I am impressed with how much you are building, with very little money. Very creative, and a lot of work.
I am just attempting to rebuild a existing car, you are building one from ideas and pieces of metal. You can see the toe links I made, I bought the threaded ends, then bought tubing to match. Fairly easy, but I spent more than you.
Front upper ball joint adapters have been an adventure but I think I have something that will work.
When I slected a upper ball joint location when designing the geometry I had a little bit of a brain fart and had put the desired ball joint basically inline with the upper strut bolt. I'm not sure what it was thinking but without a challenge budget particle accelerator I was unlikely to have success making their matter occupy the same space simultaneously. So I did the next best thing. I flipped the ball joint over and snuck the stud in between the bolts by extending them. It's a lot of bolt on bolt action as many of the sleeves have been notched through their walls. Everything will get TIG welded and then they will get welded to the plate. Overall I think the result turned out way better then I expected. I did end up having to move the UBJ up 1/2" compared to the "design" but because my A-Arms are pretty long it only changed the VSAL by a few percent.
+$1.46, +5.75 Hrs
In reply to nocones :
That's a pretty awesome solution!
Started on the other half of the upper ball joint. The bearing cups are exactly 1-1/8" diameter. They are a light press fit on the side by sides they are used on. I don't have a piece of round stock thick enough to make it out of 1 piece, so I drilled out 2 plates to 1-1/8" with a Step Drill. I am going to weld a clamp bolt on the end to clamp the ball joint in place. I feel like this is a reasonable solution but again like in the rear makes me use loads of bolts, but such is the life of trying to do this for basically nothing. So far total cost of the upper adapter is $0.69.
This adapter will be bolted to the A-arm with slotted holes to allow camber adjustment. Right now it's using 1/2" bolts but I think I'm going to re-do the sleeves to use 3/8" bolts.
Not a lot of visible progress but I assure you it took 1:45 to finish fabrication if the upper ball joint adapters. Also Karplus2 came over an put the Speed Hole in. It's the first one on the whole car. I may ad more later.
You can see how the bolts are going to work. There is 1 long bolt and 1 verticle. The A-Arm will have a pocket with slotted holes and these will bolt in. The slots will allow camber adjustment.
On to A-Arm construction. Which should go pretty quickly.
Those UBJ adaptors are damn near a work of art.
You should also run a summer camp for wayward GRM folks that want to gain skills helping you wrench on stuff. This is awesome.
What is the intended application for the ball joint you used?
In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :
I would love to have Campers. It would probably help get more done.
The balljoints are used on RZR1000 side-by-sides. The application includes the 4 passenger 2500lb ones. I am hopefull that they are strong enough. I can get "upgraded" ones that claim to be 2x as strong. But I did some research and other then people hitting trees I didn't find to many stories of them just snapping during normal use.
Upper Front A-Arms are like.. half done? Still need to add more top and bottom plates then I can finish weld them. I took a bunch of pictures of the A-Arms because it ended up looking really cool.
+$6.73, +2 hrs for 196.75. I'm hopeful that the 200 hr picture has 4 wheels on it.
Will you be adding a sway bar to the front end?
In reply to jr02518 :
I'm not planning on it. The High Roll Center coupled with the Low CG and wide track should avoid the need. The MG gets away without any swaybars for that reason. We will see. I know I can get one in and I have the stock Subaru one I could add if required.
My hot rod won't have sway bars because I kinda forgot about them. Also the reasons you list, hopefully.
I love updates on this build. They make me so happy. Add me to the GRM summer camp roster.
this whole build is so much fun to follow
Tonight I did a thing! 4 wheel mode engaged!
Built the lower A-arms (+$8.66, +1.5 hours total hours 198.75 just barely under the 200 hour mark). Just when I was getting good at making A-arms I finshed them.. Now that the lowers are on I was able to move the wheels through their geometry and check for interferance. Amazingly they were ok. So now I can finish the upper A-arm plates and then move on to Steering.
I don't think I will make Roller by end of the Month but I'm trying.
In reply to nocones :
Yes!!!
God that looks amazing
nocones said:
Got that drift angle!
gumby said:nocones said:
Got that drift angle!
Only if he can come up with a steering rack with that kind of range.
DeadSkunk (Warren) said:gumby said:nocones said:
Got that drift angle!
Only if he can come up with a steering rack with that kind of range.
What's funny is it can actually go further in that direction. It's up against the build table not the Arms.
Nope, he just has not shortened the steering arms yet!
Awesome!
I got a bit of time last night and finished 1 upper A-arm.
The flat plate to finish this piece cost 1.68, and total time spent was 1.75 hrs.. Which brings us too..
The 200 HR update!
200.0 Hours
$1266.11 spent (GC8, WRX uprights, Radiator, Rod Ends, Metal used to date)
$347.29 Recouped (Subaru Shell, Transmission)
$918.82 Total
Tube / Metal used is now
4130 - 638.75"@ 6.50/ft = $345.99
2x2 - 331-7/8" @ 1.67/ft = $46.19
1x1 tube - 1002-1/4" @ $0.67/ft = $56.79
4130 Plate - 2.41 sq-ft @ $11.00/sq-ft = $26.49
3/4 x 3/4 tube - 329-1/4" @ $0.69/ft = $18.69
1/2 x 1/2 tube - 69" @ $0.52/ft = $2.99
3/4" x .25 Wall 4130 Tube - 80.1" @ $0.50/ft - $3.65
1" x .125 Wall DOM Tube - 423.70" @ $1.35/ft - $47.67
.125" MS plate - 3.17 sq-ft @ $6.50/sq-ft - $20.64
18 ga Steel sheet - 3.5 sq-ft @ $2.82/sq-ft - $8.61
.063" Aluminum - 4.67 sq-ft @ $3.38/sq-ft = $15.75
.032" Aluminum - 15.5 sq-ft @ $1.44/sq-ft = $22.27
1" OD Solid MS Rod - 3.5" @ $4.42/ft - $1.29
Total Metal = $617.01
Estimated Weight of Steel - 309.5 lbs.
This thing is INSANE. Sooo looking forward to seeing it in person.
Looks incredible. Love the control arms!
So dang cool!
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