UnderControl

That's the idea. Waffling between mounting to the sides, top, or yes.

Finished welding up the cart and mount. And did my first test bend. Just need to decide where to add the hangers for the dies.

Cart now with more triangles and a little over half welded.

Landed on a three wheel design. Tonight got the main bits cut and the base welded up. If I find it to be tippy I'll add some outriggers to the front.

I frequently lament the lack of space in the shop, so I should definitely be adding additional tools that take up more of it. Just need to finalize my plans for the cart and figure out where it's going to live.

Haven't quite gotten my head back to the 66 yet. Been staring at the front suspension and if I extend the strut rods far enough to get the lower control arms perpendicular to the frame rails and go with a 1/4-1/2" shorter spacer I might be able to get away without too much fender modification. However, extending the strut rod that far doesn't leave me with enough engagement on the ends. Will have to check with the maker to see where these should be adjusted to. In the meantime I decided to try out a new shift knob for the 05. Gave me an excuse to use some of that delrin I've had sitting around for a while. Should be more difficult to slip off when really banging gears.

One of the last things to do before calling the shop reclaimed enough to get back to working on stuff was to get the bead roller dies off the bench. I have previously made some racks that bolt to the sides of the stand, but the design fell a bit short. For one the pins were too short, exacerbated by them being angled so the dies couldn't sit all the way to the base. Then the spacing was a bit tight making it cumbersome to swap them around. New plan, longer pins set 90° to the frame with hooks to keep the does from sliding off, and one fewer pin per rack since I really only needed 16 pins to hold all of my dies anyway.

Shop reclamation project underway. First order of business was to get the spare engine shoved under a shelf. So, I made up a quick and dirty cart for it. For not having touched the mig in a year I'm quite chuffed with these. Been going through my various junk piles sorting out what's actually worth keeping vs pitching or scrapping. Finally got around to pulling out my small metal stocks. Now with hopefully more usable organization.

Interested to see how this turns out. My 620 came with both a step side and the original bed. Since I don't think step sides look right on anything after the 1950s I stuck with the og. A bullet side bed with step side fenders could be interesting.

In this particular case it's an aftermarket shaft that I got second hand around the time I got this second hand transmission. Interestingly it didn't appear that the driveshaft shop did anything with the weights, no new ones and the old ones are still in place, but whatever they did got me sorted. Just glad I don't have to pull the transmission again. In other news after putting the suspension through the Indiana road test, the rear end, at least by eye, is centered. Wish it was a bit lower. And those camber plates didn't provide very much camber at all. Hoping to run in the negative 2.5-3° range. So, I'll likely end up slotting the upper mounting hole on the struts.

Evidently forgot to take pictures, but threw the lights and bumper back on and took the car for a shakedown run to the car wash. No issues on that short drive so I went ahead and drove it around for a while longer. Boost is basically on demand now, not that there was a lot of lag before. Got out on the highway and happily no more drivetrain vibrations. Glad getting the driveshaft balanced fixed that. Still have a couple of items to button up, but this project is effectively complete other than an updated tune.

Core support painted. Got the toe roughly set. Reset the watts link. This time I put the front on ramps instead of Jack stands so it was actually on the suspension. Got the rear end centered and everything torqued back down, verified the axle was still centered. Put the car back on the ground and the axle was shifted to the driver's side again. I think I'm fighting against my floor being neither flat nor level. It should be good enough to get a couple of shake down miles to get the suspension settled. From there I'll see how things are sitting and decide if I'll get around to making those leveling pads I've been thinking about for ages, borrow a friend's garage with a better floor or see about renting some time on a 4 post at the local rent a bay place.

Back on the ground for the moment anyway. I could tell while it was still in the air that it was going to have a bit of toe out, but wanted to see just how much before deciding what and how much to cut. Part of the issue is that the new rod ends are a touch longer than the originals. But even with the old ones the adjustment was bottomed out to get the toe zeroed out. So I opted to chop 5/8 off the inner tie rods. Probably could have gotten away with 3/8 but I already didn't do that and I still have lots of engagement on either end. What I hadn't expected to find is that the rear axle is offset to the driver's side by about 12mm so going to have loosen and reset the watts link. In other news the springs are certainly stiff.

My issue with trying to use the bleeder is that it's tucked so tightly into the tunnel that I can barely get a wrench on it and then I don't have enough throw to crack it. Earl's did have the fitting I needed in stock locally and even a couple bucks cheaper than summit. Of course while I was replacing it I found out that I had the retaining clip pushed in too far and that's why it was popping off. Oh well, now I have a stainless fitting and new orings. Vacuum bleeder on the reservoir and a few minutes kicking the pedal got it sorted easy peasy. Otherwise I got the interior put back together and cleaned up some wiring for the lights.

Been using a build your own motorcycle cable on my 620 for years. Cheap and easy.