Well, the new motor is in, got some J. C. Whitney chrome dress-up stuff and
here's a sneak preview of how it will look.
Well, back to work. Here's the Corvair steering box, reversed and mounted on the frame.
You can see the steering shaft going into the body. The next pic shows it coming up with
an additional 2 feet of 5/8" steel that I had my local professional welder add on. The
stainless steel tubing you see on the floor of the car will be the column that goes
around the steering shaft. I got the gauges mounted. There's no speedometer. I figure
the patrolman will be happy to tell me how fast I was going. Also, got the brackets for the brake master cylinder mounted, pedal in place. The gas pedal came off Aunt Edna's donor car and makes a nice neat deal. Used it all, from the pedal to the cable to the carb.
Just some simple aluminum tabs to hold the radiator shell on. The radiator itself is
securely fastened to a bracket that's welded to the frame. That motor sure looks different than it did in Aunt Edna's Malibu. Uncle Jed decided to donate the car to a worthy cause after Aunt Edna hit the mailbox. Again. He believes in reincarnation so this seemed like the obvious thing to do.
Headlights. These are just a pair of those super-bright off-road jobs that the kids
mount all over their pick-up trucks. No high beams, but plenty of light.
I got a gas tank from a mid-60's VW. It's not pretty, but it fits. It'll be hidden under
that top I made for the pickup bed. I made a bracket to hold the tank, welded to the frame,
then brackets to hold the wooden cover, also welded to the frame. This way the fiberglass
pickup bed doesn't have to hold any weight.
I made a stainless steel housing for the steering shaft out of a restroom grab rail bar. Looks nice for less money. Made some bushings to keep the steering shaft centered, you can
see the shaft just inside the top of the housing, and after hours of Dremel tool work, a
tiny bit at a time, slid the housing through the firewall and onto the steering box. I made a
bracket to secure the housing to the dash. To the right you can see the windshield frame clamped to the body. I need to get some 1/4" board of some sort to clamp it all
together before I start drilling for the bolts to hold the frame in place.
I need to shorten the housing enough to affix the steering wheel. Right now the steering shaft doesn't make it to the top of the housing, but now that I have it through the firewall
I can measure and (hopefully) make an accurate cut.
Starting the electrical wiring. I'm trying to color code everything to make it easier to trouble-shoot, but it still gives me a headache.
Here's my steering column drop. Made it out of some 1-1/4" (I think) black pipe welded to some 1/8" flat stock at an angle to match the column to the dash. I'll secure it with two 5/16" bolts. After paint I'll replace this bolt with a couple of nice stainless hex bolts.
After weeks of trying to find a water neck that aims toward the passenger side, I finally got
one of those chrome ones that points straight ahead. Then I had to cut two hoses up and join them with another piece of black pipe. Right in the middle of the hose you can see the joint. I'll put clamps on this section, then take it off and go to the parts house and see if I can get lucky enough to find a hose with these bends in it somewhere. If not, this will work OK.
Well, I guess that's about it. Took the body off and will take the motor out and all the other stuff off and load it all up in the truck and take it to the paint shop. No, not the paint shop that treated me like the red-headed stepchild on The Old Dodge.
Before I do all that, though, I've got to figure out a shifter. I'm not going to pay $100 for a store-bought one, and I don't want the stick sticking up in the middle of the floor, in the way all the time, so I'm going to make one that will lay flat on the floor in front of the driver's seat when it's in park and the driver can just pull it up to get in gear. It should be way away from his legs when the car is moving. Here's the simple little brackets I've made to get it started. I took off the lever from the side of the transmission and made a lever to bolt on there, then a bracket to hook the lever to under the driver's side.
Got the frame back from the paint shop. Sure a different deal from the hassle I had getting The Old Dodge done. Different paint shop, that's for sure. It's turning red.
Now the motor is back in. Got a few paint chips, but mostly behind the firewall line.
