I know, it's been a month since an actual update. I've been pretty busy with life outside of the Seven, going on vacation, working, etc. That being said, I've gotten stuff done on the car as well. I've finished up the rear main frame (all I had left to do was the upper hoop and supports), as well as tacked in the front suspension mounts, cut and placed the engine support tubes, and cut and placed the lower transmission tunnel cockpit tubes. I didn't get around to tacking the 4 previously mentioned tubes, as I had a couple guys here putting in all new windows in the house (gotta save on heating bills to afford this 'lo cost car' HAHA), and didn't want to have to explain about how they can't look/watch/etc while I'm welding. So, I just fit them in place, ready to be tacked at my earliest convenience. I also need to locate the engine/tranny and differential before I go tacking in any part of the tranny tunnel just yet. I've cut enough pieces out to redo them already, no need to do it again on purpose.
I've also disassembled the rear carrier assembly. I've got the brakes and lines put away, differential sort of cleaned up (holy rust, batman. Caked on. A little worrisome, but the case seems to be solid anyway. Really, it's just the pinion cover on the front of the diff and not the housing itself, but still.), and the axles/uprights (spindles/hubs) out and ready to be installed into the BrokeAssSeven. So, getting that all disassembled cleared out about 5' from the front of my garage, and now I won't be tripping over the PPF (which I ended up cutting off... seriously, I see almost no other way to get this thing off after busting a bolt off) every 30 seconds. I gave the PPF to the guy who did my windows... he scraps all the scrap aluminum.. and now that the PPF was essentially destroyed, I couldn't sell it anyway so I figured, someone may as well benefit from it.
I'm frustrated at the amount of work I've gotten done in the past month, but I need to continue to remind myself that this process is naturally going to slow down as the build progresses. I'm now in the stage of the build where I don't have any more plans or guidance on how to do things, so now I need to factor in my 'figure out what's going on' time. That time is significantly longer than 'look at the plans, and build it' time. On top of that, getting the engine out of it's storage area is a pain in the ass to begin with, nevermind moving the frame lower in order to fit it. So, I'm sort of putting it off / not being able to do it alone. I'm hoping to be fitting the engine/tranny/diff by next Saturday, so I can start on the differential mounts, engine mounts, and tranny tunnel. Once all that's put in and tacked, then I'm going to go ahead and final weld this pig. That will be a time consuming process, without feeling like much is getting done. But, it'll be a HUGE step in getting this thing ready to start final assembly.
Once we're all final welded, I need to start on the suspension which is going to be, most likely, the biggest time sucker of the entire process. I learned and excelled at all this stuff in school, but just reading about it again is making my brain melt out of my ears. That's okay, I'm expecting it to take forever, and I'll easily offset the time spent on suspension with the time I'll be saving on the wiring harness (comparatively to other builders, anyway).
Needless to say, there is a lot of work completed, but there is ten fold the work to still do. I'll really try to keep on top of this build log though...
@nisseven -- I think a writeup in the suspension area, with pictures/explanations of your jigs would be awesome! Those are some serious looking control arms, share them, haha!