MC'S tube chassis levin

[mcmike]

Hello

edit: looks like my pics are too big and they are cut off on the right sides. You can click on them to see the full pic. Sorry about that I didn't notice till recently.

Been a long time member, since the old forum, but I haven't posted up much until now as I couldn't keep quiet any longer.

I'd like to start off by giving a shout out to my good friend, fabricator and overall everything builder Merrill from MP, Merrill Performance.

I've owned this car for about 5 years now and due to some circumstances I haven't even been able to touch the car, such is the way of life I suppose. Regardless, everything seemed to point towards being able to start and so the journey began about 2 weeks ago.

I originally purchased a rolling shell from San Bernardino, California and had it towed to my house in vegas. And that's where it sat for the next 5 years.

Unfortunately, when I unveiled the car to a few friends recently they pointed out something that I had failed to pick up in the entire time I had the vehicle.

There was frame damage!
I guess the previous owner had forgotten to mention that when I was there making the purchase. And so the decision had to be made: scrap my losses and junk the car or cut the whole thing off and build a front tube chassis.

Well the decision was made and I decided to put the shell on a flat bed to get it out of my garage..







And so the project commenced. First came measuring where we needed to cut and where, more importantly, the guidelines for drifting told us we could cut.




After a painful few minutes the deed was done.


After a few minutes of mourning and some heart felt words were spoken it was time to clean up the cuts and mend my baby.


The healing process begins!




Had to patch up this hole in the frame we made.







And then just because we felt like it.. A strength test.


Then a little support bar is welded in to keep everything nice and sturdy.


It's starting to look like a car again!



Will keep you guys posted as we make more progress. Hope you guys like!

[mcmike]

Next up we decided to remove the sway bar and strut rods and make a new set of adjustable strut rods. Haven't decided what to do about the front sway yet.




Some mock up.


Diameter difference between the new strut rod to be and the stock on the bottom of this pic.


The final product!


Pretty micro welds..


Since this is the sr5 model I won't be needing the fuel tank and fuel lines. Started off by draining the fuel from the tank which was pretty full. I didn't know anything could smell this bad but I guess that's what happens when you let gas sit for 6+ years.

This is not what gas is supposed to look like..


I also decided that it would be a good time to rip that front engine harness out.


The shop smelled so bad we had to call it. Left the vents on and decided to leave the rest for later.

[mcmike]

Finishing up the strut rod mounts along with some more support for the tube chassis today.

Finished the mounts for the adjustment on the strut rods.




In this last pic you can also see the two diagonal tubes that square everything off and add a little support to the other tubes. They also double as mounts for the strut rod adjustments.


We got bored so we decided to cut the front coils while everything is out to make it look hellaflush. I haven't decided what coilovers to get but this should suffice since I just need to roll at the moment.





Did a little mock up with the fenders on to make sure we got the measurements right.



Another action shot of us trying to see how low the car will get with the blown shocks and cut springs.


A view of the strut rod installed and us trying to see if the tire was going to hit anything. I'll have to do this again when I do the manual steering swap and such.



At this point we had to set the motor in for mock up and more measurements.



Done for the day. Will post back up tomorrow for some more updates.

[marley4us]

Looks great keep up the good work!

[mcmike]

Thank you sir. I've waited long enough to start this and it's kind of surreal to see it coming along.

I haven't been able to update the last couple days but that doesn't mean we weren't working!

First off got some goodies.



Some bends for the turbo manifold.


Then luckily merrill had a turbo we could use for mock up. This will not be the turbo that I will be using.


After we unwrapped the goodies we got back to work.
The beginning of the turbo manifold.



Some more mock up.



I finally got to get a glimpse of what the car is going to look like.


We let everything sit overnight so I decided I needed to protect the heart of the car.


Now off to finish up some of the bracing.






The finished up ladder work on the passenger side.





Back to more bracing.




Back to the turbo manifold! Sounds weird but I've been looking forward to this piece even with all the crazy nonsense going on with the chassis.






In this pic you can see merrill's work in progress: his soon to be beastly mighty max with a supercharged 4g64. Can't wait until he finishes that.






At this point we saw that the placement for runner 1 was cutting it a little too close to the mc so we put a hold onto that.
While we were waiting for the tubes to come in we decided to mount the radiator.



Bottom side view of the mounting tabs.


Then off to do the same thing with the intercooler.




Quick little mock up to see how everything looks.



Then to finish off the intercooler.


So pretty...





Then here we started finishing up the other runners of the manifold while we waited for the other bits to arrive.


More pretties..



After a long couple days we started getting delirious...



If you can't tell my car loves pics. And I love action welding shots.

Will have more updates tomorrow!

[Merrill]

[saiGone]

Love the self fabbed everything bro. That manifold is looking mean as hell

[mcmike]

Yeah the frame damage kinda left me with no option on that front. Since before the build the turbo manifold was the first part I wanted. Super pleased with the results. Thanks to Merrill for all the hard work and dedication!

Back to more updates.

Started with the headlight brackets.





After those were fabbed up we mounted everything back on to get a better feel for everything.






One of my favorite shots of the car.


After this I noticed that I don't have the corner lights and blinkers. If anyone has these for sale please let me know. Lol



Finished manifold.


Guess we burnt it when we lit it on fire.. lol


Ceramic coated.



Finally on the car.



Now with the turbo mounted up..



After a very long talk with Merrill I decided to go with a Ford 8.8 rear end because of the amount of power I will be pushing and the ease of swapping parts if they break.

Went to the junkyard and found a Ford Explorer with the diff I needed.



New rebuild kit and gear set for the diff. After some calculations we decided on the 4.88 gearset.




As for transmission, I bought a T50 of a gts a couple years ago thinking I was going to use it but I decided to go another route because of the same issue as the diff. Luckily a buddy of mine had a 91 supra that he was using as a parts car. Perfect timing. I had it towed to the shop and ripped the W58 trans out. He had the car for a while and he told me it had no grinds and very little play. Lucky me.



The diff and trans just waiting to be fixed up and thrown in.


It's about time for me to order up some coilovers but I'm having a little trouble deciding on which ones. I've decided I do want the full coilover setup in the rear instead of the separate spring and shock. Also have to do some calculations and decide which spring rate and whatnot I want to go with.

Will update once we get some more work done.

[marley4us]

Man I love this build, seriously keep up the killer work! I need to learn to weld like you!

[mcmike]

As much as I would like to take credit for the welds those are actually Merrill's. Mine don't come out so... pretty like.

I was talking with him earlier and I asked him if he'd be interested in doing a little more work to help the rolla community out. He said he might be up to the task so I guess I get enough interest on here we can get some prices going. In my research I was having trouble finding quality turbo manifolds for a decent price. Lmk if anyone's imterested!

[mcmike]

Not too much to update. Just started stripping the interior.

Other than a couple tears on the driver's seat the interior was in pretty good shape. Note sure which interior pieces I'm going to keep yet. I'm open to suggestions.. lol




Back seats out then all the little trim pieces.


The trim places takes up a lot more room than I thought. Lol




The dash and all the little trims pieces were damaged pretty bad. Some deep cracks in the dash. The hvac controls were pretty gone too. I'm thinking I might just wrap the dash in suede, or maybe just have merrill fabricate me a new dash to get that super race car look.





I also forgot to remove the fuel lines when I dropped the tank so I did that too.



Since I have the sr5 model the fuel lines I had were pretty worthless so instead of wrestling them out I just decided to cut them.


My trash pile is getting pretty huge. Lol. Gotta make a trip down to the recycling place to drop all this scrap metal off.


Next up was the task of stripping the paint off the areas we were going to stitch weld. Note I only started on the front and the other areas will come shortly.




I came in to the shop one day and merrill had apparently decided to start on my intercooler end tanks. This wasn't in the plans but who am I to complain about progress? Lol what a swell guy.


Payment on that intercooler stacked on top. Lol




Mocked up and everything fit perfectly as usual.



That's it for now. Over the next few days we should be finishing up the welds here there that we skipped since everything is mocked up and fitted perfectly. Will post up more later!

[8686GTS]

Awesome build! Can't wait for more updates.

[boosted86]

Awesome build, making lots of progress quick! Be looking forward to updates

[mcmike]

Thanks guys. It's nice to see this thing actually come into fruition after sitting in my garage for 5+ years. Lol

No updates as of yet. Just have to decide which coilovers I want to go with and find some time to finish everything up.

[RuizXIII]

This is pretty interesting build up so far and that tube front looks really top notch.
I will also have to shout out your boy's welding. It is really clean.

This looks like it will be a bad boy.
Keep at it, man =)

[mcmike]

Thank you sir. He is a beast. I just pretty much just let him do his thing and that was the end result. Very satisfied with the results.

Sorry for the lack of updates. We've just been busy with some other stuffs the last couple of days.

We didn't get much done but I'll update what we have done.

We got bored a little while back so we stripped the paint off the valve cover to get it ready for paint. I haven't decided which color scheme I'm going to go with yet but I gotta decide soon. I do love that bare metal look though. Hmm....





Then we got back to work and started with the stitch welding and filling all the holes that we weren't going to use to get that clean look.






Next up the stupid firewall that was bashed in by the previous owner. He attempted to do the 20v swap and made it look all ugly.


We went back and forth trying to figure out how we were going to fix it. It was either lay 1047593037 layers of bondo or cut it out and weld in new metal.

So the decision was made..



In top of this pic you can see the holes welded for the heater core, also the measured out area to be cut. I've decided to ditch the heat and ac for the full race car feel. It's going to suck in the summers out here. Weekend warrior it is!



I might want to frame this as a reminder of how much garbage I went through with this build.





Grinding the welds down to make everything all pretty like.




Stupid hammer mods cost me 350 bucks! Oh well at least that's cheaper than what the 1047593037 layers of bondo would have cost me

Then Merrill brought up an interesting option to clean up the look of the engine bay. At first I thought it was a waste of money and something that I wasn't interested in. But I trusted his taste and experience so I went against my own feelings and went for it. After all was said and done I am very happy that I went his route instead of what I thought I knew.

Starting of the new option..




These still need a few more layers of bondo but it already looks a lot better.

That's all we got done today but will be back at it tomorrow.

[Merrill]

One billion, forty-seven million, five hundred ninety-two thousand..... and 37 layers of body filler....

[Clouds]

One billion, forty-seven million, five hundred ninety-two thousand..... and 37 layers of body filler....

Seems legit

[mcmike]

It was a guesstimate of give or take a few layers but we'll never find out now..

[RuizXIII]

That is going to look really cool when it is all done! A nice and smooth engine bay

[HingaSPL]

Wish we had a Merrill over here, hahaha. I can't weld for sh!t. Your build looks awesome, looking forward to updates

[mcmike]

Yeah I'm very pleased I went this route. Can't wait until we paint it to see it in all its smoothed out glory.

I am very lucky I met merrill the way we did. Long story that I'll have to share sometime later. I will say that I am very anal when it comes to my car(s) and the fact that I even let him touch my car is a hurdle that I haven't been able to overcome in the past. As you can see in the quality of the work he has surpassed even my expectations.


Anyways, we haven't been able to touch the car the last couple days so we didn't get much done, but I started stripping the rest of the interior. Removed the rest of the carpeting and moved all the junk in there to my garage.

Removed the rest of the junk that was behind the dash.



The back of the welds that fixed the hammer mods..



Started stripping the sound deadening as well. The lighting ruined the pics. Oops..



Used a wire brush on a power drill to get all the material off.


Warning: this method makes the material fly everywhere!


We also laid a few more layers of bondo but it's not quite there yet.

A mini update: we sat down and had a conversation on the coilovers and have decided to go with a full coil and shock combo in the rear instead of the separate shock and spring like stock. This limited down my options quite a bit so I think I'll be going with fortune auto. Only problem is they're still doing some R&D and they projected they won't be ready for another month. So lame.

Oh well I guess we won't be able to start on the rear suspension just yet. So we don't come to a stand still we decided to move onto the roll cage. Will update when those bits and pieces come in.

[mcmike]

Sorry not much to update. Since we're still waiting on the coilovers to be ready and still waiting on the bits for the roll cage to come in we've kind of come to a halt.

I did get a couple goodies though.



New coolers for the oil and trans. Now we need to get started on mounting these. I'll probably wait on the lines and fittings until we're closer to actually getting the engine in.

We've also been working on finishing up the bondo work on the firewall. Turns out there were more lines and contours than we thought. Plus that area we had to bang back out makes things more difficult as it is.



I also started cleaning out my garage and found this hot piece.


Once we get the roll cage bits I'll update some more. Hopefully usps gets a move on!

[mcmike]

I got a special package in today!


I purchased a tubing bender for the roll cage for merrill. He sold his a while back when was moving his shop so we worked out a little dealy.

The smoothing out is coming out very nicely. Nearly finished, just a few little spots to take care of but this is pretty much how it's gonna look.



We also had to take out the steering column to finish up the driver's side. This side is going to be fairly quick and painless. Fairly smooth as it is.

[Merrill]

"1,000th view" post!

(Someone's gotta do it....)

[RuizXIII]

Merrill, you do excellent work, sir. You cut the front end off that car (AND now it is fabulous).

What is the best way to ever get 1/2 as good as you with the welding devices?

[Merrill]

Merrill, you do excellent work, sir. You cut the front end off that car (AND now it is fabulous).

What is the best way to ever get 1/2 as good as you with the welding devices?

Thanks for the comments!

I get asked a lot where a good place to start is regarding fab and welding. The best advice I have is education and lots of practice (never saying you or your work is "good enough"). It is important to develop your skill just as much as knowing what and why you are doing what you are doing.

It's a very expensive field to get into since both good work and bad work will cost money (as well as good tools), but there are many ways to learn the trade and get educated while not spending a total fortune. Check you local community college for welding classes and related. That will get you moving in the right direction. You can scour classifieds for a semi decent welder to practice with, and scrounge through the remnants section of your local metal supply store (almost always something cheap to practice welding).

If you have any questions along the way, just PM me. I'll help where I can.

[marley4us]

More posts!!! I want to know how this killer project is going!

[mcmike]

Lol sorry about the lack of updates but football season started and had to get prepped for that. Unfortunately I don't have much to update as I put the rolla on hold.

I will post up some more stuffs soon as we just jumped back into it. So far only thing we've done is work on some of the bondo work. We're back at it now so will keep the updates coming!

[marley4us]

Cool I got ya, I started a second job so I am doing crazy hours and my build has fallen behind...again lol... oh well perils of life. Well keep up the good work!