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At my house in the bay area, dead chevy lies dreaming. It has been sitting dormant for many years, and once resurrected I'm imagining it will be kind of a sleeper, so I think Lovecraft describes my project perfectly. About 11 years ago, I bought a '69 Chevelle, with the intention of wrenching on it while goign to school. It needs everything. When I bought it, it was basically just a rolling shell. The previous owner had blown up the motor and parked it in 2003. It sat in storage until he gave up on it, and sold it to me. It looked pretty good, with just one little spot of visible rust, on the driver's side fender. The driver's quarter panel is a little bit tweaked, and there are a bunch of dents in the roof from when someone pried off the vinyl top, but overall it looks pretty solid and straight. It looks like there's some bondo in it, but hopefully I don't find anything too bad when it comes time to do body work, if I ever get around to paint and body, haha.    yep theres some bondo in there  lumpy-rear end roof Anyway, just about as soon as I bought the car and started taking things apart, my daily driver needed some attention, and school work started ramping up, so I de-prioritized this project. I had it inside at first, but after the first year or so, it spent the better part of a decade outside in a field. I tried to keep a tarp over it most of the time, mostly out of concern for the missing rear window, but I wasn't always on top of things so it got rained in a lot.   I moved to a new place where I actually have a garage and a paved back yard, so I took the opportunity to drag the car out of the field and bring it home.   it lurks  Then, because I never learn, it sat for the better part of another year. At least this time I was on-site to make sure it mostly stayed covered. I got tired of looking at it in the state it was in, and I'm sure I was garnering no favor with the neighbors, so at this point I rented a pressure washer and blasted the crap out of the car.  After blasting about half the weight of the car down the drain, I could finally touch the car without gloves on. That was last summer. Work was busy and my brain wasn't really letting me have any motivation, so nothing really got done for another year (notice a pattern? huh.) Next post will bring us into 2020.
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Nov 16, 2020 11:05
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Finally, late this summer, I got over some decision paralysis, ordered a bunch of parts, and started working on the car. I'm kind of an idiot, because I fall into super deep holes when I research my options, for just about any decision, so it takes me forever to go through all the options and settle on what seems ideal. Of course, this constant back-and-forth means I don't settle on something until I've totally agonized over it for months, and since each component is intertwined with the next, it just takes forever. Then when I'm done, the schizophrenic assortment of random bits that are supposed to go together don't end up any cheaper than just buying a kit from one of the big companies, but I go ahead and do it anyway. I'm sure I've got many doors yet to slam my dick in as I learn why everyone else doesn't do things this way. Anyway, point is, I eventually settled on all my brakes and suspension stuff, and ordered the suspension. My plan is to start at the ground and work up from there. I thought it would be easier to do the brakes and suspension when there wasn't a powertrain in the way of routing lines, and jacking the car up is easier when it doesn't have that weight in it. While I was waiting for parts to show up, I pulled the steering column and pedal box out. Every single thing in this car needs to be gone through, so pulling out sub-assemblies that can be gone through separately seemed like a good idea. Look at what was going on with the steering wheel. At first I thought the PO just used too-long screws, but it actually turns out that a whole center section is just missing from the wheel. From what I can tell from pictures online, the wheel is supposed to have a (plastic? aluminum?) center section that separates those two stamped steel parts of the wheel. Since it's missing, nothing stops the screws from being over-tightened, so that's what happened.   So the screws are just jammed into the column adapter, and it's pulled the whole wheel out of round because nothing is sitting flat on anything. I'll make or buy some spacers to shove in here later, but this is a super low priority. I'm not in love with the grant GT anyway, so it will eventually be replaced by something better. Several years ago I bought a pedal box for the car that has that all important extra pedal, so I started building that up to replace the clown-shoe pedal that came out.    Looks like everything lines up pretty good, I just need to adapt the ends to fit the pedals. That's a fourthgen clutch master cylinder, and a junkyard hydroboost. I sawed off and threaded the ends of both rods to attach an adjustable clevis (brake master) and heim rod end (clutch master), but the clevis I chose was too small to fit around the pedal, so no assembled pic. A bigger one should be here tomorrow.  Since suspension parts were imminent, I blew apart all the stock brakes and suspension, but not before doing a fitment check of the calipers so I could order brake hoses (which, knowing my luck, will end up being the wrong length anyway).  out with the old!  in with the ... well, they're still used, but a whole lot newer  They're 4-piston Brembos from forums user Doogle's Chevy SS. This is actually the first time new parts have touched the car since I bought it 11 years ago (the brake bracket is new). Actually, it could have been the clutch master cylinder bracket, which I test fit around the same time. I'm glad I did this test fit, because I learned that I have some incorrect hardware. The bolt hole in the spindle is pretty deep, but the bolt supplied is... not.    this is with no threads engaged I need to make a mcmaster order anyway, so I'll grab some longer bolts then. Not like I'll need them anytime soon. With that test fit out of the way, I tore out all of the suspension to make way for new stuff.  hovercrap! the rear end is actually not connected to the car at all, i just hadn't pulled the wheels off yet to skate it out from under the car at the time of this picture  not bad! could use a new coat of paint though Some of the stuff that came out was pretty sketchy. It was totally missing one of the rear control arms and a rear shock, and one of the lower balljoints didn't have a castle nut on it at all. Plus, the swaybar bushings were a mess.  thats a pretty hopeful cotter pin there. not even bent  i dont think its supposed to be shaped like that  this one was a pain to get out  an unusual assortment
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Nov 16, 2020 11:56
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That catches up to this weekend, but I did manage to get some stuff done. I rented the balljoint press loan-a-tool from Autozone, so I was ready to strip the lower control arms of all their old junk. It's great for more than just balljoints; it got the bushings out nicely too.  theres no trick to it, just be sure to get the big kit of additional cups/inserts in addition to the press  the bushings were very beat  the balljoints were stiff and kinda gross looking, but they didn't appear to be getting sloppy I tried to press out the upper ear bushings in the rear end as well, but I didn't have a cup that was exactly the right size to get it all the way out so it only got as far as flush. I'll try again with a selection of sockets to see if I have one that works.   I also started to wire wheel the lower control arms in prep for paint. I only got through one of them so far, but I'll get the other one tomorrow. I couldn't get down into all the recesses, but I was able to sorta scrape it with a chisel and get some of it with a handheld wire brush. If the paint doesn't stick very well, I can live with that.   I plan on wire wheeling the other one, roughing them up with some scotchbrite, degrease with some brake cleaner, and hitting them with some rattle can appliance paint. I'm not experienced with painting, so it may be a learning experience. All depends on what I have time for tomorrow. I'm working full time, but it's work from home and I don't have many meetings, so I should have a few hours of daylight to mess around in.
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Nov 16, 2020 12:12
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So, the future. I have several piles of parts waiting in the wings. Some purchased recently, like most of the suspension, and some purchased quite a long time ago and stashed. For example, I bought tubular front upper control arms like 10 years ago, and I've had the motor for longer than I've had the car. Much of the stash I haven't dug out to photograph, either.    The overall plan with the car is sort of a restomod/pro touring build, but without much of the "resto" or any of the "pro." It's going to be kind of janky because I'm piecing things together bit by bit, but I enjoy the planning as much as the build as much as the final product, I think. Since I'm doing the bodywork last, and probably quite some time after I get the car running and driving, I'm hoping it's going to present as sort of a sleeper. It will look like a total pile, but I'm trying to shine up all the mechanical bits with new parts, modern junkyard parts, or whatever seems like it will work well. I'm shooting for more function over form, but some form will be taken into consideration. I want it to be as fun to drive as my budget allows, so I'm trying to be smart about what upgrades are coming. I'd call it pro sleeping if the car wasn't the opposite of "pro." It's not a Ford, so I can't call it "contour" either.  Sleep touring? Whatever it is, I'm building one, slowly but surely. That is not dead which can eternal lie, it will live again, even if it takes some time.This year, my goal is to get the suspension mostly on/together before it starts raining in earnest. The wet season is impending, though, so I might not hit this target. The car is outside, so I'm trying to maximize my use of the dry parts. I can work on little things like the steering column and pedal box over the winter, if I have the time to do that. In the spring once it stops raining again, I want to get all new brake lines run and everything plumbed and mounted. Obviously the 14" wheels won't fit over the 14" rotors that go with those calipers, or even over the little LS1 F-body brakes for the rear, so I may zip tie the calipers out of the way to get it back on its feet. Summer of 2021, I plan on cleaning up the firewall and getting the engine and transmission installed. Stretch goal for next year will be to get the wiring started. Summer of 2022, if everything else goes well, I'll have wiring, fuel plumbing, and a ton of little details that need to be straightened out before it's drivable. Goal is to be able to start the motor by fall 2022, but we'll see. It's already been 11 years, so if things push out another year I can't be too upset. Plus, once it runs and drives, that's far from the end. Maybe I'll find some more power for it, maybe I'll do the bodywork and get some actual glass in it. That's so far away it's not worth thinking about yet, though, so I'll keep focusing on the short and medium term goals. I'll try to keep this thread updated, but if my history is anything to go by, there will certainly be some dry spells where not much is going on with the car. I almost made this thread several times over the years, but it's good that I didn't. Hopefully this time I'll keep the steam going. You can remind me in six months that I said that, I hope I won't regret it, haha.
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Nov 16, 2020 12:47
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Hell yeah, junkyard restoration!  Looks like you're on just about the same path that I was, you've just got more parts to put on at once . Brakes, suspension, rear end, blah blah blah, bodywork last. I'm pretty sure you'll need to run 18"s to clear those front Brembos, but 16s should clear the rears if you're running 4th gen F-body single calipers back there. I don't know if you already bought them, but check out Kore3 for brake lines if you haven't already. Smart dudes over there with good products. Good luck dude.
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Nov 16, 2020 14:32
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Mechanically mint cars with lovely bodywork are probably my favourite genre of car tbh. This is going to be a very cool build, those shocks are super nice looking!
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Nov 16, 2020 14:40
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Boaz MacPhereson posted:Hell yeah, junkyard restoration! This is correct. Originally I wanted to use 17x9 Soft 8s, ( ), but that requires grinding the caliper to fit. The advantage of the fixed Brembos over something like a C5/C6 caliper is that they're more stiff; I didn't want to compromise that just to fit a different wheel. Plus, performance tires seem to be more available in 18".I'm going to buy the wheels/tires once it's running, because I don't think it's worth it to spend big money on rubber only to have it sit and degrade in the sun for a couple years before it ever gets driven. I love the look of BMW M-Parallels (style 37), but they are pretty expensive even from the junkyard, so I think I'll go with the cheap replicas that America's Tire sells. I'm shooting for 275-35-18 on an 18x9.5 wheel, square, and it sounds like that's not an unreasonable goal judging by what other people are doing. Might have issues with inner wheel well fitment up front, but I'll deal with that as it comes up. I looked at Kore3 for brake hoses, but I'd need custom ones because of the angle the banjo fitting mounts at. Instead I'm going with Russell -3 AN race hose (picked theirs over the competition because it's DOT certified due to having a plastic coating to protect the stainless steel from abrasion) with the correct adapters for the application on the ends. It works out to be pretty cheap, and in the unlikely event of a blowout, any hose from a speed shop will drop in. Olympic Mathlete posted:Mechanically mint cars with lovely bodywork are probably my favourite genre of car tbh. This is going to be a very cool build, those shocks are super nice looking! Hell yes, thanks man. Yeah I'm excited to have the shocks, it seems like the Fox monotubes are the best single-adjustables available. I'm not knowledgeable enough to take advantage of something like a triple adjustable, like IOC has on his C10. There's a vendor on the pro touring forums that was able to get them for a >10% discount, so they ended up not much more expensive than the non-adjustable versions. This is my first time having adjustable shocks (like it's the first time I've owned disc brakes) so I have a lot to learn. I certainly haven't spent three figures per shock before! Coming from $30 KYBs, it was a bit of sticker shock!
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Nov 16, 2020 19:15
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Adjustable shocks are so fancy I wouldn't even know where to start. Maybe when the Bilsteins need replaced I'll upgrade. Also, you reminded me that I want to throw one of the 275s on the front of the Nova and see how it works.
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Nov 17, 2020 01:48
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Boaz MacPhereson posted:Adjustable shocks are so fancy I wouldn't even know where to start. Maybe when the Bilsteins need replaced I'll upgrade. I really contemplated getting the Bilsteins, but didn't for three reasons. One, Bilstein says they set them up to control a stock spring. So, with stiffer lowering springs (I'll be at about double the spring rate as stock; they're sprung super soft from the factory) the shocks would probably be inadequate. The tech on the phone said they only design around about a 20% variance from stock. I'd imagine this would manifest itself as too little rebound damping. Two, I think in order to give cars with soft stock springs a more "sporty" feel, they valve them with a high degree of compression damping, to add rate. With already stiff springs, this would feel like poo poo, at least more than it needs to. I know KYB does this with their cheap gas shocks; I found this out on my Impala. Three, Hotchkis used to sell re-valved Bilsteins (presumably to suit their higher rate lowering springs, to fix the above issues), but they switched over to Fox shocks a few years ago. People who have used both on the same car say that the Fox shocks ride much smoother and more controlled, without compromising any performance. I was going to buy the non-adjustable Hotchkis Fox shocks, but I was able to get these adjustable ones from Ridetech (who is owned by Fox, for what that's worth) for almost the same cost as the Hotchkis would have been. Seemed like a clear choice to me. Raluek fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Nov 17, 2020 |
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Nov 17, 2020 02:58
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Anyway, progress today. My front springs showed up from Speedway. I had originally ordered a set of springs, but it turns out I'm a dumbass and got the wrong size (5.5" diameter instead of 5" diameter) so they wouldn't fit my spring pocket. So I just got the correct ones. Don't need them until the control arms are fully rebuilt and I get paint on the frame, but it's good to have them regardless. Along with the front springs were some parts for the rear springs. Anyone recognize what this is? I'm not exactly using it for its intended application, or at least not in its intended location, but I think it will work out.   its just barely too big to fit in the stock spring perch. i went at the hole in the perch with a round file, and got it opened up about 1/16"  now it slides right in. i dont think i will need to tack it in place or anything With that sorted out (I did both perches) I turned to the bushings in the upper eyelets. I found a socket (1-1/4") that was a little undersized for the bushing, but worked to press it the rest of the way out without issue.   I even had time to finish cleaning up the other front lower control arm, so I got them both scuffed, rinsed w/ brake clean (read afterwards that people say to use straight acetone instead, but, too late), and shot them with rattle can. After letting them dry for a couple hours outside, I hung them from the rafters inside the garage, as it's supposed to rain tomorrow. Hopefully they're dry by Weds or Thurs so I can start loading them up with the new bushings and balljoints.  Current shot of the hovercrap:  Then I pushed the axle under the car and covered the car with the tarp in preparation for rain tomorrow.
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Nov 17, 2020 03:17
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What’s the engine you’ve got for it?
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Nov 27, 2020 22:23
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Steely Dad posted:What’s the engine you’ve got for it? It's just a 5.3L LM7. I put a cam and springs in it, honed the cylinders and put in new rings. Still need to slap in some new rod bearings and I'll call it good. I'm hoping for it to make somewhere in the range of 400-450HP, which while not wild should be fun enough. It's got low miles, but it has been sitting for awhile, so I need to make sure it's still in OK shape. I'm not too worried about it, though. It's got an LS1 intake on it right now, but I'm considering putting the truck intake back on. It's supposed to flow better than the LS1 intake, so I just have to get over my initial preference for the LS1 intake because it looks better. Eventually I'd love an L92 and an LSA blower and all that good stuff, but I'm not going to pursue more power until it's running and driving and I get used to it. So probably 5-10 years from now, at this rate, haha. Maybe by then the LT4 stuff will be affordable.
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Nov 27, 2020 23:57
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Hey thread, long time no post. Things have been pretty busy with work stuff and the holidays, but I've managed to get some stuff done on the car in the last 3 weeks. First, since I already had it apart and easy to access, I replaced the pinion seal on the rear end. I noticed it had left a little oily spot underneath the car, so it was worth doing. While everything is apart is probably the best time to do it, anyway. Took a couple tries, because oreilly's website only listed one part for my year/make/model, but the 10-bolt and 12-bolt use different sized seals. After doing a little bit of homework, I got the right one.  hmmm that aint right  the old one wasnt even installed all the way. wtf po  i read that its ideal to sliiiightly over-tighten the nut when reinstalling, so i did. hopefully it survives With that taken care of, I cleaned up the whole rear end in prep for paint. My process is to scrape the chunky bits off with a screwdriver, then hit it with degreaser and rinse, then wire wheel the whole thing, scotchbrite it to scuff and also get the little spots I missed, clean with brake cleaner, and paint.   i dont think this tells me ratio, just plant and date, but i could be mistaken  back in black I did the same cleaning and painting procedure to the rear crossmember where the control arms mount and the spring perches are. Didn't manage to get any pics. I sprayed that with VHT chassis/rollbar paint, because I wanted semigloss on the frame parts, and the appliance epoxy I'm using on the suspension and axle only comes in gloss. The VHT paint comes out really wet/runny/thin, so I have some drips I need to clean up at some point. I like the appliance paint much better, but it is only available in gloss black, white, and beige. Guess nobody is building a ratrod refrigerator. Anyway, that was all before Thanksgiving. Since then I haven't had much time for the car, but today I did get the front crossmember and frame rails partially wire wheeled in prep for the same as the rear. Hopefully I can finish cleaning it up tomorrow, so I can get it painted before it rains again this weekend. Looks like the PO painted it, but he just blasted it with no prep; I'm finding lots of dirt and crud underneath the paint, and there are spots where it just flakes right off with hardly a touch. I don't need the car to be pretty, but I'm hoping I can do a better job than that.  I also sorta-assembled the pedal box. I bought two clevises for the brake pushrod, one long and one short. The long one is slightly too long, and the short one is slightly too short. The long one will work if I take off the jam nut, but I don't love that idea. Maybe I can find a thinner nut. Or maybe I should just cut the threads farther. I'm a bit concerned about bottoming out the clevis on the body of the booster, though. I don't know how much stroke the pedal side of the hydroboost really wants. I could use the short clevis and just spin it out on the threads all the way, but it has a pretty shallow opening so it's close to bottoming out there instead. I still have time to cobble together a solution; this isn't going back in the car until sometime next year.  of course, i damaged one of the bushings while i was loving with it. i wonder if brass bushings are available for these  assembled  looks like the clutch needs a slightly longer bolt for that rod end, too I do have one question for the thread. I think I know the answer, but I'm a total novice, so I thought I'd put it out there. I decided I do want to weld those threaded inserts into the spring perches; it doesn't need to be a structural weld or anything, it's not holding any weight, but I wanted to keep it in place by something besides gravity. I figure a couple tack welds should be fine. The problem is, I decided this after I had already painted the rear end. I assume it's best to grind the paint off of the whole face that would touch the insert, get metal to metal, tack weld it, then reapply some paint. This is what I intend to do if I don't hear a better idea. In that case, though, is there any sense in trying to protect the metal sandwiched between the spring perch and the insert? Does it make more sense to drop the insert on top of the painted area, and only grind off where the weld is going to go, or even just blow through the paint with the weld? I assume not, because metal-metal will be a more solid connection (no squishy or cracky paint layer between them), and it will be easier to weld with a good ground between them. I only bring it up because I don't know what best practice is. I figure if I just grind off the paint on the whole area, weld metal to metal, and then hit it with some paint, it will be the same as if I had installed/welded it before I painted the rear end, which is what I should have done. But maybe I'm not thinking about it right. Minor bullshit either way, and I'll probably not get to this until next week. I want to get everything relevant painted before Christmas, so I can slam in most of the suspension while I have some time off around new years. Hopefully the weather cooperates.
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Dec 10, 2020 11:30
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First two letters are the ratio. CP translates to 2.73:1. Nearly as lame as my Nova's 2.56:1 .
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Dec 10, 2020 16:24
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Boaz MacPhereson posted:First two letters are the ratio. CP translates to 2.73:1. Nearly as lame as my Nova's 2.56:1 Ah, your google-fu is better. Yeah that is quite lame. Oh well, it'll do for now until I figure out something better. I have a spare 12-bolt from my impala, but it would be a couple inches too wide and would need new mounts. A-body 12-bolts seem to universally be 4 figures, though. That's a problem for after it runs and drives, though, so maybe next decade
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Dec 10, 2020 21:39
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Yeah, I got lucky with junkyard parts. I stuck with the 10-bolt but went from an 8.2" to an 8.5" and upgraded from the open 2.56 to a 3.42 LSD. If I ever find a wrecked SS I'll steal the 12-bolt out of it.
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Dec 10, 2020 22:21
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Boaz MacPhereson posted:Yeah, I got lucky with junkyard parts. I stuck with the 10-bolt but went from an 8.2" to an 8.5" and upgraded from the open 2.56 to a 3.42 LSD. If I ever find a wrecked SS I'll steal the 12-bolt out of it. The Nova is a leaf spring rear, isn't it? Lots easier to U-bolt a perch to that, than the cast-in upper 4-link eyelets on the A-body. That probably opens your options considerably.
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Dec 10, 2020 22:39
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Raluek posted:The Nova is a leaf spring rear, isn't it? Lots easier to U-bolt a perch to that, than the cast-in upper 4-link eyelets on the A-body. That probably opens your options considerably. Yep. I'm not sure how or where they drew the lines for single-leaf or multi-leaf, but my factory rear was a single leaf and the 8.5" I grabbed out of the junkyard '73 was multi. Camaro axles will bolt in as well I believe.
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Dec 10, 2020 22:54
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Raluek posted:The Nova is a leaf spring rear, isn't it? Lots easier to U-bolt a perch to that, than the cast-in upper 4-link eyelets on the A-body. That probably opens your options considerably. Yes nova's were leaf spring rears - Boaz MacPhereson posted:Yep. I'm not sure how or where they drew the lines for single-leaf or multi-leaf, but my factory rear was a single leaf and the 8.5" I grabbed out of the junkyard '73 was multi. Camaro axles will bolt in as well I believe. 6 vs 8 - the 6cyl novas had the mono leafs for comfort and the 8cyl cars had multi leaf for SPPPEEEEEEDDDD - my springs were totally toasted on my nova, the answer? taller rear shackles and traction bars. In all honesty, coil spring / trailing arm cars ride and handle soooo much better than leaf sprung cars. I see this thread and it makes me want a muscle car again, but then I remember that the muscle cars were the test bed for every shady "im a mechanic" type. seeing the types of fasteners that are coming out of your car, the neglect - I remember the struggles I had with my nova.
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Dec 12, 2020 08:29
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LobsterboyX posted:I see this thread and it makes me want a muscle car again, but then I remember that the muscle cars were the test bed for every shady "im a mechanic" type. seeing the types of fasteners that are coming out of your car, the neglect - I remember the struggles I had with my nova. Trade you! It's true that parts are cheap and easy, but everyone and their dad has a Chevelle. That doesn't mean I don't like them, obviously, but they don't have that rarefied air about them that your sleds do. This car is a pile, and it needs everything, including but not especially the fasteners you mention, but it feels so good to yank rusty garbage off the car and install nice clean painted solid parts in place. Doubly so when it's the same part that came off. To your second point, you'd think I'd've learned my lesson the first time. My Impala, which was my first car (well, the first one I bought for myself rather than being a hand-me-down loaner) was belonged to a guy I sorta knew from high school. It was his "learner" car, and before that it was his older brother's, and before that it was their dad's.... There are a lot of things on that car that are barely bodged together. Like the (wrong) harmonic balancer on the motor, which was affixed by welding it onto the crankshaft
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Dec 12, 2020 09:44
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LobsterboyX posted:Yes nova's were leaf spring rears - Oh yeah, and, Boaz' car is a factory V8, albeit a 307. Maybe the 4-barrel cars got the better rear end? Like my Impala has the 12-bolt, despite only being a 327, but I think the 283 got the 10-bolt.
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Dec 12, 2020 09:50
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Raluek posted:Oh yeah, and, Boaz' car is a factory V8, albeit a 307. Maybe the 4-barrel cars got the better rear end? Like my Impala has the 12-bolt, despite only being a 327, but I think the 283 got the 10-bolt. Yep. Factory 307. I'm guessing you're right with the 4-barrel thing. The 307 was not a "performance" option by any stretch.
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Dec 12, 2020 16:53
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holy poo poo, is this thread still around? ...awesome. its only been a year and a half since ive done anything to the car, where were we. so before i start assembling the suspension bits ive had piled up in my living room for uh mumble mumble number of months, i wanted to get the upper adjusters cut to shape. im trying to basically do the budget-friendly version of a coilover, where the ride height is adjustable but while still being able to use cheap circle track parts. that is kind of my theme for this car, trying to use as many off the shelf race parts as i can get away with. spares are easy to get, and they're universal-ish, more than an application-specific lowering spring (or whatever). so, in order to get some adjustability, you can get these adjustable spacers:   which works for me, because most of the circle track springs are either too short or too long for the ride height i want (~3" drop). so i can get the short ones and stack this spacer on, and have several inches of adjustment on top of that. and, since the motion ratio on these control arms is close to 2:1, 1" of shorter spring gets 2" of lower car. so the 2.5" of adjustability i have should give me plenty of room to futz with it. the thing is, the spring pocket was designed for an old-school coil spring that isn't ground flat at the end. so, it's kind of slanted in there, so that the free end of the coil has somewhere to go, while the car sits flat. however, since my spacer is not a coil spring (and the spring that rides on it is ground flat), it needs to be adjusted so that it fits. to avoid winging it more than i have to, i borrowed an idea i read about on the internet, and stuck some bamboo skewers (that i cut in half so i only needed half as many) shoved into the ridges of corrugated cardboard (which was actually from a coil spring box, it was the perfect size!). this basically makes a somewhat funky profile gauge, which i can shape however i want. so, i wrapped it around the top of the spring spacer:  I started with all the skewers sticking up, then I put the whole contraption on my floor jack, and pressed it up into the spring pocket. the skewers slid down in the high spots, giving me the profile of the pocket. I traced this profile out onto another piece of cardboard for a sanity check:  ...and when it checked out, I slid it down the body of the spacer and traced the line on.   the distance from the top to the bottom was almost exactly an inch, which seems like a lot to me. im going to measure the difference in height of the original springs that were in it tomorrow; maybe i got it in there a bit crooked. i need to be careful not to remove more material than i have to, because i am slowly eating away at my safety margins in terms of spring length. if i am not careful, i might have the adjusters maxed out (all the way tall) and barely get the ride height i want. so let's not do that. if everything checks out, i will try to chop it up with an angle grinder, make sure it still fits, then do the other side.
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Jun 5, 2022 05:23
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ok yeah, that was way too much to take off. the problem is that i was pushing the adjuster-with-profile-gauge setup into the spring perch with a floor jack, so it was perpendicular to the floor. the real spring sits in there at a bit of an angle, presumably to point it at the spring pocket in the lower control arm. so, i took some measurements. assuming the end of the coil is the high spot, it's only about 3/8".  if we go across from the low spot, it's like, 13/16".  so, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, lol. i started from first principles again. i stuffed the original spring back into the frame pocket, made note of what direction it was pointing, then put the adjuster in, and pointed it roughly the same direction. then i shoved my scale into the gap to measure what the difference was. it was about 11/16", so i taped the scale at that position and reinstalled it. seemed good  the test fit looked good enough, so im going to go with a straight cut at 5/8". i decided to cut a little less, because the surface is not 100% straight so i wanted to leave a little bit of leeway for making adjustments to the shape once it's cut. it's a lot easier to cut more than to un-cut it. plus, i realized afterwards that the spring wire diameter is 5/8" (moog calls it out at 0.62", and 5/8=0.625), so that might actually have been the correct measurement. probably that last little curl collapses against the coil below it once the car's weight is on it. so next i need to come up with a stencil to re-draw my cut line on the spacer, this time straight across at 7.91 degrees. probably more cardboard. maybe ill get to it before next weekend???
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Jun 6, 2022 08:15
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Glad things are moving again! I like everything you're doing to it, especially changing it over to a manual. My wife had a 68 when we got married (a 307) - the 68-69 front end and curves are gorgeous.
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Jun 6, 2022 20:47
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joat mon posted:Glad things are moving again! I like everything you're doing to it, especially changing it over to a manual. My wife had a 68 when we got married (a 307) - the 68-69 front end and curves are gorgeous. thanks! yeah it's going to be a hoot to drive once it's done, but... it's a long way from there. personally i like the 68 tail lights better and the 69 grille better, but really it's hard to go wrong what happened to yours?
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Jun 7, 2022 03:11
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I liked the 68's tail lights better too. We sold it when kid #1 (now in her 30s) was on the way. One of my big car regrets. I have a different weirdo car that she likes, but like your '69, it may be a few years...
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Jun 7, 2022 05:35
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joat mon posted:I liked the 68's tail lights better too. We sold it when kid #1 (now in her 30s) was on the way. One of my big car regrets. I have a different weirdo car that she likes, but like your '69, it may be a few years... oh yeah, you're the guy with that classy green sprite. isnt that one a runner? Raluek fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jun 7, 2022 |
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Jun 7, 2022 05:43
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She tolerates the Austin Healey. It's the other one of the odd couple that isn't the runner.
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Jun 7, 2022 06:00
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joat mon posted:She tolerates the Austin Healey. It's the other one of the odd couple that isn't the runner. ohhhhh gently caress yes. please post more when you get started on it. what's the plan, just getting it going, hotrod it out, wide and low sled...? the possibilities are endless
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Jun 7, 2022 06:04
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How did I miss this thread? Excellent foundation for a project, I'm super jealous. Looking at the pics, it's all surface rust. Here in the midwest, you'd grind and fine even the control arms rusted through and non-usable. Neverminding the total rust-away of the chassis.
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Jun 7, 2022 16:33
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EVERYWHERE 
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meatpimp posted:How did I miss this thread? Excellent foundation for a project, I'm super jealous. Looking at the pics, it's all surface rust. Here in the midwest, you'd grind and fine even the control arms rusted through and non-usable. Neverminding the total rust-away of the chassis. yeah the only real rust is a little hole a couple inches across at the bottom of one of the fenders. it looks like there's some foam behind there or something. im extremely not worried about the body, structure-wise, although idk how much of it is bondo a year and a half ago, i wire wheeled about half of the frame in the engine bay down to bare metal. im going to have to quickly go over it again before paint, cause its starting to form little spots of surface rust. if that gives you an idea for how quickly things rust. i just wish brain allowed me more motivation so i could be making more progress on it! every time i look into the back yard it taunts me
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Jun 8, 2022 03:35
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meatpimp posted:How did I miss this thread? Excellent foundation for a project, I'm super jealous. Looking at the pics, it's all surface rust. Here in the midwest, you'd grind and fine even the control arms rusted through and non-usable. Neverminding the total rust-away of the chassis. Here in the South West stuff that has been sitting for decades just has some surface rust on it at worst it is insane. Should really offer a service to find people projects they want and arrange transport. I bought a car from Phoenix when I was in New Hampshire and it was a good as a 60 year old car that had been sitting for 40 years could be.
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Jun 10, 2022 17:42
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| # ? May 1, 2024 16:48 |
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joat mon posted:She tolerates the Austin Healey. It's the other one of the odd couple that isn't the runner. That... that seriously looks like a pedal car compared to the Lincoln. I knew Austins were tiny, but... It's adorable. 
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Jun 11, 2022 05:44
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