32 Update: body bolts, body mounted

We thought for a while, drew our thoughts on the blackboard, and finally came up with a much simpler edition.  Since the floor of the Bear Fiberglass body is so thick (almost 2″), and it is composed of two layers of fiberglass sandwiching a sort of foam material, it can be ’squished’, for lack of a better word.  Imagine standing on a pop can.  Or you can stand on a soda can.  Either way, unless you’re reading this blog from the comfort of the womb, you will probably collapse the walls of the can.  Imagine now that you drop a steel tube inside, just shorter than the height of the can.  The walls will collapse just a tiny bit, but then the strength of the tube will hold your weight.  Probably.

Same idea here.  We’re putting a tube spacer inside the floor so that when the bolts get tightened, they will cinch the body down but won’t be able to overtighten and crush the fiberglass.

This is one of the only pictures you’ll see of me working on the car… and it happens to be the easiest job other than cleaning.

Time to install the engine!  Here, the transmission mount is swung (my computer didn’t put a red line under “swung”, so I guess it’s a word) out of the way, waiting for the transmission.

Great!  Fits just like it did the first time!