So today I decided to try and get the tailshaft to fit. It took a LOT more than I had expected. First I began by roughly marking out the area around the handbrake platform so I could cut it and lift up for clearance:
Then I lifted it up and did a test fit, unfortunately the actual handbrake lines were then the next thing to hit the tailshaft preventing it from sliding home.
So, I cut some more, and bent some more:
With the help of a bottle jack:
Finally the tailshaft fits!
Now I have to make templates and sheets to fill in all the holes I've made. Not a bad job, if my auto welding mask hadn't failed :(
So tonight, rather than achieving nothing on the car, I decided I'd go out and just pick a couple of random things that needed doing. First, I've connected the alternator charge wire.
I've also done up the exhaust manifold. It's easier to move forward with a project when you're actually making progress - even going out for an hour or two and thinking while actually moving forward through your list of things to do means you're actually getting somewhere.
As a side-note, I've actually got some cut off blades for the angle grinder now - I'll be able to modify the handbrake mount location to clear the tailshaft soon.
So tonight began with the relatively simple, yet optimistic goal of having the engine turn over.
First I located a suitable engine block->body ground and connected that
Installed battery to battery box and installed ground
Removed isolation switch and installed positive feed to battery
Located a distribution block and connected all the temporary twisted positive wires from testing to the isolation switch
Connected the dash->engine bay loom plug
Connected the engine loom to the bay loom, including TFI.
I also located, while in the shed, a part that I'd thought I didn't have (The dusty looking cowl that sits at the back of the bay and seals the vents in the bonnet to the cabin rather than the engine bay). I couldn't remember having ever removed or even seen it (but had seen on many videos posted by others on youtube), yet I managed to spot it on top of my shelving under a pair of EB Fairmont seats.
Anyway, with all that in place, I decided to try and turn it over.
So I went out tonight to cross some easy (no-grinding required because I am out of discs) jobs off my list. Of course as one does I picked an easy job first - refitting the tail shaft only to discover that it ain't so easy any more. Having to lift the gearbox to clear the steering rack with the au sump means the tail shaft is hitting the floor under the handbrake. No big deal just means I need to cut the handbrake assembly and lift it up by approx 1" to give it proper clearance. I could just lower the box and install tailshaft then re-raise it as the tailshaft should clear ok once slid into the box however this would make removing it in the future a much harder proposition than need be. Oh well.
So next job was to mount the battery kill switch, that's done now and I have also routed and attached the starter power cable. Need to hook up other engine bay looms and a ground and I should be able to see if my wiring will make it crank!
It was too hot inside the house to have any excuse to not make progress on the E21 tonight, so I decided I’d knock one of the relatively easy tasks off the list; installing the bonnet pins. Pretty simple really, you drill a couple of holes for the pins, enlarge the ones in the bonnet so the top can sit flush, and then install the nuts on them tight so they are held in place.
I chose to use the top of the quarter panels to hold them as these are much sturdier than the section of radiator support attached to them (because of the removal/modification I have done)
Next, I started to fit up a temporary exhaust (eventually I will have to make a call on re-using the extractors from my EB, or building new ones from scratch) using a factory cast iron two piece falcon manifold. These were used in the same design all the way through from EA series one to AU series 3! Unfortunately, the exit points straight at the steering arm, so I’ve got to do some tricky pipework to step around it. Not ideal for a temporary solution, but hey – it’s all practice cutting/welding various materials!
Another angle of how it’s aiming right at the steering:
I’ve made this up so far, this steps it easily away from the steering arm so now I’ll just need to start cutting/rotating/welding etc until I get something that works. I would have done more tonight except I’d sat my welding mask solar panel down and the battery was flat. My poor eyes discovered the hard way what it feels like to get welding flash. Thankfully the helmet still has SOME degree of shading when it’s not switched, and I was able to at least get this one piece done. The flange is freely rotatable, so I can get it just-right as I go.
Decided to get stuck into making the new gearbox mount today as there was a chance I'd need to move the E21 off the pit; but the gearbox was supported on a trolley jack in the position I wanted it to be mounted.
I measured, drilled and then installed the mount on the gearbox by removing the factory harmonic absorber (pictured below, normally this is just two heavy pieces of metal hung from the gearbox by a bracket and seperated from the box with two rubber pieces), then drilling out both that and the 50x25RHS together and located a bolt that fits (from the rear control arms of a Falcon)
I then welded the ends of the mount into the transmission tunnel/floor pan of the car. These bolts are designed to be hit in and out with a hammer (hence the taper and lack of exposed thread on the end) so it should be easy to remoove them and the rear rubber from the gearbox when it comes time to remove the engine or box. The bracket the harmonic absorber hangs from is also removable if required.
Clearance for the steering tube is now fine as pictured above, and below shows the general clearance of the sump to steering rack.
Finally, one last shot looking down the transmission tunnel. Installed like this, the trans sits much higher and I believe I will be able to install the centre bearing assembly with the factory nuts/bolts instead of the spacers I needed previously.
So tonight I decided (around 10.30PM) to go out and have a look at what still needed to be fitted up on the car. First and foremost I needed to confirm for myself that the power steering pump will now fit; which it does (hooray!)
Unfortunately, the very next thing I noticed while trying to work out how best to run the power steering lines, is that the sump was sitting on the power steering rack lines. The AU sump is a completely different design to an early sump and has aluminum braces instead of being a thin, steel sump. I carefully clearanced part of one of these fins with a carbide bit on my die grinder (very finnicky with the whole lot in the bay!) then spaced out the engine mount on this side to allow clearance over the banjo bolt beneath the line (which it sat down on as soon as I clearanced the rack line)
I soon decided my existing attempt at a gearbox mount was failing on two fronts; first it was not holding the gearbox assembly anywhere near high enough for my liking, and secondly - it looked as weak as a chinese carnival toy. I removed the vibration dampener bolts - I am going to put some 25x50 RHS through the trans tunnel on either side here and then will connect longer bolts through the dampener - this will retain the smoothness of a traditional style rubber mount but allow a much higher, firmer mount without interference with the tailshaft.
Hole partially cut; then I called it a night as it's midnight; and I'm sure my long-suffering neighbours already hate me enough without me grinding into the wee hours of the morning.
So, today Michael "Hamo" Hamilton and myself set out to acheive a simple goal - to remove the temporary motor from the E21 and to finish welding the firewall. I must say we progressed far further than I expected in the timeframe! Read on for more:
First we began by removing the radiator and radiator support. The front of the E21 has to be lifted by the k-frame with a trolley jack otherwise the engine crane does not fit under the lower control arms; this has been the case even prior to lowering the car, so no changes there! Undid the tailshaft and centre bearing and removed the tailshaft, undid the gearbox mount and engine mounts and out came the engine.
It barely put up a fight, only getting stuck for a brief time on the steering rack.
Hamo took a while to get into the swing of things, preferring instead to take up his traditional position as supervisor. Progress was slow until he kicked into gear!
Here's a shot of my rather nasty hole chasing welds along the top of the firewall; They aren't pretty but they serve their purpose! I have some proper resedagruen paint, however I prefer to retain that for the exterior of the car, and am just using paint I have lying around the shed to cover up welds, hence the "aged bronze" rustoleum coating seen here:
Our preferred method of moving these cars around the yard is the trusty mower - Since summer has all but killed the lawn (notice the colour) - there isn't much other use for it at present!
Turned the EB around with more help from the mower; I've a very amusing video to cut together to show this in action! Pushed it into the shed and put the bonnet in the "engine removal" position - for those of you that don't know about this, you remove the struts from their normal mounting position and then push them into the holes which are slightly below and inboard of the standard mounts; you should be able to get the gist from the image below:
Hamo decided to get stuck in; and we made short work of the wiring looms, grounds, engine and gearbox mounts, shifter, fans, radiator and all the other parts which require removal prior to pulling an engine. It helps that we've each done this in excess of 10 times.
I really need to invest in a load adjuster for my engine crane. Getting to this point and having to man-handle the gearbox is really not worth it!
When that proved too hard, we used a combination of brute force and a ratchet tie down to lift the back of the gearbox, before finally lifting it the last few inches clear of the radiator support.
Finally, it was out! Note I knocked the CV out of a tailshaft yoke and installed in the rear of the gearbox to retain the fluid, which has probably only done about 10,000-15,000km of service.
It started to rain, right when Hamo began to change the distributor (I believe the hall effect sensor is the reason my EB was suffering from a progressively worsening intermittent ignition issue) so I grabbed some builders plastic and created an invention that I shall now refer to as the Outdoor Engine Maintenance Clean-Room or OEM-CR
From this point, now oblivious to the rain, Hamo proceeded to change the distributor and engine mounts ready for installation into the E21. This is the point where things get "interesting"; he discovered that a couple of the bosses used on E-series motors are not drilled or tapped on an AU motor (which this is) - as a result only two of the locations I had set up for one of the mounts could be used. The other has three. I don't think it's that big of an issue to be honest; when removing the old ones - one was only held in by a single bolt! Seems I've been leaving a trail of engine mount bolts behind me on the odd occasion as I certainly installed them all with the motor!
We set-up a heater bypass; yes we did use hose-clamps - this is just to make sure the curve and lengths are correct.
While Hamo was busy in the OEM-CR, I cleaned up and quickly sprayed the K-Frame, steering rack and chassis rails.
Installing the motor; had to slide it over a block of wood to prevent the steering piping from being caught and bent; and had to remove the belt and power steering pump after this shot as the pump was fouling on the brake booster; however now the engine is sitting in it's correct location, the power steering pump should clear with a small amount of wiggle room.
The bigger issue that we ran into is the sump. The AU sump is MUCH larger than an e-series sump, in my EB I had to modify the K-Frame for it to fit comfortably; there's no such luxury in the E21. I'd only had what I shall refer to with the very technical term of "a bee's dick" of clearance between an e-series sump and the swaybar in the E21. I'd always wanted to remove the front swaybar; however the logistics are a bit of a nightmare as it also serves as the castor rod or front control arm in this setup; Since I now have NO option, I had to cut the swaybar to clear the sump. I'll be looking into making some new control arms and possibly adapting an E-series rear sway-bar for use on this car now. I didn't have the right size cutting wheel for my grinder so I very carefully used one that was much too big (pictured)
See, the engine fits, as long as the sway-bar doesn't need to be there as well.
Finally in place in the bay! Now I only need to reinstall.... everything. Build an exhaust, etc. Still a lot of work to go yet, but it feels like we achieved a hell of a lot today; and it's good to finally have a capable engine in the car just WAITING to be fired into life!
I leave you with this image, and the promise that there's more to come!
Edit: here's the video compilation of some short clips showing how we move things around the yard with the help of a ride-on lawn mower.
Just finished tidying up the garage, so I can spend tomorrow removing the temporary engine and box, and welding up remainder of firewall. After that, it's time to transplant the heart from my Eb!
Since the shed has been in use for other projects (namely polishing and other touch ups to the E39 and R33) I haven't got any work done on the E21 lately.
I should be able to get it into the shed some time next week to remove the temporary motor and gearbox that are currently installed, so I can finish welding the firewall and start to get ready for installation of the "real" motor.
In the meantime, I've been playing around with some "paint" ideas for the car for fun;
Scarlett approves, since I put the tape on it she now refers to it as a race car every time she sees it!
Another idea floating around my head is stencilling and then painting the ADAC eagle full height on the doors as per the picture below, then rubbing it as it dries to get a distressed/aged look. Maybe this in combination with the military crosses?
