Sows Ear Chassis

[Bill]

Gary

Great work!

I have two spare frames for Restoration, can I send them down?

By the way - the 2 post Maxjax lift works perfect with an Elan (and a TR3) I now have another 10 years of back ack relief so I can get at least one more car done.

Thanks for your advise on this thread - good job.

Keep them rolling and best regards to Beauregard.

Bill

[garyeanderson]

Hi Bill

I had a set back, I need new glasses. I missed one area that needed to be repaired and in my haste to get it all painted when we had the temperature near 80F I totally missed the fact that the Sows Ear chassis had the left rear forward mount with a seized inner bolts on the arm. There was a cut through a half of the forward most mount and I could not let it slide.

It was something that would bother me and this is the chassis that is going to go under Tingles ex C Prod race car Elan body and I know I'll have some big wheels on it. I thought of just
welding a flat washer in place but after emailing Bill he said I should plate it so thats what I did. I have a junk chassis on the back porch that I have been using for parts. I cut a small section for the bracket repair. and fitted it in place.

I went to see Dale and ask to use his mig welder again with the same lame explanation and he laughed. So I was home by 9:00 am with the welder and brought it inside to do the job. Not what I would call text book but I don't write text books, I like to drive. I still am going to see if I can clean up the area near the spine a bit but I wanted to get the welder back so I was done by 10:30 and got some other stuff done.

Bushing in place, I tried an arm in there too and it had plenty of clearance so all is good except for the paint and a bit more grinding.

I spent the afternoon dissecting my original chassis from 26/4597 as it had a good differential housing and my spare that I thought I was going to use for 26/4020 had the snap ring showing from someone driving the rear wheels at full droop. I need to get it repaired and it's not the time for that right now.

29 March 7:30 pm
Things have slowed down for the last couple of days, Temperature is hanging around 45F and too cold to paint and it?s been just rather bad weather to do much outside. I got the both chassis plumbed and the parking-brake tree installed but until I get the control arms painted I am at kind of a standstill. I did order another quart of the Red Primer this morning so I can cover up the welded rear control arm mount and some of the other parts like the Differential housings. I did some more treasure hunting and found the rear bump stops for the rear struts, I was going to put those pictures elsewhere but the topic that it seemed to go with changed direction and now it would be out of place after 3 years so I?ll just add them hear as part of the restore.

elan-f14/rear-suspension-bump-limiting-spacer-t17713.html

Gary

[garyeanderson]

The day started off cold and I wasn't going to paint but it got up to about 47F and the can says minimum of 50 so it was a go as the sunny side was a bit warmer than that and I wasn't waiting till Monday. I got a pair of rear uprights done and quite a few parts that I needed painted before I could get things inside moving along. After the Red went on I pushed in the rear control arm bushes and thought I might as well get the black semi-gloss Rust-oleum out and give it a go. I went for 10% acetone to paint mix as it was cool and it seemed to go on nicely.

[memini55]

Hey Gary,

Looks like things continue moving forward with freash paint and all, looks good!
By the way I found two original strut inserts for you, happy to send them your way.

Mark

[garyeanderson]

Front Koni's need the lower metalastic, I don't believe that they are available so I will have to get something else {delrin with a distance sleeve) and the original lotocones on the left and replacements on the right.

Lower rear control arms ready to install. One set is the later arms that have the chamfer on the outboard ends. I pressed in the bushes yesterday and just before painting I applied a light chamfer to the other earlier pair. Just easier to do now as I never know what wheels will be going on. I think I have a good set of 4 bolt stock wheels but at the moment all I know is I have 6 - 4 bolt wheels, whether any or all are good is still an unknown as that point is a ways off.

Rear stuff ready to install

I figured I hang the better set of arms on the chassis that is destined to slide under 26/4020, the other set is serviceable but! and going onto Tingles race car chassis. Inspector Beauregard in his chair is keeping an eye open for shabby work habits!

Sunday 9:00 am
I found most of the parts to hang the front uprights on the top arms, I stopped here as it's just easier to fit the shocks first and I am missing the metalastic bushes in them. I guess I'll have to figure out whats next. I looked at racks again and if I want a RHD Elan that is in stock and painted but if I want it to be LHD I need to swap some parts onto the Spitfire rack that Dave gave me. I cleaned it up yesterday and ground off the welded on rack mounts (ex racing Spitfire). I need to go and find a pair of 1 and 5/16 wrenches to get the inner tie rods off, yep lost on some other project I guess. I'll also have to get some spacers for the rack stops and braze the short stop to the pinion side jam nut. but I can't talk about that here as that is "wrong and dangerous".

[nhhiker]

Gary

Very glad to see you are keeping busy. Everything looks great.

I needed to replace the Koni lower shock bushings on the Plus 2. I do have a box of bushing and will see what I still have around when I get home.

Hope to make a trip down to see in person.

Bill

[garyeanderson]

I needed some stuff and I gave the last $27 to my friend to pay for the Red Primer chassis paint that came in Friday. I went to the money machine and got to thinking of what I needed for tomorrow to prep the chassis for some touch up on the welded area and a few holidays I left, plus I ran out and did half of the inner front rail in I.H. Red as I wasn?t leaving it bare when I ran out of the Red Primer. Anyway I needed to scuff up the area to be repainted and I thought I needed some more lacquer thinner so I headed out, I took the Elan as the pickup was low on fuel and so was the Elan but it was nice out so that decided it. I stopped at a place called Autozone (chain store auto parts) and looked at there urethane bushing section and saw they had 5/8 sway bar bushes and for $7 so I picked up a pair. Then stopped at Lowes and got the scotchbrite to scuff the paint with and they didn't have lacquer thiner so I got a gallon of acetone. I then got Gas for the ?lan and headed over for my friends 60th birthday party to eat all I could. When I got home I figured it was a good time to install the bushes and to see if I remembered how. I got out the hammers and sockets and had a go; first hit was a good one and hit my hand. Not looking good I thought. Well things got a bit better and I got one on and checked it and I was good for the second one. I got the camera out and figured I would try and show you my method. Sorry I missed getting a photo of the 24 oz ball peen hammer hitting my hand but you can laugh along anyhow..

First the bush is pushed into the link and then set over the end of the sway bar. I used a 1 inch socket to use to hit on the link, the 1 inch seemed to grab the urethane bush and hold it in place nicely. I start this dry with no lube as if you lube it, it just pops back off.

Once its part way on you can lube it but I like to get it a bit further on so the socket was put back on and I gave it a couple more hits with the 24 oz ball peen.

At this point the 1 inch socket was too small so I got the 1 1/8 Socket to clear the end of the sway bar. This is where the socket is starting to drive the link over the urethane so it time to stop and go to the next step and that is to lube the bar with a drop or so of dish washing detergent.

lubing the bar

just a drop is visible, I added some more to make it slide nicely at this point

Beau says nice job, its 5:00 and its dinner time. total time just about 1 hour.

April 2nd 11:45 am

This morning started out with a couple of kind of clean racks, One LHD Spitfire rack that Dave had given me a couple years ago that was a spare from when he raced an 64 Spitfire. The other rack was from my RHD 70 Coupe that I had converted to LHD so I didn?t really need it and I really didn?t want to convert 26/4020 to a RHD so Engineer Beauregard said to me ?just geter dun?, so that?s what we did this morning. I stripped down both racks to the basics and then preformed some VOODOO mumbo-jumbo type of ceremony with wrenches and other implements like a grinder and hammers to make it so. Anyway its ready for some black paint now and the ?two bit whore? is one step closer to being a chassis again.

April 3rd 1:30am
The sun came out yesterday afternoon and so did the spray gun, The sway bar needed touching up and the rack needed painting so I did some sand blasting on the other sway bar and a few other parts to make it worth while to clean the spray gun after and made some parts semi-gloss black.

I woke up early so I figured I would have coffee and put the boots on the rack. The pinion end is easy, but I never liked sliding the boot over the inner tie rod. I had the first coffee and thought about it and decided that a pair of soup spoons seemed better than the two screwdrivers I have used in the past. Sad to say it worked out sweet, after about 30 seconds of fussing with it I was done. A picture of things as it is at the moment.

[Bud English]

Gary

Thanks for that! I didn?t have a clue on how I was going get those bushings changed, let alone the fact that I could pick some up at Autozone.

I?m at about the same stage with my, now modified, +2 frame and this thread is a lifesaver.

Thanks for being here?.

[Sea Ranch]

Umm . . . "noob" question: Can we assume it's not possible to put the bushing on the sway bar first, and then slide the link onto the sway bar and press it onto/over the bushing?? (Instead of the bushing-in-link going over the end of the sway bar together).



Randy

[garyeanderson]

Umm . . . "noob" question: Can we assume it's not possible to put the bushing on the sway bar first, and then slide the link onto the sway bar and press it onto/over the bushing?? (Instead of the bushing-in-link going over the end of the sway bar together).



Randy

I don't know, when you "geter dun" that way you can post a topic on it. I learned my method with a 7/8 Addco sway bar with Urethane bushes in the stock links (not much clearance with just the bar and I do things the way I know how). There is no way that you could do that with the way you propose with the Addco bar.

$7.00 package that the black bushes came in. The red was a left over from the 7/8 inch install, I think I destroyed one being a bit too forceful!

Gary

p.s. more Red Primer goes on the the other chassis in the moring when it gets light out to cover up the welded control arm mount

April 3rd 4:45 pm

It started out cold this morning and I waited till 10:30 before I got started. My friend Dale stopped by so we dragged the chassis out and I had the paint flowing by 11:00, he had to do some things and he did what he had to do. I was done by 1:00 and he came back and helped me carry it in so I lucked out on having to carry it in out and in. I did a few other things (nothing productive) but when I got back home about 3:30 and started to hang parts that had been on before like all the hard lines, the new flex lines, parking brake cable and fuel line. I'll get it flipped over when the paint is cured and start on suspensions stuff.

The grommets for the Brake hard line and parking-brake cable installed,

the 4 grommets (ex sprints federal chassis) for the fuel line(s) (front and back bulkheads) were left in the chassis as I didn't feel like pulling them for sand blasting or painting. I am only using two as there will be no emissions stuff reinstalled and I don't think I am doing Fuel injection. I believe that is it for grommets. There is also the omega clip the suspends the fuel line in the middle of the tunnel too that keeps the line from drooping into the propeller shaft. Photos are from front to rear.

[garyeanderson]

I started about 7:30 this morning, I knocked these GT6 uprights apart as I didn't like the green. I found some crud under the paint so I was glad I took the time to take them apart and get a good look under the paint.

I guess that Tingles C Production body is getting converted to RHD because I have the parts to do it and I need to use them up. About 9 hours to get this stuff cleaned and painted. There is no money to be made doing this, I just like to build these wrecks back from the dead the way I like.

Friday 11:30 am

GT6 uprights reassembled and hung off the top ball joint.

Progress is likely to slow down as I have run into some problems with parts that must be repaired or replaced. I have 3 diff housings and 2 have some issues that I can't overlook, one is a maybe but if I get one welded then I might as well do the other. Here are a couple of pictures of the worst one. This used to reside in my current Elan and was living with me beating the living shit out of it with 150 hp for 6 years, I pulled it out 5 or 6 years ago to replace with a 3.55 and this morning I pulled it off the shelf to have a look and clean it up before installing and noticed that Its a bit cracked and to install it as is just ain't going to do the job.

This other Diff was out of 36/6292 I think and it has the snap ring showing for about 60 degrees of the circumference and may be ok for mild use but I plan on beating it hard so I would like to install something that I won't make worse than it already is.

4:15 pm
Progress continues with the one good diff and it now has paint on it, matches the chassis. The other diff pig was painted as it's just as easy to paint two as it is one, the prep time was about an hour each. these are not rebuilt but I have not had problems with the Ford english diffs, these cars, either Elan or Cortina just never got all that many miles on them before something else rendered them dead.

Gary

[garyeanderson]

Back on the two bit whore this morning, it was time to stuff in the one good diff I have in. It was in my original chassis for the last 20 years without turning a mile but was full of 90 weight and looked good enough with a coat of the chassis paint mix I used. I pulled it as the original chassis had way too many issues and besides I needed it. When I disconnected the prop shaft when I de-installed it there was a good stream of 90 weight in the cavity that the prop flange and diff input flange create when bolted together so I pulled the nut off the pinion input shaft after marking it and smeared some wellseal on the threads and the nut mating surface and re-tightened the the pinion flange nut back to where it had been before I started this morning. I don't know if it will help but probably won't hurt so I figure that its time for the picture show.

Cardboard is taped in place to prevent the scuffing of the chassis or differential paint by the other.

Only ninor jockeying was required to slip the diff into position, I saw a minor scuff on one of the top ears of the diff case once it was in place.

No other related parts or hardware is installed before the diff other than the parking-brake tree.

Left ear of the diff housing is shown with the bolt and two washers below and the 2 - two inch by 1/8" thick washers ready to push up the bolt into the frustacone.

Plenty of antiseize was used on the long bolt to ease dis-assembly in the future.

In the event of a frustacone failure it is the thick 2 inch washers the keep thinks in place and only make a noise to let you know there are problems

Photo show the steel cup washers hanging in place, these are there to center the torque thrust rods in the diff housing to prevent the steel rod to ovalizing the the alloy hole in the housing. I believe that the manual says to install from the left side because of the parking-brake tree, it seems to be almost impossible to remove once the body is in place. I am not sure it is the only reason or not as I haven't tried it from the right side before.

I used some soft urethane bushes in the front of the diff on the torque rods, on the back side there were some urethane bushes that I picked up locally (8 for $12), I guess I'll see how they work out. Oh yea, I will remove the cardboard when I tighten up all of the bolts...

I think that the only bolt that I have tightened so far is the parking-brake tree to chassis, I will soon have to get out the wrenches and do some up but I want to get more of the front suspension done first. I have some parts coming later this week so maybe I'll get the right shock bushes so that will happen. The back needs a pair of strut inserts so thats on hold for now. The sows ear special is waiting on parts too so I need to start on something else this week to keep busy...

Gary

[elansprint]

Gary coming on well just looking at the pictures are you building the chassis up in your conservatory/lounge ?
Ian

[garyeanderson]

Hi Ian

I hope folks are enjoying the topic. Alan suggested I document a build a while back so when I decided to get off of my ass and get some projects that have lingered for 8 (maybe more?) years I thought it was a great idea to share it with everyone that wanted to follow along. The only problem with me doing projects is the space that I needed to do these chassis (two chassis) was filled with other project stuff. I really hate to sell anything so I just moved the chassis into the living room. They came in through a 32 inch entry door sideways and that is how they will exit when the time comes, just a bit heavier. This was done before back in 1992 when I did a Spyder chassis build in the downstairs bedroom that is now a parts storage room. Its not ideal to do a build up in the living room but getting nothing done this year is not an option.

Gary

[Peter +2]

Gary

I really enjoy reading and seeing the progress you are making.

Please keep the posts comming.

Peter