More room in the Shop
A car is a lot more compact when it is all put together. Parts take up a lot of space. This is the expensive part. I’m trying my best to limit that but sometimes you don’t have a choice. Other times, you do and still decide financial burden. I mean, reuse all the old (perfectly fine) crappy components on a freshly painted car? I can’t bring myself to do it. However, I can reel myself time to time in the name of expediency and frugality(a real word?).
I have been quite busy since the last update. The big effort being a whole new brake system front to rear, fuel plumbing, re-plating hardware, pedal box assembly, and finding parts seven(!) years after I took them off the car. I can and have been doing a few things in parallel and make some modest progress but it’s hard to complete one task completely. The problem is, most of these tasks are serial. I can’t bend the new lines without the master cylinder in. I cant put the master cylinder in until I get my powder coated parts back, can’t assembly those until I re-plate the hardware and on and on. But what I can do is work on something else! So this game of round robin continues until I save enough to get the parts I need to do the thing that lets me do the other things.
Brakes: I bought stainless lines from the Thestopshop.com. Their prices were reasonable and they shipped them quickly. I also bought stainless fuel line from them as well. The brake fittings I got from amazon, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B097VZNGNS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
I got this line bender
Amazon.com
and this flaring tool
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Then I 3D printed some mold parts.
All in all they turned out quite well. I can make more so if you need a set, $25 shipped but it will take a few days to get them all molded.
I bought new flex brake hose from ebay that claimed to be NOS brake hose, it was cheap and looks the part.
With the brake lines bent up and all in place I turned to the fuel lines. I decided to run the line under the driver side which is where I think the return for the Tii originally went. It turned up at the pedal box and used flex hose to the filter king mounted above it. I bought a cheap fuel pump from RockAuto and mounted it in front of the fuel tank under the car. To do this I bent up a little bracket and welded on a nut that the pump “P” bracket can screw to. It came out ok.
Please ignore the cobb webs.
I had a E21 clutch master cylinder from a while back that I thought was a direct replacement for the 2002. Turns out it’s not. With a 2002 clutch master cylinder costing about $180 I figured I’ll try to make the cheap $40 E21 one work.
I turned down a cylinder out of 6061 on the lathe and had some 3/8” 6061 flanges cut from SendCutSend. This took two iterations as initially I used a 1/8" flange and planned to use a nut behind it but didn't have enough room. So I had to bump up flange thickness and thread it. I made an offset fixture for the lathe to turn down the center of the flange while leaving bosses on the ends. I think it came out pretty well.
I tapped the flanges for M8 x 1.25 Heli-Coils then welded it all up. The weldment fit up quite nicely and while technically didn’t save me much money, I do have material to make 5 more assemblies. So, let me know if you want one!
So, brakes done, clutch done, fuel done. Next big hurdle is get the engine in. With the help of a few friends we got the engine off the stand, mounted to the subframe, fit up the trans, and slid the whole assembly under the nose of the car.
We incrementally lowered the car until it was time to raise the subframe. It took about 2 hours to get the engine set.
Engine in! Now wiring. This is a big task.
First, I molded firewall grommets using the ID from this thread for the wiring harnesses. On the passenger side, I made some plugs for the air conditioning holes.
I started unwrapping all of the electrical tape and replacing it with Tessa Tape. I got a pack of it from amazon and it is much nicer to work with. I also bought new electrical contacts and a crimp tool. It took me a little while to track down these parts so here’s the list of what I found works well for replacing contacts.
These are the parts from Digi-key:
1 |
A100614CT-ND 42098-2 |
CONN QC TAB 14-18AWG 0.25 CRIMP | $0.17 ea. | |||||
2 |
A1420-ND 60620-1 |
CONN PIN 14-20AWG CRIMP TIN | $.0.25 ea. | |||||
3 |
A1421-ND 60619-1 |
CONN SOCKET 14-20AWG CRIMP TIN | $0.23 ea. | |||||
4 |
A27925CT-ND 60701-1 |
CONN QC TAB 10-14AWG 0.25 CRIMP | $0.27 .ea |
|
5 |
A36375-ND 42238-2 |
CONN QC RCPT 14-18AWG 0.25 | $0.22 ea. | ||||
5 |
180384-2-ND 180384-2 |
CONN QC RCPT 10-12AWG 0.25 | $0.33 ea. |
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I also got these heat shrink connectors from amazon for the connections that are not in a housing. Qibaok 320 PCS Heat Shrink Spade Connectors Amazon.com
WWW.AMAZON.COM
To properly crimp all of these onto the wires I got this crimper set. It works quite well especially for the price point. HKS Ratcheting Crimping Tool Set 9 PCS Amazon.com
WWW.AMAZON.COM
I bought extra wire to splice in where needed and run new wires. I also got battery cable. I got it all from tinnemarinewire.com. Their prices were much more reasonable than the majority of other vendors I found. And they shipped very quickly.
I blasted parts at home then had a generous coworker who got them looking nice all powder coated. I also prototyped the gauge pod. I will probably do one more (or two) iteration to better marry the dash bump for the the gauge cluster. |
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Edited by peterman
- 1
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