Stuff my dog says; on second thought I'll just build a race car

Stayed late a couple nights this week to work on the transfer case bypass. Got the front plate that bolts to the transmission to where it bolts flush to the back of the transmission now and was able to mark the tube so that I can cut it down to length. Also noticed that I had enough metal left over to make header flanges. I haven't made them yet but I traced the gaskets out on the metal and that means they are practically done right?

Also the fuel cell showed up today.
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Parts Parts Parts

Ordered more parts today. Steering wheel, adjustable brake proportioning valve, fuel pressure regulator, keyed battery shut off.

Shouldn't necessarily need the fuel pressure regulator, but better safe than sorry.
 
More work done today, got the transfer case bypass all but done while my boy was making holes in the header flanges.
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Welded the former shift slider to the output shaft of the old transfer case. Four tacks should do it, there shouldn't be any axial forces on it and the tacks should be plenty to keep it from backing up the output shaft and causing the thing to neutral out. With that done I was able to mark and cut down the extension housing and then straighten it on the lathe.
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After getting the extension housing cut to length I bolted on the output shaft housing and tacked the extension to the plate that was bolted to the transmission. That done I pulled all that apart and went and welded the seal up with the TIG. I did have to cut a small bit out of the top of the extension to clear the factory shifter, the fun there being that I won't have any way to use that shifter. It was in the way now though and the additional cut doesn't present that much of a problem.
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Everything welded up. There was an additional gap at the bottom where some transmission shafts poke completely through the transmission case, they don't go through even the thickness of the plate though. You can kind of see the gap filling plate there welded up. The rest of the extension is welded there too.
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And the gap at the top closed up there. This I'm not happy with and want to go back and clean that up cause the welding looks globbed on and poorly done. Ran out of time to make that happen tonight though.
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Everything welded and bolted up. The T90a is now essentially a rear wheel drive transmission. Again the plate is vastly oversized because it will be a transmission side mount for the driveline and function to stiffen the chassis.
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My boy Jordan helping out. He was a trooper and didn't complain TOO much but said drilling holes is boring and tedious.
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Those are the exhaust flanges partially done. We got all the bolt holes drilled out and the port holes all have pilot holes now. It's going to take forever to get the port holes cut out. Initially started out in the drill press but couldn't get the press to turn slow enough for the hole saw. Progress though, legitimate inarguable progress has been made.
 
As for that plate being over sized, once everything is figured out can always bore out some holes to reduce the weight and make it look all racey!

It'll absolutely get cut down once there is a chassis and the drive train is in it. 100% a case of "It's easier to cut things off than put them back on."
 
I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but I ordered a caliper bracket a while back not thinking and ended up with the rear bracket for a Caprice not the front bracket for the calipers I ordered. That being the case I ordered a new set made for GM front calipers since it would appear the Caprice has caliper brackets integrated into the spindle as well and they came in today. This means I can finally get down to drawing out a spindle.
 

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Boost gauge showed up today, more importantly to me the wheels finally shipped today. Other than those bits of news nothing at all has happened race car related. We're severely time crunched at work and I haven't done anything but actual work stuff.
 
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Got some boxes today, 4 identical wheel sized boxes. Most of them were even still closed.
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There wasn't anything visibly wrong with the wheels that I saw despite one box being completely open and another partially open other than my wheels that were supposed to be polished rims with primered center sections look an awful lot like bare steel center sections. After review, the bare centers are the same price as the primer centers, even after I ordered them I was thinking I should have got bare so I can powder coat the centers. So call that pleasantly surprised.
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On to the important bit, how well did this random collection of junk goes together. The answer is not that poorly but not perfect. The caliper and rotor and stuff appears to be fine. I was worried I'd have to trim down the outer circumference of the brake rotor to get the caliper inside the wheel but no issues there what so ever. The only bit of interference I can see oddly enough is the caliper slide pins hit the wheel.
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I tried to get a picture of it here but I don't know that you can really see anything. The pin sticks through the caliper way more than seems to be necessary and keeps the caliper from sliding out enough to get comfortable clearance from the pins to the rotor. Interesting in that I've never run into this as a problem in nearly 20 years of working on cars professionally.
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A view down with the wheel off, there really isn't too much for scale. The rotor is near as makes no difference to an inch thick, so without actually measuring I'm thinking that pin sticks through the caliper 3/8 of an inch which is entirely unnecessary. Easy fix though just trim the pin down. I did unthread the pins from the caliper brackets a bit to see how far I could slide the caliper out before it hits the wheel and I can get a 1/4 to 5/16 of an inch between the pins and the rotor before the caliper hits the wheel which is more than enough .

So, keeping track:
15x6 Hot Rod wheel with 3.5 inch back spacing
1996 Chevrolet Caprice brake caliper
GM disc brake conversion caliper bracket that is for who knows what
2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee hub and rotor

And it all just kid of works.
 
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Messed about a bit this afternoon and it turns out the front of the Tornado is pretty much all aluminum. Boss gave us all a couple days off as a thank you for all the overtime from the last few months. With nothing better to do I went in to work anyway but ended up getting distracted and tried to degrease the engine and trans. The timing cover and everything was so covered in much I honestly had no idea it was all cast aluminum. Also turns out that at least some of the engine was painted blue at some time. No clue if this was correct (it looks Ford blue to me), there is also a more faded blue in spots that looks vaguely AMC. I'd still love to know more about these things but just can't find information, I was looking for casting number info and it just seems non-existent.

Let's have some pictures of the donor of this piece of history, as it sits now.

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Back to work today, nothing crazy since it's technically just donated time for me. So going in late and cutting off early to work on race car bits. This afternoon it was more work on the exhaust flanges. Got one where it is probably usable. Funny thing being one of the ratchet straps holding the engine to the pallet it's on is looped through the stock exhaust, so for the moment it's only potentially usable.
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The oddity of the day though, I was working on the 1964 GTO in the shop just before lunch and heard what sounded like one of the big military choppers doing a low altitude fly by. We're on a flight path for training jumps from Fort Campbell in Kentucky (so I've heard) so hearing them isn't unusual. It kept getting louder though so I stopped what I was doing and went to the open bay door and it turns out there was a small helicopter landing in the vacant lot next door.
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Finally, why not a picture of my XS in the parking lot just because.
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And big....also just because.
 
Fabric samples arrived today.
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It could definitely be said that it's too early to be thinking about seat fabric when I don't even have someplace to bolt the seat I haven't made yet. Wanting to match the wheel color to the fabric though I need to find a fabric I like now so I can get the wheels powder coated and mount the tires.
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I like that one.

Also this engine.
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Loaded up most of the parts in my garage and took them to the shop the car is going to get built at. The wheels and tires are still in my home garage, I ordered powder to coat the wheels today and fabric for the seat cover when it's time for that, so there's no reason to take the wheels and tires to one shop only to take them across the street to the other shop to do the powder coating and tire mounting. Also the rear axle is still sitting at the shop I work at so I need to get that across the street to the "hobby shop" where everything else is but stuff is coming together under a single roof now so progress seems closer.

It was a short day as the guy with the key needed to bail at noon. There was talk of starting to bend the main frame beams but in the end it was decided to simply go over the drawings I've done and the parts I had. Then the other guy, a regular coworker of mine Corey, started transferring my drawings into a CAD program. We did take a scrap piece of inch and a half tubing and did a test bend with it to check where we need to set the bender up to get them in the correct place on the frame tube.

The guys were planning on building something else on their jig table Monday night so I told him it made no sense to start laying my car out on the table this morning only to have to move everything this afternoon. Also made the point that if we went over all of my drawings and the parts there it would give him a chance to think on the project as a whole and come up with things I haven't yet thought of. So that's where we are at for now.

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Very nice to see it all moving forward...:hump: ... and so much work too! Once the frame comes together progress will really skip ahead.

Also, the green truck and its interior are definitely A-Star.
 
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