Ann fired up her Cricket yesterday and printed out some labels that also act as instructions for starting and managing the jeep. She also add “ON” and “OFF” labels to make clear what switches need to be pressed. Starting the jeep is a five step process:

1. Power
2. Fan
3. Fuel pump
4. Ignition
5. Start (button)

In the first pic, the “2-” for the fan label is hiding behind the switch.

More progress made on the racer this weekend. The floors are installed and mostly bolted. The pedals are all in place. The steering was in place, but I was unhappy with the final angle of the front support bearing, so I plan to redo that support so that it angles differently. Hopefully, I will get that done and installed today.

Here’s how the rear top crossmember that holds the rear fire extinguisher looks. The two holes on either side are the shoulder strap attachments.

Here are the three pedals (with the steering drive shaft disconnected from the quick-turn unit).

One thing I still need are a brake and clutch pedal pad. Any recommendations on what I can use that has a similar mount point and size? (these were from the yellow racer .. I didn’t like the other racer’s pedals). These look to be rubber casings over metal pedals, but both pedal bolts are in bad shape. this is the good one …

The master cylinders are attached (the brakes are ready to go). I have to get an adapter to connected the clutch line to the clutch master cylinder. Everything is fitting well. I have to say the fire wall turned out better than I thought. Remember, I flattened the old firewall from the yellow racer and re-bent it into the shape I wanted.

Here side view of the gas pedal setup. One thing I learned from my first race jeep was that having a firm, stable gas pedal was greatly beneficial when racing, due to the bouncing. I could plant the bottom of my foot firmly, while using the top of my foot to feather the gas. This setup is based on what I built for Biscuit, but heavier duty.

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I’ve made some assembly progress. The tank is installed and hooked up (which took me a short while to remember exactly how I fit it into that tight space, lol), the battery is setup, the upper wiring is in place, the rear sway bar is installed, the rear lights are installed and wired and the gauges are in place.

Currently, I am focused on setting up the wiring. I saved the previous wiring, since little will electrically, so it shouldn’t take too long to alter some wire distances. 

Sorry the pics aren’t better, but the focus is on creation and not documentation. The goal is to be able to drive it during the first week of May.

The clutch and brake pedal system are all ready for install, though it’s apart for paint. The floor framework is partly complete as of today. I should have the floor frame and floor itself ready for some paint by Sunday (assuming there aren’t more distractions (there have been plenty of those ..).

I ended up building a custom bracket system for the clutch and brake. Because of the holes in the firewall from the old clutch/brake system, I sandwiched the firewall between the bracket I made and a thin sheet of metal to make it look cleaner. Here’s a very rough look from a few days ago. Both pedals had bends, which I straightened (and are straighter than shown below) with the press (as I didn’t need the bends).

Below are some of the parts with a layer of paint. There’s nothing fancy here. I’d love to have the time to tear the whole jeep down, properly clean it, then paint it. But, I want to run the racer first to see how it does before investing more time doing a big overhaul.

The weather has warmed up some, which made working outside much more pleasant! Since the last set of pics, I made some corner brackets and added them to the cage. I’ve also added a cross bar that will be the base for the sets and some curved support bars on eat side of the front loop.

I’ll post some pics of the cage below, then add some pics of how I made the brackets (in case that’s of interest to anyone.

Below I show how I made the corner pieces.

This first pic shows 5 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ 16 gauge steel squares. The paper above it shows my attempts to figured out the rough size I wanted:

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Once the water got fixed (found a retired local plumber who still does small jobs and did previous work on our house, so that worked great), I returned to the cage.

The front “loops” have been bent and added, along with a top and mid cross bar. I also added one side bar, with the other almost ready to spot-weld in place. Unfortunately, I ran out of materials, so I need to get a couple more tubes.

As you can see below, I found a seat placement I like. My head rests just below the top of the seat, so plenty of room for a helmet. Now, I just have to figure out how I want to mount them. I was going to weld in the seat frames, but I think I am going to bolt them. This will make it 1) easier to install the floor pan and 2) allow me to change up the seats/position if I’m unhappy with how it feels.

After an unexpected detour of 6 months, I finally had a chance to return to working on the racer.

My first project was to create the side bars by reusing the 2 1/2″ side bars from the yellow racer. You can see them mounted on the old racer here (my finger is accidentally pointing out the driver’s sidebar in this pic). I cut both of them off this chassis.

Here is a side view of the old chassis. These sidebars are angled upward to attach at the angled portion of the frame near the engine mounts. I liked the look of them, so figured I’d reuse them. At this point, I also plan to build the new racer cage similar to what you see blow, but with a few changes.

Somehow, I managed not to take many pics of this process, but I started with my new metal saw by cutting the side bars so they’d sit flat (I removed the sidebars from the other chassis with a sawz-it-all, so the cuts weren’t great).

Trying to get this angle just right on the front portion of the bars was tricky. So, I cut the back bar first to the optimal length, then dropped the front of the bar over the edge of the table until the tube was level. Then used the flat edge of a carpenter square to draw a straight edge on the bar.

Here, the cut has been finished.

Next, I welded plates to each tube end. Then, I clamped the tubes to the sides of the frame. With that done, Ann and I put the body in place to make sure it fit over the angled side bar, which it does.

Here’s a view from the back:

Since it looks like things will fit correctly, I will pull the body back off, pull the side bars off, clean off the paint where I need to weld on the frame, and attach the sidebars.

Next, I’ll spend some time determining how the floor, cage, firewall, and the seats will mount, and how the side of the body will attach to the cage (the body sides are weak rather flimsy, so it needs a good mounting system).

A couple days ago I took disassembled some of the black and green race jeep. The cage for the narrow body is tool small to be useful for me. So, I will bend my own cage, built for the yellow parkette body, and outboard the rear springs while I am at it. I will also swap out the current swing pedals for the ones on the yellow racer. Hopefully, I can get this project done by August, in time for Summer Convention. We will see….

Here is a comparison of the Parkette full-size body vs. the narrow body. The difference is enough to give a person more room at the feet (more room for gas, brake and clutch). The narrow body would probably work better for an auto transmission with just a gas pedal and brake (I prefer to have enough room to the left of the clutch to help brace myself.

The narrow body seems better built, perhaps a slightly thicker fiberglass job. The Parkette needs some reinforcement in my opinion (which I will do).

Her’s the narrow body racer without the body. Thankfully, unlike the other racer, this cage was bolted, rather than welded, to the frame.

Well, the seat support piece was welded to the rollcage and to the frame, but it was easy to cut. I will have a different setup for the seats. Note the broken driveline ‘safety’ loop, that wasn’t very safe. I have a much stronger one from the other chassis.

Here is a trail run of Parkette body on the racer.

Besides the new roll cage and the rear springs being out-boarded, the side bar will need replacing (it was built for the narrower body). A new firewall needs to be built (it will be wider, thanks to the wider parkette body, than the current one). The steering wheel needs to be angled differently and will have a tilt column (my preference).

Thankfully, the power train can remain in tact, as will the front spring setup. So, that saves a bunch of work.