For the most part I had a pretty good week on the 69 Shelby clone project. On Monday I ordered a bunch of parts, including the Mark Williams axle components, the Currie axle housing, and the Fatman front suspension kit. Then it was on to ebay to pick up the spindles and hubs, and the power steering rack I needed for the Fatman kit. Finally I went to the Summit racing site, and found some Strange Engineering adjustable struts for an '87 Mustang to use with the Fatman kit.
Thinking ahead to the the weekend, when I expected to have my roll cage tubing, I stopped by my friend JC's house after work on Monday to borrow his tubing bender. This bender is made by an outfit called Pro-Tools, and uses a hyraulic jack and some dies to bend roll cage tubing. Part of the roll cage drill also requires a tubing notcher, to achieve a nice tight fit where the tubes meet prior to welding. JC also had a tubing notcher that I could borrow, but it was a fairly low quality, Harbor Freight-ish tool, and we both agreed it would be better to have a sturdier one with more options like offseting the notch in the tube, so Tuesday on my lunch break I called Pro-Tools and ordered one of theirs. Next time JC builds a cage he can borrow my tubing notcher, so I won't feel like such a sponge because I'm always borrowing his bender!
Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights this week I was tied up with activities for my kids, but on Wednesday night I got out to the garage and started thinking about more details on the car. One thing I knew would be a problem was the stock master cylinder location; the SOHC valve covers were so big that they pretty much completely blocked this area, making repositioning the master cylinder a necessity. I was hoping to be able to convert to an under dash master cylinder like the ones available from Wilwood, but looking under the dash there didn't seem to be an easy way to get that kind of a setup mounted. It looked like it would be easier to make a bracket that repositioned the master cylinder up and to the left in the engine compartment, and use a series of levers in the bracket to transfer the force from the brake pedal pushrod through a couple of pivot points and up to the new master cylinder position. I tentatively settled on that solution.
On Thursday the Mustangs Unlimited sheet metal parts and the Mark Williams rear end components came, but I still hadn't heard from Discount Steel on the steel I had ordered. Friday morning I gave them a call and found out that the chrome moly roll cage tubing had been delayed until the next week. However, they did have the rest of the parts that I needed, so I headed down there on my lunch break to pick up what they had. I figured I could at least work on getting the back half frame installed over the weekend as long as I got the 2X3 rectangular steel tubing I needed. I also dropped the Mark Williams case, gears, and spool off with BradFORD, so he could set the gears up in the case for me. He promised me they'd be ready next week.
On Saturday I decided to start with replacing the front floor pans. I hate sheet metal work, and replacing rusty floor pans is at the bottom of my list of fun things to do with my car, so I thought while I had a high level of enthusiasm for this project I'd be best off to get this distasteful task out of the way. Using a metal cutoff wheel on my 4 1/2" grinder, I trimmed the floor pan on the driver's side around the subframe underneath, and then moved out from there to cut the remaining rusty sheet metal on the driver's side out. I ended up cutting all the way up to the seat pedestal and rocker panel on the outside, and about 4" inboard of the subframe on the inside, before the rusted metal was all gone. Then I laid the patch panel in place, marked it underneath for trimming, trimmed it to size, and got it fit into its final position. I drilled some holes where the panel overlapped the original floor to install some Klecos to hold it in place, and also some larger holes over the flanges of the subframe rail so that I could plug weld those areas. Finally I broke out the wire feed and went to town, welding short sections spaced apart by a few inches around the periphery of the replacement panel to minimize any warpage. Once the outside was tacked I plug welded through the new floor panel to the subframe before finish welding the periphery. Finally I got underneath the car and ran a solid bead all along the subframe rail to the new floor pan; I wanted this to be particularly strong. After four hours, the work was done. Now I was all ready to cut a hole in my new floorpan so I could drop the cage through! Seemed a little strange...
After a short break I tackled the passenger side, which was rustier than the driver's side and ended up taking a little longer, but by 8:00 PM I was finished with the floorplan replacement, and looking forward to Sunday when I could start the installation of the back half frame.
First thing I had to do on Sunday was trim the sheet metal in the back of the car. I had originally cut the trunk floor and inner wheelhouses out of the car with a plasma cutter, which wasn't very precise, so the whole cut needed to be cleaned up, and the metal shined up so I could weld to it in some spots. Another nasty job, and it took me a couple hours to get it done. Finally I was ready to start with the fun stuff, and I wanted to begin by putting the 2X3 square steel tube along the back of the taillight panel. This piece had to go in a certain spot so that I could weld the trailer hitch receiver to it, and also be positioned so that the top of this tube was level with the trunk floor, allowing it to serve as a reference point for the trunk drop downs. I cut the tube to the same length as the distance between the existing trunk drop downs, and slid it up from underneath so that it was between the trunk drop downs and up against the trunk floor and taillight panel. Out came the wire feed, and I ran several long tacks between the 2X3 tube and the taillight panel.
Next I jockeyed the back half frame into position underneath the car. With my floor jack under the center of the back half frame's front crossmember, I jacked it up until it was just under the car's rocker panels. Taking some measurements between the inside of the rocker panels and frame rails going towards the rear, I got the back half frame centered under the car, and then marked the crossmember. I dropped it back down and cut the excess crossmember from each side off, leaving it 1/8" short so that I could weld an 1/8" thick reinforcement plate to the inside of the rocker panels before welding the back half crossmember to that.
I jacked the back half frame back up again, this time putting the frame up about halfway past the start of the rocker panels. The rear frame rails were longer than necessary, so my plan was to cut them off flush with the rear 2X3 rectangular tube that I'd already installed. It was at this point that it dawned on me that I really didn't know exactly how much of the back half frame to cut off. The frame contained the front mounts for the four link bars, and the four link bars positioned the rear axle housing, and the axle housing positioned the wheels in the wheel wells. In order to make sure that the wheels were centered in the wheel wells, I needed the axle housing and the other rear end components.
At this point I called it a weekend. I should be getting the Currie axle housing early next week, and also the set up case and gears from BradFORD, so I'll have what I need to get the back half frame installed over the long Thanksgiving weekend. With that put into position, I should be able to start on the roll cage also, providing the tubing comes in before Wednesday. I'm looking forward to a productive weekend on the Shelby clone project after the family activities on Thursday.
