Transcona, the Dirty Old XR7

[egoman]

And as usual, and as promised here are some more pics. I told you I took lots!

[egoman]

Corvette independent rear end brakes fitting on a 9 inch floater rear with working parking brakes! I was told it couldn’t be done, but I get told that a lot. My plans and measurements say that THEY are wrong! More lathe work come Monday. There is a guy who charges about $4000 to do what I am going to (hopefully) accomplish for several hundred. It actually turns out to be just a few dollars more than the parts.
By the way soap and water doesn’t touch brake grime at all!
Also if you can’t figure out what I am doing with the old spindle, they are going to become spacers and the brackets for mounting the brakes on the rear end. Nifty, huh?

[egoman]

Few more pics.

[egoman]

These should be the last brackets that will allow me to use the Corvette C6 ZO6 brakes and E-Brakes on the 9 inch floater for the Cougar! Going to get them cut probably next week with all the other brackets for the rear suspension.
I cheated and made it so one drawing allows for the cutting of two different brackets. You can see what I did in the cutting instructions in the lower left corner. The double shaded drawing is the revision...... kind of. Both will need hand trimming.

So just minutes after posting that I had it all figured out I double checked the measurements.
Yesterday this stuff was so hot that it burnt my hands just to carry it in the building. (That was just from sitting in my truck not even in direct sunlight!)
Now that the calipers and the bracket have cooled down. My measurements didn’t remain the same. Double and triple checking still won’t prevent all mistakes but should help reduce the overall number a bit!

[egoman]

The internet is a beautiful thing. I can find almost anything.

[egoman]

While there is a lot to see here there isn’t much to explain. BUT I can get long winded anyways LOL.
You should be able to see how I am using the stock spindles cut down as a bracket and spacer to allow them to be used on the floater.
I love the look of the Corvette calipers and I will make no effort to hide that on my Mercury.

[egoman]

I manage to score a piece of 2024 t351 billet for a damn good price. 1-1/2 x6 and 12 feet long for 50 dollars, Oh and I GOT 2! This stuff drills like steel though, it’s tough! Thank you Air Canada for deleting old stock.
If those cuts look crooked, it’s not your eyes. A dull blade in the band saw resulted in that. We are cutting the spindles down and making the rocker for the watts linkage. I just printed out my drawing and taped it to the block. Cut and sand, cut and sand.
The larger squares that I cut out will be explained later. Some may figure this out, and well ……… some may not? I mean they have lines on them how hard could it be?

[egoman]

I told you a while ago that I was going to use my methods of using hole saws for creating holders and jigs. This stuff is for welding the axle tubes to the housing. There were about ten thousand measurements taken at this point and I hoped that was enough to get it close to right. The welds you see on the jig were placed there to get the jig to pull to straight. 1 super-hot weld and some water and the jig pulls back to straight. The 3 inch DOM is straight so let’s align the jig to that right?
While you don’t see it in these pics I actually screwed this up the first time. Being steel it’s easy to fix though! That drawing didn’t allow for enough room for the reclaimed center section. I also built the whole rear end as a long piece on the DOM first so I could get the outside of sidewall to outside of sidewall correctly positioned. Not a good place to guess and the reason that a few posts ago I had the 69-1/2 measurement on the tape measure posted.
Please notice that the brake brackets are not mounted yet.

[egoman]

I seem to maybe add too many pictures but I just don't want to leave anything out. I promised a lot of pictures and I hope that everyone has a story behind it. There was a ton of agony related to cutting the rear end tubes so the width would be right on! It turned out within a few fractions of an inch. Tire sidewalls are a very loose measurement in the first place, LOL.

[egoman]

Nothing like when you see some positive results.
The rear end with the tires and rims attached just plain looks cool.
We tacked it all together and then checked for straightness. Then we welded a quarter at a time and switched to opposite sides and checked for straightness. If it couldn’t roll cleanly in the jig we moved the welding around until it did. While I don’t do it here we did a roll test later and the tape measure never moved at all. VICTORY is mine, BOW BEFORE ME!
Ok I got a little out of hand……………………..
All welding to this point was done with a Lincoln SST machine at my Union hall. Nice to have the big power machine when welding this stuff. Thanks to my friend Brent Johnston for telling me the good settings for that machine. These are not your Harbor Freight welders, you actually have to know what you are doing to set them. That will seem funnier much later, believe me.

[egoman]

AND more pics LOL

[egoman]

More going on here that it appears. Now I could have borrowed my buddy David’s belt sander and effed it up royally or I could go on KIJIJI and see if anyone has one for sale. Yes a quick check found on for 60 bucks and it had a few belts with it. I learned years ago from watching a sprint car builder named Jerry Frantzen that sanding aluminum looks good and gets rid of weight. I actually raced one of his sprint cars for a few years when I was a hero in the division. Well at least as far as drinking beer and telling stories makes you a hero.
Those 4 drill bits and that tap was the best part of $200. If you look at my parts and my drawings you will also see what I said earlier about sometimes the part only uses the drawing as a suggestion. Also I went with a thicker piece for the watts rocker and switched to a double shear design to capture the ½ inch rod ends.
If anyone is wondering about the ¾ rod coupling bolted to the rocker, I may tell you later and I may not. I mean honestly I actually drew it out for you, sorta?

[egoman]

Always more pics than a single post requires but you are getting it all!

[Mikey97D]

Nice progress.

It appears the block with the threaded holes is aluminum, if it is steel ignore this: I would suggest putting some helical inserts in there since you will be adjusting the pivot from time to time plus it will help with the loads in the aluminum.

[egoman]

There is almost 2 full inches of thread engaged when that is assembled. If I do have any problems I can still use the original part with the mods you suggested. Thanks for looking in on my little project!

[egoman]

Here you can see how I am reducing the spindles to their simplest form to use as a bracket for the floater.
I also got into the CAD work for my watts link brackets for the rear end. (Cardboard aided design)
A lot of this stuff is my first real attempts at using a lathe accurately.
I also had my buddy Doug do some more plasma work for me. Then the boring job of sanding it all down had to be done.

[egoman]

Details and more details!

[egoman]

Those brackets from the other day are deburred and sanded smooth. Brainless but tedious work. The bars that have all the holes in them are just suspension stiffeners and are for, well suspension stiffening! Don’t exactly know why I had to say more there HMMM?
You can also see that I have machined the watts rocker so it works in double shear. I used that ¾ rod coupling that I mentioned before as a mandrel to chuck it all in the lathe. Oh by the way it’s actually a 7/8ths rod coupling and I trusted my memory again when I really shouldn’t have.

[egoman]

Here you can start to see that the spacers and the spindle and the steel bracket are coming together to make a complete braking system. At this point I have made a huge miscalculation, but I don’t know it yet?
I also bolted the aluminum spacer to the original spindle to bore it out and then turned it again to face it smooth and parallel.
Certain things require small clearancing, like the E-brake adjuster and some other stuff.
I have also placed the suspension brackets on the rear end so I don’t forget them later. I actually don’t forget them later too. That’s kind of nice isn’t it?

[egoman]

For the longest time I was having problems with how I was going to run the E-brake cables??
Then I looked at a picture of a C5 and I had that AH HA moment. The calipers are front mounted not rear DOH! That cleared that up now didn’t it?
With the calipers roughly placed in the right spot the rear end looks really good together.
You can also see the retaining plate that sandwiches all the brake components together. That is grade 5 all thread to help it all stay in one place. I just buzzed that together with the MIG and called it a day. Damn I am good aint I? Pride goeth before the fall……………