Craig,

how's my welding look?

hmmm.... what do IC!

SOOOPER-VOLVO!!!

since it's been raining here, all i did today after school was pull off the front nose-section and power-down the drivers seat so that i could figure out the position.

Neighbours saw me sitting in there with my helmet on making vroom vroom sounds.... i really do wonder what they think of me sometimes... hah.

i've got a good 2" of clearance with a helmet on, and the back seat is probably not usable with my seating position... oh well!

anyone know what i can do for a smaller steering wheel?

That's a lot of heat...why is the wire still attached? It'll stick.

that was un-cleaned, and really just tacked to setup my rear end. i'm starting to "hear" it now, i'd say took probably 20-30 hours of practise to get right, it's becoming more natural though

frigging RAIN!

augh!

i'm trying to find my bearing separater right now to get the pinion installed again in the housing and assemble the axle....

also, off to find a 9/16" drill bit!

the rear end WILL be in the car this weekend.

also, bought a tubing bender on special today at KMS tools to work on the PV some. I'm goign to cut out these front rail nubs tomorrow and get to work on repairing this into something much prettier.

got sick of looking at the housing....



not bad, 3.5 degrees of pinion angle.



this however, is bad news, i'm gonna have to probably do something with a heim joint and reduce the thickness



the whole thing fits rather well however...

of course my progress gets inhibited... lol...

I like the little milling machine...be careful with that front cross member - been there, done that and you've got to make sure things are strong up front...that thing isn't there just to hold the rad up.

hmm, yeah, the steering box seems like it puts quite the force there. i'm goign to build little wedge-type gussets out of some of this leftover tube. one on each side for the drop in the rad xmember to the front frame rails, and another on the inside of each corner of the xmember.

got the first part welded in, still need to brace/gusset it.

some assholes deemed it necessary to steal my stock rad and IC though.

ah well. life goes on i guess.

got the rad fitted with a taurus 3.8 efan, it fits. now i'm just trying to figure out how to actually mount the radiator... are the 4 holes in the back of it enough to support it?
the IC is going to be a neat fit, i need to determine if i'm going to raise the IC up and hang the oil cooler under it, or if i'm going to hang the oil cooler off the whole shebang possibly out in danger's way.

just pulled the axle housing again, got it all lined up properly and tacked on both brackets. mission accomplished. It is now centered within about 2mm (or i can't read within about 2mm from the big squares i used to measure it)

the pinion is out getting the bearings pressed on. i'm going to machine a solid spacer for the crush-washer to avoid buying a in-lb torque wrench that'll measure down into the 10-30inlb range.


going to buy some nice dial gauges and get this tranny built up and ready to drop in. Get my flywheel machined, and pick up a pressure plate for jordan as soon as possible.

if it quits raining this week, i'll bump up the engine a bit, and build new mounts. set up the pinion angles correctly, and build my tranny xmember too.

starting to get excited here!

What's left until it runs is figuring out an alternator, finishing wiring up the engine, setting the timing, filling it with oil, installing a fuel pump, and finishing/plumbing my intake. it's getting VERY close. i can taste it.