I have returned from the dead to check back on the Monza progress for 2024. Glad to see it's made huge leaps and bounds since August. Still glad the vinyl is holding up, though I spied a possible graphics update for this year haha. Should be making it out to the 2024 challenge fingers crossed I get the time off. As always I'll be free to lend a hand!
- Kuma
ExcessKuma said:I have returned from the dead to check back on the Monza progress for 2024. Glad to see it's made huge leaps and bounds since August. Still glad the vinyl is holding up, though I spied a possible graphics update for this year haha. Should be making it out to the 2024 challenge fingers crossed I get the time off. As always I'll be free to lend a hand!
- Kuma
Can't wait to see you again my friend! It will be fun turning a few wrenches with you!
In reply to ExcessKuma :
Hell yeah man, team MonZora needs you! Looking forward to seeing everyone in 5 weeks.
Zoinks. Five weeks.
Tonight's main task was to wire the kill switch. I started by cutting the Hellcat cable to the right length, when I discovered it is aluminum, not copper! I also discovered that a 0-ga terminal was too small for it.
So I grabbed a scrap of 1/2" copper pipe and made a terminal. Pounded one end flat, drilled a 13/32" hole through it,
cut a couple slots to make strain relief tabs, smashed a crimp into it with a dull chisel,
then fluxed and soldered it. Hit it with some electrical tape and it's all good.
The other two were much less involved, because they accepted standard ring terminals. So I connected the "from" cables (from B+, from alternator output) to the OFF post of the switch, and the "to" cable (to the starter) to the ON post.
then connected the battery and gave her a test.
And with that, it's time to update the white board and call it quits for the night.
there's sort of a cars and coffee at "the warehouse" in Ypsi this Saturday AM. If the weather is decent, I think I'm gonna drive MonZora down there.
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Looking pretty good, AC!
Enjoy seeing your work on this thing! Looking forward to seeing it run again at the Challenge, a bit more sorted out.
MonZora fought me this morning. I lost. More later.
Hopefully nothing catastrophic.
classicJackets (FS) said:Hopefully nothing catastrophic.
No, just another round of starting issues. My "big" battery is from 2018, and it was used for a couple years before sitting for almost 4 years, so I think -- really I hope -- that the new battery I just ordered is the answer. I'll pick it up and install it after dinner tonight.
Did it keep you from going or from getting home?
classicJackets (FS) said:Did it keep you from going or from getting home?
Kept me from driving MonZora, did not keep me from going. 🤘🏻 It appears to be fixed now, best I can tell. I'll post the day's activity tomorrow. I'm exhausted.
I have made terminals and solenoid contacts from copper tubing before, however I have never tried soldering aluminum cable to copper. Any specific tricks or tips? Also how is the tablet based gauge cluster going? I am headed along a similar path. I am using the Torque Pro app. I haven't any real time to mess with it as my wife and I are wide open on the flip house right now.
Saturday goal: drive MonZora to monthly open house at the warehouse. To that end, I needed to:
Finishing kill switch install was easy peasy.
Charging battery was lemon squeezy.
Setting delay time was PITA. it's got a 270° pot with 2 sec min and 180 sec max, but the adjustment is far from linear. Like, MIN plus 45° is about 60 seconds, but MIN plus 90° is about 150 seconds. My goal was 90 seconds, and after about 6 micro-adjustments I settled on 95.
Removing standard relay from socket brought a welcome return to easy peasy. But there was no lemon squeezy in sight for installing the new relay. You see, I used a relay with a different footprint when I cobbled the header fans into the car, because that relay had a mounting tab molded in. Instead of simple plug and play, I had to find a standard-footprint relay socket and pigtail in my stash, then cut out the old and wire in the new. No biggie, 4 wires = 8 strips and crimps, should take 15 minutes or so. But I'm working in a limited access space, on my knees, and can't comfortably get both hands to the wires.
So instead of taking 5 minutes to remove passenger seat and firewall, I motherberkeley this and c-sucker that for 45 minutes halfway laying on my side so I can get both hands into the workspace.
Connect battery and verify power up and shutdown: check. Assemble engine box: check. It's now 1:15AM and I'm a good neighbor, so no test start tonight.
8:15AM, Erik is gonna follow me to the warehouse. Car slow-cranks on lawnmower battery, but it does start so I let it run for a few minutes. Shut her off to check fan delay, all good. Twist key to check restart, grrr click click. OK, swap to car battery. Slow crank but starts, run a few minutes, shut down, fans run about 95-ish seconds, hooray, now moment of truth: grr-rrr-rrr click click. berkeley me. Must be something I changed. So I send Erik on his way as I make a checklist: B+ cable, kill switch, B- attachment to chassis, ALT output wire, no ground cable from engine to chassis (relying on solid motor mounts), no ground cable from B- to engine (because extra 10 feet of cable).
Start with adding ground strap from engine to chassis: no change. OK, not a starter ground issue.
at this point I say berkeley this car, I'm going to the warehouse. Make a few new friends, see some cool stuff:
Get home feeling a bit better about the world, have some lunch, and get back to the garage. Remove kill switch, bolt all cables together: no change. OK, not a kill switch issue.
ALT output wire passed continuity check, Fluke is dead, going to assume not an ALT wire issue.
B+ cable is friggin' huge, with a copper terminal and good crimp and solder, so I'm willing to say that's not it. Which leaves me with either the starter or the battery E36 M3ting the bed. So I check the starter: securely mounted, connections are tight. Plus it's a Bosch part and is less than a year old.
so I hit up Batteries Plus for a new Duracell Ultra, and goddamn it's like the car's got a new battery or something! It lights off quicker than it ever has in my ownership.
so I shut it off and let the header fans run til they time out, twist the key, and...
...
it barks to life like it's got a new battery. 🤘🏻😎
I repeat this cycle a few times until I'm pretty satisfied that I've solved this problem. So today I'm parking her outside and cleaning the garage, then taking her to the gas station, then driving and collecting data and tweaking VE table and making a mount for the tablet and getting back to the list:
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
I love a good blacksmith story!
In reply to madmrak351 :
I didn't do anything special, just flowed it together like any other terminal. I also didn't cut it apart afterwards to analyze, so I really have no idea if I actually made it better than crimp-only.
I tend to jump around a bit on my to-do list, and today is no different. The LH backup light pointing at the ground really bugged the E36 M3 out of me, so today I tackled "Tail panel". I started by pulling that lens and getting a before shot:
then cobbled up a porta-power from what I had within arm's reach:
and some equally appropriate body tools:
and did a little here and a little there:
Interspersed with a little "on dolly" work using the sledge as a dolly, and the after shot:
I'm definitely not a PDR guy, but I'm very happy with this result.
You could call my garage the house of pain for how I, well, you know.
Remember how the clutch MC reservoir stuck up out of the cowl, and I had to remove the cap before opening the frunk? Well, that E36 M3 had to go. Before:
and after:
I'm almost embarrassed to show what happened in between, but in the interest of entertainment, here goes:
yep, I cut the filler neck off the reservoir! It slips right onto the base and is clamped in place, just like the reservoir.
Because it only serves the clutch, I can get away with a tiny fluid volume. So I did some math:
funny coincidence: the ID of the reservoir base is the same as the ID of the clutch MC, so the depth of the base equals how much additional MC stroke the reservoir can feed. It's about 50% reserve, which is more than enough for a hydraulic clutch system. Remember, this reservoir and base were originally intended to feed a pair of 6-pot calipers with 18mm of total wearable pad thickness.
so yeah, I'm a hack, but I math the berkeley out of my hacks. 🤘🏻😎
and some historical hardware for motivation:
And because I still had some motivation, I cut out a new dash patch and Velcro'd my cheap-ass ($40, budget exempt) 7" Android tablet to it. Will use it to display tach and a few other things that are available in the PCM's data stream, via ALDLdroid app.
I'm also going to get an OBD to Bluetooth adapter so I can get rid of the cable. Then the tablet's USB port will be available for charging.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:You could call my garage the house of pain for how I, well, you know.
Because it only serves the clutch, I can get away with a tiny fluid volume. So I did some math:
The neat thing is, as the clutch wears, the fluid level should go up.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:The neat thing is, as the clutch wears, the fluid level should go up.
Ima call you Lucy, because you got some splainin' to do. I can see how the engagement point would occur higher in the pedal travel, but it seems to me that the amount of fluid in the slave is always at the minimum when the pedal is not being pressed. Learn me!
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Engagement point doesn't change any more than a brake pedal would get lower with pad wear. The slave cylinder extends out as far as possible at rest, just like a caliper would, and for all the same reasons. The difference is that as the clutch wears, the fingers on the pressure plate extend away from the clutch, so this compresses the slave cylinder more, so fluid level goes up.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Huh, perhaps TIL. I was thinking that the slave piston is spring-loaded to the minimum volume. I wouldn't be surprised if i was wrong.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
i only made it halfway through that mashup. I tried, I really did.
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
This varies. Many modern cars run the release bearing in constant contact with the fingers. Those behave as Pete explained. Old crocks with carbon face bearings pull the bearing, and thus the slave piston all the way back, explaining your initial position.
This reminds me of the time I straightened the windshield frame of my Bronco with a bottle jack and some 2x4's. Turned out pretty good.
Did the same thing to un-dent the roof of my Jeep Cherokee (tip - don't get drunk and think it's a good idea to dance on top of your XJ. Long story).
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