turbo76lx

Decided to redo the sun roof patch as I rushed it the first time. Cut it out and rewelded a new piece in. Brought a stud welding a while ago finally got around to converting the hand piece to take pins and made up a slide hammer from the nose of a rivet gun. The car had been rust treated from the dealer so scraped out all the body deadener to start working on the rear quarter panels.

Fixed some more rust fixed under the hatch seal channel and fitted a replacement channel. Decided to put it back on the rotator to make it easier to start fixing some of the rust and dints in the body.

Started fixing the rust in the tail light bucket. First had to get dogs ok on the tail light bucket from the spare parts car. Only going to replace the bottom half but had to do a small repair first. Had to repair some rust in the corner. Bottom replaced.

Had the beam and torsional test done today. The engineer now needs to graph the results to check if it passed but it looks good.

Decided to mount the seat belt reel besides the back seat so they don't stand out as much. Ground up a piece of flat bar to match the shape of the panel. Will also weld this comp plate over the outside when the engineer gives me the ok. Also made up some panels for the back out of some aluminium that i'll cover with some vinyl.

Made up some bars to replace the coilovers for the torsion deflection testing. Hopefully will get the test done in a few weeks.

Had the engineer, Peter Turner http://www.techedaustralia.com.au/ have a look at the project. He is happy with what has been done, he wants an extra brace between the rear suspension towers and I have to have retractable seat belts for the outer back seats. The car will have to pass the IM240 emission test and also have a torsional rigidity test. The plan now is to get the car ready for the torsional test then start the panel work. Rear seat belts something like this.

Have contacted a few engineers to see if they were interested in taking on the project. I've chosen one, now I have to reassemble the car so he can see where it's at and where to move forward from here. Hopefully he will look at it in a few weeks.

Gave the drive shafts a clean up and some paint. Removed some of the lip on the fire wall and fully seam welded it. Added some more strengthening to the front suspension towers to make sure the load is transferred back to the rail where the original subframe mounted.

Started fitting the back seat, needed to modify the seat base to fit over the skyline tunnel. I used the seat base out of a UC hatch that I brought for spare parts but it may turn into a future project and wont need a back seat. ( S14 front suspension, R32 rear suspension, drift ute, maybe) The wire frame was a bit bent so it had to be straightened and reshaped over the tunnel. Rigged up a hot wire to cut the foam. All fitted up, I will probably only register the hatch as a 4 seater as there isn't mush foam left in the middle seat.

Got some suspension and other bolts zinc plated and picked up some inner and outer door handles. Sent Bonneville Consulting and email tuesday but haven't heard anything back yet.

It's more to do with the fact that the shocker mount were never designed to take the weight of the vehicle. Now that the coil overs are mounted to this spot I have just added extra bracing to transfer the load back to the original spring pocket/body rails.

Added some more strengthening to the shock towers as now these points will have to take the load of the vehicle weight.

Enkelman has lost his VASS accreditation.

Got the rest of the suspension parts painted. Received some paperwork from Andrew Enkelman now just need to put together an email to Bonneville Consulting.

Well today I thought I would touch base with the engineer to see at what stage he wanted to see the car next only to be told by the receptionist that he has recently lost his VASS accreditation. Looks like the $1000 I have spent with him is a total loss and I don't even know if he has any documentation he can give me to pass onto a new engineer when I find one. So now the search for a new engineer start and hopefully find one that is happy with the build so far.

Got some of the suspension part painted, need to finish stripping the subframes and other parts which will be painted black.

Got a few more things done. Checked it see if the power steering lines could be reused, will need to modify the hose on the power steering pump. Replaced the front wheel bearings. And started getting some of the suspension parts striped for painting.

Bit of an update, had a small side project for my boss in Melbourne which turned into a bigger project fixing a previous dodgy repair. The front section of the rail had been repaired before and been fully sealed up not letting any water that happened to get into the rail escape out the bottom. So the rail rusted from the inside out. When i cut the outside of the rail out i found it had a welded inside of the rail on the inner. After removing the inner plate i was left with this. From this point I cut the inner out and fabricated a new rail and repaired a few more rust patches. Sorry no photos of the finished repairs I was to keen to get this thing out of my shed. Now back to the hatch, not a great deal has has happened except planning and procrastinating but I have started seam welding some of the body.

Got the cam belt cover cleaned up and gave the engine mounts a quick polish.

To tight to buy a new thermostat housing, so simple, I just made one. Also started to extend the top timing belt cover, it had a crack and a piece missing so it was easier to cut the small section out and replace it at the same time.

Welder up the air temp sensor in the manifold and re-tapped it to 1/8 NPT, also gave it a bit of a satin finish.

At this stage I've been using cheap cans of degreaser, scotchbrite pads and a tooth brush.

Spent the day cleaning parts.

Fitted the the MAP sensor.