Thread: Project Sebring GT Spyder

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My .02

Rule one: don't lend it if you need it (money also)

Rule two: very dear (responsible) friends are exempt from rule one.

Thanks didn't mean to dribble soooooo much, but felt good to vent! I am actually quite happy a year and a half after divorce and beginning to meet more people slowly and test the waters so to speak, not in a hurry to settle down too quicky. Amazingly since our departure I haven't had any tools go missing! And here I thought my memory was slipping!
I have to admit good friends are exempt from the borrowing rules especially ones who lend back!

I decided quite awhile ago that the pedal assembly that came with the car was going to have to go. It worked ok, but looked like a bodged up mess and was held together with some of the original builders less than awesome welds. It was also mounted to the fiberglass firewall. Yea, the firewall that was glued in with silicone. I could foresee slamming on the brakes one day and having the whole firewall and brake assembly move forward.

This is the original pedal setup.





I decided to splurge and go with an aftermarket racing pedal setup. I chose a hanging assembly from Tilton. Building something similar would have taken a long time and it's doubtful it would have been better. It has a lot of adjustment to get the pedal spacing and height just right and even the leverage ratio can be changed a little. It also has enough room for my feet to fit comfortably. My foot is a little wider than normal and every little bit of room helps.

It uses a separate master cylinder for the front and rear brakes and also has a balance bar on the brake pedal so that you can split the pedal force between the MC's. You can run a different size MC for each end of the car. This give you the best chance to get the brake balance just right no matter what crazy combo of parts you're using. I used a dual MC setup on my T bucket to solve a brake balance problem and I am sold on it.



I went ahead and got the matching throttle pedal, too. Not only does it match the others, but it has an adjustable bell crank which should help get the cable positioned in a good place.

If the passenger side footwell was fairly simple, the driver side was another story. This panel is taller since it helps to support the master cylinders, brake pedals and steering. I didn't want to make it in 2 pieces so it is a single 16 gauge steel panel. It has a little more complex shape than the passenger side to leave enough room for the pedal assembly that I am using and clear the engine

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This panel also had to handle the steering pass through. I'm using an electric assisted steering setup out of a Saturn Vue (same as a Chevy Equinox). I'll go into more detail on this steering unit later. The Vue uses a short column that has a built in tilting mechanism and a nice little drive shaft with a slip joint that attaches to the rear mounted steering rack on the Vue. I kept the Vue's shaft because the slip joint is necessary for the column to tilt, but I needed something to allow the shaft to pass through the firewall. I didn't want to just run it through a hole, so I made a short housing with a double D shaft about 6" long. Luckily the lower u-joint on Vue steering shaft fits perfectly on a 3/4" double D shaft. The shaft turns on 3/4" bore flange bearings.

That's just slicker than snot.

Very nice work and kudos to you on the steering shaft set up. Very nice!

That electric steering is cool, never seen anything like that.

Thanks for the likes and kind words, guys. I'm glad ya'll are enjoying the write ups.

V8, I'm going to go a lot more in depth about the steering a little later. Stay tuned and I'll try to pass on what I've learned.

The Vue steering shaft was too long for my setup. I had to shorten it a couple of inches and reclock the u-joints. It has a wide spline in the slip joint that will only allow it to go together one way and I was surprised that GM didn't see fit to align the u-joint trunnions. It's good practice to line the joints up so that they "break" at the same time on each end of the shaft, but GM must not have thought it was important on a slow moving steering shaft. I spent a long time as a machinist, so I'm a little anal about things like that and I corrected the timing when I cut it down.

The shaft was fairly simple to shorten by cutting the original welds and machining the ends of the pieces to fit exactly as GM did it.

Here are a couple of shots of the steering pass through mounted on the panel. I used 5/16" rivet nuts to hold it in place.

I also added a "bubble" to give the throttle pedal a little more room to move. I had just enough travel without this, but the pedal is adjustable for position. The additional room will allow me to get the pedal position just right.

Very nice work Mike. I especially like the pass thru. As electric steering is not completely off the table for the 57 Plymouth yet I'm very interested in how this turns out. If I were building my 37 Dodge over I'd sure consider it instead the hydraulic steering it currently has.


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Thanks Mike. As I mentioned earlier, I'm working on a write up for the EPS. My car will be a Guinea Pig for this system. I'm still not completely sold on it yet since I haven't actually driven the car. I may just start a separate thread on my experiences just to make it easier for folks to find. Maybe I can help someone make up their mind.

One less fluid is always a good thing!

I've worked on some volvo semis that had the steering shaft u joints 180* out of phase from each other. I was told by a volvo engineer it was done that way to reduce binding of the joints. I thought it was really odd. Dang Volvos anyway. Haha

I'm trying to talk my buddy into going with EPS on his 51 Chevy. He couldn't put a power steering rack on his MII cross member and I've told him about EPS. I'll definitely follow along so I can help him with it when he's ready.

This is going to be interesting to watch, thank for doing the guinea pig work. Electric steering is pretty common place on new vehicles anymore, that means sooner or later they will get to be common on our hot rods.

After getting the steering pass through installed it was apparent that a single thickness of 16 gauge was not strong enough to resist flexing from steering inputs. I was able to warp it by hand so I added two stiffening ribs on the inside. I made these on the bead roller.



The ribs helped, but I still wasn't happy with the stiffness so I added a formed diagonal brace down to the frame. That did the trick and the panel is plenty solid now.



I used some hole punches that I borrowed from the electricians at work just to experiment with flanged holes. I made a flanging die from some scrap metal I had. I think they turned out well. I'll probably try to work some more flanged holes into the under hood sheet metal stuff I intend to make for this car.

Of course I added a similar brace to the passenger side just to balance things out. These pieces will help to get some of the bracing back that I removed to enlarge the footwells. This one wasn't welded in when the pic was taken.



I've been using cardboard to work up my sheet metal parts. It's easy to work with and the brake bends it crisp.



Because of the way the spark plugs are angled on this side of the engine, access shouldn't be a problem. I think I will need to add a heat shield to keep the bearings in the steering pass through cooler. They are sealed bearings and I'm sure if they get too hot, the grease may boil out. I have a partial sheet of thin stainless steel that was given to me. I'll be using it to make some heat shields for the mufflers, so I'll fab this one up then.