Introducing - Project 1/2-TRAK

[Damn True]

Plugging along in the garage at about 7:30pm and damn.....

I don't have a 7/8 crowfoot.

Ugh.


Updates comin soon.

[dangina]

Primer then Seam sealer is what i do.

since primer doesn't prevent rust I'll use a rust prevenative like this:

http://www.vhtpaint.com/products/rollbarchassis/

then seam sealer

then paint it with the same paint again for extra measure

[Damn True]

Ok, so an actual update....

First of all, I want to thank again all those who passed on words of encouragement with regard to the passing of my Grandparents, and the re-start of the project. It's meant a lot.

So the last substantive fabrication/welding task was to finish the install of the Lateral Dynamics 3-Link. I had the front x-member in before work stalled.



The remaining bits were installing the rear x-member, closing out the torque box, and installing the close-out panels/boxes to make room for the upper trailing arm.

Here's the rear x-member installed. I had it powder coated in a light gray. I hated to cover up Matt's welds, but the guy at the PC shop said a clear PC would discolor and look really lousy.



For some reason, I really enjoy doing those rosette welds. They're just kinda fun. As you can see, I had to put a doubler on the frame to take up the gap between the length of the x-member and the width of the frame. James had to pound his frame rails out to make his fit. Yeah late-60's manufacturing inconsistencies!

Here's the torque box closeouts. I hadn't finished grinding the welds down when I snapped the pic. Kathy was calling me to dinner.



Then I roughed in the trunk pan closeout and the doghouse that houses the upper link on the rear end housing.













More later.......

[Damn True]

Next up was to figure out a reasonably clean way to close out the area above the tunnel where the upper trailing arm will reside. The part that came with the kit was ok, but I didn't like the area around the fwd upper trailing arm mount. It didn't fit tight enough to the mount to allow the hardware to be outside the doghouse, and it was too narrow to access it if you put it inside.

Noodled around a bunch of ideas, including what James did in cutting a tunnel out of another car (t-bird I think) and I looked at using a Harley FL front fender. Almost did that, but once I cut the rolled edges off the fender it was way too flimsy.

So, what I wound up doing is what you see below. Pretty simple. I just struck a template off the fwd edge of the upper trailing arm mount, transferred that to the end of that 6" wide sheet and put a gentle bend it it to land it on the top of the rear doghouse.



As you can see, the sides aren't symmetrical. Because neither is the tunnel so that made forming the sides a bit troublesome. This presented another, among many opportunities to discover that my wife is much smarter than I am.

So I'm kneeling inside the cabin of the car, whittling away at a sheet of poster board trying to make a template that matches the nutty bunch of contours from the fwd x-member all along the pan/tunnel, and up onto the fwd face of the rear doghouse. Cut-curse-mark-cut-curse-mark-cut-curse-mark.... So Kathy pokes her head into the car and says "why don't you use a piece of wire and bend it to all those contours and then transfer that to the posterboard?"

In less time than I'd expended nibbling away at the paper, I drove to Lowes, bought 8' of solid core copper ground wire (a bit larger dia than coat hanger wire but more pliable, I forget what gauge) bent it, transferred it to paper and it fit pretty close to perfect.



So there is the part tacked in place at the top & bottom, you can see a bit of light peeking in the gap, but it's tiny. A few nudges with a body hammer from beneath closed those up tight. BTW, the gizmo to the right is a "Gorilla Torch", it's made by a company called JOBY. The legs articulate and will wrap around almost anything and the feet are magnetic so it can be placed just about anywhere. Comes in really handy when there isn't enough ambient light to see what you are doing through the auto-darkening shield. Especially when welding under the car as you can focus the beam right where you are trying to weld allowing to to see perfectly before beginning the weld.

Quite a bit of yoga required to weld that part in, but despite that I was able to do some ok work.





Adequate given my meager skill set and experience.

So. Up next is front suspension install (v2.0) and assembly of the rear end housing......

[rickpaw]

I was about to ask on the little gizmo. I may have to get one of those. I tried using a small flashlight, but holding a flashlight and welding at the same time does not always work out.

[Damn True]

Works great. You can buy them direct from their website. Really handy little tool. Got one for Christmas and immediately purchased another to put in my pack for canoe trips and two more to give to friends.

http://joby.com/gorillatorch

[Damn True]

Box-o-goodies arrived yesterday containing amongst other things this lovely hunk of metal:

[jlwdvm]

Did you decide on rear brakes yet?

[Damn True]

All in boxes on the garage floor. All Wilwood.

[Damn True]

Bit of an issue. Hopefully James or David can advise.

Went to muscle the rear end housing up into the car tonight and ran into a snag. The upper spring perches on the shocks interfere with the frame rail. This prevents the bottom end of the shock from moving outboard far enough to attach to the lower shock mount on the rear end housing.

Assume I need some kind of offset (down) spring perch?

Pics in the morning.

[nicks67camaro]

Hey True I may have missed it but did you change direction on the front sub?

[Damn True]

No. Still a factory subframe.

[jlwdvm]

Which Wilwoods for the rear?

[Damn True]

Ya know when you are working on your own junk and you think something has gone horribly wrong and then someone makes a simple suggestion that didn't occur to you at the time.

That just happened.

Inverted the shocks. Fits fine.

Duh.

Next challenge....Trying to find the axle center-line measurement...anyone know the dimension and where you are supposed to measure from?

[James OLC]

You're welcome

[Damn True]

Which Wilwoods for the rear?

Superlite 4P per the calculations from Ron in the brake sizing thread. Good guy to work with. Bought everything through him.

[Damn True]

Brake system assembly began today though somewhat truncated by an insidiously progressive "honey-do" list.

Two steps forward and one step back in the form of a wheel stud shoulder that is .020 bigger than the hole in the Wilwood hat.

[jlwdvm]

Did you end up going with a floater rear? I read some of that brake thread and ended up ordering Wilwood D154's to go with my FNSL 6P on the front since I was a little concerned about pad knock back at the track. I have a Strange 9 with their 35 spline center section on the way.

[Damn True]

Non-floater setup. On the advice of David Pozzi I went with ball vs roller bearings to help mitigate axial movement. If that doesn't make the knockback manageable I'll have to go change to power brakes.

[Damn True]

In this update I'm wrapping up (blessedly) the rear suspension install.

If you've not been following along, this is the Lateral Dynamics 3-Link System. Sadly, the company went out of business a few years ago so here's hoping nothing ever goes wrong with this damn thing or I'm hosed.

It's a really nicely designed system though. In use on James Shipka's "One Lap Camaro"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T8y_Q5RKcw

....and Yancy John's (former owner Steve Rupp) "Bad Penny" Camaro.


http://youtu.be/Ay2w0OGDRpQ?t=34s

Both tuned by David and Mary Pozzi and both work spectacularly well. There aren't many of these kits in existence, Mike Kelcy recently got his on the road and that is all the ones that belong to folks I know.

Matt Rogers did all the fabrication on these and I'll be damned if I've ever seen better fitment and welding. Broke my heart to cover it up in powder coating.



As you can see, I had the housing powder coated in a light gray to aid in spotting any leaks or cracks down the road. The 3rd member is a Strange (iron) 9" with 3.70 gears and a Detroit TrueTrac diff. Should be plenty stout.

The hardware in the system is all really top notch as well. I sure wish the manufacturer was still around, I'd love to have a list of the rod end sources and PN's for replacements if needed.



The install of this system was the most challenging part of the build thus far. I went into it with my eyes wide open on that and thanks in large part to Matt, David Pozzi and James Shipka I got through it. Here's hoping the performance potential of this system over some of the more "plug-n-play" bolt in kits makes it worth it.



As you can probably tell, the rear alignment is way off. Not worried about that right now. But I'll get it in the ballpark before it rolls out of the garage at the end of this month.





Next update with pics will cover the front suspension and shocks.....