Hello all!
Time for another little update. I have been feeling more like myself again and slowly getting back into working on project X but as always trying to juggle all the other things of life, I am sure you all understand.
Well there is still no sign of the front diff mounts I ordered about a month ago, I have tried to cancel the order twice and look elsewhere but that doesn’t seem to work either Amazon…grrrr…..
it is however closer to the current listed delivery date so I will be patient and give them till then.
It’s just the world right now, I am having a hard time getting certain things at work and believe it or not I tried to pick up a bucket of chicken at KFC on Friday night and when it was my turn to order the guy said “sorry we are out of chicken”
Wow!! What can you even say at that point?
I went ahead and used the “good” used rubber mounts I have and built some supports, not the most elegant looking things but they will work and I kept the cross member in the original location as there are some other things that attach to it like the seat belt mounts, seat track mounts and inner roll bar support so I felt it best in the long run not to re position it.
The mounts are just tacked to the cross member for now until the new mounts arrive, just in case I need to tweak something.
I then turned me attention to the pedal box area. I laid out and cut the cowl hoop supports and pieces for the pedal box and tacked it together so I could fit up the pedal parts. I turned the side spacers and fit them up with the cross tube and added the pedals for a look see, NICE!
I then got my box of bits from CSX parts, very nice stuff, the only issues were they accidentally sent me 2 clutch pedal arms, not a big deal as I have the dimensions on the plans and I own a drill.
Also the spacer tube for between the pedals was about ½ inch too long. That kind of threw me off and had me rechecking all my measurements and looking at the pedals, they sure do look close together but checking out some pictures of un-molested original cars they really look to be that close together.
So the only thing I can assume is these parts must be coming from a modern recreation of some sort perhaps a Superformance? I turned it down to the size on the drawings and fit up the rest of the parts everything seems to work just fine….at least what I have…..
You will notice there is no clutch master cylinder yet, it’s coming ….I hope…..
So after I had the brake pedal in it what I can only assume is the correct position as dictated by the balance bar assembly I am surprised at the near vertical position of the pedal arm. Is this correct? The pedals seem to be tilted up way too much.
I can’t find any side pictures of this area because it is down in the foot box. Help please….
Doing some bench testing it looks like the pedal would hit the front of the foot box before you could bottom out the master cylinders?
I rechecked all the pedal box dimensions twice and was even thinking of moving the cross shaft position ahead a quarter of an inch or so to move the pedal back but in the end I decided to try drilling another hole in the “clutch” arm on the same center line as the clutch pivot, the brake one is almost ¼ inch further back.
I swapped the arms back in and this coupled with un-threading the master cylinder clevises 1/8 inch moves the pedal back about 1 ¾ inches. It looks better to me but without being in the car it’s really hard to tell.
Before….
After……
To my eye it looks like I could bottom out the master cylinders before the pedal runs into the foot box this way. It may be unnecessary but if things go wrong and you need that last extra bit of pedal……..
As I said before I don’t know how this is meant to look so this is my educated guess, also the pedal face looks to be in a better relationship to my foot.
The other thing I like about doing it this way is if I am wrong, I can just switch the pedal arms and be right back to the before picture.
So still waiting for parts I went ahead with making more parts
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I need the front outriggers to hold the pedal box mounting tube after I bench test the missing clutch master cylinder set up. So just draw, cut, fold, drill and check them off the list, done!
This weekend I got out to the lab and decided it was time to try and make the rear out rigger box assemblies! It’s a nice folded up design and I am sure AC cars had handy templates made but I figured I had 2 options.
I could try and do it in one folded piece of steel or I could cheat and cut out the parts and weld them together at the corners.
Well I am pleased to say after a bit of back and forth I managed to get a working layout and bent up the very interesting tapered box sections for the back.
Looking at the flanges I assume AC cars spot welded them together but I don’t have one of those so some 5/16 holes and plug welds will be close enough for me. It always amazes me how strong this type of structure is, a flat piece of 16 gauge steel is rather flexible but put a couple of bends in it and voilą! Strength!
I added the endplates and welded everything up. I thought it would be nice to end today on a good note so I rechecked the measurements, cleaned up and tack welded the outriggers to the chassis!
The only thing I don’t currently like is that the outer seat belt mounts just weld to the thin end of this structure.
I think I will add a bit more reinforcement when I add them later but for now it feels good to be adding pieces outward from the chassis, soon there might even be a floor or something!
Thanks for all the encouragement I hope I can post more soon.
Cheers,
Hudson
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