clubhouse customs

The front end if finally done. I basically hate the stock grille in there but it will have to do for now. Its also better than a big gaping hole. Ill start working on the new one eventually.

Almost finished with the trunk lid mounts. I have two more to mount once the last few camloc parts come in and two more to fab up still (the two under the rear window). The license plate is mounted using two LED lit bolts at the top for the plate lights and two rivets at the bottom.

Dan

Front is now basically done other than a new grille. For now Im going to just sorta hack in the origial grille, even tho it fits like crap, until I can get all of my carbon fiber supplies.

Tonight, on to the decklid.

Dan

Made the headlight harness friday night, and redid the wiring on the headlights themselves. I need to either try and get a new HB cover from DDM or just cover the hole I had from the other HID (Im just running low now for simplicity). Also need to make a bracket to hold the mating connector for the headlights since I wont be able to hold it forever.

I still need to wire up the corner and fender lights. Maybe Ill get to that sat night.

Dan

• Painted the new pass side axle
• Welded mounts for the HID ballasts on the core support / headlight assy and painted it low gloss black
• Painted the mounting flanges of the bumper tube and installed it
• Rivited the HID ballasts in place
• Cleaned the old ass stickers off the radiator and cleaned it and the shrouding
• Cleaned up the engine bay a little

Dan

I spent a bunch of time the other day finishing up the headlight mount. I still need to adda  few tabs for the grill

Ended up with a few more fasteners than I wanted but it still comes out pretty quicky. Two qr pins on the main bar, 2 1/4″ bolts for the upper rad support and 2 1/4″ bolts under the headlights.

All in all Im pretty happy how it turned out.

Last night I added tabs for the grill mount to the headlight assembly, and added two more tabs for two more camlock fasteners to the bumper cover. No pics to show for it yet, I pulled it back out to do tonights work.

Tonight was huge. I finally cleaned up the chassis where I removed the stock core cupport, primed, painted and cleared it all (spraybom). The color match isnt exact, and I didnt try to blend it or anything. Maybe next winter Ill redo the whole engine bay, until then this will do.

Also primed, painted and cleared the bumper tube… again with spraybom. Which, I must say turned out fantastic for a spraybom job.

I cant wait to start assembling after the holiday.

Thats it til next week.

Dan

Finally made up my mind about the rear shock spacers and got them made, painted and installed.

Next I pretty much got all the rear suspension together: shocks in, swaybar all tightened (at least on one side until I can scale and align everything), K brace bars in. I mainly just need to get the brakes finished up, but Im not gona mess with it until after the rear alignment is done, which is a total pain unbolting the hubs to change spacers.

Then I bolted the battery back in, and did a little touch up painting where I cut the hinge brackets out on the inner tire wells.

Worked on my alignment setup. I was totally tired of having to setup the string bars on jackstand and double check them everytime I roll the car or whatever.  The front is all done. I have most of hte rear done, at least all the welding. I need to pick up two conduit elbows in the am to finish it up. Should be pretty slick and very easy to setup and make repeatable measurements with. The best part is it didnt cost much at all. Conduit and the parts are just so cheap.

I cut a compression union in half and welded two to the front bumper tube, and two to the rear frame rails. To make the Ts, I just used the cheaper unions and ground out the little nipple inside, then welded a short piece of conduit on.

Finished up the alignment setup. Its hard to tell but there is a string there, acutaly fishing line (obviously)

I also painted the exhaust that I have done so far, bolted the tie rods up, installed the pass side engine area splash guard thing, redid some wiring in the trunk, and cleaned the hell out of the rest of my garage, hah.

Finally got to the headlight mounts. They are basically done, I just need to do the final welding and drill and tap the lower bracket where it bolts to the bumper tube.

I think the pics explain it well enough.

Dan

Ive been sick for a couple weeks so progress has been quite slow.

I have the front suspension all together, finally, after battling (and ignoring) a clearance issue with my monoball plates. The only exception would be the pass side axle. I had it all in and then realized that a hole magicaly developed in the outer boot while resting in my shed the last two years. So Im still tracking down the right boot.

Also finally got a replacement rear wheel bearing with the right size splines for my ARP studs and got those pressed in sunday. I dont know whats with some of these mfgs using oversized splines.
Got the car down on monday night, finally. Still a lot to do but its nice to see it on the ground (or the scales as it might be). Current weight is 2330, but I have 18lbs or so of exhaust to put on still. So it should end up ~2350.

Finished up mono ball plate

Wooo… wheels down!

Yes, the one rear shock is missing.

Still a crap ton to do, but at least progress is moving forward again.

Dan

Progress has been slow as of late, but not for a lack of trying. Took me a bit to figure out just how I was going to mount the bumper cover. Its more or less done now. I just need to add a couple alignment pins at the top that will connect to the bumper tube.

Im SOOO glad that I went with the Skybolt camloc type hardware. They were a bit pricier than dzus at almost $7 per set, but so easy to install and the adjustable socket made adjustments a snap. 

Few pics of the progress

Dan

After two annoying and long nights of screwing around I finally finished up the new jackshaft bracket. The old one I had made sorta sucked for reasons I wont go into. (for non j-body people the 2.2 never came with a jackshaft. I adapted the V6 setup to work on the 2.2)

Anyway, here is the new one.

Modified the stock V6 bracket and welded some nuts in place to make bolting it together easier.

The rediculous bracket. Its only two pieces… a piece of rectangle tube and a flat 1/8″ plate.

So I just need to install the front knuckles and the axles and the whole front suspension will be back together. Then the car can come off jackstands and I can finish up a few little thigns on the rear.

Dan

Last night I shortened the front strut tubes by 3/4″. With the new ball joints I will be able to lower the car and keep a reasonable camber curve, or hopefully one that at least doesnt go positive. So they are all reassembled and back in the car just waiting for the axles and knuckles.

I also reamed out the holes in the knuckles for the new ball joint studs.

More to come tonight or tomorrow.

Dan