Mini Muscle Car

Could you use and adhesive like liquid nails to bond the aluminum to the plywood? Spread it out a bit and weight it down. it would completely eliminate wrinkles and "oil canning".

I have used spray on contact cement to bond aluminum to plywood. Easy and effective.

I'd use construction adhesive like PL700 or one of the similar variations. I use it all the time to bond metal and wood and just about anything else. I find contact cement won't stay stuck when things get warm. I've had insulation glued to the inside of the roof and trunklid with contact cement fall off when out in the sun - used PL 400 and it stayed put. I've also glued wood strips across the inside of a car roof to staple the headliner to instead of using bows with success.

Looking good Bob, 'wood is good' [cl[P

05snopro440 said:

I didn't know the early S-10's could be had with manual brakes. You learn something new every day!

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They were designated as EL trucks. Manual steering, brakes, 2.5 4 cylinder, no AC, sometimes no radio, rubber mat roll up window regular car 2wd. They sold in 1984 for I think $5995? They were advertised as "The cheapest new truck on the market" I had one I swapped a 350 SBC into and had a license plate EL4CYL...people used to think I spoke Spanish! lol[cl

jfg455 said:

They were designated as EL trucks. Manual steering, brakes, 2.5 4 cylinder, no AC, sometimes no radio, rubber mat roll up window regular car 2wd. They sold in 1984 for I think $5995? They were advertised as "The cheapest new truck on the market" I had one I swapped a 350 SBC into and had a license plate EL4CYL...people used to think I spoke Spanish! lol[cl

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That's the original package for my donor chassis.

Been working on the steering linkage for a couple days. This part inside the car is pretty complete. However, It will be almost impossible to get in the car unless it has a removable steering wheel. Darn little cars.

All good suggestions, guys, regarding attaching the aluminium to the plywood.

Under the hood is a different story. I had to seriously butcher the frame to get by the engine. Also had to remove the motor mount. The upstream u-joint is close to the limit for how many degrees of angle it will operate at. I spent half the day with my body tucked inside the wheel well modifying the frame.

Looking good Bob! I'm jealous of all your progress.

from experience with the MII front ends, the upper u-joint has to be very close to the firewall allowing a better angle down to the bottom joint.

you might want to move it up higher than that, inside the firewall to get the shaft closer to the side of the block, and may, just maybe sneaking under the motor mount.

There was no room for a side mount motor mount on the left side so I made a front mount.
BlueNorther, there's no header in the previous pic. With the header in place the u-joint almost touches the header. I've really only got the position shown to locate the u-joint. There will be a high misalignment bearing on the shaft at the firewall to stabilize the whole assembly.

Today I tacked the upper shaft to the u-joint to see if it would rotate smoothly and not bind because of the angle. It rotated smoothly.

When the build is as small as the Renault, real estate is a premium.

Finally found some seats on Craigslist that are narrow enough to fit. They are from a Ford Transit. 10 bucks a piece. I tried narrowing Grand Am seats . The bottom came out good but the seat back had the foam molded all around the frame and I couldn't get it off.

Those look great and for $10 i'd get um if i didn't need um. [cl

The Renault, with the engine set back kinda makes it like a van inside. In order to locate the gas pedal in comfortable position I had to make an 11" long bell crank, moving the pedal to the left that much. The right upright pulls on the carb and the left upright transfers the motion to the pedal arm. I'll mount the seat before finalizing the pedal location.

Also in the picture is the lower bearing for the steering shaft. It'll be gusseted and the hole through the firewall will be neatified.

I'm about ready to put the aluminum interior in the Renault. A friend lent me this home made 5 foot brake. He doesn't want it back. It's a little rough from being outside for a few years but it'll clean up okay.

Very nice, nice friend also.
It's something you don't use often but when you need one[cl and it's portable.

Good tool! That should come in real handy!

Holy smack down Bat man.
That doesn't look like a homemade brake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Would that be the friend that builds the works of art cars???
I've got the 60 ton press brake but, still could use one like that plus a 4 to 6 foot slip roll.

Great work, I love it!

Hey Bob, What happened to "MINI MUSCLE"?