203 replies to this topic

[JasonFL]

I am loving this one, Good redesign of the hood and trunk. I also like the door lines by the A pilar. Good luck on that flame job, VERY difficult tape work! Love that exhaust. Check out my Merc too.

Thanks Erik. Tape work should be lots o fun...haha. I'll look for your merc

This is awesome! I love seeing a fresh rendition on this kit! Keep up the good work!

Thanks Greg.

[JasonFL]

You could recess a license plate housing into the trunk...

I thought about it but I didn't want to mess the flow of the trunk. Still not sure yet

Looks great so far.
Personally, I think the rear of the car will appear more balanced with the bumper halves being shorter (also happening to give you room for a plate). I'd definitely try to keep the trunk clear of clutter, so I'd avoid recessing the plate there. You're going to have a lot going on, visually, with those flames, so I think the less is more approach will pay off large on this one.

Thanks Chris. I may widen them out a bit, not sure. Thats what I was thinking, I didn't want to much on the trunk.

[crazyjim]

I believe the rear license plate needs to be lit. Putting it in the rear window would not be legal. How about one of flip plates? You start the vehicle and the plate folds down?

[Skydime]

I believe the rear license plate needs to be lit. Putting it in the rear window would not be legal.

Clearly, you have never been to Kentucky. (JK) There are a lot of us that have trucks who just stick the license plate inside the back window so, we can put it down in our cleaning totes at shows. It keeps us from having to put license plate frames on the roll pan or tailgate. There is no "rearmost" panel law in Kentucky for plates.

You are right about the flip down plate though. They are pretty cool. Also, I knew a guy who had a trailer hitch receiver under the roll pan with a detachable bracket for his license plate so he could take it off easily at shows.

Edited by Skydime, 28 August 2012 - 12:08 PM.

[JasonFL]

I believe the rear license plate needs to be lit. Putting it in the rear window would not be legal. How about one of flip plates? You start the vehicle and the plate folds down?

That is very true Jim but I think with hot roding and customization there are a lot of laws being broken...hahaha. The flip plate and the pop up plates mini truckers use on the bed of their trucks are very cool and clean, but I think that's a little out of my build expertise. I was think of frenching it but I'm even a little worried to attempt that.

[JasonFL]

Did some work on the front suspension. I heated the lower control arms with some hot water and carefully bent them up. Had to remove some of the backing plate on the spindle to really get it up there.


I ended up having to remove more so I just removed the whole thing


But as you can see with the lower control arms being so high I'm getting a lot of camber. Doesn't show much with the wheel, that was just kinda sitting on there.

Edited by JasonFL, 28 August 2012 - 01:21 PM.

[JasonFL]

With all the camber I was having clearance issues with the fender so I made a relief cut on the backside of the spindles, and carefully pulled them forward then filled it.

I made some smaller backing plates out of the numbers off an old parts tree and then smoothed it all out.

[Skydime]

I like this method of lowering the front. I did something similar to mine. This thing is moving right along.

[JasonFL]

I like this method of lowering the front. I did something similar to mine. This thing is moving right along.

Thanks Ken. This was the first time I've done the front like this. I'm also doing the rear notches for the first time, I'll post photos soon. So far everything is good. How did you go about doing your front?

[Skydime]

I actually cut the piece out that you replaced, omitted the coils (mine's just a shelf model), and clamped it together with clothes pins while the glue dried. The lake pipes barely clear a piece of paper in the front. Now I have true Ford negative camber.

In the back, I carefully prenotched a slight bit out of the frame and then used a similar pinch and glue method to simulate dearched leaf springs. Fair warning, these frames aren't much so, if you aren't 100 percent comfortable, don't even try it on the frame you are gonna use. A spare would be handy for practice.

If I as going to show mine off, I would have found a way to add some airbags under it. Axle to frame would be one heck of a bad ride in real life.

Edited by Skydime, 30 August 2012 - 07:22 PM.

[JasonFL]

I actually cut the piece out that you replaced, omitted the coils (mine's just a shelf model), and clamped it together with clothes pins while the glue dried. The lake pipes barely clear a piece of paper in the front. Now I have true Ford negative camber.

In the back, I carefully prenotched a slight bit out of the frame and then used a similar pinch and glue method to simulate dearched leaf springs. Fair warning, these frames aren't much so, if you aren't 100 percent comfortable, don't even try it on the frame you are gonna use. A spare would be handy for practice.

If I as going to show mine off, I would have found a way to add some airbags under it. Axle to frame would be one heck of a bad ride in real life.

Haha...hey man, that's one way to do it. Nothing like all that negative camber while being laid out. I actually have already made my notches and cut out one side of the frame, no turning back now...haha.

[JasonFL]

How bout making a flip down rear plate mounted under the rear of the car? You don't have to make it functional just put it under the back of the car. If you display the car on a mirror it will be a cool little detail people will notice & say "Wow, check that out" or something along those lines LOL

Yea I thought at it but the whole car is going to be slammed, even if it didn't flip down you'd never see it. Might just say screw the plate and make it a clean build. Thanks for the suggestion Joe.

[Dr. Cranky]

Good to see you making such excellent progress. I'd love to see the body on those wheels, see how low it is now riding.

[JasonFL]

Good to see you making such excellent progress. I'd love to see the body on those wheels, see how low it is now riding.

Thanks Doc. I'm actually moving right along with this one. The camera was acting up last night but I'm going to try and get some shots for ya tomorrow. I still can't seem to get this thing as low as it should be.

[Bartster]

ooohhh, Jason! Looking good! Nice work on the spindles!

[TooOld]

You corrected the camber problem exactly the way it should have been done ! Simple and effective . Good job !

[JasonFL]

I worked on the rear notches and started getting them in place.

First I did a template. I was going to cut it out with built in gussets on top to help hold it to the frame. Plans changed a little and I gave it a clean look making the front rail of the notch a little thicker then the back to match how the frame goes from thick to thin. 
Thanks to a good friend on here for donating some plastic sheets, I was able to scratch build the notches.

I had to cut out 2 notches and glue them together in order to get the right thickness

[JasonFL]

This is just about how high the notch will be when connected to the frame. The rear end will sit right where the frame is now.


I cut the leaf springs off the rear and glued them to the frame so when I cut the frame for the notch it keeps the back of the frame in place and aligned. This way it helps me keep where the center is for the rear end.

This is were I'm at now. I marked off the frame and cut it out. Now just have to glue it in place.

[JasonFL]

ooohhh, Jason! Looking good! Nice work on the spindles!

Thanks Bart. Makes a little more sense now that you see what I was trying to explain to you...haha.

You corrected the camber problem exactly the way it should have been done ! Simple and effective . Good job !

Thanks Bob. That's exactly what I was going for.

[JasonFL]

Good to see you making such excellent progress. I'd love to see the body on those wheels, see how low it is now riding.

After taking these last photos I couldn't get the camera to shoot right so I took some quick ones with my wife's phone. I'm hoping to get it a tad bit lower, I may even body drop it to sit the body on the ground. We'll see.