I will be buying the steel tubing and build table supplies as soon as one of the tax returns comes in. I'm biding my time until then cleaning up some of the parts and pieces that will be reused, so they look and function better. My donor was a winter-driven car, so many of the parts are currently covered in rust. This weekend was spent taking the steering rack apart roughly half way and welding the line fitting shut so they function as plugs: it will be converted to manual and shortened.
I also took the brake calipers apart, degreased them, stripped the paint and rust off of them (chemically and with a wire brush on a drill), and repainted them. While reassembling them I'm polishing and greasing the slide pins and making sure the brake hardware is correctly functioning. Having recently built a very nice basement workbench for my boys also provides me a wonderful place to do such work.
