Elrod's 5.0 Revival

[ElrodKTPQ_89]

Yay!

Except for the interior, yikes...

Those door panels make me cringe lol

Yea y'all know how I feel about it too lol. It's so bad. Looking back now I can't believe I let it happen. I should have picked the car up months ago.

 

[ForcFed93]

I had a 1993 Supercoupe that sat outside for a few months while I was going through the engine and the sunroof leaked in a few times. It looked like your door panels on the inside only not quite as bad. On the positive side though, it seemed to be extremely easy to clean up. Glad you're back at it though.

 

[BigBore96]

Those coilovers were hurting. Snap a couple pictures of the under shock towers.

 

[ElrodKTPQ_89]

Those coilovers were hurting. Snap a couple pictures of the under shock towers.

The underside of the strut towers were actually unharmed. Only damage I can see is where the bearing plates made a little contact with the bolt plate of the caster camber plates. Didn't think to take a picture of it but I will tonight. It's like maybe it only makes contact on a really hard bump or something maybe.
Im gonna email MM and see what they have to say.

 

[nitroram33]

I'm gonna guess you need an extra spacer on the underside of the strut tower lol...

 

[ElrodKTPQ_89]

I'm gonna guess you need an extra spacer on the underside of the strut tower lol...

Well, I tried that once, and it rode so stiff I thought my teeth were gonna come loose. Who knows

 

[nitroram33]

It clearly needs a least a small spacer lol, just enough to clear the tower.

 

[ElrodKTPQ_89]

I'll figure it all out one of these days. I guess I don't really have to replace the bearing plates. They're just damaged on the outside but they still perform their job.

 

[ElrodKTPQ_89]

Not much progress made on the car yet, but I've been working on another project in the shop I thought some of you might like to check out.

Since I have the car at the house now, I no longer had access to a welder and still had a few things left to weld up before I can get much further along on the engine bay. So for my birthday my dad and I went in half on a new Lincoln Easy Mig 180. It's a 220volt welder so I scored some free wire at work and came home that evening and added a new circuit in my shop for the welder. The next day after work I went and picked up a bottle and some metal and got started on my first project - a welder cart. I didn't take many pictures when I started, but the base is made of 1" square tubing, and the rest out of 3/4" square tubing. It's pretty simple, and I'm still not done yet. I ran out of material and didn't get to build a shelf in the middle. But here's what I have so far:

I made the axle out of 1/2" all thread and all thread couplings, then drilled the ends so I can put cotter pins thru them and keep the nuts from ever backing off.

I'm by no means a good welder, but I did surprise myself since I haven't used a welder since high school.

This is how it sits now. The top shelf has holes drilled in it so the welder will bolt to it. I have a piece of sheet metal to put over it and rivet to the shelf after I'm done with the rest and have it all painted.

All I have left on it is to fix some mounts so I can strap the bottle down, add some handles and hooks for rolling up cords, and build the middle shelf. I haven't made up my mind yet if I want a fixed shelf or a slide out drawer. I have plenty of slides if I decide to go that route. The shelf is gonna be about 18" above the bottom rack, high enough that I'll be able to set my chop saw on the bottom rack.

Atleast now I'm able to set the welder and bottle on the cart and roll it around the shop. I didn't want to just get a brand new welder and go straight in to welding up some thin metal on the engine bay. So I figured this would give me a chance to be creative and get a good feel on how the welder works and reacts to welding different thicknesses of metals. I'll add some more pictures whenever I get finished with it.

 

[ElrodKTPQ_89]

The other project I was able to get pretty much complete in just a couple hours today.

**I blame the DIY section of YouTube for this**

After watching a couple videos and saying 'hey I think I could do that' I decided to build a table for my port-a-band to sit on and use it like an actual upright band saw. It's a really simple design and something I wish I'd had around in the past for some different projects.

First off I cut a 12"x18" piece of 1/8" plate that I bought for the welder cart project. Then marked the center and cut a 5 1/2" slot for the band saw blade to slide into:

Next I had to cut a couple notches out of the back of the plate so the saw would sit flush against the plate:

Next I used a piece of cardboard to mark the holes where the blade guide goes, in order to drill the holes in the plate and use them to bolt the saw to the plate:

Next I cut two pieces of 1/2" all thread 8" long and threaded them into some nuts and welded them on:

They'll be used as part of a support for the bottom of the saw.

I had a 4' piece of 1" tubing left so I used it to make the legs, then laid out where all the legs and the saw supports needed to go:

Legs and supports welded in place:

Next, I cut a piece of 1 1/4" wide flat bar and drilled two 1/2" holes to use as the support for the saw:

And here's where I stopped for the night:

Still a few things left to do. I'm gonna add some horizontal supports between the legs as well as an angle support from the leg to the bottom of the table top, to keep it from flexing from the weight of the saw where the slot for the blade is. I also got some different screws that I'm gonna try to countersink into the table top, if it's thick enough to allow me to do so. If not I'll come up with another solution. And I'm gonna get some wire and connectors at work tomorrow so I can wire up a receptacle and switch to the table, that way I'll be able to plug the saw into the receptacle, use a velcro strap or something similar to keep the trigger engaged, and turn it on/off via a light switch mounted in a box on the front.

I should be able to wrap this up tomorrow after work, of course I'll add pictures when I do. Mustang stuff to come soon though, I hope to have all the welding in the engine bay done by the end of the week. Fingers crossed.

 

[BMAC96GT]

Welds look good brother. Where do you get your metal?


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[96blak54]

Excellent work! I like the idea!

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[ElrodKTPQ_89]

Thanks guys. And Bryan I got most of it for free from a buddy at a machine shop, but I can also buy it at a welding shop in town or Atwood's/Tractor Supply although they don't have a very broad selection.

 

[ElrodKTPQ_89]

A little more progress on the welding cart. I brought home a set of tubing benders from work and used them to build some handles and hooks to roll up leads on etc. Also made a small rack to hold my can of nozzle gel. It was a little tricky using the wire gun to weld the stainless tubing but I finally got the rhythm and made it all work.
And finally got the sheet metal for the top
cut and riveted to the frame, and the welder bolted in place.

And I finished up the band saw table a few days ago, got it all painted and then wired up the switch and receptacle. It's already proved its usefulness too.

 

[lwarrior1016]

Really nice work on all that! Are you sure you arent a welder by trade? lol

How are you holding the band saw from moving backwards? I see the support on the bottom but what holds it from moving back?

 

[ElrodKTPQ_89]

Really nice work on all that! Are you sure you arent a welder by trade? lol

How are you holding the band saw from moving backwards? I see the support on the bottom but what holds it from moving back?

I'm an electrician so we do a little of everything lol. That's seriously the first time I've used a welder since like 2008 though. I've been learning a lot since I got back into it.

And I guess pretty much the weight of the table keeps it from tipping over backwards. Unless you didn't see the 3 screws that go through the table top into the saw itself, I may not have gotten a picture of them.

 

[lwarrior1016]

I saw the 3 screws but I didnt know where they went, thats exactly what I was asking.

 

[ElrodKTPQ_89]

I saw the 3 screws but I didnt know where they went, thats exactly what I was asking.

Yep, you have to take off the guard or whatever it's called off the saw and then bolt it to the table using the holes for the guard. I saw where there's a company that makes those tables just like that and sells em for $125+...and I probably have about $20 worth of metal in that and I bought the switches and receptacle boxes.

 

[lwarrior1016]

Im going to get one of these saws and build a table like yours for when I build my turbo kit.

 

[ElrodKTPQ_89]

Damn, 6 months without an update. Blame all that on a complete lack of motivation during the shitty winter we had in addition to a bunch of problems I was having with Crapatalk that resulted in me not even looking at the forum for a few months. Gimme a minute and I'll get an update brewing.