I started disassembling all the miscellaneous components that need painting. It's a good job for now because I can work in a warm basement instead of a cold garage.


Since I had all the suspension parts laid out, I decided to take some weights. Pretty close to 32 lbs per corner without wheel/tire.

All the bare steel parts have a nice coat of rust. They were doing well until we had a cold spell, followed by a warm rainy day. Condensation formed on everything in the garage and within a day there was rust everywhere...it'll be nice once everything is cleaned up and painted.

Since it's too cold to paint outside, and I'd rather not fill up the house with paint fumes, I'm going to see if I can find a place at work to paint the small stuff. Chassis will have to wait for a warm day...

Pedal Box

I welded on the braces, steering column bearing and harness mounts that I cut yesterday, then decided to tackle the pedal box. I wanted to get this done in case I needed to add any additional steel pieces to the chassis for mounting. In the end I decided to make it all out of aluminum and will rivet to existing frame tubes.





Other than tabs for brake/fuel lines and a center bearing mount for the drive shaft, I can't think of anything left that needs to be welded to the chassis.

Next steps:
finish welding chassis
prep/paint chassis (need a warm day for this)
prep/paint calipers, uprights, diff, ... other miscellaneous parts

Belt Mounts, Bracing, Brackets...

The chassis is bare again. I took the aluminum panels off to work on some finishing touches before finish welding and paint.

There's not a lot left to do, but I'm taking the time to get as much of the miscellaneous stuff welded to the chassis before paint. I'm sure I'll miss some things though...

This evening I cut a few braces for the rear, tabs and sleeves to mount the harnesses, and a bracket for the steering column bearing. If all goes well I'll get everything tacked to the chassis tomorrow, and maybe get some welding done. I think there's about a day's work, then I'll be ready for a warm day to prep/paint the chassis.

Side Panels

Side panels are almost finished, just need to finish up the fronts and transition to rear panel. Next on to the interior panels...then back to finishing touches on the chassis before prep/paint.

Looking back, I could have done everything without the sheet metal brake, the 0.040" aluminum bends easily over a corner if supported well. Building the brake was a good project, but it was time that I could have spent working on the car...

Rear Panel

It's always a challenge balancing time with the family, work that needs to be done around the house, and time to work on the car. Today I did a little of each, morning with the kids, afternoon pruning trees, and evening working on the car.

I was able to finish up most of the rear panel, aside from the transitions to the side panels and cleaning up the corners. It got a little ugly as I was wrapping the long curved sections, but I'm satisfied with the results. If I had a good torch to anneal the aluminum I think the results could have been better, but...

Next on to the right side panel, then interior pieces.

Sheet Metal Cont.

I've been a little unsure about how difficult it would be to wrap the aluminum around the curved chassis tubes.

I started on the straight sections, then went to the corners. As expected, the aluminum wrinkled as I wrapped the first corner.

I came up with a makeshift "shrinker", a metal file and soft hammer. This worked surprisingly well to shrink the aluminum and smooth out the wrinkles. With a little more work and some sanding/polishing, I think the corners will turn out pretty good.

Sheet Metal

My original plan was to fabricate all the aluminum bodywork, drill holes for rivets, then remove the panels and clean/prep/paint the chassis. Then I realized that water would get into the chassis tubes...since it's winter and I don't have an oven to dry out the chassis quickly, that's probably not a good thing.

So, plan B is to do everything but drill holes, then paint the chassis.

I'm using 0.040" 5052 (half hard) aluminum. I started on the left side panel. The brake I fabricated over the holidays works good, but has some limitations. I learned a few things along the way that will help with the second side. Currently there's a little waviness on the side panel (next to engine). I think I can work this out, but if not, fortunately the exhaust will help cover up any waves that remain.

Next was the rear panel. I bought an electric shear from Harbor Freight that works pretty good, but it's hard to cut a perfectly straight edge. For the rear panel I cut about 3/8" oversise using the shear, then cut to the exact size by hand. A few more panels with this method and I'll have forearms like popeye...

To finish up the rear section I need to wrap the panel over the chassis tubes, and clean up the transition to the side panels.