Back from soda blasting

Last night I picked up the chassis from soda blasting, Tom @ the Soda Pro's in Mississauga did a great job on it, everything looks great and is ready for some paint.......which will be coming this weekend.

As expected there are a couple small holes that I didn't see before, bottom of the windshield frame, small spot behind the passenger seat and a couple more in the rear frame area that need to be patched up, going to do them over the next couple days.

Also not in the pictures but I'm getting the rest of the suspension bits and pieces all lined up and painted, its going to be time to start bolting it all together, very exciting!

It's very exciting right now, chassis will be picked up tomorrow, waiting on paint to arrive and the painting process will start, no more rusty chassis time for some matte black.

While I've been waiting for the chassis I've been busy with getting the brakes and knuckles complete, I started by getting rid of the C5 corvette rotors, there was too many issues with them, requiring too many spacers and jerry rigging. Rather I went with basic stock LSJ rotors, they were meant for those hubs and knuckles, requiring no spacers and no sketchiness, on top of that the dimensions of the rotors are pretty close to the corvette rotors save the rear ones that are solid rather than vented.......I can live with that.

I really like the setup on the brakes now, rear came out good with the calipers bolting on solid to the knuckles, but wait till you see the front setup, it required a little more work but it was well worth it with a really nice and strong setup. First off I was running into a problem with the tabs on the wilwood calipers interfering with the tabs on the ION/Cobalt knuckles, I had to cut one of the ears off to make the proper clearance. There was a bit of a win though the machined level of the stock ear was the proper and center for the wilwood caliper, but since I removed an tab I had to come up with a new solution, also as you will see in the pictures I needed a back plate that is threaded, but again I ran into a bit of luck because the solution I can up with put the calipers into double shear and should make for easy removal if need be.

Lastly I've done some final welding to the custom rear suspension links and they are ready for some paint.

Waiting to send off to blasting, might as well work on the small parts

Chassis should be going off to soda blasting by the end of the month, I might as well get some of the other parts that were only tack welded or require more welding done. Also might as well start painting some items while other items need to go to powdercoating. Current project is to get the rear knuckles completed with hubs, rotors and brake calipers installed. I did change the previous brake calipers for something nicer, a while ago I was able to get my hands on a set of 4 matching wilwood superlight calipers but won't work on the tabs that I made before but I like the location of the new mount especially since one of the bolt locations isn't on a welded tab but bolted right through the knuckle assembly......next project will be to complete the front knuckles and brakes.

Had to post a picture of this, pretty good welding porn for an amateur