Lots of progress over the long weekend. There were so many little things that I had to finish up, I won't list them all. I will show the larger tasks that may help others. My first order of business was to figure out what was wrong with my brakes. Ever since I installed the DSE hydraulic clutch master cylinder bracket, my brakes weren't working correctly. I realized that I needed to clearance the bracket because it caused a bind with the petal lever. I clearanced the hole, and then reinstalled everything. Still had a bind? Still not sure what caused the issue, but I took the master cylinder off and to the bench to verify it was working. Then reinstalled and the brakes worked great.
Anyway, that is done, just need bench bleed it and reinstall.
While I had the booster off because of the clutch bracket, It was time to figure out a method for making a petal stop. If I don't do something about that, a hard shift could over extend the clutch MC and ruin it. Which in turn would leave me stranded. Here is what I came up with.
And the final product. It works great and is fully adjustable.
Another issue that I ran into is making sure that the clutch throw is sufficient to fully engage and disengage the clutch. My solution came from someone on LS1tech.com. I used a 3/8 - 16 coupler and jam nuts, cut and threaded the shaft, and made my own adjustable clutch master cylinder! If you do decide to copy me make sure that when you cut the shaft, that you actually cut about an inch out of it in order to make sure you can shorten it if necessary. Also, don't thread the shaft all the way down. A section towards the bottom is hollow, which causes a weak point and people have had problems where on a hard shift that the shaft will break.
After all the work for the clutch it works great! It took some time making sure that the clutch was working properly, but well worth it. It works just like stock. The only think I haven't finished is the neutral safety switch. But the clutch grabs really nicely, and is much different than the stock set-up. Something that I will have to get used to.
The last hickup( or so I thought), was making sure that I had the correct rag joint. It took me about an hour of messing around to realize that the metric box I have, had a smaller diameter than my stock box. So, after messing around and talking to some car friends of mine, I found one! I don't know what the breakdown of years is, but this was out of a '77. Not sure if that is a mid-year thing, or if the box was actually off of a later metric box. Either way, I got it on and it worked great.
Now, the fun part. I test fit everything and double checked to make sure that everything I had done was tight, etc. I finally took it off of the jack stands. Since I know that I had the wheels off a few times I went around with a torque wrench to ensure they were tight. I am not going through that again...
Anyway, I forgot how low to the ground the car was.
Sorry, its blurry.
Here are some gound clearance pictures. Just have to be aware of those when I am driving. Although, they aren't any lower than the hooker headers I had.
Well, I suppose it was time for a test drive. Being really excited to finally get the car out and drive it around and listening for anything out of the ordinary, I forgot one thing. GAS!!! Here I am stranded at what used to be a gas station.
I couldn't be mad and I was only about a mile from my house, so my wife came and got me and we threw some more gas in it. I think it was a good think that I ran out of gas anyway because the axle bearings were screaming at me. I needed to replace them, but thought I could get away with them for a little while. Nope, they need it asap. I think for the summer I will get two saver bearings and let it ride.
Yes, I know this was my initial shake down run. So no shaker, passenger seat or front bumper. What can I say, I was excited. It was hard to say how the car really ran because I couldn't hear anything but the axle bearing. I will say that the car had great throttle response, and with the 3.73 gears it will be very fast. I churped or spun the tires everytime I started from a stop. It will be very fun!
Another thing I noticed is the car is quieter than with my Pontiac? Weird. Overall really happy with the progress and I can't wait to put some miles on it!
Cheers,
Ryan
