Bessie II - Enlight's '05 6mt Matte Blacke Wagon

[m sprank]

8 hours ago, Enlight said:

All well taken! I was all for replacing with just a Type RA block until I grew weak at the sight of a "deal." Nothing more expensive than a good "deal."

Understood.

[Enlight]

I learned today that the water pump works differently from the oil pump. Even when it's not in motion, fluid can still pass freely from one side to the other.

 

[Enlight]

I'm finally beginning to feel more confident in the car again. After cleaning up the coil packs and harness contacts the idle has smoothened out and the hard starting seems to have gone away . Tightening up subframe bolts also seemed to tamp down the back and forth rocking in 1st gear. There is one remaining clunk that I need to locate, I'm thinking it's the endlinks even though, visually, the look fine.

500 miles on the new engine now. I romped on the @JmP6889928 VF52 and it caught me by surprise twice, the "jerk" is incredibly fast.

[Enlight]

The car is still incomplete but here is a picture of her as she sat yesterday. The logo and window vinyl will all be redone in the coming weeks. I was surprised by how good she looked as I walked back to the car.

I'm not into "stance" but after going to all these car shows I'm feeling the need to speak the language a little bit. I'd like to experiment with a raked stance, maybe starting with a 1-inch drop in the front and 1/2-inch in the back. Another winter project.

[KZJonny]

Damn man!

Looking good. Couldn't possibley be more NYC than with the giant pile of trash in the front and a nail shop in behind. Just needed a pizza joint to round it out. 

Edited November 13, 2023 by KZJonny

[Enlight]

The famous John's of Bleecker Street pizza is just 100 feet away . I was going to crop in the photo more but then there was too much trash filling the frame

[m sprank]

Its all poor engineering.  NYC never burned to the ground, so the streets were never re-engineered with alleys.  Prior to trash collection, deliveries by car, etc (ie when NYC was built) no one had the foresight to build alleys.  With no alleys there is no way for the haulers to collect the trash (and no where to store it) so it gets put out on the street for pick up.  Same problem with deliveries.  Fed Ex and UPS trucks are a nightmare parked in front of buildings for 30+ minutes at a time. 

But I still LOVE NY. 

 

Wagon looks great.  Head over to 99 miles to Philly and grab me sammich.  Get crazy with the cheez wiz on the fries too. 

[Enlight]

500 miles on the engine now and did the final oil change with Motul 10w-40 break-in oil. I was being precious and covered the oil fill to keep debris out. At 1,000 I will begin using Motul X-Cess 8100 5w-40.

I installed the front license plate on the Spec B bumper, PIAA horns, and built-up the bumper clips that like to break. The immediate reward of the PIAA horns made them positively fun compared to, say, installing IAG's AOS. The horns sound much better than the OE "meep meep." The horn is still polite enough for pedestrians when tapping, e.g. not laying on it. Interesting tidbit, the OE horns are grounded by their attaching bolts.

Also mocked up the Eberspacher heater in various locations, I'm down to behind the driver side bumper cover or right below the steering shaft. I will have to fab the bracket for it and I'm not exactly sure how to start.

Re: muFreight, I got a nice break and found space on a container that is arriving in December. I'm glad I can get these deliveries to people in a reasonable time frame and that monkey is off my back. Notices will be going out to the customers soon. I'm very hopeful that I'll be able to deliver @Infosecdad's parts during the 48 Hours of Tri-state since we'll be traveling west towards Subaru's Indiana plant this year.

[Holla]

Awesome progress, the car has changed a lot!

What is the heater for? 

[m sprank]

Basically an "insta hot" heat system for your car. 

[Enlight]

2 hours ago, Holla said:

Awesome progress, the car has changed a lot!

What is the heater for? 

It's an indulgent, overkill, nerd experiment. I'm wondering how long a forged engine can last if it is pre-heated given that most wear occurs at startup. In the winter months I will angle the heater exhaust towards the oil pan as well for added effect.

[KZJonny]

2 minutes ago, Enlight said:

It's an indulgent, overkill, nerd experiment.

Yeah. The best kind!

[Enlight]

(Ignore the LED flicker)

I got around to installing my repaired taillights today. They shorted themselves out before so rather than tossing them I figured I'd send them to a retrofit guy to upgrade them.

Instead of the turn signals flashing in the direction I would be turning in, they flash upwards. Then the brake lights seem to dim/brighten on a cycle. Lastly, I find out the right turn signal does not work at all.

Between the vinyl wrap, bad Craigslist sellers, and this, I'm a bit exasperated with dealing with people. Still,I'm thankful that bigger things that could have gone wrong did not (like my engine).

 

[Enlight]

After some further diagnosing I was able to fix the turn signal. While checking for continuity, I found I I had somehow severed the wire inside the sheathing. Completely invisible to the naked eye. I also disabled the upwards sequential turn signal since it just didn't sit right with me. Installed the relay to disable fast-blinking and also re-tightened my front AVO endlinks with the suspension loaded this time. Hopefully it will eliminate the clunk. If not, I will probably replace them with Kartboy endlinks as the AVO nuts are rounded.

My Black Friday purchase this year was a car cover from CoverCraft. I splurged for the Sunbrella fabric so hopefully this will be the last one for Bessie.

After reading this MotoIQ post I also replaced the two-way cap on my radiator with the proper one-way cap. I wonder whether this will help my gauge stay closer to the middle, as it sometimes hangs lower than I like.

[KZJonny]

2 hours ago, Enlight said:

After some further diagnosing I was able to fix the turn signal. While checking for continuity, I found I I had somehow severed the wire inside the sheathing. Completely invisible to the naked eye. I also disabled the upwards sequential turn signal since it just didn't sit right with me. Installed the relay to disable fast-blinking and also re-tightened my front AVO endlinks with the suspension loaded this time. Hopefully it will eliminate the clunk. If not, I will probably replace them with Kartboy endlinks as the AVO nuts are rounded.

My Black Friday purchase this year was a car cover from CoverCraft. I splurged for the Sunbrella fabric so hopefully this will be the last one for Bessie.

After reading this MotoIQ post I also replaced the two-way cap on my radiator with the proper one-way cap. I wonder whether this will help my gauge stay closer to the middle, as it sometimes hangs lower than I like.

Huh. Interesting article, and some good info.

I just knew I solved most of my coolant loss problems when I put new OE rad/swirl pot caps on my cooling system.

Now I’ve got a little insight into why that worked the way is did/does. Thanks dude.

Now to fix the coolant leak I have by the thermostat housing and see if that is the last of my concerns, or if still need head studs. 

Edited November 26, 2023 by KZJonny

[Enlight]

@KZJonny Flatirons Tuning also has a video about the radiator caps that goes quite in depth. I hope it's just a leak around the housing you've got

 

[Enlight]

I joined T&W Auto for their annual cruise on Sunday. Set out nice and early at 6am and had the block heater turn on automatically 1-1/2 hours before hand. When I started her up I couldn't hear any piston slap (overnight low was 32f). The upper coolant hose felt about room temperature.

I had the Long Island Expressway all to myself for a few minutes and, for a moment, felt happy with how far the car had come. No check engine light, cruise control was holding steady, nothing requiring immediate attention.

It was a friendly, civilized group and one of the shop owners took us on some local twisties ending in Montauk. I handed out some muFreight material to people who asked. Totaled about 200 miles in one day - just 300 more miles to go on break-in oil.

[KZJonny]

Too hard to pick your car out of the lineup dude... Should've gone with a brighter colour. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by KZJonny

[m sprank]

Have not been on the LIE in almost 15 years.  Used to rip it in my LGT heading to Hauppauge and Stony Brook when I worked NYC.  Cool group drive.

[Enlight]

Merry Christmas all!

Had a quiet day today after last night's big family and friends dinner so I started work on installing the pre-heater. But the day before, the graphic designer for the shop that botched my vinyl job went above and beyond and helped correct their work. We spent 7 hours peeling off the old vinyl and applying the new stuff. The prints are now properly sized and the window perforations have the proper 60% coverage.

I chose to mount the heater on the driver-side front frame rail, probably the last part of the car that needs more weight. The heater itself is a hair under 5 lbs.

I welded one side of the included bracket to the frame rail. Not quite "stacking dimes," the welds are pretty ugly.

On the other side, I tapped an M6x1.0mm hole.

I then bolted up the right side with a standoff and ground down the welds. I used an induction heater to heat up the bracket and gave it a few love taps with a hammer. This was to take some stress out of it. I gave it a good shake - it was able to move the rest of the car.

Here she is mounted up. Next steps will be to tap the fuel pump housing and run the fuel supply line.

Lastly, I threw on my new Sunbrella fabric car cover for the first time. My last one from California Car Cover started tearing this year, I think I got about 5 years out of it. This one is warrantied for 6.

[Enlight]

I originally wanted to use the oil cooler's coolant supply nipple (see above) at the block heater plug location, but they are different sizes. The former is 24mm IIRC and the latter is 36mm, so I had to look for a different location for the hydronic heater's return. After looking at the water pump, the cabin heater return line (5/8") is also pretty ideal, even though the hydronic heater's return is 3/4".

This still creates the longest circuit with the supply and return being on either side of the thermostat. It's actually kind of elegant in that no inline thermostats need to be installed. I also get to keep my OE block heater for redundancy. I will be using a Y- instead of T-fitting to help smoothen flow.

[Enlight]

Another break-in UOA, this one with 450 miles. I have about 250 more miles on break-in oil before I switch to synthetic.

[KZJonny]

On 12/25/2023 at 8:22 PM, Enlight said:

Merry Christmas all!

Had a quiet day today after last night's big family and friends dinner so I started work on installing the pre-heater. But the day before, the graphic designer for the shop that botched my vinyl job went above and beyond and helped correct their work. We spent 7 hours peeling off the old vinyl and applying the new stuff. The prints are now properly sized and the window perforations have the proper 60% coverage.

I chose to mount the heater on the driver-side front frame rail, probably the last part of the car that needs more weight. The heater itself is a hair under 5 lbs.

I welded one side of the included bracket to the frame rail. Not quite "stacking dimes," the welds are pretty ugly.

On the other side, I tapped an M6x1.0mm hole.

I then bolted up the right side with a standoff and ground down the welds. I used an induction heater to heat up the bracket and gave it a few love taps with a hammer. This was to take some stress out of it. I gave it a good shake - it was able to move the rest of the car.

Here she is mounted up. Next steps will be to tap the fuel pump housing and run the fuel supply line.

Lastly, I threw on my new Sunbrella fabric car cover for the first time. My last one from California Car Cover started tearing this year, I think I got about 5 years out of it. This one is warrantied for 6.

On closer inspection, I think they still screwed it up…

It looks to me like the engine on the vinyl says “RB26” and the dude drew  an engine with the pistons all in a row? So strange.

Surely that is some kind of mistake??

[Enlight]

The other part that I was worried about has been completed, which is how to tap into the fuel tank. I've found the best way to tap into the gas tank was through the transfer pump housing. This saved me from drilling into the tank itself. The transfer pump also has less hardware to work around (as opposed to the fuel pump housing). Next step will be to connect the fueling, coolant hoses, and wiring.

[Enlight]

Why We Need 3 Piston Rings