oh probably, as i ALWAYS do on my buiilds...document the crap out of em, sometimes i do shoot vid, like i did this time of cutting the arches, thing is, any vid i shoot would be pretty boring, i actualy spend days calculating and measureing for cuts sometimes weeks to months to get all the calculating right before i even pick up a saw or grinder or torch, im very meticulous about being certain within a slim reason of doubt that what im about to do is going to turn out right without fail, so while the watches wait, know that im behind the scenes figuring crap out
my lloyd was a great example of this kind of thing, the original plan went out the window when an alfa milano fell in my lap to supply running gear frame rails and suspension, but still a 58 lloyd, you screw up and it may be many many years before you find a replacement panel if ever, so patiance and planning are key and not overlooking any small numbers n details, sure you can weld panels and parts back in but sometimes its soo much harder to fix a mistake, better to plan ahead, quadruple check everything then sit on it chew on it stare at it and make sure its RIGHT from every angle both looks and mechanicaly
things are so much more critical when your re-aranging the suspension with 2 decades newwer parts from an entirely different brand, in the case of my lloyd 3 decades
my lloyd is 3000pics deep, a crown vic for a friend is stalled due to a job swap n funds at 1500 pics, i try and take enough that anyone can get immersed into the build and maybe catch somethig i miss before i do
heres a slight step back in the time line..a mock of the suspension and some rough guess wheels, this was just after picking the slc but before finding one, but ive been sitting on the suspension 6 years?
its funny you mention that....my research for someone started a few years ago into just that, and now that you can get wrecked teslas for 10k, it wouldnt be all that hard to nip n tuck till it all fit, but the cash outlay wont likely get much cheeper, and an electric engine swap just never worksout like it should, i have a friend who, would like me to look into building something like my wide body lloyd but using a wrecked tessy.....so while it wont be sl/c i may very well get the chance to do what your thinking
as much as i can appreciate replicas and the real deal's from back in the day, i HATE the "bushwhacker" flare tacked on look, and much prefer the carrying of full body lines out to all 4 wheels
this will be more of a "tribute" to what they should have been doing if they had followed along with the race trends that most of the other companys were doing in the day
heres a sampling of my inspiration pile mind you i want to do something MUCH more "finished" and "refined" than any of these.....but would look right at home on the track right next to any of them and period looking for the most part
im hoping my counterpart will grace us with a rough draft
Short said pretty much what we have been discussing when it pertains to the styling of the car. I will add that of the samples shown, there is one glaring issue - fitment. There is ZERO body to wheels cohesiveness. I am fully aware that in racing form from this era, fitment was not a priority. Fenders half crafted, misaligned, "bushwacked", "rivited", tacked-on....these concepts are not how we approach design. There needs to be a sense of flow.Lines have to makes sense and reveal a purpose to even someone who would never even notice key elements. But does.
This is one direction we are leaning heavily towards. Much refinement to be massaged. All this is preliminary and pending new concepts.
What I see on the front fenders seems to make sense aerodynamically, but it looks like the doors present a problem for the rears with the narrower chassis. The bulbs over the rear wheels probably present more of an issue aerodynamically, don’t you think?
With a stock wheel track on stock (lowered) suspension, I know that my friend @rwd4evr ‘s deft 450slc has issues with body roll, especially in the rear. He hasn’t tried the MB anti-squat rear end yet though. Hopefully your rear suspension makes the car have lot less body roll. I have to assume it will be much better.
the new track width of the newwer gear is a good bit wider with massive swaybars
and since no ones figured out the suspension, its mk4 96 supra, the handling characteristics and the modular self contained designed coupled with the MASSIVE aftermarket support made it a no brainer even 6 years ago when we got it all from japan, sure theres bound to be some hate throwing jap stuff into a german but hey, this baby will carve when done and look good doing it
as for the areo , some of the designs from the 70/80s did have this design just there isnt many examples as most found it easier to pull the fenders out and just leave a huge hole and call it good, then re-direct "some" of the air for brakes, worked great on the front but caused drag in the rear
Piggy-backing on what Short mentioned is the fact that the MK4 Supra IRS cradles were designed for weight, abuse, reliability and strength deep into power modifications. Even in 1000+ HP Supras, owners are running stock driveline systems including driveshafts, diff and axles. Sure well invested racers trying to get the most out of their systems will advance to a Quaife diff but that's pretty much race standard.
MK4 Supras tip the scales at 3500lbs. Therefore, it's not hard to imagine how well tested these IRS systems stand up so well. This is a key element to the build and one that will yield many benefits from setting a wider track and preventing body roll while allowing the car to put down teh power as needed in a linear and confident manner. We will also follow up that by introducing adequate bracing throughout the car to ensure the IRS characteristics match up well to the LSX power plant.
pile of pics uploading, front frame rails finalized, and 3/4 finished after a hand full of designs and trial n error with different designs, in the end the car will be an intigrated tube frame but due to the fact it will be done in sectional steps it will still be a unibody car, it will just have beefier rails, tires are here and mounted on "mockup" shells n barrels without wheel centers, BBK hats arived as well WOOT
tossed around a new face idea, while the idea was "sound" the results looked as if we had grafted the nose of a 70 dodge charger onto the front..cool sure, but lacking
new rubber 345 30 19 rear 275 30 19 front, HUGE slabs o meat, the previous "mock" rubber was a 305, the "skinnys" are 245, funny how this big ole invo's dwarf everything
yes that is a shot of a 305 stuffed under the rear with only a little exposer, and then a 345 stuffed under..so if you wanted to do a "light" flare you could tuck a 345 in there
so the question, how do you calculate offset without a body width confinement?
you first mock in the suspension, then you find the widest part of the body, toss a level across it with a plumb bob and then measure back to the hub face, this give you what can only really be called "body back spacing"....at this point you know where hub line is in referance to the current body, then mock in the tires to where you "think" you want them and then use the math and see where your at, were looking at ZERO offset for maximum use of suspension and maximum width without sacraficing the handling as the tire will be sitting in a "neutral" setting
with tires in hand it was time to finalize wheel size, heres the thing, was wanted a good fit with a good look, no silly stretch but no undersized wheel either, the perfect balance of form and function
the porsche 3 piece wheels a long since passed buddy of ours gave me came in very VERY handy, after dissmantling all 4, i was left with a nice assortment 7, 6.5, 4, 3, so combinations were abound
starting with the 345 on a 14 was too much stretch, in fact it didnt want to mount without way to much bonus effort, so dropped down to a 13.5 which turned out to be PERFECT
the 275 started with a 11 and was unmountable, i mean sure with explosive techniques it did mount but UGH the look was wrong, with much effort i stepped it down to a 10.5 which turned out to be perfection
the wheels hoops were a bit ratty so they got cleaned and wire wheeled down to bare and then "some" of them got shot with gold wheel paint, to try and sell the vintage feel
I inherited this car from my father and it has been sitting in a garage for the last few years and driven only a few times and the car looks and drives really nice and has 110,000 miles. The only issues I can see with it are that the A/C does not seem to work and it looks like there is some rust...
I saw that there is a 58K mile 75 450SL no reserve there. So I set up a business trip and went over there yesterday. Cars at Mecum can be had for low dollars sometimes.
Here is the 75:
https://www.mecum.com/lots/KD1219-393473/1975-mercedes-benz-450sl-convertible/
Well, I'll just call it a pig...
I’m starting a thread for this topic even though I mentioned it in the main thread for the car. The car is a 350slc 4-speed that is I fortunately rotted, likely beyond sensible repair. But I really want to make the car run and drive to at least test the components: relatively rare 3.5, 4-speed...
Hi everyone,
Spinning up a new thread to document the journey of refreshing the interior. As some of you may know Eleanor is getting ready for a respray so I thought it's a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. The scope of works as I see it right now includes...
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