Shipment of new components...

Excitement was shared among the emotions of everyone today upon receiving the long awaited arrival of our new struts, brakes, brake lines, brake pads, and pan-hard bar. A pan-hard bar is a component that is attached from the rear-end to the car to help stabilize the the rear axle so that it doesn't shift from side to side. This will help us with keeping traction in the SMARTT Challenge autocross event.

Big, Beautiful, and Brown.

... like the first cut of a birthday cake.

Revealing the contents.

Hawk High Performance brake pads.

Stainless brake lines, panhard mounts, DOT 5 brake fluid.

Bilstein Performance shocks in the back.

Removal of the dash and AC system.

This afternoon, Mike, Mr. Butler, and I remained after school to work on removing the car’s dash. Our objective was to remove the heating and cooling system to reduce weight and remove the wiring harness in order to rewire the car. We successfully completed the task and probably shed around sixty pounds of excess weight. After scratching our heads and pondering on the situation, we have come to the conclusion that we may have to wire our own electrical system instead of using the stock wiring harness. The car’s wiring system is so jumbled up that locating certain wires is going to be a tedious process.

After pulling off the steering wheel and speedometer.

Labeling what is left of the wiring harness hookups.

Under the dash.

A jumbled mess.

Mike disconnecting the bottom of the dash.

Scoping out how to remove the wiring harness through the firewall.

Teamwork

Thousands of connectors... no idea where they go....

Wriring for the power windows and door locks.

Untangling the wiring harness from around the steering column.

Mike taking on the beast!!!

Mr. Butler inspecting our work.

The firewall after the removal of the AC/Heating unit.

Job well done!

Installation of the motor mount

After receiving the freshly welded motor mount and front battery box back from Mr. Butler’s father, Michael and I decided to give them both a fresh coat of paint before installation. We started with a basic primer to give the metal a smoother finish and capped it off with a gloss black coat. After the paint was dry to the touch, Mike and I decided to place the motor mount into the car and bolt it down. It was a successful fit.


This is a before picture of where we had marked a guide line of where the two peices of metal needed to be bonded.


This is the after photo of where the metal was joined by a stick/electrode welder. The white areas are where a great deal of penetration was concentrated so that the weld would support the amount of torque that the electric motor is going to put out.




This is a picture of the weld that is holding the foot on the front battery box. These two feet, one on each side, will be welded to the sub frame of the car.


This is a picture of Michael cleaning up the metal with a grinder brush.


Shooting a coat of primer.


A quick snap of my hand while it is spraying a coat of primer on the battery rack.


Mike taking his time while giving the motor mount a coat of black.


Mike touching up the thin spots.


I later sprayed a second coat of black on both the motor mount and battery rack. About two hours later Mike and I installed the completed motor mount.

Shaving down the k-member

Today Mike and I decided to remove the engine cross member (k-member) and advance it to meet the car’s needs. Since we are using an electric motor and have to fabricate our own motor mount anyway, we decided to remove the old internal combustion engine motor mounts to lighten up the car and improve the engine compartment’s looks. After dropping the k-member from beneath the car, we used a grinder with a cutting wheel to remove the old engine mounts followed by a grinder with a grinding wheel to round off the sharp corners and edges. This made the k-member more appealing to the eye and also shed about nine pounds of dead-weight. Our next objective was to remove all of the road scum and dead paint so that we could give the k-member a fresh coat of black. Mike brought in a pressure washer which made the grime removal easier.

The factory motor mounts came where they are adjustable, but instead of just unbolting the motor mounts alone and taking them off, Mike and I decided just to eliminate the whole mounting bracket. This required cutting the weld with a cutting wheel.

Cutting off the right side.

One down, one to go.

Clean cut

Now the left side.

Notice all of the road grime that was caught in the pocket behind the mount.

Before smoothing the edges.

Getting a clean edge.

Just a pic of midway completion of grinding.

This is a picture of another grime catching spot before we cleaned it up.

Probably 10 lbs. of oily dirt that was scraped away from the k-member surface.

Pretty gross isn't it?

Completed Grinding.

Finished right side.

Finished left side.

Front pic.

Hanging around!

Getting ready to shoot on a coat of primer.

Not finished, but still looking better.

Finished coat of primer.

After the first coat of gloss black.

After the second coat.

Re-installing the freshly painted, lightened k-member.

Re-checking the bolts.