Flyingbricks gemini

[flyingbrick]

I took a half day today. My cousin ( owner of Rousell panel works, Tga) sent me a pre mixed rattle can of flat clear- gave the dash a few coats.

Unfortunately the gel coat is a little milky in a few spots and it shows up even more with the flat clear. If it bugs me later on I'll mask off a few bits and spray them satin black.

Then just as that was drying a truck came down drive with my engine stand. Threw the long block up there and started stripping things down. Goal is to completely strip and dip the block, measure and re assemble with as little machine work as possible. We'll see! I have a decent set of measuring gear so will try to do as much as possible myself.

Oil and water (eek) drained, sump, pickup and windage tray removed, then valve covers, rockers and pushrods. Then time to clean up.

6 bolt mains, cool.

[flyingbrick]

Me and the dogs spent some time in the shed. I'm loving how basic these motors are.

I yanked off the heads and found one of the bores a bit wet and rusty. Sad because the other bores are PERFECT.

Pistons got pulled out along with the lifters etc. the white metals look nearly new.

The hardest and most time consuming part was pulling off the crank pulley. That took a lot of force and lots of heat.

Tomorrow I'll yank the crank out, oil pump and any other bits then take it down to get dipped.

And I'm most of the way through with ordering the compcams trunion upgrade kit- which replaces the bearing assembly within the factory rockers with more robust gear.

Thanks to Voldo at kelford cams for his advice!

[flyingbrick]

Once again Jess/ Yowzer at Jaycar Hamilton has looked after me with a sweet price on this dimmer/pwm controller which I'll be using to control my two blower motors.

It works very well! Just a little noisy at partial throttle as you can hear the pulses squeeling through the motor.

I have the ls1 completely stripped now- seeing and touching the pieces has allowed me to research things a whole lot more Thoroughly- I now know what a hydraulic roller lifter looks like now ( for example)

Here's some more pics before she goes off for cleaning- sorry about dark pics- my shed lacks lighting!

She has puny rods!!

[flyingbrick]

Ls6 intake picked up for a steal- it has a larger plenum than ls1 and is generally considered one of the best LS intake around ( except for FAST brand which are like 1k new)

Also bought new sfi rated flexplate from summit.

[flyingbrick]

Block and bits go to shop tomorrow for measuring, cleaning and bore tidy- then things will slow down even more as I'm going on holiday in a bit and need to save for that more than pistons and rods:-D

I've done some thinking about gauge setups and have decided to go digital all in one- there are some units available that are great value.

So last weekend I got a few hours outside as the weather was nice. I stripped any surface rust out of the boot floor and rust killed/ primed it- then did the same in the passenger side foot well. There's a spot of rust there that needs patching- hopefully do that tomorrow over a few bourbons. Luckily aside from one guard I think that's the only rust in the car ( not that Iv looked too hard)

I also pulled out the heater blower unit and patched over the resulting big holes in the firewall. The heater core was leaking water into the passenger side footwell- until then I'd never cared to look hard enough for the source of it.

Oh and decisions- group A or Torana scoops? I think the group A scoop ( white) looks great as its a bit longer and narrower than the torana one... Though at the end of the day I think either will be sweet.

( the Center lifts up when the sides are riveted)

And further proof that cats are related to ninjas...

[flyingbrick]

So Vk327 very kindly gave me a little 60A alternator during a shit talk session last weekend. My engine came without an alternator and since I doubt it's going to fit in the stock location anyway there was no reason to consider using stock parts.

Guypie answered a wanted add and have me a random Nissan multi rib pulley (cheers!) however it had within the Center a one way bearing and two ball bearings plus Center boss. The one way bearing lets the alternator spin faster than the engine when rpm's drop rapidly ( gear changes) and can help fuel economy etc- but since it didn't fit my alternator it all had to go.

The bearings came out easily which left me with this:

I machined a bit of shaft in the lathe to slightly larger than the ID, heated the pulley with a gas set and slid it on. Nearly. Actually got it half way on and it locked up on me- I wanted a large interference fit so that shit wouldn't move on me- I ended up having to load it up in the workshops very shit press and rapidly dump heat into the pulley to get the shaft in the rest of the way.

Because I'm paranoid I'll also scotch key the center.

Then it was roughed out quickly before I had to get home.

[flyingbrick]

And this is my new daily/ tow pig. Entirely relevant to this thread as it means the gem can now come off the road

V8. Goes well for an old car- has extractors and seems to have been very nicely looked after.

Now I wonder what I can do to make it faster.......

[flyingbrick]

Test fit

[flyingbrick]

And today I got a TIG welder... Now to find a small argon bottle cheap...

I made a few templates and did some measuring and marking. I think it would be possible without cutting the firewall to get the front of the ls1 pretty much where the front of the current engine is. Size wise there's heaps of room. Really though it needs to go back a little- so the firewall will get moved back a few inches in the middle.

I also got the 4cyl ready for removal.

I need a rear sump and I also need to get some compact wilwood master cylinders as they'll fit a shit ton nicer than my standard size ones.

Test fit and dream time.

Wanted to do more this weekend but life got in the way

[flyingbrick]

So I got to work an hr early today and did this. It's made to mount my b&m shifter to the factory shifter bracket. It was an easy way of sealing the hole in the trans tunnel that the factory shifter uses and it means I didn't have to mess with adding new mounting points to the tunnel.

Tig welded- not as perfect as I'd like but I'm getting better quickly

There will be a rubber gasket under this to block all the holes and once the zinc spray has dried I'll find some black. I want to carpet the car once finished so will slit carpet and tuck under the hoop so the cover of the shifter will kinda float above the tunnel and all this will be hidden.

I hope the images are an ok size as I do everything via my cell and its hard to tell.

[flyingbrick]

Oh and I have to re-do that pulley after working out why the lathes DTI is inaccurate- it used to be absolutely spot on- it now has no correlation to what the cross slide is doing at all- *%%<!¥!!

that might be one for the lathe thread

[flyingbrick]

That's the base bolted in. The rusty shit is from a leaky heater core.

And that's the shifter in place. I need to re-drill and tap its mounting holes as its not quite center. Opps.

Pretty happy with today's project overall

[flyingbrick]

Had a bad day today.

Then I came home and found this.

Opened it up gave it a clean. It's an ls6 intake from a later model holden ls1.

The only real visual difference between this and the older ls1 intakes is the plenum floor which is flat- increasing plenum volume and, somehow, port flow rates.

This has arrived too- it's the PCM I'll try make use of. I have been constantly undecided which way to go- aftermarket or stock Delphi- but this unit came up for an unusually good price so had to grab it.

Earlier in the week I made some brackets for my heater, and next update will show where it is to be mounted and plumbing.

[flyingbrick]

Stupid internets being stupid.

This was last nights little project- making a rectangle to round transition piece for my heater blowers.

The shape can't be removed from a one piece mould or plug so decided to try using wax.

I used a free program off the net to produce a pattern that I then folded.

Pillaged the wife's candles, poured wax into the mould and then removed card when cool

A few layers of glass cloth

Trimmed it when green

And then once cured this morning i popped it into the oven to remove the wax

I think I'll start again as I learnt a bit about how the wax shrinks etc- and I made the transition over 50mm which could be halved as its a bit bulky- it doesn't matter so I probably won't haha.

A 3d printer would be awesome for this kinda stuff! I might have to look at buying one later in the year

[flyingbrick]

Hi all.

I've been plodding along with this pretty slowly.

I pulled the bonnet and guards off- found rust in sill area down under guards so decided to take the seams in that area down to bare steel for a look. Thankfully it was all good so it got rust proofed to protect from rain and moisture ( she'd is small so pull it outside every now and then)

Then Drew popped over with his crane and gave me a hand to pull the old engine out and test fit the new one.

We'll have to build up the top bell housing lug with weld and then drill it to suit.

And then the motor went in- it doesn't fit- but that's relatively easy to fix. In this photo the engine is sitting 3" too low (no sump) and about 1" too far forward

So the tunnel is getting sliced and bent to suit- thankfully the steering shaft clears the block ( it's close!) and once it is all in place I'll weld in strips of steel to fill the gaps.

I stopped work at 6.30 for the neighbors sake/ a lifestyle block in the country keeps sounding better!

[flyingbrick]

Hi all.

I've been having a great time with the project. I had to remove a fair bit more if the firewall than I had planned- and the motor is a far but further in front of the front spindles than I desired- but I had to call it quits as pushing it back another inch requires a LOT more cutting. I keep telling myself it's an Ali block and it won't really matter. It probably has 70% of the block behind the front wheels.

Thanks to a few people on oldschool I've started using CAD. I reckon I'm getting pretty boss at it too! At least in 2d. First up (I got some help with this) is the water inlet/outlet plates which will take -12an fittings to let me use a remote electric water pump and thermostat. I had one of the guys trace in CAD a gasket that I'd scanned- he gave me back a file which had the center locations of all the holes plotted out.

I then drew a nice outline around them and added the correct size holes. A few test fits and revisions later and I have this

They will be water jet cut out of 20mm thick aluminium. The idea came from these morosso parts

I have also drawn up both engine and chassis engine mount plates. The small lines are to show where folds need to be placed.

This is my rather ugly trans mount. Undecided if I should gusset it or redo. I tried using a modified factory mount but the location of the isolation bush was going to load the tail shaft housing mounts incorrectly and I'm just too paranoid. This has been test fit and will work fine.

[flyingbrick]

Still drawing brackets and different pieces. Next up is the alternator mounting bracket.

I like to mix it up a little and decided I needed a reason to try the welders AC. I like the factory valve covers a whole lot more than aftermarket so decided I'd clean them up a bit before spraying wrinkle paint. I cut off the coil mount lugs and filed things flush then welded up the remaining holes.

I've done very little aluminium welding and nothing on cast before so had some issues with porosity in the casting- basically bubbles coming up out of the weld pool. I know this is a casting issue because i was uncovering them as i filed down the lugs. I managed to get them pretty good on the first cover but it was time consuming and I was not really sure if I was doing the right thing ( advice appreciated, I was just moving pool round and adding clean material until the area seemed higher than surrounding material and free of shit).. So the second one just got the blind holes filled with kneed it ( great stuff for lazy people)

I'm thinking something wanky like red with the two lines filled in with black.

If I ever run into rocker clearance issues there are reasonably priced 1/2" spacers available.

Before and after

Welding issues (got it much better then filled a bit with kneed it)

Both nearly finished

[flyingbrick]

Put sump upside down on table. Rested scribe on a block of 3" steel and marked round perimeter of bowl. Then cut bottom off with a cut disk. Then took a skim over the whole edge with the mill to ensure its dead flat and nice.

The front portion of the sump will be 70mm deep. Maybe deeper than is needed but it fits with the motors current location.

I have a rear sump one coming but will sell it if this turns out OK. Mine will hold more oil and fit this car better anyway!!

I've heard rumors that the sump is structural on the LS motors but after seeing some of the flimsy aftermarket pans being used it doesn't look to be a huge issue.

Just taking a break ( had to do some actual work......)

[flyingbrick]

Having to put our lovely German shepherd to sleep yesterday avo put an end to fun times

RIP Dara

Got back into it today. I did lots of thinking about the sumps front height and decided to reduce it by about another inch. Hopefully it clears everything inside- will worry about that later.

Off the mill. The section missing is where the oil filter was once located.

And here is a piece from my other aluminium welding thread:

So I tacked the main bits together and couldn't help but have a play on the front edge ( where I'm guessing it won't cause too much war page while not bolted down)

Basically my first pass was terrible. It was popping and cracking and melting away in spots to reveal huge craters. I used copious amounts of filler and worked quickly at 150A. The filler seemed to flush all the shit out. I was left with a very big bulbus weld covered in black flecks like I'd thrown black sand at wet silver paint. I then ground all of the weld off and started again- then just had a few spots to grind out and fill in afterward. I did second run at 100A and i was able to go at a much nicer speed- but material was stinking hot by then.

This pic shows the impurities that have popped to the surface when I got a bit off track on the second pass.

And overall.

I'm pretty happy with that! And it hasn't cracked. It's lumpy because I'm using 3mm filler rods as that's all I have. More dabs of 2mm rod be nicer.

Is there any harm is running back over the weld to tidy it up?

Any advice much appreciated. I must be on the right track?

And test fitting

You may have noticed the bowl is offset to one side. That is to give me a little extra space down through here on the passenger side.

[flyingbrick]

Lots has happened since my last update... just not on the car.

finally got my bits back from the water jetters. I got extra bits cut to flick on TM. I'd be doing the engine mounts right now if not for the fact I had to give my argon bottle back when leaving job. Doh!