|
|
Post by Zed. on Sept 1, 2024 20:46:36 GMT
I found a Peter Lloyd quick rack (2.5 turn) Plr was near Bridgend, ~30 miles from me. Peter used to rally, Escorts/6r4's to Subaru's  I would prefer less turns lock to lock, any lower than that would start to be heavy to turn the wheel  think a 5's power rack is 2.9 turns (& manual is 3.5?) so the manta item is quicker  Rich. |
|
|
|
Post by Bilbo on Sept 2, 2024 9:40:05 GMT
I found a Peter Lloyd quick rack (2.5 turn) Plr was near Bridgend, ~30 miles from me. Peter used to rally, Escorts/6r4's to Subaru's I would prefer less turns lock to lock, any lower than that would start to be heavy to turn the wheel think a 5's power rack is 2.9 turns (& manual is 3.5?) so the manta item is quicker Rich. Ah really? I see they seem to have dissolved the company a few years back now. I find the manual steering quite light in this to be fair, but yes I imagine it's going to be a fair bit heaver, but we'll see how it feels and go from there. Yeah it's pretty low at 2.5 turns, I think it might be quite nice, well hopefully anyway haha. |
|
|
|
Post by Bilbo on Sept 8, 2024 0:41:53 GMT
So, the quick rack. My mate took me up to get it from my other mate in Kent who collected it for me last week. It is quite literally brand new, never been fitted. It was in a Nintendo SNES box with Peter Lloyd Rallying written as the sender, so it is one of those ones. wasn't expecting the 30+ year old box it was in though haha. Anyway, the rack itself is of course identical to my current one.  Removing the original rack was actually really easy, everything came undone no trouble at all and it was off in about 20 minutes. We inspected the rubber coupler and double D attachment points on the new rack (hence why it is missing in the photo above) and realised that while the lower side bolted onto the pinion rod fine, the upper column end was actually too small and there was no way it would slide onto my original column. So while I was messing around with inner tie rod related things, my mate cut the riveted upper coupler off of my original rack, and then nut and bolted it to the new coupler. Now both ends were correct and it could be fitted.   Here you can see the new rack and coupler, but with the original upper section now bolted on, which is the correct size. I realised that as well as some rack play, my driver's side inner tie rod had some in and out play as well. I couldn't get Manta/Cavalier ones from Euros or our local GSF there and then, so I tried to do what I have done with my shocks and find another car's inner tie rods that would fit. I thought I had it figured out, but then realised that GM must be pretty much the only manufacturer in the entire world that made racks that were male threaded ends. I swear every single other car has female end racks, with male thread inner tie rods. I couldn't find anything suitable, so for now I have just cleaned and re-packed the inner tie rods with some thick grease which has temporarily helped a bit with the play, and I will have new ones ordered ready to fit next weekend. Will also do outer track rod ends at the same time. Anyway the rack, while unused, had been sitting for many years in a box and felt fairly notchy so all the old grease was cleaned off of the inside and new grease applied everywhere required. Much much better after that. Then we put it in the car, again super easy job. My mate did a new shape Mini Cooper rack yesterday, where the entire subframe had to be dropped, so he absolutely loved the simplicity of helping me out with this one 😂  All done for now. We adjusted the toe a bit with my mate's toe plates to guide us as it was a little off. Pretty much bang on now, but will have to redo it next week when I get the new rods anyway 😂 It is quite odd how much quicker it is, but I quite like it. However it has of course made the steering quite a lot heavier, but to be honest it feels not much heavier than my old MX5 was without power steering, so I can live with it. At speed it is fine. Only issue I have now is that the rack is tight and fresh, and I haven't balanced my front wheels when we changed the tyres. As the rack has no play or wear, it now all transfers directly to my hands, so at 60-65 mph you can really feel the vibration in the steering now, I should probably get that done soon, it's horrible 😂 |
|
|
|
Post by Bilbo on Sept 18, 2024 1:34:15 GMT
So after a bit of a fiasco with AutoDoc and Evri I finally got my new inner tie rods and track rod end delivered. In the meantime I found someone selling a single NOS QH inner tie rod on eBay, so I grabbed that last week. When I pulled it all apart and really looked at the inner tie rods and track rod ends it's clear there were some issues. Overlooking the old grease in my original rack had cause the mud brown gritty grease to go all over my inner tie rods, and the driver's side one had developed a very noticeable amount of in and out play (this was brand new when the car was put on the road last January). This was the main source of my 9 and 3 play in the wheels, as well as the old rack having a little itself. The track rod ends themselves had also developed an issue. I can't recall what brand they were, but it appears the clips/ties for the rubber boot had come away on both sides at some point, leading to the joints becoming dry and dirt getting into them, despite both boots still looking perfectly fine on the car. Anyway all of these have now been replaced, with new MOOG inner tie rods and track rod ends fitted this evening.   The gaiters were both in perfectly good condition, so I just cleaned the inside of them an re-used. As you can see I did add a thick cable tie both sides in the grooves on the inner tie rods though. These boots are a harder plastic type boot, and I noticed even with clamps on the outer side, when compressed they would sometimes slide a bit over the tie rod as they resist compressing much more than a soft rubber boot. The cable ties stop this from happening, so the boots stay exactly where I want them, meaning they can't collect dirt inside them by dragging over the exposed tie rod over time. The steering is so much better now, there is no wheel play, and absolutely zero free movement in the centre of the steering at all like before. The rack feels tight and it is much nicer to drive. Its heavier, but the decreased turns lock to lock is very noticeable, especially when needing to go to full lock when parking etc. Also got some new Toyos fitted to the front, and I did put on my new cam cover a while ago but forgot to show it:  Engine bay is looking a bit grotty, I should probably give it a clean soon. I'm a little disappointed with the cam cover, while the red lettering came out well the metallic black high temp paint I used is more of a matt grey, But it's still better than the oil covered original one I guess. Next up I have a brand new Hella handbrake cable to fit, a couple of little rust areas to attend to, as well as a couple of bodywork issues that have been bugging me. The car has also had a couple of minor running issues, I think this is potentially related to my wideband sensor reading, perhaps an intermittent earthing issue somewhere. I'm also going to check the exhaust pre-sensor for any blows, as sometimes the AFR readings the last few days have looked oddly lean at idle sometimes, so maybe some fresh air being drawn in. Will get the laptop plugged in and see what's going on. |
|
|
|
Post by Bilbo on Oct 5, 2024 1:20:04 GMT
So I had been planning a new exhaust manifold. Bought various bits over a week ago, booked a day off work to do it. DHL lost the parcel with the pipework (it was eventually found days later), and then my mum snapped the driveshaft on her Corolla clean in half. Not ideal, so that holiday day was gone sorting that. Fast forward to this Friday, I had booked another day off, all the bits had arrived, and I was excited to get on with it. On my way to the unit I was on the duals, just about to overtake a lorry. Saw some mud on the road from tractors crossing over. Lorry hit the mud, out came a perfectly aimed stone from the back wheel and Voilà:   Direct hit and instant kaleidoscope windscreen. Now at 70mph this is less than ideal. Luckily I managed to overtake the lorry and stick my hazards on and he slowed enough for me to drop into a layby just a few hundred metres up the road. A mate luckily happened to be driving by and stopped, and took me to the unit. Met up with another mate and used yet another mate's recovery truck to go rescue the car. It was way too far to even attempt to drive with such ridiculous screen damage. The screen was very delicate and was making the constant noise of Rice Krispies as tiny little pieces of glass popped off and into the car. Closing the door caused the centre to bow outwards, so I decided to tape the screen up to at least protect other people on the road from any glass, which worked quite well.  Sadly the interior didn't fare so well, and all the bumps on the journey caused the centre to break away into the car, sending a fair bit of glass everywhere. Once we got back to the unit I used a bedsheet to catch the vast majority of the remaining screen, and broke enough of it away so I could pull the rubber seal away and out.  The glass went into such tiny pieces, it is honestly an absolutely miserable job. Luckily most of the pieces apart from the tiny specks were not sharp and easily removed by hand. I then carefully dug the edge of the window out of the rubber seal bit by bit with a small flathead, and am happy to say not a single bit of damage or even a tear was done to the seal, and almost all glass is completely removed now. The seal is also still incredibly supple and flexible despite its age, which is remarkable to be honest, perfectly reusable. The filler strips and corner pieces are also all intact and perfectly reusable, which is something at least. Anyway, it's just as well this happened really because underneath the seal is very much in need of some restoration and work. Luckily nothing truly hideous, most areas just had localised corrosion and some discolouration.  The only bad area really is down on the driver's bottom corner where there are a couple of holes:  After scraping more of the grime and whatnot away it really isn't too bad, and the vast majority of the frame will be perfect after a wire wheel, a bit of rust converter, and a little bit of paint. The holes I will weld up tomorrow, in total there are 3 or 4 and the one in the photo is the worst of the lot. A guy I know on the Manta owner's club very quickly replied about a screen and was preparing to bring his bronze tinted one out of his storage for me to collect. Sadly the screen was damaged and cracked right down the centre, so it was no good to sell, gutted. I have since sourced an Ascona screen from another member of the Manta page on Facebook. By a stroke of luck he is coming down to the AMEX to watch Brighton on Sunday, and all being well he will deliver it to my parent's for me to pick up some time in the week. Not exactly the weekend I had planned, but it is what it is. At least I have caught the rust early enough to fix it without it needing an entire new A pillar, so that's something at least, plus the new screen is a more modern laminated one, which should help stop this happening again in the future hopefully. |
|
|
|
Post by Bilbo on Oct 7, 2024 16:08:16 GMT
So, what a crappy weekend that was 😂 However I have been chipping about in my girlfriend's Alto, I do quite like the 50+ MPG I won't lie 😂 So I turned my attention to the windscreen aperture. A few holes, but in terms of the actual rubber mounting lip, zero issues at all. Most of the aperture was ok after a wire wheel. Mainly just discolouration. Around 4 areas with actual holes. This one got a little bit bigger after a wire wheel:  However most of it wasn't that bad. Scraped off the sealant in the 4 corners, and overall it could have been way way worse.  However, and there is always a "however" with these kinds of things, welding the holes up was absolute, complete and utter misery. Leaning over, back hurt, metal very thin and loved to blow holes, what a total pain. It's now done good enough for me and ground flat enough for the rubber to go back in fine, but honestly a hateful experience. Part way through sorting the 2 areas at the top:  And all done:  I also lifted back the front parts of headlining and painted rust converter on the inner edges which had some minor discolouration, but thankfully nothing more than that. Cleaned all the dirt, swarf and whatnot away and got it painted in acid etch primer:  Then I remembered I had this lying around, used this paint in the past to paint my old steering wheel. The colour was close-ish (by eye) to my old MX-5 so I had used it to paint my steering wheel. I recall it being really tough paint, and that steering wheel never chipped or anything. So I thought while it is basically hidden (apart from very thin slivers next to the rubber that were still red from before the respray), it's closer than red, so it'll do.  And it did do, almost frighteningly well actually. It's a pretty damn close match to the Toyota Ivory 😂 I added a couple of small bits of sealant over a few areas. Places that looked thin, but not actually holes. I was paranoid, and 2 layers of decent paint I thought just for my peace of mind, lets just layer these little spots with a bit of sealant.  Looks a bit ugly like that, but it'll be hidden, so I don't care. I will blade the sealant down to almost flat now it is set, so it won't interfere with the windscreen rubber. Oh yeah, the interior was absolutely covered in glass 😂 this was before I removed the screen fully:  I'd say there was 3 times as much glass by the time I was done, despite using a bed sheet to catch everything I could. It took a couple of hours with a decent hoover and by hand (the hoover was a godsend for those dusty little shards!), but I'd say 98% of the glass is now removed. The other 2% will periodically appear as and when it wants for the next few years I'm sure. Also hoovered a load out of the demist vents, but I think I will need to get into the heater exchange box at some point as some definitely made it's way all the way into there sadly. As for the screen, the Ascona screen has been acquired, and it is a laminated one. Currently at my parent's house, I'll go and grab it tomorrow evening, planning to fit Wednesday eve.  My mate at the unit has a load of experience fitting windscreens with string, so he'll be helping me to fit it. Going to buy some 3M Windscreen sealant, and just run the thinnest possible bead around the screen aperture, and also a thin bead in the glass to rubber slot all the way around the rubber seal. I noticed there was some moisture between the rubber and the frame when I removed it, so I want to prevent this occurring again. The 3M stuff is a proper windscreen sealant, not an adhesive/screen bonding product. Non-setting, and permanently flexible, which is exactly what I need for this. Hopefully all goes well, we will see! |
|
|
|
Post by boggissimo on Oct 7, 2024 16:35:56 GMT
So you're filing this one under 'blessing in disguise' by the looks of it! Always impressed by how quickly you can sort stuff out and keep the old girl on the road.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bilbo on Oct 7, 2024 16:40:00 GMT
So you're filing this one under 'blessing in disguise' by the looks of it! Always impressed by how quickly you can sort stuff out and keep the old girl on the road. Absolutely! One more winter and I think that A pillar might have had its day haha. Glad to have it sorted now. Haha, sorted it out of pure rage, as I was supposed to be working on something much more interesting. Week by week the car becomes more like Trigger's broom haha. But yeah I like to stay on top of everything, leave it longer and things often just become even worse and more expensive to fix in my experience. |
|
|
|
Post by Bilbo on Oct 10, 2024 1:17:50 GMT
So I picked up the windscreen from my parent's house. Wrapped it in a ton of bubble wrap and a blanket, and it literally fit on the back seat of my girlfriend's Alto by about 1cm 😂 A real tight fit! Anyway it survived the journey, so that's good at least. I got lucky this evening and as well as my mate who is pretty good with the string method, 2 other mates helped out as well. So we had someone at every section of the screen to manoeuvre it about and press where needed as the string was pulled out. I cleaned out the rubber seal first, got a few little pieces of smashed glass I missed out of it, and cleaned out a fair bit of old dry sealer, particularly from the corner sections. I thought about just using any old flexible sealant, but decided on 3M Windscreen sealant. Bit more expensive but I don't plan on doing this job twice, and it's supposed to be good stuff. Most 3M things I've had have been pretty good over the years tbh. Luckily an automotive restoration/repair place had it in stock to collect, which was ideal. Put a bead inside the rubber where the screen sits first of all, sort of trying to bead it on the front side of the seal so it will sit on the outside edge of the glass. With that done my mate filled the outer seal with the string, and I put a bead around the full windscreen aperture on the car, layering a little extra around the corners. Got the screen in with a little faff, but overall not too bad, the string method is tried and tested and it was mint to be honest.  Didn't break the screen doing it either, which was nice! Once this was done I masked the entire paint edge and with a mate using a plastic trim tool, he lifted the rubber and slid along, and I followed closely with the sealant gun. Added a layer around the entire outside edge under the rubber edge strip, and it all went in very nicely. Another mate then happened to have a diamond sort of shaped filler strip tool from his classic Mini owning days. It was a little wide for my need, so I just tapped it with a hammer to make it thinner, and it was absolutely perfect. Lubed up the channels a bit, and once I worked out how to actually use the bloody thing (thanks YouTube 😂), it got the filler strips in beautifully. A couple of small cracks in them, but none of them snapped, and all went in properly their entire length. Corner chrome pieces are all added as well.  The top filler strip I may re-visit, as it is a little too far over to the passenger side I think, but given how simple it was once we worked out how to do it properly, I can probably sort that pretty quickly. Pretty quick turnaround on this to be honest, can't complain with 5 days to recover the car, remove screen, clear out glass, source a screen, and fit it 😂 especially as I've worked 3 of those days. Once the sealer has had time to cure a bit, it doesn't set fully anyway, I'll give it a test with some water to make sure it is completely sealing, fingers crossed! |
|
|
|
Post by Bilbo on Oct 21, 2024 2:39:54 GMT
Update: windscreen doesn't leak. Very happy that's done with! Anyway, onto something a bit more interesting. My Manifold has done well for a cobbled together Frankenstein's Monster made from pipe from 3 different cars 😂 but most of it was mild steel, and after 2 corrosion related crack repairs, it was time to change it. No point buying something fancy as it won't fit anyway without cutting in half and modifying, so I decided to give it a go myself. Now I'll note at this point, I am not a fabricator, I don't have a TIG, and until we get a decent bandsaw everything is cut with a grinder. That being said, after a bit of an ordeal I think this has come out ok. Bought a stainless flange, 2mm oversized ports, perfect to slot the pipe into to port match to the engine.  Bought various stainless bends, a pre-made 4-1 collector, stainless MIG wire, and a few other things to get it sorted.  I did some maths with the flange ports, worked out the circumference, and then worked out the circumference of the pipe I needed, so once crushed to shape it would slot inside the ports. That ended up being 41.3mm (1 5/8 inch) pipe. Started cutting the bends up to get what I needed:   This took a fair while to get perfectly to shape, and took a little beating from the inside to get them all nice and flush to the flange:  To simplify things and get the pipes all going the direction I need, I made these all 45 degrees to the flange. This also meant that it missed the heater matrix pipes, and the pipe work would all be pointing roughly down where I needed it to go. Obviously I warped the flange. I learned that even when being careful and using a heatsink, stainless loves to warp!  We did a few things to level it out, one of the most effective was 3 blow torches at the same time 😂, while it was clamped firmly down flat:  Sorted it well enough. I had a plan in mind, high rise manifold, all 4 pipes sweeping up together and down into the collector. It soon became apparent due to limited number of bends I had, and trying to keep things equal length, that this was going to be difficult.   So far so good. When it came to the 3rd and 4th bends it started looking a bit mental. I wanted to keep it equal length ish, last thing I want is for it to sound like an n/a Subaru, not ideal.  After a few head scratching moments I finally got it all routed in a way that worked. This collector is one of those slip-on collectors you use tabs and springs with, however in my infinite wisdom I thought the 42mm internal diameter of the collector slip-ons would be ok for 41.3mm OD pipe. It is not, that as it turns out is far too loose for a slip on collector. So I got a bit creative with the centre and welded it instead. Got it all welded up, and got a downpipe made up, O2 sensor bung in, and a flexi as well.  And all done:   Is it the neatest welding I've ever done? Honestly no, but it's gone pretty well and it's all working with no blows (apart from a little one from the centre or gooch of the collector if you will, I'll sort that soon). It looks a bit mental, but to be fair it doesn't sound like a Subaru so I must have done something right. Exhaust is a little louder now and the exhaust has a slightly nicer tone. Maybe it's the reduced amount of janky restrictions, or the fact the manifold is all stainless this time, not sure. Either way, pretty happy with this accomplishment! I'll get it off and polished up next weekend. |
|
|
|
Post by boggissimo on Oct 21, 2024 12:38:41 GMT
This is fantastic, who cares if the welds are visible, you made your own exhaust manifold FFS! Now you need to do back to back on a dyno with your original manifold to show it makes eleventy more bhp, make some fancy pictures with 3D images and start selling it  |
|
|
|
Post by atlex on Oct 21, 2024 13:29:46 GMT
Bog is right.. that's amazing for a home-made. !! bit of cleanup on the welds if you want it to look 'cute' but not much more needed.
|
|
|
|
Post by dadbif on Oct 21, 2024 21:39:50 GMT
10/10 for someone who “cannot weld”. Well done.
|
|
le sigh