Hear me roar!

Apparently the tweaks to the voltage regulator wiring were enough to correct the electrical problem.  A jump from my wife's car, a little gas from the throttle, and here's the result:

What a relief!  All the work to this point has been done in complete faith that some way, somehow, the darned machine would work.  But aside from a few individual assemblies there's been no way to test any of it.  These V4 engines are relatively simple, but there are still a lot of parts, pieces and assemblies required to make that noise!

And what a great noise, too!  I've never understood the appeal of a loud exhaust until this moment!  I almost hate to put the mufflers back on.

Redneck Engineering

Question:
What do a can of purple PVC primer, and the filler cap from a 1971 Saab Sonett clutch master cylinder have in common?

Answer:

The same size threads.

Drill a hole, add a little solder and paint, and voila - a new specialty part is born!  

(No, it definitely is not an OEM part, but it's a lot cheaper and more accessible than buying a complete refurbished master cylinder)

I'll be honest - it took a bit of finesse to get the new top to seal - but no more so than the original.  (The original, by the way, was toast because the threads got crushed when I repeatedly tried to tighten it down with an adjustable pliers to get it to quit leaking.)

I've attempted several times to start the car, but with no success.  The problem appears to be on the electrical side of the equation.  There is no spark to the distributor from the coil, so I've attempted to replace the coil.  Apparently that wasn't the problem.  With a little more investigation, I found that the contacts on the points were lightly corroded, enough that they weren't conducting.  So now I have spark, but the battery has gone dead.  Even with a jump, however, it still won't catch, and one of the alternator wires started smoking.  I tracked down two loose connections between the alternator and the voltage regulator, and tried to test the voltage regulator, but apparently you can only do that with the car running, so it's kind of trial and error at this point. . .

Radiator Madness

I guess I should start with the disclaimer that I've dropped the engine back into the chassis and hooked up all the miscellaneous hoses, belts, wires, and other bits.  I also filled all the various tanks with their respective various types of fluids and verified that none of said fluids are leaking.

In the case of the radiator, this took a little more time and effort than originally expected.  Long ago (I thought) I had pressure-tested the radiator.  It turns out there were no big leaks, but there were a half dozen or so small drip-type leaks.  After filling and draining the radiator several times, marking and soldering the holes encountered, I finally got it to hold water. 

Next, I worked out where to add brackets to hold my new electric fans.

New fan mounts at bottom and at top (hidden) behind chassis frame

Here are a couple of views of the installed fans.  (I still need to work out the wiring connections).

Next, I needed to create brackets to mount the new air conditioning condenser coil.  The coil, compressor, and drier are from a late model Mazda hatchback.  I think the sizing of the condenser is spot-on.

Both radiators will get a coat of paint, but now that I'm this close I want to keep pushing to see if I can actually get the motor to start.  I still need to mount the compressor, work out the AC hoses, and purchase a longer drive belt to turn the compressor.  I've actually already cleaned up and made minor modifications to an original Sonett AC compressor mount to fit the new compressor.  Here it is installed:

Motorin'

I knew there was a reason I kept this blog!  A little research and I found this entry on the blog from March 8, 2011:  "I spent a little over a week trying to source valves and seats". . .  "Luckily I found a machine shop that can source the necessary parts and get the job done.  They are also resurfacing the flywheel.  They should have everything back to me by the weekend."

The shop had to move several piles of parts, but we did find the flywheel, and it is back on the crankshaft where it belongs!

The engine is now mostly assembled including; heads installed, tappets, pushrods, and rocker arm assemblies attached, valves gapped, valve covers, intake manifold, water pump, fuel pump, oil pressure sensor, thermostat & housing, emissions module, carburetor, spark plugs, oil filter, mounting brackets, fuel and vacuum hoses, and cooling/heater hoses.

This is what it looked like before the valve covers and manifold went on:

And this is what it looks like now:

Most of the soft hoses are new, and the hard pipes are the originals after cleaning and painting.

I am currently working on cleaning up and testing the distributor.

It has been very rewarding to see things go back together.  The boxes, baggies, and piles of parts have all gotten much smaller!  It has also been almost surreal to be handling such mundane objects again as oil filters and spark plugs.

I received delivery today of air filters and new parts for my next project - fitting new dual electric fans to the back side of the radiator.

Whoopsie!

I retrieved all the engine parts from the machine shop.

I think. . .

I somehow managed to misplace the flywheel.

I'm not sure how you misplace a 12" diameter, 10 pound gear, but there you go.  I cleaned the shop from top to bottom and it's not here.  So either it's at the shop (I don't remember taking it, but remember thinking about taking it), or my son inadvertently threw it out with my wife's old brake disks around Thanksgiving.

Although that may disrupt the reconstruction process, there is still a lot I can do in the meantime.

This is what the parts looked like coming back from the shop.

I had new valve seats installed, the valves and seats ground and the valve assemblies re installed.  The block was bored to .31mm over and the new piston heads installed on the old arms.

I began by setting the crankshaft, and gapping the piston rings.  I needed to replace the piston arm retaining bolts, so I knocked those out with a hammer and pressed in the new ones with the bench vise by slipping the end of the bolt inside an 11mm socket.

Then I installed the pistons in the bores, and secured them to the crankshaft.  I also set the balance shaft and it's end cap.

Then, with the major holes plugged on the back (transmission) end of the engine I proceeded to paint the block, heads, intake manifold, water pump housing, and intermediate plate with 3 coats of high temp enamel.

The manifold and heads are just stacked in place for the painting process, there is more internal work to be done before they are bolted down.  The oil pan, valve covers, and front cowling were all painted earlier.

Door Repair

The engine parts aren't back from the shop yet, so the door hardware cleanup continues. . .

The door latches:

Before

After

The locksets and hardware:

One of the window tracks needed straightening:

Before

After

And the frames themselves got a rust treatment:

Seasons' Grindings and Happy New Gear!

Why do we love Christmas break?

Because we can work on the car of course!

Since my last post a gust of wind picked up the bonnet and flipped it over, breaking out a small chunk of fiberglass and creating yet another break to repair - this time right down the middle in front of the air scoop.

It was too depressing to keep working on that for the moment, so I pulled the doors out from under the blue tarp.  As usual they didn't look too bad until I started the disassembly process.  Upon removal of the door skins it became apparent that the internal steel frame on the drivers' side door had been smashed and patched (poorly).

Aside from several tears in the frame that were never repaired, two of the braces had been flattened, thus loosing their structural integrity.  The shorter one, an 'L' shaped section was easily straightened.  The diagonal brace, however required a little more work.

Diagonal brace (center) and Corner brace (foreground)

Compare to Passenger door

First I cut the brace loose from the frame and beat it flat.  Then I placed it over the bench vise with the jaws slightly opened and placed a wooden dowel over the plate.  By beating the dowel it formed the bar to a half-round shape.  Pinching the assembly between the jaws of the vice completed the process.

Next, after removing the dowel and raising the channel half way in the vice I was able to beat each side down flat to create the flanges.  The resulting cross section resembles the Greek letter omega.

Here's the frame after beating all the various sides flat, welding the tears, and re installing the diagonal brace:

I have since wire brushed all the parts and run them through a de-greaser solution.

I also received a welcome Christmas package in the post:

The Pistons are Here!

The oversize pistons have arrived.  I've conveyed them to the machine shop, and am told I will have the bored block and heads with newly set valve seats early this week!

Merry Christmas and Blessed New Year to all!