Project 53 Bel Air

[tterbo]

Well, this is what I have to work with. The Viper diff is much bigger than the C5 diff that normally occupies the cradle. Upon first observation, the large mounting ears on the Viper diff look like they might possibly interfere with the upper A-arm mounting points but it's hard to tell at this point until I get everything mocked up.

I started by fabricating the base of the cradle from the Solidworks model. I have a small CNC plasma cutter that allows me to make all of my plates. It is a huge timesaver as opposed to cutting, drilling, grinding, etc. Once I had the base of the cradle fabbed, it gave me mounting points for the lower A-arms so I could begin mocking up the rest of the rear suspension. I don't have solid models of the suspension components or Viper differential or I might have been able to design the whole cradle virtually. Sometimes I find it easier to design with parts laid out in front of me in the "real world" anyway. I am using the front wheels (they have the same backspacing as the rear) to hold the spindles into position which also lets me establish toe by simply using square tubing on the floor to "parallel" the rear wheels.
Once everything was assembled there was nothing to hold the upper A-arms and spindles upright so I made a couple of temporary floating mounts to hold them up with a 2"x4". By rotating the spindles to zero caster and shimming the 2" x 4" I was able to get the arms positioned close enough to where they need to be so that I can start figuring out the upper part of the rear cradle and locate the differential. I also made some "fake" axles to give me a visual when positioning the differential.


If at all possible I do not want to intrude into the rear seat area. From what I can tell so far I should be able to make a cradle that will clear the rear seat but it will definitely be close...