Sprocket's Competition

[Detale]

When you start the fab work man, don't forget the camera! I love watching stuff like this come together.

[j2k4]

Friends don't let friends ride Harleys.

Agreed, but it was perfectly suitable for a low-speed pass through the bar.

[clocker]

Friends don't let friends ride Harleys.

Agreed, but it was perfectly suitable for a low-speed pass through the bar.

It could be argued- successfully, I'd wager- that low speed passes through bars are precisely and exclusively what Harleys are "perfectly suited" for.

It has recently been discovered that Harleys are more frequently waxed than other vehicles (Paris Hilton not counted) and are therefore excellently efficient carnuba consumers.
As soon as a really positive spin can be developed ("Is there a carnuba layer in the atmosphere that needs depleting?" or "Is carnuba a shark repellent?"), HD will proudly join the ranks of the elite GREEN corporations, shepherding our future to it's best and most utopian result.

[j2k4]

Agreed, but it was perfectly suitable for a low-speed pass through the bar.

It could be argued- successfully, I'd wager- that low speed passes through bars are precisely and exclusively what Harleys are "perfectly suited" for.

It has recently been discovered that Harleys are more frequently waxed than other vehicles (Paris Hilton not counted) and are therefore excellently efficient carnuba consumers.
As soon as a really positive spin can be developed ("Is there a carnuba layer in the atmosphere that needs depleting?" or "Is carnuba a shark repellent?"), HD will proudly join the ranks of the elite GREEN corporations, shepherding our future to it's best and most utopian result.

Harley's lame claim to fame is that it's two-cylinder configuration leaves plenty of available cylinders for the impending environmentally-conscious 'cylinder credit' program.

Ducati fans are aghast.

[clocker]

The tracking # for the missing steering knuckle finally went live, should be delivered tomorrow.
That will be the final piece needed to complete this latest stage of work...I hope.

This upcoming Saturday should be very interesting as many of our remaining issues should get addressed all at once.
I hope to get her to the alignment shop next week.

I'm kinda excited.

[j2k4]

I'm knowing the feeling.

[clocker]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

After last week's unexpectedly rapid progress, we started work yesterday with very high hopes.
Ah, optimism.

As a teaser, I'll tell you that the car did sit all four wheels on the ground...


...but only briefly.
Here's why.

Our two main projects for the day were to bleed the hydraulics and finish installing the steering rack.
I also had a few (surprise!) cosmetic enhancements to throw into the mix and naturally, we gravitated to the fun/easy stuff first (strong coffee and high grade bud make for a bad decision making process...).

Since first laying eyes on Sigfrid's car, the stamped chrome valve covers have
bothered me and last weekend- as a milestone appeared to be in reach- I pulled the covers and was determined to do something about them.
Ferrari Red wrinkle finish was what I had in mind.

I only had about a half a can of this left (I used it on my engine this summer) and was unable to locate any in stock locally, which was a problem.
There was also the matter of prepping the chrome plated surface so the paint would have a prayer of actually sticking, another problem.

Last Monday, I decided to completely scrap the covers and start anew.
Went junkyarding and by Wednesday had acquired a set of stock Chevy covers, physically identical to ours but painted black.
Cleaned 'em up and sprayed on some Hammertone Black to spiff them up.
Bought some new PCV grommets and valve, along with mounting bolts.

S. was quite pleased and we immediately started installing them which, in and of itself is but a matter of minutes but lead to about an hour of rearranging/tweaking hose and wiring runs to neaten things up.
Meanwhile, the real work awaited.
Here is a really crappy shot of the bay when we finished...


Trust me, it looks much better in person.

When approaching a project such as this, an overarching aesthetic should be determined from the get-go.
There are basically two paths that can be taken- all out custom where every bracket and part is custom machined/finished and it's obvious that major work has been done or, a "stealth" approach which uses OEM (albeit from several different manufacturers) parts and attempts to appear as though the car was factory assembled.
We went for the second, cheaper look (custom machined parts are expensive!) and tried to make the bay as clean and organized as possible.
So far, we think we've attained our goal.

Buoyed by the easy initial success, we moved to bleeding the hydraulics- brakes and clutch.
The brake system was essentially all new and almost every new connection we had made leaked.
Took us over an hour an a half to track down every leak (some connections were difficult to see and we had to guess what we were doing based on the trail of leaking brake fluid) and finally get the brakes buttoned up.
The pedal feel is stellar, we're both quite excited to see how the brakes actually work on the road.

Next, the clutch.
All we had done to that was replace a cobbled together set of fittings connecting the braided line to the master cylinder with a properly sized banjo and the reservoir was changed.
Bleeding this should have been one of our easier tasks, so naturally, it totally kicked our asses.
We have no clutch now and no explanation why.
Of course, when installed, the slave/throwout bearing arm are completely obscured, so we cannot even determine if the slave cylinder is moving.
We get resistence from the pedal- it almost feels normal- but cannot shift into gear.
It's logical to assume that we simply have a bleeding problem but cannot seem to make any progress and will have to explore for info this week.

Stumped by the clutch, we moved on to the steering rack.

The new tie rod ends worked like a charm.
The steering knuckle connected the rack to the column just as it should.
We had steering!

Well, we had steering until the car was on the ground and we discovered that the FD rack brackets just don't work on the FC rack...at all.
We were aware of the problem but not of the severity.
Indeed, I had already ordered a part to deal with the passenger side mount but shipping delays meant that we didn't yet have it in hand.

The big problem is the driver side bracket.
This bracket actually locates the rack to the subframe and keeps it in place and the FD bracket is quite different from the FC part.
We hoped it would work but it didn't...with the wheels on the ground, turning the steering wheel causes the whole rack to slide side to side till it finally butted up against the smaller FD bracket and started to move the wheels.
Basically, a whole turn of the steering wheel (in either direction) did nothing to steer the car.

Oh well.
The new passenger side bush/bracket will arrive this week and I'll (be trying to ) modify the main FC bracket to work with the FD subframe.
I'm fairly confident this will all work out but we know how that goes.

So, we have a plan for the steering and no clue yet about the clutch.

Although we had high hopes of driving the car by end of yesterday, all in all we're still doing quite well.
In under twenty hours we've redone the complete suspension and brake system and almost swapped in the steering from a completely different car.
All in less than optimal conditions ( a freezing garage with no heat or lighting) and buffered with lots of beer and pharmaceuticals to ease the pain.
A good time has been had by all and really, what more can one ask?

This week I'll be sidetracked by another car project for a few days.
It's kinda secret and will probably not be revealed by me but may make it up here anyway.
How's that for a cliffhanger?

[j2k4]

This week I'll be sidetracked by another car project for a few days.
It's kinda secret and will probably not be revealed by me but may make it up here anyway.
How's that for a cliffhanger?

Is that my cue?

Btw-

Have you checked to make sure the Mazda's clutch disc isn't stuck to the flywheel?

It happened to me, with precisely the same circumstances.

The vehicle had only been idled for about a week-and-a-half, and under similar weather/temp conditions...

[clocker]

Is that my cue?

Yup.

Have you checked to make sure the Mazda's clutch disc isn't stuck to the flywheel?

Not even sure how to go about this...any advice?

[j2k4]

Yup.

Have you checked to make sure the Mazda's clutch disc isn't stuck to the flywheel?

Not even sure how to go about this...any advice?

The only answer I'm aware of is to take the trans down and remove the pressure plate, which grates, because it only takes about two seconds to free the damn disc.

I've thought on occasion opening an inspection cover (if you even have one) may give enough access, but getting the plate to slide back on a good-fitting spline is next to impossible, so.

What it is, mostly, is a really stupid and annoying thing to have happen to good people.

As to the other, I'll see if I can upload some stuff.