A Call to Revolution!: Rear Wheel Drive Revolution! This tyranny shall NOT Continue!

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

I'm figuring the only way to improve my P/T ratio now is to delete stuff.

***EDIT DONE****

  I will not be returning to my Garage until April. I have more pix but they are mostly for comparison and archive data. Pix of huge bundles and tubs of wiring and piles of bits and parts. I have some pix of HHR/Cobalt destruction of donors pre-disposal, not exactly relevant to build progress. Somewhere is a pic of several motors/trans in a truck bed and a pic of me sorting fasteners and widgets into containers for ease of access and retrieval. A short stack of sub frames. Several tires on stock rims in a stack! WOOO! I think I took one pic of harvesting donor wires for extending circuits in the main harness(boring!) Me and a soldering iron, heat shrink tubing and a bic, plus a roll of Scotch 33electrical tape.

  I figure the next time we are stationary I will pull my tubs of Cobalt bits out of the basement of this Class A RV we call home and post a photo montage of that mess. I'll take that opportunity to consolidate some of those tub contents as well. There is always a possibility I'll find something to throw away then too!?(not likely but I do love to tease now and then. Hey! It could happen!)

When I get back to the Garage I'll be pulling out the little triangle 1/4 windows and the rear glass. I may use a hammer? Messy but FUN! I feel sure many are itching to see glass break. Maybe I can make that part pay per view? It'd be a tough way to make $3 but heck, money is money. That sort of thing is not beneath my dignity; only microbes under there.

Skip over all of this, it is just a photo dump.

Billings, MT, September 25, 2023  Days after Daughter's wedding. This is a body harness out of a 2007 Cobalt, Dash harness is slightly smaller and just as scary. Engine, Front lighting and Electric P/S harnesses not shown either. Even though it will still be a Cobalt body I am deleting several sub-circuits. Radio, speakers, On Star and XM. ECM is being relocated adjacent to the engine, a portion of the engine harness will now run to the Fuse Block in the former engine compartment.

Early March, 2023. It begins. After collecting all of my victims into a enclosed area actual reconstruction and disposal time is at hand! This is Victim#1  Had I known how much whittling away I was destined to do i would have started with a title less body. So I hope the construction damage I have inflicted on this one doesn't render it into disposable prototype status! Carpet removed, all wiring from the back of the front seats rearward is drawn up into the demarcated "passenger compartment". It will have no back seat and the bulkhead will be at the door pillars. Originally the battery was in the spare tire well, it will be relocated to the former engine compartment. The spare will join it at some point.

Junk driver's seat. This will be a 2 passemger car.

Goblinfanclub1234 said:

what kind of drugs are you on man? 

You'll learn. Lol Just sit back and enjoy the show

    OK! We measured from the sub frame mount points to the ground in front position and c/l of the rear axle. We mounted the sub frame under the body and aligned the new axle C/L to the old. We built supports to mate the frame to the new rear position, a support across the back between the unit body side members and built drops to mate to the sub frame.(they may get triangulated later?) The front mount points are an inch inboard of the original swing axle pivot points and at the same height, a very strong portion of the uni-body.

   With the "new" rear frame bolted and centered in place measured from the frame to the top of the Macstrut mount point in an original front application at full suspension droop. Began cutting away inner fender area as needed. Note the tops of the struts are held apart by a front strut brace. We centered the strut package and replicated the 4* lean back of the front suspension. The loss of the inner fender wells/ splash coverage is not a worry as this area will now be "in the weather" as the engine compartment. Passengers will be in front of the center(partially removable) bulkhead/firewall. The top 1/3(?) will be Lexan.

 Upon my return I will be stabilizing the strut tops in their proper position, welding and re enforcing that area. They attach to the bottom of what was the rear package tray/rear window bottom, a very strong cross member of the unit body.

  Using solid fore and aft engine mounts from DF Goblin, I will mount a dummy engine and trans to solid mount the R/L engine mounting points to the body shell. Yes that will make a racket but NVH is not our primary concern, as this is a prototype. Function first. (Like no one has ever built with the engine/trans as a stressed member?)

   So far it appears the Fuel tank will remain in nearly it's original position but I may have to relocate the fill port on the original tank to the R or L side. The actual fill cap will be in one of the little triangle 1/4 window positions.(glass removed)

  As it sits in this photo the strut tops are 1.5" low allowing the spring cups to contact the top of the frame, When raised/mounted properly they will clear the frame by more than an inch and can only compress from that position, as that is maximum droop, restrained by the strut maximum extension length.

   You don't have to believe me but look around, mid engine cars under $$ the Boxter do not exist(thanks for noticing, Donut Media) and no manufacturer is going there again, at least in the foreseeable future. So long MR2 . Two door cars are rapidly dwindling in numbers and manuals are on the endangered species list. A few automakers persist, but they won't hold out forever. 

    My project has several ancestors. The DeTomaso, Valleungua, The Cooper, Mini (for it's transverse drive train) and the Lamborghini, Miura for taking a transverse drive line and building a Supercar around the idea.

   I am NOT trying to build a super car!, but a fun car, on a low budget. I did not want to create an entire car, so I chose an "Envelope" that was widely available and functional. {I actually want a Renault, Alpine but I do not own a time machine or a money tree.}

  I found a kit car called DF Goblin, but that was out, my Wife likes being indoors. So Goblin bits under a Cobalt skin. GOB-BALT. I hope to drive one on Hot Rod Power Tour next summer. 

BonRoute, Y'all!

In reply to OHSCrifle :

  Having ample time on my hands I have gone back and edited my posts.(I am considering pivoting to "the horror movie formula", all gore and maybe some plot?) This is not a dismissal of my readers, just a hat tip recognizing the peculiar facets of my audience.

  Having now collected "actual real time posting data", I will endeavor to post MORE pix featuring, angle grinder sparks flying, torch flames, welding sparks flying, bits of obvious slag, glowing welds and if possible smouldering automotive detritus.(So sorry, there is no room in our budget for explosions or firey crashes.)

   And much less of the printed word!

     As I was originally building this for myself I failed to document much, if any, of the work with the exception of Data driven documentation, Very Dry. Though we are but 2 guys in a farm shop, at our latest Board Meeting we "broke out" into two(2) "Working Groups", "Production" and "Finance". The better to attack this Obvious Oversight in a serious manner.

Now, at +15 days here is their report:

   "Production" has recently been approached a Director, a known Protoge' of Steven Spielberg(he has all of the Star Wars series on DVD) to re-produce(with some George Clooney / Brad Pitt look alikes) our "Official Documentary" of this build; providing our budget can cover his fee as well as his Subway sandwich bills!(he's a big guy, NO! It's Not Orson Welles, he's dead.)

   "Finance" is currently at an impass! There is serious doubt, among the Finance Working Group Members, that adequate financial support will be forth coming from our Various Sponsors* at ANY time in the next Fiscal Quater(90 days, 09/12/2023- you do the math.).  Thankfully, the crisis issue of "a budget", has been settled, we WILL have one!

Addenda:

*(Cash for Junk Cars, LLC and a shop wide can recycling effort)

Wow!, even the zombies have left. This post is doa. Considering starting over when I get back to the garage in April. Is it possible to dump this all down the memory hole and restart? I had posted here in hopes of starting a minor wave in car toys but met with non-plussed readers. Not unhappy with the actual results but just wondering is this forum just too wide spectrum for this project? I've been out of the main stream all my life, but now it's as though I am smack in the middle of the Salt Flats! A minority of one?

   I just did some research on the possible 2025 MR2. A whole different ball game than the Spyder of 2001! Like $50K+. I can spend/finance a $75,000 car; but the idea makes me ill! (prolly a personal problem, I confess.) The market is bereft of mid engine cars under $30K. I believe if I was to throw cubic dollars at this project I'd have a runner for $6k and a contender under the $10K expense mark, supercharged at $15K. I'll admit there is a lot of grunt work and risk; but the buy in is so cheap, I figured I'd find more interested parties? And it's mid Engine folks, the berkleying holy grail! (sigh.)

  Apparently it's just me? I can accept I am the only person on this planet (1 in 5 billion)after such a contraption, but the thought just doesn't fill me with warm fuzzies. (I dispair for the automobile's future.)

   "Build to a class", yes, I understand that but does no one build a car just to drive it? Cart before the horse? Classes happen when there are more similarly engineered units out there to compete; no one is building them so no class will result.

  Ideas? Anyone? Anyone? Buhler?

AhBNormal said:

 

You and your helper have excellent footwear fashion.

Kinda cool what you are doing too.

5/7 of my cars are RWD, Maybe a .5 for my Tacoma. My Golf is AWD.

In reply to preach :

Thank you for noticing our foot wear, it is an odd recognition to our developmental years that ran curiously parallel in different far flung states. 

  Did you just now sit down and ingest my post. If you did it in one sitting I may owe you a beer?

  The story is transportation and if that was enough for me I would be driving a 4w/d mid seventies pick up with a 292/six and a 5speed. We currently live on the road in a 40' motor home full time, seeing the US. My wife is a project manager working in computers and I am retired. She works all week in the passenger seat and I keep this barge functioning as our home. Weekends we tour and visit cities and parks, maybe do minor off roading in our Jeep. Constant change of scenery and hopes of only staying where the daytime temps are around 70*. That part is working out pretty well.

  Here is the rub for me. My favorite cars have always been ones reassembled by my hands, a point of pride I suppose? I like the challenge of  buying for next to nothing and then fully using it up. I was born in 1962 so the dream cars of my childhood generally span the mid sixties to the late eighties and a bit beyond. The automobile IMHO hit a wall about 1990 where virtually everything became front wheel drive. Trucks were and still are on the rise due to the fact that many people prefer the feel of rear wheel drive, though front wheel drive does have some advantages. BUT front wheel drive vehicles generally lacked the easy modification to hot rods. The stand outs were few, Subaru's and 240Z's? ETC

   I've seen some fantastic looking FWD vehicles come and go. I think one was a 95 Dodge Avenger, great body with the soul of an under powered minivan. Handling was great, accelleration, I was disappointed. Some good looking bodies were built but their drive line's let them down. I began to look at castoff cars, nice bodies, but the engine driving the wrong wheels IMO.

  Then I stumbled in to a kit car Called the DF Goblin! Taking a favorite idea, making a body RWD, in this case Mid Engine! There were many post war European cars with rear engine layout similar to the Bug and Porsche. A transverse mid engine design is hardly new, Lamborghini Miura broke that ground in 1965. It was repeated again and again by X1/9, Fiero and MR2 and others. I'm next. The first hurdle was "an envelope"(body). I was not a fan of the exo-skeleton chassis of the Goblin, but it's existence gave many parts of my build premade. I am not in Love with the Cobalt body style, but it will keep me indoors!

  My Big Picture is that "out there" is a body YOU find acceptable, functional and maybe even like-able? But the engine needs a relocation. I have seen that by comparison, newer cars are dang near disposable and some of the prices for minor wrecks proves that. Dig in folks, I'm out to show one way to get there! My slowdown is I'm never in the Garage. But I am working on the wiring while I am on the road! And visiting junkyards doing research on these bodies.

  In short, It Can Be Done! Very few cars have been from scratch, from one clean sheet of paper. Builders put together parts of existing cars in different ways, maybe refined some bits, styled the body. Cars like the Shelby Cobra and kit cars like Factory Five and others prove that. Viola! New Car!

BUMP:

   Hoping that some "car nut" enduring this frozen season will pick up this thread and discover or unearth the loose screw for which they are searching.

   Folks here at GRMS ask me what I want out of posting here. Mostly I want others to hear my story. ALSO, I hope to spark imaginations, shake up the status quo a little bit. Remind folks to LIVE!

    I am hoping to infect other dreamers with the possibility that they can take a 1997 ? "body"(something too old to be worth repairing, the 97' Dodge Avenger comes to mind.) and by relocating the engine/trans to the rear of that chassis, create a car that handles beyond your expectations and on the cheap! And with these cars, if you can build something that runs; then YOU can modify it. Get in cheap enough and failure is less painful and success is really really sweet! 

  BUT! You must be ready to fail. This sort of thing is obviously not for everyone! The Wright brothers built plenty of planes that did not fly, but each design spawned the next design; until one day they did fly. IF you can start with the premise that your car will be fun and forget about the "re-sale value of IT", you might just be able to have some fun!

I am glad I decided to open this thread again, as it is getting interesting. Love the idea, and the execution so far seems clean. Any thoughts on cutting the front strut towers from one of the donors and grafting them on the back sheet metal?

They are designed to take the loads, so it might simplify some things - then again it might not, and you did say you were trying to minimize welding.

P.S. It might be easier to get people back if you add a picture or two and and a brief description of the actual build in the first post. Others have also successfully added links to specific posts/pages to use as chapters both for new and returning readers.

In reply to Piguin :

Pleased to have hauled in a fish! I'll take that pic idea and see if I can wedge something in to the first posts. Sadly, a large driver in my project is to maintain the body, the work hidden, on the inside. So before and after shots don't provide much excitement. There is an incredible mess in between!

    Actually it was Cali and their emissions regs that had a hand in driving a project like this. If you can just cut the car apart and rearrange it, leaving all the systems intact/relocated; some fun cars could be built from existing cars, IMO. And hopefully even be legal!

  I posted much fluff attempting to show how I got here, as long as those posts seem it was an even longer process. 60 years of living and 40 years of tinkering/working on/ experiencing cars. From where does inspiration spring? It's not a river, it doesn't have one spring/ source and a lifetime of experiences adds up differently for each of us.(so I'm either a lake or a Salt Flat in this watery metaphor?)

   As you imagined a whole sub assembly, strut towers and all, from an HHR(HHR is a cobalt under the skin, white sheet metal in my pix) was to be inserted under/into the back of the Cobalt. I wish I had someone in 3d modeling who could scan the two pieces(The insides of the Cobalt and the Sacrificial sub frame and sheet metal) then meld them into one! Any ideas on this point are welcomed! I'M NOT COMPOOTER SAVVY, Savvy? So tell me your 3D modeling ideas already! I'm an old man and not likely to live forever.

     Quite obviously, Welding skills must be aquired and pressed into service! So many years of car stuff, but I've only ever dabbled in welding. But maybe I'm better off hiring a Welder than buying one!(see what I did there? noun/Pronoun) I don't do body and paint either.(at least not good body and paint work.)

  Maybe I need to re-start this thread differently under a different title? Thanks for your POV/input, it is useful and appreciated! A poster on another car forum tried to be a downer, but even his jerk/childish/insulting POV was useful to me! (A reaction by me that I feel sure just pissed him off further, which brings me even more joy!)

Well here I am again, all alone. Not to disparage my few actual followers but there seems to be no activity here.

  I tried to edit my prior posts on my thread and install some pix. But I seem to lack the proper VooDoo to edit in this thread. Maybe it's a case of  these are posts I've edited prior and now it's tired? Like I said, I'm a Stone Ax Man in a Silicon Chip World.

  Considering deleting the whole thread and starting over? I could leave out LO-LA in an effort to get the PG-13 rating? Maybe a welder company  commercial? "Thread sponsored by Miller!"?? Lotsa sparks. Considering putting in bits from The Blues Brothers, mucho car crashes and chases, add some explosions and maybe a little cheesecake?, but that smacked of pandering IMO.

   Actually just forget all this blather, it is January after all. Mebbe just a touch depressed. I miss my cars!

I've learned you cannot edit after a certain time on this platform....but you can always add new posts with older photos just to show the time line

Not sure if you mean Miller welders or Miller lite....not sponsored by either myself, but one definitely makes an appearance in my thread from time to time 

I vote keep up the work, more photos always help keep interest on the line

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Fouckhest,

   Miller welders for the sparks?!, Miller beer for the refreshment?!

  Not being able to edit old posts seems to mean I cannot add pix to them. Maybe there is a trick to add pix? As mentioned, NOT Compooter Savvy. But I do have two favorite hammers.(a preferred tool.)

    Considering new restart as a photo thread 97% pix(occasional captions of 6 monosyllabic words or less). One Forum-nista flatly stated that If I did not weld anything else to something else very soon I was in danger of losing their attention completely. I am not convinced that that individual spoke for my wider audience? Then again, at this very moment, I still may actually only be talking to myself?

   I have actually cut quite a bit of stuff up, 3.5 cars total not including many victims I had my way with post mortem in junk yards.(Necroautophila?) But I failed to record those moments for posterity. I figured those pix would be as exciting as watching me try to make THE FIRST perfectly circular pancake and discarding the first 11,000 or so for slight imperfections. It tended to look like a Texas Chain Saw Massacre featuring GM Delta Platform cars. Apparently Automotive Anatomy Class/ Cadaver Clinic is now everybody's new fave?
 

AhBNormal said:

Fouckhest,

   Miller welders for the sparks?!, Miller beer for the refreshment?!

  Not being able to edit old posts seems to mean I cannot add pix to them. Maybe there is a trick to add pix? As mentioned, NOT Compooter Savvy. But I do have two favorite hammers.(a preferred tool.)

 You've come this far, just start adding photos here!

In reply to AhBNormal :

You can't edit a post after a couple of hours, or add photos, so just do a new post with whatever it is you want to add or correct.

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

Thanks for your clarification on posting/editing. Maybe I'll start a new thread with salvage from this one? Watch for new thread, "06 Chevy Cobalt engine swap, end to end"

bobzilla said:

I can understand the meaning of most of his words. Baffled by the verbal assault. 
I tend to run on a bit. But I also make an attempt to be understood

John Welsh said:

Maybe a picture could replace 1,000 words?

Are you sure you have the bandwidth for that many pictures? 

preach said:

yupididit said:

Frenchy's evil but benevolent younger brother? 

My first thought.

Yup. 

OHSCrifle said:

AhBNormal said:

<snip>

I was figuring if I can't dazzle them with linguistic gymkahana I could baffle them with my amazing bovine waste products.

If you're not careful you might end up in a certain magazine. 

The signal to noise ratio is still rather wide but I'm still here for it. More photos?
 

He seems intelligent enough that I am attempting to tolerate the signal to noise ratio. 
And that is coming from a guy that has a fairly high delta!!