Shop Life 2.0

[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

[HipMF]

Jdesign said:

... that fuel cell looks really low to the ground.

I'm slightly concerned as well... but it's only an inch or two lower that the spare tire well was (famous last words).

[HipMF]

Managed to get the front end back together Saturday. Did work stuff on Sunday (boooo!).

#shoplife

Front coil-over adjusters are as low as they can go and there's a little shy of 2 inches of travel left. Tires hit the front of the wheel opening when turning at ride height. Would probably hit all of the things at full compression. Rear coilover adjuster could go a half inch lower, but the wheel arch is pretty much resting on the tire already. Still has 3 inches of travel left. At this height there's no camber, so it really needs to go 1-1.5 inches lower in the rear just to make it handle right. Sooo..... pretty much what I was going for.

I'll give the fender roller a try, just for novelty's sake, but will probably have to do flares just to make it driveable. Much work left.

[HipMF]

I made this!

10 WIBimmers Prize Points for anyone who can tell me why it will never work for it's intended purpose.

[Jdesign]

HipMF said:

I made this!

10 WIBimmers Prize Points for anyone who can tell me why it will never work for it's intended purpose.

Not NPT threads?

[GunMetalGrey]

Kind of hard to tell but it looks like your threads are left hand.
I'm impressed you made that lol.

[jc43089]

Threads are backwards.  Only for use in the southern hemisphere.

[HipMF]

Yep, they're backwards. *facepalm*

[HipMF]

last test fit. time to weld some shit.