BUILD THREAD “The Juggernaut”

[Rktpwrd]

Very awesome. I would have done the same thing. After all the work to the frame, and adding all the extra stuff, modifying the sheetmetal seemed like the better way to go.

The metal work looks great. The cardboard templates, I have a boatload of old Yuengling beer boxes, and others large sheets that I use for templates before I cut an metal. I also own a shrinker stretcher, and I use the crap out of that thing.

And finally the masking tape for the seam sealer, I almost always do that. On my doors, all the new seams, etc. It makes for a cleaner finish.

Thanks for the updates, I wish I lived closer to Canada to see it in person.

Thanks very much.
I too have been doing my seam sealer this way for several years after watching a professional bodyman friend of mine do it that way on an old Turbocoupe Thunderbird project I was involved with. IMO, definitely the cleanest, nicest way to do seams. As far as cardboard templates are concerned, that too is another old trick I've been using for years and years. Often, I'll spend more time with straight edges, tape measures, pencils and Sharpies laying out cardboard templates long before the pattern ever makes it to steel. Sometimes at that point, I'm not sure if I'm a draftsman or a fabricator!

Donovan,
As always, your work is absolutely impeccable...I'm in awe. Some people have it, and some don't. You sir, have it....

Thanks Jack!
Coming from an experienced individual such as yourself, I take pride in that my efforts are commended by you. I must be doing SOMETHING right then, right?
Lol
I'm not sure what exactly "it" is, but I just wish I could remember where I left "it" more often...

Hey Donovan enjoying the new updates. I had a question for you. What gauge sheet metal are you using in your fabrication work?

Glad you're enjoying the updates. I enjoy bringing them to you just as much! To answer your question, it really depends on what I'm working on at the time. As a general rule of thumb, I try and match the gauge of sheetmetal to what the factory used in the same location. That being said however, I did use a slightly heavier gauge of sheetmetal for the replacement trunk floor piece I made, around 18 gauge if I recall correctly. Normally I wouldn't have done this, but at the time my local metal supplier could not get the desired 20 gauge I would normally have used in the 4+ ft length I needed to create the floor. I also figured that having a little bit heavier duty piece of steel for something structural as the trunk floor couldn't hurt either.
Thanks for following along!

Show-off. How am I supposed to build a car to compete with yours when you are hording all the tools? That's it. I'm moving into your garage.

Well, Matt, I guess you're just gonna have to step up your game and put me to shame!
Lol
Thanks tho. I'm really not attempting to show off, more like sharing the hundreds of man hours it takes to recreate something the factory made in seconds.... Well ok, maybe there's just the tiniest bit of show-off in there too... but it's more pride than show-off really. Now if it didn't turn out well, I probably wouldn't feel as strong a need to share it with the world either...!!
I'll start making room in the garage for ya next to "all the tools"!

 

[finkous]

Donovan, Matt... wouldn't it just be a better idea to move into my shop with all your tools??? being 60x120 I'm sure we could all get along

 

[Rktpwrd]

So when I left off at the end of the last update, I had just finished re-priming the trunk floor in epoxy after sealing up all the seams.
Stoked at the prospect that the new trunk floor was finally completed and ready to go in, I fell into the "while I'm here, I may as well as..." syndrome in the way of cleaning up and smoothing out the wheelwells to help finish off the whole area.
So, the project's direction changed slightly once again. (Remember, this was originally about creating and installing a rear firewall which hasn't been completed yet!)
The wheelwells were hammer and dollied a bit to smooth out some of the factory wrinkles left behind by the stamping process, and skim coats of filler were applied and blocked out.

After that, the "wells were masked off in preparation for primer...

And of course, you all know what comes next, a coating of epoxy primer.

Once the primer had time to cure, it was FINALLY time to get things ready to weld the new section of floor back in. Small holes were again punched in the wheelwell to trunk floor flanges, and along the factory seam inside the trunk where the underlap was. This would allow me to plug weld the new panel in much the same as when the factory spotwelded it in.
After all the prep work was done, it was set in place and VERY carefully levelled and checked and rechecked before securing it in place with Cleco clamps. I REALLY did not want this thing moving around with the welding heat as I was trying to lock it in place permanently.
Once fully burned in, excess bits of weld were dressed with the grinder, and I couldn't wait to see how it would look with the new air management system in place! And yes, I had runs on the wheelwells, pobody's nerfect after all...

Overall, I was pretty happy with it up to this point. That didn't necessarily mean I was finished quite yet tho. In these next two pictures of the trunk floor, you can see how the upper corners didn't match the contours of the original floor. That's because it would've been too hard to recreate on the bench with no direct reference points, so it had to wait 'till the end.

 

[Rktpwrd]

Now that I finally had the new section of floor welded in and I could see exactly where the upper corners had to be modified to "flow" into each other, I simply pie cut and massaged the metal of the new floor in the corners into bends away from the flat portion of the floor, and added a new "top" to it. Then it was welded and metal finished out and got a skim of filler to hide the grinder marks. From this on the passenger side:

To this on the driver's (Pre-primer of course)

It's at this point however, my picture taking regime started to fall off a bit. Guess I was more concerned with completing the task than being a photobug...
After the mods were made to the corners and the filler was smoothed out, work progressed to filling the main longitudinal seam with sandable seam sealer (which was applied and blocked out several times) and the whole thing was once again re-shot in primer. The primer was then blocked out once again to keep everything nice and straight, and more seam sealer was laid in place along the edges of the wheelwells to keep it all nice and dry from the elements.

Once the strips of seam sealer along the sides of the wheelwells were dry, they were sanded in preparation of the final coat of primer before paint.

Satisfied that the trunk floor modifications were mostly completed, and a bit unsure as to how I'm going to finish out the trunk at this point (ie: what color paint, black, spatter finish, upholstered etc), I felt it was complete enough to be able to move back inside and continue on with the original fitting and welding in of the rear firewall.

Picking back up on fitting the rear firewall, I started by attempting to roll a bead around the perimeter of the top section that was to overlay on the old package tray. This was a horrible disaster. The roller ended up wandering off my line several times as the whole piece was just too big and awkward to manipulate, even with an assistant helping. This required having to cut off that section of the firewall and flange the remaining piece so that I could make a new one and weld it on. A new top piece was cut, and I ran this much smaller, more manageable piece thru the roller making the perimeter bead.

After that, the back window had to be cut out and removed to allow me adequate access to the top of the package tray area. (Hated to do it, but it had to be done!) The new package tray piece was laid in place along with the center portion of the firewall again. Holes were drilled for my Cleco clamps, and everything was mocked up and clamped together.

Once inside the car, tho not readily apparent, the factory package tray area is not bent at a 90 degree angle, rather, it curves slightly from side to side in a gentle arc and is actually higher in the center than at the ends. That meant that when I laid my original 90 degree bent piece over top of the package tray, I had 3/4" air gaps between the two panels at the corners. This was the time to correct that. This is how I did it.

The center part of the firewall was marked from where the curvature needed to start, and a line was marked out from these points to the ends. Pie cuts were made along these marks until the curvature matched.

Now the whole thing was starting to look much better, more like it fit the car properly. Tack welds were made to hold everything in place with the right gap for welding, and the whole assembly was removed to be welded back up on the bench. The rectangular hole in the next pic will be explained shortly...

Once this was done, it was time to weld it back together with the right curvature to it.

 

[Rktpwrd]

The welding was completed, the welds were dressed down, and then it was test fit once again. I was digging the overall vibe...

From there, it was now time to implement another phase that I had been considering for some time.
Although this is most certainly going to be a performance oriented car and will definitely see it's share of time on the drag and road courses, I didn't want it to have the look and feel of a race car. There's plenty of fine examples of those out there, that would most certainly run circles around this thing anyways. That meant no rollcage inside the car. No jungle gym to climb in and around everytime I get in and out of the car.

However, with that being said, I still wanted the safety and security of a set of good 3 or 4 point harnesses and a good set of performance seats with excellent side bolstering to keep me planted in the seat in the twisties.
The seat decision was an easy one for me. Corbeau is an aftermarket seat manufacturer that is easily on par with the likes of Recaro and many others. Having set my butt down in a Corbeau sport seat in a buddies Mustang some years earlier, I remembered how good that seat fit me, how comfortable it was, and how nice the side bolstering was. Upon further research, I found out that they make seat brackets (with sliders!) to bolt their seats in nearly anything you'd desire, including our G bodies. Couple that with being able to order them in black leather like I wanted, it was the choice for me.

That still left the question of what to do about harnessess and the roll cage issue. Turns out that along with their seats, I was able to get a matching set of their 3 point racing harnesses with the handy option of having a seat belt style buckle disconnect in the 3rd point that allows you to fold the seats forward without hassle. Sold. Harnessess were covered. But what about having a solid mounting location for that 3rd point in the back without installing a rollcage? The brilliant answer presented itself one garage night in the form of my good buddy, Millwright, and fellow car guy, Mike B.

I showed him what I was looking to do, and what we had to work with, and Mike says "hmmm.... Leave it with me for a few minutes". Sure enough, a few minutes sketching with a pencil and a piece of paper later, he says "Ok, take a look at this."
What he had come up with was a mounting plate that we could fabricate that would hold the mounting bolt in double shear for strength, was thick enough for better than stock strength, and mounted the third point at the perfect height and correct location behind the seats. Thanks Mike! You da man!

It simply comprises of three plates stacked on top of each other, one 3/16" plate in the center for spacing for the mounting tab to slide into and pivot on the bolt, sandwiched by two 18" plates top and bottom, all fully welded together. Once made, slots would be cut in the new and original rear firewalls, and the plates would be slid in from the back with a shoulder step cut into them that prevented forward travel past a certain point. Once located, these plates would be perimeter welded to the underside of the factory package tray, as well as plug welded to the tray from the top. Once welded to the factory package tray, they could be welded again to the new firewall around the perimeter of the opening they stuck thru. And now you know what the rectangular holes are for!

Some pics of these things for your perusal....

Here you can see the harness mounting plates already fabricated and welded to the factory package tray, and everything masked off in preparation of epoxy priming all the stuff that would be inaccessable after the new rear firewall got welded in.

And after priming...

...then the backside of the new firewall was prepped, seam sealed, and coated in epoxy as well. Note the holes drilled for plug welding the center of the firewall to the center of the trunk floor, creating support for the floor.

Once this preliminary prep was done, the parts could be laid in place one last time for welding. Overlaid the old package tray, but not clamped down yet, as several nice beads of panel bonding adhesive still had to be laid down in between the two surfaces to eliminate rattles and vibrations.

Starting to get closer, and definitely looking better, but not quite there yet...

Until next time guys, thanks for checking it out. Like the "Juggernaut" name implies, the progress never stops, it just keeps on rollin'...

 

[mr evil]

Just.......wow......don't even know where to start. Your attention to detail is awe inspiring and motivating as usual. The depth to which you share this with us is really awesome dude. Cheers!

 

[Rktpwrd]

Just.......wow......don't even know where to start. Your attention to detail is awe inspiring and motivating as usual. The depth to which you share this with us is really awesome dude. Cheers!

Thanks Rick. As I mentioned before, I enjoy sharing the progress with you all as well, even if it's down to the smallest of details. I'm glad it's as motivating for you as others' builds have been for me.

On an unrelated note, I'm a bit surprised that no one had any funny or sarcastic comments about my "sock thread" theory. I thought for sure someone would've got a chuckle out of it...

 

[mr evil]

It is funny....I've heard it called by different names- for me it's called OFFSS, Oh For F*ck Sake Syndrome

 

[Danginharl]

Your sock theory is probably the most accurate way I have ever heard it described. Nice work as always.

 

[Rktpwrd]

Thanks Matt. I'm not sure everyone would've actually read all the way thru to catch that analogy anyways. I'm sure the length and in depth details of my posts on this thread probably doesn't interest most people, but it's nice to know there's a core group of you guys that actually read it all and follow it thru to the end. Is it really my fault anyways if others have the attention span of a gnat?