My 2002's resurrection - 56k go die

[MR 325]

Justin, the gauges look awesome.

[iflytii]

Those gauges look really good Justin!

[Justin B]

Shit, I had a reply all ready to go and accidentally hit a link when trying to go back to my photobucket tab to add in pictures....

Anyway, thanks guys. I appreciate the compliments, it helps :)

As far as progress goes, I did pretty well this weekend. What I wrote above for my goals were based on what I think I could realistically do in 3 days. Unfortunately as I think I already mentioned, I only got 2 days this weekend but did get enough done that I would have been on track to complete it all if I had 3 to work with.

The rack in the trailer is nearing completion. The rearward sliding cross beam's ears need to be clearanced a little more since they're a little tight on the vertical pillars. The ramps front ends need to get U bolts attached to them so it can rotate on the front cross beam as mocked up in one of the pictures below. Hinges will be put on the back of the ramps to allow the flaps, to ... flap. Holes will be drilled in the vertical pillars to through-bolt the cross beams into place, as well as another secondary hole for a safety pin just below each corner. Once that is done, the winches will be mounted and the routing will be figured out. We have an idea how to make it work, but it needs to be put into action, while one drawback is finding some suitable pulleys and/or eye bolts to route the cable. Probably a solid day's work to do it right, but it's damn close.

Of course there was work done on my car as well. Yesterday I pulled out some more things from the engine compartment, coil, ballast resistor, strange relay, windshield washer nozzles and reservoir etc. I also removed the exhaust system, employing a hack saw to cut the hoop over the rear subframe. My sawzall's battery was dead and I couldn't find the charger. At least it wasn't too hard to cut through with a coarse blade. It's ready to scrap into the metal bin at work :D. Today, I removed the front half of the drive shaft, it's only connected at the diff now, took off the shifter linkage, removed the tranny and plucked the engine out with a cherry picker that has been stashed away in the garage for who knows how long unbuilt. I'll put it to use!

Anyway, here's the pictures-




Yes, I did manage to wiggle the tranny over the center drag link...it's sitting in the garage along with the engine :)

[backtrail69]

What is the ramp dealie there? Keep up the progress.

[Justin B]

That is to double stack the race cars that are posted previously in this thread. One on top of the other, theyre only about 39 or 40 inches tall, so they dont need much clearance. Fortunately, the bottom of the cross beams at 41 inches gives enough clearance for the bottom car, then the beams, plus the ramp height, leaves almost an identical space between the top of the ramps to the bottom of the cross beams/light fixtures in the trailer. If the roll bar on the formula car though clears the light, it has even more room. Not that it needs it or anything though.

Sort of two projects for the time being for the price of one in this thread :P

[clavinZERO]

[E30_pilot]

baaaaaaaaaad to the ass!!

[Justin B]

Ok, this is a vent post. Do not take this as anything other than that. I will be replacing body panels on THIS chassis if it kills me.

It's coming along, but I feel that every step I move forward, I move about a half a step back. Not quite as bad as the real saying, but still. I'm finding all sorts of previous owner "easter eggs".

Serious.FUCKTARD.PO's.

So, that nose that has a "tear" in the bottom lip, yeah, it's tweaked so slightly but probably fixable, except there's a hell of a lot more bondo on it too! Crap man, is there anywhere I look that doesnt need a solid few days work to even get close to acceptable? Ha! Why? Of course not... So anyway, that "tear", yeah, its a tear alright. What happened was, the door knobs who "fixed" it last time decided to cover a nice rusty area on the back side of the front panel of the nose with a sheet of metal, and POP RIVET it in. WHO THE HELL DOES THAT? To cover it up, they did a nice job of bondo to cover up the damage and rivet heads. Yah, it worked great till they probably tapped a curb or something similar in height when it pushed the bottom lip of the nose back, breaking the extreemly thin (I think/hope) bondo in a straight line across, since the metal behind it was already gone.

Yeah, that little line on my front nose is a little more than a line. I found ths out while removing my swaybars tonight, first I saw that there was extra rust on the back side of the nose too, starting at the hole where the bumper supports go through, and working its way about 1/2 inch tall towards the side of the car about 2 or so inches. Upon further inspection, I find a piece of metal that seems like it's just chillin' there in the groove like it fell down from the top, it is stopped between the rearward slanting front skin of the nose, and the back vertical core support area. WTF? It doesnt move, I move the light around and lookie what I found! At the very least two rivet heads.

Absolutely brilliant. Great. Wonderful!

Seriously considering finding a good used 02 nose and grafting it on so I don't need to deal with stupid little shit like that. I will check for the extensiveness though tomorrow probably after work with a small sanding roloc disc. Besides that though, it already isn't straight, it got knocked back some so it needs to be fixed that way, and the headlight bucket support bracketry needs to be tweaked back square. I think this nose is history. It's not worth the hassle, but putting a new one on too does not sound like much fun AT ALL either.

I'm this >< close to figuring out how many panels I need, ordering as much new stuff, or really really straight and clean used and telling a shop to put new panels all over the car...









/vent

[Justin B]

Oh yeah, cant forget this un-smiley :curse:

:) Stayin positive though that it's all for the better, no matter how ridiculous it seems..

[golde30]

you should have picked up that front clip offa the greenish yellow 02 in the city that you showed me like a year ago...

[Justin B]

Yeah, no kidding. I'm kinda thinking I should have done that....Oh well thats the past and this is now. I have a few options, I can just consider it just yet another thing I have to dig all the unknown amount of rot out of, and weld in a patch over wherever its messed up, or get a good used one or new, unlikely though. If the rust past the bondo isnt so bad, I'll just make a patch for it and weld it in, it depends, I'll know tomorrow for sure. It's all covered up by the turbo air dam anyway, but I dont want it to be half ass. Unfortunately that still leaves the rest of it to be straightened out but then it just comes down to whether or not its worth replacing it properly, or spending the time to fix the one I've got.

More updates tomorrow. I just had to vent a little :) That and I feel if I write it out, especially here, it makes it easier for me to do.

[golde30]

PS: your sig is old school JB, that was my infamous nite...

[Justin B]

Yes, it is old school. Ive been using my laptop lately and I dont have photoshop on it for sig making win, instead FTL. I'll get around to changing it to something good :D Oh yah, and you're right thats when you r3ved on 1 huh. Dang. Notice Clay doesnt have his bumper cover on yet either! Man.....that was a loong ass time ago. I've just sort of gotten used to seeing it. I'll change it up here sooner than later.

[Justin B]

Honestly? I have no idea. LOL. I probably got them before I had a clue. Trust me, I know they suck.....now.

I think I'll put in some race springs in the rear to drop it a respectable amount and match the front's setup nicely. I cant use coilover's in the rear since I don't exactly have plans to beef up the tops of the shock towers to support all the weight of the car. It may come eventually, though.

As far as that stupid fix via the PO, I looked at it a little more today, and looking from the top around the headlight, down into the nose I think it's all fixable relatively easily, but it will just take forever and may not all be the prettiest job. There's so many spots that I need to cut out and make a patch panel for to weld in, there's no reason to get really worked up over finding another.......

I didnt have time to grind away at the filler, though. Tomorrow I need to try to get to traffic court and turn in some papers, so I may not be able to do much tomorrow either. Really though, minus chopping metal out or making a dolly for the chassis to sit on, I cant pull much more off the car. Suspension and subframes remain, as does the steering wheel linkage and shaft which will stay in just to mock up the wheel position to figure out where I want to mount my seats.

I guess that's the next real project, seat bracketry mock up and fabrication....

[Justin B]

I'll admit, not much of an update, besides what I can tell you and a couple of pictures of inside the trailer because nothing much has happened to the car in the last few days.

First, the car. I got rid of my running M10, 4 speed, standard 2002 booster and 22/19 swaybars that were actually already on the car. I have the same size, but ST bars, so I didn't need them anymore. Sold all that stuff really cheap to a friend of mine just to clear some room. For a little bit of a harsh reality check, I hate working on stuff that I know wont be just right, body work included. I am seriously considering buying several new pieces of sheet metal for the car and building a rotisserie in the garage similar to the plans laid out at 2002tii-restoration.org. I'm in the middle of pricing the body panels, and am weighing the pros and cons of either having them done for me, or starting from the front and going back-essentially raising the difficulty as I go along and learning the process as I go. It's fairly well documented in a couple of different places, it's just getting the technique down.

The reason I'm considering this is due to the amount of rot primarily in my trunk floor and the frustration involved in doing a hokey fix that should hold up, or repairing it entirely 100&#37; and knowing it's done absolutely the way it should be to be sure.

As for the trailer, we have the routing plan for the cable, and everything is in place to call it done, but we need to still order about 6 sheeve pulleys. The electric trailer dolly to push it into the yard will probably be here this week, and the only thing besides attaching the pulleys and routing the cable that is left, is to cut and drill some adapter plates for the winches. There are plates on the left side posts in the trailer, but after some thinking, they line the cable spool directly under the cross bar. Unfortunately, they need to be slightly offset in order for the cable to have a direct line to the first pulley at the top of the left posts. Oh, and U hooks need to be spread just slightly and bolted onto the bottom of the ramps in the front to allow the ramps to rotate downward. A days work or less if we actually had all the parts. It'll be done within the week if we can get the pulleys in quick.




The garage has been mentally cleared out from the door to the washing machine way in the back, and from the pieces of wood sticking out from the left, to the work bench on the right. Supposedly.