It took a while to get the pedals in place and get the steering wheel at the right height to be comfortable driving. But after it was in I checked the fit of the heater box and it has plenty of room on the passenger side. I then started fitting the Metro wiper assembly into the car. It is a different width between the posts and the motor will be in a different place but I think I can get it all working. I just need to come up with an easy way to modify the sweep angle of the drivers side wiper to get it to sweep a bit wider than stock.

I managed to get the holes to put the shafts through sized properly and get the wiper shafts put in place. They are not mounted yet. I will probably have to glue them in place to mount them. The motor will probably be the hardest part to get mounted since it will be mounted under the dash instead of through the firewall and will mount  backwards. I will experiment with the mounting tomorrow and see if I can get a working setup.

Using cardboard I made a template for the firewall that fits pretty snug in the opening. The closer I can get it the better off I am with sealing it up and keeping it from leaking. Once I cut the pattern out in steel I marked and cut out the hole for the master cylinder mounting. The new location for the master cylinder gives me plenty of room under the hood for the stock setup to fit. I might still add a remote fill to it so it will be easier to top off the fluid.

I spent a long time trying to connect the morse cable I am using for the clutch to the pedal but there just was no good way to get it working right. I finally just gave up and used the stock Metro cable to mount to the firewall and built an adapter to connect the two cables together. This will work out good since it gives me even more adjustment capability on the clutch cable. I will mount the adapter bracket in the front somewhere once I get more of it built and know where it can go. Up next is to finish mounting the pedals to the firewall including mounting the throttle pedal. After the pedals are in place I need to mount a set of good wipers and mount the heater box. Then I just need to build a dashboard and the few odds and ends for the interior then it is time to start on the final build to get it on the road.

I will use square tube to mount the front section of the floor and weld nuts. I will most likely use angle to attach the front firewall to the floor. After that is framed up I will start building the dashboard and that should finish up figuring out all the locations of the components. Then I can brace everything up solid then strip the car down to do the final welding and rust proofing of the frame.

With that change I lowered the car down and checked the headroom. I can now sit in the car straight up without hitting the roof. There isn’t much room around my head but I don’t have to drive it with my head to one side now. The car looks even funnier now with probably 6 inches from the tire to the fender. I will need to get dropped spindles for the front suspension to get it down low enough to look right. The good thing is I can lower the pedals to get them back where they were in relation to the floor and this gives me just enough room under the hood to get the master cylinder reservoir to fit now.

First thing is to take the bumper off to make it easier to work with. Then cut some sections of angle iron about an inch or two wide. I used an old bed rail for the angle iron but pretty much anything will do. Using some of the existing holes in the bottom of the bumper I attached the angle iron to the bumper then using a small drill bit I drilled through the fiberglass edging and the bracket. I then used the self tapping screws to attach the fiberglass solidly.

I added brackets anywhere it seems like it needs the bracing. With it curving around the sides it holds it’s shape pretty well but it still needed a small bracket made for the very end of the edging. Once I got one side together I got the other side done and tightened up all the screws and got it all level to the front edge of the bumper.

After that it was just a matter of using an angle grinder to shape the ends of the bumper to make it look good.

Putting it back on the car it looks really good. I need to flat black the screw heads to make it look better but I will have to wait for warmer weather for the paint to stick well.

The new part is clean and the bumper is dirty so it is easy to see the difference. Once it is driven and they are evenly dirty it will be hard to notice the extension.

I will be getting the car out of the garage tomorrow to wash it and get it ready to show. It isn’t near complete yet but it is good enough to let everyone see what kind of progress is being made on it.

The rear suspension is complete. I need to go over it a bit and tighten everything down and get the toe adjusted a bit better but at least now it can sit on the wheels and roll without any trouble.

The round black sending unit actually sits under the bar to give  you an idea of where it will be sitting. I won’t mount it until after I make the shifter setup. That is probably the next thing I will be working on. The reason I didn’t mount the tank behind the engine is I want to keep that area clear for the electric drive system once I get to that point in the build. I will be using a much larger electric motor and will be needing the extra room to mount it. Plus putting the tank in the back is a bad idea if it gets rear ended.