Silverbullets' resto: Engine, gearbox, suspension

Silverbullet · Post by **Silverbullet** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 6:42 pm

On the way home from work today I dropped by the carbie place, they've been taking so long so I was planning to put my annoyed face on. Soon as I saw them though, all was forgiven, couldn't stay mad, the guy was instantly my best mate

Here's a little teaser pic of what is to come, I will be picking them up tomorrow and hopefully install this weekend.

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 6:52 pm

So with your wagon, once complete and better than show room spec - do you reckon you'll ever drive it due to fear of getting it dirty?

Cheers

Bennie

Post by **TOONGA** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 7:01 pm

They look awesome Sam

I would be very happy with them

TOONGA

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 7:03 pm

Gotta love twins right??

Cheers

Bennie

Silverbullet · Post by **Silverbullet** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 7:27 pm

El_Freddo wrote:So with your wagon, once complete and better than show room spec - do you reckon you'll ever drive it due to fear of getting it dirty?

Cheers

Bennie

Yes, yes, a million times yes

I'm not building this car to be a show pony, she will be my daily driver. Just making sure it will be a comfortable car with all the mod cons, and look like new as well

Everyone loves twins

I am totally chuffed, they don't look like my carbs anymore

I handed the carbie guy a box of parts, 2 carbies and an intake manifold. He's gone above and beyond to re-assemble everything back on the manifold and done a fantastic job of it, considering he's never seen Subaru twin carbs before. Tells me he had to search around for pics of how they should look so he knew what goes where.

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 8:37 am

coulda send you a few pics of back-together twins if he needed. Old habits die hard Sam - is that a nut I see sitting down the open intake port

Silverbullet · Post by **Silverbullet** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 10:05 pm

steptoe wrote:coulda send you a few pics of back-together twins if he needed. Old habits die hard Sam - is that a nut I see sitting down the open intake port

Not a nut, but an extraneous steel bracket which I included in the box of parts for rebuilding, I thought it was a support for one end of the throttle shaft but it seems not, so I dunno what it's for

But it's all nice and shiny gold zinc now. Don't worry, no chance of it falling anywhere dangerous.

Picked the rig up today, man am I happy

There's a few little things I need to fix before I bolt it up namely the horrifically rusted heater pipe, not sure what I'll do here; I can't get the pipe out of the manifold so I think I'm going to have to cut the bad bit off and solder/braze a piece of brass or something onto it to bring it back to the right length. Also one of the coolant pipes under the base of the carbies is really bad, will replace it with the single stainless barb I have left. Here's some more porno for those who are interested

Don't worry about the smudged red heatshrink, I will cover that with black heatshrink.

Post by **Bantum** » Sat Apr 23, 2016 12:57 am

That just porn right there ...

Damn will have to get me one of them ...

Ciao, Bantum ...

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Sat Apr 23, 2016 7:26 am

those heater pipes do NOT come out !! I have cut one short and just used longer heater hose. Looks like the thermostat gasket face needs a little TLC

I never got the end bracket with my twins - you too ?? I found a rose joint tie rod end looking item at a bearing suply fitted the shaft perfectly, then knocked up a crude bracket off the thermostat upper bolt

Silverbullet · Post by **Silverbullet** » Sun Apr 24, 2016 10:02 pm

Hey Jonno, they DO come out!

Today I was fretting about that steel pipe, having cut the bad end off and looking up the tube with a light, seeing endless stalactites of rust hanging down I wasn't happy. I planned to drill it out and put a copper pipe in there but I had no 16mm drill, quick phone call to an engineer friend of mine and popped round, he had the whole manifold in the vice, two vice grips on the stub of steel pipe, twist and turn and she popped right out!

Nice clean smooth hole left behind, didn't even need to drill it to tap a 5/8" BSP thread in it ready for a brass 1/2" hose barb, and run rubber hose up to it from the heater. Pics below.

Also spent today playing around with doing my own electrolysis zinc plating and it turned out amazingly well. Just did a few bolts to start with, now doing a few other brackets and such. At about 8 PM tonight the twins got bolted in to their final resting place (with no rags in sight) genuine gaskets throughout. Found I might have some issues keeping the coil pack where I had it; couldn't bolt the manifold up with it in place because of coolant hoses in the area being in the way. Now the coil pack is off, manifold on, can't get the coil pack back in place

5mm more clearance and I would have been fine.

Tomorrow will be making up ignition leads (once I get the coil pack back on) and testing out the EDIS for the first time

Stay tuned.

Stalactites of rust, couldn't live knowing this was in my engine so it had to go

Here's the rusty bugger, straight into the bin

Nice clean hole left behind

Nice clean 5/8" BSP thread

Silverbullet · Post by **Silverbullet** » Sun Apr 24, 2016 10:07 pm

Experiments in zinc elctro plating

The first bolts I plated; they come out looking dusty dull grey at first but just need a buff up with some green scouring pad with bolt in the drill and they come up real nice and shiny

And the twins in their final resting place

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Sun Apr 24, 2016 11:14 pm

That alternator is out of place!

Looks very awesome otherwise!

Keep up the good work!

Cheers

Bennie

Ps: good effort on the plating, did it take long per bolt?

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Mon Apr 25, 2016 8:01 am

write up on this zinc plating and what to get, where and how to Sam sometime ? I'd aso want a green plating trick too for those greeny bolts

Silverbullet · Post by **Silverbullet** » Mon Apr 25, 2016 7:14 pm

Will do Jonno, it's pleasingly simple and not much special gear required which I was happy about

Dunno about the factory green finish though, I'm one step away from the shiny gold chromate color but the chemical to do that is pretty nasty, not sure if its even available in Australia due to our nanny state laws. Also that Alternator is going! some time soon. Once I test run the engine I will get that A/C bracket blasted and coated, get the A/C compressor looked at and fit the new alt so it will be all sparkly and new.

Today a little more progress; got the coil pack back on happily by lopping off one stud/corner of my coil mounting platform to clear hoses. It's still plenty strong enough, I maintain that you could lift the car by that bracket

Also made up some ignition leads, man what a pain! Every step of making your own ignition leads is a right pain in the behind. I only did because I couldn't find leads with the correct coil terminal on them for the Ford coil pack, had to source the crimps from the UK. Then the rubber boots for the coil pack terminals, the only ones available are MSD same goes for the spark plug rubbers and because they are MSD they are massively oversized things for V8 hot rods...then assembling them the lead doesn't like being pushed through the undersized hole in the rubbers (plenty of lube required) Got there in the end though. Next time I think I'll just buy the normal leads, lop the dizzy end off and put my own on.

Next I decided to test out my EDIS for the first time ever and see if it would make spark. I moved the sensor to a more handy position so I could use my other trigger wheel in the drill to test the system without having to crank the engine over. First time round absolutely no spark...bugger! I swapped the crank sensor wires around because the sensor is polarized, knowing my luck got it wrong the first time. Tried again with the drill and spark plugs out on display; got one or two sparks from each side of the coil pack then it stopped

This was with the Megajolt ECU disconnected, as the EDIS module can run the engine on its own at a fixed timing position. I think the EDIS module is not happy about something, as it gives me a few sparks then stops. Disconnecting the battery and trying it again sees the same thing happen every time. Well I'm kinda relieved it works at all, now have to figure out what its not happy about.

Lots of hoses in close proximity to the coil pack back side

4 x spark leads all made up and fitted nicely

Post by **TOONGA** » Mon Apr 25, 2016 8:17 pm

Looking good SB ... very good.

If you were closer I might have to "borrow" that motor for my brumby.

TOONGA

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Tue Apr 26, 2016 9:12 am

Sam, have you considered a forum entry on the megajolt sales page link ?

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Tue Apr 26, 2016 9:32 pm

Nice mate.

The mega jolt running for a few turns then stopping due to not having some sort of signal from the ECU or something?

I have no idea, just putting it out there.

Awesome work again mate!

Cheers

Bennie

Silverbullet · Post by **Silverbullet** » Tue Apr 26, 2016 10:36 pm

Bennie, that's what I originally thought so I disconnected the Megajolt ECU; the Ford EDIS chip can run the engine on its own fixed ad 10 degrees BTDC, but it didn't fix it. I suspected my "star earthing" system of using one single point for every earth may have been sending errant coil trigger pulses back through my sensor cable shield interfering with the sensor signal but separating them didn't fix it either. I've got a few other things I can troubleshoot yet before I go running to the Megajolt forum for a single "HELP ME!!" post

*Edit* Think I just found my problem:

I discovered a few years ago an ERROR on the autosportlabs wiring diagrams......they show pin 7 connected to earth and shields.....DO NOT DO THIS....connect to shields only. This error causes an earth loop in the shield cable and reduces / eliminates the shield effect can result in dodgy PIP / SAW signals.

From here

I followed the autosportlabs wiring diagram to a T, by connecting pin 7 to cable shield AND ground, which apparently is wrong. As I originally suspected

rtcb65 · Post by **rtcb65** » Wed Apr 27, 2016 7:08 pm

After reading through the thread, two words came to mind.. Holly crap. Holly crap. Puts what we have done to shame. Very nice work. Holly crap.

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Wed Apr 27, 2016 8:17 pm

rtcb65 wrote:After reading through the thread, two words came to mind.. Holly crap. Holly crap. Puts what we have done to shame. Very nice work. Holly crap.

Rick it doesn't put what the subie boys did to shame - I'm sure Silverbullet got a lot of inspiration from reading your build threads when they were thriving!

SB: have you had time to modify that wiring with the shield to see if it makes a difference?

Cheers

Bennie