'85 Merkur XR4Ti Rally Car

paranoid_android said:

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!

Ah don't bother then. I quit 3 months ago.

In reply to irish44j :

Congratulations!  Have you upped your Mountain Dew intake to compensate?  If you quit that too then I'm going to have to come up with a new default thing to make fun of you for 

irish44j said:

paranoid_android said:

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!

Ah don't bother then. I quit 3 months ago.

Congrats!  Now more money to put into the toy-car budget? 

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I haven't ever colour coded fasteners but I have, of late, been coding spanners. One of the downsides of getting old is that I can't read the forged numbers any more without glasses. The good old resistor / electronics colour code works well for me since it was embedded in my brain early in my career. I have used model paint but my local auto parts man has started stocking paint pens in most needed colours except brown (1) and violet (7)... I can quote mnemonics, both polite and less so, sometime if you like :)

From my long ago rallying past I'd add the following to your list:

labelled electrical connections 

ditto for fuses and circuit breakers

maximise captive fasteners

loose part storage in the engine bay - we had a cut down 1litre plastic ice cream container glued to the inner guard behind the strut tower - somewhere to put them so they don't get lost and a quick check for leftover parts

we also collected used fasteners - new parts on the cars went on with new fasteners and all the old ones went into a biggish compartmented box. Probably engine, body, suspension compartments but it was 40 odd years ago :(

colour coded lines is good but maybe heat shrink rather than tape?

FWIW  I have the Ford book on Sierra preparation for Motorsport, if you haven't got it and are interested let me know and we can work out a way to get it to you.

cheers

Richard

In reply to RichardNZ :

Thanks Richard!  Most of our connectors are labeled (or the wire just next to them is), we also use fuses that light up when they're blown so it's easy to tell at a glance that they're still good.  I've been trying to incorporate captive fasteners where I can, especially in the rear end where things are changing for the larger differential anyway.

I love the integrated loose parts bin idea, and will need to find a spot to fit something like that once it's all together.  Maybe a magnetic strip on the side as well for little stuff.

We have a copy of the Ford book, no need to ship it but thank you for the offer- the book was extremely helpful when I was seam welding and reinforcing the chassis, and I still refer to it occasionally for a quick reference of what Ford's recommendations were.  

I need to get a good photo of our spare parts bins, we've got roughly three cars worth of parts at this point so in addition to fasteners and hardware we actually have big wheeled totes with things like control arms and axles and stuff in them.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to irish44j :

Congratulations!  Have you upped your Mountain Dew intake to compensate?  If you quit that too then I'm going to have to come up with a new default thing to make fun of you for 

Oh don't worry, I still have the occasional Dew. But that is substantially reduced as well. Almost dying has a significant effect on one's (bad) health habits, let me tell you. And I don't mean from a tree outside of that two-left. 

irish44j said:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to irish44j :

Congratulations!  Have you upped your Mountain Dew intake to compensate?  If you quit that too then I'm going to have to come up with a new default thing to make fun of you for 

Oh don't worry, I still have the occasional Dew. But that is substantially reduced as well. Almost dying has a significant effect on one's (bad) health habits, let me tell you. And I don't mean from a tree outside of that two-left. 

Whats the chances of two guys on the same forum almost dying from too many cigarettes and too much mountain dew? My heart attack was September.  Cut back both substantially. 

Dusterbd13 said:

irish44j said:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to irish44j :

Congratulations!  Have you upped your Mountain Dew intake to compensate?  If you quit that too then I'm going to have to come up with a new default thing to make fun of you for 

Oh don't worry, I still have the occasional Dew. But that is substantially reduced as well. Almost dying has a significant effect on one's (bad) health habits, let me tell you. And I don't mean from a tree outside of that two-left. 

Whats the chances of two guys on the same forum almost dying from too many cigarettes and too much mountain dew? My heart attack was September.  Cut back both substantially. , and

hah....well, I think my genetics had more to do with it. My Dad had quadruple bypass when he was like 55 and he never smoked a cigarette in his life, didn't drink much soda or booze, and generally lived (and still lives) a healthy life.  My uncle, same story! But, it's an easy excuse to quit the expensive bad habits for me, so that's a plus. More money for other things :)

Meanwhile, another uncle who has smoked, drank, and generally lived the unhealthiest life ever is pretty much in perfect health in his upper 60s somehow! I was hoping I got his genes :)

irish44j said:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to irish44j :

Congratulations!  Have you upped your Mountain Dew intake to compensate?  If you quit that too then I'm going to have to come up with a new default thing to make fun of you for 

Oh don't worry, I still have the occasional Dew. But that is substantially reduced as well. Almost dying has a significant effect on one's (bad) health habits, let me tell you. And I don't mean from a tree outside of that two-left. 

Good job quitting smoking Josh!

There is a reason I gave up drinking alcohol too...

A while ago, I gave GRMer singleslammer's business (steelcandy.co) an order for my rear subframe reinforcing bits, but the postal service decided it would be fun to hold them hostage for a while.  This weekend, they finally showed up!  

The general plan is to double up all the tabs on the subframe, and fill any holes that I won't be using, as well as tie into the differential mounts.  I bolted the training arms in to keep things from moving too much:  

Zappy zappy:  

Et voila:  

Bolted up to the car to check clearance- it seems to have shrunk slightly thanks to all the welding and needs a little "persuasion" to line up with the holes but fits nicely otherwise:  

Then bolted the diff up, god DAMN that thing is heavy:  

If you look carefully you can see silver shims between the diff and its' front mounts- they're needed in order to get the pinion angle correct.  The rear mount was tightened up, and then with all of the bolts tight the side mounts for the rear mount were tacked to the body- I've read too many horror stories of the rear mounting points ripping out of these cars so I decided to give it some extra beef.   Pictures of both myself and Sara ("why do you have to put the car so high?") at various stages of this process:  

Then we yanked the whole assembly out, welded the diff bracket side mounts, and painted them:  

This stuff got paint too:  

While paint was drying (before?  My memory sucks, this was yesterday!) we fired up the car- it ran for a few seconds (no TPS, MAF sensor, O2 sensor, cooling system, charging system, it's amazing it can run at all!) and sounded pretty healthy and built over 60psi of oil pressure pretty much immediately, which is an excellent sign that all should be well once we get everything plumbed and hooked up.  The only oil leak looks to be where I welded an AN bung to the turbo, so I'll have to grind that back and zap it again:  

Then again, Merkurs love leaking oil- here's our parts car, which has no engine, transmission, differential, or indeed anything that contains oil installed, managing to have a berkeleying oil slick under it anyway:  

Definitely not because I didn't drain that filter and the dog knocked it over.  Nope.  

With the paint dry enough, the differential and subframe went back in the car:  

A better shot of what's going on at the rear mount:  

We checked the pinion angle again and it went right back to where it was supposed to.  Then I installed the driveshaft, which made me very happy since it was sort of the moment of truth proving that the differential lined up where it was supposed to:  

Then we installed the trailing arms to check that none of the reinforcements would interfere with anything, pulled them back off, and did lots more welding, closing off the original spring pockets, gusseting the coilover mount, and adding a brace:  

Originally I was going to double skin the entire thing by cutting up the old trailing arms, but given that it would take about 3x as much time just to cut them and make the pieces fit we'll see how these hold up first- I do have another set of straight arms if I decide to try that.  The last task before paint was to remove the old bushings from these arms, which Sara did by setting them on fire (it worked great on her 318ti previously!):  

These bushings were incredibly stubborn, and wouldn't come out easily with fire alone, so I hit them with a hammer, got progressively angrier as they refused to move, and eventually was pissed off enough to hit them sufficiently hard- nothing survives the hammer/rage/hammer feedback loop!    

Then, paint:  

Not too bad, I'd say it was a pretty productive weekend.

who is this person who is painting everything in pretty matching colors? Not the Chris Nonack I know.... 

In reply to irish44j :

It's a color code- red stuff is custom diff bracketry, white is permanently attached to the body, black is major suspension components.  This way, if the crew needs to swap the diff, I can just say "unbolt everything that's red" and they'll pull the right components.  Also, it looks pretty 

It has been over a month since I sent my struts out and I've heard nothing despite emailing and calling... this sort of thing is becoming an unfortunate theme for this project.  Hopefully the shop is just very busy.  

I can piece together my own struts using more common 40mm Escort bits and a couple machined components for a little over $500, but I know the moment I pull the trigger on that stuff I'll finally get a quote for making my existing 41mm stuff good as new 

Glad that they worked out! Happy to help. 

Fresh bushings for the freshly painted reinforced trailing arms:  

Bolted onto the car with brakes and hubs:  

Rebuilt axles installed:  

Damper reattached to check full droop:  

I also swept the rear suspension through its' full range of motion, and nothing hits anything!  Which is good, since the car had to come off the lift anyway and leaving the rear springs off lets it ride level with dollies under the front subframe:  

Dat stance:  

The rally car was moved next to the lift so that boring things could happen on the daily drivers- Chief needed O2 sensors and the BMW needed a guibo.  There was just enough room:  

To add further to my distraction this weekend, I helped Ian F's mom clean out her garage by taking a long dormant Kawasaki H1 off her hands- it will get a build thread some time in the future, for now it's mainly good for sitting on and making 2-stroke noises:  

With bike shenanigans and boring maintenance out of the way, it was back to the rally car to get a little more done.  New steel intercooler pipes were made:  

I don't have a bead roller, but these tack welds should serve the same purpose and keep the couplers from blowing off:  

We tried to paint them but probably got too close to the maximum possible humidity for good adhesion, we may have to try again:  

Last but not least, Sara bent up this neat bracket for the coolant tank while I was replacing the BMW's guibo- previously the tank had been held on with giant hose clamps.  It got welded on but not painted yet:  

You're getting pretty darn good at sticking metal together. What's the rally schedule this year? 

Looking good! 

H1! I'll have another two stroke street bike someday. I still want to put a modernish two stroke engine in an 80s street bike. 

The XR4Ti is looking good, I haven't touched mine for months. 

H1=500cc & H2=750cc??? all my oilfoggers are RD's.... good looking scoot , and yes your 'passes' are spectacular!!!

In reply to 759NRNG :

H1. It was my mother's husband's bike purchased in 1971. As far as we can tell, it hasn't run since the 70's and has moved from garage to garage since.  He would never let it go despite the fact he was never going to ride it again.  When he died last year, my mother could finally send for a replacement title (original long lost) which arrived last week.  One step closer to being able to finally get her car into one bay of her two car garage for the first since she bought that house back in 1995. 

It rolls and the tires hold air, but that is about the extent of functionality. Chris has his work cut out for him. But since it's now sitting inside an old motorcycle dealership, I consider it an appropriate home. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Thanks!  Starting with new, clean metal feels like cheating after welding so much dirty and rusty stuff.  

Rally schedule is sort of up in the air, I'm trying to relax about it and not lock anything down until the car is running and driving again, which will probably be too late for Waste Management Winter rally, and I'm supposed to crew for somebody at Sandblast.  We will definitely do Black River Stages again, and other potential events are Hyperfest Rallysprint, STPR, NEFR, Upstate NY Rallysprint, and ESPR- we were hoping for the return of Magnum Opus or Rally West Virginia, but no such luck this year.

In reply to Ian F :

Yeah, the H1 needs... everything.  It's in remarkably good shape, but anything that is capable of aging out has done so.  Step one will be much fogging of the cylinders and seeing if the engine will start turning after a month or so.  It should be a fun project though, I have a thing for bikes that are known for being a handful.

#damntheguibos

The car is looking great!

In reply to paranoid_android :

Between the Merkur and various BMWs I have destroyed at least a half dozen guibos; in the same time period, Sara and I have each killed one u-joint, so we can semi-scientifically conclude that u-joints are three times tougher than guibos 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Thanks!  Starting with new, clean metal feels like cheating after welding so much dirty and rusty stuff.  

Rally schedule is sort of up in the air, I'm trying to relax about it and not lock anything down until the car is running and driving again, which will probably be too late for Waste Management Winter rally, and I'm supposed to crew for somebody at Sandblast.  We will definitely do Black River Stages again, and other potential events are Hyperfest Rallysprint, STPR, NEFR, Upstate NY Rallysprint, and ESPR- we were hoping for the return of Magnum Opus or Rally West Virginia, but no such luck this year.

who are you crewing for at Sandblast? I'm going down to crew for Zero (Adam Moore).