I accomplished a few things on the Lightning over the last two weekends. I did the final assembly of the front suspension, which felt nice since I’ve pulled it apart and put it back together at least 6 times in the last year. The front brakes are all installed and ready to have the hard lines run to them.

After getting the front wheels on and finally lowering it off of the jackstands, I put the rear on jackstands and started installing the C-notch. I’ve only finished the driver’s side notch so far, but I should be able to get some time to do the passenger side next weekend. Here are some before, during, and after shots of the notch.

We were able to get enough finished to do the first test run around the neighborhood! No brakes yet, but the steering and suspension feel really nice.

We had to modify the ends of the front axle and the spindles to get more kingpin inclination for better steering stability at speed, so that set us back a bit. The steering is basically all finished except finishing up a bit of welding and perhaps adding another steering shaft support. We have the brake calipers mounted to the spindles now too. The brakes should hopefully be functional before the end of the long weekend.

We made lots of progress over the last two weekends. Here’s some updated pics of how everything sits right now.

Hopefully the rest of the steering is tackled this next weekend along with some of the brake work. It’s getting really close to testing time…

We made lots of progress this last week. The kingpins are done. The frame was Z’d and welded together. The suicide perch was also finished. Everything turned out really nice.

The plan is to build the rear axle this weekend and get it on all four wheels. Hopefully we can get the hairpin radius rods built and installed up front too. After that, we need to make a couple of panhard bars and tackle the steering.

I needed to have a concept drawing for the “Mystery Project”, so I whipped this up last night. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out considering that I haven’t made any serious attempt at drawing anything in about 13 years.