2nd 3.7 Litre 24 Valve Milano Project!

[junglejustice]

Monday-morning, it's just YOU and I baby! (That mean ol' 164 in Houston is going to have to wait just one more week...) I need some time at home with my Peanut anyway after this crazy week in Cali with CChan's 24 valve GTV6!

Anybody seen the Peanut lately!?

[jontg428]

Next time you are in the area let Lenard and I know JJ. Someday I hope to hit the lottery and have you help me build the ulitmate 164L sleeper! Cool thing about the 164, its already a sleeper! Take care,
Jon

[junglejustice]

That's her at 3 months old and then again at age 2... (WOW - modeling the same OMP seat that that I got 2-3 years ago for this car !) - it is time to bolt that puppy down!

[GTV6PASSION]

JJ she is beautiful thank GOD she looks like her mother. Enjoy her

[junglejustice]

Bite me - I am a BEAUTIFUL man baby (all that hair - you Italians like that sorta thing - no!?)

[alfettish]

It's strangely arousing

[junglejustice]

You too huh...? Here's Sebastian's number - 718.... With a name like "_fettish" I should have known...

[GTV6PASSION]

How did you get a picture of my uncle Calogero??

[alfettish]

It's easily accessible on your webiste www.furrymen4u.com

[junglejustice]

So, back to the serious stuff - I have been waiting for this moment for - what - THREE years now...? (When was that first trip down to South Africa to get my engine built...?)

Any way, not a bad first day, considering that G2 is still in a reorganizing, clean-up, stock-up, rebuilding-frame of mind and duty called for me to do my share of moving stuff around, mopping floors, packing parts and positioning cars!

Now they have an actual parts department - much easier to find shiny **** to bolt to my car now!

Shop-dog (not the one that pissed on me down in California, but roll-cage-man - Keith's - here in Seattle...)

The shop Vintage effort - a Giullia Super - cage is done, South African 1600 has been waiting patiently in the corner!

"My" and Jes' parts corner - nice!

And finally; the two 3.7s at the same level - staged and ready to move forward simultaneously! Looks good side-by-side like that hey? (You can see the subtle differences in the cages and the interior colour now!)

Jes' car is ahead by an installed fuel-cell and steering column. Otherwise, they are at the same level with both front suspensions basically done!

We'll get them both on jack-stands in the morning and off of the rollers, as this is where they will live until they get started-up and then we can tear in to them! I will continue to catalogue my build here and will feed Jes pictures of his progress from time to time to post - either in a new thread or under the old thread revived!

Jes, you wanna come up!?

[junglejustice]

...just had to post some more shots of the two cars lined-up like that - very exciting!

[junglejustice]

So I got to work on pulling the 105 castor-rod uniball-conversion kit (partially from Andy at Performatek and partially from Ron at RSR!)

Basically, Ron likes to supply 6 of the thin steel plates - 3 to a side - (two for the engine-bay-side and one for the wheel-well side on each side of the car.)

Andy's kit includes a set of single double-thick aluminium pieces just for the engine-bay side, (since the thinking is that the steel mounting plate - integral to the uniball - is enough on the wheel-well side I suppose!) Either way, the uniball part is from Frap and the conversion is pretty easy. I personally prefer to use a combination of the two kits with the aluminium spacer on the wheel-well side to provide "stand-off" spacing for the head of the 105 uniball on that side and a single steel pate on the engine-bay side to provide extra reinforcement on that side (since this is where the stress-forces originate when hitting something with the wheel head-on!)

Mounting is easy - involves positioning 4 holes with a punch and drilling them out.) I love these little "cha-chang!" push-punches - great for locating the holes (while holding the spacer) and then you have your drill pilot-hole as well!

Also, some shots of the primered area in the body where this mounts (there is normally extensively deteriorated rubber on both sides right there!) I think that it is extremely important to re-primer the mounting-holes after drilling them, as this is a favorite hang-out for rust to develop!

Further, the aluminium support pieces don't fit well in the tight area and need to be relieved on the one end on one side a bit to fit against the sides of that castor-rod opening!

I also took the time to shoot several layers on some of the suspension parts that did not make it out to powder-coating along with all of the other suspension parts (such as the center-supports for the lower control-arms and the actual two castor-rods!)

You must wire-wheel the crap out of the old threads on the castor-arms and clean the inside of that turn-buckle and then copper-grease the heck out of them! (It will make your alignment guy fall in loved with you!)

[junglejustice]

Funny - Schaeffer grabbed a picture of the gorilla at work... (Also, don't ask me about the torn spot-weld hole in the driver-side fender by the castor-mount - dunno...?)

You have to cut the bolt-threads on the 105 part down a bit to make room inside of the turn-buckle for both the 105 threads at the one end and the standard castor-arm at the other end. Thread the locking-nut that comes with the 105 Frap part on - all of the way in - and then after cutting-down with a die-grinder or something, you just run the nut out to chase the threads!

It is nice that the Frap pieces are opposite-threads so the center piece from the OEM setup works to expand and contract the castor-length evenly between the two ends!

Copper-grease both threaded ends and the inside of the turn-buckle real good. Hug your alignment guy - remember!?

[164 FAMILY]

Very impressive JJ it is good to see you working on your car(s) for a change. I see the twins are doing good looking better than last time I came up. G2's shop is way bigger in person I will have to say that but real nice and productive place though. Well when you are not in the way that is.


BTW, You need to shave your back and put some britches on for crying out loud this is a family forum!

[junglejustice]

SMARTARSE! Is it not WAY past your bed-time already, any way...? (Up dreaming about Q4s again, are ya!?)

The installation of Andy's upper control-arm inner poly-bush set, is pretty intuitive! (The bolts could be a pain in the rear but it is not too bad with the engine-bay stripped out!)

You just slap it al together using some of the gel-lube and run some fresh hardware through the upright on the engine-bay side. Because they always seize-up (and you typically have to cut them out of there), it is very important to use a bunch of copper ant-seize-lube inside of the hole and on the bolt!

Use all new 10mm hardware - you want smooth shank (no thread) - the entire distance through the upright!

If you ended up spreading that opening a bit during removal (perhaps with an air-hammer trying to get the old bolts out), don't be alarmed - it will all pull back together with the tightening of the fresh bolt and nut! (As long as the "spigots" aren't torn or separated from the body!)

I finally hung the new RSRacing front coil-over with 200kg spring (keep in mind that we are eliminating the torsion-bars on these cars!) Tomorrow I am on to the lower control-arms and front anti-roll bar! (Fortunately Keith already welded in some extra supports for me there and it was all primered as part of the preliminary body preparation, so we should not have anything to worry about there - I hope!)