Good day of work today.....got the center section of the grill pretty much dialed in. Desmodini is going to lend me one of his spacers so I can make sure my grill is on the money. If it is...I get working on measuring/scanning things so we can duplicate them. Then we build the end plates...... The spacers are pretty important to get the lights tilted at the right angle...both on the horizontal and vertical....seems like the lights go up a bit and the bottoms go out. Can't wait to see how it all goes together with the spacers. Need to sort out how the inner covers attach as well but I think the spacers will reveal that secret when I get Desmodinis.... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
So yesterday I picked up the 348 I recently bought. Great fun driving home ! When I got home I noticed that a piece from my rear grill is missing ! Image Unavailable, Please Login
Thanks to Desmomini and him sending me one of his SS light spacers, things are looking good. Spacer is in, grill lines up, now we can start the end cap fabrication. Good stuff. Spacers will be measured/scanned over the weekend and then Desmomini gets his spacer back....with a HUGE thank you and eventually his very own set of end caps.... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Thank you Jeff for helping with an important piece of the project. I'm very interested in how the kit works out. -Marc
Put the spacer on the CMM machine over the weekend....all the measurements will get compiled into a file that will be sent to the CNC so it can do it's thing. Should have a shiny spacer later this week hopefully..... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Slight delay on machining the parts...looking maybe like this week. Aluminum material is ready to go. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I think we'll hang on to your spacer until the first one is out just so we can compare/test. Then we get it back to you. THEN we start the side pieces.
No good news on the project. The machinist is buried. My shop is buried. Things have been on the back burner unfortunately. If I can't get an accurate ETA from my machinist next week, I will take the file to another shop and get them turned out. I tend to use smaller operation sub contractors which keeps the cost down but increases production times... Since it is taking so long, I bought myself some new wheels..... Image Unavailable, Please Login
Really happy with the wheels...360 BBS Challenge wheels with 7mm removed from the back pad. Fit like a glove. Hope to one day have pics of them on my car with the SS lights on it....
The guy making the spacers for me has been out of town for the last month. So without the spacers, I can't make the end caps. So it's on the back burner for now until he gets back and gets me some spacers. I would guess he'll be back this week. Hopefully.
So after a long delay dealing with a very busy shop, a new crew and the usual issues we have to solve, we've finally got back on the SS grille project. I decided that doing the center section using existing grille pieces was way too time consuming. I wanted to do something a little easier. While not exactly OEM, this is going be something I can build on the bench and send out to anyone who wants one. I won't even need the OEM grille unless somebody wants to send it to me to build it for them. It should be somewhat plug and play. We'll mount the horse and the center rib tomorrow, get it on the car, check things out and make adjustments. Then when the tail lights spacers are done(hoping in April....the machinist was making fixtures to hold them and waiting for special cutting tools), we can get to our end caps and have them built....... It's going to happen....hopefully there are some people that want the SS look on their cars... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I hired a new guy to work on just my personal projects(WAY too many)....this was his work for the day...just a rough prototype to make sure it would fly. We may end up water jetting the pieces out so we can have a bunch.....then assemble as needed. Should be cool. Just hope the costs stay down to be somewhat reasonable.....they probably won't. Story of my life.
A few pics from today. We have a bit of work to do on the new center section before we are able to get it out for scanning and water jetting but it's going to work just fine....just some tweaks here and there. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
