Transcona, the Dirty Old XR7

[jaybee]

Good looking stuff!

[egoman]

Good looking stuff!

Thanks for the praise. It helps to keep a guy moving LOL!

[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]

33 This time the rear end is mostly complete except for the trailing link brackets.
We have fixed the emergency brake cables and the mounts for those cables. They only required a small amount of heat and a creative bend to make them OK! We also fixed the clamping plates by going to a lower grade of steel all thread rod and TIG welding them into place. It is kind of funny that you will need both metric and standard tools to work on much of this stuff.


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33 And as usual more pics.

[egoman]

34 So with the rear finished for now what are we going to do next? I would guess the geniuses in the crowd would think the front end is next. They would of course be right, you know, because they are geniuses!
Good old GM for some reason couldn’t make the bolt holes the same distance apart. I measured that crap so often before I realized that the stock mounts varied by fractions of an inch on purpose. I WASN’T MEASURING IT WRONG!
A member on another forum lent me some very good C5 C6 suspension details that I have also shared with others. His only requirement was to never post it online. He was alright with me privately sharing that info though. Very James Bond right there eh?
So I got to practice some old school drafting again based on those measurements and that is included here.

[egoman]

35 I am a huge fan of captured nuts so assembly is easier and faster. I use this technique frequently on this car.
Once again with GMs jerk face designers designing all this with 2 different centerlines, it makes you question everything you are working on. Oh well tape measures levels and strings can fix all that right?
This one has a lot more pictures that words.

[egoman]

The drawing here is the one that I take over to my friend Doug so he can plasma it all out. Even with a drawing we still talk each bracket out to make sure we don’t screw it up. That of course still happens though.
And yes that crappy old drafting table is all that I need to make me happy. I love welding and cutting steel but drawing is a close second favorite for me.
I have done something different here. I have added text boxes as I felt there were too many pics without an explanation. Tell me what you think in the comments?