500_19B's Bugeye resurrection

[500_19B]

Did a lot of odd jobs on the car on Sunday. Did not have my phone with me most of the time, so I don’t have pictures of everything yet (but will add some soon). The list of tasks was:

1. Removed the oil pan and the old pick up
2. Installed the rear sway bar to the body (but no endlinks yet)
3. Put on new rear axle nuts, but not fully torqued yet
4. Removed the fuel tank lid release cable

The part which inserted into the surround trim had one of the tabs broken by the accident. The single tab still seemed to work, but I am going to put in a new cable, which I picked up last week. I also had a new lever set (the part that goes on the floor near the drivers side. However, upon examination of the trunk release cable , I decided to replace that as well, so that is now on order

at the same time, I started to clean up the dust on the inner dismantled interior and began adding in pieces, starting with the refinished fuel access panels with new foam seals and hardware.



Finished off the day by finally putting the pistons with new seals back into the front calipers.

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[500_19B]

Just to add a little:

This is the rear suspension as it is now, with the sway bar in position, but no end links yet. Still considering what to do. As for the bar itself, it is the stock original and the bushings are just new OEM, nothing special going on there.



I put the axle nuts on, but they will still need to be fully torqued, which I will do after the brakes are done. Next up will be the trailing arms.



The FactionFab coilovers (like many) have a slot in the upper main mounting hole (instead of a round hole as with stock). This means there is some camber adjustability. For now, I am going to set the toe adjusting bolts on the rear lateral arms to the mid position, and set a preliminary camber of -1.2 degrees. Once the car is back on the ground, I will be doing the precise alignment, but for now I just want to bolt things up "close", so I won't be needing to make big adjustments.

As for the brakes, the OEM rotors I got with the used fixed calipers were in good shape. I just wanted to get them turned to have a "perfect" starting base. "Turns"out that rotor turning is not so common anymore. I phoned a bunch of places until I found an automotive machine shop that offered the service. Got the rotors done this week and they look great, with lots of thickness still. This week I applied some naval jelly to remove any corrosion on the non-machined areas (there was not much) and here they are as they are now, ready for some paint work on the exposed non-wearing surfaces:



Mentioned that last weekend I took off the pan and the old oil pickup to make way for the new Killer-B unit. Here is the original pickup:



It does not show any signs of distress, but you just never know. It will certainly bring some extra peace of mind to know it has been addressed. The difference in terms of strength and material between the stock unit and the Killer-B is super obvious.

[500_19B]

I started with a quick job, which was a little trickier than I expected: I have a pair of parking brake cables in very good condition which came with the fixed caliper take offs. So, popping them in would be a 5-minute job, right? Well, it was more like 45 minutes for me, as I had to figure out the proper clamping location inside the car, which I got wrong the first time. There is very little slack between where the first mounting tang is crimped onto the cable housing and the threaded boss on the underbody. The cables are LH and RH due to the orientation of the mounting tangs:



But it was all OK after a bit of re-do & adjust.

Nest was the trailing arms. Super easy job with everything clean and fresh. The longest part of the job was waiting for the Cosmoline to dry.



One of the many small details are the underbody plugs. There is one required above each of the trailing arm brackets. The originals are a little hardened and ratty, so I am replacing all those as I go along.



Another of the plug styles that I had on backorder came in, and I was thus able to get the carbon cannister mounted along with the rest of the EVAP connections.













So the back of the car is getting pretty complete. Next up on that area will be the parking brakes.

[500_19B]

Got home a little earlier than normal on Monday, so I was able to do a few odd jobs.

Silly little thing, but I popped the new trunk seal in. Oddly satisfying, as it is the first piece of body trim to go on:



The seam at the quarter panel near the corner of the truck opening looks really good, basically OEM, which I am happy about.



Next up was putting in the trunk and fuel door release cables. I ended up getting new cables for both. The fuel door cable actuating end was damaged in the accident, and when I looked at the ferrule on the trunk cable, it was in poor condition. Here you can see the difference:



To get the cables nested correctly I tied string to the old cable ends, pulled the cable out, then moved the string to the new cable and pulled it back into place. First the trunk cable:



Then the fuel door cable:



The lever mechanism was a little rust damaged, so I replaced it with a new one. You can see old versus new here (the amber tinge on the new part is the Cosmoline I put on):



I also went with new lever trims:



Here one can see the white release plunger in position, so it is ready for the fuel door to go on.



And the release levers all buttoned up. Now I can pop my trunk this way, rather than reaching in through the taillight opening to manually release the latch (I have not put the trunk lock back in yet).

[xtremewlr]

Starting to slowly come back together. Looking great!

[500_19B]

Had some other work going on this weekend, but I did at least get the parking brakes going…

After I had the rotors turned, I put some paint on the non-wearing surfaces.



Here is most of the parking brake hardware lined up. Most of the parts are the originals from the fixed caliper take-offs, but I did opt to replace all the springs.



Assembly of the parking brakes is pretty easy, just a little awkward to get the pad retaining springs in. It would make sense to get the proper tool for that job, but I made do with a pair of Knipex channel locks and a needle nose to help rotate the retaining pin (my son helped with an extra set of hands).





After adjusting the shoes, we popped the rotors on:



For the rear calipers I added new sheet metal backing pieces for the mounting holes. Not entirely sure what these do, but they are the OEM item.



Popped the calipers on… no pads and no hoses yet, but I wanted to see how it would look!







Also this weekend, my son and I went out for what will be the last drive in the STI for this season. In order to free up more funds for the bugeye, I am only keeping the STI on the road for part of the year. Really like this car too, and my son and I are looking forward to when we can take this and on the bugeye on a convoy!

[500_19B]

This past weekend did not have more of the excitement of putting fresh parts back on, but rather a regression to the earlier stages!

I had previously taken out every subframe element except the engine support cradle. My thought was just to clean it in situ and coat it in Cosmoline and stick new steering rack bushings on in between. But then I figured with everything else out of the way, this would be the best time to “restore” it.

First up was removing the rack. Everything went easy enough except for two items:

First, the center hardline whose fitting was really hard to move and I ended up beating it up, even with flare nut wrench. They are not that expensive, so I will put a new one back on, and probably replace the other lines. Overall not a big deal.

The second issue was two of the four rack mounting bolts were REALLY tight (basically the threads above the weld-in nut were corroded and they seized in the nut as I wound it out). One of the two I got out safely (had to use a few cycles of heat and penetrant. The other one I broke. Truth told, if I had gone slower, I would have been OK, but ah well, that’s me… gambled that I had it at a point were an impact was safe to us. Yeah, I am not so smart!

Here is the rack:



And here you can see where I had to cut through the bolt:



Once the rack was free it was just a matter of four lock nuts to take out the cradle, and they all came off nice and clean.

As it was, I was going to run into these issues even if I just tried to only replace the rack bushings. I did a quick partial cleaning of the cradle to see what was what:



Overall it is in good shape, with a few areas of corrosion, but none of it deep. That said, I am much happier to restore it given the effort that has gone into other areas of the car.

First up is to repair the nut. I had to do a similar task on the rear differential crossmember and never documented with photos, so I thought this time I would try and take the time in case anyone is interested.

First step is to cut a section out that will allow me to A) remove the broken nut, B) give me a good pieced to weld a new nut on to and C) be an easy piece to align for welding back on.

Here is the cut part way done:



And now done:



Here on the broken piece, you can see that it is three small welds that actually hold the nut on, so not so hard to break.



As I continue with the repair I will post more…

Another benefit of taking out the cradle is that I will have a nicer time of installing the new oil pick up and sump.

On another note, the new family DD Crosstrek has arrived at the dealership from the Land of the Rising Sun. We went to take a quick look on the weekend. We will be taking delivery this coming Saturday (which means Bugeye progress will be limited next weekend, as I need to thoroughly coat the underside of the Crosstrek in, you guessed it, Cosmoline!

[Calzoness]

That looks sick dude, that’s a hell of a project!

[500_19B]

For the repair of the cradle, I first welded in a new nut onto the piece I had cut off. I now have access to a multiprocess welding machine, but the issue was the pure Argon tank (for TIG) was very low. I thought it may be enough. Turns our it was OK for welding the nut , but ran down as I was tacking the piece back onto the cradle, so I had to switch to MIG (which was fed from a Argon/CO2 mix).

The parts ready to go:



Nut welded on:



Part set in place and aligned:



Cradle is functional again, but I did overdo it with the MIG (new machine, I didn't optimize the setting), but it is over-welded and the alignment is fine. I have done a fair amount of prep, but I still have a bit to go. With any luck, I will get it painted for next weekend.



Aside from that, did not make much other progress as this was the weekend we picked up the new family Crosstrek. I do like the car... the 2.5 is decently powerful. I spent basically a whole day prepping if for life in Canada. First was removing the fender liners and spraying everything with Cosmoline. I then did the same for the rest of the underbody, definitely overdoing it!



For the Cosmoline I used this undercoating gun, as well as two wands, one a straight extension and the other a 360-degree tip.



I also used the 3M cavity wax to soak all the inner areas I could get to. Here is the rocker in action. Basically I pulled plugs that let me get the wand in and just sprayed. Afterwards I could see the wet wax seeping through the pinch welds and dripping a bit out, so it is really well coated inside, which I think is a key (something that took me a while to learn).



Finished up by adding some Rek Gen mudguards...





Anyway, the Crosstrek is nice and all, but now back to the Bugeye!

[500_19B]

Hoping to get a bunch of things done this weekend, specifically the oil pan & pickup, the front cradle, and the steering rack (well, just getting the rack and some of the lines back in the car.)

To that end I've made some progress, but also found more I need to do.

The repaired cradle is now painted with epoxy primer and the usual 2K black/satin clear that I have been using for all the suspension parts.



The rack itself looks to be in good condition. I will be replacing the various lines (pressure, return and the connecting hard lines).



While painting the cradle, I also painted the rack in the same way.



Also had some new front brake shields which I refinished too.



The "more I need to do" pertains to the steering joint. I took it out just intending to clean things and coat it in Cosmoline and re-install. However, once out, I noticed that one of the two pivoting directions of the lower universal joint was extremely stiff, I can hardly move it and then only over a limited range of motion. A little surprising given that the part looked very good when it came out:



I do remember that after I had disconnected the hard transfer lines I rotated the steering wheel back and forth, lock-to-lock a few times to help expel the old fluid. While doing that, I did notice that there was a stiff zone in each rotation of the wheel, which I just attributed to the effect of highly articulated universal joints. However, obviously I was wrong. I have tried to loosen it with cycles of penetrant and physically working it back and forth, but to no avail. I now need to source a replacement. I am going to try and find one of the solid types from the 04/07 STI without the rubber damper in the middle.

[500_19B]

An update from today... I was actually able to find an excellent condition STI steering joint from a Toronto-area JDM dismantler and picked it up at lunch, so I am back on track it seems. I was pleasantly surprised that I found it so quickly, as last night I figured it would be a bigger delay.

The joint is beautifully smooth at all four pivots with no discernable play.



I did the usual paint work to beautify it for no good reason (as usual)!



Also spruced up the motor mounts (relatively new Group N) and their shields.

[JDMJNKY]

Beautiful work man, don't stop!!!

[500_19B]

Weekend was a bit of a letdown.

All week, I was anticipating having some time to make some big steps (i.e., getting the oil pan, engine cradle and steering rack all in, which would “unlock” the next level in this project, namely putting the front suspension back together.

It all started well enough. First job was putting in the pan and Killer-B oil pickup. One final side-by-side comparison:

Although the stock piece looks 100% fine upon close inspection, it will be nice to not have to worry about it in the future.



As I put things together, I try to take pictures for reference later to prove to myself I did not forget things. An example: The sealing ring at the top of the pickup… just the sort of thing I will wake up in the middle of the night a month from now wondering “Did I remember to put that seal in?” Having these pictures to go back and check helps control my omnipresent anxiety!



Super easy install, four M6 bolts, carefully torqued and we are ready for the pan.



I purchased some Threebond 1215 from the dealer:



This is where things went a little off the rails. The original pan was damaged in the accident (it had a gouge and a large-ish dent, presumably from bottoming against a rock or something). In a rare case of not going for an OEM part, I purchased a Dorman replica part from RockAuto. The pan looked like an exact copy, and I re-painted it with the epoxy primer and topcoats to perfect things. Then, this weekend, after spreading the thin coat of Threebond on the mating surface, I went to pop the pan on, and I could not get it on. I tried all sorts of ways of twisting and rotating things to find the magic path, but no dice. Finally, I took the old pan just to see if it was the same and, whoosh, it went straight on. Now I put the two pans side by side to try and find what the issue was. In the pan there are two intermediate sheet metal “shelves” welded in. The upper shelf looked identical in both, but finally I noticed that the lower shelf in the Dorman pan, although similar in design, was distinctly rotated relative to the upper shelf such that the cutouts for the pickup did not align by a significant margin. Once I saw that it was obvious. Not sure if this was a one-off issue, or if it is a systemic problem. In any event, I purchased the pan months ago AND did the additional painting, so I can’t return it. Grrr…

So, I considered my options: First, I could try and hack the Dorman part to make it work. Problem there is that the access to that area was very tight, and it would never be a clean job. I am not sure how sensitive the system is to cavitation if the contours and flanges of these shelves changes. Probably not that big of a deal, but oil pressure is never something I want to guess at. Option two would be to re-use the old pan. Before taking the pan off, I was not sure if the dent had been deep enough to hit the pickup or cause other issues. Once off, it does not look that bad. However, the area that the dent is in is completely inaccessible, so it is not the greatest specimen. Option three is to find another pan. This is what I have decided, but this time I am going to go OEM. Actually, I think the lesson is to either get OEM parts, or well-documented upgrade parts from good suppliers (e.g., Koyorad, Grimmspeed etc.). Sorry Dorman, but you don’t qualify in my personal estimation.

Having accepted that my grandiose plans for stupendous progress were not going to materialize, I pushed ahead with some of the other items anyway. Principally the steering rack. I mounted the fresh supply, return and crossover lines and attendant brackets.



Next up was the tie rods. All this work went very easy (and all the parts were OEM… hmm…)



After tightening the tie rods onto the rack, I used a cold chisel to stake the washer into the reliefs formed into the tie rod housing.



Putting the boots and clamps on was very easy.





Finally added the “shields” (I guess) that mount on the tie rod right next to the boot.



So, except for a coating of Cosmoline still to come, the rack is ready for reinstallation once I get the pan and cradle in place.

After that, I spent time cleaning the basement, organizing parts etc.

[500_19B]

While I wait for the oil pan, I am stopped from progressing with suspension etc., so I have moved ahead on the top side of the engine. Aside from the turbo which I’ve already re-built, my plan for this area was to take the intake and fuel lines off, clean everything and then assess and replace what should be (likely the turbo inlet, fuel lines, various hoses, maybe get the injectors cleaned and flow matched etc.). Also, I will be doing the timing belt and water pump. The car is not due for that yet, but with so much of the front area disassembled, this is a great time to do it.

Every other time I have done the timing belt I have managed to take off the crank bolt with the car in gear and parking brake on. Now of course, with the car in the air and driveshaft still out etc., that is not an option. With that in mind, I finally invested in the right tool for the job. I went with the Company 23 version, and it worked perfectly.



Next, I started taking things off: Power steering pump, alternator and then the intake manifold assembly (with the fuel lines and tumble generators). It is remarkable just how filthy it all looks underneath! I knew it was not that clean but did not think that much dirt had accumulated.





The oil pan I am waiting on it a new OEM item, but I will scuff and paint it to get a more durable finish. Always when I am doing this sort of painting, I like to line up a bunch of items to use up the whole batch of 2K stuff, before it hardens and becomes useless (I use the SprayMax products for these parts, and you must activate the whole can). So, I will include some of the top of engine periphery parts like the coolant hard lines etc.

It has been a little over a year now since the car came back from paint, so this project has gone way overtime and there is still a lot to do. Sort of embarrassing actually. That said, it is starting to feel like I am closer to the end then the start, but only by a little!

[500_19B]

The new OEM oil pan arrived yesterday, so last night I got a little busy.

Here is the batch of parts I got ready for painting, including the new pan (which has been scuff sanded to prep for the paint). The item partially wrapped in aluminum foil is the coolant crossover pipe. I am leaving the main aluminum part unpainted and only painting the steel tube (that seems to be semi-permanently attached).



After the usual 2K epoxy primer and satin clear, the parts look a lot better.



For those heavy “shrouds” that wrap around the tumble generators/fuel rails on either side of the intake manifold, I went with a silver base to add a little bit of style. The base is actually the color code for Porsche GT silver metallic, probably my favorite silver! I just happened to have a little on hand, that is the reason!



Today the paint has mostly cured, and the satin sheen came out pretty good.





I also did some preliminary cleaning of the power steering pump and AC compressor. Some of the dirt/grunge is baked on, so cleaning all the top of engine items is going to take some time.

Looking at the new OEM pan, I can see the alignment of those two inner “shelves” looks correct and markedly different from the Dorman pan, so I am not expecting any issues. So, hopefully this weekend I will be back on track.

[Scooby South]

Outstanding work man..

Bill

[Scooby South]

What else do you have planned

Bill

[500_19B]

Originally Posted by Scooby South

What else do you have planned

Bill

Thanks! My scope keeps changing as I find things I “should” do, but I also do think I can see a bit of light up ahead. The front suspension will be similar to the rear suspension, i.e., new struts, bushings etc. The engine will have more peripheral items renewed, and then it will be on to all the remaining body assembly (seals, trim, interior)

This weekend went pretty much according to plan (for a change…)

I was not 100% happy with the quality of my paintwork on the oil pan, so I re-scuffed it, and painted it again, with a few more other parts. However, I did not have any of the 2K satin clear, so I went with gloss clear (also 2K) which I did have. This time I was happy with the job and now finally I was ready to put the pan on.



I had new hose as well as the special shielded hose clamps for the outlet coolant side of the engine oil cooler, which I installed just prior to the pan.



I spread a thin layer of the Threebond 1215 on the pan, slipped on the other seal (at rear passenger-side corner) and popped the pan on with zero issue. Then it was a matter of just torquing the 14 bolts to 5 Nm in a criss-cross pattern and it was done.





Also had refinished the cover plate that goes under the flywheel.



Next up was the motor mounts, which were coated in Cosmoline after assembly.



Also included a new lower heat shield for the passenger side mount.
These are the “bolt assemblies” which pass through the frame and support the engine cradle.



Nice to see another big part going back on the car!



Bolting up the cradle was easy, and then I carefully lowered the engine, with a few tugs and tweaks to center the motor mount studs over the slots in the cradle and then everything settled into place nicely.

[500_19B]

Next up it was time for the steering rack and connecting joint.



I quickly realized the joint has an upper side and lower side, the upper having one extra wide spline, so you can only put it on the steering shaft one way.

For the rack itself, I opted for SuperPro bushings. I think these will be a big upgrade over stock.



Putting the rack is was not so hard, but I did learn that the bushing retainer plates won’t go in with the power steering lines fully bolted, but I was able to gain the necessary clearance by loosening them only (as opposed to removing them completely).

The front end is starting to come together.





I also spent some time beginning the clean up on the top side.

This is pretty much where I started.





This is where I got to. Looking a lot more functional. Still have lots of cleaning to do, and I have to assess what all should be replaced (I expect most hoses etc.)

[500_19B]

Finally, I was able to start putting the front suspension together this weekend.

The first round of items are the coil overs, rebuilt drive axles and uprights and the new-to-me aluminum control arms (which is something I always wanted, right from when the car was new!)



Slapping things together was easy enough. I chose new OEM ball joints for two reasons: First, they never seem to give any issues and second, I am not intending to heavily lower the car or go to other extreme geometries.



I first mounted the strut to the fender well and then loosely bolted in the control arm. Then I put in the upright and pinned it into place with the strut using just the lower hole so that whole upright could be pivoted to make it easy to get the drive axles in.



One thing I discovered back when I did the clutch was that the inner splines on the front drive axle are odd-numbered, which means that there is an up and down orientation that must be observed when assembling the axle to the front output so that the holes line up correctly for the locking pin. It was pretty easy to see the difference by eye, so that all went fine this time.





I was intending to put the big U-shaped subframe in, but realized I first need to put in the sway bar, for which I am getting the drop links this week, so I will leave that for now. At this point, I just did the same degree of assembly for the other side and left it for now.









Aside from this, I worked on a few small remaining paint finessing tasks (removing dust nibs and polishing). I did about 75% last fall, then stopped as it was getting too cold in the garage for that kind of work. I put a plastic sheet over the car at that time and have been working on other things ever since. Now I realize it will soon be cold again, so I’d better finish the paint prep so I will be clear to start putting trim back (e.g., door handles etc.)!

[500_19B]

Minus 6 degrees today, so the pace of work is slowing down!

Got the rest of the suspension bits needed to put the front together. Nothing is final torqued yet, but it is all in place. I just want to get everything assembled and rough-aligned before I torque bolts, add cotter pins etc., just in case there is something I need to adjust. So far is looks good though

I stuck with the stock sway bar and went with new OEM bushings and drop links:



Also stuck with OEM for the tie rod ends. I think the Subaru OEM joints are very good… they never seem to give issues.



I set the tie rods to be roughly at zero toe with the steering wheel centered, so that when I go to do the alignment, I won’t have to make huge adjustments (I hope).





After the sway bar and rod ends were in, I added the new brake backing plates, I painted over the OEM with the usual epoxy primer/base/2K clear, and then slathered it with Cosmoline, so they should be invincible.



At this point, I popped on the rotors and put the calipers in place (like with the back, without pads etc., for now).



Looks the business, I think!



In between, I’ve disassembled all the intake and am sorting through what needs to be done. As it came off the car, it is pretty dirty:



I’ve started some of the cleaning work, beginning with the TGV bodies. Here is a comparison between as-taken-off and cleaned. I am going for a “functionally clean” result using a gentle approach of nylon brush & carb cleaner, followed by warm water and dish soap.

[500_19B]

Not tons of exciting progress.

Saturday was unusually nice weather, so I took advantage of that to put front and rear dash cams, hardwired with a battery for parking surveillance into the Crosstrek. It took most of the day as I removed a lot of trim etc. to make a clean install.

Sunday I was back on the bugeye. Now that most of the front end was in place, I went through my torque checklist for the front suspension, put cotter pins in etc.

Next up was the front subframe. Coated on the outside with Cosmoline and on the inside with cavity wax, it was ready to pop in.



I opted for new hardware (instead of pulling from the re-plated pile). Reason is that the shorter M12 bolts in the center are listed as one-time use in the service manual. The replacement bolts came in a sealed package from Subaru with instructions that they are coated in some sort of a volatile oil and the package should only be opened immediately before use. It all sounded dramatic, but I'm sure there are good reasons.



The subframe I put in was a replacement from a JDM car, and the original subframe was damaged at the front. I did not expect any fitment issues and there were none, it all bolted up easily. You can really see the thickness of the Cosmoline on the bottom of the rad support where the blue almost looks brown now!





Lastly, I added on the jacking plate at the center of the front crossmember. Things are looking fairly complete down there.



In the meantime, I have all the intake and fuel supply paraphernalia from the top of the engine disassembled and have been working through that. I have the fuel rails and hard lines and miscellaneous hardware being re-plated and am gradually cleaning other components.

The list of things to do there is pretty extensive: I need to replace some electrical connector housings, clean the injectors and want to re-wrap the harness and probably other things.

[Panderalexander]

Originally Posted by 500_19B

Not tons of exciting progress.

Saturday was unusually nice weather, so I took advantage of that to put front and rear dash cams, hardwired with a battery for parking surveillance into the Crosstrek. It took most of the day as I removed a lot of trim etc. to make a clean install.

Sunday I was back on the bugeye. Now that most of the front end was in place, I went through my torque checklist for the front suspension, put cotter pins in etc.

Next up was the front subframe. Coated on the outside with Cosmoline and on the inside with cavity wax, it was ready to pop in.



I opted for new hardware (instead of pulling from the re-plated pile). Reason is that the shorter M12 bolts in the center are listed as one-time use in the service manual. The replacement bolts came in a sealed package from Subaru with instructions that they are coated in some sort of a volatile oil and the package should only be opened immediately before use. It all sounded dramatic, but I'm sure there are good reasons.



The subframe I put in was a replacement from a JDM car, and the original subframe was damaged at the front. I did not expect any fitment issues and there were none, it all bolted up easily. You can really see the thickness of the Cosmoline on the bottom of the rad support where the blue almost looks brown now!





Lastly, I added on the jacking plate at the center of the front crossmember. Things are looking fairly complete down there.



In the meantime, I have all the intake and fuel supply paraphernalia from the top of the engine disassembled and have been working through that. I have the fuel rails and hard lines and miscellaneous hardware being re-plated and am gradually cleaning other components.

The list of things to do there is pretty extensive: I need to replace some electrical connector housings, clean the injectors and want to re-wrap the harness and probably other things.

Enjoyed this thread. I too plan on passing my car to my son when he can drive, he’s just 8 right now. I’ve have a C6 Corvette that he kept saying will be his when he’s old enough to drive, but I just picked up a GDB to work on and he’s in love with it even more now and wants it instead.

[500_19B]

Originally Posted by Panderalexander

Enjoyed this thread. I too plan on passing my car to my son when he can drive, he's just 8 right now. I've have a C6 Corvette that he kept saying will be his when he's old enough to drive, but I just picked up a GDB to work on and he's in love with it even more now and wants it instead.

The C6 is my personal favorite Vette generation. The C8 is very impressive, but I feel the C6 is more beautiful and of course is the classic front engine/rear drive format of all of them until the C8.

We had an event to attend on Saturday, which left just Sunday, which unfortunately was the colder day of the weekend. It is slowing things up as first, I can't stay in the garage as long and need to take breaks and second, I cannot open the overhead door, which makes a big difference in lighting, especially under the car, so I have to rely on work lights etc., which seems to slow things up.

What was accomplished was getting the shift lever and prop shaft back in. I had already painted and Cosmolined the shift rod and stay, so now it was just a matter of assembly. I replaced the various bushings and o-rings and had previously re-plated the hardware. When everything was laid out, I was surprised at how much stuff it actually was.



Everything with the shift lever was easy except for the spring pin for the joint to the input shaft, which was very tight (new pin of course) and tricky to start. But we got there eventually (lying on cold concrete probably did not help). Car can now be shifted again.



Next up was the prop shaft. I think it is in good shape (the universal joints are smooth and I can't discern play in the joints for any issues with the carrier bushings). So, all I did was clean and repaint the unit. Here it is after Cosmoline application, ready to go back under the car:



The only non-stock element of the prop shaft are the inserts for the carrier bushing mounting. I opted for the Torque Solution aluminum inserts, which I guess are the most aggressive bushing in the driveline. Given that the carrier bushing itself has a lot of isolation, I am not sure how big the effect of these will be.



Actually putting the prop shaft in is very straightforward. Just slide it carefully onto the transmission output and then bolt up the carrier bearing and rear joint to differential.





In between the garage work, I have been gradually progressing with other tasks: I am almost half way through a detailed cleaning of the main engine wiring harness. I have two injector housings that are damaged that I will be replacing with new ones from iWire. I also managed to finally finish cleaning the intake manifold. I plan to do the usual "wrinkle-red" coating for some bling.

With luck, I will be able to get the parts back from the platers this week.

[500_19B]

Winter is very much here in these parts… garage is cold (and my ability to effectively heat it is limited). Managed to crawl forward on a number of items, all related to the engine compartment.

I plan to rebuild the brake master cylinder with a new OEM kit (since everything else in the brake system will be renewed), so I removed that. I could not get over how ratty the booster look, so I removed that for re-painting. The four nuts in the footwell needed multiple universal joints and extensions to get at, but it ended up fine. What I did discover was that the fit of the booster between the clutch master and the inner fender was very tight. Even with pretty much everything out of the way, it was real squeeze. I pity anyone doing that job with the fuel lines etc. still in place!

The usual 2K satin clear transformed the booster after a bunch of prep.



Managed to get the booster back in place and then proceeded to clean the firewall area, which had a lot of baked-on grime. It is starting to look better, still more to do though.



This is how it looked before, for comparison:



Another small job was replacing the cam cover gaskets. Not sure it was needed, but there you go.

I cleaned up the covers to that “functional” clean level.



Went with new OEM gaskets and sealing washers and re-plated the original bolts. The OEM gaskets seem very expensive compared to aftermarket, but I decided to go that route.



The gaskets pressed into the covers perfectly and held in place without issue. My 5 minutes of research on this topic suggested that the aftermarket gaskets may tend to pop out in places. Probably the fact that my covers were very clean and dry had more to do with it.



The FSM indicates to use sealant on the section around the front cam bearing caps, which I followed. However, I had to make sure I removed all the old sealant from that area first!

The cams and surrounding area looked very clean.

Install was very easy and now I can see I still want to clean the rest of the top of the engine more!





Another silly thing is that I sourced a new French language label for the booster. As this car was a Canadian market car, it came with this label, which essentially had the same info that is molded into the master cylinder reservoir cap in English. I cannot speak French worth crap, so a rational person would wonder why bother, but I could not resist the opportunity to feed my OCD.



Finally, I picked up the batch of replated parts (that is where the cam cover bolts came from) and here are the fuel rails, which look really nice now.