So the last couple days i've spend a total of about 9 hours under the car. I'm getting burnt out on cleaning guys.... There is OIL everywhere!!!! and there's no easy way to get it off. I need a 1 piece suit and a head mask. and a pressure washer filled with Degreaser instead of water.....and a GIANT vacume that sucks the mess into a tank somewhere outside the gorage.
Anyways.. excuse the rant. I got the Drive shaft off. Degreased.. and started to drop the whole rear sub frame..but luckily.. it truly wasn't that dirty and the paint is in good condition. So i've decided to leave it in and just clean a couple of the parts that needed it. But I pulled my Gunked to eff Diff and pumkin out by removing one of the axles then sliding the thing to the open side. It was easier than I expected but it was pretty dirty. Enough hogswash... heres some pics !
Pumpkin/Diff

Old bushings come out

Sand blasted Diff cradle, then pushed new bushings in.

I'll post pics of the final product later tonight

But check out these old pillow *****.. they actually moved front to back when I shook them!! So worn...


Nothing better than New Parts

 

Keep it up!

If you got under there with some spray de-greaser and put it up on stands as high as you can (and got some goggles), you could probably get under there with a power washer! Just spray everything!

ps: garage

 

Garage* Garage* hey....its just one of those things haha. I'll use the excuse that I type excessively fast lol.

I could get under there with a power washer...but It's in the garage, so it'd be a huge mess to get all the water/degreaser. Plus,...the degreaser I have scares me. I caught a whiff of it a few different times and it instantly singed my lungs.. It honestly hurt. So i feel like i'd need some sort of Breather face mask or protection.

Heres some pics of recent progress...
diff cradle done


And originally I thought I had replaced all the bad pillow *****.. But I ended up ordering the last 2 and installing them yesterday morning because I could feel my wheel move slightly with pressure. But I kinda like installing pillow-*****.. Now that I have my method figured out.. I wouldn't mind doing it for people if they sent me the pillows and suspension arms
anyways..

 

build is looking great, to make degreasing a little easier use some break cleaner then pressure washer, that usually does the trick but make sure to capture the mess as break cleaner in the water system is a big NO NO.

 

Yea I'm gonna go buy a box of brake cleaner

 

Today I didn't get to do much to the fd.. but I got a few little things done. I ordered my thermotec heat shielding material for my tranny tunnel,...which i'm glad they offered an adhesive backed option because I wasn't looking forward to sticky icky hands and having to deal with all that adhesive spray etc. I also bought a Tii Limited slip diff. I have read a decent amount about these and i've talked to a few people including howard coleman about them and everyone says they perform just as good as any of your 1200-1500 dollar units. I could definitely use the extra cash somewhere else with the car so i'm thinking It was a good purchase. Got it off fris from Lucky seven..."Shout Out!!" haha.
So I emptied the diff fluid tonight in prep for the new but used Tii lsd unit and just cleaned the whole pumpkin because again..like everything else under the car...was covered in oily tar.
I also started on my fender roll. Now my car came with a terrible paint job... must be a single stage.. because they forgot to take the mirrors off the doors before they painted it haha. THeres also over-spray in the back hatch on some of my tan plastics.. wtf.. IMO thats just being lazy. But the roll is only halfway done.. I'm only going with an 11 in rear and 10 in Fronts. So I don't want to bow it out too much.. Im just working on making the transition from the upper fender to the flare as smooth as possible. I'll eventually paint the car when i'm done with the body and I get my skirts and front end back in shape.


Oh yea..and I slapped my motor together yesterday in prep to send it off to Howard for the build.
Dynamic Balanced Rotating assembly

Low Mileage weight matched and balanced 3mm Rotors..

my work station haha

And assembly..

nice


Next on the list:
- Freight the motor to Howard
- Thermotec Tranny Tunnel
- Install Tii Limited Slip Diff
- Put rear end back together
- Blast my brake calipers & Paint
- Paint Engine Bay
- Look for someone in CA preferably in LA to widen my wheels and buff the living Eff out of them.

 

post 101, pic 1 shows the big fat rubber bushing (BFRB) that secures the diff... it is one of 2 sets of bushings that need to be "fundamentally transformed" / changed on any serious roadgoing FD.

the other is the front of the lower (longitudinal) link. it is another BFRB and it creates toe change under braking and acceleration. it needs to be solid. you don't want no stinkin toe change in the rear.

those rotor housings look familiar

hc

 

Hey howard.... I put the super pro bushings into the diff Cradle.. Are you meaning that I should push them out and get solid mounts? And by longitudinal link do you mean this part here needs to be solid?
.........

 

yes that is the (missing) bushing.

as to solid or no... there is nothing wrong w a higher durometer bushing to replace the OE marshmallows...

 

Alrighty awesome... they're already replaced then

 

Well my father passed away last week. So i've been out in texas for the funeral and dealing with all the stuff that goes on when someone passes away. But I can honestly say that he's in a better place and that his time had come, I'm just happy that things weren't so bad for him. He was a Vietnam Vet, and had undergone chemo therapy so many times that I never thought he'd make it this far, yet alone be on his feet and fully independant up until his stroke 2 weeks ago and his death 1 week ago. If there was ever anything we shared.. it was the love of automobiles. And i plan on building this car...a car that he'd be proud of.. in his name.

It just motivates me more to build an even better machine

Progress:

Got a couple things in. My aluminized heat barrier from Jegs, which I feel is the perfect size.. but just eye-balling it.. it looks like it's gonna be perfect. It was 24" X 48" so we'll see how that works out. I also got my J-spec Tii Diff in ..and though there's virtually no difference.. it's in excellent shape from what I can see..thanks fris. They even game me a dumb Jegs hat that i'll most likely NEVER wear haha.. and enough stickers and magazine's to feel overwhealmed with opon opening the box..

Tii LSD unit

 

this looks great
keep going on

 

Car is looking great but why the TII diff over the torsen? I can understand for a drag car but not a track car. Unless the JDM TII is also a torsen unit and I jusy don't know it.

 

Alrighty... I spent about 4.5 hours under my car tonight. The brake Cleaner worked excellent, so installing the adhesive backed thermotec heat barrier wasn't too bad. But it is time consuming.
At first I used aluminum foil and coated the entire tranny tunnel and figured I could just trace it onto the big piece of thermo tec.. News flash.. first grade is out and unless you are tracing something flat.. then FORGET IT. So I just went at it, sat under the car and traced and cut..and traced and cut.. but the final product looks excellent. Definitely well worth the 70 bucks and 4.5 hours.
check it..

 

My man sorry for the loss of your pops, the tunnel looks clean, you build will be awsome when you get done. Call simple wheels works in the OC area for your wheel mods.

 

damn dude, your car is coming along nicely. i remember those days when i was single and childless restoring my 69 camaro and then a 1950 chevy pickup. now it seems that all my fd does is sits, i'm a little envious to say the least. good luck ad keep it going dude.

also, sorry to hear about your dad bro, glad you're handling it so well though. good luck

 

wow, this is a great build. I just read all the pages on this. I hope to build mine from the ground up like this but I think I'm going to have to invest in a lift to make life easier

 

Thanks for the kind words, and i'll definitely be giving them a call.

Yea, to tell you the truth.. working on the car is the perfect therapy. Sitting under the car and working on it all together is perfect because i get time to myself to reflect and think about life in general. It's kind of like soul clensing. Thanks for the kind words, i'll be just fine
You know what... I have a small furniture dolly thats completely flat.. That combined with the jack stands all the way high really hasn't been bad at all. The car is about 2 1/2ish feet off the ground. I've had plenty of room. But a lift would be so rad

 

the thermo tec heat barrier on the trannel tunnel makes a night and day difference. definitely worth the money.

 

I'm hoping so... cause that sh*t got hot!!

 

So this morning I took apart the pumpkin to instlal my TII LSD unit. It actually went very smoothly.

OEM Torsen in pumpkin

TII LSD UNIT... Clutch type

Knocked the big rings off both...

Popped axles out and took out the OEM unit


OEM Torsen out of pumpkin


And...pretty much done.

 

Well just from my research... I've read about a lot of guys breaking them. The TII Unit is a clutch type diff... But they're much stronger and seem to suite the track guys better than the OEM fd units.

 

Removed a bunch of the Silicon or whatever the hell this stuff was... What a pain.. Pulled the fender off as well to get some work done this next week. Also just quickly went over the old green with some rattle can black. I can't stand the green hiding in-between and under everything.. ughh..

Before

Took the grinder and wire wheel to it..


If anyone else does it.... lay down some dirty towels or something to catch all the grit.. because it really does get everywhere...

 

The foil job looks really nice, reminds me of NASA or something haha. I know what you mean about the heat. It's ridiculous like a toaster oven or something. Ever try driving around and then changing the oil in one of those pit bays like they have at Jiffy Lube? The amount of heat radiating off the bottom of the car is enough to keep you warm for hours doing an oil change in the dead of winter.

 

It's not actual foil, but thank you much! I just used foil to help me trace out certain hard to get to areas. But yea....you don't have remind me of how hot it gets.. last summer it was 115 out and I was afraid to turn on the ac in the fd haha. My car got to 108 C on my pfc... I was stressed sitting in traffic. It always went down once I got moving...but cali traffic just doesn't move very fast for very long sometimes.. I think this might've contributed to my oil control ring failure. But a new essence will be taken on cooling the motor and keeping everything cool so thats where I'm not going to cut any corners.

I plan on running an oversized custom Radiator in a V-mount configuration with as high a CFM rated dual fans as possible. As well as 2 additional fans on the trailing ends of my dual earls coolers that will be on a toggle for traffic. Everything will be ducted in the most efficient way possible