12/30/11 Carbon Tail

Another quick one today. I prepped the front crossmember for POR-15. I also sanded and cleared the carbon tail section and put it on the bike. This one is gonna look mean.

K.Y. and I also did a bit of work on the benz, but for some reason now it's burning coolant out the tailpipe. I don't think it's a headgasket, but likely a intake manifold gasket issue. We'll troubleshoot it soon.

W.W. SBSS

7/6/11 Untangling the Mess

After a great weekend, I went to the shop on Tuesday evening to get some serious work done. I haven't finished the gantry yet, so I can't pull the engine out of the car. That left two major items to be removed: the fuel tank and the dreaded dashboard. Pulling a dashboard can be an incredibly tedious affair, as it has the highest concentration of wires, tubes and cables. This, combined with the fact that most of the bolts that hold the somewhat fragile dashboard into the car are hard to access and even harder to see, makes for a great deal of swearing and busted knuckles.

So I started with the fuel tank. Actually, in my car it is a racing fuel cell. It's a strong, aluminum box with a rubber bladder and blocks of foam to keep the fuel from splashing about. It came out pretty easily, mainly because I was the one who installed it originally.

At this point I was going to start pulling the dash down, but then K.Y. came with a van loaded with tools!

After helping him move in permanently, I relented and started dropping the dashboard.

This is why I hate dashes.

But eventually everything came apart and I had the dash out of the car.

Done working on my car for the day, I took a look at the progress K.Y. was making with the Benz. Slowly but surely the Benz is getting ready to run.

-W.W. SBSS

6/28/11 Coming Apart

Everyone in the shop loves the new lathe. Over the past week we permanently mounted it to the table and disassembled to get the slides to travel a bit smoother. J.B. also mounted his light on the lathe so we can see what we're doing a bit better. Overall it's looking pretty great.

There are a few more big parts of the disassembly of my car left: The rear suspension, the engine, and the dashboard. I chose to tackle the first two because I hate taking dashboards down. You spend a day on your back, bent like a pretzel to reach a bolt way up inside the dash, only to find that there are 5 more bolts, even further up inside holding that section of the dash down.

To pull the engine you need a hoist. The problem with a standard like the one below is that it is designed to roll under the car.

With the car up on an elevated concrete pad like mine is, that isn't happening. To solve this problem I decided to build a gantry. I gathered up some scrap steel from some old scaffolding and started designing.

I need this to be about 8 feet tall and wide enough to span the concrete pads we have. I'll hang a chainfall from it and we can use it to pick up engines or even whole cars.

After getting the steel, I cut one section off with the torch to make a foot, then I ran out of gas. Once I got ahold of a sawzall, I cut another section off. I hit all the surfaces that would be welded with the wire wheel, then lined it up to weld.

After some ugly welds, this is what I've got. Just need to make one more, then span the towers.

I also dropped the rear suspension out of my Z yesterday. First I pulled the driveshaft and halfshafts.

Then I disconnected the brake and e-brake lines, and loosened the 12 bolts holding the rear end of the car on.

And so this is how she sits now. The rear end of the car is light enough for one person to pick up easily.

K.Y. started putting the Benz back together as well. That sparklingly clean intake looks so out of place in the engine bay now. Hopefully we can get all the vacuum hoses connected correctly to get this thing running soon.

Making progress...

-W.W. SBSS

6/13/11 New Toy!

Tools are toys for men.

After spending some time searching on craigslist, I finally found a suitable milling machine for our shop. I originally wanted a full-sized Bridgeport milling machine. While we could afford the machine itself, transportation and installation of a 2500lb machine gets pretty expensive pretty quick. I kept my eyes open and eventually found this smaller, benchtop machine that fit the bill perfectly. I called the guy and arranged to pick it up Sunday.

Saturday I went to the shop with K.Y. and did a little work on the Z. I pulled the bumper and corner markers off, and started removing the front suspension.

K.Y. and I also took a trip to a local machine shop to pick up the intake from the Benz. As seen in the earlier posts, it was quite dirty both inside and out. After a quick sandblast from the shop, the part was as good as new.

Sunday, I went to see the mom and check on an oil leak on her Ford Focus. Once I determined it was nothing to worry about, we took a trip up to white plains together to pick up the mill. I took a quick look at it and determined it was good to go. After I did the deal, the seller showed me his workshop, which had pretty much every machine tool in existence. There were at least $150k worth of machine tools in his basement. It was like looking into my future.

We disassembled the mill, threw it into the focus and drove home. Getting to the shop I discovered exactly how difficult moving a mill by yourself can be, but weight means quality and this mill weighs about 350lbs all together.

I just ordered all the little end mills, collets, parallels and holders that I need to start using this sweet little mill. It is seriously like going to a toy store for me.

-W.W. SBSS

6/2/11 - Pens, Coins, and Foam

After a wonderful long weekend, I returned to the shop for the first time Wednesday with two goals: Pull the doors and seats out my Z and make a trip to home depot to buy foam for mold making.

K.Y., Harley and and I got to the shop and immediately started work. One thing I love about the Z is that it comes apart relatively easily. Twelve easily accessible bolts later and my doors were off the car.

The seats, stock from a 3rd generation RX-7, were a little more difficult. I custom mounted them about 6 years ago, and I remembered them being a pain to put in even then. They weren't much easier to remove. If I had a 12mm ratcheting wrench, it would have been a bit easier, but alas that was the one tool missing from K.Y. and my collections. After some sweating and cursing, however, the seats were out.

Pulling up the carpet I found all sorts of things. In the drivers side I found about $20 in change and 20 pens and pencils.

In the passenger side I found that the floor was simply bolted in, not welded, and that I could see daylight between the two panels in places.

K.Y. pulled the intake off of the Benz for cleaning. It is incredible how much crud is in the intake. We think it'll run like new with a good cleaning.

While he did that, I stole his BMW to make a home depot run to pick up some foam insulation boards for mold making. The idea is that I will glue this together, shape it into the shape I want my fairing to be when it's finished, cover it in packing tape, wrap it in resin soaked carbon fiber, vacuum bag and pop out a new fairing. If this works well, expect many more carbon parts in the future.

W.W. SBSS

5/25/11 The Striptease Begins

Yesterday, the stripping of my car began in earnest.

Removing the parts and panels of a car is very much like taking the clothes off of a person. It is great to see the muscle, bone and sinew that holds someone together and makes them move. Unfortunately, that mole, scar, or cellulite that is usually hidden by clothes becomes glaringly obvious when all is off.

So it was with my Z last night.

I got ahold of another set of jackstands, so I started by taking off my car's shoes wheels.

Then it was on to the Zero's shirt fenders, exposing the arms and hands upper frame and front suspension.

Once there was a pile of clothes parts on the floor, it was time to take a closer look at what I'm working with.

With a little poking around with a screwdriver, it became very obvious that there was a lot of cellulite fiberglass rust repair and rusty metal in structurally important places.

I could try to fix this, but I would spend hundreds or thousands of hours cutting and replacing metal. At this point I think it's best to cut my losses and get a clean chassis. Luckily I have a clean chassis lined up and ready to replace this one.

In other news, the Big Body Benz has a very very dirty intake manifold. Everything downstream of the throttle body, shown here, is absolutely caked in carbon. I mean the dirtiest I have ever seen. Very very strange, but this absolutely could have kept it from running well in the past. A deep clean is in this cars future.

Finally, Meet Harley Davidson.

-W.W. SBSS