I got a chance to do an inspection on the chassis. Alas, there is some corrosion I'll have to deal with. It's all surface rust right now, easily dealt with, but if I don't strip the thing down and clean it up, there will be issues a few years down the road. A few hours now will save me a few weeks later.
Looking at the bay, with everything out, it's quite roomy. Owing to the placement of the fuel cells on the sidepods, I have plenty of space to route my exhaust headers/collector, and still keep it far enough away that I don't cook while driving the car. I will probably have to remove the center jackshaft bearing support, but a cut off wheel and ten minutes will solve that problem if necessary.
I started looking at the footwell. Man, it's tight in there. 9 inches, roughly, so I'm going to have to get creative with clutch installation. The brake pedal and master cylinders are definitely going to have to move, and probably the gas pedal, too. However, it looks straightforward to move. I need to cut out one small piece of non-critical structure, and weld in a block. The end result will actually be a little bit stronger.
I'm waiting on the engine to arrive at this point. While I wait, I'm going to go over the car some more and put together a punch list of non-conversion related maintenance I need to get out of the way.
Some items I know I'm going to do:
- Replace all of the wiring and switches -- there's not much of it, and I will eliminate some potential problems due to age.
- Replace all the fuel and radiator lines. Basic rubber was used for these. Fuel lines I'm going to replace with solid steel tube and stainless braided. Radiator lines will be replaced with silicone.
- Fix some minor stress/vibration cracks in the sheet metal on the right side of the cockpit.
- Remove paint and rust from several areas, touch-up paint.
- Retape the radiators and ducting. The tape's old, and needs to be redone.
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