The Resurrection of Foam Car - 63 T6B

[bbspdstr]

Aw, Jack, you know more about the mechanical aspects than I do....I truly am still learning. I will say one thing from learning from experience has taught me...and that is there is a reason that Porsche encapsulated the rubber throttle joint. They are old, they are only under extension (pulling)...and they break. Like as in rush hour traffic on a major highway in the early '80s, me in the 'fast lane' and trying to idle over to a shoulder where it was safe to attempt a repair with a piece of wire (which worked well enough to limp home).

If a new one, encapsulated as they all are now, is too salty, at least criss-cross some thicker twisted safety wire (fairly loosely) from side-to-side. That'll get you home. Some throttle is better than none.

-Bruce

[Phil Planck]

Yup Jack - did as you advised and it worked. In the heat of the battle I had several questions for Vic and ran the alignment issue by him. Hoping to get my brake drums and shoes to him for arcing, but he says he is working 7 days a week getting ready for Watkins Glen so wait until that is over. With that issue behind me I got the 6 axle flange bolts installed and snugged down. Then installed the rear shocks:





Next installed bell crank and checked for centerness of the throttle rod in the exit hole. Was too far inboard so put bell crank in vise and straightened out the bend in the inner arm. That got it pretty well centered. Good tip/advice Jack on getting that rod centered. Put the rubber boot on but could not get it over the flange. Will hold off until all boots are in place and need to be forced over their flanges and go through this frustration on just one day. Hopefully the heat gun will help. Funny you brought this rubber connector up Bruce. As discussed previously, this one is solid metal and will not come apart. Installed old, cleaned up ground cable:





I would like to install the engine but need to get all the insulation installed. I have made the large front piece, but have many more smaller pieces to make. Plus, since I did not heed Bruce's advice years ago to remove the tail section I have to fix this hole:






There was a lot of dents and accident damage in the tail and passenger quarter. Took many hours to get it smoothed out. Since at that time I was not confident in my ability to reinstall the tail, I did it the hard way by sliding a dolly up between the inner panel and the tail to smooth out about 40 small dents. Unfortunately the area inside this hole was not cooperating so I started with a small hole, then it got bigger, and bigger. Here are the pieces I cut out:



Actually this inner panel was also damaged from collision with something so needed reshaping. I do not want to weld all of these pieces together but instead make one single piece. A lot of shape here so may get a chance to finally use my sandbag and dished out stump to make a repair piece. Will be a nice break from mechanical work.

[Jack Staggs]

[Jack Staggs]

More info on boots at the rear chassis. Don't allow the throttle boot to be bunched up. Too much tension there can inhibit full throttle at the pedal to carb interface. Also, I like to clip a small hole on one of the outer shifter shaft bellows to allow allow gear oil to drop on the floor went the shaft seal leaks (NOT IF it leaks). This is far more desirable than having the boot fill with 90wt and dumping in to the tunnel where it will seep through the gaps between the spot welds and saturate your expensive carpet kit. I've had several cars where so much oil is in the tunnel, that I drilled a small hole at the underside of the tunnel and elevated the nose of the car and captured a half cup of oil. Carpet ruined, of course.

[bbspdstr]

"This is far more desirable than having the boot fill with 90wt and dumping in to the tunnel where it will seep through the gaps between the spot welds and saturate your expensive carpet kit."

A local daily-driven 'C' I serviced for years until it's long-time owner retired to Cape Cod had that syndrome worse than any other I have seen....or smelled. Rancid gear oil is a pungent odor.

He had a Morgan or two, so he was familiar with the Brit theory of "controlled seepage."

Still, the owner noted, the tunnel was not rusty! Drained gear oil was also poured into the doors...and they were not rusty, either. Couldn't argue with that..."the customer is always right" (even if driving on the left)

The next worse or maybe the worst of all is when your mecanically driven tach is filled half way with engine oil before it's noticed and dripping from under the dash.....messy and expensive....often driving some to an electric tach.

Drove me to have a neighboring machinist make a tool and a jig to mill a groove in the neck of the tach cable drive neck of the pump cover so a neoprene O-ring could be installed to hold back most of the oil from the worn parts in that passage to the seal and thrust washer so they had a chance to hold back the 'normal' amount before screwing it up to the gauge.

The people who want to use 5w synthetic oil baffle me. 20/50 'regular' oil finds 50+ years of wear quickly enough. Synthetic gear oil for the trans wicks through paper trans gaskets in 6 months to a year, 'regular' doesn't. Ethanol ruins all sorts of seals and gaskets and o-rings and we could go on and on.

Phil, I thought it odd that you had not masked the black rubber of the throttle anti-vibration joint.....now I understand....you want a right foot massage when Foam Car is back on the road!

-Bruce

[Phil Planck]

Jack

You are right, of course about the premature shock install, but I just wanted to see how it fit, and fortunately it has been the easiest project so far. Today I gathered the rear brake line parts(plus front hoses) to get ready to install.



Won't happen until next week due to other commitments over the weekend.

Bruce/Jack

Ref leaking trans oil, I always wondered why a rotating shaft seal is used for a sliding/rotating shaft. I would assume the leak cause is the sliding with the grit the shaft picks up. Hopefully the boot will help some. I suppose there is no economical seal better than what was used.

Picked up metric cotter pins I ordered from Fastenal today. I hate wiggly cotter pins, and all the English ones seem to be too big or too small. Here's some trivia - the steering coupler bolts using the castle nuts are 2 different lengths, apparently to accommodate the thickness of the ground strap eyelets. The exploded parts page calls out different numbers for those 2 bolts. My bolts were all about the same length so had to mix and match until I got cotter pins in all of them.

[Phil Planck]

More parts from Stoddard today to finish up shifter(except lock). Got new, correct guide ring installed:



Was disappointed in shift lever boot. Should have know when it had an NLA part no.



All parts for assembly. New heater knob pin was same length as old one which I thought might be incorrect as is shorter than I would like:




Got rear brake lines and hoses installed along with ground strap. Loosening lower shock nut to the end provided enough clearance for the hard line:



Cleaned up front brake hardware and installed new wheel cylinders:

[Phil Planck]

Got the shifter base and heater wire installed, along with the shift rod. Getting it adjusted was pretty easy, of course won't know how good until I drive it.



Put new bushings in the coupler and tightened down the set bolt with blue Loctite. Need to get some safety wire to finish that. The rod-coupler joint is not perfectly centered. I thought it was closer than this by moving the front trans shim, but this will have to do:



I let my granddaughter install the trans hoop bolt covers so she could say she helped build the car:




Got the firewall insulation ready to install:






This is the only piece with the extra heat shield/soun deadener I plan to make. The others will be made from tar paper, using these old pieces as patterns:




Got the ebrake cables fastened to the back plates. I reused the original ones but think I have them on reverse sides from when removed. One moves pretty freely but the other is more sluggish than I like. May have to switch them back.

Installed the heater cable boot and cover tube. Is the cover tube supposed to slide over the small end of the boot, or just "float" on the exposed cable?

Zim's dual m/c arrived today:




Phil

[Jack Staggs]

Phil, this pic looks like the right front backing plate. You have the banjo bolts switched. The drilled through bolt needs to be on the bottom cyl when the plate is installed. You do not show the other side of the backing plate. Wheel cyls must have both pistons facing the same direction as the drum rotation, with the car moving forward, and with bleeder valves pointing upward. We often see these installed in any number of incorrect orientation.
Shift rod at trans looks ok. I don't like Loctite on the tapered coupler bolt. It's not needed on bolts that have provision for safety wire (btw, any baling wire will due. SS not needed). I have had the unfortunate experience of having to heat up the bolt with my torch to release a Loctite glued bolt. Not fun, considering how many thing can (and do!) catch on fire under there. Worse yet, removing a stuck bolt when someone has snapped off the square head of the bolt. They have a built in stress riser under the head, much like some 911 ignition switch bolts, that are meant to snap off on final torque as a theft deterrent.
If you plan on installing a shift lock, you will likely have to re-adjust the shifter a bit. I can take a bit of fiddling to make it work smoothly in neutral, and reverse gear. Heater cable adjustment may be affected.
If you have 2 choices as to where the clutch cable attaches to the TOB arm, choose the lower. Some clutches need additional stroke at the pedal, even when the stop plate is moved all the way up. Usually on 180mm.
If you don't like drilling new holes in a car that you have spent countless hours filling them (I don't) just to fit a conversion brake fluid reservoir, a BMW/VW/Volvo unit will snap on to the dual M/C, similar to the original.
Finally, at long last, the shifter boot will fit just fine when the rubber tunnel mat is installed.

[Phil Planck]

Jack
Thanks for catching the reversed brake line fittings. As I think I said earlier, if there is a 50-50 chance to get it right, I always get it wrong. Jack always gets it right. That's where the 50-50 comes from. I even took reference pictures just last May, but at my age, forgot I took them. Pulled them up today and sure enough, I had it wrong. I think I have the wheel cylinders on correct. Will post a pic later. Ref. the throwout bearing lever, the old one had 2 holes, but the new one only one. Another detail I did not notice. Possibly I could have used the old shaft with the new yoke.





I will look for the BMW reservoir, as I did that on my PreA dual setup. But, I do like the way the C has the reservoir easily visible.
Would this be the correct one?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brake-fluid-reservoir-Volvo-122-140-164-/191804840083?hash=item2ca8759893:g:Yv8AAOSws65TqW7 s&vxp=mtr

Phil

[Phil Planck]

Before I install the front suspension and steering I need to finish painting and undercoating the undercarriage. Like Justin, I had to bite the bullet and tackle last rust repair on the driver side inner fender. This 22 gauge metal, while being easier to form, is a little tougher to weld avoiding burn through. Anyway, behind the hood release conduit was a holely and badly pitted area that I have put off for 15 years.



Made a paper template and confirmed no shrinking or stretching needed, just bending. Unfortunately there is a mild reverse curve at the back of the bad area, but with the thinner 22 ga. was not too hard to get the piece fitted.





It was easier to weld from inside the trunk for most of it so tacked it in:



Crawled under and tacked areas behind the conduit and between the inner tacks:



I think after I finish welding this in I will fill the pits below the patch with All Metal, as I cannot stick my ice pick through them. Get that done and I can finish painting and then spray on the undercoat.

[JTR70]

Absolutely Phil, Always that last small PIA repair you just can't get yourself motivated to address until the 11th hour. Congratulations on finally knocking it out BTW. The M/C in your Zims kit looks exactly like the one I just ordered so how much more is it for two hardline extensions and a cup? Keep up the great work you're really making some headway on this thing!
Justin

[Phil Planck]

Justin
The Zim kit is $220. Not sure what the MC alone goes for as there are different sources it appears. Besides the extra lines you get 4 pages of instructions(free download on his site). I got the kit to avoid the hassle of borrowing a flare kit and practicing making the correct flare and finally making the line. I did that several years ago on the PreA and it took some time to get it right. I destroyed one of the original lines removing it, as it had rusted tight at the wheel cylinder.
Phil

[Phil Planck]

Patch welded in

[JTR70]

Phil, That M/C manufactured by TRW/Varga runs about 60 bucks. Its very reasonable in fact its so reasonable I was trying to figure what was wrong with it. My mind is so geared for "Porsche 356 prices" that I found myself looking for a more expensive unit thinking it might be better. Sick I know but that's what I was going through. Turns out between the few manufactures of this unit they all run within 15 to 20 dollars of each other but because its intended for VW its 60 bucks and not 600.00 if it was intended for a Porsche.
Anyway If you can't-don't want to build the adapter lines then the additional 160.00 premium with instructions might well be worth the peace of mind.
Justin