Date: January 9th to ?, 2010
(click on a thumbnail to see a larger image)
After the holidays, I was back in the shop working on the car. By now I was deeply into the finishing touches of getting the car ready for the track. While there was a lot left to do, the vast majority of the heavy lifting was done. The biggest hurdle left was to do a proper chassis setup. We had that scheduled for 2/27 so I had a few weeks to finish other items before Rob and Phil came over for the big day. In the meantime, I would design, fabricate and install the scattershield, install the parts for my new fuel testing port and paint the oil filter mount.
My new 'high tech' fuel cell level gauge. Cool, huh? And I won't lose it.
Today was chassis setup day. I had prepared the chassis and the shop so Phil and Rob could 'do the voodoo that they do' and get an initial setup on the car. This meant ride height, camber, castor, toe, bump steer, etc. It was an all day affair but well worth it as we got it all done in one fell swoop. we also measured the track and figured out what offset I needed for my new wheels.
Today I got the fire bottle repositioned. This would allow the ballast to go in the footwell and be the most effective at balancing the car.
By now I had prepped the ballast by painting it and drilling the mounting holes. Mounting it was no easy feat as it meant holding out at arms length the pieces of steel I had purchased. They were 1" x 4" x 16" ingots of steel that weighed 18 pounds each. Arrrrgh!
Today I was able to mount the new rear brake master cylinder on the pedal assembly, mount that in the chassis and connect the lines to it. I was also able to assemble the new shocks, springs and spacers and mount them on the front end.
Today I did a bunch of minutia to get things ready. I mounted a engine bay starter button, routed the EGT leads through the firewall and connected them to the gauge, installed the new spacers under the front springs, cut off 3/4" of the rear sway bar so it wouldn't interfere with the Watts link, installed riv-nuts on the rear firewall so the third link cover could be removed and mounted the mirror to the driver's side door. I also connected power to the tach so it could work (duh!). I began putting the body panels back on and getting her clean so she'd look nice.
Over the past couple of weeks I finished the 'to do' list from the chassis setup session. This included mounting the ballast, installing the new front shocks and springs, etc. Once that was done, Rob Futcher came back on 4/29 and we did a final chassis setup session. With me in the car, we measured right height and corner weights. Once we had the cross weights in balance, rob connected the sway bars. With the conclusion of this session, I had another 'to do' list. I started work on it right away as the end was drawing near. By 5/8, I was done except for the stickers. Melinda and I went to the shop, cleaned the car's surface thoroughly and applied all the decals we could (there are a couple I didn't have). I returned on the next day to remove the backing sheets. I still needed to adjust the clutch so it would release properly.
With a final adjustment done, the clutch now works fine (we think). Now its off to a test night at GingerMan the race at Grattan on Memorial Day weekend. So the project is done and now its back to the track for the fun part.
Last edited by Dayle Frame on Wednesday, May 12, 2010