HM-2037 Build Thread

[Redstang69]

I agree it sounds like you measured at the bearing, my bearing was 3.148 and housing bore was 3.145, the bearing went in beautifully.
Now the T bolts and mounting plate are a different story. I tried a hot glue gun to glue the spacers on, it didn't work so great so I'd advise against that to anyone in the future.
The problem I ran into after that was that I barely had a thread coming through the mounting plate to get the nuts started. Was a huge pain. I finally did get all 4 but one stripped pretty quickly so I'll either be ordering the wildwood kit or probably just getting grade 8 fine thread 3/8" hex head bolts that are actually long enough.
Anyone know why regular hex head bolts wouldn't work?
This hole able thing has been extremely frustrating. I finally walked away from it today and put the heim joints on the rear suspension bars and assembled the rear shocks, that actually went smoothly and my daughter could help.

[Greg K]

T-bolts do not need a wrench to tighten, hex will need you to put a wrench to the back side which tried, but decided to go with the Wilwood t-bolt kit after all.

[Redstang69]

After reading through some of the other build threads I realized I didn't have the backing plates on the preferred sides, I had them oriented so the caliper was to the rear instead of to the front. I swapped those around, re-glued the spacers to the bearings and had both axles in and torqued in about an hour. I ended up using 3/8"-24 x 1-1/2" grade 8 hex bolts instead of the T bolts. I was very happy with the end result, nylon part of the lock nut was fully on the bolt and a few threads extra exposed.
I'd highly recommend going with then length bolt or the Wilwood T bolt kit that others have had luck with. The Wilwood T bolt kit I looked up said they were 1-7/16" long. I forgot to measure the length of the supplied T bolts, but I think they are just slightly shorter then the Wilwood bolts.
Also, a caution that the manual is very confusing about the backing plate orientation. A picture has text saying the slotted e-brake hole points toward the front of the vehicle, but step 2 says the hole should point toward the rear of the vehicle. A couple pages later a picture of an assembled rear end shows the calipers toward the rear like I originally had them. Mistakes happen and designs/parts change, I just want to give future builders the heads up.
So the rear end is finally fully assembled, minus fluids.
I'll probably end up pulling the calipers back off and painting red to match my planned on stripes.

[Bob Worley]

I oriented my calipers to the front, which if I recall, is the opposite of what the manual shows.  This is so the E-brake cable would make a long U bend instead of a tight S bend. 

[Redstang69]

Got a little done this weekend. Body is fully ready for removal, hooks and ropes in the ceiling, brace cut and installed. My try to round up help tomorrow night.
Assembled my lower control arms, ball joints went in great. Started to assemble the uppers and the ball joints would not go. They're in the freezer now but talking to Greg I may not have the right ones. I got all Moog K772 ball joints. Anyone else know what they got and worked. Greg thought he had something different for the uppers.
Also reamed holes for rear suspension components and mounted them loosely. Need to call Alec tomorrow and get 5/8" x 1/2" spacers needed for the 3rd link arm.

[Greg K]

The ball joints I received were Parts Master K772, which are a house brand of Auto Value and Bumper to Bumper auto parts stores and also made by Federal Mogul but not made by Moog.. I also bought Moog ball joints as an upgrade, Moog would not work or fit at all into upper. The Parts Master dropped right in. The Parts Master had a nice taper to the threaded area and got right to them. Seems the radius on the Moog just wouldn't fit for me, and don't think any freezing or heating would have made a difference. If you look at some ball joints in comparison to the moog, the parts master and others have a step instead to the threads and not a radius similar to what pictured here.

[Redstang69]

I tried a frozen one for kicks and still had no luck. Like Greg said the taper on the Moog just doesn't seem to be long enough to let the threads get together to start threading. Alec has some parts master ones on order. I might take an upper with me to O'Reilly's tomorrow and try one of theirs.
My cardone bushings showed up today

[Redstang69]

Was a pretty nice weekend in Ohio, close to 70, so I was able to get a little done.
First off, I got a similar ball joint from O'Reilly's a few days ago and tried it in the upper housing. You can see in the picture the difference in design. It would thread almost halfway in and then get really tight. I might try to wire wheel the housing some but Alec has parts master ones on order, so I might wait for those too.
The ball joint issue also prompted me to move forward with assembling the front suspension. Got it probably 60% complete. Just need to put spindles on, hubs/brakes, and steering rack. A heads on the front, after talking with Greg K. my upper shock mount measures 1-7/8" wide, so it took 6 washers to fill up the space, Greg's measures 1-5/8". I'm going to check with Alec as to why and if I should be assembling differently.
I had to do trim some of the 1/2" x 1/2" spacers to get them to fit. One on the front mount of the LCA only needed maybe .005" shaved off. One on each rear LCA mount needed more, approx 1/8" .

[Redstang69]

Managed to get the rear end hung last night with the help of a buddy. The cart I have it on is nice for maneuverability and good working height but it made getting the rear end in place pretty tough.
For those building a newer one, the axle bracket for the trailing arm only has two holes now. Trailing arms go in the top hole and the 5/16" bushings are no longer needed. The thing slipped right in the mounts easily though.

[Redstang69]

Been working a little off and on in the evenings this week since the weather has been great. Got my front frame section off, still trying to figure out where I'll store that. Got the rear end all torqued except for the third link. Waiting on the correct spacers from Alec as well as the upper ball joints for the front.
Prepped the front spindles and painted them and then tonight I put the bearings and seal in the hubs and mounted the caliper brackets to the spindles. Everything went together really well.
After I put the caliper bracket on I noticed I could've got away with painting a little more. I'll touch them up.

[Redstang69]

I forgot to mention that I installed the steering rack also. I went ahead and got the cardone bushings and they went right in. On my frame one nut is pre-welded into the frame. The other has to be installed and there is a notch cut out in the frame. The notch however is not big enough to get the open end of a wrench onto the nut and when using the box end, once the bolt is tight there isn't enough space to get the wrench off the bolt. Slightly frustrating but I simply added a washer and that gave me enough space to get the wrench out.

[Redstang69]

I haven't been too productive over the last week or so, flu bug went through the house and then a couple pretty cold days again. I did get the brake lines ran across the axle. Couple things to note:
Comparing my chassis with Greg's, my brake line adapter mount at the rear of the frame is a lot further to the rear, so I was able to route a little differently than Greg.
Mounted the clutch pedal and m/c last night. You'll have to trim the top of the pedal frame so it'll slide in properly. Also, stud coming out of the m/c is pretty long and pushes the clutch pedal pretty far to the rear, so I trimmed roughly a half inch off.
The clutch m/c is a very tight fit getting the rubber boot through the predrilled hole.
Also, the hardware that comes with the pedals is a little odd. The brake pedal frame comes predrilled and tapped to bolt the frame to the footbox, but no hardware. The clutch pedal frame is only drilled and comes with two bolts which I assumed are to bolt the frame to something (footbox in our case), but did not come with nuts, odd since this frame is not tapped. Maybe I'm not using the hardware correctly, but if I am, then for future builders you'll need qty. 4 5/16-18 x 1" bolts for the brake pedal frame and qty. 2 5/16-24 nuts to go with the supplied bolts for the clutch pedal frame.

Started bending the long rear brake line, but stopped once I got up to the m/c's. I'm thinking too much on how to "efficiently" route them.

[FFR428]

Nice progress!

[Redstang69]

Finally bit the bullet and really started going at the brake lines last night. I had been thinking on it a lot trying to think ahead about if I would ever need to replace a m/c then I didn't want my line routing to hinder the job.
This is where I finished up last night. Still need to cut the lines to the finished length and re-flare.
If anyone sees any major issues with this yell at me, I can still change things easily. I talked with Greg some and he mentioned I might want to give a little more space between the clutch line and where the cockpit tub would be.
Excuse the mess

[Redstang69]

Got the brake lines finished up. Started on the fuel system next. I've been going round and round trying to decide what exactly I'll do, mainly because I haven't decided on if I'm going Sniper or traditional carb.
Anyway, I worked on the fuel sender this evening. Figured I would share this for others.
First picture is roughly how it's assembled out of the box. I say roughly because in the picture I've already trimmed and shortened the arms, you can see the extra in the pic.
I ended up having to take the main arm loose and rotate it due to how the sending unit must orient in the tank so the float doesn't hit the side wall or baffles.
The 1-1/2" hole is also very tight and I had to grind a little on the arm so the unit would sit even in the hole and the bolt holes would line up.