Okay........Time to raise this build thread from the dead. I've got a few years of (slow) progress to bring up to date. So bear with me. Here comes some more posts from the past to catch up to present day.
So.. let's see where I left off. I had the firewall reconstruction done and quarter panel repair and other sheetmetal rust repair patches and stuff done (Check!). Frame connectors are in. (Check!)
So the next thing up is The front axle swap, the cage and some seat relocation/ interior craziness.
The axle swap, cage and seating mods kind of were figured out and went together all at once, since it all fit together like a puzzle - but I will start posting pics the inside first, then move on to the axle/steering setup.
I figured there will be no rear seats so let's just move those front ones back! The first thing to figure out was the new seating location. Here are some rough pics of where the original seats and steering wheel were, and a mock-up of where they will be moved to..
The original seat location:
And a mock-up of where they are going:
- - - Updated - - -
The seats were moved back a total of 12 inches. Reinforcement plates were welded under the floor sheet metal to prevent any "pull through" of the mounting bolts. The actual seats going in the car are a pristine set of A100 van seats, along with reproduction aluminum mounts. The same Seats used in the old Super Stock Mopars back in the day:
The relocation of the seats required a fabricated riser be built into the floor for the inboard seat rails:
- - - Updated - - -
So here is the new drivers seat in position, (note that this picture is before the inner floor support was built):
With the seating position worked out, I could start working out the cage and getting it fitted. It is all built NHRA legal (minus the required headrest for the low back buckets) That will be added at a later date. So here are some pics of the cage being fitted and tacked in: