Lateral-g Forums - 1971 Firebird Build ("The Other Woman", a.k.a. Project "T.O.W.")

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- - 1971 Firebird Build ("The Other Woman", a.k.a. Project "T.O.W.") (https://www.lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php?t=29609)

I am glad you posted the pics of the specialist m's, i have an older set for mine and i'm not that happy with them, they are too wide and a little stiff. My roll bar is going in soon and once i'm harnessed in i'm sure thell feel different.

Are yours new?
I used the morse brackets and they fit well and low...

Mike

Dude, that thing is looking sweet!! I really dig the spoiler too. That Eric got some skillz. :thumbsup:

looks great bryan. all good on the hood now?

Quote:

Originally Posted by glassman (Post 492242)

These seats are new, I bought them 2 weeks ago. :) I used the flat sliders, and Eric made a set of mounting adapters to get them as low as possible. There is more headroom for me now, and for longer drives, they are definitely more comfortable for me!

Not a great picture, but I snapped it this morning before I took them to the powder coater. It's upside down, the bend contours to the floor to keep it low, and the 1" spacer on the right side is the back where the slider mounts. The chamfered hole towards the left is the front slider mounting hole. The other 4 holes are to mount the bracket to the floor using the factory seat mount holes.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps51fb93a1.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flash68 (Post 492259)

Dude, that thing is looking sweet!! I really dig the spoiler too. That Eric got some skillz. :thumbsup:

Yep! :welder:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vince@MSperfab (Post 492261)

looks great bryan. all good on the hood now?

Not yet. We have it laying down better after some major hinge adjustments. (you can see it's still not flat in the pictures above) Now we are going to cut into the fiberglass supports, add some aluminum, build a form which matches the fender contour, and try to force the hood back to that shape. We think it's better than replacing the hood, and Eric is convinced he can do it without damage and making it look good. So that is next week's goal...

At the end of the day, I think we are going to have to take the blame for this. While the VFN is definitely not 'strong' in the front-to-back support areas, we caused most of our own problem by getting the hinges into the wrong angle. But the hood shouldn't have 'collapsed' the way it did either in my opinion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carbuff (Post 492305)

yeah you should be good. Lots of blue tape, topped off with yellow.

I have done painted hoods before and you just have to be carefull with the resin.

It happens, at least it wasnt cause you forgot to hook the areo catches before you took it down the interstate. :sieg:

Work continues on TOW now that SW's T/A is wrapped up. Eric is in the process of repairing the hood. This weekend he built a form to clamp the hood to, then cut out the damaged fiberglass support areas that buckled (1 side at the time). He then epoxy bonded in some aluminum channels which he bent to reinforce the support. Those will be set tomorrow, and the fiberglass work will begin. Hopefully that's going to solve the problem without requiring a hood replacement!

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon installing the Vaporworx PWM controller for the fuel pump. What seemingly should have taken me an hour took me 5, because I was trying to hide the wiring. And working in the front part of the trunk is a real pain! But, it's installed, wired, and plumbed (except for tightening all of the fittings). We'll test it out next weekend.

Eric and I discovered last week that my alternator had died. No idea why, it was new with my Wegner drive kit. So I ordered a replacement, except I missed a digit on the part number, and received the wrong one. I'll be ordering yet another tomorrow to solve that problem.

Now on to the big task we've had to take on. When we put the car up on stands last week to determine where the banging sounds under the car were coming from (had to be exhaust, but we couldn't determine why, since it's so solid), Eric found that the torque arm / locating bars on the rear axle housing had allowed the housing to rotate. It's a bit hard to explain without seeing it, but the torque arm had rotated to the point where it was touching the bottom of the housing, and I'm guessing that the torque from the housing trying to twist actually caused the bars which come off the side of the TA to bend.

After Eric and I starred at it for a while, we could see why this might happen based on the original JRS design. Jake has since changed the mounting points of the 2 arms from a single shear that is in parallel to the rotation of the axles to a double shear setup that is perpendicular to them. Additionally, rather than using the 2 bars from the TA to the top of the housing to control the pinion angle, he now uses a mount from the TA directly to the pinion support. That mount will actually triangulate the support instead of having points top and bottom which can allow rotation (my analysis, not Jake's).

So anyway, Eric called Jake on Tuesday, and Jake got the pieces together which we needed to convert to the newer design on the way to us. As of yesterday, Eric had cut out the old arms and tacked up the new ones along with the pinion support. It's all coming out this week to be final welded on a table instead of upside down installed in the car.

If all goes well, everything should be back together this week, and we'll get her back on the road next weekend.

Oh, and we also found our noises during this. Two separate ones actually, which correlated to what I thought I was hearing. The first was from one of the over-the-axle pipes rubbing on the Watt's link crossmember, when the axle housing moved backwards. It pushed the pipe into the crossmember, because there is very little space under there. The second is one of the pipes running through the tunnel is hitting the seat belt bolt. D'oh! Easy fix, just didn't see it coming when we assembled it all before the belts were in. :)

I don't have any pictures of the hood work, but here are some pictures of the PWM controller and the torque arm work...

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps8e965091.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps99e5d78f.jpg

Eric built this shelf which folds up and is bolted in place vertically to hide the speakers, canisters, and amp. It was a perfect mounting spot for the PWM controller:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps92457ef9.jpg

Plumbed into the fuel line near the tank:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps07deac07.jpg

Wiring through the floor:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psd6c99b29.jpg

Replacement arms:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psb9d846b7.jpg

Pinion support mount:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psfa6438a7.jpg

Back together, ready for welding:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...pse0d357eb.jpg