13's for $1300: RX4-929 nugget

[Mr Parts]

(lol at Broomy's old "ZL challenge"). .

had a few contenders for the title from that, but i lost all their pictures LOL still got a few of mine but






serious business face looks serious

good to see some ventilated rotors on the front. at least this thing will continue to stop after more than 3 pushes of the middle pedal!

so.... bridgeport or bust? shot of gas would smoke it straight into the 12's

[aaron_hogan]

Bwahahahaha. DIE CAR DIE! While not a ZL one of my recent shitter dailys was an XF ghia wagon - with a ZL front - alternator failed, ecu went nuts, threw stray spark, backfired on LGP, assploded the AFM, caught the bonnet insulation on fire, caught wiring on fire. I stood there and yelled at it "BURN YOU MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT SEE WHAT I FUCKIN CARE!". I was half pissing myself laughing. Did i mention I was towing at the time and had blocked a whole lane of Centre Road? Meanwhile my mate launches out of the car with a half bottle of coke, douses the engine bay and manages to put most of the fire out. I was pissed. I wanted to see it burn to the ground. Amazingly I got it going and literally limped it back to his place about 10 kays away. A few bodgey fixes saw that thing serve another year of duty before multiple gearbox fails finally put me into a decent tow car.

* * * * * * *

I like the way you think (BP and nawz). I'll have to get it up and running first, even with a basic engine. I can evolve it from there within the budget.

I'm just resistant to the "I'm gunna...." approach. Would rather do, then show the result.

* * * * * * *

DAY SEVENTEEN: 17/1/11 MINI UPDATE

Not heaps to report. Late night in the office and a couple of long phone calls once home robbed me of evening daylight.

Waiting to get my stray calliper back in the morning so thinking of brakes I pulled down the spare drums, marking the key parts with a paint pen and bagging the parts in ziplock bags. With any luck i'll have a short day and run the backing plates through the blaster so they're obviously tidied up.



Camera went flat part way through so pics will be delayed.

[ALLMTR]

Lovin the updates!

[rx213b]

I do remember the old ZL but don't remember the story behind it....still a pisser looking at the photo's

[sv_i]

I too remember that broken wheel photo from years ago on ausrotary. Actually thought about it the other day. Isn't that from when you dumped it in Ballarat or Bendigo broomy?

I'll have to put a pic up of aaron's old wagon dieing somewhere between Melbourne and Seymour. lollering at multiple gearbox fails. that poor wagon.

[rx213b]

I'll leave it up to broomy to say the whole story, but from memory he cbf'd changing a flat tyre and that was the result after the rim was half worn off

[Mr Parts]

two days before the incident i was at a vibrant night spot on the st kilda foreshore known as twister for a mates 21st afterparty. I drove, and upon leaving, with the car full of drunk knob heads, i was promptly told to hang it out turning onto beach rd, or to go forth and multiply.

i complied.

what i didnt know is there was a slow leak in the rear tyre (because it was a ZL fairlane, and the only maintanance it got was when the lifters got so noisey, i would eventually add oil to the empty sump to shut it up). The extreme weight coupled with the near flat tyre combined with the centriprical forces at play when you attempt to do a scandinavian flick around a 90 degree turn in a 3 tonne land barge caused the tyre to pop straight off the rim. Luckily there was a spare, and after a few drunken louts coming over and asking if we needed an waaaaaaaambulance because we almost died (did a 720 in the middle of beach rd, only travelling at about 10 km/h, just looked impressive because it was doing it on the rim), changed tyre and went home.

car was just about to be replaced by my other vl turbo i had just completed, so didnt want to spend any extra money i didnt have to on this shit pile of aids and crusty dick cheese car known as zl fairlane. went to local middle east tyre place and got used tyre put on rim. about half a day later, the spare i had put on went flat. so i put the second hand spare on.

Travelling up to bendigo at about midnight, after working an 8 hour shift, hurtling down the calder at about 130 km/h, like an act of revenge for ancestors killing so many of theirs in WW2, the turks replacement tyre blew up without warning. slowed down, inspected the damage, and went to get the spare. remembered it was flat. FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

looked at the big sign just ahead, and it said bendigo 18km. i knew it was about 20ish km from this sign to where i needed to get, and fucked if i wanted to sit around just outside a hick town at midnight waiting to be ass raped by cletus and his pet kangaroo. So decieded that i would travel at 20 km/h on the shoulder of the fwy and see how i went for a kilometer. Got a click down the road, seemed no problems. the delaminated tyre was still turning with the wheel, just making a bit of noise. so i continued.

now im not a man renowed for patients, so after being overtaken by an elderly lady driving a fucking datsun 120y i said fuck this shit and decieded that this tyre was fine.

after catching up and overtaking most of the traffic going 60km/h thru bendigo, i noticed some sparks coming up in the mirror, but hardly any. car was driving fine anyway, so kept driving.

car actually drove perfect all the way, turning corners with no hassle.

got to where i needed to get, and noticed it was sitting on a fair angle when i got out. went around to inspect damage and saw the wheel. laughed and just walked off.

what had happened is the tyre had totally given way, gotten jammed in there, and then locked the wheel. the wheel then ground its way down (inc the disc rotor too) to the arm basically.

all up i drove 23 km with only 3 wheels turning. during that time i overtook more cars than overtook me, and got to where i was going without being any later than if i had 4 good round ones underneath me.

caught the train home the next day and didnt give a rats ass about the pile of crap and was going to leave it there for eternity.
Later that day the police rang. they said my car must have been stolen and they have found it in bendigo and it looks pretty bad with damage to the passanger door lock and the front wheel of the car totally ruined. I said you are mistaken officer, i know where it is thanks, do you want a free ZL fairlane by any chance? After rendering the law man speechless, i was later called by the city council who said it needed to be moved or would be towed, at my cost. I told them to just take it and keep it, but they said it was registered to me, so it is my responsibility. i said fair enough and would take care of it for them.

so after i called vic roads and cancelled the rego, and pocketed a hefty $59 of remaining rego (probably double of what the car is worth), i went up to bendigo, removed the battery (century extra heavy duty!), took a few photos of it, and promptly called the council to let them know i had left something on the nature strip at that location for hard rubbish collection.

that was the last i ever heard about it.

[slikrx]

Epic fairlaine story is still epic after all these years

[sv_i]

I still giggle at the "courier" stickers on the door.

here is aaron's beast in all of it's glory. This was after the engine bay fire I think? This was when we went up to bumfuck to pick up yet another Mazda.
After the wagon itself, I had to get the old man to cruise up in the spanish wanker. We went up the next day and got the wagon.

(yes that is transmission fluid leaking/burning in different shots).

I think hoges drove about, what, 20 kays in 1st gear to the servo still towing the car on the trailer?

I'm also posting this as I think some parts from the green wagon may/have ended up on the coupe that aaron is building.

[Mr Parts]

courier sticker came about after a heavily heavily tanned shaved ape in the city mascarading as a human by wearing a thinly veiled disguise as a parking inspector said i cannot park my vehicle where it was, as it was reserved for courier's only.

i went to bunnings city store, bought C O U R I E R letterbox stickers, stuck them on, and next night when he came over to book me (they just sit there like the second class citizens they are every night) i told him i was a courier and to fuck off back to the cave he came from.

that ended me getting fines in the CBD for parking in 'drop off' zones.



wagon looks good! at least you have always been a man of rotary style hoges with all these rx4/929's. every other muppet always crapping on about rx3's and rx2's, shove those right up your ass. mazda's only real 'muscle car'! cant beat an rx4

[aaron_hogan]

Agreed. RX4 is the epitome of Mazda muscle. I just hate all the references to it being "heavy"....its a tin can as much as an RX3 is.

These shots are from the day the C9 auto died. It leaked the ATF out alsmost as fast as it went back in. Amazingly we went from Melbourne to Corowa and back about as far as Shepparton before it started spewing ATF. The road trip was to pick up the green RX-929 wagon that now graces Geoff's driveway (i bought it for all the rotor/club car parts).

[HoonBoy]

I used an XF to tow once, it killed the gearbox. I used an XD to tow once, it killed the gearbox. At least I managed to get home both times.

[aaron_hogan]

UPDATE: 18/1/11

Picked up the calliper and some calliper paint. Painted them up after taping over the fittings and dust seals but was ok with overspray on the old pads.



Here you see them along with the old pads. Given the amount of rust on there, I'm thinking they might be metal king pads. It was pretty straight forward to swap out the pads. Just a tap on the retainer pins, pull the spring/shim out and out drop the pads.

I left my "hook tool" in the photo accidentally but this is one of my favourite tools so i don't mind yabbering on about it. I came across these when i used to tint windows. As a general tool they have a lot of uses and i'm always reaching for it. Strongly recommend you have one of these in your tool box.



Tried to get some wheel studs (still no joy).

Played around with the torque rod/2 link idea. I tried RX7 upper links and capella upper links, with the latter looking more suitable. The RX7 mounts i lopped off a bent diff housing have a different diameter axle tube so need a little re-shaping or just made from scratch to fit the job. Getting a clearer picture of how I'd like to approach this mod.

[Jim]

I used an XF to tow once, it killed the gearbox. I used an XD to tow once, it killed the gearbox. At least I managed to get home both times.

must be you mate, I towed my rally car all over NSW for 2 years behind my $100 250 C4 auto transit van.

Oh wait, yeah, I did replace the gearbox once...

[sv_i]

Played around with the torque rod/2 link idea. I tried RX7 upper links and capella upper links, with the latter looking more suitable. The RX7 mounts i lopped off a bent diff housing have a different diameter axle tube so need a little re-shaping or just made from scratch to fit the job. Getting a clearer picture of how I'd like to approach this mod.

do everything else first I reckon.

I found out today that I have a broken engine bolt in the 'saki. If I find a decent bolt shop I'll ask about wheel bolts.

pics:

[aaron_hogan]

yeah yeah fair enough but I have had the rx7 and capella trailing arms kicking around in the back of the cruiser for weeks. As it got dark, i thought i'd just throw the bits under there to see what was what.

I will cover the rear end soon enough (diff centre, axles, brakes, springs, tramp bars). From there its an easy step up to fab the 2-link.

[slikrx]

Aye aaron give me a call or drop over (ps I have moved) re 2 link. I got a few ideas I can show ya as I did 808 and I got some left over bits. So I can show ya the easy & cheap way to do it
Oh yeah forgort to mention I have some tools that ya may wanna borrow to make it easier

[aaron_hogan]

UPDATE 19/1/11: BLOODY VOLVO'S

Fitting up the brakes I decided to test fit the new hard lines into the callipers and bend them to shape. Hit a snag at the get go. Now either i'm a pussy and just need to force them OR we have potentially the wrong flare nut threads here. They just don't want to start in the threads and when they catch they appear to be stripping the thread on the nuts after a 1/4 turn.

The ends with the Mazda coarse thread are correct and go together easily into the new rubber lines. Just the end with the fine thread doesn't want to go into the ovlov callipers. And I'm doing it with the pipes dead straight and no tension on them, all apart on the bench - is this normal or is there a metric and an imperial thread that is really close but not compatible?

But I stopped, took a breath and instead just fitted up the callipers and on the drivers side also the calliper bracket which i had removed years earlier to trial fit on the RX3 strut, trace a copy for laser cutting and to fiddle with the idea of s4 RX7 brakes. All back together, greased and the missing split pin was replaced (it pays to be thorough, I could have easily missed that had i not pulled the grease cap!).

Before i packed everything away for the night I put the car up on stands ready for the gearbox to go in. I think i need to get that and the tail shaft in pronto. Tail shaft may be the front of one and the rear of another simply a case of splitting them at the middle universal joint to mix and match.

I also forgot to mention in yesterday's update that I gave the 4.44 diff centre a good scrub down in prep for a lick of paint. Noticed the flange dust cap is loose and has been so for some time by the look of it. I'll have to find out if i can remove the flange without upsetting the pinion...if anyone knows please sing out. My only other though is to invert the diff, roughly centre it, and then give it a tack with the mig.

No time for anything else tonight. A desperate call for assistance to locate a VN radiator for my sister's (nopics) daily saw to that.

[HoonBoy]

Yep, if you get the metric/imperial thread mixed up, it will be close but no cigar. I just can't remember which combo of nut/hole is tight like you have and which combo is loose and obvioulsy wrong. Either way you need to change them to match.

[sv_i]

that sounds like a thundercunt with the line hoges, might have to make a trip back to Darby's by the sound of it.

If it helps, my K&N filters for the rover didn't fit and I lost a nut and a special washer in the engine bay while trying to put the new alternator in.

I just shut the bonnet and walked away.

[Mr Parts]

The ends with the Mazda coarse thread are correct and go together easily into the new rubber lines. Just the end with the fine thread doesn't want to go into the ovlov callipers. And I'm doing it with the pipes dead straight and no tension on them, all apart on the bench - is this normal or is there a metric and an imperial thread that is really close but not compatible? .

its the same with mazda clutch master cyl, there is metric fine and course, both just go in a few turns, then catch if you have the wrong one.

1/8 BSP and 1/8 NPT are also near on identicle (BSP is 28 tpi and NPT is 27 tpi i think).

the small stuff is a total pain in the ass.

drop in to vpw one day and see if they can match it. lots of different metric, imperial etc threads to choose from in the PFE range.

[aaron_hogan]

UPDATE 20/1/11 (PART ONE)

Took a caliper, the hard lines the soft lines back to Darby's. To their credit they realised the problem immediately. They went straight to the box of fittings and discovered that someone had, by mistake, dropped a few of the wrong fittings into the box. It was just a case of cut-change-flare. Took all of 5 mins and i got an apology for the run around. This is why i like these guys.

Then i detoured past the fastener place in Waterdale Road Heidelberg West. Turns out i needed 12x1.5mm bolts. List price $13.00 each! Did me a deal and I got 20 of them plus some other bolts for the twin torsion bar for $40 all up.

Later tonight I'll come back with a further update of bending the lines to suit and fitting up the wheel studs (with pics).

[aaron_hogan]

UPDATE 20/1/11 (PART TWO)

I was super motivated to carry on with the brake lines and studs.

To get the brake lines fitted up I could have used the old lines as a guide but that was always going to be dicey because i recall these brakes were not fitted properly when i bought my RX4. Because 13" steel wheels don't fit over the volvo callipers they had just left them unbolted and dangling.

So the way to bend them up real nice was to use my smarts. Here is an old distribution block from the wagon with no brakes. All i did was thread the lines in straight and use it to get a good grip on the line. Then just bent to shape. I took care to make sure i had access to the mounting bolts and that the lines didn't rub or have any sharp bends.



I had it lined up pretty much spot on and only needed a little tweaking to get them to line up perfectly. To test that i fitted up the soft lines and the retainer clips. Very happy with the results.



Moving onto the wheel studs. Here is a pic illustrating the variety of wheel nuts and studs. I just didn't trust using the lock nut studs. I wasn't sure they were high tensile or meant to be used on all four studs. Remembering this car is likely going to get the locker and is going to see some strip action, the idea of breaking a wheel stud or losing a wheel is a frightening thought. (The first and only time I've had a wheel came off - I heard a knock, slowed down, came to an almost halt when the wheel fell off and the car dropped to the drum. Geoff and I couldn't stop laughing in that instance. That happening at 100km/h is not a funny thought.



If you're like me and struggle with tight threads take a hint as i did a while back - start using taps.

I tapped all the old wheel bolt holes with a taper tap. These axles had sat around a while and there was corrosion and shit in the threads to the point where it was visible how much crud came out.



I moved onto hitting it with a wire wheel. Part of that idea is that i wasn't sure if i'd need to tack weld the bolts in or not and wanted a clean surface. After the wire wheel i gave it a squirt of brake kleen.

Here is the *helper*. This little guy just has to be involved in everything i do.



Threading the bolts in from the back of the axle flange was a breeze now that the threads were tapped clear. I left a little thread exposed and drizzled on some locktite.



Then tighten them all up. voila! job done.

[Momus]

its the same with mazda clutch master cyl, there is metric fine and course, both just go in a few turns, then catch if you have the wrong one.

1/8 BSP and 1/8 NPT are also near on identicle (BSP is 28 tpi and NPT is 27 tpi i think).

the small stuff is a total pain in the ass.

drop in to vpw one day and see if they can match it. lots of different metric, imperial etc threads to choose from in the PFE range.

Volvo calipers are 3/8 unf usually. You probably have 10 x 1.0 tube nuts.
This is not correct but running a 10 x 1.0 bottoming tap down will be usable. Otherwise use a 3/8" sleeve nut. They inhabit old Holdens and Falcons.

[aaron_hogan]

Melb PF crew - tire kicking BBQ - 26 Jan - be there!

now posted in "PF meets"

[sv_i]

To this day I still kick myself that I didn't get *that* particular wheel parting incident on camera. Fuck it was hilarious at the time, but scary too when you think about it. Didn't Jed's mate with the RX-7 have one of those "nice products" screw in wheelstud adaptors sheer off and cause the wheel to fall off at heathcote? Scary.

I have a signed permission slip to be there on the 26th. Tonight still a go?

[ALLMTR]

13.7

[aaron_hogan]

UPDATE 21/1/11: Gearboxing

There's no pics tonight. An RX5 gearbox was shoved under the car and with geoff's assistance wrestled into place.

Now with the engine and gearbox together a couple of small problems have emerged:

The RX7 air filter was touching the brake master reservoir.
The pollution shit was touching the RH shock tower/chassis rail.
The engine was on an angle and the gearbox off centre.

This basically means I can't run this carby or manifold as easily as I intended and I need to go through my spares to find something that will fit. Maybe a pre-pollution manifold will do. At least it will give me a chance to confirm porting (stock or mild extend).

[aaron_hogan]

13.7

if it only does that....zzzz

will freely admit defeat and then step it up to the spares worth >$1300.....per item.

but there is no challenge in that approach. Will persist with the spirit of the challenge as far as possible before I cave in.

[MRMOPARMAN]

UPDATE 21/1/11: fucking off pollution shit

The pollution shit wanted to be thrown in the bin, then set on fire.

fixed