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Hackster's LSA / T56 2 door

Took another day off on Saturday to go play in the woods, epic day in the snow, the little JK does shockingly well, big front bumper and low ride height had me pushing snow with the grille at times. My buddies are both on 37's and the Toyota owns the snow.





We were in feet of snow on the trails it was so awesome. Aired down to 12 PSI and was suprised at where a mostly stock rubicon would go.

Sunday I worked on this old **** box again.

Started off the day by tackling the Roll Steer Correction kit from Kaplenkhe Racing. Sure wish there would have been instructions somewhere for this stuff, I looked all over the place for them, the forums, the website but no go. I had some mock up arms from Ben with bad castings before so I could get things bolted up.

Pretty sure this is how they should be assembled...if I am wrong please say so.



Passenger side went on without a hitch, just ****ty doing it on the car.

When I got to the drivers side is where I ran into a little snag. I had 3 of the stock bolts holding on the temporary arms as one of them is a bitch to get in. When I went to install the new arms and use the supplied bolts I found that they would not thread all the way in to the bolt holes. So everything back apart and run a tap up into the strut on the car, upside down with a 1/4" wrench on the tap as its too close to the rotor assembly to get anything in there other than just the tap.

I was pretty irritated with it but its done. Wish that they had just done that at JRZ or Ben's before sending them out.



Took care of securing the brake fail switch wire and getting it heat wrapped, re routed the clutch cable and extended the knock sensor wiring to avoid the exhaust all together and got it all secured and installed.

Had the wife come out and help me for a few hours with brakes. Got the brakes bled, fixed one small leak and have a nice firm pedal. Ill be curious to see how these work but everything seems to be functioning at this point.



Ran out of fluid so the clutch has to wait till tonight.

Should be able to put this thing on the ground really soon.

Going to figure out something for a stereo in it just to have some tunes. I am thinking about how to integrate just a bluetooth connection instead of a conventional radio.....
 
I have the roll correction spacers on my '87 autocross car. They were annoying to install with the car on the floor (on jack stands). We used socket head cap screws on the initial installation and they were difficult to tighten with an allen wrench, without being able to see the bolt head. I forget why lying on the floor wasn't easier, but I remember it being frustrating overall. Bne didn't have a lift at the time...it would probably be easier now in his shop with the lift. Had to bash in the stock dust shield next to the brake rotor, too. Install instructions would be nice for the general population. ;-) (checked pics, I definitely went back and replaced the SHCSs with the flanged hex head bolts w/nordlock washers)

We started out with the tie rod ends in the inner most hole for the fastest steering, but it felt too quick. I think we may have autocrossed it like that once. Because it's not forged, I wasn't going to hammer on the steering arm to knock the tie rod out. Bought a pickle fork and promptly ripped the boot on a new'ish tie rod end. I think I sacrificed a nut on the other side and hammered it out with the nut spun on upside down almost down to where the hammer would hit the flat tip of the threaded stud portion of the tie rod end. I had supported the steering arm with a jack stand as I hammered down on the tie rod end. Nervous. I like how easy it is to knock a tie rod out of a stock steering arm. These...not so easy. I don't have a press and really don't want to have to remove them from the car entirely, either. If I'm replacing the tie rod ends and don't care about the boots, then the pickle fork works fine.
 
www.bneshop.com/files/240QSRC.pdf is where the instructions are and I sent them to Sean in a message earlier... im sure this post wouldn't be updated so ill just do it.

Ben did send these over to me on Monday morning in a facebook message. I had questions regarding the Ackerman setup as well since they were not included in the instructions. Sorry for not updating the thread with the instructions Ben, I just feel like it should be something I could have easily gotten on your website, when in reality its not.

Which front end setup are you going to be running on this car (hood, lights, grille, etc)?

Current setup will be coffin hood and quad squares. I will eventually get an early single round setup and flat hood.

Apparently I thought I had more room between the bleed screw and the floor boards than I actually do. But the good news is that when you have some minimal tools you can build about anything so I whipped this up, its a chopped down 7/16" socket welded to some 1/8" flat bar and it worked amazing.





Had the neighbor come over and give me a hand for 30 mins or so got fluid in the clutch and got it bled. Actually bled out pretty easy too. Open, push pedal down close, did that about 10 times, refilled master 3 or 4 times and then pump and pump and pump, we got the air worked out of it in short order and had a functional clutch. This setup works really well so far. Quiet operation too.

Aside from a few bolts I need to swap on the rear suspension that puts me about buttoned up underneath the car. Adjusted the suspension down to see where this thing is going to sit. I have more room to go but I had to see it on the ground for the first time all assembled.







I just dont hate this view either.



only thing left to add is coolant at this point, brakes are bled, clutch is bled and functional, waiting for Tailights from Sweden and can start working on the grille and headlights now.

Gottta locate an e38 manual ECU and can start tuning on it :)

Sean
 
The folks at PSI Conversions supplied me with an E38 complete with VATS removed and disabling the usual suspects - rear O2’s, purge valve, etc.
 
The car looks badass!!

Thanks a bunch, its getting there.

No time last week to really work on the car or get parts, ran and got some stuff Saturday morning and worked on a cleaner way to route the vacuum from the throttle body over to the brake booster. Little bit of 1/2" stainless tubing and some 3/4" and came up with this. My tig welding isnt good and its taking a lot of ****ing up but a few of these are ok.





Scott at STS got a new bad ass 3d printer and whipped these up for me to test it out the new machine, turned out killer.

Not sure which one is going to go on but its a super subtle look.



Got the intercooler setup all filled up with water wetter, antifreeze and distilled water and got it all bled. Got the cooling system all filled up by pulling the upper radiator hose and the steam line, filled the engine and the radiator, ran the engine till operating temps and bled the air out and git it back in one piece. Then I pulled it out of the shop for the first time on its own fully functioning.


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pERt9uM4hyg" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>



Interior looks pretty killer out in the daylight.

Going to work on headlights, grille and hood in the next few weeks.

Cheers to a runner!!!
 
Yeah, that sounds ****in rad. Definitely puts the brakes on the whole "sleeper" thing though lol

I can't wait to see this thing fully finished and tearing up the track. Well done sir &#55357;&#56397;&#55357;&#56397;&#55357;&#56397;&#55357;&#56397;&#55357;&#56397;
 
Took a couple of days off last week for the first time since October of last year. Got a much needed deep clean done in the shop and got rid of lots of stuff. Felt great.

Built a bunch of new storage stuff to hang on the walls a bunch of tig welded ****. Getting a little better on the TIG but still have a tough time feeding the filler and getting consistent results. I can fuse **** together and get halfway good results.

I have to give a shoutout to the twins, they have provided me with a ton of good parts for this old **** box.

Picked up a single round grille and headlight setup from them last week and went to town getting everything cleaned up, prepped and painted.

I would like to get the spring buckets zinc plated but my rebuilders cast is going to have to work for the time being.













I had a little snafu on the drivers side. The spring bucket hit the end of the filter so I cut a 3/8" out of the middle and TIG welded it back up. Turned out pretty good for thin sheetmetal but welded.





Built a new wire harness for the drivers side and got it all installed but have yet to drop the grille or passenger side headlight in.

Messed around with straightening a ****ty flathood saturday afternoon and did a little bit of bodywork on it on sunday. Its not going to be great but should be ok for the car. I am no bodyman.

Aside from painting and installing the hood, grille and headlights I am pretty much mechanically buttoned up. Waiting on the tuner at this point.

Happy Monday.

Sean
 
Well, been super busy with work and not much progress on the car the last few weeks.

I had been given a pretty messed up hood from the twins a while back to test and see if it would clear the blower and with just a little massaging of the bracing under the hood it actually did fit.

So I messed around a bit with it. Passenger side had been bent by trying to close the hood with stuck hood hinges. It collapsed the sheetmetal where the hood bolted to the hinges and put a good bit of a bend in the hood. I built a big bar with the hood bolt pattern and got the hood straight with some help of a buddy and we got creative to pull out all of the dent on the bottom of the hinge section. Getting better.

I kept going and did a little hammer and dolly work on the hood to get it ok, then slapped some body filler on it after sanding down most of the maroon off of it. Jeep in mind, its a really rough hood.



This was about as much as I wanted to do at home, so made a call to a friend who has a friend with a booth.

We scheduled for Saturday for us to be able to work in there.

A little more sanding, we shot some self etch on the bare metal spots.



Then I shot it with some super build primer and got to sanding.....I am without a doubt no body or paint guy so if you are look away, I am just learning this ****.



Sanded with 220 and 320 with a long board to get it as flat as we cared to.....the rest of the car is rough and a perfect hood would not fit well at all. We got it better than I originally had planned.

Cleaned, wiped down and shot some sealer on it.



Just in a t shirt and shorts with a respirator on and shot this. Its OMNI single stage. We got close with a color from Industrial Finishes and I tinted it with some base white to get it as close as I could at home.

Its got stuff in the paint and some sanding scratches from not going to 400 but all in all it turned out pretty good.





I laid down a good amount of paint on the hood knowing that it was going to need some color sanding and buffing. I think I did 1 light and 3 wet coats on the hood.

We let it dry overnight in the booth (No heat but 67 degrees inside temps).

Got to it the next morning and hit it with 1500 to get the **** and scratches out of the hood. It sanded good once you got through the top layer of paint. Didnt go overboard on the sanding so you can see the little nips int he fluorescent lights but considering what I was into the hood and its color matched I am pretty happy.

Ran the buffer over it and brought it home.



The front of the car had received a crappy repaint at some point in the past. Scott shot me an add for a beige car out in the gorge and I met up with the guy last week to snag some parts off of it. Driver side is perfect, its a dead on match for the car paint and finish. So I got to work swapping my better old ****ty fenders onto the car once the hood was done.

Seems as though I like going backwards eh?





I am glad I did this though as I discovered my tire was actually going to hit the firewall pinch weld at full lock so it got some massaging while I was in there.

New Fenders going on. They are so much better than the ones that were on the car.





First time seeing it all bolted together. Hoods far from perfect but fits with the car. Was a bitch getting it aligned and the drivers rear is still a little bit high.





Had to modify the fender roller to work with the lower ride height...



Rolling the new fender, still have the passenger side to do but should be able to get that all buttoned up tonight.

Non rolled and pulled...



Rolled and pulled. I measured the non rolled and pulled on the floor next to the rolled and pulled one and I have gained about 1.5" of total tire clearance, only downside is the gap at the bottom of the door to fender doesnt line up as the metal gets pulled in a little bit.





Tail lights are stuck in transit, gotta get the rest of the frontend buttoned up, bumper on, adjust some toe and get the passenger headlight wired up.

Got word that the wheels have been machined and were heading to powder coat last Wednesday, should be no problem to make Davis and LSFest.
 
So I have the same roller and tried to roll the rear fenders on my 92 wagon. No chance, bent the arm trying. Are the sedans double folded also? I just wound up cutting and then painting. I have rolled plenty of fenders on all types of cars, have never come across ones as thick as these vulvas.
 
So I have the same roller and tried to roll the rear fenders on my 92 wagon. No chance, bent the arm trying. Are the sedans double folded also? I just wound up cutting and then painting. I have rolled plenty of fenders on all types of cars, have never come across ones as thick as these vulvas.

It doesnt work on the rear.
 
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