Project WidowMaker - The Build Thread

[The WidowMaker]

a little more progress has been made. i started on the trunk last week in an effort to raise the gas tank for a little more clearance. although the ricks tank is no deeper than the stock tank, with my slammed height, i had about 5" of ground clearance. enough, but more would be nice. so i set off to raise the tank 3". on the first mockup of the pieces, i was at 3 3/4", so i said f-it and made it a little more than planned. it is all still really rough and all the welds will be ground for the finished appearance, but i figured id post a real update. also, the pictures really make the surface rust look much worse than it does in person. the bottom is going to get reblasted and expoxied after the exhaust is done, and the inside will get a good sanding in the next couple of weeks, followed by the interior getting por 15 and dynamat. ill have more interior pics to come.

in order to raise the sides, i needed a piece that was curved for the bottom to match the existing outer floor braces, but flat on the top for the new floor. since i wanted a 90* on each side for better mounting, i had to use two pieces. the lower was shrunk to match the curve, and the top is just a 90* done in the brake.



this is the inside at the start of the tack welding. i left the side mounts long so that the floor can be extended over to the quarters.



old floor braces tacked in place. they were curved at the back where they rolled and started to go upwards, but i made some relief cuts and made them flat to fit the new floor. if i would have cut the extra off, they wouldnt have been long enough.



this is a pic with most of the final welding done. who ever has to take this all back apart is going to HATE me. i hated the gm worker for just spot welding everything. but, once finished, it will be nice and smooth. you can also see the front mounts i welded up. 2x2 tube and threaded to accept the front strap bolt.



i was initially concerned that it wouldnt be ridgid enough, but a tap gets a nice firm sound. a little dynamat on the inside and u-pol on the outside and it wont make a sound.

Tim

[The WidowMaker]

just a couple updates. the trunk floor is now finished and only needs some paint and dynamat to be complete. the floor was raised a total of 3 3/4" and gives me a ton more ground clearance. i still need to attach the rear bumper and work out the fill tube, but i made sure not to raise it high enough to cause an issue.

this is the before pic



the after pic



this shows the amount of room between the tank and the watts. if you are running the fays2 kit, you will have plenty of room with this tank. although i raised it, i didnt move the tank back any. it would sit in the same spot if i had the stock floor. hector is making some new straps that are a little longer for my mounts.



this shows how the trunk floor was done. almost all the seams are full welded. the only ones that didnt get a solid bead were the filler panels on the sides. the bottom will be ground smooth before getting a bed liner product, but the top will be covered with upholstery





this is how i mounted the battery. the sheetmetal is reinforced so the bolts dont pull it up. the top bar was just a piece of aluminum and i routed the edges so they are now rounded over. once the bolts are tightened (i dont have them tightened here), the battery doesnt move at all.

[The WidowMaker]

i mocked up the tires for the last time today and got my measurements to send off to jon. i spent a lot of time making sure the tire was square and centered, and double checked my measurements with a little device i made up. he originally just wanted to know the measurement to the tightest spot and that would have been simple with the old ride height and set of tires since it was just in the middle of the quarter lip. but with the new ride height, and because tires dont have square edges between the sidewall and tread, and the tighest spots were at this radius, it was much easier to just mock the tire up.

so with all that said, i plan to give him the exact spot i want the outside of the tire, and im confident he can take that and figure out where that would place the wheel.

here is a pic of how it will sit

[The WidowMaker]

well the inside of the trunk has been coated, and i have the trunk lid aligned and gapped. btwn adding and subtracting a little metal, i have a straight 3/16 gap. now the plan is to make the bumper fit the rear.

here are a couple of pics i threw up on the paint and body forum





as you can see, its a long way from being "tucked" in nicely. it is acutally hitting the body in the middle (if the car is looked at from the rear), so the sides cant move any further forward. you can kind of see from the second pic that it doesnt follow the contour of the rear sheet metal very well. again its flush in the middle of the deck lid, but sticks out towards the quarters.

it also does the same thing on the vertical gaps as well. the middle of the deck lid contacts the top of the bumper when closed, but the outsides are sitting about 1/2" below the quarters.

so the plan is to start working it from the middle. i'll make some relief cuts that allow the ends to go in and up and see where that gets me. then the plan is to narrow, shave and move the brackets to the proper locations. if i need to add metal to the quarters, that will be done as well.

i have a feeling that this is going to take a while though. the plan is to send the bumper out to be stripped, then get working on it. hopefully i will have it done in a few weeks.

[The WidowMaker]

i paid the final balance on the wheels and tires. i still havent selected the style, but they will be 19x9.5 and 20x10.5 3 piece rushforths. ive added the wildsides back in to the choices, so its between the livewire, rated x and the wildside. i know most people hate the 7 spoke 5 lug combo, but the rendering looks sick and jason being the designer and the guy behind the wheels wouldnt steer me wrong.

the tires will be nitto nt05 275/35/19's up front and 315/35/20's in the rear. i sold my 305/35's since i really wanted a 200 treadwear tire for the autocross stuff. im sure they will change that rule before my car is done though.

i also did a spray out of colors. i shot one red and 6 greys all in the new water based stuff. after all the color comparisons, the red will be mercedes mars red and the grey will be off of a range rover. i brought the samples into the guys at work, and every one of them tossed the range rover grey out in the first round. obviously their vision isnt the same as mine, especially since i hate blue greys. i was going to shoot a few more, but im sticking to my decision for now.

lastly, i got a little work done on the rear bumper. its a real pain in the ass, but progress is being made. i first sliced it in the middle to get the angles corrrect. originally, it was too high and too tight right in the middle, but by slicing it, it took care of this. the issue im having now is the bend right at the last outer foot. it starts to curve about 2" too early and its keeping the bumper from flowing nicely into the quarters.

today, i cut the bumper again in the middle and took out 3/4". this sucked the sides in nicely, but opened up a whole bunch of new problems. so by the time i'm done, its going to look sick, but probably wont be able to be chromed with the amount of work that im needing to do.

here are some pics

bumper and trunk lid flowing nicely


you can see here how the bumper curves a little early. it also makes it difficult since the tail light is right below this, meaning that an easy correction would place a bend where the light is. you can also see how the corner of the quarter and the corner of the bumper flow nicely. they no longer do this with the bumper moved in 3/8" per side. although the side flows perfect, this corner is an area thats going to need some serious surgery.


bumper sticking out before narrowing


bumper moved in 3/8". i need to get one at the same angle as the above pic for a better comparison. it really made a HUGE improvement.

[The WidowMaker]

a little more work on the bumper today. ive been taking a bunch of classes at work, so progress has been slow. its hard to come home after not seeing the family for 3 days and head out to the garage. so not much has been getting done.

but, i got both quarters roughed in to the bumper. both sides needed to be extended out and down to get the gap a little better. i also smoothed the bumper brackets after final welding them to their new size. i started smoothing the welds on the bumper as well, but these pics were taken before i started on that. so...... i need to fill in the slices/gaps on the quarter, finish smoothing the welds, weld the brackets to the bumpers and smooth the bolt holes and then i need to start on the filler panel that mounts to the bottom of the bumper. i figure i have another 10-15 hours before im finished.

im pretty happy with the results. its been such a long time since i started that its hard to tell how much progress has been made. i wish i would have taken a bunch more before pics, but either way its better. i'd say that with the old being a 1 and a perfect being a 10 that this falls into the 6-7 range. there are a few things that i wish were better, but i dont have the time or skills to make them perfect. most obvious is that the ends of the bumper still dont follow the quarter perfect. its only off about 1/8 - 3/16, but i wish it was 0. when i worked the quarters i could have made it 0, but the transition btwn the deck lid and quarter would have been screwed up. i'll get some more pics once i get it all smoothed out.

[214Chevy]

Widowmaker, great work on the bumper. That is the one thing I hate about my Chevelle is the bumper-to-quarter gap. It is sooo freaking huge. I was wanting to flush mount my bumper on mine and figured splitting the bumper and shortening the brackets would do it. Thanks for the insight.

[tones2SS]

Dude, KILLER build. You're doing a great job.
Please keep us posted.

[The WidowMaker]

thanks for all the comments. its been a few years worth of work, with most of it happening in the last 2. i hope to be on the road in the summer of 2012. the motor, paint and interior are going to be the holdups.

[The WidowMaker]

That is the one thing I hate about my Chevelle is the bumper-to-quarter gap. It is sooo freaking huge. I was wanting to flush mount my bumper on mine and figured splitting the bumper and shortening the brackets would do it.

i just went to the goodguys show in costa mesa and its insane how poorly these bumper fit. hopefully this will end up looking like i wanted.