Shakin' All Over

 

This one came across the airwaves the other day while on my commute. Obviously, I didn't see any cartoon skeletons on the radio but this would have been a good candidate for MTV when it was actually music television. I don't know if MTV is even a thing anymore, and if it still exists, I'd have to wonder why. Just like ESPN used to show sports programming. Now they just talk about sports as far as I know. Television - America's vast wasteland.

I've got all the pieces of the side rails on the ladder rack job done other than drilling the mounting holes. The spacing on the existing screw holes are all a bit different, so I have to drill them one at a time. Not a big deal, but I'll get them taken care of and get some tubing for the cross pieces today.

Rather a sloppy sketch of the layout for mounting the rear axle under the jitney. I'm quite capable of being able to subtract 2-1/2 from 6 in my head, but writing the numbers down helps me organize my thought process and I have a record to go back to if a mistake is made. The trig functions, on the other hand, definitely need to be done with care step by step - figuring out which formula to use and finding the inverse function button on the calculator, or my phone in this case. As a guy who fell on his head and has been knocked out more than once, I definitely need to double check everything and write it down as I go.

The plan is to sweep the shop floor, draw the layout on it, and then tack weld everything together on the pipe axle I made to check and see how it's all going to work before welding anything on the quick change. 

The 22" figure on the bottom of the sketch was derived from the 56" width of the axle, flange to flange and the backspacing of the rear wheels, plus a little extra for clearance. Putting the phony axle under the car will allow me to set the spring height and see how the car's going to look with wheels underneath it. That'll be a big step forward.