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The "What Did You Work On Today" thread

3M views 36K replies 388 participants last post by  cerial 
#1 ·
4 hour work day for me at the shop. Used the time to do a valve body swap on a '01 Jetta 1.8t auto .... I successfully installed a transbrake on the car .... that however wasn't my intention.

Its in 2 gears at once in park, all other gears (R/N/D/2/1) are forward gears.... they all seam to be first gear.

I have it torn back down most of the way. Tuesday I'll actually get the VB back out and see whats up.... but part of me wants to take it out for a test drive the way it is just for the fun of it.
 
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#4,281 ·
I worked overtime so came home bushed but got out there for my 5 minutes, which turned into a half hour. Got some fine tuning done on the roof posts. It isn't much but damn it, it's better than nothing at all.

I just found a photo of this door brace/window stop that I took the other day when I got the door back together. I post this just show how goofy I am. I had removed this from the door thinking it had to be moved. My brain hasn't been doing this stuff in a while and I had a total brain fart. I am looking at moving it, because of the chop or the section, I don't know what was in my head but then it dawned on me later (much later) that it welded to the upper part of the door as well as the bottom, all I had to do was drill the spot welds from the bottom and re-weld it when the bottom of the shell was re-attached. For some reason I was thinking it had to be raised because I chopped the top! WTH? Friggin oldtimers disease.

It's back in there right were it was to begin with. :spank:

Brian

 
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#4,283 ·
somrtimes finding the problem can be hard to find ,and most of the time it is something small overlooked on my red Z28 I have an engine that was originaly built for a dirt circle car so it needs lots of cooling ,it has Air but I cant run it,i put a 160 thermostat alun heads 4 core aluminum radiator with the munual 6 blade flex fan and a 14 in electric fan and a high volume water pump when I put it together to avoid any overheating problems,But that didn't work either, it ran around 210 when driving around 50 mph but if I drove 60 65 it would overheat 230+ in less than 1/2 mile so I could slow down the temp would drop, I tried removing thermostat and using a restrictor like we use in our race cars (a flat disc with a 5/8 hole ) still hot ,tried an adjustable timing retard MSD it helped some I changed to 2 1/2 in exaust helped a little,then a fellow racer told me to see if the shaft driven fan and the electric fan shaft were in line with each other if not they were fighting against each other ,restricting air flow and remove the high volume water pump circulated to fast fpr radiator to cool ,Thet were not so I moved the electric fan down where shafts align and replaced pump with a stock one ,it stopped running hot about 185 at cruise 65-70 with 411 gears but I still cannot turn on air it will run extremely hot in less than 1/4 mile.:confused::confused::confused: the previous post is my truck
Thanks for the info David! I'm leaning towards not enough radiator, as I've always found BBC engines to run warmer, and thought the triple pass aluminum radiator might handle this, even though it was smaller at 19"x24".
I ran a monster 19"x32" on my 427 in the '71 Camaro, and it rarely got over 165 cruising, and maybe 190 at extended idling in hot weather. I'm need to decide if I can add cooling area without major modification, and hope that does the trick.
 
#4,284 · (Edited)
I never thought about an auxallary radiator like the ,I belive Farrari ot BUGGATTI Veyron They have several small radiators one in each rear quarter at the scoops and some laying flat under car with fans ,im sure they spent many hours and dollars testing them so your idea probably should work.

Edit : the Buggatti Veyron has 10 radiators for the engine and 3 heat exchangers for the turbos 16 cylinder 4 turbos. WOW
 
#4,285 ·
I never thought about an auxallary radiator like the ,I belive Farrari ot BUGGATTI Veyron They have several small radiators one in each rear quarter at the scoops and some laying flat under car with fans ,im sure they spent many hours and dollars testing them so your idea probably should work.

Edit : the Buggatti Veyron has 10 radiators for the engine and 3 heat exchangers for the turbos 16 cylinder 4 turbos. WOW
We did this with my buddy's Austin A40 and 350 Chevy. Installed two large heater cores up behind the headlights in the fender, and put an 8" Spal fan on each core. When he gets stuck in traffic he turns the fans on and it keeps it cooler.
 
#4,286 ·
I worked at work today :( and I am heading off to go to my daughters house about 85 miles away right now. But I HAD to go out and put in my five minutes. :D Got some measuring done for the top and marking so I don't forget stuff!

Have a good Forth guys!

Brian
 
#4,288 ·
I spent an hour or so building up the two new 11"x7" heater cores and a framework to set them in the Falcon. Got them plumbed in, and took it for a drive. They seemed to be working well, but eventually the temperature crept up, just slower than before.
Back to the drawing board!
 
#4,289 ·
decided to work today instead of coming in tomorrow. Finished up a Chevy cab I'm working on and got the 80's Trans Am all stripped down and marked the dings. Should be a quickie cause mostly everything I found was just small dings. Should be able to knock it out on Monday. Then after Monday we start working on the new shop car which is a Vette. We warned the boss to never buy a Vette that they say is "ready for paint" but it is what it is.
 
#4,290 ·
Dash outlets at 2* Celsius today. :thumbup: That's 36* Fahrenheit for you guys south of the border.

I was worried about that as I read a lot of posts about the air coming out at 10* Celsius.

A few headaches during install but when you feel that cool air, the hiccups are easily forgotten.
 
#4,294 ·
LOL, well......I woke up 150 miles from home where my Truck is, but I still got something done on it. :D I got my Black Diamond blasting media for it being there aren't any stores around here that sell it. Then tonight I got home after 10:00 but still got out there and did some planning, I plan on raising the running boards a few inches and it was on my mind the whole way home. I got out there to my wrecking yard behind the garage with my flash light to see that I can VERY easily raise the running board brackets up on the frame that much, it will take almost zero modification (just a little trim off the top) so that was cool.

I also did some checking on the doors for some other things I had in my head. So tonight I can go to sleep knowing what I can do tomorrow. :D

The thing I didn't do was win the 53-55 Corvette gas door I was trying to win on eBay for it, DARN. I have plenty of time but I would love to get it so I can get that out of my head.

Brian
 
#4,295 ·
I just went for a test drive in the truck. Man, does she blow cold. I don't know why I was fooling around with that factory A/C junk stuff all this time.:spank:

The serpentine belt runs smooth as silk with no squealing.
 

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#4,296 ·
We headed out to a big once a year street cruise in Camas, Wa. $20 entry, but it's always had a lot of great cars. Well the local police decided to mess with the format, and control how the cars came in to park. After an hour of waiting we decided to give up, and headed 15 miles north to a small weekly free cruise in a private park at Alderbrook. The setting was a grassy meadow, with a great restaurant, and beautiful scenery out in the woods. The drive there was also very nice, with winding country roads leading into the park.
We had a great time, and met some nice people who welcomed us to the show. It sure was a pleasant change to blacktop, and waiting in line!
 
#4,298 ·
#4,299 ·
I thought I was going to get a lot more done today but I am beat and feeling a little funky. Anyway, I did get a bunch of cleaning done, scraped off the installation from the back of the firewall and got a bunch of rust out of the quarters and cowl, saw a little more sun light that I care to darn it, but it's not too bad. I prepped the B pillars to weld the pieces back on to raise the top up a 1/2".



I had a friend who passed away and stuck this sticker on the dash back then. He loved streetrodding and had a very nice Model A coupe, damn he was a nice guy. CRAP. Anyway, I can't help but be shaken back into reality at how wonderful this life is when I am out there "working" (playing) on my truck and I see this sticker.




I then got my tools out of the shed where they had been buried now for 20 years. I had forgotten the name of the brake and the english wheel, "Dollar stretcher tools". They are "ok" as I have been able to fab some stuff I never would have been able to without them. The English wheel had a very funky lower die on it. I picked up an old fender repair tool from the thirties that had a better one and I had a machine shop turn out the holes for a bearing, as well as the upper wheel. It's much better now, we will see, I'll start playing with it at some point and we will see. I haven't used it since I changed the wheel. The brake wasn't too bad but I use to put my long Vice grip C clamps to keep the center of a long bend tight.



These planishing hammers are really cool, got one along with the Pexco (before they were called Pexco :D) bead roller at a body shop going out of business for $25!
The other one along with three "Bodies" and a few dies I got from a customer when I was a paint rep for a trade of a fresh air respirator pump that I got for free so I lucked out big time on these. They are a really neat tool. I need to make a wall mount to hook them too. The English wheel was a "bench mount" and I made the mounts to bolt it to the wall, made a lot more sense. But with the planishing hammer I am going to have to make a cable operated foot control being the hand one makes no sense at all unless you are holding the tool on a fender which is how it was designed to work. But with it mounted on the wall I'll be able to use it like an English wheel holding the metal and stepping on the control to turn it on.







But I just pooped out and couldn't get any more done. :(

Brian
 
#4,300 ·
I went over to help my buddy sort out wiring on his '69 Nova. I discovered why the previous owner had so many things mickey moused. It seems there's either corrosion, or some sort of bad connections in the bulkhead connector. I could trace several circuits to the connector, but nothing out of it on the engine bay.
We got lights, turn signals, and engine wiring done, but need to pull the power brake booster to open the connector and see what's going on in there.
When I got home my swap meet MSD 6AL box was back from repair! I gave $100 for a Mallory Unilite electronic distributor, and the MSD box, but it wouldn't fire my engine when I wired it in. The box was faulty, and MDS found several bad components. Only cost $43 to fix and ship back, so still a bargain price! I'll reinstall it tomorrow after our monthly Sunday morning breakfast! Wife and I are celebrating our 34th anniversary tomorrow, so she's riding along this month, and we'll take in a movie after late breakfast.
 
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