Saturday, March 31, 2012

Front brakes assembled

Still waiting on some critical parts to get here, so until then, we are doing sub-assembly on things such as brakes. Dad already put the rear brake calipers together, so today I did the front L/R (no audio):

Thursday, March 29, 2012

E-Brake Assembly

I assembled the emergency brake this morning and made another video:
Song credits to Boots Randolph and RCA Victor/Monument Records.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Day 3

The rear solid axle will arrive this time next week, as will some of the parts that were on back order before shipping the kit. Kind of a bummer since several critical steps are on hold, but such is life.
Today I worked on the passenger side footbox aluminum. First, I fit the panels back together using Clecos (the copper things you see sticking out) instead of the sheet metal screws that the kit came with. They are so much quicker to use and it looks like I'm working on an airplane (lol):
Then I drilled the holes for the rivets, some of which attach to the frame directly (which uses a 3" spacing) and others attaching panel-to-panel (using 2" spacing). Once all the holes were drilled, I took it all apart and painted the outside with a "truck bed liner" paint. It was so warm today that the panels were dry in less than 30mins!
So then I reassembled the footbox:
And took a few more pictures:
We are painting the engine compartment with silver paint, which will look awesome with another coat:
Dad didn't want me to rivet it together yet since we are skipping ahead, so I'll leave in the Clecos for now. He also came by after work and painted/assembled some of the fuel tank, sorted through the wire harness and then we called it a day. See ya next time!

Monday, March 26, 2012

Day 2

I didn't get a chance to post this yesterday (Sunday), so here it is.
We finished and painted a bunch of parts for the later steps. Kinda boring so I'm not going to detail that here. We also sorted parts for assembly later...that too we will skip...
Anyway, we installed the aluminum for the firewall to the chassis after a bit of painting:
Installed the footbox aluminum to the chassis after painting the lower half with our undercoat. See the temp "Cleco" rivets? Those hold the panel to the frame while riveting. Super handy.
A view of the inside of the footbox/steering area:
I assembled the rear adjustable shocks (which are a full 2.5" longer than the fronts) and called it a day.