- Joined
- May 11, 2007
- Location
- Niketown, OR
Haven?t read anything yet, just wanted to get reply #700.
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Mike K's '79 242 Barn Car Revival
- Thread starter Stiggy Pop
- Start date
- Joined
- May 11, 2007
- Location
- Niketown, OR
I like the progress so far. You do seem to undersell your burgeoning aluminum welding hobby, though.
oldschoolvolvo
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2004
- Location
- Lancaster, PA
Nice work getting everything packaged cleanly.
redblockpowered
bad username length
- Joined
- May 5, 2015
- Location
- Swampscott, MA
Oil cooler mounted hamburger grilling technology, I like it.
Stiggy Pop
In the cool kids club
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2011
- Location
- Granville, MA
social media has taught me that I'm worthless and nothing I do will ever be as good as it could or should be.
thanks! it sucked up a lot of hours but was kind of fun to be back in "building" mode instead of just repairing
100% Grade-A American BEEF
Stiggy Pop
In the cool kids club
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2011
- Location
- Granville, MA
next chapter: Plumbing! And there's a ton of it...
Fun with tubes, I bought a lot of tubing this year. All the new stuff meant a full new round of piping, this is where the tig really came in handy. It would have been impossible to mock this all up then hand over to someone else to weld.
The hot side pipe was a no brainer. I set the inlet location intentionally so that it would be an easy 90* shot from the compressor outlet. It's a 2" 90, a 2>2.5" expansion then straight into the tank.
I also scored a used Bead Form on eBay for really cheap, super handy tool to have in the garage.
The cold side was much more of a learning experience. With that thicc boy radiator and the Nathan intake there was not much room to deal with 3" bends. No mandrel bend had a center line radius small enough so I watched an instructional YouTube video on how to make pie cuts (I really like the fabrication series) and got to work. Also shout out to my HF horizontal band saw. Lifesaver for this project and cuts really well when set up right and a good blade put on it.
I also added bungs for the blow-off valve and the temp sensor. I am a bit proud of this one, it was pretty complicated (for me) and the fit up came out really nice. It was a ton of welding time.
Now some of you may be thinking to yourselves "hey Mike, doesn't the inlet of your new radiator point directly into your throttle body?", and you would be correct. That didn't really dawn on me until I started making the bend for the intercooler pipe. So my way out with my new found pie baking skills was to do a little wiggle wiggle to get by, precision rendering found below:
in aluminum form.
it was actually kinda tricky to weld. The small diameter pipe made keeping torch angle/height consistent difficult.
ended up working out well and looks decent enough. Gives me a nice straight shot into the thermostat housing.
Now I was really feeling like I was on a roll, and my engine continued to languish in the shop, so I start looking for problems to solve (or invent, then solve). Despite an air gap and heat wrap my lower radiator hose would slowly get cooked by the header. So I added a a hard elbow pipe to the inlet where all the hot stuff is.
There was a lot of crap in the cast aluminum but I managed to get it welded up... now I just hope it doesn't leak. A friend told me afterward to pre-clean the weld area with the arc first... next time.
Lined up for a straight shot from the radiator.
cut an extra piece of tube and rolled beads for the upper radiator hose and the job's done!
I was still left with time on my hands (and I don't relax) so I decided to try making hardline for the first time. My other eBay scores this year have been picking up old Imperial tube benders so I decided to give it a go.
I never liked the soft oil cooler lines up front where they bend around the corner on the frame rail, and I thought they'd look cool so I started there. I used welding rod to mock up the rough idea.
This is one of those things where I fought and fought until it clicked. I spent like half a day on the first line and ended up ruining it at the last minute. I came back the next day and re-made it in like 25 minutes, then had the second one done shortly after. The one piece of advice I can give is to sacrifice some material and make template bends. I made a 90 and a 180 and marked the 0* point, a point where the hook on the bender grabs the tube, and how much room I needed to slide a tube nut back and grab the tube with the flaring tool (the last two dictate how much straight length you need on either end of the bend). I wasted some time and tube until I figured that out. I also flared one end before putting the sleeve and nut on, don't do that.
The material is .035" 5/8" seamless stainless. I picked up a Ridgid 37* ratcheting flaring tool and it worked great.
I ran the hardline along the frame rail then transitioned it to regular aeroquip -10 startlite hose back to the sandwich plate, so the hardlines up front won't see any engine vibration. I spent a fortune on tube nuts and hose fittings but such is life.
Now that I knew how to do it I could solve a REAL problem. Every season I cook a turbo drain line. No matter how much fiberglass, silver, gold or license plates I wrap a hose in it just fries from the inside out. It's a pain in the ass to have to replace and is a fire hazard so after years of thinking about it I finally made a hard line for the drain and idk why I waited so long! Fairly simple piece but it was a little tricky to package in a section of braided hose for isolation, and I had to buy a $50 60* hose end to get it tucked up nicely
Really love this kind of little project, solves a real problem and is much more elegant to boot.
While I was at it I bought some 3/8 tube to cover the rest of the -6 hose running to the turbo. My coolant feed from the back of the block was a big long hose that ran all the way out, along the inner fender, then back out to the turbo. I bent up a piece of tube to tuck it into the block and follow the heater hard pipe.
For this one I did not add in a section of hose and it's a bit of an experiment. It's a long line with a big hook in it, which should offer some 'give' for expansion and contraction. I also added a brace back to the block to try and cut off some of the resonant vibration.
The oil feed and coolant return are pretty short, direct runs to the turbo. So I decided to leave them as hose for now and see how my full hard coolant line works out. If it doesn't crack and leak I'll make the other too lines. I figure I'll try it with water that will just make steam first, before I try it with oil that makes cars burn down.
oh, almost forgot, I decided I wanted to cut down on some of the polished aluminum in the engine bay so I had the intercooler pipes, rad pipe and t-stat housing powder coated bengal silver (matches the intake manifold). While I was there I had my catch can, dip stick tube and strut braces done in texture black. Should be easier to keep looking sharp.
Fun with tubes, I bought a lot of tubing this year. All the new stuff meant a full new round of piping, this is where the tig really came in handy. It would have been impossible to mock this all up then hand over to someone else to weld.
The hot side pipe was a no brainer. I set the inlet location intentionally so that it would be an easy 90* shot from the compressor outlet. It's a 2" 90, a 2>2.5" expansion then straight into the tank.
I also scored a used Bead Form on eBay for really cheap, super handy tool to have in the garage.
The cold side was much more of a learning experience. With that thicc boy radiator and the Nathan intake there was not much room to deal with 3" bends. No mandrel bend had a center line radius small enough so I watched an instructional YouTube video on how to make pie cuts (I really like the fabrication series) and got to work. Also shout out to my HF horizontal band saw. Lifesaver for this project and cuts really well when set up right and a good blade put on it.
I also added bungs for the blow-off valve and the temp sensor. I am a bit proud of this one, it was pretty complicated (for me) and the fit up came out really nice. It was a ton of welding time.
Now some of you may be thinking to yourselves "hey Mike, doesn't the inlet of your new radiator point directly into your throttle body?", and you would be correct. That didn't really dawn on me until I started making the bend for the intercooler pipe. So my way out with my new found pie baking skills was to do a little wiggle wiggle to get by, precision rendering found below:
in aluminum form.
it was actually kinda tricky to weld. The small diameter pipe made keeping torch angle/height consistent difficult.
ended up working out well and looks decent enough. Gives me a nice straight shot into the thermostat housing.
Now I was really feeling like I was on a roll, and my engine continued to languish in the shop, so I start looking for problems to solve (or invent, then solve). Despite an air gap and heat wrap my lower radiator hose would slowly get cooked by the header. So I added a a hard elbow pipe to the inlet where all the hot stuff is.
There was a lot of crap in the cast aluminum but I managed to get it welded up... now I just hope it doesn't leak. A friend told me afterward to pre-clean the weld area with the arc first... next time.
Lined up for a straight shot from the radiator.
cut an extra piece of tube and rolled beads for the upper radiator hose and the job's done!
I was still left with time on my hands (and I don't relax) so I decided to try making hardline for the first time. My other eBay scores this year have been picking up old Imperial tube benders so I decided to give it a go.
I never liked the soft oil cooler lines up front where they bend around the corner on the frame rail, and I thought they'd look cool so I started there. I used welding rod to mock up the rough idea.
This is one of those things where I fought and fought until it clicked. I spent like half a day on the first line and ended up ruining it at the last minute. I came back the next day and re-made it in like 25 minutes, then had the second one done shortly after. The one piece of advice I can give is to sacrifice some material and make template bends. I made a 90 and a 180 and marked the 0* point, a point where the hook on the bender grabs the tube, and how much room I needed to slide a tube nut back and grab the tube with the flaring tool (the last two dictate how much straight length you need on either end of the bend). I wasted some time and tube until I figured that out. I also flared one end before putting the sleeve and nut on, don't do that
.
The material is .035" 5/8" seamless stainless. I picked up a Ridgid 37* ratcheting flaring tool and it worked great.
I ran the hardline along the frame rail then transitioned it to regular aeroquip -10 startlite hose back to the sandwich plate, so the hardlines up front won't see any engine vibration. I spent a fortune on tube nuts and hose fittings but such is life.
Now that I knew how to do it I could solve a REAL problem. Every season I cook a turbo drain line. No matter how much fiberglass, silver, gold or license plates I wrap a hose in it just fries from the inside out. It's a pain in the ass to have to replace and is a fire hazard so after years of thinking about it I finally made a hard line for the drain and idk why I waited so long! Fairly simple piece but it was a little tricky to package in a section of braided hose for isolation, and I had to buy a $50 60* hose end to get it tucked up nicely
Really love this kind of little project, solves a real problem and is much more elegant to boot.
While I was at it I bought some 3/8 tube to cover the rest of the -6 hose running to the turbo. My coolant feed from the back of the block was a big long hose that ran all the way out, along the inner fender, then back out to the turbo. I bent up a piece of tube to tuck it into the block and follow the heater hard pipe.
For this one I did not add in a section of hose and it's a bit of an experiment. It's a long line with a big hook in it, which should offer some 'give' for expansion and contraction. I also added a brace back to the block to try and cut off some of the resonant vibration.
The oil feed and coolant return are pretty short, direct runs to the turbo. So I decided to leave them as hose for now and see how my full hard coolant line works out. If it doesn't crack and leak I'll make the other too lines. I figure I'll try it with water that will just make steam first, before I try it with oil that makes cars burn down.
oh, almost forgot, I decided I wanted to cut down on some of the polished aluminum in the engine bay so I had the intercooler pipes, rad pipe and t-stat housing powder coated bengal silver (matches the intake manifold). While I was there I had my catch can, dip stick tube and strut braces done in texture black. Should be easier to keep looking sharp.
- Joined
- May 11, 2007
- Location
- Niketown, OR
Did I mention this would have been a great opportunity to incorporate an electric water pump solution?
The Full Banana
not yet good enough
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2007
- Location
- Lake Mills, WI
Looking great, Mike. Love all of the nitpicky details. This almost makes me want to tinker with my car again!
Stiggy Pop
In the cool kids club
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2011
- Location
- Granville, MA
I briefly considered it but it seemed like it might be a pain... and idk that I've got a real motivating factor to do it? I was wondering yesterday if I should run the small or large water pump pulley with the underdrive pulley... anyone want to weigh in? I had been running the large but not sure if I'm slowing things down too much. Actually on that note what I really want to do is get ATI to build me a Super Damper for this thing... idk that I've seen anyone on here who has one.
If I don't keep at it you and Frasca's car's start to make mine look messy
. If I had your new garage setup I would be DYING to tinker!
- Joined
- May 11, 2007
- Location
- Niketown, OR
In my experience, cavitation begins to be a factor around 4500 RPM, even with a fancy Hepu pump. My cylinder head coolant temperature tends to steadily rise in short order while the radiator remains stable. It's one item in a long laundry list of aspects of Volvo engineering choices that don't lend themselves to quadrupling power output.
dl242gt
The world of the smiling Dogo
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2002
- Location
- S NJ, a suburb of Phila.
All that great fabrication had me thinking 'Wild with the Tig' to the tune of 'Wild in the Streets'. Thanks for that great series of photos.
Thanks for that great series of photos.
Swedbrick
Active member
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2016
- Location
- Netherlands, Source of Grolsch
I tried to patch the water pump situation by running the pump pulley as well, but it's starting to push past the mushroom seal again. It's worse when I push the rev's.
I still need to get the underdrive pulley, but if harlard is using the same smaller pulley, you could figure out the cavitation rpm.
I still need to get the underdrive pulley, but if harlard is using the same smaller pulley, you could figure out the cavitation rpm.
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On the NA 16v rally engine I ran the larger water pump pulley and a small KL Racing crank pulley. Currently the b230ft rally setup uses a stock crank pulley and large water pump, but the redline is only 6800 due to the stock springs, and even on hot rallies it never gets above 215F... so the crank pulley will be getting switched out when the rev's increase.
All of your accessories will thank you, especially your power steering pump. They really don't like spinning over 5k pump speed.
A simple trick to reduce cavitation in the pump is to drill a few small holes through the plate area of the impeller. It also helps equalize the pressure on the seals as well. This and slowing the pump down is key.
Stiggy Pop
In the cool kids club
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2011
- Location
- Granville, MA
yeah I've never had a problem with the water pump (that I've seen), but my power steering pump was always puking fluid which is what drove me to the underdrive on the crank. I only run it out to ~7k.
Yeah, the drift car was eating pumps and puking fluid until I did a 40% under drive. Haven't boiled the fluid or replaced the pump since, and it still doesn't have a return line cooler.
Swedbrick
Active member
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2016
- Location
- Netherlands, Source of Grolsch
Thanks, I'll try that once the pump is off for the new seal!
- Joined
- May 11, 2007
- Location
- Niketown, OR
Honestly it sounds like the proper solution here is electric PS and water pumps, with a big ass alternator.
Stiggy Pop
In the cool kids club
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2011
- Location
- Granville, MA
I?ll wrap this car around a tree before I put EPS in it!
- Joined
- May 11, 2007
- Location
- Niketown, OR
No sir, no EPS. Eectrically powered hydraulic pump!