Hurmeez Posted November 15, 2017 Author Share Posted November 15, 2017 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? On 10/15/2017 at 23:43, Hurmeez said: I could cut the tunnel again and move the shifter hole forward again to make everything fit with the engine where it currently sits. This requires me to undo more work I have already done which, while not too much work, I'd rather not in principle. Yeah me neither... 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmeez Posted November 15, 2017 Author Share Posted November 15, 2017 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. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmeez Posted November 21, 2017 Author Share Posted November 21, 2017 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. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Hurmeez Posted December 3, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 3, 2017 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. 34 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Hurmeez Posted February 19, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 19, 2018 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. 16 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Hurmeez Posted February 21, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 21, 2018 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. 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Hurmeez Posted February 28, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 28, 2018 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... 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmeez Posted April 10, 2018 Author Share Posted April 10, 2018 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. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Hurmeez Posted April 10, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 10, 2018 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. 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmeez Posted April 19, 2018 Author Share Posted April 19, 2018 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 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmeez Posted June 4, 2018 Author Share Posted June 4, 2018 So I've been working 70 hour weeks for the last month and a half, meaning not a huge amount of fabrication had been happening for a little while. Rest assured though, there has been progress and I'll do a proper long winded update soon. For now though, I need to ask a couple of favours. Firstly, I did end up acquiring the R31 diff housing and axles. However, as I mentioned previously, I'll need to get it shortened to fit. Can anyone recommend somewhere to get this done? Bearing in mind I live in Whangarei so I'd prefer it to be no further south than Jaffaville. I plan to strip the whole thing down myself to the bare axle and weld on the spring perches once the work is complete so all I need done is the physical shortening of the housing and axles themselves. Any help would be greatly appreciated as per usual. Secondly, by extremely exciting happenstance, I stumbled across a bona fide KL-ZE in a wreckers in Auckland! (Excuse the blurry photos, it was pissing down and I wanted to make like a shepherd.) Since I don't want to let this opportunity slip through my fingers again, I'm planning on going down with a mate on Saturday morning to pull it out and bring it home. If anyone would like to come in, help out, and spin a few yarns at any point during the day, we'll be at the Zebra yard in Wiri for most likely the whole day. Let me know by private message or on here if you have any advice or are able to help out: Here's to less month long blackouts. 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmeez Posted June 11, 2018 Author Share Posted June 11, 2018 So the weekend came and went and made me a very happy boy! We left Whangas at around 0730 Saturday morning and got into the wreckers at 1030. I wanted to get in as early as possible to try to get the most amount of daylight possible, as well as beat any other prospecting V6 removalists to my prize. It took us three hours, but we got from this: To this: We spent the next hour or so stripping all the unnecessary ancillaries like AC and power steering pump off before slotting it into the back of the car and coming home. It turned out to be a very good thing we got there as early as we did because as we had it hanging and were stripping it down, some poor bugger came to find a big empty hole where he thought his engine should be. We helped him out with a belt tensioner and other things I already had at home but there were a couple of things he said he'd been planning to grab that we already had our hot little hands on. Yay for planning ahead. Tonight I spent an hour playing around with different bits and pieces to see what I'm dealing with. @yoeddynz, you were dead right about the right head, wrong gasket guess. Ironically, my DE from last year had the opposite, wrong heads, right gasket and intake manifold. Huh. Those sweet, sweet KL31 cams. While I was down there, I also picked up a cam cover from a 2.5L Telstar. I thought it would suit the car a little better and help me say, "it's only the DE bro, honest" before I blow their doors off And here it is fitted I also started to have a look at my flywheel options. I bought an RX-8 flywheel a long time ago before I realised how difficult it would be to adapt it to work on the V6. I pulled it out tonight to see how different the two were, and what the best plan of action would be. As you can see in the photo, the RX-8 flywheel on the right is 35mm larger in diameter than the V6. It's also lighter interestingly so go figure. The two friction disks are the same diameter at I believe 225mm (though that's just from memory), however, the internal splines on the V6 are smaller so it doesn't fit the RX-8 input shaft. The spigot bearing diameters are the same though so I was able to fit the V6 fly to the RX-8 shaft to see how far out the starter was. The answer is "quite". I should have used the flash but never mind. As you can imagine, that 17.5mm difference in radii makes for quite the gap. It would be a hell of a mission to move the starter location so the plan right now is to modify the flywheel. My original plan was to order a custom machined one from the tame machinist down the road (the same guy who milled the aluminium intake I made for the old Pinto), but I think we have come up with a better idea. It should be much easier (read cheaper) to remove the ring gear from the V6 flywheel, then machine a ring that has an undersized internal diameter and heat it to shrink fit over the original ring gear surface of the flywheel. Then, re-machine it to the standard RX-8 flywheel outer diameter before shrink fitting a new RX-8 ring gear over the top. Then I'll have to machine a spacer for the crankshaft but that should be the easy part. I'm wondering whether it would be worth machining down the back side of the flywheel while I'm there to lose a few kilos for that extra zingy V6 feel. How does the plan sound to you guys, both from a safety, and rotating assembly balance standpoint? Let me know your thoughts on the matter. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Hurmeez Posted June 24, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 24, 2018 I've had a couple of days off finally and managed to make some good progress. My adapter plate turned up from the laser cutter in Auckland so I've been working on that and making it fit. I have to start the story a while back though. I got my block measured on a DRO mill by a friend (as I had intended to do from the beginning. You may remember the debacle with paying someone to do this a long time ago only to get inaccurate Vernia caliper measurements instead.) and redrew my plate one final time. I called in a favour from an old teacher and got it cut out from acrylic this time at the old school laser cutter. This is what I got back: You'll notice two things right off the bat. Firstly, the huge square cut out of the middle. This was part of the design I put in to make sure the cutter was accurate. It was exactly 100mm x 100mm in the drawing so by measuring it IRL I could tell if one of the axis was out on the cutter and whether that would affect the accuracy of my cut. It was perfectly on size. Secondly, you'll notice the weird center hole. This was part of a cunning plan. The small hole at the very center was designed to pick up on the input shaft and tell me whether the gearbox holes lined up. They did. Then, now that I had confirmed that, I could knock the middle out with a chisel, And check it matched the engine block too. Which it finally bloody did. Thank christ for that! That done, I made my final tweaks and sent the design away to be cut out of 12mm steel. I decided that the extra bit of security I felt I'd get from the extra threads I could cut in the additional 2mm over 10mm plate made the slight weight difference worth it. So, last week the steel turned up so I made an immediate start. Firstly, I tapped the holes at M10 x 1.25 for the gearbox bolts to pick up. By clamping everything to the drill press I was able to ensure that each hole was tapped perfectly square to the face of the plate. I didn't actually use the drill press drive because that's a great way to snap a tap in your workpiece. Instead, I used a big screwdriver in the morse taper slot that the chuck fits into. It worked quite nicely. Next I made the locating dowels that the gearbox picks up. I spun them up on the lathe at about 0.2mm undersize for the holes they slot into. This should make it easier to locate the box without sacrificing the accuracy that I'm after. The end that was to be pressed into the plate was made about the same amount oversize for a good press fit. Then they were pressed home, Note the chamfer on both sides. Next I had to account for a peculiarity in the gearbox design. The locating dowel holes and the bolt holes that go through them on the box aren't actually concentric for some reason. It is a little difficult to see here but if you look closely you can tell that about the 1 o'clock position the step in diameter is smaller than that at the 7 o'clock. Had they been concentric then obviously I would had drilled and tapped the dowels while they were still in the lathe. However, I decided it would be easier to press them into the plate and then make a punch that would slot snugly into the bolt hole and leave a mark on the dowel when everything was put together. Something like this: It isn't completely clear in this photo how far off the centers are either, however, once the dowels had been drilled and tapped it is much more obvious. Before I drilled them out to final tapping size, I filled the double chamfer with weld to make absolutely sure the dowels would never work loose. I'm still getting the hang of the higher amperage TIG welding but I can tell you I enjoy it more than the lower temp stuff I normally do on the panel steel. The forgiving nature of it it far more appealing to me. Then carefully ground and filed the welds back to flush with the rest of the plate and drilled and tapped the dowels but I can't seem to find any photos. In fact, it was about here that I stopped taking photos of the progress for some reason so I'll nip out and grab some more tomorrow night and continue the story then. Untill then... 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmeez Posted June 25, 2018 Author Share Posted June 25, 2018 Aaand we're back. After I finished welding in the dowels I drilled them out with a tapping drill before cutting a thread in each. You can really see how off center the holes are from these photos. With that done I moved on to making the flywheel spacer. I wanted to get this out of the way fairly early on because it was the thing that would tell me whether or not the plate was going to work. Up until now, I knew that the plate fitted the engine and gearbox separately but I still wasn't sure whether or not the input shaft and spigot bearing would line up correctly when the two were combined. Once I had the spacer in there though, the input shaft would be able to slide all the way home in the spigot bearing and I'd be able to tell if there was any side loading on the input shaft. So that's what I did. I did the maths with my notebook to figure out exactly how much spacing I need, which turned out to be 16.3mm, in order to get the ring gear and starter motor to line up nicely. The spacer slips snugly over the end of the crank and into the flywheel. I have some longer high tensile flywheel bolts on order to take up the longer distance so I should be able to assemble it once they arrive. I dummy fitted everything without the bolts though and everything lined up really nicely. With the knowledge that it was finally going to work, I could press on and make up the last few turned pieces to complete the plate. These were the plugs for the engine side locating dowel holes. I need to put a countersunk bolt in one and a normal hex headed bolt from the back on the other, so I needed to make up some partial plugs to reduce the diameter of the ends of these holes. This being the threaded one that takes the bolt from the back side, And this being the plug that will be countersunk later on. Both were made slightly oversize and pressed and welded in, as per the previous ones. With those all complete, the only thing I have left to do is countersink the appropriate holes and bolt it all up. However, I had to special order the countersunk bolts and bit and they aren't arriving for a couple of days so I decided to see if I could make it work with the bolts that I do have. Here it is bolted to the block with the couple of bolts that come in from the back side, And here it is with the gearbox bolted in place. So I gently eased the whole assembly down to horizontal and found that the few bolts that were in it were ample to hold everything without any flexing of the plate. So, naturally, I slung it into place. It sure looks sweet nestled down in there. Just to double check, I threw the heads and bonnet on to check clearances. There's a good 20mm at the closest point so I'm happy for now. We'll have to see when it comes to making an intake manifold but I'm sure I can make something fit within the space I will have. The extremely astute among you may have noticed the engine doesn't look perfectly level left to right. That was my cunning solution to the problem I encountered way back in this issue: There was going to be a couple of mounting holes that would overlap slightly but not perfectly, in a way that meant I'd be trying to wind the thread of one bolt into part of the head of another. I ummed and ahhed over this issue for a while, coming up with all sorts of fantastically complicated solutions, until I realised the answer was staring me in the face. Just rotate the engine and gearbox relative to each other by about 5 degrees. Then I would offset the gearbox mount by 2.5 degrees one way and the engine mounts the same the other way and viola! Problem solved. There's nothing wrong with having either on a slight lean, just ask any skyline owner. With that all sorted and while I'm waiting for my bolts to arrive, I'll make a start on some engine mounts and get that part of the deal started. I don't have long left on these long hour work days so hopefully I'll be able to put some more quality time in on the car before long. I can't wait. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmeez Posted July 17, 2018 Author Share Posted July 17, 2018 I spoke to my regular bolt suppliers (a fantastic bunch of really genuine guys) and they were unable to get me the countersunk bolts that I needed but they did point me toward a few shops that may be able to help. So after doing a bit of running around there turned out to be no one local that would be able to sort me out. So I came up with a cunning plan. I went back to the regular guys and picked up some countersunk 12mm bolts that were way over length and god knows what pitch. Then I chucked it up and spun down the threads to be a very close fit to the inside diameter of an M12x1.25 die. Having it be a close fit helped to ensure the threads would be nice and square to the shank as I cut them. Once cut, I cut them to length and bob's your uncle. So from left to right you have, an original bolt, without threads, thread cut, and cut to length. And here they are mocked up in the plate. Then I went ahead and set to with my shiny new countersink. Everything went fairly well other than the drill press not being able to go as slow as I'd like and getting a little chatter but other than that not bad. One of the inserts I made to go over the 10 o'clock locating lug fell out when I drilled through the weld with the countersink. I was sort of expecting it and I don't reckon it'd be worth the effort to try to make such a small piece of steel fit so I'm just going to run without it. There's still plenty of contact patch for the bolt to take up on so I'm perfectly happy with it. With that done I could finally, finally bolt engine to gearbox and sling it into the car properly. Remember I first got the engine and gearbox in September of last year so this feels like the end of a project in and of itself. Next job, onto engine mounts. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmeez Posted July 17, 2018 Author Share Posted July 17, 2018 Well, tell a lie actually. First I wanted to sort out the centering of the gear stick in the gearbox hole. I'm not sure how I managed to get it so far rearward but I wanted to center it properly because A) it bugged me being off center like that and 2) it actually placed the engine a little further rearward than I wanted. So I modified the cross member to make it work. So now it's much better. The camera angle makes it look funky but trust me it's much better. Now it's on to the engine mounts. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmeez Posted July 22, 2018 Author Share Posted July 22, 2018 Before I got to cutting up my cross member, I wanted to remedy the bolt holes for the lower control arms. They had been welded up and re-drilled what looked like a couple of times; one side actually had two holes for some reason. My first course of action was to weld up the current holes so I had a solid base to start from. While I was there, I fully seam welded the upstand to the main cross member to add strength. Then I took a template off another unmodified cross member to find the location of the factory LCA bolt hole before moving it up and out by 6mm as per the bible: (Available here if you're interested: http://www.doublegmotorsport.com/rsprep/prepindex.html) Then I marked it on a group of four 2mm reinforcing plates and pilot drilled them all. Then I filled them full of holes, painted all the hidden parts with weld through primer to try and prevent rusting between the skins, then prepared to roset weld them on. I figured that there's no harm in beefing up these parts of the suspension so I might as well while I'm here. Once they were welded on I decided to weld around the edges too while I was at it. Now I could run a drill through the pilot holes and bingo, one cross member with reinforced LCA mounts and slightly more camber. As a side note, the geometry doesn't make sense to me. In the book, it says that moving the holes out and up gives more negative camber when the car is raised for rallying. Surely the opposite should be true? If you are raising the cross member relative to the wheel then wouldn't you want to lower the LCA back down to compensate rather than raise it as in this example? And by extension lowering the car means you should raise the hole as I have here? Am I missing something? The next job was to cut off the existing engine mount brackets. I decided it was going to be much easier to fabricate new designs than to try to adapt the current ones to fit. One Escort cross member minus engine mounts. And cleaned up: Now I wanted to plate over between the two flanges to give myself a good solid base to build off. This was the normal process of paper to 2mm steel. I only welded every other hole with the idea that I'd weld the new mounts right through this plate and into the existing flange in a triple layer sandwich. I decided the easiest way to figure out how the mounts would end up looking will be to build them from the engine side first, and then up from the cross member to meet them. So I started with making some plates to fit the engine with paper then steel. I left this one oversize because there will be some fouling issues with the oil filter if I don't play my cards right, so I am playing it safe for now and leaving myself plenty of wiggle room. Then I spun up some appropriately heavy wall tubing and some temporary bushes to use so I don't damage the real ones while I'm welding. They're designed to take MKII Escort rear leaf spring bushes. This is for two reasons. Firstly, I prefer this style of engine mount because even if the bush completely collapses, the engine is still captive (albeit loose and clunky as hell), unlike a spool mount which (though very unlikely) could lead to catastrophic failure. And secondly, I have some of these specific bushes hanging out almost brand new from when the wrong set of bushes were replaced on a WOF job on the old man's car. So they're the best kind of cheap. Next job will be to make some upstands to space these new mounts out from the block. That shouldn't take long... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Hurmeez Posted July 22, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 22, 2018 Paper isn't going to cut it for these. I'll need something more structural. Like cardboard! So here we have MkI: The bush tube is level with the sump flange and stands 30mm out from the plate at it's closest point. The central piece is just to brace the relatively flimsy card and wont feature in the final design. It was here that I remembered the steering rack and rag joint and how much space they took up. So I bolted it in to check the clearance. Ooh not much. On to MkII: This is just MkI but turned upside down. As you can see the clearance is heaps better now. In the final mount, I'll put a scallop in the rear upstand as well to help this even more. Using a similar method to the MkI, I made one for the passenger side too. It was tight with the oil filter but I made it work. Here's the final design. I kinda like how they're offset. Looks funky. Next step, turn the cardboard into steel. Note the scallop in the top right. Also note the line across the bottom plate. I found that the top left bolt was impossible to get in without removing the oil filter housing from the block. I'd rather not have to replace the gasket every time I want to replace the engine mount so I'm planning to cut this one off. It will still be plenty strong without it. Next was a particularly tricky bit. In order to clear the oil filter, I had to push the bush a long way back. However, that meant I couldn't get a socket onto the center bolt anymore. If I tried to push it forward enough to clear a socket, the main bolt would run into the filter. So the best solution as far as I could tell was to get a little kinky with it (Seems to be a good answer to most problems I have actually). Here are both mounts tacked up and in place: And here is the clearance around the rag joint: I wanted to give it a good bit of space because the engine will torque toward the joint for the most part but hopefully, this much gap should mean never the twain shall meet. Finally, I can start working on the cross member side of the mounts. After much standing back and scratching of skull, I came up with these pieces of structural spec cardboard: Note in the last pic the scallop to clear the rag joint again. The camera angle isn't doing any favours but it has a good even gap all the way around. It's not so crucial on this half because the two shouldn't move relative to each other (excluding the rack mount bushes but that's 4/5 of 5/8 of the proverbial) so there shouldn't be any risk of fouling. And here is a view of what the final mount should look like. Not too shabby. Now you know the drill. Card -> Steel. 3mm in this case. Bend a lil' where it wants it Weld a lil' where it wants it And there you have two engine mounts tacked up. (With unbelievably poor photography. Christ knows what's going on with my phone but it's been making some pretty ugly pics. Probably an issue between the wheel and the driver's seat) I tacked them to some plate to stop them closing up while I welded them, then sweated them together with the TIG turned up nice and high. These welds had the most prep in them out of all my previous TIG work so it stands to reason that they came outsome of the nicest looking. With them done and cooled off, I bolted them up to the engine and tacked them to the cross member. I ended up filling the holes I left for rosettes with the TIG beforehand, opting for a tee joint rather than a lapped roset as planned. In hindsight, I shouldn't have put weld through primer in there because it made the TIG welding an unbelievable pain in the ass but I got there in the end. Now, with the MIG nice and hot, I fully welded them on. While I was in my welding mood, I turned to the engine side of the mounting system. I opted for TIG on these for the precision that it would give me in such a tight spot. I started by breaking the tacks to the engine plates before welding the tubes to the upstands fully. A little undercut but not too bad. Then I clamped them up, And welded it on. The inside welds were a little tricky but I made a fairly nice job of them in the end. I went with the MIG for these because I had a lot more room to play with and the speed advantage was difficult to pass up. I'll clean it up around that bolt hole tomorrow. That's it for today. Tomorrow I'll finish the other side, and bolt everything up to stand back for a look. Colour me excited! 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Hurmeez Posted July 25, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 25, 2018 I can't be far off a new page now... Anywho, true to word, I got the other mount welded up and cut to final shape. I also realised I forgot to weld the upstand onto the back of the other mount too. The hole in the block is set back by about 8mm relative to the other three so this lets me bolt everything up nice and level. And now of course, ladies and gentlemen, the moment we've all been waiting for..... A KLZE (Kinda. This is my DE mockup block but still) mounted into a MkII Escort. That's pretty neat. And here you can see in this awkward one-handed photo that at the closest point I have approximately 160mm to work with for an intake manifold. Rearward of that, it opens up even further. I have some ideas for plenum designs to fit in here but we'll have to see yet. After all that, I still can't just throw my new engine in and bolt it up and forget about it. I still need to see if the sump will fit. Incredibly, it slots straight in! Granted it may have some oil pressure issues but that's a minor niggle really As old school as a total loss oiling system would be, it doesn't really fit with the whole aesthetic that I'm going for so I'll have to do something about it. I started with a wire frame to find how much I could get away with while still retaining some good clearance. Then I lay some paper over the top to try and make some semblance of a template. It sorta worked but kinda not really so ultimately I more winged it than anything and got something like this: That's halfway through forming it. I continued to form the other side and mocked it up on the block. You can see there's plenty of room over here, And if you look carefully you can see a step I had to put in it to clear the steering rack mount on this side. This probably shows it better. The shadow also shows how much space there is across the whole sump. I was happy with it so I tacked it, And started to weld it in. You can see also the shrinking I did along the steering rack step. I wasn't completely happy with how close it still was to the rack so I ran a bead with no filler along the line you can see. Then while it was still hot, I tapped it down with a panel beating hammer. The heat helped to suck it back in and gave me at least a good extra 5mm of clearance at what was the closest point. With it just where I wanted it, I welded it fully around. There were some fairly big gaps but they all filled fairly nicely and I was overall very happy with the result. I cleaned it back and gave it some paint. So a couple of things about this sump. Firstly, it's not completely finished yet. I still have to clean back the welds from the inside and check for leaks. Yes I know I should have waited until after that to paint it but fuck it, I wanted to see it black. Second, I didn't take many photos of the process because it turned out to be a bit of a mission to form it up like this and I was getting too frustrated to take too many. I could have made it a lot simpler for myself by just making a sheet with one fold down the middle and cutting it to shape but I didn't want to for two reasons. One, I don't like how sumps modified like that look. To me, it looks really hacked together and unprofessional and I didn't want to do that. I mean yes I'm sure it works and at the end of the day I'll almost never see it but to me, that's not the point. I know it's there and it would constantly bug me. Secondly, and most importantly, my dad said that I was wasting my time doing it the way I did and I should do it with the single fold so, of course, I had no choice but to prove him wrong. Ultimately, I'm very happy with how it turned out. I ended up with a functional, good-looking sump without a massive loss of capacity over factory, and without having to modify the pump pick up. The next job will be to finalise the inside of the welds and bolt it to the real engine to check it out. After that, who knows... 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Hurmeez Posted July 30, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 30, 2018 After degreasing the engine three times, I threw it up on the stand and set about swapping the sump over. This is what I found when taking the original sump off: So I swapped on the windage tray from the other engine on. I had already modified it to fit the new sump. It's a lot of material removed but the new shape of the sump acts as something of a windage tray anyway so I'm not too worried about it causing any issues. In any case I'll have my eyes glued to the pressure gauge for the first few miles anyway so should there be an issue I'm sure I'll catch it. So then we have a sump on, And an engine in a car. It could definitely come down by 30mm or so but it's awesome to see it sitting on its feet again. Now I've seen it though I need to lift it back up and pull it apart again to get some more work done. I'm not really sure where I'll go now but I'll figure something out. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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