Mason’s Build: Superlite SLC

Thanks Kyle, I’ll hold off doing any grinding until I fit the spider.

I’ve made good progress with a majority of the chassis and ecu wiring now complete.

My next challenges:

1.Mounting the Restomod Air A/C unit and hoses

2. Fabricating Tesla Electronic parking brake brackets

3. Mounting Hella Bi-LED headlights ( these are a tight fit and need some trimming)

4. Roll bar modifications for new chassis bridge

That’s my plan!
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Scott

Lifetime Supporter
Mason,

I just caught up on your thread. The engine sounds great!

Are the wheel arches supposed to be level across the top? I’m not sure if my whole tail has sagged and deformed.
As you noted the tail will sag when you remove the structure - mine did as well. It's a combination of weight and tension in the fiberglass. As Howard pointed out you'll need to add significant reinforcement. However, I suggest that you do something temporary to prevent damaging it. I bolted a 3/4" square tube to the back edge of the cut line. This stiffens it when it's removed, but the wheel arches still sag.

To address this, I welded a temporary support to the top of the rear suspension brace. It has two locating pins (borrowed from the nose) that stick through the tail to index and support it in the middle. From the underside I drilled a hole through the temporary bracket and the fiberglass - this got the X/Y coordinated perfect. I then tapped the bracket, enlarged the hole in the fiberglass and adjusted the screws in the indexing pins to get the Z axis perfect. I then added a jam nut so that it wouldn't move.

I then tapped holes for leveling feet which I installed upside down. Since they have a ball socket and a fine thread I can get the wheel arches perfectly dialed in. This keeps it from warping and will put every thing in the correct spot when I reinforce it. I was careful about how I cut the tail so I can use the old piece to ensure that everything is where it's supposed to be when I add the fiberglass to create the new tail extension.
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Scott, thanks for tips on building a temporary brace, I'm also heading down the road to a completely new rear tail section due to my fat exhaust system and this will help keep things flat as I build it up.
 
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