D69: Upper A-Arm D1 + Engine Removal

With the lower arms together, it was time to get the upper arms built. These are much easier to assemble as they are adjustable and don't require everything to be precisely positioned.

The concept here is very similar to that of Jim McSorely over at sevenesque.com except a little more homemade. I got the weld bungs for a great discount making it cheaper to make my own tubes instead of getting real swaged tubes.

Front tube with fixed end.

Rear tube with clevis end.

Upper assembly attached to the spindle.
The tabs on the ball joint sleeve are cut from 3/8" plate.

My wife and I were having people over for New Years Eve and the garage was needed for some of the festivities... so I began pulling everything apart. Learning from my last experience of installing the motor, I decided to remove the tube that goes across the top of the transmission right behind the engine block. This allowed me to lift the engine straight up and out. Much easier. I plan on making that tube removable to make this process easier in the future without having to cut that tube out every time.

D54:Engine Install + Pedal Assembly

I've finally moved the frame off the build table and onto jack stands for the rest of assembly. Below you can see the engine is back in with the modified engine and transmission mounts.

The parts are finally coming out of boxes and below is the pedal assembly. I'm hoping this is one of the next things to get installed. Depending on how high I can mount the pedals, I may not need to shorten them at all, but that is yet to be determined. I also need to figure out if the brakes will be too "strong" since they were designed for a car that weighed almost 3 times what this one will. Again... TBD.

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.

D26:Engine Fit 3

This afternoon I finally got around to fitting the engine one more time. With all the changes to the front end, I wanted to be sure that the engine still fit and more importantly, that I could get it into the frame. I was worried about all the crossbars I put in for the front uprights. As you can see, there is still plenty of space. So, next step is gong to be getting the front suspension built. I'm also playing around with the idea of modifying the engine mounts to raise the engine up an inch or two. I'm a bit worried about the ground clearance with this new design.

D8: Engine fit #2

Today I got the engine positioned for the second time and this time with pictures. It fits much better with real mounts and not 2x4s screwed together. Also, the transmission still sits a little high, so I'm going to drop that crossbar by another inch. This will put it just above the front sub frame.

I've got a few more pics of the clearance underneath and the engine mounts in action after the jump. Notice the oil pan sits just above the front sub frame. I love when calculations actually come out right.

D7: Engine Mounts

This weekend was spent working on engine mounts. For everyone that looked at the engine mount design and asked "what am I looking at?", I've added a few more pictures after the jump. They can be seen "mocked up" in the current status pic. Just keep in mind the frame is upside down at the moment and they will actually be flipped over for installation. I've built these to use the stock engine mounts and position the bottom of the oil pan at the same level as the front sub frame. I've also got the inside pieces cut and tacked from the sub frame to the transmission tunnel. Engine fitting #2, here we come.

D6: Engine Fitting, Engine Mount Design

I know, I know... with a title of "Engine Fitting", you'd expect a slightly more exciting photo. I didn't even think about it until the frame was back on the table. So, all you get is the current state and the modified transmission tunnel opening. With the frame as is, the bell housing sits on that crossbar. So, I've lowered the center section by 2in to eliminate this and allow the engine to sit horizontal. Otherwise, it looks like everything is going fit great with plenty of space to work with. I've also included a drawing of the engine mount. On a side note, when moving large objects (like a frame) around your garage... watch out for light bulbs. They are very fragile and tend to explode on contact.