The fuel cell is out

Today I was finally able to remove the old fuel cell.  The old fuel cell needed to be replaced because it was too old and more importantly, I want to reduce the size of the fuel cell and steal some of that space so that I can fit a longer-than-stock engine.  Even though the original engine was a V-8, it was only 22 inches long including all of the accessory drives!  For reference, a small block Chevy block is 21 3/4 inches, but that doesn't include the timing cover or any of the pulleys and accessories.  All of that stuff probably adds another six inches or more to the front of the engine.

My first choice is to use a Chevy LS engine.  The block is about as long as a SBC, and if I use an electric water pump, then I'll only need accessory drives for an alternator and the dry sump pump.  If I use the short harmonic balancer off of an LS4, then the accessories should only protrude into the fuel cell area about 4 inches.  I'm trying to avoid stretching the wheelbase because I don't want to change the look of the car or have to modify the bodywork.  I'm on the hunt for a scrap LS block and heads so that I can start checking fitment and maybe even start working on motor mounts.

Now back to the fuel cell.  The fuel cell is protected in the back of the tub behind this metal bulkhead.

The bulkhead is mainly held on with like 20 Allen-headed cap screws, but it won't come off unless you first remove the drive gear for the external fuel pump.  It's the part in the photo below that looks like a weatherman's hurricane symbol.

In my case, the drive was stuck on the shaft and no amount of PB Blaster and prying would free it so I resorted to grinding off the little wings and that allowed me to remove the bulkhead.

Then it was just a matter of disconnecting the inlet and vent fittings and the fuel cell basically slid out.  The inlet port area did give me a little trouble because after sliding back about two inches, that ring was catching on one of the tub-to-engine mounting studs.  But the fuel cell was just pliable enough that I was able to push it inward to clear and then it came out the rest of the way.

I learned how to powdercoat

Painting was progressing well on the suspension arms, but I realized that painting alone was not going to be right for everything.  Certain things were going to need to be plated like the threaded turnbuckles that adjust the ride height and some other fasteners.  But since I'm going to be leaving that job to the professionals, I needed something lower cost that I could use on things that needed more protection than just paint.  So I learned how to powdercoat!  I got the idea from my friend Jim who restored his old motorcycle and powdercoated a bunch of the parts at home.  I didn't want to have to buy all of my own equipment so instead I joined the local makers' space.  I had already taken a welding class at the makers' space and this seemed like the right time to become a member.  So I joined up and since then I've taken the powdercoating class and a 3-D CAD class.  For powdercoating, they provide the gun, a big oven for curing the parts and a sturdy rack for hanging parts during coating.  You just provide your own powders and away you go.

By far, the rear suspension lower mounting brackets were in the worst shape of any part on the car, really rusty.  So I removed them for sandblasting and you can see two before and two after.

I was really pleased with how well the brackets cleaned up, so then it was time to apply the powder.  Here are the brackets after powder application and waiting to go into the oven.

And here they are after curing.

 
I was shooting for a finish that looked like yellow cadmium plating.  The brackets didn't come out quite as shiny or as metallic as that, but I think they look great.  All of the rear suspension arms have been painted and the upper brackets are getting painted now.  The upper brackets have these deep recessed pockets that make them unsuitable for powdercoating.  So once I get the old fuel cell out and take some measurements off of the front and the rear of the bellhousing, then the rear suspension can go back together.

Floor/diffuser is off

My project for this weekend was to get the floor off of the car so that I can start disassembling and painting the rear suspension.  I also want to clean the bellhousing and the gearbox.  So the first thing was to get the car up in the air.

It was relatively easy to get the floor off.  The only thing that was a pain was that there were three different sizes of Allen head screws.

Once the floor is off you can really see how little there is to the back of the car.  There is no frame, the whole drivetrain is stress mounted to the back of the tub.  The black metal frame is a spacer taking the place of the engine, then there's the light gray bellhousing and the gearbox bolts to the back of the bellhousing.

The rear suspension mounts directly to the bellhousing and the gearbox case.  And the rear wing bolts to the top of the gearbox.

Velociraptors!

The next clean up project on the race car was to deal with the driver compartment.  It was pretty dirty and I didn't want people to mess up their clothes when they sat in it for photo ops.  That and the seat upholstery was faded and torn and clearly something had damaged the side of the bead seat insert.

So I removed all three pieces that make up the seat insert and underneath I found the culprit!

Velociraptors!

Work Begins

After several years I finally got around to starting some work on the car by painting the front suspension.  I know, it’s not very ambitious, but years of neglect had left the A-arms and all looking pretty shabby.  Plus I needed to replace the missing “shock strut” so that I could level the car and raise the ride height.  When I bought the car it was missing the coil-over shocks and had only three fixed rods in their place so the left front corner was sagging.  The other issue that has given me problems is that the ride height was set at less than half an inch so the car dragged on anything.

A quick order for a couple of new swedged steel tubes allowed me to level and raise the front suspension.  I then raised the rear by the same amount and now I have over two inches of ground clearance.  It looks fine, not too high off of the ground and I’d like to have it even higher, but I’m getting close to the maximum droop of the suspension to where things are close to start binding up.  It’s fine for now and if I decide I need more ground clearance then I can do something relatively easy like getting taller tires or something more radical like getting different uprights that place the spindle lower relative to the rest of the suspension.  A new upright would be a fair amount of work in the beginning, but it would solve the ride height problem and allow me options when it comes to a braking system.  Did I mention that the car didn’t come with brakes?

Front suspension components being painted and hanging from my improvised paint rack.

All painted and put back together.

G-Force GF05

So I scored myself a genuine G-Force GF05 Indy car.  I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do with it really.  But I knew that it would be cool to be the only kid on the block with his own Indy car.  I knew that it had been sitting too long and was too neglected to ever be turned back into a serious race car, but I had visions of putting some kind of engine in it to make it mobile.  I have also seen chassis turned into video game simulators or just hung on the wall or from the ceiling.  The truth is that for years I didn’t do anything with it other than clean it up and have the wheels painted.

Now for the history.  The car raced for three seasons in the IRL from 2000 to 2002 for 310 Racing and Team Extreme, both of which have long ago closed up shop so I haven’t been able to find any documentation of its race history.  I do know that 310 Racing ran the 2002 season with driver George Mack and the car still wears the Tech sticker from the last race of the season at Texas Motor Speedway.

2000 and 2001 with Team Extreme are more of a mystery.  All I know about that time period is that their drivers included Davey Hamilton, Airton Daré and Jaques Lazier and that their best finish in the Indy 500 was 8^th place in 2001 with Airton Daré.

You can buy an Indy car on craigslist. Who knew?

Once the walls were up at the warehouse, I started to check eBay and craigslist every so often looking for racing related stuff to hang on the walls.  I found some cool posters and signs and I really thought that I had scored when I was able to buy this engine cover from a car owned by AJ Foyt and driven by Scott Sharp.

But I was shocked one day when I was checking craigslist and saw an ad for an Indy car for sale!  At first I didn’t believe it, like it must be for parts or even a scam.  But no, as it turned out, there was a guy trying to sell a pretty complete Indy car roller (car guy speak for a chassis that doesn’t have an engine).  The owner told me that the car was retired after the 2002 season and it had been sitting on display out in front of a body shop.

I was skeptical, but intrigued so I flew out to LA to make sure it was for real and it was.  I struck a deal on the price and I called the transport company that I had on stand-by.  They came and picked the car up that afternoon and it was on its way to the warehouse.

The Back Story: Part 2

The thing is when you’re getting dirty working on cars you really need running water to clean up.  And not having a bathroom was limiting how much time I could spend there.  That’s when I decided that I would bite the bullet and install a bathroom and a utility sink.  But one thing led to another and then the scope-creep kicked in and eventually I ended up with a bathroom, bedroom, storeroom and party room.  Those take up about 1500 ft2 still leaving me with 2500 ft2 for cars.

The party room came out pretty sweet with a pool table, dart board, projection TV and video games.  Our house is pretty small so we usually end up having our parties at the warehouse. 

I’m really happy with how everything turned out and people always want to know where all of the memorabilia came from.  Some of it was just purchased, but most of it I have collected over the years and from going to various races and car events.  Some stuff is new, but a lot of the stuff I found on eBay or craigslist.  Ahhh… craigslist.

The Back Story: Part 1

So how do you even end up with a car from the Indy 500 in your garage anyway?  I'll get to that later, but first it all started with the story of my huge garage...

I had already filled up my oversized three car garage with three cars, my racing kart and a utility trailer when I decided that I wanted another car.  I didn't want to leave any of the cars outside so I started looking at places for off-site car storage.  But the places that were convenient to me were these full service storage places for high-end cars that were climate controlled, they washed the cars, kept them on battery tenders, etc. and they were expensive, like $300/mo.  Plus you couldn't work on your car there.

So I thought to myself, for that kind of money each month, me and some of my other car buddies who had the same problem should go in together and buy a place that we could all share.  A bunch of guys thought that was a great idea so the search was on.

It took a couple of months, but then I found a place right in my neighborhood.  It looked really rough on the outside, but it was structurally sound and priced so that I could buy it on my own.  After a fairly painful negotiation process, it was mine!

I now owned 4,000 ft2 of totally free span garage space.  The possibilities seemed endless.  It had electricity and AC/heat, but no running water or bathroom (that will become important in the story later).

After about two days I realized that owning a warehouse is like owning a pickup truck… all of your friends are going to want to use it.

So that was the start of the club house phase.  A bunch of my friends started keeping their cars there and it became a place where any particular weekend there’d be somebody over there working on a car or two. 

Bringing a retired Indy car back to life.

So I'm setting up this blog as a place to document my ongoing project to bring a retired Indycar back to life.  And by back to life, all I'm really talking about is moving under it's own power since right now it doesn't.  Basically the car is a roller that sits in my garage.  But it looks complete and people like to sit in it and have their picture taken.