D46:Front Suspension

I'm still working on my front end... not sure I'll ever settle on a final design. I've made a few changes that you can see in the pics. First, the crossbar that will be the mount for the front lower a-arm and the steering rack has been upgraded to 1/8" from 16ga. I felt like that part is going to see a pretty large amount of stress, and I watched "Senna" around the same time. I don't feel like having a catastrophic steering failure. Not that I really think something like would happen... mostly it's because the bushings I'm planning on using for the a-arms will be 1 3/4" wide and a 2" square 1/8" wall tube has... 1 3/4" width inside. Perfect.

I'm also working on the upper a-arm mounts as well. I'm attempting to build a McSorely-esque design except a little more homemade. I'm not 100% settled on something yet. I keep thinking it might just be easier to make the upper mounts fixed and forget all the complexity with making them adjustable.

Last bit of progress for the day was cutting the new front a-arm mount down tubes. If I choose the route of adjustable upper a-arms, I'll need both mounting tubes to be vertical. These will also work to support for the steering rack crossbar.

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.

D5: Welding, Grinding, Front Sub Frame

Not a huge amount of progress today, but the frame is now fully welded. I've also done most of the grinding as well. I've learned that I'm not the best welder, but I'm pretty good at grinding to make up for it.

I've also tacked the front sub frame that will hold the steering rack and lower control arms.