Hey Mike,

 

Its funny that I've read this thread a few times and it didnt even click when I saw the car thursday night...

 

I may be wrong but I believe you can have a harness in a road car as long as you are still using the

actual factory seat belt as well... I guess you can get done for too many seatbelts?

 

Cheers,

 

Scott.

I'm not worried about it with this car, as my current approach is get a UVP and pray... The seat belt is one of the easier things to fix :)

Added to the kitty today. I got a really good price on an A kit for the car. Now I have engine cross members, '71 gearbox, tail shaft, pedal box, clutch master slave and lines. I was intending to run the K motor for at least another year. The hardest bit will be holding out on converting it to 4AGE power :)

Ripped out the steering rack on the weekend and started dis-assembly. I think it's had a good few years of running dirt events with split boots, there were some ugly noises coming out of that thing when the shaft was moved in and out. I'll give it a decent clean and see if it's usable or too damaged. Fingers crossed it's OK and I can just put the new rod ends on it, grease it up and go. New boots will also go on along with Superpro rack mounts. These claim to lock in the rack really firmly, but the rubber bushes that came out seemed quite hard as well so I'm wondering if the difference will be noticeable at all.

 

I can see I'm going to have some fun trying to properly set the bearing shaft slipper pre load, I may have to fabricate some tools :)

 

First event 11th of March, bring it on!

Edited January 24, 201214 yr by snot35

Rack has been wire wheeled. I think it's use-able. There was a bit of rust on the rack shaft itself but I think it will be OK. I'm debating changing the passenger side bushing on the rack. There was a bunch of brown crap in that side of the rack which I think was mixed dirt, grease and probably water. There's a bit of slack in the bushing. I'm not sure how much is supposed to be there, so if it isn't too costly I'll replace it. Otherwise, the bearings seem OK. New grease, lick of paint, new bushes and rack ends and we'll be good to go again! :)

 

I also had a chance to play around with the wideband and I have a new netbook that I'm messing around with. It was really easy to setup and worked first shot. Free air seemed to be around 400 lambda, breathing on it could get it down to around 16. The lambda on the picture is me breathing on it then quickly moving to do a screen shot on the netbook :D

 

I'm not sure I'll get it mounted really soon. I'll finish the rack and fix the coolant leak first.

 

Fun times!

$60 for the bushing in the end of a '84 steering rack. Not many around either apparently. I might pass :)

Can an egineer make one for you at that price?? I've just had my local general engineer lathe me up a spacer in aluminium (although the first one he did was brass) about 30mm diam by 20mm long. It holds the cross-hatched bit on the shaft here with a certain freeplay, replacing a circlip. He machined it up and threaded the inside of the shaft to the allen screw he had. That was $30, although i told him he was mad & gave him $50.

Quite possibly! Although I'm trying to decide how much I actually need it. The bushing isn't completely had it. There is a little bit of play which might come through as a very mild knock or might not. I doubt it would even be notice-able to be quite honest. I think the original was teflon coated as well, which makes it a little harder.

 

Or I might see if I can find someone wrecking a '70 or '71 with a rack in better condition. That probably wouldn't be hard to find :)

Edited February 9, 201214 yr by snot35

I've decided to use the rack, so that is half back together. I also ripped out the heater box to look into the leak. What a mission that was! The amount of red that came out in the coolant was a little disturbing too. It was starting to overheat on the way home after the last event, so I'm not really surprised. I'm hoping with a system flush I'll make it through this year. It might be a challenge though. Still, it was nice to rip out a few unnecessary bits and pieces while the dash is half out. I found the previous owners CAMS licence jammed in there too! I'm going to see how much a new core is, hopefully not too much. I'm tempted to just loop all the heater hosing back and forget about, but at those cold events the heater might be nice/be necessary for defrosting.

 

To top it off I locked my keys in the car. Great! :)

Rack is done and back in the car. Basic wheel alignment still needs doing. Dash is still everywhere and there is no coolant in the car. The heater core is still busted so I'm going to have to loop the line and run no heater for the moment. Less weight I guess, but I want it back for winter! First event is this coming Sunday so it's going to be a busy week!

Rack is done and back in the car. Basic wheel alignment still needs doing. Dash is still everywhere and there is no coolant in the car. The heater core is still busted so I'm going to have to loop the line and run no heater for the moment. Less weight I guess, but I want it back for winter! First event is this coming Sunday so it's going to be a busy week!

Edited March 4, 201214 yr by snot35

We're ready for the weekend, we just need the UVP. Sometimes things are just a nightmare to get together. Flat battery. Charged, refitted and tried to bolt it in, snapped one of the battery retaining clamp bolts. Stone guard, two snapped bolts, argh!!! All fixed now though. Engine has been flushed as much as possible. God there was lots of rusty crud that came out of it. Fingers crossed I can get a season out of it.

 

Rack feels OK, but stiffens up in a few parts of the steering range. It will do for now. I also managed to cross thread one of the steering tubes which is very annoying. It's jammed in there so it will be fine, it just isn't ideal. Heater core stayed out, so we're running a bit less weight than before. Bring on the weekend! :)

Well we survived khana #1 mostly unscathed. I had a terrible habit of hitting bollards with my rear view mirror which incurs a time penalty every time. And now I have a cracked mirror. The car performed well, my favourite conversation of the day was:

 

"So what's in that, a 2 litre?"

 

"Nah"

 

"1600?"

 

"Nah, 1300"

 

"What, really? That goes alright!"

 

There were a couple of other rolla's out. One AGE small port and a near stock slanty. It was a fun day and we got home in one piece. I think I've improved the cooling situation so we might be OK for the year. On the way home I also picked up a guard for my flat front conversion and the guy chucked in a heater core that looks to be in really good nick, so that's that problem solved. Now I have to wait until June for my next event! :/

 

I took some in car video, if they don't look too lame I'll put them up.

Results in are in, 19th outright out of 38 and 3rd in class. I'm happy with that. I was beaten by two drivers that were in a fairly nasty sounding mini. If I had a day without penalties I would have placed 10th outright! So we've got something to work on next time.

 

The other interesting thing was the cars old owner was there in a VN Commodore. He was beaten :) He was on street tyres though, which would not have helped getting the V6's power to the ground, but still, that was nice!

 

Next event is on the 29th of April, but my wife and son are leaving to see family the same day so there is no hope of me making it. Still, that gives me an extended amount of time to get things done on the car. I'm intending to finally sort the exhaust and strip out some weight if possible. A few more experienced competitors have suggested I should get more castor into the front and soften the back even more as well.

 

So much to do!

Not much to report yet. Seeing that I've got such a long break I've been concentrating on house stuff etc. I did pick up some stock KE70 rear springs. My hope was that they would be softer. Installing one it's raised my ride height vs the AE86 springs by about 30mm and going by the numbers on an online spring rate calculator they aren't any softer either. Damn! I may have to get some custom wound.

 

I'm also making progress selling stuff in an effort to fund a 4AGE :)