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Here comes the Judge, my 69 GTO
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I know that this isn’t an engine swap, technically I’m just refitting the original engine that’s had a rebuild, but there are so many little differences with the new larger alloy heads & those massive headers that only just fit & the intake is a high rise item vs the original etc that this thing is just fighting me every step of the way…. & if I lose any more skin or blood this week I’ll be re-naming the car Christine (for the record I don’t name cars… MrsXB does, but I do not)
Decided to hook up all the heater hoses so I can fill the radiator up, connect the bottom hose to the water pump & the heater core return hose to the pump no issues
Went to connect the top hose…. & nope… no go, the original formed hose is expecting a near vertical opening to connect too
I can’t just use my original which I cleaned up to replace the shiny new one as the new one is not a flat bottomed design it has a groove cut in for an O-ring… bugger… need to find a new top hose that will work now as the angle difference is too great to “bend” the top hose I have to fit…
For the heater core feed hose, if you look at the back of the heads you can see that each head has a barbed outlet to flow hot coolant into the heater core… the tap size for these is stupid big & I couldn’t find a blanking plug that I can swap one with & I refuse to jam a bolt into a cut off length of heater hose as that’s just pure hackery, so for now I’ll connect both up with a T-piece but I don’t like this & will want to change that later I think as there are just too many connections that could leak
I was trying to decide if I would swap out the hard vacuum line that feeds the transmission with a soft rubber one
But then I decided that it’s not that bad looking so I’ll keep it, it runs from the front of the Carb were it will get its vacuum feed from
Down the back of the engine block & connects to this modulator on the passenger side of the transmission.. this is an adjustable modulator that determines how far up the rev range the trans waits to shift up a gear, hence why it wants a vac signal from the Carb
This is not to be confused with the kickdown function, which on a TH400 trans like mine is a an electric switch that’s triggered by a switch on the top of the throttle pedal.. mine was not connected, so I’ll need to trace & run a wire for that now
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Fit the Carb properly now & connected up the throttle cable & return springs… I’m not happy with the adjustment & the pedal feels a little stiff but I just want to get the car to the point we can start it & then I can fine tune stuff later
Before installing the transmission I test fit the starter so that I can measure its standoff distance from the flexplate & also the lash it has to the teeth on the flexplate
They provide shims in the kit for both vertical & horizontal adjustment
Think I have it right now, so the transmission can go back in now
Had a friend over (first time a friend has been to our house since the June lockdown) so took advantage of the second set of arms to help lift the stupidly heavy hood off the roof & reattach it to the car…. It makes me very very happy to see it looking like a car again
Oh & of course the high rise manifold on this engine means that with the hood closed the air cleaner is pressed hard up against the heat shield… the air cleaner is already a slimline one with a drop base so I’m a little stuck here… I have found a new air cleaner element online that should be ¾ of an inch smaller so I’ve order one of them… fingers crossed
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With the trans still out I figured this would be the best/easiest time to swap out the stock shifter that I have in the car for my 1968 Hurst His & Hers shifter that I had gotten a while back…
The top cover is clipped on so that pops off pretty easily
Then the shift button is gently prised off with a small screwdriver
It’s only clipped onto the shaft anyway
Then the snap ring that holds the shifter knob in place can be removed
Six screws hold the console to the floor… with them up done lift that out leaving the shifter body bolted to the floor
Unbolt the shifter & place it on the bench for the obligatory new vs old side by side on a bench photo
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Bolt the new shifter body to the floor & put the console back in too
You’ll notice that the new shifter body doesn’t sit flush with the console so you can adjust the shifter body height & angle on its mounting bracket to get it spot on
With that adjusted you can bolt it all up & clip on the new top
Now why is it called a His & Hers shifter I hear no one ask…. Well because marketing in the 1960’s was very sexist… the “Her” side of the shifter was the left side that simply has Park-Reverse-Neutral-Drive-Second-Low & the chrome cover is covering up the right hand side
This right hand side when the chrome cover is slid back allows the transmission to be used in a manualised fashion similar to a slap shifter… this was considered “His” side in 1968
I’ve always loved the look of them so happy when I found a fully restored 1968 original to fit to my car… I’ve also fitted the correct era Hurst equipped badge to the correct location on the boot lid
I’ve also fitted a trans temp gauge to the car now too
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Epic, though isn't it amazing how every small change has a domino effect of needing more changes, you'd think the air filter would just fit!!!
And for the heater hose barbs - are thet removable? Could you bring one to a plumbing supplies and they might have a plug for it?0 -
quietsailor wrote: »Epic, though isn't it amazing how every small change has a domino effect of needing more changes, you'd think the air filter would just fit!!!
And for the heater hose barbs - are thet removable? Could you bring one to a plumbing supplies and they might have a plug for it?
The heater hose barbs are removable but I suspect that my engine builder probably thread locked them to be sure they didn't leak so they will be a prick to remove...
I plan to email the support guys at Butler Performance (they've been great with any questions I've had) & get the correct size & thread pitch off them so that I can order the correct blank & have it here so when I pull the barb off I can block the hole instantly.0 -
The heater hose barbs are removable but I suspect that my engine builder probably thread locked them to be sure they didn't leak so they will be a prick to remove...
I plan to email the support guys at Butler Performance (they've been great with any questions I've had) & get the correct size & thread pitch off them so that I can order the correct blank & have it here so when I pull the barb off I can block the hole instantly.
That's a much better plan alright, no messing around then panicing, trying to get the correct blank because you need to run the car right now0 -
Ok… so I’ve put off the wiring as long as I can… so I’ve chatted to some mates & got some great ideas so this is how I’ve ended up doing this. I have 3 new things in the car now that require not just a positive & negative battery connection but also need a switched 12V connection so that they are only turned on when the key in the ignition is switched to the on position. These 3 things are:
The new MSD ignition box.
The new in tank Fuel pump
The electric choke on the new Holley Carb
Now I don’t want to wire any of the above into the 51yro wiring of the car at all if I can help it.. so I’ve gone with an approach to combine the above 3 into a single feed that will be fed via a relay that will itself be the only thing wired into the old loom, this relay will be triggered from a 12V switched source.. so it looks like this for now..
This is the fused busbar box for want of a better name, you can see that I’ve wired the first 4 spades together these are in turn fed by the 30A relay
I’ve made up a bracket to mount this box too & have mounted the relay next to it too… now I’ve cut all the wiring to the size that I can in time turn that bracket around 180 degrees & have the whole lot sitting under the top of the guard & out of the way…. But for now I want it out in the open as messy as that looks so that I can troubleshoot everything much easier
The other larger relay you can see above behind the guard is the relay that came prewired into the loom for the fuel pump. I’ve wrapped up the 3 wires that require the 12V switched feed together to make it a little neater
These then attach to the wiring block to all be fed from the relay which will be switched by my one & only 12V switched wire feed, I really like this little block as I can run fuses in line here & with the plastic waterproof cover easily see if they are blown.
All I have to do now run this single wire to a switched 12V connection somewhere in the engine bay, I’m probably going to use either the Tacho or Wiper feed wires
Now all I have to do is to take the positive & negative feeds from the fuel pump wiring & the MSD wiring that want a direct connection to the battery terminals… I’ll be making fresh new battery cables for this as the old stuff is so stiff & the coverings very cracked from years of heat cycles
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New battery cables made up & I’m using a battery cut off switch for the negative terminal so I can quickly & easily disconnect the battery if the car is sitting for a long time as often old cars leak electricity & drain batteries, I’ve also wired in the connector for my CTEK trickle charger too…
I’m pretty happy with how this has turned out… given how little I know about wiring I think I’ve come up with a good solution, of course happy to be told how to do it better…
The starter is in now & all wired up
Cleaned up & painted the trans inspection cover before fitting it
Driveshaft back in now so that’s the whole drivetrain back together
My solution for the top radiator hose arrived today, it’s a bendable hard metal hose… so I’ll fit that tomorrow
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Progress has been a bit slower than I’d have liked but this engine install is fighting me at every turn… it’s not massively different but just enough bits are just moved slightly enough that my original parts no longer fit right & so a lot of the final finishing bits are becoming a lot more customised than I expected, I guess I could just take the roadkill approach & just whack it together “good enough” & be done with it but I’m trying to do it right so that will take a little longer I guess…
First job sorted was the top Rad hose, the tolerances on the rubber fittings was super tight & it’s much harder to work with a metal hose than a flexible rubber one that’s for sure… I’m happy with the connection to the top of the radiator itself
I can’t get the connection much better than this on the block side, if it’s going to fail & leak it will be from here I’m sure
I’m happy with how this turned out but won’t know if it seals properly until we can fire the car up & get the system hot & pressurised..
My new lower profile air cleaner turned up, this seems to be the lowest profile you can get anywhere so this is as good as its going to get
Because it’s lower & as such will flow less air, I’ve gone for the matching filter top hat so that it can flow more air thru that too vs the old solid chrome hat
It’s now not touching the heat shielding mat on the underside of the bonnet now when I close the bonnet down but I might look into removing the under hood mat in the future & seeing if I can fit the Ram Air III vents to this bonnet
I’ve had to modify the power steering lines as the new brackets move the PS Pump a little too far outboard for the original hard lines to work, but that’s sorted now & all connected up
For some odd reason the coil wire end on the MSD distributor wasn’t the current end to work with the MSD coil so I cut off the end & made up the correct end & cut the wire to a nicer length too… no need for the extra 10 inches of wire they supplied
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Ok… so I had ordered a full MagnaFlow exhaust for the car… on the website it said that it was a kit specific to the 1969 GTO running aftermarket extractors…. That’s why I bought it rather than having to trailer the car to an exhaust shop here to get something made up custom…
Looks the part
Press fits & clamps together so no need to weld big sections
The only bit that needs welding is the joiner to the end of the extractors flange
Sadly when I finally opened the destructions I saw that the kit is in fact a generic universal kit to fit any & all GM “A” body cars from 1968-1972… now had it be listed as such on the interwebs originally I wouldn’t have ordered it as we all know that universal fit actually means it doesn’t fit anything properly…. & that is definitely the case here… I’ve spend the best part of 2-3 days playing around with this & I’m struggling to get it to fit right with no interference, it doesn’t help that I’m working on it on my own either as there are so many moving bits that when I get one section right it moves two others etc….
First issue was that a lot of the flared ends were too tight so I went & bought a neat tool to allow me to flare the end wider to ease fitment
That at least made it easier to slide the ends in as I tried to channel my inner octopus to assemble this thing
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Now I have taken two dozen or more pics of the nightmare that was the days I played with getting this set-up.. but let me condense it down so I don’t drive you mad with picture after picture of partially installed exhausts… so the destructions ask that you set the mufflers in place first as they have a specific spot that they fit in just in front of the diff where the floor is raised under the rear seat, so I hung them in place first
& that’s pretty much the last thing that went to plan… so I could/can assemble the rear sections that go up & over the diff & then turn out at a 45 deg angle just past the rear wheel
But to do this I needed to modify the hangers from being straight to bending forward as the mufflers were hanging too close to the diff
But when I have the rear sections exactly as they need to be then when I start building forward the angle that the centre X box needs the exhaust to be at means that there is no way to connect all the way forward to the headers
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After cutting sections off the X-Box I can get closer
But still nowhere near… so then I changed plans & started working from the mufflers forward & I can assemble that section loosely it seems
Then I cut down the connecting flange that will allow the new exhaust to bolt to the header
Flared the end
Then welded it home
So now I can bolt up the front
But the angle that these pipes force the X-box to be at drastically alters the angles at the rear… a ¼ inch move at one end of the exhaust can be a 6-8 inch swing at the other end & causes the over the diff sections to hit the coilovers & if I change the angle to clear the coilovers then the end tip sections end up facing upwards into the boot floor at 45 degs rather than neatly out the side… FML….
So I’ve made an executive decision to not bother clearing the diff for now… I want to get the engine fired so I’ll just build the section that goes from the headers down to the mufflers & have it exit just before the diff
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Now clearly this is very illegal & I can’t run the car like this on the road, but I figure its good enough to allow me to get my engine builder out so that we can start the engine & bed in the cam & set the timing/tuning of the carb etc…. then I will simple take the car to an exhaust shop & get them to make up the final rear sections that go from the mufflers over the diff & out the rear… I need to get him around to do this ASAP before he flys home over the XMAS/NY holidays
Now there are still a few issues to be sorted, the fuel lines for the carb can’t be tightened (long story will be in the next update)..
I also can’t use the gearbox, the neutral/reverse safety lockout for a 69 GTO isn’t electronic it’s a physical linkage that runs from the steering column down the firewall & attaches to the same bracket the shifter cable does… well mine now fouls on the new exhaust headers…
So I can have Park, Reverse & Neutral if I really pull on the shifter but I can’t have Drive or 2nd or 1st I can’t get the linkage off to modify the end of it to allow more clearance without removing either the gearbox or the drivers side header (which needs the engine lifted up an inch or so to do)…. Also the drivers side header is actually touching the hard brake line for the passenger side front brake..
It’s also way to close to the chassis in points but I’ve been trying to ignore that… but I’ve failed at ignoring it…. Build a restomod they said… it’ll be fun they said… sooooooo If you’re a regular reader of my threads you’ll know that I’m a bit mental…
As such my plan is as follows… get the engine builder over to start & bed in & tune the engine… this will rock the engine under torque & bang it against the frame rails were the fitment is too tight… this will leave witness marks on both the headers & the chassis rails..
Then I’ll drop the gearbox back out & remove the ****ing engine again….. this will allow me easy access to rerun the front brake lines as they can’t stay were they are… also I can easily get to & modify that gearbox linkage & finally I can use a die grinder to add some relief clearance to the chassis when the headers hit & some light tapping with the muscle car special tool (the big ****ing hammer)… I really don’t want to do this & I could probably arse about & try & fix these things with the engine & gearbox still in the car but in the long run I’ve learnt over the years that the long way is often the faster way with working on cars….0 -
Ok… so even the simple task of fuel lines to the side of the Holley Carb here has become a headache… how can this be hard??? To save time & effort I bought a pre-made to measure set up to bolt onto the carb rather than making up my own…
If you look at the design of this Holley there is a machined standout block on the front with the Holley name on it
This interferes with the operation of tightening up the hard fuel line to the car, as these fitting are soft aluminium I need to use the soft AN spanners on them & with the design of the fitting (they curve the edges of surfaces FFS) & the design of the Carb I can only get 2-3mm of the spanner onto them & can’t turn the spanner more than an qtr turn either so no way to tighten the bloody things up
So I can’t use this piece
So I bought the one they offer which has flat surfaces machined into the shaft so that will be fine for tightening now..
But of course the fix can’t be that simple…. The old one is a female end & the new one is a male end….
So now I have this nicely made up section that runs between the front & rear fuel bowls but I can’t connect it to the new down pipes I have…
I’ll look to see if I can’t get some female to female connectors so that I don’t have to make the whole thing from scratch. Another bit I’m not happy with is the clearance between the new Moroso oil pan & the drag link, when the steering wheel is turned to full left lock it raises & it rubs against the pan
I’ll have to do some research & see what I can do here… the stock idler arm & pitman arm are flat, so I need to see if there is a drop version made that will drop the drag link down a few mm… if not worst case I guess I’ll just have to grind some clearance into it
I’ve been doing some thinking on how to solve my header fitment issue…
First thought was of course to just bash seven shades of ****e out of the header tubes with the hammer… bit too roadkill for me, so it’s a no.
Second thought was to grind/cut out some of the chassis rail & then cut up some pipe so that I could weld in new steel that was curved to allow for the header to sit into a recess… I was really liking this as an option & it will be my fall back plan.
The winner for now I think is that I will loosen off the bolts holding the header to the heads that will allow me to swing the header towards the engine but keep the bottom edge of the header flange hard against the head face. That will give me the position/angle that I need to have the clearance I want & then I can measure the gap between the top of the flange & the face of the head… then I will get the face of the header flange ground down at that angle to give me the clearance…
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Right I took a full 7 days off working on stuff in the Skunk Works after I sent the XB off for paint, but now it’s time to get back into it & the GTO is next on the project list… so first off I needed to fix the issues I had above of the steering drag link just rubbing on the oil sump. I’ve pulled the spacer that I had installed as part of the new gearbox mount that I’d fitted when I first bought the car
This has lowered the back of the gearbox & in turn raised the front of the engine & I now have the clearance I need… I’ve also made sure that this doesn’t negatively impact the driveline angle
Next up was to measure up how much of the exhaust header flange I need to trim.. so I loosened off the bolts
Then I fitted some 3mm shims in & tightened up the bolts again
This 3mm swing at the actual head face has given me a huge swing at the bottom end, the header used to be actually leaning against & crushing that brake line you can see… now there is ample space
Now I know how much I’ll be taking off I can remove the engine & do the changes to the brakes that I want to make… so the gearbox came back out
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Right… time to get back into this thing again…
With the engine in the was a slight fouling of the steering arms on the new thicker front ARB, the clamp that locks the adjuster sleeve into place needed to be swung around
I’d also noticed that the brake fittings for my Wilwood brake callipers were weeping, I thought this odd as they are the correct ones that came in the kit from them.
Their response was that they should be installed using this thread sealant.. first time I’ve ever heard of that… but it is their kit I guess
I need to move this distribution box as well as the hard line that runs across the crossmember to feed the passenger side calliper
I’ll replace the master too whilst I’m at it for a Wilwood unit that specifically designed for 4 wheel disks
The booster is fine, I’ll just clean it off a bit…
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Right, time to get back into this… I couldn’t find any machine shop that had a machine that could hold the exhaust in place & grind down an angle on the head mounting face… everyone wanted to just smash it with a hammer..
I’m really trying to avoid this option but I guess that it might just come down to that being my only option, I’ve tried to bend the tubes & that seemed to work for a while whilst the metal was hot but sadly metal tends to have a memory & after it fully cooled overnight it seems to have mostly returned to it’s original shape… but I think I got a tiny bit of movement. I bolted the exhaust to the engine & I used a webbed strap & a hand winch to pull the exhaust toward the engine as I headed the pipes up. This worked fine & gave me a full 10mm of movement & I was really happy with that but the following morning it had fully cooled off & pretty much gone back to where it started…
Next I took the heat to the chassis rail & then used the precision special tool to percussively persuade the metal & rounded out the sharp edges where the exhaust runs, I’m hoping that I’ve moved stuff enough with these two actions, I’ll put the engine back in this weekend hopefully as that’s the only way to be sure..
Now that it’s painted again you can hardly see the war crime of butchery I’ve performed here
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Next job & of course issue was to replace the master cylinder, I swear it seems this car is fighting every step of the way here… so when I pulled the old master off you can see the brake pushrod sticking out of the booster & the corresponding relief in the end of the piston in the master
This was never going to work with the new Wilwood unit I’d bought that was specifically a bolt on model for the GTO according to them… the relief in the Wilwood unit was an inch too deep..
Turns out the kit was missing a very important piece, luckily I had a spare master I’d bought for the Camaro in a box on a shelf & they are interchangeable
This kit came with the correct adapter to fit for the GTO pushrod length
Right so that’s that issue sorted then
I was able to simply bend the bracket for the rear distribution block so that’s now mounted in a new space on top of the chassis rail & well out of the way of the exhaust
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Next issue I ran into was with the new flexible braided lines for the front callipers, I can’t use the original lines as they use a bango style connector, but when I put the new lines on the end that connects to the hard line isn’t the same shape on the new lines as the old lines.. the new lines are a perfect hex end, but the original are rounded on two sides
Why does that matter I’m sure you’re asking.. well the brackets on the frame that hold these ends won’t hold the ends of my new lines & they rattle about a lot when I turn the wheels left to right.. & I just knew that that constant slight rattle would eventually cause a stress crack & a leak in the hard line
So I had to order some new brackets that hold these lines solid
Now with these welded on I can connect these flexi lines up which means I can start the job of making new hardlines from the Wilwood master down
Hopefully I get some time to focus on this more this weekend & get the other little jobs sorted so that I can drop the engine back in next week sometime.0 -
Got a bit more done on the brake lines, you can see here the 3 new lines leaving the brake bias adjuster module, the rear most line runs to join the rear brake line & was easy to do, the front one is the drivers side line that just drops down to the calliper on that side..
The middle line is the new routing of the passenger side hard line that I can’t send down & across the front cross member any more, so I’m going back to the firewall & across the engine bay that way
It’s awkward dealing with the large roll of tube.. but I wanted to get it close to limit the chance of me measuring it wrong & cutting it way too long or worse too short
Now I have it cut & run & I’m happy with the path it takes, it’s well out of the way & nowhere near the headers now…
The end stops just above my new bracket on the passenger side
Now why does it stop there & not just connect to the flexi line I hear no one ask…. I’ve run out of bloody fittings, well I haven’t I have a bag of them but I’ve run out of the correct size fittings
I have a heap of slightly larger sized ones but they don’t fit, they look good but I only get half a turn of thread & they bind up
I did think of using one of the old fittings, here is the best of the old ones but I knew that if I did that it would eat away at me inside… it’s a horrible affliction that I suffer from
Tried all the parts places local that were open on Sat but no one sells brake line fittings as they don’t want people who normally ask for the installation service for their newly acquired air freshener to have a go at DIY double flared brake lines I guess.. I’ll have to go to a specialist place during the week or order off the interwebs I guess… anyway that stopped play on the GTO Saturday… so head over to the Challenger thread soon to see that I did on Sunday0 -
Went to a local brake shop & got a bag full of the right hard line fittings (for when I’m doing the XB & the Challenger).. so I was able to finish off the hard line that will run across the firewall to the passenger side brake calliper
As you can see in the pic above I’ve also decided to heat wrap the braided fuel lines just to be sure to be sure that they don’t get too hot being that close to the head
I’m also re-routing the braided trans cooler lines as I didn’t like how close they ran to the header… now I’ll run them high up the inner guard wall
I also decided to finally finishing installing the new Wilwood handbrake cables.. I started by cleaning up the threaded end of the cable that comes out of the cabin
Then I threaded the new cable block onto that threaded bar, just needed to re cut the threads from fine to coarse
Then mounted up the cable holder/guide
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The drivers side cable just runs straight down thru it
The passenger side I’ve routed up & over the tailshaft before it turns forward thru the guide
I really like how neat that looks… sometimes it’s the little things
Now it’s time to reinstall the engine again… at least I know how its done now, so we laid the headers in & cable tied them in place
Pick up the engine again
Then hang it into the engine bay about an inch higher than the mounts.. that allows me to pull the headers up into position & bolt them on
Then lower the engine down & bolt it in….
The clearance looks better for now but I won’t know for sure until I bolt the transmission back on & that pulls the engine to it’s fully installed angle… I hope to do that this week.0 -
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Ok… there’s no easy way to say this… long story short I wasn’t fully happy with the amount of new found clearance in the pic above, the gap was like 2mm at most (where the black marker is on the header tube below) & I just knew that with the engine rocking under torque load it would constantly smack.. also I didn’t like how close my newly run hard brake line was to the header either, I had just 2 inches of clearance & I figured that in traffic with no real airflow that wasn’t enough of a gap & the fluid would get way hot in that one spot & maybe even boil… you can see the gaps in the pics below
With the engine back out I reran the hard line way across & out of the way (not sure why I didn’t do that the first time TBH)
Before
After
Before the engine came out I marked the new area to be massaged into a new profile (or beaten with a big ****off hammer)
Heated the frame & massaged it then smoothed it with the grinder so that it would hopefully not look butchered from above
I also decided to seal up the front circuit of the brake distribution block that I had moved, I’m still using that block to run the rear line down to the Diff but the new Wilwood setup has a front left to right distribution built into the forward/rear bias adjuster.. so I welded up some brake line fittings & screwed them into the block to seal it up & make it look a little halfarsed
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I was all set to put the engine back in for the 3rd time when I decided that I would rather set fire to it than do this a 4th time so I decided to heat up the one spot on the header that was real close (the bit with the black texter mark above) & give it a little tap with a round bar to be sure to be sure that this would now fit… I know it’s a little rough & a little redneck & I’m not proud but it’s done now.
On the plus side I’m getting good & putting the engine back in.. did it on my own with no assistance from Mrs_XB this time & I think it took 7 mins all up… so glass twice as large as it needed to be & all that…
Then the gearbox
I know it’s hard to make out in the pics but there is daylight now between the header tube & the frame…
I can stand my 3/8 ring spanner up on its side now between the rail & the tube… so that’s 14mm of clearance now… I’m so happy, I cannot express just how happy I am that this is finally sorted & I know I can fire it up & drive it without any clearance issues & you can’t see the reshaping of the header tube.. you have to be under the car & even then actually looking for it to see it, so I’m supper happy about that too.
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