S.Reef's Winter/Spring Project Thread

[Curt_irocz]

if I only had a frame....

[ITSSLOW]

You guys are POR15 crazy! lol

[MP81]

Haha - we're not even done with it yet.

[MunsterZ28]

Looks great guys! Hey Kyle does the bolt thing remind you of someone's k-frame fun?

B! where did you get that coverall? i need one bad lol.

coming along great. have to say i helped this build a little by buying stuff off same. lol go me !

[MP81]

Today we worked all on the front suspension. Definitely a hard day.

Front left UMI lower a-arm in. This took a lot of effort to line up - because you couldn't line it up initially. And we definitely didn't do this once on this side.


Upper tubular Gbodyparts.com a-arm went on much easier than the lower.



Compressing the spring - we had these things on and off so many times, it's not even funny.


After about 4-4.5 hours (including a-arm installation, which took about 1-1.5 hours) and a huge amount of effort, we got that front left suspension all bolted up. The lower a-arm has battle scars to prove it was quite the hardship... The spring was the real ***** here. It's a very large spring, with a high spring rate (keep in mine, we cut a coil off this thing...stock height would've sucked even more), and get's compressed quite a lot. What was so hard, was to line up the spring to the upper perch, but also keep it in the perch on the lower a-arm as well. It was potentially one of the hardest things we've done on this car. But after a lot of hard work, we got it in. Everything after that was really simple and easy - jack up the lower a-arm, bolt up the spindle to the ball joints and install the shock (which was a little tricky, but nothing in comparison to that spring). Also - Rolo stopped by to pick up a fender, and that was really the break we needed, cause we got the spring in after we went back to work at it. It looks great, really worth it.





For shiggles, we mounted up the brake rotor to the spindle, and then put the wheel and tire on. And when compared to how it sat before (this has load on it from the bottom via the jack), the wheel and tire are up higher. There's a lot of gap here, though, because there's no engine, trans or interior, and the rest of the car is on stands, so it'll affect how it looks.



We figured that with the knowledge we gained on the left side, with what worked with the spring, that the right side should be easier to get done...yeah, wishful thinking. Not so. Lower control arm was even harder to get in on this side. And the spring did NOT want to go in, even more than the other side. We really had lost sight of how we did it on the left, as well, because it seemed like it just happened. We were really worn out/tired and decided to call it quits for the night - we need to take a step back and get back to it after a break.


So, all in all - lot of hard work today, hopefully we can get that other side on tomorrow.

[Gottork]

nice job guys

[MP81]

Ah! It's been a while. Sam went on vacation, so obviously we didn't work on the car.

Went back to work at that right side front suspension and guess what! We got it. We found out that if you do things the way you're supposed to, instead of creating creative ways on how not to do it (or in the case of the left side, do it after much hassle), you simply do it the right way and it works! We ****** around with spring compressors and all that jazz for an hour or so, and then Sam had an idea just to try it without the compressors - kind of a last resort...and by golly, it worked. Flawlessly. It F***ing worked! We were quite ecstatic, to say the least - not sure why the hell we didn't do that on the other side!



Looks real nice under there with all the new components - the a-arms have their share of battle scars, though - battles that didn't need to be fought. Oh well, no biggy.



And POR-15 is not indestructible, especially when you're scraping big steel parts (like spring compressor nuts, and coil springs) against it. We'll have to touch this area up.


Got the Spohn steering linkage all installed.






Brake shields, rotors are all installed.



Painting the calipers black


Sprayed undercoating on the wheel well housings.

[ITSSLOW]

I'm really surprised you guys painted the calipers black. I understand if he was going for a stock/sleeper look, but he got everything powdercoated in red. What rims does he plan on running?

[MP81]

These:

[ITSSLOW]

Going for like a 1980's NASCAR look! I like it!

[MP81]

Yeah - and it should sit about that height, too...I mean, it's got two inch drop spindles in the front, with a coil cut off, and A-body lowering springs in the rear.

It's gonna look killer. I'm just glad we got the front suspension all done - engine and trans are really the only big thing left! Interior, gas tank, wiring, stereo, t-tops. That's about it...

[Gottork]

very nice, does he have the engine yet or thats the next big purchase?

[MP81]

Yeah, he has an LS1 shortblock sitting in the garage.

[Gottork]

is he going to run a 60 or an 80 for tranny? is the engine gonna be FI or carbed?

[MP81]

It'll be fuel-injected. He's probably going to run a 4L60E, but he hasn't decided between that and a T56 yet.