CR3171 Finally going back together!

[leroy17]

I know that I have said it before, but this never gets old.

Mike, you have got to be a very happy camper as this is looking fantastic.

I have restored things in the past (never a car....yet) and the re-build after all the machining work, repair, re-paint etc is the really fun part.

That rear shot with that much rubber........yep... that's what a cobra is about.

[Aussie Mike]

Didn't get as much done as I hoped on the weekend. Lots of fiddly jobs and other jobs in the back yard used up all my time. It didn't help that Bathurst was on TV either.

Got the sway bar links sorted. They are made from a male and female rod end screwed together. I had to keep shortening and shortening them to get adequate clearance to the drive shaft through the full suspension travel. I machined a collet so I could grip the female rod end in the lathe and face the end off square for the jam nut. In the end there wasn't even space for the jam nut. I had to grind the end of the male thread so it bottomed out with the ends in the right orientation. It'll do the job.



Trial fitted the fuel tank to see what it looked like with the supension in place and the wheels on the ground. Also wanted to reassure myself that the mounts were OK. I can stand on the tank and bounce the rear suspension up and down and the mounts feel strong. Very scientific testing.



Got a lot of the front suspension components blasted, painted and re installed. The uprights are stripped apart blasted and waiting for paint.



One of the time wasting exercises was searching up all the bolts and spacers. I've put them away somewhere safe but couldn't find them. In the end I just machined up all new spacers for the shock mounts.



Hope you all had productive weekends

Cheers

[jcraigau]

Originally Posted by Aussie Mike

Hope you all had productive weekends

Not nearly as productive as yours! :-)

[spookypt]

Mike, have you set your accusump on any angle?

Taken from "Accusump™" The sump will work with the tube in any position or orientation; however, if possible, mount the tube with the oil end (the end with the oil valve) slightly higher than the air end. This will prevent accumulation of air bubbles
(coming from foam in the oil) by purging any minor air pocket during pre-oiling, when it will not cause any harm."

Might be of value +/- ?

Spookypt

[Aussie Mike]

Thanks for that Spooky, I didn't get any documentation with the Accucump. I'll have to go online and do some reading.

It'd be easy enough to put a spacer under one end of the cylinder mounts to raise it up slightly.

Cheers

[Aussie Mike]

It's rolling!!!!

Another milestone tonight. It's finally back on 4 wheels. Hooray!

I blasted and painted the uprights through the week and finished bolting everything up tonight.

It was good fun putting it back together but I spent too much time hunting for nuts and bolts. I thought I'd sorted them into the right boxes when I pulled the thing apart.

Here's the front brakes back together. 343mm x32mm DBA5000 2 piece rotors that I got from Phil M after he upgraded to 360mm rotors. Like the rear I re-drilled them and machined the center bore to suit the ford pattern hubs.



Here's the front hats chucked up in my old lathe to machine them to fit.



I'm not sure if you had seen the front hubs when I made them originally. The uprights are Jag XJ6 and they originally have a rotor that bolts to the back of the hub. I machined new hubs from aluminum to run on the Jag bearings but a Ford stud pattern and offset to suit a hat style rotor.



I like the hat style rotor as I reckon they have better airflow through them and don't require removing the front hub to replace.

Here's the wheel bolted on. The brakes sure do fill up the wheel rim. There's hardly clearance for wheel weights and I reckon a 330mm rotor would be a more comfortable fit.



The paint on the upright and steering arms turned out fine but it didn't like the aluminium of the caliper brackets and there are a few fish eyes. It's a hammered metal finish but it reacted a bit too much on the alloy. Not a problem as It blasts off easy enough. However the plan is to make some new caliper brackets next winter so I'll leave them for now. The new brackets will combine the steering knuckle. That way I can remove the heavy steel steering arm but more importantly the new brackets will allow adjustment of the front bump steer.

That 17" wheel is chock a block full of brake. An 18" rim or 330mm rotor would be a better combination.



Sitting on the ground again. It's good to see it like this.





Got to get the steering rack sorted now and then look at putting the motor and box back in.

Cheers

[Aussie Mike]

The more I look at the black painted wheel centers the more I'm not liking them. You just lose the distinctive shape of the spokes unless you are up close.

I've got to pull the rims apart to properly polish the outer rim (it's looking a bit dull) so I'm thinking I'll blast the centers and clear coat them. Here's what the center looked like when I'd blasted them before paint. What do you reckon?



Cheers

[guye]

I agree Mike, the black spokes do get a bit lost. What colour will your body be?

[leroy17]

Hi Mike,
As always, looks awesome. Aside from praise, I have nothing to add on your topics. However I found that when I had wheels like you got, I did two things which improved the look (in my opinion anyway).
Got rid of the gloss and have a Matt or a satin finish (satin clear over the raw would look good).
Replaced the bolts with low head bolts. These then nearly sit flush with the wheel. I had these hot black oxide coated, so there was no rusting and they stayed black. This was done by a guy in vic (can find details if you want).
This is a pic as a reference, I had a grey colour mixed by a mate who does powdercoat and this was covered with a satin clear.

[leroy17]

Oops, double post. Here is another pic.

[Dimis]

I reckon wheels depend on the colour of the body.

Blqck would look great if you chose a similar colour scheme to your Yamaha for instance.
But if your thinking of going a different colour, like say blue or red then my personal preference would be the natural sandblasted colour or a lighter shade as Leroy has done.

[Aussie Mike]

Been working on the Motor and box. Getting them ready to bolt back in.

Did a couple of mods the the C6 Corvette sump and bolted it back on. One catch I found is that the C6 Corvette sump has a bolt hole that isn't drilled on the LS1 block.



I carefully drilled and tapped the block to suit.

I also added an oil return fitting for the catch can but I didn't take a pic. I'll snap a pic when the whole system is in place.

One thing to remember when refitting the sump is that it's a stressed member. It provides some extra stability to the bottom end. For this reason it needs to be fitted properly. You need to bolt it up with the bell housing in place since the bell housing also bolts into the back of the sump. Get the bell housing bolts in and snugged up but not tight before torquing up the sump bolts down. This will keep the back of the sump and the back of the block in alignment. Bolting the sump without the bell housing could cause the bell housing to distort when tightened into place. The sump gasket is an O-ring bonded to an aluminum plate so you can't crush the gasket. It also pays to put a blob of silicon sealer on the corners where the front and rear covers attach to the block. These are spots where the surface isn't smooth and there is potential for a leak.

The gearbox is stripped for a freshen up. I've got a few new goodies to go into it plus some refinements from the other gear boxes I've done.

A job I did while the box is apart is to modify the bell housing for clearance. The C6 Corvette sump has the best ground clearance of all the wet sumps. This leaves the lower edge of the bell housing as the lowest point. The lip on the sump hangs about 8-10mm lower than the sump.



The Mill makes short work of the lip. I only skimmed it down till it got to the outer shell of the bell housing. I didn't want to remove too much material and impact the strength. It's still about 6mm at the thinnest point.



It was quite hard to take a pic of but the sump to bell housing is now a nice smooth transition.



Hopefully I'll get the box back together this week and have the engine and box in the chassis on the weekend.

Cheers

[Gav]

That's a good idea getting rid of any protrusions under your car Mike, you don't want anything extra down there for the fluff bunnies to catch on...

[Aussie Mike]

I'm just remembering the number of times I went off the track at winton, sliding over the ripple strips.

[Aussie Mike]

I remember you being in the passengers seat for on of those off track excursions Gav.

[Gav]

Still brings a smile to my face too Mike!

[Aussie Mike]

More engine tinkering.

LS motors have steam cross over pipes between the heads. I think this is a great idea as they help get air pockets out of the cylinder heads and make for a more efficient cooling system. The LS1 has all 4 corners connected via a complicated manifold of pipes joined together. With the Edelbrock manifold all that plumbing is out in the breeze on display. There was a line running under the manifold connecting the front together with the rear but I deleted it and silver soldered up the pipe.



I was never very happy with how it turned out as it looked a bit ordinary with a coat of black paint to hide the solder repairs. I'd seen a kit on the web that used AN fittings and braided hoses. It had some neat little adapters to bolt in place where the steam pipes attached to the heads. I thought about making one but then found on closer inspection that there's plenty of material to drill and tap 1/8" NPT holes directly into the heads.



I had some AN-3 Teflon hose left over from another project so bought a few fittings and here's the end result. Looks a bit more race car this way



When I puled the gearbox I removed the clutch to check it was OK. All was fine with the clutch but when bolting it back on I thought about the clutch cover bolts I had used. When setting it up originally I used ARP flywheel bolts but clutch cover bolts weren't readily available. I used good quality Alan head cap screws instead. When at the local parts store collecting AN fittings I saw they had the ARP bolts on the shelf so bought a set.



Bolting up the pressure plate gave me the opportunity to use a gadget I bought some time back. It's a digital torque wrench. It just clips onto your regular breaker bar or ratchet handle and instant torque wrench. It reads in ft/lb or Nm. You preset the torque you want and the LED will glow when you get close and then it beeps when you hit your mark. The display also shows how much torque you are applying as you go. A bit of a fun tool to play with.




I like having a work bench you can sit a motor on.

Cheers

[deano59]

all looking good there mike .work benches def make it easy ive seen those torque wrenches before but im a bit old fashioned I still use my old warren brown wrench I got given as a gift when I started my apprenticeship when I was 18 yrs old im now 55 and ive lost count of the amount of engines ive put together with it I get it checked for calibration from time to time in all those yrs it's only needed tweaking twice but its also one of the few tools I never lend out to anyone . im happy to go round and tension up what ever it is they need doing but it never leaves my hands . keep up the good work I enjoy reading your post as im sure many others do .
cheers dean

[DaveW]

Hi Mike, what's the plug(sensor) next to the oil pressure sensor on the block below the steam vent tube?

[Aussie Mike]

I'm a bit of a fan of tools. For a long time I've been of the opinion that I'll buy the tools and do the job myself rather than pay someone else to do the job. Some times it doesn't work out but most times it does and I learn something in the process. I've also got the tools for next time or a similar job that can use those tools.

I've got an old school 1/2" drive torque wrench that I've had for 24 years and It's done lots of motors and other jobs. When I picked up the digital torque wrench I set it up in the vice and used it to check the old torque wrench and it was still pretty accurate. One handy thing with the digital one is you can use it to accurately set the torque on the old school wrench and then use it like normal. Especially important if you have to get into a hard to reach spot where the digital unit won't fit.

One thing I will have to look at getting is a torque angle gauge. A lot of the bolts these days are torque to yield where you tighten them to a set torque value and then turn them another x degrees.

Glad some folks are enjoying the posts. I get a lot out of posting as it helps me to continually make progress.

Cheers