Wednesday, June 18, 2008

I HATE grease !!!

I mean I REALLY HATE grease. Today, I decided to install the front rotors and wheel hubs. Here are the parts being used...




The first thing, you do is to install the wheel bearings after packing them with grease. I also had put off actually filling the tie rods and ball joints with grease, so that got added to the list too. I bought some new grease at AutoZone today, because the last stuff I got was not premium stuff, and I had spilled most of it anyway trying to get it loaded into the gun. Well, today I spilled the rest of that as I was taking out the old cannister to replace it with the new. For a while I tried wearing gloves, but that stuff just manages to get everywhere. Mostly on my clothes. (Tomorrow I am going to buy some new shorts that I can wear in public). Eventually, I got the bearings greased, and I think I got enough into the suspension parts previously installed.

Here is a finished picture...


And my reward for a job well done, a Jolly Rancher bombpop from the treat wagon that drove through the neighborhood.


Fortified with frozen goodness, I decided to press on and install the front brakes. It was pretty easy, but kind of surprisingly loose fitting. The brake pads are installed in the calipers and just "float" there. They cannot come off, as the bolts that hold them to the caliper mounting brackets which I installed first are in the way. I checked it online a couple of places and am assured that it is right.

Here is the passenger side (PS) brake on the rotor...


And the driver side (DS)...


Finally, a decent picture showing the DS hub, rotor, and brake...


This finishes Chapter 6. Next up, theoretically, is to run the brake and fuel lines. To do this, however, requires me to make a decision about my engine. The fuel system is different if I choose to use fuel injection (EFI) versus a carburetor--the fuel pump has to be located differently, and there needs to be a special return line from the engine for EFI. Instead, I may work on my wheels, and buy some tires to make what I have a "rolling chasis". We shall see.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Steering rack done

I finished the steering rack today. This turned out to be harder than it should have been. First off, I ordered my kit with Hurricane's power steering option. This is not very popular, but I wanted this car to be easy for anyone to drive. Hurricane, however, drilled the mounting holes in my frame that were 16 inches apart, the right distance for the standard steering rack, but mine needed to be 15 1/2 inches instead. So I had to spend a lot of time using my die grinder to elongate the holes to accomodate my rack. After that, I had to open up the cutaway in the frame for access to the bolt that gets tightened to keep the rack in place. That was a problem because my power rack has a bigger housing to allow for the power steering fluid, piston, etc. I ended up having to cram a file into that hole to be able to tighten it, and even then it broke, just as I was getting it tightened as much as I needed.


The next step was to connect the steering rack to the spindles. This is done with tie rods. As with most builders, I found that my rack was too long, so I had to use my angle grinder and cutoff wheel to lop off about an inch off of each end. Here is one picture showing the tie rods before shortening

Another picture after shortening...

And one with it completely installed...


Next up will be the front rotors and brakes.