OK, well, that ain't gonna happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by j2k4
At least, not in our garage, not with our tools.
Here's hoping for a less painful solution.
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OK, well, that ain't gonna happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by j2k4
At least, not in our garage, not with our tools.
Here's hoping for a less painful solution.
Can you get an eyeball on it any other way?
Can you assure yourself the pressure plate is actuating/releasing?
I can't even tell you if the throwout bearing arm is actually moving.
It's a mystery "down there".
I can't even tell you if the throwout bearing arm is actually moving.
It's a mystery "down there".
Well, then.
A few months ago, Clocker informed me he'd been offered a tremendously tempting deal on a certain car - the car was in very nice shape, especially considering it's vintage; it had been well-cared for.
We knocked the question around for a short time, and I told him if he decided to pass, I'd like to throw my hat into the ring.
After weighing the situation for a few days, Clocker decided not to switch horses in mid-stream (he has his Mazda RX 7 to play with, and a slightly amorphous set of long-term plans according), so he basically consented - graciously - to act as my proxy in the purchase of this, oh, let's go ahead and call it a mid-life crisis.
I took the precaution of securing Missus J's blessing as well, which fact, along with Clocker's abilities as an intermediary, resulted in my taking possession of this:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...Picture001.jpg
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...Picture002.jpg
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...Picture003.jpg
It's a 1992 Dodge Stealth RT Twin-Turbo, which is equipped with AWD and all-wheel steering; also a very comprehensive (and slightly bewildering) collection of options designed to please the senses.
It is the mechanical twin to the Mitsubishi 3000 GT VR4.
I am flying out on the 16th to visit Clocker and drive it home, and I am not bothered in the least that I haven't the syllabic wherewithal to describe my anticipation.
Perhaps Dan-the-Man can advise...Quote:
Originally Posted by clocker
Yup, that's it.
The Stealth was another of Sigfrid's "boy's toys" and for various reasons- none of which concerned the car itself- he decided to dispose of it.
I was sorely tempted but in the end, the mechanical complexity was a factor I could not overcome.
All wheel drive, all wheel steering and twin turbos make for an almost overwhelming plethora of things that could go wrong and I doubted my ability to deal with them easily.
Since Kev will not be dependent on the Stealth for daily transportation, if (when?) something happens, he can deal in leisure instead of desperation.
It's a pretty cool car (although the Mitsu 3000 GT has nicer bodywork IMO) and relatively fast.
Kev and I shall be attending to the few small pre-trip details necessary to ensure a safe arrival (new oil/filter, check tire pressure, etc.) and also a few mods to increase performance. With any luck, his 1300 mile journey home will be fun but uneventful.
I should take possession of the Stealth this week and transport it to my lair where time and weather will dictate what I can do before Kev's arrival on the 16th.
I'd be willing to drive the car just as she sits, there is nothing apparently wrong and she drives nicely, so we really needn't knock ourselves out prepping the car.
I'm sure that once he has it home Kev has big plans for it.
There may even be a thread about it.
The future looks bright.
Hey, I'm just glad you bought American :P I drive a Dodge Durango and love that gas guzzling bitch!
Yes, an American Mitsubishi, in this case, but one capable of (hear tell) mid-twenties, mileage-wise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Detale
I have the vague feeling the trip home will net a bit less than that.
Don't know why.
Hey, check your PMs, D.
OK, we really do have a bleeding problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by clocker
Turns out, it's increasingly common to see clutch hydraulics sold/serviced as a complete system...master, slave and hose all connected, filled with fluid and bled. Just bolt in the parts and you're done.
Our slave cylinder is from such a system and has no bleed screw on it at all.
The only way to deal with such a setup is to use a vacuum bleeder.
Which we don't have.
Yet.
Hoping Harbor Freight has something cheap.
Passenger side steering rack bushing arrived today.
One down, one to go.
/The gallery breathes a sigh of relief
She drives!
Started out yesterday installing the steering rack.
The new passenger side bushing/bracket and the modified driver side bracket worked perfectly to locate and tie down the rack, no more lateral movement.
Won't be able to evaluate the swap until the car is aligned.
We lost every possible adjustment when the rack and suspension were replaced and it's a miracle the car even goes in a straight line.
Depending on Kev's visit and the weather, probably get her done on Friday.
I went over every hydraulic connection and gave them all a little tweak...no more leaks.
Dan the mechanic had kindly lent us his vacuum bleeding apparatus for the weekend and Sigfrid and I tried our best to make it work.
It seems completely counterintuitive to me and indeed, it did not seem to be doing anything...after a few hours we gave up.
Very frustrating, we were so close to being able to drive her and something as simple a clutch bleed was going to stop us.
Rolled her out of the garage to test fit some seats and just by habit, Sigfrid put it in gear...and it went!
No idea what happened, we went from having a good pedal feel but not able to go into gear to having good pedal and OK shifting (it actually seemed to improve as we drove)...it's very mystifying but it works, so I shan't question the results.
After the alignment I'm going to swing by Precision and have Dan bleed it properly, so it should only get better.
Maybe get him to vacuum bleed the brakes too...couldn't hurt.
The new shocks/springs lowered the car quite a bit.
It has a beautiful stance on the wheels but we'll probably need to roll the fenders for clearance.
We'll know better once it's aligned and the wheels are sitting properly.
No pics this week, we were too frazzled and the car is too dirty.
I'll rectify that ASAP...promise.
Can't wait to see the little beast.
Well, Kevin didn't have to wait long...he saw the "little beast" Wednesday evening.
I'll let him detail the visit as he sees fit but I had a great time, despite coming down with some sort of bug.
After Kev left Friday morning I went back to bed and didn't get up till 5 PM.
Feel much better now although I still sound like a consumption ward.
We took the little beast for an alignment on Thursday.
Everything adjusted to spec and she steers like a normal car.
I'm calling the steering rack swap a success but Sigfrid has yet to drive it and see how he likes the ratio.
If it's too slow, I have two other racks with faster ratios we can try.
The brakes are crap, hopefully a rebleed will solve that but if not, I have several other combos to install (yes, I have a crapload of parts...).
Thursday night j2 and I drove the car back over to Sigfrid's- approx. 20 miles- in a rather nasty snow/ice storm.
We made it in one piece (although I slid us off the road in my car on the way home) which I consider somewhat of a miracle.
A rear wheel drive car- no traction control or ABS- with 285/35 high performance summer tires, 400 + HP, a twitchy throttle and wonky brakes does NOT make for the ideal winter ride.
Saw many cars slide off the road but the RX's did fine.
Later, after we'd left, Sigfrid tried to move the car up his driveway into the garage and barely made it...he was amazed we'd gone 20 miles since he could barely go 20 feet.
I attribute this to my F1 level driving skills.
The project has taken yet another turn.
We now have a proper mounting kit coming and will basically rip out everything and redo it.
It's the way I've wanted to go since day one and Sigfrid finally agrees.
We'll have a whole new subframe and engine mounts, new tranny mount and power plant frame.
This should alleviate the horrible vibration issues we now have and also makes it possible to properly mount the alternator.
Should also make a more efficient intake easier to install.
Sigfrid and I will be discussing our approach today, so I'll let ya'll know how this will work.
I attribute this to my F1 level driving skills.
:lol::lol:
What?
It could be true.
Too bloody cold to do much yesterday.
We rebled the brakes and they are now much better.
The weather is supposed to get nicer as the week progresses and Sigfrid plans on driving the little beast to work, so we should get some idea of the overall viability of the current package.
Along with the new engine mount kit there is also a stock gauge cluster on the way.
This will eliminate the awful AutoMeter mechanical gauges and the mangled cluster we now have.
This will probably be our next project as the engine mount kit is coming from Honolulu and will take a while to arrive.
Looks like we still have several weeks of work to go...
If anyone here drove F1's it would be you bud ;) Hawaii? I take it it's used or did they open an auto part factory there I missed?
Could you take a pic of the gauges before and after please.
Here is a pic of our kit...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/kit-1.jpg
I'm guessing this has never been used (look at the driveshaft flange) but could be wrong.
It is not uncommon to find kits such as this, typically for one of two reasons.
One, someone bought the kit and then came to their senses and realized what they were getting into or two, during the (usually extended) build process they decided to go with the newly released (and much nicer) Samburg kit.
As pictured, this Granny's kit sells for $1700, the Samburg kit goes for nearly three grand.
We'd like the Samburg kit but the bucks just aren't there and even this is a major upgrade from the plate mount setup we began with.
With our current solid mounted engine anything over 2500 RPM and the mirrors are blurred beyond use.
TBH D., I'm not that great a driver.
Competent, yes, safe, yes, fast...not so much.
Clocker is sick, folks.Quote:
Originally Posted by clocker
He is a sick S.O.B. in real life, too; he made me drive through lousy weather with his RX 7, rather than let me drive the Stealth.
To his credit, as it happens - the weather was lousy, but it was a piece-of-cake for me; he had to drive The Beast...
I almost larfed out loud.
Then, to finish, he has the art to execute a right-lane-inside-out drift, hanging a wheel out there nicely - only to gracefully describe it as the automotive equivalent of a tank-slapper.
He is an aggressive driver, even while behaving...let's just say no one passed us on the way home from the airport, home, where he and his creators maintain supremely comfortable digs, not the least compromised, only enhanced by the fact that real people drink real coffee.
I partook of it with hunger.
Really.
No, really.
This is a treat I only get when I hang with Clocker.
Anyway, I didn't get to take my jacket off and he drags me over to the car.
It was pretty damn cool.
Then he made me drive it.
It stayed cool for the rest of the trip.
Cool abounded.
His parents, (I almost typed your names, there), were cool.
He was cool (the usual, you know).
His friends were cool.
Sigfrid is an awfully enthusiastic car nut who truly knows that cars should be enjoyed in selfish ways on the most regular basis circumstances allow.
I liked him, and I thought he was cool.
He big dumb dog, Romeo, kept me in stitches and dog spit while I was there, and reminded me of home.
Romeo was cool.
His neighbors were half-cool; he walked the dog in a few too-many ways, she was friendly and bubbly.
Their dog wasn't too cool - maybe half-cool, like I said.
There's a theme to this.
Miracles are always stressful.Quote:
Originally Posted by clocker
You did fine.
That car...when it's done, it'll be right, and when it's right, it'll be awesome.Quote:
Originally Posted by clocker
Like an old Cobra, but friendlier, in a slightly, um....evil way, if you follow.
Okay, I did larf a little, there, just in the back of my throat.Quote:
Originally Posted by clocker
You are a fine (foul weather...who knows, maybe even fowl weather) driver.
I got a bit practicing to do (on the F1 part, at any rate).
This will fix the car - as much as it can be, and still consider it streetable.Quote:
Originally Posted by clocker
It's gonna be quite a ride.
Quote:
Originally Posted by clocker
And I'd like to have had a date with Ann-Margret, except now I'm too old for her.Quote:
Originally Posted by clocker
Fix it and report, like.
Bugger the weather.
I said, you're fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by clocker
The Stealth's gearbox shifts like a stick in a bucket of swill, but the car is in all other respects an utterly amazing conveyance.
I did some driving on the way home I wouldn't even attempt in any other vehicle I have ever driven.
Think of it as the World's-most-highly-refined ox-cart, to the tenth-power.
Or something.
I am just so damned pleased about everything that has happened, here.
Really extraordinarily lucky, lately.
More later, as events warrant.
Where are the pics?
Can't get my phone software to play nice with Win 7 64-bit.
Oddly, it seems to be an OS problem rather than 64-bit; it worked fine with Prophesy 64 bit, so.
The pics will be okay on the phone, but I'm still working on that, among other things.
Scouring the Samsung site for a patch for the, um, patch.
Actually.
Bastards at Samsung will probably outlast my phone - hell, it's already 8 months old...
Well, get on it son.
Those parking lot pics should be sweet.
Both the mounting kit and the new gauge panel will be here Friday.
Sigfrid's company has a deal with Fedex and 2 day shipping from Honolulu to Denver was only $50, which is a remarkable deal.
There are some parts we're going to need that I'm hoping to source from the junkyard- primarily an alternator mount- but the weather ain't being real cooperative.
Today looks like the only nice day of the week so I'm going to mush my way over there and lay in the snow to work.
Oh joy.
Well, I saw the kit yesterday and it's pretty much exactly what we were hoping for.
It's the "base" kit, which lacks some lightening holes in the main crossmember and was rather haphazardly sprayed with satin black paint instead of powdercoating.
I'll be respraying it this week with some Hammertone black just to pretty it up some.
We hope to bolt it in next Saturday and are optimistically hoping for a one day install.
This is almost certain to be impossible but the engine/tranny should at least be in place.
No telling yet whether the exhaust will be salvageable with some modification or if we'll just need to start from scratch.
There is also the possibility that the new engine mount pedestals will foul our exhaust manifolds, so we may even need new headers...yikes!
Both Sigfrid and I are baffled by the transmission mount.
The brace we received makes sense (and is far better than what we have now) but which rubber mount we should use is a mystery.
The problem is that this engine/tranny was used by the factory in a wide variety of cars (Camaros, Vettes and even trucks) and they all use different mounting blocks...we need to find out which one to get.
Lots of little details to iron out here...
The "new" gauge panel is a disaster, not at all as advertised.
That is not of immediate importance but needs to be straightened out eventually.
Sigfrid leaves for a week long business trip next Sunday, so I'll be left to deal with whatever is uncompleted after Saturday's session.
If I can somehow get the car drivable enough to bring home we'll be fine but I doubt that'll happen.
Just have to see how this plays out.
I can barely wait to hear how this shakes out.
(See what I did, there?)
I think I forgot to ask what kind of mounts it'll take - standard sandwich types, or.
Anything at all - even solid mounts - should help the vibration problem immensely.
Hope the exhaust clears...
As promised, then - please forgive the cell-phone pictures; I was traveling light - the three cars at Clocker's - The Stealth on the left, Clocker's RX7 in the middle, and Sigfrid's RX7 V8 car on the right.
Oh, yeah - all human impersonations performed by the host -
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r.../Photo0046.jpg
Same thing only backwards:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r.../Photo0045.jpg
Backwards, backwards. I guess.
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r.../Photo0044.jpg
An RX3, with a narrowed differential and slicks; runs a bad little rotary:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r.../Photo0042.jpg
For comparison, size-wise:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r.../Photo0043.jpg
More of Sigfrid's little pocket-rocket - Clocker and I have begun to refer to it as The Beast:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r.../Photo0039.jpg
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r.../Photo0038.jpg
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r.../Photo0037.jpg
Glad you used a cell phone...makes my car look as nice as the other two.
The right cell-camera is like a good paint-job...
I think they all just look - really friggin' red, mostly.
So...we did it.
Mostly.
The conversion went well, if not as quickly as the more optimistic members of the team (Sigfrid & Dan) expected.
The motor and transmission are completely remounted, the new driveshaft and power plant frame are installed.
The new engine cradle moves the engine/tranny back almost 4" and puts us right up to the firewall.
Plenty of room now for a better efan and intake setup.
The boneshaking vibrations are totally gone.
We were also able to go back to the stock shifter and the transmission now feels like a normal car, the agricultural clunks are gone and even reverse is easy to get to.
Amazing difference.
Of course, not all was rosy.
The exhaust is going to need replacing, no way it works with the new setup.
The Optimists thought we'd be able to "cut-n-paste" our system to fit but the mods would be so extensive that a new system makes more sense.
The alternator relocate was a pain.
Sigfrid had purchased a mounting kit but it didn't align the pulleys properly, so it required about an hour of fiddlefucking to make right.
It's good now but the alternator decided to take a dump right as we were going to final test drive her (yup, open headers and all...loud as hell but awesome sound), so a new one is being obtained today.
For some reason, the flange on the new driveshaft didn't mate with our differential, so we had to swap out the flanges.
Not difficult, but another hour spent modifying a "bolt-in" part.
The front lower control arms had to be removed to swap cradles, so our alignment was lost. This was expected but is still one more thing that needs immediate attention.
Only one of the many pics I took turned out so I'll have to redo them when I can but I'll leave with the one that did work...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7.../beginning.jpg
Dan and Sigfrid are marvelling at something, you can see the exhaust and transmission have already been removed and are laying on the floor.
Dan had done quite a bit of planning and his sequence of attack worked perfectly.
We didn't even have to remove the engine and in fact, none of the wiring or coolant system was disturbed, which saved lots of time.
Had the alternator not failed, we'd have driven the car out of the shop Saturday night.
As it is, we now face a few days delay but I finally sense that we might be getting close.
Hurrah!
The final resolution is in sight, at long last.
Yes, it is but things have slowed to a crawl this week.
Sigfrid is out of town on a business trip and Dan is working on customer cars, so the Beast just sits.
Later today I'll be installing the new (junkyard) alternator and after that I don't know what's next.
We had briefly considered changing the headers but the one's we wanted were sold before I could see them.
The car desperately needs an alignment but it's obnoxious to drive with no exhaust.
I might just lay back till Friday and let Sigfrid sort out the schedule.
The guy with the wallet...
...can make shit happen.
But a more impending question is. What are you going to do with yourself when this project is finished bud?
It's going to finish?
Well put. OK it will either finish or you'll expire :shutup: my money's on the later
There is still a goodly amount of work to be done and remember, this car has yet to be driven much, so things we haven't even considered are sure to pop up.
Sigfrid and I have already begun to kick around some ideas for another project.
As long as he can bankroll it, I'm in.
Here's hoping the train keeps rolling.
There may be a few more trips in my future.
New alternator/wiring is in.
I was going to drive the car over to the exhaust shop but the front end is so out of whack that I turned around and came back.
Sigfrid- either braver or more foolhardy than I- is going to pilot it over to get aligned tomorrow morning.
From the alignment shop we're supposed to go for the exhaust but S. has found some potentially useful headers that we may go see instead.
In other words, beyond an alignment, I have no idea what happens next.
Yeah, but that's good.
The adventure continues...
It's just frustrating to get so close and then grind to a halt.
I need the car for at least two days to redo the cooling fan and shorten the shifter and I'd prefer to work in the nice weather we're currently enjoying (60° today!) rather than the cold that's on the way (March and April are traditionally our snowiest months).
Oh well, I have a new brake setup for my car that I can work on...