Project Silver Fox AWD Updated 7/1

[RIDELIKEHELL]

Very impressive fabrication  I will be following this one!

[motorcitydak]

Thanks man, I try. I was just one of those kids who grew up taking everything apart. Now, I have no problem making whatever I need

I worked more on the Watt's link, making the frame brackets and figuring out the length of the links which I have ordered.

These are the brackets I made, just simple stuff. 1x2 1/8 wall box steel. Perfect since it has a 3/4 inside and my frame rails are just over 2 inches wide



Then after measuring for a while, I hacked some holes into the frame rails





Then tacked those brackets into place. I want to get my links just to make sure the angles are perfect. I set them at 80 degrees and used a 3/4 wood dowel to set this thing up



Does not seem like much I guess. I feel like I was out there for a long time with not much to show...o well. Ill get more stuff done later and hope to some day actually get a steering rack for it

[b5blue]

12 years of steel framing taught me time spent figuring getting where you need to end up is well spent!  It won't feel like so much time later if your not re-doing it. 

[motorcitydak]

Yeah I hear ya there. I just had to redo the rear brackets on my rockers in the front push rod setup. I realized that the rockers were tilted backwards slightly and that would have pushed my crossmember forward, which it was not designed to withstand.

I just had these dropped off at the house. Not really an update but I wanted to show off. They are the 6 piston calipers from a ZO6 vette, they will go on 14.1 inch rotors and give me some serious stopping power. I just wish I had the bolts to put em on my knuckles. For reference, they are sitting on 13 inch steel wheels....they are huge but aluminum so they barely weigh anything

[Kern Dog]

There was a guy at the 2011 LA Spring Fling show that merged a 69 Charger body over a newer Charger substructure. His had the 5.7 I believe.  Your thread had me wondering...... PLEASE do not take this wrong, but did you consider doing this using a late model 300C AWD ? I DO appreciate all the work you have completed so far, as it is far beyong anything many members here will ever try. I was just curious if this project is more of a matter of you wanting to test your skills to custom fabricate and mix and match OEM stuff versus taking an easier, yet MORE expensive path. I'll admit though that finding and buying a wrecked AWD 300 could pose some difficulty.

[motorcitydak]

No worries man. I did take a serious look into the Chrysler AWD platform but I did not like it for a few reasons. One of them being just the fact that it was so hard to find any decent info on em. Then I had to use the Mercedes auto trans and their giant transfer case. All of that has to be meticulously electronically controlled and is quite complicated, not to mention heavy. Then one on the big nails in the coffin, the diff is mounted to the side of the engine which locates the engine for you but it is way too far forward for my liking. My weight distribution would have been horribly front heavy. The cross over shaft from the front diff passes thru the oil pan and I believe that it is also electronically controlled but I am not 100% sure on that last one.

The GM Cadillac STS stuff I got is much different. The transfer case also is supposed to mount to the back of a 4wd style transmission but it is much easier to adapt to a 2wd trans. It is also quite light weight and has no electronic control for it at all. The front diff also mounts to the engine but it is much smaller and easier to mount by itself. Then there is the CV shafts and hubs. The STS stuff uses the same outer spline count as just about any other GM CV shaft, including the C6 Corvette allowing me to use the C6 rear hubs and knuckles. The Chrysler hubs are not exactly awesome and the knuckles are so tall (like 2 feet between ball joints) that I could never get decent camber gain 

[motorcitydak]

Spent a little time in there with a grinder. I could not stay very long tho just because of all the dust it put into the air. I guess its from all the old undercoating and dirt but I had to throw in the towel when my nose was running like crazy and it was all black...lol

Here is a bunch of junk I cut outta the back end. This pile includes the remnants of the trunk floor, the fuel tank crossmember, the shock crossmember and some flanges from the frame rail



Here is my now cleaner back end, way easier to get to all the junk thats still in there. This shot shows the links in the Watt's. I just got a digital angle finder which is nice. I bought it specifically to measure this, the bad news is that the arms are about 1.5 degrees off. I could not tell that with my other, swinging angle finder. Not a big deal tho, thats why I just tacked in the brackets. Im going to cut one back out and move it



and this is the rear end at ride height. The tires will sit about 3/8 further out because I do not have the drive plates on the full floater ends



Here is the purpose for making the room on the back end. I sort of have to do a push rod setup there and I sort of am doing it just because I can. Same deal as the front, 6 inches of allowed wheel travel using a 6.9 travel shock. I laid it out in card board in the house after I got smoked outta the garage

Ride height, the link end is slightly up because its angle got too bad at full droop



Full droop



and compression. The piece of the right is where the shocks will mount. With the car at ride height, the loads from the 2 coil overs will point rite at each other in the same piece of aluminum. That means that the chassis will really not see any of the load from having to support itself. I dunno about you but I think that is pretty cool



Thats all for now, I have to order the 6061 to build this thing and get more shoulder bolts and bushings (for Bryce)

[b5blue]

Cool concept! 

[motorcitydak]

Almost finished up the rear pushrod setup. I still need to make the 1/8 steel brackets to weld to the frame but I got this finished up so I can get the length of the pushrods. I got that and have ordered them, should be in in a few days so I can both those up and make the axle side brackets. After that the rear end is pretty much done. This is built very similar to the front end I did except the aluminum is 3/8 thick bolted together with 3/8 grade 8 bolts and I cut up 0.75 0.120 wall aluminum tubing for spacers. I am still waiting on my steering rack from Woodward, hoping that shows up some time soon.

Here is the finished pushrod frame sitting in place. I used some 1x1 aluminum as mock up shocks

[b5blue]

Good progress!   

[motorcitydak]

Thanks B5, I am super excited about the work I got done tonight!!!

For the first time in almost 3 years, this car has a rear axle secured to it! I have had the 3 link on there for quite a while now but the Watt's is "done" and the car is holding its own axle in place thanks to my "finished" rear pushrod setup!! I had to wrap a few things up on it and it always takes longer than I would like but this thing is now solidly in place

I started off by laying out and making these brackets in 1/8 steel



Then I had to take apart the pushrod thing....again...to mount the brackets and drill out more 3/8 holes. I also had the steel brackets hold the shoulder bolt that the rocker pivots on just for a little more strength



Then it got put back together, kinda gets to be a PITA!! Here it is all done tho which is nice. I weighed this and it is 24 pounds total, wish it was less but o well, it may become swiss cheese later on



Axle got a few more brackets, again from 1/8. I only boxed in the inner sides of these. I do not want them filling up with dirt and mud then rusting out from the inside



A little more wrestling and welding later and its in place!! The pushrods attach so far out on the axle that this thing should be relatively stable even without a sway bar. It will still be getting one tho obviously



Look at it, just sitting there. Aside from a sway bar and some sweet ridetech coil overs, this rear end is done!

[b5blue]

Are you gonna get all this worked out and drive it some for testing before doing the body work? (I would, even if it means more work later.) 

[440]

Looks cool but can't see the performance gains of that shock set up.

Patiently waiting for car to materialize and drive  

[motorcitydak]

I really want to get the body in primer this summer, then continue on the mechanical stuff. If I get some epoxy stuff on there then i can drive it around and not worry about it getting wet. I agree with you, i can drive it around and see what happens, then make it shiny later


I too am waiting for it all to come together but I am really not very patient anymore, its been 3 years and i want it to run some day. I do have some more cool parts on their way rite now and i hope to get them in along with an engine here within in a month.

As for the shock setup, its a pushrod setup and has a couple of distinct advantages over a traditional coil over setup. One being that the axle control from the shocks acts on the axle very far out from the center line of the axle, more towards the wheel. Usually a coil over gets mounted much further inboard due to the frame rails. This is fine for a drag strip car but it allows excessive body roll in a turn. It keeps the shocks up out of the way to allow more room for exhaust. The other advantage is that I can modify the motion ratio of the shock itself. What that means is that the shock will move more than the axle. I will have a 6.9 inch travel shock and am only allowing 6 inches of axel travel. That allows better control and a better ride. You can see the rocker that the two arms are different lengths, that is what changes the motion ratio

[motorcitydak]

I did get some work done to it, worked on placing the rack finally. First off all of the front end stuff had to come out. Because of its height, the crossmember braces had to be hacked in half. The drivers side more so than the passenger because of the gear box of the rack



Then with the rack back in place, I put 1/2 threaded rod thru the mounts so I can make sure the bolts are vertical and this also made it really easy to place the brackets



Here is the drivers side bracket that I ended up with, its 3/16 plate with 1/8 vertical walls. I placed a stack of washers between the 3/16 pieces to space them out an inch. Of course when they were welded together, I could not get them out. So they got welded in place. I had to clearance the one side of the bracket to fit around the rack





I read something from Woodward that you should use washers between the rack and mount to spread out the load and also allow some bump steer adjustment. I placed 2 washers between the rack and mount. The housing is magnesium which is pretty cool but obviously needs to be protected

Here is the drivers side bracket in place. The bottom side is unwelded, I want to lift the front of the car up so I can get under there. I need to finish up the crossmember joints to the frame as well as this piece



The passenger side was much easier because the bolt fell rite on top of that side brace. I put a piece of 3/16 across the tube and another on a small stand to get it up to the rack





The room it has to live in



With that in place, I pulled the rack and burned the mounts in for good and drilled the 1/2 hole thru the passenger side. I will put another piece of the bottom of that tube to give the bolt a flat mounting surface. What do you guys think about this mount? I feel like it mite need at least a horizontal plate to brace it further to the crossmember tube. It will obviously see force in a sideways directions and really only the drivers mount is built to do that. The pass side does/will go thru 3 pieces of 3/16 and the 0.120 wall of the tube



With those done, I finally bolted the rack in place!!



Unfortunately this then got evicted in favor of better suspension geometry



I removed the front diff's mounting brackets but while in that process, my grinder gave up the ghost. Since it was 3am, there was no store to open to get another one from. I figured out that one of the power wires had broken inside the cord so its working again with a 1 foot shorter cord but that just about did me in for the night. I did grind those mounts down flush with the tubes tho.

The last thing I did get done was to make a Hemi sized hole in the firewall. I cardboard template over the Hemi gave me this hole, I wanted to tops angled like that because the steering column support is really close on that side. I still need to cut the floors. If any of you guys need a piece from the firewall or the trans tunnel, please let me know. I can send out whatever you need





After that, I will get ALL the stuff out from under the car and remove the table. Then I want to strip everything from the car and try to weigh the bare shell. If I can ever get ahold of another ball joint nut, I can then put it all back together and get this car on the ground and see how well the Hemi fits in there. I have decided to get the engine placed then try to fit the front diff back in. Im pretty sure a remote filter is in store for this motor. I had a dream last night that it all fit, so it has to be possible

[b5blue]

You have been busy buddy!!    You've got to be excited about getting the engine sitting in there. 

[motorcitydak]

Yeah, I really am excited! I think it will have to go in the way they did at the factory, from the bottom. There is just not enough room in the "engine bay" and with it going that far back, I cannot use an overhead chain to lower the motor it.

I also think I am going to have to rename the engine bay since the engine will not even really be there. Something more like 'shock compartment'

[b5blue]

You may need to make part of the firewall/trans. hump removable for access....like on Triumph's cars.  You have some figuring out left to do that's for sure.

[motorcitydak]

My plan for the motor is to replace the spark plugs before it goes in for good, then hopefully let it ride for 25,000 miles or so. I would like to have a removable access panel as long as it will not compromise the rigidity of the tunnel I will be building

I sure did kick my own ass out there in the garage last night. I work nights so I am always awake these hours, I went out there at about 7pm, did not come back inside until 8am except for food twice and I watched a DVR'd episode of Top Gear (the show that led to my downfall). I had pretty ambitious plans for the car so I wanted to get everything done that I possibly could. I only got 1 nut for the ball joints with the lower control arms that I got. I had no luck trying to find a source for a 11/16 ball joint castle nut by itself. I just bought the cheapest k727 joint I could find on ebay, cost me $17 iirc.

I started off with getting everything out and off the car that has collected there over the last 2 years of it sitting on jack stands. I also finally got to pull my table out from under the front end. It looked pretty weird to me sitting like this



After it was a completely bare shell, I finally got to do something that I have been thinking about for years



I weighed the bare shell using 300# analog scales under each of the jack stands. You have to use analog ones because a modern digital one will only give you a weight once and for a few seconds then it turns off. I zero-ed the scales with the stands on them. I measured the weight 3 times to make sure that my results were correct. I would put my jack by the stand, lift it off to get the scale to 0 then release. Record the 4 weights then do it again. What I came up with is very surprising and good to know. This bare shell only weighs in at 635 pounds!

Getting that weight was the only reason that I had to take every single thing off the car. After that I spent a few hours putting the front and rear suspension back in. Keen viewers will notice tie rods making their first appearance here. That was about the only fab I did last night. The Woodward rack has 5/8 RH thread studs on the monoball ends. I had to use 3/4 x 3/4 aluminum rod ends for the knuckle side. I got some tube adapters that both fit 1 1/4 0.120 wall DOM and built these up



Front tires got bolted on for the first time too



then the rear axle and suspension got placed again. I only have 2 of my 18x10 wheels rite now so the back end got the old rollers that the car came on. Glad I did not get rid of these things! After that there were a few tense moments as the car came closer and closer to the cement. It eventually came in for a nice landing.



This is sitting at ride height, its roof is 50 inches from the floor



With the Fox back on the ground for the first time in 2 years, I turned back to other stuff, namely the engine. Because of its height from the ground and placement of the engine, putting the motor in from the top, thru the engine bay and down is not possible. The firewall cut out and cowl is just too low, can't be done....so I got creative

I built this little sled with some all metal casters, 2x4's and 6 inch lag bolts



That placed the motor at the correct height for when it is sitting in the car. The lag bolts allowed me some adjustment. The sled is much longer than needed so I can also fit the bell housing and transmission onto this



With that done, I hooked the engine lift back to the front end of the car and picked it up as high as it would go. I could really use a 2 post lift if someone has one to donate!





Here is the back end of the car at that angle, dam near touching the ground



The the engine simply got slid into place. I really like these 2 pics





Then it slowly was lowered back to the ground. It took me an hour or so just because of little mounts of trimming of the floor pans I had to do so this would fit in

Motor, what motor? LOL, not much to see here!





Ahh, there it is!





those lag bolts rest on horizontal pads that are cast into the engine block, pretty handy for me



New avatar pic!



I laid a fiberglass hood with 6 pack scoop on it that i have. I will not be using this hood tho



The oil filter is ruining my front driveshaft plans, it will have to go



and lastly, unfortunately the LCA hits the wheels when they are turned. I will have to cut a bit out of these arms. Will probably use these arms for mock up only then build a jog off them and make my own that will clear everything. With just one wheel on I do get 33 degrees of steering in the other direction when the rack runs out of travel



I plan to get some more of the trans tunnel cut out tonight, remove a lot of the stock torsion bar crossmember and place the bell housing and transmission