A New Focus

So, yeah. Replacing the capacitor fixed the welder, not that I’ve used it on this project since then. But, my box section showed up, and Mike came and helped me cut out the old crossmember and steering rack brackets (which will be functionally replaced by the new crossmember). He also cut the box section to size and boxed the ends of it. What I have now sort of looks like a big steel cigar box, fully enclosed, and sized to fit between the frame rails.

Next up, I need to cut some holes in that box. The ends will need holes for the stock control arm mounting studs to go through. The top will need holes to mount the steering rack. The bottom will need access holes on each side large enough to get some tools in there to tighten nuts on said mounting studs and nuts on the rack mount U-bolts. Once those holes are cut and the edges dressed, it will be ready to weld in place.

Then I can move back to cleaning up the frame rail in the exhaust area for clearance, and working out some sort of transmission mount scheme. Also will need to weld in the engine mounts.

Then will have to position the engine and start fabricating the engine mount brackets…

I guess slow progress is better than no progress!

Maybe enthusiasm is too strong of a word? But, I’m getting tired of this project taking up space in my garage and seeing no progress. A few other things have contributed to my increase in motivation. I’ve been doing more LeMons and ChumpCar racing than I should, and following a lot of the crazy “inadvisable” race car build projects, which is inspiring. And I’ve met up with an autocrosser locally who has been doing some really cool fabrication on his Cobra kit car, along with other projects… so I’ve got a buddy with some fab skills to help me along.

But, the biggest thing is a slow shift in how I’m approaching the project. Initially, I really wanted to take the time to do things right and be finicky about it and have a “pretty” project when I’m done. Now, because the car has been sitting so long, and I’ve seen so many of these LeMons projects come and go (some of them pretty impressive… but what’s amazing is how quickly some of them come together!), I’m leaning more toward just “getting it done” with less concern about “perfection”. It will still be solid, and I’m not going to hack it together in a way that it won’t be serviceable, but you might look under the car and say “who the hell welded THAT?” And I’ve made my peace with that. You see, it will look far better driving down the street with ugly welds hiding under the bonnet than it does in my garage with no bonnet… and no engine… and no transmission…

This was the starting point of my day. I went out to the car, removed the steering rack and the radiator support bracket to get them out of the way, and I plotted where I was going to cut things. Then a friend came over for me to help him do some welding on his car… and Lucas infected my welder! Let the smoke out of a 400v 47uf capacitor. (and if you didn’t know, a 400v 47uf capacitor holds a LOT of smoke) I’ve ordered a replacement… uprated to a 450v high-temp version… hopefully, that is the problem and not just a symptom of a larger problem.

So… once I get that fixed, I’ve also got a chunk of 3×6″ 11-gauge steel coming to make a new crossmember. The factory crossmember will be cut out just inboard of the suspension upright (“turret”, I think they call it) mounting bolts and the cut ends boxed. The steering rack mounting pads will also be cut out, and the new cross-member will be welded in that location with 1″ overhang above the frame rail (to mount the steering rack to) and about 2″ below the frame rail to protect the oil pan. Will have to cut access holes to access the nuts on the forward A-arm mounting studs. They will be a little awkward to reach, but they don’t need to be accessed often.

It’s always something…

Some say it’s like fusing hot metal together with electricity. All we know is, it’s called TIG!

Finally, after a month or so of screwing around, I got all my shit together and started practicing TIG welding. I almost took a photo of the monstrosity of scrap metal that I assembled, but just imagine an ugly mess of melted sheet metal scraps and you’ll have it. TIG really is all that I hoped it would be. I’m not laying “stack o’ dimes” welds or anything, but I feel much more effective with the TIG torch. I can see what I’m doing and feel much more in control of the situation. I’m actually feeling confident that I can do the frame welding that I need to do on the Spitfire without making a horrid mess of it!

And with that kind of inspiration coupled with cooler weather… I just might spend more time out in the garage!

Okay, so I had a free weekend and thought I’d actually get the TIG rig all set up and start practicing some TIG welding. Wrong!

I did manage to round up the fittings that I needed to get the Argon tank hooked up. But, when I went to set up my TIG torch, I found that the tungsten electrodes that the guy at the welding shop sold me were too small (in spite of me bringing the collets with me and HANDING the smallest one to him to ensure that I got the right size). They fell right out of the collet after I tightened it. Grrrr! No welding supply shops are open around here on a Saturday, so I was screwed for the weekend.

I went ahead and ordered the correct size collet to go with the Tungsten that I have, and ordered some filler rod to play with, both aluminum (hey, why not?) and mild steel.

Someday I’ll get this project back on track…

Have not touched the car since the last post.

Got a case of complete laziness the weekend of the 9th and didn’t even do the one thing I intended to do, which was tweak the alignment on the Yaris before last weekend’s autocross. But, I did manage to get my Argon tank filled, and I ordered and received a regulator for it. Need a couple hose fittings, then should have all that I need to start TIG welding! Gimme a few years to learn it, then maybe I can do something.

Meanwhile, I did a 2-day autocross last weekend. Actually, I was the event chairman and course designer. First day was a regular autocross, all went well, everyone enjoyed the course. The second day was an “Endurocross”, where each run consisted of multiple laps. We did 5 laps per run, which added up to run times of over 4.5 minutes. Might not sound like much, but 4 minutes of autocross action will WEAR YOU OUT! Not to mention getting brakes hot, tires hot, etc. It was a good time!

Here are a few videos from Sunday. None of them are me. (though I am waving the green flag in a couple of them)

I still haven’t made it over to a welding supply shop to get my Argon tank filled and get the rest of the supplies needed so that I can start TIG welding. So, I haven’t done anything else on the car!

The reasons I haven’t made that trek yet are many. It started with a combination of laziness and just having too much work to do. Then, the day I finally decided to do it, I ended up not getting a paycheck. So, I put it off. Now, a couple weeks later, I’m caught up on pay (but still a little iffy about the future), but my 19-year-old son appeared on my doorstep last week… which brings with it a host of other potential expenses.

In between all of that, I did have a little fun. Autocross two weekends in a row, followed by a Chump Car (a weak copy of the 24 Hours of LeMons series) race at Sebring last weekend. Racing really wears me out, but it’s SO much fun! They did a 11.5 hour race on Saturday and a 4 hour “sprint race” on Sunday. My team didn’t win either of them. The car had cooling problems on Saturday (which actually caused the head gasket to fail… but not catastrophically… slight oil in the coolant, and an external oil leak), that kept us off-track for a few hours. Sunday, the car behaved well (in spite of a leaky head gasket), and we finished 3rd out of 20-something starters. I had the distinction of the fastest lap of the race, one of the perks of being the last driver up in a car that you already know is going to require engine work!

This Saturday, I spent some time out in the garage practicing stick welding. Bought some thinner 6013 rod, practiced on some scrap that’s about the same thickness as the Spit frame and the 12 gauge sheet that I’m going to use to cap the areas where the engine mounts are going. What I confirmed is that it’s going to be nearly impossible to do this with stick welding. That, or I just really suck as stick welding… which is quite possible. The problem is that if I use enough current to penetrate the heavier sheet, it easily blows through the thinner sheet. If I turn it down enough to preserve the thinner sheet, it become difficult to penetrate the thicker sheet. And, no matter what I do, if I get any gap between the sheets at all, the top sheet (which is the heavier one) just erodes away. It’s a tricky weld to get right. I just think I’d have better luck doing it with TIG and not having all of that flux slag in my way. I’m still hoping that years of soldering experience in electronics and stained glass will make TIG seem a little more natural to me than flux-based welding.

I kept telling myself that I wanted to try to just do everything I need to do without further disassembling the car. Currently, that refers to the suspension turrets. Well, I looked at it closer today, and found that there were only 7 bolts, one tie-rod and a swaybar end link keeping that part on the car. (the brake line has already been cut and removed) So, off it went. Took all of maybe 10 minutes from grabbing the wrenches to moving the assembly onto my workbench. Now I have full and easy access to the right side frame rail! More parts, less car.

With that newfound access, I spent some quality time with the plasma torch and achieved a pretty darned clean frame rail. I trimmed the top and bottom pinch welds (a good portion of them were already removed, I just removed a little more to allow the whole thing to be cleaned up nicely). And trimmed the top of the rear turret mounting bracket even with the top of the frame rail so that I have a flat surface to attach the engine mount to.

The plan now is to cut a 1/8″ top plate and wrap it about an inch down the inside of the frame rail to make a good engine mount surface and make up for the removed pinch weld. The bottom inside corner of the frame rail will be wrapped in the same way to reinforce and clean it up.

Before attaching the top plate, I’ll drill holes for the engine mount and weld grade 8 nuts on the inside. I’ll have to punch holes in the top of the frame for clearance for these nuts and the bolts that will go through them. With that done, I can easily bolt the engine mounts in place and all will be well on the right side.

The left side will be easier, as none of the pinch welds are being cut out. It will simply be a plate welded to the top of the frame to better support the engine mount.

Aaaaaand then… I have to figure out how I want to beef up that cross-member. That will be fun, because it needs to be a solid “skid plate” to protect the front of the oil pan that hangs 2″ below the frame in addition to tying the two frame rails together.

Did some practice stick-welding today, and was pretty pleased with it. Tried to do some butt-welding of the corners where I cut out the seam welds. I don’t think I really need to weld that, since I’ll be wrapping the whole thing, but it was good practice. And it isn’t pretty at all! I’m going try to get get my argon tank filled and pick up some TIG supplies this week, maybe I’ll find it easier to get a clean weld that way.

Well, today wasn’t the day. Never made it out to the garage. Went out a little while ago and took some photos of the manifold, that was it.

Looking closely at the manifold, I still think that the best bet is going to be to remove the Zetec flange, cut a new flange based on the Duratec gasket, and tweak the front pair of pipes to fit it. Another option would be to do a sandwich plate adapter out of steel (1/4-3/8″) or aluminum (maybe 1/2″), but that’s not really going to be much less work, will add another point for potential exhaust leaks, and will require me to source longer exhaust manifold studs.

Here’s a composite photo showing how the Duratec gasket aligns with the Zetec manifold.  Top is centered on the left port, center is splitting the difference on the two left ports.  Bottom is centering the gasket over all ports, as would be done for an adapter plate.

 

And below are a couple reference photos showing a bottom view and side view of the manifold. As you can see, removing the flange and making a single cut on each of the left two pipes should easily allow for alignment of those two pipes to the new flange. It’s all welding from there. Seems pretty straightforward.

 

Well, I spent another evening out in the garage about a week and a half ago plasma cutting out most of the rest of the engine mount residue. A little more to go, then some grinding to clean it all up. Didn’t do shit last weekend. Just couldn’t get motivated. It happens.

But, this week… I got parts! Too lazy to take photos right now, but they look just like you’d imagine they would.

First I got the exhaust manifold gasket. Nice piece. Chose the one from the Ranger just because it was cheaper. The Focus one has a built-in heat shield thingy and costs more. Hope I don’t regret that choice. Anyway, I held the gasket up to the new Zetec manifold, and… dammit. Not as close as I thought. Pairs of ports are right-on. The front two and the back two match great as pairs. But, the spacing between the center two on the manifold is too close. I’ll have to hack the flange (plasma cutter!) down the middle, and either bend the pairs of pipes apart, or more likely do some cutting and re-fitting. I’ll have to look at it closer, it may be easier at this point to just do a new flange based on the gasket and maneuver the pipes to fit it.

The Jeep engine mounts were in the same order. I just ordered a set of cheap stock replacements. They were literally under $3 each! I ordered 3, and shipping was more than the parts. (and yet, still cheaper than I could get them from the local Autozone even after shipping) They look like they’ll work well. A little wider than I’d hoped. Almost exactly the width of a frame rail, which will work great on the left side, but could be a minor issue on the right side. Should be okay, though, since I’m going to have such freedom with the exhaust downpipe. I’ll just position the mounts as far forward as possible. That will pretty much leave the space of the factory Spitfire exhaust notch in the frame open.

Finally, today, Mr. Postman brought my driveshaft from Canley Classics in England. Took them a little while to ship it. They emailed me and told me they had to have a batch made (I was slightly annoyed because their website said it was “in-stock”) right after I ordered it, which was about a day before I brought the car home last month. It looks good, though. It’s got correct ends on it and new zerked u-joints. Nice welds and all. I’ll still probably have to get it hacked by about 8″, but at least I have the parts I need. Couldn’t even find a reference for that stupid front yoke piece in the US!

Oh, and I went by Jeff’s shop and picked up the rest of my crap. The (new) plastic tunnel cover, all the clutch parts, stock Focus and Ranger engine mounts (that I have NO use for) and a couple other odds and ends.

So, I gots parts. I gots a cutting torch and welder (though I still haven’t filled my argon tank or picked up any TIG supplies). I gots time. Just gots to find the motivation!

3 day weekend ahead, surely I’ll get out there for at least a few hours…

Didn’t accomplish much this weekend, but I’m sticking with my goal to “accomplish something each weekend” no matter how small.

Saturday, I replaced the front brakes on the Yaris. Been putting it off for a few weeks, but needed to get it done before the next autocross on Sept 11. I’d replaced the pads a couple months ago with what were supposed to be “performance pads”, but they turned out to be really crappy when I took them to a race track. So bad, in fact, that they completely faded to nothing after 3 laps! Apparently, they got overheated and glazed when that happened, because they faded even more easily after that. I even faded them half way through my first autocross run at the last autocross I went to. Freakin’ scary! (but not as scary as when it happened at the track)

So, I decided to get serious about the brakes. Put a new pair of rotors on and a set of EBC Yellow track pads. So far, so good. They have a little better feel than anything I’ve ever had on the car before. And having experience with these pads before, I know they can take a LOT of heat (and they actually work much better once they get significant heat in them), so now have confidence in my brakes… always a plus.

Some wheeling and dealing also happened Saturday:

My Zetec Focus manifold showed up. Looks good. I think instead of hacking off the flange, I’m just going to fill the bolt holes in it, and add some other meat to it if needed and just redrill it using the Duratec exhaust manifold gasket as a pattern. Should be even easier than I thought.

I listed some of the Spitfire engine parts (head, block and crank) on eBay to try to get them out of the garage. Auction ends tomorrow, but a local guy contacted me and wanted to come look. I made him a deal on the engine block. VERY happy to not have to pack and ship that piece! As of right now, I have a bid on each of the other two items, so they will sell. That frees up a shelf in the garage, which is good.

Finally, this afternoon, I got out to the garage and spent some time on the Spit. Fired up the air compressor, grabbed my plasma torch, welding helmet and gloves and went to cutting out those bulky engine mounts that I don’t like. After completely destroying one of my plasma tips, I realized that I forgot to the air hose to the welder. It made a nice arc… but wasn’t exactly making PLASMA. I proceeded to destroy a second tip because I didn’t have the air pressure dialed up high enough. I’m learning!

The wife was doing laundry, so my 220 source wasn’t available. I plugged into a 50′ 110 extension cord instead. It worked, but the end of the cord has a built-in breaker that kept popping. I reduced my amperage from 35 to 20, and it helped it last longer, but it still popped every few minutes.

Once I got things sorted out, I was able to cut through those engine mounts easily. The ones on the left side were just tacked in, so I did minimal cutting and just beat them out with the BFH. The right side mounts are going to take a little more work because base plates have been welded to the frame. But, I got the bulk of the brackets out so that I can at least see what’s left to do. I may go out there one evening this week and try to finish that up.

I wanted to play with some sheet metal cutting, too, so I trimmed the right side stock engine mount ear for more clearance for the alternator. It cut through that pretty well, but I think more amperage would have made it easier, since part of it was doubled sheet metal. Still, I made the cut. Will need a little grinding to clean up.

Making progress… slowly but surely.