hey car gang the good news is the chassis modifications are almost done so
let me show you what I have planned ten okay here's where we're at on all the
modifications the rear coil over gussets done the front shock tower top plates
are done the front strut brace brackets those are done the front anti-roll bar
strengthening plates done then there's the rear coil over crossmember under
plates so these two go hand-in-hand i strengthened the top using gussets and
there's some vulnerable areas on the bottom and I'm going to be cleaning that
up and putting some plates on so that is a job for today the rear torsion tube
the body plates there's some plates that the RS are used back in the day and I'm
gonna put those in those should be relatively easy and then the rear
anti-roll bar mounts there's an upgrade to put on those so that they don't tear
that's another common problem probably even more so than the front anti-roll
bar plates I am going to do my best to finish all three five six and seven in
the next few days
okay guys I'm about to take you underneath the car for the first time
now I have it on the the tire stands and you know some extra jack stands
underneath let me show you what I did so the the rear tires are strapped down
with these heavy heavy straps and you know I can I can shake the car as hard
as I want and things are pretty stable I do have some extra jack stands
underneath here although they aren't even touching so they don't go high
enough but if the car were to fall you know give me a little extra space to try
to get out but I'm pretty confident to go underneath and then I have this this
mechanic's creeper I'm just gonna lay down and take you guys underneath so
let's go
so you have this frame rail and then and then this crossmember and with all the
coilover pressure coming up this area here it may want to crack back here so
I'll do some extra plates back here and some extra seam welding on the bottom to
try to prevent this crossmember from coming detached from the frame rail to
get started I'm gonna remove these heater valves they're all rusty anyways
job number number two or I can't remember which number was in the list
five six or seven is to reinforce the torsion bar so you can see where the
suspension arms are the trailing arms attached to the rear torsion bar so as
you're you're making a corner there's a tremendous amount of force coming this
way which gets translated along the bar which tends to take this torsion tube
and push it into the car so the the goal and what they did in the in the previous
racecars is to tie this torsion tube to the actual body using some plates so
it's just a simple plate it just goes from this attachment here
on the torsion bar up to the body and it strengthens things a little bit item
number seven is to strengthen underneath here so this is the rear sway bar
bracket here's the factory fuel pump and there's a large piece of 1974 had which
some of the early cars didn't but I'm gonna leave the bracket here but my my
sway bar pieces are in pretty good shape but these are really thin metal this is
it's a little bit bent right now so I'm going to straighten it but this is
probably I'll measure this this is I want to say eighteen gauge and just by
design it just has a tendency to tear or break either here or up here so the idea
is you know rather than replace it with an aftermarket one is to box this in
adding some extra nuts to the back box it in and possibly tie it on to this
bracket here because this is already much much stronger the fuel pump bracket
oddly enough is way stronger than the sway bar bracket just by looking at the
shape and also the sheet metal thickness this is thicker than this the passenger
side is in my car is in ok shape it's got it's got
a couple dents right here it's kind of caved in a little bit so I'm gonna
strain it out the best I can but the goal is to make a plate that not only
boxes this all in but actually ties it to the torsion bar so it's gonna go from
here up to here so now the torsion mounts will be in double shear it's
attached to the frame rail right here but this edge which is sort of
cantilevered in Wilton space is gonna get tied up to here so it'll be much
much stronger and I'm gonna make those parts myself of course alright this is
now off wasn't wasn't easy to get off I really tried hard not to break the studs
on the on the on the car and I managed to get it off I had to use you know a
little bit of heat and a wire brush and more penetrating oil but they did work
free took about at least a half an hour to get this side I'm gonna let the other
side soak a little longer in the penetrating oil and try to work it off I
got one of the nuts off but I got two more that are really tough so I do not
want to break anything on the car but this is as bad as it looks this valve
you know still works pretty well so I'll clean these up later on not a big hurry
right now ok I'm back here under the car and I got that other heater valve off no
problem all the studs and nuts are in good shape and I've also cleaned off the
undercoating in the sections that need to be welded so you can see that the
factory maybe you can't see it but the factory did a seam weld along this edge
it's just great and then there's a couple spot welds here spot welded all
along the frame rail there so the idea that I'm gonna do is I'm gonna finish
seam welding all the way to the bottom close this out and then put this plate
over the edge now this here's a template so it's just a just to angle piece it's
gonna it's gonna have another seam weld behind the factory seam weld and then
these are gonna fold underneath like that this is gonna fold underneath there
like that tie it in and then back here this is where the torsion bar meets the
seat pins and you can see I cleaned out some sections there of the undercoat
and I'm going to be bridging the suspension arm mounts right to the seat
pan area so kind of like that so it's gonna really just tie those two together
yeah so that's just a simple kind of rectangular square it's got a couple of
angles to it but you know nothing too crazy
I've also cleaned off some areas on the anti-roll bar now I'm going to be tying
it in to the torsion bar if you can see on the top there I've taken a little bit
of the undercoating there off so the idea is to go directly from this weak
flange on the bottom directly to the torsion bar so I have a template it's
not 100% fleshed out but it's going to be doing this so it's gonna box in this
anti-roll bar mount it's going to go all the way up to the torsion bar and then
these ears are gonna fold over to complete the box okay the other weak
point on this suspension suspension anti-roll bar mount are these nuts back
here so I'm going to be using some hardware like this this is the wrong
size this is just what I had in my toolbox I'm gonna get the right size
hardware and it's gonna go on top of here and connect into this rolled
section or this bench section so if it can bridge that gap and I'll weld it on
here weld it on the bottom so we'll have additional threads in the event that the
threads do pull out it'll have extra strength on that Plus this connecting
from bottom to top is going to stiffen it even more so I'm gonna do the nut
modification first and then and then box it in okay on this side I did take the
fuel pump out and this bracket here is pretty strong and it's already welded to
the frame rail in a couple different places so this looks okay it does have a
open seam right here so I'll probably TIG weld that shut on both sides just to
give them a little extra strength and then rather than going from here up to
the torsion bar would be redundant it's just going to go from here to this
bracket wish me luck yeah I'm not filming as
much today because so much of it's under the car and it's difficult as it is to
work underneath there let alone filming it so it's a lot of the same type of
work that I have been doing it's it's just a little harder to film I'm gonna
show you this part this is the bracket that's going to go on that rear
crossmember and that's going to tie it into the frame rail and I showed you the
template this is just a piece cut out on my plasma cutter I'm using 14 gauge for
this material I used a little bit thicker I used 8 inch thick for those
suspension trailing arm attachment points where they gusset up to the body
that was that was a little thicker I think there's more force on that one so
anyways I just want to show you this this is gonna get bent underneath on the
car once I get these edges welded in I'm gonna you know conform it to the car
just like I did on the upper gussets for the strut tower I'm wearing a lot more
clothes than I usually do I got three shirts on I got some heavy jeans and
some extra big socks because you know MIG welding I think MIG welding sucks
anyways but it really sucks when you're welding upside down there's like a
shower of sparks everywhere so I'm wearing a towel over my helmet and all
kinds of stuff it's a very dirty work today which is why I wanted to get this
done before I really start doing more body work okay
well I'm glad that's over I'm a total mess it's been a long day
but the good news is the car looks good so let me take you down there and show
you I'm sorry I didn't have a lot of fabrication shots a lot of you know my
typical video if you're interested in some of the fabrication take a look at
the video where I made the rear coil over gussets it's a lot of the same
fabrication techniques you know it's it's cardboard template it's cut it out
the plasma cutter tin snips trim to fit trim to fit trim to fit weld it in so if
you're a regular to this channel you're probably pretty accustomed to that so I
didn't really film a lot about that on this time but if you are interested
please check that video right here and let's go under the car and I'll show you
how it looks okay first up you can see these these plates that attach the
torsion tube to the seat pans and so there are pretty simple rectangles not
exactly rectangles but close enough they do have a curve to them as they follow
this bracket underneath there so the idea with this is you know to really
take the load from the transmission and engine and bolster it up a little bit
with the seat pans and then also the cornering loads due to these trailing
arms there can be a lot of cornering forces that try to bend this torsion
tube sometimes a torsion tube tears I'm hoping that mine never tears and I'm
hoping that these plates or gussets will improve it just a little bit okay next
up is this plate right here so it's a it's an L bracket basically with some
some tabs that fold underneath and it's you know it's welded all the way around
so this is where the coilover goes this is a temporary bar just holding up the
car but the coilover goes inside there in
all the forces that try to rip this crossmember away from the frame rail are
going to be supported by the gussets on top and then this plate here on the
backside so if this tries to twist or anything it's going to be prevented by
this extra bracket right where the crossmember attaches the frame
well there's some seam welds there same exact thing for the other side so you're
looking at where the heater can was removed you can see the the welds on
both the frame rail and the crossmember it's a continuous weld I did leave the
top open for my technique where I fill it up with epoxy primer and cavity wax
you can see I I seemed welded along this bottom edge as well a little hard to
tell here I did have to touch this up with my TIG welder because there was
some porosity there so any time there's porosity I just grind it out and you
know fill up that hole with my with my TIG welder okay now this one is where
the sway bar attaches so I left them one of the bolts in here's the other hole
right here this is the factory bracket but I boxed it in with this plate so the
plate wraps around the corner it ties into the existing factory bracket here
on the sides then it has a flange all the way up till it meets the torsion bar
this is the torsion bar and then it's welded right here and then on the
backside it's the same thing it's got a little flange to it it ties into the
factory piece it is completely you know boxed in and supported at the top so I
also filled in the threads from top to bottom with a spacer nut the chance of
this bolt pulling out is is small and then the the chance of tearing this off
of the frame rail is also pretty small because now it's tied to the torsion bar
so no more cam levered thin sheet metal I used a pretty thick metal here this is
I believe it's 14 gauge so I'm happy with this I like this a little bit
better than the Elephant Racing 1a because it's homemade and and B it
doesn't it takes some of the stress off the frame rail so now the stress is
shared between the frame rail and the torsion bar so it's less likely just to
rip the thing right out of the frame rail
okay this is the driver's side and this one's a little different because there's
the fuel pump bracket right here and I took the fuel pump out but the fuel pump
bracket even though I'm probably not going to use a stock fuel pump I just
left it in here who knows what fuel pump I might use and
so I just left it stock but this is the same idea this plate here was added it
boxes in the factory bracket it's welded along the sides where it contacts the
factory bracket there's the spacer knots or barrel nuts inside and so there's the
threads are synced up with a bolt it was well that with the bolt in place so I
can back this out threads will be perfect it's welded all the way along
the edge here I have a little a little step here a little flange to keep this
plate as close as possible to the nuts to take the force and translate it up
here to what's effectively attaching it to the same spot of the torsion bar
it's just via this bracket here that the factory put in just so happens this
brackets pretty strong so I went up a little higher than I probably needed to
I could have just gone right from here to here but I wanted to keep it the same
as the other side so it goes up there's a there's a ninety degree Bend it comes
over and then I welded on the inside here
here's another view of this side of that anti-roll bar bracket okay so that job
makes sanding look like a walk in the park and sanding is this was a big
milestone for me I just wanted to get through some of this dirty messy work
and you know mentally kind of check out of that and then back into sanding
although I forgot one thing okay so if we remember back to the suspension pan
when I was attaching the suspension pan I didn't weld it in the very front
because there's a front oil cooler duct I am going to be fabricating the duct
work that is going to allow the air to go through the oil cooler kind of into
the spare tire area and then out underneath the car that is a big job
that I will tackle soon but after I do some bodywork and then number nine is
another welding project don't think the welding is over this is the rear roll
cage now the real roll cage rear roll cage is I'm only gonna do a half cage
but that requires a lot of planning a lot of research and I'm gonna be doing
that in parallel at least it's on the inside and most of that fabrication is
done away from the car so this is something to look forward to as well so
welding is not done but the for me some of the the pressing items are are now
done
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