HA!
Who of us hasn't said that?? (except maybe those who already have these things....)
(';')

 

My retirement present to myself. Paid for itself many times over!

 

Yeah, Greg, but I meant, and I thought Thomas did too, a Real Lift, as in 2 post variety, that lifted the Whole Car well off the floor so a person can get Under it.

My favorite Muffler Shop has one ya drive on, no need to try finding lift points.
I bet they just gave that to him for a dollar two-ninety-eight and a keg if Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
Hard to do suspension on it though.
DRAT!
(';')

 

I think he has one LNR - it's blue and the same color as his walls.....

 

<teehee> And that's why Greg is showing off his Roomy shop WITH HIS 2 POST LIFT!
(';')

 

When I visit France I'm planning on spending a week at Chateau Greg-In-France so I can help work on cars, tinker in the farm, and enjoy the peaceful countryside.

 

You are very welcome, Thomas; but I fear my dusty old barn will shame me compared with your pristine workshop!

Meanwhile; back at the dusty barn, sadly my XJS has developed a collapsed front LHS jacking point. Mercifully the A post it connects to is OK. So this is in my near future (not my car, but a photo from Just XJS's useful guide to XJS rust): https://www.justxjs.com/admin/resour...why-part-1.pdf

Mercifully I should not have to cut back anything like this amount of body.

 

OH NO!!
We'll all know where you are for the next while, Greg.
(';')

 

I've had a busy week at work and haven't been able to get into the garage much, but this afternoon I was able to head back out. First up was welding studs to the dowel pins so I could pull them. Today I went 2 for 2.


Here is the engine to transmission adapter in all its glory, before it gets bolted to the block.


This is the adapter that fits onto the end of the crankshaft.


The instructions call it a flywheel but it's really more of a flexplate in my book. Whatever name you call it, this bolts through the adapter into the crankshaft.


I learned that I don't have bolts long enough to bolt the flex plate to the crankshaft so I'll need to pick some up before I can go farther on this.

 

Today I learned the Will Call desk at McMaster Carr is open on Sundays, so I was able to pick up some 7/16-20 x 1" bolts to hold the business end of the engine together.

Note the Transmission, Engine, Transmission naming on the flex plate. I read the instructions and got confused on which way this should face. This is important later...


Here is the torque converter before install. This was the point I added a quart of ATF and sloshed it all around.


Even working by myself, the new transmission went home fairly easily. There are two large dowels and once you line those up the bolts go right in. My transmission jack came in handy again and if I amortize the cost over using it to drop the rear cage in my XJS and XJ6 and now the transmission in the Mark VII it comes out to about $50 per use.


If you're eagle eyed you might notice the large gap between the flexplate/flywheel and the torque converter. I suspect that's not supposed to be there and I didn't have time to check the instructions. On the Quarterbreed kit I put in my XJS there are spacers that take up the gap but I'm starting to question if I put the flexplate in backwards. More to come on that.

On a different note, I think I decided the final course of action I want to take on the water pump plate. The final cut of parts is complete and I hope to have an update on that in the next few days.

 

Tonight I was able to remove the heater box from the car. Whoever put it in last time used an excessive amount of silicon to seal it in place and it took me a few days of using putty knives and hacksaw blades to free it.

I was able to extract the heater core and thought the tag on it was pretty cool.
When I pick my fuel tanks up from the radiator shop this week and I'll have them test this.


Back to the issue at hand - the weird spacing between the flywheel and torque converter. It's right about 3/8" of space between the two.


The only thing I could think of doing was pulling it apart and looking at everything. I decided to remove the washers between the flex plates and the bolts holding it in place, but that didn't affect the outcome.
I looked at flipping the flywheel around the other way but then the starter pinion wouldn't engage the flywheel.


I emailed Johns Cars this morning with pictures and details and I'll see what they say.

 

Thorsen
I do not quite understand the problem. Is it that the TC will somehow not bolt up directly against the flexplate and you need large spacers? Or is it that if it does, somehow the positioning of the TQ etc in the bellhousing/gearbox casing or adaptor plate is somehow wrong?

 

If the torque converter is fully seated on the transmission input shaft, and if the transmission is bolted to the adapter plate which is bolted to the block - the torque converter is about 3/8" too far to the rear. If I slide the torque converter 3/8" forward it will not be fully seated on the transmission. I drew a crude picture showing the problem.

I could place 3/8" spacers between the flywheel and torque converter, effectively taking up the free space. But I worry that would leave the nose of the torque converter unsupported. I'm talking with John's Cars about it - we'll see what they say.

 

Understood. I would not really like spacers, as the bolts would have quite some moment on them, it seems to me compared with the TC being bolted up tight directly. Maybe get 3/16ths machined off the adaptor plate and 3/16ths off the casing ?

As you say, see what JC says.

 

Yeah I've never seen a torque converter with that kind of spacing either.
Normally one had *Just* enough space to get an end wrench in to undo the bolts; sometimes a very Thin wrench.
It does seem a bit, um, Airy.
(';')

 

Tonight was a busy night in the garage. With the transmission in place I was able to measure for a driveshaft. 55.5" was the magic number and I'll drop by my local driveline shop tomorrow and see if they can whip one up for me.



The the UPS man came and brought me some goodies. I had SendCutSend cut Version 3 of the water pump blanking plate. This one is .5" thick and sports a 1.4844" diameter hole in the middle, which ...


... is the exact size hole you need for a 1-1/4" NPT tap. Because...


...I picked up a 90° 1-1/4" NPT to 1-1/4" hose barb elbow.


If you go from left to right in the picture, version 1 has a -20 AN bung welded to the plate, with a 90° AN adapter and a hose barb fitting.
In the middle is version 2 that has a plate with a -16 AN hose bung welded to a 45° stub. There is a 45° AN adapter and a hose barb fitting.
On the right is version 3 as detailed above.

You can see that version 3 is much more compact and takes up up 1.5" less space than version 1.


I also had a spacer plate made. This goes between the timing cover and version 3 of the plate to allow more room for water to travel into the engine block.


The spacer plate in place.


After that I turned my attention to the alternator mounts I had cut from 1/4" steel.


I need longer bolts and some spacers but I'm happy with how these turned out.
I only need 3 but I had a 4th one cut just in case.


The mount for the tensioner/idler pulley also arrived.


I had to trim it to make it it fit and lost the lower mounting hole but I think it will be ok.


I ended up going with the automatic tensioner for the belt. This will make life easier.


There is a good range of motion available with the tensioner.


I have been dragging my feet on replacing the motor mounts. One, I wanted to make sure I was done lowering the engine and stressing the mounts.
Two, I don't trust today's rubber replacement parts because it seems to be of inferior quality. But sometimes you have to play with the ball you have.

Old ones on top, new ones on bottom. The old ones were completely shot and had to be replaced.

 

Superb work, Thorsen. Creative too. Congratulations.

 

Ya know, Thomas, it's just so too bad that ya haven't got a Kloo what you're doing, what you want to accomplish, or how the <bleep> yer gonna get there.

I'm thinking, the deal with "modern" rubber parts, cars have become disposable items. Why make parts that will last 40 years if they only need to last 5 at the outside?
(';')

 

This morning I swung by the Driveshaft shop and they think tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to pick up my new driveshaft. We shall see.

The goal tonight was to connect the transmission shift linkage. The instructions for this were slightly confusing and lacked any pictures. I found if you read the section a couple of times then start laying pieces out you can make sense of it. These were the pieces I was working with tonight.



The instructions sat you need to flip this piece 180° so it's on the engine side.


A better view of the piece that needs to be flipped.


Under the car I got all the pieces in the right place. The Z plate is on the right and needed a new hole drilled. That would have been much easier without the transmission installed by a 90° drill and a short bit took car of that.
The shephard's crook goes through the U bracket on the transmission selector shaft.
The short piece of metal on the shephard's crook connects to the new gear selector shaft supplied in the kit. The other end attaches to the piece we flipped 180° above.


All things considered it's a simple yet functional arrangement. I was impressed.

I did hear from John's Cars who advised to make spacers between the fly wheel and the torque converter. This is the same arrangement the V12 kit in the XJS uses so I think it will be OK for my 6.

I also decided I was going to make a push to get the car mechanically ready for the South Alabama British Car Show in about 2 months. I've been doing the Chicago - Fairhope AL drive for the past 4 years and while I had planned on saving this car for next year, I think I have a chance and being done and getting enough shake-down miles in time. We'll see as I'm not interested in taking short-cuts that are going to leave me stranded with a sick car in Eastabuchie Mississippi.

 

It was almost exactly 24 hours between dropping the yoke and flange off at the driveline shop, to having a custom made drive shaft in my garage.
They didn't beat their previous records on my XJ6 of having it done the same day, but that's still excellent service.



The center bearing support / emergency brake bridge did have to come out for space.
I'll fabricate a way to mate up the emergency brake cable.


By then the UPS man dropped over the spacers and 3 bolts I needed to mount the alternator.


The aluminum spacers align the piggyback pieces and the whole assembly is a perfect fit.


With all the pieces in place I was able to measure the belt length I needed. It came out to right at 50".
I am cheating a little by leaving some adjustment at the alternator. This will help me fine-tune everything.