Wow, Loads of progress! Your work is looking great, almost looks like a car again. Did you get the lower link mounts welded in yet? The directions are kind of odd there. I had to call and double check a few measurements with dse.
I haven't welded those on yet. I read the directions and thought I had it figured out, but just to double check I took some measurements off of their display when I was at Charlotte Goodguys. I wanted to be able to verify their location by taking diagonal measurement from the upper links.
The things that I've ran into so far that - -aren't a big deal, but were little speed bumps along the way are:
- Dynacorn rails seem to be slightly taller than the factory rails, which left a little bit of a gap between the inner stiffeners (from DSE) and the top of the rails. It just left more of a gap to fill with weld than I would have preferred, but not a big deal.
- I cut out the trunk pan using the DSE templates, but I didn't have any wheelwells to reference. If I had them, I believe I would have positioned the template against the wheelwell and not the edge of the trunk pan. This resulted in me notching too much away on the trunk pan. Again, not a big deal, I'll just remake that part of the trunk pan and it'll look like I never did it.
- Both quarter panels fit really well
- the tail panel was too wide so we drilled it apart and repositioned it
- the outer wheelhouse and trunk drop-off on the passenger's side fit pretty poorly and had to be split and pulled to make fit.
- The rear seat pan drop-off (the piece that the upper DSE mount welds into) was in pretty bad shape on my car from a chunked driveshaft and some rust. I tried to buy a replacement, but nobody had it. I took mine all apart and fixed it. I have everything tacked into place, but in order to weld all of this more easily, I will probably finish the welding on the rotisserie.
I noticed you notched the rails for the torque boxes, I wasn't sure why but I didn't know the rails where taller. That makes since now, My driver side mini tub cut was off some too, I didn't catch it until after I had already boxed the rail back together so that tub was a pain to get in but with some clamps and vise grips I was able to over come the poor fitment.
I notched that rail because it wasn't trimmed properly. The rails aren't much taller, but are a little different. I need to measure to verify. The tolerences on these cars weren't good from GM, as I'm sure you've seen
Yeah I figured out the poor tolerances pretty quick, seeing how nice your work is and the care you're taking to make it just right makes me wish I had a nice table to keep everything true and square, oh and more patience. Can't wait to see some more progress. Did you decide of wheels yet??
I was pretty happy with how we had everything fitted up with sheet metal screws so I took it all back apart to finish welding the frame close-outs and made the front and rear flanges (I guess that's what I'll call them) for the inner wheelhouses.
I decided to tig these in since it'll be easier to grind. I made the pieces on the Shrinker/Stretcher.
Front of wheeltub area
I'm hoping to wrap up the other side tomorrow and then start welding it all together for good
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
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