Week #98

There is so much to do. After selling my '68 and taking inventory of what I had and what I needed... quite frankly I was in shock. I literally had nothing but a shell. To put it in perspective... I feel fortunate that MOST of the front suspension was there. ALL other parts have had to be purchased. You've heard of "building a car around a door handle" well this is damn close!

I dug the suspension parts out of various boxes and laid them out for evaluation. All were covered in "age" but were there and useable. The front discs look real thick but I was missing the calipers and adapters. My plan was to bead blast the upper and lower control arms, take them in to have the bushings pressed out and then haul them over to a local powder coater. I very much wanted to try out this process on the front suspension. Well, I made a humongous mistake taking the upper arms to have the bushings removed... I know, I know, NOW I know I could take them out myself, but at the time this seemed like the thing to do. Anyhoo, they must of had a hell of a time getting those bushings out... as evident by the bent lips, deep gouges and long scrapes the arms received! DAMNIT!!! You know, there aint much original on this car... now I have to find new upper control arms for christsake!

Now, more things I thought I could use, the original "K" member. I knew when I bought the car that the HEMI mounts had been cut off the "K" member and RB mounts welded in place. You can clearly see where the original mounts were welded so my plan from the beginning was to cut off the RB mount, buy a pair of HEMI mounts and weld them back on this original "K" member. A little research showed that just a pair of mounts was in the $300 range! Heck, for $450 or so I could get a whole friggin HEMI "K" member! So that's what I did. I bought a nice HEMI "K" member that was already cleaned and powder coated. This saved me a ton of work and was just about the same cost as me cutting, welding, cleaning and having the old one powder coated. I felt pretty good about getting the new one.

The Dana is dated correct for the car and included the complete correct 10" rear brakes. It was REAL grimey from spending it's life who knows where. I layed it down on some cardboard and started the process of spraying it down with cleaner. This will take a while. I'll just hit it with cleaner every once in a while as it lays there. It also needs some adjusting. The spring mounts had been moved outward to fit whatever kind of car it was in last. Again, you can see right where the mounts were originally and I will be cutting off the mounts that are there and welding on a new pair that were included when I bought the Dana.