2000 replies to this topic

[kakabox]

...here's the brace all tacked up!


The brace was taken off and fully welded & trimmed...here's the brace weighing in at a feathery 2 lbs.


...final fit up:


Inside the car, the floor plate. The upstanding flange will be attached to a diagonal tube off of the rear shock tower brace, further stiffening the attachment:


Next up, welding in the rear shock tower brace.

Cheers!

Edited by kakabox, 16 April 2006 - 10:34 PM.

[lxndr]

I'm amazed at how you can get your parts so clean using just a toothbrush. It must have taken you HOURS to get through all that undercoating!

[shauno]

This is by far my favourite post!

Well done.

[kakabox]

I'm amazed at how you can get your parts so clean using just a toothbrush. It must have taken you HOURS to get through all that undercoating!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I use a wire toothbrush...makes for bloody gums, but clean teeth!

[lxndr]

...makes for bloody gums, but clean teeth!  

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

BARF!!!

Edited by lxndr, 03 April 2006 - 12:51 AM.

[pmpicci]

Just cleaned up my engine block this weekend. I intended on using a crap-load of solvent, but grabbed a bottle of the super-clean wheel cleaner after reading this thread over the past couple months. Bathed the block in dirty solvent like normal and scrubbed like crazy. Instead of washing down with clean solvent numerous times, though, I gave the wheel cleaner a shot. Holy crap. It worked 100 times better than the solvent at getting off the baked on oil. That dark brown color usually takes a lot of elbow grease and laquer thinner. A shot of wheel cleaner and some light scrubbing with a toilet bowl brush or potato scrubber and the Al was blinding me. Ok, maybe not that clean, but thanks kakabox. Saved me from losing 2 more points off my IQ from the fumes.

[C8V6C]

Those braces are clean....good job

[kakabox]

Saved me from losing 2 more points off my IQ from the fumes.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Cool, glad I could help you save some of your grey matter!

Cheers!

[3gpoolman]

Wow just finished your 14 pages on this thread and I never realized how much crap I wanted to do to my car. Thank for incresing my work load a hundred fold. excellent work and can't wait to see some ax times this summer.

[strudel]

May attempt a PHB alteration but not as you and I had discussed. Since I am not racing, yet, I may just cut the bar in half and weld in something similar to a tie rod end to adjust the bar in and out. Hopefully that will solve the tire rub on the left side and may not have to roll the fender after all. That way I keep the ES bushings and will deal with the strengthening issue later. JS

[kakabox]

May attempt a PHB alteration but not as you and I had discussed. Since I am not racing, yet, I may just cut the bar in half and weld in something similar to a tie rod end to adjust the bar in and out. Hopefully that will solve the tire rub on the left side and may not have to roll the fender after all. That way I keep the ES bushings and will deal with the strengthening issue later. JS

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Cool...I'll be doing the same to my stock phb. Lxndr gave me a Mazda 626 rear toe link (iirc) w/a "jack-screw" (one end rh threads, the other lh threads) adjuster attached. I think we showed it to you when you were at my shop...? Anywhooo, I'll cut this adjuster out of the Mazda link and weld it into the 3g phb...and BAM! adjustable phb! As usual, I'll post pics and write up!

I'll use this on the 'box until I get my rpr adj phb...

Cheers!

[strudel]

MX3 probably has the same setup. I just didn't think at the time to take it off the rear of the one and only one in the Chilliwack Pick your Part. My parts guy said I should be able to pick one up cheap for many US made cars.

He showed me a part that would work. All you need to do is weld threaded rod onto each side and this affair scews on and has clamps to tighten against the rod. Simple mechanism but will look in the JY for something that might work better. JS

[Aren D.]

Yeah that PH brace is really sweet, and I like how you are makeing most of the braces bolt on, insted of weld.

[kakabox]

Yeah that PH brace is really sweet, and I like how you are makeing most of the braces bolt on, insted of weld.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks.
The bolt on braces are a little harder to design & fab, and tend to be a little heavier, but I like that I can easily remove them for whatever reason. The rear shock tower brace will be a true weld in, however. I'll be starting that project this week.

Edited by kakabox, 04 April 2006 - 10:50 AM.

[kakabox]

Adjustable OEM Panhard Bar

Assuming that I'll have the KAKABOX finished before I get my rpr adj phb, I decided to make my own from the factory phb. I'll use this until the rpr bar arrives.

Much thanks to lxndr for donating a Mazda 626 rear toe link to the effort.


I used the "jackscrew" portion of this link. The jackscrew has a left hand threaded barrel end, and a right hand threaded barrel end. When the two ends are stationary and the center "screw" is turned, the ends move further apart or closer together, depending on the direction of rotation. The jackscrew will be installed in the factory phb, making it's length adjustable.

It took me ~1.5 hrs of sawing, and grinding, and making sparks and metal chips to liberate the jackscrew portion of the link...much care was taken so as to not chowder the threaded barrels!




lxndr had previously measured the center location of the jackscrew on his OPM adj phb and marked his old phb w/the locn before he graciously donated it to the project (kudos again to lxndr ) The OPM jackscrew centerline is ~7 3/8" from the center of the axle end bushing...here I mark the bar for sectioning:


...and the phb sectioned:


Next step was fitting the Mazda jackscrew. I wanted to make sure the centerline of the screw was approximately at the CG of the phb cross section (don't want any eccentricity for the axial load at the jackscrew joint). The threaded ends nested perfectly into the phb cross section...almost like it was made for it!


Then the flange of the bar was cut back to allow for a better welded joint:


...and then the threaded ends were welded in:


...BAM! Adjustable phb:




Note: While making this adj phb, I had the luxury of having two factory bars, one w/ES urethane bushings, and one w/the factory rubber. I noticed that the ES phb bushings weren't as hard as I thought they should be, and that the factory rubber was harder than I thought it would be. So, I did a little stiffness comparsion by inserting a long bolt thru the steel bushing insert and applied a bending moment.

To my surprise, the factory rubber bushings actually seemed stiffer than the ES urethane bushings in this somewhat un-scientific test! The steel insert was much tighter in the factory rubber bushings and did not squirm or move at all within the rubber...whereas in the urethane bushings, the steel insert squirmed and appeared to deflect more under load.

The differences were somewhat subtle, but, IMO the ES urethane phb bushings do not appear to be any stiffer than the factory rubber bushings and are probably not worth the trouble to install unless the factory ones are worn out.

Cheers!

Edited by kakabox, 09 December 2009 - 10:27 AM.