October 18, 2008Well, it's been a very long time since I've made updates. There's been a lot of progress since the last update, and the biggest news is that I took it for a drive today! Yes, we're just about done! The two remaining pieces are the speedometer and a nice leather boot for the shifter. The speedometer has been the most problematic. I've been waiting for 2 years for the guy at Terf to finish building me a converter. I've finally given up and I'm going to order a Cable X converter. Once I get the speedo taken care, I should be able to get it smogged (yes, the Governator changed the rules and there's no longer a rolling 30 year exemption) and officially registered. Here are some photos I took after my cruise up into the mountains, down to the coast, and up the coast. June 27, 2006The subframe is back on, all of the new front suspension, steering and brakes are in too. It's back to being rollable! Here are some pics: Pictures of the subframe, front suspension, steering and brakes installed Here's what's new: Suspension
Now that it's rollable again, we can roll it over to the body shop so they can blast and paint the firewall. That should be started next week. My new rims also just arrived! They are Works VS-XX's which were custom-built according to the measurements I took. I had to take all the measurements based on the old suspension, steering and brakes, so it was a bit of a gamble. The jury is still out on whether I got it right. On the front, I was worried that the wilwood hub would extend too far for the design of the rim. Measurements indicated it should *just* barely fit, but it was close enough that Works said they wouldn't guarantee the wheel. Fortunately it turns out the measurements were right-on. It just fits. The rim is pretty close to the steering linkage since I couldn't get exactly the back-spacing I wanted (it ended up at 5.68" and I wanted 5.5") as you can see in the following photos, but I think it'll be OK.
Rims and steering pic1 The real problem may end up being the rear wheels. I'm not quite sure what happened since I took those measurements at least a half-dozen times in at least 3 different ways. The measurements came out basically the same as what other 2nd gen'ers are using. 5.75" backspacing on a 10.5" rim. However when I put the rim on, it extended beyond the fender a fair bit, so once the tire is on it's going to be really far out. I did the test-fit really quickly, so I might not have gotten it on right. Also, this time the car was jacked up from the side, whereas when I did the initial measurements I had the jack under the differential. But I can't imagine that with a solid axle it should make much of a difference. I'm going to go back and do some more checks in a bit. March 9, 2006The parts came back from the powder-coaters today. They did a great job! I had the following blasted and powdercoated:
The pictures don't do it justice, but here's a few photos. To give you some appreciation, check out some of the photos taken before they were sent to be powder-coated. And a few more photos. The next step is to put the subframe back on and put the new suspension and brake parts on so that it's rollable again. That way we can push it over to the body shop to get the firewall stripped and painted. Previous updates will be filled in soon |