D43:Steering Rack Mount D2 and Front End Mods

The front cross member is almost complete. In the second pic, the ends of the tube have been cut and drilled to mount the control arm (planning on 1/2" bushings). The lower steering rack mounts have also been welded on. My one concern with this is the main tube is only 16 gauge and I'd like something a little more substantial to hold the control arms, so I'm playing with some different ideas of how to strengthen the mounting points. My first trial is the third pic. The idea is to weld supports on both sides of the each end.

While fitting the front cross member I realized I wasn't very happy with how everything was "fitting" in the front end, so I decided to a little more deconstruction and reconstruction. I cut off part of the front and then moved the forward most a-arm vertical tubes and angled them back from the lower front to the upper support that I added a few months back. I'm realizing this doesn't make much sense so just take a look at the last couple of pics and compare them to the last engine fitting post pics to see the changes in the front end.

D42:Steering Rack Mount and Lower A-Arm Mount

I'm eager to get this project to the "roller" stage, so I'm going to start working on control arm mounts and steering rack mounts. If you remember from a few months ago, I was going to use the donor front cross member but then decided against it. Here is the new solution to that.

Using a piece of square 2" tubing, I'm going to mount the steering rack to the front and then use the ends as the front lower control arm mounts (more to come on this). The second pic is the progress so far with the top steering rack mounts fixed. A couple of design comments about this approach. First, the control arm mounts will be at the exact same width and position (looking from the front) as the pivot points on the steering rack. This allows me to mount the upper a-arms anywhere without having to worry about steering rack width and positioning which can lead to bump steer and number of other issues. I'll try to post a diagram to represent this at some point. Second, it allows me to use the donor rack without any mods to the rack or the front uprights.

In case you were curious what the original front sub frame looked like in comparison to the new one, it's in the second pic.

D41: PT2 - Engine Fit 5

With the transmission mount built, I wanted to make sure it actually worked. So I found myself lugging the frame out of the garage and mounting the engine in it one more time. It's amazing how much more the frame weighs now than it did the first time around. One of these days I'll get a weight on the frame.

This is also the first time mounting the engine since fixing the engine mounts to the frame, so it was a good test for the positioning of those as well. You can see the final setup in the second pic.

With little else to check with the engine mounted I decided to play around with the shifter a bit. I've been a little worried that it wouldn't reach far enough back or would be too low or too high or some other issue that I hadn't yet thought of. To my surprise, it works great. The red piece is the shifter mount from the donor that I'm going to work into the new body panels. This way all the mounts, holes, etc are already there and all I have to do is weld it in.

D41: PT1 - Transmission Mount

Here's the transmission mount with the transmission sitting on it. I plan on adding supports on both sides, but wanted to check the positioning and height of the mount first. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'm still trying to figure out the best way of making it serviceable once the interior body panels get attached since the lower mount bolts won't be accessible from underneath the car. Most likely some access plates will need to be installed.

In the third pic, the new mount is next to the original from the donor. I tried as best as possible to copy the angles/design of the original when building the new one. Without a great way of getting all the angles (I still need to buy a shop compass) I was forced to trace the shape of the original on my work table and then sketch cut lines on the tubing for the new mount.

... and in case you're curious, that funny looking bead around one of the transmission mounts is the gorilla glue that seeped out the sides when I glued the mount back together (it split in half when I pulled the engine/tranny out of the donor). I'm planning on getting a new one before final assembly... but pondering the "locost" win of using it as is.

D40:Frame Support D1

I've started working on adding the additional frame supports. Here's a pic of the joint before it's been welded. I'm also planning on adding some flat plat to the open angles for additional strength. I'm thinking a few extra pounds is worth the additional strength and stiffness.

D39:Transmission Tunnel D1

The engine mount plates are trimmed and the transmission tunnel is tacked in. I still need to add the supports to the transmission tunnel, but at least the outline is there. I've fully embraced the "cut-to-fit" mentality at this point. This is especially true when cutting a "double" angle, for example, down 15 deg and right 10 deg. The math for cuts like these can get a little ridiculous.