Two Pedals Bad, Three Pedals Good

Today I finally got to spend some time with Grace. It's been a while since I've been able to dedicate some time to her, mostly due to the Subaru from the last post.

I'm a big believer in manual transmissions. If God wanted us to drive cars with automatic transmissions, he would have only given us one arm and one leg. Grace has lived most of her live as a two pedaled chariot, but today she got an upgrade.

Two pedals bad

1/8" thick pedal mount plate

Pedal assembly and mounting plate

Old pedal assembly vs new pedal assembly

Cardboard template for fitting the pedal mount plate to the firewall

Pattern transferred to the mounting plate

My redneck vise

Cutting out the old pedal mount

Looking through to the throne

Welded into place

Master cylinders mounted

Three pedals good.

Once I got the pedal assembly mounted, I started on the steering column lower mount. Originally the Falcon did not have a lower steering column mount. I got a pinch collar from McMaster-Carr to use as a lower mount and cut a piece of 16ga steel with my grinder to fit the floor. I didn't get a chance to weld it in place, so there will be more welding in the near future.

Sheetmetal cut with a grinder and hole saw

Lower column mount ready for welding

He broke the mirrors off his Cadillac 'cause he doesn't like it lookin' like he looks back

I'll call this one my post of shame. No, I haven't been working on the car much in the past month like I had planned. This is due to my daily driver, a Subaru Legacy GT. I think I am cursed when it comes to this car. Every time I try to do some simple maintenance, something goes wrong. Normally I'm not this incompetent, but apparently this Subaru turns me into a ham fisted mouth breather.

It all started when I decided to change my spark plugs. When I had almost finished the job, I was installing the last ignition coil, and the coil connector broke. This was on a Saturday, and the part was a special order part. On Sunday I had to leave for a business trip and didn't get back until a week and a half later. I got the part and finished the job. When I started the vehicle it started fine, but there was absolutely no power or throttle response. I spent almost the next weeks after work checking everything I could think of. I installed and uninstalled the spark plugs so many times I'm considering going semi-pro in Legacy GT spark plug changing. I also double and triple checked the coil wiring and it was spot on. I then remembered that I had found a bolt on my driveway that looked out of place...

The offending bolt.

 As I looked further, I noticed a hole in the timing cover. I knew that this was fairly recent because I had replaced this cover only about three months ago. At that time, the AC idler bolt had come loose and been pushed back through the timing cover and into the timing belt, breaking several timing covers and causing the cam timing to jump a few teeth. Well this same problem happened again, but this time it was a different bolt, but the same problem, just not as severe. One of the cams had jumped one tooth and then the bolt was ejected, putting a hole in the cover. I figured I had found the problem, so I replaced the timing belt and broken cover.

Hmmm....

 This helped a little bit but it turns out it was just one of the problems, not THE problem. I was now very worried that I had somehow bent the intake and exhaust valves. To find out if this was the case, I removed the spark plugs one more time and performed a cylinder pressure test. The pressure was a little low, with all cylinders right around 130 psi, but the results were consistent, leading me to beleive that the problem was not the valves.
My buddy Luis is a Subaru guy so I started picking his brain. He brought over a tuning cable and we connected to my Engine Control Unit. This way we would be able to view the data that was being used by the ECU to control the engine. As we looked at the data, the only thing I noticed that seemed strange to me is that the MAP (Manifold Absolute Pressure) signal seemed low. Any car at wide open throttle near sea level should be able to easily attain a MAP value of around 101 kPa, which is the normal atmospheric pressure at sea level. Any reading below this indicates an obstruction in the intake. At wide open throttle, I was only getting around 50 kPa. I thought that the ECU might have gone into limp mode to protect the engine,  but strangely there were no check engine lights or trouble codes. We removed the intercooler and made a strange discovery.

The creature from the black lagoon shaved and left his beard trimmings in my intercooler.

 There was some sort of gunk in the intercooler. It looked like shredded shop towel soaked in oil. There was a lot of oil in my intake.

The black lagoon.

 I'm not sure why it took us so long to come to this idea, but after seeing this and talking about it over the course of a few days, we wondered if there might somehow be a shop towel stuck in my turbo. I pulled off the intake hose (which is about a 26 step process) and BEHOLD:

It's like running a 400m sprint with a football player's sock shoved down your throat.

You probably wouldn't be too surprised to know how much of a difference removing a shop towel and all its remnants makes for an engine's ability to run properly. But let me just say OHMYFREAKINGCRAPYOUBETTABELIEVESHERUNSAWHOLELOTBETTERILOVEBACON!!!

With that out of the way, I've been collecting parts. I now have all the major parts necessary for my brake system. I still need to order all the lines and fittings, etc. Happy birthday to me. No for real, it showed up on my birthday. And because of that, I'm also going to post a picture of my birthday cake.

STOP! HAMMERTIME!

OK so it's not a cake, it's a pie.

don't let 'em play guitars and drive in old trucks

I don't have a lot to write today and that is a direct result of me not doing much work on the car lately. I had a business trip followed by a few days of vacation so that made for a lot of days of not touching the falcon. But before I left, I managed to get the steering column and steering wheel assembled and connected to the steering rack. I just said steering three times in one steering sentence! 

To use the steering column with a steering rack instead of a steering box I had to make some modifications. The steering shaft on the original box was actually a part of the steering box assembly, making it a large awkward assembly. I cut the shaft off near the box and had old man Nickerson machine flats on each side of the shaft, making it a double-D shaft...

...now that you've stopped giggling, a double-D in the automotive world has nothing do to with large bosoms. It is simply a type of shaft that looks like two Ds, one backward facing and one forward facing.

Old man Nickerson is a machinist at work who works part time and does whatever old folks do all the rest of the time. He does privateer work at his home shop on the weekends. Nickerson has white hair, and like most machinists, isn't in too much of a hurry because quality takes time. I had him make me a few parts for the steering system and delivered on both counts. It was high quality and it took forever to get the parts back, and to his credit, he didn't charge me full price because it took so long.

Steering box with integrated shaft (AKA Thoractic Impaler)

End of the steering column with the lower bearing and the "Double-D" steering shaft installed.

Intermediate steering shaft.

A steering wheel!

It's starting to look like a car on the inside.

Another thing I did recently was weld the front sway bar mounts in place. Once again, I welded with my welder running off 110V and was very pleased with the result. I also filled a few holes in the frame.

Before

After

When I returned from my trip, I also had the wheel studs I had ordered before I left. I was finally able to fit the wheels on the rear axle with brake discs in place. She's rolling on her own rubber finally, after spending several months on jackstands. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the wheels will still fit after I fit the brake calipers and brackets.

Lastly, I've finally decided on a name for the old lady. I will call her Grace. 

Five year plans and new deals, Wrapped in golden chains.

After a bit of a hiatus, I'm  back. There are a couple reasons why. First, I ran into a few unforseen problems with rear tire fitment, and second, sometimes you get busy with real life stuff. Of course the real life stuff is more important, but I always enjoy being able to immerse myself in my project and forget about what the rest of the world is doing. Fabrication and welding are especially effective for me when I want to block everything out.

I guess I'll start where I left off last time. I had just finished up the rear suspension and tried a front tire on the rear. It seemed to fit well and appeared to have room to spare. I decided that I would go with 255/50R16 tires on the rear, giving me a slight increase over the 225/50R16 I'm running in the front. I ordered the tires from Discount Tire Direct and through some sort of voodoo magic, they arrived on my porch within 3 days. The 16x8 steel wheels showed up shortly thereafter and following a quick bit of rattle can artistry, they were bronze.

I have two roommates, Vaughn and Smokey Bear.

When I tried to mount the wheels and tires on the axle, it didn't take a rocket surgeon to see that the inner fender lip was in the way. Because my wheelwells are not concentric with the hub, I knew that fender lip rolling was out of the question. So I pulled out my DeWalt angle grinder (which I dearly love) and did away with the offending sheetmetal. I was then able to mount the wheel and tire.

This tire was more flush than an industrial toilet

What then became apparent was quite discouraging. the outside of the tire rubbed the inner fender, and the inside of the tire was about 1/8" from the lower link of the rear suspension. At this point I had not even installed a brake disk, which would push the wheel and tire out into the fender at least another .25". 255s were just not going to fit. I had to admit defeat on that one and return the tires. Anybody want to buy a pair of 16x8 steel wheels??

I got a set of 225s on 16x7s, same as the front and set to getting the rear tires and brakes squared away. Up to this point I had not bothered to mount a wheel and tire on the axle with a brake rotor installed. All my test fitting had been sans rotor. when I mounted the 225s, I found two things; 1. even without the rotor installed, the rear tire still rubbed the inner fender, and 2. with the brake rotor installed, it was impossible to mount the wheel. I needed a narrower axle in order to fit these wheels and brakes.

After looking at the axle and noticing that the axle shaft extended out of the housing by about an inch, I came up with an idea. I would shorten the axleshafts each by about a half inch, without  modifying the axle housing. I will not be able to use the stock brake components with this method, but I was not planning to, so this is a moot point.  Below is a drawing I made to explain the process.

Because I'm a sick person, I draw this sort of thing when I should be sleeping.

I did have some concern about the machining protruding through the case hardening of the axle. The machinist, a man with a smart looking mustache said that while axles are heat treated it's not a case hardening, so I shouldn't worry about that. I still have my doubts. I may have to do some abusive testing on these axles. We'll see if that mustache really is smart or just dishonest. 

With the axles shortened, I set to work trying to find a brake disc that would allow me to fit the wheel. The Ford Explorer disc brakes were impossible to fit my wheels over at 11.25" diameter. I searched on the AutoZone website for brake discs with the same bolt pattern, but a smaller diameter.  I found that the SN-197 Mustangs had a smaller brake diameter than the Explorer. I got a front (10.8" vented) and rear (10.5" solid) disc to check fitment. It turns out the front would not even go on over the axle flange so I tested with the rear, and to my amazement, it fit. I did find that my wheel studs were a little too long, so using Summit Racing's excellent search function I was able to find that Jeeps from 2000 use the exact stud I was looking for, as it is a little over a half inch shorter than the Explorer stud.

Front and rear wheels AND brakes installed? Inconceivable!

There is certainly more story to tell, but I'll get to that later. It's the 4th of July and I don't intend to spend the whole day in front of a computer.

I'll leave you with this. 'MURICAAAA!

Pelé preached words of comfort, Zina just hides her eyes

First off, I have to show off some of the crazy cars I've seen in the past two weeks. I have a habit of taking pictures of every interesting car related thing I see. If you were to go through my phone, you'd probably see 80% car related pictures, 15% biking/outdoors/landscape pictures, and maybe 5% pictures of people. I'm not sure if that makes me an unbalanced person, but it sure beats the heck out of a phone full of duckfaced selfies. Kids these days.... 

The first is an old Toyota pickup that was on display at a lunchtime event at work. This thing was a complete sleeper and serious business. The builder had stuffed a twin turbo 2JZ and 5-speed in this old truck. It was a bit of a tight fit, so the radiator and other heat exchangers went to the bed. The owner of this craziness was not around sadly, so I didn't get any details. 

Next, I saw this Porsche 356SC up in the mountains at a gun range. I didn't know much about this model so I looked it up. The 356 was porsche's first model released in 1948. Production ran until 1965, and the SC was released in 1964. This is a rare bird indeed, and the thing I was most impressed by is the fact that it's owner was still out enjoying this car as a real car, allowed to have blemishes and character, rather than relegating it to restored museum duty. If the owner were to sell it, it would likely be worth $60K+. I don't think these cars could have been more different from each other, but to me there was an exciting feeling to both weathered machines. Neither was attempting to look perfect or pull off the show car vibe, they were something more. They were fun cars.

I have come to the conclusion that TCI's 4-link kit for the 60-65 Falcon should be labeled with an asterisk. That asterisk would indicate that this kit fits 60-63 Falcons with the help of a few good tools. A job like this will help you find the weakness in your tool collection. I was lacking a good power drill.

When I went to install the lower links of the 4-link system, I found that the links were set up for a 1/2" bolt, but the bolt in the forward mount were 9/16". It was clear that I could not replace the 9/16" bolt with a 1/2" bolt, so I had to drill out the link bushings to accept a larger bolt. In the pictures below you can see a partially drilled bushing. I found that my drill would drill about 1/3 of the way through the bushing and the battery would die, after which the battery needed about 3 hours to recharge fully. This got old faster than

I decided to invest in some quality tools, so I headed to the Home Depot. DeWalt tools have a special place in my heart. I was spoiled as a kid because my dad owns a cabinet shop, I always had access to a large number of professional grade tools. You pay a bit more for DeWalt tools, but they never disappoint.  I picked up a DeWalt 20V drill with 2 lithium ion batteries and a charger. I was thoroughly impressed with how much torque was packed into such a compact, lightweight drill. It made short work of the bushings and spacer bores that needed to be enlarged. Even more amazing was how quickly the batteries charged. In about a half hour, one of these batteries can be fully charged. As an added bonus, almost all DeWalt tools come in a high quality case.

Lithium is also a powerful antidepressant when used in batteries.

This is where we find asterisk number two. The lower links attach to the body in the old leaf spring forward mounts. I'm assuming that this mount is wider on the 64-65 than it is on the 60-63, because it the spacer was fitting into the mount about like stuffing a cantaloupe into a toaster. Ain't gonna happen. The spacer needed about 1/8" of material removed from the face so that I could fit it in the mount. Using my ghetto voodoo magic and the same technique as I used last week, I made me a vise from vise-grips (see what I did there?), a c-clamp, and a termite infested carport post. I was then able to carefully remove enough material from the face of the spacer with an angle grinder to make it work.

Third world problems.

With the lower links in place, I could now attach the axle and coilover shocks. After attaching these, I set the pinion angle to 1 degree up as specified in the instructions. I attached the upper links to the 4-link cradle and located the upper link tabs on the axle housing. Once the upper link tabs were tacked into place, I also tacked the sway bar tabs in place and then removed the axle housing for welding.

Setting the pinion angle.

This was the first actual welding that I personally did on this car. I have photographic proof, provided by the girl next door AKA my girlfriend Shanna. Most of the welds turned out pretty good, but there were a few where the shielding gas was blown away by a slight breeze and they turned out with so much porosity they looked a bit like pumice. I ended up using the grinder a bit more than I would have liked, but in the end I was pretty satisfied with the welds and very impressed with how easy my welder is to use.

Of course I'm only going to show you the pretty side!

With the rear end in, I could slide an axle shaft into the housing and bolt on a wheel to see how it looks and check for clearance.

There looks to be a little room to play with.

AWWWWW riiiight!

I only have two wheels, but I got to to thinking, that doesn't mean that I can't drive. Some dude named Achmud is probably driving on two wheels right now, why can't I? 

Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.