Update time!
So, I dragged the car home from my parent's house where it was stored, to my house! I finally have a garage of my own to work in, so long term projects can finally be done. So excited about this. Before, I could only do projects that took a day, maybe two. It severely limited what I could get done.
On the trailer home:
As soon as I got it home, I started investigating what I could do to keep the brakes from hitting the frame rail. The passenger side was actually the least problematic, but here is where the caliper sits:
Not much room when the suspension is compressed. I think that is why I never noticed before. When I installed them, the suspension was hanging down. Made it look like I had much more clearance than I did.
Any pointers from others that have done this swap? I used the templates, and as far as I know, I followed the instructions. I'll have to go back and read them again. What did I do wrong?
Then I started looking into the seat belts. The cheapy ones I bought when I got the car both broke from people closing the door on the clip. No real loss, I never really liked or trusted them before anyway. Time to kick it up a notch! This is just a mock-up to see how I like them, but I bought a pair of expired SFI rated belts. They were never used, just older. I don't plan to professionally race the car, so who cares! Got them both for $70 shipped. Score!
The final configuration will have a harness bar, and double hoops behind the seats. Yes, I know it isn't as safe as a proper roll bar, but my roll bar won't let either of my tops to work, and I like the look of the double hoops anyway. Besides, anything is better than what I had before, and that was still probably safer than what the car had originally!
After that, I decided to strip the interior. Remember, I'm swapping everything into the other car, as long as the title clears. The old carpet was horrible, and filthy. Since I am buying a new carpet set, I just tossed what I had in the trash. Then I stripped the floor of all that insulation, just out of curiosity. I wanted to see what I had. HOLY. COW. I'm glad I decided to swap bodies! The Rust Rocket is aptly named!!!
Just a small sample of what I mean:
The worst of it is under the driver's pedals. Someone took heat resistant cloth and covered the muffler, and then sprayed expanding foam over that to fill a 6"x6" hole in the floor!!! So the muffler is supporting the floor... AND COVERED IT IN FREAKING FOAM!!!! Who was the genius that came up with that idea???
