Hello again everyone, and welcome to the latest installment of Project Sting Ray. I’m back at it again, working on the rolling chassis. I’m hoping to get the body back on the car this spring, we’ll see how it goes.



Ok, so here’s some pictures. The first one is of the motor just after it was bolted onto the frame. You can see the freshly machined flywheel already attached.



In this picture, we’ve now installed the pressure plate and clutch disc.



At this point, the transmission and bell housing were bolted on, but we didn’t have the transmission support brackets in place yet (notice the wood near the tail housing).



Along the way, I’ve been tearing down the trailing arms. These absolutely did NOT want to come apart. But we’re going to try and save the spindles. Everything else will get replaced, including the arm itself.



My original A-arms were torn down, the ball joints and shafts pulled out, sandblasted and powdercoated, and put back together. There were a few ways I could have gone with the ball joints. Since I’m going to have the car judged, I went with original style riveted ball joints. These aren’t as service friendly when they fail, but I’m hoping that won’t happen in my lifetime, given how slowly the miles will pile up.



Here’s a nice shot of the passenger’s side of the block. We installed new heat shields around the new AC45 spark plugs. You can also see the end of the new fuel line that was put in the car.



The original shifter is going to be reused. Here it is after about five hours of disassembly and cleaning. All in all, it’s in pretty good shape.



My original steering box was completely rebuilt, and powdercoated. It’s almost too nice to cover up!



Oh man, when Bob dumped this bucket of bolts and parts out on the floor, I just about had to laugh. Most of these parts are originals that are being reused. They are all zinc coated. Some of the purists out there will say that I’ll lose judging points because they aren’t cadmium plated. Well, nobody in the state of MN that I’m aware of has the blessing of the EPA to plate on cadmium. It’s nasty stuff. So, I’ll take my lumps in judging and have a good finish on the bolts and such.



Here’s how the chassis sits today. Notice a few things that are new since my last news story. We installed a new stainless steel fuel line, and new stainless steel brake lines. Here again, the originals were not stainless steel, and I’ll probably get a deduction in judging for that, but stainless steel will look nicer a LOT longer than regular steel lines.



Here’s a close up shot of the passenger’s side, after we installed the control arms. We put in the shims as they were when we took the car apart, but those alignment shims will probably have to be changed anyway since many parts on the car are new.



Here’s a close up shot of the driver’s side. At this point the steering box has been bolted onto the frame. You can also see the two ends of the brake lines as they come up to the dual master cylinder. We also have the rubber sections of the brake lines installed as well at all four corners.



Next on the list is to continue building up suspension. We have front springs and spindles coming. For the rear, we need to tear down, refurbish and rebuild the differential, install the drive shaft, diff, half shafts, build and install the trailing arms and install the gas tank. Somewhere in there I need to refinish the wheels, get the tires mounted and balanced and get the trim rings refinished.

At this point, I’m JUST shy of having 200 hours into the car. I suspect I’ve got at LEAST another 150 hours to go since I haven’t even touched the interior yet.

Anyway, more to come. Thanks again for following along. This project has been a lot of fun so far. If I’m REALLY lucky, I’ll have the car on the road in the fall of 2009 for a test drive, and fully functional in the spring of 2010.