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Sunbeam

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Everything posted by Sunbeam

  1. Toyota wreckers are thieves especially van/prado/hilux ones. Buy every single wreck at top dollar, corner market, print money. Around here anyway. Good luck
  2. What qualifies as cheap for one of these smurfs?
  3. I keep seeing Max peed in his grods. Is that a euphemism for undies?
  4. Try acetone with the atf. Otherwise take the crank out and bash the pistons with a steel drift. Wood absorbs too much power from the hammer. Sounds brutal, but the pistons and bores are already rooted anyway at this point. It’s a tractor engine so the marks should bore out for new oversized pistons with meat to spare. I had to use the agro method on a Fiat block to get a piston out. Moved pretty quick once the wooden drift was abandoned and didn’t even break a ring in the end.
  5. Been driving around some more. 2200-2800 rpm is punishing to cruise at. Transitioning through this band is fine and generally it makes bad-ass old car tunes. The rear muffler is a straight through bullet style and this needs to change, I think. I have a new problem with clearance though. The exhaust isn’t banging the floor anymore but now the rear axle housing is banging on the inverted U section. I think I need to ditch the slip joints and weld flanges in instead. This will give me some more wiggle room to play with angles before welding the flanges on. Also I may investigate adding another leaf or part leaf to the rear springs. They are so soft I can make the diff housing touch the bump stops (and exhaust)by pressing down firmly on the boot! Increasing ride height is not an option. Servo pic: 8.8 l/100km on this one. I was expecting 10-11 so call me pleasantly surprised.
  6. Sunbeam

    diesel spam

    I can confirm BMW M57 is the shiz. Bone stock is 220hp and 500nm. Almost zero issues with mine in an old X5 with 375,000km. A starter motor and one injector in it’s whole life. I would shudder at swapping it into something else though as they are very electrical, which is not my jam at all. Land Rover peeps are routinely doing it in the UK though.
  7. Yes, 4.5mm is too close. It bangs the floor vigorously when traversing bumps. So I have undone everything again and extended the hook eyes I fabricated for the rubber straps and meddled with some angles and I now have about 10mm. Also, no leaks. Also also it might be a smidge loud. I know, I know but I’m closer to 50 than 40 nowadays and I have enough hearing loss from hundreds of hours in a Cessna 206. Don’t need to be more deaf.
  8. I personally don’t like doing this on slip joints but beggars can’t be choosers. Also I have new rubber hangers so I thought I’d accelerate the stretching process. Yes, that’s an old battery..
  9. I have gotten as far as I can go with what I have. I’m very happy with the downpipe I bought, the fit is perfect. All the other joints are aligned now, but this leaves the tailpipe exiting at a 5 degree angle. This will be unfixable without tweaking some bends in the tubing. The lowest hanging part has 125mm ground clearance and it’s close to the rear axle so I’m happy with that. I also haven’t been able to avoid a very tight gap with the rear passenger footwell pressing in the floor. I have 4.5mm… is this too tight? Also, every slip joint has a tiny leak!! I’ve run the engine and it sounds quite stout, a bit more bass but still with all the twinky rasp.
  10. Did a bit more today between farm chores and ferrying kids around (to be fair it was for dirt drift karting which I enjoyed as much or more than the kids). First job was to grind off the bottom tacks so I could tweak the end of the pipe down a bit . Then it was time to trim and hang the rest. This took a few goes. Main pipe section is ok Over the diff is good: The rear “muffler” hangs pretty good too, but could do with hanging a few mm lower which is just a small adjustment on the clamp It’s the bit where the front pipe should slip into the first muffler that needs a tweak: It surprises me how much just increasing the diameter of the pipe affects ground clearance. I have 105mm under the front of the first muffler. This is now the lowest point on the car. Also, the hand brake cable is quite close to the pipe- the bare steel bit, not the rubber sheath which will limit my ability to lift the muffler for more ground clearance. Is there a minimum clearance for cables that I need to be cognisant of for WOFs?
  11. Flushed with the glow of success from obtaining legality for the first time in 15 years, I am acutely aware that there is more to do. My exhaust downpipe arrived. It came with an inch and 3/4 outlet and I need to make it 2. Mark: Chop. No going back… Tack. Beer.
  12. Got told about the plain water thing by my mate who’s much more experienced than me. I would have done the same thing as you did otherwise. Shit that engine sounds good!
  13. 300 miles on engine rebuild now, I’ve been driving it a fair bit. First tank of gas 9l/100km which seems a bit too good to be true given the type of driving I’ve done and the fact that it’s turning 3700rpm at 100km/h.
  14. Another job ticked off. Was miles out. Doesn’t necessarily feel heaps better but good to know it’s correct now.
  15. There is still an issue of tyre rub when loaded so I put some ballast in the back (wife and kids) and tried to find the pain points. It looks like it’s rubbing on part of the arch lip, so more trimming required. Previously I had thought it was only in the inner guard where it was touching as I had put a guide coat in there and found a high spot that the tyre polished off. I made the high spot lower with a hammer and it doesn’t appear to touch there anymore. I marked out the lip with tape and then used a flap disc which made very short work of trimming. Anyone with half a brain would say “why not just use the correct wheels and tyres” well, I have a WHOLE brain buddy, and the correct course of action is obviously to cut up your car until the phat wheel/tyre combo fits! *UPDATE on alternator light shenanigans. Since the Fiat uses a relay to power the bulb, and it’s a normally open jobby, wouldn’t a normally closed relay correct my back to front light situation? I dropped by the local auto sparky with my hypothesis and he agreed. So 5 minutes later the relay was swapped out and voila, it works proper.
  16. Maiden voyage beyond the end of the road today, I decided to take it to work, a distance approximately 5 times further than I have ever driven it. Some observations: It needs a 5th gear The tyre roar is harsh, possibly a consequence of polyurethane bushes? A rear wheel bearing is noisy The wheel alignment is terrible (expected) I drove home at night, the low beam is pants, high beam is good (need to relay the low beams) It looks comically tiny parked next to the corollas and swifts in the carpark. I like quarterlights as they are excellent wind deflectors with the window open. 90 km round trip acheived with no broken things!
  17. Did a couple more things this afternoon after work. I borrowed the fixed fan off the 1500 while I decide how to proceed with an electric fan. She’s tight down there… Then I flung the boot linings back in. And then I went for a drive to a place… And got a special sticker for my troubles… CLEAN SHEET!! First WOF in 15 years. I’m feeling pleased with myself and am looking forward to a celebratory beer with dinner.
  18. Merry new year. So…. No, I can’t rescue it. I started with this bit which became this which fit here which meant I had to lengthen the inner pipe so far so good. Side profile, the end needs more up: So I gave it a tweak which then meant the inside pipe did’nt fit and no amount of faffing about could get the angles right and I ran out of both bends and patience. I then cut it up and threw it in the scrap bin and ordered a new one from Britannia. About the same price as bending the new one and laser cut flange. Shipping hurt a bit though and I’m sure being a mass produced aftermarket part it won’t be quite as nice but I’ll find out soon. Meanwhile I managed to cobble the old exhaust back together without leaks and went for a hoon.
  19. Rage quit. I could NOT make them fit properly, plus I wound up with a pinhole inaccessible by welder. Also my ocd can’t cope with the franken-look bits and pieces all welded together so I’m going to start again. Will have to be after new year at this rate. How annoying is it to spend hours on something which then becomes scrap metal? Maybe I can chop it up and use a couple of bends to fix up the old one…. Oh well, off to the beach.
  20. I’m welding a mild steel exhaust together, brand new fresh tube. Is it worthwhile or necessary to coat/paint the outside?
  21. I’m getting there. I’ll post an update in due course. The benders have given me a couple of off the shelf 90 degree bends which will get me over the line I hope. The outer pipe ended up being ok. I have to make the inner one fit it now. I didn’t want to get too upset with them as a club member works there and hooked me up with a solid deal $ wise.
  22. I was told some fettling would be required. This is more than fettling!! I’m at the point where if I had a 60 and a 75 degree bend to weld in I can make it work. I’ve enquired about obtaining said bends from the company.
  23. The pipes are bent up so I have been mucking around with fitting them up. I’m hitting a wall with the secondaries, I can’t make them fit. Look how far apart the ends are. They are supposed to come together to weld into a collector. Also they should be on the same plane in the vertical sense but… There are other problems too. I can’t lay them as per the factory ones due to slightly different bend angles so I’m simultaneously hitting the bell housing and the chassis rail. Tell me, am I unreasonable in expecting to be able to fit up the pipes with minor trimming? This part of the job (bending 2x pipes and laser cut flange ran to $215+GST. They had my original as a pattern and supposedly use 3D scanning. At this rate I will need to cut them at nearly every bend and add or subtract sections. What would you recommend?
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