Not much to report through the week here.

Powdercoated a bunch of parts and I started researching what I want to do with my differential / transmission.

Rear springs, rear trailing arm brackets, rear wheel hubs, rear brake caliper brackets.  Everything blasted with ~300 grit aluminum oxide in the blast cabinet, primed with zinc-rich primer for corrosion resistance, then top coated with a weatherable flat black.

Rear trailing arm brackets pictures here with travel limiters bolted in.  They do just as their name suggests - limits bushing deflection to improve connectedness of the suspension as well as to improve the life of the bushing.  This was one area that I did not want to use a polymer bushing - they are good for single axis bending but not for joints that need to articulate / roll.  At least in these cars, they're famous for binding up through travel and preventing smooth articulation of the suspension through travel.  They're popular though because they don't require a press to install or remove.  But I have a press, so I'm going to use a proper bushing.

Still lots of parts left to do.  Hope to get the rest of them prepped this weekend.  I also hope to get the fusebox out of the engine bay so I can start seam welding.

Also got a bunch of new parts in.  Inner and outer CV joint boot replacement kits for my half shafts, front wheel bearing / hub assemblies, new collar nuts / dust boots for the spindles, front swaybar bushings, rotor hold-down bolts, front brake wear sensor, and caliper rebuild kits for all 4 corners of the car.  More on this stuff later.

As for the differential, I'm trying to find information on whether a 3-clutch upgrade would be of any benefit for me.  You get increased lockup (better traction) and more braking stability (poor man's abs), but with that also comes resistance to turn-in at the corners and more of a tendency for oversteer on sharp (on or off) throttle input.  I'm trying to get more information on how to compensate for this by reducing carrier preload, but have been frustrated in my efforts thus far.  I want a car that will rotate, but also put the power down - tuned to be progressive towards the limit of traction.  Lots of info out there on how to do it, but not much explanation as to why and what implications there are.  Might just do it and experiment with it myself. 

More progress over the weekend. 

Put the car up on jack stands and pulled the front and rear suspensions out.  Incredible how easy things came apart - the more I work on this car the more I love it.  Dare I say that it was actually enjoyable.  God bless the South.

Jack stand ballin 4 lyfe, yo.

It's easiest just to drop the whole rear suspension as an assembly then rip it apart with the impact once on the ground.  I had problems with it getting hung up on one of the mounting studs in the chassis but I just unthreaded it once I had clearance to get a wrench in there.  The only definite casualty was my driver's side e-brake cable.  The ferrule was seized in the trailing arm and I snapped a screwdriver off trying to punch it out, so I just cut it.

A little surface rust but everything is pretty clean in general.  None of these bushings had been replaced in 170k miles so this all needed to be done.  Everything is getting sandblasted and powdercoated.  The diff is going to be rebuilt / regeared and the half shafts will get fresh grease and boots.  Fresh parts have been sitting in a box ready to go for several months now - new wheel bearings, ball joints, and bushings.  I'd call it an OEM+ setup - it's a mix of stock hardware and polymer in areas I wanted to reduce the deflection (subframe and diff mounts).

I dropped the gas tank due to its close proximity to the front subframe mounts.  I have some welding I need to do in that area.  I've done that job before with the gas tank in and it's definitely a very hairy experience....not something I'm trying to do again.  Even when the fuel gauge reads "empty", there's still approximately 3 gallons in the tank - still plenty to warm things up considerably.

This also makes swapping in my fuel pump and replacing all the rubber fuel hoses an easier job.

Front suspension, subframe, and steering rack is all out of the car.

I then started disassembling the rear end, pressing out all the old bearings and bushings in preparation for sandblasting and powdercoat.  I had to get a little creative to fixture things up for pressing out the wheel bearings - a pair of old wheel bearing (outer races) came in handy for this.  I bought this HF 20 ton press for about $170 bucks and it's handled anything I've thrown at it so far.  I can't use it for everything on this suspension because you can't always center up the bore with the ram without some ridiculous fixturing, but it's nothing that a BFH and a couple sockets can't resolve.  I still need to upgrade my arbor plates though - these are cast pieces and sometimes things feel kind of sketchy when you really crank on it.

Not much left on the car except for the interior (which will be getting removed too!)

Aside from that, the rest of my time was bagging and tagging all the hardware and smaller components and reorganizing what I have stored in the garage for the time being. 

In other news - I figured it was time to invest in some PPE.  I bought cartridges for my 3M 6000 Series respirator:  acid / organic gas filters for painting and some 2097 filters suitable for welding fumes / organic vapors.  The discs are pretty small and I was pumped to confirm that the respirator fits under my welding helmet.  I have a lot of TIG practice to do, and intend to spend a lot of time under the helmet to get my skills up to par.  I'm welding in an open garage but figured it'd be better if I wasn't breathing in all of those fumes.

I follow a bunch of crazy TIG guys on instagram, and picked up a set of gloves that a lot of pros really seem to like.  For a while I had just been using mechanix gloves, but they don't really offer very good heat insulation or spark protection.  Other welding gloves that have good protection are way too thick and not very flexible, so you lose a lot of dexterity.  The ones I got seem to strike a balance between the two - basically leather mechanix gloves. They're made by Torchwear and are supposed to be extremely durable.  We will see - but first impressions are good.  They fit really nice and seem to be constructed with quality materials. 

I'm working on powdercoating a bunch of the smaller parts this week and will be starting on the bigger stuff after they're all done.  I need to use the big oven for the bigger parts and it takes a lot more time to get up to temperature.  For the interest of efficiency I want to get all the bigger parts prepped and ready to go at one time.

Another week.

Still have the engine/trans boxed up waiting to ship out.  Supposed to be getting payment this week so hopefully that means it will be getting out of my hair.  For the time being it's taken become a temporary work table.

Couple new tools / things.  Our old Milwaukee corded drill finally stopped working after 20 years of service - thinking the brushes might be bad in the motor.  So I decided to head up to Lowe's and pick up a new one.  I've had tremendous luck with Dewalt power tools so I bought a boss-hoss 10 amp 1/2" chuck model.  Enough torque to rip the cape off of Superman and enough left over to break all the drill bits I own.  Also got a grease gun, some 3/8" drive standard and deep well 16mm sockets (since they seem to be missing for some reason from "complete" metric socket sets), and some 6/3 direct burial cable for running 220v power to the garage for my TIG welder.

Figured I'd post up a better picture of the steering shaft from last week

Test fit all of my ABS pump adapter fittings.  M10X1.0 - 3AN and M12X1.0 -3AN adapters.

Made my steering shaft from a Borgeson 27" telescoping DD shaft, and 2 chromoly u-joints from Flaming River.  I had to cut the shaft to length, drill spotfaces for the setscrews and drill/tap a hole for the grease fitting.  Came together nice.  This steering shaft gives me more header clearance on the driver's side, and also eliminates a rag joint that was present on the OEM shaft that would have been extremely close in proximity to header heat.

On Friday, I picked up a bare LS1 mockup block for use with setting my driveline angles / building my mounts.  It only weighs ~90 lbs so it's easy to move by hand.  It's going to make one badass coffe table after this project.  Hauled it around back and couldn't resist throwing it in the bay.  Not everything is on it yet obviously but there's tons of room - much more than the iron heap I pulled out of there.

I continued work on the engine bay - shaving all unnecessary brackets and I also started removing the seam sealer in order to stitch weld all the seams.  A lot of work - but I'm doing it once and I'm going to do it right.  With all the extra power and a stiff coilover suspension going into the car, I figured it'd be a good idea to stiffen the chassis up in critical areas to prevent deflection and reduce fatigue.

Once I finish welding, my plan it to coat all bare metal in etching primer, followed with epoxy primer.  From there I'll do all the filling work, lay down some seam sealer to cover all the seams, then shoot paint on it.

The shitty part is that to get into anything near the trans tunnel, I need to pull the entire interior out to prevent carpet fires and from pulling paint through the backside of the weld.  Carpet needs to come out anyway because it's being converted to black (along with the dash and the rest of my interior!).

The only other thing I did on the chassis side this weekend was rip out the OEM fuel lines / filter / regulator from the tank forward.  All of that is getting replaced.  No pics of that though.

__

Other work - as I mentioned earlier I'm converting my shitty-as-fuck-kill-me-now Dove Grey interior to black.  Instead of buying all the plastic pieces I decided to try converting it with SEM products.  This will also be used on the top of my intake manifold shell, as the paint on it did not survive the torque sequence.

I'm working with a variety of materials so needed to get a bunch of surface prep products - a good bond and ultimately durable finish is all in the prep!  (Also pictured are my accessory drive belts).

This center console piece was the first part I did.  Scrubbed it with SEM Soap and a scotch brite pad, wiped off with a clean rag, then wiped with IPA and allowed to dry prior to painting.  I did a bunch of light coats and it turned out really nice I think.  Pretty much a spot on mach to the OEM black vinyl in hue - maybe a tiny bit of difference in gloss but you have to really be trying to see it.  The portion of the console below is two parts - see if you can guess which one I painted.

(Answer:  I painted the lower/outer "surround" piece).

Durability wise, it seems to be extremely good.  After a couple hours it was standing up to me hitting it / picking at it with a screwdriver.  Should handle light abrasion just fine - just have to keep it clean.

This is the piece that holds the arm-rest, coin tray, etc, in its original Dove Grey.  Looks like shit, right?

I sprayed that and the kick panel tonight as well, no pics of that though.

While I was working it felt like I was getting nothing done - in retrospect I guess it was a pretty busy weekend.  Looking forward to more progress this week!

Still pluggin along here.

Coated a couple alternator parts over the weekend.  Not perfect, but what I'm going to call good enough.  I cleaned everything really well before laying down powder and made sure I allowed them to cure long enough in the oven.  I haven't tried beating the hell out of them but I haven't been gentle with them either - the coating seems to be as durable as it should be.  I had started putting the alternator back together but broke the plastic brush holder during this process, so I'm waiting on a replacement for it before I can continue.

Also sandblasted my power steering cooler loop.  I will be welding a -6AN bung on the end where I cut off the hose.  Crappy picture but it's the only one I have.

I've also been working on cleaning up the engine bay.  I removed all the sound deadening / heat shielding, disconnected the abs pump, brake booster, and clutch master cylinder.  I'll also be shaving all the unused brackets and will probably prep to at least re-spray the bay in Alpine.  Probably the only opportunity I'm going to have for a long time to do this, so I'm going to take advantage of it and spend a little time to clean it up.

Aside from this stuff, I've been trying to get the M3 engine/trans sold and shipped out along with one of the 2 catback exhausts, interior parts, and some other things.  A bit of a frustrating period - parts everywhere and not much time to work on anything.  Doesn't help either that the goddamn pallet that the m3 dropout is sitting on is consuming pretty much all of the free garage space I have.

Moving forward though - I intend to pick up a bare LS1 block to use for mockup purposes for setting up my driveline angles.  Need to also pick up the transmission and leveling jack stands before I can get down with that business.  Oh and I also need to run a 220V line to feed my TIG welder out in the garage. 

Time to get busy.

More progress this weekend!

Things are starting to heat up here.  Got a little tease of nice weather so I tried to take advantage of it.  Parts everywhere, 10 million things to work on at in parallel, and never enough time.

Saturday I went down to Tech Shop - it's basically a community shop that you pay a membership fee to join, but you get access to all kinds of insane machinery for fabrication.  I took a powder coating class and brought some parts down to try out (probably too many, but hey).

I got all my powders from Powder365.com.   Seem to be of good quality based on my limited ability to judge.

• Zinc based primer for rustproofing steel parts
• Outgassing forgiveness primer - for use on porous aluminum castings that may have absorbed oil. 
• Black magic - exterior / durable black
• High temp black - for use on brake calipers and exhaust stuff if I feel like it.
• AC silver - alternator housing and whatever else I feel like
• Wrinkle black - engine covers
• Starlight clearcoat - clear finish for exterior suspension components, make them more chip resistant.

 Parts were sandblasted first with ~100 grit aluminum oxide media in the blasting cabinet.

 
I didn't get any closeups but this media put a really nice finish on everything - even on the aluminum stuff.  No pitting or anything, though I increased the tip angle of the gun to prevent it from "digging in".  The texture would probably show through if I were painting it without a primer/surfacer but this stuff doesn't have to be absolutely perfect, just durable.  I'm not building a show car.

After washing the parts off, I gave them a prebake to get the moisture out and outgas any contaminants.  Once cooled off it was time to put some powder on them.

Then into the oven to bake.  Here's some finished parts.

Initially everything looked good but I noticed it was chipping much easier than it should be.  I suspect I either didn't give the metal enough time to get up to temperature in the oven (inadequate cure time) or I didn't clean them thoroughly enough.  Either way I'll be stripping and recoating most of the parts.  I was excited to get some things coated and rushed it a little bit, I think. 

Live and learn.

In other news, I also sold my S52/ZF transmission out of my M3 so I started pulling that out of the car on Sunday.

Figured I'd take some pics of the car before tearing it apart.  It's gonna be a while before it's back to this state.

Anyway, this is where I ended up at the end of the night.

Probably going to spend the rest of the week getting this pulled and packed up.  I have to put it on a pallet / box it up because it's going to Texas.

More to come in short order hopefully.

I'd like to start this week's post by offering a giant middle finger to mother nature.  I'm trying to get shit done and it won't stop snowing.  Anyone who says global warming is a bad thing is a fucking idiot.

Despite my frustration, I made a bunch of progress on some random things this weekend.

Put the compression fitting on my power steering pump return line.  Originally it would have been just a slip fit hose barb but I wanted a solid -AN hose connection to help prevent leaks.  I hate power steering leaks almost as much as I hate winter and hippies.

Sanded the barb off until the fitting and ferrule fit.  A use a file / sandpaper for rough shaping, and a bearing scraper for final shaping. 

Exploded view of fitting.  I'm using an Earl's tube-to-AN adapter, PN# AT165006ERL.  The brass olive gets crushed and digs into the tube, locking the fitting in place. 

Installed.  I gave it a test by making a witness mark and pulling on it as hard as I could - it didn't budge.  I wouldn't trust it to anything of higher than 50 psi (which is the max they recommend) or with anything that could start fires (like fuel) but it should work fine for a power steering return.
 

Also starting grinding away areas on my valve cover that could be potential interference points with my rocker arms.  I'll be running thicker gaskets as well, but it was still a little close for comfort based on what I could see.  I don't want to risk making contact, so I'm taking precautions.  I removed the baffles and will be grinding away most of the associated casting.  Unfortunately I couldn't do this very long because my compressor was sending so much water through the line that I was afraid it'd damage my die grinder.  Again, fuck winter.

Still to do.  Left behind are the rivet bosses the held down the sheet metal baffle / splash guard.  I'll be running a catch can so I'm not concerned about any oil that might make its way out of the valve cover.

 Also worked on some alternator parts.  Cleaned the stator and sprayed it with some Dolph's EB-41 electrical insulating enamel.  Takes any electrical part from zero to badass in a matter of minutes! 
 

  

  
Also sprayed my ignition coils with it.  It took longer to mask them off then it did to spray them.  And unfortunately for me they don't photograph well.

 

Tinned up the coil leads, and also soldered the rectifier and diodes together.  Laid it all out on the housing first to make sure I had it in the right position.  Great success.

 

I also pulled the heads off tonight to check on the cylinder bores and reapply some oil to keep rust away.  Everything looked good.  

I also labeled all my pushrods to reflect their individual valve assignments....with 9 different lengths there's a lot to keep track of.  Happy to say my measurement tool was dead nuts accurate to the measurements I took ~ 3 months ago.

I also pulled the intake manifold apart to fix the paint on the top shell - the paint cracked when torquing it down despite my efforts to prevent that from happening.  Next time I'm going to experiment by adding some felt washers underneath to hopefully serve as a "thrust bearing" of sorts.  My brief testing showed that the felt washer remained stationary while the bolt / washer spun as I tightened them....which is awesome.  Some black fabric dye and they'll be good to go.

Parts everywhere.  Standard.

I know where everything goes.  I promise.