February, 2004


The snow is melting and we've survived 29 days in a row in which the temperature never climbed above freezing. But what's this? Could it be? Is that the body back on the frame? It may just be a test fitting but it sure made everyone feel great. And all the holes lined up. The 2x4 was screwed in to keep the body from flexing too much while we moved it around what with the drive-shaft tunnel being cut out and all. The guys want to make sure you don't think for a minute that we'll be leaving it in. They're perfectionists. There are still some adjustments to make so we'll pull it off again, undercoat the bottom and paint the top.

Here's the chassis loaded up on Ed's trailer. Note the spiffy wheels and tires. They are rated for 300 miles per hour and cost about as much as you're afraid they do. We have two sizes so we can swap front for rears in case we discover that we need a little more or less rear-end. I was really impressed with the drive-shaft loop which was bent into a perfect circle. Joe made it out of a pipe, as it turns out. Here's Joe spinning some nuts onto the pumpkin of the Ford 9-inch while Ed and Mark measure up the firewall to see where everything should line up. Here we have Greg and Joe committing unspeakable acts against the chassis while John watches on in horror. This gave Ed and Mark time to finish marking the floorpan for the drive-shaft tunnel. Want to cut something fast? Use a plasma-cutter. Joe burned through that sheet metal like a hot knife through butter. Mark was able to tack on the lower shock mounts but just barely as the 110 volt wire-feed didn't have enough umph to really do the job.

Finally we lifted the body onto the frame: 1 and 2

Then the boasting and showing off started. Actually we were trying to see how much the springs would compress when everything is hooked up and determine if we should cut a coil off them or not. If only we had a small girl for the top of the pyramid: 1, 2, 3

And last, but not least, here's a quick tack job on one of the front fenders.