Time to install the Rennline engine mount cross bar

Well, today was an eventful day.  I received my new Rennline stainless steel engine mount cross bar to replace the standard flimsy kaka bar that came on the 911, and took the day off to install it.

A little back history for you.  I was replacing the tired old motor mounts with some new sport mounts that came standard on the turbo, and while removing one of the main bolts, the bar cracked and bent at the narrowest point.

So, now that you know what's going on, back to the story.  The new bar I received is a real work of art.  This is the same bar that came on the prized 1973 Porsche 911 RSR.  I had the option of brushed stainless or painted red, and I thought the stainless would look nicer and be easier to clean.

The install seemed pretty straight forward, jack under motor, undo old broken part, install shiny new part, lower jack, clean up tools, drink beer.  Well, things didn't go according to plan, except for the first and last steps.

After completely breaking off the old piece, which was intentional, I was now ready to remove the 4 bolts which hold the bar to the motor.

As I'm always scared to severely cut myself (largely in part because seeing my own blood in large quantities makes me want to pass out) I took great care in positioning my hands and using restraint in... WOOPS, hand slipped and I sliced the top of my knuckle off.. CRAP.. on the first bolt too.  Well, better hurry up and wash this up and evaluate the damage before I end up taking an early unplanned siesta!

Hrmmm.. I can see cartilage.. is that bad?  I need to lay down.  Deep breaths... okay I'm good.

Decided to throw a band-aid on it and continue working, as my engine is precariously being held up by a hydraulic jack.

Hey, souvenir!

This time I used a much longer ratchet and put on gloves and was a lot more successful.  With the old piece completely detached, I was able to wiggle it out of the engine bay with little problem, but then it dawned on me that the old piece is a little shorter(because the end is broken off)  Now I'm starting to panic a little.  I don't think I'll be able to get the new part on without dropping the motor.  I'm not prepared to drop the motor today, or really any other day for that matter.

What I ended up having to do was lowering the motor about 8 inches, and I was able to wrestle the new piece in, with a hammer.  I'm almost done, I can see the finish line.  All I need to do is connect the bolts.  Why do I feel like Arya Stark in the Game of Thrones?

First bolt, dropped it.. it's somewhere under the crankshaft pulley.. CRAP!  Go get a magnet and fish it out.  20 minutes later finally get it and get the rest of the 4 engine bolts on.

Now onto the mounts. I get the passenger side on no problem.  Torque it up and move onto the driver side.  Start to tighten up the main bolt and as its getting tight, it starts to get looser, and is just spinning and spinning.. WTF?  The brand new bolt has stripped.  I was able to remove it and try another, but I'm already thinking that the threads on the nut are probably screwed too.  Yup, surely enough, I strip another bolt.

I have one more bolt left, but I think I'll hit up a buddy of mine to borrow his tap and die set to clean up the threads on the nut.

It'll have to wait for this weekend.. because I give up and it's time for beer!

Some work on the p-car

After having driven the 911 a few times this year, I decided it was time to start my to-do list of little projects. Some things that have been bothering me are the shifting and the dirty state of the engine.

The shifting I've already determined to be caused in part by the shift coupler bushing which sits between the 2 back seats in the tunnel. It has discernible play in the linkage which cannot be helping the shifting.

So with the tunnel cover off I was able to remove the coupler and indeed I was able to jiggle the shaft in the bushings quite a bit. 

I had ordered the bushing kit last year so now it's just a matter of pushing the pin out, removing the bushings, pressing in the new bushings and finally pressing in the pin.

Now the coupler is much tighter! Maybe too tight.. but I'm sure over time it'll loosen a little.

So, before connecting everything up in the back and adjusting the linkage, I also have the bushings in the front. There's the ball cup and the shaft bushing under the center console which take a little more work to get at than simply pulling the rug back and undoing 4 screws.

With the console off and the shift tower disconnected, I was able to see the front bushings are in good shape. I recall I changed the ball cup when I installed the short shift kit some 10 years ago, but other bushing I wasn't sure of.

After an hour getting everything undone, it's time to put everything back together.. hope I don't end up with spare parts :)

Now it's time to start the shifter adjustment. Being the first time I'm doing this procedure, I'm expecting the worst and hoping for the best.  The procedure goes something like this:

1. With the shift coupler disconnected, put the transmission selector shaft in neutral and turn clockwise when facing the front of the car.
2. Move the shift lever to the left (towards the driver) and put the lower part of the lever vertical (90 degrees from level when viewed from the side of the car)
3. Tighten the shift connecting rod to the coupler.
4. Check that all the gears can be selected. Check for even distribution of travel in the shifter when selecting different gears. Ensure there is a little play in the selector shaft when in 5th.

With all that done I went for a drive. Things seemed okay but I didn't have the space to stretch the legs of all the gears. But, the travel of the shifter between 1st and 2nd isn't even, so I'll have to go back and fix that later.

But, before I ran out of time, I wanted to de-grease the engine and have a chance for it to sit in the sun and dry.

With newer cars, all of the electrical in the engine bay is weather resistant, but my car is neither new nor weather resistant. So out come the plastic bags to cover the air intake, distributor and fuse / relay panel.

Now for a liberal spraying of Gunk engine cleaner on 13 years of road grime and oil leaks. 

While I'm letting this work it's magic, I'll take the time to properly glue in place the headlight seals that I hadn't done properly last fall.

That should be enough time soaking.. let's get out the old tooth brushes and start brushing. You'll forgive me for not having pictures of this process as I had dirt and grease and solvent on my hands and arms.  But I did get some of the finished product.

That's all I had time (or energy) for today. I didn't get around to replacing the motor mounts. I guess it'll have to wait for Monday, which is a holiday :-)

It's standing under it's own weight

I guess I'm pretty much finished the table..

..well, except for some of the finer details, such as the top piece and maybe paint.

The night before last I finished welding the leg cross members on and any other corners in the frame that I had forgotten.

Then last night I started by sectioning the 1" flat stock into the pieces which hold the legs in position.  I figured I would try out the cut off disc in my angle grinder, as I didn't need the plasma cutter or welder for anything else and didn't want to string out all the cables for a couple of cuts.

I didn't know this at the time, but it might have almost been a safer bet to actually use the plasma cutter.  You see, when I was making one of the cuts, the disc violently dug into the piece being cut and jerked the angle grinder out of my hands.  Luckily I didn't try to recover the fumble, but instead tried to get every appendage that I care about out of the way as fast as possible and avoided a catastrophe!  Only thing that was destroyed was the new cut off disc as the grinder hit the cement floor... but I couldn't care less.

So, with all of the flat bar cut, I clamped the similar lengths together, center punched where the holes would go on each end, and drilled them on the drill press.  This is flying faster than I expected at this point and quickly realized that my table would be standing in a matter of minutes.

I retrieved by bag of bolts, determined which pieces needed to be bolted to which holes and started to piece it together.

At this point, I encountered two things which would need to be worked around.  First, there must be a set of holes in some piece which aren't completely even with the rest as my front legs have a bit of a twist in them and I need to pry up on one side to get the flat bar attached.  Second, when I fold the table up, the middle bolt on the bottom pieces of flat bar hits the legs.. so I need to add in some washers on the other side of the pieces to give it some room to play.  Think I might eventually cut off the head of the bolts and weld the stud to one of the pieces, so I don't need all those washers.

Then finally, the last thing I did last night was to grind down the welds on the table top frame to receive the 1/4" table top, when I get around to cutting it.

And then I sat on the table to test it out!!!

It's starting to look like a table

Today was a very productive day.  When I started I had a bunch of individual pieces, all cut to length and drilled, but it looked nothing like a table.

I started by welding the outside corner edges on the leg brackets to the table top base.

I don't want to run a long bead of weld at this point so that the whole frame doesn't start to warp.  So I continued with some 1 inch long welds along the sides for extra strength.  

And then closed up the inside corner joints.

Well, the base is done.  I guess I can try the legs and see how they fit.  I ran to the hardware store yesterday and got the bolts, nuts and washers I needed, with the exception of the nylon threaded lock nuts.. for some reason they didn't have any for the sizes I needed.  Ohh well, some lock-tight should do the trick.

Lookin good, right?!  Everything fits pretty good and is pretty well straight.  Pretty happy about this!

Now to fuse the legs together. I still need to cut to length the 2 pieces for this task.  I wanted wait until it was all together to make sure the length was accurate.  Two 17 1/4" pieces, coming right up.

Gotta admit, I'm getting pretty handy with the plasma cutter!  The cuts were nearly perfect.. the only thing that got me this time was when I switched from TIG to Plasma, I forget to switch the foot control switch off, so the plasma cutter would start weak and then just peter out.

So I have only enough time before my daughter gets up from her nap to weld in one of these leg.. 

See, looks like a table!  The few remaining things now left are to weld together the other pair of legs, cut up and drill  the 1" flat stock that will hold the front and back legs together and allow them to fold, cut the table top from the 1/4" plate I have left over, and weld it to the frame.  I might just be able to get this done in one more evening of work.

Legs are cut

After a very relaxing weekend off with just the wife and no kids, I decided it was time to get this table a little closer to complete.  I wanted to at least finish welding the table top frame, cut the legs to length and cut the bottom off of the other 3" x 1 1/2" leg attachment tube.  Ohh, and I finished editing the video of the plasma cutting from last week.

This video was really a trial run for many things.. video camera placement, speed effects, plasma cutting with a guide on a make-shift welding table/positioner (ie. drill press vise)  And I noticed that at some point the sound became unsynchronized with the video... like I said, trial run.

So, I did what I set out to complete today...
Finished cutting the legs and attachments

Then finished up the welds on the frame.  Think I'll stick with the TIG seeing that I went to get the argon tank refilled... and I need the practice.  Most of the welds turned out pretty good.  I even "walked the cup" a little on the fillet (inside corner) welds  I really need to practice the outside corners though!

So, that's it until next time when I drill the holes in the legs, and just maybe start putting things together!

A little progress

Didn't get a whole lot done today, but progress is progress. And I didn't screw up any of my cuts so that outta count for at least double!

I started with a little rust removal on the 3 x 1 1/2 tubes. I picked up a sanding conversion kit for my electric angle grinder a while back and this would be the first time using it.  It took the surface rust off with no problems and left a nice smooth, paintable surface.

Then I turned once again to the plasma cutter to take a large chunk of the bottom off. This will be where the legs attach into. It was a little bit of a difficult place to cut because I wanted the cut right on the corner of the rectangle tube.. but what ended up happening is I cut slightly up the side wall, which is the next best thing.  After cutting, I ground down the edges and tired to get it as flat as possible.

And that's all the time I had for today. I took some video of the plasma cutting.. I'm just editing it now and will put it up later. But for now, here's a pic of my now shiny rectangle tubes.

First things first - where's my welding table?

It wasn't long after starting the BBQ that I realized there was something missing from my shop that would make this project go smoothly.  That something is a descent table to weld on.  I already have a work bench, which is already quite cluttered with a vise, and grinder, and drill press, and some other junk... so instead of re-organizing all of that, I decided I'd build a portable folding welding table.  It didn't take long to find plans for this exact thing on the Miller Welding website.  And since I had some extra 1/4" plate from when I cut up the pieces for the firebox, I thought to myself, this will work out perfectly.

First thing the plans call for is to cut and weld the 1 1/4" square tubing for the base of the table top.  I had two options for cutting these pieces.. cut-off disc in the angle grinder, or plasma cutter... PLASMA CUTTER every time baby!  Would be nice to pick up a good used metal band saw one day tho.  Maybe if I build a second welding table, someone might be willing to trade for one.

Well, got the tubing all cut and edges ground flat and it's time to weld.  Again, two choices... stick or TIG?  Think I'll practice some TIG today.  And since I'm running really low on argon, I'll just weld until I'm forced to stop.

Got the pieces all fit together, fusion tacked each of the pieces, and then ran some beads with some ER70S-2 rod.  It had been some time since my last TIG practice, so some of the welds turned out a bit globby, but all in all, I was happy with the results.  I was able to get one side welded up before running out of argon.  You can see the last two welds on the right where the steel started to oxidise because there was no shielding gas.

So, no more argon, what else can I do today?  Perhaps cut the two pieces which attach to the bottom of this frame in which the legs will be bolted to and pivot in.  Again, plasma made quick work of these pieces.

This is where they will be welded in place.

Think I'll be grinding some rust off of these the next chance I get as the TIG process certainly won't like that.

That's all I had time for today.  It was nice and sunny out so figured I'd take the car out for her first run of the year.