Hello all, long time member, just never had a class car.
One year ago I had a bad top end wreck with my 8.50 index Malibu that I built, owned and raced for 27+ years. Car made a hard left past the finish line, put me into the wall which then caused the car to barrel roll as many as 7 times I'm told. I don't remember any of the accident, so no apparent cause was found.
A couple weeks after the crash I was able to source a body to begin building again. My dream car was gone so the new car would simply be a purpose built race car, chosen for ease of parts availability, low purchase cost and light weight.
I have many, many pics of the build in detail, not sure how much interest there would be to see this project.
Found alot more rust than I was hoping for. One area I really didn't want to get into was the front frame rails which have a reputation for rusting out under the master cylinder and combination valve.
I tried ordering a replacement frame rail kit but didn't like how it was going to install, plus I found an issue with the factory placement of the passenger rail, so I decided to make my own. Drew them up on CAD at work and cut them out on the cnc plasma.
At this point the front end was rebuilt as far as I could go for the time being. I was ready to start the tube work but was waiting for a bay to open up at work to get started.
So in the mean time I worked on building the rear housing. First was a mockup and measurements of the rear wheel/tire combination.
Then the rear could begin with welding on the 4 link doubler plates.
Housing and 4 link brackets being fixtured up.
Once all the welding was done the housing ends could be fit which is a very time consuming/tedious process to get them perfectly square to the axle centerline.
A fixture was then made to hold the housing to the chassis table.
About the time I was completing the work on the rear, a bay opened up at work so I transferred the car to its new home.
...and now tube work could begin.
Last edited by Todd Geisler; 10-16-2021 at 11:05 AM.
Excellant workmanship. Glad you got back on the horse after having a bad crash.
Thanks you. Doing my best to get this done in a timely manner, but still takes time. For the next few months it will be out of my hands waiting for body/paint, plus waiting to get the engine back.
8.50 index build
Linear Mode
