Last weekend, Eddie made it down to pick up our engine to take it to the shop in Chicago to begin the re-work process for the new ethanol conversion. We're expecting to have it back by the end of the month and as soon as we get it, we'll be able to drop it into the car and have a complete sled. Jimmy and I are rarin' to see this on the track.
We're also getting excited because some of the decals are beginning to be placed on the car and it looks tons better than it did last year. It will be brighter and easier to see at the track and that will be huge for fans, sponsors and Jimmy's spotter! It's going to get noticed and maybe, talked about... Here's a sneak-peak of what the new decals look like:
C'mon, now; we can't show more than that or no one will want to come out and see us. Safe to say, there is still more to go on the car and it will look good when it's ready. I'd like to take a minute and send a HUGE "Thank you" out to Mindy from Brownsburg Signs on behalf of the team! She has really been working hard in-between her other projects to help us get the car ready and she's done a great job getting these decals ready for us.
While that's been going on, Jimmy has been working hard, getting the dirt car ready too. What started out as nothing more than a chassis in the middle of February has become a recognizable piece of racing equipment.
After assessing what the team had in the way of available chassis and parts over the winter, Jimmy stripped down the two dirt chassis that we had and has done a great job himself of putting together a good, solid dirt car. He took the best frame that was on-hand, has fabricated some new parts and along with a little help from yours truly, stripped down a fuel tank to make it ready for the eventual placement on the car.
That was an event in itself as we discovered the joys of using aircraft paint stripper (which states, rather clearly on the back of the can, "Not to be used on airplanes"... ummm, okay). Jimmy was prepared to bang away at the tank with a rubber mallet and use the power-washer when one of our shop neighbors offered us this stuff. Jimmy and I had a good time, enjoying the end-of-February 70 degree afternoon, watching this stuff corrode the paint.
In the course of about 5 and a half hours, Jimmy and I were able to scrape an entire fuel tank and prepare it for its new paint scheme:
The remover at work:
While it was corroding the paint, we thought that it sounded like a bowl of Rice Krispies!
The end result:
Now, we have a tank ready to be painted. Jimmy has decided that flat black will be the look for the dirt car. We'll have the same decals on it as we have on the pavement car. We're thinking that the decals will stand out very well once we get them applied to the black surface. It should be a really good-looking race car.
Here is some of the progress that has been made on the dirt car to this point:
At this point, the floor pan has been painted flat black and I'll have a picture of that coming up. The yellow nose piece will be painted black and the white visor piece will also be black. Here's what the floor pan looks like, now:
The entire car will have this look. Jimmy's painted the inside of all of the body panels and the outside will be vinyl-wrapped which will stand up to the beating on the dirt tracks better than paint. It's been good to see the black panels around the shop as they're giving us the feeling of real progress being made.
Jimmy has also spent some time getting some spots ready to have new pop-screw tabs or Zeus-fastener tabs mounted on the frame of the car. While we've been fitting panels and pieces together from two different cars to make one, there have been some adjustments to make along the way. We've got the welder scheduled to come to the shop on Saturday of this week and get all of the tabs welded on to the frame. That way, come Monday, we'll be ready to start affixing things to the frame, permanently. Here is some of the prep work that has gone into preparing the frame:
It may have been necessary to grind off an existing tab and move it an inch or two. After grinding off a tab, one must then grind down the paint to the bare metal in order to make a good weld. If any of the welder's tip gets into the paint, it will ruin the whole process. So, enough space must be made around the area to ensure a good weld. Afterward, we'll spray paint it and it will look like new. A bit of Machine Shop 101 for those of us who never knew how some of this worked.
It's been fun to be in the shop, helping Jimmy and seeing what all goes into preparing a car for the season. For anyone who ever thought that cars just show up at the track and drivers simply get in them and race, they do not know the hours and hours that goes into making sure these cars are ready long before the car sees the race track.
We'll keep the updates coming as interesting progress is made. We hope to get some good pictures of the cars together after they've been put together, painted and decaled. We'll post them when we do. That's still a little while away but it's something to look forward to.
- Gar
No comments:
Post a Comment