The Swap Shop

BrianC72gt (Forum Supporter) said:

On the pedal spring return, YES! that is exactly how it is supposed to work.  The OEMs funkerdoodled the geometry such that it only applies return pressure at the very top of the pedal stroke, so that when the pedal is down you are only pushing against the hydraulic resistance and not the spring.

Thank you so much. It kind of made sense in my head to work like that, I just really have an inclination to overbuild everything so a spring that only worked half the time seemed weird to me.

Keep on keeping on. Love everything your doing. 

This thread makes me want to fill the driveway with fun cars.  Then hope my wife understands when she can't get her car out

I spent most of saturday welding. Again, I don't know how to TIG. So I'm just winging it. I've heard there are lots of good and helpful places to learn such as youtube but I tend to absorb that kind of info much better once I've had 'hands on' for a little to understand what they're talking about. I finished the intercooler and crossover piping. I'm waiting for silicone coupler and some clamps. I'm pretty certain I had a box full of 2.5" couplers but they're hiding until I get the single one from amazon and then I'm sure they'll make an appearance.

Then I started working on the trailer just a little bit. I cut the "nub" off the trailing arm that locates the spring. And in another example of how rusty this car was, it was full of rust. I wire wheeled it and I didn't even need to drill a hole for the airbag locating bolt. I just used a punch and it went right through. I welded up a thick plate washer to help support the bolt. On the plus side, this will really only be stressed if I jump the trailer and the bag is in full droop.

Then I got bored and hungry.

Sunday I spent a large portion of the day at the lake wakeboarding and holy crap did that kick my ass. My shoulders are sore. But I did see this thing that resembles a jeep. I said Panther across the back.

There is an island in the center of the lake with a dozen or so houses on it. I'd half of them have owned amphicars. I think someone got tired of getting splashed by drunk and careless boaters(if any of you have seen an amphicar in the water, it rides LOW). It's amazing how many people own boats, but can't drive them. Similar to cars!

I haven't gotten any word on the clutch slave cylinder for the Jag so that is still stationary on the rack.

I did however drop my wheels off at the machine shop last week to get bored out for the massive hubs on the trans am.

This thread delivers

boy this thread is just, yes.  All yes...

All you are missing in the heinous car ownership trifecta is a Quattroporte.  Do it, sir.   Please. 

golfduke said:

boy this thread is just, yes.  All yes...

 

All you are missing in the heinous car ownership trifecta is a Quattroporte.  Do it, sir.   Please. 

Ha! I test drove one when it came into the used car lot a number of years ago. I think it was an '05 or something. Very nice car but totally not my style. If I were to go bonkers italian niche sedan I'd rob a bank for an alfa romeo giulia quadrifoglio. I can't say it, but I'd drive it!

Approve of every build.  Bravo.  

I love this thread.

Yes. More, pls 

I need to stop reading this thread. It makes me feel like my three car projects with same-make drivetrains are wholly uncreative and dull ;)

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Nothing dull about people enjoying their cars, I've just got that automotiveADD something fierce. And this idea that all cars are legos.

I've had two dud weekends in a row. What a bummer. I attempted to throw the silicone hoses/clamps on the audi90 so I could fire it off and bleed the cooling system from the cylinder head replacement but I gauged the clamp size incorrectly.

2.5" tube + silicone coupler does not fit inside a tbolt clamp that measures max 2.74. Also. Explaining to the counterjockey at oreilly what a tbolt style hose clamp was pained me. He kept thinking I wanted those regular worm drive clamps with a plastic wingnut on them. Yikes. I did see this weird homebrew kart thing at the store. I didn't get a very good look at it but looked like OE style subframes. A definite FWD drivetrain mounted in the back. I also didn't want to be "that guy" asking a million questions when the dude just wanted to grab an air filter or something.

EDIT; That is a TERRIBLE picture...

Then I went over to the trans am to try fitting the wheels and realized I didn't have the machine shop open the centerbore deep enough. It still hits the huge hubs. Damn. I hope he cuts me a deal on the fix, but ultimately it's my fault.

It was at this point I decided to wash the cars and have some beer. I keep meaning to put some tire stickers I have on my e30 but after a few failures beer promises a much better afternoon.

It is a bit hard to tell, but since you are saying FWD drivetrain, in the back I'm thinking its a Goblin. 

https://dfkitcar.com/

AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) said:

It is a bit hard to tell, but since you are saying FWD drivetrain, in the back I'm thinking its a Goblin. 

https://dfkitcar.com/

I think you nailed it. The Goblin has those rear coilovers hanging out in space looking fairly unsupported and what looks to be the cage/frame welded directly to the rear subframe or at least the bushing inserts. It was clean, but honestly looked home made. (and disappointinly N/A)

Intercooler is in. Hoses are clamped. There is about 1/8" of space between the vbelt and the intercooler crossover tube. I'm thinking of either denting the tube or slicing the hood latch support a hair to shift it forward. I would like at least 1/4" but I guess I shouldn't be too picky...

I was then going to start it up and bleed the cooling system but needed to slap on the intake/filter setup. Well the boot is torn of course. It's close. If it were my car I'd probably run it but since the car is going to a friend of mine I want to try and find a replacement or redesign it. The tube goes from 2" turbo inlet to 2.5" intake tube in a very sharp bend. I have a silicone 2" 135* bend coupler but then I'd have to make a new intake tube. Balls.

You are honestly my hero with all those manual swaps. Incredibly envious.

Azryael said:

You are honestly my hero with all those manual swaps. Incredibly envious.

Thanks! I just enjoy driving manuals more. Definitely a dying art. No grudges against autos, though. They're amazing nowadays, just not for me.

Well, I just got an email that the clutch slave cylinder for the Jag is backordered and there is no ETA. I would've liked to know that a weeks ago when I ordered it. Lame. I tried another UK vendor selling Land Rover parts and they showed two in stock so I ordered both figuring if it's this difficult now, imagine in 10 years when no one even knows what an internal combustion engine is. 

I was looking through my photobucket trying to find a picture of the trans am "stock". I couldn't. But I did find this!

And this!

I really need to get a truck...

Yup, I know the feeling. I converted my crew cab F350 from the awful E4OD to a ZF5, and it's been the best thing ever. It's a 2WD truck, so I went ahead and grabbed a 5-speed manual with a transfer case with it. All I need now is the front axle to complete the 4WD.

I'm actually about to manual swap my Durango with the 5.9 V8, as after hitting 100k miles, the 46RE is letting me know it's done.

Azryael said:

Yup, I know the feeling. I converted my crew cab F350 from the awful E4OD to a ZF5, and it's been the best thing ever. It's a 2WD truck, so I went ahead and grabbed a 5-speed manual with a transfer case with it. All I need now is the front axle to complete the 4WD.

I'm actually about to manual swap my Durango with the 5.9 V8, as after hitting 100k miles, the 46RE is letting me know it's done.

My dad is having some weird drivetrain binding issues with his obs 7.3 ford and I'm having a hard time telling him not to just swap to a zf box. Unfortunately he already bought some fancy built e4od for it so I can't imagine he'd want to spend the same money again on a stick. A durango with a stick would be cool! Does a dakota pedal box bolt in?

So I finally got some time to attempt making a turbo intake hose fit on the tiny k26. It's a pain in the ass. The position of the turbo makes it so the core support blocks almost all access to where the factory air filter would go. I had to get somewhat creative. Initially I tried getting a 135* silcone elbow that adapted from 2" turbo to 2.5" intake tube. Couldn't find one. So I found 90* and was just going to put the filter behind where the foglight would be and tell the new owner not to fjord any rivers. But I had to swiss cheese more of the crossbar to do so.

Made a small adapter from 2-2.5" with a little bend.

Then I found the air filter wouldn't fit behind the bumper cover without resting solidly against the oil cooler. I can't imagine that would be good for IATs. It was either put the filter directly where the foglight was or figure something else out. And since this is the pnw where is drizzles for half the year I figured something else out. I went out and around the framerail. Welded a new mounting table on the fender and stuck the intake up behind the turn signal. I haven't made the actual 2.5-3" cone filter adapter or fully welded it but I should be able to finish that tonight.

This happened over the course of a week or so. About halfway through my girlfriend calls me up and says there was smoke coming through the vents of the s4. Yay. She was in rushhour traffic in downtown seattle so initially I just assumed to overheated with her cranking the a/c. That wasn't it. Thankfully, AAA was there quickly.

I could see a ton of coolant below the intake and even though I had to borrow a truck from work to get us both home (since we were carpooling and AAA won't let anyone in the cab of their rigs with COVID going on) I had to tear into it that night.

An hour or so later I had the intake off and found the culprit.

"After run coolant pump" Evidently the activation temp of these is set so high that they rarely ever come on and coolant just stagnates in them and they pop. Well, and it's 20 year old plastic in the valley of a twin turbo motor. I had my old coworker at audi grab me hoses/clamps/pump and a lower temp thermo switch. Not hard to do, just time consuming.

I also discovered a torn intake boot. I had thought I had just gotten used to how "fast" this car was but actually I was just letting all thes boosts loose.

I ordered all silicone replacements but they won't be here until next week so I put it back together with factory replacement stuff.

I got a few minutes to work on the Jag and get the 6speed in. That was a royal pain in my ass. I couldn't get the trans up high enough for the input shaft to slip into the pilot bushing because the bellhousing was too big. I devised a way to "drop" the front subframe. Initially I used an electric pallot jack I have.

But the forks were making me nervous so I took some allthread from work, threaded nuts half way up and welded a nut on the bottom and "lowered" the subframe enough that I could slip together the trans an engine. Eureka!

I had to drive my girlfriend's nephew to college yesterday with all his stuff so I didn't get a lot of time to work on over this last weekend.

Torn throttle body boot is very common on the 2.7tt Audi motors.  It was the first thing I upgraded on all of mine.

docwyte said:

Torn throttle body boot is very common on the 2.7tt Audi motors.  It was the first thing I upgraded on all of mine.

I talked with my old service manager a bit ago about that. He said he used to change those pretty regularly AFTER the b5/c5 came out of warranty/lease. When people started working on their own cars. He pointed out that they aren't supposed to be mounted level. I was complaining that the mount for the MAP sensor in the silicone one was crooked and he point out that the bipipes go into the boot/throttle body assymetrically. One side was higher. If you did that, the sensor was level. They were torn because people were mounting the it so the bipipes were level, not the sensor. Sure enough, that's how I did it.

Okay, so it's been a bit since I updated. I stopped being able to post photos while at work. I can't access any picture hosting sites so I can't see mine or anyone else's photos.

I'll do some catchup.

Firstly, the ferrari just sits in the exact same spot. It's lame. I've been jabbing the owner to bring up the headlight/clips because as soon as I can bolt the front end down I'll roll it over and yank the drivetrain out of it and see if it's rebuildable/fixable.

Then I decided that even though I wasn't done with the Jaguar manual swap; I'd start something else. Another manual transmission swap!

The s4 got it's third pedal.

Which was easiest as an engine out affair.

After that a buddy tried putting a front mount intercooler on his s4 and the pipes wouldn't fit with the bumper so I trimmed them up/rewelded them to fit better. I was trying to get them behind the grilles but he was a bit impatient and wanted to leave.

Then I brought the jag back in and cut a chunk in the floor so it would be possible to bleed the clutch with the trans in the car. 

I had to cut over 3" out of the remote shifter assembly. 

While I was in there I decatted the car.

Later realizing I forgot to weld o2 bungs in. And then welding them in too far downstream and the harness wouldn stretch. I have this problem with planning ahead. I rarely do it very well.

Now it drives! The check engine light is on and it's flashing transmission fault issues of course. But man is it fun! Although after bolting it all back together I realize the front crank seal is leaking like a faucet. But it's on the back burner until I manual swap the next vehicle! 

I found the auto trans case was cracked almost all the way around and I haven't a clue why. Instead of fixing it just to figure out how it broke I figured I'd just make it closer to what I want. Although this one is only a 5speed. It'll still be fun.

I'll continue adding, there's more but I'm supposed to be somewhere right now.

The ZF-5 definitely prefers to be shifted slowly. The ZF-6 in a 6.0 that I drove felt like it could handle quicker shifts.

I'm definitely glad I swapped out the E4OD in my 7.3 for the ZF-5 though.

I'm really, really bad about updating this.

5speed swapped f350 is driving and towing.

The LSe30 is also done and driving. I've been commuting from Tacoma to Seattle everyday this week in it. With no hood. It's mucho fun.

Also towed home the 5speed Audi v8 in the background for a friend. He wanted to get it driving (needs a slave cylinder) and just cruise in it but now he's decided I'll just swap the 3.6 v8 into his '85 4000. I'm also doing floorpans in a '63 impala that's in the garage. But I'm being held up trying to find a passenger side inner rocker.