tiny...aka 1958 lloyd

[69.5CUDA]

so...my camera ate some shots..well actualy my gopro ate some shots off the simcard from my camera....ahh well..no biggy plenty of shots to go around..but if it seems like some steps are missing.....you know why

so i added a cross brace to the dash then braced in from the point to the cross bar..the cross bar ties into the door striker posts...the dash is now strong enuf to stand on...main idea is that it will be used getting in and out of the car...dash got full stitched filled and end capped as well as the glove box door mounted..tho im thinking it needs to be sectioned down as its out of proportion and that the console is going to force my hand on it

crazy tons more stitching..door jambs doors floors fenders dash..you name it pretty much wiped me out..not a whole lot left of stitching currently..tho after weld cleanup to expose the holes(you cant run a bead of weld on sheetmetal) ill have to re-weld a bunch of it..done that once allready with alot of it in this past umm week or 2

started on the console....now...i know right now its ugly as sin unless you have the vision to see it thru....

picked up a dodge neon shifter and cables and have adapted the transaxle to take cables..so some missing shots for that..i flipped the iso crap shifter lever upside down to get it out of the floor as much as i could..made up a "turn" piviot so i can have both cables running along side the tunnel the "side to side" cable runs into the turn piviot and the then runs to the transaxle...bushings and the stud is welded to the transaxle crosmember so it will all remain simple to work on...the console itself seems crude but..it will meld into everything as planned just wait......take note i had to cut out a HUGE section of the spine i added and then re-do it to allow the shifter to drop flush to the floor....i reverse flexed the car while doing it to make sure nothing changed..and nothing did..i put the torsion bar crossmember on the lift and lifted the car till the rears lifted and the fronts had unsprung...with my weight on the back of the car and a lil bounce the fronts came off the ground..50/50 balance still intact

stitching stiching stiching

with the cables mouts all hard welded in i started wrapping up the drivers side floor pan..a few hours of hand forming and hammer work to get some of the panels made...alot of head scratching for the angles tooo

finished up the door sill plate areas filled and stitched anyway

turned my attention to the fire wall and grabbed the "original" lloyd firewall and trimmed it to fit in a new way...mind you i HAVE to use it.....it has the vin and vin plate mounts on it sooooooo its gotta go in even if it takes alot of work to make it presentable.....ive also started on the lower firewall

 

[thrashingcows]

Wow...sure coming along. Looks like a way better environment for working on the little beast.

 

[69.5CUDA]

HELL of an improvement even if i have to drive 33 miles up and 33 miles back every time..........7 of that gravel 7 of it country winding hill climb...and when i get frustrated or lost..jump on the quad and blast the 40 acres

 

[69.5CUDA]

so...i had an idea.....ive had this guage sitting on my desk a shelf even my tv cabinet since..well somewhere between 93 and 96...ive ALWAYS wanted to put it into something..i belive its from a 55? ford....its one of the coolest speedo's i know of..elegant yet simple...course i HAD to get a rough idea of what it might look like...and damn it looks good...course it doesnt fix the problem pf digital signal..but...i had an epiphany and belive i have a solution to the problem and a way to pick up a cable driven signal off the ring gear from the old ABS ring still on the axles...the way its lit is amazing and...it lends itself to be modifyed to being a white back ground and black numbers to make it more inline with the rest of my ideas

i turned to the firewall and pretty well knocked it out ..its mostly done..a cleanup and a few holes to plug and its done...as well as finishing out the door sills and some other odds and ends stitching

theres also a good upclose shot of the new shift linkage to cable conversion..with a set of micro ball joints for the side to side rocking that i fabbed up from some old tredmill adjustable ball joint rods

 

[68R/T]

That speedo is from a '54 Ford. The '55's were similar but no brights indicater in the center.

My first car was a '54 Ford. Blew the engine the first weekend. :doh:

 

[69.5CUDA]

least i know what its from now......seems right for the car dont it..thanx 68

 

[69.5CUDA]

and this is just todays work....

i started up with working in more of the tail framing for holding and protecting the tank and battery as well as giving something to secure exhaust to ...course the rear links posed a bit of a problem but nothing i couldnt work around with a lil creativity

tweaked the driver side rocker and welded a few more tacks in so its actualy holding at the right line i wanted as well as welded it into the jack points..it aint going no where and now ill be able to do the full welding on it

with the rear frame work brought down to final height was time to full stitch the rear rolled pan up

turned to the dash..i KNOW i can make the speedo work exactly how i want it to as well as do a full remodel of it and make it a digital driven speedo useing the milano speedos guts toss in a dakota digital speedo programer and a friend who can vynle print me a new face for it and ill have black lettering on a white back drop as well as it being a 140mph speedo...a bit of tweaking further and ill be able to hide some really trick led lighting

the work itself to get it modded in...well ill let it speak for itself...it didnt go remotely easy

onto the console and yellow larked dash...the glove back will have to get narrowed up and i had planed for that..the 1/2 round is to mimic the dash but also alow me to recess the face of the console..the uprights will get a full roll round(look back to the grill) to transition smoothly from floor to dash line and then full rounded in at the flat point ....the angle out is required to make a bit of space for a double din ...while im at it im going to lose the glove box opening button for one under the dash to clean things up a bit

 

[69.5CUDA]

ok

....so i want to make sure anyone who is viewing the pic reads this.....

this next bit is going to SERIOUSLY look like a wild off tangent step in the wrong direction and then some....but...those who have paid attention know that i MUST have a good reason and wont idly just be doing this step in the wrong direction and you would be right

ok so first off the glove box is disproportionate to the rest of the dash...on top of that its soooooo wide that to bring the console up to the dash it will run into to the glove box.....so i started makeing half a dozen measuerments to calculate up how much had to go..as well...as my "extra" motive...3.5 inches went away from the glove box with it went the lock hole which is getting re-vamped to a push button hidden under the dash...now to narrow the box it required moving over a section of the actual dash to go with it so the recess would still line up

next up is a loose mock of the console rolling up into the dash with bends...before someone yells about conduit let me first off say that this roll is EXACTLY the same radius as the 2 main rolls on the dash...secondly the slow 45deg curve(that is getting ever so slightly tweeked is a dead on ringer for the curve at the end of the dash and the brow of the speedo

and here
....is where things spin way out of controll off tangent....

how and where do you mount a GOOD solid audio/vid deck...the glove box...ok so now your driving around with the box open...yeah umm no thanx....you run a hidden deck...ok now you just lost the vid feture and trunk space i dont have.....you mount it in the dash but now you have an eyesore...yes and..no....IF you think about it in the right manner it will work smoothly......so...every time you see the cardboard wraped in electrical tape think about it as if it was a double din touch screen unit with ALL the bells and whistles including surround sound as well as TRIPLE vid inputs with the ability to display dual inputs at once IE my mirrors!!!

so i took a million measurements mocked it all in my head planed ahead for updates etc... made sure i got a centerline with the speedo and ran more measurements and figure out what it would take to french the deck in so i could have a cover or a hinge plate setup like hide away headlight(which is what im leaning tward) but when im driving i can open it up and have full acess in a well visable area but when its closed any knobs or what have you can fit behind the door.....so i started fabbing up a frenching plate and mount all in 1....a 1 inch french with a 8 inch wide 5inch tall frenched area MORE than enuf to accomidate hinges or latches as well as the full bezzle of a double din deck

much folding and fabbing later the basic deck french is made....the problem then is how to you wedge it into the dash....slowly painfully slowly taking measurement after measurement double checking trimming back little by little till you get something that slides in...i SHOULD NOTE that i welded a bar to the flat area in the dash and to the console full welded it at the console and then cut the dash away from it...the idea was to make 100% sure that the same angle of the flat on the dash runs all the way to the console roll back...

i finished off the day by finishing out the rest of the sheet down to the console but didnt nab a pic as well as triming the rolls going up to the curve at the dash to fit flush so i can work where they will round off and flow out to the sides of the dash as if it was ment to be...

so..when you look at them imagine the deck covered so that all you see is smoothly flowing lines from the dash all the way thru to behind the seats..which may curve up to the rear cargo cover but ive not thought that far ahead yet

 

[69.5CUDA]

well...my brains fried so for now ill let the images speak for themselves... linkage work, console work, batttery box work...ill caption a bit better later...the rippled aluminum is what im planing to line the console and dash inset with

 

[69.5CUDA]

first ill toss a lil caption on the previous days work

the shifter linkage for a milano or gtv6 is just well...CRAP..and a milano with its isoshit is crap on a stick with a side of sloppy seconds....yeah umm no thankyou....i NEVER intended to use any alfa linkage and ive went thru alot of ideas from chain driven shifting to weird bar and linkages to odd cable designs...the chain idea was wicked ..simple and infinatly adjustable with the ability to change the shift ratio even.....something ill play with later on another project...
the neon shifter is tryed true and bulletproof but lends itself to modding VERY well and parts are plentifull....anyway the shifter output had to be flipped over but even flipped over i ran into a problem with the push/pull ..not so much the length but how to mount it but also give it adjustment.....but ...it was also coliding with the trans ..a lil time on the belt sander with burnt fingers and i had removed enuf to clear....next was to add a drilled block to feed the push/pull thru as well as weld on some threaded rod for infinately adjustability

the shifts are TIGHT smooth and deliberate ..tho its a bit..erm...short throw i will likely cut and lengthen the arms off the bottom of the shifter to lengthen the throw

next was to figure out the dash to console transition and finalize it..much trimming with the upright bars to get them laying just right and maintaining the line and lightly stitch them in....followed but a hour or so of curve trimming ...once trimmed and laid in place close i knew id have to sink them in to make it just right ..so out came a small section down test fit then take out a section of upright..drop in and weld up...a nice smooth roll

then there is my aluminum textured panels...as you can see by how im holding them you should get the idea of where i plan to use them...as well as using them to "hide" the head unit..the hide panel will get my emblem done up on it to make it look like it belongs..and if i get the emblem done in CNC then it will be mounted on the panel

the rest was battery tray...just simple no big deal stuff...but even tho that optima looks like its taking up alot of space theres room for many traditional battery sizes yet enuf space under it to the rolled pan for exhaust to fit


so....onto todays work

a bit of cleanup work all around tho mostly on the firewall

next up was alot of seat work...ive had this seat in there a few dozen times and never was plased with it..somehow this time i got it in there in JUST the right spot and blocked and mocked till perfection was reached so i started on mounting points etc ...this is going to be a long road to get JUST right and i know it....so...i reclined the seat to see where it would need to stop and made some marks

because i needed some more materials i moved to the trunk space or lack there of ...jnow...ive had a few cool ideas about the console from day 1 and that was i want it to go all the way to the back..now i knew i would end up with a wall behind the seats that would be at window level this was always a given..so the console bars will come together then run up then fan apart out to the sides of the car..i mocked up the main light frame for the rear deck and angle up....in doing this i kept the gtv6 rear deck panel in mind of its lift up..mine will be able to lift up and out should i need to

 

[69.5CUDA]

yet another long day

so first up a 4x8 sheet of 16g aluminum..this will make more sense next week...but ill be doing ALL interior panels in this as well as the sides of the console

next well..i needed a table for the bandsaw so i can save on cutoff wheels especialy when working with that sheet of aluminum

a quick look at a missing angle of the rear trunk space area

now..lets see ...seats have been the BANE of my existense since i switched the lloyd to the alfa bits..that damned transaxle hump..even with me cutting every bit of the car out around it and re-skinning it within 1/2 inch of space all the way around it you still have a clutch hump in your hip bone......a year+ of hunting for seats and i found something with a pan that was remotely acceptable...as i was on the edge of actualy making a seat pan....
so mockups have come and gone and ive never been happy..today i feel like i really jumped out of the hole and got things done..a pile of mockup tweak mockup tweek...but..the drivers seat has officialy been mounted ..take special note of the clearance at the transaxle..i got some good shots to show taht there is NONE...yes the seat looks high cause to get the right comfort angle on it..anything else would have left it feeling funky...i tryed many positions

in this mix of testing and mocking up before tacking removeing and full welding i noted the steeringwheel must be moved yet again..but only up 1 inch or so..not a real big deal

 

[69.5CUDA]

so..todays 8 hours

i dove into the console hard core...and ran all my line...ive got some fine tuneing but the hardest work is done...i need to do the 2 side curves and a ever so slight roll from the flat up to the angle..but thats ultra minor

with all the main bits in and braced i went at making a template for the rear deck.....and then set out to make the panels from aluminum..which will later get carpeted or sueded as well i made a "removeable" section incase i need the space?!?!? just thinking ahead as the panel could be taken out and set on the floor.....the deck itself is a perfect line with the bottom of the back window wich remember is a power window....so haveing the "truck" sealed off will be a good thing

so..with all this gut work ive been doing ive been stareing at the rear wheel wells and the remaining patch areas in the floor and the working in the dark finaly got to me..so i poped the top off....nice having a bolt on roof LOL

did some stitching here and there as well as full sitching the glove box

lastly..its been said back and forth to lower it..well im not up to cutting more out of the rear coils just yet so...i ran a couple ratchet straps and ratcheted down the tail....yeah it needs to come down those 2 inches or so ....and it will clear i think.....

 

[69.5CUDA]

another day...im quickly coming up on burnout.....meaning i need a month or 2 off..but the shows around the corner....

first up some shots of the previous work since i wasnt happy with the phone shots

next..a base line run for the lowering...yup i bit in and set her into the weeds...oh how i CURSE alfa and that damned splined t-bar setup...why couldnt they have used a little arm and adjustment bolt on the end like all the t-bar mopars?!?!?!??!?!!? its sooooo much easier to work with

shhhh dont let the shop teacher see the spring in the vice.....in the previous drop which was done after all the "meat" had been taken off the milano down to a spine and bones i had to take a lil more than 3 coils out just to bring it back to the height it was BEFORE weight loss,,and i left the ends as they were...so i was a little anoyed about the spings not staying put in the perches so i wraped and welded the bottom spring to give me the right end without distorting the springs

first shot back on the ground...note the bl;ocks just to keep me off the hoist lol...once down i couldnt get a jack under the pan..not even my low boy jack....so it proves ive gotta go back up an inch.

i rolled the front fenders a bit for clearance..need to roll em more....but good enuf for now and did a light pull to the rears

 

[69.5CUDA]

so..not much to see..a bunch of cleanup a little bit of finishing of the console...the rest are just shots i had to take....i am seriously suffering burn out..so..the next few days ill be doing wireing here at home...something mindless........for a kicker..tho some ppl will say im asking for it...im going to use the milano wireing harness.......now mind you my idea of useing it means first seperating and removing EVERY SINGLE WIRE!!!!! and stacking them up then re-assembling it as i see fit ..sooo it wont be the italian bad wireing it is known for

 

[restoman]

I always thought I had more stick-to-it-ness than most others, but you got me beat all to Hell!
When are you gonna start the filler work? That'll burn you out faster than anything, but the end result is worth it.

BTW, good work.

 

[69.5CUDA]

tired....dropin the pics and getting some sleep so i can get back at it in the mornin...if you look at the timestamps youll note i was working on multiple things at a time..wait for one thing to cool and move to the next while waiting..ill drop notes later

ok 1 footnote...."original" milano tow hook...it has one on each side....but i need a matching set in the rear......

 

[69.5CUDA]

ok another brief one...TONS of console work and...while getting everything ready i found the clutch not working..bled it and nothing vac bled it and nothing...pumped the living hell out of it and started getting something and just as it was starting to feel good i hear hissing...cant find it..jack her back up again and nothing pump till i hear it again and still cant find it..as i touch the boot it POURS fluid..the 1 and only seal TOAST..remembered i had a spare on the spare platinum transaxle....swaped it in

the console..is feeling very refined..i wanted a gate..instead i got a slide plate TINY hole...and the hole needs to be smaller..yes my throw is WELL within that..and at the same time the console is feeling very toy/geeky gamer..i love it!!!..a joystick and buttons!!!

 

[69.5CUDA]

she got a nice massage with the 120grit palm sander, amd slowly rolled via pushing out of the shop, a good rub down with laqure thiner and then sat to soak up the sun in the nude as i masked all some things......she may have rolled out but..she ROARED and drove back into the shop

now first off the "darker" brown well my old ncp272 rustproofer gave up the ghoast....and was comming out in chunks...its DONE...so i tinted up a bit of house of colors epoxy primer and got something intresting....tho i think that "sandy darker brown was really showing off the curves

so..heres how shes going to the ball.....i felt 2-toneing it was needed....since i WILL have a white top and a candy magenta body....

 

[69.5CUDA]

if anyones around or neerby and curious....

mcminimans lodge forest grove oregon sunday the june 12th..no admission fee or parking fee its all FREE....should be 10-3(tho last year some guys stuck around till 5 and most were in the field by 9)...come and go as you please kinda deal...theres been a few alwas show up over the years along with some nice rods in the parking lot

 

[thrashingcows]

Looking good!! The paint sure changes the look of the car. Like all the console work so far. What were the two push button switches for?