The BAD AST Project - Faze II

[astroracer]

Thanks Will, it's all straightened out and I'm comfortable with the mods.
I dropped the spindles off to Mike last night and he said I did a beautiful job. He looked over the plates and said he may do a little more grinding to improve root weld penetration but overall everything looked good. He said these will weld up beautifully and I will have some stout steering arms I won't have to worry about breaking. That's a good thing, right?
Mark

[FoxGranadaChuck]

Looking good Mark....

[elcamino80]

its nice to follow your progress, keep it up!

[Martin71RS]

Each time I look I am amazed at the fabrication you are doing... WOW!Keep up te good work Mark!

Martin

[astroracer]

Thanks guys! It's good to know SOMEONE is looking at this thread.
I am still working through the spindle rebuild. The welder is taking his time with them. There is no rush of course as the van is still a long way from rolling.
Mel And I got a lot done this weekend though. On the van and on the old 49 F1 I was building last year. The guy I bought the 49 from stopped out to the shop last weekend and actually bought the truck back. Mel and I pulled the frame off the rotisserie and stabbed in the powerpack and rear end so he can haul her home... The cab will go on next weekend and the rest will fit in boxes. I am a happy camper here. Makes for more room in the shop, the rotisserie is empty now and I will have some extra coin to through at the van.
We got the front driveshaft loop and K member built and tacked in Sunday. I used 1 5/8's and 1 1/4 dia tubing and will finish weld everything when it's on the rotisserie.
Here is the loop getting fit to the 1 5/8 dia crosstube.

here is the crosstube and loop tacked into the frame.

Fabbing the K member.


Side view showing the 15 degree angle the loop is on.

Thanks for looking
Mark

[astroracer]

This where the 49 ford frame is at.
just after we rolled it into the shop. You will notice the Astro frame is off the tables and the tables are rolled outside.

Off the rotisserie and hanging the rearend.

Engine and trans stabbed in...


Got a lot done this weekend even though we only had Sunday. (Saturday was Back to the Bricks in Flint).

[wellis77]

Looking good Mark. Keep the progress pics coming!

[astroracer]

Thanks Will, I'll do just that.
Here are the spindles, back from Iron Mikes and all welded up. I really don't think there is going to be an issue with these guys being unsafe. If you could see these things in person you would have to agree. Mike did an incredible job welding these up and he told me the tie rod end will break LONG before these will. I have to agree 100%. I will do some smoothing to eliminate stress risers and clean up the tierod areas but this is what we have.

[wellis77]

Problem solved. Can't wait to see this thing on the ground.

[astroracer]

Thanks Will. Once these were ground down and smoothed out they look fantastic!
We also knocked off the caliper ears in preparation for the Corvette abutment brackets.
Outside view

Top View

inside View

Bottom View

Knocking off the old caliper "ears". We sawzalled the ears off at the felt pen lines.

All gone, blended and ready to drill and tap for 7/16-20 bolts.

This is the new abutment bracket in place before we did any cutting.

Thanks for looking.
Any thoughts on these arms?
Mark


I am open to all comments on these. I do have to admit they look a bit beefier than the orange one posted above.... I do know there is a lot more weld and actual "arm" supporting the new location.

[astroracer]

Got the rear end housing cleaned up and ready to narrow. I am taking the housing to a gentleman in Bay City to narrow and rebuild it. New bearings, yoke, True-Trac, nodular 3rd member w/ 3.90's and new axles from Moser. Assembled and ready for lube and paint.
I cut off all of the old brackets and ground everything smooth.

I sprayed it down with Simple Green, inside and out, let it sit for a few minutes then hit it with the pressure washer. Cleaned up nice.

[astroracer]

The chassis is on the rotisserie as of this morning. Had to reconfigure the brackets. I made these last year to hang the '49 F1 frame.




This will work great for final welding, clean up and paint...
Thanks for looking
Mark

[wellis77]

Looking good Mark. I was hoping to see an update. I like the work you did on the spindle, came out great!

[astroracer]

Thank You Sir, the spindles turned out better than I had hoped. There is no way in hell these things are going to be an issue. Like Iron Mike told me when I dropped them off for welding, "the tierod itself will break before these arms will", and he is right.
Yesterday afternoon I hauled the rearend housing up to McCarthy Performance in KawKawlin (an hours drive north of me) for narrowing and rebuilding with new Moser 31 spline axles, Nodular center section and new gears, True-Trac LS, HD pinion support and new bearings and seals. I will put in fill and drain plugs when I get it home.
I talked to Tobin at KORE 3 about their 9 inch C5 caliper brackets. I will hold off ordering them until after I have the housing back.
Mark

[astroracer]

I had a four day weekend and, with Mels help we got a few things done.
Mel pulled his trailer out Friday morning and "camped" in my backyard again. Sure does save him alot on petrol.
Friday morning Mel and I ran into Flint and exchanged the empty Oxy bottle for my torches for a full one, picked up a drawer slide at Home Depot and stopped at Harbor Frieght for $9.99 4 1/2" grinders and rust removal discs.
We built a grinding station out of a free sink base cabinet I had put on casters a few weeks ago.
Added a drawer, tool holders, a shelf and an electrical outlet.


After using it all weekend I am going to add a another outlet so we can have more than two grinders plugged in at a time. This thing is very handy and it is nice to be able to roll it outside for heavy grinding!
Saturday I did the car show in Durand and we had a few friends over for a cookout that afternoon and evening. While we had warm bodies available we set the 49 ford pickup cab on the frame so the new owner can have it hauled home on a rollback.

Sunday Mel and I finally got back to work on the Astro. I have decided to go with a shorter shock in the front so we cut down the shock towers to fit.

Mel did a lot of that while I was working on Steering rack brackets.


Sunday night we came up with a fixture design to hold the rack at the right height and angle so we could position it crosscar and build our brackets off the rack.

Pretty simple really. A piece of 1/4" plate and some angles with tabs tacked on so we could hose clamp the rack in place.


Mel built most of the fixture monday morning while I was changing the wax ring on my daughters main bathroom toilet.... Good Times...
After the fixture was built and we had the rack where it needed to be the bracket build went pretty smooth.
Here we are fitting some of the pieces together.


Did some redesigning on the fly and had everything ready to tack at lunchtime.
Once they were tacked we pulled them off and I finish welded them while Mel designed and built some gussets for the underside to support the rack.


I welded them up and bolted them on for a look-see...

That was my weekend.
Thanks for looking
Mark

[wellis77]

Nice work Mark. I like the fixture for the rack. I've been thinking about how I'm going to fixture my rack so I can build brackets. I'm thinking something similar using either hose clamps or exhaust clamps.

[astroracer]

Thanks Will,
The fixture worked great. It actually controlled the rack position in three directions. Vertically, for/aft and rotationally. We built the fixture so the back edge registered off the rack brackets bolted to the crossmember, this controlled the fore/aft. The "L" brackets were located to pick up some hard points on the rack for crosscar and height and the hose clamps held the rack in place on the "L" brackets AND locked it down at the right angle for the I-shaft. After the angle was set we simply measured to the hard points on the rack from the inside frame rail to lock down the crosscar. The whole fixture could be slide around without hurting any of the pre-sets. Worked very well. You can see the "level/wood block/c-clamp thing" in the prior photos and it just wasn't working for us. The fixture was simple and quick to build so save yourself some headaches and build one first thing. Mel and I fought with the other one all day Sunday with no real progress... Monday was different, we got a lot done.
Mark

[craigs73]

looking great is your "rotisserie" two engine stands? was thinking of doing this if so how does it work out im wanting to do something like this mainly so i can turn car on side to clean underside... i would think t 1k stands would be strong enough for just the shell of the nova.. what u think?

[astroracer]

http://public.fotki.com/astroracer/p...is-rotisserie/
The link is to my Fotki site. You can see the revisions I made to the engine stands there. I didn't use a lot of the stands (got them on sale at NAPA for 35 bucks apiece) other then the lower tube, rotating head and spindle. I made it taller to clear the 49 Ford F1 running board brackets and wider to improve the footprint. Works very well for a chassis but I wouldn't consider putting a whole body on it.

[craigs73]

i was just talking the shell (firewall back) no rear end no subframe or front sheet metal the shell gutted if i had to stands rated for 1000lbs each that 2000lbs together i dont think it would weigh anymore than that????