Ground clearance for driveways etc.

[Bicyclops]

Having had the front suspension collapse and put the nose on the ground and having hit some streets pretty hard coming out of driveways, the bottom of the front corners are getting pretty beat up. Tore the bolt out that attaches the fender to the nose piece on one side. I'm looking at a couple of fixes.

1 Put a plywood skidplate under the corners. Maybe apply some steel wear strips at the front. Downside is that it'd put some flex on the fender when it scrapes. Like that hasn't already happened. I'm not in paint, but maybe someday.

2 Mount a couple of wheelie bar rollers under there. The problem with that is they'd need to be somewhat inboard of the scrape zones to be under any semi-solid structure. A buddy of mine did that on his C5 Vette, and he had some nice frame members to mount to. All I've got is the forward (very light duty) radiator frame. That said, I don't think I need to carry the whole front of the car, just take some of the load off the springs for a moment.

3 Avoid steepish drives or hit them slowly at an angle. Already doing that, but have taken damage anyway.

Another thing that's bothering me is that air coming in the lower inlet below the height of the radiator isn't guided in any way. It flows back to where the main frame hangs at about the same height as the bottom of the nose piece and into where the battery lives. I've got a bunch of road gravel and stuff in there. It doesn't make sense to me and seems very draggy. I'm thinking about fabbing up some sheetmetal and figuring a way to duct that air to the front brakes.

Any ideas?

Ed

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[Bicyclops]

Yikes! Got a wrong picture in there. The other thread has correct ones.

Moderator - Want to delete this thread?

[lance corsi]

Personally I’d raise my ride height and possibly look into some air pucks to raise the front. I’ve got a fully covered bottom , most of which is 16 gave aluminum except for the floor pan, which I switched out for some 9 gage steel sheet. I’m hoping the smooth bottom will yield more mpg and possibly raise my top speed (which I’ll never get to).