More stuff:
It's funny how my "plan", and reality are so far apart. I expected to get a whole bunch of stuff done today, but after spending the entire day down there feel I have little to show for it.
The plan was to mock the rear end up using the old stock control arms, to be sure that it was properly located. Once that was done I intended to build the upper and lower shock mounts, and finish the wheel tubs after that.
Ha!
I did get the rear end located.
Starting on the driver side, I "eyeballed" where I wanted to hang the shock, and marked the frame rail. The shock needed to be moved inboard to the extent that I was gonna have to notch the frame rail.
I just happened to have some 3.5" .125 wall tubing from some other past project, and decided to cut it in half, and use it to build a tunnel in the frame.
The tunnel ended up being so deep, that it compromised the integrity of the frame rail. I used the other half of the tubing to build a backer, to restore the section I cut out.
I still plan on fabbing some additional "out riggers" made out of .125" plate, and weld them to the inner semi-circle, to add additional width to the frame rail. I'll add one in front, and one in back. When done, it should just look like a bend in the frame there.
I bought single adjustable aluminum QA-1's. The adjustment knob has 18 positions. I've used these shocks on two other cars, including the last fox mustang. This time I opted for the street shock. The only real difference is how it's bushed. The race shocks, use a heim type end, these use some sort of hard rubber to house the eye for the bolt. The shock is supposed to be installed at a "ride height" of 13.75." Locating the bottom mount in the stock location would require that I lean the shock in pretty dramatically, and I did not want to do that. Instead, I built a lower shock mount inboard of the stock location.
I built a 3/16" end cap, and welded the short piece of 1.25" .125 wall tubing to a piece of plate I welded on top of the frame rail. I added a front support that is welded to the frame rail. I know that there is now significant added stress at that mount point due to it becoming a part of the support system for the rear of the vehicle. When the tub is re-installed, I intend to add additional reinforcement after that.
After I got it all welded up, I assembled the shock, and mounted the shock.
Then I loaded the chassis (as much as you can load a completely stripped chassis)
This is all I got done. I worked on it from 9 AM till 5 PM to get to this point.
Oh,....I did manage to do one, other, thing................
hand slipped up the angle grinder while I was cutting some of the stuff today. Cut has to be 1/16 deep. Because it was a cutoff wheel, the cut actually self cauterized, and didn't bleed.
Weird.
