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..................................................-- Side Pods Part I --
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On the previous page I had installed the chute tubes a day or so before Phil (pictured above) showed up. He came over (65 miles each way) on Sat. and helped me with the work below the chute tubes and finish welding on the front suspension. He had so much fun that he drove back over on Sunday and we worked on the side pods of the car on the left side. The water cooling tank will be in the pod on this side and the ice water intercooler tank will be on the other side. A 3/16 X 2 inch piece of strap was welded to the bracing near the front of the car (top left arrow). It went back to near the rear A-arm bracket lower right arrow. Near because what I had wasn't quite long enough and my steel supplier was closed. We also bent some 20 gauge into U-shaped troughs that were suppose to support the water tanks.
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Here Phil is welding in the long piece or a cross member. It seemed strange seeing someone else welding on the car, but I knew it was someone who is a better welder than I. I took the picture since I wanted to see if the welding light would ruin my camera. Don't ask me why I do things like that. After welding in a crossmember or two we decided the tanks could just ride on them with some rubber cushioning and abandoned the ..................
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..................... sheet metal troughs we had built (top arrow). Since the metal strap wouldn't reach the A-arm support two pieces of square tubing tied it to the outrigger piece (middle arrow). The bottom right arrow points to some string. I used my new pieces that allow me to string the car and ran a string down this side of the car and got the long piece of strap exactly straight and the same distance from the center line of the car for it's whole length.
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Phil made some cross-members (by left two arrows) that locate the long side strap and stabilize it and will also support the water tank. Actually there will be two tanks here that will each be 5 inches by 5 inches X 6 feet long and will be next to each other separated by a small air space. The cooling water from the motor will enter one tank at the rear of the car and travel through that tank towards the front of the car. There it will enter the second tank and return towards the rear of the car and exit and go back to the motor. The pod is 6 inches high for it's entire length and 11 inches wide by the cage area. One more cross-member was added where the right arrow is in the picture.
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A close-up of the crossmembers. They aren't bent, but two uprights welded to a cross member. I had worried a lot about this aspect of the car. I wondered how to make this strong enough, but still keep it simple and as small as possible so that the tanks could be as large as possible. Phil thought this would do it and it sure seems strong enough. He stood on it without it bending at all and he has a few pounds on me. The two tanks on this side will hold a total of about 15 1/2 gallons. The intercooler water tanks on the other side of the car will be the same. The 15 1/2 gallons is about 129 lbs. and there will be the weight of the aluminum tanks themselves.
On a side note I went to Phoenix last week (400 miles each way) to haul a Chevy vortec motor and a 4L80E transmission to Sparky and to pick up some aluminum sheets for me (for the water tanks) and for Phil (he builds "bomber seats" for rods and sells them) and for Tony who is doing the machine work on the new engine for my truck and uses the aluminum on circle track cars he and his son Dillon build for customers. I was driving my truck (1FATGMC) with a trailer behind it with the motor and transmission in it. I left home with it snowing but thought it would be better once I got into Arizona and the Navajo Reservation. Wrong, it got much worst. At a 100 miles out it got so bad I couldn't see the road anymore and my truck with the wide rear tires is not great in snow. I stopped and turned around for home. I went about 15 miles back and a snow plow went the other way. After a few miles I found a place to turn around and headed after the snow plow. About 35 miles later I got out of the snow and the roads were just wet the rest of the way to Phoenix. I stayed with Sparky a day and a half, got the aluminum and headed home in sunny weather to first Colo. to drop off the guys aluminum there and then the other 70 miles home to Utah.
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