When the chassis was empty I thought “wow, there’s lots of room for everything including all of the cool shit I want to add to the car.” After dropping in the engine, the Ricardo transaxle (a beast) and a few of the other big items things quickly got claustrophobic.
Building the car presents the proverbial ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag problem as demonstrated in this Myth Busters episode. My most recent 10-into-5 challenge was that my upsized custom radiator/shroud was hitting the nose… not good.
I fixed it by tilting the radiator forward a few more degrees and modifying the corners of the assembly. The shroud is bolted to aluminum plates that are welded to the top and bottom of the radiator. This provides a strong, airtight interface with a clean appearance. However, it meant that I needed to cut the top plate which is welded to an expensive radiator. I clamped a steel bar across the cut line, sacrificed a small animal and used a cut off wheel which worked great. I then lopped off the corner of the shroud and Abe welded it up. I now have plenty of clearance.
This is the first time that I had the fans and the shroud off and I continue to be impressed with C&R. For example, they flat rivet the same type of use self-locking, floating nut plates that I used in a previous post. This makes assembly/disassembly very easy and it ensures that the screws don’t back out.
The next step is to deal with the condenser… the bottom mounting flange is rubbing on the floor.