2088 replies to this topic

[Heath]

Haha I posted it online and got a lot of messages. I'm getting some of the bezels printed for some others, give me a hoy if you want to buy a set. Honestly I'm not willing to give the data away at this stage because I spent a bunch on prototypes to try and get a good result. Wouldn't mind at least recouping that.

I think you can use the bezels with or without the lenses (and push-buttons) depending on preference... if you're willing to make a very slight adjustment to your fascia panel.

Putting the tacho in the middle was my original plan, but honestly driving a car like this on the road you spend more time looking at the speedo, and that is where SpeedHut position the high beam & turn signal LED lights, so here we are.

My 911 has the tacho in the centre, and it's still great on the road. Either is okay I think.

Edited by Heath, 11 October 2020 - 03:22 PM.

[Heath]

With the finished dash, gotta have a nicely finished steering column.

 

I dug out the old BBQ-202 column (black), and the UC one (red) from this hatch which I'd already shortened, made a longer intermediate shaft for, and converted to using a lower sealed bearing (see earlier in the thread at http://www.gmh-toran...hatch/?p=771562 )

 

Started stripping the GTS wheel down.

 

Made swiss cheese of the horn button support, fitted it with some new stainless & brass fasteners, re-zinc'd the special countersunk bolts, etc.

I do slightly prefer the LX honeypot with the little stalk (of course, not as functional as the UC one) and the angled, winged, chrome ignition barrel, so I stole those bits and cleaned them thoroughly, deburred everything, added some holes, and re-painted.

Glued some alloy TIG filler rod to the column surround/trim that had the spigot things broken off (very typical damage), and resprayed it.

 

Did some weight reduction on the column support bracket and main column, in specific areas.

All painted and ready to go.

 

Careful re-assembly.

 

All done.

Oooh lightweight key.

Nutsert for the shift light post.

[toryman76]

Had no idea the column surround trim is meant to have spigot locating lugs.... Good to know!

[skap]

So what Steering wheel are you gong to run?  

[Heath]

Haha yeah they're bloody rubbish once the little fingers break off.

Re: the wheel, I like the GTS one, but I've got 350mm Monte Carlo from '91 which is the era of street car styling which has inspired this car build. It has some nice patina and I was going to try and get that re-stitched to match the car as well.

Definitely nothing ground-breaking there. Just ultra classic stuff.

[axistr]

All that nice work and no power steering Heath. LOL.

[Heath]

lol I've never experienced a good driver's car with power steering, so not in a rush to add it to this one. Maybe down the line if I realise I want a much faster steering ratio?

 

My rate of assembling things onto the car is exceptionally slow, lol. But it's good stuff.

7/8" Wilwood tandem master with offset linkage for the pedal I had zinc plated. (no power brakes either axistr!  )

The black looks great against the orange I think.

 

My remote reservoir for the clutch came with two different barbs... I decided I needed to add them together to get the barb to penetrate properly through the thick firewall, an oversight I made earlier.

Turned to fit one another on the lathe and a quick TIG weld in the middle:

Old mate Jeff recommended the wrong 'remote reservoir adapter' years ago, so I went to fit it and it wasn't the right size for the clutch master I had.    Fair to say the budget on this car has loosened a fair bit during 2020, so I just bought a new black side mount 'Compact' series kit instead. I'll use the other Wilwood one on the Manta or something lol.

 

Also worked out that with my new dome light being in the front overhead console... it's so far forward that the rear footwells were not going to be illumated when people were getting in and out of the car. Whooops! Should have considered that earlier. Two dome lights it is. I got my old roof support out:

Cut a shape out, folded the edges, welded the corners, added drillium.

Scary welding this in right next to my fresh paint on the roof! Was pouring water into the sunroof sump repeatedly to keep the temperature low.

 

Ahhh... baby steps.

Edited by Heath, 13 October 2020 - 08:41 AM.

[Shiney005]

He hee. Drillium.         PM sent regards to bezels Heath.

[axistr]

Ha ha Heath. I started out with the same attitude when I restored the red hatch. I thought I didn't need it because when I drove my hatch back in the 70s and in my late teens it wasn't too bad. But after many years of driving later technology vehicles going backwards didn't feel so good after all. Then pulling a muscle in my right arm trying to go through the local McDonalds drive through, I quickly changed my mind. However I am a bit older than you and maybe starting the pussy stage in my life. But f**k it feels good not having to struggle and man handle it. But the biggest advantage is it steers and handles so much better than the manual rack ever did.

Here is a bit of trivia for you. I had a good conversation with the owner of a racing team that purchased a kit off me some time ago. He does targa and circuit racing. He mentioned that on one of the circuits they race the car at was 2.5 seconds a lap quicker with power steering. The car has a belt driven pump which will reduce the engine power output, so in theory it should have been the same or slightly slower lap times. Only one thing it could be is because it's easier to drive and more precise. I suppose that's why all the V8 super cars have power steer.

Anyway loving your build, well done. I bet your starting to get itchy feet now you can see the finishing line is getting closer.

Cheers Lenny.

[arrimar]

You don't work for this mob do you Heath?

https://www.probolt-...mm-od-pack-x10/

[Shtstr]

What the hell is the go with the orange engine bay.

[Heath]

Not sure what to say. I don't think I can answer the question about the engine bay colour to your satisfaction. It is, make what you will of it.

 

You don't work for this mob do you Heath?

https://www.probolt-...mm-od-pack-x10/

lol, I do not. That actually has some merit. More importantly, I would love to use aluminium fasteners! Some modern cars are full of them. But they seem hard to come by in the general fastener world for pretty obvious reasons. Maybe I should go and raid some late model BMW's at a wrecker.

 

Another thing I really wanted is the classic striped headlight covers for LX's. Good luck finding a decent set though, they are well and truly NLA and I looked for some for about 4 years before throwing in the towel and figuring I'd need to start again. I bought some pretty expensive LH ones to reverse-engineer, but they're very different and really didn't get me very far. Then I started again with a front-on photo of a headlight surround that I turned into a digitised outline, then printed it on paper, adjusted it, printed it, adjusted it, etc. etc. about 20 times. Then re-drew the period logo, followed by the lines and text.

 

Paid to have them laser cut and UV printed with red & orange details, this was done on the rear so they can be polished without damaging the print.

 

Stripped some good used headlight surrounds:

 

Made some sheetmetal alloy clips, which are much neater than the original "clamp" type clip with is external.

 

Painted, and used a sacrificial MDF version as a fixture to mark the holes neatly.

 

Alloy nutserts with countersunk stainless fasteners.

 

Sweet.

Edited by Heath, 14 October 2020 - 05:37 PM.

[Toranamat69]

I use alloy bolts for my flares but that company doesn't exist anymore so not sure where you'd get them now.

My dome head bumper bolts are alloy too but I custom made those on a lathe.
Also bonnet bump stop adjuster thingys.

I am always thinking of what fasteners i can make in alloy but only in non stressed applications.

I haven't bothered with anything under 5/16 as they are so light already.

Maybe front spoiler is another spot I can use them.

[Bigfella237]

Okay, so when are those headlight surround / cover combo kits gonna be available and where do I send my money!

[76lxhatch]

Spoilers and flares would be a great application for aluminium fasteners, wouldn't be too hard to make them in small quantities

[neglectedtorana]

Nice work as always Heath, a build to be very proud of.
Your bonnet hinges look great! They look custom not like factory with a drillium attack

[Rockoz]

Hope you forked out the extra for polycarbonate or Lexan.

 

Your attention to the details is once more a thing of wonder.

 

 

Cheers

 

Rob

[Ricky Bobby]

I'm always amazed at how much thought and planning you put into all aspects of your build 

[Heath]

Thanks guys.

You'd be similarly amazed by how little else there is going on over here, haha.

If anyone wants the gauge bezels or the headlight covers, I'm doing a run of each, shoot me a PM like a bunch of others already have. All Australian made of course.

 

I bought a cheap little stainless furniture stay for the rear floor access door thing ages ago and hadn't done anything with it.

The mount wasn't substantial enough on the timber side, so I made up a thicker, wider countersunk piece of stainless to replace it.

Recessed the pivot point into the edge of the plywood door, then added some thread inserts into the plywood. 

On the car side, it just gets pop rivetted into the false floor of the car, so that's easy, but very frustratingly, the heads of these fasteners unfortunately hit the recessed 'jam' in the false floor, so I masked up around the area, cut into my nicely textured black paint, beat it into a recessed shape, and welded it back together. This photo is just looking at the right tub area as you stand at the back of the car with the hatch open.

Bit of body filler in some little holes in the ply.

Sealed with timber lacquer which I hope will protect it.

Edited by Heath, 16 October 2020 - 08:36 AM.

[myss427]

You know that brace just added weight! need to drill some more holes to counter balance it...

[jpxu1]

I'm really surprised that plywood doesn't look like a pegboard, but I might be jumping the gun 

[Heath]

lol, well put. Nah there are a lot of parts that actually have to separate one area from another (eg. firewalls, plenums, roof skins, sumps, tanks) etc. that very frustratingly don't work so well when you load them full of drillium. Haha

 

Ha ha Heath. I started out with the same attitude when I restored the red hatch. I thought I didn't need it because when I drove my hatch back in the 70s and in my late teens it wasn't too bad. But after many years of driving later technology vehicles going backwards didn't feel so good after all. Then pulling a muscle in my right arm trying to go through the local McDonalds drive through, I quickly changed my mind. However I am a bit older than you and maybe starting the pussy stage in my life. But f**k it feels good not having to struggle and man handle it. But the biggest advantage is it steers and handles so much better than the manual rack ever did.

Here is a bit of trivia for you. I had a good conversation with the owner of a racing team that purchased a kit off me some time ago. He does targa and circuit racing. He mentioned that on one of the circuits they race the car at was 2.5 seconds a lap quicker with power steering. The car has a belt driven pump which will reduce the engine power output, so in theory it should have been the same or slightly slower lap times. Only one thing it could be is because it's easier to drive and more precise. I suppose that's why all the V8 super cars have power steer.

 

Sorry, I didn't reply to this, but I need to acknowledge it because it's certainly a high quality comment. What you do with the power steering kits, I absolutely respect. But I'm extremely happy with the idea of getting this car on the road a bit raucous with all the character of a raw Aussie muscle car, and having options to calm it down later in life (I hope to own this car long enough that I change a bit over time with it)

 

I own one car with power steering and find it boring as frOck to drive through a twisty road course unless the wastegate is wide open and I'm near full lock. If I made this car too easy to drive, I would hate that.

 

That lap time improvement is impressive, I'm not totally surprised that there's something there, but it's certainly more than I'd have expected. Endurance racing and properly competitive racing with all that stuff makes sense. But it's kinda the same as using a Holden motor over an LS, or a live axle over IRS (S14 IRS in my case would have been easier, cheaper, and worked better), or even having AWD if you will, it's just personal preference for what I want the car to be - the romance of it if you will - driven by my prejudices, rather than the objective "improvements".

[Heath]

Need to get back into doing more regular posts. Progress is slow which is pretty normal.

Masked up various areas of black chassis areas that had some scratching, overspray, etc.

Top of the dash of course. I painted this but it had been scuffed up and looked crap again.


Painted in the boot floor better... same deal as the dash.

 
Masked up some good original tail lights and painted them in satin black:

Touched up the faded red in the lense with a bit of red 'Nite Shades' aerosol I had lying around

 
During lockdown I did get started on wiring this car which I haven't posted much about.
Main side loom with roof console wiring grafted in:

Loomed up:

 
Rear light harness repaired (had some mismatched connectors) and earth wiring for numberplate light on the fibreglass rear bumper:

Loomed up:

 
Trailer harness plug-in loom with Deutsch DT connector: (PET braided sleeve and Raychem SCL)



Cut a strip of 3mm Ally flat bar and marked out some nice holes for the top of the battery clamp:

 
Picked up an Odyssey PC925 AGM battery and started installing a few things in the rear.

 
Sanded the rad support back:

Bit of filler where some of the uglier welds & bends were:

KBS satin black:

These areas on the back of the rad support where obscured by the rotisserie last time I went to paint them, so finished all this off too and used loads of cavity wax in the lower boxed section:

 
Went to install my headlights and realised that in my ambitious weight-saving efforts, I totally overlooked how headlight buckets even attach to the car... cutting that big section out was a stupid mistake. But while I'm here, may as well at least try and keep some of that weight out of them lol so cut them into spokes with some clearance for the new globes



 
Drilled a number of small holes in the underside of the top profile of the rad support, and fed small cable tyres through the holes:




 
I re-worked the front lighting harness during lockdown with some trimmed back headlight plugs, some better earthing, extra parker circuit for corner marker lights, and Deutsch DT connectors.


 
Only then I realised that H4's have globes/plugs that stick out way further at the back than sealed beams. Rob called this one and I thought I was safe, earlier. Really didn't enjoy cutting into my engine bay tanks to make more clearance, but gotta do what you've gotta do. At least alloy is easy to planish into a compound curve.
Washer bottle:


And catch can side:


Both fixed:

Painted the front of the radiator black so you don't see it through the grill:

Made up a little wiring harness for the two thermo fans, which can be turned on independently of one another with the Haltech.

Edited by Heath, 16 November 2020 - 11:48 AM.

[Peter UC]

What are you doing down the A-pillers? Are you going to try and trim them or painting them as per factory?

[ReplicarSLR]

“Painted the front of the radiator black so you don't see it through the grill:”

Im a big fan of blacking everything out behind it (excuse the pun) likewise with painting the front of the radiator support panel black, I prefer everything behind the grill to be black behind so you don’t see anything.

Keep up the top work, loving this build.

Edited by ReplicarSLR, 16 November 2020 - 06:22 PM.