Phat kitty, the wife's big rim street brawler

[ANGRYBLACK]

The Neighbors are cool. We have no next door neighbors and the local county engineering dept behind us. It's a gearhead neighborhood with a bit of every discipline. Plus local LE loves me.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

So final assembly begins. We will obviously miss Sick week next month.lol. atop that I lost a week because I pushed my back a bit much on new years day pushing the chassis in and out.
I made a few planned revisions such as 1 3/4" tubing to tie the hitch/ chute anchor support into the coil bucket x member. I also mounted the trans cooler pack. I may try my hand at building another from aluminum diamond sheets and try to Tig it all up.
Whipped up a 1" chromo round tube driveshaft loop. The old one woulda worked but it ties to the stock floor and I didn't weld in the mounting plates because I worry about rust. Measurements say that we should be able to bolt in a 4L80e from the TH 400 without hassle.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Set the body back down and aligned it up. Im super happy how well it went. I haven't mentioned it but my build style is all encompassing. So this gives me time to finalize the procedures to working on the car. Everything clears with room to spare. For those who don't know the only full floor available is off of the elcamino die set. So the rear foot area is less deep than all the others by about an inch.
We started getting the sound deadener and damping stuff down on the front of the car. It's one layer of Fat Mat, one layer of a 1/4" closed cell poly foam and foil and one layer of the 315 mil Nioco or however you spell it stuff. Between glueing the roof x members to the skin, door crash bars to the skin, shut it up material, foam here and there I hope one can have a normal conversation at highway speeds.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Creeping forward. I'm cobbling together a poop pipe and tube thingy. It will hold the winters shifter, china plastic box for the window switches , fuse panel, Race wire solutions PDU and support the lower dash. Lots of electrical stuffs going in the car. I still have to build the relay enclosure for the driver's power seat. I decided to lay down another layer of Nioco foam because why not.

The factory HVAC enclosure is back in after I sanitized it, replaced all the seals and reassembled it. I added some insulation to the blower outlet in hopes of helping. Not sure what will get done this weekend with the temp dropping. I may get the dash cap glued on and the whole thing flocked black

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

So this is how I'm mounting the winters shifter. Some scrap bedframe for tabs with rivnuts. I never noticed that the winters shift has little baby mouth holes. 10/32 screws should hold it down..

I will be trimming a small plastic project box to sit in front of the shifter, tie in a tab to secure the lower dash and make a simple arm rest above and behind the shifter.

I think the fuse box will stay where it's at in the pic. The starter switch wires reach without trimming them and it's easy to get to without opening a door.

only the low current chassis wiring is shown. Not shown are the 6 & 2/0 mine rated power cables, interior e stop, and all the Holley EFI harnesses.
 


I still have lots to mount and figure where wires go but a little every night that I can gets it done.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Amazon coping tube notcher gets it!

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Slow progress because I'm cheap. I took 2 hinges, some scrap flat bar and a plexi door to make a mount for the gauges and shift indicator. When it's flipped down my boots don't get in the way. In the up position this will be part of the underdash hush panels. I plan to make those from FRP. Not bad for an afternoon of fumbling around catching up on Sick Week and endless KOH content.

Most G body hush panels were only installed on Grand Prix SJ cars with pillow top seats and a few T type regals. I'd like to have some OEM panels though. I haven't seen one in person in over 15 years. So FRP with some damping material it will be.

We have a rain storm tonight so after I clean the shop I will mock up the driver's seat to verify shifter placement for us both.

I also swapped out the 2 stage stock brake master cylinder for a 1" bore S10 unit. I'm gonna be solo for the rest of the build after May because the wife is moving back to Georgia to be close to the grandson's and career growth.

I'm gonna act like I'm a 20 year old me and probably move the bed into the shop to get the car moving under its own power for Drag Week 2023.


Please excuse the dash cap. We are still getting it ready to be flocked.

 

[scooter2374]

I should come hang out with 20 year old you

 

[DMG]

Slow progress because I'm cheap. I took 2 hinges, some scrap flat bar and a plexi door to make a mount for the gauges and shift indicator. When it's flipped down my boots don't get in the way. In the up position this will be part of the underdash hush panels. I plan to make those from FRP. Not bad for an afternoon of fumbling around catching up on Sick Week and endless KOH content.

Most G body hush panels were only installed on Grand Prix SJ cars with pillow top seats and a few T type regals. I'd like to have some OEM panels though. I haven't seen one in person in over 15 years. So FRP with some damping material it will be.

We have a rain storm tonight so after I clean the shop I will mock up the driver's seat to verify shifter placement for us both.

I also swapped out the 2 stage stock brake master cylinder for a 1" bore S10 unit. I'm gonna be solo for the rest of the build after May because the wife is moving back to Georgia to be close to the grandson's and career growth.

I'm gonna act like I'm a 20 year old me and probably move the bed into the shop to get the car moving under its own power for Drag Week 2023.

We used to keep the coffee pot going nonstop and skip the bed. Got kind of loopy towards the end of the last minute build

 

[bigun]

We used to keep the coffee pot going nonstop and skip the bed. Got kind of loopy towards the end of the last minute build

Or sleep on the creeper! I was so happy when reclining bucket seats became universal

 

[Mr. Mindless]

I built my Dakota that way back in the day. Young and dumb haha
I think it'd kill me now. And I think I'd still enjoy it.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Ok. So when I actually find 20 year old me I will tell him that I had a good run. 48 year old me hurts. 😂

A few hours per night after work and late weekend nights wore me out. But the floor and roof damping, insulation is in. I used what I had left of discarded bedframe to reinforce the rear floor between the wheel wells and give the flimsy Access door something to hold onto.

I wound up with 3 layers of fat Mat on the rear floor and under seat area. Two layers on the rear floor and wheel tubs. Two layers on the roof section as well. Three layers on the rear 1/4 panels.

Then 1 layer of 1/4" really dense closed cell foam and foil. Top and bottom. Then 1/2" less dense closed cell foam with a foil back. If I toss a quarter on the roof it makes a solid thud.
An additional layer of Buble wrap insulation with foil on both sides over the trans tunnel and driver's floor to help keep the exhaust and trans heat from cooking the interior.
The next few days will be taping up the seams and all with foil faced fiberglass tape.

Now onto the doors and tailgate over the next few weeks because I can do them in our sunroom.

Shifter cable has been figured out. Frenched in some scrap tube and a washer. Sealed it up with a G body e brake cable firewall grommet.

last night we played out the remaining electrical components to go into the car. A few things here and there to prep and map out the wire and cable routing. What's not shown in the picture are the Holley dominator ecu, IOTA 55 amp battery charger, and a few bits that have already been mounted like the Dakota Digital interface boxes and the PDU.
0
Not sure if I will need all three aux fuse panels yet. If I can get the china universal fuse harness to work I won't have to build my own car harness. Time will tell. All of this will be going in the car.

All the high current cable is fire retardant and MSHA rated, it's the only cable I use after having difficulty with OEM battery cable melting from a short on my international. Fucking OEM insulation melting almost burned my truck down.

Next month I will jump back into the front suspension to finalize it. Then get the rest of the car assembled. So much to do.
1. Front suspension, needs the upper control arm mounts relocated just a touch to increase the antidive, I've gotta decide if I will torch and tweak the steering centerlink to correct the bumpsteer at the frame side or slug the lower control arm bolt holes with washers to lower the pivot point 11/16". I have Speedway's G body upper and lowers here to play with. $420 to the door was a steal compared to buying them from the normal suppliers. Spoon performance bumpsteer kit is also here. Between now and then I will need to build a bumpsteer rig.

2. Exhaust, small changes here. I'm going to cut off the 3 1/2" tube and run full 4" into the muffler. I will neck it down at the muffler inlet. While the 3 1/2" will be fine after the cat the increased swept area of the 4" will help the lost velocity of all the turns to snake it out to the back of the car.

And lots more to go before September.

 

[Flatbed]

Dude, thanks for the update!! looking forward to it hitting the road.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Scraps and drop pieces from under the welding table, and we have the support for the lower dash, PDU, fuse panel, switch panel, shifter and arm rest that still needs to be made.

The fuse box moved to the driver's side so it doesn't block the floor heater outlet.

Then sheethed the boost control valves. 2 layers of high temp insulating tape, 1 layer of Tessa tape at about 2/3 overlap, then heat shield sealed with foil faced fiberglass tape. These will sit on the Rad support just under the turbo and waste gates.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

power window relay mount. U Channel bedframe for the win.

It's a little tight under the dash but I also managed to squeeze in a spot for the interior 12v + mega fuse. IIRC I need to replace the 250 amp fuse with an 50 amp.

I installed the Dakota Digital gear position sensor inside the interior. D.D. ensured me that it will hold up under the car but I chose not to after looking at it. Plus it's 1 less wire that I have to run into the cabin. So I replaced the Winters neutral safety switch with the trim pot from Dakota Digital. I like the DD GS300 a lot. We also will eventually use it to send the Holley dominator gear positions and see what we can come up with for boost versus gear and wheel stand control. If the trim pot was smaller it would package better. But for this case it's fine sticking out below the shifter because there is room.

Next challenge is to figure out a clean way to have the line lock button, scramble boost and 2 step buttons on or within fingers reach of the steering wheel. I'd like to build a clean tube stalk off the steering column lock plate as I've done before. Utilizing an airbag clock springs 3 wire leads in the G body column.

I hate those coiled cords on anything with a stock steering wheel so I need to source steering column from a later caprice and 91-92 F body to get all the GM parts. I've only done steering wheel buttons once using a clock spring for a wire free button.
Most likely I will use the horn lead and split the circuits with a relay. But that requires an extra relay and second switch. Not really ideal.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Ok, the shifter was a journey to get it just right. I removed the star washers at the pivot and replaced them with double bronze thrust washers and locktite for the hardware. It took a few times to get the feel correct but all good. Got up this morning and got 6 hours in to finish up mounting the E stop and line lock/2 step buttons and building the wiring harnesses. Time to eat and join the SNLC in chit chat.

That's a total of 33 hours on the darn shifter.

 

[Fishbone333]

Amazing work man. Can't wait to see this together.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Firewall driver's bulkhead done. Some 3/16" aluminum, 22 pin weather pack, 1 1/4" rubber boot, and the vac switch nipple for the power brake vac pump.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

OK fun time at the front suspension. I scored the now elusive Speedway recalled front lower control arms. Kudos to speedway for mailing the Recall notice in a hand written envelope. The NY'er in me loves the small things like that.

Downside is as much as i would like to make the stock geometry work it just won't get it for me. I'm just wired in a way that everytime the car would hit a bump id run the spindle motion through my head and get pissed off.

Stock the geometry has the wrong caster built into it, horrible anti dive, very little uptravel or droop, and a camber curve that resembles a drunken monkey dancing when graphed.

I am after static camber in the negative 4 degrees to 0. Less than 1 3/4-2 degree camber change throughout the full travel. The ability to adjust the caster from - to + 8 degrees. Stable caster change throughout the travel ideally in one direction and not going positive then negative then back again a second time. 130 % or more anti dive. Increased steering angle. Zero or very little bump steer. And a very plush soft ride when going down the road on stiff NT05's. All of this while remaining stock appearing and stock stock location and mounting points to keep the straight line folks happy.

With a taller spindle height and 1" taller ball joint , control arms , soft eibach coil springs, soft shocks for now, huge braking components along with a sticky 255mm front tire the stock suspension and the current nominal bolt ons won't cut it. The stock geometry and available aftermarket parts seem to only be geared towards one discipline of performance or racing. None of them are designed to be utilized with the taller F body Spindle and 1" taller ball joint.

Even with the stock shortie spindles and stock ball joints it would all not work as best as it should.

Soooooooooooooo the next steps are playing tuck, nip, twist, massage

• Rotate both upper A arm mounts (Drivers goes Clockwise from the top and the Passenger goes counter clockwise if viewed from above), This will at first thought send the caster entirely the wrong way but that's corrected later. The goal here is to bring the upper control arm more parallel with the Lower mounts. The result is less caster and camber change throughout the suspension travel. Less alignment shims
• Cut off the front upper control arm mounting point and raise it. This will introduce anti dive into the front suspension. There is no way that the front 15" front rotors and 6 pots will work with the factory dive built into the geometry at ride height and 2-3" of up travel. Under heavy braking and soft spring and shocks the car will wind up living on the bump stops when driven hard. With no suspension coming into a corner makes it untunable. As well as unpredictable and useless. This is super crucial when racing on closed public roads as most hillclimbs are and less shims looks better and allows for shorter hardware.
• Swap sides for the upper control arms . This helps bring the caster back in line as the ball joint is moved on the speedway and most aftermarket arms for street use. (IMCA and circle track arms do not work for this)
• Put the lower arms in either a fixture that i have to cobble together or weld some brackets to the table. Not sure on this since it's rare that i run or need this combo. Slice out the ball joint pocket and push it out roughly 1 1/2" +/- .18" . Clean up all the cold welds on the arms and burn them in hot with ER70s. This pushes the track width out (lesser of all the evils) but we gain a touch more steering angle.
• Then at the frame the factory spring pocket area needs a touch of notching and finish welding the factory frame halves at the spring pocket where the upper control arm and shock mount bracket are. From the factory in the 20 plus of these chassis I've owned and hundred i've crawled around do not have the frame half sections welded fully under the upper control arm bracket.
• Add the Sphoon Performance Bump Steer kit and verify the need for the Center link from All star or hayes with slugs to obtain close to absolute zero bump steer as possible.
• Install the Grand cherokee steering box. Gets us more steering travel with the factory steering arm to utilize the increased steering angle and inside tire clearance. Also adds the ability to run -6 Banjo fittings to clear the wastegates' downpipe.
• Verify ride height and fender clearance once again then weld it all up.

Going off memory and floating the entire knee assembly in several positions, a few Plumb Bobs, measuring tape that reads 64ths, knowledge of geometry, some calc and trig gets it done. along with years of trial and error.

Fun stuff.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

1st mockup front suspension.

Revision 01 at +3/4" higher ride height at the same camber spec.

I'd like the tire a touch forward so it brings the rear of the fender lip more prominent but it would be just a minor visual aid to help the car look longer.

So where it currently is becomes acceptable. It's not worth tweaking component locations. At this point moving something even 1/8" will effect too many other variables.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Bye bye OEM.

Cleaned up the upper control arm mounts, tweaked them flat, cleaned the frame up with a 60 grit flap wheel so I have smooth surface to slide on. Then tacked a Dom slug and gusset for the new position.
Gotta get the underside of them painted up so if I get it right the first time they won't have to come back off after tacking them in.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

So the front spring pockets are welded up. I will laugh at this one day when we swap to coilovers or bags.

Ghettoed up a table fixture to chop and cut these arms. Nothing special. But whoda known that Random GM alternator pulleys can fit perfectly into a K6145 ball joint pocket. I had some 1 1/2' X 2 1/2" 0.120 wall rectangle tube so i used that. I also have some oval 0.095 wall tubing of the same size but i didn't go that route because i had felt i could get more weld contact with the rectangle and the Oval tube is thinner than the arm material. I reused the ball joint pocket and tacked all it in after i rechecked the non favorable kingpin/ Steering inclination angle of the steering arms.

So gone is the flat gusset that tied the ball joint pocket to the spring pocket as well that supported the end of the tubes. The rectangle tube ties into the spring pocket. Not seen is a hotter weld on the inside of the spring pocket and the rectangle tube should help the thin wall spring pocket stay together.

With a stock travel shock suspension travel is 8.7/8" with 3" uptravel. A shorter bump stop and some frame bracket trimming was the trick to get the uptravel. It's not the 8" No Prep droop i wanted but the limiting factory is the stock style K4165 lower ball joint. Taller lowers will get more swing of the ball on those but id rather save them for roll center tweaks and or ride height adjustment though.

Then I put it back under the car to locate the upper control arm mounts. I spent quite a few hours plotting the suspension movement to get as close to target as possible. Usually the best location for uppers would be parallel but i rotated slightly more to eliminate some of the caster change caused by the UCA mount and the KPI of the F body Spindle. The rate of caster change through travel winds up at .80 degree per inch because of the upper control arm angle to increase the antitive. Well get some in this case. caster goes back to normal with the UCA in the factory location so i can still tune some back in with a stiffer spring to better creep up on it if I don't like the new location. The camber rate came in at .80-1.0 degree per inch with the 1" taller upper ball joint and 0.70-0.90 degree per inch with a factory height ball joint. Most of what i could have had went away with a slight raise in roll center at the UCA by choice.

No spacers required to cure the visual look and plusses everywhere else, and this gets the wheels pushed out exactly where they were in the recent mock up and that will help load the rear more in corners. There just wasn't enough track width before and adding tire because of room to make up for inherited understeer doesn't work well to me in a road car. It's a matter of preference but i prefer not to have street cars fight the road ruts and feed it back to the steering wheel like a 275 or 285 up front. I'm no Randy Pobst by any means, i'm just a dude who likes to race up mountains and i don't mind slowing down because of a smaller tire.

With the 8.5" wheels up front combined with their offset the front frame horn and OEM sway Bar become the contact point. The steering stops don't work but they will soon. With 1/4" gap there is 64 degrees of steering angle . I could get 74 degrees with a thinner wheel and tire or a stock car style sway bar and a small notch of the factory frame.

I have to purchase some fine thread hardware, but so far it looks like if I drill out the tie rod holes on the steering arms and mount the heim on top with some adjustment bumpsteer goes to zero and the Spoon bumpsteer kit still clears the frame at full bump.

Ride height should stay the same. Ackerman from oem slightly changes with the lower control arm ball joint moved 5/8" forward and the shorter F body steering arm. In the end the outer tie rod is located 1/4" forward from the stock location when all the math is worked out. I'm not sure if i am worried.

Stock frame rule and stock style suspension peoples problems. I'm so glad the next one gets the tube frame without care of going drag racing. Onto the rest of it.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Cut out the 3 1/2" exhaust today.

Changed the down pipe a little so it clears the steering shaft, relocated the downpipe clamp so it is easy to get to. Tacked the Catalytic Converter in also. Damn thing is huge by huge. It should hang below the frame rail about 2". Maybe one day I will source an oval Cat but for now the 6" body Cat will get the job done.

The 4" is tight but clear with 1/2" at full droop. Should be decently quiet in the car with the cat and resonator. I also got the Off Road pipe tacked.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Because i really dislike V band clamps i tacked a sleeve into the clamp by the firewall. So the down pipe sits and stays when there is a need to reassemble everything.

Then while checking clearances i found that i needed roughly 1/4"-3/8" of tire clearance when the chassis is loaded in the left corner just beyond full lock and full bump, and the exhaust system physically forced towards the driver side of the car. An almost entirely impossible scenario but......
With me not wanting to cut the elbow shorter or move the pipe closer to the steering shaft I chose to lose some cross section area in the down pipe. Cutting the elbow shorter to move the down pipe away from the tire another 5/8" would make things tighter than they should be with clearance at the steering shaft and also within the pipe work itself. So I made a notch into the downpipe. I made a clay mold of the inside of the notch so at a later date I can know for sure how much cross sectional area i have lost, well at least a cc volume number with either plans to frown it away or add a long bubble or bulge adjacent to the notch in efforts to regain the lost cross sectional area from the notch. "Chasing the red herring i guess".. But if the car ever hits a rough patch or transition in a left turn the tire doesn't rub.

So now its full 4" exhaust from the turbo into the muffler. Ground clearance should be between 5.75 at the 6" diameter cat and 6.50" just behind the cat for about 5" , then the rest of it including the muffler is above the chassis, including the muffler. Slightly trimmed factory inner fender.

Onto the left front punch list of stuff to get finalized and done.

• Strip the corner for detail work and final assembly
• Remove the turbo and trim the support pedestal so it looks nicer. Maybe rounded edges. Cut it shorter if deemed so. Bolt the turbo back on with 3/8 stainless steel Nord Loc washers.
• Install the hardware for the header and gasket. ARP bolts with stainless steel Nord Loc lock washers.
• Build a simple flat bar bracket to retain the last two plug wires away from heat. Route them up the back of the block.
• Plumb the waste gates and Boost control solenoids. Get the hose ran out back or at least looped up to run later.
• Run the vacuum line from the booster to the pump location
• Detail and install the newer wiper motor. (Is the factory washer bottle gonna fit)
• Get the reflective insulation on the firewall to reflect the exhaust heat.
• Get the reflective insulation on the bottom half of the booster. Use roof flashing cement to seal the edges. Masking tape to keep it nice when it's pulled off semi wet.
• Get the new PS pump pulley on and the fitting. Spec out the hose for the pressure line. Steering box banjo fittings get red locktite. Then green torque check paint.
• Get the underhood exhaust fan grill fixed into the fender and get the fender primed in epoxy. Then bolt it on.
• Make the turbo to radiator heat shield and mount it.
• Get the heat shield material on the firewall.
• Mount the drivers fender and verify all the component disassembly/assembly SWI's.

 

[The Freeak]

I love this shit.

 

[MattS]

I always enjoyed your threads on the old place. But wow. This is on another level.

 

[Mr. Mindless]

that's some serious packaging accomplished there. hat's off to you!

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

One day i will build me a nice part hanging cart.

When i ordered the sheet metal there was not a drivers fender in stock anywhere. So mostly original sheet metal is best and is ECO friendlier I salvaged the drivers fender. It took some welding in the front wheel arch, 18 individual holes from fender trim and all the LT1 swap stuff getting mounted to it. Some dolly work as well for about 4 hours to get it roughed in. It's gonna take more than i want with filler to get it good to spray. Sadly in one dent the metal won't shrink anymore. I may slice it, beat it closer to flat and tig it closed. But thats for a boring friday night to FAFO.
I also crammed a 10" subwoofer grill into the inner fender next to the turbo. A 10" china 80 watt Fan will sit behind here. I either can't remember what strategy i plan to use or don't care to think about it but the fan here is to pull under hood heat out from around the turbo with a solid state relay and PWM because I dislike noise from fans and this car has enough heat management fans that I'm sure it would blow up a dust bunny around it if it sat at a dry field.
Because, it's not sitting behind a school bus on a planned route that I worry about. That's nothing! Now creeping forward for 2 hours in traffic surrounded by trucks cars and transit busses on a hot summer day at the Helix of the Lincoln Tunnel, all the while i listen to 1010 WinS news radio repeat the delay every 12 mins making me giggle. Then 45 mins in the tunnel just to get out, then the bumper to bumper traffic to get where i'm going will require to get the heat out. Hell the trip back from seeing friends will wind the car up on the Van Wyck expressway by the airport where one can sit still for 15 mins only to creep 50 feet forward. Yeah, school bus. getting stuck behind one on a planned route isn't the problem. It's the normal type of traffic this car will see day in and day out. Friendly banter aside.
That hot air has a ton of btu's i will have to form a heat shield with some tunnel and floor shield material from Dei. It flat out work's. I had a great opportunity to test it on a much larger T6 framed turbo 6 making 1300 ish HP (not a car mind you) and it dropped IAT's 60 degrees over the factory stamped metal shield. The heat shield will help keep the radiator from absorbing any heat from the turbo. But the stock inner fender will stop the heat from coming out easy. All the hot side piping will make a small oven. The fan will pull that air out from under the hood, to vent the hot air out into the wheel well. That hot air is gonna have to go away from in front of the tire and out. But not just below it. Thats a bad low pressure area at speed and the air will just get sucked back into the lower frame. I'm either going to drill a few holes in the inner fender then glue in some stainless mesh to help keep debris and some water spray out. Or try my hand at forming some sorta trim plate from stainless and screen placing it at the bottom of the fender behind the tire. Right now my thoughts are venting the air out through the inner fender is a timeless change to the way a car looks. You won't see it so it won't be tied into anything visual.
The stainless screen for the inner fender hasn't arrived so it will get to occupy my time later. I can either push the air out through screened holes in the inner fender, whip up a stainless steel trim ring and vent it through stainless screen at the bottom of the rear lower fender.
Now that it has a ton of epoxy primer on it I can bring it inside and stick the DEI Floor and Tunnel shield on the inside of the fender skin.

I also got the underdrive SFI crank Pulley on. There is tons of room to get to the turbo drain fitting and other fittings etc. now. It wasn't bad with the stock crank pulley either, so the extra room if a free bonus. The air impact slides right in to remove the bolt and the PS pump comes out easy from the bottom of the car. I also unbagged the PS pump small parts and measured for how thick of a spacer i will need to align the pump. When i made the PS pump bracket and chopped up the factory Alternator bracket it set it up so i could just add or remove spacers if i switched from the truck balancer or went to the car balancer.
Then swapped steering arms off the old 78-80 only quick ratio steering box and had a friend vacuum seal it. I know a few other G body folks that will want it. Bolted in the 12-1 Grand Cherokee gearbox with more rotation. I realized that I do not have whatever Jeep uses to cover the gearbox input shaft so I used some graphite rope packing, Lucas red and tacky and a Stock G body idler arm grease boot to help keep the bearing free of road debris. The stock rag joint keeps it pushed tight so it won't fall out. Measured for the hydraulic hose and got it on the way. $8 for a Dash 6 2 wire hose from Surplus Center for the win!

So i now rest my back because that damned crank pulley bolt 140 degrees torque to yield spec comes with a pain tax.

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

I love this shit.

I always enjoyed your threads on the old place. But wow. This is on another level.

that's some serious packaging accomplished there. hat's off to you!

Thank you My other junk is still around. Just sitting waiting to be continued.....It just been proven to function. This one gets done and finalized because bits and pieces of it have been done before. Over about 30 of them that I've played with. Well except the LS stuff. But life has proven to me that my 632 goes into the cab truck where fuel milage will never be a concern. And well there needs to be one in the house and at least least one in the driveway. "There should be a Bowtie Emoji"

 

[ANGRYBLACK]

Some slow progress on the interior.
We decided on delay wipers on the car. A 79 delay switch is not doable since used ones go for a few hundred used and dirty. For me its always been annoying to turn them on because the factory switch is on the dash. So I swapped in a spare later model 86-87 CD4 wiper motor for delay. I would prefer the 82-85 negative switched motor and column stalk switch, but we still have her spare and OEM from her old Monte SS. I so shoulda stripped that car way further than i did when i sent it to the crusher I have to source a column switch and the proper non cruise delay wiper stalk for the column, S-10, G body, F body or B body floor shift column to get the outer housing. Basically 4-5 columns to make what i need. The local pull a part is 2 hours away so its a weekend trip.

I also noticed that the column's lower bearing is worn out. fawk. Its Official, with that getting replaced means "everything New or rebuilt and blue printed on the entire car." Anyways

So to fill the hole in the dash for the old wiper switch I started on a blanking plate. Then figured why not add the Dakota digital HDX dimmer. I didn't like that the knob stuck out so far and we really didn't want it tucked away. What i wound up with is making a frenched mount from a combo of LDPE, Lexan and some Nylon plastics. Sourced a #194 bulb holder and led for a back light. Welded it together and it sets the knob 1/4" out from the face. Perfect. The entire thing will get flocked black and the factory dimmer switch should be able to adjust so there is a dim glow around the knob.

I used the same LDPE from some skidmates that i chopped up and made spring isolators. Fits snug. Still some final sanding so it doesn't look like jack the ripper cut them into shape. That will get done when it goes back on the car.

I also started mocking up one of the rear seat options we are looking at . In the end both the front and rears will get recovered by a shop. With the minitubs in the way a full width back seat would just hide them and promote passengers to sit on the tub. Most rear seat backs that i looked at with 3 point integrated belts wont fit because of the tub either. BMW seats drop in but the 3 point belts wont fit. Besides that most of these cars in urban settings has those seats in rotation.

In order to gain a 3 point rear belt that can be affixed to the body or frame of the car I am going to try to build a rear seat frame and cushions. the 2 02 silverado seat backs squeeze between the tubs and if i can section the frames a couple inches i think i can get the proportions to look better than the pic. I will use the original lower frame and cushion narrowed some. All of this hopefully will attach to the lower control arm cross member that runs above the floor. So the entire rear seat back and belt assembly will be secured to the frame of the car.