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Just to add my 2cents worth. Rod ends are probably not designed to carry the side loading that the bottom ball joint is subject to ie. the weight of the car is trying to pull the ball out of the joint. Down here you are not allowed to use a rod end in such a way, end of story.
Bruce

I haven't seen the premade cups either. They do sell cups for screw in ball joints at the oval track places. I'm starting to look into that. They do have ratings for the rod ends with axial loads in the Aurora Bearings catalog. I think they varied from 10%-15% for rod ends and 20% for just the spherical bearings. Take a look.

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Marcus Barrow - Car9 an open design community supported sports car for home builders!
SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
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Sorry I repeated a bunch of stuff you've already talked about. I had to go back and read thru your whole log.

So I'm still going after using Pinto spindles etc. Does the Chevette spindle not use tapers or are you going to make taper inserts or drill them out?

So far I'm looking at 8" rims with 6.5" backspacing ( 50 mm offset ). My scrub is down to around 1". If your getting used tires at 4 for $100 it must be a popular size. Are those FA fronts or what? I'm wondering if I need to find 10" rims for the front of my car instead of the 8". I saw that some oval track places sell the steel rims and centers sepreratly so you can make your own offset, haven't seent hat for 13" yet though. Perhaps you can get them welded with the centers in backwards to get a bigger offset? Even with 5" your spindle is still out in the air, 7" backspace would fix up your scrub...

I have the same issue you do in the rear, I want less backspace. Partly because I'd like to get small and large diameter rims so that I can run 22" tires at the track and 25" tires on the street.

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Marcus Barrow - Car9 an open design community supported sports car for home builders!
SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.

some more pictures after a long day in the shop

I had my shop mate do the fiberglass becuase I didn't want to smell like, well, fiberglass for a few days, it still needs to final finish work on it to prep for paint but its a lot nicer than I could have done and it means that the car actually looks a bit more like it should



did a little test bend around the back corner



got the back corners on tonight - still waiting on the last shock that gets here tomorrow to button up the rear passenger side



the fronts are all but buttoned up as well - just need a few bolts for the brake caliper brackets

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sheet metal work is slow going

I added a few more dzus fasteners to the nose cone and switched to the inset kind



it sure is nice to not go running after a dzus clip after it pops off and goes skittering along the floor

over the last few days i've been working on the scuttle area - lots of hours without much outward to show for it

dash test fitup


the lady friend wanted to do some more riveting... so the drivers side panel is going on


cleaned up the dash - ran some reinforcements behind it for structure and bent the shifter cover. the scuttle still needs a lot of work, since the frame isn't a book frame it doesn't fit quite right and needs some reworking in the back for it to be nice and beautiful.


also working on the back side of the scuttle. i'm still trying to figure out how i'm going to seal off the drivers foot well from the engine with all those pedals and stuff up there. i've got some ideas but nothing i'm really happy with yet.


my axles that were supposed to take 3 weeks and ended up taking closer to 6 weeks are getting here today so the driveline can be complete and i can set it on the ground. the CORRECT dash is also getting here today.

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Yo, Tongboy! Pics of ^ or it didn't happen!

Looks like good progress, starting to look like a real car! That dash panel looks nice, I like the "cutout" section for the driver's knees. Good work!

JD Kemp

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JD, father of Quinn, Son of a... Build Log
Quinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special
"Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom

haha, there's a pic of her earlier on, she's camera shy when she's in her scrubs working

got my axles FINALLY on tuesday

nice looking parts, only problem is they made them wrong! at full compression they were what I had specced for the mid-range of the cv movement... yeah, not so good

thankfully I called them the next day (east coast) and they overnighted new shafts to me

look - a 1/2" different than what I had ordered... oops


so with that I can have a complete rear end and a start to end drivetrain in the car!


wheel bolted on to start figuring out the rear body work/fenders


meanwhile I started on the wiring - the ziptie is obviously temporary but it shows where I want it to end up



the speedway harness even with *only* 12 circuits is total overkill. the front wire is long enough for me to take it up the passenger side wrap it aorund the front of the car and go the rear of the car.

so lots and lots of wires to clean up still. with the integration between the dash and the ecu over can bus the wiring is super simple from that stand point. there are about 5 wires + the 12v feed to the engine harness to get it running and then the wiring back to the fuel pump.

I also fitted the dash

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It runs!

http://youtu.be/M3j3ysjy0uk

the dash automatically started chatting with the ECU with zero setup. made it nice. Still plenty of wiring cleanup and sorting as well as dash configuration & ECU tuning but its a nice milestone.

edit: gah, i'm failing with the forum youtube bbcode, what's the trick? it doesn't like the video ID or the full URL...

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Wooohoooo! Nice job!

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Peace, Ron

Thank you!

set it down on its own feet and took it for a spin after sorting out some of the wiring and related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uCNbFaVdGI

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I'll bet that feels good!

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Marcus Barrow - Car9 an open design community supported sports car for home builders!
SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.

Yo-
Great "first drive" video! What really "makes it" is the little giggle at the end... Classic!

Congratulations!
JDK

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JD, father of Quinn, Son of a... Build Log
Quinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special
"Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom

Ha, ha, sweet! I like the "that's so cute" comment and, yeah, the appreciative giggle at the end is priceless.

Pete


And I see you had half-shafts made. Would you mind sharing an idea of cost? Did you just tell them (and who is them?) "I'm going from this diff to this upright and I want them this long"?

(I'm going from either 7" Ford or Nissan/Subaru R160 to er, something, and the axle issue has been troubling me. -Could just use a Merkur rear, but the uprights look heavy.)

Thanks guys! it sure is a great feeling seeing it go from bare frame to driving down the road.

Pete - yes, I did have them made - I called around to a multitude of companies including the dutchman as they are local (even with a referral from a friend that said run away) cv-axles.com and a few other places.

The Driveshaft shop was the only place that even said they could do it. Yes they got me the axles I needed but it certainly wasn't easy or inexpensive. They originally quoted me 3 week lead time. At 5 weeks they said they'd ship next week, at 6 weeks I called them again and after playing phone shuffle for half a day pressed that I really needed them soon they shipped them the next day. Once I received them I installed them and found that they were too long (earlier pic, they were at full plunge at what I had specced was the middle of the range) I called them the next day and they agreed they installed the wrong shafts or something and overnighted shorter ones. after measuring those they were what I had originally specced.

after that pile of fun and run around the final price was 800 for the axles + 50 bucks for shortening the axles from a stock size + 10 bucks for boxing and then shipping on top of that. they did eat the overnight shipping for the new bars and sent me new boots and clips which was what I would have hoped for in that situation.

that reminds me... I still need to send them the other bars back since they charged me for the new ones until they were returned and of course they said they'd put a return label in the box and didn't so I get to call them again to hit them up...

If I did it again i'd use a rear end that didn't require being changed and adjust the front to account for it.

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Thank you very much for the straight reply. You've saved me many hours and many dollars. My motto is "Live and don't learn, that's us." but I think I'll try something different this time.

Pete