denpo
Carburated Nihilist
I'm in springdale UT right now, as soon as I get back to Montreal I'll check this out, thanks.
My '76 restoration (long post)
- Thread starter denpo
- Start date
MYBAD79
Moderator
enjoy your vacation :thumbs:
looking forward to the pics
looking forward to the pics
denpo
Carburated Nihilist
Yesterday was cold windy with a little of snow, but this morning it's blue cloudless sky, pictures are gonna be awesome.
denpo
Carburated Nihilist
Quiet a while since last update, well, vacations have been fantastic but not in a restful way.
I actually caught a bit of a down since back home :zzz::zzz:
Anyway I'm kinda stuck for the moment, so I haven't spent much time in the garage lately.
The next step I'm facing (door/front clip alignment) is pretty intimidating, I need to brace myself up:hissyfit:
In the meantime, here's some pic from my steering column I rebuilt just before going in vacations.
The '80 replacement column was working fine, slight problem : it had been collapsed for real before.
I had to stretch out 1/2 the lower inner tube on the press.
Here's my ghetto pusher to remove the column lock plate retainer.
And my ghetto way to pull out the tilt axis pin.
I did not changed the bearings, they looked good enough, I cleaned them, re-packed with synthetic grease and declared them good to go. It not like those was spinning at thousands of RPM for hours.
The plastic retainer was in surprisingly good shape, didn't break, still soft.
The pin in not in the best shape and seems too short, it doesn't touch the metal leg of the piece that goes on top of that. I'll get back to that later.
And yes, the clip is missing, it's just that I took the pic to soon.
I actually caught a bit of a down since back home :zzz::zzz:
Anyway I'm kinda stuck for the moment, so I haven't spent much time in the garage lately.
The next step I'm facing (door/front clip alignment) is pretty intimidating, I need to brace myself up:hissyfit:
In the meantime, here's some pic from my steering column I rebuilt just before going in vacations.
The '80 replacement column was working fine, slight problem : it had been collapsed for real before.
I had to stretch out 1/2 the lower inner tube on the press.
Here's my ghetto pusher to remove the column lock plate retainer.
And my ghetto way to pull out the tilt axis pin.
I did not changed the bearings, they looked good enough, I cleaned them, re-packed with synthetic grease and declared them good to go. It not like those was spinning at thousands of RPM for hours.
The plastic retainer was in surprisingly good shape, didn't break, still soft.
The pin in not in the best shape and seems too short, it doesn't touch the metal leg of the piece that goes on top of that. I'll get back to that later.
And yes, the clip is missing, it's just that I took the pic to soon.
Fastphil
Active member
Interesting, I've never seen the insides of a steering column before. I think once I took it apart, I'd never figure out how to put it all back together with all those strange looking parts. How does it feel?
denpo
Carburated Nihilist
With Jim Shea's paper in hand, it was complex but totally doable, without I'd probably do mistakes. Took me two days, once you did it once you'd probably wrap it up in an afternoon.
The horn part was the most rewarding part, my original column and the replacement I bought didn't have the horn assembly, took me months to find the several parts at good price, felt good to see it in one piece.
Along with the power window regulator it was one of those unplanned rebuilt. Hopefully now I don't see anymore mechanical assembly I didn't took apart in the car, so I'm confident I'm done with Bubba's little nasty surprises. phew.
bobs77vet
Well-known member
good job!! it makes me nervous just looking at those parts dissasembled...
mrvette
Phantom of the Opera
:bounce: I love those mechanical jug saw puzzles.....I rebuilt my '78+ column in '95, before there was any internet information I knew of....I had nothing, but it was assembled but damaged when I picked it up for ten bux....
paid another 40 something for the parts, and so it's still there....:bump:
Sam Cogley
Well-known member
As soon as I saw those dismantled pictures, I thought "I hope you have Jim Shea's paper in hand." That thing is invaluable for working on those mechanical nightmares.
denpo
Carburated Nihilist
One part (I think it's called the switch support) requires a specific torquing procedure, 4 bolts to be screwed up to 88 Lb-Inby by 22 Lb-In steps. Dunno how you can figure this out without instructions...
denpo
Carburated Nihilist
You betcha!
Without the paper I'd probably had bought yet another replacement column.
So yeah, thanks Mr Shea, I own you one :thumbs::beer:
The only really tricky part it the lock plate removal, you can't do it without the proper pusher.... or some kind of replacement :huh:
mrvette
Phantom of the Opera
Simple, I didn't know, and so it wasn't done that way....but most of this stuff is something like crazy, like wheel torque specs.....I been hammering wheels for some 60 years now.....my Ingersoll 1/2 impact at 120 psi is good for 6 taps on each lug nut.....rough equivalent of ~70 ft lbs.....maybe more, I forget....
been some decades, aluminum/steel never had a loose wheel....
:smash::smash:
mrvette
Phantom of the Opera
OH, the lock plate, heheh....I still have that piece I made, since '95, all it is was a piece of exhaust pipe I cut out maybe 90* of the side, it's about 2-3" long, and a plate over top of it, so to put the nut on the tele extension, very loose/up top, tighten the stock tele star nut nice and tight so the shaft cant move...then crank down on the hex nut to clamp down on the C section pipe and allow the little clip to slide in/out of place....piece of cake....
BUT I don't want to discuss how long it took me to figger out that shit with NO help, back in '95....maybe 3-4 hours, a afternoon of busted fingers and nutz.....
:smash::smash::surrender::twitch:
denpo
Carburated Nihilist
Hi Everyone, here's some news from the front.
The resto have been slowed down for a while. There's been the vacations, and then I decided to quit my job and start my own company.
Enough to keep a man away from it's cave for a while.
Let's start with the good news :
Finally I can call a wrap on two of my subproject :
-The gilmer belt setup
Finally received the serpentine 6 ribs small belt for my PS pump. I was really unsure I measured the length right, turned out to be the perfect size :
One last concern, the water pump pulley is really close to the spreader bar, only 1/8". I don't know how much an engine can move in that direction, but I got the feeling it will touch. You tell me.
Packing the fuel line was a bit more complicated than expected. It looks a little 'messy' but everything feels solid.
Here's my custom bracket finished, we added some meat because it was still flexing. I put a 10mm bolt instead of the original 3/8", alternator don't wiggle on its axis anymore
Another completed project is the borgeson/hydroboost setup.
Took me some time to get the hoses right, but now they are.
I used steel -6AN fitting for the line of high pressure, so I can tighten them really hard.
While being away from the garage I still could find time to find good bargain.
Bought a fiberglass front bumper, that's another completion, it was my last missing body part.
Got is from CF member lvmyvt76, thanks you!
I also found a good deal on part to make my carputer :
Atom 510 motherboard, 2 Go of RAM, 30Gb SSD hard drive (to survive the rough idle vibrations), and a 4 input video capture card (yes, there will be at least 4 camera in the car).
I'll probably to a custom enclosure out of some aluminum plate.
Also ordered and arduino nano microcontrolleur to deal with the sensor reading.
Ok, that was the sunny side, now here's the trouble : door alignement.
We did a couple of attempts, all wrong.
I found this post from Stinger on CF : http://forums.corvetteforum.com/1573830691-post14.html
It was making sense, so I tried to first align align upper flat side of the rear of the car.
The result is not really encouraging
I don't know whish one is wrong, the door or the body, but you can definitely tell the body and the door don't come from the same car.
*sigh*
I still don't know how I'm gonna do.
Glass the door? trim the body? seperate the rear quarter panel at the door and glue is back tighter?
Any advice are welcome.
At the front I think I got it right, at least until I test fit the front clip.
So yeah I'm moving forward, it's that feeling that the finish line is moving forward in time even faster.
Still got the faith tho.
The resto have been slowed down for a while. There's been the vacations, and then I decided to quit my job and start my own company.
Enough to keep a man away from it's cave for a while.
Let's start with the good news :
Finally I can call a wrap on two of my subproject :
-The gilmer belt setup
Finally received the serpentine 6 ribs small belt for my PS pump. I was really unsure I measured the length right, turned out to be the perfect size :
One last concern, the water pump pulley is really close to the spreader bar, only 1/8". I don't know how much an engine can move in that direction, but I got the feeling it will touch. You tell me.
Packing the fuel line was a bit more complicated than expected. It looks a little 'messy' but everything feels solid.
Here's my custom bracket finished, we added some meat because it was still flexing. I put a 10mm bolt instead of the original 3/8", alternator don't wiggle on its axis anymore
Another completed project is the borgeson/hydroboost setup.
Took me some time to get the hoses right, but now they are.
I used steel -6AN fitting for the line of high pressure, so I can tighten them really hard.
While being away from the garage I still could find time to find good bargain.
Bought a fiberglass front bumper, that's another completion, it was my last missing body part.
Got is from CF member lvmyvt76, thanks you!
I also found a good deal on part to make my carputer :
Atom 510 motherboard, 2 Go of RAM, 30Gb SSD hard drive (to survive the rough idle vibrations), and a 4 input video capture card (yes, there will be at least 4 camera in the car).
I'll probably to a custom enclosure out of some aluminum plate.
Also ordered and arduino nano microcontrolleur to deal with the sensor reading.
Ok, that was the sunny side, now here's the trouble : door alignement.
We did a couple of attempts, all wrong.
I found this post from Stinger on CF : http://forums.corvetteforum.com/1573830691-post14.html
It was making sense, so I tried to first align align upper flat side of the rear of the car.
The result is not really encouraging
I don't know whish one is wrong, the door or the body, but you can definitely tell the body and the door don't come from the same car.
*sigh*
I still don't know how I'm gonna do.
Glass the door? trim the body? seperate the rear quarter panel at the door and glue is back tighter?
Any advice are welcome.
At the front I think I got it right, at least until I test fit the front clip.
So yeah I'm moving forward, it's that feeling that the finish line is moving forward in time even faster.
Still got the faith tho.
Sam Cogley
Well-known member
I think the factory aligned the quarter panels to match the door skins. To get that worked out, you'll have to break the bonding strips free and re-align the quarter panels.
MYBAD79
Moderator
Congrats and good luck with your new company :thumbs:
Adding some glass to the door is definitely the easiest way out of this. How much is it off? 3mm (1/8") ?? hard to tell by the pics...
Adding some glass to the door is definitely the easiest way out of this. How much is it off? 3mm (1/8") ?? hard to tell by the pics...
denpo
Carburated Nihilist
Thanks Karsten. Luck should be on my side, right now I'm gonna do iphone developement, and there's demand. I'm seriously lurking in the embarked display, my carputer will see some test development, I really like oled displays, got stuff running in my head....
That what I started to do on the other side, the bottom on the quarter panel was sitting on a good 1/4" of this pink factory glue.
But it can't be the case here.
There is no way you could change this dimensions, it's in one piece as far as I know, the only bonding strip I see is where I market it.
So it's must be something else.
huh, more like 1/4" alas, which is absurd.
When I got back to take the measure, I did a recap of what I'm found on this door :
1 -Big patch of bondo above the fiberglass repair you can see in yellow (pretty much at the same area I need to glass)
2 -Some metal bended just behind the repaired area (see upper left of this pic)
3- The hinges had been cracked and rewelded
Let's do CSI style, my take is that something impaled the door while backing up.
My guess is that the top curve shape on the door have moved up during the accident, screwing what I'm taking as reference point.
At least when I watch this pic, it makes sense.
Thanks for the inputs.:drink::drink:
denpo
Carburated Nihilist
Ok, this wasn't a good week-end.
Spent the two days preparing the event, jacked up the car, put brake in piece *again* to clean off the DOT5 fluid.
Bled the the MC, blown the lines, reinstalled everything.
Fluid started to go down the lines, so far so good.....then I notice a large drip on my driver front caliper, the one you'd get when you forgot to put the little O-ring back.
Took the caliper apart to make sure it isn't. It's the bleeder who was leaking like crazy. bleeder is brand new, I tried another one, same thing.
That was enough for the day, Put a pan under the caliper, and let it bleed at will, it was late, got the fuck out of the garage.
For what I've read there is not much you can do about it, the caliper is junk.
The more it goes the more I think I'm gonna take my original calipers and get them sleeved by my buddy. At least those weren't leaking.
Ok, enough venting, have a nice week all.
Spent the two days preparing the event, jacked up the car, put brake in piece *again* to clean off the DOT5 fluid.
Bled the the MC, blown the lines, reinstalled everything.
Fluid started to go down the lines, so far so good.....then I notice a large drip on my driver front caliper, the one you'd get when you forgot to put the little O-ring back.
Took the caliper apart to make sure it isn't. It's the bleeder who was leaking like crazy. bleeder is brand new, I tried another one, same thing.
That was enough for the day, Put a pan under the caliper, and let it bleed at will, it was late, got the fuck out of the garage.
For what I've read there is not much you can do about it, the caliper is junk.
The more it goes the more I think I'm gonna take my original calipers and get them sleeved by my buddy. At least those weren't leaking.
Ok, enough venting, have a nice week all.
MYBAD79
Moderator
Calipers: I just converted my rear calipers to O-ring and had two bleeders leak. They did not leak before so I really wonder WTF is causing them to leak. I tightened some more and the leak stopped ... But they're now really tight, shouldn't have to tighten that much ... I wonder if you took the threads off an old bleeder could it be used as a lapping tool ??? Some lapping compound should create a better sealing surface ...
