Seats

Seat mounts with captive nuts have been fabricated and welded into place and the ADR approved Whitepointer seats upholsetered in marine grade vinyl have been bolted into position.

Handbrake cables

The handbrake cables have been routed and mounting hardware welded in position

Tailshaft

The tailshaft ends have been fitted to both the diff and gearbox and they have been joined with some tube to replicate the final tailshaft length.

The tailshaft finish and balance will be outsourced to specialists when all fabrication work has been completed.

Engine and transmission mounted in place

The buck engine and transmission have been joined using the fabricated adapter and the assembly fitted to the frame on their respective mounts to allow further fabrication work to continue around them.

 

Steering column

The AE86 Corolla steering column assembly was hung in position and then attachments were fabricated from round tube and the original donor bracket.
The assembly features a collapsible column for crash safety as well as an ABS housing featuring a tilt/height adjustment, an integrated lock/starter barrel, a blinker/headlight stalk, a hazzard switch and provison for a horn.

A more suitable aftermarket steering wheel will be added towards the end of the build.

Steering Rack

A fair bit of progress in recent months but not many accompanying posts, so I'll try and catch up today.

I've settled on a mounting method for the rack based on the position it sat in the frame when copied from the JZZ30/JZA80 front crossmember jig.
I depowered the rack by removing all power steering seals and valves in the rack and pinion housings.
I have had to narrow the rack body about 100mm so that it fit inside the chassis but as the inner rack itself remains the same width, I don't foresee any ill effect on bump steer or geometry in general.
This solution will require that the rack and pinion engagement range be moved 50mm to the passenger side, so I'll have to get a machinist to machine additional meshing teeth and heat treat them as necessary.

IRS Diff mounting

The diff I have gone with is a common IRS 7.5 inch Toyota F series diff as found in MA61 Supras, RA65 Celicas and RT142 Coronas.
This diff family is available with an open centre, plate LSD and Torsen LSD in a multitude of ratios from 3.5 to 4.7:1
I used a combination of modified RT142 rear diff mounts and modified front cradle as well as a JZZ30 Soarer rear crossmember mount to securely isolate the diff from the chassis in a strong but serviceable manner.
Driveshafts will be hybrids with F series CVs on the diff side and JZZ30 CVs/axle mount on the hub side.