2015 Chevy Sonic/Wall/4 15's/10K/Lithium/Large Case Hairpin US Alts

[77-AUDIO]

Looking Sick man.  Going to have to get together one day.  and if ya need any help let me know usually free on sundays after church.  

[WalledSonic]

Weather was decent this afternoon, so on to welding the alternator bracket!  Its not the prettiest, but it is solid.  This is flux core wire fed, so dont mind a lil spatter here and there.

Scrub scrub

Couple of tacks

I probably ground away too much material, but its still stronger than necessary.  Didnt even warp.

Some more grinding

So here's how I got everything to line up.  You must get the pulleys lined up so you can compare the two alternator mounting bosses.  On the right, you can see my stock alternator with a small slice of wood underneath the pulley as a spacer.  Im holding a ruler from the first groove of one pulley to the first groove of the other.  Notice how flat the ruler is from one end to the other.

Now with the ruler still in place, notice how even the gap is from the bracket on the left side to the stock alt on the right.

 

 

[WalledSonic]

Lessons learned on welding yesterday:

1) Zinc plated parts will offgas and create porosity.  Even if you grind away the zinc coating, any small amounts left over near the weld area can create porosity.

2) Be careful with the grinder.  Its easy to remove too much material very fast

[WalledSonic]

HOW TO REMOVE YOUR TRUNK LID TORSION BARS AND INSTALL GAS STRUTS

Remove torsion bars

These brackets were in the way: 

Cut em out

Drill the preexisting hole out to the proper hole size to install an M8 riv-nut/press nut

Screw in M8 threaded ball-end

Install one of these on the back wall

Clip strut in place

Here's the other side with light

Showing the setup with a better view

Before I did any of this, I took extra care to measure the closed and open distance that the strut would have to throw by crawling into the trunk and closing it.  6.5" compressed and 10" extended was the most common strut size in this range, so thats what I had to design around.  I could have drilled a new hole in the support to optimize how much the trunk opens, but using the existing hole (from the stock torsion bar) made the task easier.  These are 80 pound struts.  

[WalledSonic]

Finally done staining/coating the wall.  Scrubbing the spar urethane in between coats:

Wipe it down

DONE

Gonna have to place the amps just like this to clear all the features of the side of the box (cable bolts, windows, supports, etc)

So little room to fit these on the sides.  Still gotta figure out the details

 

[WalledSonic]

Great Stuff (expanding foam) dripped from the ceiling a few months back 

Silver and black sharpies

Decent enough!

[ChevyBoy95]

On 9/19/2017 at 6:40 AM, WalledSonic said:

Not sure man.  Im balls deep in a rebuild right now, so I dont expect it to be playing until late October sometime.  Maybe sooner if the weather would cooperate!  Thanks for checking it out.

As another houstonian, do you frequent texas shows? Dont know if I have ever seen this ride or this build in person. Name?

[DavidClark]

1 hour ago, ChevyBoy95 said:

As another houstonian, do you frequent texas shows? Dont know if I have ever seen this ride or this build in person. Name?

I wanted to know the same

[juan777]

7 hours ago, ChevyBoy95 said:

As another houstonian, do you frequent texas shows? Dont know if I have ever seen this ride or this build in person. Name?

 

6 hours ago, DavidClark said:

I wanted to know the same

We need to all get together when @DavidClark gets the 15s playing. 

[8ten8]

11 hours ago, WalledSonic said:

Great Stuff (expanding foam) dripped from the ceiling a few months back 

Silver and black sharpies

Decent enough!

Ooo  the sharpie experiment! More than descent my friend, Very nice! And that stain is beauty! This shit is coming along nicely. Yeah, if I lived TX, I'd be knocking on your door too lol