Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback
It's starting to rumble outside again. The revised forecast said that maybe we won't have as much of a chance for severe weather tonight. If you don't hear from me tomorrow that means a tornado has picked up my house and dropped it on my ex.
Most of the time working on the cross-member has been spent measuring , making templates, and planning. Often we see flaws in one design and change course.
Our hope was that we could design a lower cross-member that would closely mimic the factory design. The location of the T-56 tail shaft mount is close to the same spot as an A-833 but was going to have to have an offset. Because that Tremec is fatter than the original transmission the lower cross-member was going to have to be wider and drop farther. We didn't want to have it sit so low that it would cause ground clearance problems so the profile is thinner on the bottom but we are reinforcing it quite a bit to compensate.
We were able to keep the back side of the cross-member straight but the front side was going to need a swoop in it to clear the transmission and allow room for things such as the speedometer cable attachment point. We also kept an eye on how much room we were leaving for exhaust routing. Spence has been considering a 3 & 1/2" exhaust system so we didn't want to have to notch this thing later on.
Here's a comparison between the stock mount and ours.
We still don't have the mounting holes drilled that go through the frame and haven't gotten to the mounting plate for the polyurethane block. We also haven't finished what's already shown in those pics. Depending on how our mounting plate works out, we may try boxing this piece.
It's starting to rumble outside again. The revised forecast said that maybe we won't have as much of a chance for severe weather tonight. If you don't hear from me tomorrow that means a tornado has picked up my house and dropped it on my ex.
Most of the time working on the cross-member has been spent measuring , making templates, and planning. Often we see flaws in one design and change course.
Our hope was that we could design a lower cross-member that would closely mimic the factory design. The location of the T-56 tail shaft mount is close to the same spot as an A-833 but was going to have to have an offset. Because that Tremec is fatter than the original transmission the lower cross-member was going to have to be wider and drop farther. We didn't want to have it sit so low that it would cause ground clearance problems so the profile is thinner on the bottom but we are reinforcing it quite a bit to compensate.
We were able to keep the back side of the cross-member straight but the front side was going to need a swoop in it to clear the transmission and allow room for things such as the speedometer cable attachment point. We also kept an eye on how much room we were leaving for exhaust routing. Spence has been considering a 3 & 1/2" exhaust system so we didn't want to have to notch this thing later on.
Here's a comparison between the stock mount and ours.
We still don't have the mounting holes drilled that go through the frame and haven't gotten to the mounting plate for the polyurethane block. We also haven't finished what's already shown in those pics. Depending on how our mounting plate works out, we may try boxing this piece.