SlowProgress Project Introduction

[SlowProgress]

Thanks guys. I try to post up as much detail as time will allow. Always wish there was more time, or that one photo you forgot to take !

It was a great night in the garage, beautiful, cool evening, just fun to be outside. I didn't get that much done but sometimes it is just about being out there, rather than wasting time in front of the TV, or computer.

I took the differential housing off the dolly and finished all the welds on the dolly which was pretty easy. Not very fancy but it works great.




I also mounted the differential housing back on the welding table to get started on the final TIG welding. I am looking forward to that so I can mount some brake lines and get it off to powder paint, a huge step.

Got the Kook headers sent back to Summit yesterday. I have mixed emotions there because they were pretty nice. I placed the order for Ultimate headers today, hoping to pick up more ground clearance.

Couple photos from tonight and that's about it.

[SlowProgress]

Well, I finally got some time to weld up the differential housing. What a lot of work. It took me all weekend. Here are the nicer welds. I am not going to show all the bad ones.





I still have trouble going around a tube. This was a great project to practice on because there are so many angles and hard to reach places. I had to buy a short back cap to get into some places.



I thought this was a cool picture of my welder. It is old, mechanical and worn out just like the operator. But it hung in there for me all weekend and didn’t miss a beat.



These old housings always weep a little around the axle tube. I decided at the last minute to TIG braze the tubes to the housing with silicon-bronze rod. It won’t really add much strength, but hopefully it will keep it from leaking. I tried both DC and AC settings. AC seemed to work the best. It looks pretty ugly before grinding.



But it ground down fairly well !



I decided not to weld the ends on until all the brackets were finished. Good thing because there was a large mismatch on one side and I had to reposition the ends for final weld. Both of my axle tubes are bent slightly. Rather than scrap the housing, I decided to just live with it. This means there is a mismatch where the end and tube come together. I made three passes and then a weaving pass at the end to smooth it out a little. I told my coworker that I probably created some sort of metallurgical taboo doing this but it is done !



Afterwards the alignment jigs still slid in the ends fairly easily with the alignment bar, so everything is straight and fine. I snooped around on the DSE site and found a housing where they put the brake hose tabs in this location. I just blindly copied it so I hope it doesn’t interfere with anything later.



I finally got to cut these housing stands off my welding table. It is great to have those out of the way.



I mounted the housing back on the cart and I will do just a little clean-up before taking it to the powder painter this week.



Next weekend is Goodguys, so I will be crawling all over the cars getting ideas for the next phase of the project. Probably won’t get much done this week but looking forward to some nice times at Goodguys !

[JoeLightning]

This is a major milestone that was beautifully executed. It's done! No more worrying about how it will turn out. All your careful planning and yards of laying bead produced a perfect rear end. Have a great time at Goodguys.

[syborg tt]

Sorry I can't help you with the nut I'm loving the progress


Marty-mj
www.garagescene.net www.syborgtwinturbo.com www.2ndcamaro.com

[SlowProgress]

Finally started setting up the differential and gears. I Ended up not working on it the last two weeks because I was missing the 1350 input yoke. Funny I took for granted that the local drive-train shops would have it in stock due to my lack of experience. I had to order it costing me a weekend. As mentioned above I also misplaced the pinon lock nut. I called GM and they said they had one. Unfortunately when I got home it was 7/8-14 rather than the 7/8-16 thread that is needed. Gosh I have forgotten all the little things that can go wrong with a simple axle build-up. I need to start planning a little better. I will post up some more pictures tomorrow. If I can't find the locknut tomorrow it will be shimmed and the pattern set, but I will have to stop there.

[Vince@Meanstreets]

its always the little things isn't it.

[SlowProgress]

Yes it is. I think my problem is the last time I built the car was 25 years ago. There were 2-3 speed shops within a 15 minute drive of the house. Now everything is online. You can get anything now in 2-3 days, but there is no local backup up if you find you are missing something Friday evening.

[Vince@Meanstreets]

Sign of the times my friend. I remember when you use to shop at a place for the bond you made with the people that worked there. Now it's all about how much money you can save. Too bad you aren't local. I got a bunch of those parts on the shelf.