After looking/measuring/comparing my car to the Mr. Rollbar car, I'm re-energized! Finally got all the tubing in for the roll bar and the plate for the floor mounts so that was the objective today. Main hoop and diagonal bar is 1.75 x .120 wall DOM. The seat back brace and rear kickers are 1.50 x .083 DOM. The floor plates are 6" x 6" x 1/8". Have everything tacked at this point. Still have to put the seat mount in place and the belt mounts. I'm also considering putting tubes down from the top rear kickers thru the floor and putting the top shock mounts on the bottom of the tube for the rear shocks. Hate the shocks mounted to sheetmetal and as you can see by the pics, my car has already had problems there. SPark
Why is it that the things that don't show take the most time? Spent some time working on the interior the last couple days. Got the upholstery panels made for the rear package shelf and the back seat area. Gets a little tricky to get them to fit and still be able to remove them for upholstery with the roll bars in place. Going to carpet the entire floor area and up the area where the back of the back seat would be. The package shelf I'm still up in the air about. Who makes molded black carpet for a Maverick that will also sell you flat material in bulk? I'll need it to do the shifter bump, the floor area under the rear seat and the panel from the floor to the package shelf. Anyone knows of a company that will sell matching flat carpet when you buy a molded set from them, let me know. Also bent the shifter lever to the right about an inch and three quarters for better leg room and a cleaner angle in the handle. That pretty much does it for the interior mock-up with the exception of welding in some bungs for the seat belts. They didn't do that when they replaced the floor pans at some point in it's life. Also want to add a brace from the roll bar to the back of the driver's seat. Other than that, I think I'm ready to blow the interior apart for finish work and paint/upholstery. Hopefully the engine comes back out tomorrow and I get to working on the towers! SPark
Got the seat mounts all worked out. Also started the gas tank restoration. It has 4 big dents and a crack in the one at the front on the bottom. I took it to a guy yesterday that cooked it all night to remove the gases and make it safe to cut and weld on. Next step is start cutting. Going to basically cut it in half to fix all the dents. Once I'm done with my work, he will blast it internally with steel grit and seal it and then we restore the outside to a galvanized look and not the glop he wants to put on the outside to "preserve" it. Tomorrow the cutting starts! Follow along with a tank restoration. SPark
2 hours with a torch, putty knife and wire brush got rid of 90% of the undercoating and old paint. Then a quick trip to the car wash and a can of Easy Off oven cleaner, some work with a stiff bristle brush and it was clean enough to start cutting on. Cut it just below the pinch weld so when it was done and back in the car, the seam would be under the car and hidden by the mounting sealer. Surprised on how clean the inside was, too bad it had 3 big dents on the bottom and the top was caved in an inch. Worked out the dents, flattened out the top, welded it back together and spent a few minutes with the abrasive discs cleaning off the remaining rust, undercoat and paint. Tomorrow it's back to the Re-Nu shop to get it slag blasted, sealed and then it will come back home and get the outside re-done. I'm electing not to let them treat the outside of the tank, I want it to resemble galvanized steel, not roofing tar. SPark
Wow,looks good SPark,I`m glad I`m using a fuel cell,looks like you did a lot of work on your tank.I`m in the process of porting my Roush hds right now,getting ready to buy some Ferrea valves and new springs for them.
Thanks for the kind words and update on your car. I was surprised to find out that they used a stock gas tank (by rules) in '70 Pro Stock cars. Every one I've found either sold before I got to it or needed at least as much work as mine did. Just picked it back up from the sealer. He's a Dripeze dealer. That's 4 - 150 mile round trips in 7 days. It does look pretty good. He had to seal several pin holes on the outside where my welds seeped. Spent a few minutes knocking down the edges of his sealer and getting the outside ready to paint. Got the Tank Tone ordered from Eastwoods, we'll see how it looks later this week. SPark
Hey SPark,I see you are out of Iowa.If you get a chance go out and ck out the OzarkMtnSuperShifters,they run Eddyville and CedarRapids all the time,I`d love to be out there to watch them race.There`s a guy named Craig Hejda w/ a blue mav that runs w/ them,nasty car,runs 5.4 in the 1/8.He`s 2nd in the points right now,runs a cleveland,you could probably get some good ideas by looking at his car.
Had a friend that ran with that group years ago with a Boss 302 Maverick. Dr. Burgess out of Ottumwa, IA. I still have one of the Boss 302 blocks he blew up years ago. Kicked a rod out but didn't hurt anything but the pan rail. It's been fixed and is usable again. It was originally a Roush SCCA/Trans Am block. Kind of have the projects on the back burner right now. I just found out that the shop space I rent that we raced out of was recently sold. I have until Dec 31 to get everything out of there. That includes the Maverick, my '62 unibody, 2 sheetmetal brakes, all my welding/fabricating equipment and a second set of tools from the racing operation. So it's time to add onto the garage/shop at home. My current garage is 30' wide by 40' deep. There is an 11' wide by 22' deep section sealed off for the wife's car. It already houses my '61 Pro Street Falcon and my '66 F100 short bed. I've been working on plans for an addition to the back side. After doing all the research, we've decided to put a 26' wide by 32' deep addition on the back. That will be split so there is a 26' wide by 20' deep garage area for fab work and the final 26' wide by 12' area will be for my 45 year collection of magazines and model cars. Wife is getting pretty excited about getting all the space back in her house. We planned to do the addition when I retired so this moved us to actually do it. Hopefully will get the towers cut before I move it to town. Doing a little work between design sessions and meeting with concrete contractors. Trying to beat the weather and get this done so I can get everything moved before it snows! SPark
Yeah,winter time really slows things down out there,I used to work for Foodliner trucking and have driven through that area.
Finally got things rolling on the addition. Concrete all poured, had an awful time getting somebody to come and trim trees but that finally happened and the building showed up yesterday afternoon. Got the side walls set this afternoon and will have all walls in by this time tomorrow. Would rather be working on my project cars (and trucks) than this crap any day. I truly hate carpentry work. I was fortunate enough to have the guy that took over my job after I retired come over this afternoon and help me stand up all the walls I built this morning. He's stopping tomorrow after work again to set the remaining walls (if I get them all built by then) and got the top plate on and walls all straight. Helps to have a guy that built custom homes for 20 years as a friend! Trusses are supposed to be here Thursday of next week so trying to get everything ready for them. Hopefully moving in in around a month or so and back on projects. SPark
Man, that is going to be sweet! We are trying to move right now so that my youngest son won't have to live in a dorm, at nine years old it is kind of hard on mom & dad and him being weekend parents. But this also means I have to give up my 32 X 50 garage, looks like I will be starting over, obviously for a great cause.
