pepperperformance1 is no good!

I received my intake (inlet) manifold yesterday. I was concerned as to how it would get here, since it was originally mailed using Royal Mail. Turns out, Royal Mail hands it off to their international mailing partner (or subsidiary, whatever) Parcelforce Worldwide. They then hand it off to FedEx once it is on the ground in the states. Then I had to wait an extra day for FedEx to come back after I had signed the stupid 'you weren't here' card.

When I first saw the package, I was not happy. They shipped an international, overseas package to me in a plastic bag. This bag was something suitable if you were to ship a t-shirt, or maybe something lightweight wrapped in ridiculous amounts of bubblewrap. The manifold was wrapped in a single layer of bubblewrap, and a garbage bag.

Needless to say, the bag was ripped. The paint was chipped in several locations.

Once I opened it, I became more upset with the manifold. The welds were not ground, and there was welding splatter on the mounting plate. The blend from the tubes to the plate is not uniform, and not at all professional. I could have done better myself, if I had known it was going to be this bad.

All the manifold is a plate, which can be bought in numerous places online, and some pinched exhaust tube. Then they threw in some silicone hoses for free. Yippee.

We got the transmission mated to the engine today. It was not as easy as everyone makes it out to be.

Problem 1: The dowel pins in the engine do not fit into the 336 transmission. The dowel pins are stepped in size. The hole in the engine is smaller then the end of the dowel pin. However, the hole size in the engine is the same size as in the transmission. So the dowel pin needs to be replaced with one that is just one size.

Problem 2: The starter needs a mounting plate. This was known going into the project, but now that I see it, I realize that it is going to be a major project.

Problem 3: The starter from the ZX2 is broken. The starter has 3 mounting holes on the flange, 1 of which is broken.

Problem 4: Only a few bolts actually mate up from the engine to the transmission. 2 at the top, and 1 at each of the dowel pins. I can improve this by 1 with the adapter plate for the starter.

Observations:

• The input shaft on the 336 is almost long enough to touch the flywheel. This makes the project of making the adapter plate a little easier.
• The pilot bearing from a 1985 Ford Bronco fits perfectly over the input shaft on a Renault 336-11 transmission. This was found after a little searching at the parts store, and a couple trips to and from the car to check fitment on the transmission.

I've found an extremely helpful gentleman who I've been e-mailing about his similar project. I found a photo of his engine showing the pilot bearing extension, so I had to ask him about whether he had a drawing, or measurements. Unfortunately, he doesn't have many of the small details, but he gave me a very good overview. The pilot bearing extension is not really that long, and the bushing that gets added to it is commonly available. He is also using the same transmission, and his research says that I should be okay.

He is also saying that he used the Zetec transmission components, with just the spindle out of the Lotus clutch. So, another thing that I shouldn't have to worry about. His car isn't running yet, but if everything mates up, I should be okay. We'll see.

Today I plan on getting the engine mocked up in the car. I am going to get the engine off of the stand, get the transmission matched up to everything, and then try to get the engine in the car. Then the last thing to do is get the engine mounts mocked up. Then the wiring can start to get mocked up, then the coolant can mocked up, and then...

New engine is getting cleaner...

I spent last night cleaning the engine. I've got more productive things that I could have done, but the weather was gorgeous, so I wanted to be outside. Scrubbed the engine to remove the bulk of the grime, sprayed it with engine degreaser, rinse, and repeat. I did the same to the 336 transmission as well. The transmission looks like it may clean up very nicely, despite its age.

I do want to touch up the engine a little more though. The oil pan could use a wire brushing and a nice coat of paint. I could also touch up the paint on the engine block, now that it is cleaned up. I was knocking paint off of the engine as I was cleaning the lower half, and it wasn't hanging on to anything more then grime.

I found that R.D. Enterprises also sells the dash lettering that I will need to finish the dash, once it's rewired. It's only $14, so I think I may take this route, as opposed to replacing the switches. We'll see.

Dashboard is out!

After only a few short hours, the dashboard is out! I think I've made more notes on this, and labeled more wires then when I installed my home theater. The resulting mess hanging out of the space is pretty intimidating.

I do have a pretty good plan as to how I am going to put the dash back together though. I need to find a good marine/weather-resistant connector to make the mating connection with. It really shouldn't be too bad... (Famous last words.)

I plan on making a better drawing up, but that is not very high on my priority list right now.

I am going to take some pictures tomorrow. This mess needs to be documented. :-)

Old Engine Out!

The old engine is out!

After only a couple of grunts, and some wrench turning, I had the transmission out. Since the engine was mostly hooked up, 4 more bolts on the engine mounts, and it was loose. I forgot to unhook the heater cable, and the bottom coolant hose, but they came off pretty quickly.

I want to say that this car is the furthest along that it has ever been. Of course, the car is still not running...

CB and JT carried the old engine out of the car, and into the basement for me. Then they immediately turned around, and carried the new engine out to the car.

Turns out that the original motor mounts do not fit the engine. So I will need to fabricate up something to make it all fit together.

Dash needs to come out, so I can start working on fixing the rat's nest. Then the wiring harness for the new engine...

Lot's to do.

Put a nice floor in the garage today. Some drop cloth for the moisture, and some particle board, and the whole thing is kind of cleaned up. It is still a ridiculous redneck solution for a garage, but it will work until I can figure something out (funding...) more permanent.

Also, continued working on removing the dash board. After backing the car out of the garage, I could get the door courtesy switches out of the car. This allowed me to see what else was holding the dash together. I then found the two bolts holding the steering column together, and got that out. Then the inevitable happened, and I had a 'well, crap, now that is going to need to be redone.' moment. As I was trying to remove the dash, the vinyl/plastic/whatever covering the top cracked. The whole thing is so old and brittle, it cracked like it was very hard plastic. The two defrost heater vents on the top needed to be taken out, and I had overlooked them. The have 4, almost impossible to get to (without taking the windshield out), self tapping screws holding them in place. These do not screw to the dash however. They screw down into the heater vents themselves, which are then screwed onto a flange of fiberglass.

Once I broke these free (literally.), I could pull the dash forward. It is not an easy feat. You need to make sure that as you are pulling it forward, you unbind the wires from whatever they are wrapped around. It is still not fully removed. I believe the next best course of action is to remove the wiring from the back of each of the gauges. This way I can liberate the whole dash board with out taking the gauges out, and label all of the wire looms as best I can.

Once I re-surface the dash, I will need to replace the switches. I found someone who linked to this website: Holden. that has some very nice icon-ed switches. Since I will be resurfacing the dash, I want to have switches that have some indication of what they are. With the current dash, the titles for the buttons are screened onto the veneer itself. I won't be attempting to replicate this. Once this is done, I plan on getting some foam, and some vinyl, and re-surfacing the vinyl portion of the dash as well. Hopefully, I can make this look as good as I imagine.

Tomorrow I plan to remove the transmission, so I can get to the engine. I think I have gotten to all of the lines and cables running to and from the engine, but I am sure I will find something still bound up as we try to lift the engine out. I am really anxious to get the new engine into the car, so I can start wiring up the sensors, and everything.

Just ordered the intake (inlet...) manifold for the new engine. $221 including shipping. Ouch. I really hope when I get this thing, it is glorious. Its is now the most expensive item for the car. Even the donor engine costed less to this point.

Further research has shown that I will not need a vacuum line running from the intake manifold for the brakes. Just one less thing I have to worry about.

Tapped the threads on the coolant adapter plate. I still want to chop the plate down to match the profile of the elbow and the engine.

Removed radiator. Broke one of the bolt studs from the bottom. I believe it is aluminum. I will be replacing this anyway with something new, so I am not overly concerned about it.
Attempted to remove passenger seat. Broke front outside bolt. I stopped trying at this point. I don't know how to get to the bottom of the bolts if I need to yet.
Began removing dash. Following this.
-4 machine screws across the top
-2 self tapping screws under ash tray
-2 7/16" bolts in choke and heater cable bracket
-Unscrewed the shift knob
-Removed the center console cover.
-Removed the heater vents. The heater hoses are bound to the vents as a form of tape. These fell apart when removed. The heater hoses will need to be replaced.
-Tried to remove the door courtesy switches. There is a bracket holding the dash together that bolts to these switches. The passenger side bolt head came off successfully, but I can't get the door open far enough to get the switch out, while it is in the garage. The driver side is seized up, and just spins the whole switch.

Still need to remove the speedometer cable and trip reset cables. I need to get the car out of the garage to try to remove the driver's side door switch.

Finished up the crankcase evacuation cover. I still ned to make a gasket for this.
Finished up the mounting holes for the coolant outlet adapter plate. All that is left to do now is tap the sensor hole.

Last night:

Removed front trunk lid. (Kind of scary, since I was afraid I could have cracked it at any moment.
Removed heater blower motor. This will need terminals in order to reattach it. The wires ran through a cable clamp which, by the time I was done fighting with it, had a stripped off screw head.
Attempted to remove radiator. 7/16" bolt head, and completely rusted. I decided that it would be better to wait until the morning to continue to fight with this with more light.

I still need to start removing the internals: Seats, dash, pedals. The carpeting really needs to be replaced. It's old, and kind of crunchy. I don't know what color the car is going to be, so I am going to wait to remove it. Black carpetting would be nice, but if I go with something that won't match, it'll be ugly.

Since I need to get to everything under the body anyway, I think I am going to remove the body before I get the engine out. It'll make the whole thing easier. Since I've got to do both, I might as well take the body off first.

Removed Girling brake boosters.
Removed hoses and wires from engine.
Removed throttle and choke cables from engine.
Wire brushed Zetec.
Painted Zetec.

Still need to clean oil pan and bottom end of the Zetec.
Still need to remove the TC engine from the Lotus. I may or may not remove the body before doing this.