Since my last post I actually paid a mechanic for the first time in years. But the V70R runs perfect. My cars now all just have little things that need attention here and there, but none of the looming disaster that has kept me from touching this car for the last 2 years. I'm back baby!
So in March, I made some progress. My welder friend forced me to do something on the 122. We organized my garage a little and then pulled the engine out of the car. I'm going to rework the engine mounts while that's out. I didn't get any photos of that.
but I did bolt the transmission to my spare cradle and oil pan. We slid it in and jacked up the tailshaft:
Trimmed the firewall up a little more...
And pow. The engine and trans now sits exactly where I want it, I think. And it's nicely supported with that prybar so I can roll the car around and even jack it up to design the transmission mount.
Plenty of firewall clearance, and nicely parallel.
The tailshaft is low enough that it doesn't look like I'll have to modify the rest of the driveshaft tunnel like I thought I might.
One thing is very clear though, the wide oil pan and fat transmission mean there is no way the engine will go in or out with the transmission installed. I'll probably have to have an access panel for the upper bellhousing bolts, and I need to make sure the tunnel accommodates sliding the transmission back out of the clutch. It might not even go in with the pressure plate and flywheel installed. Worst case there is I drop the front crossmember every time I want to do an engine in/out. That's not the worst thing in the world, and I shouldn't want to do that more than a couple times.
Next, I finished the design of the crossmember and transmission mount. And I bought the rubber mount itself, going with a stock 960 mount just because it was designed for it.
Hard to see, but I got the bolt hole locations right, the angles right, and I was indeed able to use the factory crossmember mounting holes, so no extra fab on the car.
So with that I went ahead and had my motor and transmission mount plates waterjet cut along with the throttle pulley and cable bracket.
Got the transmission mount all bent up:
It was tough to bend which is a good thing, but easy to keep straight and tweak slightly simply putting it in a vise and shoving.
Throttle pulley:
One bend for the idle screw:
Roll pins holding it together temporarily, I'll have it welded when I'm ready to finish everything.
Cable bracket for the factory cable:
After bending.
And it works!
Might have to grind some clearance for the upper flange bolt:
Might have to grind some clearance for this spring, but so far it works fine.
Cable fits perfectly:
And lines up perfectly:
Don't know why the pic is upside down but I nailed it on the bolt pattern, fits like a glove.
I'll reinforce those thin sections around the mount and gusset the bends, and weld fill the slots when this is all said and done. Hopefully the part won't warp and change the bolt pattern. Next is to make a block to receive the trans mount bolt and locate it in the other plate I made, hidden in the shadows. Then it's on to motor mounts. If I could weld my own stuff this would all move a lot faster.
I decided to start over on the motor mounts, using steel instead of aluminum and fixturing and marking all the parts on my mock-up in the car. Then I'm going to only tack the parts and test fit so I don't make the same mistake I made last time. (fully welding the mounts in the wrong orientation).
Anyway, after a long hiatus I'm making real progress towards getting this thing back on the road. At one point last year I almost put it up for sale, and I just can't do it. So the only way to go is forward.