Axle Tunnel Filling & Prime

I enjoy momentum on projects.  Once I get into a groove and things start clicking off according to plan, I really like the feeling.  Perhaps it’s the confirmation that comes from planning the work and working the plan when the results are exactly as intended.  Either way, I love the feeling of accomplishment, and lately that’s been a frequent thing.

On the heels of completing the rear wheel tubs, I moved directly to smoothing up and finishing the axle tunnel in hopes I could get it in primer.  As luck would have it, things lines up pretty nicely and I was off too it last weekend with a vengeance.

Early this past spring I was able to repair the rust damaged front trunk floor as well as weld in a patch to fill the hole that was once occupied by the rear staggered shock mount.  Once the metal work was complete, I moved on to repair the rear trunk floors and tail light panel with the intent of coming back to the axle tunnel to finish the area and prime everything at one time.  Well, the time was right to do just that.

During my last sand blasting episode, I was able to get the axle tunnel and trunk floor repair areas well prepped for the coming finish work.  The rear subframes cleaned up very nicely following all of the welding for trunk floors and suspension brackets, and the new rear rotisserie mounts allowed excellent access to the areas around the original leaf spring bushing holes as well.  At the same time, I made sure to hit the weld seams on the axle tunnel repairs to make absolutely sure they would be cleaned of any nasties that might have been living there over the spring and summer.

After what seemed like days vacuuming sand from every conceivable nook and cranny of the car just to keep my shop floor from looking like a beach, I went over the entire axle tunnel with a 60-grit disc to clean it up and give the surface good “tooth” for the All-Metal filler and the Rage finish filler I would use to tidy the area up.

I started my filler work with All-Metal applied generously over and into each weld seam area and rather widely applied filler to each side of the repair.  I like All-Metal for its strength and similarity to lead body solder when working it.  It’s a much more “structural” filler than Rage  and I like it as a base along areas where patches have been welded in but the down side is it’s a bit of a b*tch to sand.

Once the All-Metal base fill was cured for a few days, I drew it down with some 80-grit on my D/A sander and finished the surface with the same paper on several hand blocks.  This gets the contour pretty well established and makes for a very good base for the following coats of Rage filler to get the final contour perfected and finished.

I tend to go kind of heavy on my first coat of Rage to make sure I have plenty to grate off with my cheese grater files.  It makes for a bit more dust on the ground, but I can get the low spots filled pretty quickly that way and not have to come back as many times to get the areas filled.

After an overnight cure, I sanded the first coat of Rage by hand (no DA required or desired) using some of my longer sanding blocks and some 180 grit paper to ensure the surface wouldn’t get lumpy and bumpy.  This would have been a very tedious job if not for the excellent sanding characteristics of the Rage filler.  Awesome stuff.

The third (and final) coat of filler was applied in a thinner and less extensive layer and I tried to keep it as smooth as possible to reduce the amount of sanding required and to keep from messing up the contours I had worked to achieve.  After a few minutes, I grated the surface down and left it to cure overnight.  Then, as before, I started at it by hand with long sanding blocks and 180 paper until I had the surface ready for primer.

With the filling complete, I added the grommet hole needed for the fuel sender wire to pass into the trunk and sanded the remaining surfaces on the bottom of the trunk floor to prep them for primer.  Then, after tacking off the surfaces and swabbing everything with wax and grease removed a few times, I masked the areas I wasn’t ready to prime and tacked everything once more time.

I was pretty excited to try a new spray gun upgrade I added to my gravity feed HVLP gun.  I upgraded to the 3M PPS cup system which makes spraying consistency, paint utilization and clean-up a TON easier.  The biggest plus I find with the 3M system is that I can now paint with the gun in any position (even upside down!) and never miss a beat.  When clean-up time comes around, you pop the liner and cap out of the cup and toss it in the trash.  Then a little wash of the gun head with reducer and you are pretty much ready to go again.  The cost savings in reducer alone will pay for this system very quickly even though the liners and caps are kind of pricey for what they are.  At this point, it doesn’t matter to me one bit as I LOVE this system and will be purchasing the small and medium sized cups for the future as well.

With my new painting weapon in hand and a fresh mix of PPG DP40LF primer in the cup, I laid down two medium wet coats of primer on the entire axle tunnel and bottom trunk floor with about a 20-minute flash time between coats.  Then, I cleaned up what little mess there was, removed the masking very carefully and then shut off the lights and left the primer to cure overnight undisturbed.  The next day I was thrilled with how everything looked and it was quite inspiring to see the entire bottom of the car in one color and looking mighty solid. 

Next on the agenda is to make the small repairs at the front of each rear wheel opening, and a tiny repair to the right rear lower window opening flange, which will mark the completion of all of the rust repairs required on the car!  Whooooohoooo!  Any rust left to address is simple surface rust on the interior surfaces of the body bracing where no factory primer was ever applied.  This will be an interesting application for my trusted chelation rust removal techniques and should work very well.  More to come!

Passenger side rear subframe cleaned up nicely after sand blasting.

Driver side subframe was also in good shape after sand blasting.

I am very happy with the decision to make the new rotisserie mounts that use the rear leaf spring shackle bushing locations as mounts.  This allowed me to blast the entire area surrounding these mounts without a problem.  Should make priming and painting far easier as well.

Here you can see the joint line that I blasted nice and clean before going forward with filling.  I am very happy with how this repair turned out, especially given the amount of rework that was required to get the trunk floor patch panel to even come close to fitting!

After a good going-over with my 2" angle grinder and some 60-grit discs, the axle tunnel was ready for the base coat of All Metal filler.

All Metal filler is awesome stuff indeed.  It is very tough (and therefore tough to sand) but is has excellent mechanical properties and behaves much like lead body solder when finishing.  I love this as a base filler where patch panel repairs are made.

I sanded the All Metal filler with my D/A sander with 80 grit paper to give the next layer(s) of filler good "tooth" to adhere to.

Here is a look at the first coat of Rage filler after it has been knocked down while soft with a cheese grater file.

After hand sanding with long sanding blocks, the first coat of filler is ready to be tacked off and a second coat applied.

The second coat of Rage filler is less extensive and far thinner than the first.  Here, it has been grated down and will be left to fully cure.

And there it is.  Though the different colors of filler make this area look rather lumpy, the actual surface is quite smooth.

One detail I had to add before primer is the grommet hole required for the fuel sending unit wire to pass through into the trunk.

With everything cleaned and tacked off, I masked off the trunk area I didn't want primed yet and started mixing up the DP40LF primer.

The first medium-wet coat of primer is on and after a 20 minute flash time, the second can be applied.

The second medium-wet coat of primer is on and looking great!

Here's a look down the driver side rear subframe rail.  Soooo much nicer than where we started!

A look at the passenger side rear subframe and trunk floor.  Nice!

 

Rear Wheel Tub Prep & Fender Lip Rolling

Rear wheel tubs are kind of a pain in the butt for the home-restoration artisan to tackle.  Generally speaking, they are the dirtiest parts of the car, have lots of difficult-to-repair issues and are generally not very friendly from a work space perspective.  Mustang rear wheel tubs are not different, but the time had come for me to finally tackle the tubs on my Boss 302 once and (hopefully) for all.

The first order of business is getting all the undercoating and various levels of crap dislodged from the tubs to see what the base material looks like.  Some of my regular followers will recall the trick I use to remove 40 year-old undercoating quickly and rather painlessly.  In short, I use my air chisel dialed down to low air pressure (~25psi) to “shatter” the coating and then vacuum up the debris.  This method works so well in fact, it is truly amazing how little thought you give to further undercoating removal once you try it.  In any case, after about ½ hour dedicated to each tub, the undercoating was removed and vacuumed up and I could have a look at what the tubs looked like “nekid”.

As fortune would have it, both rear tubs in my car were in remarkably good shape!  Other than the damaged corners which were a “known” when I started the project, the metal was in excellent shape and the center seam was easily cleaned with a little sand blasting work.  From there, I dove into the job of cleaning the bulk of the tub surfaces with my angle grinder and a box full of 60-grit discs.  For the inner surfaces of the fender lips, I used an abrasive brush and wire wheel to clean everything down to bare metal and followed it up with a coat of phosphoric acid-based metal prep to get the surface cleaned of any residual corrosion and prepared for the next phase of the project:  Fender lip rolling.

Rolling a fender lip is a bit of a misleading description.  Actual “rolling” of a fender lip is usually done on a fully assembled car to make room for oversized tires and involves a tool specially designed with a hard-faced roller to gently fold the inner fender lip toward the inner wheel tub.  The fanciest fender “roller” tools bolt to the wheel hub and are quite nifty, but they are of little use when the body is on a rotisserie during restoration.  As such, folding the fender lips on a raw body shell requires a different technique but the results are much easier to achieve in my opinion.

The key to success when folding fender lips is patience and light, purposeful blows with a hammer to gently “persuade” the metal to its new location.  Also, in 99% of the cases, you do not need to fold the entire lip as the tire doesn’t require the same clearance at the front or rear as it does at the top during full suspension compression.  At the same time, folded fender lips are much harder to keep clean and without proper maintenance, can accumulate debris that will work to promote rapid corrosion propagation if left unattended.

I started folding each fender lip with light blows from my 16oz ball-pein hammer.  A ball-pein gives the metal just enough stretch to fold cleanly and not be lumpy along the flange.  I use a wooden paint stick (free @ Home Depot!) as a gage to determine when I have the right amount of fold by placing it against the wheel tub and folding the lip until it is just snug against the stick.  This leaves just enough gap to allow corrosion protective paint to be applied by brush and will allow debris to be washed away if needs be in the future.  Each lip took about 45 minutes of gentle hammer work to get just right and the results are very nice if I say so myself.  A little filler along the flanges will even hide the spot-weld divots and make for an exceptionally smooth wheel opening.

Once the rear fender lips were completed, I moved on to coating the wheel tubs with Zero Rust for corrosion protection.  I decided to apply the Zero Rust with a brush this time as I needed to make sure I got the lip areas fully coated and the resultant brush strokes would be of no consequence when you consider that the entire wheel tub will eventually be primed with DP40LF, seam sealed, painted flat black and finally coated in textured bed liner material as a final finish.  I would have preferred to spray the coating, but the space constraints in the confines of the wheel tubs prevented using my existing spray equipment effectively, so I stuck to the brush and made do with that even though I am embarrassed that there are brush marks to be seen at all!

So there ya go!  Wheel tubs cleaned and prepped.  Wheel lips rolled for fat meats and everything coated to keep it nice for the rest of my lifetime.  Next on the agenda is to finish the axle tunnel and front trunk floor and get the entire outside trunk floor area in primer.  I’m on it!

After cleaning all of the nasty undercoating off the surfaces of the rear wheel tubs, I was stunned to see the underlying metal in excellent shape.  Nice!

The shinier "reddish" area in the center of the tub shows the area that was originally covered in undercoating.

Both wheel tubs were in equally good shape after all was said and done.  This left a lot to work with and made the sand blasting work very straight forward and relatively easy.

Sand blasting could be concentrated on the seam area and the fender lips.  The rest of the surfaces would be easily prepped with sanding and surface conditioning discs.

After a few hours work with the angle grinder and a box full of 60-grit sanding discs, the wheel tubs were cleaned and ready for metal prep chemical etching.

Rolling fender lips is a common technique to gain more tire clearance.  Here, you can get a general idea of what the fender lip looks like before any rolling/folding is done.

Working the lip with light blows evenly distributed along the lip surface, I eventually had the lip nicely formed with absolutely no damage to the outside skin.

Here is another shot of the finished rolled fender lip.  Not there is a small gap left between the wheel tub and the lip to allow paint to be applied to the area and cleaning of debris in the future.  Ignore the body hammer in the background!  This is NOT the hammer I used to form the fender lips!  It was just looking for some temporary recognition it didn't deserve!

I used Zero Rust coating thinned down a bit to coat the inner wheel tubs.  I applied it with a brush to make sure I got the folded fender lips properly coated and the brush strokes will never be seen as them will eventually be covered in textured bed liner material.  Also, this shot shows the rolled fender lip in pretty good detail.

I left the areas at the front corners of the wheel tubs bare as I will soon be making repairs in this area.  No point making it anymore difficult.

Right side wheel tub coated and dry.  Note the folded fender lips are pretty easy to distinguish here too.

Left side wheel tub coated and dry.

Project: Night Mission

Today is the day.  The day I quit teasing my loyal blog readers, family, friends, co-workers and fellow Mustang enthusiasts and finally reveal what this whole project is all about.  But before I do, a little background explanation is in order.

As many of you know, my Boss 302 and I have been a pair for almost 30 years and in all that time, I have had a vision of what this car would be and I can honestly say, that vision has wavered extremely little after all these years.  I lovingly refer to this as the longest term relationship of my entire life (much to the chagrin of my S.O. Cindy who I’ve known longer than I’ve owned this car!).

The car would be white…….SCREAMING white just like every racecar I have ever driven in my career.  A pure white says something to me at my core.  Can’t explain it…..it just “does”.

This car would be done “my way” and in a way that I had never seen done before.  In no way had I any intention of building ANOTHER boring “concours” Boss 302 restoration.

The car had to be unique among its peers.  I wanted to build an “all-Boss” Boss 302 that was modernized in such a way as to make the car perform like it never had in its prime.  If that pissed off the purists and MCOA judges……even better!

I wanted to build a car that had its own unique identity but was never too far from its lineage.  It had to be identifiable as a Boss Mustang from 100 feet away as well as up close inspection.  I wanted to avoid something that was a caricature of the original car like so many of the “skinned and stuffed” cars that are in vogue today.  No mini tubs, back-half tube chassis, no hacked Mustang II front suspension crap, and no fuel injection.  Is it a “real” Boss 302?  Yep, in my mind it is and then some.  The VIN has the “G” in it and the door tag has the “W” code as well.  That’s all I need to know.

The car had to be loaded with details.  LOTS of details.  I wanted those details to be such that one walk around the car at a show would only scratch the surface and any hardcore car geek would find his/herself coming back to the car time after time after time to absorb yet another detail.  In all this, I wanted to build something that genuine car-guys could find something to “take-away” and fuel ideas to use when building their own cars.

Visual “pop” was mandatory but the styling had to stay true to the classic styling of the original.  The only thing “radical” was the extent of its subtlety and the laundry list of small changes that blend into a personal interpretation of what this car is.

The car would evolve into an expression of “me.”  A three-dimensional representation of the images in my mind’s eye and the manifestation of what I can accomplish with my brain, my hands, and my heart mixed with a little blood and sweat (and crap-loads of cash!).

The car has to “go” as good as it looks.  It will be heard as well as seen.  It must make NOISE!  Glorious, unbridled noise, just like any politically incorrect, knuckle-draggin’, unapologetically red-blooded AMERICAN muscle car is supposed to.  It will handle and stop without compromise and it will do so with purpose……..built in.

A few years ago, I started this blog at the suggestion of a few good friends as a way to document and share the work I would be doing to keep my mind active and to maintain some sanity after long, frustrating days in my (mostly) professional life.  I had no idea how much I would enjoy everything about this project as well as sharing the work and countless hours I spend on so many nights doing what I love to do.

Earlier this year, I came to know a phenomenal designer who inspired me in ways I had never dreamed and set me to thinking about my work in ways I had never considered (THANKS Murray, you are THE MAN!).  Pretty soon, I had commissioned his undeniable talent to put together a rendering of everything I had ever dreamed this car would be.  And in so doing, it inspired me to pursue the execution of this car in ways I had never imagined before.  For the first time, I could see the project in finished form and I now know EXACTLY how this car will be executed.

The bottom line?  If I stick to the plan I have outlined and build this car as intended, perhaps more than few people will come to appreciate it.  Perhaps it will become known to thousands.  Perhaps it will become the catalyst to yet another glorious adventure.  In the meantime, I invite everyone to have a look at the rendering and try to pick out the myriad of little changes that have been made.  They are everywhere! 

So here it is:  The Night Mission Boss 302.  Why Night Mission?  It’s really simple.  This is a car that was conceptualized and is being executed outside of my “day job”.  It’s what I lose sleep over.  It’s what I dream of every day.  It is my “mistress” when everyone else around me sleeps.  It is my therapy and I think it “fits”.  I hope you enjoy!

Sven

9-Inch Axle Powder Coated & Assembled

I have decided that long weekends are God’s gift to car guys.  At least to those that plan ahead a little to capitalize on the extra time wherever possible.  Most times, I am NOT that guy, but over the Labor Day Weekend, I finally WAS for a change!

In preparation for the final finish work on the axle housing, I tidied up a few details the week before the holiday weekend by fabricating a pair of axle bearing retainer shims to make up for the slightly wider axle bearings I used on my Moser 31-spline axles.  Without these shims, the Street or Track Cobra rear disc brake adapter brackets wouldn’t seat properly on the axle flanges (not good).  So, using a Fel-Pro replacement flange gasket as a pattern, I made two sheet metal shims of the appropriate thickness to properly space the bracket out to allow it to fully seat against the axle bearing flange and retain the bearing as intended.  Once this detail was addressed, the rest of the rear brake kit fitting was pure textbook.  Kudos to Shaun at Street or Track for a fine kit that fits as intended and looks factory once installed.

The final detail I had to address before moving on to sandblasting the housing was to move the right side brake line mounting tab up on the axle to avoid any possibility of interference with the rear coilover setup.  This was a rather simple and quick fabrication job to make a new tab and then a few minutes cutting the old one off and welding the new one on in the correct spot.  Following that, I had to tweak the brake line a slight bit and we were in business.

At this point, I had everything in order with the axle housing and was ready to begin the sand blasting process to get all of the crud seen in the build-up photos off the housing and ready for powder coating.  However, I had been toying with an idea on how to improve my blasting operation efficiency and decided to spend a few hours chasing down parts.  In short, I wanted to build an air “manifold” that would allow me to gang both of my air compressors together to allow a larger reserve of air and more flow volume to my pressure blaster in hopes it would respond.  I am happy to say the results were worth the effort as this was perhaps the best my pressure blaster had ever operated and I was able to blast non-stop (except for sand refills) until the entire axle housing was clean.

What I basically did was to take a three-way air manifold adapter I picked up at Home Depot and plumb it in reverse with two air feed lines going in one end with the third line plugged and then plumbing my quick connect for my sand blaster into the single outlet on the other end.  As simple as it looks and sounds, this little device dramatically cut down the compressor(s) cycling frequency and kept ample air supply available at all times.

The sand blasting operation went like clockwork and after about two hours of total time (including clean-up!); my rear axle housing was free of four decades’ worth of crap and looked pristine.  With time in the day to spare, I went straight to etching and phosphatizing the housing to ensure every last trace of rust was neutralized and the entire surface was etched and ready for powder coating after an overnight drying period.

In prep for powder coating, I went over the entire housing with a wire brush to remove any excess phosphate residue and masked all of the surfaces that needed to remain in bare metal.  Then I attached my hanging loop to one end of the housing and then I attached a lifting fixture to the housing to allow me to safely lift the housing off the hook in the spray booth and into the oven without killing myself.

With my powder coating equipment ready for battle and the oven steaming along at a steady 400 degrees, I laid down the first of two coats of powder and dropped the works into the oven for a full cure cycle.  After the second coat was applied and cured, I removed the housing from the oven and let it cool for a few hours while I tended to other chores.  When I came back to it, I removed all of the masking materials and fixturing and was extremely pleased with the final result.  My once putrid looking housing was now sporting a beautiful satin black urethane powder coated finish that is done no justice by my lousy photography.

With renewed energy, I spent the next few days assembling the rear axle housing into final shape.  I started the assembly by installing new ARP studs in the housing to secure the differential and followed that up by installing a stainless steel axle vent similar to those used in many GM housings.  Now, I am the LAST guy on the planet to give GM any credit for anything, but they certainly had a much cleaner axle vent solution to the hideous whip-hose device Ford used on the Mustang.

Next up, I installed my axle drain plug followed quickly by the fresh 9-inch nodular iron center section I rebuilt earlier in the Spring/Summer.  At this point, the assembly was getting a little hard to handle so I recruited my trusty ‘ol Dad to help finish this project up.

With Dad as my wing man, we fitted the axles and disc brake adapter brackets and drew everything down with fresh fasteners from NPD.  Then came a fresh set of Raybestos Premium Grade rotors and new Ford caliper brackets, followed by my rebuilt and powder coated calipers.  With the major hardware in place, we finished up the assembly by installing the brake “hard” line, distribution block and braided stainless flex lines, rounded out by a pair of Moser axle end covers for a clean look.

This particular assembly represents a significant milestone in this project as it is he first mechanical assembly that went back together since this project began two years ago.  I am happy to say I spared nothing in getting this axle done properly and with the best equipment and parts available, and I managed to get it finished in a way that reflects the project as I have imagined it.  I still have to prep and coat the trailing link and panhard bars in the same color (easy work) and get everything protected and stored.

Now that this work is in the books, I am already moving back to the body structure to pick up where I left off in the trunk floor area and wheel wells and complete the final repairs in the left rear rocker area.  The fall and winter work plan is looking good!

These two axle flange shims were fabricated to allow the disc brake adapter brackets to seat properly on the axle flanges with the wider bearings used on the Moser 31-spline axles I use.

The yellow arrow indicates the shim location.  This measure may be required based on the axle housing and bearing combination you have.  Careful measurement and mock-up is the key.

 

I had to move the brake line mounting tab up on the right axle tube to ensure there would be no interference with the coilover assembly.

This simple device allowed me to gang together my two air compressors to feed my pressure sand blaster.  The difference in blasting performance was astounding and may even get better if I were to use a 1/2" I.D. air hose between this manifold and the blaster.

The freshly blasted housing is quite inspiring to look at after four decades worth of crap was removed.

Another look at the freshly blasted housing with my 30-year-old blaster and some of my "sand recovery equipment."

After a good degreasing with acetone, I let the housing dry completely and then treated it with a 3:1 water/phosphoric acid solution to eliminate any microscopic rust left on the surface and to provide a nice, evenly etched surface for good coating adhesion.

Here is a look at the drain bung fully etched and phosphatized.  Soon after this image was taken, the entire housing was brushed with a fine steel cup brush to prep the surface for powder coating.

Here is the housing hanging in my powder booth after the first coat of powder has been applied.  Note the hanging loop at the top and the lift handle fixture across the center.

After two coats of cured powder, the result was a pristine housing by most any definition.

The first order of business was to load the rebuilt differential section into the housing using new ARP mounting fasteners.

The Street or Track Cobra rear disc brake mounting brackets are mounted using news flange fasteners from NPD.

Fully assembled left rear disc brake assembly.

Completed right side rear brake assembly.

One of the last install items was the brake line distribution block and hard and soft brake lines.

 nice finishing touch are these axle end caps supplied by Moser with a new pair of axles.  No one will ever see them in the end, but who cares?  I know they are there.

 

The finished axle assembly!  This picture does the effort no justice at all, but the truth is, it looks fantastic in person.  Almost a shame to put it under a car.........almost.

 

4-Link Coilover Suspension Completed!

As if on cue, the trees are just starting to show the slightest hint of fall and accordingly, I have been able to complete the modifications and corrections to the 4-link rear suspension.  The summer has indeed been a busy one on many fronts and this major project has consumed the bulk of the time spent at work on the Boss over the last several months.  Of course, I had not planned on such a major rework of what was supposed to be a good suspension option, but such is the reality of it and here we are.

The condensed version of modifications and corrections includes replacing every single pivot point with spherical rod ends to eliminate MASSIVE roll bind problems in the kit design as well as free up the entire rear suspension throughout the full range of motion.  Secondly, the rear coilover dampers were less than impressive and as such, were replaced with very nice custom Bilstein coilover dampers made just for this application.  And finally, I selected a proper coil spring that would match the proven front coilover combination more exactly.  Sprinkled in there too was a hardware upgrade along with a few minor touches I have documented earlier in this blog.

For this final round of work, I had to reconfigure the upper coilover mount to reduce the mounting bolt size to the requisite ½” the new Bilstein coilovers employed.  This was a rather simple welding and re-drilling operation but of course, I discovered it also would include a pretty major correction of the hole location on the right side as it was a full 1/8” higher than on the left.  Apparently I’m not supposed to bitch about “close enough” so I just welded the S.O.B. up and put the damn things where they belonged within a few thou and decided I was comfortable being “anal-retentive” or something along those lines…….

Next up, I had to cut off all of the gooey rubber bushed ends of the trailing links and thread them with left-handed threads to allow the length of each arm to be fully adjustable without the need to remove the whole arm to adjust.  Loosen a jam nut on each end and turn to adjust the arm then lock down the nuts.  It couldn’t be simpler.

Then came the tedious task of machining spacers to capture each spherical rod end in the center of their respective mounts.  28 of them to be exact (whew!).  While I was there, I made provisions to add seals to each rod end to keep dirt, water and any other evil crap out of them under operating conditions.  These are nifty little devices I used extensively in my former racing life and are made by Seals-It.  I highly recommend them on any application that requires a spherical rod end.  The price is right and they can extend the life of the rod end many times over.

Two of the “spacers” are actually stand-offs for the lower coilover mount.  Since these needed to be longer to accommodate the new lower coilover mount, I decided to spin these up out of stainless for a nice appearance and corrosion resistance.  I am truly delighted with how these worked out.  I finished the lower coilover mounting configuration with a safety washer at the rear to prevent the lower shock eye from pulling off the mount if the spherical bearing were to ever catastrophically fail.  Another old racing rule of thumb that has stuck with me over the years.

And at last, I was finally able to assemble the entire system and work out a few setup details and take some measurements to see where we landed.  I am happy to say the suspension articulates extremely well, the roll bind has been eliminated and the total radial deflection of the rear axle over the full suspension travel as defined by the panhard rod swing arc is a miniscule 0.052”.  Not a bad result and way more desirable for me than the complexity of a Watts-link.

The one area I chose to leave alone is the chassis and axle mount locations for the trailing links.  This leaves the anti-squat geometry a bit of an unknown variable until I get the car sitting on the suspension at proper ride height and full load, but that will be a problem for another day.  Chances are it won’t be enough of an issue to make me want to do much to change it anyway since this is a street car as opposed to a dedicated track car.  Time will tell.

So now I am off to sand blast the housing a prep it for paint and assembly.  Once that is done, I will be heading back to the body for some work in the axle tunnel and trunk area and then back to the front for some major work on front suspension, steering and engine bay upgrades.  And oh yes……..that surprise I have been hinting at is getting very close to show time!

Upper rear coilover mounting points required welding and re-drilling to 1/2" from 5/8".  Turns out, I needed to correct the location of the right side mount hole while I was at it anyway.

 

 

I spent several days machining the proper spacers that would properly locate each spherical rod end in the middle of their mounts.  At the same time, I made room to install Seals-It seals on each side of the monoball to keep the crap out of them for longer life and smooth operation.

 

While not just a simple spacer, the lower coilover standoffs were machined from stainless as a single piece.  Looks pretty nice and works very well.

I upgraded all of the fasteners in the entire system while I was at it.  You can also see the Seals-It sealing washers more clearly in this shot as well.

The top coilover mounts got sealing washers too. 

Here is a simple yet very valuable safety trick.  I installed captive washers at the rear of the lower shock mounts to help ensure the shock would be retained in the event of a catastrophic failure of the monoball.

Looking at the left rear from the back shows how simple things look from the rear.  The springs will ultimately get powder coated black so as to tone them down a bit.

A view of the right side coilover setup from the rear.  Most of this will be hidden by the fuel tank.

Left side view of the completed 4-link coilover suspension.

Right side view of the completed system.