Hurmeez

I suppose that would be an option but I think I may run into an issue with the bearing retainer access holes. I probably could fit another stud in there in between the two but I'd be worried about how close it would be and the strength (or lack thereof) it might have. I don't think you are allowed to weld up the holes because it screws the heat treatment right?

I finally got around to putting in the brace between the chassis rail and the firewall on the passenger's side. I did the driver's side ages ago but for some reason, I always found something else to do until now. I'm happier with this side. It turned out better than the first try. Next, I started working on the rear engine mounts (also known as gearbox mounts). I figured since I don't have my adapter plate yet, I can't make the front engine mounts. Without it I can't be certain of where the engine and gearbox sit relative to each other so any mounts I make with my makeshift MDF plate may not line up properly when it put the steel one in. However, I can make the gearbox mounts because I do know where that will sit relative to the hole in the tunnel. So that was my next move. I used the Turbo Yoda method to hang the gearbox while I built the mount for it. This lets me hang around underneath the box as much as I want without running into something holding it up from the bottom. Also, thanks to the threads, I could raise or lower the box as much as I wanted with plenty of precision to align everything properly. I set the angle of the engine to be the same as the stock crossflow in dad's car. This means I don't have to worry about the driveshaft angles being out on the U-joints. From here on the photos start to get a bit spotty because I just had my head down and completely forgot to take enough photos. Oh well. Anyway, I started but making a mount to pick up the points used to mount the black bit below the output shaft in this photo: (That's not my photo because I forgot) It is some sort of steel block rubber mounted to the trans but not mounted to anything else. Possibly some sort of vibration dampener. Who knows. Anyway, I used it as a template to make a similar plate out of 5 or 6mm steel plate (I forget which), which also has mounting points for an off the shelf mount. Something like this: I reused the press in studs from the original mount but cut the tops off and welded them in with lots and lots of amps on the TIG. Then I made it pretty. I used captive nuts rather than tapping the plate, mostly because we only have a bottom tap in the pitch I want and I couldn't get the bastard to start. So nuts it is. What are the nuts for you ask? They bolt to an off the shelf, out of focus powerglide trans mount like this: It's nice and low profile (and cheap) and will fit really well. Here is the whole assembly in place. Next I started on the car side of the mounts. I wanted to more or less copy the design that the factory used. These are a couple of boxes that are welded to the tunnel with some tapped doubler plates behind the mounting surface. The advantage of doing it this way is that there are no penetrations in the floor, so fewer opportunities for water to enter and start causing rust. Also, bolts sticking through the floor just suck in general. So it started with a cardboard template to get the shape right, then I started to transfer it to some 2mm sheet (the same as the factory mounts). Then I made the doubler plate out of 10mm plate. I managed to get the tap to start this time so I made a real nice job of them. Then I welded them in place. This was great fun because it was the hottest I've ever run the welder and laying the fillets in there just felt fantastic. Finally, I fully welded the seams and bent the flanges over. This is it compared to the original. Pretty good I reckon. Then I tacked them in and completely forgot to take any photos. Yay!! I'm planning on putting the car on a rotisserie to stitch weld the chassis rails so I'll fully weld them then. For now though, I'll just leave them tacked; I really hate welding on my back. Finally after all that, I started on the crossmember itself. Starting with a cardboard template in terrible lighting. Of course. Then I started to transfer it to a piece of box section I picked out which happened to fit the powerglide mount spot on. And then I forgot to take photos while I cut it out and bent it to shape. In any case, take my word for it that I did. And here it how it turned out: You'll notice the gearbox looks a bit crooked. It is actually clocked approximately 2.5 degrees clockwise relative to the car from this perspective, and offset to the passenger's side by about 10mm, all for a very good reason. I'll go into that later on. I still need to cut some of the green off the ends, drill the powerglide mount holes, and finish weld the joins. Other than that, it's pretty good. It's 3mm plate so I don't think it will need gussets between the bottom and the mounting flanges, though I might do it anyway later on. We'll see. In other news, I've been looking into diff upgrade options for a while now and I think I may have come across a very viable deal. I was lookinginto a hilux diff, but they proved to be harder to find than I expected. They also don't seem to have many options for decent crusing ratios, as well as options to easily (read cheaply) convert to four stud, which I really want to keep for my Cheviot Turbos. So instead what I've found is an R31 Skyline diff nearby for $150. I saw that @Rhubarb77 had used one in his turbo Pinto MkII so I know it can be shortened to fit and will obviously hold over 300hp easily (which might be part of future plans). It's four stud already, and I can get a bolt in LSD 3.54:1 center section from the wreckers down the road for another $150 or so. Those are the positives. The negatives are as follows: It has no brakes at the moment, disks or calipers, and the stud pattern is 4x114.8 rather than my mag's 4x108. I have thought that I could put the rears in a mill and slot the holes slightly to fit but I don't know how well that would work. Does anyone else have any experience in this sort of area? Should I pull the trigger and buy the diff or do I have better options? Let me hear your suggestions or comments here: Cheers

Yeah they are Prelude seats. I'm not a massive fan of the weird headrest setup they have but I have a plan for that and they were free, so I can't complain.

Brilliant. Gotta love bureaucracy don't you?

Now that the tunnel was finalised I could finally get to welding in the seat mounting boxes. You'll recall way back in October of 2016 I folded up some channels and made them fit in place of the old seat boxes. Something like this: I held off welding them in at the time because I thought I would have to get a cert man to come and have a look at them before I could. It turns out a simple email with photos was enough to make him happy but in retrospect, I am very happy I held off. If I had welded them in it would have been a nightmare doing the tunnel modifications. As it was, it was still a bit of a mish but that made it a lot easier. Now though, the profile on the inside end of each box doesn't fit the new tunnel, so I had to modify them to make them fit the new tunnel shape. That done, I wire-brushed and thoroughly cleaned the floor that would be underneath the box, as well as the underside of the box itself, then painted both with a couple of coats of Hammerite. I made sure the steel directly underneath where I was going to weld had no paint on it before I went around the edges with some weld through primer. That done, I got it tacked in place and checked the fit with the seat. Happy with that, I marked and tacked where I wanted each stitch weld to go, then fully welded it in. Meanwhile I had been doing all the same processes to the rear seat mounts too: They shouldn't be going anywhere soon. Then it was a case of repeating everything once more on the other side. I think I'm finally getting the hang of the MIG now too. I made some pretty good looking welds on these bits; one I'm particularly proud of: Pretty shit photo but you get the idea. Then, of course, it would be rude not to bolt the seats in and make broom broom noises. While I was in there I mocked the rear seat up to see how it would fit with the new seats. With both seats at the back of their travels, this is the leg room you get in the back. Doesn't look too bad. Nevermind, it sucks ass. It probably wouldn't be too bad for short trips but bugger driving to Auckland like that. Oh well, I'm not going to be sitting back there so who cares? Also had a bit of a premonition. Look how much crap you can fit in the back! After sitting in it for a while, I couldn't help myself and just had to bolt the door on to hang my arm out the window. Note my false ground level with the bucket and wood. Feels pretty good to get into and out of. Now I can start working on engine mounts or something. It's all feeling a lot closer now.

I always seem to read back over my previous post and find that I mention something about finishing something in the next few days. Then I check the date and realise it was over a month ago. Woops. Not long after I posted the last update I had to take two weeks to turn this: Into this: Some muppet (me) ran out of talent on a wet intersection and made an adjustment to a nearby fence. So I spent a while sorting all that out before finally getting back to what matters. Picking back up on the brace, I used some paper to make templates of the large flat panels that Would be needed to weld it all to the floor. I can't believe it has taken me this long to figure out that using magnets instead of tape in these situations is such a good idea, but, there you go. Then it's the standard procedure of tracing that onto steel and gluing it all together. And offer it up to check the fit. The camera angle makes it look a bit crooked but it's pretty good in reality. I gave all the welds a good clean up then coated it in a couple of good thick layers of Hammerite. I initially intended to use POR15 for this but the local shop has stopped supplying it for whatever reason and the guy said this was just as gooder so I figured it's better than nothing. Here's a comparison shot between the factory brace and my version. Note that I sprayed weld through primer everywhere that it was appropriate in addition to the heavy duty rust preventative. I've had issues in the past with this particular primer making for a spitty farty weld, so I cleaned off all the actual spots where the welds would be. As it turns out, I probably didn't need to but it did make for a lovely weld. Which you can marvel at here: It really was such a nice change to be welding good new steel to steel rather than burning holes in thin factory stuff all the time. And with that, I am finally back to where I was five months ago. Well with a much larger tunnel now but you get what I mean.

Very cool car man. I'm glad you're leaving it as is for now, it looks perfect just the way it is.

Yeah makes sense. The hardest but for me is as soon as it makes any sort of hole it just instantly runs away on you and turns to shit. Then it's all about trying to fill holes in old thin English tin and that's never fun.

The bug is looking sweet man. BTW, not sure how long you've had that link in there but you're a godsend for showing me the photobucket fix chrome extension. It saves so much frustration. Legend.

I always have a hard time butt welding new steel to old with the MIG. Hat's off to you sir for making it look so easy and clean.

This unemployment malarky can have some benefits... In my ample free time, I got the ring fully welded in, cleaned back, and dressed in a quick coat of PA-10. Like a bought one. Next, I wanted to replace the tunnel brace that ties the two seat boxes together and stiffens everything up. Something like this: I thought about integrating this into the driveshaft hoop and making it out of some 6mm plate that was folded to shape. Then I could have some captive nuts under the seat boxes and bolt the bottom half up to it around the driveshaft. It would be plenty stiff enough to brace it properly, as well as fulfill the minimum specs for a driveshaft hoop, killing two birds with one stone. However, I decided that where I wanted to put this brace was too far forward to meet the requirements for a hoop and thus I opted to make one that emulated the original factory design with a separate hoop further down. So I set to with the CAD, and started to design my interpretation of a Mk2 Escort Estate trans tunnel brace to fit a modified tunnel designed around a Mazda KL-ZE mated to a five-speed RX-8 gearbox. Simples... This is what I came up with: I modeled the top and the passenger side initially because the tunnel is more or less symmetrical. And cardboard is too boring to waste too much time on. Then I said the magic words and...Poof! This popped out. Then came lots of fitting and removing and fiddling and refitting until I got everything exactly where I wanted it. Now it was looking right but it wasn't going to be doing a lot of bracing in its current state. The lack of corners left it really floppy. So I fixed that: I started with the flat bands across the top which immediately stiffened the whole thing up considerably. I also added the oval shaped hole in the top to match the original while I was there. I'm not sure exactly what it's for but it looks right now. Then I added the corner pieces and cleaned everything back. This left it looking properly profesh. And what's more, it fits! I threw the motor and box back in there quickly to check the clearances for that too. Miles of space there so I'm perfectly happy. The last thing I'd want is to spend all this time on it only to find it fouls the box. It's funny, looking at it now, I probably could have done my driveshaft loop idea after all. It is probably sitting right over or slightly behind the U-joint, which would be perfect, but oh well. I kind of like the OE spec solution I've come up with here. Next, I'm going to weld on the big pads that get rosette welded to the floor under the seat boxes, and finally weld the whole lot in. Hopefully, with a bit better focus, I can get that and other things done in the next couple of days. I've also been every now and again checking the wreckers websites and Trade Me and so on looking for a genuine KL-ZE motor, but still no luck so far. There was a promising looking motor down in Christchurch but it had the wrong cams and unknown heads. It would have been quite a bit of money including shipping and for that, I would want to be absolutely sure of the specs, so no dice. C'est la vie. The search continues...

I got gas! (Seriously ask my girlfriend, she'll confirm) So I set about finishing up the other side of the tunnel. So there you go. I didn't measure it exactly but my estimate is that it was about one and a half metric ass loads of one-inch TIG weld stitches in total but there it is. All welded in. Next, I wanted to make a flared ring around the gearbox hole--like the stock Escort tunnel--to attach the shifter boot to. I started by measuring the one off my old tunnel and cutting a strip of steel the same length as the circumference of the old hole. Then I loosely formed it into a ring, And clamped it up with a hose clamp. Then I tacked it, removed the clamp, and fully welded it. I gave it a quick clean back, Then rolled the top and bottom edges over slowly with a pair of pliers, making small tweaks and working my way around over and over until it was this shape: I gave it a quick tickle with a hammer over a dolly to smooth it all out, then traced around it and opened the hole in the tunnel out to the right size. It was tacked in before I threw the engine and box back into place to check how it is all going to sit. Bearing in mind that the engine and box are only sitting roughly in place, I'm very happy with where it has all ended up. You can see there is plenty of room for the engine and box to move if the mounts get a bit sad, though I'm planning on making them fairly stiff so that should never happen. The boot also fits really nicely over the rim as you can see here: The bottom part of the rubber is turned up so you can see the sealing ring properly. And this is how it will look in the finished car: I took a quick snap of dad's stock shifter and handbrake and you can see that my setup hasn't moved the stick back that far at all. Far less than a Type 9 would have at the very least. In fact, I measured it and it is only about 40mm rear of the stock position. That's more than good enough for the girls I go out with. Next job is to fully weld the ring on, then onto other exciting things.

Bloody hell! Two and a half months sure does rocket past when you're not paying attention! I finally got back into the car in the last week or two after doing a couple of months work experience and coming home with absolutely no energy. That's finished now though so I can afford to really throw myself back into the car. I've started back in by making a really decent push to get the tunnel fabrication sorted. I found that with the current profile the clutch fork and slave cylinder would still foul on the tunnel so I decided to take it from the semi-circular shape I had it at and roll the flange further along to make a more traditional rounded square profile. From this: To something more like this: But that presented a new problem. Now I had to make the tunnel fit the new shape and I didn't want to cut it at all if I could possibly avoid it. So, out came a BFH and a sandbag. I started to form a bulge that would transition the rounder profile of the rear part of the tunnel to the squarer corners it would need at the front to clear the clutch bits. Once I was satisfied it would clear everything, I called in the big guns to help form a matching bulge on the other side, purely because it would look weird otherwise. Which gave me a nice pair of firm, perky, erm, bulges. Or Tolerance Improving Tumor Shapes (T.I.T.S. for short.)You can also see here the relief I pounded down just below the T.I.T.S which is designed to allow me to use the stock heater unit, something I would very much like to do. Once I had the right shapes hammered in, I offered it up to the hole in the floor and clamped it in place. Then I sprayed some paint around the overlap points to show me when I needed to cut off material. You may also notice that the rear part of the tunnel doesn't really fit anything very well. My next step was to remedy that. I started by making some slits which allowed the sides to move in the right amount to fit the width of the existing tunnel.Then I welded it into this new shape and offered it up once more. Looking much better. Next, I needed to make a piece that would bridge the final gap between old and new. I pushed some paper up into the underside of the two sides and taped it in place. Then I used the rattle can again to show me where the edges of the paper template would be. Then transferred to steel, formed, and welded on. Cleaned back and painted, And finally offered up once more and tacked into place. At which point I set to and slowly started stitching it in. Originally I planned to spot it in with the MIG but it was turning into a nightmare so I returned to the TIG. I found the heat much easier to control this way and managed to produce a much nicer finished product than the MIG. It came out quite well with much less warping than I expected. A tickle up with a hammer and dolly and it should be mint. I gave it a quick linish back with my new hand linisher and a lick of paint to stop any surface rust from starting. I'll finish the other side tomorrow when I get some more gas. For now though, that's it. Thank you and goodnight.

We braced her against the building using the horizontal beams you can see in the second photo so we could remove the vertical supports from the cradle. This left her sitting on her keel alone. Then the truck reverses in with a squatting trailer that is shaped like a tuning fork with one chassis rail sitting on either side of the keel. Here's an artist's impression looking from below the whole set up. Then three beams are slid under the keel between the rails and the whole trailer stands up on its airbags and takes the weight of the boat. Then the four arms you can see in most of the photos raise up on hydraulic rams and take the load on their pads to stop her from tipping. Once it is all ratchet strapped down she doesn't move anywhere. Hopefully that explains it. Let me know if I can help explain anything else.

So I haven't been spending any time on the car for the last couple of weeks. I've been busy working on my late Grandad's boat making the last big push to get it into the water. He spent nearly 8 years building a 41ft yacht back in the 80's that my dad and untie grew up on sailing around the bay of islands. When the time came to sell that boat, Grandad moved on to building a sister ship that took everything he learned from the first one and improved it. After 26 years working on it, he died in February of last year leaving the second boat unfinished. Since then we've come together as a family and work bloody hard to get the last of the woodwork completed and final details done before the launch. Today was the day we got the boat pulled out of the shed for the first time in close to 20 years and taken down the road. Here are some shots of her. I implore you to check out the Facebook page my dad made to document the build: https://www.facebook.com/bluewater41/ It has heaps more photos and stories about the boat. And to stay within the rules ish, here is a photo of the original boat on launch day - proper old school cool.

@ajg193 @flyingbrick I can totally see where you're coming from with the accuracy of the laser cutter but I can assure you it is in good condition. It's actually in a computer lab sort of area rather than the metalwork rooms and the electronics teacher treats the thing like his baby. No snotty nosed year nines are allowed near it without supervision, no food or drink in the room, etc, etc. The machines and tools in the engineering shop on the other hand, oh boy they are another matter entirely. If it was kept in there then you'd be absolutely right about its condition but I'm just lucky it's kept in the electronics department rather than the metalwork shop. I dropped the engine back at the workshop again today and the guy was really understanding of the whole situation. Hopefully he can sort it out for me soonish. I haven't been doing much actual work on the car for the last few days nor will I for the next few weeks. I'll explain everything very soon. I'm really excited to share what I been up to but we just have to get the last of it finished up this week.

@yoeddynz Firstly allow me to compliment you on your artistic prowess. It is truly next level stuff. Secondly, thank you for being so thorough. I had considered doing something like this and if I decide to give up on the CAD then this was going to be my next step. Like I've said, I'd like to at least try to do it in CAD and CNC first, if only for the fun of using the CAD software. The advantage of having an accurate drawing also means I have the possibility of cutting a whole lot at a time if I like, in the off chance other people want to do a similar conversion. You mentioned that if I step it off with dividers as you did, I should note the measurement for each if I ever want to make another plate. My issue is how I would measure each distance to sufficient accuracy off the dividers? Would a set of Vernia calipers do the trick? If so, wouldn't I be better off to just use them in the first place rather than the dividers?

That did cross my mind but the holes for the gearbox side all line up perfectly so I'm pretty sure it must be pretty accurate. I used this drawing I found online for the measurements and they turned out dead on. If the cutter was out then I'd expect these holes to be wrong as well.

Yeah that is going to be my absolute final option if I can't get the CAD to work. I'll turn up some points that snugly slide into each hole and use them to transfer the positions to a plate and take the defeat. I know this is a perfectly good way to do it and I had considered it but I don't like how much potential there is to introduce inaccuracies. It would probably get them pretty close but in this case, I don't think close enough is good enough to make me happy. If it was off by a little bit it would introduce sideways loading on the input shaft bearings which would chew them out pretty quick since they're not designed for it at all. I also really enjoy working with CAD and this is a neat exercise to problem solve.

I got the drawing back from the machine shop and set about getting it drawn up in CAD. I double and triple checked all the measurements on my drawing to make sure they matched and then went to school and cut yet another template out of card with the laser cutter. This is what I found when I got it home to check it against the engine. The second picture doesn't show it very well because I was in a rush with a dying phone battery but the gist is that the holes still don't line up. That top one isn't accurate either but most crucially, neither locating dowels actually line up particularly well. This is pretty damn annoying considering the fact I paid good money in good faith that I would receive good service from this shop and they simply haven't. Needless to say, I'm not thrilled and I'm going to be having a quick chat to see if I can figure something out. It's just really annoying constantly taking one step forward and one expensive step back.

Once I had the hole approximately the right size to fit the box, I started to roll the edge over to meet up with the new tunnel. I could do it the easy way and trim the two panels to fit and just weld the outside corner, kind of like this, (I know this is a diff tunnel but use your imagination) but I don't like the hard edge it gives. I'd rather make it nicely curved, more like a factory shape would have been. So that's what I've been trying to do. I did the same on the tunnel side as well. Just a slight flare for now until I confirm the two shapes will match up. Which turned into a bit more flaring and shaping which turned into this... As you can see I kinda cocked up the trimming at the back edge but it's nothing a welder and some scrap steel won't fix. You can also sort of see how far off the new tunnel is from the brace loop. This was really bothering me because there was no way I'd be able to mate the two up neatly so something was going to have to change. I've come up with a plan. I'm going to get rid of this stock(ish) hoop and replace it with one that fits the tunnel better. I will build the new hoop out of 6mm plate and put it in a position that will still help to brace the floor, as well as being the top half of the driveshaft loop. The bottom half will also be made of 6mm plate and will bolt up with four captive nuts on either side of the tunnel to the top half. The bonus will be that the captive nuts will be hidden underneath the seat boxes so there will be nothing sticking up through the floor to get caught on anything. Before I can do any of that though, I need to get rid of the current loop. Praise jebus for spot weld drills. To think when I put it in I thought "fuck I hope that never has to come out. It'll be a hell of a mission." Never mind that then. With that out, I could get the tunnel as close as possible. It's getting close. It's not perfect yet and it still needs some dicking around, but it's getting close. While I had it clamped in place, I figured I should check the heater clearance since I want to keep running the stock unit if I can. It's tight. Bloody tight. As in it touches the tunnel just before I can get a bolt through into the mount. And you can imagine once there is some carpet over that, it's not going to fit at all. Hmmmm. I'm going to cross that bridge in a bit. For now, I'm going to keep trucking with getting the tunnel fitting the firewall and floor perfectly first.

Ten days since the last update! Time flies when you're busy as fuck... School has just finished and I've been trying to focus on my exams but in between I've still been working away. Actually, I have to come clean on something. The adapter plate hasn't been coming together quite as smoothly as I made it look. The positions of the holes that receive the locating pins were very slightly out, along with a couple of the other holes. They were close enough to fit with encouragement on the cardboard but it was in no way acceptable to put it into steel. So that means the dimensions I found online weren't quite right for the engine side, however, the bolt pattern for the gearbox side was dead nuts on. It was absolutely doing my head in trying to find the right dimensions for the engine so I decided to take a step back for a second. The one option that I wasn't considering was staring me in the face. I could just measure the damn thing myself. Obviously, while vernier calipers are ok for guesstimations, they aren't nearly accurate enough to get the precise hole positions that I need. Now, while I'd love to say I just slapped the engine on the CNC mill table and swept in the XY coordinates, in reality, I haven't actually got around to designing and building the machine yet, so I took the engine down the road and asked one of the local machine shops nicely to do it for me. They were more than happy to and I'm going down tomorrow morning to pick it up. Between me being annoyed at inaccurate online drawings and making the decision to outsource it, I wanted to do something to get the engine and box together in the meantime to help me start mocking up the new tunnel. So I found some 16mm MDF and drew in a few bolt holes as accurately as the vernier would allow. Then I drilled them out well oversize and chucked a couple of bolts through where they'd fit. Once it was reinforced with a couple of clamps it was solid as (ish). It did feel bloody good to at least get it looking close to how it should. With the engine and box all together I slung them both roughly into place. Sits a nice long way back But not far enough obviously. The bell housing was fouling the tunnel and not allowing it to sit as far back as I want it to. So I bit the bullet and made a small hole into a really bloody big hole. This made everything fit much nicer. This is the box roughly in position with the shifter in 4th. Even with the stick in the position most likely to foul the hand-brake, there is plenty of space for activities. Also note the stock Escort boot in place. I reckon it'll be cool to have everything looking close to stock until you pop the hood. While I was in there with the grinder out I started to look at where the new tunnel would meet up with the existing one. Due to the way we replaced the side panels of the tunnel last time, there was going to end up being quite the patchwork quilt of different panel plug welded to each other over and around the tunnel brace hoop. I wasn't happy with the thought of this so I pressed on and cut even more of my tunnel away. Hey remember when I said this? Yeah me neither...

That could be very serendipitous. I have a mate who's driving up from Invercargill so he may be able to pick it up for me. Let me know if anything comes of it and I'll see if I can organise for him to swing round on his way up.

And as promised, the photos of the head. So as you can see, it is definitely in a bit of a state. What was left of the oil was solid as tar and the lobes were absolutely much worse for wear. I'd hate to think what the bottom end looked like. So for now, I'm still on the hunt but not overly urgently.

Shit happens mate. No hard feelings whatsoever. Like I said, there'll be plenty more chances.