Popular Post Adoom Posted July 19, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 19, 2019 Jut picked the sump up from Brian. Welds look good. He said it would be okay to linish the outside welds so it looks prettier. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adoom Posted July 21, 2019 Author Share Posted July 21, 2019 So despite bolting it to a big bit of metal, the shrinking from the welded patch has lifted the front of the sump up about 1-2mm. Pretty sure if it was not clamped down at all I would have ended up with a pringle. Not sure what I should do. Bolt it to the engine and hope for the best? Bolt it to the the jig and heat it up? With...? Found some guy on Youtube showing how to take a bow out of an aluminium cylinder head by clamping it to a plate with some shims so the clamping reverses the bow, then stick it in a 260 Celsius oven for 5-6 hours. This seems like the go, but no idea who could do this and how much it would cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Adoom Posted July 27, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 27, 2019 Got some 20mm plate plasma cut. I had a one spare cut in case I fuck it up. I started whittling at it with the mill. Managed to drill 4 holes in EXACTLY the right spots on the first one! I used the dial thingamies on the table adjuster wheels. I still need to machine it down to 15mm, make some 11mm spacers and get some bolts the right length. 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adoom Posted August 3, 2019 Author Share Posted August 3, 2019 After properly measuring the thickness of the lugs on the old calipers, I could use the 50mm facing mill thing to take the bracket down to final thickness of 18mm(not 15mm). I also machined the other bracket to final thickness. I really need to sort out some parallels for the milling vice. I've been using my lathe tools as parallels :/ because they were the only things I had that were a suitable size and uniform thickness. Here's the 3rd blank which I hopefully won't need. Also the blanks for the sandwich plates for the discs. So glad I got them to plasma the 50mm hole in the middle, I would have taken forever to whittle out on my little lathe. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adoom Posted August 4, 2019 Author Share Posted August 4, 2019 Sorted out the bore size so it's the same as the disc bore. Then I made a mandrel to stack the disc and the sandwich plate and the old disc, so I could use the holes in the old disc as a drilling guide. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Adoom Posted August 4, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 4, 2019 Photo upload limit.... 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Adoom Posted August 30, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 30, 2019 So I found a local place that could anneal my sump which would allow me to pull it flat. Dymo Manufacturing in Wingate. They put it in their kiln with it bolted to the jig. It was heated up to.... hot, then allowed to cool down slowly over many hours. ~10 I think. $70. The heat seems to have baked out any oils and cooked the sealer that was still in the grooves on the mounting face. The sealer just crumbles and turns to powder when I scrape at it. Only down side was it caused some of the small M6 bolts to seize in the jig which I wasn't expecting, so I broke one and stripped at least two more. So I'll have to find some suitable bolts to bolt it back to the engine. Oops. But it's more or less flat already. So I am happy to bolt it back to the engine, the sealer will sort out any tiny gaps. Cast iron table saw top is the flattest thing I have. I did try move it around a bit, just in case the table saw top was bent. It's the same which ever way I put it. There is still a tiny gap at the front of the sump, but it's no bigger than 0.5mm and if I put some weight on it, it closes up. Yay. 18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Adoom Posted September 15, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 15, 2019 Finally got the sump back on. Remembered that I had another set of bolts when I bought the sump so I cleaned them up. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adoom Posted September 17, 2019 Author Share Posted September 17, 2019 Sooo when I was chasing out all the threads I managed to put the wrong pitch M10 tap through one of the bellhousing mount holes. So had to invest in some thread repair kits. OUCH! My wallet. I got an M6 at the same time because there are some stripped threads on the gearbox. ...the gear lever retention plate thing is held down by four M6 bolts and all the holes are stripped. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adoom Posted October 15, 2019 Author Share Posted October 15, 2019 So since the engine mounts were welded to the chassis rails. And the modified sump is back on the engine. I suppose I can put the engine back in and figure out how much I can lift the steering rack back up. Shouldn't take long.... the engine was already on the crane. So I put the engine in the hole, I put one bolt through the left engine mount because that one got there first. Just lower it a bit more and slide the right side bolt through...... huh. The hole doesn't line up. It's off by 3-4mm... Is it just the urethane? I'll try align it with a big screw driver... Nope that's didn't work. Have the chassis rails spread?! Offers up front cross member. Nope those bolt holes still line up. Did I put the engine mounts on the wrong sides after painting? Surely not. Swaps mounts around. Puts one bolt through. Other side still still doesn't line up. And engine now tilted nose down. So I suspect, that when I removed the engine, then cut the temporary tack welds to prep for fully welding the mounts, I pushed the mount plates much more snug against the chassis rails so they were further apart. Disappointed... Simplest solution I can think of is to try shim the mounts off the engine block with washers to get the holes to line up again. Then I'll weld those washers to the mount so it cannot be installed without them. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adoom Posted February 2, 2020 Author Share Posted February 2, 2020 I did actually do stuff to this over the xmas break. But I didn't take many photos. I finished modifying the front cross member and permanently mounted the rack. The easiest option ended up being to replicate the factory brackets. With the sump modified, I could lift the rack back up(still lower than factory) 16mm which meant I could remove the spacer between the rod end and the steering arm. This also gave me loads of clearance between the rod end and the wheel rim. When I finished the cross member I thought, well, I guess it's time to take the suspension off the yellow car(where I was mocking up) and put it on this car. I looked at the suspension and thought, I don't want to put those dirty, rusty parts on.... I guess I'll clean and paint them first. Cleaning and painting took ages. I used it to justify, to myself, buying a blasting cabinet. I got new bearings. And ball joints for the lower arms. I had a bit of a WTF moment when I tried to dry assemble the hubs with the discs and calipers.... And the calliper brackets didn't fit, like not by miles. After being confused and sad, and sleeping on it. What I think happened was that the hub I used to make the caliper brackets had some ridges worn on the stud axle that caused the bearing to sit 4.5mm proud. I decided that to only way to fix it was to machine 4.5mm off the back of the hub to move the disc. Now it all bolts together. I 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adoom Posted February 2, 2020 Author Share Posted February 2, 2020 I've also cleaned and painted the calipers. The pistons can be reused, but the rubbers are knackered, so I've got to get a rebuild kit before I can assemble them. They are 2003 Subaru Impreza 2 pot calipers. The rebuild kit from rock auto is really cheap, ~$17 with all the springy plates too, but freight is about $40. Surely I can get a rebuild kit for less than that locally? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adoom Posted February 3, 2020 Author Share Posted February 3, 2020 And I got the rubbers on my way to work. Thanks Greg at MPAutoparts. It wasn't cheaper, but I get instant gratification, and I'd rather give Greg money than 'Murica. I rebuilt the calipers after work. I dunno, but with the rubber gloves and the lube and the rubber parts and trying to fit things where they just don't seem to want to go, but then they do and it feels good, rebuilding calipers just seems slightly lewd. Here's the left one, I'll let you imagine the right one, or you can just look at your screen in a mirror. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adoom Posted February 3, 2020 Author Share Posted February 3, 2020 So it turns out machining down the mounting face has weakened the hubs.... Cletus said he'd fail it. Waaah I cut a spare/scrap one in half to check. So the options I see so far are. Make new hubs from scratch. Which will be a lot of machining with plenty of chances to turn my part to scrap if I make a mistake. Or, get some WRX 4 pot calipers. Because they don't have a mounting bracket that interferes with the mounting lugs on the upright and that would allow me to move the caliper inboard to line up with the disc in its previous location(before I machined the hub). AFAIK the mounting hole spacing will be the same as the current calipers, so I can modify my existing adapter brackets. The WRX ones look like this. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Adoom Posted March 1, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 1, 2020 So I bought Sheepers old Link G4. I had forgotten how much the looms cost GEEEEEEZ$$$$$ Since I can't leave shit alone, I decided to change the Stepper motor idle control valve that needs 6 outputs, to a Solenoid idle control valve that only uses 1. I just happened to have a random nissan one, so I used that. I chiselled an adapter plate out of some 100X40 bar. A combination of the 4 jaw in the lathe and the 12mm end-mill in the mill. I could have done a better job aligning the middle hole of both. I had to adjust the hole a bit. First time tig welding Aluminium. Not sure I had the settings right. It worked okay, but looks a bit poo. The cable tray is a bit in the way. But it fits okay. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Adoom Posted March 9, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 9, 2020 OOOSH... I finally contacted cert man. I've got to get design approval for the rear subframe and the steering rack relocation. He's told me what forms and info sheets I need. I'm not looking forward to trying to accurately draw the rear subframe stuff. But here's some pictures of brake conversion, take two. I went with the subaru WRX calipers. The RX7 ones were much lighter, but too bulky so I'd have to have wheel spacers. All I've done to the calipers is sandblast them and chuck some WD40 on to stop flash rust. I still need to rebuild and paint them. The rebuild kit and caliper hardware arrived yesterday. The bolt holes ended up being all in a straight line, what are the chances... I've only made one side so far, it takes a fucking long time to band saw through 170mm of 25mm thick steel. I still need to round off the ends and make spacers to weld on(it's just got a stack of washers in there now). I freaked out a little when I found I had about 0.6mm of run-out! GOSH!! But I re-tightened the disc mounting bolts and did a better job of adjusting the bearing pre-load, now it's 0.04mm. I'm gonna blame Triumph manufacturing tolerances because I didn't touch the machined face the disc is bolted to. 20 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Adoom Posted March 15, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 15, 2020 Both calipers are cleaned and painted. I split them before painting to install the new o-rings between the halves. The pistons are good on the outside sealing surfaces, but the inside was a bit rusty, so I wrapped the outside in tape and sandblasted the inside, then painted them with caliper paint so they don't immediately rust again. I'll give them a few days for the paint to harden some more before I assemble them. I've made the caliper brackets for both sides. And all the spacers. I'm going to wait until both calipers are assembled then fit them so I know 100% that the spacers are the correct thickness before I weld them on, just in case. The spacers on the top of the bracket are for the strut, also so I don't need to get shorter bolts. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Adoom Posted March 21, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 21, 2020 Calipers are rebuilt. I had to use the original retaining spring ring things that hold the seals on as the replacement ones were too short and made the seal bunch up between the ends. I made 3 sets of spacer before I got the thickness right so the disc is in the middle of the calipers. The spacers still have to be tig'ed on and the brackets painted. 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Adoom Posted April 5, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 5, 2020 Using my bumpsteer measuring thingamadoodah and fucking around with spacing the tie rod end and rack mounts I found that the tie rod end and the steering arm needed to exist in the same space. So I sacrificed a spare one to modify so I can continue mocking up. I made a jig to hold the end in the right place for welding. Here is the one from the other side to see how far it's moved up. . And totally legit welding. safe as. This is just for mocking up. Once I get the height right for minimal bump steer, I'll mill the final ones out of a block of mild steel and have tapered holes so I can use the factory tie-rod end and not fuck around with rose joints, bolts and spacers. I've been using the LVVTA bumpsteer pdf thing. https://www.lvvta.org.nz/documents/infosheets/LVVTA_Info_04-2010_Bump-steer_Measurement_Background_Information.pdf My measuring thingamadoodah has the points 575mm apart, so each mm of toe is 0.1 degrees. With my hacked steering arm, the tie rod end is mounted below it. This is with a 3mm spacer, it's the best I've got it so far. If I remove the spacer and move the tie-rod end up, the line on the graph indicates the tie rod end is too high. If I have two 3mm spacers, the line says it's too low. I'll have to make some 1mm spacers to see if I can fine tune it further. To flatten out that curve I think the whole tie rod has to be longer, but then I'd need a shorter steering rack. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Adoom Posted April 27, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 27, 2020 So the shifter housing is real fucking close to the cross member...chassis rail(not really sure what to call it) that goes through the tunnel. It makes it a real bastard to get the gearbox on the engine because you cannot slide it back. You have to drop the engine, and to do that you have to take the engine mounts off. I was going to leave it until much later when I could flip the car over and have easy access. But I decided to do it a different way. I borrowed a piece from the rusty yellow one. Then unstitched the welds to remove the offending side of the cross member Then chopped it up to make myself a puzzle. Then zapped it back together. I started off with the mig, but the welds were such a pain to grind smooth, so I had some more practice with the tig. I made about 30mm more room for the gearbox. I will make the angle bits to join the chassis rails back together when it's on the car. The width of the rails is not consistent, so making them fit this does not automatically make them fit the white one. I'm crossing my fingers that the floor panel pressings are the same. 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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