American Motors Xperimental full frame by Ron S

6 minute(s) of a 140 minute read

Just because I love body work so much, I decided to make the front bumper, grill, and headlights as one piece. Figured if I was going to make the bumper out of fiberglass, I might as well it an assembly. Should clean the front of the car up, and make it easier to put together. Besides the grills for these cars go for $650, I will just run the stainless mesh like I have in the Mustang. Got the nose pieces assembled, will make the grill out of sheet metal tomorrow.

5-18-2014

How to make a AMX grill for about 4 bucks: First get a bunch of scrap metal, Second weld it together. Done.

5-26-2014

Last pic of the front end, this is pretty much it, down to just priming and blocking. The first pic is just for contrast old to new. Cleans it up a bit I think.

5-27-2014

Just in case anyone wanted to see the plug just before it gets a mold pulled off of it. Still needs a couple prime and sands, but its made. Get yourself some a dat!!

7-12-2014

Been working on my Mustang getting it ready for Motorstate. Did pick up the nose mold, need to clean it up, and make the fins for the area that bolts it to the fender. The fiberglass guy said it took a full week to get the mold off of my plug, pretty much destroyed the plug doing so.

The fiberglass guy is the only guy I know busier then me, he is running around like a one armed paper hanger. So I decided to make the rails on the nose mold myself, to speed up the process. The parts will come fast out of the mold he promises, so I'll get the mold back Monday or Tuesday.

7-15-2014

Got the mold fins made and powder coated orange, turned out pretty good. Hope to get them back to the fiberglass guy today, so the parts can be made.

8-19-2014

Have been busy racing and breaking my Mustang, but I did get some fiberglass nose parts. The detail on these glass parts is awesome.

Exploded a clutch in Michigan and still squeaked out a 3rd on the road course. Took 2nd at the Ohio Muscle Car Challenge over this past weekend. Really fun events, unfortunately keeping me away from working on this car.

9-24-2014

Look twins, fit these to the fenders and get the molds done on them.

9-25-2014

Built it out of steel a piece at a time.

10-16-2014

I think it was a little of both. I have taken some time to fine tune on the car which made it light years better then it was. I do think the truck arm design has a tendency to push, due to the way the arms drive the power from the center of the car. Most other designs, leaf springs, 4 link, 3 link, even my torque arm on this AMC drive the car from just in front of the rear tires. The torque arm power pulls up and down on the center, but it drives from the links just in front of the rear tires. I guess we will see how it works out, if I ever get a chance to work on this car again.