weedburner
weedburner Reader
8/4/24 1:13 p.m.

Friday before Thanksgiving last year, headed to a car meet. Rounding a left hand corner in the highway when a lifted Tundra traveling in the opposite direction failed to negotiate and crossed into my lane...

Tire put a big dent in the fuel tank, even had the Tundra's tire makes on my rear view mirror.

Severely bent the axle/tube, also spun the tube in the center housing which wrapped the shock around the tube and ripped the brake line off.

I had been dragging my feet prior to the crash on radiusing the wheelwells to lower the rear a bit, seemed like a good time to add a little 1-3/8" mini-tub to also make room for some wider 12" wheels. I used to build/race dirt latemodels, have a huge soft spot for wide5 wheels :)

Completely removed the upper control arm chassis brackets, I wasn't using them anyway as I had already installed a torque arm. Cut extended halfway into the RX-7's spring bucket for the car's original 5" coils...

Here you can see the torque arm attached to a fresh 8.8 housing. Crown Vic housing was narrowed to 51-1/2" axle flange / axle flange, added some 9" ends...

Always hated the surging I got from the scalloped brake rotors, took the opportunity to switch to regular round rotors...

Here you can see where I notched the RX-7's sheetmetal "frame rails" to make room for the coil-overs, also added some bump stop brackets that are easier to shim/change...

Car uses a modified Crown Vic rear swaybar...

Fixed the broken bones, but left the scars to remind me what could have happened...

Grant

Stampie
Stampie GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
8/4/24 1:36 p.m.

In reply to weedburner :

Nice work.  What was the insurance process like?  I assume they tried to total it?

GameboyRMH
GameboyRMH GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
8/4/24 1:39 p.m.

The skidmark looks like it could be some '80s factory vinyl graphics from a distance...

weedburner
weedburner Reader
8/4/24 1:45 p.m.

In reply to Stampie :

Thanks! Guy had no insurance, but first guy with no insurance that I actually got any money out of.  Gave me $1000, then I spent 5k getting it back on the road.

Grant

 

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