I guess trying to be fast just got me into trouble.  It took some time to post this in compliance with the rules.

http://www.zukiworld.com/forum/build-diaries-how-to-diy/welcome!-please-read-before-posting/

This is going to be a tight fit. We are going to have to stuff this:



into this:


We made some progress today. We decided the first goal would be to hang the motor and tranny in the rig and see if we were really going to be able to make it happen. It made the motor look even bigger, but we could see potential.


One of our biggest obstacles is very clear, but we willl find a way to solve it.


We didn't really want to, but we decided that a little extra room would go a long way, and it would be best to do a body lift. Because the body is mounted with studs, We couldn't just throw any old spacers in there, so we made some to mimic the stock mounts, and put on the lift.


So after the lift, and cleaning up the engine bay some more, we took off the tranny, and did another test fit. We actually got the motor to sit in there low enough to work.

So we finished off the day with some engine mount prep, and will hit it again tomorrow.

Had another productive day. Eric came over in the morning to give us some help on the wiring. he got the rest of the old motor wiring out, and preped the body wiring for what we need to do. Thanks again Eric.

Then Drew got the rest of the brackets we don't need off the frame to clear up some room.


While this was going on, I got some motor mounts made up.

We also got some unwanted things like ABS out of the way, so we could start see how we are going to mount things like the new clutch pedal assembly.


We did some more test fitting of the engine. We ended up pounding back the sides of the tranny tunnel a little, pulling some steering components loose, repositioning a lift hook on the motor, and removng more brackets. At the end of the day, we got the motor with the tranny sitting exactly where we want it to be. It all fits, the shift lever for the tranny lines up perfect in the stock position, we have solutions for all of the interferance issues with suspension and steering components, and it even looks like the hood might close without altering it. All in all, it was a very productive first weekend of the project.



found a radiator out of a 1990 t-bird super coup that is going to fit very nicely and was way less than a custom size. Yesterday i got another transfer case and greg and I took them all apart and decided that there were enough bearings that looked suspect we should put a rebuild kit in while it's all apart. Right now we are waiting for parts, we don't want to build the cross members until we have the headers and they won't be here until thursday or friday which is when we also get the transmission to t-case adapter, t-case output shaft and the t-case rebuild kit. Brian is helping with the wiring harness, he was able to get all the wiring diagrams we need from his work and I dropped the wiring harness off to him last night and he is going to start looking it over. If all goes well this weekend we should have the engine mounted with most if not all the cross members built, headers on, t-case's in and mounted and maybe even the radiator in. I can't believe we have come so far so quickly!!! Greg is an amazing mechanic and fabricator!!!! (and fun to work with also!!!) It looks like we are going to be able to use the complete FJ hydraulic clutch pedal assembly and the gas pedal will be easy since this is a drive by wire system. The transmission couldn't have lined up any better if we had had it custom built but I think that some of the t-case levers will be in the way of the e-brake handle. Hopefully we will be ready for exhaust and drive lines by next week!!

So.... Thursday we got the rest of the Tranfer case adapter parts, so Friday night and today, it was time to do all the transfercase work. We put a lot of new bearings in, did some modifications, and got the cases together, with the 4.7's in the rear, and an upgraded rear output shaft.








So we married it up to take a look at it. It looks really long, but the rear flange is only 8 inches further back than the stock drivetrain, so it will work well. To finish the day, we started working on some mounting brackets will tie the tranny and transfercases together.



I still haven't gotten my headers... I've called both URD racing who I bought them from and Doug Thorley and have been assured that they will be here by the end of next week but I've heard that twice already. We are hesitant to actually mount the engine with out them as it would really suck to have to rebuild something for a small amount of clearance. There are enough other things to do to keep us busy for this weekend but I really hope they come by next weekend!!!

Wow, another good weekend!!! We got lots done but aren't quite ready for exhaust and drive lines :0) The belly pan and brackets are looking really good, they are going to do a great job of protecting everything. We will add cross members to them once we get the headers and do our final fitting. After getting the fab work as far as we could we started in on the steering. We decided to move the power steering gear box into the frame and take out the slight kick that is factory, the back of the gear box originally points kinda towards the passenger seat as opposed to straight back. After our modifications it will point straight back keeping everything as tight to the shock tower as possible. We ran out of time and energy before getting this all done, but we now have it all figured out and are ready to start re assembly tomorrow night. It was a good weekend and the silver lining of not having the headers is that we don't feel rushed into putting the engine in and can spend a little extra time figuring out all these little details and designing/fabing our parts and pieces. I've made an appointment to get the exhaust done for a week from Monday, I think we will make that time frame if the headers get here by the end of the week. If not I guess I will be rescheduling!
Here are some pictures from the weekend. Here is the bracket that is the start of the T-case mounts. It bolts to the transfercases and the transmission so it will help take some of the stress off of the adapter plate.


Here is the skid/belly pan that will tie everything together for strenght and protection.


And here it is mounted.

Here is the steering relocation project. We removed the mounts and made room in the frame. When it is all done, the steering box will leave plenty of room for the motor.


We definitely upped the thinkness on the top edge, on top and out the outside, with all the layers, it is at least a half inch thick. It is plated from the shock tower to the front of the fram on the outside, top and bottom. I didn't see any cracks, but it did have extra plate added from before. The "new" plate is the old double thinkness inside piece of the frame, so the "tubes" are threaded all the way through, so the bolts tighten flush to the mating surface, and the are securely welded to the outside wall of the frame, for extra strength. There is enough steel in there that is should be alright. It is not as pretty as I would like it to be, but it is solid. Here are some pics.





The goal this weekend is to have motor and tranny mounted in the rig, and by the end of today, we almost have that done. The motor is in the position it is going to be mounted and the tabs are tacked in place, ready to be welded up. Most of friday night and today was spent getiing surfaces ready and making brackets and tabs. First Drew got the frame all cleaned up and ready. You can also see in the picture, thet he put up some heat and accoustic sheild in the engine bay.

didn't get a ton of pictures of everything we accomplished, but I will get some more tomorrow. Here are plates to go on the frame for the motor mounts.

And here are some of the motor mounts


And here are some of the transfercase mounts


And here is the last one after it was all cleaned up.

So, another busy weekend has passed us by, but more good progress was made. Right now, the motor is sitting in the rig, in the motor mounts. We still have some work to do on the mounts, but the majority is done, and we have a clear exact plan of what we are going to do with the oil pan, and the suspenssion to make everything clear. Here are a couple of pictures, hard at work:


So here is a picture of all the pretty heat sheild and the start of our motor mounts. We decided to run a cross bar between the motor mounts under the oil pan, so we could tie every thing together, since those mounts are on the frame in a high stress area. Under the motor is about the only place we have room. Drew decided to go for the air conditioning, so with the compressor back on the motor, it makes things a little tighter in there. The only down side to our motor mounts is there size. We had the motor, tranny, and transfercases all together when we tacked all the mounts to the frame, and we had been pulling the motor and tranny in and out together, but we discovered that with the mounts in there, the oil pan will not come past the mounts. That means we have to pull the tranny in tight quarters, so we can lift the motor straight up. Not a huge deal, just more work to get everything apart.

Here are some better pictures of the mounts tagged on.


So we really wanted to make sure we don't have any problems with the high stress area of the frame, so here are some of the plates we have added, We ran another plate from the motor mounts over the crumple zones into the steering box area, and then also put a plate between the panhard mount and the motor mount to tie it all together. we are still going to add some more brace on the underside to the panhard mount, but I don't think it will be going anywhere.

A decent amount of time was spent finishing our transfercase mounting bracket, that also bolts to the tranny. We wanted to make sure it cleared everything, wasn't too heavy, but was still strong. I think we came up with a decent design. I wish I could have gotten the junction over the front driveline to look a little better, but it was starting to get a lot of time into it, and there wasn't al lot else to do with it. We also ended up making the rear mount able to comes off, by making a solid piece that goes inside the tube. We decided to this after we tacked it all together in the rig, and then had a hell of a time getting the thing out of there. Here is how it turned out.




At one point, Drew started cleaning up the engine bay while he was waiting for me to finish what I was working on and get done with the welder.

So here it is, the motor sitting in the rig, all it's weight on the springs, in the mounts. It really didn't make it squat that much.

It is definitely a tight fit, with no room to spare, and no extra space to give away. It will all clear however when we are done, without having to do anything too crazy. We will be moving the top link, and slightly modifing the sump on the oil pan. The way it measures out right now, at full compression, the third member and the sump will interfere by a half an inch. So after the link is moved ( right now it hits the new cross member before full compression ), we will pull the springs and let it sit on the bump stops, and then make our oils sump fit the space we have.

For the last thing of the day, we tried to see if the hood would fit. We had to cut a couple braces, but it just wouldn't quite close all the way. just three quarters of an inch shy. We really just could't put that motor any lower, so the hood is just going to have to get modified.

Wow, some of the cowels and hood scoops are pretty over the top!!!! I found one that I think will work: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SSE-950-72103 I think that it is about as low key as they come. I'm hoping to go and get the AC from jared tomorrow so there is a chance that we can get that installed before putting the engine in for the last time. I had to bump the exhaust appointment out for a week as I didn't want to be rushed tying up all the loose ends. I canceled the header order and have reordered a different set of headers which are shipping today and will be here by the end of the week. There is a chance we won't be able to fit them, but if not we have verified that the stock manifolds will work. We took some rear drive line angle measurements and it's looking like we are only going to have a 17 degree angle at for the rear drive line, not nearly as bad as I had feared!!! The transfer case bracket that Greg made is a real work of art, the pictures don't do it justice!! we had it laying on the floor and even with Greg jumping on it there was almost no flex!!! We are going to be pulling off this project for the rest of the week as Greg needs to do some work on the sub but we will be back on it Friday night!!!

Thank you for bringing it over... The swap is looking good!



-Eric

That is great work.  That doubler is going to really make this build.  Looking at your wiring makes my head ache again.  Glad I didn't have that many wires to get right. 
With headers I imagine you are going to have duals, so while it is empty under there you might modify the cross tube to make room for the other pipe.  this is what I did.

Or did you have to remove the cross tube for the doubler?
i would like to know the length of the doubler from front to tail shaft.

We just took the tube out all together and will do something different.  The rear flange on the case is only about six inches farther back that what was in there stock.

Here are the latest notes:

I had to work this morning, so it was Drew by himself till this afternoon, so it was a little slower start to the day, but by the end, we got a lot done.  The goal by the weekend is to have the motor, tranny, and transfer cases in, and the suspension for the most part done.  The first thing to finish was the rest of the gussets on the motor mounts and some clean up in the motor bay.

Added a little beefier brace to the panhard bracket.


Drew finish cleaning up the lowered shock tower baskets.



Drew also got the new clutch pedal assembly mounted.  It worked out pretty nice with it being a complete unit with the clutch master cylinder.  We may have to lengthen the clutch pedal, but even as it s, it would work.


the lines in the engine compartment are made and run.



We also made a short hard line and bracket to go on the transmission.  This makes only one last joint to screw together after the tranny is in.


Next up was the suspension.  There is a lot more room to work on it with the motor out.  We got all of the old brackets cut off of the axle, and everything cleaned up.  We are going to move the upper link rounf eight inches to the driver side so it will miss the oil pan.


We got the main crossmember off, and moved the mount over and welded it back up. 


Then we started cutting out the plates to build the new front mount, and this is where we ended for the night.  We'll get pictures of those tomorrow.

that wiring picture made my brain hurt

that wiring picture made my brain hurt

The part on the passenger side looks like something out of Labyrinth.

that wiring picture made my brain hurt

thats just funny!

glad too see this build on zukiworld. I can come do the plumbing if your working on it today.

we could rename this build......maybe 10#'s of potato's in a 5# bag? or shoehorn sidekick......

Quote from: joshembry on February 20, 2011, 08:45:47 PM

that wiring picture made my brain hurt

thats just funny!

glad too see this build on zukiworld. I can come do the plumbing if your working on it today.

we could rename this build......maybe 10#'s of potato's in a 5# bag? or shoehorn sidekick......

It does need a name like that.  It is definitely a tight fit.  I used to think front wheel drives had no room, now they seam roomy.  Everything is right down  the abslute minimum for clearance.

We tackled a lot of problems and made a lot of progress today. It was really exciting to see everything turning out so well. We startedout where we left off and finished cutting, fitting and welding up the new link mount. It turned out being a really nice looking bracket.



 So then we got it burned onto the axle.  Before we even pulled the top link, we got the angle of the axle measured, and held in place.  At first we left the link the same length.  In it's old position, it ran at a slight angle, now it ran straight, so it was long enough that it pushed the mount too close, or into the panhard bar, so we had to shorten it up to be able to get the right position.



About the time we decided to weld it on, we also pulled the springs out so we could run the suspenssion through it's full range of motion.  In the new position, everything was working great, and then.........
We ran the suspenssion up to fully compressed, and then noticed we had an issue.  It was hitting the crossmember we added under the motor.


So we had to cut the top of our pretty new bracket and modify it. We managed to push the top plate down so it is reccessed in between the front and back plates.  Now the crossmember fitts down into the bracket, so it will only touch if the bump stops are fully compressed.


Now it was time to put the motor in and run the suspenssion and see how bad the clearance issues were going to be.  Amazingly it really wasn't bad.  The drag link cleared, and th panhrad just barly touched, so we will only have to put a couple of degrees of bend in it, and the oil pan had more room than we thought.  We only had cut one corner of the pan and change it, and we didn't even had to change the pickup tube.  We gave the pan just a little clearance, so there is just enough room.  Jared also can by during the day and gave us some better solutions for running the heater core lines, thanks again!



While we had the motor in there, we started checking for other possible issues, and we tried to get the headers on.  There wasn't enough room to get them on while the motor ws in, so we pulled it and put them on.  After putting the motor back in, it wasn't looking good.  They were against the steering, and everthing else on the other side.


We looked or possible solutions, and finally went with one.  I wasn't sure I really wanted to do it, but we changed up the steering.  Everthing was beefed up as much as possible to avoid any failures, and it actually turned out alright.  With another test fit, we had the room we needed.


on the other side, we moved all the fuel and brake lines to the top of the frame, and also got them up against the fender.  It got them nice and out of the way.



We also got the transfercase mounts all welded up, so now we are pretty much ready to put everything in.

Well, it's in there.

We had a good day of finishing up some little details. Greg was able to get all three transfer case shifters up through the stock hole with enough room to work them all. He also got the short shifter installed and the gear box shifter installed. We got the intake figgured out and the mass air flow sensor installed. Brian came over and started working on the electrical, we got the ECM mounted, the engine wiring through the fire wall, and have made provisions to redo the existing fuse box as it went where the new clutch pedal currently resides. We got the radiator in, hoses on, fan in place we just have to modify one bracket to finnish that off. The power steering is 100% done. We pulled the belly pan and decided to make another piece of armor for the oil pan that will bolt to the belly pan, we also want to check clearances between the belly pan and the top front link, may have to do a slight mod there. We hope to be done with everything but electrical by the end of today!!! Brian wasn't sure when he was going to be able to come back but I think that we will be able to fire the engine next time he comes by! Greg has some pics I'm sure he will post soon.     ~Drew~



So here are some pictures to go with Drew's progress report:
For starters, here is the new driveline. Just going by the weight, I feels lik it is more solid than his links.



And here are some pictures of the exhaust that was done this week.  It is really tucked up nice and tight,







For the shifters, we rebent the twin sticks, and added some to the stock shifter for the front case.  They come up in a nice tight little cluster through the stock hole, with just enough room to be able to use them.





And here is the cold air intake we made.  We made a plate for the sensor, then cut a hole in the pipe, and sealed it up.






So here is some more pictures from our progress this weekend.
Here is a picture of the radiator in it's final mounted position,  It is really tight with the fan behind it, but there is just enough room.  We had to trim the back of he grill just a touch, but it is going to work good.




The power steering lines are run across the front and finished.




Here is the wiring harness through the firewall, and the heater lines run, and the fuels lines run.




Found a nice spot where the new ECM fits and Drew made a bracket to mount it with, so here is where it will live.




Ended up moving the fuse block because of the clutch assembly being in the way, so it moved to where it can be accessed though the speaker panel.  We also got some help going through the process of figuring out this mes of wiring, and got some more stuff labeled.  Thanks Brian.




We pulled the springs again and checked for clearance with the top link and the belly pan.  It doesn't clear by much, but it clears.





While we where at it, we got the panhard arm bent so it clears the motor.  We also got the drag link to the right length to the steering is all set




We also made a small skid plate for the oil pan, just for extra precaution.





We have a check list going, and it is getting Smaller fast.  The goal is to see how this week goes and work toward getting this thing done next weekend.

friggin sweet! I wanna ride!