to have sharp corners in your
gussets as you have in the front gusset for your right engine mount. Sharp corners like that
become areas of concentrated stress and are the first points where cracks appear, much
better to have radius which will help dissipate the stresses, the larger the better.
You might want to mount your idler arm on the right side to be sure that the gusset you welded in is not going to interfere. I have seen people do this many times.
Hi badapplegolf,
Wish I had read this post earlier I would have advised you not to have sharp corners in your
gussets as you have in the front gusset for your right engine mount. Sharp corners like that
become areas of concentrated stress and are the first points where cracks appear, much
better to have radius which will help dissipate the stresses, the larger the better.
Mark
You are spot on about the 90 degree angle I installed, and I thank you for bringing it up in the post. I could write a long explanation of why I did it, but it would be just that, an excuse. I should have just left that one out until I knew how much clearance I had, but I REALLY wanted to have it all done and painted. So I took the easy path and put in that small L gusset.
Once I get the motor in place, I'll readdress it. I'm guessing I'll have to trim and shape in a couple of places.
nice welding though, have you checked to see if the steering box /idler arm will go back in ?
LOL Nope. But I am completely prepared to adjust as I go.
Currently, I am undecided on steering. I was gonna go with the Borg. box. But now I'm rethinking that, may just rebuild the orig. PS
The Motor I thought was mine,,,,, MAY have been sold to someone else,,,, How does this happen?? Any way, I'm not even sure of the motor currently.
So, I'm only positive that things will have to be reworked, how much, time will tell
Good thing I'm not on a budget. ( Hoping you can actually feel the sarcasm)
Last edited by badapplegolf; May 8, 2017 at 08:33 PM.
LOL Nope. But I am completely prepared to adjust as I go.
Currently, I am undecided on steering. I was gonna go with the Borg. box. But now I'm rethinking that, may just rebuild the orig. PS
The Motor I thought was mine,,,,, MAY have been sold to someone else,,,, How does this happen?? Any way, I'm not even sure of the motor currently.
So, I'm only positive that things will have to be reworked, how much, time will tell
Good thing I'm not on a budget. ( Hoping you can actually feel the sarcasm)
So the guy you bought the car from had the motor still in his shop and told you it was yours but now has sold it to someone else ? is that right?
So the guy you bought the car from had the motor still in his shop and told you it was yours but now has sold it to someone else ? is that right?
No, this was a buddy deal, and it may still be there. I have not checked yet. Someone else just happened to mention to me that my bud finally sold that big block. Heck, maybe I'm the buyer. Although I have not paid anything for it yet.
I'm not gonna stress over that till it's time to. Lots of old bb's around Vegas.
So I need help please. I finally got some parts in, and have the whole weekend to the car. First up was to put new poly bushings in the lower a arms. Problem was the the bolts that came out, don't want to go back in. they are 7/16" x 1 3/4". Am I missing something???
Both bolts are torqued to about 50 lbs at this point.
I have extra 7/16 x 7/8 bolts from the upper arms that will fit, but I'm totally confused about why these don't fit anymore. I've spent all day on this, and everything I read says these bolts are supposed to be 1 3/4" long.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Last edited by badapplegolf; Jun 3, 2017 at 08:31 PM.
