Long time no update, thought I'd put abit more in on my car and what's happened since last time.
Firstly, I was down in Brisbane during October. Went offroading at Mt Mee once again with the Manxclub. Once again had a ball!
Unfortunately my external harddrive crashed so I lost all my pictures. Still trying to get them recovered.
While I was down there I took the plunge and purchased some 31"x10'5" all terrains for the back of the car. was previously running 30".
The car is a little slower and hills on the highway kill it a bit more. But offroad they just don't compare. The new tyres are a far more aggressive tread pattern, and in the driving I've done since getting them I can easily say they are better then the old ones in every way.
But having bigger tyres has come at a cost. They have highlighted a new problem. Under compression they were rubbing on the inner guards.
I have plenty of sets off rims so I hunted through until I found a set that have 26mm more offset than the ones the tyres are on.
I drove the car around on 185s for a day while they were being swapped onto the new rims which I had powdercoated.
I also prefer the look of the new wheels too, shown here with the tyre on. Compared to the ones that were on the car.
with the old wheels the tyres were about 1 1/2 inches inside from the lip of the guard. Now they are about 1/2 an inch. Fills the guard better and looks far better.
Old and new comparison pictures.
Now I just have to get bigger ones on the front!!
Next little upgrade that I performed was the install of a 2-way radio.
It's a Uniden UH015SX, bought it and the aerial off one of my brothers mates for bugger all. It's quite a nifty little unit, does lots of fancy things that I've yet to learn how to work.
This is where I decided to mount it. Under the dash on the passengers side. I can still reach it very easily, and there isn't really much loss of kneeroom for the passengers.
I taped the area first before drilling the holes to stop under of the pretty paint from chipping.
Got some fancy stainless screws to put the mount in place. I also placed some rubber grommets in between the plate and the body to give the radio a softer mounting and cushiony ride
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I screwed the handpiece bracket to the side and all done!
Next I had to mount the aerial. Luckily when I built the car and pulled the harness through the pillar I had the foresight to run two coaxial cables to the back of the car. One is for the 2-way and the other is going to be for my stereo if I ever get round to it. It was a simple matter of soldering some connections on and plugging everything in.
I'm just running a stainless angled aerial bracket for the moment but I plan to weld some tabs on down the track.
Now I can listen in on Dave and Graham complaining about how horrible my car is offroad when we go to Mt Mee next
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Some of you probably saw my thread in the tech section asking about how to fix a bent framehorn.
http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=87624
Lets just say I had a particularly great day rockcrawling in the Baja last Saturday and managed to bend the LHS framehorn down about an inch
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I've been driving it like this all week, it took me until Tuesday to notice the crooked engine and find the damage
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So I rolled her into the carport on Friday afternoon (sorry mum) and it wasn't long before cage was off then engine out and the transaxle was unbolted, brake lines/wiring/cables disconnected etc
I got to this point and tried to roll everything out but run into and snag cause my tyres were too big and hitting the guards
๐ Had to jack her up some more
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Definitely bent
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Fortunately the topside wasn't cracked or warped at all, just alittle bent. Can't say the same for the underside though.
Luckily I have a bit of crap lying around which comes in handy in times like these.
First thing I did was wirewheel the paint and mud and llamas off the framehorn. So I could get a good look at everything and because I was having to weld on it later.
Then I carefully cut the damaged metal out and drilled the spotwelds.
The spare rear end supplied the replacement piece. As well as the plate to weld along the underside for additional strength.
I heated the horn alittle and put the jack under it to get it back to original location. Took lots of measurements and made sure the car was level.
Welded the piece in. Was a bitch welding overhand, wish I could have put the car in a rotisserie or something to flip it over.
Then I cut the strengthening plate to length and hammered it until it was a snug fit over the underside. I also had to notch it and bend it a little to get it to follow the curve of the horn better.
Cranked up the amps and laid some good beads
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It was a little messy but all the welds turned out quite good. I gave it a little smooth over with the flapper to remove any bumps or sharps then gave it a few coats with red primer (POR15 will have to wait as I have to drive this to work tomorrow)
Dad thought it necessary to take a picture of my dropping a gearbox on my face
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When I put everything back together I left of the secondary shock bottom mount plate. They normally bolt on with the springplates, but I haven't been running the twin shocks for a while now. Just saved about half a kilo of unsprung weight per side
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Everything back in and running, I did some rough measurements and I think the left side is still a few mill lower than the right. But I can live with that
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Problem sorted!!
Smiley
๐If you said I was a Volkswagen man, you'd be right.
