So here we are again! It has been a few weeks since I have posted the last batch of pictures, and I have been all over the place. I went on a snowboard trip with my wife, I ran all over Texas multiple times, and finally got a chance to get back to work on the car.
After installing some of the body work and lights, I moved back onto less glamorous parts of the car, namely the rear subframe. I needed to install some control arms and solid subframe bushings, so I figured it would be a good time to pull the entire subframe out and clean it up. Shaun and Fielding swung by and we started by dragging it outside and setting the rubber portions of the subframe bushings on fire to get rid of them. It was about 25 degrees out and windy, and the burning rubber was absolutely terrible smelling.
That was the only big part of the assembly of the car I let anyone help with so far, as I needed extra muscle to move the thing around. I really am enjoying working on this car mostly by myself, everything is done by one person and hopefully less is overlooked that way. During daylight I started the process of cutting and forcing the subframe collars to let go of their contents.
They went back together without too much fuss, but the whole process from start to finish was probably 10 hrs of physical and noxious labor.
To spoil the car, and since it had no hardware when I got it, I purchased assortments of fancy zinc plated metric hardware, as well as a cleko set since I was monopolizing the ones at Autocomp. Thanks Marty!
Here you can see how rusty and beat up everything in the subframe is. It took massive force to break the rusty parts free, and when I did rust simply poured out of the stuck joints. I mushroomed the end of an axle shaft nut thread forcing one, but luckily I have race spares so it isn't a big deal.
Here I am prepping for some sand blasting, which I have been doing a ton of! Marty showed me this sweet technique for getting edges really nice with tape. I didn't want sand to get into the bearings at all, so I had to be careful with prep.
That sequence is pretty self explanatory. : ) Next we needed to move and shuffle cars around in the shop, so I reassembled the subframe and got things moving again. This is the first outside time the car has seen in quite some time. You can see we have quite a few drift cars up here now.
Moving back to work again, I just put a new steering rack in the car since the old one was junk, and I got to install some fancy new AN fittings that I ordered early in this post. About this time I found out that more things didn't really function in the engine bay, as the turbo oil return line was hopelessly in the way of the steering coupler and shaft, so I need to order a 45 degree angle AN to clear that and shorten the line. Some other little items need attention too. I forgot to take pictures of me installing all the AN pushlock fittings and plumbing the power steering rack, cooler and reservoir. I learned that AN pushlock hose and fittings are proprietary sizes by just a TINY amount, which makes it freaking impossible to put them together properly and completely if they don't all match in brand. That was a big pain.
I got to make some cool brackets to mount some stuff too. Not done yet with this one yet, but it is pretty fun. I need to do a little brace on it, but it came out really nice for a piece of scrap aluminum in the junk bin. I was planning to remake it, but I think I will keep it.
-------
On a side note, I swung by Tyler's garage space for his toys and picked up a chassis. Of course it would end up being a snow day in Texas, and take 20 hours to complete the journey. You can see a pic of Tyler's original chassis just hanging out. And also a pic of my old chassis being moved over to a spare chassis Tyler had lying around. That counts as three of my cars now in one building getting worked on! And over at Autocomp, I have 4 that I am storing or working on. I think I have a problem!
-----------
And we attended a wedding where Tyler was mentioned in both the service and the program. This isn't all I have accomplished on the car lately, but all the stuff I remembered to take pictures of!