Search results

I got most of the tunnel welding done, but not before I ran out of argon and had to go back to the welding shop. I also got the welding done on the rear pan corners. I’m flipping the frame back-and-forth so that I don’t do too much welding on either side at once. I’m trying very hard to keep...

Meyer’s Lemon

Too windy to weld today. I’m baking a lemon pound cake.

This is my outdoor shop, after much sweeping and vacuuming. Most of my welding and grinding and painting work happens under this big tent, which I call an awning for legal reasons.

Is that a brisket smoker down on the end? That’s Quite the grill.

Exactly. That gave us about 45 minutes warning before they hit New England. The data is on Wikipedia and other places on the Internet, if you want to look up “the Texas towers”.

Back in 1956 my dad was serving on a “secret” offshore radar platform. It had microwave communications with Cape Cod and was below Nova Scotia, about where you see the X in my map. That one was disassembled decades ago, but there’s another one that went down with 42 men, in a storm, and it sits...

If you take a boat you can eat seafood all the way there and all the way back. But who knows what that would cost or how long it would take?

I finally got caught up with my car welding enough to wanna post silly stuff like pictures of food. Today I made cornbread and split pea soup with carrots onions and smoked ham. Still needs a couple more hours in this picture.

I got all of the frame rails fully seamed, top and bottom now. I did this with dozens of skip welds, so there are lots of stops and starts. I also got the rest of the floor ledgers welded to the crossmember. Before I roll it again, I need to weld on the tunnel, and partially weld the...

The coconuts are genius, but I also really liked the rack. At this point I might get a small log and carve a tiki with the Dremel, Then split it in half, carve out the inside, fit it over the stem, and screw it together from the back.

There’s my safety stand. I got about 40% of the top seams done tonight, plus several small welds, front and rear.

I wish, but there is still much welding to do. Today I got more of the floor welding done, and I got the frame rails tied in better at the rear corners. But I ran out of argon again. I did get more welding done, but nothing spectacular.

I got that bracket welded back tight. I rolled the frame back and forth today, to get all the floor ledger welds. I put on 50 welds there, plus another dozen on the pan patches and frame closures.

Dramatic photograph of chassis sitting at 45°. You can see that for safety I’ve got 13 legs and a chain under this thing. The shiny new floor patch never got trimmed properly and it forced this plate out of alignment at the joint I have indicated. (In this photograph I have already trimmed the...

Here is the passenger seat arrangement showing the correct risers. But these mount the seat directly to the tin floor and that is no Bueno.

These are the seat rails, and they are adjustable, but there’s no lock on one side. This relies on the seat frame itself to absorb a lot of force, and is a prime cause of seat frame breakage. I suffered this in more than one bucket seat car. But this is only of academic interest as I am going...

OK, this is one of those fabrication defects. This should line up like so: ..but I forgot to trim the left floor pan. I’m going to cut this loose and straighten it up.

Today I spent most of my efforts cutting up the rest of the jig, and cleaning up all the scraps, grinder dust, paint, dirt etc. Then I ignored the next grinding and welding tasks, to take stock, take measurements, and design some seat support frames. I have a couple fabrication defects I want...

I did have to invert my big clamp to get things on center. It’s still wrong in this pic. But now I finally have the frame flipped back right-side-up. I’ve never seen it in this position before, with the frame rails and firewall crossmember attached. This is indeed a project milestone.