26 February 2012 – Interior Panels & Assembly X














On arrival Friday afternoon, the first order of business was to get some fresh coffee in my blood stream and then to tackle the rocker cover, seeing that the only thing keeping dust out of the internal workings of the engine was a couple of clean rags. Just a word of caution, this VHT Wrinkle paint sure as hell like taking it's sweet time drying, especially if you’re not curing it in a big ass oven. My father placed it in the sun every day of the week, we are talking 35-40degrees Celsius here, and still on Friday you could feel on some of the places that the paint is still soft where it was sprayed very thick. The complete cover was masked up, besides the lettering to protect the rest of the fresh paint, started up the trusty 3M orbital sander with some 80 grid paper and went to work on it, a few minutes later the final product emerged. Cleaned all the surfaces and gaskets and reassembled everything, the results is just stunning. Decided not to re install the VVL badge, I think it looks much more stylish without it, and then I do not need to advertise to all onlookers that it is running a VE, those with knowledge will see that it has solenoids. Can't wait to finish the rest of the engine bay.




Saturday morning while sipping away on the first cuppa, I had this feeling of I'm not going to like what was about to happen, and this is making the templates for the front kick plates and rear boot covers. Making templates is not my favourite activity, but the one thing this build has taught me, was that templates saves a lot of time and frustration, not to mention material. So after the first cup of coffee was done, we set to work ont he front kick plates, seeing that I borrowed one of my brothers 1200 kick plates, the basis was easier, but still it proved to me a marathon walking up and down. Once we were happy with the left and right side, we started cutting these from 2mm Aluminium, smoothed the edges and after some final trimmings, seeing that aluminium plate is stiffer than carton boxes, the holes were drilled and installed. Once the left side one was installed, I quickly assembled the modular fuse/relay box and made some studs for it. Took a breather from templates and sanded it down and sprayed it with clear lacquer to keep it from showing dirty marks. Virgin aluminium likes showing finger prints, not even to mention scratches.








While we were busy in the car, we installed the pedal box, this time as complete as it will ever be, masters, brake bias adjuster, clevis pins with retaining nuts, the whole shebang. We hit a slight hiccup with the left master clevis pin hitting the mounting bracket, took the pedal box out again, grind the culprit away, paint and assembled the lot again. Once this all was done, we continued with the rest of the interior, assembled the handbrake and installed the centre console and it hit us, we were unable to install the console without disconnecting the brake lines, something I was not willing to accept. Well out it came and after a few up and down walks this was sorted and everything installed. Just as we got comfortable, I installed the gear-lever, @*^%..... and just like Murphy would want it, it hit the console if changing to 5th, out again, removed another 8mm and installed again, this time round it was much better, but if you would shift hard into 5th it would hit and seeing that I still needed another 2mm for a gear-lever boot, my short temper kicked in and sparks was about to fly. If Nissans, gear-lever was not going to work in this car, I will just make my own version, the idea behind this was to get it even shorter for a more natural body feel when shifting and to get rid of the wide body of the lever. Sparks flew in all sort of direction before we got to the inner working of the lever, which was the actual part we needed. After digging around in the Stainless bin, I found a nice thick wall pipe which is a snug fit around the inners, I'll use this to extend it to the desired height and a piece of rod at the top with thread. When I have time I'll turn down a piece of Aluminium bar to make my own nob.




After this all, my temper was running on he red side and knew the next set of templates are going to be the end of my good mood. Started off with one piece of carton on the boot covers, once we had this one which only covered part of the hole, we started with a second one to fit the rest. After completion we joined them together to form a complete template. This actually went better than expected. But my downfall was downing on my. Once the covers was cut, it became very apparent that getting these babies in place was not meant for me, left it up to my father while I concentrated on finishing my back of smokes. Once they were trimmed down for easier fitment it was my queue to mark, drill holes and enter the self-tappers. Damm I hate this stuff, but self-tappers just looks better than rivets. Rivets always seems like a lazy persons answer for fixing something. Rivets is the second item in my list of stuff I hate seeing on a car, just below checkered plate, don't get me started on the use of this on a car. I'm still looking for a better alternative to checkered plate for my false floor on the driver’s side. Prepped these with the sander and a few coats of clear lacquer further we were done for the day, well so I thought.




After coming back from test driving my father’s newly acquired 2nd hand Toyota Hilux, which I will use to tow the car back to Cape Town, I just could not help myself to pour some brake fluid in the reservoirs. It must have been the aircon cooling me down to have this sort of courage at night, as it is always a crap idea to start with bleeding brakes on a completely new brake pipe system late at night, as the possibility to run around trying to get flares to seal is almost unavoidable. I just had to, started with the clutch, used regular DOT 4 brake fluid on it as I was scared that 1 litre of ATE Super Blue will not be enough for the clutch to, filled the container, hooked up flex pipe on the slave and opened it, after a few pumps with the bleed nipple open and closed, I managed to get the master and slave free of air and Datto had clutch, happiness. The bloody fool I am, just had to see how the Super Blue looks in the reservoirs and the &^$# hit the fan, just as I knew could be the case, 4 of the new flares was leaking, cleaning, tightening, releasing, tightening again did the trick on 3 of them. But the one got the better of me. Just before whipping out the vice grip to fasten it, seeing that the freak in 10mm nut was by now stuffed, it seemed that it stopped.

The next morning the first thing I went to check on was the bloody flare, as luck would have it and Murphy in the mood to spoil my first cuppa, it was leaking, well not in the mood for a flare to wreak havoc on my temper, I decided it was time for the bigger bader tools, whipped out the vice grip and fastened it decently, mental note to self, buy a set of brake nut spanners. After this whole ordeal, I can vouch for AN/JIC style fittings, not a single leak, but then again what do you expect from two machined surfaces. After all this fun and games my father helped me bleeding the brakes, once this was done we realised that we will have to reinforce the metal below the hydraulic handbrake as it flex too much for comfort and that I will need to design a stop on the lever as I'm afraid of forcing the circlip out retaining the piston.












Proceeded in installing the plates seeing that the paint dried, but once I got to the table with all my bolt and nuts, and yes I can literally start a business selling all the spare bolt and nuts, flipped from struggling to find some M5 fender washers and decided to first get rid of all the bags that the bolts come in before proceeding. I'll rather struggle to find a bolt off a specific size in a container than struggling to find its location beneath a heap of bags with some sort of fastener in. My motto when buying fasteners is, if you need 6 buy 10 or if you need 12 buy 20 as it is out of the question to waste time to go to the nearest town which is 30km away for a freak in bolt, but doing it this way, you end up with a crap load of extras. Installed the kick plates and bolted the fuse/relay box in. Afterwards moved to the rear and installed the boot covers. Once they were in place I could replace the rear lights which had to be removed to get these in and fastened my wiring loom again. I'm very happy with the outcome. It looks must neater now and as a bonus I know have a location to stick all my stickers, this way I can decide who see them and who don't, I'm not a big fan of a car full of stickers with the part brands used.






I had a slight suspicion that my front suspension was not 100% from the day I assembled it, as the lower control arm twisted when turning due to the lower ball joint sitting at a 25degree angle going into the knuckle, the reason for this was the track rod had rod ends on both sides and not resisting this force. I bought to M16 x 75 bolts for a quick experiment, I just had to try this as the Nissan S13's track rods mounts on rubber bushes on the front and at the back solid on the LCA. Quickly turned up a set of bushes and welded the bolts to it, once cold replaced the RH thread rod ends with them and bang, my one suspension issue was sorted, no more twisting, what a relieve, now I just need to design some sort of steering angle stoppers to limit the movement of the wheels, as it turns to far and locks, something that is only very bad if the wheels is in the air, if we push the vehicle around on its wheels it is not that bad, but something that will be sorted before I drive this car.

The rest of the afternoon was used to adjust the diff angle, measure the prop shaft and making a final list of things to do before the car can be towed back to Cape Town, I have one item outstanding to get the car dust proof, well the other holes will be sorted with some duct tape.

supafatto, you will struggle your nut sack off trying to fit doors on a caged 1200 with seats in, I'm a very short tempered person, so spending the extra 10min to remove seats safes me a lot of swearing.

CA_1200_project: without documentation I would have been lost, I would like to look back one day and read thru it, think it would be awesome to show me kiddies one day what true dedication mean.

I'm a IT geek during the day.

mcgee,

It's looking good, will you be willing to ship this to South Africa?

Good Q, my car is getting closer to the end, I need one of those bobtails.

18 February 2012 – Anti-Roll Bar & Assembly IX

Sitting here 4 days after returning home from the car, I cannot remember what I did during last week, I'm pretty sure it wasn't nothing. I can remember doing a few test with the VHT Wrinkle Plus paint. On the topic, if anyone can tell me why we, South Africans, must always struggle to get their hands on the non-day to day stuff, drop me a mail. I had to ship these two cans of VHT paint down from Johannesburg, no one in Cape Town know the product. Anyways, after a few test runs on cans with different thickness coats, degrees of heat and baking duration, I was quite nerves about the upcoming events as my test runs was not consistent, neither did it produce the results I had in mind.












After arrival Friday at home, the first order of business was a little mischief, seeing that we are "af die plaas" things are seen in a different light than normal folk, let me get to the point. But wait, maybe I should first say, We do not take any responsibility what so ever for any damage or injuries that may result from the below actions". Since I started with this build "Argon" gas has been a issue as the refill depots do not want to fill my father’s privately bought Argon bottle, no illegal stuff here, invoices from one of Cape Town biggest welding suppliers. So a week or two back, I bought a full Argon bottle and immediately I decided to use the big bottle to fill smaller ones. I bought two regulator fittings and had them machined to accept normal Hi pressure fittings, I just didn't want to take any changes with this. Once that was done, I had a hi pressure hose made up with a 400bar operating pressure. We lifted the smaller bottle with the overhead crane, attached the pipe, first opened the smaller bottle then the larger one slowly, one smoke later, the pressure in the two neutralized, we ended with +-115bar in each bottle. Do not attempt this if you’re not a total nutcase or know exactly what you are doing, as the empty bottle gets quiet hot during the gas transfer.








Back to Datto; Friday was used to finish the oil pipes, after that I was spent.














Saturday morning we started off with cutting the last part of the left fender, well that was the idea, we ended up cutting both to get them 100% the same, this involved cutting template after template. Then I moved onto the anti-roll bar, in my case a torsion bar, first order of business was to drill and tap the holes in the aluminium mountings I had milled, this took way to long, but seeing that I first drilled one hole tapped it and then marked drilled and tapped the second one, this is understandable. Then I made myself some polypropylene bushes, I just hope they last, but then again, If I have to redo them every year I'll be quite happy, as the material is about R90 for 500mm, I only used about 150mm.










Then I moved onto "Project rocker cover TLC" I really did not want to make a big cockup of this as it would be the first thing anyone will see if the bonnet is left open by mistake. The previous night I washed this thing endlessly to make sure there is no sand deposits left due to the sand blasting and had it drying thru the night. First I cleaned it again with a thinners cloth and laid it down on a carton, on top of a reasonable stand for my short ass. Let me just sketch the scenario, I was very scared as this point and sweating like a pig in heat, but I just decided if I stuff this up, I can just get it sand blasted again and either spray it with the wrinkle paint or with some more known paint. After both my arms was done from shacking the damn can I started with the first coat horizontal across the length of the cover, laid the paint down quite thick, waited the 5 minutes between the next coat as the can explained. Started with the vertical coat, this time even thicker as the first coat was quite tacky by now. Waited 5 minutes again and started with the last coat in a sideways movement, this time around I did not spare any paint. Seeing that the rocker cover does not fit my parents oven, the only other option was a heat gun. Started spreading the heat in the same way you would spray a big part, first the corners and then the rest in layers almost. After about 7 minutes still nice and shiny paint and then all of a sudden, it appeared on the far corner while I was busy on the other side, Wrinkles. The one thing I realised was that the wrinkles does not appear due to the result of direct heat, but from overall temperature increase of the object. I just continued with what I was doing and all over the show the wrinkles appeared, this continued for another 8 minutes until the complete cover was covered with an even layer of wrinkles, not one place with burned or an inconsistency, besides the small hair that fell on the back while spraying. Just around the edges where more of the paint accumulated it was a thicker wrinkle. All in all, this is easier doing it on a big object than on small metal containers. I'm very happy with the outcome.










Sunday morning I started assembling the intake manifold and routing the vacuum pipes. The pipe I imported is thicker than standard and I had to remove some material from the one end to enter the LINK map sensor. As you would have noticed, the last few weekends was used to get the car dust proof as I'm planning to bring the car back to the mother city for some serious wiring, flares, branch, exhaust and prop shaft. After the intake I moved to the back of the vehicle installing the Number plate light, this is still one of my biggest headaches, seeing that i don not like the big pimple winking at me. It will be sprayed blue to help hide it, but in the future I'll device some sort of plan with LED’s and alu plate to get it flatter. Sunday actually started quite early for me and my girlfriend, while I was busy with the above se cleaned the interior of the car, this took her more or less from 07:30 - 14:00. During this whole process we managed to re install the seats, handbrake lever and wiper arms.




During the week I managed to assemble the dash, just forgot to pack the steering column switches, will bring that home and finish the assemble on it, just need to make a hole for the 12pin socket I bought for the steering wheel switches.

The car is coming together nicely and the possibility to bring it back in 3 weeks is a reasonable thought, since I only want to make the new kick plates and covers in the boot to round it off. Once back in the Cape, the next big struggle will begin with the flares. Anyone with solid experience in doing something like this from scratch, please feel free to share.

unfamilia, check your mail.

unfamilia, pm me a email addy for the detail pics and drawing

11 February 2012 - Assembly VIII






Since the last update I received a box in the post containing a variety of Teflon/PTFE braided pipe and AN fittings, also included was silicone vacuum pipe, exhaust wrap and Stainless Steel cable ties. I have only seen these pipes but never worked with it before, seeing this was my change, a few YouTube movies further and I was on my way, but the one thing they forgot to mention was that it take some time to work with this stuff without destroying your fingers in the process. During the week I also took the widened wheels and new rubber in for fitment, I must say I really like the look of the 205 rubber on the 8J wheels. I also took the tappet cover in for some Aluminium welding, added a AN10 socket for the breather and closed the old hole were the PCV valve used to be.














Friday arriving at my parents’ home, I immediately started sanding the tappet cover. After a few minutes of sanding I quickly realised that I will have to get the thing sand blasted to remove all old paint as it was impossible to reach everywhere with the sander and there is no way I will even attempt sanding this thing with the hand. During the course of the evening I tested my newest idea for a anti roll bar, this came in the form of a torsion bar with splines on both sides and also the brackets. It didn't take long after a mock assembly to realise that this plan will work 100%, I must admit, not a lot of things came easy with this car, but the anti-roll bar may just be the easiest of them all. We made some Aluminium panels for the rear a week ago, I decided to cover them a coat of clear lacquer to keep the dirt away. The final work for the evening was the breather pipe from tappet cover to breather bottle and the bleeder pipe from the output on the head into the radiator expansion bottle. Both done with those shinny blue/red AN fittings.






Saturday morning started with a bang, fitted the cover plates that was sprayed the evening before. The idea for the weekend was fitting the windows and doors, well that is just what we started doing, first the rear window, not being experts at this sort of thing, but previous encounters taught us the basics. The bottom part of the window went easy until we got to the first corner; all off a sudden the nightmare struck, pirate window rubber is just not worth it, the next time I will import the genuine stuff, we struggled for almost 30mins with the second corner, the mould was completely wrong, well we got it in and proceeded upwards, once we had the two sides in, we realised that the glass was too high and was unable to move it downwards, a quick call to my uncle Anton Botha the owner off JA Kontreidienste (023 355 1850) for some advice, seeing that this sort of thing was a daily occurrence in his previous employment. He assured me that we should just hit it and it will move. We decided to leave the rear one for now and see if the front one will go easier, well the same thing, but at least the corners went easier as we cut the inner lip to look like the OEM rubber. But this only helped with the corners, but the window again was too high, I just had to get my uncle closer to help with this. To be continued......waiting on the uncle, 50km is far, considering the gravel roads.








While we waited for some much needed help, we started with the front fenders, due to the increase size of the wheel which will be used, the wheels were pulled forward to clear the rear and the fenders needed some serious TLC to clear the front. The fact that the road tyres is about 80mm higher than the racing slicks, does not help, well we started marking it out and the cutting was done with a jigsaw. Just before me uncle arrived we had the one 100% done, will finish the last cut on the remaining one on the next visit. I must admit, not a lot is left of the front part of the fender.








On arrival, my uncle didn't waste a lot of time hanging around, he immediately got his hands dirty struggling with the window, the same thing happened with the front window, to high, but he had some good moves in getting it to sit lower, but just not enough, seeing that we didn't have the correct equipment to sand the window down, we opted for the porta pack to press on the roof which did the trick. The rear window was no easy task, but at least we could leave the jack on the floor. Moral of the story, if you can't get the original rubbers, import them, if you can't import them, pay someone else to do it for you. We retired for the day to have a nice braai, seeing that I couldn't sent the hero away with an empty stomach.








Later the evening when all departed, I added the final touches to the pipe coming out of the steering rack. The clutch position and brake light switch kept me busy for the rest of the evening, at least I can position the clutch switch now just as I would like.










Sunday morning was used to wire up the radiator fan and to get the lights installed. I made new retaining brackets the previous weekend and had them plated, this was mounted followed by the lights and seeing that I did not have the original springs for the head lights, this had to be made. At least the car is starting to look like something with just the windows and head lights.
















The afternoon we started mounting an adjusting the rear doors, seeing that the previous owner had new sills installed on the car which was out, we had to make spacers for the left door, almost the exact problem was faced on the front right door. Fitting doors on a car with a full roll cage is no fun, as you have to wrap your body in the most awkward of positions. Afterwards we fitted the front bumper. I could not contain myself and just had to put the fenders on the car to get an overall picture.

Quote:
That seems too advanced for me to even consider trying and way to much effort to search for crayons, Acad is just faster, easier and better understandable.