The Project Pad

Toph, I'm beginning to think that the disease in you is as bad as me. I didn't think anyone would take the time to clean the heat shields like I did.....does my heart good to see others are as sick as I am. I'm still somewhat concerned about you however, since I have about thirty years on you and I got worse with age. Your car is looking awesome. Good work!!

stop cleaning and make it work

Thanks, John...good to know it will get worse hahah. I guess I'm probably not completeloy crazy since I at least know when I'm being incredibly particular. That doesn't mean I can stop it though

Had a short day at work today, so I'm headed to the garage. I need to clearance the tunnel some more for the stabilizer rod. I'm about 1/4" low where it connects to the tranny, so a BFH should make up the less-than-a-quarter-inch of room that I need where the rod makes contact with the tunnel. Once that is done, a couple of shots of undercoating will go on where I used the hammer, then heatshield, shifter, and engine/tranny go in right after.

Figured I'd share this little heat shield I made yesterday. I just wrapped the factory rubber protective cover for the engine mount in heat reflective fabric, folded it over the back side, drilled 6 holes and riveted through it to keep the fabric from peeling back. Should work well, especially in conjunction with the actual factory metal heat shield that I have kicking around somewhere. Now I'm off to get my engine in the bay...

I got the engine and transmission back in last night. I added enough 'clearance' to the tunnel to go from having the shift linkage stabilizer rod pressed up against the tunnel, to now having about 5mm of up and down play on the transmission end. Then, once I was sure it'd fit, I installed the linkage, modified the small heat shield some more, fastened it in place, and pumped up the engine hoist. I determined that I can install the fuel lines and front heat shield after the fact...and that's on the agenda for tonight.

























Time to Build!

A brief update from the 'office' computer. My phone and computer both decided to self-disable, so no internet at home for me.


...garage still works though...


Opted to replace this brake line from the tee in the rear to the passenger side rear



So after some flaring practice, and the proper tool (thanks Jim), I made up the two lines I needed.



New vs. Old brake line shot...with VRTCQ shout-out



New front brake line installed, with the first attempt (complete with crap flares and piss poor bends) sitting on the reservoir




I did some more undercoating last night, so it should be dry enough to work under there now.

Today/Tonight:
X - Install rear brake line
Install rear fuel lines
Kroil the fuel tank outlet fitting
X - Install ebrake cables
X - Tension Ebrake
Install rear heatshield
X - Hammer out bent steel propshaft CV cover
X - RTV partially torn rubber on new carrier bearing for more strumf, but may need to buy more first. I was considering buying some flexane 80, but I might as well buy a new carrier bearing for the cost of that stuff...

I got the rear brake line in last night, it fits well and I'll find out if it seals soon when I bleed the system. I am confident that they will seal well. The sealing surface looked like the factory flare after some experimenting with line placement in the flaring tool. After I had the line in, I did some more undercoating, and decided to wait on the fuel and ebrake line installation until tonight.





I moved on to the carrier bearing and applied a generous amount of RTV (thanks Tim) to both sides, especially in the ultra-thin outer portion. I'm hoping that this will counteract any effects the bent and slightly torn bearing surround may have had. Time shall tell I guess. I'll try to bend the propshaft cv cover tonight and see what happens there.

Blury before shot:



After:







I moved on to some 'down-the-road' stuff and reinforced the passenger side headlight surround. I had cut a section out to make clearance for the n75 in the 200 intake boot. This left a sharp edge and made the vertical portion weak. I bent a piece of 1/8" rod to fit the cut edge, had it tacked in place, then rolled the edge back over the rod and had it finish-welded. Tim welded it up for me...I need to start practicing my welding... I'd get a better picture, but they're on their way to Ryan at Higbee Performance Fabrication for some textured black powder coat.




I also have a bunch of parts incoming, so hopefully steady progress will continue.

Very cool seeing how pulled apart everything is. It will be nice once everything is perfect and back together. It looks like it's going to be built like a brick house.

for $25, why don't you just replace the center carrier bearing? Seems a lot easier w/ everything apart vs bandaiding it.

Otherwise, lookin' good!

Thanks guys!

As far as the carrier repair goes, I decided to try this for a couple of reasons. First off, the carrier is brand new, and has never been on a car. Somehow, the outer portion has been bent, and that resulted in a slight tear of the surprisingly thin rubber surround. Secondly, I will be addressing the rear end fairly soon here, so I'll have the opportunity to swap it out then if it is an issue....which I really don't think it will be. Usually I would just replace it, but the damage was so insignificant that some people probably wouldn't have even noticed the tear. The bottom line is that you're right and I'm taking a gamble here on this one. On the plus side, the RTV cured, and it is much more solid than the original...

Still making steady progress, here's a little update.

I finally got the propshaft installed. The bolts need to be torqued, and I'll probably drop the carrier down just a few mm's, but she's in there.



I also got the fuel lines installed from the filter to the firewall. I need to install my 5/16" barb to 6an male in the factory return line by the rear diff, then connect the 6an return and finalize the last few mounting points. As for the feed, the factory line to the filter had leaked before my ownership, and I would like to remove it and the associated repair from my car. I'll be treating the fitting today in hopes of removing it this weekend. I need to order up whatever fitting I'll need and some Earl's parts to fully complete the fuel lines.












I wasn't satisfied with the gap that exisits between the transmission casing and the correct sized step portion on the 016 output cups in my 01e. Not only would it allow debris to get to the seal, but the front driveshafts would be under more compression than stock. Tim had his shortened 3mm, cut the bolt to match, and there was still in and out play (like there is supposed to be) with the bolt tight. I went for 2mm, and cut the bolt to match. Both will work, but if you remove too much material, the splines on the cup will bottom out in their receiver and there will be no in and out play. So, thanks to Jim for having an extra set of cups, and thanks to Ryan for turning them down on his fancy new lathe. This allowed me to just quickly swap my stock length 016 cups and bolts out for the shorter versions.

Here are the full-length 016 cups in an 01e







Shortened versus stock. The stock length bolt is resting on the cut cup, cut bolt on uncut cup. The same overall height means that my cut bolt will protrude from the shortened cup the same as a stock bolt in a stock cup.



Cut cups







And cut 016 cups installed in an 01e



All I have to do this weekend is work on my car

Pretty clean car you are making there Toph

Thanks, Hank! I'm going to have to put together an update tonight - got a bunch of stuff wrapped up over the weekend.

Update!

Here's an amusing picture for you guys. My car has stance (engine and trans are in in the photo)



I've been collecting parts to address that eventually...

Anyway, Tim volunteered to rebuild my front axles. Thanks Tim. I got the front end in the air and pulled the wheels off. I installed the axles, cleaned the rotors, and ended up cleaning and repainting the brake shields. The passenger axle seems to be a bit long, but I have about 3-5mm of in and out play still at full droop without the bolt in the end, so I'm hoping it'll be ok. The driver's side has about 10-15mm of play at full droop. You can see the squished boot on the passenger side.






Impromptu brake shield reconditioning session:










OEM+ heat shielding:






Transmission mount shield in place






Extra engine mount shielding for good measure






I modified a spare vacuum brake booster brace to at least be somewhat effective in my coupe. It obviously bolts up to the booster, but not the firewall. I bent it, added a spacer, and elongated the holes to fit over 2 coarse screws that were on the CQ firewall. Not ideal considering the use of plastic self-tapping nuts, but better than nothing I think.




More to come soon

Where are you buying hte heat shielding? I have bought it from a few places in the past, but I figure you must have an opinion these days

Thanks Tim, now respond to me PM

http://www.amazon.com/Thermo-Tec-13585-Adhesive-Backed-Barrier/dp/B000TXU55S/ref=sr_1_2?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1367070284&sr=1-2&keywords=thermo+tec+24+x+36




That should be plenty to finish the bay


In other news...I'm sure I'll find something to prevent it, but it is possible that there could be some key-turning by the end of the weekend

Dooooooooo eeeeeeeet

Taking a short break, figured I'd show what I just built. This is my first time welding anything useful, and I think I did ok (I may be biased though). Anyway, I found a hose in the hose bin that would work for the heater core to back of block, and it had a little bonus. At the end that I wanted to use on the heatercore, there was a small hole and a white outline to identify it. Basically, to bleed it out, just loosen the clamp and wiggle the hose until some air pressure escapes from said hole, wait for coolant, push hose back on and clamp. I had to make a coupler, and used a 7a coolant pipe. The 90 at the end worked well, and even though I only needed a straight section to couple the hoses, I cut the heater core hose back. This allowed me to use the 90 with the attached tab to mount it to the trans. I cut the tab, welded in a piece to turn the hole 90 degrees, and now it bolts to the same location as the other coolant pipe...bueno. Hopefully it holds pressure.















That's one of the higher difficulty items on my list...crossed off. I know, not very difficult, but that just means I'm running out of things that I need to make

Getting there, had a few hiccups along the way. I'll update tomorrow, but for now I have a couple of issues.

I don't have the distributor holding tool, and neglected to mark the housing before I removed it

So, first issue, is my distributor aligned properly? At the moment the two marks are lined up (in the pic they're slightly off), hall sensor plug at the back at 3 o'clock. I know where the rotor needs to be, but I want to verify that my housing is also in the correct location. Thanks, here's a picture:





In other news, I finally opened my package from FIC to find this:



Looks like injectors are the new primary hold up...also

As long as the marks are lined up, it wouldn't matter on the base orientation other than the physical location of wires and such as long as the cap spark plug wires are lined up with the rotor at top dead center pointing at the #1 cylinder and they progress in the right firing order. You usually want to be within a wire or so to stock orientation so that the Hall sender plug faces the firewall, but really wouldn't have to. As long as marks are lined up, you know that it is a top dead center, and the rotor is pointing at the #1 wire, you should be good. All the timing is done with the ECU.

Thanks for the confirmation, John.

I didn't mic out the dimensions for the injector pintle cap, and there are multiple options available. I want to say it is this one - http://injector-rehab.com/shop/Bosch-OEM-Pintle-Cap.html

I'm at work, hoping to get something headed my way in the mail today, so any help on the matter will be met with much gratitude. Thanks!

Ok, so the helpful guy at Fuel Injector Clinic said that these caps were not critical. Aparently, they are simply for keeping everything in check during installation. Their techs will choose to reuse these if they aren't badly damaged, however, I feel like the split running up the side is 'badly damaged'. That being said, I'm still going to be me and get new ones. The link I posted above has the closest specs to what my calipers just said, so hopefully I can get them here soon. Update coming eventually