Thread: Project Sebring GT Spyder

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Thanks again guys. Tech, I didn't know if you were following or not. Glad you're enjoying it.

I'm behind again on updates so here are a few more.

Just about the time I was getting along good on the sheet metal work, Louisiana got hit by a couple of arctic cold blasts. While my fellow rodders from the snow belt might not mind those types of temps, I don't enjoy working in my uninsulated metal barn when it gets that cold. I holed up in my little machine shop and worked on some things that I would be needing later.

One of them was an alignment bar and bushings for the Explorer rearend. Mine is still just tacked together and needs to be finished.

The bar is 2" diameter and it did have little bow in it. Hard to believe that size shaft could be bent, but it was. I'm kind of hesitate to show my rigged up "straightener", but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to get the part made. In spite of how this looks, no lathes were harmed in the making of this part.



Here are the bushings. The odd bushing on the right is to check the alignment of the axle tubes. I've done a lot of welding( and have more to do) on them and they may have been drawn by the heat. If they are, I'll have to try to shrink the metal and bring them back into alignment.


At least I now have the tools I need to get the thing finished.

Disclaimer: My posts are about how I do things. Don't do what I do just because I did it and got away with it. You could get hurt.

Another cold weather project was new front caliper brackets. You remember that I had said earlier that I wanted to make some one piece mounts to replace the welded mounts I had built. It's a good thing that I had those plans, because while I was searching for brake pedals and master cylinders, I found some Wilwood MII replacement spindles. These are forged steel and are lighter than the stock parts and this will help offset the added weight of the big brakes. They also have a longer top leg. This will raise the outer ball joint and get back the camber gain that I lost when I raised the inner pivots to go to shim adjustment for alignment.

As usual, there was a downside. The steel brackets I had made for the stock spindles wouldn't fit the new spindles. The attachment points were completely different.

I started making new brackets out of aluminum, but first I had to make another pattern to get the hole spacing.



The new brackets had to have several steps to match the different heights of the mounting bosses. The spindles use bolt on steering arms and have a spacer under the rear bolt. I machined the brackets to include a spacer.



These aren't finished. I ran out of material and by the time it came in, the weather was warm enough to get back out in the shop. I can finish these later.

After we thawed out from the polar freeze, I got back to work on the firewall.

Like all the panels, the side pieces started out in cardboard.



After getting the side panel made, I made a top piece. This was a little tricky too, since not all of the bends could be done in the brake. I had to clamp the aluminum between a couple of pieces of flatbar and work the bends in by hand. The inside corner had to have a small part welded in.

I suppose I could have rolled some beads into the top pieces, but I was afraid that it was getting too "busy" with all the other bead work, especially since the top vertical part will get some beading too. Once the dome head aircraft rivets are installed, I don't think it will look nearly as plain. Most of the top pieces won't even show under the fenders, since the hood opening is fairly narrow. I would hate to have to remake them. I'll have to pass judgement on that after the front half is back in place.



Another side and top finished out the passenger side. The main part of the firewall is just about done. All that's left is a long narrow top piece.



I've got to refit the forward part of the body to get the final fit on the top part. Then I can work on tying the metal firewall into the fiberglass body. I've got a plan that I think will work.

Mike, that looks awesome. I like how the intake and fire wall now have a theme sort of with the lines. Nice work on the aluminum bending. I can relate. I did that when I bent the floor pieces for my corvette. Good work on the rear axle housing jig too. Don't worry, I won't judge. I've done nearly the same thing to straighten some metal.

Originally Posted by Hotrod46

I'm behind again on updates so here are a few more.
The bar is 2" diameter and it did have little bow in it. Hard to believe that size shaft could be bent, but it was. I'm kind of hesitate to show my rigged up "straightener", but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to get the part made. In spite of how this looks, no lathes were harmed in the making of this part.



At least I now have the tools I need to get the thing finished.

When I first looked at that top picture, HMmm.. my first thought wasn't pretty.

But after I actually saw what you were doing, well. I calmed down!
Sometimes ya' gotta do with what'cha got right?

34, you are absolutely right, but I did go back and post a "Don't try this at home" disclaimer.

I'm very much a product of the last century. I spent many years working in the oil field service industry. I've seen and done things that would make a modern safety man faint, but that was the nature of things back then. The people you worked for weren't interested in hearing why you couldn't do something and if all you had was excuses, they would just find someone else. You did what you had to do with what you had. Most of it worked OK and some of it didn't. If it didn't, you tried something else and hoped nobody got hurt.

As for this job, that little HF jack couldn't have stretched one strand of that chain, much less four strands. The chains I use are old US made high tensile pieces, not cheap hardware store stuff. It looks unsafe, but I was fully aware of the forces involved and the consequences of failure. Nobody wants me to get hurt less than me! I don't heal nearly as fast as I used to!

Actually, I couldn't give a hoot nor holler for the jack or chain. I was cryin' over the steady rest and lathe ways/bed! LOL.. But after I looked closer at the setup I could see the stress was on the shaft not the lathe specifically. Of course it's not my equipment right.. but I'd love to have better and can get wonky when someone buggers up a nice machine. You are also right about doing what needs to be done when the situation lands at your feet. To be successful, we do what it takes to deliver, or make every attempt to deliver. Okay, tell me to be quiet... back to our regularly scheduled program! LOL

OH, and Mike. If I haven't said it before ( or enough ) I really do love this build project! You've got so many sweet little touches and different concepts, how could any hot rodder NOT Love it?!?!?!

34, no offense taken and I feel the same way about machine abuse. I'm also glad that everyone seems to be liking the car.

That red South Bend lathe is my best one and I would never do anything to intentionally put it at risk. You are right that the forces were contained in the rig and bar. The steady rest was loose on the top.

The area I live in is something of a machine tool desert. It took a couple of years to find a good machine in my price range that wasn't completely worn out. My other lathe is much smaller and pretty loose. I use it for small, quick jobs that don't have to be super accurate. I would have used it for this job, but it's not long enough. The red machine is my go to tool for serious work.

Thanks Mike! Now back to the build. 8-)

I won't judge on the bottle jack either, I know I done similar things before and it usually goes fine. Usually I'm loving your firewall! It's sure is going to look good when you open the hood to show it off !

Sometimes we don't have the luxury of a close by fix so we make do based on where we are and what we have! You can spend a day trying to get a part, or 40 minutes jerry rigging something that ultimately works and allows you to continue without losing another day. For me this is huge since my free time is limited! Around here Fridays are a nightmare just getting to the auto parts store cross town. Our city traffic engineer is an idiot! Every major artery has been handicapped with lane reductions or poorly timed lights. Literally going 2 miles can take 20-30 minutes.

Wow! I can't believe I've let so much time get by without posting any updates. I keep saying I'm going to do better, but you can see how that turns out. I have been as busy as I can on the car though. Now, back to the show.

I wanted to keep on with the firewall, but was getting to the point where I needed to replace the front half of the body and there was something else I needed to do. My next project was a battery box.

I have wrangled with where to put the battery from the beginning of this build. There really weren’t many options. The original location was low on the passenger side, just in front of the firewall. I had to remove that battery mount when I extended the footwells. I also thought about mounting it over the rear axle under the passenger side fender. I knew this would help traction, but that area is where I want to put a well for a spare tire. Mounting it in the trunk would take up space in an already cramped area and putting it under the driver side rear fender would conflict with the gas filler pipe. I briefly considered putting it over the front axle, but nixed that idea about as fast as I came up with it. I wound up going back to the same location it was in originally. This spot does have the advantage of requiring very short battery cables. It’s also below and closer to the center of gravity, being between the axles.
Of course, I had less room to work with now after extending the floor, so I had to build a custom battery tray. I had to go to a smaller size battery just to get something to fit and there wasn’t a lot of room left over. The battery I picked is a smallish Optima 75/25 red top. It has both top and side posts. The side posts will make for easy electrical hookups without piggy backing them onto the top posts. I’ll be using the top posts for the main starter connections. I spent a little time at my local parts store looking at other batteries (non Optima) to see if anything they had could be pressed into service in an emergency. There were a couple that I could make work if needed.

I have been tempted by the ultra compact high tech batteries that are on the market now, but nobody carries them except for an occasional speed shop and the mail order places. I’ve already had a battery fail at a gas stop in my T Bucket on the way to a show. Fortunately, a local farm mechanic gave me a ride to a NAPA store a couple of miles away and I was able to get something that would work. An hour after the failure, I was back on the road again. Pretty mild as far as road breakdowns go, but if I had used one of the ultra compacts in a tight hidden space as some folks have done, I might not have been so lucky.
I had to wrestle a battery in and out of the original tray with the engine in place and it wasn’t any fun. The hood opening is narrow and the battery sits at the bottom of the engine compartment outside of the frame rails. You had to lift it over and then stretch to get it in the right place. My back just doesn’t like to do things like that now, so I looked at an easier way.

I’ve seen several street rods with drop out battery boxes and went in that direction. I looked at all the commercially available parts I could find, but they were all way too big for the space, so I came up with my own solution. Every one of the ready made units had rails that the box slid up and down on, but I didn’t have room for that. If you don’t have a way to guide the battery to where it goes, a drop out box is pretty much useless. I used a 36” long ladder type frame with a hinge at the rear to control the box as it’s moved into position. This frame is just thin wall ¾” square tubing and supports no load in normal use. The box bolts to the frame and floor when it’s in place. The rest of the time the frame is just along for the ride. I plan to carry a screw type scissor jack with my spare and will use that to lower and raise the battery. I’m sure my back will appreciate the extra effort I put into all of this. Also, I will eventually fab an aluminum cover for the lower part of the body and that will hide the parts of the box that you see below the frame right now.


This is a shot of the cardboard pattern and the 18 gauge blank. Sorry,the blank is a little hard to make out since it blends into the metal it’s laying on.



This is after bending it up and giving it a few lightening holes with dimple die flanges.



I bent up and welded on a smaller section of 18 gauge to double the thickness where the hinge frame welded on. This is the box bolted in place.



This is the hinge frame in the up position.





And this is with the box hinged down.





This is with the battery in place. You can see that there isn’t any extra room. I even had to cut off the original frame flange and weld a reinforcement piece to the outside to get the strength back. Luckily the fender bows out in this area and there was room. After getting it all in place, I think I’m going to have to put a removable access panel in the inner fender just to get to the electrical connections.

I knew that I was going to be replacing the body sections pretty quick and wanted to have a better way to handle them. The few times I’ve moved them in the past, I just rigged up something, but it was always a little shaky. I put in an overhead hoist when I built my shop and it sure makes moving heavy stuff easier.



I built this rig out of some 2x4’s. It will come apart so that I can store it. This will make pulling and installing the sections a lot easier and make me feel a little more confident about not dropping one, since I work by myself pretty much all the time.

With all the mods I have made to the original chassis, I’m going to have to drop the front half of the body straight down without a whole lot of wiggling. This frame allows me to do that.