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very nice mondo! i had a '67 C10 with a 283 and column shifter in the 70's when i was in high school. paid $650 for it and sold it a few years later for $675.that was a great truck. i miss it. yours is a lot nicer! that rack and pinion is sweet. i recall the recirculating ball steering on my old truck was way vague.

beautiful car!

that's nice, mike. simple and easy to fabricate. thanks for posting. i haven't seen suspension limiting straps on an ultralite before. do you go airborne a lot?

i think maybe 7plus2 is talking about a trailer to pull behind his seven, given that it would be made from a rooftop carrier. a rooftop carrier that could cover a seven is bigger than any i've seen...

thanks martin.

the spacer on my long bolt is 2 7/16" long. jim and jon, that sounds like a clever means of reinforcing the bolt. jim, please post pics of your fix.

here is my current configuration.

loren, that makes sense. i wonder why my shock and trailing arm were mounted in the reverse order? when i changed out the heims i considered reassembling in the order you describe but ended up using the original configuration, only using real spacers rather than stacks of washers. my configuration is hub-1"spacer-heim-1/4"spacer-1/4"spacer-shock-1/4" spacer-washer-locknut. i figured there must be some reason for mounting the shock so far from the hub as it was done originally even though it seemed counterintuitive. i guess there must be some gain in suspension geometry at the expense of strength. i think i'll have a more robust spacer made like jim's or jerry's and move the shock closer to the hub. naturally i just got finished getting all the wheels aligned...

interesting. and my spacer's even longer than rnr's -- over 2". :^o mhkflyer: do you have any suggestions for "shim material"? when i recently replaced the heim joints on my car, one place i was unable to remove slop was on these "long bolts" (the other was the shock mounts). i used shoulder bolts everywhere else, but there is slop where the bearing slides over these threaded bolts. i wrapped the threads with enough teflon tape to make it feel snug, but i wouldn't think that will help with much beyond making it a bit quieter.

google joe's hood supports. available from numerous vendors.

if no one answers before then, i'll check mine this evening and see if i can find the manufacturer or part number.

hey i see you have an i-shift light. i got one recently and think it's awesome. i hardly look at the tach any more.

hey jim, that's a novel approach. and a big mirror! my car came "pre drilled" for the spa center mirror, so i just bought another one and used the existing holes. i like the mounting point fine, it works well for me. the one thing i want to do though is cut the post off and re-tig weld it to the base at about a 30 degree angle so it slopes backward. i had thought about mounting on the dash, but decided that might not be the best in terms of safety (metal pike on the dash? :^o) one word of caution: i put a layer of rubber between the base and hood, both to protect the hood and dampen vibration. i recently removed the mirror from the hood and noticed that something in the rubber had caused bad crazing in the underlying clear coat. so much for protection! as i recall, you have clear bra on your entire car, so perhaps that wouldn't be an issue for you.

bruce, sounds like an awesome day. your car looks great!

clever and low cost, locost! i like it.

thanks for the suggestions guys. the longacre plates look like a good solution. very simple.

does anyone have recommendations for a toe gauge? i see there are quite a few available, and being a newbie at doing alignment i don't have experience with any of them. i have a 24" digital level that i can use to adjust camber. i could use the string method for front toe, but the gauges look like they would make the job much quicker. for the rear, is using parallel strings for reference lines the way to go or is there another trick? not that i'd really have a clue where to start adjusting anything on the rear of the ultralite. i plan on having a four wheel alignment and corner balance done by a pro sometime soon, but i'd like to make some adjustments myself in the meantime, particularly since i just finished swapping out all the rod ends.

jerry, are you running smaller than typical tires? i have the 4.44 and i'm pretty certain i'm under 4000 rpm at 80mph in 6th gear. around 3700 i think, and i have calibrated my speedometer by gps.

joshesh, i think maybe yours is special! it's interesting the things you find when taking these cars apart. the parts list in roman's original post was correct for my car -- 28 rod ends with 1/2" bore and 4 with 5/8" bore (all 4 of these on the rear). all of the rod end bores on the front are 1/2". also, your shoulder screw is too long -- by about 1/4" from the looks of it. i initially ordered screws that were too long myself. most of the brackets required screws that had 1 1/4" long shoulders (as i recall the spherical bearings were 0.75" thick and the spacers built into the brackets were ~0.5" thick). i believe there were 2 in the rear that required 1" long shoulders.

well i finished replacing all the rod ends this weekend. wow, what a difference! no squeeks, not rattles! and it really feels buttoned down now. what a transformation! i thought any change in handling would be very subtle, but it's really a remarkable improvement. thanks to all who have posted on this topic, especially roman for starting this thread and providing the part numbers.

i have mostly worn a helmet in the past, though since i changed out the windscreens i have made a few drives without, as with the reduced buffeting i can now drive about 85 mph without my cap blowing off. then recently i was t-boned in my daily driver by a moron blowing through a red light -- a sobering experience. had i been in my seven perhaps i would have been toast with or without a helmet, but i would rather take my chances with. so i no longer drive without a helmet.

i live in houston and drive in the city, but i do my best to minimize it, driving off peak hours and driving very defensively. still it is very scary. many many distracted drivers in big suv's playing with their cell phones plus other drivers doing stupid maneuvers in order to get a better view of my car. to put it in perspective, two years ago i was rear ended in my former dd while stopped at a traffic light by a soccer mom in an suv trying to figure out her new cell phone -- impact at about 30 mph. two months ago i was t-boned in my current dd by a woman at an intersection who blew through her red light. she didn't even notice the traffic signal -- her defense was that she was "sleepy". it's doubtful i would have survived either incident in the seven.

right. it's the way that it's typically done -- shock far away from the upright and creating a large moment arm -- that's counterintuitive to me.

hey that's very slick, jerry! you have your own lathe? that must be handy. i see you've mounted the control arm inboard of the shock, which seems the more intuitive way of putting the components together, yet all of the ultralites i've seen (including mine) have the control arm between the shock and upright. i'm sure there's a reason for it but it's not obvious to me.

thanks dean. there's a lot of noise on the web about the centric rings stress shielding the lugs, but when i started to think about it, that didn't really make sense as the wheel is very tightly clamped to the hub. intuitively it seems like it would take a lot more force than would normally be encountered driving to break through static friction once the lugs are torqued down. the rings do make mounting the wheels quicker and easier though. and welcome to texas! i live in houston myself. i hope you're enjoying our fantastic summer weather!