Budget street legal rail (re)build (WARNING: pic heavy)

[dustymojave]

It's cool that you got that book. I'm not real into drag racing, but I own the same book, less autograph and slip cover. I got mine back in the 60s, IIRC, about '68. Looks about t6he same condition too.

And now that I've written this post, I'm thinking I posted about it already, it must have been on TOS.

[GoMopar440]

That's my fault, not yours, because I have the same build thread going in two places at the same time. There's a portion of site members, on both websites, that only frequent one website or the other. I started this duplicate thread over here to try to get input from a different audience that what's on TOS. That way I get feedback from both sites, usually with different perspectives. It makes it a little bit tedious for me to have to maintain both threads, but it's worth it to be able to get the varied viewpoints. Sorry about any confusion I may have caused as a result.

[bajaherbie]

Cool find on the book!

[dustymojave]

That's my fault, not yours,... Sorry about any confusion I may have caused as a result.

Nah! My fault for not checking back to see if I had already posted it on here. I ran the risk of re-posting on the same forum. I understand entirely why you run your threads on both sites. That's why I recommended STF-ORF to you over on TOS. So even IF my confusion WERE your fault (and it most definitely is NOT), the responsibility would come back to me anyway.

We're cool anyway.

[GoMopar440]

I've been a bit under the weather lately so I haven't been getting much done on the rail over the last few days. The rain we've been getting for the last four days hasn't been helping either. In place of working outside or out in the barn I've been drawing up the new tunnel on AutoCAD Inventor. I already have the base of it drawn up, but I need to get the angles for the front and back kick ups before I can attach those parts to the base in the drawing. Hopefully I'll be able to get out there tomorrow if the weather and my health cooperates. Tomorrow's forecast calls for only a 10% chance of rain, so chances are good I'll be able to get the measurements I need.

If I feel up to it I'll start welding the pieces of angle I cut for the tunnel frame together afterwards. I've decided to remove the old shift box from it's current location on the frame and weld it directly to the new tunnel base. That will let me fine tune the shifter location so it fits me perfectly. The new tunnel base will be 5' long by 6" tall and only 2.5" wide. I am making the tunnel as narrow as possible to give the most room for the seats. I might have a little extra space when I'm done, but there's always the possibility I may want to change these seats down the road.

[GoMopar440]

The second 40 HPMX carb has finally been ordered and should arrive in about a week. I ordered a snail sync tool at the same time, so I'll be able to get both carbs dialed in properly when I start tuning.

A universal throttle cable kit rounded out the order since my current throttle cable and tube have seen better days. I got the 9' Empi throttle cable kit with a plastic sleeve to run the cable through. It can't be any worse than the junk I've already got on the rail now. lol

[cbeck]

I gave up on tubes to carry the throttle cable and now use eye bolts to guide the cable. I think that is easier to install and allows the cable to move more freely.

[GoMopar440]

I'm not worried about using the tube type setup at all. I've had a lot of experience with building RC aircraft that use the tube and rod configuration almost exclusively for the controls. The key is making sure the tube is aligned at both ends and that the aren't any excessive bends in the tube. I'll have lots of places to be able to attach the clamps to support the tube with the new tunnel I'm making.

I can see where the eye bolts would offer little resistance to the cable passing through it though. My biggest concern would be with the durability of the cable with it exposed to the elements. I'll be blocking off the bottom of the new tunnel so that shouldn't be as big of an issue as it would have been. The tube should help hold the lube in and around the cable rather than having to keep applying it all the time. One other concern is the angle on the cable at the ends where it enters and exits the eye bolts. If they're not aligned perfectly the cable will be getting drawn over the side of the openings in the eyebolts at an angle. Have you seen any kinks forming on your throttle cable in these areas?

I decided to get a radio for the rail, but not the KT8900R I had originally wanted. Instead I got a much cheaper ($100 vs $35) Baofung UT-5R-TP handheld radio instead. It seems to be one of the most popular hand held radios available today and has a lot of accessories available for it. In addition to the radio itself I also bought a mag base mobile antenna (NA-UT108 SMA-F), a better handheld antenna (I read the stock one sucks), a car battery eliminator, a 3800mAh extended li-ion battery (I read the 8W high power setting eats up the regular battery life fairly quickly), a carrying case and lastly a USB programming cable with the software CD. The UV-5R-TP radio and all the accessories all together were $62.67 total, which is about 2/3 of just the base cost for just the KT-8900R radio alone.

Radio:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/391404343500?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

Mobile antenna:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/172063028023?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

Handheld antenna:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/252323336022?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

Car battery eliminator:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/111954647763?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

3800 mAh extended battery:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/172088059505?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

Carrying case:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/331718774395?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

USB programming cable and software CD:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/262278275723?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

[dustymojave]

There has been a lot of discussion on this forum about those radios, particularly when the guys were getting ready to go on the Grand Canyon Adventure last year.

See my comments on your thread on TOS about using stainless cable, how to cut the cable with a welding torch, alternative sleeve material and how to keep water from getting into the sleeve (and then freezing) with a rubber cable boot.

[GoMopar440]

I read that GCA thread over here and saw the comments about them. A larger permanently mounted radio like the KT8900R would definitely be more powerful than the handheld unit I got (25W vs 8W max), but there were other factors in me choosing the one I did besides the power and the price. Like I mentioned on TOS, I don't need or want to keep the radio in the rail all the time. I only want it in the rail when I want to ride with others on a trial ride somewhere. Most of the rest of the time I'll just keep it and the mag mount antenna at home. That'll be a couple less things to have to keep up with until I need it. It will also be one less thing in/on the rail to tempt any thieves that might be passing near it when I'm not around.

I'm very familiar with the cable boots you're referring to, as I've owned more than a few old dirt bikes with drum brakes. I plan on having them on both ends, and keeping the tube packed completely full of waterproof grease. It'll be hard to freeze up the cable if there's no room left for water in the tube and no way for it to get in there.

EDIT: I need to make a radio holder for when I have it in the rail with me. I hate having loose junk bouncing around in my vehicle when I'm off road. I saw a decent one listed on Ebay quite a while ago, but I haven't been able to find it again yet. I could just make one myself, so I can make it fit where and how I want it, and that's probably the route I'll actually take. I'll want to make it removable as well so I don't have to look at it all the time when I'm not carrying the radio with me.

[GoMopar440]

Ugg, I'm beat. I had to make a two hour round trip to drop the wife off at the airport by 7AM after getting a little bit less than an hour of sleep last night. The weather was really nice today for a change so I took advantage of it and started working on the rail as soon as I got home. However, my energy reserves were all used up a few hours ago, so I'm going to bed as soon as I finish this post.

I still had some of that crappy steel sheet metal floor (under the seats) beneath the old 1/8" aluminum diamond plate that came was on rail when I got it. The PO had it riveted, screwed and welded all over the place, so it fought me the whole way. I ended up basically chopping and beating it apart into a bunch of smaller sections in order to be able to get it out. Here's all the pieces of what used to be a single sheet (with holes everywhere).


With that finally out of the way I was able to prep the frame to remove the rust and prime it. I just quickly sprayed a heavy and messy primer coat as this frame is going to be replaced as soon as I'm able to get a better one. It's also going to be hidden under the new diamond plate floor section so I won't have to look at the paint runs everywhere. I laid on a foam mat underneath the rail to get coverage on all the exposed metal I could find down there as well.


After a bit of measuring, drawing and cutting this is what I ended up with for the new floor section. It's only 16ga aluminum diamond plate, so it's about half as thick as the old front floor section. I used a coarse flap disk on the angle grinder to remove the raised diamonds around the edges of the panel after cutting it to shape. That will make attaching it to the frame easier when I get to that part of the project.


With a little fine tuning I was able to get it to fit fairly closely to where I wanted it. I still need to trace the frame outline onto the bottom of the sheet from underneath. That will give me am exact location for the seat and tunnel supports so I can get the mounting holes lined up without guessing. I don't want a bunch of extra random holes drilled all over the place like the PO did on the old floor. The gaps around the edges will get filler strips to close them off and seal it up. If I have enough of this diamond plate left after the tunnel is finished, I'll use it to make a forward bulkhead to close off the open area in front of where our feet go.


With the new floor section temporarily in place, I was finally able to orient the seats to get them aligned where I wanted them. This is right about where I want it, but I need to move it back about an inch so the lower outer front seat corner slips under that diagonal frame tube. It was crowding the space down the middle for the tunnel with both seats sitting like this. In this pic the top of the head rest is almost at the bottom of that square tube right behind it.


To get the front corner of the seat where I wanted it I just had to nudge the seats back just enough so the top of the head rests were about even with the top of that square tube.


With the head rests moved up just that little bit, I was able to get the front seat corners to go under those diagonal tubes. That more than doubled the space available down the center for the tunnel.


I now have 4.5" between the seats in that position. The tunnel will be 3" wide, so I'll have 3/4" on each side to slip the seat belts between the tunnel and the seats.


These last two pics were real blurry. Like I said, I was pretty tired by this time so that's the best I could do. Also, the sun was already down by the time I finally saw how blurry these two pics were.

This pic is the height measurement at the front inner corner on the passenger seat. The bottom edge of the fiberglass seat is right at 4.5". The rounded top edge is somewhere around 5.5-6". It will be a little higher than that with the seat cover and the extra foam padding. The tunnel will be 6" tall and the base of the shifter will be fairly close to that corner of the seat. I'll fine tune the shifter placement after I have the seats mounted and the tunnel base built.


This last pic is about where the E-brake handles will sit. The bottom edge of the seat is about 6" right there and the top of the rolled edge s around 7.5-8" tall. The upward sloping curve at the middle of the seat right there is going to help shroud the E-brake handles quite a bit and make them less likely to snag on stuff.


So far I'm liking these seats right where I have them now. Once I can put some temporary supports under them to hold them in this position I'll be able to try them out and see if the seat back angle is acceptable or not. I'm hoping it's good as is since everything seems to be fitting together well with the seats where they are now.

[Marc]

TOO much rake on the seatbacks is hard on your spine in the rough (speaking from experience, we had to build a semi-reclined aluminum seat to shoehorn me into the boss's SCORE buggy) but yours look like they should be fine where they are now. A lot of guys will mount their shoulder harnesses low, so they pull down on the shoulders and snug the driver down into the seat padding. Bear in mind that if you should come to a sudden stop, like a head-on or rearending somebody, that setup will cause the spine to compress and can cause serious permanent damage. Best to anchor the belts at shoulder level or just slightly below - NOT through the slots I see in those seatbacks. Can't tell without seeing you in it, but the tabs you've got behind the headrests look like they should be high enough to be safe.

The lap belt (which should ride on the hips not the belly) should be positioned to handle holding you down as well as back - depending upon your size and the depth of padding that could require cutting slots in the bolsters.

[GoMopar440]

Those slots weren't, and still aren't, going to be used. They just came that way from the factory or were added as a PO mod. I don't think my seat covers even have the matching slots in them for those slots in the seats. It's a moot point anyway though since I'll be replacing the old seat covers with new similar styled ones.

As far as the seat back angle goes, it's more of a necessity than a want. I've have had 4 disks removed from my lower back and the vertebra fused in those places. I can't sit straight upright even in normal vehicles. I have to recline the seat back a little bit or i'm in constant pain. Since these FG seat backs can't tilt, I'm only adding enough back angle to allow me to operate the rail comfortably and safely. The seat bases are only being moved forward about 1"-1.5" since that's as far as the frame will let me move them. Any more further forward and the seat bases hit the diagonal frame bars and the seats get pushed towards the center. Then I don't have enough room for the tunnel to fit between the seats. I'm not going to be bombing off road trails at a race pace anytime soon so it's a compromise I'm willing to make.

Those upper seat belt tabs are in an OK location vertically, but they are angled all wrong. I'm going to cut them off and realign the tabs so it's a pretty much a straight pull on the tabs. Right now the tabs point down, but the belts go up and over the seat shoulders. No bueno. I'm going to make all new tabs to replace these hack jobs and then bolt the new tabs on top of and through the two stacked 1" square bars. I trust grade 8 hardware a lot more than I do my welding when it comes to attaching safety components.

When I pulled the seats out recently, the lower seat belt mounts were scary to say the least. Regular old and rusty 1/4" bolts were passed through some rusty chain links to make the lower seat belt mounts. Those bolts were passed through the thin steel sheet metal floor ONLY to retain them. If I had seen that junk before I took the rail out for a test drive last year I would have never left the driveway.

All this sketchy stuff I'm finding is going to be fixed before this rail goes anywhere near a road again. I've been paying attention to all of Richard's sermons on seat belt alignment and attachment methods. I believe even he'd probably be happy with the way this rail will be repaired and updated when I'm done. That's what I'm shooting for anyway. I don't plan on racing this thing, but that doesn't mean I'll ignore good advice when I hear it. The streets are just as dangerous as off-roading, if not more so, in their own way.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

If there is any way to do it get the seat backs away from that square tube!

The seat is going to flex back and into the tube even as you get into it; F/G or not. The F?G just makes the flexing more than other seats. The constant banging of the seat back, or the seat back resting against the tube is not going to be a comfortable ride especially with your back (I was born with curvature of the spine, a partial extra vertebrae at the bottom of my spine, so I am in a similar situation as you are... sitting wise). I also would lower, if possible, that square tube as the banging/contact is going to be close to your head and shoulders. It is amazing just how much we rely on the padding in the seats... not just for sitting comfort but to allow us additional movement.

[GoMopar440]

The square tube is being used as a place to help hold the seat and take measurements from while I'm working on it. That basket area (made of that square tube) above the engine is not level with the frame horizontally. My OCD won't let me let that go as is for long, so it will be getting repositioned after I get the other big stuff fixed first. It's actually pretty useful with helping me position and fit the seats where it is, so I'm in no rush to move it just yet. I'll be sure to add a little clearance between it and the seat head rest whenever I do move it.

I placed a few pieces of steel under the driver side seat base to support it so I could sit in it. The seat back angle is better, but not as far back as I'd like it to be. It's close enough though so I'm just going to make the mounts and set the position right where I have them now.

Today was another day of nice weather and warm temperatures so I went back to work. I decided to start on fabbing up the tunnel since I need the base part made so I can measure a few things from/on it. In order to decide on a permanent location for the shifter, I need the tunnel in place so I have somewhere to put it. For now I'm starting with the steel frame for the base which is made from 3/4" x 3/4" angle. I have the tunnel figured at 5' long, but I may have to shorten it to 4' if I run into any interference issues with the pedals. The sides and the top will be made of the same 16GA diamond plate I'm using for the floor.

The first step was to notch the twelve 6" long pieces of 3/4" angle so I could nest them into the 5' long pieces. That took quite a while to get done as I measured and cut each of them one at a time. I made sure the first one was perfect and then marked it and used it as a pattern for the rest of the pieces. It took me a couple of hours to get all the pieces cut and my arms felt like rubber after holding up that grinder for so long. I also cut twelve 1.5" long pieces to go in between both sides and make the tunnel base frame 6" wide overall. I already had the four long edge pieces cut to 5' lengths so those were already ready to go.

I set up the MIG and a work table in the shade and started to make sparks. I used magnets to hold the pieces together and used a square to make sure they were aligned properly at each joint. I worked until I had all six of the 6" long pieces welded to the first 5' long edge piece. The long edge piece warped a bit so I had to get it straightened back out with a little help from a hammer. After It was brought back into shape I placed the second 5' long edge piece into the notches in the 6" pieces. Once again I used the square to align the pieces, but this time I used long clamps instead of magnets to hold everything together. I verified the distances at the loose ends (12" from face to face) of the 6" pieces before tacking them in place. Once the entire length was tacked at all the corners, I started making 3/4" beads between the tacks. I only did one bead at a time on a joint and then I moved onto the next joint, and so on and so on until I had all the welds done. When all the welds were done the time spent making sure everything was aligned paid off. It was still perfectly straight after the second round of welding was finished. Lastly I fired up the angle grinder again, this time with a coarse flap disk on it, and proceeded to clean up all the welds and flux core spatter. Don't let the pics fool you, I'm not a professional welder by any means. I have gotten a lot of practice at grinding though as a result though.

Pics:



The first side is now done and I have one more to go just like it. Then I have to connect the halves together with all those little pieces. After I took the pics, I stuck this piece of the tunnel into the rail to see how it was going to fit. The roller on the gas pedal is sitting part way inside the last section of tunnel, so I may have to shorten it after all. I'll wait until I have the tunnel frame completed and try it again then to see if it will indeed be an issue or if I can figure out a work around for it.