So much happening, so little posting!

Again I have found myself not posting to this blog. I keep promising myself that I will post more, but life gets in the way. Since my last post I have built an 800 Square foot garage including building my own cement forms. Thankfully my girfriend knows what she is doing when it comes to construction work. From dirt work to drywall the entire project took 4 months, in which I still made some progress on the fleetline. Within that time, I have also started doing management courses to advance my career for my day job, although my offtime in the garage is alot more interesting.

 

Above is a clevis I modified from a Lokar kit to work with the original bell crank to adapt it toa cable type system

The above sits behind the master cylinder providing clearance for the brak lines and the hole is for the cable casing to go into and lock in with a c-clip

Follow the clivis, down the cable. You can see the c-clip holding the cable sheath in place.

 

The cable splitter, attached to the frame with quarter inch self tapping screw

 The rear end of the carall buttoned up and ready to go!

My new splash pan installed. The fender welting is from a volkswagon. I think it finished it off nicely.

 

 

Sitting in the new garage, drywall isnt quite done. Dont worry, the car was coverd and protected from the dust and mud splatters while any work was being performed!

Windshield and trim installed

A clip I had to fabricate to install the window trim

 

The milling machine and lathe are finally home from my Dads farm after being in storage after a year. They are a little worse for wear and need some attention, but I am super excited to be back at it!

 

My girlfriend and I bought a collaberative project!!!

 

Stay tuned!!

 

 

 

Shifting into progress

Its been a few weeks since my last post. Since then I have been working on some very meticulous operations. Things that are very time consuming and need to be done right or the outcome is ugly or disasterous.



It took some real thinking to get aroung this, but completing a dual exhaust system that flows into the lake pipes. I spent a few weeks measuring and cutting pipe to make this work. I have a trick on the mandrel bends, I take a zip tie and slide it to where I need to cut the angle out of the pipe. Trace it and cut along the line. When I am ready to tack weld the pieces I have made I tape the together and leave a few gaps big enough to lay a couple of nice tacks. In this situation, except for where the pipes cross over for each side, both sides were identical. I built one side, brought it to the beck and clamped it down. I bolted the flange to it, measure so that it was equidistant from the other set of pipes. I then cut the opposite bends to match. This way I could make them exactly the same. You can see in the top picturethat the pies when bolted up end up in the identical spots.

 



This picture shows the T5 transmission installed and the new crossmember welded in place and painted. My friend Brett came over and helped me torque the clutch, install the release bearing and set up the clutch. Some of those jobs that are pretty tough or impossible to do on your own.  I also scrubbed down the floor pan and undercoated it in black.

A few months back I went to an antique store, I had the idea in my head that I wanted to use an antique doorknob as a shifter for the T5. I ended up finding a black porcelain door knob. I ground out the square hole large enough to fit over the shifter arm threads. Because this hole was square there was not enough material to thread it. It is also made from cast steel so I machined down a nut that was the proper thread for the shifter handle. I took my time welding it one tack at a time, grinding it just a little to remove contaminants, then waiting for it to cool to prevent the cast steel from cracking.

In the end I was pretty pleasd with the final product. It looks great in  the car an definitely fits with the style of it.

                          


The picture on the left shows the plate I ade to seal the trunk floor where the shock tower inside the trunck penetrates through the floor. I cut 4 round pieces 3 inches in diameter. I then cut a square hole in them and 2 of the platesgot run through the bead roller to make a flange to over lap the other piece.

The picture on the right shows the plate I made to seal where the upper 4 link bars come into the cabin area. I made the frame and hammered it into shape to match the floor profile and screwed it down. I then went underneath the car and shoved a piece of paper from underneath, taped it in place and traced it. This was then cut out and transferred to metal, cut out of metal and hammered over a piece of pipe to match the diameter of the hole in the floor. When it was hammered to the profile needed it was tacked, unscrewed from the floor and welded on the bench. The best part is, it still fits with lots of clearance for the seat.

The above picture shows how I clamped the fenderskirt rubber in place while I glued it. The procedure was simple, there is a lip that rolls over the edge, but the edge needs to be glued and held in place. These little clamps are only 90 cents each.

While I was waiting for the glue to dry, I painted my fuel tank. I had tried doing a Gene winfield pearl fade on it at one time that was an experement using canadian tire pearl and candy paint which was laquer based. When I cleared it the colours had all bled into eachother making a neon green tank that wasnt so awesome.

 

Looks alot better in semi-gloss black. I had managed to install the tank and a new fuel line. I had bough a new fuel pump with a vacuum pump on the top of it to gain some vacuum for the windshield wipers. Unfortunately when I went to install it the bolts I had were too short, it was getting late at night, and I had to leave the next day on a flight to start my shift in Ft. McMurray, I have a little job waiting for me when I get back.

The Sweetline is starting to come together. The list is starting to get smaller and smaller. Brake lines, rebuilding the rear diff and painting it and installing the new brakes, finishing the fuel pump, installing the rear bumper and installing the windows and the last of the trim

Missing your mark and moving ahead.

Setting goals, it seems, is the best way to motivate and achieve what you need to achieve. Sometimes you can't meet your goal, either an unrealistic goal is set, not enough effort is put in, or outside factors come into play. What shows a persons strength is how they mentally handle the disappointment of not meeting them and how they move on and re-evaluate the goals and carry on.

I spent a few weeks chasing around wobbles and dings that were missed with the first session of primer. I have a habit of missing small things and having to go back and fix it, then carrying on. I know this about myself and I don't like it, the same goes for when I get busy and absent minded lay put a tool down and spent 5-10 minutes looking for it. It's a character flaw that drives me nuts about myself, so I know eventually, if I take a bit of a break and go back to block sanding a day or two later I will eventually find the stubborn flaws and take care of them.

In this picture I took the time to really block sand the car. I was definitely not happy with what I had done to it in the past few months. The whiter areas is putty where I needed to fine tune the body work. The yellow areas is where I broke down to the skim coat of bondo under the primer and slick sand. The registration for the Calgary World Of Wheels was approaching and my good friend Chad at this time was travelling the world. When he got back he helped me finish block sanding the car to get 

it back on track for the world of wheels.

We primed the car and this time it was damn straight. I briefly considered putting it in the show in black primer and Chad brought me back to reality telling me that it was a horrible idea and we should paint it.

I was asked if I wanted to paint the white when Chad painted the dash. I opted out, I really didnt think it looked that bad. I made the suggestion after the green was painted to paint the white, not very well recepted at all, so the white stayed. We spent time sanding the car and it looked like we were definitely on track. I used 3 weeks of my holiday time to bust a move and get it going. At the time Chad was between jobs, so he very kindly helped me.

The image above shows the car prepped and in the booth ready for paint.

While we were at it, Chad suggested that I boxline the entire floor of the car, make it look nicer, deaden the sound and keep the heat of the motor out. I bought a kit to do a longbed truck. With masking off the car and scuffing the floor it took me about 8 hours to have it completely sprayed, there was enough material to do the inside of the trunk, the cab and the inside of the roof. When I drove this car with no interior it was like sitting in a tin can. I was surprised when I sat in the car, how different the acoustics were with the bed liner applied. It should be as quiet as a new Mercedes with actual insulation and upholstry.

Sealer applied. This is where things started going wrong. In the photos you can see how dirty the booth is. Its was this dirty after cleaning it for 4 hours. Chad struggled with chasing dirt in the sealer, scuffing little spots just to get small spots. Once he was satisfied he moved on to base.

Above are some pictures after the base and mid-coat were applied. With the base it was the same drill, spray a coat, let it dry, scuff the dirty spots and dust in the base.

This is how the colour turned out. I was very satisfied with the colour, everything is completely custom mixed. The midcoat is a lexus white pearl with gold added to it. The unfortunate part is the clear was very dirty. We decided that it wouldnt be fit to show at the world of wheels and had to pull out. I was pretty dissapointed, all the planning and time felt like it was flushed down the drain.

When we got it back to my garage we put the grill on it. I Then decided that since it wasnt going to go in the show and I basically had 9 days to continue on that we could start building the lake pipes, do the rearend and transmission swap. Now, I know the order of operations is a little bit askew. I should have done those swaps when it was still in grey primer. Perhaps I let my ego get the best of me or it was the excitement of seeing it painted (latter being the more likely scenario, I just wanted to see it painted!) On the other hand, completing the mechanical on this car would be no different than working on a brand new car, we just needed to be extra careful. Instead of being down on myself I had to take the mindset of accomplishing alot of work in a short time, even though my plans deviated from the track and like a boat small corrections needed to be made to stay on course. I seriously thought that the car could be put into the show, less windows.

The triangulated 4-link kit. The coilovers had been bought seperately of the kit. When I bought them I was visiting my folks which is a 3 hour drive away. I had to go to their city on business and came on a plane, so I had left them at their house and I never had a chance to collect them and bring them to Calgary untill I went to visit my parents because my dad was going for surgery. Without the coil overs I was able to tack the lower mounts to the fram and the diff, mock up the upper bars and start to drill out the transmission mount for the new one.

The above pictures are the lake pipes we started to work on. The middle section is old school ripple pipe that was popular mid to late 50's. Fenton actually made lake pipes then which had this on them. The bends I chose were crappy aouto store bends because I liked the rippled pipe look and thought they would suit the center section of the pipes.

Drilled out rivits holding the transmission crossmember in place.

Bottom bars tacked in place.

In the above picture There is a 2 1/2 inch hole drilled in the floor. There is a matching one on the other side. This was so that the least amount of floor was left as undisturbed as possible. The cardboard angle iron sits right over a body mount which the bolt goes right through the frame. From the pipe extending accross both sides the coilover shock mounts will extend into the bottom of the car.

Moving onward is the goal, there is definitely not a time in the garage where work runs out. Energy runs out long before that. Sometimes material, however, sometimes you just dont know what you need for material until you reach that point.

Panning for gold

The pan on the right was originally made to fill in the area from the back of the body to the bumper because of the extended quarters. At the time a lot of thought was put into the form of it along with suggestions and help from my good friend who owns a louver press. Louvers are bitchin, but, they dont have the aesthetics I was going for. When I decided to dial in my car and redo some of the poor quality work I had originally done, the splash pan was on the slate for an update as well. The picture on the left is an outline traced onto plywood I had laying around from a crate. The green tape represents the flange where it bolts to the body, while the shapes in the middle of the panel are to be rolled and dropped down.

This picture shows the vapour barrier I used as a template over the drawing I made. This way I can get a good template to transfer to some sheet metal.

The lines of the template have a small hole punched in at 1/16 inch increments allowing for dots to be placed on the sheet metal. Connect the dots!!!

After drawing the layout lines onto the sheet metal, it is matched with the original template to make sure it is correct. The reason I did not do this panel in one piece is the throat in my bead roller is not big enough to be able to roll the middle part if it is one piece.

                                                     Rolling in the dropped panels.

                                                     Matching it up with the template

The process is exactly the same for the other side. The two panels are then skip welded together mith the MIG. I dont have a TIG yet

The welds are ground down, now the panel gets placed so that a template for the flange to the body can be made.

The same process is used to transfer the template to the sheet metal for the flange which gets rolled out.

                                              Fit is pretty decent! Not bad for an amateur!

Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of the process of cutting the panels to match. Basically, I screwed the flange to the body and used my trusty jack with a board stacked on it to hold the panel while I could position it to the proper place. I tack welded it to hold it and used a zip cut on the angle grinder to cut the long lengths and a sawzall to cut the rounded corners. Then it was skip welded and ground down. The picture above is after it was ground, tack welded and refit to check it. At this point adjustments could still be made if needed.

Before this picture I had to fit the bumper to the car and measure along many points and transfer the arc to the sheet metal. I then trimmed the sheetmetal with my electric sheers, hoping that it was the correct distance. I fit the pan then installed the bumper. The fit ended up being pretty good!

Time to metal finish it, body work it and spray some primer!!!