JDM55

haha cheers dude , wasnt planing to go that far but you know how it is,once you get started on something just wana keep building on it, it is coming up pretty nice tho at least on the looks department lol not sure on the mechanical side tho , just had a bit to many dramas and its made me weary of things I'm doing ,i guess only can try and if it doesnt work try again with something different :)

pretty happy finished off the clutch pedal,, welded on the pedal part i made up a stoper plate and welded that on couldnt find what i realy wanted to but ended up welding on a thick support plate and 2 pipes , pretty heavy duty now , had it back in the pedal box all hooked up and fits perfect and works the same as the other pedal, just needs some paint and its that job done :)

several hours later , alot of cutting and grinding drilling and generaly being noisey and making a mess, i ended up with a piece that looks like a pedal! quite happy with how its looking , managed to get the bends pretty close to the original even :)

well things are about to get hectic, nearly the end of the week, and of corse nearly xmas, and of corse theres the holiday break! which I'm going to use to do as much as i can on my car , a chance to get a good week or soo of decent work happening , up to now its just been friday nite and saturdays , realy can't get alot done in that time,so progression is so slow and frustrating at times , how ever I'm getting there now so pump some hard hours in and should be able to get things realy happening :) ill post up a few things but things will be very random , i have a ton of little jobs to do ,hopefully all goes well over the coming weeks , realy pushing to hear the motor running in the car!!!! any way just steping back a bit heres my clutch pedal i was talking about, in the pic can see the section i added to the pedal , keeping in mind this was just temp to get the clutch working,now that ive worked that out , need to sort out a proper pedal set up a bit more reliable than this one, went and got a piece of 5 mm steel plate and took a template of the pedal ,including the positions of the holes and where the bends were,basicly want to make a new pedal exactly the same as the welded up one, except the new one will be one piece and not a dodgy 3 piece thing,which probably would have been ok but id rather have piece of mind having a solid one :)

cheers man ,I'm trying , seems to take a few trys to get things rite but get there in the end, cheers for the tip on welding! ill try that out next time for sure :)

thanks man I'm wraped ,its just another small step closer, theres some pics for you :)

boom!!! :) trust me when it say this took a long time to fit! was done very slowly using seat belts and chains on a engine crain, didnt want to scratch anything!!it was very tight and been a long time since i done this so was a bit hazy on the process, but shes in and how sexy does it look!!!! :wink: ,getting the engine in and seeing it look this good has given me a boost, and realy want to get it running ! its been a very long road,3 years so far, for me thats a very long time to be working on one project,i know some guys can take up to 5 years etc,but i think under the circumstances I'm doing pretty good ,just money is holding me back a bit ,but bits and pieces here and there and stuff seems to be falling into place. i have 10mm at the fire wall its rediculously tight. the strut brace should help make it nice and firm,how ever theres been that much strenghting done,it mite not mater to much,but it looks very pimp :) only a small intercooler for this car,want to keep things a bit on the discrete side,so matt black full front , and custom mounted intercooler, with modded rad support

sooo friday nite , well after modding the pedal and the pedal box, i mounted it back in the car, set up the engine and gear box together again on a crate,then connected a line from the clutch master to the slave again,,,, started to bleed the clutch and it was getting very firm , the slave seemed to be getting there , definatly had more movement than the last time but then al of a sudden boom!!! , the clutch pedal completely snaped under the pressure! turns out where i had welded in a piece of steel to lenghten the pedal snaped clean off at the weld :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: after several minutes of swearing and cracking the shits, calmed down abit decided to pull the clutch pedal out and try weld it again ,at least for a temporary fix ,realy needed to see if the clutch was going to work ,was starting to drive me nuts, pulled the pedal bits out and found the break was snapped off where i had grinded down the welds, must have grinded a bit to much off and it wasnt too strong, not to worry the pedal was only a temp test just to see if i could get the dam clutch to work, rewelded the clutch pedal again with a rediculous weld ,lol was determined to make this thing work, got the fixed pedal back in and continued bleeding the clutch, the clutch was bleed as much as i could ,no air in the lines , but daaammmmm the pedal was firm !!! i guess the heavy duty clutch just has a heavy duty pedal ,will take a while to get used to that for sure, any way the clutch was bleed , the broken pedal was fixed and it held with the pressure,and the clutch works !!! got good travel with the new set up and enough to move the clutch fork in and out, but not come to close to the stopper that i had put in there,guess i didnt need the stopper after all,ah well better safe than sorry . so with that all done i was very happy , the only thing holding me back from moving forward was making sure the clutch works, so with that out of the way ,i couldnt stop there, got the motivation to fit the engine!!! , been a long long time coming to fit the engine,its been sitting on the stand for over a year now,so getting to actualy fit it was great.

i was kinda thinking something along those lines ,how ever finding another master that bolts on the same mite be tricky, any way i stuft around tonite and managed to get some sort of results, pulled the whole pedal box out , and seriously modded it ,and the clutch pedal ,i added like 3 inches of lenght to the pedal and redesigned where it bolts on , so the pivot point is 3 inchs higher than where it was originaly this has actualy given me full travel of the master!! :) so from completely out to completely bottoming out the master with the clutch pedal, and the whats even stranger than that working is right above the clutch pedal is a small raised section that alowwed for the pedal to be raised! thank you toyota for thinking of putting that there for me :) ,so the pedal box now gives me full travel of the master , how ever I'm yet to test this out and see if it will work with the slave cyclinder , but I'm hopefull this will make a big difference /???.?/.?///./?> probably try again friday nite ,' FINGERS CROSSED@@@@

well the kicks keep on coming don't they,very disapointed I'm myself and in the way things are going , the priveous problem with the thrust bearing turns out to be nothing to worry about at all,in fact its the complete reverse that is now become the next drama in this never ending build,:( turns out the pedal dosnt have enought throw to push the pin all the way into the clutch master, and now that i think about ,when i constructed the set up on the pedal box, it was to suit a 180sx clutch master,but since then finding out that that one would not fit in the engine bay ,becasue the engine got in the way ,so i changed it to the ta22 celica small master, it fits next to the engine just . tonite ive done a test , engine and gear box connected with a line running from the master to the slave on the box ,bleed the line out and no mater which way i adjusted things , it all came back to the pedal just hasnt got enough throw to push the piston all the way to the end ,which in turn dosent push the clutch fork all the way , so yeah very disapointed , every thing is just a real battle ,I'm not realy pissed off casue I'm used to these dramas in this car build , but i just can't see how to fix the situation , i definatly don't want to try another clutch master as the ta22 is perfect fit where it is its just so tight and close to everything, just don't know , has any one uses a ta22 clutch master and got it to work ,????????? maybe i need to mod the pedal again to give it more throw,sum how I'm just flat out of ideas on this one ,

no one got any ideas??? well i made a stopper to start with but this will only work if theres pressure on the thrust bearing, ive asked a few mechanics and they seem to think there is pressure on the bearing constantly so could be ok, but I'm still not convinced, think I'm going to do a test by puting the gear box on to the engine , set it up in front of the car and run a dodgy line from the clutch master to the slave on the box, then bleed out the line ,and test the movement of the pedal and the fork .big fingers crossed it will work and the tube thingy dosent hang up....... tonite i got the engine on the ground off the stand ,caught my hand under it and stuft my hand up, yes silly ,but its a bit difficult doing this on you own ,any way the engine is off the stand after well over a year, also managed to get the fly wheel back on and a new clutch, fingers crossed that all works well, torquing up the fly wheel with 98 foot pounds of pressure realy gave me a work out!! but i got it done,just took a bit of straining lol

so ive been checking out my gear box and trying to get it sorted how ever ive come across a potentail problem, its a bit hard to explaing , I'm using the bell housing form and sr20 box and the box it self is an rb20 ,to start with, for some reason the fork that pushes the thrust bearing seems to be abit long,and ive had to space out the slave using some thick nuts sl that the slave would line up with the fork properly, thats the first problem , ive got the fork from the sr20 and the rb 20 boxes and they are the same, so it leads me to think that the bell housing is maybe slightly smaller on the sr20 or the mounting of the slave is slightly difernt on the other. so thats problem one, and not a big deal realy becasue ive spaced the slave out and its lined up with the fork so it should operate fine, the next problem is slightly bigger tho, try to explain, the thrust bearing is mounted to a tube sort of thing that the fork rests on and pushes when the pedal is depressed, now this tube thing (sorry don't know that right term for it so gona call it a tube thingy) this tube that has the thrust bearing on it,slides up and down on the gearbox main shaft, how ever there is a ressesse in side the tube thing ,i believe its like that to keep grease in the center of the tube , how ever when the fork is pushed say to far back it makes the tube slide forward to far and that resses or step in the tube ,hangs up on the input shaft and wont return with out realigning it on the shaft, I'm not sure how far the fork moves when its in operation but I'm asuming it moves more than 30 mm???????? it may not be any thing to worry about and as long as theres pressure on the bearing the hole time its in there it wont goto far forward, does any one know how much the clutch fork would move on a sr gearbox??? and does anyone know if when the gear box and engine are put together does the thrus bearing rest constantly on the pressure plate????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? done a ruff scribble of the tube and thrust bearing so can see what i mean , any ideas any one???? maybe i could make a stoper that stops the fork going too far back ,thus cancelling the chance of the bearing /tube thingy getting hung up?? but realy it should just work like a normal gear box set up???? dam modds some time there just a pain in the ass, any way any help be great.

very nice! love all the quailty pics , shots of auckland bring back memorys ha ,nice mate keep on rollin ,peace

man i havent seen this one for ages,you come long way!!! looks awesum! love the camber and engine bay lay out is very tidy, have to see you one in real life one day,your leading the race by far now haha, never mind ill get there eventuly :) peace

not any pics today but been getting my engine sorted should be putting it in shortly :) heres a bit of a fly by to watch of my engine on the stand,give you an idea how much work ive actualy done to this thing :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpm_SS6Ra_I&feature=youtu.be

ah thank you mate for your kind words,recovery is slow and i don't want to over do it,but the same time I'm itching to work on the thing and get it done haha,yes loving the loom stuff,always like wiring stuff up so its not to hard,should look pretty tidy in there once things are all back in,cheers mate

cheers evan,its coming together nice,ill have to make a visit when shes running ,come for a cain :) haha i forgot bout that tank, mite still need it ,i got one ,just gota see it it not gona leak ,a few fuel tests coming soon ,fuel lines are the next big thing on the list ,something that is a bit tricky braided lines and speed flow fittings cost a fortune, and then you gota fitt them right or leak city,lol the joys

Cheers mate, I'm glad to be back and doing some work on the car,slowly but surely is the key at the moment :) since the engine bay has been painted i can start putting things back in ,so ive been doing lots of little stuff, fitted the accell cable fitted the brake booster fitted the master cylinder and custom brake lines with proportioning valve made some new short looms to the head lights, painting various small parts, fitted a brand new windscreen with molds fitted new head lights and frames a better pic of the colour in the engine bay,realy loving this colour ,and the gloss is very high and has a deep look about it,:) finally after 2 plus years the car has all the glass back in :) love the new windscreen ,so clear and clean ,gave the wipers a good sand and paint and replaced the wiper blades... brake lines with mitsi pajero master cylinder and ke35 brake booster... doing my best to keep the wiring hidden ,or at least very tidy and not all over the show, heres the short loom to the head lights using the old indicator wiring hole , looks good and clean ,which is my goal for all the wiring , once the engine is back in the wiring is going to get hectic , so trying to keep every thing as clear as i can now ,there be all sorts of stuff in there when its done

thats about it for this week, a great start back to the work tho!! realy happy with how the paint on the engine bay came out ,and its great to see things that have been painted and sitting in boxes waiting, get put back on the car after so long,still heaps to go but i feel like theres been some sort of progress made in just s short amount of time.try to get some better pic of the engine bay when the lighting is abit better ,so hard to get a nice shot,the pics realy don't do it justice.

this is the plug that goes to the wiper motor,it used to come out of the fire wall loom, but you can see the tubes block off where that old loom would have came out, so it was moved and made to come out the hole just above where it used to. and reassembled the wiper motor arms and put them in to place then attached the wiper motor and fitted that,then clamped the wiring in place

also took apart the factory wiring loom and rewired alot of it,extending wires into new positions , then run it thru the chasis into the car , and it runs round the front and back up the other side and into the chasis , couple of reasons 1 again to tidy the wiring up 2 i couldnt use the factory loom positions as they were blocked off from the strenghtening tubes , round the front other side

after the paint was dry i managed to get a few small things back on ,the above pic is of the squirter jets for the windscreen as they usualy are on the 55, i wanted to get rid of as much stuff as i could like this , it just looks untidy with bits hanging out all over the place, so what i did was slightly bent the squirter jets and connected them to the tube running all the way from the bottle in the boot,then mounted them on the inside if the valance,rather that the factory position in the engine bay,that way it gets rid of the squirter jet frame and the hoses hanging all over the place :) new tube position hidden

its very hard to get a decent picture in the oven , just have to take my word for it the paint turned out awesum!!! I'm very happy with how it came out and all that sanding and prep work payed off :) alot better than how i thought it would come up any way.

then the blue colour and clear was sprayed and baked , then i masked up the front panel casue i wanted it black.

so let the fun begin! all masked up ,oven up to temp and started spraying , first layed down the grey base over every thing as per usual .