"Mechanix Menace": An LS7-motivated, chopped and heavily modified 1973 Datsun 240Z

[chevyz240]

Very cool build Henrik, you're a great craftsman and have A LOT of Patience!! Keep up the great work.

Thanks a lot Michael!

[ed1le]

Thanks Ed! I haven't done much in a long time. I have been working on my LS engined 1964 Chevy C10 pickup truck. I hope I will be able to continue work on the Z soon. The next step is to measure the suspension geometry and decide on the placement of the rear subframe and start designing the double A-arm conversion of the front suspension.

Cool to have a one owner Z in the family!

Yes it is, I was brought home from the hospital in it when I was born in 1975. It was put in storage around 1983 and just brought out last year to be restored so looking forward to seeing it on the road again.

Good luck with the other build, also sounds like a great project!

[chevyz240]

Yes it is, I was brought home from the hospital in it when I was born in 1975. It was put in storage around 1983 and just brought out last year to be restored so looking forward to seeing it on the road again.

Good luck with the other build, also sounds like a great project!

Very cool to have that Z in the family! The C10 is a more low key patina type project. Is your Firebird done, or are you working on it?

[ed1le]

Very cool to have that Z in the family! The C10 is a more low key patina type project. Is your Firebird done, or are you working on it?

Is any project ever truly done? LOL The firebird is a driveable project that I've been autocrossing with the last couple of years and fooling with. My Skylark is more of a true project/build but on hold and in storage at my parents right now due to lack of time (3 little kids) and space. We're about to put our house up for sale and looking at places with a second garage or room to build one so I hope to have the Skylark back where I can play with it soon!

[chevyz240]

Is any project ever truly done? LOL The firebird is a driveable project that I've been autocrossing with the last couple of years and fooling with. My Skylark is more of a true project/build but on hold and in storage at my parents right now due to lack of time (3 little kids) and space. We're about to put our house up for sale and looking at places with a second garage or room to build one so I hope to have the Skylark back where I can play with it soon!

I wish you luck with your projects, Ed! I know what it's like to have too little garage space, my truck sleeps outside year round.

[chevyz240]

I'm not dead, I'm just moving slow! :)

In parallel to Christmas cleaning the house (or more truthfully, instead of) I have continued designing the chassis for Mechanix Menace. So far it's just a rough outline. Previously I thought about making the chassis out of aluminum honeycomb panels, but due to problems registering such a chassis here in Sweden, I have decided on a steel tube chassis. However, part of it will still be consisting of sandwich panels. Most surfaces in the passenger compartment will consist of aluminum sheets glued and riveted to both sides of the chassis tubes, with a glued foam core between them. This way, I will both increase stiffness and thermal and sound insulation compared to a single surface of sheet steel or aluminium. Hopefully, SFRO, the organization approving home-built cars will approve of this.

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[andrewb70]

It's only been 4 years...LOL

Andrew

[chevyz240]

It's only been 4 years...LOL

Andrew

2 actually! (But I admit that I didn't do that much then...) :)

[Motown 454]

Always like your updates, I'll keep watching for more. I love this project.

[chevyz240]

Always like your updates, I'll keep watching for more. I love this project.

Thanks Wayne!

[chevyz240]

I haven't done much on the car the last few years, but I have at least done some virtual work! :)

The last weeks I have reacquainted myself to Blender. It was a few years since I used the software and there is a new version out so there is a lot new to learn (not my strong point) as well. I have forgotten almost all of what I knew a few years ago, so it´ll take some time to get up to speed. Nevertheless I have managed to render a decent picture of my Z-car! More will come!

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[chevyz240]

My Z-car will be treated to a nose job, but compared to most human nose jobs, this one actually will be an extension of the nose. https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2020/09/1f609-1.png

SInce I will move the front axle forward between 100-150 mm (4-6 inches), the front tire would hit the headlight if I didn't extend the nose. The reason for moving the front axle forward is to lengthen the wheelbase to make the car less twitchy and to improve weight distribution. Another benefit of extending the nose is that it'll be lower and more aerodynamic.

Last Sunday a Swedish car magazine (Bilsport) came here to do an article (probably a small one) on my car, so I wanted it to look as complete as possible. In order to achieve this, I put the rear hatch and hood on. The car is mounted on stands, and the forwardmost prevents putting the headlight buckets on.

Therefore I thought, what the hell, this is good time to mock up the hood extension and extended headlight bucket. I went to town with cardboard and tape, and after a few hours I feel that I got a decent result! https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2019/12/1f642-1.png The hood is extended 60 mm (2.4 inches).

In my CAD model of the car, I haven't yet done this nose extension, but that is something I need to do, to see what it looks like from a distance. In the garage I can't get very far from the car, but so far I am pretty satisfied.

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[andrewb70]

Glad that you're still working on this awesome project!

Andrew

[chevyz240]

Glad that you're still working on this awesome project!

Andrew

Thanks Andrew!

Yeah, it's not the world's quickest progress, due to different reasons! :) With this magazine article, I think I will get a kick in the butt to speed things up though! :)

[jetmech442]

Just saw this for the first time, and spent a good bit of my workday pouring over all the details. I sooo want to see this succeed:bananna2:. I love your Cad skills, and even the renders in blender(such a powerful tool). Even more impressive is your ability to pull it off. yeah it's taking a long time but most projects of this magnitude do, keep finding minutes to hack away at it :). This was real inspiring to see this, please keep posting progress, and if you have any advice on how you got such a clean CAD model I'm all ears. I've been using Fusion 360 for about 3 years now and have tried photogrammetry, and SVG views I bought online, but each one has it's weakness. Can't wait to see this thing destroy the internet in 2021!!!

[chevyz240]

Just saw this for the first time, and spent a good bit of my workday pouring over all the details. I sooo want to see this succeed:bananna2:. I love your Cad skills, and even the renders in blender(such a powerful tool). Even more impressive is your ability to pull it off. yeah it's taking a long time but most projects of this magnitude do, keep finding minutes to hack away at it :). This was real inspiring to see this, please keep posting progress, and if you have any advice on how you got such a clean CAD model I'm all ears. I've been using Fusion 360 for about 3 years now and have tried photogrammetry, and SVG views I bought online, but each one has it's weakness. Can't wait to see this thing destroy the internet in 2021!!!

Thanks a million jetmech442! :)

Your comment really warms my heart and gives me inspiration to press on! Good choice on how to spend a workday too! :naughty:

Regarding CAD; I have used Siemens NX to model the chassis. And, as you said, I use Blender to model the body etc. In both cases I have "manually 3D-scanned" the body and roll cage using a cross line laser level, levels, tape measures, carpenter's squares, etc. If you have looked through the thread, you have probably seen this. This has taken hundreds of hours... If I would have had access to a good handheld 3D-scanner this could probably have been done during a day's work, or two... I have double checked some of the dimensions a few times, and in a lot of cases, I think I have a dimensional tolerance of around 1-2 mm. Length and width coordinates are the trickiest to measure. For me, the trick is just to be meticulous, precise and patient! For the background in Blender I have used free HDRI background pictures you can find online. I'll post a newer better render below! :)

I will definitely keep posting. If you like you can add me as a friend on Facebook. Sometimes I post stuff there, which may not end up here. I also post more pictures there, as it's a lot quicker than doing it here, plus I don't want to run out of file storage here!

My name is Henrik Schiölde (Schiolde)

I am actually developing the Blender model right now, as we speek! Like you say, it is a powerful tool! I think it's fantastic that it's free, and that there are so many online tutorials!

[chevyz240]

I realized I haven't posted the latest render I have made a while ago. There is still lots to do, like headlight buckets etc., but slowly I'm getting there!

For interested people, I have lot's of different versions with different body colors. You can search for "Mechanix Menace" on Facebook. Or check out my personal FB page; Henrik Schiölde (Schiolde).

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[Motown 454]

This looks better than the one They're going to make. I always love seeing your updates.

[chevyz240]

This looks better than the one They're going to make. I always love seeing your updates.

Thanks Wayne! :)
Personally I think the new Z looks horrible, for a number of reasons.:barf:One being that the roof starts sloping down immediately after the windshield, which I really dislike. It almost creates an upside-down V together with the windshield, instead of them creating one gentle curve. Then again, a lot of sports cars have looked like that the last decade or so. Nissan says it's not coming to Europe, so at least they did one thing right! :twothumbs

[Motown 454]

I agree that's why I'll be watching this one lol

[chevyz240]

I am continuing the job of 3D-modeling my Datsun 240Z body. I thought it maybe could be interesting to show the full workflow in one post. I'll use today's job as an example. There are lots of other alternatives I use as well.

1. Measure the interesting part of the body. Today I made cardboard templates and used a tape measure to get the length coordinates, and a laser level to measure the height coordinates. Other times I measure both length, transverse and height coordinates.

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2. Trace the template on paper.

3. Get the dimensions of the trace with the proper accuracy.

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4. Sketch the template in CAD (I use Siemens NX).

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5. Extrude the sketch to a proper thickness (in this case 1mm).

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6. Place a coordinate system in the proper location in the template model to enable it to be added to the full body template CAD model.

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7. Add the template model to the full body template CAD model and move it to the correct position.

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8. Export the body template CAD model to an STL file.

9. In the surface modeling software (I use Blender), import the STL file.

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10. Place the body template file in the proper position.

11. By moving the proper vertices in the body wireframe, modify the body model to better fit the templates.

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It is a pretty tedious procedure, but fun! I have spent many, many hours doing this, but at least it is totally free, which a decent scan done with a good 3D scanner isn't...

Also, by doing this manually, I get a much better feeling for how the different body lines flow and interact, which will help me when I'm going to design fender flares, spoilers etc.

[jaybee]

Very cool car!

[chevyz240]

Very cool car!

Thanks John B! :)

[chevyz240]

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I am loosely calling my Datsun 240Z ”Mechanix Menace”. The name had a central part in a strange dream I had some 35 years ago. When I woke up, I didn’t know what the word ”Menace” meant, so I actually had to look it up in a dictionary (some of you have maybe seen one…). So, I had a language lesson while dreaming! :)

I have been thinking about creating some sort of emblem / name plate for the car.
I looked through all the different text fonts in my CAD system, but I didn’t find any I liked. Until number 158! Boom, there it was: ”Magneto”! I checked, and there are 349 font to choose from…

I really like this one, partly because the bottom of the letters are flattened and lend themselves to an emblem application, plus I think it just looks good!
As with most things I get in contact with, of course I just couldn’t leave it stock! I changed the width scale and the shear angle. I then extruded the letters and printed them on my new toy, the 3D-printer, and I also made a base plate with cutouts for the letters. This was just a first test shot to see what it would look like in real life.

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I thought it looked pretty good, but I felt the dot over the ”I” was too big and in the wrong position, so that had to be changed too. No stone unturned…
After looking at different style chrome emblems on the web, I then proceeded attaching a bar at the bottom of the letters (a bit thinner than the letters themselves) and chamfering the letters and the bar, which really made it look like an old school chrome emblem. I printed that one too.

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After mulling it over for a while, I came up with the idea of enlarging the X and making it red. It kind of goes in the style of all the different ”R” and ”X” cars and bikes, where that letter is red (or another bold color) and usually bigger. I also hung the dot over the ”I” on the ”X”, instead of having a separate little bar attached to the ”I” letter. All the small things matter.

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I think it’s a combination of classic looks with a modern, bold touch! You can say that I am eXtremely satisfied! :lol:
I am not 100% sure I actually will put any emblems on the car body, but we’ll see. I am almost certain I will put some on the valve covers though! With a red car, the red “X” doesn’t really pop, but if I put it on the black tail light panel, it’ll work. Maybe I’ll use the ones with the small ”X” on the fenders.

Anyway, that is a few years in the future… Maybe even more so now, as I really have gotten into a computer rendering groove!

More things are to come very soon!

[chevyz240]

In the latest issue of Bilsport, one of Sweden's largest enthusiast car magazines, there is a 4 page article on my little project! It's even on the cover, even though it's a small picture. The article is really well written with all facts correct. I am stoked! Due to copyright issues, I don't want to share the whole article, but at least I can show the cover and one of my renderings, which made it to the article (also pleasing)! :)

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[Motown 454]

Congratulations on the ink.

[chevyz240]

Congratulations on the ink.

Thanks Wayne! :)

[chevyz240]

Previously I had planned to build a chassis jig when it's time to start building the chassis. I built one many years ago when building the chassis for my V8 twin-turbo chopped Volvo Amazon (122). It's quite a chore to get a stable and perfectly flat jig.

I started thinking about maybe using a laser level instead. My existing 2-plane version will not do. You need a 3-plane version to be able to get a line 90 degrees from the car's centerline. As usual when looking for new stuff, I made some pretty thorough market research, which pointed me to Limit laser levels. I found out that it's a Swedish brand, which is a plus. When calling them, they were really helpful and measured the laser beam width for me in their lab. Unfortunately 3-plane laser levels have much wider beams than 2-plane due to the design.

I decided to give their Limit 1080-G a try as it had pretty sharp beam edges.

Today I tried out a methodology I think can work when I start building the chassis.

The first thing I will do is to place a stainless steel ruler (or several after each other) along the car's entire centerline on the floor. It will be mounted perfectly horizontal. (In the pictures I have mocked up part of this.)

I then will place vertical rulers / scales on a few places within the car body, so at least one can be hit by the horizontal laser beam. I will probably use the bottom of the rockers as the zero point. These will be fixed well so they can't move around. In the pictures I have just taped one in place.

So if I for instance want to place a transverse tube at 100 mm length coordinate and 100 mm height coordinate between the rockers, I will place the Limit 3-plane laser so the longitudinal beam lies perfectly along the car's centerline ruler and the transverse beam hits the 100 mm length mark. I could then adjust the stand so the horizontal beam hits the 100 mm height mark, but then I run the risk of moving the laser level around, so I think it's easier to use my old 2-plane laser for setting the height. Then it's just a matter of marking where the laser lines cross on the rockers!

I think the best way to get good accuracy with the wider lines of the 3-plane laser is to decide on always using one edge of the lines.
Since the edges are pretty sharp, I don't think the width of the line reduces accuracy. Perfect!

We'll se how this works out when I start building. I think it will work fine, and I don't have to build a jig!

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[chevyz240]

A few months ago I bought a couple of 3D printers. First I bought a Creality Ender 3 Pro and a few weeks later an Ender 3 V2 as well. One of the biggest reasons for doing this is to be able to print a physical scale model of the computer 3D model of the car I have been working on (on and off) for a long time. Another reason is to be able to print actual car parts.

As some of you may know I have a tendency to change my mind back and forth regarding lots of things concerning the car project, partly because it doesn't move forward very quickly, which gives me time to mull things over a lot. What I really would like to do is widen the entire car body and tweak some of the lines. This of course is quite a large project, so lately I have tried to shoot for wide fender flares on the existing body instead, and be content with that.

With me getting deeper and deeper entangled in the 3D printing world, I have come up with a new idea! :) I will create a new computer 3D model of the car body exactly as I would like it to be, and then I will 3D print a buck for the entire body (minus roof). This buck will be used to create forms that then will be used to create the actual body parts in fiberglass.

I will proably buy a larger printer, as with the ones I have, I would have to print around 300 pieces and then glue them together! With a Creality CR-10 Max for instance, that would be reduced to around 70 pieces. I have printed a little test piece to see what wall, bottom and top thickness I need, and what kind of infill (internal support structure) I need to get the pieces stiff and strong enough. A quick calculation shows that I will be needing around 100kg (200 lbs) of filament! And that the effective print time will be around 7 months, with one printer running 24/7!!!!! :)

The game plan is to print pieces that are 20-50 mm thick and glue them together. They will also be attached to a flat particle board or similar to get a strong, stiff and stable buck. Depending on the curvature of the part in question, the 3D printed pieces will be glued to posts, that in turn will be glued to the flat board. Otherwise, I would need to print very thick parts, wasting filament and time.

I think these bucks will only need a few coats of spray filler and some bodywork to get a good surface finish. With this method, it will be easy to get both sides of the car symmetrical. I will print in PLA, which prints easily and is cheap (relatively speaking), plus it is easy to glue. It is quite hard to sand, which normally would be bad, but here I think it is a positive property. If I get a good enough fit between the individual pieces, and they are precise enough, I will not need to sand the plastic itself, only the filler. To speed things up, I can use thick layers when printing, and just use an extra layer of spray filler instead.

The question is if I should go for this solution directly, which will save time and work to when the car is fully finished (as if it will ever be...), or if I first go with some simple fender flares on the existing body, and then do this after the car is drivable and has been registered, which will put the car on the road the quickest, but increase the time and work until it has reached the final finished state...

That part is something I can ponder for a while... Before I get to that, I need to build the chassis first!

Anyhow, I am really excited about the possibilities the 3D printing opens up!

For more pictures go to https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

In the pictures, you can see a nice feature in Cura, the slicer (software that creates the code for the 3D printer) I'm using. I am using 3 gradual infill steps, which means that the infill gets denser the closer to the top you get, which is where you need the most support. This saves both material and time. As I have stated in other Facebook posts, I am super impressed with what these cheap 3D printers can do!

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[jetmech442]

You sir, are my spirit animal lol! I don't know much about SEMA, but perhaps you should see if anyone knows how to get a booth, because your project was already over the top and 3d printing the buck would be so amazing -I think you'd steal the show.

Creality has the CR-30 on Kickstarter still for like 550$, it's a continuous conveyor belt 3d printer that can print infinitely long objects. I know it's not available yet, but perhaps it would save you a lot of gluing if you could print in long strips. Joel over on 3DPrinting Nerd has printed several very large swords and such to prove out its capabilities.

You may also look into an ultra-large 2mm nozzle (in lieu of the stock 0.4). This would help cut down your print time a lot, especially if you're going to hit them body filler afterwards.

Also, Teaching Tech has published a mostly automated version of calibrating your Creality in order to get excellent accuracy of hole locations wall thickness..etc. He published here: https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html#esteps and stored the code on Github.

You may already know this stuff, if so maybe it'll help someone else following in your footsteps in a few years. Go get em bud!

[chevyz240]

You sir, are my spirit animal lol! I don't know much about SEMA, but perhaps you should see if anyone knows how to get a booth, because your project was already over the top and 3d printing the buck would be so amazing -I think you'd steal the show.

Creality has the CR-30 on Kickstarter still for like 550$, it's a continuous conveyor belt 3d printer that can print infinitely long objects. I know it's not available yet, but perhaps it would save you a lot of gluing if you could print in long strips. Joel over on 3DPrinting Nerd has printed several very large swords and such to prove out its capabilities.

You may also look into an ultra-large 2mm nozzle (in lieu of the stock 0.4). This would help cut down your print time a lot, especially if you're going to hit them body filler afterwards.

Also, Teaching Tech has published a mostly automated version of calibrating your Creality in order to get excellent accuracy of hole locations wall thickness..etc. He published here: https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html#esteps and stored the code on Github.

You may already know this stuff, if so maybe it'll help someone else following in your footsteps in a few years. Go get em bud!

Thank you very much jetmech442, both for the nice words and the tips! :)

I work at Öhlins Racing, and I have been to both the PRI and SEMA shows, working in our booth and holding a couple of shock absorber seminars. Many years back, we actually discussed having my car in the booth! I will of course use Öhlins shocks on it! :) I don't think this will happen, but a dream would be to have the car in our SEMA booth and then be chosen to compete in the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational! After that, a month (or 2 or 3) long road trip over the USA would be the finishing touch! :)

With a larger nozzle, The walls will be thicker, costing more material. I think maybe a 0.8mm nozzle could be the sweet spot. When the CR-30 has been on the market a while and has been reviewed a few times, I will look into that as an option. I actually think that the lengthy print time is not all that bad as if I plan wisely, I can do a lot of other stuff on the car in parallel.

It's going ta take at least a year before I will start printing buck pieces, and with the quick development of printer technology, maybe even better printers will have come out then!

Right now, I'm printing a new test piece, which will be posted here and on https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace in the very near future!

[chevyz240]

I am continuing to experiment with 3D printing pieces that will simulate the bucks I will create later for the fiber glass body parts. This is a headlight bucket in half scale. I have taken that from my Blender 3D model of the entire car. It's still a bit rough around the edges, but for this test it works fine! I am pretty happy with the outcome!
I am using high quality filaments from add:north, which is a pretty new Swedish manufacturer. It feels good to support domestic companies, and it feels even better when the product is actually made here! They have a very good web site, where you get lots of info on the different filaments, you get "cheat sheets" that tell you what settings to use in your slicer (software that prepares the 3D print file), and you can compare properties between different filaments.

For more pictures, check out https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace!

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[David Sloan]

Wow!
So much to like about this build!
I don’t know how I missed this!

[andrewb70]

This is outrageous and super ambitious and I totally dig it.

Andrew

[Motown 454]

That's amazing what you can do with these printer.

[chevyz240]

Wow!
So much to like about this build!
I don’t know how I missed this!
Thanks David! :)

Your Camaro project is pretty sweet too! :)

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This is outrageous and super ambitious and I totally dig it.

Andrew
Thanks again Andrew! :)

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That's amazing what you can do with these printer.
Yes, and for pocket change! :)

[chevyz240]

Since Christmas, I have been spending quite a few hours on the design of the tube chassis for the Z. Now I have finally come far enough that I can contact SFRO and TESTA, the two organizations in Sweden that inspect and approve homebuilt cars. I would like to hear their comments on tube dimensions etc. so I don't build something that they will not approve, come inspection time. Depending on what they say, I will choose one of the two organizations to be the one to inspect my car.

The CAD model is far from done and complete, but I have modeled all the necessary parts to have the discussions with the inspectors. The suspension and a lot of other stuff is modeled very simplified. As the ones of you who have followed my build for a long time know, the roll cage was built many years ago. At that time, I didn't plan on building a full tube chassis. For that reason, some design choices may now seem a little strange, but I think they will be quite OK anyway.

As some of you also know, the windshield frame, the A-pillars, the roof, the side window frames and the C-pillars are welded to the cage. Since the car is so low, I couldn't have a roof diagonal without hitting my head on it, so I opted for a longitudinal tube in the middle of the roof and welding the roof itself to the cage. I think this will probably be both stiffer and stronger.

The passenger compartment doesn't have any triangulation due to the reason that I instead will glue and rivet aluminum sheets on both sides of the tubes, with a stiff foam core between. This sandwich construction will both be stiff and strong, plus it will also act as sound and heat insulation. The open area below the engine and transmission will be covered by a screw-on thicker aluminum sheet. To optimize tube routing and prevent the need for detachable tubes, the engine and tranny will be mounted from below.
The exact positions of the tubes around the front and rear suspension (based on BMW E39) are not yet decided. That will have to wait until I have developed the suspension geometry in a suspension software. I have measured the suspension points manually, but I feel that's not good enough, so the plan is to 3D scan the suspension before starting the geometry development.

Lately, I have almost decided to make a fiberglass body, but I haven't decided if I at first should go with what I have now and just create some simple fiberglass flares, get the car up and running and approved in inspection, and after that create the fiberglass body. We'll see what I will do… At any rate, the steel roof and part of the C-pillars will remain as they are, since they are integral to the car's structural integrity.

For more pictures see: https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace.

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[TANKMASTERJ]

I go with these what you have and get it roadable faster. Yo can always upgrade. When going the. Other route it always takes more YEARS.
WHAT IF WE DIE BEFORE DRIVING

[chevyz240]

I go with these what you have and get it roadable faster. Yo can always upgrade. When going the. Other route it always takes more YEARS.
WHAT IF WE DIE BEFORE DRIVING
Yup, that's one take on it! On the other hand, it will be more work in total until I get it where I want it to be! I'm swinging back and forth on this one... :)

[jetmech442]

Either direction you take it'll be inspirational to see it progress. Every time I see one of your posts I re-evaluate what I spend my time on lol.

[chevyz240]

Either direction you take it'll be inspirational to see it progress. Every time I see one of your posts I re-evaluate what I spend my time on lol.
Haha! :) Thank you very much jetmech442! :) I wonder a lot of times what I spend my time on! :)

[chevyz240]

Today I started preparing the car (and the garage) for the tube chassis construction by removing the engine and trans, the front fender, the front suspension and the stand that was holding what was left of the front part of the car, which was only the parts that hold the hood hinges, basically.

Maybe lifting down the entire front suspension by myself wasn't the kindest thing I could do to my back... I realized that when I had kicked away the stand, but then it was too late...

I took the opportunity to mark out the CG for the engine and trans combo. That will come in handy when I calculate the CG of the car.

See more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

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[David Sloan]

Nice update!
I just love this part of a build,
figuring out how to make everything work together that wasn’t designed to work with each other.
Thanks for sharing!

[chevyz240]

Nice update!
I just love this part of a build,
figuring out how to make everything work together that wasn’t designed to work with each other.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks David! Hopefully I will start adding stuff to the car, instead of taking away, which has been the case for a loooong time! :)

[chevyz240]

I have finished the wooden base for the centerline reference for the car. After that, I decided to reevaluate how I should define this centerline.

When I chopped the roof many years ago, I found that the car had been involved in one or more pretty serious crashes. The entire left rear quarter panel was replaced (brazed in place) and the roof had about a hundred small holes drilled in it. As I understand this was a pretty common American method back in the day to make body filler stick better. Nice... In general, there were some pretty thick Bondo layers here and there on the car.

When measuring the body during the chopping process, I found that the car was a bit warped. Depending on what reference points you used, it was twisted either to the left or to the right... When the roof was off, the body was pretty floppy, so I corrected this warp the best I could. I had to compromise and decide which features I thought were the most important regarding straightness. I also decided on what I should use as the car's reference centerline and marked it up on the body and subsequently the roll cage.

Back to today:
Since I more or less have decided to build a fiberglass body, except for the roof, the alignment of the lower part of the body is less important than the roof's. I therefore started to mark the middle point of different roof features; the back corners of the rear side windows, the windshield corners and so on. When doing this, I thought it would be good to also check the horizontal alignment of the car, since this was kind of a compromise as I explained above.

I found that the roof was a bit low on the passenger side. After measuring several points, I took the decision to shim up the passenger side's chassis stands 2 mm, as this would make the roof as horizontal as possible. Again a compromise was necessary as everything still isn't perfectly symmetrical and straight. I also don't think the cars were millimeter perfect from the factory...

I was still a bit surprised that the body seemed so much out of alignment. After some thinking, I thought it might be good to check the accuracy of the laser levels. More on that in an upcoming post...

More pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace! :)


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[chevyz240]

While checking the alignment of the car body on the stands, I came to think about the accuracy of the laser levels. I decided to investigate that thoroughly. As a lot of other stuff, this is of course something I should have done BEFORE I started using the lasers at all, but hindsight is 20/20...

Anywho, I came up with a scheme of marking up the laser lines on the garage walls, floor and roof, and changing the position of the laser 180 degrees and then doing the same again. This way I could see how much they were off. Both lasers were pretty accurate in Y, but not very good in X. The Bosch was also good in Z, but the Limit was a bit worse. This was a pretty annoying discovery as some of the measurements I did while "scanning" the body are a bit off. This is not super critical, but still...

For the 3-cross Limit laser, I still have to measure the accuracy of the horizontal cross, but in order to do that, I will need a large flat horizontal board. That'll be done later.

At least it's good I found this out before starting the build of the tube frame. Now I know how to compensate for the errors, if needed. Where possible, I will use my carpenter's level instead. While checking the lasers, I calibrated the carpenter's level, and it's pretty easy to see if it's off by 0.1 mm per meter. That's good enough for me! :)

After this little frustrating finding, I rechecked the Y position of my old centerline and found it to be good enough. The points I used as references are sometimes off to the left, and sometimes to the right, but the worst point is off less than 1.5 mm, so that'll do.

Finally, I could screw down the five one-meter steel scales on the wooden base that will make up the centerline. It was a long time coming, but now it's done! That feels nice! :)

As usual, more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace! :)

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[chevyz240]

I while ago the inspector from TESTA (one of the organizations in Sweden that inspect and approve homebuilt and highly modified cars) approved my chosen tube dimensions for my tube chassis. Yaaaayyyyyhhh!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

After that I have been searching for material. I intended to use 38x2 for the main tubes, but that was impossible to find in the correct material. I decided to use 40x2, which is readily available.

Today, I went on a shopping spree, driving 250 km (155 miles), buying the square tubes from one place and the round tubes from another. Of course, they had to be picked up in style, so I built some stands that I attached to the bed of my pickup truck. It worked fine. The last time I bought tubing was roughly 20 years ago when I bought the chrome moly tubes for the roll cage.

I took the opportunity to organize my material stand and move some stuff out from the garage. I was pretty lucky too, with the tubes butted up against the outside garage wall, I had around 6-7 cm margin too open a cabinet door!

Now, tube welding is not too far away!!!!!!!! 🙂

As always; more pictures at:

https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

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[wfo guy]

I was surprised at your choice of truck. I have no idea what's common in your area but I bet a C10 isn't it. :)

[chevyz240]

I was surprised at your choice of truck. I have no idea what's common in your area but I bet a C10 isn't it. :)

Of course, it's not super common, but not super rare either. :) One of Europes biggest car meets for (mostly) classic american cars is held in my home town, Västerås, here in Sweden. It's called Västerås Summer Meet (previously Power Meet). There will usually be between 10.000 and 20.000 cars here, and you would see maybe around 10-20 1960-1966 C10's.

Mine has an all-aluminum L33 engine (truck LS), five speed manual transmission, drop spindles, 4-wheel disc brakes, Öhlins shocks and some other non-stock stuff. In the summer, I use it both to go to car meets (mostly cars & coffee type stuff), hauling stuff, transporting my mountain bike, grocery shopping etc. :)

[chevyz240]

I have cut open the rockers in order to reach the bottom of the B-pillar tubes, the "main hoop". I have then taken thorough measurements of the position and angle of the tubes, which was difficult when they were hidden. That info has then been used to design the rear floor transverse tube. The next step is to level my milling machine and then use a hole saw to notch the tube ends accordingly. I am getting close to laying the first welds on the car in a few years! :)

As always: More pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

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[chevyz240]

In preparation for the chassis construction, I first leveled my old vertical mill. This will make it a lot easier to get the correct angles of the tubing notches.

After that I used the info from my CAD model of the chassis to cut and notch the rear floor transverse tube, which is the one most logical to start with. I had to think a few times to make sure that all the angles were correct and pointing in the right direction. To my surprise, I got it right the first time! I just had to sand the notches a little bit to get a nice fit. Not only did it fit well, it ended up perfectly aligned and in the correct position too! I used both lasers to position the tube before tacking it in place.

This feels really nice. Now I have a good base to build from! :)

More pictures at: https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

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[chevyz240]

The front end of the rocker panels need to be pie-cut to fit the frame design. Naturally the inner support structure needed a little relocation too. Now one side is almost ready for the square tubing that will be welded to the rockers.

Yesterday I received the digital spirit level I had ordered a while ago. I also bought a used fresh air welding helmet, which will be good for my health. I will also use it as a grinding mask. Right now if I use a dust mask in combination with the reading glasses I now require (I'm getting old...) and protective glasses, the glasses fog up in less than a minute. Hopefully the new welding/grinding helmet will mean that I don't need a common dust mask. I learnt from the guy I bought it from that if you fart when you use it, it will be highly unpleasant... The filter is located right above your butt! :)

As always: More pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

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[Motown 454]

First that is info (fart ) you’ll definitely be glad he gave you, because it will be your eyes water and you can’t just wipe them clean.
Consider it that first bar will be the beginning of something beautiful. ��

[chevyz240]

First that is info (fart ) you’ll definitely be glad he gave you, because it will be your eyes watering and you can’t just wipe them clean.
Consider it that first bar will be the beginning of something beautiful. ��

Haha, yeah I guess it was a good warning! :) He also recommended the activated carbon filter. Then you can fart all you want! :)

Thanks Wayne!

[chevyz240]

After the usual summer break and a fall and early winter full of work insulating the basement and laying down new drain piping plus some repair and maintenance work on my 430 000 km (267.000 mile) daily driver, it was finally time to continue work on Mechanix Menace!

I have swapped from a 20 liter rental Argon welding cylinder to a 10 liter version that I own. In order to fit it to my homemade welding cart, I 3D-printed a couple of adapters. The bottom one got some layer separation, but since it's only loaded in compression, it still works.

After that, I welded up the front side of the the driver's side rocker panel in the same way as the passenger's side. I used the Speedglas fresh-air welding helmet I bought used this summer. I use it for both welding, cutting and grinding. If I had bought something like this 40 years ago, I think my lungs would be in better shape!

The next step was to create the chassis jig for the driver's compartment. It consists of particle board stiffened with 2x4's. I had to shim the 2x4's with thin cardboard to get the surface perfectly flat. In the rear, it's clamped to the transverse tube I welded in earlier in the summer, and in the front it's supported by two wooden legs. It took some filing of those legs to get the jig perfectly level.

Today's last job was to notch the square tube that will be welded to the passenger's side rocker panel and rough cut the joint to the wider rectangular tube at the front of the rocker panel.

Let's hope that 2022 will be more focused on the Z!

Happy New Year!!!!! :)

As always, more pictures can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

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[Motown 454]

The progress looks good. Happy New year to you too.

[chevyz240]

The progress looks good. Happy New year to you too.

Thanks Wayne! :)

[chevyz240]

Today I welded up the combination of square tubes that make up the outer part of the floor on the passenger side and welded them to the rocker panel. I was surprised how little distortion I got!

As always, more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

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[TANKMASTERJ]

I absolutely love this project. The rendering no is beautiful. As wil be the process of the build.
I'm subscribed
Jason

[chevyz240]

I absolutely love this project. The rendering no is beautiful. As wil be the process of the build.
I'm subscribed
Jason

Thanks Jason! Be sure to check out my Facebook page, there you will found a lot more pictures!

Henrik

[jaybee]

Making progress, and everything looks great.

[chevyz240]

Making progress, and everything looks great.

Thanks John! :)

[chevyz240]

Last weekend I fabbed and tack welded the square tubing to the driver's side rocker panel. After that it was time to mark out where all the bottom tubes are going to be placed on the floor jig. A couple of different methods were used to make sure the transverse lines are at a perfect right angle to the center line.

I have been feeling a bit ill since Monday, and yesterday I tested postive for Covid. Luckily, it's just like a mild cold (at least so far), so I have been able to continue working on the car.

In order to help positioning the chassis tubes, I 3D printed a clamp for the 40 mm round tubes. I can imagine that I will make other, more intricate, clamps and fixtures when the need arises.

Today I moved the heavy, bulky tubing bender from it's storage in the basement to the garage. It was a bit exciting holding it in place while reaching down tightening the screws that hold it to the garage floor. Luckily it didn't fall over. I then levelled it in both X and Y. It was very long ago since I used it the last time. The dies are made for 1 3/4" tubing, but I have previously made removable aluminum sheet inserts for smaller tube diameters. It works pretty well.

It was then time to bend the first bottom tube for the transmission tunnel. I got the angle perfect on the second attempt. A bit lucky, I guess... The next step was notching it for the rear transverse tube. I did that in two steps, so I could see how much it needed shortening. The final thing today was to make a rough miter cut where it will be joined to the front transverse tube. Tomorrow I will finalize that joint, and hopefully tack those two tubes in place.

It's perfect to have a digital level and a laser when aligning tubes to be cut or notched.

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[TANKMASTERJ]

Nice bender! And I absolutely love this project. That z is going to be so freaking cool and fast! Keep the good work and updates coming Henrik!
Jasom

[chevyz240]

Nice bender! And I absolutely love this project. That z is going to be so freaking cool and fast! Keep the good work and updates coming Henrik!
Jasom

Thanks Jason!

Yes, it's a pretty good bender. I bought it many years ago in the States on a business trip. In order to get it home, I had to buy a pair of tie-down straps and attach them to the box and wear it as a back back. It weighs around 90 pounds (that's without the stand, which I have made), so it was a bit tricky to put on and off. In conjunction with my other luggage, I think I had 180 pounds of luggage in total! Luckily, in those years the airlines weren't so picky, so I didn't have to pay for overweight baggage.

[chevyz240]

When checking my chassis jig, I found that it needed some tweaking to be perfectly flat at the front end. That was achived by inserting shims made of paper folded different number of times inserted between the supporting 2x4 and the particle board in different places. I also noted that the board sagged a bit in the middle, so an extra supporting 2x4 was screwed in under the centerline and also got shimmed to create a flat, horizontal surface. The entire surface is now flat within 2 or 3 tenths of a millimeter. That is good enough for me.

I have done some experimenting to find out how much to chamfer the tube ends for different junctions to create the best weld penetration. I also tested out what welding current to use for the different junctions.

Now that I have those things sorted out, welding in upcoming tubes will go much quicker. Yesterday, I also 3D printed two new clamps to hold the tubes firmly in place on the jig, to help minimize welding distortion.

Today, the two tubes making up the lower right side of the transmission tunnel and the lower right side of the firewall were tacked in place. I am putting a lot of effort into assuring everything is as spot on dimensionally as humanly possible with the tools at hand. I know that after everything is fully welded, the chassis will distort, but I don't want to add errors already at this stage. I take way to much pride in my work for that. Although this project would move along much, much quicker if my standards were closer to the average gearhead's... :)

The left hand lower trans tunnel tube also got bent before leaving the garage for good today. Just for fun, I calculated the two tube bends I have made so far are within 0.03 degrees of where they should be. Of course that is impossible to achieve with the tubing bender alone. After using the bender 2-4 times, I need to put the tube back in the bender and then yank on the tube by hand a few times, either in the bend direction, or in the opposite directing, to get it spot on. Since I am using mild steel, as opposed to the chrome moly used in the cage, this demands a bit less effort.

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

The last week I have tacked together all the tubes making up the bottom layer of the passenger compartment. It all started a bit bad though: I had bent and notched the driver's side trans tunnel tube, and was just going to make the miter cut at the front end. As always, I measured carefully, but I made a screw-up using the line for the wrong side of the transverse tube... That meant the tube ended up too short... Maybe three hours down the drain! Well, the next day I got back on the horse again and did it correct this time. A bit quicker too, since I had gotten more practice!

After all those tubes were in place, the next thing on the agenda was to start building the upper level of the chassis jig. This will be used to position the tubes for the upper part of the trans tunnel and the upper transverse tube, which also will be the base for the rear end of the chassis. This tube will be welded to my previously hidden B-pillar tubes, so I had to cut part of the inner sheet metal away first.

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

I have finished building the rear part of the jig for the upper layer tubes. This is again made of 22 mm particle board and 2x4's. A couple of 2x2's are used to position the rear upper crossmember. Again, the jig is shimmed perfectly flat and horizontal using cardboard as thin as 0.35 mm.

Then it was time to make the rear upper crossmember. It consists of two 50x50x2 square tubes welded together. Ideally, this crossmember should go all the way out to the B-pillars of the rollcage (It could be considered to be the main hoop, but it's actually not :)). This is not possible due to the seats being so close to the rear wheels. Instead the crossmember is attached to the B-pillars via 1.5 mm thick Docol 800 sheetmetal pieces.

Initially these pieces were designed to be warped to match the two angles of the crossmember and the B-pillar. I soon realized it was impossible to warp this high strength sheetmetal. Instead I bent it diagonally to match the angles. Of course, I could not use my homemade sheet metal brake due to above reasons, so I clamped if between two 2x4's in my vise and banged on it with a sledge hammer. The result came out OK.

To position this piece, I again used my 3D printer to make a couple of fixtures holding it perfectly perpendicular to the B-pillar tube.

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[anguilla1980]

I don't use FB so I appreciate the updates you take the time to make here.

Great to see the progress on this. I'm sure there are many like me who can learn from your skills.

[bkbkbk]

Wow, thanks so much for sharing this build! I absolutely love the classic Z cars. Sure wish I had the mind to juggle so many elements of a project as you. I would be completely lost.

[chevyz240]

I don't use FB so I appreciate the updates you take the time to make here.

Great to see the progress on this. I'm sure there are many like me who can learn from your skills.

Thanks anguilla1980!

The Facebook posts are exactly the same, except for the number of pictures. If I added all the pictures I post on FB, I would reach the limit here long before the project is finished! :)

[chevyz240]

Wow, thanks so much for sharing this build! I absolutely love the classic Z cars. Sure wish I had the mind to juggle so many elements of a project as you. I would be completely lost.

Thanks bkbkbk!

Yeah, I get pretty lost a lot of times myself! One thing that really can make me stressed out is thinking about how to solve problems that I will not have to deal with during the next couple of years, but I still really want to have a solution in my mind, right now! I have to practice concentrating at the subject at hand instead!

[chevyz240]

This week I have welded the rear crossmember brackets in place on the B-pillars and tacked the rear crossmember to them.

It was then time to make the front part of the jig for the trans tunnel upper tubes. This was a bit trickier to align due to the inclination of it. I also had to make a pretty extreme angle cut of the back end using a foxtail saw. As usual, a lot of measuring and alignment using my laser tools, spirit level, steel scales, cardboard shims and other tools ensued. After many hours, the result came out pretty OK.

One night when I couldn't sleep, I came up with (as I think at least) a pretty nifty little tube notching template for the rear end of the trans tunnel tubes. Naturally this was 3D printed. I am really happy that I bought my 3D printers!

The last thing I did today was to mark out alignment lines for the tubes. Due to these tubes being bent both horizontally and vertically, I can't use the jig as a template when bending the tubes. First when the tubes are correctly bent and notched, they will fit the jig. I have used the CAD model to see what angle the bends should have. I will then mark that out on another piece of particle board. The "wings" on the notching template will then be used to align it to the board, getting the notch at the correct angle. I am pretty anxious to see how this works out. Hopefully, I will find that out next week.

Over and out for this time!

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

My idea making 3D printed tube notching templates that are oriented with tabs or "wings" against the particle board bending template worked out pretty sweet! I will use that method a lot in the future.

When I clean off the rust protection oil from the tubing, I use acetone. I could clean the inside before I bend them, but I also like to clean out all the cutting debris after notching the ends, so I do that right before tacking them in place. To be able to push the wad of kitchen paper through, I had to make a jointed push tool! :)

I also realized that I couldn't use my regular steel square when checking the alignment of the front sloping part of the upper trans tunnel tubes, since I drew the alignment lines out from a vertical projection. That meant that the square had to be aligned vertically too. Again, the 3D printer came to the rescue. I made an alignment template with slots cut at the correct angle (12.9 degrees) for a piece of 1 mm sheet metal. That worked out well too.

After the top trans tunnel tubes were tacked in place, I had to cut the front part of the fixture away, too make room for the inner firewall tubes. I hade to cut it away from below using a foxtail saw.

Then it took me a while to come up with a fixture for those tubes, but I finally came up with a good solution. In order to get around the front vertical 2x4 of the main jig, it had to be a bit more complicated than just one piece of particle board.

I am pretty satisfied with the outcome of this week's work.

More to come next week, I hope! :)

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

This week, I haven't done that much, since I had a friend visting me over the weekend. I did manage to get one of the rear trans tunnel verticals tacked in place. My 3D printed notching templates helped even more than for previous tubes, since here there were two tubes at different angles involved at both tube ends.

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

The second rear trans tunnel vertical got tacked in place this week and the right hand top inner firewall tube (long name… :)) as well.

Today, I also thought I should explain in detail all (well, almost all) the steps that are involved in getting a tube in place, taking this last tube as an example. See the captions for the whole story!


In this case, I first create a fixture or jig that will position the tube so it will line up with the sandwich panel that will make up the front right hand trans tunnel wall. As you can see in the CAD model, this panel is flush with the inside of the bottom tube and the outside of the top tub. (There are several reasons for this, which will be easier to understand later on.) This makes it a bit harder to make the fixture, as it can’t just be supported on the tubes themselves.

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This fixture is made from the now famous 22 mm thick particle board. In this case, I had to make it in two pieces to clear a 2x4. On the bottom, it rests against the tube itself…

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…but at the top it needs to be positioned 15 mm further out. This is accomplished by attaching two 3D printed spacers to the board.

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I then need to mark out where the new tube should be positioned. Using the CAD model, I project the tube perpendicularly against the inner plane of the trans tunnel wall (which is the outside of the fixture). This gives me the height and length coordinates of the tube end plus the angle of the tube (this is more an extra check that the upper front tube of the trans tunnel is in the correct place) and the angle of the cut at the lower end.

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In order to create a transverse line at the correct length coordinate, I first use my 3 plane laser. Since the frame jig is in the way, I have to create this line in two steps. I first mark the line on the garage floor and walls. (This picture is from a previous step, but the method is the same.)

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I then use the 2 plane laser, which has thinner lines that are easier to work with, and line it up with the markings on the floor and on the wall. I then can mark out the vertical line at the correct length coordinate on the fixture.

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The next step is to mark out the height coordinate. Both lasers have a reasonably accurate vertical beam, and the horizontal beam is reasonably accurate left to right, but pretty bad lengthwise. This picture shows what I mean.

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If I can place the laser perpendicular against the point I want mark out and my height scale on the garage wall, I don’t need to compensate for anything, but in this case, I can’t. Therefore, I measure the ”depth difference”, which in this case is around 2100 mm. This means that the beam rises 2.3 mm. This needs to be taken into account when marking out the height coordinate.

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I can now mark out the horizontal line and extend it so it can be seen from a position where the laser is perpendicular as described above. I do this to check if I have calculated correctly, which I have!

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For those of you who really scrutinize this, I can add that my scale on the garage wall has the top of the car at 305 mm, which must be added to the height coordinates from the CAD model! :)

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Using the angles from the CAD model, the edge of the tube and the bottom cut is marked on the fixture.

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Now I can turn my attention to the tube itself. First I use the CAD model to design the 3D printed notching templates. As previously explained, I add “wings” that are used to rotationally orient the ends against each other.

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I put the notching templates on the tube and align them to each other, making the tube a bit longer to have some margin to trim it to the perfect length.

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I then scribe the cut lines.

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Then I cut and grind the ends to shape.

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The notch that needs to be made in the trans tunnel tubes has a tricky shape, and in this case I grind it manually, step by step, testing the fit as I go, without using a notching template. Here I actually cheated, and did it before a few of the above steps.

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When the tube fits well against the dash panel diagonal tube, the trans tunnel tubes and the fixture, I can mark how much the bottom needs to be cut to make the length perfect.

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Here, it is cut and put in place again and all alignments are double checked.

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Now, it’s finally time to tack it in place!

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When marking out the tube positions, sometimes it has to be done in many steps, creating a long tolerance chain. I was a bit worried where the lower end of the tube ended up regarding the lateral coordinate. I used the laser and found it was at 327 mm. This was easy to remember, since I had a 327 in one of my Novas (before putting a twin turbo 350 in it…) I then went up in the house and started the computer and checked the CAD model, and what did I find???

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Yiiiiiiihaaaaa!!!!!! :) :) :) :) :) :)

These are the steps for getting ONE tube in place! Luckily some of them are a bit easier. Tomorrow, I think I will take a day off from the garage and learn how to fly my drone instead! :)

Larger pictures can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace.

[andrewb70]

Is there a completion date for this?

[Motown 454]

Wow Amazing !

[Vimes]

Your thread is a real adventure. I wouldn't mind seeing you let loose in the engineering and design shop of a major OEM if this is what you're able to do in your garage in your spare time. Great work here.

[chevyz240]

Is there a completion date for this?

No Andrew, not really. Before I die, I hope! :)

- - - Updated - - -


Wow Amazing !

Thanks Wayne! :)

[chevyz240]

Your thread is a real adventure. I wouldn't mind seeing you let loose in the engineering and design shop of a major OEM if this is what you're able to do in your garage in your spare time. Great work here.

Thank you very much Vimes! That feels good to hear! I am already partly doing this, but not on full cars; I design and tune shock absorbers for OEM's; Volvo, Polestar, Koenigsegg, Pagani, Lotus, Ruf and others. :)

[dhutton]

Wow. Such attention to detail and precision. You don’t see many folks talking about tolerance chains. Flashback to design reviews before I retired.

Don

[chevyz240]

Wow. Such attention to detail and precision. You don’t see many folks talking about tolerance chains. Flashback to design reviews before I retired.

Don

Thanks Don! :)

Yeah, I have always been a perfectionist and I guess my engineering background comes into play as well. Regarding precision and accuracy, when I worked with engine development for Scania, the average fuel mileage improvement of the trucks per year was 0.5%. This meant that everything you tried in the engine cells (dyno rooms) had to be measured with an accuracy on the order of 0.05% or less in order to see if it was an improvement or not.

[TANKMASTERJ]

That's totally awesome you work in R & D for Scania.
One thing I do wish I had some on my Camaro build is more time and thought it into my chassis. I'm running the Speedtech gear which is great but I wish I would have done some tube chassis weld in like you have. I do have a roll cage front to back but not at the level you are. I absolutely love your perfectionisti mindset on this build.
It's what keeps me coming back to look. That and
Well it's a Z!
Jason

[chevyz240]

That's totally awesome you work in R & D for Scania.
One thing I do wish I had some on my Camaro build is more time and thought it into my chassis. I'm running the Speedtech gear which is great but I wish I would have done some tube chassis weld in like you have. I do have a roll cage front to back but not at the level you are. I absolutely love your perfectionisti mindset on this build.
It's what keeps me coming back to look. That and
Well it's a Z!
Jason

Thanks Jason! :)

Well, Scania was 30 years ago almost! :) Now I work at Öhlins Racing designing and tuning shock absorbers. Mostly OE stuff, Polestar and Volvo for the most part the last 5-6 years, before that Koenigsegg, Pagani, Lotus, Ruf and others. And before that, racing stuff; NASCAR Cup cars, Dirt Late Model, Rally Raid, World Rally Cars, GT-cars and others. I also do a little bit of development test driving, but not so much. :)

Around 15 years ago I visited Detroit Speed and tried to convince them to offer Öhlins shocks as an upgrade, but unfortunately that never happened.

[wfo guy]

I liked the use of 3d for the tube markers. I have read through your thread in the past but have no memory so I don't remember much from the beginning. Please convey your thoughts on the design of the chassis. You have a lot of triangulation with smaller tubes. Is there a reason you don't use slightly larger tubes to simplify and cut down on stress risers? :)

[chevyz240]

I liked the use of 3d for the tube markers. I have read through your thread in the past but have no memory so I don't remember much from the beginning. Please convey your thoughts on the design of the chassis. You have a lot of triangulation with smaller tubes. Is there a reason you don't use slightly larger tubes to simplify and cut down on stress risers? :)

Thanks for a technical question, wfo guy! :)

First of all the lack of triangulation in the driver's compartment is due to the fact that I will have a sandwich design instead, consisting of 1 mm aluminum sheet on both sides of a stiff foam core. This will be glued and riveted to the tubing. This will be lighter, stronger and stiffer than triangulation plus sheet metal. It will also provide noise and heat insulation.

Regarding tubing diameter, the smallest ones are 1 3/8", which is more than enough, considering they are so short, so they will not be subjected to buckling. I don't know exactly what you mean by stress risers, do you mean that they will occur due to the smaller tubing having less material, or due to the diameter itself? If you have full triangulation, all the tubes will basically only be loaded in compression and tension.. As long as you don't have buckling, you can use small diameters. That will actually give more uniform loading in the joints. Where there is no triangulation, the tubes will also be loaded in bending and twisting, and there you will have use for larger diameters to increase the stiffness.

Since the triangulation is there more for stiffness than strength, very little material is needed to add a lot of stiffness. Using larger diameter tubing will only add weight. If I would use bigger diameter material, they would need to be very thin to have the same weight, thinner than what is easily commercially available.

Regarding simplification, it's actually easier to use smaller diameter tubing. A diagonal that goes all the way to the corners will not be able to be put in place without cutting away a tab on one side of the tube to be able to push it in place. The bigger the diameter, the bigger this tab needs to be.

I hope this answers your questions, otherwise please get back to me! :)

For the very front part of the chassis, I could probably get away with thinner or smaller diameter tubing, but part of the reason for choosing the dimensions of all the tubing is to be able to register the car for road use here in Sweden. It would be hard to convince the inspectors using smaller tubing.

I can also add that for crashworthiness, I will add a deformation zone at the very front, made from a thick piece of aluminum honeycomb. This will also be used in the doors.

[wfo guy]

I misjudged the size of tubing I saw. I thought maybe it was 1". What alloy and wall thickness are you using?

[chevyz240]

I misjudged the size of tubing I saw. I thought maybe it was 1". What alloy and wall thickness are you using?

The thinnest tubes are SAE 4130N, 1 3/8"x0.058".

[wfo guy]

That size tubing is over in dragster construction land where I used to be. :) Your comment about corner to corner for a diagonal: we used to cut those to length but not weld the top or encapsulation rail in place until all the bars were a finished size for the proper fit. The accepted clearance was less than 50 thous. I'm sure in today's world, solidworks or a companion program allows the correct dimension to be calculated and cnc cut to where this is simplified. I'm from the dinosaur days before any of that was available. In dragsters, we had flex in some areas that were advantageous for weight transfer. As I understand, the current logic in road or auto cross is to have sufficient strength to minimize chassis flex so the suspension does all of the work and is repeatable in normal conditions. Is that where your design is headed?

[chevyz240]

That size tubing is over in dragster construction land where I used to be. :) Your comment about corner to corner for a diagonal: we used to cut those to length but not weld the top or encapsulation rail in place until all the bars were a finished size for the proper fit. The accepted clearance was less than 50 thous. I'm sure in today's world, solidworks or a companion program allows the correct dimension to be calculated and cnc cut to where this is simplified. I'm from the dinosaur days before any of that was available. In dragsters, we had flex in some areas that were advantageous for weight transfer. As I understand, the current logic in road or auto cross is to have sufficient strength to minimize chassis flex so the suspension does all of the work and is repeatable in normal conditions. Is that where your design is headed?

Getting the right fit is not a problem, the problem is geometrical. If you want to weld everything fully, you either need to cut away a little tab to get the diagonal in place, and then weld that tab back on, or you need to let the diagonals not go to fully to the corners.

Remember, we are only talking about the small diagonals at the front of the chassis. The main part of the chassis is made of 40x2 mm tubing. The roll cage has even larger tubing.

Yes, for handling and comfort, you want the chassis to be as stiff as possible, both in bending (not as important) and torsion. That allows the tuning of the suspension to be more effective, but it also places more demand on having the correct spring rates, shock curves and so on. If you don't tune the springs and shocks to your specific application, but just buy some generic shocks and springs, you might be better off with a less stiff chassis. Then the bad setup will not have such a large influence. If you would have a chassis with zero torsional stiffness, you would not be able to change the handling characteristics at all with shocks and springs. Well, at least not static under/oversteer. You could still affect transients a bit (corner entry/exit).

[wfo guy]

We never worried about that. When the diagonal is fully welded, No one that I was around ever seemed to be concerned about the area you are referring to. My thought would be that cutting out and welded the tube joint would not gain enough to warrant another welded area. Do you have some documentation that shows that would be warranted?

[chevyz240]

We never worried about that. When the diagonal is fully welded, No one that I was around ever seemed to be concerned about the area you are referring to. My thought would be that cutting out and welded the tube joint would not gain enough to warrant another welded area. Do you have some documentation that shows that would be warranted?

No documentation, just logical reasoning. in practice, when we are talking about stiffness, your method probably is OK too.

[chevyz240]

The left top inner firewall tube is now also tacked in place and I have cut the lower one to size. From now on I think there will be a little less progress every week as I have gotten back to my MTB riding. I have made a two and a half month long pause, which is the longest I have paused in 8 years, I think. I will ride at least once per weekend, and those days I tend to do little or nothing in the garage.

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

I played around a bit with Powerpoint and found an effect I liked so now my Facebook cover photo is changed. Real updates to come tomorrow! :)

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[chevyz240]

This week I have clamped a support tube for the front lower part of the trans tunnel in place with hose clamps to minimize distortion when seam welding everything later on. I also got a pair of square tubes in place where the shift lever will come up.

The lower inner firewall tubes have been tacked in place. I had to fully weld the part of the bottom tubes that these tubes cover. As I suspected, they warped enough to not be horizontal anymore. I had to wedge in a couple of 2x4's under the chassis jig to make them horizontal again. I also managed to get the left hand inner seat vertical in place. Of course I had to scrap one that I cut at the wrong angle first...

It's really satisfying to get the angles and other dimensions from the CAD model and cut the tubes according to this and find out the tube fits like a glove! All the hours spent creating the CAD model now really prove their worth! I think I have said this before! 🙂

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[jaybee]

I like the way you jig all this together with simple fixtures made from inexpensive materials.

[chevyz240]

I like the way you jig all this together with simple fixtures made from inexpensive materials.

Thanks John!

Yeah, it would be nice to have a sturdy chassis jig made from steel. That would contain the welding distortion better, but you can come pretty far with wood as well. I am really happy that I came up with the idea to 3D print the notching templates, and especially the tabs that help locating the ends against each other. That has saved me many, many hours of work and lots of scrapped tubing!

[chevyz240]

This week hasn't been that productive, partly due to what I will expand on in a moment. I have gotten the second inner seat vertical in place and the right hand upper trans tunnel support tube is notched and ready but not tacked in place yet.

Yesterday I was invited to the garage in Stockholm where my Datsun lived from 1989 until 1994. At that time we were around 14 guys who wrenched on cars and bikes. One guy even started building an airplane! Now, two of those guys still reside there. One was even there when it was made to a garage from an old vinyl record pressing company in the 1980's! It was nice to see what it looked like now and to meet some of the guys again! Some shelves I put up together with the buddy that I shared the space with were still there.

In -89 I began putting the Chevy 350 in the car and in the fall of -93 I took the first illegal test drive around the block with a temporary electrical system for the most important stuff. That was just a few days before I moved to Stuttgart in Germany for a year. I drove the car with this 350 and a Muncie M21 during -96 and -98 before embarking on the overly long project journey that it has transformed into... :)

In one of the pictures you can see part of the 5 kg (10 lbs) lightening operation I did on the engine block, inspired from Smokey Yunick's book Power Secrets. If you look carefully you see the windows at the back end of the block where the bellhousing is attached.

When I did NASCAR stuff I saw Smokey prowling the garage area at a race (Darlington if memory serves me right) one or two years before he passed on to the great racetrack in the sky.

The block underwent this diet a number of years earlier when I had the engine in my -62 Nova. In 1987 I put twin turbos on the engine. At that time there were not many turboed V8's in Sweden.

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[TANKMASTERJ]

Henrik the chassis work is looking stellar.
I love this build. The rendering screams hurry up!

[chevyz240]

Henrik the chassis work is looking stellar.
I love this build. The rendering screams hurry up!

Thanks a lot Jason!:thankyou:

Compared to previous years, I AM hurrying up! :)

[chevyz240]

Both upper trans tunnel support tubes are tacked in place. They were the last tubes in the cabin that make sense putting in at this stage.

I can't start on the front part of the chassis before I have decided on what front suspension I will use and it's exact geometry. It needs to work in harmony with the rear suspension geometry. This is also not ready yet. I must 3D scan the BMW rear suspension before I decide on the position of the subframe. So, at this stage there are just a few tubes on the rear part of the chassis that I can put in place before the suspension geometry work starts. First I will put the square tubes that will connect to the roll cage in place (the red one in the CAD model).

In order to minimize roll cage distortion when cutting away metal from the old rear strut towers, I welded in some support braces between them. I also supported the ends of the roll cage cross bars with tack welded temporary tabs. I will try to cut away as little metal as possible before welding new tubes in place, to keep everything as stiff as possible during the whole process. It would be a lot easier and quicker to cut out the entire wheel wells and strut towers to gain access to everything. However, this would create distortion from built in tensions.

When measuring where to do some of the cuts for this operation, I noticed that the roll cage cross bars weren't perfectly symmetrical. This is due to the fact that I welded them in place on the strut towers so they looked the same from side to side. The strut towers weren't symmetrical, probably both due to factory tolerances and a crash (or crashes) that the car had seen. I will have to cut away one of the legs below the intersection and redo that later on.

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[Vimes]

If you like the BMW rear suspension, the easy recommendation would be a BMW front suspension from the same year/type of car. Makes buying parts easy to remember, and the front and rear parts would be designed to work together anyway. In theory, the car should handle just about like said BMW.

[chevyz240]

If you like the BMW rear suspension, the easy recommendation would be a BMW front suspension from the same year/type of car. Makes buying parts easy to remember, and the front and rear parts would be designed to work together anyway. In theory, the car should handle just about like said BMW.

Vimes, if you look at older posts, you will find that I already have the front suspension from the very same BMW E39! :)

If I use that, it will not remain a MacPherson suspension though, mainly for three reasons:
1. Due to the low body of the Z, the struts would protrude through the hood around 4 inches! Shortening them would mess up the geometry and shorten the stroke too much.
2. Macpherson strut suspensions are not optimal regarding the camber curve.
3. MacPherson strut suspensions have more friction than double A-arm or multilink suspensions.

My idea is to turn it into an A-arm (actually multilink) suspension, but due to the twin lower ball joints, there will be much larger caster variation with a short spindle compared to the long original strut when steering. I am not sure how critical this is. There will also be more caster change when braking and hitting a bump due to elastokinematics (flex in the rubber bushings).

First I will scan the rear suspension and put all the pickup points in a suspension software. I will then design the front suspension geometry to match the rear. Then I can see these caster changes and decide if it should work or not. If it seems like it would not work, I will probably use Corvette C6 suspension pieces and design the geometry to match the Bimmer rear suspension.

[Vimes]

Heh heh, no worries, too many projects to remember it all.

[chevyz240]

Heh heh, no worries, too many projects to remember it all.

Of course, I wasn't complaining about your memory! :)

[chevyz240]

The first rectangular tube connecting the cage to the C-pillar is now tacked in place. This was a really tricky job; partly because it is kind of a cramped area, which makes it hard to reach with the angle grinder or the Dremel to cut away metal where the tube is supposed to fit and also to reach with the TIG torch. There are also several places that need to be cut with precision to get a good fit for the tube, not just the two ends of it.

Since I want the car to be as quiet as possible, I am a bit worried about suspension and shock absorber noise being transmitted to the cabin via the roll cage. To try to minimize this, I decided to fill all the tubing next to the shocks with polystyrene foam insulation. Therefore I drilled 20 mm holes leading to the tubes in question. I will have one hole in which to spray the foam and hopefully, it will expand into the other tubes. Afterwards, this hole will be covered by a welded lid.

That's it for this week!

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As always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[wfo guy]

Would a tig pencil torch be of use to you?

[chevyz240]

Would a tig pencil torch be of use to you?

Thanks for the tip, wfo guy! That could maybe help in some places. I have a torch with a tip that you can bend, which is helpful, but it still get's tricky in some places. If it gets too tricky, I will look into pencil torches.

[chevyz240]

Even though it has been a long weekend, I didn't manage to work as much in the garage as I had intended. Yesterday, I experienced acute lower back pain when I was out mountain biking, and since then I have had very limited mobility. I should maybe listen to my own proverb "All sports are dangerous, except motor sports!" :rotfl: In all honesty, I did lay the foundation for the back pain by crawling on all four a lot of times getting in and out of the trunk area of the Z doing the latest chassis work. I have instead spent my time checking through a lot of build threads here! :)

I did at least manage to get the second rectangular tube connecting the cage to the C-pillar in place, and I also started fitting the diagonal going from the bottom of the main hoop to this tube.

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Unusually; NO more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace :rotfl:

[chevyz240]

The part of the roll cage cross I had to cut off has been replaced by a new piece of tubing and both diagonals going from the floor up to the cage have been tacked in place. This is the last bit of welding I will do in a while. It's not sensible to continue with the rear part of the chassis before I know exactly at what height and at what angle I will place the rear suspension subframe.

I took the opportunite to tidy up the garage and clean up all the metal shavings and dust. Since I'm not going to cut metal for a while, this seemed like a good time to do it!

The next step is to take the rear suspension to work and use our high end 3D scanner to scan it. After that I will put the geometry in the CAD system and find all suspension pivot points. They will then be entered into a suspension software and there I will experiment with different heights and side view angles to try to find the best compromise between roll center height, camber curves and a multitude of other parameters. Only after that can I design the exact geometry of the rear part of the chassis.

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As (almost) always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[TANKMASTERJ]

Wow looks like your chassis work is coming along strong Henrik. I'm sure it seems slow to you on your end but I notice the progress . This is such a cool and creative build I love it.

Jason

[chevyz240]

Wow looks like your chassis work is coming along strong Henrik. I'm sure it seems slow to you on your end but I notice the progress . This is such a cool and creative build I love it.

Jason

Thanks Jason! Well, the progress is a lot quicker than in the last few years at least! ;)

[chevyz240]

Not much has happened in a month. I have been practicing using the FaroArm at work that I will use to 3D scan the rear suspension. I have also started dismanling the rear suspension to make the 3D scanning simpler. Yesterday I cleaned some of the parts to be scanned. Hopefully, I can start doing that next week.

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This time only one more picture at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace :)

[chevyz240]

I have started 3D scanning some rear suspension parts. I probably haven't touched on but a small percentage of all the different parameters you can adjust to get a good scan, but it's not as simple and easy as you might imagine. First, it's not easy to see if you have covered the entire surface or if there will be some holes in the scan. Also, some surfaces are difficult to scan, like matt black rubber. You can put different kind of coatings on the part to ease scanning, but in my case it's really not that critical. For the important surfaces, I'm using a mechanical probe. This would really suffice for the info I need to put in my suspension software to check all important suspension parameters, like roll center position, camber curves, etc. But, I still like to have the shape of all the parts, to put in my CAD model, partly to have the ability to check for clearance against the exhaust system and other parts, but mostly because I think it's cool to have the complete suspension scanned in a nice way.

The CAD system at work unfortunately doesn't handle surface models, so I really can't do much editing on the point clouds I get from the scanner. Luckily, the freeware Blender I have been using for the body design can be used to fix things, like mending holes. Even if I scan at the lowest resolution, the point cloud still gets pretty large, so patching up things get pretty tedious, as the mesh has such a fine resolution. Again, this really isn't necessary, but I like things to look good!

To know the articulation point of the ball joints on some of the suspension links, I probed them in a few different positions. I then extended the stud centerlines to see where they merged, that is the articulation point. Due to measurement accuracy and play in the ball joints, they of course don't merge in exactly the same point, but close enough!

Today I have been out mountain biking with a friend, and as I write this, I listen to some old classics, like Buggles and ELO, while working in the CAD system, eating pizza and replenishing the fluid loss with Hefeweizen beer! There are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon! :) (During the MTB trip, I of course had some whiskey to take the fear off from some of the scarier passages! :) )

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As (almost) always; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

During the summer, I have been doing a lot of mountain biking, digging dirt and refilling after my basement drainage and insulation work. I have also drank a few beers and some whiskey! Irish (not Scottish), hence the spelling... :)

Before the summer vacation, I finalized 3D scanning all the rear suspension parts. After that, I cleaned up the individual CAD models so they at least look decent. That takes quite a lot of time.

In order to find the center of ball joints, I probe the stud in four different positions (two is enough, but I want to make sure that play and faulty measurements aren't screwing things up). I then extend the stud centerlines to find the intersection. If they all end up in the same point, there is no play and the measurements are correct. That point is then the center of articulation!

After finding all articulation points and axis on all suspension members, I could then constrain them to each other in the proper way in the CAD assembly.

Previously, I hand measured the entire rear suspension and rough modeled it in the CAD, in order to be able to start on the chassis modeling. Now, I could compare it to the scanned suspension. They came out pretty close! I guess I am getting used to making reasonably accurate measurements! :)

The next step was to find all the coordinates for the suspension joints. I could then put them in the Shark suspension software. The software has templates for 29 different suspension systems, but unfortunately none for the BMW integral link rear suspension. I had to model it myself. That took a lot of hours! The trickiest part is to specify how the suspension members interact with each other to get the suspension to move in the correct way. If something is wrong, the system crashes and a lot of times you have to start from scratch again! Highly annoying! I almost gave up and thought that this system might not be possible to model, but after a lof of trial and error, I finally succeded! Super nice! :)

Now I can start experimenting with the position of the suspension to get the roll center, camber, toe and other curves the way I want. One of the biggest problems is deciding which compromises are the best. I have been trying to read up on this a lot over the years, and I have dug into it even more lately. SInce I have decided on not modifying any pickup points on the subframe itself, I have at least reduced the number of variables quite substantially.

I guess I will spend a few weeks tweaking the geometry before fixing it. I then can finalize the design of the back part of the chassis and get back in the garage actually building the car again! :)

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[chevyz240]

The last weeks I have been working on the rear suspension geometry. Pretty small changes in subframe height impact the roll center height quite a bit. This means that having the correct loaded tire radius and ride height becomes very important. During the years I think I have probably spent over a 1000 hours looking at what tires and rims to use. Basically, it’s impossible to find a combination of looks, rim quality, bolt pattern, offset, rim and tire width, rim and tire diameter, tire quality and some other parameters that I’m looking for without going totally broke!
I think I have decided on using Michelin PS4S tires as a good compromise between road and track focus. The rears I’m planning to use are 305/30-19. There are also quite a few other alternatives in this dimension. I can also find rims with the correct offset and width with looks I like.

For the fronts, things get a lot trickier… I am leaning towards using Corvette C6 or C7 spindles and A-arms for the front suspension. I want to keep the scrub radius low to keep the car from being too nervous on rough roads. That means I need rims with a high offset. Ideally, I would like to use 255/35-18 front tires. I don’t want a tire side wall that is too low, both from a grip and comfort perspective. Unfortunately, I don’t find many rims that fit these demands. If I instead choose 255/30-19 tires, the rim choices open up. I definitely don’t want a front tire sidewall that is taller than the rear, as I think this looks really ugly! Since these two front tire sizes have almost identical diameters, I don’t have to decide right now.

After a lot of thought back and forth, I have decided on 100 mm ride height at the rear wheel center, and 90 mm at the front. This is measured to the underside of the flat floor, so nothing will hang down below. The small rake is due to aerodynamics and looks.

The rim choice will probably change a few times, but right now I’m looking at the Forgestar CF10. I actually like the Apex SM-10 even better, but that’s not available in the front wheel dimensions I need. The OZ Formula HLT is also an option.

There is a high likelihood I will have to redrill the wheel hubs for a new bolt pattern, remachine the wheel center bores and use spacers in the end. I will know in the distant future…

With the ride height, rear tire and rim specs set, I could finalize the rear geometry. Compared to stock, I have lowered the roll center, since it gives a better camber curve and I also think with my lower CG and good shock absorbers this is a good roll center height. I also decided to keep the side view angle of the suspension stock, as I don’t see any benefits changing it. This meant that I could now modify my chassis model to fit the position of the rear suspension.

Previously, I used my manual suspension measurements and some guesswork on where the suspension would be positioned. With the scanned suspension and my decisions above, the rear part of the chassis needed to sit a bit higher up. This weekend I have spent many hours modifying the chassis model. It is far from finished yet, but now I have at least gotten the tubes that the subframe attaches to in position.

Maybe next weekend I can crawl back into the garage and start cutting and welding tubes again! :)

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[TANKMASTERJ]

Henrik, Well, this is more and more impressive as time goes on. You have the patience of Job. Man love this car cannot wait to see it rolling.
Jason

[chevyz240]

Henrik, Well, this is more and more impressive as time goes on. You have the patience of Job. Man love this car cannot wait to see it rolling.
Jason

Thank you very much Jason!

I repeatedly question my sanity... I almost wish I didn't have this need to go into detail on everything and have the need for every little bit being exactly as I want. Things would be a lot easier and quicker if good enough would do it for me. Around 10 years ago, I was maybe a month's work away from being able to take the first test drive with the LS7 installed. Then I decided to build the tube chassis...

It really is a life-long project. The reason I bought the car was for it to be a substitute for my tube chassis, twin turbo, chopped Volvo Amazon project that had snowballed. (Maybe you've seen it at the beginning of this thread.) This was in 1988...

Maybe 10 years ago I used to joke that the car would be finished when I retire. That's not gonna happen... Retirement is only three and half years away. I hope I at least can take a test drive before then.

[chevyz240]

This is not a post about the Z-car project, but this kind of explains the road that finally led me to start building the Z!

My first car project(s)!

When I was 18 (this is the age you need to get a driver’s license in Sweden) , in January 1980, I bought a 1966 Volvo Amazon station wagon. Just a few days after the purchase, I started to tear the car down to a bare body. My initial plans were to make it into a pickup truck, with a chopped roof. At that time I was reading Truckin´ Magazine. When I started to fix some rust I noticed that the front end had some crash damage and was slightly warped. I tried to fix this by heating the sheet metal and putting a wheelbarrow full of heavy objects on a long steel bar attached to the front end to try to twist it back into shape. I think I got it halfway decent. In that period Corvette L88 scoops were popular to put on all sorts of cars. Of course I had to have one myself! Since I have never been content with anything as is, I had to modify it further. The plan was to add a couple of small scoops on top of it.

When I had cut the rear half of the roof off and had started chopping the front part, I changed my mind, now wanting to build a chopped delivery truck instead. I went to a junkyard and cut off another station wagon roof and started the new modifications. After a while I changed my mind again, partly because the body still was a bit warped; I now wanted to chop an Amazon sedan instead. So, in October the same year I bought one (also a -66) from a class-mate. The station wagon was scrapped and I started working on the sedan instead.

The initial plans were to chop the car, install a turbocharged Volvo B20 4-cylinder engine and modify the stock suspension. I wanted sleek lines, so instead of lengthening and widening the roof, I tilted the roof pillars in instead. The chop itself was 8 cm (3”). The windshield wasn’t laid back, but the rear window was laid down quite a bit. When most people do this, they don’t change the shape of the roof, meaning there will be a kink between the roof and the window. This was not acceptable to me, so I sliced off a little bit of the rear part of the roof, moving the upper window frame forward, creating a smooth transition between roof and rear window. Of course the drip rails were shaved too!

I also rounded all window corners and changed the shape of the quarter window frames to have the same design as on the doors and to line up the window edges. The stock quarter windows have a chrome frame which doesn’t match the look of the door windows, nor do the edges line up between door and quarter windows. See the picture of the stock red Amazon. (This is another car I had which I repaired rust on and then painted. I then crashed it shortly afterwards doing some spirited driving…)

The windshield was a cut down stock windshield. It took three attempt for the glass guy before he got one that didn’t crack. The side windows were custom flat hardened glass. Since the rear window now had a different curvature and bigger size, it was made from thick Plexiglas. All windows were ordered in the same bronze tint. I built a wooden buck with the correct shape which was covered in felt. I then laid the Plexiglas on this and put it in a big oven we had at work and it baked in 190 degrees C (374 deg F) for several hours. The result was a window that was pretty close to the correct shape.

I wanted to change the look of the front end of the car, and I did some quite extensive modifications there; the hood bulge was sectioned to make it sleeker, I changed the shape of the grill opening (I was inspired by Chevy -55 pickups and maybe the Chrysler 300 -57). I also frenched the headlights and molded on some eyebrows inspired by -55 Chevy passenger cars. The bumper was seam welded and molded in. The turn signal lights were changed to bullet shape lights, which were also frenched. After bodyworking everything I then pulled a mold from this and made a tilt front end in fiberglass.

In 1982 new registration rules were introduced allowing home built and heavily modified cars to be registered for road use. Between 1969 and 1982 this was basically not allowed. At the same time a guy living two blocks away came out with his chopped Amazon with a supercharged Volvo B20. Suddenly, my car wasn’t as unique and cool anymore… Due to this, I decided to build a full tube frame for the car and register it as an “amateur built vehicle”. I cut away the stock engine compartment and floor that I had spent quite some time scraping undercoating from. I built a chassis jig based on two railroad rails that I stole from a scrap metal yard! They were around five meters (16 ft) long and weighed around 250 kilos (550 lbs) each. I transported them one by one in my Amazon station wagon (another one). A friend had to sit on the front end of the rail to prevent it from tipping over backwards. The rail stuck out around two meters (7 ft) out of the car and the steering got really light!

In order to build the tube frame, I had to have a tubing bender. I built this myself at work (I was working as a tool maker and machinist during summer vacations and sabbatical years when studying) using a 10 ton hydraulic jack as a base. The tube frame was constructed from round and square mild steel tubing. The parts that aren’t triangulated in the pictures were meant to have aluminum sheets glued and riveted on both sides of the tubing to create stiff boxes. At this point I also decided on sectioning the body to make the car even lower. Well, to be correct, I actually was going to cut away the rocker panels to make the body lower.

I was using a Chrysler 8 ¾” rear axle hung in a four link and a Watt’s linkage. The front end was a double A-arm design using Jaguar spindles that I had bought. I created a computer program in BASIC (I think it was around 300 lines of code) to optimize the front suspension geometry. I ran this on my father’s Commodore 64 or 128 computer. I remember that a single run took around 15 minutes and I made maybe 50-100 runs! The intention was to have a car with really good handling. At one point I planned on using 16” wide rear tires! The engine I was going to use first was a 327 Chevy small block that I had bought. Later I changed that plan to a twin turbo 350 that I ran briefly in a -62 Nova. This was in 1987. At that time there were very few turbo V8’s in Sweden. The transmission was a Muncie M22 that I bought during a two month road trip in the USA that I made with a friend after graduating from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 1987.

The project snowballed and it really hurt not having a cool car to drive in the summer. This led to me buying some other cars that were only meant as substitutes while continuing the work on the Amazon. Naturally, I couldn’t keep my hands away from them either, so I ended up doing a lot of work on them too, further delaying the Volvo project. Those cars were a -70 Dodge Dart GT with a 360, a -70 Plymouth Duster that I put a 440 and Hemi four speed in. That engine and transmission came from a -67 Plymouth Belvedere station wagon that I bought and then sold as a rolling chassis. The final substitute car I bought was my -73 Datsun 240Z that I bought in December 1988. I ran it in stock condition in the summer of -89, using it as my daily driver. I also went on a road trip to Paris in it with a friend that summer. We did a lap on the Nürburgring too!

The intention was always to finish the Amazon project, but I knew it would take a few years before it was done. I had seen that it was popular to put Chevy small blocks in Z-cars in the USA, and since the engine compartment is quite big, I thought that I would put the 350 in it over the winter, so the car was even sportier and more fun to drive the next summer. After that I would continue with the Volvo… Due to me being an extreme time optimist, a couple of job changes and living in Germany a year, the Z wasn’t back on the road again until -96. I now started to think that maybe I should continue modifying the Datsun instead and sell the Volvo project.

After mulling it over for a few years, I sold the Volvo chassis in 2000 to a guy that was going to use it in a BMW E30. The Volvo was going to be 112 cm (47”) high and the Bimmer is probably around 20 cm (8”) taller, so I don’t really know what he was thinking… The body was sold in -03 to a guy who had a chopped Amazon and was going to use mine as a caravan to tow behind his car! Also quite interesting! I guess you could but a twin bed in it, but hardly any chairs or a table. Well, at least I got it sold at last. I talked to the guy a couple of years ago and he said that he had cut the body in half and had widened it 15 cm (6”), but that nothing more had happened. I checked recently and he is still the registered owner. At some point I think I will visit him to check the car out for nostalgic reasons!

Basically you can say that the reason I am building my Z-car is that the Amazon project snowballed! Now the Z-car project also has snowballed and it has spawned a few substitute car purchases as well! Many years ago I said that the Z would be done when I retire. I said this as a joke. I am planning to retire in three and a half years; that sentence is no joke anymore… I hope I at least have taken a test drive with it then, even if it’s not fully finished. We will see… :)

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[andrewb70]

Very cool. Tha is for sharing the story!

Andrew

[chevyz240]

Very cool. Tha is for sharing the story!

Andrew

Thanks Andrew! :) I thought it could be a bit interesting!

[chevyz240]

As you guys know, I have been thinking about making the entire car body, except for the roof, out of fiberglass. The reason is that I would like to widen the entire body, instead of just slapping on some big fender flares. When I bought my 3D printers, the idea became much more viable, since I can create a buck from 3D printed pieces. I have waited to make the decision, as I tend to downplay how much extra work my choices sometimes create. Well, now the decision has been taken, and there is no turning back!

This Friday, I started preparing for the rear chassis jig I will build. The welding accessibility to everything would be so much better if the rear part of the body was gone. I slept on it, and yesterday I took the plunge and simply cut it off! Before doing that. I measured some points on the quarter panels and suspension cross members to see if there would be any distortion after the cut. Everything stayed within a millimeter, so that was OK.

One reason that it was easier to make the decision to make a fiberglass body is that the car has been crashed and repaired and there is quite a bit of bondo on the body. If the sheet metal was nice and straight, it would have been a harder decision to make. Later on, I will cut away the rest of the quarter panels and probably the door jambs as well. I will only leave the quarter window frames, where the fiberglass body will be attached.

Now I can start modeling the car exactly as I would like it to look! I will try to keep many of the Z-car features and have quite a bit of OEM feel to it. It shouldn't be obvious exactly how the proportions have been changed. This will be fun!

One thing that I would like to find is a software that can analyze surfaces and say if something is off regarding curvatures and how different shapes interact. Basically, I want to know if there are shapes that look like they have dents or bulges and if some lines look strange from any perspective. I am quite positive that this is something the OEMs have, but if someone can point me to a software that's available at a reasonable price, please let me know! Or if there are companies that offer the service.

Now it's time to go out for a morning mountainbike ride in the cold, grey December weather!

Over and out!

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As usual; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

I have created the part of the chassis jig that will locate all the tubes for the rear suspension. When leveling the particle board, I noted that my spirit level had lost it's calibration. I did a new calibration, which took some time; first I needed to create a flat surface. I did that by taping a couple of wood blocks on to a workbench. I then put the level on to those blocks and checked the position of the bubble with the level turned one way and then the other. I put pieces of tape on to the low block until the bubble was roughly in the opposite position when the level was turned 180 degrees.

I then started to adjust the vial. After getting that fairly correct, I fine adjusted the height of the wood blocks. I could then fine tune the vial. Since the vial can move out of position when tightening the screws, this takes several attempts. Finally, I had it close to perfect. This is an old level I have inherited from my father and it is super accurate. With some practice, you can see if the surface is out of level with 0.1 millimeter per meter (0.0012 inch per foot). This is equal to 0.006 degrees. I have not been able to find new levels with that accuracy. My fairly expensive digital level can show 0.05 degrees.

After building the jig and adjusting the height and angle of the build surface, which also took quite some time, I created a centerline, using the centerline I have on the garage floor. Then I marked out a length reference line and created a transverse line that is exactly 90 degrees from the centerline. From these lines, I could then mark out the lines for the three square tubes that will be the base of the rear part of the chassis.

Maybe I can start welding stuff again next weekend!

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As usual; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[Motown 454]

Looking good! Every time I check in The work your doing amazes me.

[chevyz240]

Looking good! Every time I check in The work your doing amazes me.

Thank you very much Wayne! :) It's always inspiring to get some positive feedback!

[Motown 454]

You definitely earned it!

[chevyz240]

You definitely earned it!

Thanks again! :)

[chevyz240]

This week I have prepared and tack welded the three square tubes that form the base of the rear part of the chassis. The rear subframe will be bolted to these tubes (basically). I have previously praised my 3D printers when making notching templates. This time the job would have been even trickier than normal without this method, since there are two oddly shaped notches at the front of the two longitudinal tubes.

I first 3D printed replicas of the front part of those tubes, to see what needed to be corrected compared to the CAD model. Since there is a tolerance chain deciding the spacing between the transverse tube and the diagonal tubes, they weren't 100% according to the CAD model. I could then make some slight corrections to the CAD model and 3D print notching templates in the normal manner. In the end I got the fit pretty nice!

Now I need to start thinking about maybe fully welding some joints before adding more tubing in order to try to minimize distortion of tubes that matter the most.

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[chevyz240]

I have seam welded the tubes going to the top part of the "rear suspension towers". Due to old age, unergonomic working positions and lack of practice lately, they aren't the nicest of welds, but I think they will do from a strength perspective. I have also made the fixture for the tubes connecting the suspension towers to the "subframe tubes". Today I came a bit on the way of cutting those tubes to size. That basically wraps up 2022! Lets's hope 2023 brings a lot of progress!

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As usual; more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

The square tubing that acts as the base for the rear suspension towers have been welded in place. It was quite a bit of work getting everything aligned correctly, and the welding positions were also a bit akward. In order to get as little distortion as possible, I fully welded the top end before welding the bottom end to the square tubing that is the rear subframe base.

On one side, I had to force the tubing back a bit to get the alignment perfect. As expected, the rear subframe base bent upwards slightly, since all the welds are on the top side of the tubes. When I create the rest of the suspension towers and the wheel wells, the distortion probably can be contained a bit. In the end, I will not weld in any suspension pickup points before the tube frame is fully welded.

Today I started making the shock absorber mounting flanges out of 3 mm high strength steel. In order to grind them to shape, I purchased a disc grinder the week before Christmas. As (almost) always, it needed some modifications. I had to cut part of the cover away to be able to reach all the surfaces to be ground. In order to grind the concave shapes, I put a sanding drum in my benchtop drill press. It seems to work out pretty well. Ideally I would like to have an oscillating spindle sander, but they are a bit too expensive for the few parts I will have to grind.

Slow, but fairly steady progress!

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A lot more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

I would like to have the fender openings as tight as possible to the wheels. In order to optimize this, I took the time to create some cardboard patterns of the tire shoulder from a Porsche we had at work this week. It had Michelin PS4S tires, which is what I am planning to use. The rear tires were 305/30-20 on 11" rims, and since I will use 305/30-19 on 11" rims in the rear and 255/35-19 on 9" rims in the front (which has almost the same diameter), I guess the shape must be very similar. In the CAD, I have then updated my tire models and made an envelope model of the front tire, lock to lock. This will be used to check fender lip clearance.

I have also welded the shock absorber flanges to the cross tube, and started to rig that in place. I guessed that the tube would bend 2 mm, so I made the flanges 2 mm taller. In real life it bent 1 mm. Not that this has any effect, but I will probably correct the CAD model to keep it as correct as possible anyways! :)

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[chevyz240]

This week nothing has happened in the garage, but this Friday I picked up the Corvette C7 front suspension parts that I ordered. The lower A-arms have been on backorder for a few months, so I will have to wait a bit more before I get them. I did order the better SKF X-tracker hub bearing assemblies. They are a lot stronger and stiffer, with less camber loss and brake pad knockback.

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[carbuff]

Such a fun build to follow... Can't wait to see you enjoy driving this one someday!

[chevyz240]

Such a fun build to follow... Can't wait to see you enjoy driving this one someday!

Thank you very much Bryan! Yeah, I hope this happens before the dinosaur juice runs out or is more expensive than gold! ;)

[-KILO-]

cant believe its been 9 years now!

[chevyz240]

cant believe its been 9 years now!

Time flies! :)

[chevyz240]

The rear shock absorber crossmember is now finished and fully welded in place. I have also begun welding in the first of the 1.5 mm thick sheet metal pieces that will make up the rear suspension towers. For fun I tried to adjust the camera settings in the CAD system to copy the perspective of one of the pictures I took. It came out pretty close after some trial and error.

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A lot more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

This week I have designed and 3D printed a couple of TIG torch package holders for my welder. Previously I just had a couple of bent pieces of steel, but this caused the torch package to bend quite sharply. With the new holders, I get a nice radius, preventing damage to the torch package.

I have also cut out sheetmetal pieces that will be the front part of the rear suspension towers. I reinforced the hole for the suspension bellcrank with 4 mm thick high strength steel plate. I made a small bevel on the edge to ease installation of the bellcrank. The hole is drilled undersize, so I can correct it's position if necessary when the chassis is fully welded.

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[chevyz240]

This week I have tacked the front sheet metal pieces of the rear suspension towers in place, and during the weekend it was heavy physical work!

Soon, I'm going to roll some sheet metal for the rear wheelwells. Therefore, over the weekend I assembled my old slip roll machine that I used when I widened some steel rims in the mid-eighties. It has been dismantled for over thirty years. Judging by the spelling on the nameplate, the machine is perhaps 100 years old, or older. The spelling "af" (of) was officially abandoned in the Swedish spelling reform of 1906.

On Friday I started collecting all the parts. Amazingly, I found everything in just a few minutes! Nothing was missing! The stands have been outside in the old trash can room. Strangely enough, they have hardly rusted at all. The rollers have been standing in the garage against a wall. They have been rusty since I bought the machine. I moved everything into the garage and weighed everything. The heaviest stand weighed 108 kilograms (240 lbs) . In total, the entire machine weighs 520 kilograms (1150 lbs). The stands were quite heavy and exciting to juggle into place.

Quite a large part of Friday and yesterday was spent cleaning all the sliding surfaces. In addition, I chose to grind off the rust on the rollers. The rust dust was incredibly fine, and it even got into closed drawers and cabinets! It will take many, many hours of cleanup before everything is reasonably clean again! It took many hours before the red mist in the air settled.

When everything was cleaned, I figured out how everything would fit together. Unfortunately, I didn't have any pictures of it assembled, but in the end I was pretty sure how the stuff would fit.

Installation started today. If I didn't have my home-made telpher, it would be basically impossible to assemble the machine. My homemade lifting yoke also came in extremely handy because you can adjust the center of gravity of what you are lifting. It's something I'm surprised that they rarely or never use on any of the car building shows on TV! If you have one, you can easily lift an engine in and out yourself.

First I fit the two lower rollers into one of the stands. I thought correctly regarding which direction they should fit, but I executed it wrongly! I discovered that, of course, when they were in place! Sigh! I had to start all over again... They sit in cast iron sliding shoes and it was extremely nerve-wracking trying to hold all the parts by myself and guide them into each other. I was afraid of cracking the fragile castings. Thankfully it went well. Then it was time to fit the second, heaviest stand in place and guide 6 things into different holes in the stand at the same time. After much juggling back and forth, I succeeded.

The crankshaft itself was very tricky to get in place. I had to lift the machine up and angle it heavily to make room to get the crankshaft in without hitting a wall or something. Of course, I mounted a gear in the wrong direction so the top roller wouldn't open, which meant I had to remove the big gear again, which was a pain to both get on and get off.

In the end, everything was in place and I was able to testroll a piece! After this I showered and cleaned my aching body and had lunch at 4:30 p.m.

Great that I found all the parts, that I got it together, that nothing broke and that it works as it should! Victory!!!!! :)

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Many, many, many more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[TANKMASTERJ]

Every time I look at this build iam both intrigued and impressed with the design and build quality along with the tenacious attitude to keep it up
It really is inspiring Henrik.
I like others hope you actually get to enjoy it unlike so many people who never get to finish
Jason

[chevyz240]

Every time I look at this build iam both intrigued and impressed with the design and build quality along with the tenacious attitude to keep it up
It really is inspiring Henrik.
I like others hope you actually get to enjoy it unlike so many people who never get to finish
Jason

Thank you very much Jason!

I really hope (and think) so too! As I have previously described, this initially was a car I bought as a substitute for a tube framed twin turboed Volvo Amazon that never was finished. When the Z will be finished, it will actually be the first really big car project I have really finished.

I did tell a little bit about the Volvo Amazon (and other projects) in a previous post, but for anybody interested in knowing more, look here:

https://www.facebook.com/Henrik.Schiolde/posts/pfbid03fCHdiM6iVLNMp5LRkcGuXzLw6uLindWyqkQ6Eyt84Vc MyF8H3vWNrtp6TfcUTjwl

[chevyz240]

The inner wheelwell walls are now roll bent and cut to shape. Since they aren’t flat, but have a radius for stiffness reasons, I couldn’t just make a projection of the wheel well to get the shape to cut out. I had to unfold it. The arc shape is a spline, which I simplified to three radii. If I would have used just one radius, there would have been too big an error for my liking. (This can be seen in the drawing with the red arc in one of the pictures on Facebook.)

Due to the high strength steel, there is a lot of springback, so you have to overbend it quite a bit. I think you can see that in the picture where it’s in the roll bender. So far it looks pretty good. We’ll see what happens when I weld it in.

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[chevyz240]

I have seam welded the front part of the rear suspension towers and tacked the inner wheel well walls in place. Due to poor ergonomics, some of the welds are a bit crappy. I am not worried about them from a strength perspective, but it would be nice if they looked better! :) Today I made room for the wheel wells themselves by cutting away part of the rear quarter panels. Less and less remains of the original car...

As I have said many times, if I would have known how far I would take the project, it would have been better to sell the car when it had the 350 engine in it and ran. After that I should have started from scratch, building a tube frame and a full fiberglass body. But, when a project goes on for as many years as this has, you incrementally tend to change the plans, as I think many will recognize.

In the pictures, you can see how I placed the main hoop between the outer and inner quarter panel sheet metal many years ago. That took some work...

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[Motown 454]

I love the job your doing on the fab work !

[chevyz240]

I love the job your doing on the fab work !

Thanks again, Wayne! :) Normally, everything looks pretty good until seam welding starts...

[chevyz240]

I have jig sawed four pieces of particle board that will act as jigs for the rear wheelwells. The rear part of the chassis jig had to be modified to make room for them.

I unfolded the wheelwells in the CAD and made drawings of the shape I needed to cut out. Instead of trying to draw the large radii directly on the sheetmetal, I made small scribing templates that were a lot easier to handle. To make the templates, I used a tape measure as a pair of compasses.

After scribing and cutting out the shape of the wheelwells, I rolled them to the correct radius in my slip roller. I used my large carpenter square to make sure they didn't end up crooked. I then screwed one wheelwell to one of the particle board half circles and mocked it up roughly in the position it will be.

One part I am a bit worried about is shaping the radiused inner edge of the wheelwell. It has quite a complicated shape due to both the angled wheelwell and the radiused inner wheelwell wall. I think I will have to make it in small hand shaped pieces. And in order to ease the shaping, I will make them from mild steel, not the high strength sheetmetal (Docol 800) I'm otherwise using.

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A lot more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

The work on the jig for the left rear wheelwell has continued. I have also seam welded the rear cabin crossmember to the brackets on the b-pillars. Since I didn't manage to get a tight fit there, I filled the gaps with some steel pieces to try to reduce the amount of distortion after welding. The welds didn't turn out very nice lookswise...

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[rat_rod_russell]

I need to poke over here more often. Much easier that FaceTubes to view.

[chevyz240]

I need to poke over here more often. Much easier that FaceTubes to view.

Do you think so, Russell? The downside is that I don't post nearly as many pictures here due to the limited storage and the long time it takes to upload and insert pictures.

[rat_rod_russell]

Do you think so, Russell? The downside is that I don't post nearly as many pictures here due to the limited storage and the long time it takes to upload and insert pictures.

Ah, Noted. I didn't realize that.

[chevyz240]

This week, the focus has been on the radiused connection between the wheelwells and the inner wheelwell walls. As I have said before, the shape is kinda strange. I decided to 3D-print pieces that I have used as bucks for forms cast in concrete. These forms are then used as templates and hammer forms. Due to springback of the metal, it's not possible to just beat the sheet metal into the form and it's OK. I put my recently bought sandbag, my shrinker and stretcher and some anvils that I shaped from a piece of railroad rail plus a sledge hammer head to good use too!

Thanks Tobias for the tip of using cling film as a release agent for the 3D-printed buck and also suggesting reinforcing the concrete with steel net.

Since it was quite a long time since I did any serious panel beating, I practiced a couple of times on some scrap metal before starting on the actual pieces.

I will have a small overlap joint between the radius and the wheelwell. This way, I hope to be able to weld it without any filler rod, minimizing distortion. I also get a little margin for using bondo to create the final shape. Since I have this margin, and since I will also upholster the trunk area, I felt OK with the shape not being perfect...

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A lot more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

The inner wheelwall walls got slightly distorted when I tacked them in place. They are supposed to be single curvature (only curved in front and rear view). Now they are also slightly curved in plan view. In order to fix this, I have made a fixture out of particle board that I can clamp on the wheelwell wall to straighten it. Initially I tried to shape it using only a rasp and a plane, but as I guessed, it was too tricky to get the shape perfect. I fixed this by smearing on bondo and shaping it by dragging a steel template along some square tubing guides.

I then attached the fixture to the wheelwell wall, put the wheelwell itself in place and adjusted the angle by using my laser. It was a bit tricky to clamp the radiused sheet metal piece correctly in place, but after a while I managed. I have a small overlap between the pieces, so I should be able to weld them together without filler rod, minimizing distortion. For now I just tacked it in place. I couldn't reach all the way in to the center of the piece with C-clamps or welding pliers, so I had to use a piece of lumber standing on the floor to push it up against the wheelwell.

All in all, everything went way better than I thought!

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A lot more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

This week I have started on the right hand side wheelwell. I started by building the jig for it. When I put the wheelwell in place, things didn't seem right. There was way to big a gap against the inner wheelwell wall. At first, I was afraid that the wheelwell itself was too narrow, but after a while, I found the error. I had measured the transverse (Y) coordinate against the wrong side of the steel rulers on the floor that mark the centerline of the car! Sigh! This meant the wheelwell was spaced out 28 mm too far. Luckily I didn't have to redo the entire wheelwell jig. I just had to modify it. But that still took a couple of hours.

I have also cast the second concrete hammer form for the upper radiused corner on the right hand side. The sheetmetal part itself has also come a little bit on the way. I think this side will be quicker to make, as I now know better how to do it.

I am off from work next week, so hopefully I will make more progress than usual during a normal week.

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[chevyz240]

I have cast a few more concrete hammer forms and three more radius pieces have been tacked in place. I realized that I need to make all the new pieces half as long as the first ones, since now I can only clamp them in place from one direction. If they are too long, the farthest end can't be reached with a C-clamp or a welding plier.

I have also started tacking the C-pillars to the wheelwells. The game plan here was to make small flanges at the end of the connecting pieces so they could be welded without filler rod, again minimizing distortion. In order to create the flange with the correct radius, I made a hammer form out of a thick piece of flat iron.

Even though I have taken great care, the wheelwells still have become slightly distorted. I think this is due both to welding heat and the clamping of the radius pieces themself. The right hand side got extra distorted. It's nothing that will have any practical influence, nor will it be possible to see with the naked eye, but it still bugs me! I managed to correct the shape reasonably well with some extra fixtures and some hammering.

In retrospect I think it would have been best to have tack welded some sturdy fixtures close to the sheetmetal edges of the wheelwell before putting in the radius pieces. Then these fixtures could have been cut away after fully welding the radiused corners.

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[David Sloan]

Killer work my friend.
Keep up the great work.

[chevyz240]

Killer work my friend.
Keep up the great work.

Thanks David! :)

[chevyz240]

This week, not so much has happened. I have cast one more concrete hammer form for the wheelwells. What I HAVE done is looked at possible rims to use. Again... I must have spent hundreds, if not thousends of hours doing this over the years. At one point, I know that I had looked at more than 3000 different wheels. And this was many years ago...

One wheel brand that I didn't know of until a couple of years ago, is Protrack. They are located in Germany, so there is no import tax and the shipping fees compared to from the States will be much lower. They have a model, the Protrack One, that is available in the widths and offsets I need. It is a flow formed wheel that is used a lot in racing. Both the front and rear wheels would have BMW bolt patterns.

For the Corvette front hubs, I can use "wobble lug nuts", that I recently found. I guessed that they existed, but I hadn't actually seen any. Now I know what they look like and how they work. Or, maybe I will redrill the hubs to the BMW bolt pattern. That's probably the best solution. What is good is that the centering holes in the wheels are a bit larger than the Corvette's, so I can use hub centering rings. Unfortunately the BMW E39 rear hub uses a larger hub center diameter than other BMW wheels, so for the rear wheels, I would need to remachine the wheels. But that's doable.

I'm not 100% sure that I think the look of the wheels is good enough, so I will have to let this sink in and see how I feel after having compared them to the alternatives many more times. Regardless of the wheels I will choose, the front wheels will not have the nice concavity that I like, due to the Corvette's high offset. I prefer to stay close to the stock offset for driveability reasons, even though I could find much better looking wheels if I would choose a lower offset.

The wheel on the black car would be my front wheel, and the wheel on the white car would be my rear wheel.

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[chevyz240]

Right now I have a cold, so I don't have the energy to work in the garage, and the weekend before I was lazy, so nothing has happened on the project in a while. Also, with summer banging on the door, there will be more outdoor activities from now on. I will try to make sure that the garage activities won't stop altogether, but the pace will definitely be slower.

I have created an Instagram account covering the Z-car project to extend it's reach. 🙂

https://www.instagram.com/mechanix_menace/

In the future, I will be doing all new posts both here, on Facebook and Instagram, so regardless of social media preference, it's easy to follow Mechanix Menace! 🙂

It has taken quite a while to copy everything over to IG. There are currently 405 posts! The limitation of the number of images and characters per post has required a lot of extra work. Not being able to mix image formats in the same post has required an INCREDIBLE amount of extra work! The fact that you get blocked for more than a day if you make too many posts in close succession has also meant that it has taken a long time!

We'll see if it was worth the trouble! 🙂

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[chevyz240]

I have a cold and don't have the energy to go down in the garage. Instead, I've created a Youtube video covering the entire Mechanix Menace project from 1988 to the present! 34 years condensed down to 9 minutes and 20 seconds! Almost all the work I have done is documented including CAD models, Photoshop and Blender renderings, 3D scanning and more. Subtitles describe most of the steps. Watching the video is an effective way to digest the whole project in a short amount of time! In addition, some pictures are shown that I have not published on other social media.

It was an awful lot of work, but I'm quite happy with the result!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-2BIND4f4k

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[chevyz240]

Due to the nice weather I haven't done anything on the car in a while. However, I have kept googling possible rim choices (which I do a lot). I have found some rims that's been on the market for a few years, but I don't think I have seen them before. They are called Rennen FT10. I like them a lot. They are available in 19x10" and 19x12" dimensions. Initially I planned on using 9" front rims with 255 tires, and 11" rear rims with 305 tires.

Incidentally, at the same time I found these rims, I read an article where Tire Rack tested different width tires on different width rims. The combinations with the widest rims were always the quickest on track. These combinations had slightly wider rims than what the normal suggestion is for that specific tire width.

I realize that this may not always be the case, but at least I don't think I will lose much performance with a slighty wider rim than recommended. There are some other benefits too; the concavity gets bigger for the same offset, the tire shoulder gets more rounded, which increases the margin to the fender lip when turning, compared to a more square shape.

The price is fairly reasonable, and I like the color options. I don't have to order any expensive custom color. They are flowformed, so hopefully they aren't too heavy.

If anybody has any experience with these rims, please let me know!

At least it's good to have yet another option! ��

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[chevyz240]

As I have previously written, there isn't too much activity in the garage during the summer, but at least a little has happened. Yesterday I tack welded yet another wheelwell radius piece in place. In order too reach in far enough to clamp it in place, I made a custom C-clamp from some bar stock and a couple of screws.

Today, I also cast yet another concrete hammer form.

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A few more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[Pedigry]

I'm exhausted just looking at the pictures. Unbelievable amount of work. Amazing...

[chevyz240]

I'm exhausted just looking at the pictures. Unbelievable amount of work. Amazing...

Thanks Pedigry! Sometimes I wonder if it's worth all the work... But it keeps me off the streets! :)

[chevyz240]

It took a bit longer than planned (as always), but today I have started to work on Mechanix Menace again after the summer break! I spent maybe two hours in the garage cutting and hammering a piece of sheet metal for the right hand side wheelwell radius. I hope that it won't take too long before I can go on to new projects. This is starting to get a bit old...

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[chevyz240]

This week, I have made some further progress on the rear wheelwells.

Since I have decided on making a fiberglass body, I will now modify my Blender 3D-model to get the look I am after. This will mean widening the entire body, not just slamming on some fender flares. I have found a new Blender course that promises to teach some very cool tricks to simply modeling and to help get much better end results. I have purchased it, and started looking through some of the sections. In the course, I also learn that the latest version of Blender has a lot of new functions that will make things a lot easier and better. I am looking forward to start modeling again! 🙂

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[chevyz240]

The cutouts for the seatback/rear fire wall have been closed up. I tacked in a temporary upper firewall crossmember to use as a guide for the slope of the cutouts. On the driver's side, I have also tacked the wheelwell to the quarter panel inner sheetmetal structure. It's quite satisfying to see those holes being covered!

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More pictures here: https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

The passenger side wheelwell has now been finished regarding tacking it to the quarter panel inner sheet metal structure. One picture shows the bottom sheet metal piece, which is the most complicated one. It connects the wheelwell, the B-pillar tube (main hoop almost) and the inner structure. In order to get this piece to fit, it needs all four sides to have the correct length and angle, the bend angle needs to be correct, and the sides connecting to the round tube and wheelwell need to have the correct curvature. It's a lot of trial and error, but it's tricky pieces like these I really enjoy making (as long as I don't have to make to many of them)! :)

I have also cut away the remains of the driver's side quarter panel and the B-pillar. The fiberglass body will go all the way up to the quarter window. Before I cut away the sheet metal, I measured the height on some control points along the quarter window to see if there was any change in shape after the cutting. I didn't think so, as it is a fairly stiff area, but I wanted to be sure. Everything stayed in place.

In the future, I will create a sheet metal structure that will connect further out on the wheelwell, to stiffen this part of the body/chassis, and also to act as a side impact deformation zone. Before I can do this, I need to finalize the body shape, so this will take some time.

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A lot more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

This week I have reacquainted myself with Blender and started the body design work. As I have previously described, my plan is to widen the entire body and keep much of the Z-car DNA, but make the car lower, wider and cooler! 🙂

At this stage, the model is VERY rough with lots errors and lots of stuff missing. The plan is to make a number of versions and decide which one to go with before starting the work of refining everything.

One thing that has made me feel uneasy for a very long time, is the shape of the rear part of the hood. Stock, the car has a pair of ugly inspection lids beside the rear of the hood. In order to get the wipers to sweep the entire windshield, I needed to incorporate those hatches with the hood. For those of you who haven't followed the entire project, the car has hidden wipers and I open the hood a bit to reveal them when the wipers are turned on. This gives an ugly look to the hood.

I wondered if a wedge shaped hood would look worse than a straight hood, so I decided to model it and see if that shape was acceptable. To my joy, I think it actually looks much better! Problem solved! With the widened body, I think the front fenders look to wide from above with a straight hood.

The hours really fly when I'm modeling, but I really enjoy this kind of work! I need to divide my time between physical work on the car and digital modeling! 🙂

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More pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

The last couple of weeks I have continued the modeling in Blender. I tried out a rear spoiler, but I feel that it hides the lines of the haunches, which are clean lines that I really like. After that I made a wing, which I think is the way I will go. Maybe I don't have to decide now, as the attachment points probably can be made to work with either a spoiler or a wing.

I also checked front fender clearance to the tires at full lock and full compression, and as I was afraid, the 255/35-19 tires hit. I have already raised the top of the front fenders, and I feel that the looks will deteriorate if I raise them further. I really don't want to go to lower aspect tires due to grip, comfort and damage risk reasons, but I think I need to go to a 255/30-19 tire instead. I will model that in the near future.

As before, there are lots of flaws, misses, stuff that is missing in the model, but I am still at the rough modeling stage, to get a general feel for the shape. So far, I am pretty pleased and excited! 🙂
One good thing is that there is plenty of clearance between the engine and the hood. Maybe I will try out a lower hood line to see how that looks.

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More pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

I am pretty pleased with the general shape of the car. I have started to add in more details, for instance I have made the hood a separate piece. I also took the tires from a model that was included in a Blender course I have purchased; 3D Cars: Inside And Out ( https://blendermarket.com/products/3d-cars-inside-and-out-in-blender ) I had to modify them by changing the diameters and widths. They absolutely look like they are real! One of the more fantastic things is that the text and all the sidewall details actually are three dimensional! It is made by converting a picture in grayscale to a three dimensional texture. I can highly recommend the course; it includes some nice tricks to make modeling a lot easier and with better results!

Now I am at a stage where I will try different changes to the shape of the car to see what I like the best. When that is done, I will add all the remaining details. I have for instance tried three different curvatures of the body side. I have also started to experiment with the shape of the door opening.

Even though you can rotate the the model on the computer screen, use different focal lengths and depth of field on the camera, I still think that it's really important to have a physical model to feel and view. I already have a model car in 1:18 scale, so I 3D printed mine in the same scale. They body was printed in two pieces with 0.12 mm layers. I took more than 86 hours! I also 3D printed the tires and rims. Before I make a final decision on the shape of the car, I will probably 3D print one in 1:8 scale or larger.

The renderings are getting more refined, with depth of field and real backgrounds. They start to feel more and more realistic. I also enjoy trying out different colors and types of paint. In the course I learned how to create a customizable metallic paint where you can change the size of the metallic flakes, how much orange peel you have, plus a lot of other parameters. It's really cool, and you can make the paint look more realistic.

I think I will try to go back in the garage soon and continue the physical work on the car!

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A lot more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

I was planning to creep into the garage to continue the physical work on the car, but I got stuck at the computer! I have been fine tuning my Blender model and tried different shapes and proportions. This is an example of what I have tried.

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This time there's not more to see on Facebook, due to some problems there. However, much more can be seen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mechanix_menace/

[chevyz240]

The first video shows some rough versions of different door openings I am trying out. I want the door opening to harmonize with the DLO (Daylight Opening) or side window area. I will probably go with something like the last one. I feel that that the backwards sloping front edge of the door gives a sense of speed.

In the second video, to get a better feel for the car's size, I have put an 18 year younger version of myself next to it!

I first found a photo of me next to the car in the garage. I then adjusted the camera angle and focal length in Blender to match that picture. Then I had to cut myself out from the garage picture. Next up was to download a Blender model of a man. After that I changed his size and posture to match mine. Then I could match my size to the Blender man's size in Photoshop. I had to change my right arm and hand a bit and I also had to tweek the Blender man a lot to get the shadows to match me. Then I added some shadows, blur and changed other parameters of the picture of me to make it fit as good as possible in the entire scene. It's not perfect, but considering I am a novice at this, I am pretty happy!

So here is Henrik standing with his Datsun 240Z at Münsterplatz in Ulm, Germany in 2005! :)

[https://youtu.be/l60XrXXGtfM]

[https://youtu.be/hUNyTeoN1p8]

[chevyz240]

I have made a little compilation of different views of the car.

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[chevyz240]

I am back in the garage again! I have managed to get all the pieces for the rear suspension towers in place. Seam welding will be done later.

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A lot more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

A couple of wheelwell corner pieces more have been tacked in place and the left hand side outer C-pillar panel has also been tacked in place. This will create a very bending stiff beam reinforcing this part of the chassis. Together with sheet metal that will make up the front part of the rear quarter panel, this will add stiffness to an area of the chassis that, due to the placement of the rear subframe, might not be stiff enough as it sits now.

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A lot more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[TANKMASTERJ]

Looks like some great progress Henrik. But damn you got mountains of patience and perseverance!
Looking awesome and the renderings as well

[chevyz240]

Looks like some great progress Henrik. But damn you got mountains of patience and perseverance!
Looking awesome and the renderings as well

Thanks, Jason! :)

Yeah, I guess you need that for a project that has stretched out over half your life. :)

[chevyz240]

The final sheet metal pieces for the left hand C-pillar have been welded in place. The top piece is pretty complicated; it has a varying radius, it's twisted and it has a sharp bend. It took me a while to figure out how to make it. When it was almost done, and I just had to trim off a triangular piece, I cut out that piece oriented 180 degrees wrong... I had to start over again! Frustrating! This time, instead of using my sheet metal roller, I tried to make several sharp bends in the sheet metal brake. It din't work out very well, so I went back to the initial method. Plus I used the stretching tool to simplify the twisting of the piece. In the end it came out pretty nice.

I have also tried two alternative designs for the front spoiler in Blender. One that has a smooth rounded edge, and one that has a sharper edge that also is aligned with the outer hood edge. I haven't decided fully yet which way I will go, but I am leaning towards the smooth one. I think it makes the car look wider.

On the right hand side I have tacked in the outer C-pillar panel.

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A lot more pictures and a film clip at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

The right hand side sheet metal work on the C-pillar is now finished.

Since I need to know how tall the rocker panel can be in order to get it through the inspection (this can be tricky in Sweden), I have built a seat mockup and measured myself sitting in it, to enable me to make a CAD model of myself. This makes it easier for the inspection guy to get a feel for how tall the rocker panel is in proportion to a driver. Also, I think I will have other uses for the driver model in the future.

For fun, I took the picture of me and inserted it into the CAD model, this gives an even better feel for the size of the cabin.

After a lot of trial and error, I have decided on the design of the front part of the rear wheelwell. I wanted to make it as easy as possible to get a good connection to the rear firewall composite panel, and at the same time getting everything as stiff as possible. It will be a bit tricky to weld everything up, but in the end I think the result will be pretty good.

Today I started cutting away not needed parts of the stock rocker panels and the sheet metal work I did before I decided on building a full tube chassis.

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A lot more pictures and a film clip at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

Summer has come and the progress on the project gets EVEN slower! :) There will still be rainy days, and I will try to use at least some of them for garage work.

The last thing I have done is to model a hood that is wider at the rear. It now ends at the inner edge of the A-pillar. I think this is a cleaner look, where the shut lines of the door and the hood line up with the A-pillar edges.

Also, if you imagine the hood shut line as an air streamline, it now goes around the cabin, instead of crashing into the windshield. This also gives the impression of a smoother, more streamlined look of the car.

Comments are welcome! :)

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A video showing this better can be seen here:
https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-22FSRpPik

[David Sloan]

Killer work ! Always impressed when I come to look for your build.

[chevyz240]

Killer work ! Always impressed when I come to look for your build.

Thanks, David! :)

[cornfedbill]

very nice work. I always enjoy seeing progress on your build.

One comment from experience. You may want to consider helmet clearance to your rollbar and roof.

[chevyz240]

very nice work. I always enjoy seeing progress on your build.

One comment from experience. You may want to consider helmet clearance to your rollbar and roof.

Thanks, Bill! :)

Of course there is room for me to wear a helmet! :) That's one of the reasons why I am sitting directly on the floor. :) If you look at earlier posts, you can see the cabin mockup I built to perfect seating position, pedal position, steering wheel position and other ergonomics. I spent many hours doing this.

[chevyz240]

Today I have tweaked the hood bulge. I have made it a bit wider at the rear. I think this looks better in general, and especially now that the hood also is wider at the rear (stock it has a more or less constant width).

I have also learned how to add a YouTube clip! Why haven't I found the method before? Well, at least I have proved that you can teach an old dog new tricks! :)

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[chevyz240]

Some more changes to the Blender model. This time even more minute. I have sharpened up the center crease of the hood and the spoiler. I think I will go with this instead of the previous softer version, but I have not decided fully yet. Maybe I will end up somewhere in between. One disadvantage to the sharp version is that it will be much harder to make. Just a small error in the centering of the crease will be much more visible. Maybe this is what will make the final decision. But I think I want all the edges and creases that exist on the stock body appear a bit sharper. I think I like that look better. I think...

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[chevyz240]

After the usual summer break from the project, I have gotten back modeling in Blender. I have tested a few more front spoiler variants and I have also tested what the car would look like with bumpers. This is something I have planned to do for a long time. I think it adds more of the original car's DNA. The bumpers also make the car look wider, which is nice. I definitely need to let the different looks simmer in my mind for a long time before deciding which route to go.

Today is also the first time I have made a video with me talking. It took quite a lot of time to do, but it enables me to explain stuff better. I think it also makes things a bit more personal. What do you think? :)

Please also tell me which version you like the best! Comments about other stuff are welcome as well, of course! It would be nice with some interaction with you guys! :)

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[Vimes]

Of all the options I liked the one matching the sidelines best. It tied the whole thing together. I would be concerned about sticking the nose out too far, as well as how low to the ground it is. The further past the front tires the nose is, the less of a grade you can take when entering parking lots, steep driveways, ect.

It also looks better without the bumpers. If you want them, I wouldn't extend them down the sides. The long side bumpers lend another line to the car, and having the rear higher than the front looks off-balance.

[chevyz240]

Of all the options I liked the one matching the sidelines best. It tied the whole thing together. I would be concerned about sticking the nose out too far, as well as how low to the ground it is. The further past the front tires the nose is, the less of a grade you can take when entering parking lots, steep driveways, ect.

It also looks better without the bumpers. If you want them, I wouldn't extend them down the sides. The long side bumpers lend another line to the car, and having the rear higher than the front looks off-balance.

Thanks for your input, Vimes! :)

The ground clearance will not be an issue, as I will be using a lifting system raising the car around 75 mm (3") when encountering speed bumps, etc.

I can agree that ideally the bumpers should be at the same height, but that would mean that the rear bumper would need to be lowered quite a bit, which would look strange from the rear. I could maybe shorten the sides of the rear bumper a bit. I may try that. Regarding the front bumper, I think it needs to end where it does, as the corner is a big radius. If I shorten the sides, it will not reach the full width of the car when seen from the front, which will also look strange.

It is very likely that I will go with my initial idea, that is; no bumpers!

Before I make the final call, I will try out more variations! :)

[chevyz240]

I have continued the design work in Blender. The shape of the bumpers has been further modified. I have also changed the grill shape to better match the front bumper. A rear spoiler has been tested too.
I haven't decided to 100% that I will use bumpers, but I am leaning towards it. However, I don't think I will use a fixed rear spoiler, as I have said before. But I definitely want to see how that could look. As always, these decisions need to simmer and mature in my brain for some time.

Comments are welcome, as always! :)

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[chevyz240]

A couple of new front spoiler shapes have been tested and I have modeled a retractable rear spoiler.

I think the next video will be a tour of the Mechanix Menace garage, which I guess is long overdue!

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[chevyz240]

Here's a little tour of the garage where Mechanix Menace is being built!

I briefly go over how the project came to be and I explain some of the thought processes behind it. Most of this has been posted here before, but this is the first time I am doing a video like this!

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[chevyz240]

I have made yet another video!

This time I am showing in detail all the steps I go through when I add a new tube to the chassis; all the way from the CAD model to the tube being tacked in place. Again, I have shown this in pictures before, but I think this video helps to understand the whole process much better.
Please comment and ask questions and if there is something you would like to see in a future video, let me know! :)

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[chevyz240]

Some more design changes have taken place! And, lo and behold, garage season has begun! :)

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[chevyz240]

This is the first animation I have done of the car. I think it gives a much better feel for how the car looks, compared to just looking at it in pictures.

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[chevyz240]

I made another little animation! I am especially happy with the power window and its sound!

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[chevyz240]

The last post of 2024 will be this video showing some sheet metal fabrication and welding. I am creating the connection between the rocker panel and the rear wheel well. You'll also get a closer look at the CAD model than what I have shown before.

I wish you all a Happy New Year! 🥂🎆💥🎉

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[chevyz240]

Just for fun I scrolled through a lot of different colors!

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[TANKMASTERJ]

Henrik
I haven't looked in quite some time. Just watched your see the shop video.
I'm very impressed with your car story, renderings, thoughts about the Z.
I'm absolutely an american car guy myself but also very much appreciate cars from all continents. I love that European flair ( hope I've got that right ) in your modified version of the Z. I really like your engineer mindset being applied front to back on the build. Pretty cool you work at Ohlins and obviously have such a wealth of automotive knowledge to throw at your build.
I actually just bought a car from a guy who works at multimatic here in the states. Also a very interesting guy.
Good to see your progress and it all happened in a small home garage.
I love the LS7 as that's what I run. Great engine choose for that car.
Keep it up.
Jason

[chevyz240]

Henrik
I haven't looked in quite some time. Just watched your see the shop video.
I'm very impressed with your car story, renderings, thoughts about the Z.
I'm absolutely an american car guy myself but also very much appreciate cars from all continents. I love that European flair ( hope I've got that right ) in your modified version of the Z. I really like your engineer mindset being applied front to back on the build. Pretty cool you work at Ohlins and obviously have such a wealth of automotive knowledge to throw at your build.
I actually just bought a car from a guy who works at multimatic here in the states. Also a very interesting guy.
Good to see your progress and it all happened in a small home garage.
I love the LS7 as that's what I run. Great engine choose for that car.
Keep it up.
Jason

Thanks for the kind words, Jason!

Yes, since the project has been going on for eons, it has changed directions a few times. From the start, it was basically meant to be a street legal race car. Now, the goal is to have a more sophisticated car, with reasonable comfort, but still fairly quick around a track. I have also gone more towards a look that is closer to what an OEM actually might build. I think a lot of people will not be able to tell that almost every line of the car has been changed.

Multimatic builds nice shocks! :)

[chevyz240]

Here's a little teaser for an interesting project I'm working on!

It will be revealed in full in the not to distant future! :)

Can you guess what it is? :)

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[Vimes]

Passenger side front spoiler.

[chevyz240]

Passenger side front spoiler.

Nope! :razz: It's further towards the middle of the car.

[TANKMASTERJ]

Speaking of sophisticated street car going around the track, I'm wanting to add traction control to mine. I know the 08 Z06 had it that I got the engine and ECU out of so I should be able to add it with hopefully jat something like a hall effect sensor on the drive shaft
I'm investigating my options now.
It never ends!

[chevyz240]

Speaking of sophisticated street car going around the track, I'm wanting to add traction control to mine. I know the 08 Z06 had it that I got the engine and ECU out of so I should be able to add it with hopefully jat something like a hall effect sensor on the drive shaft
I'm investigating my options now.
It never ends!

That sounds like a good idea! Interesting to see how it'll work out! :)

[chevyz240]

This has nothing to do with my project, but maybe it can be interesting to see a little bit of what I do at work. It feels good to have designed and helped tune the shock absorbers for all three cars.

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[chevyz240]

A video showing the first chore for my newly bought shop press; bending a couple of pieces of sheet metal with a specific bend radius. But wait, there's more!!! A view of a very nice and blue thumb! :)

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[chevyz240]

The second job for my shop press was to test how well 3D-printed press dies would work when forming sheet metal. It worked surprisingly well, even if the high strength Docol 800DP (yield strength 600-650 Mpa or 72500-94300 psi) wasn't shaped perfectly and the dies got a bit deformed. I think that making a series of dies and forming the sheet metal in several steps would give a better result. The shapes of the dies were also pretty aggressive. I am sure I will use this method for some parts in the future. :)

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[chevyz240]

The pieces of sheet metal that I bent in the second to last video have found their places at the rear end of the rocker panels. I am pretty pleased with the result! :)

Eventually I will enlarge the rocker panel with a box shaped beam above the existing rocker. This beam will be filled with aluminum honeycomb. The original rocker panel will be extended outwards, and probably filled with polyurethane foam. Both of these measures will increase chassis stiffness and create a deformation zone in the event of a side impact. As I have said before, I am a huge fan of trying to make the car as safe as possible, within the existing constraints.

More pictures can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace/

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[LS1-IROC]

Awesome work Henrik!

[chevyz240]

Awesome work Henrik!

Thanks, LS1-IROC! :)

[chevyz240]

Just for fun, I made an ASMR video (I think..) showing my 3D printed shop press handle holders. You've got to stay on top of the current trends! 😊 I experimented a bit with video effects too.

F00lYaYzKIk

[chevyz240]

In this video, I show all of the steps taken to tack weld a tube attached to the front firewall in place.

Unfortunately my new theme song turned out with audio quality issues. The text is writting by me and the music is AI created. Quite a catchy little tune, if you ask me! :) The lyrics shouldn't be taken to seriously, but I am pretty happy with that too, considering it took me just a few minutes to write! :)

-GXEr1wYYPU

[chevyz240]

A couple of more tubes have been tacked in place on the front firewall structure. This progress is more easily noticeable than what I have been working on lately.

More pictures on:

https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace/

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[chevyz240]

This has nothing to do with Mechanix Menace, but it might be interesting to see what I do to my 1964 C10 as well, perhaps? :)

After a little over 12 years, I finally have the same rims in the front as I have in the rear! :)

The reason it took so long is that the bolt pattern on the wheel hubs was not the same as the rims. I actually have a vertical mill, but without a digital display and with sloppy feed screws, I have felt hesitant to re-drill the bolt pattern in it. A while ago, the opportunity to borrow a friend’s vertical mill opened up, so I jumped on that!
A little investigation showed that the wheel centering lip on the wheel hub was larger than the centering hole in the rim. I was lucky to be able to use another friend’s lathe to turn the diameter down (because my lathe has too much runout).

Before I started modifying the wheel hubs, I brought the rims to my job and measured the center hole carefully. Then I calibrated my vernier caliper as well. Apparently, I was a bit optimistic when it came to how tight the fit could be, so after turning the centering lip down, the rims didn't really fit. I sanded the lip down in my own lathe. The runout doesn't matter during hand sanding.

After that it was time to press in the lug bolts. I had drilled the holes on the small side of the recommended range for the hole diameter. When I pressed the first lug bolt in, it required 8 tons of force! I was worried that the entire hub/rotor would break! It didn't, but large chips came out of the contact surface for the rim!
Well, what should I do now??? It would be a lot of work to get another drill and start over! Instead, I put the lug bolts in my lathe and filed down the diameter. After a lot of testing, it finally turned out pretty well. I don't think the chips that came out pose any safety risk. The hub/rotor is thick.
At the same time as I had the tires mounted on the rims, I brought the hubs along. Since I didn't see any signs that the wheel hubs/rotors were balanced, we put one in the balancing machine as well and it had an imbalance of 10 grams. Totally OK on the small diameter!

Before reassembling the wheel hubs/rotors, I performed an extremely thorough cleaning of the hubs and wheel bearings.

Since the new tires have a smaller diameter, I knew that the ground clearance would be lower. I have already had problems with the control arms scraping on speed bumps, for example. Now the clearance for the control arms was 4-5 cm (around 2”) and they scraped on even full-width speed bumps at extremely low speeds!
Luckily, I had found a pair of longer scrapped prototype springs at work with almost the same spring rate just before I went on vacation. After a lot of work and adjustment, it turned out fine! Now the car is probably a little higher at the front than it was before, but I'll probably leave it that way, because now the ground clearance doesn't seem to be such a big problem anymore. Sometime in the future I might raise the entire front suspension to be able to lower the car more! We'll see!

I seem to have managed to get the wheels well centered and balanced, because I don't feel any steering wheel vibrations! In addition, the car feels more comfortable, despite the lower profile tires. Modern tire technology may be doing its job.
Now I think the car will just have to be driven without further work or mods for a while!

One thing that bothers me is that the rear rims are very corroded, so the contrast with the new shiny front ones is very big! I may have to dull the front rims down somehow, even if doesn’t feel good doing it!

All in all, it feels good to have fixed something that has been bugging me for more than 12 years!!!! :)

As always, many more pictures here: https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace/

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[jaybee]

Looks good. I can't help noticing the truck seems to have pretty good gaps all over. I mention it because that's always been a challenge with that range of trucks. It's one of the reasons it took them so long to become popular.

[chevyz240]

Looks good. I can't help noticing the truck seems to have pretty good gaps all over. I mention it because that's always been a challenge with that range of trucks. It's one of the reasons it took them so long to become popular.

Thanks, John!

I have welded in new rocker panels and cab corners, and when I did that, I put in some effort to get better gaps. I also cut the bottom of the doors open and rewelded them to make them more flush with the rockers. I modified the rockers to get rid of the pinch weld, so the bottom of them is now more even in height with the bottom of the front fenders and bed sides.

[chevyz240]

Again a post regarding the support vehicle for Mechanix Menace, my 1964 C10.

The rear wheels on the pickup have been too far into the wheel wells, appearance wise. It hasn't looked good. I've always planned to fix it with wheel spacers. Now it has finally happened!

A couple of weeks ago I checked how big the distance was from the tire to the fender edge in the most extreme position when the rear axle has maximum roll. I had to loosen both shock absorbers and a spring to achieve the most extreme position imaginable.
Since the flange on the fender edge is very wide, I planned to cut it down a bit to really get the wheels as far out as possible, to achieve the best look possible.

I then designed a pair of spacers with the right dimensions in regards to thickness, guide diameters, bolt pattern, etc. These were custom ordered from a Swedish company; Spacer.se. He was on vacation, but once he got home from vacation it only took 2 days for me to have them delivered! Fantastic! Plus, the price was really good.

Yesterday I cut off a bit of the fender flange and mounted the spacers and the wheels. I think it turned out really well! In the pictures the difference may not be so clear compared to before, but in real life it makes a big difference! Now the track width is 80 mm (3.15") wider than before.
One disadvantage is that you can't go as far out on the side of a narrow road when you meet a moron in their SUV who is fiddling with their mobile phone or touchscreen and can't stay on their side of the road, which happens way too often...

Today I'm going out for a test drive. I hope the tires don't scrape the fender edges! :)

Since the last post, I also have polished the rear wheels, and despite the corrosion, they came out fairly OK, at least from a distance of 10 yards!

As always, many more pictures here: https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace/

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[chevyz240]

Through the years, I have looked at something like 5000 (FIVE THOUSAND) different rims for Mechanix Menace. Nothing has really worked for me; they have either not looked good enough, or they haven't been available in the correct width, color, PCD or ET. Or they have simply been to expensive!

About a week ago, I found a company that makes forged custom rims according to my wish. I have had lengthty conversations with the owner of the company, and so far it looks very promising! The rims are surprisingly affordable. I have started to model a few versions, and right now, the first one is the one I feel is the best. It will be polished and clear coated.

What do you think? Any input is welcome! 🙂

More pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

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[jaybee]

The one with the reliefs on the sides of the spokes seems very cool to me. I don't think I've seen that done before.

[chevyz240]

The one with the reliefs on the sides of the spokes seems very cool to me. I don't think I've seen that done before.

Thanks John!

Yes, I think that design probably is were I will end up, maybe with some small changes.

The I-beam spoke design is actually a pretty common way to make the spokes stiff and light. It is used on many higher end wheels. An even more extreme way to make the wheels light and stiff are to have hollow spokes, like Porsche started using on the 993 Turbo wheels in 1995. Not only were the spokes hollow, but also a section of the outer rim flange!

[badbu68]

They are all pretty wicked, but I like the top design the best.

[chevyz240]

They are all pretty wicked, but I like the top design the best.

Thanks, Badbu68!

Me too! :)

[chevyz240]

This has nothing to do with Mechanix Menace, instead it has to do with my job as a design engineer at Öhlins.

This is the first OE 4x4 application for us. Hopefully there will be many more in the future! I have done the main part of the design of these shock absorbers. It's pretty cool to see that Roush has focused so much on the suspension in the video. We were not responsible for the springs. Unfortunately the supplier has a pretty ugly end coil spring protector, but I am pretty pleased with the look of the rest of the shocks. It's going to be interesting the see what the reviews will say about the suspension.

qPh7qec3sMA

[chevyz240]

Well, maybe not quite, but close...

Again, this is not about Mechanix Menace, but it's about front suspension geometry.

When I bought my '64 Chevy C10 pickup 19 years ago, I already had plans to modernize it. Three years later, I bought an '88 pickup with the idea of cutting off the front end of its frame and welding it to the rear of the '64 frame to get power disc brakes and power steering.

Because the newer truck had such rusty parts, I ditched that idea. I did take the 5-speed transmission, though, and got rid of the stock 3-speed gearbox with unsynchronized first gear and broken second gear! It was a bit tricky to drive. :)

Over the years, I’ve considered all kinds of solutions: a rack-and-pinion from a modern car, maybe an entire front suspension from a newer vehicle, etc. But since I didn’t want to spend too much energy on this truck instead of on Mechanix Menace, I stuck with the original front suspension and steering. I did install drop spindles, power disc brakes, and Öhlins shocks, so it hasn’t been completely stock...

After driving a truck that was heavy to steer at low speeds, had play in the steering, and 6.5 turns lock-to-lock, I finally decided last summer to buy a ready-made kit with a power steering box and adapter plate to save time. Yeah, right...
Originally, the steering shaft in the column is solid and runs in a straight line from the steering box to the wheel, so in a frontal crash, there’s a high risk of getting impaled! To improve safety, I also bought a collapsible steering shaft from another company. Both parts came from major, well-known American companies. The company that makes the steering box is even an OEM supplier to Chevy. You’d think they’d know what they’re doing—but nope...

When I ordered the collapsible shaft, I was skeptical of the design. It’s a round bar with two flats (double D) that slides into a flattened tube. The slightest play on that small diameter results in major play at the steering wheel rim. When it arrived, of course, I was right!
After lots of tinkering and testing different solutions, I flattened the tube even more, which reduced the play, although the tube is so flexible that there’s still some play under greater force. To fix that, I mounted a couple of sturdy flat bars that I can tighten just enough to eliminate the play while still allowing it to collapse in a crash.
Flattening the tube increased lateral play. I solved that with four set screws, adjusted just enough to support the inner part.

One thing I don’t get is how they can sell this part at all! You either have to cut and machine splines into the existing steering shaft, or like I did, turn and mill an adapter to weld on. In the end, it turned out fine!
Now to the steering box itself! You get an adapter plate that you’re supposed to bolt to the frame using two of the original holes from the old box. Then you drill two new ones. The new box is then fastened with three bolts through the frame and a fourth into the adapter plate.
Early on, I saw that things didn’t line up properly. When I mocked up the box, it turned out to be tilted 15 degrees off!!! Plus, the inner tie rod ended up in the wrong spot. When you steer, you get different bump steer on each side. Ackermann geometry is also off, though maybe that’s less critical. At first, I considered installing it as-is. It would work, and maybe you wouldn’t notice much, but I want it right and perfect—so I decided to do it properly, which meant a ton of work!

First, I had to make sure the truck was level side-to-side. I used a cross laser and shimmed the height with cardboard pieces between the jack stands and the frame! Then I had to lie on my back and juggle the 14 pound steering box into place using a stool, wood blocks, ratchet straps, and clamps. After lots of measuring with a laser, tape measure, and angle gauge, I finally got it right.

With the correct placement, I could mount the box using all four bolts through the frame, which makes it sturdier. Why they didn’t do it right from the start, I’ll never understand! I’m going to write to them and ask what they were thinking—if they even were...
Once the box and shaft were in place, it was time for the hoses. The box manufacturer had a kit that was supposed to fit, but I got suspicious when the hose fittings had imperial threads and the box had metric threads... When I emailed them, they said that with exiting thread engagement it would work... Seems pretty sketchy! Especially with hydraulic pressure of at least 1200 psi.

In the end, I had a local shop make hoses with banjo fittings. When I tried to install them, the banjos wouldn’t seat properly. Turned out the banjo bolts bottomed out in the box threads... Oh well, I just turned down the lengths a bit and that solved it!
When everything was finally in place last weekend, I took it out for a test drive. What a difference!!! From 6.5 turns, it’s now 3. Sure, with 10% less max steering angle, but still! The power assist is too strong, so I’ll eventually install a smaller diameter restrictor in the pressure line. Right now, the steering is way too light with too little road feel. But the turn-in feels almost like a race car!

Previously, the slow steering and play made it pretty stable—you could wiggle the wheel a bit without anything happening. Now, with the light and quick steering, even the slightest movement causes a change in direction. Takes some getting used to. A bit heavier steering would probably help.
One thing that became very clear is that the old-school feel is almost completely gone—for better or worse. Now it feels almost like jumping into any modern car, with disc brakes all around, Öhlins shocks, an engine that cruises at 1400 rpm at 60 mph, etc. But overall, it’s a huge improvement—you don’t have to break your arms to park, you can take tight 90-degree turns without driving extremely slow to be able to turn the wheel quickly enough, and you’ll probably be able to catch slides out of roundabouts more easily! More testing to come!

After way more work than expected, I’m actually really happy! :)

This time there are lots and lots more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace/


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[chevyz240]

A little later than usual, but that is partly due to work that I have done on the C10 that I have shown here. Yesterday I cleaned the garage and put away a lot of tools and stuff that I bought at an auction in September. The garage was then ready for some Mechanix Menace action!:)

Today I started to seam weld some of the tubing in the firewall area. I then welded in a couple of pieces of sheet metal covering up holes in the old A-pillars. After that I cut out and started to tack in place the driver's side kick panel. Unfortunately, the argon ran out before I was done. Some of the welds didn't really turn out as well as I would like... I think I need to brush up on my welding skills after a long hiatus...

If everything goes as planned, I will have a looong vacation next summer! Starting mid May or at the latest early June and going all the way through September! Verrry niiice, as Borat says! :)

This has got me thinking... I will not write this is stone, but I think I may be hatching a plan to have a driveable chassis before that vacation ends!!! Everything will be hooked up temporarily and I am happy if it rolls under it's own power! It may even have Flintstone brakes, but as long as I can drive it around the block, I will consider I have achieved that goal!

Getting feedback and response from you guys will inspire me and help me being motivated! :)

More pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace/

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[chevyz240]

This fall I have spent a lot of time on the front suspension design, both regarding the geometry and how it attaches to the tube frame. Now I have finally finished this big job! In the video, all of this is explained in detail!

vJsRUt90XSI

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[carbuff]

Thanx for sharing that. Enjoying the build process on this one.

[chevyz240]

Thanx for sharing that. Enjoying the build process on this one.

Thanks, Bryan! :)

[chevyz240]

The car has been bolted down to the garage floor for almost 12 years! Now it was finally time to put it in a rotisserie to simplify the seam welding of the cabin part of the chassis. I modified the rotisserie stands I used 19!! years ago on the car! They have to be able to straddle the centerline reference ruler on the garage floor.

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More pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

This time, the post is not about Mechanix Menace, instead it covers the design and manufacturing of a carburetor plenum for a friend's road race Corvette. He wanted a low design to not reduce visibility out of the car too much. I used my airflow experience from a previous job to design a sleek plenum, but still with low restriction. A mold was 3D printed by me, and then he made the plenum out of carbon fiber.

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[carbuff]

That is very interesting. I would also be curious about the CFD effects in the rear which you noticed and asked about. I would also wonder if the rear barrels would run richer due to being more air starved vs. the fronts.

I'm curious - did he just turn the linkage arm upside down, or was there more to it? I'm not a big carb guy, so it's not obvious to me. I like the wheel he added...

[dhutton]

This time, the post is not about Mechanix Menace, instead it covers the design and manufacturing of a carburetor plenum for a friend's road race Corvette. He wanted a low design to not reduce visibility out of the car too much. I used my airflow experience from a previous job to design a sleek plenum, but still with low restriction. A mold was 3D printed by me, and then he made the plenum out of carbon fiber.

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Wow!

[chevyz240]

That is very interesting. I would also be curious about the CFD effects in the rear which you noticed and asked about. I would also wonder if the rear barrels would run richer due to being more air starved vs. the fronts.

I'm curious - did he just turn the linkage arm upside down, or was there more to it? I'm not a big carb guy, so it's not obvious to me. I like the wheel he added...

I think the difference in airflow between the different barrels is very small. If you would CFD other air cleaners and plenums, I am sure you would see much worse results.

He used the downwards pointing part of the throttle arm and had to create the wheel for the gas wire to reverse the rotation, since the lever now needs to be pushed instead of pulled.

[chevyz240]

I have now seam welded all the tubes in the cabin part of the chassis. The rear shock towers are also fully welded. Most of the rear wheel wells are done too. The weld quality goes from decent to pretty bad. Some of the places were really hard to reach, even with the rotisserie, so the ergonomics didn't help. And in some places the welds started to bubble from some contamination, luckily almost only in the sheet metal joints. Some of them have been sitting for some time, so I don't know if there was a bit of rust in there. Unfortunately, TIG welding is very sensitive to contaminants, compared to MIG. In the YouTube video, I also explain some early design decisions.

I am very happy to have come this far!

More pictures here: https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

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[jaybee]

That's a sturdy chassis indeed. The backbone is going to make it crazy stiff.

[chevyz240]

That's a sturdy chassis indeed. The backbone is going to make it crazy stiff.

Yup! With the sandwich panels, it'll be stiff! :)

[chevyz240]

I have cut away the outer part of the stock rocker panels in preparation for the new ones I will build. They will consist of a widened version of the stock rocker panel, that probably will be filled with construction foam, and an upper part that will have an aluminum honeycomb core. These cores will increase stiffness and strength, which will benefit both chassis stiffness and impact protection.

I have also worked on the brake bells (hats) and the caliper adapters. Initially, I sent the brake company models with the calipers in the correct positions in relation to the spindles (uprights), and they were going to design the bells and the adapters. For some very strange reason, they haven't managed to get the dimensions correct. After several attempt, my contact person (the CEO) said that I can design them myself. So, that is what I have done!

While doing so, I also found out that some dimensions for the AP disc (rotor) attachment hardware wasn't correct either, so I have corrected this as well. Now I just hope that they will produce these parts to my exact specifications. I have not had that discussion with them yet! We will see what happens!

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Many more pictures here: https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace

[chevyz240]

There has been a pause in the garage work due to some issues with the physiotherapy of my shoulder after surgery I had in November. I am supposed to basically not use the arm at all. For that reason, I have gone back to the modeling in Blender. The shoulder (haha!!!) and character lines have been tweaked to try to get a more aggressive look. In the video you get more info on my thoughts and lots more views and alternatives.

Please let me know what you think! :)

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[chevyz240]

I have suffered from lumbago for almost two weeks, so no work has been done in the the garage. Instead I have continued working on the Blender model. Just for fun, I also made this little film, that starts with the car dragged up on the street, 15 years ago, followed by the steps I took in Photoshop to visualize the car. It ends with the current Blender model.

3tfAYLFd3Tc

[chevyz240]

This video shows many of the steps I’ve taken while modeling how I want the car to look.

The video is divided into two parts. Until 01:42, the car is shown from a single angle while I move quickly through the different stages and changes. After that, you’ll see the car from more angles and have more time to look at each step.

Early in the modeling process, I considered changing almost every line of the car except for the already chopped roof. After thinking it over for a while, I decided I wanted to keep the car looking more like a classic Z. I also didn’t want to spend too much time reshaping the body, so the idea was to keep it mostly stock (aside from the chopped roof) and add some wide fender flares.

Pretty early on, I had the idea of widening the entire body, but I never really thought I would go through with it since it’s such a big undertaking. However, since the project has already taken so long, I finally decided to commit to that idea. The body will now be made of fiberglass, except for the steel roof, which is welded to the roll cage.

As you can see, there are a lot of small changes throughout the process, and I’m not done yet! But I think the final shots are pretty close to what I’ll end up with.

What do you think? Anything you would change? Feedback is welcome!

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[chevyz240]

I have just started my summer vacation, which will continue all the way to September 20th!!!! 🙂 And then on October 1st, I will go down to 30% work hours! This will hopefully mean that progress on Mechanix Menace will hit a higher gear! Today I have hand shaped the last corner piece on the driver's side rear wheel well. Check out the full process in the video! 🙂

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[chevyz240]

A little while ago, I welded in the last pieces of the hand shaped rear wheelwell corners.

Today I went to https://www.autocut.se/. There, Håkan helped me bend the three different pieces needed to create the new rocker panels. The top part will be filled with aluminium honeycomb and the bottom part will be filled with polyurethane foam. This will create an extreme stiff, strong and crash safe rocker panel.
I was a bit worried that the parts wouldn't come out the way I wanted, but Håkan nailed it! (With a little help from me...) 🙂

On the way back home my daily driver 2004 Audi A4 reached 510.000 km (317.000 miles).

When I got home, I had to celebrate both things with a pizza and a couple of Hefeweizen in the sun!

Thanks a lot, Håkan and Martin, for helping me out! Much appreciated! 🙂

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Many more pictures at https://www.facebook.com/MechanixMenace