Sorry for a few months’ silence, been busy. We’ve been spending a number of our weekends on house remodels and such, but I’ve got updates for the MogRod and some other things.
First, the Airstream. That’s picked up again, since some of the major remodeling projects (such as installing French doors to our patio) are done, my father’s helping out with that. Currently he’s working through sanding, filling, and prepping the wooden sub-floor for a new vinyl flooring I’ll be putting in. I just reinstalled the screen door with new screen material, and will soon be putting new screen into the rest of the windows. Making progress, and with any luck in the next week or two the new flooring will be in so the interior pieces that have sat for over a year can go in.
Next up, the Solstice parts car. I actually have a lot of footage and photos of my using a borrowed plasma cutter to chop up the car frame. Apologies for not posting that when it happened (over a month ago), just haven’t felt like putting time into vid and photo editing lately. The main chassis, though, is all chopped up and disposed of. The front and rear ends I held on to, for both measurements and to make it easier to move them around.
Following that, I’ve almost ended up with another project vehicle. I know, like I need something else. Met with a friend of a former neighbor recently who has a ’65 Volvo P1800, the coupe model, not the station wagon. It needs a good bit of work, though, so I’ve told him for the time being to keep me in the loop in case anyone else approaches him on it. It’s one of the few, if only, Volvo’s I’ve ever considered good looking or stylish, and I’d love to get my hands on it. However, I can’t spare the time, space, or money til I get some of our other projects out of the way. Fingers crossed that happens at some point, though!
The Barracuda will soon be going in for a rack and pinion steering swap, transmission servicing, and a smaller radiator. I got tired of replacing the factory power steering, and after the third unit I’ve installed started crapping out recently I said screw it and paid for the replacement unit myself. It’d be in already, but Year One neglected to mention when I ordered the radiator that it’d be a four week lead time… that was over two months ago. They were annoying to deal with when Paddock Parts was still around, now they’re just arrogant towards their customers.
Finally, the MogRod. So, I’ve had some insight recently. Thinking about the Volvo as a project made me realize that I’m just constantly delaying moving forwards on the MogRod because of this whole “design a new chassis” idea. So, what I’ve come to the conclusion of on that is that I will not be making a new chassis for the car. Instead, I will be fixing up the original chassis. I am going to be in contact with a few people regarding the Ecotec swap, as I’m still interested in that, but seeing as it’s already been done with the stock chassis, I see no reason to beat myself up about it any more. At this point, I need to finish pulling the car’s chassis apart and get it cleaned up. Hopefully this will happen in the next month, but moving forward with the Airstream is taking precedent at the moment as we’d like to try and make that usable before the summer months end.
Hopefully more frequent updates about the various projects will be the norm again, it helps keep me focused.
