Brake lines (Again!) Steering parts and solutions

Well Last time I said I was going to run the brake line and clutch line down the tunnel with the coolant pipes. It became clear quite quickly this wasn't going to happen with fowling taking place between the brake pipe and coolant pipes which would of produced an IVA fail.

So a change of tact was needed, now the tunnel only holds the coolant pipes, secured by 3 P clips each, very secure and going nowhere any time soon! Then more P clips holding the vertical pieces of the coolant system as well. Perfect one area done in terms of securing.

The rear brake and clutch line I decided to attach to the top of the tunnel in the end, there is plenty of room there for all the pipes and cables so it fitted nicely. The IVA states it needs to be secure but I know for wiring it says maximum of 300mm apart. So I decided to start as I mean to go on with the brake pipes secured roughly 280mm apart along the clips. showing the IVA examiner I want to do all parts to a high standard should put me in good stead!

You will notice that the part down the tunnel has a couple of wide bends at the end and although neat, they could be better...why...Simply put if the flares leak and I need to re-flare I have enough slack to give it one more go! After that a new pipe is needed. It looks neater in the flesh and as I wont see the pipes in this position ever again was the most natural place to put the extra bit of pipe.

I had two other problems I needed to solve before moving on to the front brake lines and both these issues involved the steering area.

1) Steering Rack Column was too short
2) steering track rod ends were too short

Issue 1; The original design of the DDR was with a PAS rack with fluid drained and holes blocked, I didn't want this as it gives a heavy rack / steering and I already have plans for an electric PAS system later. So I wanted to change to a manual rack but this meant the column was too short (the PAS rack spline sits about 4cm higher then the manual rack). Queue bring in a family member and a custom column extender was made

You can see where the spline and the union has had a shaft of metal welded in, this moves the union further towards the bulkhead changing the angle at which the union goes across to the spline on the rack. You can see in the pic above, the steering column goes behind the brake pedal...now with plenty of space! Imagine that piece going to the bottom of the pic above where the join is and you can imagine how it would fowl on the brake pedal when pushed. The picture below shows good the space behind the pedal as well as the brake and clutch pipe in the background.

Issue 2; The tie rod ends as standard are too short and were pulling the Toe in on the hubs. Queue another family member coming up with a suggestion in case the larger ones weren't to my fancy (lucky to have a lot of family members in manufacturing). So some rod extenders were created and these bridged the gap nicely giving full adjustment. I seem to of got my family into the car as much as me with the steering rack piece and rod extenders both being done in a day for me. Pic Below;

Next will be to complete the front brake lines from the T piece and then get the radiator and new electric fans on to the front of the chassis and to make some supporting brackets.

Everyone likes seeing pictures and if you want to see them first or different ones, I am posting to twitter more than I thought I would so feel free to follow

https://twitter.com/kilerferret666

Issues, Solutions and Brake system

So last time you remember I fitted the steering rack and had an issue on fowling the brake pedal, well the manual rack and longer column does appear to resolve this. I now need to fit this permanently and get the column attached permanently as well.(that will be a future update)

So in the meantime I have been putting the front suspension corners together. This showed up an issue with the steering rack as it was pulling both wheels inwards, after speaking with DDR I need different / longer tie rod ends so am awaiting the details on them for the time being but at least that mean't I could move on and not worry about the issue.

The next area for me is to fit the brake lines, however because of the tunnel under the car being large but still tight to carry the coolant pipes I needed to do a dry fit of both at the same time. So in the tunnel I will mount the rear brake and clutch lines at the top of the tunnel and the coolant pipes underneath. I am using brake line clips that you simply drill a 6mm hole for and push the clip in, they are far more secure then I thought they would be and will also pass the IVA test.

The IVA states it has to be secure and as there are no bends in this area, there should be no movement, the extra support will be on either end where the pipe bends. My first issue was...I cant get a drill up there...So I had to drill through the very substantial steel frame  from inside the cabin...then drill back out the front side. I will have to grommet the holes in the cabin which wont be seen when the interior is done, but I had no other solution as a right angle drill wouldn't even fit up there.

This weekend Ill be making up the initial pipes for the clutch and brake line down the tunnel and then hopefully rivnut'ing below for some P clips to hold the coolant pipes. I've decided I will run the Power cable, wiring loom, aircon pipes, earth down inside the cabin, most will go down the centre of the cabin under the centre console as there is plenty of room. I will separate the positive cable's run point from the loom / earth to ensure no electrical issues are caused.

Finally in the final prep for the brake line creation / positioning, I fitted together the front suspension and brakes. They are 324mm Supra MkIV vented front discs with 4 pot Nissan front callipers (used on Sx200 / Skyline GTR) with an adapter bracket and stainless steel flexible brake line (PVC covered - required for IVA test)

Master cylinders, Pedals and Steering Rack

The Pedals and master cylinders have to be installed together as one piece doing them separately wont work and you will end up undoing some bolts and putting the pedals back on, Trust me :)

To make this easier its better to do the clutch pedal first + master cylinder then move on to the brake pedals. First of all I attached the pedal from above loosely so it has plenty of movement in it. I then attached the master cylinder from behind the firewall and through the pedal back mounting.

This is why both have to be done together, the master cylinder bolt will also go into additional pedal mounts as well.Tighten as you would do normally pinching across corners before doing a final tighten on each screw. The reservoirs then attach to a mounting bracket nice and easily.

Next came the steering Rack, now I had a PAS steering Rack and column and this was actually an issue in itself. The issue is not that they have different mounting points but that the PAS rack union point is higher and the union uses a damper making the union much larger, this causes it to fowl on the back of the brake pedal when pushed down and it fowls quite a way up.

I then received my manual rack today and installed that and can see that the angle at the union point it is a stepper angle and lower down without the PAS parts, so this should hopefully resolve the fowling. However the manual rack has a smaller spline size coming out of the rack compared to a PAS unit and I had already researched and found this so am awaiting a new Column to arrive, you can also see the column wouldn't even reach now as shown below. (look to the left of the pedal and you can see the column)

I understand the manual column to be longer and should resolve the issue, if not I will make a custom piece to bridge the gap which wont be a massive issue.

Following on from that I started to dry fit the steering column and get an idea for position, being a tall guy at 6ft 1 I want as much cabin space as possible so will be trying to place the steering column as far forward as possible on the mounts. I also wanted to do this as I noticed how far forward the pedals are and I like to sit comfortably. However the final fitting needs to wait till the actual column piece arrives.

Delivery Details and Preparation for working

The delivery itself went smoothly, but the biggest advice to anyone I can give would be find a local company with a loading dock and ask to borrow it if possible, even if charged! At one point the car was like this.

Not really how you want your car in the air! But this shows the height difference between a delivery truck and a flat bed truck.

Following that it was nice and easy to drag off the flat bed truck.

With space at a minimum I first had to move the shell into where it was going to be stored in the back garden, this was done on delivery day. First of all I had to undo the bolts holding it to the chassis. It was very securely attached and probably took around an hour to free all the panels up but once free it could be removed, it was late by this point and the red below is from fireworks. The fact it was so secure was really nice to see.

I wanted to get the chassis into the garage that night but its so strong and bulky 3 of us just couldn't quite lift it. So I arranged 6 of us to lift it on the Saturday and place it on the car Dolly, with 6 it was no issues, I think with 5 of us was possible but would of been harder. So outside it sat for the night, although was wrapped up.

Once it was in the garage, there was some surface rust on places and this was most likely from the added bonus of being at sea for so long, so I cleaned up the chassis removing all the dust and surface rust spots. these wiped off without an issue. My thoughts on the chassis, is it is strong and the welds are really good. I cant fault it, its going to feel like a very safe car when in it. The paint on the chassis has runs in places which is not ideal and probably could be a little better, but that said it is thick and as its primary job is to protect the steel it does that well. Of course the difference with this chassis is, 99% of it wont be seen.

Following wiping the whole thing down, I looked for ages to check what parts had been scraped on loading etc... and gave a very light sand and spray of gloss black, there was only a few but I wanted to ensure every area was covered.

Not content with that, I decided I would also polish the chassis, this way the paint has a bit more protection as well, it may be a bit OTT. But I will get no other point to do it so easily once things start to bolt on.

Below are a few shots of the chassis, as you can see I am in a single garage, but the car is pushed more towards that wall, so one side has about 10" free and the other about 2 foot. Its not spacious by ant stretch of the imagination but I can work in there.

So the next step....fitting master cylinders, pedals and steering column and Rack first.

Delivery Day

So today was delivery day... Ill write a more detailed account of the day and some closer photos over the weekend, but here's a teaser of some of the days photo's.

Delivery Week...

Just to say the blog will get updates probably once a week (maybe twice) but I've decided I'm going to tweet pics along the way more regularly than the blog, with blog being a build diary which will have useful updates and pictures.

The tweets more along the lines of pictures and comments. I do tweet my thoughts on other things as well but nothing OTT. if you want to follow me for the delivery pics you can on

www.twitter.com/kilerferret666

I will start the DDR tweeting from the moment the delivery truck arrives next week :)

Little bits going on while I wait...

Well the wait is almost over! Boat comes into Dock late on the 25th. It will be a few days after that for delivery.

In the meantime I've been ordering other little bits I know I need and that I don't require the car to measure to ensure they fit.

So I've ordered a new water washer jet system, its a small unit holding 1.4litre which is plenty and gives me flexibility on where I mount it. I was going to use the MR2 system but it was dirty and old and for the price of £15 i'd rather have a new looking system to give it that better look. I will use the current wiring loom and then it can still work off the steering column stalks.

As well as this I decided the fans and metal shrouds for the radiator were just to heavy and not looking as nice still as I hoped, so I bought some new 12v fans with a high CFM of 2000. This should be plenty and help with cooling, I will be making some ducting later on in the build which should aid this further.

I've also ordered a new horn and some little side lights to meet IVA requirements.

I previously gave a quick guide on brake pipe flaring, although they were coming out well it was hard to get it right 99% of the time and if its not right and wont seal it would need to be cut off and re-done. They were not coming out flat and the reason is as you screw the die in further to create the flare it wants to twist the claw round, giving you an uneven flare.

So I bought a 2nd tool, this tool has not produced one bad flare. same principal in clamping but easier by just pushing the handles together, but the screw sits on a flat plate platform which cant twist meaning it goes down flat and even every time. The tool was not expensive at about £30 as well. The tool model is a Sealey AK5063