'85 Merkur XR4Ti Rally Car

The holidays have been even busier than normal since my brother decided to get married between Christmas and New Years, in New Hampshire no less!  Even so, progress has continued.  Rear subframe was removed:  

The trailing arms required a hammer for removal.  Why?  Well that bend shouldn't be there:  

Neither should this crack:  

The arms may actually be OK, but I'll still be making a beefed up pair to go with the new reinforced subframe when all my metal bits get here.  The next step was cutting the solid steel mounts out of the old subframe- Christmas eve in my neighborhood sounded like church bells and angle grinder:  

The new subframe then went on the car, measurements were made, and the mounts were tacked in place once it was close enough to straight:  

Then another round with the grinder and acetone to get things clean enough for welding, and the mounts were zapped into the subframe:  

I also seam welded the subframe mounts on the unibody to their pockets and ground them so they wouldn't interfere:  

Everything still lined up after welding so I think I haven't berkeleyed it up yet.  The steel on the rear subframe is thick enough that I'm pretty close to maxing out my 110v welder with .030" wire, but it seems to be getting good penetration so hopefully things will go smoothly once I get the rest of my reinforcing and diff mounting bits.

What settings were you using on your welder feed/amps? Do you use ArCo2? A weld well done is a sight to behold.... 

NH? Where?

In reply to 759NRNG :

Argon/CO2 mix, feed 5.5 and amps set to "J" whatever that means in Eastwood speak.

In reply to bluej:

Windham, just barely across the border from Massachussetts.  It was pretty there but it was COLD.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to bluej:

Windham, just barely across the border from Massachussetts.  It was pretty there but it was COLD.

Ah, yes.  We probably just crossed paths. I grew up outside of Manchester and was back there for Christmas, but we left on the 26th to visit her side in Charlotte.

Forum member here Golfduke is the brewmaster at a brewpub just up the road from Windham, the Backyard Brewery. Next time you guys are there, you should head up his way and let me know.

In reply to bluej :

Cool, now I have more things to do next time I go up to visit- my brother lives behind a Dunkin Donuts in Manchester.

Of course.  There' a dunkin donuts on every block up there.

This weekend started off with a huge snowstorm, which apparently caused Tractor Supply to not have any shielding gas refills- since it was the third time that they have been out when I needed some, I traded in my TSC tank to a nearby welding supplier instead and will be using them from now on, since it's worth it for me to drive slightly further to actually get my tank refilled instead of the "convenience" of TSC.

With freshly refilled gas, I fired up the welder to get my subframe modified for the Supra diff.  First, I loosely assembled and lined everything up:  

I needed to grind a little bit for clearance on one side:  

Then I snugged everything up, rechecked the alignment, and tacked the nuts into the brackets- then took it all apart to weld the nuts on:  

Bolted the brackets back onto the diff, got things lined up again (the sheet metal I designed lines up with the factory bolt holes for positioning, although it doesn't use them) and measured one more time.  Then tacked the brackets on:  

And removed the diff so that I could weld the brackets, as well as the box sections to close them out.  Hopefully this is beefy enough:  

The rear mount and its' corresponding pieces on the unibody will wait a little bit, since I'm going to want to have the engine and trans installed to check pinion angle.  

Since I'll be welding stuff to the car near the gas tank, but want it installed to check clearance, I installed the new filler neck grommet in order to fix the small fuel leak there.  It should also help me avoid having my car blow up when Josh flicks cigarette butts at it in the service park.  The offending grommet:  

The new one looks a bit better:  

With that done, I moved to the front of the car, wheeled the complete engine, transmission, and subframe under, and lowered the lift:  

I've never had the pleasure of installing an engine using a lift before, but the summary is basically scoot, then lower, then scoot, then lower, then... repeat many times until you're here:  

That was... surprisingly easy!  Having a lift is the best, if you have a $3k car sell it, buy a $2k lift and a $1k car, and I bet you'll still spend less time working on it.  I ran the subframe bolts in, and then hit the big green button:  

And bolted the transmission crossmember back on:  

Sara and I then reconnected the steering, clutch, and oil lines, and decided that would be a good place to call it a day since it has no oil (I need to order more!), needs a bunch of new plumbing, and if I go down the engine bay assembly rabbit hole I won't stop until midnight.  I'm going to try and channel my inner Mazdeuce and stare at this throughout the week so that I can hopefully do brilliant things with the plumbing/wiring/etc rather than my usual technique of slamming it together and calling it good enough:  

It should also help me avoid having my car blow up when Josh flicks cigarette butts at it in the service park.

This made me lol!

I feel like i should send you a bunch of those zip ties with the bracket  that push into holes. You could really make your wiring pretty, sturdy, and easy to mess with in the future. 

I agree with your lift analysis, even if mine is a Jr. version.

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

I have a bunch of those!  I still end up using one or two, then zip tying other wires to the one bundle I actually anchored properly- I need to make a point of not doing that sort of thing.

In reply to paranoid_android :

Hey, since you've been in the engine bay of this thing, is there anything you'd want to see that would make it easier for the service crew?  I have some ideas but I'm biased since I look at it all the time, whereas you have the true "never seen this before but need to check oil/coolant/leaks/etc NOW" experience.

If it were me, as odd as this sounds, I'd replace the zip ties with red ones when you re-loom the wiring. It's damn hard to see black on black in the middle of the night when you're trying to de-loom things to find a problem and you need to cut a zip tie without cutting the harness. Also, make sure the hose clamps are all the same size as far as the socket that tightens them. I know, both of those have you potentially spending money to make something work identical to how it works, but that's about all I can think of. 

And I figured you had those zip tie mounts, I mostly want to see you do it right so I get some ideas for my future wiring. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

The visibility thing is actually part of why I don't cut off most of the zip ties that I use- the tail sticking up is a good indication that there's one located there!  I did use high-vis yellow ones on the RX7 for a similar reason, though, and I have some other brightly colored ones laying around.

I try to only use hose clamps that can take a flathead screwdriver, but I will double check them.  They don't really cost money since the junkyard doesn't charge for them if you buy anything significant, European cars usually have really nice non-marring ones.

BTW, I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but your pics are not showing up for me.

In reply to NGTD :

Huh, first I've heard of it.  They're imgur hotlinks, which have been reliable as far as I can tell, sorry about that.

I can see them!

P.s. what did you do with the rx7?  Is that engine you got from me still running?

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

I sold the RX7, and it has subsequently changed hands like four times- still happily chugging along with that same engine though!

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Honestly the the most awkward thing I remember is mounting and connecting the Hella lights. 

In the engine bay itself I don't recall aything being too hard to find.  Aside from the turbo connections, but that is probably more to do with me not knowing enough about it.

I'll scroll back through the images to see if anything jars my memory.

Paint the lug nuts so you can find them if they drop.  Weld anchor or lifting points to the rockers so the whole side of the car can get lifted.  Paint jackstand points Orange so there is no confusion.

Paint all caps for fluids a bright color and label them.

Paint wheelwells white so you can see in low light.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to NGTD :

Huh, first I've heard of it.  They're imgur hotlinks, which have been reliable as far as I can tell, sorry about that.

They work on my phone , so it must be an issue with my laptop . Carry on!

No multiquote so here's a list:  

mounting and connecting the Hella lights- now much simpler with the LEDs, although that connector is still hidden in the corner, maybe I should label it  

the turbo connections- these will be simpler and less buried in the engine bay  

Paint wheelwells white- this is done, and the engine bay and interior are white too, makes a huge difference  

anchor or lifting points to the rockers- the rockers are double skinned so you can lift from pretty much anywhere, I'd love to make pin stands for it at some point to make things even simpler though  

Paint all caps for fluids a bright color and label them- this is brilliant and I need to do it  

Paint the lug nuts- I have an idea to expand this to most parts of the car: I want to color code the fasteners to my tools.  So each bolt/nut would be a fluorescent color, which would match the color of the corresponding wrench/socket, making it both easy to find dropped bolts and easy to grab the correct tool when you're a volunteer who has never seen the car before.

I may also color code the lines using tape, so that at a glance somebody can tell if it's fuel, oil, coolant, or air that they should be worried about on a given hose connection/break.

Those are great ideas! This thread is super helpful as I prep a car for my first stage rally, so thank you!

Orient hose clamps so the screw or pry point is most accessible from under the hood or lying on the ground in service, rather than in whatever state of disassembly the car was in when you put them on.

Sara and I spent a good amount of time working on the engine bay this weekend- unwrapping crumbly old electrical tape and split loom, checking things, relooming and taping, and labeling:

The harness now has nice non-crispy split loom and tape everywhere, as well as bright yellow zip ties and labels on each leg for easier field diagnosis:

We also played with the intake plumbing a bit, I think this will work but we'll need to make a new heat shield/airbox for it:  

The hose clamps are not actually going to be installed like that, it's just the easiest way to keep track of whether we have the right sizes.  I'll be making new intercooler pipes out of mild steel- it'll be heavier but also much easier for me to modify, and our old aluminum ones were sketchy at best, not having any bead on the ends.  New silicone couplers as well since a number of the old ones were splitting, and insulators on the spark plug wires since the new header puts them at much greater risk of melting:  

We filled it with oil (~7qts with the oil cooler!) and cranked it a little with the teeny bit of juice the battery currently has- the oil pressure needle moved, although it didn't build any real pressure.  Still that's... something?  The battery will spend the week on a charger and hopefully we can dial in the timing and at least get a quick start and idle next weekend.