(From the archives)

Well, the body is off and it’s time to start welding up brackets and tabs that were just tacked in place this whole time. The plan is to get the frame powder coated semi gloss black, and since it’s not healthy to weld over powder coat, I’m going to try to get all the brackets mounted before it’s sent out.

It’s a good idea to take a bunch of pictures of everything assembled before you tear it down, so you can see how it all went together.

Remember that e-brake bracket I made a long time ago? I just painted it with Zero Rust flat black paint, and I’m pretty tickled with how it came out. I can’t wait to see it installed!

Since I didn’t mount the seat belts when the seat was mounted the first time, I had to make up some brackets to hold the retractors and the fixed end of the belts. If you’re like me and you have access to hundreds of different shapes of brackets, you tend to use something that’s already made instead of wasting time cutting out a shape (and trying to get the second one to look something like the first one), drilling holes, bending, etc. If you’re like me but don’t have access to hundreds of different brackets, here’s a solution: Welder Series’ Handy Parts. Have a look around. I’m sure you’ll find something that will make your frame build a lot easier. These particular brackets are Model A rad mount tabs .

Friends come in to have a look and wonder how taking stuff off helps put it together. I tell them it’s like marriage. Anyways, I spent some time on something very small, but I’m happy with the result.

On the right, you can see the stock bolts that came with the front brake kit. While functional, they didn’t do much to enhance the chrome spindles and steering arms and the polished calipers and caliper mounts. Since the caliper mounting bolts are 3/8″ button heads, I thought I’d see what I could do to match the other bolts.

The black bolt is the original one. It’s a flat head allen, with 1/2-20 threads. The stainless bolt is a 3/8-16 button head, but it’s obviously too small for the hole. I machined threaded spacers to sit tight in the 1/2″ hole in the spindle. The threaded cone mimics the taper on the original bolt, so it centers itself and sits flush with the outside of the caliper mounting plate. There’s not much clearance between the plate and the rotor!

Here’s how the trans cooler lines/ air conditioning hose clamp came out. The top tube runs headlight wires from the body to the grille shell.

For the ends of the stainless tube, I parted a -6 stainless joiner fitting in half, and tig welded them to the tubes. Leaving some hex on the fittings means I don’t have to twist the tube to tighten the fitting.

Exhaust: we had the one side fixed, and now it’s time to match the passenger side. Cam seems to be pretty happy we’re finally mounting the tail pipes!

The emergency brake lines run right where the hangers would sit straight up. Instead of just moving it off to the side a little bit, we thought it would be better to go all the way. The hanger brackets and flanges are Welder Series parts, by the way.

I think we’re going to keep the tips just as they are for now… milled perfectly square. We’ll see – maybe they will get some turn-downs later.