One more rod end showed up today. That makes four. They still show two more packages to be delivered. This after I cancelled the order. Blows ones mind. And wouldn't you know it, all four that showed up are left hand. All I need is two right hand so I can make up my box section for the dog bones. Is that asking too much?....
Well, at least Mcmaster delivers when they say they will. My plexiglass for the dash showed up yesterday. So I got started laying out the dash on that. I used the bezel from the '88 Camaro as a pattern. Once I had it traced out, I looked at it and remembered why I had originally considered the Speedhut gauges... If you run the top or the bottom square, parallel to the top or bottom, the opposite side is WAY out of square. Like, 3/16" out in what, 10 inches? Mulled it over, and decided on this: I used a slide square to establish a distance from the top edge of the plexiglass to the bottom of one of the Tach. Then I slid it over, and rotated the bezel to get the speedometer at the same distance. That makes the two most obvious gauges parallel and level. Then I traced them out, along with the other gauges, screw holes, and an outline of the bezel for reference. I won't use the factory bezel. When I make up the carbon fiber piece, I'll just drill out the holes for it, and cut out for the gauges. This way, even if the housing is slightly askew, the gauges are level and parallel, and if the screws are not, there really is not any reference line for them to align to and won't be noticeable. Well, not to anyone else, anyway. With that laid out, I cut it out for the steering column.
Speaking of the column, I got a nice solid support made up for that. The column is from a 2000-ish fourth gen. Camaro, and it is pretty long. For best position, wheel height, etc., I ended up pretty much laying it across the top of the bottom scuttle tube and firewall tube, and raising the point at the scuttle tube about 3/4". It puts the end of the column a bit close to the factory exhaust header, but I may get some block hugger headers to help with that, and may have to fabricate a heat shield. We'll see. The upshot is that the end points almost exactly at the FU1 tube. A u-joint on the column, short piece of DD, a carrier bearing on the FU1, another u-joint, 12" of DD or so, one more u-joint and it drops right into the rack.