Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

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I had to close out that post because I never know when my computer is going to freeze up on me. When this car is done I've got to buy a new one.

Got some very good progress done tonight. The rain we were supposed to get never materialized, and the night was beautiful. Nice painting weather.

I've mentioned that I didn't buy a Posies Superslide front spring because I was trying to bring the car in within budget at that time, and now that I have the regular Speedway spring it just makes good sense to use it. Uncle Bob offered a solution, in that Chassis Engineering sells these poly buttons that are made to insert between the spring leaves to give you a poor mans Posies spring. I ordered enough for the front and rear spring, and they came in today.

Thanks for that heads up Bob. These really are a good way to go.

What you have to do to install them is drill a 7/16 hole through a spring leaf, and the head of the button pops in that hole. Then, when you put the spring together, the buttons get trapped between the leaves and can't come out. The concept is that the buttons "slide" more easily that just metal to metal.

Drilling spring steel is sometimes very tough, and Chassis Engineering suggests a drill press that turns 100 RPMS, and lots of cutting oil. I didn't want to use cutting oil because with all the problems I have been having priming stuff, the last thing I wanted was oil on a spring I planned to paint. So I decided to just buy a very good titanium drill bit, and if it burns up, so be it. That is what I did, and luckily, the drill bit made it through all 8 holes I had to drill.

Here are some pictures of the buttons and how they insert into the spring.


Picture one shows the hole I drilled, and the plastic button that will be popped into it.

Picture two shows the button loosely put into that hole.

Picture three shows how I drilled the holes so that they would not show on the top of each leaf. I drilled the holes so that the leaf on top of each one extends out over the hole, hiding it.

Picture four show that same relationship.

Picture five shows the leaf installed on top of the one with the holes, and how the holes are not visable.

I did that on each leaf, so that no holes I drilled are exposed. Right after this was done, I sandblasted the entire spring and started over with a clean spring. I was not happy with the orange on it because I ran out of paint before I got some heavy coverage, and it came out bad.

Don