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It's good to see you still working on these beasts. My dad loved the hell out of volvos and despite their crap, there was nothing like him putting the boost on this blue 1980s turbo he had out in the twisties. That thing was a beautiful beast and I wish it hadn't been lost to legal difficulties. Keep it up! I hope to be following your adventures for another year.
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| # ? Jan 7, 2012 07:16 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 08:24 |
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Looking forward to the swap, is it pretty straight forward or do you foresee lots of swearing involved?
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| # ? Jan 7, 2012 22:54 |
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leica posted:Looking forward to the swap, is it pretty straight forward or do you foresee lots of swearing involved? I'll be interested to see this as well. Taking a transverse mounted motor into a longitudinal mount on a car decades older. What could go wrong? 
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| # ? Jan 7, 2012 23:08 |
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My gearhead of an uncle always said he gauged the difficulty of jobs by how many cocksuckers and motherfuckers it took to get it finished 
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| # ? Jan 7, 2012 23:13 |
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I expect it to be fairly difficult but a) I'm patient, b) I'm a mechanical engineer and C) I'm not the first person to do a swap like this. So far there have been several documented 5 cylinder swaps, with most of them into 240s. I've seen one into a P1800 and it looked really, really good. The list of difficult custom stuff, in no particular order: Motor mounts Oil pan Exhaust manifold/exhaust Transmission and any adaptations needed Firewall mods Radiator/intercooler mounting A lot of guys complicate their swaps by trying to include power steering, power brakes, and AC. I'm not planning any of that, at least not right now. On my project, the motor goes in with no accessories but the alternator, so hopefully everything clears the steering and brake lines without radical modification.
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| # ? Jan 8, 2012 06:01 |
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LloydDobler posted:The list of difficult custom stuff, in no particular order: So what has been used in the past? I'd imagine getting an adapter bellhousing fabbed would be extremely expensive, are there any RWD Volvo transmissions that could plausibly bolt up, or are you looking at T5/T56 + $$$?
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| # ? Jan 8, 2012 18:48 |
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Just as an example, some guy in Sweden who did not go the easy route with the rear suspension...
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| # ? Jan 8, 2012 21:20 |
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Oh man, that little car with a T5 swap will be amazing to drive. You can sell whatever parts you pull off the B18 to Dr. 14 INCH.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2012 02:38 |
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Sterndotstern posted:So what has been used in the past? I'd imagine getting an adapter bellhousing fabbed would be extremely expensive, are there any RWD Volvo transmissions that could plausibly bolt up, or are you looking at T5/T56 + $$$? The two common units are a T56, for which there are plenty of adapter plates and documentation, and a Volvo M90, which is a 5 speed that came in the european 960 models from '92 thru '99. It can handle what this motor will put out or so I'm told. That's a direct bolt on, and by far the easiest to install, but you have to import one from England as they were never sold here. I've seen them occasionally for about $1200 shipped. My task for tonight actually was to research what kind of torque a Mazda Miata 5 speed can take, only because my dad has 3 or 4 of them langushing in his shop, so for the cost of shipping I could likely have a free tranny or two. Besides being cheap for me, I've heard they're one of the most buttery smooth shifters in the world. The only question would be the robustness. When the time comes I'll probably try to source the M90 and if I find one just pay whatever it takes to get it. That's what was in the link Nidhg00670000 posted. Nidhg00670000 posted:Just as an example, some guy in Sweden who did not go the easy route with the rear suspension... Whoa, that guy's nuts, and I'm not sure he's entirely going about it right. All that welding and reinforcement seems like overkill for an M90 and 240 rear end, both of which can barely take over 250HP from what I've read. The engine's about a foot back of where I'd put it, but maybe I'll find out that it has to sit back like that, I sure hope not. I think his shifter's going to end up by his hip. The great news though is that I can plainly see that I won't have any trouble clearing my steering box! Thanks for the link.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2012 04:08 |
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I think the Miata five-speed will hold about 200hp or so. And yes, the shift action of one is simply glorious.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2012 22:14 |
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IOwnCalculus posted:I think the Miata five-speed will hold about 200hp or so. And yes, the shift action of one is simply glorious. Driven reasonably, or somewhat unreasonably, they routinely hold over 250 and up to 300 reliably.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2012 22:17 |
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When I was into the whole turbo miata thing, I read around 250 is where it becomes an issue. I'd say just get the 6 speed miata trans, but if you're only picking the miata tranny based on already having it then I'd go with something else.
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| # ? Jan 9, 2012 23:50 |
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LloydDobler posted:All that welding and reinforcement seems like overkill for an M90 and 240 rear end, both of which can barely take over 250HP from what I've read. Thanks for the link. Nah, I know a guy who knows a guy that ran a 240/M90 combo with 400hp/450Nm a whole racing season, the only thing he did to it was to weld the 3rd gear stop ring. Other options include a rewelded BMW ZF gearbox;  or using an adapter plate.
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| # ? Jan 11, 2012 17:10 |
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Wild, thanks for the link and that info. I had no idea they'd hold that much power. I've also heard that if you can get a really late M90 they have the 3rd gear problem fixed already. I think I'll definitely start shopping for an M90, I'm particularly nutty about keeping it all Volvo, not sure why. I don't plan to go over 300 ft-lb with it, probably just do a larger stock turbo, large exhaust, and a mild tune that takes it to around 15 psi. Basically the same setup that's in my convertible only 1500 lb lighter. And then I'll only take it to the strip once for laughs, the rest of my driving should be cruising on the street, with the occasional mountain run.
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| # ? Jan 11, 2012 18:01 |
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Not sure why?  It's pretty obvious.
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| # ? Jan 11, 2012 18:55 |
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LloydDobler posted:I don't plan to go over 300 ft-lb with it Shouldn't be a problem, especially with a much lighter car, if you don't abuse the gently caress out of it. With an M46 on the other hand anything over 200hp is daring, and at 250hp it's just a matter of when, not if it'll break.
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| # ? Jan 11, 2012 21:03 |
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Slow progress, I had a little fun tonight. Remember earlier in the thread I had a spare, junk long block? I pulled the crank and bottom bearing cradle from it, I'm gonna try to clean the crank and turn it into a lamp or end table or something, but my real goal was to pull the bearing cradle, it's the perfect fixture for machining, shortening, and welding the oil pan.  I'll be getting the parts car home to strip it this week. I decided it was too much hassle to get it road legal and all that, I just wanna get what I want off of it and get rid of the rest. I'll be storing my convertible at work for as long as it takes me to strip the parts car. My boss is nice.
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| # ? Jan 24, 2012 06:13 |
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Saw this today and thought of you. Why yes, it is a shot taken in Italy.
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| # ? Jan 26, 2012 20:52 |
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Similarly... this just popped up on my tumblr and I thought of this thread.
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| # ? Feb 4, 2012 13:14 |
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Daww, thanks for thinking of me guys. I love pretty much any 122 stuff. The gray in that render is a factory color, one of several I'd consider painting this car if I was in a color changing kind of way. But I'm not. On with updates, I'm accumulating enough pictures for one, even though the car is still up on blocks. I paid a garage machinist $10 apiece to make me two of these shock tower bushings. I forgot to take a pic, so you get a render:  This is what it's reinforcing: Just sheetmetal, domed up a little to take the shock bushing. You're supposed to put another metal washer on top, or maybe there's supposed to be one welded on, either way it's all wallowed out oversize and cuts the shock bushings. In addition to that, with harder shocks it flexes up and down until a slug breaks out of the center.  To start, I'm using a hole saw to open the hole up, but a hole saw needs a pilot hole. So we weld a plug across the hole for the hole saw.  Then we saw a hole!  Hole sawed!  The plug fits in nicely.  My buddy ate up a lot of the bushing welding it, but I think it'll be fine.  The shirt pretty much says it all. We both work on cars way too much. That's him, not me. I can't weld for poo poo.  So I was going to surround the bushing with this reinforcing plate, but after thinking it over, I really just want the large flat area prevented from flexing, the radius area is pretty stiff now, especially with the bushing in there.  Here you can see how big the bushing is from the inside. Most of the shock force will be pushing up on that.  I was going to reinforce the control arm mounts, but after searching the internet, that seems to only be a problem on the 1800. This crossmember is very different in that area, and really beefy. So the last mod to the crossmember is to add dual brake line mounting. I know it ain't pretty, but it's going to be really hidden:  Now the crossmember is ready to go back in the car, once I paint the welded areas. I was planning on powdercoating it, but I realized while doing this that I'll probably need to weld on motor mounts for the 5 cylinder, so I'll just get it powdercoated next year after I do that. Just for the hell of it last week I decided to play with the mods for the 5 cylinder. I started with the easy part, the oil pickup tube. This pic is just of when I shortened it, it's welded now.  Then I loaded the bearing plate up on to the mill and got it positioned where I want it.  Mounted up an oil pan:  Lots of hogging later, the middle piece is free.  The nice part about doing it this way is that I can measure that I have removed exactly 91mm, which is exactly the cylinder center distance.  Slide them together and BAM! MOTHER loving 5 CYLINDER OIL PAN!  The hard part of course is welding cast aluminum without warping it all to hell and back. My welding buddy is working on researching that, we believe we have to preheat it to like 500 degrees to let it cool evenly. I'm still planning on setting it up and machining the mounting face, but it needs to be fairly close to flat as there isn't a ton of material to remove. But even if I don't weld it now, I can use these pieces to test fit the bottom of the motor into the car, to find out the ideal position front to back, etc. I can already tell I need to notch the reservoir to clear the control arm bolts. How much? I don't know for sure. The good news is that the pan holds more oil than the 5 cyl requires, so shrinking it by half a quart or so isn't going to hurt anything. Of course this has nothing to do with the car being torn down, the only thing holding me up there is that my brake backing plates are all coated with undercoat, so I need to scrape that off, but it's hard so I've been procrastinating. So my whole front suspension is ready for powdercoat except for one pair of parts. Now that the crossmember is done that's my tall pole. Oh, and of course in between all this I'm parting out my parts car. Ugh.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2012 04:48 |
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Amazon love on jalopnik today. http://jalopnik.com/nice-price-or-crack-pipe/
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| # ? Feb 27, 2012 15:28 |
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meatpimp posted:Amazon love on jalopnik today. Exactly what I thought of when I saw that.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2012 23:36 |
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LloydDobler posted:All we know is, he's called... the MIG.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2012 23:53 |
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The TIG in our case. $9500 is a good price for that car if the paintwork is restoration quality, I wouldn't sell my car for less than $7k right now, and I'm pretty sure I could get it. I don't know why it seems lately the 4 door models are becoming popular for restoration, maybe they're easier to buy cheap in good condition.
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| # ? Feb 28, 2012 14:57 |
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So this update will be the last of this series of boring updates, because the next update in about 2 weeks will be reassembling of my front end and getting the car running for the spring and summer! We left off with the oil pan freshly machined. I brought in my crossmember bolts and bushings so I could test fit it on the crossmember.  So far so good, the black line is the centerline of the crank, which I want on center when it's all mounted up. The good news here is that if I can mount the engine that far rearward, I won't have to modify the pan any further. But if I do want to mount it more forward, which I think I do, all it needs is a little clearance cut out of the reservoir. This is a smaller engine than the pan was designed for anyway, so I don't think losing a half quart of capacity will hurt me. I do know that the crossmember is basically right at the halfway point between the firewall and the radiator, and this engine is about 4 inches shorter than the open space, so I think I want it rearward as much as possible. At this point I know the engine will fit without modifying the firewall or relocating the radiator!  So then I brought in my 960 motor mount brackets, wondering if they would fit well. No such luck. But they are a great template for the bolt patterns, and it looks like if I wanted to I could use the factory motor mount locations on the crossmember. But look at all that space! I'll be able to use the factory alternator location and don't have to worry about the upper control arm locations or the steering box.  The next big batch of work I did since last time was finish cleaning the last parts to be painted. These had undercoat on them, and the only thing I could make work was a heat gun and a scraper. I finished them with solvent but as for the thick undercoating it wouldn't touch it. I spent over an hour on each of these.  Here's the rest of the parts, all the brake mounting plates and shock mounts etc. I took these along with my front sway bar out to a powdercoating shop today. So that's underway!  I decided that I'm probably going to either weld reinforce the existing motor mounts, or I'm going to make entirely new ones when it's time for the motor swap. So I elected to not powdercoat the crossmember. I did find a primer that kinda matches its color, so that'll do until next year when I have the engine mounting dialed in.  Here you can see the result of my machined bushing. It fits the new bushings I bought for my shocks like a glove.  So I bought enough bushings and washers for all 4 shocks.  I really like the blue, again you can see it's a perfect fit on the shock.  The old bushings were cut up and worn out due to improper installation and age.  So on to the parts car. Motor removal was stalled last week by very stubborn axle nuts. First, we sheared off the rotor retaining bolt. So I threw two lugnuts in it and proceeded to break every 1/2" drive wrench and breaker in my garage.  All craftsman, all already replaced under warranty.  I borrowed an air impact, and while it took two tries and a refilling of my compressor, it did get both nuts off. This one went slow all the way to the last thread. I think an impact is definitely on my christmas list now.  This was the next step, charging the batteries for my cordless sawzall, which I still may need because even though the nut is off, the passenger halfshaft is stuck in the hub. Fortunately all the CV joints are worn out on this car so the shafts are useless, and I can just chop them up.  So this is where the motor sits. Wire harness removed and labeled, all but two motor mounts removed, and basically ready to pull except for the drat halfshafts. Next sunday should see the motor out.  Next update should be a very pretty update.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2012 05:49 |
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Progress is progress, and it's always an awesome thing to see. Not boring at all!
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| # ? Mar 16, 2012 16:38 |
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I couldn't imagine wanting to cut an axle with a cordless sawsall. I have a milwaukee that won't last 5 minutes. I think grinder would be your best bet to cut through the solid steel.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2012 21:43 |
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Yeah, cordless recip saws are battery hogs. Seconding the grinder.IOwnCalculus posted:Not boring at all! Except this part: 
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| # ? Mar 17, 2012 01:26 |
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Your friend needs to back off on the amperage just a bit on that mild steel. That washer shouldn't have undercut completely away like that. The penetration on the other side looks fine though. More rod, more speed, less heat. When you weld that oil pan pre-heat it in an oven to around 100 degrees and take it out and wire wheel the poo poo out of it. It's going to be oily and smell bad. You are just trying to get some oil to start flowing to the surface during this process. A cotton bonded grinding wheel will clean up the surface quite a bit and should be able to cut a bevel all the way down both sides of the joint. Try for a single root pass then a two-row cover pass if this is your friends first time welding cast aluminum. The weld face will probably be gross looking and oily. Use a sanding wheel (I prefer cotton bonded again for aluminum) and grind off the weld face and do another pass if the first fails a visual inspection. The good news is that the oil pan is under like no stress really and this is an easy way to learn how to weld cast. Edit: I almost forgot, you can preheat the piece if you want. I've done the whole pre-heat thing on cast and I've had mixed results. ultimateforce fucked around with this message at Mar 17, 2012 around 15:30 |
| # ? Mar 17, 2012 15:26 |
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I'd wished I talked to my buddy before he started welding them, he was half done before I saw it. He's been doing tig for about 2 years but someone early on told him it's some sign of a real pro if you can do it without any filler at all. So he always tries to weld without rod and just ate away the material on purpose instead of using filler. As for the preheat, my biggest concern is minimizing the warp, because the one horror story you hear about rear wheel drive 5 cylinder conversions is the oil pan leaks from heavy warping. Does preheat reduce that like I've been told? I'm going to run the pans through an industrial hot washer as well before we get started on welding. Thanks for the input. Our first step is to get a craigslist oven that we can gently caress up with oily car parts. hehe. Bucephalus posted:Except this part: Hehe. Bad one, but I like bad ones. So, good one. LloydDobler fucked around with this message at Mar 18, 2012 around 05:44 |
| # ? Mar 18, 2012 05:41 |
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I would think if it was bolted to a scrap block/torque plate, it would help reduce any movement.
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| # ? Mar 18, 2012 12:20 |
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^ I was thinking the same, bolt/properly torque it to the same bearing plate he used as a milling fixture.
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| # ? Mar 18, 2012 12:30 |
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You'd be surprised how much internal stress gets relieved when you weld. A volvo club member here tried this a couple years ago, and the shop did zero preheat, bolted to a bearing girdle, and when they unbolted it, it sprung back 1/4". So I'm trying to avoid that.
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| # ? Mar 18, 2012 17:46 |
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LloydDobler posted:I'd wished I talked to my buddy before he started welding them, he was half done before I saw it. He's been doing tig for about 2 years but someone early on told him it's some sign of a real pro if you can do it without any filler at all. So he always tries to weld without rod and just ate away the material on purpose instead of using filler.  LloydDobler posted:As for the preheat, my biggest concern is minimizing the warp, because the one horror story you hear about rear wheel drive 5 cylinder conversions is the oil pan leaks from heavy warping. Does preheat reduce that like I've been told? I'm going to run the pans through an industrial hot washer as well before we get started on welding. Preheating the material is going to keep the piece from rapidly expanding which is going to cause the warping. But the devil is in the details because it also depends a lot on your technique. I didn't want to say do it this way or do it that way without seeing the thickness and condition of the material. Your friend does know you NEED to add filler to aluminum right? LloydDobler posted:Thanks for the input. Our first step is to get a craigslist oven that we can gently caress up with oily car parts. hehe. If you have an oxy acyl. torch set the flame for full acyl. and no oxygen. Puff that black smoke all over the cast aluminum. Set the torch for a neutral flame (no smoke) and burn off the soot. Let the material sit five minutes with no fan on it. Ta-da you preheated cast aluminum. Prepare to get the poo poo burned out of you.
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| # ? Mar 18, 2012 20:49 |
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I think he knows we have to use filler on this because the parts don't line up, the material is about 3/16" thick and it's offset a tiny bit over one material thickness when butted together. So it's like two fillet welds, one on the inside and one on the outside. He wants to weld from the inside first so he can finish on the outside and leave it beautiful. I told him to just get it sealed and if it's ugly I'll grind it flat. It's on the bottom of the motor over the crossmember, you couldn't see it even on a lift, so I give no poo poo about the cosmetics. I know how to specify welding but as far as actual technique I know nothing, so I'll be glad to take any other specific advice you have, and won't be offended at all if you want to dumb it all the way down. From there I can smooth it over and force him to do it that way in person. So using the oxy method gets it nice and hot and it doesn't cool off too quickly? If so we do have a torch right there and could do that. And I am planning to machine the pan face, I just don't want to have to take off more than .020 or .030 to get it flat again. Thanks again for the feedback.
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| # ? Mar 18, 2012 23:06 |
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The outside is NOT going to be beautiful in one pass. It's oil soaked cast aluminum. He'll see what I mean after he tries it. Ah, inexperience.  But yeah, you can soot the surface then burn the black off to get it preheated. Just make sure you move the torch around evenly as you do it. Don't make one spot hotter than any others if possible. It will be a little too hot at this point to weld without the cast turning to goop so wait five minutes or so. This is a good time to lay out the torch setup and filler rods. If he really wants to do an inside pass (which is not required here) he could do it like this.  Although it can be accomplished in one pass with the pan securely bolted to the block with plenty of penetration. The oil pan just has to hold oil. It's not like it supports the engine.
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| # ? Mar 19, 2012 00:01 |
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I can't really stress enough. You can do this in one pass with very little heat and the pan bolted to the block. All you are doing is sealing the two pieces together to hold oil. Don't over do this!
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| # ? Mar 19, 2012 00:02 |
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So it's more just "filling the seam" than actually "fusing the pieces"?
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| # ? Mar 19, 2012 09:17 |
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Well you are fusing them together regardless but yeah. Just trying to hold oil here.
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| # ? Mar 19, 2012 09:20 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 08:24 |
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Gotcha. Makes sense.
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| # ? Mar 19, 2012 09:41 |
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