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Post by V8 Super Beetle on Apr 27, 2009 10:05:09 GMT -5
Got some more work done this week and weekend. This will be kinda short because I smashed my finger working on the car this weekend.  Leaf spring fell on it.  Good thing it's my ring finger that I use to play guitar with and it's a good thing I DOn't have a couple shows to play this coming friday and sat.  It's all good though. That's why we have four fingers.  Here's a pic of the wheels Ray lent me so I can compare to see if I'll like my wheels black. These are the same wheels and these are for the rear. 18" x 9.5 Thanks Ray!  I thoroughly cleaned the wheel bearings, thrust washer and castle nut to later find out I had bought new bearings. Well, the bearings were in really good shape so I'll hang onto them, put new ones in, for future maintenance.  Painted the spindle and dust cover and installed.  Sand blasted the calipers.  Took them apart to clean them and found a good bit of corrosion. Notice the rust on the dust boot.  I cleaned them and then blasted the inners to find out that one of the pistons had some corrosion which gave me doubts about using for rebuild. So I just bought a new caliper for $10 from the Zone.  Bearings packed, new seal, and rotor assembly installed with the good ol 2" spacers. Tire rod / steering linkage installed too. Front susp. finished.    I started finishing up the rear suspension but smashed my finger. So I called it a day. After removing the rear diff cover. ;D Finger didn't slow me down really. Just ran out of time really. |
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Post by darrinoddiebear on Apr 28, 2009 1:35:41 GMT -5
I must have missed it but why the 2" spacer on front? you chassie looks really good keep paying attention to the small details it is paying off!
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Post by 454bug on Apr 28, 2009 6:37:09 GMT -5
Hey Matt,
Everything is really looking good! All that hard work is paying off...
Keep up the great job!
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Post by V8 Super Beetle on Apr 28, 2009 13:59:21 GMT -5
I must have missed it but why the 2" spacer on front? you chassie looks really good keep paying attention to the small details it is paying off! Thanks! The spacers are so the corvette wheels will fit. All of a corvette wheels width / offset is backspacing. If that makes sense. Take a look at the last picture and you can see just how close the tie rods are to the spindles. |
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Post by darrinoddiebear on Apr 28, 2009 22:21:00 GMT -5
I have always been told the spacers are dangerous for breaking and was not sure if yours was just a driver or more strip,hate to see you lift the front end and loose a wheel do to the impact of it coming down because of spacer breaking.I had a set on 86 cutlass but it was a driver only and had no problems but the mighty V6 would barely powerbrake haha
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Post by V8 Super Beetle on Apr 29, 2009 9:10:11 GMT -5
I have always been told the spacers are dangerous for breaking and was not sure if yours was just a driver or more strip,hate to see you lift the front end and loose a wheel do to the impact of it coming down because of spacer breaking.I had a set on 86 cutlass but it was a driver only and had no problems but the mighty V6 would barely powerbrake haha The ones I have are billet aircraft aluminum CNCd spacers. They wouldn't break anymore easily than an aluminum engine block would. The ones that are notorious for breaking are the cast steel spacers. These will hold up fine to the punishment I put them through. I'll do the occasional mustang / ricer street race and run at the drag strip to see what it'll do in the 1/4 mile, but 95% of it's life will be cruising. I'm thinking about making this my daily driver once I get everything running right. My current daily driver just turned 100K miles and I paid it off. I really don't want to have another car payment again. Not for a long while. Like when the economy becomes stable. ;D I'll give it another 5-10 years, lol! |
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Post by hellraiser on Apr 29, 2009 16:15:27 GMT -5
10 bucks for a new caliper? thats it?
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Post by darrinoddiebear on Apr 29, 2009 23:10:09 GMT -5
I just wanted you to know that why I said anything ,we all are putting alot of time and money and dont want to waste it by something stupid like wheel coming off because cheap part.at least that is my view
I am driving mine also but I am going to run the heck out of it
I use to be real hard on them,always had to see what the limit was haha and some didnt make it
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Post by V8 Super Beetle on Apr 29, 2009 23:23:55 GMT -5
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Post by V8 Super Beetle on Apr 29, 2009 23:38:09 GMT -5
I just wanted you to know that why I said anything ,we all are putting alot of time and money and dont want to waste it by something stupid like wheel coming off because cheap part.at least that is my view I am driving mine also but I am going to run the heck out of it I use to be real hard on them,always had to see what the limit was haha and some didnt make it Thanks for looking out. |
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Post by hellraiser on Apr 30, 2009 14:44:40 GMT -5
ya i bought new calipers for my 69 chevy and they were 35 a pop and i thought that was cheap haha.
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Post by V8 Super Beetle on May 4, 2009 10:05:17 GMT -5
Yeah, I was quite surprised at the cost too. Very inexpensive.
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Post by V8 Super Beetle on May 4, 2009 11:01:35 GMT -5
Alright, alright...(in my best Matthew Maconha voice) Progress. Sandblasted the diff cover inside / out and the shock / u-bolt mount.  Drained the gear oil, which didn't look too bad, and added the new stuff after scraping away all the old gasket, on the diff cover and matting surface, with a gasket scraper.  I sand blasted the diff cover at work. Here it is installed. I used some of edelbrock's gasket sealer on both mating surfaces to ensure it seals up nicely.  Here the rear is after a good wire brushing and painting with some Master Series. It came out decent even though there still was some build up I couldn't remove. Seals still must be good cause there was no leakage after it staying like that for days.  Painted the shock mounts, leaf springs, and shackles.    Here's a picture of the completed rear. Well, minus the shock tower bolts which I later added. Everything is hand tight for now cause the rear will need washers or something to make up for the extra space left by the .5" narrower leaf springs. Once the body is secured and I have the 18"s on I'll do a final setup of the rear diff.  I had decide that I would move the front leaf mounts forward and move the rear back on the leaf springs to make up for it. I did this to help keep the shackles away from the fenders. They were an inch away from the fenders with the way it was previously setup. Well, that didn't work out so well. Here's the front mount moved forward 2". I drilled 1/2" holes to secure the mounts and drill an over size hole so I could mount the Isuzu leafs. The 3/4" were not cheap. They look manly though.  You can see that the is now further away from the inner fender. The problem I ran into is moving the rear diff back 2" started having a weird effect cause I'm moving further up the arch of the spring. I planed to secure the rear by making something similar to these.  Maybe I'll try just an inch instead of 2". Or perhaps I'll make some shackles so that they're not so close to the fenders.   Here you see the rear it reassembled with and the body it back on. I tried rolling the chassis out so I could take pictures of it 95% finished and so I can clean up my garage but it was bumping into the boards that support the body. So I figured I'd put the body back on. It's been sitting up on them blocks a little to long for comfort. ;D That and I wanted to see the new stance with the 2" lowering spindles and the 3" block in back.  From this angle you can see how the 18" wheels will be very close to the wheel leaving very little of a gap, which is what I wanted. The tires will tuck into the fenders. I was just wanting to see how things looked.  These are going to look nice. I'll have them on next progress post.  She sits fairly low. Even though a only did a 2/3 drop it seems almost slammed when I stand next to it. I'm really loving the stance and I'm sure it'll go down another 1-1.5" once everything is in and settles.  The front end aligned up nicely. The passenger wheel was 2" further inside the fender and make the car look off. Now, they're even and have the same wheel gap.  Here's the problem I was running into. The arch of the leaf spring combined with the lowering blocks pushed the wheels forward. I can move the axle back that would just amplify the effect. I'll get her sitting right again. Next time. If it ain't one thing it's another. 
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paulj
Full Member
Posts: 143
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Post by paulj on May 4, 2009 12:42:15 GMT -5
The progress is looking great. I need to find some time to stop by and check it all out. Moving a rolling car is so much easier that hauling it in Boxes!
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Post by V8 Super Beetle on May 4, 2009 13:28:13 GMT -5
You can stop by this weekend if you'd like. That should give me enough time to clean up cause theirs product boxes here and there and the floor is quite messy and unorganized from the past months worth of work. I'll be able to roll it out so you wont have to tippy toe around the garage to check it out. Exactly! The back of my garage is just filed with new parts waiting to be put on the block and old parts waiting to go back where they belong. |
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Leaf spring fell on it. 
Good thing it's my ring finger that I use to play guitar with and it's a good thing I DOn't have a couple shows to play this coming friday and sat. 
It's all good though. That's why we have four fingers. 
