I made some decent progress on the strut setup today. Here is some pics and info to hopefully help some along the way.
In the post above, i explained my theory on adding a C-channel to the strut bracket to narrow the opening and to have enough material to make a new hole to match up with the FC mounting points. Here is the C-channel that i made:
As you can see i drilled the new holes to align with the FC mounts. The opening is 1" wide and the channel is 6.5" long. The holes are 3-3/8" apart. The channel measures 1.25x1x1.25 and i made it out of 10ga blackiron. (10ga is roughly 1/8" thick).
After making the channel the next step was to make sure it fit inside the strut bracketry. In order to get it to fit, there is a lip on a rivet(?) that has to be ground down.
Here is the lip that needs grinding:
here is is after it was ground down - There is one on each side to remove.
Once they are removed, the channel then slides inside. Once the channel is inside, you can see the dilemma on where the second hole falls. Its a rather inconvenient spot.
In my opinion, just removing and opening the second half of the hole would not make for a strong enough bracket or mount. Thus, i cut a small angled piece then welded it onto the sides to extend the Lakewood bracket forward.:
Pic of the piece i added:
Here they are tacked into place:
Once the angle pieces were attached, the C-channel was once again slid into place aligning the rear/bottom holes. Then, the channel was welded into place as well. i was sure to weld in short sections allowing time for the strut to cool between each round of welding. Once it was welded up, i measured where the second hole should be (that is now covered up by the angle piece that was preciously welded on) and then i drilled out that hole once again.
Here are a couple pics of the unmodified lakewood shock, next to the shock that i have now completed the fab work on:
Once the first strut was complete, i did the same to the second. Making it identical to the first.
Now that they were done - or so i thought - i went ahead and trial fit them on the car. When aligning the top hole and putting a bolt into it, the bottom of the shock would not swing in far enough to align the bottom hole. The bottom of the lake wood shock was hitting.
I pulled the shock back off, and took off the corner of the bracket where it was making contact. Here is the modified shocks:
With the corner (on both sides) modified like this, all bracketry clears, and the holes will align. So, now that everything on the bottom bolts up, i went ahead and gave it a quick paint job. Thus, finished the bottom modifications needed to mount the shock to the FC. Tomorrow i will work on the bracketry needed to mount the top.
Pic of shocks after fabwork and paint:
