|
Since the last installment, the front suspension has been
fully welded and the dual-rate fox shocks bolted to the front end. |
|
Instead of VW style tie rods, stronger steel radius rods
with heim joints were chosen. To accommodate the angles involved,
some home-made misalignment spacers were made. Basically, we turned down
some heavy-wall tubing in the lathe to fit inside the heim joint and allow
for more movement. |
|
This is the rack and it has some high-mis spacers on it,
too. |
|
Now, onto finishing the rear suspension. This has
been our best friend (well, our best friend who does not bring beer)
during the project. It's a Miller 135 MIG welder. A very
capable 120volt machine for most of the welding needed to fabricate a
sandrail. |
|
The MajorLeagueDuning staff photographer. |
|
Since the trailing arms were installed a while ago, now it
is time to mock-up the tranny mount. Here's the 002 transmission
with axles and CV's set in the car. Once everything is square and
level we'll begin welding it in place. |
|
Here's Mike using the cheap-o Harbor Freight tubing
notcher. If you are not going to do a ton of production and are
willing to spend a minute or two with a grinder to make things fit
perfectly, this notcher will work fine. |
|
This is the rear trailing arm showing the disc brakes,
bolt-in billet hubs, stub axles, 930 cv's and gear-one axles. |
|
Here's baldy tacking in the rear bars. After everything is
tack welded, the transaxle will be removed and the welding completed. |
|
The nearly finished tranny mount. |
|
Next are the upper shock mounts. After a bunch of sketches
and design ideas to determine optimum spring angles and trailing arm droop
and travel, it was decided that the shocks will be mounted directly
to the rear post. With the addition of a gusset to the top mounting
brackets, the suspension loads will all push on triangulated frame
members. |
|
|