I came here just to update this
haha. Maybe. IF its done by then…
Dan
Glad to see more work being done on this. I might be interested in lending a hand if you need it sometime.
motors still out. It’s like why not haha :tup:
Saturday I moved a few bins of parts from the garage to the shop and laid most of them out. Trying to remember what I have and dont have.
Then I spent a couple hours scraping that textured rubberized undercoating from the lower core support area, fun fun.
And finally gave in and started to fill in that big ugly gap between the frame rail and fender. I wanted to keep the curves and shape of the frame rail so I did it a little differently than everyone else.
Dan
Most of the engine bay welding and grinding is now done, other than the lower core support. Ill come back to that in a week or two.
For now Im starting to reassemble everything as I seem to have forgotten how most of it went together over the past 3 years. I got a few main pieces together late last night.
Dan
Looks good! :tup:
Thanks!
Got a couple hours today between my daughters Irish dancing and soccer game.
Pulled the trunk, tail lights, rear bumper and top off so I now have a mini pickup…
Dan
It’s a convertible caddy!
Haha yup!
Found the exh manifold and turbo this weekend. Also realized that I apparently did not have the whole shifter in place when I started on the downpipe a few years ago.
Mounted the smoked headlights and grille. Also planned out wire routing and punched a couple holes here and there to get wires thru the fender area into the cabin.
Found this between the shifter and ebrake lever. Its no TVR dick bomb, but fun to find anyway.
Then last night I pulled out the ebrake and shifter and spent a couple hours with some APC, rags, and a brush and cleaned the hell out of the back seat and trunk areas. Now maybe I wont get dirty just looking inside.
Dan
Keep it up man, I like following this build :tup:
@juicedz4 gets my vote for coolest dude working on the oddest cars with the best garage… on this forum. There has to be a category for that, right?
Haha. Thanks.
Behind a couple days of updates. Time to catch up.
Decided I didnt like the open bracket for the brake booster. Welded a plate to the top of the bracket. In order to be able to still mount it I had to drill a couple large holes in the back of the bracket to access the booster nuts and move the top stud from the steering column to the booster bracket. Ill snap a pic of it in place soon, I keep forgetting.
Clearance holes on open bracket
Welded and ground with new mounting stud
Mounted up (obv taken before the stud move)
Stud removed from column. Its fairly easy to access from the inside.
Next, I tacked the water pipe for the heater core return. Cleaned all of the threaded studs off of it and welded up two nipples that Im not going to use vs just capping them. I pressure tested it to ~30psi, no leaks. I also tweaked the position of it a little to better line up with the hoses on the firewall.
Not perfect but powder coat should hide the rest.
Finally I redid the downpipe to actually clear the shifter, rack and alxe. (Note: pic taken only with ambient shop lighting :))
Next update on wed am.
Dan
Decided I didnt like the factory feed for the heater core so I whipped up my own. Plus I wanted a way to T water to the turbo without using a hose barb T and clamps (Im a sucker for AN fittings). My main motivation for running water to the turbo was to have an alternate water path for when the heater core feed is shut off. I figure if I was just going to put an alternate path in I may as well make some use of it.
Cut the flange on my bandsaw and cleaned up the edges on the disc sander. The tube is a piece of 3/4" sanitary tubing I bought on ebay for $20.
Still need to machine the bungs to fit around the tube, but thats the idea of where they are going and explains why the one tube is longer than the other. Im still debating if I need a mounting bracket along the length of the new tube.
Dan
With all this work, it hardly seems like you are doing this for your wife…
X…
Lets be honest, I like doing the work, a lot. It doesnt matter who its for really, since realistically itll probably mostly just sit.
Dan
Machined a couple of -6 bungs for the turbo water lines yesterday at lunch.
And welded them on last night. I also put a few weld dots at the end of the stainless tube to help retain the hose since I cant bead it.
Then I dug through my stash and luckily found a 2.5" 90* bend so I was able to finish up the downpipe. I still need to add an O2 sensor bung and a vband at the other end. Certainly not my best welding, but whatever, it had great penetration and will be coated and wrapped.
I will definitely need to do some heat shielding for the rack and shifter.
I also received the correct shifter bracket for the manual rack and a few more fittings from my Jegs order, which is apparently coming in 5 separate shipments.
Dan
Buy or Machine some delrin or aluminum bushings for that shift shaft. Thank me later.
Was thinking id see about fitting some bronze bushings.
Dan
even better.