Sunday, July 19, 2015

So I guess I am officially sliding into the body work here. Last week end  I finished bondo work and blocking on the center section that I made for the wing. While I was bolting it to the uprights I realized that having been a one piece wing originally there was not a whole lot of strength to the area where the wing bolts together.
So I stopped what I was doing to work on a plan to reinforce that area.  I cut the area out so that I had a clear shot through the wing to the base. I drilled a half inch hole in the base and ran some 1/2 x .049 wall steel tubing through. At the top of the tubing I welded a seat for the bolt made from some .083 1" tubing and a .090 plate for the wing bolt to pass through.





I used some Fusor brand panel bond adhesive to epoxy the assembly in place and then did a little bondo work to clean it up. I purchased some 5/16-18 shoulder bolts with 3/8" x 1" shoulder to attach the center section to the uprights. I also threaded some pins into the side of the center section of the wing to keep it from rotating. Once everything was assembled I did some bondo work to blend everything together. I thought about leaving the rods long to go down into the trunk but that's would be a little over kill. It would also be a bit of a rat's nest in there if I did that.




Another little project I did was to epoxy the side mirrors to the custom steel door mounts that I had made. I did a little bondo work to them to blend the mount to the mirror housing.



In between things I worked on extending the tailpipes back to the exhaust tips mounted under the roll pan. The 2 3/4" SRT tubing proved a little hard to get a hold of so I just stepped it up to some 3" and mashed on. I eliminated the rear mufflers as there really wasn't any way to tuck them in the space under the quarters so I hope it doesn't sound funny.







Sunday, July 5, 2015

Well I am at the point where I am going back through the car and tackling all the little projects left to fabricate. The first issue was to build a prop rod for the hood. While the gas shocks lift the hood just fine they were designed to hold up a light weight aluminum hood and even with the inner liner removed this old Charger hood weighs a few pounds more. So just to be safe. I used some 3/8" .049 wall DOM steel tubing to make the rod itself. I made a double sheer bracket to attach the rod to the radiator core support. At the opposite end I modified a rubberized "P" clip to secure the end when stowed. I drilled a hole in the hood latch bracket to catch the rod and welded a washer on it at the same angle as the hood latch bracket.






Another small project was to locate the windshield washer nozzles  in the hood and also locate the lines under the hood.


One of the issues that has had me worried since I first installed it was how I was going to keep rain water from pouring into the trunk around the gas fill I put into the top of  the quarter panel. Since the enclosure was meant to be mounted on the side of the car I had to come up with a way to keep the water from collecting in the enclosure and then leaking in around the rubber gasket that the fill neck comes through. I stared at it for quite a while. The first thing I did was to install a small aluminum drain in the bottom of the enclosure. A bit of plastic tubing will drain water out through the bottom of the quarter panel closure.



Next was the tricky part. Since the rubber gasket around the fill tube is not a water tight seal I had to figure out a way to isolate it from any water that would make it's way into the enclosure. I decided to modify the gas door assembly by first creating a flat ring at the base which later will seal against the bottom of the enclosure around the fill neck. Next I fabricated a vertical ring to act as a dam against the water that might get in. Finally I made a larger overlapping vertical ring which I attached to the door itself. This will hopefully cover the lower ring enough to prevent water from driving in over the lower ring.