Project "Pidge" 92 240 with 2wd rb25det neo & cd009

[kowalatea]

12 hours ago, Steve85 said:

Why should you be different to the rest of us? ?

But seriously this is a great write up, you are doing some real solid work and really seem to know what you're doing (more than me anyways). Hoping you find a few good surprises somewhere along the track (even if it's just a panel that doesn't need bog). ?

Starts chanting : one of them one of them one of them 

Thanks brother. I dont know much I just know I'm not afraid to ask for help and fail. Plus it may help that I sell parts of a living..... for a living is an awful strong phrase. I live in America no one really makes a living they just make enough to survive lol 

[kowalatea]

Let's see where did we leave off... 

Oh yeah had just gotten the rear under carriage cleaned up. 

Well while I was waiting on parts to show up I decided to start cleanin out the trunk and in the process I noticed some of what appeared to be surface rust so it was time to don the mask and wire wheel. 

In an attempt to knock down the rust to get to a paintable surface, the not so desirable happened. Ray's of light began to pierce the rust dust... and in a are you kidding me moment I threw my hands up in momentary defeat. 

Like dont get me wrong. The rust isn't that bad but in a moment of spite and with the choice already on the table yo go with a fuel cell the grinder and cut off wheel were acquired. A few hours and a few discs later we had achieved what I like to refer to as weight reduction. 

I know I know I'm not going to save any weight in the long run and I didnt need to cut that much out but I was salty and needed to vent. 

So now having the back end for the most part prepped and ready for reassembly ( still collecting parts) it was time to move into the front. 

Mind you the engine was blown the power steering was leaking, so clean up on this end was going to get dirty. 

not unlike the rear I tackled the front end in almost the same fashion pulled the bolts and dropped the whole thing at once. 

Ugg lunch is over, time to head back in. 

Stay tuned for the next installment of "what, am I doing with my life ?!?!"

[GTSBoy]

f**k me! The forklift tine hole in the side of the sill panel!

[kowalatea]

12 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

f**k me! The forklift tine hole in the side of the sill panel!

Oh yeah..... that's a thing.... good eye 

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Weight reduction & aero

[GTSBoy]

It may be a speed hole. But I'd be worried about its mate in the chassis rail.

[kowalatea]

25 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

It may be a speed hole. But I'd be worried about its mate in the chassis rail.

Shhhhhhhh.... shhhhhh ... shhhhhh, we'll get there 

[kowalatea]

Back at it..... 

You'll come to find out I have an unnatural addiction to my wire wheels just about every bit of this car has been touched by them... yeah I have a sand blaster and it gets used from time to time but when your already in a dusty area shooting sand is.... well it's not pleasant.  

Here's what the first wheel well looked like after the first few days of work. 

you can only work so long in an non insulated garage with no fans in the dead of the texas heat. Usually about the time I'm producing mud instead of sweat it's time to take a break. 

Anyway everything was stripped away even the seam sealer. I was leaving no room for unexpected rust. And I'm still not. 

As of right now were about 6 months into this aaaaand the parts have begun to pile

And as nice as it was to see everything begin to pile up it was time to start really getting into the meat of cleaning and preping what was going to be reused 

with everything cleaned a primed it was time to get everythin painted. And test fitted.

[PranK]

I love the good ol' bedspread parts layout shot. We've all done it.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Come finish my build in Australia, much better country too.

[Steve85]

17 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

much better country too.

 You can't tell an American that... (sits back with popcorn).

[trel]

4 hours ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Come finish my build in Australia, much better country too.

Oh shit.... ??

[kowalatea]

5 hours ago, Steve85 said:

 You can't tell an American that... (sits back with popcorn).

No .. no ..... hes got a point 

[GTSBoy]

I've taken to calling it Trumpistan. It has a lot of far eastern European dictator for life vibes going on right now.

[kowalatea]

I picked up a silver metalic base from work and shot the spindles, crossmember, and subframe I got those all shot up and clear coated and my shoty photos dont do them justice 

So now with those finished up it was time to start thinking about the steering system. Do I keep the power steering, do I loop the system and do a janky delete or do I source an actual manual steering rack. 

With the amount of gunk and build up on the crossmember I knew I couldn't risk just dropping the old one back in without having the fear in the back of my head of having to pull it all back apart. 

So after reading write up after write up. I had finally made the decision to keep the power steering. The overall weight that would be saved and cost for a manual rack(which are out there) would be astronomical and unjustifiable. 

So now the question persisted, do I just but a new rack or do I rebuild the one I have.  Well being the broke bit*h i am with the tools and knowledge i have the debate didnt last long once i saw the price of a new unit. (563.99 +tax from my work). And when the full rebuild kit was nearly a tenth of the cost it was a virtual no brainer. 

We all remember this ugly mess right ?

Well after cleaning it up. ( moi imprortante before disassembly) breaking it worn and replacing all the seals. Putting new tie rod boots and urethane squeakers on the beast we came up with a finished result of the sexy beast 

On a side note I look back at all the shiznit in my garage as i was going through the transition of storing my parents stuff as they moved and all i can think about is, how was I able to make any progress having to dance around all this junk. 

[kowalatea]

12 hours ago, GTSBoy said:

I've taken to calling it Trumpistan. It has a lot of far eastern European dictator for life vibes going on right now.

Meh I live in texas. We dont worrie about it. He tries to pull that sh*t we will secede from the nation. 

[kowalatea]

So before reassembly I decided I needed to finish cleaning up the engine bay and re shoot it. 

Come to think about it I haven't gone over the theme... like I know the name of the car is in the title,But yeah. 

So the whole theme behind this build is going to be after pidge gunderson/ katie holt from voltron. As a kid I loved Voltron I'd rush home everyday it was on to try and catch it, the green lion was my favorite. So naturally when DreamWorks dropped the new rendition of the series  I was leery to say the least, but i had to give it the old college try. And I must say they did a fantastic job with the animation, the character development left some for desire but was pretty good. And the story line even with as many holes and questions it left you with was still something worth getting sucked into. Any way my son loved the new one and it lived on our tv like donkey kong did in my house when I was a kid ( hence the phrase it's on like donkey kong )

So with the theme being after the green lion the entire cars color scheme it get to be in black, silver and green 

anyway I decided that I wanted to clean everything up in the engine bay and not just slap everything back together. And looking back it would have been alot cheaper in the long run but meh it is what it is. So once again I busted out the aircraft remover and the wire wheel and started stripping off the paint...... 

No not true. Come to think about it I started by pulling the wiring harness removing the battery tray (will eventually be relocated to where the back seat was) getting rid of the old fuel and brake like and basically just getting the engine bay empty. 

and once that was done I went through and filled in all the holes and shot yet again another layer of primer.

 

[GTSBoy]

9 hours ago, kowalatea said:

So the whole theme behind this build is going to be after pidge gunderson/ katie holt from voltron. As a kid I loved Voltron I'd rush home everyday it was on to try and catch it, the green lion was my favorite. So naturally when DreamWorks dropped the new rendition of the series

Are you still speaking in English?

[kowalatea]

So this is where things start to slow down. It's  probably late probably mid to late August by this time. And I'm on the hunt ... the hunt for a quality fabricator.

Like dont get me wrong I can tack two pieces of metal together, but when it comes down to something such as a roll cage or fuel tank cradle i know that's beyond my current set of skills. 

So like any amature serial killer I started close to home,  asking customers and shops I work with for recommendations checking out their recommendations and using those recommendations to get more recommendations until I finally found the fabricator I'm going to be using.

After being in and out of so many shops looking for the right fit I knew once I walked into his shop I had found the one. It was a small-ish shop but inside all along the back wall was s13 and s14's some in for custom exhaust work some in for full cages and others there to get tubed front ends.  On one lift he had an absolutely astonishing s13 coupe with a 2jz in for a full custom exhaust custom intercooler and some other odds and ends. In the middle of the floor was a saucy little miata. And when you walked through the big roll up door on the side their was bmws supras rx7s and about 10 trucks for custom bumpers and skid plates. He at the time was a sole proprietor and his waiting list was out all the way to the last week of February of this year and required a deposit to get put on the list. 

So after saving up I was finally able to make the deposit payment and get on the waiting list. Well in the midst of saving up I had decided I'd save up and get some key items I'd want to have fabrication work done on, such as my fuel cell and tucked radiator. 

It's now late November and chasebays just dropped their black Friday sale. So I decided to splurge and get their tucked radiator as well as their steel braided power steering line brake booster eliminator and clutch master cylinder.

So now I was on a time crunch. And with out having liquid finances I needed to find other things to occupy the time. 

[kowalatea]

27 minutes ago, GTSBoy said:

Are you still speaking in English?

Oh sh*t sorry no, I reverted to my native tounge of "weeb"