Steering and Front Brakes

Spent the last week or so working when I had the chance on the front disc brakes and steering components.  Everything came together nicely, with less "trial and error" than previous steps.  The next step is the independent rear suspension, but a couple of parts are still backordered.  The basic operation of the rear suspension is similar than the front, so I'm hoping I can take what I learned on the front suspension and apply it to the rear.

Front Suspension

This weekend I worked on the independent front suspension.  After a little bit of trial and error and a lot of reading, it all cam together nicely.  The next steps will be to attach the wheel hubs and rotors, then the steering components.  I had all sorts of helpers today, which was nice because sometimes small parts needed small fingers (especiall when I dropped them in hard to get to spaces).

Attaching aluminum to frame

It's finally warmed up enough around here that my fingers didn't go numb after 30 minutes, so I spent some time today working on the aluminum panels.  I marked and photo documented the locations of the front aluminum before removing them from the frame.  I then drilled the first three pieces (left and right engine bay and firewall), modified the firewall to fit the optional heater/defroster, and siliconed and rivoted all three to the frame.  It was my first time using a rivot gun with my compressor, so I was a bit nervous on the first one.  It was piece of cake, and a HUGE time saver.  According to the manual, these are the only three pieces to be attached at this point.  Now on to step two, the front suspension.  Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for a few pieces from Factory Five for this next step.  Boxes of parts are still arriving on a regular basis, just not the part I need.

Chassis without body

I built the body buck and removed the body from the chassis this weekend.  I built the buck on Friday.  The buck is on wheels, and I built a solid ledge at the bottom to hold all of the boxes.  I'm trying to conslidate so I don't take up the entire garage.  On Saturday afternoon, Chris from across the street came over to help me move the body off the chassis.  It took us about 30 minutes..... 5 minutes to remove the body, 25 minutes to stand around and talk about how cool it looked.