Got the last of the Windows out, the last of the sound deadener out, all the pedals, steering column etc all out, wipers etc removed.

Also had another session of shed clean up.

The stock rear subframe is also stripped down, ready to be lightened.

Got another few hours done today, removing unneeded brackets, removing sound deadener etc.

Windscreen is now also out.

Rear quarter window and passenger door off.

A little more sound deadener to go, then mount it onto a jig to keep it square while I weld on the front and build the cage.

I’ve cut off all of the damage from the front, and have replaced it with parts from the half cut (that all came as part of the package).  Just needs final lining up and then I can weld it on.

Next big job is the cage, so the designing had begun.

For a number of reasons, I’m no longer going to be competing in the Speed Event Series, or even on tarmac.

The series is great, as are the organisers and most of the competitors, but more and more of the hill climbs are being rated by CAMS as being too dangerous for cars with no roll cages (which I do agree with – Hill climbs are the whole reason the S13 got a cage in the first place).  As the series caters for all types of cars, many normal road cars without cages it takes 70% of the people out of the event, so the events don’t happen.  These hill climbs are the events I love, I tolerate the circuits stuff to do Meelup, Pemberton, Wind farm etc.

Add to this, the dirt rally stage that I drove in the Falcon on the weekend was so much fun, just did skids for 22kms – and even though a 1970, 1700kg falcon is the worst rally car you could think of it drove really well and I had so much fun and actually set a decent time even though the rest of the field had pace notes and we just used the road book (the Syd-Lon is a road book event, and thats what we are practising for, so….)

So, with all that in mind, and the amount of fun I had, and speed I had, in a really inappropriate car the thirst for dirt is back.  I always said that one day I would go back to dirt, and I guess today is the day……

So I had a quick look at what S series shells were around, and on the forums I find an S15, in my suburb, about 4 streets away – and at the right price as it had no engine, gearbox or interior like seats, hood lining etc!  Perfect!  It has the dash, all the glass, front door trims and I have engines and boxes.   It was meant to be……

As you would expect, the car has been in its new home for a few hours and I’ve already stripped it, more to come as we start on a new road.

Tank and subframe are out.

Rose joints that is.

Got a gravel rally this weekend, then hopefully the one after I can start on the suspension arms 🙂

I’ve never had a removable steering wheel on any of my race cars, but with the new setup, with the seat so low and the side intrusion bars so high, I need it just get in!  Very excited 🙂

Nice new stainless steel bolts 🙂

UK to Aus within a week.  I wish I could get stuff from north of the river that fast…

Stared off re-making part of the steering mount.  This one is a little lighter, but more importantly its now adjustable.

After that it was finishing off the bar work at the front of the car.  Two more bars have been added to the drivers side, which now completes the main chassis – next is welding on all of the brackets and mounts needed to hold everything else on.

Next up was some thinking time.  To get the weight rearward as much as possible I wanted to put the radiator in the back.  The only spot that it will fit is very high up – not good for CofG height.  So I’m currently considering putting it on the passenger side floor – it gets the weight towards the rear, its down very low and its going to even out the weight across the car.  If I do it, will duct the air in via the passenger door, then out the rear of the car.  Still a thought in progress this one…

While thinking of where to mount things, and being unsure about the radiator idea, it was onto the intercooler mounting location.  This one was an easier decision, so I make a removable front section, with mounts on it for the intercooler.  This removable section will also hold the front end bodywork to the car.

After that, I made a horse…

For the kids.

Most of the day was dedicated to the Falcon again, but I spent an hour getting the chassis ready to get it off the hoist, so the Falcon can go on.

Got the removable frame in.  In the apex of each tube, you can see the parts that I finished off last night, so you can see how they have been used.

The frame also pics up the front of the gearbox as a mounting point.

Then I did a bit on the drivers side engine mount.

I’ve gone a different strategy to the last engine mounts that I built.  These ones have been made with material 2mm at its thickest – so even though its looks like there is a lot there, its all really light.

Because of the angles of everything, the engine mount needs to unbolt from the removable frame.  The plate will be welded to the removable frame, then a bolt will go through this plate, the tube and then through another plate on the other side.

Next job is two small tubes need to go in where the red tape is.  This will tie everything together, and will be where the shocks attach, so needs to be really strong.

With 10 mins to go before I ended the night, I started playing with the shock mount options.  I think this is the approximate location of the final shock position.

Where the shocks are is approximate, they are only cable tied on so they aren’t central or lined up with each other.  During this exercise I’ve also seen that I will need to rotate the steering rack a little bit to lower the steering shaft exit point, so that it will clear the shocks.

Thanks all for now, hopefully I can find the motivation to do a couple of hours tomorrow night to finish the engine mounts, pull the motor out and get it all off the hoist – might be a bit optimistic for a week night….

The last two weeks have been busy getting the rally falcon ready for its first dirt event next month (The kids have nicknamed it BLUE – Big Loud Ugly Edifice).

I spent 30 minutes tonight getting some parts finished off to make the engine mounts and support frame.

I’ll better explain what they are once I start building them into the chassis.  They will be used to mount this frame in place (mocked up with masking tape in later pictures).

I got one more tube into the front end chassis too.  One more tube and the main chassis part is complete.

One thing that I needed was somewhere to attach the engine mounts too, and to also add a lot more strength into the chassis around the motor.  Where the motor sits is a large hole in the structure, but as the engine drops out the bottom, anything below it needs to be removable.

Here are some initial design mock-ups, in my favorite substitute for chrome-molt tubing.

I have to decide between the masking tape version or the red electrical tape version in that front part of the chassis.  I think this will come down to where the front shocks will be mounted – which is undecided at this point…  I’ll make the part under the motor first, add the engine mounts to that, then build the front portion when the shock mounting location are confirmed.

Last weekend I also got another strip of insulation and two more lights mounted to the roof and wired up – It was too dark to work on the Falcon in this middle part of the shed at night, as previously I only had the lights done at each end, where the Sil is and where the main work bench is.  Its so much brighter with just these two done and I’ve still got another 7 lights to go on the roof – can’t wait for that!  I don’t realize how dark it is until I add another light in there.

I need to get these engine mount done, so I can take the Sil off the hoist and put the Falcon on the hoist – all this laying on the ground under a car sux, especially when the next step is welding under there!

Last night I started on the new front end framework for the car.  I’ve spent a number of nights working out the suspension geometry that I want to run, working out the suspension mounting points, chassis heights and widths etc – Hopefully I’ve got it right…

The front end is going to run the same type of suspension that I’m building for the rear end, so here we go.

Started off making one end, then tack welded that to the bench and started making the cross tubes and end tubes.

Front section almost complete, just needs one more bar above the cross in the front.

Then it was time to get it lined up in the front end.  Do do this, I cut out some of the central tubes in the chassis, and then sat this in place.

It ended up being too hard to work with without an accurate ground plane reference, so I lowered it down off the rotisserie  and leveled it up on the ground at its final ride height.

Then made a platform at the correct height for the front end to sit on, then spend ages getting it all lined up, central and square.

Then its a simple case of joining up the tubes from the original chassis to the new section, and removing old sections when they are no longer needed as reference points.

This is how it sits now, just a few more tubes to go.

Next up is to work out where to put the cross bracing in this new section.  The large ‘hole’ between the tubes here is one of the areas that needs a cross brace.

Started working on the rear hubs.  Once these are done I can work on the suspension arm mounting points on the chassis.

It starts with some flat 5mm plate, then some time on the lathe.

Second one done.

All of the loads from the wheel are going to be transferred to where these hubs bolt onto the plate.  So I wanted to connect the front plate to the back plate (you’ll see that later) and keep this whole box section connected.

Next up was the make the bottom mount, where the suspension arm will join the hub.

Machined up a little button, and threaded it.  This setup means that I don’t have to put a nut on the end of the bolt, this machined part will be the nut.

Here is where its going to go.

And then ll done.

Then made a plate to connect the mount to the main plate.

Then worked on the rear plate, here it is welded on.

Then all linished up and milled out to allow the drive shaft to fit.

Then lastly added a V-shaped brace on the inside, connecting the mount to two of the tubes on the main plate.

The next thing I need to work out is the brake caliper mount.  Once that is done I can put the sides on the currently open box shape.  After that its the same thing with the upper mounting point.

The wire for my GPS arial broke last year, so I ordered a new one.  This one is much lighter and bolts into the roof (the magnet mount of the last one won’t stick to carbon fibre).  I was disappointed to find that this 70 gram item had a big 20 gram steel nut to hold it on.  So I made a plastic one, using a combination of the mill and the lathe.

I’m super happy how this came out!

I built another shelf…

And made up all of the corner gussets by folding a nice curve in the using the press and  folding jig that I made.

Also made up the plates for the side intrusion bars and welded all those in.

I also spent a couple of hours welding everything up on the chassis.

The basic chassis metal work is now complete (for now).  So next job is to finish the steering (picked up the last bit that I needed today), and get the mounts made for the rear suspension.  The frame can then be cleaned up and painted.

Made some progress on the new steering column.

Its all mocked up and tack welded in.  Just need one uni joint and I can fit it all and weld it in.

Also added the bars into the chassis under the seat, for side impact protection.
I broke my welding helmet, so had to get a new one.

Has a very big viewing window, I love it, makes it so much easier to see!

And also did a side job, machined an extension for a chair leg.

Assuming my customer likes it, I have another 20 to make!

Finished the night by assembling and fitting another 2 shelves to the shed wall. I bought these about a year ago…. talk about not rushing things 🙂

Got a few hours in today, got seat mounts made,  added another tube to the chassis and some corner gussets.

Used the milling machine to make the seat mounts.

Then got them all lined up and welded in.

Some gussets

And added some bars under the front of the seat.

No work meant more play and I made good progress.

First off I made a rotisserie out of scavenged metal that I had.  It’s so that I can spin the car sideways, upside down or any angle in between in order to work on it and weld it up.  Welding upside down is never fun…

Then used the patented chest of draws on a go-jack chassis transportation method

to get the chassis off the hoist and over to the rotisserie, and got it all mounted up.

With that done, I started on the real work. First up, new side intrusion bars.

Then rotated the car to work on the new roof cross bar.  Being able to spin the car around like this to work on it was sooooo nice 🙂

Then added the Carlos Bar to the door opening.

Next job is to make the seat mounts, but had to go plant some new trees and do some reticulation work in the garden.

Spent the rest of the night cleaning up the mess I made…

After being away for a week,  sick for a week,  then busy for a week,  I finally got some car work done.

Got the new roof bars bent up.

And the new side intrusion bars bent up.

Hopefully I’ll get some time this weekend to fit them all in.

Got a good days work  in on Monday.  Took all of the bars out of the floor and re-aligned them to better suit the new gearbox.

Then got started on the new trans tunnel, again to make it larger to make the gearbox fit better.

A view of the same, from the rear.

Then started working on the design of the rear shocks and rocker – trying to work out where to fit it all.

We’ve also been continuing work on making and mounting all the fibreglass components.

The roof, skirts and rear are ll mounted and complete.

It’s all progressing nicely.