Preparing for Winter

Other things have taken priority over the car recently. It was good to take a break for a while and come back refreshed. Some builders prefer to push through the build, putting in a little time every day/week. For me that isn't easy, and makes the project seem more like a job than a hobby. I guess I'm a rabbit not a turtle, but this isn't a race...that will come when the car is done...

This past weekend I cleared enough stuff out of the garage to pack in our two daily drivers and the seven, scraping ice off the windows on cold mornings was getting old. Since the seven is on rollers, all I need to do is pull the Sentra outside, then roll the seven to the center of the bay to work on it.

Roller, sort of...

The new right front caliper arrived and it fit over the new pads without any issues. I had tires installed last week, and now that the brakes are done I decided to mount the wheels and take the car off the stands. I bought a motorcycle/ATV jack to help with this and lowered the car one end at a time onto dollies.

Now the fun part, testing the suspension...

Ride height is currently 5.5" rear and 4.5" front. I'll adjust to 5" front and rear to start.

Wheel rates:

Standing on the rear lowered the car by 0.5". So 165lbs/2/0.5" = 165 lbs/in wheel rate...

The front compressed a little more: 165lbs/2/0.55 = 150 lbs/in

Pretty close to my target rates.

One unfortunate discovery, I have a clearance issue with the front rocker (hits the frame at about 1" of bump). I can improve this by adjusting the springs (pre-compress), this will also raise the ride height which I need to do anyway. If this doesn't give me enough travel, I'll have to think about shaving some metal off the rockers or modify the frame rails...minor setback though, overall a good weekend.

Rear Suspension, Brakes

It's been tough finding time to work on the car recently, but I have made bits of progress.
The rear suspension is bolted together and roughly aligned. The ride height I'm shooting for is 5" to the bottom of the chassis. Right now the push rods are adjusted to the shortest length. I may need to shorten them a bit depending on how much the shocks compress with the weight of the car.



I was hoping to finish up the brakes today, but ran into a snag. When installing the right front brake pads, I couldn't get the caliper over the new pads. I tried compressing the piston some more, but nothing budged. At first I thought the pads might be too thick, but moved on to the left side and everything went together fine...

After comparing the calipers, I could see that the piston was sticking out farther on the right caliper than on the left. I tried pressing it back with a vice, no luck, then decided to pull the piston out and check for debris/damage. Everything looked fine. It went back in until it clearly bottomed out, but still stuck out more than the left...rather than waste any more time, I ordered another caliper on-line, and moved on to the brake lines.



I was able to finish the brake lines, so all that remains for the brakes is to paint/install the new caliper when it arrives, and finish routing the e-brake cable.

Front Suspension

I was able to put in a few hours on the car this past weekend and assemble the front suspension. Mark, a co-worker, helped fabricate plates for the rocker arms. Everything went together well. I'll need to remove the a-arms later to finish the body work, but I wanted to check clearances, and get measurements for the steering arm extensions. While putting things together I realized there is room to attach a sway bar linkage directly to the rocker arms (if needed). It'll almost look like I planned it that way.

Fuel, Driveshaft, Brakes

While the wife and kids are enjoying an extended stay with the inlaws, I'm plugging away on the car.

Fuel tank, filters, pump and lines are mounted, Just need to add some foam to the fuel tank mounting straps (on order). The 8mm bike quick connect fittings seem to match the 5/16" fuel filter fittings and banjo fitting on the fuel pump (5/16" = 0.3125" = 7.9375mm). I'll cross my fingers when I pressurize the fuel system and hope for no leaks.


Differential and driveshaft are installed/mounted/torqued with locktite, lock washers, lock nuts where possible. I marked the bolt heads to make it easy to detect loosening. Note to self, make checklist of critical fasteners...


The tunnel should give me adequate protection in the case of a driveshaft failure, but I'm thinking to add a hoop or two just in case, to minimize potential travel and therefore damage to the tunnel...oh yeah, and my legs...

And I started running brake lines. I decided to use standard fittings all the way to the flex lines. My initial plan of using adapters got me worried as I started running the lines and ended up stripping the threads on one of the adapters.

Driveshaft Adaptor

Installing the drive shaft adaptor was a little more involved than I was expecting (a common occurrence as I progress though the build)

In order to get the proper engagement of the splines, I needed to machine about 0.080" off of the spacer that the bike sprocket bolts up to.

Instructions from Hawk http://www.hawkmachine.com/Parts.htm#20 :


Removing the spacer took some persistance, and help from a nice set of gear pullers borrowed from work. Here's a picture after the spacer was shortened and re-installed. There's 0.580" of spline length exposed, just over the minimum recommended.


The next challenge was installing the adaptor itself. I bought a 36mm socket to fit the sprocket nut, only to find that it didn't fit inside the adaptor....nothing a little, I should say a lot, of grinding couldn't solve...



Adaptor finally installed and ready for driveshaft.

The build goes on...

It's been a while since I've posted any updates, but I have been plugging away.
I bought a driveshaft from http://www.a1driveshaft.com/ in Baltimore. I haven't had a chance to test fit it yet, but overall the quality looks good.

I still need to figure out the halfshafts, so far none of the driveshaft shops I've spoken to want anything to do with them...

Engine, steering rack, steering column, brake and clutch pedals are installed.


I also remade the paddle shifter due to clearance issues with the steering quick release knob.

Final Assembly Begins

Floors are done and I'm ready to move on to final assembly. First to go in will be the engine and diff so I can get measurements for the driveshaft.

There are still a few things I'll need to fabricate along the way, but the majority of the work going forward will be bolting parts together.

Here's the finished floor:

Flooring

Good progress over the holiday weekend. The weather was good enough that I could finish painting the chassis. I'm glad to have that out of the way, dust from the over spray got everywhere...

I cut the aluminum for the floor and drilled holes for rivets. Galvanic corrosion has been at the back of my mind as I've been thinking about how to attach the aluminum floors to the steel chassis (with stainless rivets). I've heard a range of range of opinions from don't even worry about it, to your car will fall apart unless you do XYZ elaborate procedure...

In the end I decided to error on the side of caution, and minimize the potential of contact between aluminum and steel. Since the chassis is painted, the biggest area of concern is the contact between the stainless steel rivet, and the aluminum floor. I'll spray the aluminum in this area with a self etching primer, an may dab some silicone in the hole as I install the rivets.

Floor with holes marked and drilled:


Using a drill with a rivet to clear the area around each hole for self etching primer.

...sanding

I had some free time to work on the car today. The weather wasn't bad, so I decided to wet sand the chassis before final painting...rolling on the primer left a pretty rough finish...
I sanded the entire chassis, but focused mostly on the tubes that will be exposed.



I also spray painted a few brackets grey, the color I was planning to use for the chassis. I think I'll go with white after seeing the white primer. The lighter color will make it easier to inspect the chassis for cracks, and the other components (brackets etc.) will stand out a bit.

One more nice day and the chassis painting will be done...

Primed and ready to go

I cleaned the frame up last night and applied a coat of primer today using a small roller and brush. It's a tedious process getting into all the corners and hidden surfaces. Looking back, spraying might have been quicker, but I wanted to avoid a lot of overspray dust. I may give spraying a try for the top coat.

I was planning to use gray for the topcoat, but the white primer looks pretty good...