Okay, I went for a while without making much progress, first getting ready for Christmas, then just after Christmas I had a bit of a freak accident. I was trying to move and flip over one of the big 305 lb C-channels that make up my jig rails, picking up one end and trying to flip it in the direction with the channel "legs" facing the ground. Just as I had it almost rotated over, the other end (resting on the pavement while I had my end chest-high), slid violently away from me, pulling me out of my good lifting stance, while spinning in the other direction that gravity felt better about. Within a few minutes I couldn't feel my left hand, and I knew I really tweaked the muscles in my left leg and back. I was unable to walk when I woke up in the morning, which was pretty dang scary!
After several weeks of healing and rehabilitation exercises (and a few prescription drugs) I am finally feeling like myself again.
As my back was slowly healing, I started drilling and tapping the 1/2" holes (24 per side), and finished the first side. Having learned a thing or two, I used more mental power than brute strength to move the 2nd channel into position for drilling and tapping. I squared everything up then welded crossmembers to the bolted-in plates. I want this thing to be very rigid, but I want to be able to dismantle it for storage after I am done.
It sometimes seems like God either doesn't want me to finish this project, or REALLY wants me to appreciate it once I am done! Just as my back was feeling well enough to resume heavier work, I spent a long evening working on the truck then was heading to bed (part of my bedroom has a sunken floor), stepped down and felt water gush through my toes. Yes, my bedroom was flooding. We had been deluged by rain and snow for weeks, and the storms had also totally filled my gutters and clogged my downspouts with pine needles. There is a small crack in the concrete floor that is letting the water in when the ground is that saturated. After hours of wet vacuuming to keep the carpet as dry as possible (while more water was coming in), and a treacherous time on my roof cleaning out the gutters (in the dark early morning, with high winds and pounding rain, with spots of slippery moss to add to the difficulty), the water inflow finally stopped. I pulled the carpet and pad, and spent several days with heaters and fans getting the place dried out, then sealed the cracks up. I also discovered that wrestling with a wet roll of 330 square feet of carpet is exhausting! I finally have everything put somewhat back together, but still need to do a final stretching of the carpet to get out the wrinkles.
While laid up with the back injury I was able to do a bunch of "parts shopping". I need to take some photos of the new parts stacked up here, will do so later. I think I smelled smoke coming off of my credit card after all of those purchases! I do think the UPS man is going to file a workman's comp claim before this project is done. Within a 1 week period I had several "over 70 lbs" packages arrive, including a couple that were 120+ lbs.
I previously picked up my core engine, which was supposed to be an LMM. As long as it was an LBZ or LMM I didn't care, but it might matter for harness purposes. It turned out to be an LBZ, which should make things a little easier.
I picked up an LMM throttle pedal assembly off of a wrecked truck, but will have to confirm that they are interchangeable (and will just buy a new LBZ one if they are not). After doing some research I learned that the LB7 cranks were stronger, so I started searching for one. Thanks to a tip from one of my online buddies, I picked up an LB7 crank from a wrecking yard in California.
It obviously spun the #1 main bearing, and probably got driven a ways like that seeing how much burned oil residue there is around the front 2 mains.
I'll be getting my machine work done by Tabor Machine, a local gasser race engine shop that did the work on Jerry Mullins' Super-Street Duramax. After discussing it with Richard Tabor, I decided to find a crank that didn't require grinding, as apparently it is getting hard to have the cranks re-hardened after grinding. At some point I would like to experiment with an undersize ground crank, with generous fillets left at the edge of each main (and possibly an extra stress relief ground in at that area). While it seems somewhat counterintuitive, sometimes you can make something stronger by removing material, by allowing deflection to occur across a wider portion of the component so that a single spot doesn't "absorb" all the deflection and reach its fracture stress/strain.
I'm planning to go with Mahle pistons (and wish I could wait for the new Monotherms but will go with their forged aluminum parts for now). Also going with Carillo rods.
I have all of the weld-on components for the chassis, courtesy of a sponsorship discount from Chris Alston's Chassisworks. As I was shopping for these kind of components, I was told that the Chassisworks parts are a little more money than the more common mail order parts, but beautiful quality. Looking at the workmanship of the parts like the aluminum double-adjustable front struts, I am glad I went with the premium quality parts! The components include the struts, front brakes and hubs, driveline loops, 4-link brackets & tubes, wishbone (centers the rear axle), anti-roll bar (which helps keep the launch straight), and steering column. Once I get a little further in the chassis build, I will be having Chassisworks build me a Fab9 rearend, with all the extra gusseting and full floating axles. The 3rd member will be all Strange components, with 2.91 large pinion pro gears.
I will eventually add a Gear Vendors overdrive, and may switch to a lower (higher numerically) rear gear at that point. Still probably going to use a Hughes XP-5 lockup Powerglide transmission, but need to figure out if I can work it into my budget!
This past week I was able to make more progress. I finished the jig welding, initially using the TIG welder for more practice, but having to switch to my big MIG welder for the heavier components (the 200A TIG was too slow trying to weld 5/16" wall thickness stuff). Of course I ran out of Argon (75/25 Ar-CO2 mix) on the MIG welder before I was done, and had to finish up with the TIG anyway. If I would have thought about it I could have either grabbed the pure Argon tank from the TIG welder or the pure CO2 tank from the keg.
It turned out my garage floor wasn't nearly as level as I thought, requiring longer leveling screws on one end. I was able to get it perfectly level then square up the chassis on top of it. Once the chassis was on the perfectly straight and square jig I could see that the chassis main rails were noticeably crooked, glad I am cutting all of them off! Basically all I am reusing is part of the original cage structure.
I removed the rearend and ladder bars. I dicovered that the front heim joints on the ladder bars were completely worn out. Good thing I am not reusing the ladder bars!
I removed all of the bolted on components like the front struts and steering rack.
I discovered at this point that I REALLY dodged a bullet in not re-using the struts that came with the chassis. When removing the nut from the driver's side strut's top stud (the single part holding everything important to the chassis at that location), the stud twisted off. It was clear that it was previously cracked halfway through its cross-section, and broke the rest of the way at this time. Yikes, that could have been VERY ugly if it happened on track!
About to start firing up the plasma cutter and removing more tubes. Should be a fun next couple of days!
