Sunday, September 23, 2007

Getting there!! Light at the end of the tunnel

Wow, a lot has happened since my last post. Due to trips and Internet problems I have gotten behind. Here is the update:
I finished my fuel lines all the way to the engine. I've attached some pictures showing the aluminum fuel line and the beading tool used to construct the lines.








The beading tool is Earl's part# 008ERL



Heater lines. I wanted to use some hard line instead of rubber line for the heater runs to keep the OD of the lines down and less worry about being close to the exhaust. I ended up going with copper pipe. To fit copper lines to the 3/4 rubber heater lines I had some standard copper fittings machined to .75 dia (thanks Lee) and then sweat soldered a ring to keep the hose from slipping off. For the 5/8 dia line a the standard 1/2" copper pipe was just right with a ring sweat soldered on it in a similar way. I'm sure there was probably a better way out there but that's what I've done. I spent about a day cutting, fitting and soldering. After all that time I have what is in the pics. Looking at it now I think it turned out but took way to long.
















I also finished the shifter close out. I want a nice fit to keep the noise and heat out of the cabin. I used the rubber boot from the f-body car. I removed the metal from around the perimiter and cut it smaller and rewelded it together. Then cut the boot down as well. Seems to work just fine.









I currently have the engine loaded into the engine bay with both headers on this time (to help set the placement of the heater lines and shifter closeout etc). I couldn't resist. I plugged in the wiring hooked up the battery and attempted to connect through the OBDII port with my laptop. Wouldn't connect. After some trouble shooting of the wiring I found it was just the software I was using was getting impatient and the autoprotocol feature wasn't working with the PCM. manually set the protocol and...Hello. hey PCM is working, engine's in.... SO I ran a quart or two through the fuel lines to flush out any dirt or metal in the section after the filter. Connected up the fuel line and....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T4qxA7LEkI

Only ran it for a few seconds since I don't have the cooling hooked up. Oh I also finished the throttle cable.

I think the next step is to pull the motor again and finish the hold down's on the heater lines. Misc work on the ABS mount. Clean everything up and add some heat shielding.











Sunday, August 19, 2007

Clutch line and ABS relocation.

This week I worked on the clutch line. Since my car was an automatic I had to weld on a bracket to hold the adapter at the end of the hard line. SInce I was welding it on I decided to try angle it so that it would best fit my set up. I also cut the factory T56 clutch line down and attached a -4 end on it. I've attached a picture. Don't mind the scribbled "clutch" on the chassis. I'm not sure how i managed to write upside down like that at all. I'm a little concerend on how easy it will be to install the line with the headers on. I'll guess I'll find out later.










After modifing the clutch line I pulled the engine ando finished mounting the ABS in it's new location. I need to adjust some of the lines for better fit but the mounting is done. Now that the engine is out I'll finish the fuel and lines and work on the heater lines. For the heater lines I'm looking at making the bulk of it out of Hardline. I'll see how it turns out.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Wiring and fuel











After some more delays due to having to repair my tractorys Hydroic pump and also a computer hard drive crash taking my time I was finally able to get back to working on the car. Unfortunately most of the work is wiring. It was surprising how much time the wiring has taken. Not very difficult but time consuming and not very exciting to talk about. However I believe I have it done. All the wires are connected to where they should go. I need to re-loom the harness but other than that it is finished.


This saturday I started on the fuel lines. I looked at numerous ways to connect up the fuel lines and settled on using aluminum hard lines. The aluminum line can easily be cut and then beaded to have the ridge to keep the rubber hose from slipping off. They were also easy to form and smaller in overall dia than braided lines. I mounted the filter/pressure regulator (corvette part#) under the car. To do the kind of job I wanted I removed the driver seat and drilled a hole through the floor to bolt the pressure regulator. Then I welded a nut on the inside of the car to make removal of the pressure regulator possible without removing the seat. I probably could have used a sheet metal screw to do the same thing but I wanted something a little stronger.

From the pressure regulator back I used aftermarket quick connects then rubber hose and then to hardline. 3/8 aluminum for the supply and the factory 5/16 for the return. While I was at it I replaced the section of supply line that crossed above the tank with 3/8 aluminum line.


The portion of the fuel line from the regulator to the engine I have roughly layed out but I'm going to wait until I have the engine out to make the final shape and securely mount it. It'll be much easier that way. Oh also this weekend I installed the new P/S pulley to replace the one that was broken during shipment.


For now I need to turn my attention to heater hoses and the clutch line. The to do list is getting shorter.