Monster wagon

D3V1L · Post by **D3V1L** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:46 pm

lol
that bullbar has done the rounds

dave

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 2:23 am

Updates;

- Have fitted the new turbo pull clutch and flywheel etc to the engine
- Fitted the RS gearbox to the engine (just on the garage floor atm)
- Chopped the new upper engine crossmember up a little (this is required to get it to slot in between the lift blocks and the chassis)
- Swapped out the power steering rack (ditched the "sporty" legacy rack for a standard GX lib one which is in better condition)

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 10:33 pm

And a little more;

- finished modding the upper engine crossmember (I think). It's had it's 4 main mounting holes slotted inwards enough to bolt to the L series body now. Filed the bastard by hand, it's double thickness so took about 1.5 hours! It may need abit more cut out of it still because they don't normally have lift blocks mounted underneath them so I'm not sure just yet if it's going to foul on something. I'm not too worried about weakening it now given all it's got to do is hold the motor up. All the control arms and steering rack are all running from the lower crossmember now. Next visit I'll be fitting it to the car so we'll see what happens then.

- removed the old clutch master cylinder and started strengthing the firewall some more. I didn't brace it enough way back when I first did the conversion and never been happy with how it all flexed slightly when putting foot on the clutch. The Leone's one I did has been rock solid so I'm copying that now.

Tomorrow I gotta find a couple of Libbo outer CV cups to put in the front hubs termporarily while I'm running in RWD.

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 10:20 pm

Picked up more stuff for the wagon tonight;

- Clutch pedal. Needed a fresh one to do a fresh mod on, the old one is stuffed.

- An RX Turbo clutch-pack 3.7 CLSD rear diff. This is going to be re-ratio'ed to 4.111 and mounted backwards up front. So my wagon is going to be running two CLSD's, one for the rear and one for the front

Can't wait to see how she goes in the boggy sand now.

brumbyrunner · Post by **brumbyrunner** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 9:16 pm

pics, pics, pics?

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 9:37 pm

Well none of the above really warrants pics just yet but they will come.

Here's one though, I picked these babies up today and bolted them onto the rear end. 25mm billet steel spacers. Now the rear wheel track matches the front.

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:47 am

I spent a while on the upper engine crossmember. I was half expecting to run into the following issue so wasn't too surprised.

I had to cut away some of the meat around the outer edges where it bolts to the body so the lift blocks can clear underneath. Also had to completely remove the control arm mounts to clear too.
Now it mostly slips in between the top of the lift blocks and the body, but the front swaybar mounts are also fouling so they will need to get the chop too.
However, it really doesn't fit propperly, this is because of the Legacy crossmember being a little wider than an L series one. It wasn't a problem with the lower crossmember because the lift blocks bolt ontop, but with the upper crossmember the lift blocks bolt underneath and there is a slight slope/curvature to the outer edge of the crossmember which is fouling slightly, this means it can really not mount flush in between the lift blocks and the body.

What's going to have to happen now is I'm going to lop the outer edges off the crossmember all together and replace them with two nice solid bits of steel angle which I'll have to weld on. Just picked a length of 75x75 angle, 3mm thick from the local steel supplier. I'll have to be careful to maintain the same angles so the crossmember still mounts at the exact same position, otherwise the motor will end up tilted or too far forward or back.

Hopefully I can get this to turn out propperly, it would be nice to keep the Legacy crossmember as an upper because the engine mount platforms are already at the correct angle for the EJ engine mounts to sit on, and it's got the scalloped section for the turbo headers to clear. My fallback is to go back to an L series crossmember as an upper - it will need similar sections lopped out but at least the outer edges will bolts straight up to the L series body already. Disadvantage is engine mounts will be under abit more stress, altho I could make wedges for this, also I don't have a turbo L crossmember and wouldn't want to chop one up, so I'll have to construct a scallop for the turbo pipes.

Anyways, hopefully I can get the Legacy one to work with more chopping and now some welding!

This is probably extremely confusing so I'll try and get some pics up when I can

PS - it seems most others in the US actually just construct a basic engine crossmember out of bits of metal rather than using an original Subaru crossmember modified. I want to do it this way because I think it will give a better result and look more "original".

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 7:45 pm

Talking driveshafts/CVs....

Had a good chat with the bloke at Alan's CV Joint in Osborne Park just now.
I needed to sort out front driveshafts for the not-so-distant future when I get the front diff in.
What my objective is, is to get a full Liberty shaft but with 23spline inner cups instead of 25spline, so they can plug onto the R160 diff stubs.

Unfortunately you can't just swap L series (or other) 23spline inner cups on because they don't suit the liberty inner CV or the driveshaft.
However with a different shaft and inner CV it can be achieved.

I'm not certain which donor car the driveshaft and inner CV comes from, but by total co-incidence he actually had a complete "bitsa" shaft already made up brand new which has a Liberty outer CV, driveshaft the correct length, and a 23spline inner CV cup. He made it up custom for some guy a while back but it didn't end up suiting the application so he still had it there. We measured it up against a stock Liberty complete shaft I brought along and it's exactly the same length - perfect!

So when I'm ready to mount my front diff I'll come back and get a couple of these shafts made up at Alan's CV Joint. In-fact I'll have to get 3 made up, being a custom "frankenstine" shaft it will be even more important to keep a spare in the boot like I normally do with stock shafts.

In other news, nobody has replied my WTB thread on another Liberty forum requesting some Liberty blank outer cups (so I can run RWD for the time being) but the guy at Alan's was nice enough to sort me out with a couple of old ones from his stash of crusty old crap out the back

brumbyrunner · Post by **brumbyrunner** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 11:35 am

Thats not quite right Andrew.
23 or 30 spline front liberty shafts will take an L series front inner DOJ cup to give you what you need.
It sounds like what your CV man has and is very easy to replicate.

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 4:19 pm

Yeah he wasn't sure which driveshaft he'd used, possibly it was from an Impreza. Either way yeah, he agreed it was easy for him to make a few more exactly the same so I'm happy.

Talking transfer cases...I've just purchased one.
Unfortunately it comes with an entire 1982 Datsun 720 4x4 ute attached to it so that's a minor inconvinience!

It was advertised in the paper, the guy selling it was not prepared to part it out. In fact he'd already knocked back numerous calls from heaps of people wanting various parts (wheels, diffs, the trayback etc) but nobody wanted to take it complete.
I don't mind hanging onto it for a short time as I have the space....and he was nice enough to keep a record of every person who phoned up and what part they were after. So I just need to call each one of them and I'll most likely make back all my money from buying the thing.
Best part is, the guy has a truck with ramps on it which he uses to cart cars around all the time, he's delivering the ute straight to my place early in the week

It's got 222,000kms on the clock. He drove it for a couple of years before the motor developed a serious miss. He thought it was head gasket so pull the top of the motor off only to discover it was just a faulty valve, but he never got round to putting it back together and the car sat in the weather on a farm for ~3 years and just rusted away and grew mould. Transfer case supposedly worked perfectly as he occasionally went offroad.

Last out-of-focus pic shows the gear selections I will be able to choose from. The 4x4 ones are locked in the centre. The tailshaft outputs are centralised to the body and the flange bolt patterns match the Subaru ones, so fingers crossed all I'll need to do is shorten or lengthen the shafts to make it work!

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 7:13 pm

Upper engine crossmember is mostly done now. Just needs a little more cut from the outer edges to narrow it down a little then drill the 4 mounting holes.

I may add some flat bar to brace it further but its very solid as it is. The angled steel butted up nicely against some of the existing bits of control arm mounts so it's welded to them too.

Crappy pics but u kinda get the idea...

That's an original L series one sitting ontop, just making sure stuff lines up, you can see there on the left how much extra has to come off there.

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 8:14 pm

Here's a picture of the filthy old EJ20turbo with the RS gearbox on it waiting to go back in.

Here's something else that's sitting right next to it on the garage floor.
It's my Series5 13b turbo engine and gearbox. It'd be so easy to chuck into the wagon, specially with it's Microtech ECU - just add power and it's ready to run. This bad boy got me into the 12's at the quarter mile in my old RX-7 which weighs about the same as an L series, Hm maybe I should chuck this into the wagon instead har har

Point · Post by **Point** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:17 pm

there should be a nice low ratio R180 diff in the front of that 720 too....

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 1:14 pm

Got the ute last night, no time to play with it yet.
haha, what a POS...

AlpineRaven · Post by **AlpineRaven** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:03 pm

sure is POS! lol but fair enough mate!!! As I know where you're coming from - no need to explain... lucky your missus isnt on your ear!
Cheers
AP

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:54 pm

heh well she found the receipt for the ute the guy gave me........erm.........I have no comment on that lol. she hasn't seen the ute or the pics yet, I better get the scrap metal guys to cart it off asap I think

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:07 pm

Here are some more pics of stuff...

I pulled the transfer case and tailshafts out of the Datto 720. Here it is sitting next to the L series tailshaft for reference.

The tailshaft bolt patterns match straight up with the Subaru R160 diffs.

The little tailshaft that links the gearbox to the transfer case matches up with the RS gearbox;

I dug a diff bash plate out of the shed I've had sitting there for years;

Randomly discovered the ute came with a triple air-horn setup under the bonnet haha;

Bumpty · Post by **Bumpty** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:18 pm

I'll have the horns if they work, haha

!

brumbyrunner · Post by **brumbyrunner** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:24 pm

Making some good progress there Andrew.
Have you measured the drop? Looks to be about 8 or 9 inches?

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:45 pm

Yeh probably something like that, havn't measured yet. A fair bit of it should poke upwards though, I'll see how much of it I can get to go through the tunnel with some creative welding etc. It will all come out in the wash once I drag it under the car and start playing around with positioning and mounts etc.

Forgot to mention, I also finished the engine crossmember. I ended up using a non turbo EA one as it fits the body much easier. I had to chop a hole in it to clear the turbo headers though. Plenty strong enough to hold the motor up anyways.

Airhorns will be chucked into the wagon for giggles