Let's get some footroom in here!

I've gotten all of the holes drilled in the factory mounted aluminum and I only broke one drill bit and dulled two others. These were supposed to be GOOD bits too. Oh well...

Since finishing that, I started on modifications to the frame. The stock drivers side footbox has a curved tube at the bottom with another hoop that ties into it from the vertical support. Here's a picture of it.



That design seriously compromises foot room for the driver in the pedal box. If you look closely you can see the wasted space behind that curve. I cut out the curved parts and welded in some new pieces to square off the corner so now it looks like this.



The in-between is a bit scary looking - First I cut the curved tubes out.




Then I had to rotate the frame all around since I don't weld very well upside down - okay I'm not a great welder anyway but I'm really bad upside down.



But the finished product turned out okay. I added a gusset in the corner and also sleeved the inside of the tubes where I put them together. When I bought the tubing to change this, I got some extra tubing that would fit snugly inside. The outer structural tubing is 1.5" 0.120 so I got some 1.25" 0.090 tubing for the sleeves. It fits nice and snug - no play at all.

When I cut the outer pieces I drilled a hole about one inch from the end and then slid the inner tube in and rosette welded it in place. That made it easy to line up the new tubing and gave a backing to the welds.

Here's the finished product.



As for the final appearance, a friend of mine who is a professional welder once told me that there's no weld so ugly that a grinder can't fix it. I'm a firm believer in that.

Drilling, drilling, drilling...

I've been busy drilling holes. LOTS AND LOTS of holes.

I've removed about half of the factory installed aluminum panels so far and I'm drilling the mounting holes as I go. I'm using 3" spacing in most places. The floor pans are getting 2" spacing since they have to support weight. And I recently saw a post on FFCars that said to use 1" spacing where two aluminum panels meet so I'm doing that as well. That all adds up to lots of holes. I haven't killed any drill bits yet but they're begging for mercy.

And my homemade rivet hole spacing marker works just great.

Since we had a warm day I also did a bit of prep work on the brakes. I taped of the friction surface to protect it and shot the rotor hats black. The outside edges will be done in silver after the black cures completely. I also painted the caliper brackets black. Once I get the calipers cleaned and taped, they'll be done in red - hopefully this weekend.

I also got the spindles and spindle adapters cleaned up. Those got a coat of Hammerite Silver to match what will be going on the frame.

Finally getting started

No pictures, but tonight I got things moved around and I feel like I'm finally able to get started on this project.

I got the frame moved to the 'working' side of the garage, the Miata moved to the 'non-working' side and the body stored over the Miata. It's kind of cozy but it works.

Once the frame was in place I traced outlines on the aluminum panels and started pulling them off. I'm going to drill all of the aluminum panels, reinstall them and drill all of the holes in the frame before I paint it.

I'm also going to make some mods before I paint it - driver's footbox, multiple grounding bolts and cut out the trunk support for a dropped-butt mod. Maybe some other stuff as well - I'll make it up as I go along.

I still have to disassemble my donor but that will come after I get the frame painted. That will provide plenty of curing time for the paint.

I also got two gallons of white vinegar to try as a rust remover. I read about it on the internet so it must be true. :-D

And I have to say, it works! I got a 5-gallon pail and dumped the vinegar into it. Then I put two fairly rusty brake rotors in there. Within an hour I was able to brush away a good amount of rust. I left them in there overnight so they should be nice and clean tonight. I really should have washed them down with Simple Green or some other cleaner first but I just didn't think about it. I'll clean the other parts before they go in the vinegar bath.

Lastly, I made my rivet spacing guides. I bought some 0.75" aluminum bar at Lowes. I cut it into 2 20" pieces. Then, starting 1-inch from the end, I marked 2" increments on one piece and 3" increments in the other. Then I took out my trusty drill and drilled 1/8" holes at each mark. Voila! Instant rivet spacing guides.

Body off!

I got the body off of the frame Friday night and started tracing some of the aluminum panels for drilling.

Saturday we hit the junkyard and I scored the full disc brake setup off of a 1995 Mustang so that will be swapped on instead of using the earlier Fox rear drum brakes. While the benefit of 4-wheel discs is often debated, I prefer both the pedal feel and the looks of them. I already have the 5-lug rear axles to swap in so this completes my junkyard parts hunting for brakes. I'll have to order the brackets to mount the rear discs to the 8.8 but that's no problem. And I'm going to get a new 1993 Cobra master cylinder to top it all off.

Unfortunately that was about all I got done. While we were at the yard, I received a call that my mother had returned to the hospital. So my wife and I headed home, cleaned up and spent 5.5 hours in the emergency room with her until they finally got a bed ready and moved her to it.

So anyway, here are a few pictures with the body removed.

Oh look! An update!

I'm finally back to it. Everyone seems to have recovered health-wise so I can get back to work on my Roadster.

I've been building a body buck. But this one has a couple of differences from the others I've seen.

First, it's a convertible. :-) The extended legs can be removed and it then becomes the right height for doing body work.





The other difference is that I cut out the middle rather drastically. The reason for that is so I can park a Miata under it. I don't want to have to drag the buck and body in and out of the garage every time I want to work on the chassis, so they will be stored on the opposite side of the garage.



Hopefully I'll be removing the body and putting it on the buck tomorrow (Friday) night when my youngest son and his friend come over to help me. The body will be parked over the chassis for a while as I still need to strip the donor Mustang.

Once that's done, the chassis goes to the "big" side of the garage and the Miata and body buck will go where the chassis currently resides. Like so.



Confusing, eh? It'll all work out...

The other BIG news is that we're getting a dog (a Bavarian Moosehound.) Along with the dog, we're getting a storage shed.

While these two events wouldn't normally be related, were going to use a part of the shed for a doghouse. It's an 8x12 with dual doors on the front. I'm going to cut a doggie door on the outer wall and then build a partition wall inside so that the Flash the dog can reside in there. He'll be separated from the yard paraphernalia by this wall so both he, and it, are safe from each other.

Having the shed will allow me to remove all of the yardwork implements, lawnmowers, fertilizers and other assorted lawn related nasties from the garage. YAY! That's going to pick up quite a bit of space in there.

So things are slowly starting to progress again. At this rate, maybe I can actually start on the chassis in March.