"SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS!!!!"
This next step of the build is the front suspension. I have made some progress on this step that I will talk about later. Something wasn't quite right. I realized I was missing "something" as I watched "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc." The scary German character named "Tolt" asked people about "their papers." This reminded me of New Jersey's requirements for inspection/registering your car. Then I realized that I need to take a break from the build and get "my papers in order." This will be the perfect weekend as I have a wedding to attend on Saturday and I will only have little windows of time to steal for myself. Also...I need to take my motorbike out for a spin. Anyway, when you build your own car, regardless of which state you reside, there is a lot of documentation needed to complete the process of inspection/registration. Frame certifications, bill of sale, receipts, pictures, tracings of serial numbers, pints of blood, DNA sampling, first children, etc. These documents are now sitting in the top of my tool box. I need to get my butt in gear and get these docs organized and into a binder.... And I should make COPIES of this binder as NJ requires original docs. Then I started to think about my own PERSONAL documentation of the build. What about future "little Khans" that question about the crazy car in the garage that "daddy said he built?" I then realized that this blog allows me to print out each post individuality. Not only does it have pictures, but my crazy rants as well! Then my mind moved over to other tasks of an organizational slant that I should be doing but haven't made the time. For instance..the frame is on jack stands right now. As like most of us, I don't have a big garage. How can I move this around? Well, FURNITURE DOLLY!! I need to put two furniture dollies under the frame. This way, I can move the frame AND the body buck. SLICK. What about a work bench. Mine today consists of three TV table/trays next to each other. I need something to mount my vice to. Need to get a work bench.... Oh..and my camera batteries died. I need to keep spare batteries in the tool box! Wrenches...such a pain in the tool box. I am going to hang them on the peg board wall so I can see them instantly. I will rant about more of this over the weekend.
So what about the front suspension? Below are some pics of the lower and upper front sub assemblies. These will attach to the frame. The lower arms attach directly to the frame but the upper arms attach to the frame utilizing an "Upper Control Arm Frame Cross Shaft." Once these are mounted up, I will assemble the front coil over shocks, ball joints, spindles, etc.

3 link rear end installation:
My goal this weekend was to install the rear end assembly into the 3 link formation in the frame. It would take the whole team to make this happen. I have a picture of the team up in the left ( in order: Claire, Glen and Grace). The first component to build was the “links” that make up the 3 link rear end. We have trailing arms, large panhard bar and the “3rd” link. Once assembled, I had to address the suspension. In this case, I had to bench assemble the coil over race shocks. This entails installing some adjustable rings on the body of the shock, slipping over the spring and then placing the retainer cap at the top of the shock. These are really nice as not only can you adjust ride height, you have an adjustment knob to address ride stiffness.
Claire (who never seems to have her eyes open for pictures) and I now had to move our subassemblies to the rear of the car. We used our creeper seats to move the rear end to the rear of the car. The rear needed to be raised high enough to get the rear end into position. Once into position, our first installation was the two trailing arms that connect the bottom of the axle tubes to the frame from each side of the rear end. Next up was installing “the 3rd link” which is only 5 inches long. It connects from the top of the rear end assembly to the upper frame. Now we were able to install the 26 inch long pan hard bar that crosses from the rear frame to the opposite side of the rear end. What’s cool about these links is that each one is adjustable to allow tweaking to the assembly for maximum dial in. Now I just have to figure out how to tweak it right!
The rear end and the links are all attached at this point. Claire and I now needed to install the coil over shocks that we assembled earlier. The manual recommends installing the shocks with the adjustment knob facing inside of the car to allow for easy access with the tires on. We found out that this was true, however, we had to reinstall a trailing arm as the bolt was interfering with the knob. Our motto is do it right, or not at all. So we flipped the bolt around so that the bolt head was next to the knob which provided the necessary clearance. Once both shocks were in, we admired our rear end of the cobra.
Next up…..the front suspension.