robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

The front rotors were ugly:



Cleaned them with a wire wheel, then sandblasted, then painted:



Same with the calipers:

Billgluckman

Dude that sucks about the pics.

What at did you use to paint the calipers?

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Same here. I'll switch to google photos. I thought it was a simple agree to new terms, then I thought it was a joke, $40 a month or $400 a year?! What they did was blackmail. I hope they disappear like Myspace. I'll download all my pictures again but not erase them from their server, I'll leave them their to take up space on their precious server

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Duplicolor engine enamel gloss black. Most of my stuff I sandblast, but just a scuff pad is plenty. Spray paint gets a bad rep because people don't use it properly, just like POR. If you take a few extra minutes, the results will last many years.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

They'll take a hit for sure.

Google photos is cool, but not ideal for forum hosting. Works just fine though.

GMan 3MT

iTrader: (4)

I'm using fototime. $24 or so a year, goes up if you want more storage space. I don't think I use a ton of bandwidth or have really read the fine print, but knock-on-wood, I've had no issues with hosting. Hopefully they don't go the way of photobucket.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Are you still using that big sandblasting drum?

Billgluckman

If you're looking to get one for small jobs this thing has worked for me and it's only $20.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/pr...rasive-blaster

I had to modify it a little for it to work correctly but for the money it's great.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I had a cheap one also, probably from the same chinese factory and it would not spray the sand. What did you modify?

Billgluckman

The one I have has a pick up tube that siphons the sand from the bottom of the cup. I cut the pick up tube off and I turn the gun upside down so it's gravity fed. Works great.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I may try that.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Yep same one. It's extremely messy of course but works well. I can only blast for maybe 60-90 seconds before the compressor needs to catch up.

I use abrasive sand from Menards.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Blasted and painted the front steering parts.








Also bought billet tie rod adjusters from UMI.



Hub, dust shiels, caliper bracket blasted and painted.





Front end parts ready to go on.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Onto the 9" rear end.

It's a Currie 9" housing
11" Currie Explorer disc brakes
big Ford housing ends (late torinio style)
31 spline axles
Strange iron center section
4.57:1 gears
Detroit locker
Billet 1350 yoke

Dirty from sitting under my parts car for years:











I tore down the brakes, parking brake assemblies, and calipers to clean them.





Rear rotors were as nasty as the fronts. Like the fronts I decided to say the hell with it and clean them up rather than buy new ones. I'm sick of spending money and an hour with the die grinder, sand blaster, and paint, they're ready:

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Started to clean and blast the housing and center section.



Cleaned up with the currie torque arm mounts cut off.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Now I need to weld on the S&W torque arm mount, and the sway bar mounts from UMI.

I ordered the welding jig from S&W Monday.

I'll re-make the passenger side brake line because I don't like the union that was used previously.

The center will NOT come off! I many need to weld a small tab onto it to have something to pry against.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

I've been fixing picture links for a few days now. You should be able to seethe trans rebuild now.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Got the center section off finally. I may drill and tap a small hole in it somewhere to make removal easier in the future. Toyota does this with some of their brake drums and it makes removing them much easier. You just thread the bolt in and it pushes the drum off of the shoes. Same idea here, but haven't made up my mind yet. I may use a gasket in place of RTV. Seems unnecessary.







Blasted and painted the center section:





Here's the paint I used:

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

I needed to remove the existing tabs and weld the BMR sway bar mounts







They're not welded end to end because they're deisgned to also be used on 3.5" tubes.






Then I mounted the S&W welding jig:

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

That's an interesting welding jig. If you are able to find out what angle the mounting surface is for the center section in relation to the spring perches or LCA mounts I may be interested in borrowing it. When I do my 8.8 frankenstein I had concocted a big jig that mounted the Torque arm and LCA to it so when I weld on the Torque arm bracket I wouldn't screw the factory angle up. Borrowing that may be so much easier!

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

The welding jig belongs to S&W. They allow you to rent it here:

http://www.swracecars.com/store/JIG-...0-617-JIG.aspx

Costs $300, then you return it and they refund you $200.

If you use it too let me know before you start because I have some important tips.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Had the housing and torque arm bracket powder coated. The torque arm comes powder coated. Took them to Last Chance Coatings. Same place that coated the front control arms and spindles on this car.

http://www.lastchancecoatings.com/

dennisbernal91z

iTrader: (2)

Cost?

I am interested in doing the same now that I have seen your setup.

I was thinking of just 2K primer and paint before.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

$175

If you were to paint a housing I'd use POR15. It really is like paintable powdercoat. As long as you prep the surface it's almost indestructible.

dennisbernal91z

iTrader: (2)

Thanks for the info. My rear is about 15 years old but only has 5k miles on it.

I painted it back when I bought it, but I was stupid back then and didn't prep well before the POR15. It peeled in a lot of places.

I plan on almost DD the car once it is complete so maybe a simple GOOD prep and POR15 is the way to go for me. Thanks again.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

It looks like photobucket came to their senses because all of my pictures are working again.......

Is everyone else seeing this??

Billgluckman

I can't see **** captain.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I can see them. I'm still thinking photobucket ransomed everyone of "their" pictures across the net but when they saw the enormous backlash they decided to grant access to hosted pictures that had lots of traffic. I'm guessing, again, that it had to do with the loss of members and reduction in site usage which would mean that they would have to refund possibly hundreds of thousands if not millions to advertisers. When you advertise on a site you are entering an agreement where the site guarantees your ad will see a certain number of views/visits and if the site doesn't hold up the their end of the deal they, like the NFL(), has to pay up. My father in-law had explained that to me. He was an advertising executive for an agency that handled the Chicago Cubs and other big stuff, it was interesting theory. The way PhotoBucket did it was so insanely stupid because if you think about it, Photobucket just plastered the internet with anti-photobucket ads. Who would want to advertise or keep an account with them after seeing millions of those?

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Ten years ago I had one powder coated by an industrial coatings company. They almost exclusively did coatings for companies like caterpillar but as long as I was OK with yellow or semi-gloss black they could slip the item in the line up for cheap. Think they did that rear end for $75. Maybe you could find a company like that.

Billgluckman

Now the pics are showing for me too.

i just went to check the "how to prep a 3rd gen harness" for ls swaps post. I'm still not seeing pics in that thread.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/ltx-lsx/541387-how-prep-3rd-gen.html

photobucket is killing me. I should have saved this info long ago.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

The only thing that wasn't finished from the mini-tub was the panhard bar mount. So I fixed it's mounting holes:










Test fit:









Blasted and primed bare metal:



Welded and painted:

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Next I pulled out the subframe connectors I bought, sanded them down and POR painted them.

Before paint:



After paint and mocked into place:

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Then I got the engine/trans/k-member together and installed:







Then I finally for the 10mm Rivnuts (no pics but will another time) and crossmember install:

IROCgiraffe

iTrader: (3)

Lovely!

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

SOLD. That didn't take long.

Founders rear panhard bar and control arms are for sale:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/engi...nhard-bar.html

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

I began mocking up the rear end today. Installed the Founders adjustable panhard bar, control arms and shocks:



Here's the center section installed:



With the torque arm brackets installed:






Centering the housing with homemade cresent wrench plumb bobs:




Then I started to install the torque arm so I could weld the crossmember in place, and ran into a problem. The rod ends wouldn't thread into the arm. This is as far as they'd go (less than 1 thread):



The thread looked somewhat ugly, but my guess is that they got cut with the wrong tap for some reason. Should be 3/4-16 top and 3/4-16 Left-handed bottom (adjuster):

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

So S&W sent me a replacement that arrived today:

dennisbernal91z

iTrader: (2)

Great progress. And good on S&W. I had not herd of them before but now I will take a look knowing they are easy to work with.

I may have already asked this, but what did you use for your undercoating? I am getting close to that step in my build and want to start to field suggestions.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Check out post #2 of this thread.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I have a host of information about finding the cars center line and making it perpendicular and centered. I'll post it up on my thread in a couple days once I'm further in the process on my car. In a nutshell the common way everyone says to center the rear is how you're doing it and that will only center it visually to the exterior. Centering the rear off the fenders will not center it to the suspension. I did it that way first and was off 5/8" or so with the rear end skewed towards the passenger side. When it's centered it should appear to skew towards the drivers side. I found out also that with the rear end (ten bolt) completely centered it should be off the cars center line by 0.40"

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Welded the subframe connectors:






Then painted:



Then started working on the S&W torque arm crossmember. It's removable via a pair of tabs that you wend to your subframe connectors:



Added a bend to the passenger side so it would line up:



Tacked the tabs in place



Weleded in place:



Painted:

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

I also reinforced the rear of the subframe connectors by bending and welding some 3/16" plate:





Then I finally installed the QA1 adjustable upper spring mounts:

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Those welds look great, especially for being upside down and sideways! I'm curious how thick that bar for the torque arm is?

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

It's 5/32" wall 1" diameter tube.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Without the bar having anything more inboard to attach to it will probably flex but I doubt it would be enough to change your pinion angle by more than 1*.
One of my future projects is going to be to make and weld some 1/8" L brackets from my inner subframe connectors to the floor pan. Might be easy for you to take some of your left over plate you have and make a quick L bracket.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Agreed. I had mig welded the SFC's on, then needed to do the crossmember, 3/16" SFC reinforcement, and upper spring mounts..........Annnnd my mig ran out of gas........on a Saturday. Nobody's open. I wasn't going to just burn an entire weekend so I went ahead and tig'd everything. SUCH a pain in the *** to tig overhead, but hey. it's done and came out very well.

So I got more gas yesterday, and will add some 1/8" reinforcements to the floor.

rurnt88

iTrader: (1)

Awesome build! Any update?

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Been making progress, just haven't posted much lately.

Started with the fuel tank:


Test fit it:



Then sandblasted and painted (POR) the heat shields, tank straps, and fuel filler neck.



Found a manufacturing date on the tank too



Next headache were bumpstops. I cut them off of the parts car:



And welded them in place:





Without them the torque arm mount would crash into the fuel tank! This was a much bigger job than these pictures tell.

Back to the fuel tank. I started by draining the leftover fuel. Simply power the fuel pump with a battery and let it pump the old fuel into a few gas cans. Then I removed the pump/sump and cleaned the tank out by hand with paper towels. Very clean inside:





Then I started installing the racetronix fuel pump

http://www.ws6project.com/user_stor/...s/FPA-001B.jpg

http://www.ws6project.com/user_stor/...lv61inubrh2lr2

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Then I started making a fuel pump access door.







Then I cut out a larger section from my parts car:



Used some 5mm rivnuts to attach it:







Then painted the bottom of the cover:

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Then installed the fuel tank again:



Made my fuel lines:



Here's the tank/lines/filter finished



Then I started assembling the rear end. I am not a fan of using RTV, so I bought 2 gaskets. However to aid in removal of the center section, I added a 1/4-20 jack screw. This helps you push the center away from the housing with a screw. Mine won't be difficult since I'm not using RTV, but I wanted it anyway. If you've ever worked on some imports with rear drum brakes, you've probably seen this before on a brake drum. They're VERY handy.

Strange only offers this option on their PRO HD and ULTRA center sections, but I wanted to add one to mine. Simple as drilling and tapping a hole

#18



http://www.strangeengineering.net/wp...1462306264.pdf





Here's the drain plug and magnets I've added: