It's your garden-variety 1/16" wrinkle-one-side ABS. I bought a 4x8' sheet for $60CDN.
Enough to probably do the '61 Apache, as I think that's why they rust so badly - they have nothing.
It's your garden-variety 1/16" wrinkle-one-side ABS. I bought a 4x8' sheet for $60CDN.
Enough to probably do the '61 Apache, as I think that's why they rust so badly - they have nothing.
At a big box store ?
Clever on the heat gun, I was wondering how you were going to make all the curves.
As for their appearance, they look fine to me, and if they do their job of keeping debris out of places it doesn't need to be they're perfect. Don't need to be beautiful, just functional.
Local shop called "Interior Plastics."
It's hard to save money when the cheap stuff has to be shipped in, and you order the wrong part.
Grrr.
The back brakes were always "iffy" all last fall, despite copious bleeding (great for smoke shows....).
I had bought a new master from the local auto parts store, but while it bench bled really nice, it didn't fit the pedal pin very well, then the snap ring popped out of the back, and it leaked out the back as well. I was not impressed, and I took it back.
I recently ordered a rebuild kit for the master, off eBay with free shipping. How could I go wrong?
I'll tell you how - by not researching enough to discover that while all the kits you can get say they are for rear "disc" brakes, the one for rear drums (which I have) is actually the rear disc "performance brakes" master. Which, obviously, is not the one I ordered.
I found this out AFTER I removed the master:
Drained it and disassembled it:
And took the kit out of the bag:
Oh look. I'm an idiot:
So.... it sits until I get another master. New. For $8 more than a kit. This time ordered from Rock Auto which actually ships quite quickly AND IS CHEAPER EVEN WITH SHIPPING, than my local suppliers.
In more successful news.....
I DID get the right outer tie-rod ends:
I'm using S10 spindles and a Chevette rack. In building the car, I shortened the inner tie-rods as much as I could, and shortened the outer tie rods and much as I could. This allowed zero toe with zero room for adjustment. It worked.
Until I did my messing around with wheel placement, which ultimately moved the spindles forward and gave me improved dynamic Ackerman (yay!). Except this meant I had less than 14mm thread engagement on a 14mm thread (boo!).
So I ordered new Chevette outer tie rods for dirt cheap off Rock Auto, only to discover once they got here that I wasn't using Chevette outer tie rods (ok, so there is some fail). Luckily, MOOG has a sweet outer-tie-rod-finder-out-inator. Turns out I was using outers from a '93 Camaro. So, either I knew this going in and put Camaro ends on the Rack as I walked out of Pick-N-Pull, or I suffered some head-trauma that didn't result in a Wankel or a Flux Capacitor. I seriously don't remember, and I didn't write anything down.
At any rate, I ordered some cheap Camaro tie rod ends from Rock Auto, and tonight I trimmed them down only enough to get zero toe.
Was hoping on getting insurance this week, but I'm waiting for brakes. Again.
I guess I could do other things. Like backup lights. And a neutral safety switch.
New master is bench-bled and installed. Gotta re-connect the pedal and rod, then bleed on the car.
I have insurance and plates for another year.
And got sidetracked by a snow-balling "I'm going to paint the living room over spring break" nugget.
Inter-sprinkled by a trip to Raincouver. And catching a cold.
But I'm good now! More! More! More!
Ok. I've been daily driving this things for a bit.
It's not for me.
It's giggles of fun, but i'm not in love with it.
I think I'm going to sell it at the end of the year. Maybe Bring-a-trailer or something.
Any idea what this thing is worth? I have $2500US into it.
What don't you like about it? I'm too close..... I like it.
Ordered a 154cfm fan to replace the paltry baby fart fan I have for defrost. With spring rain upon me, the window fogs up way to easily. Should be here in a couple of weeks.
What do I not like about it? Not sure. It's cool, but it's not a keeper. It's rather unrefined, and while it could be refined by someone who is in love with it, I'm not in love with it enough to do that.
I have only loosecannon to blame for this:
In reply to SkinnyG :
Most excellent. If you do part ways with it please let us GRM folks know! I'm in WA :)
I will certainly let y'all know here.
So far, I'm intending to put it on BringATrailer at the end of the summer. I may change my mind though.
I have a good offer on the '77 C10, but dude needs to come up with the money (I'm not holding my breath).
All of this will be funneled into my '61 C10.
I have an idea in my head of what I would like to get for it, but I don't know its perceived value by others.
In reply to SkinnyG :
Best of luck on the contest!
Been driving the Firefly every day for a while.
I put it up on the hoist today to change the pinion angle, as I suspect that might be causing a vibration.
Internet lore suggests making the pinion angle match that of the transmission. Which makes sense. Until you build something that doesn't make sense.
Currently, the trans points down -4.5°, the driveshaft points up 1.1°, and the pinion points up 3.2°. I set the pinion less than the trans to account for bushings. Theoretically, this should be fine.
Except the working angle of the front u-joint is 5.6°, which is excessive (the trans-to-driveshaft angles are like "v" - apparently you want 3° or less).
And the working angle of the rear u-joint is 4.3°, which is excessive (the driveshaft-to-pinion angles are like ^ (upside down V) )
I did some researching, and playing around, and apparently you really don't want angles of an upsidedown V at the pinion, as the angle will get even worse in deflection or load. Which means my 4.3° working angle will be even worse.
So I changed the pinion to (up) 1.5°, which made the driveshaft 0°, giving a front working angle of 4.5° and a rear working angle of 1.5°. We'll see what difference this makes. I may try and raise the trans.
Last fall I had exorbitant levels of wheel spin. Over winter I raised the front location of the lower 4-link trailing arms, and I -think- I lowered the front upper arm location as well.
This (plus new and sticky tires, plus a limited slip) improved traction considerably. But, I could use more.
Because this is a triangulated 4-link, the upper arms locate the back axle laterally as well as set the rear roll center. The instant center can then only be set by the angle of the lower arms. I drew everything I had up in CAD and found that I am really close to the "neutral line" of no squat and no lift, just erring on the side of squat. If I raise the lower arm front location more, the instant center shortens dramatically but the instant center will cross up into the "lift" zone of 4-link love. This could be good. If I raise both trailing arm forward mounts, the instant center will be a really good length and a really good location, but the roll center starts to get high. Tough to find the balance between a corner-carver and a drag car. Master of Neither.
Maybe I need to meet the Nelsons.
Complete with noisy shaky camera mount (sorry, I didn't know):
Haven't tried the car yet, but I think I have these angles all wrong....
If I remember correctly, you just want the output of the trans to be parallel to the input of the diff. Think of it as 2 parallel lines connected by the driveshaft.
That is the general rule-of-thumb, yes.
But it kinda goes out the window if the car is lowered enough that the driveshaft has to travel -up- to the differential.
Does not mater if it is up, down or side ways if they are parallel and the angle of the shaft does not exceed the the usable angle on the u joint it should work well. Although as I think about it some times a little rotation of the diff to counter axle wrap on hard acceleration is sometimes used, but mostly for drag racing.
This discussion was quite informative, note the responses from Ron Sutton:
Hey, just trying to get caught up, I see you're having rear traction problems with a triangulated 4-link rear suspension. With this kind of suspension, you should ideally have complete freedom of movement at each end, like with a spherical bearing, otherwise you'll get bind which will contribute to your traction problems.
Looking back I see that you used cylindrical bushings at each end, which is a nightmare scenario for this kind of suspension. If you replace some or all of these bushings with something that will allow more freedom of movement, that should help. Spherical bearings are ideal from a performance perspective but are far from ideal in terms of cost, maintenance and NVH. Superflex joints are enclosed spherical bearings that are better at keeping dirt out.
You could also get a torus-and-hourglass joint from a Land Rover, those give good freedom of movement for a bushing, but I think you'd have a hard time fitting those huge joints into such a small car. You could try rigging up something similar with a couple of hemispherical bushings and washers, similar to what you see on some upper shock mounts (like stock Samurai fronts for example).
I had straight-line traction problems as a result of 12 year old Kumho 711's, an open diff, a V8 in a 2400lb car, 60% front weight bias, and an eye-balled 4-link that I actually found to give me squat instead of anti-squat.
Plus enjoyably heavy application of throttle.
Today I went from a pinion angle of nose-up 1.5° to now nose-down 1.5°. This also made the driveshaft now 0.2° down, producing a working angle at the rear u-joint of 1.3° which is very good. I did not check the front.
I also re-centered the axle because apparently I was drunk when I changed things last. I am also now out of pinion adjustment I put into the upper arms.
Took it for a rip out on the highway, and it seems to vibrate a LOT less. I'll know more on my morning commute (with no stereo but glasspacks; I have lots of time to think).
ALSO:
Whilst I was making changes over Christmas, I had pulled the TH350 governor and chopped off a fair bit of weight. The same amount I cut off the governor in my '77 Silverado. Only now that it's back on the road, it made the transmission was shift WAY after the poor 305 was finished making power. Like, WAY past.
So, I yoinked an un-molested governor from yet another TH350 I had, and plunked it in there. Shifts nicer now.
ALSO:
Mucked with the shifter adjustment so that D is actually D, not half-way between Neutral and Drive.
Ran my first autocross in the Firefly today. No drama.
1. The car is NOT diabolical. It feels and handles pretty darn good. This was unexpected.
2. The rear 4-link bushings are giving me corner-exit wheelspin. I was expecting more snap oversteer, but no - wheelspin. This was not exactly what I was expecting, but not surprising.
Now, do I go to spherical rod ends to deal with that, or fuggedaboutit? It's just fine as a street car, and not even really scary as an autocrosser. Hmmmmm.....
Vid to follow....
Went for a walk around the neighbourhood with Mrs. Skinny. A dude is in his driveway tinkering with a 924. We chat cars for a bit, neat guy. We talk projects. I mention that my last project was an old Firefly. "Is that the red one with the V8 in it?" he asks. "I heard it first, sitting on my deck, and thought nothing of it. Then I saw it drive past; my jaw hit the floor."
Good times.
THAT is why I built it.
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