Shop Life 2.0

[GunMetalGrey]

Daggerty said:

Isn't that what owning a car and being part of wibimmers is about though????

Fixed that for ya

[HipMF]

Hoggin out some parts at the shop away from shop (work ). Woo! Friday night!

Damn, I need to get a life...

[B C]

I cant think of what the brackets are for. Give me a hint!

[Earl]

Are they trailing arm brackets for the subframe instead of welding on tabs to the existing ones?

[HipMF]

Part of the upper mount for my rear coil-overs. I needed a shorter shock in the rear to go lower and not have crazy droop. Decided to go with a Bilstein motorsports shock with 1/2" heim joints, as I couldn't seem to find an OEM shock that fit all my requirements. Still need to make a plate for the top so everything can bolt up in the stock location.

[HipMF]

whoops...

[HipMF]

Since I'm going with stiffer springs in the rear, I also need to address the front. The best-documented solution on the net is to shorten the struts and use MKI Golf strut inserts, so that's what I'm planning. Parts are ordered, so I started on the disassembly.

First strut out aaand... wtf? PO kind of left me high and dry on this one... (The gland nut screws into the top of the strut tube and should a larger OD ring on top with two holes for a special wrench.)

Like multiple choice, your first answer is usually the right one, so I went with the first thing that popped into my head:

It took a big lever and a lot of force, but it eventually came out. I was under the impression that the car was riding on Bilsteins when I bought it. Turns out that was only half true... The fronts were some kind of open-bath oil shock. I probably dumped a quart of oil out of each one, and everything just came out in pieces after I removed the gland nut...

Hopefully next weekend I'll have some parts and can start putting stuff back together. My goal is to make it to the autox at RA August 13th. I'm not particularly optimistic at this point, but I'm still trying.

[Jdesign]

That it really odd. It makes sense, but its still strange. Glad you got it apart and are making progress!

[HipMF]

I've been toying with the idea of turboing the car this winter. I may still do some prep work for that, but in the meantime I've come up with a way better goal for the summer of 2018.

Wear out these tires:

#trackdaybro? #2018

[B C]

Is the now vacant spare tire well area being occupied with anything? Or just some weight savings?

[HipMF]

Even after removing the rear sway bar, the gas tanks don't fit anymore. I could us a persuader to make the driver's side fit, but on the passenger side the filler neck points directly at the subframe. I thought about modifying them, but at the end of the day it's just easier, quicker, and less leak-prone to just go with a fuel cell. Will relocate the battery to where the passenger tank previously resided for more optimal weight thing-a-ma-jigs.

[HipMF]

More progress!

Finished the upper coilover mounts for the rear.

New coilovers offer a substantial reduction of droopyness, more low, and increase of tuning options. Muy bueno. These use 1 7/8" ID springs as opposed to the defacto standard 2.5". Still plenty of spring options out there though. Going to 1/2" heim joints top and bottom means I can change the whole unit out for pretty-much-whatever-the-hell-I-want-to later if these don't work out. Probably going to be loud as hell back there now that everything is solidly mounted, but it ain't easy being cheesy.

After that, I moved back to the front of the car to try and fit the MKI Golf struts inserts. After hours of test fitting, measuring, hemming and hawing, I finally gave up and just cut 1.25" out of the strut tubes. Most people who do this mod are after crazy low and cut out more, but the next issue that you run into is that the control arms hit the subframe. My intention is that the internal bumpstop in the strut insert will prevent that from happening too violently, but I'm not really sure if I got it right. Regardless, the front of the car should go 1.25" lower than before, which is plenty, and if I need to, I can disassemble the strut insert and put a spacer under the bumpstop to make it work right.

Oddly, I actually took pictures of the whole process, so here we go:

First, get the original spring perch out of the way.

Then do a lot of measuring, calculating, and head-scratching. Realize that life is meaningless and we're all doomed. Then remove 1.25" from the ugly part of the strut tube.

Recall painful memory of Ben scrapping out all of your little leftover bits of stock while you were away on vacation. Then, go to the store and acquire a super-precision butt-welding-two-tubes-straight jig. VERY IMPORTANT!!! Do not forget to install the sleeve that  the coilover adjuster slides on to, because it won't fit on the tube after the it's welded. Somehow I managed to not screw this up twice in a row (pats self on back). Tack weld strut tube.

Remove super-precision butt-welding-two-tubes-straight jig and weld for real this time.

Realize that the weld penetrated through to the inside of the tube (good) and that the strut insert no longer fits in the tube (bad). Try a stupid method with a power tool that's totally wrong for the job, then use half-round file to remove the excess weld inside the tube.

Confirm that strut tube is indeed shorter than one that hasn't been modified. Also confirm that you are tired and whiny. Go back to step 1.

[HipMF]

Still need to make spacers for under the strut inserts. Gland nuts we're supposed to be here today, so hopefully I get them tomorrow... Fuel cell will allegedly ship Monday Chance of making it to Aug. 13th AutoX is about an order-of-magnitude lower than I'd like it to be.

Anyways, I may rig something up so I can fire the car up this weekend, just so I can hear it run again, as I've kind of forgotten what it sounds like.

It's a humble car, but a good car.

[HipMF]

Oh yeah, I did some more stuff.

Made some spacers for under the strut inserts:

Even cut the correct shape to mate with the strut insert and bottom of the tube. Too bad the gland nuts that I got were the wrong gender.

These would work great for an early e21. Mine is post-facelift. I left the spacers long and the mini-lathe setup so i can cut them to the correct length once I get the correct nuts. The theme of this part of my project is getting as many things as possible half-done. On that note, here's the relocated battery:

The box part is complete except for the super ugly welds on the bottom (I absolutely suck at welding upside down. Should probably google that to see what I'm doing wrong...). Need to grind those down, make an actual tie-down for the battery, re-route cables, and make a cover.

The more work I do, the longer my to-do list seems to get... Fuel cell is backordered. Will allegedly ship today. Still soldiering on.

[Bassboy3313]

That battery location is super slick!!

[Jdesign]

I also dig the battery location. Do you have pictures of it from the underside?

[HipMF]

I was in a rush to get out of the shop, so I didn't. I'll take some this weekend.

[HipMF]

Battery box:

Wasn't really feelin it this weekend, so not a ton new progress. I got the fuel cell and pump mounting situation figured out, but my dumb self forgot that I needed to get the welding gas tank refilled, so everything is just tacked in place with flux-core for right now.

I should have the correct gland nuts next week, which would allow me to set the car down on it's new suspension for the first time. I think that would bring the motivation level back up. It's actually getting pretty close to being functional again....

[Jdesign]

Any progress is better than no progress. That battery box looks great. This might just be me not knowing that chassis very well, but that fuel cell looks really low to the ground.

[B C]

grounded to the ground