Turbo V8 Jeep hot rod scratch build - SC400/Soarer donor

[Beelzeboss]

Over the weekend I tidied up a few little bits and pieces. First I remade the top brake pedal mounts to move the pivot point closer to the driver for better geometry. I also made them from thicker steel and one side is longer to tie into the steering mount for extra strength.



Then I modified the throttle cable mount to work with the shorter cable.



All that's needed is to make and attach the barrel at the engine end and the throttle cable is all sorted.

Finally, I worked out that with the new master cylinder/booster/pedal arrangement I can take ~50mm off this bulkhead piece.



This will give more room for the brake lines and a little more for engine maintenance purposes - all good things!

[Beelzeboss]

My wife has been working in NZ this week (she does 1 week in every 4) so after putting our little girl to bed I've been heading out to the garage to tidy up some bits and pieces.

First up I made the new brake booster mounting plate







The end of the master cylinder has ended up fairly close to the intake pipe, but luckily that's just a blanked off port and I can shorten the silicone coupler to give a little more clearance. It's not quite as bad as this photo, there's about 20mm room.



Next, since I had the timing pulley jig still in the lathe, I removed the harmonic balancer and timing pulley from the engine to perform the same 36-1 mod to that one as well (the previous one was from my spare engine).



I did remember to mark the location of the sensor at TDC



With the lathe free I then made up a bronze bush for the brake pedal to replace the OEM plastic ones, which have long since been lost.







Next up - finishing the throttle cable! First a piece of brass roughly the right diameter to make up a new end barrel. Here it is next to the cut off original one.



Lathed to 7mm diameter and cut off



The throttle cable measures at 2mm diameter so I drilled a 2.5mm hole through the barrel, then a 4.5mm one half way through to attach the cable with solder.



Once the cable is cut to length and pushed through (wrap in electrical tape to prevent fraying then cut with angle grinder), the end is splayed out. It's important to make sure the larger hole on the barrel faces the end of the cable.



The cable is then pulled back so it's flush with the barrel, the tangled mess mostly contained in the larger diameter hole on the barrel. Add a little flux, heat from a torch and fill the bowl with solder.

=

A little excess doesn't matter, since it files away much more easily than the brass.



And done!

I have a full running list on my phone of everything left to do before the car is finished, and aside from a million quick-to-do jobs (like brake lines, lights, etc. ), the main BIG time sink things I've identified left to-do are:
- Fuel tank/pump/plumbing/filler
- Exhaust/turbo manifolds
- Windscreen
- Roll bar/cage
- Lights and mirrors
- Wiring (engine and body)
- Final attachment/fettling of panels
- Disassemble for full welding of chassis/body frame
- De-rust/paint/reassemble

[Beelzeboss]

Throttle pedal stop tacked in over the weekend



And then: two steps forwards, one step back with sealing up the steering shaft to the firewall.

My plan is to weld a tube to the firewall, put a bearing on the steering column, and then use a silicon coupler to bridge the gap between the firewall tube and the steering shaft bearing to seal up the firewall. I have a 60mm coupler and some 60mm steel tube (which used to be the donor car driveshaft).



Unfortunately I tacked it in slightly too high, and the 60mm tube doesn't really provide enough clearance for the steering joint.



My plan now is to replace this with some 100mm pipe for much more clearance around the steering joint, and then neck it down to 60mm to use the coupler/bearing setup I have.

[Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F]

Nice job. So many little jobs along the way that nobody thinks about.

[Beelzeboss]

Nice job. So many little jobs along the way that nobody thinks about.

Thanks mate, I know what you mean. The little details are also hard for motivation, because the car basically doesn't look any different after all that effort. All I have to keep reminding myself is that the car is now "x hours" closer to completion than it was before the work.

I have some 89mm Chromoly tube left over from making a driveshaft for my previous project car (LS1 swapped S13 Silvia), so I decided to use a short section of that for the steering column surround piece.



First I marked where to cut on the firewall, then after cutting I put the tube in position and marked around it to end up with this funky shape.



It will be welded in like this, then a surround piece added to seal against the firewall panel.



Finally I'll cut an 89mm-60mm washer and attach the 60mm tube, lathe up a bush to go from the 16.5mm steering column to 25mm bearing ID, and another to go from 47mm bearing OD to 60mm coupler diameter... and that should be the end of sealing up the firewall!

[Beelzeboss]

Moving onto another item on the to-do list: brake lines! The first line I chose to do is from the master cylinder to the front T-piece, right near the drivers side wheel.



There is a reasonable amount of clearance from the intake pipe, which is nice.



Then it runs back to the firewall.



Under the brake booster plate, avoiding the steering column cutout.



Down the body frame and forward along the top of the frame rail.



Finally ending up at a T-piece right near where the front drivers side hose end is. I'll need to make a short u-shaped line to go from the T-piece to the hose, then another line which runs across under the radiator and the front brake lines are done.

This is quite a relaxing, easy job to do on the car, and it's nice that it doesn't make any noise so I can work on it after dark.

[Beelzeboss]

After work I finished the short little u-bend line and got the front left line 90% finished.





I forgot to mention I tried something I found online for straightening brake line tubing and it works pretty well.



I just drilled a hole through a block of wood and pull the line through it. Probably not as good as a properly built straightener with multiple rollers, but it's 90% as good for $0 and that's good enough for me!

[Beelzeboss]

Unfortunately on Saturday my wife managed to break her elbow, so I've only been able to make my way into the garage during my daughters naps. Luckily making brake lines actually doesn't take all that long!





Down to the under floor bias adjuster, which is attached via 2 rivnuts in that vertical piece of RHS



Back along the center crossmember where it briefly dips under, though still way above the bottom of the rear subframe so I'm not sure if I'll have to install a guard as per NSRG V2. No big deal if I have to.



Then back to a T piece near the rear shock





The line is above the shock bolt so it won't interfere with removal



Across the back and then around the shock to the brake line bracket.



I suspect I'll need to adjust the angle of the very end of this line, it doesn't look square to the bracket, but at least the majority of the lines are done. Only one short one left to go from the rear T-piece to the brake hose on the drivers side.

[horchoha]

Oh no
How does one break an elbow?
Was she able to get a cast put on?
Wishing your wifey a speedy recovery.

As a side note brake line plumbing is very relaxing work in my opinion.

[Beelzeboss]

Oh no
How does one break an elbow?
Was she able to get a cast put on?
Wishing your wifey a speedy recovery.

As a side note brake line plumbing is very relaxing work in my opinion.

Thanks mate, she was playing Netball and fell down in the first couple of minutes of the final And I agree about the brake line plumbing! It's almost therapeutic compared to all the grinding and welding that usually makes up car building. Nice and clean as well.

So I've decided to make heaps more work for myself and swap in a manual gearbox



To that end I picked up this Aisin MA5 5-speed after work yesterday.



The MA5 is found here in Australia in RWD 3.6L Alloytec powered Colorado's and Rodeo's, so they're pretty common, and the beauty of this particular gearbox is that it's essentially an upgraded R154 gearbox as used in the Toyota Supra Turbo, Soarer Turbo, Cresta, Mark II, etc. Basically any high powered RWD manual Toyota from ~1990 to mid 2000's. Sure, the ratio's are not as good as a proper R154, but R154's here fetch $1500+ 2nd hand, where this was $350. It also has a standard GM 1 1/8" 26 spline input shaft, standard GM 27 spline output shaft, and CAD files for a 1UZ-R154 adapter plate are available free online. The best part is the MA5 box (and the almost identical AR5) are often used in 600whp+ applications without issue.

The thought process behind the decision centers on the fact that an automatic project car really isn't what I want. I'd always planned to swap it to manual after it was registered, however this would mean that I'd need to take it to the engineer again, I'd be paying for rego that I couldn't use during the swap, and all the work to make the automatic work properly without an ECU would be a complete waste of effort.

So, I now have a heap more tasks to do on the car (though most of them seem like fun challenges):
- CNC an adapter plate once my CNC is up and running
- Make a flywheel on the lathe to take a standard GM 10.5 clutch/pressure plate (if it fits in the bellhousing, fingers crossed)
- Clutch pedal/master
- Cut down the brake pedal to be manual sized
- Clutch lines and bleeder
- Remote shifter, as the MA5 shifter is going to be way too far forward
- Driveshaft (I also bought the Rodeo propshaft so I'll just swap the yoke onto the existing one

[Beelzeboss]

We're back! Great to have the forum up and running again, well done!

I'll skim through a few updates I've had on the Jeep. I added the steel panels which the roll bar and seat belts attach to:



Then I rust converted and sprayed weld-through zinc primer on both the body frame and chassis





Then I made a couple of pieces to seal around the steering shaft as it goes through the firewall





Then I Cleco'd on the remaining panels which were just sitting loosely and wheeled it out for a photo shoot.





As another update I've acquired a chassis for a future project. I couldn't pass it up because of how rare and cheap it was, as well as being perfect for the creation of a tiny road-legal race car.



It's a 1928 Austin 7 chassis with an original stamped number on it, which is all-important for legally registering a car on the less stringent "street rod guidelines" here in NSW, Australia.

I've mocked it up in the image above with the track of an MX5, as my plan is to use complete MX5 front and rear subframes to speed up the build and make certification simpler, the same way I have with the Jeep Rod.



I think I'll end up with about a 1900mm wheelbase and the plan will be an aluminium "special" body and a ~1000cc bike engine. Obviously the frame will need a LOT of strengthening, and I'm planning on the body having it's own spaceframe to increase rigidity further.

[Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F]

Lucky find on the Austin! Tough to focus on the jeep with that sitting there...

[Beelzeboss]

Lucky find on the Austin! Tough to focus on the jeep with that sitting there...

Haha thanks mate, I agree completely so I've hidden it under the house



It really is miniature!

On Friday after work I managed to bend up the windscreen frame to my CAD model.



I mocked it up on the car as best I could and it looks a bit taller than I want, so I may have to cut it down and weld it a bit shorter. It's a shame because all the bends came out spot on, including the 10 degree inwards angle to match the taper of the scuttle.

[Beelzeboss]

I bent the brake pedal in a couple of places to clear the new firewall seal piece.



Then I started making parts for my tube bender.



This piece adapts the hydraulic cylinder to the bending die I'm using.



Then I did a test run of putting the hot rod on the truck to go to the engineer and...



FAIL! Either the winch or the battery drill I was using doesn't have enough oomph to pull the car up the steep ramps. I'm going to solve this in 2 ways:
1. I'll make some 300mm high pre-ramp ramps to lessen the angle, which will also stop the car bottoming out as it transitions onto the truck.
2. I'll put a snatch block in so that effectively halves the load on the winch.

On the plus side I got to snap a couple of cool pics of the car while it was outside.

[Beelzeboss]

Last week after work and over the weekend I managed to get a little more done on the Jeep rod.

I made a little progress on my tube bender for the roll bar, but it's still far from finished.



Then on the car I made and notched the cross bar for the windscreen frame.



I started disassembling the 1UZ wiring loom



... the less said about that, the better I did recently manage to pick up a 2nd hand Haltech Elite 550 for $250, which is an absolutely screaming deal, so I think I'll use that rather than the Microsquirt that I had for the project.

Next up my clutch master cylinder arrived. It's from a BJ70 landcruiser, so it's metric fittings with a 3/4" bore, exactly what I need for the GM concentric throw out bearing I'm using. However, after measuring the room I have left on the firewall I decided that I needed to narrow it slightly. Luckily there was plenty of material to do that.







Next up I bought a 35mm holesaw and drilled into the firwall.



The hole for the stud is slotted, which allows the clutch master to be installed with the brake booster in place... I'd love to say that's the reason that hole is slotted, but it's actually because I drilled the hole initially in the wrong place and had to file it to rotate the master to be vertical





Perfect!