cheap car racing

Update your progress on your various car projects.

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Maverick
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Saturn Parts

Post by Maverick »

Maverick
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MostMint
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by MostMint »

I'm thinking those are grenaded as in blown up. These cars did not come supercharged if that's what you meant.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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Maverick
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by Maverick »

Never mind. :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: Should have guessed.
Maverick
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MostMint
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by MostMint »

Tiresmoker was over today and we worked on the race car. Replace the cheapo stainless flexible brake lines with Goodridge lines, fixed the power for the camera, set up the CB radio inside the car for earbuds, opened up the hole in the front bumper to let more air through to the radiator, tightened down a loose power steering bracket.

One of the cheapo stainless lines had a slow leak in it - meaning two of the four have failed since we put them on the car.

Mostmint Jr and I rigged up a nice setup for the base CB radio. With a little work we got it pretty reliable. Since the car was being worked on, he took the base unit and walked up by the old Kmart (about a mile) and we could hear him loud and clear from the car. I put the earbuds in and revved the engine and I could still hear well. It only plays one ear so I think we'll need to do something to adapt the mono output of the CB to work with the stereo earbuds.

Image
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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MostMint
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by MostMint »

Tom was here last Friday and we worked on the car.

Bled the brakes again - found a little air in the LR
Finished the bracket for the seat brace - drilled two sets of holes so we can set it up against the seat back in either position
Mounted the two new tires on the rims
Put the second set of headlights back on the car
Installed the rear camber bolts
Adjusted the camber on the RF as it appeared to be off
Found the exhaust leak. I ordered a new gasket as Paul Carson put gasket sealer in there but we blew a big chunk of that out during the test session.

Really need to start moving on preparations for race day

Of course I still have a house painting project going on at the moment.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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MostMint
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by MostMint »

Installed the gasket attaching the downpipe to the rest of the exhaust. Used new gasket and RTV red sealer. Hopefull no blowouts this time. The mating surfaces are not flat, but I did clean them and hopefully the gasket makes the gaps small enough the RTV will hold.

The CB is mono sound out the speaker jack so I bought a mono-to-stereo adapter so the driver will be able to hear with both ears.

Bought a 16x20 tarp and some conduit to expand the canpoty under which we park the car at the races.

Removed the radiator

Disassembled the RF hub. Did this with one of our spares that I plan to install a new hardened tapered bearing. It wrecked the old bearing but I was able to get it apart by driving the hub out from the back. I tried prying from the front but could not get that to work. I figured it would be easier to pry the hub off at the junkyard when I went to get replacements. Later I reasoned I could use a slide hammer as plan A, while removing the knuckle would be plan B.

Looking under the LF fender, I saw the tire had rubbed on the inner fender - so I fabricated a small bracket to keep the innder fender a little higher up. I also noticed brake fluid on the line, so I cleaned it off and stomped on the brake pedal a few times to see if more showed up. None did so I assume this was related to the bleeding we did last week.

While at the cross country meet I inquired about borrowing a slide hammer from Bill - one of my daughter's friend's Dad.

Figured out what tools I would need to get spare hubs and brake brackets. On Sunday I took them to pull-a-part on W130th along with the really wicked slide hammer that just showed up at my door on Sunday morning. That location had more of the 92-93 Saturns I need for the small shaft hub so I drove 45 min rather than 20 to Akron p-a-p.

I was in the yard about 2.5 hours. I removed four hubs and the front brake brackets. I also scored a like new set of rotors and pads that were in the way when I was going for hubs, and got a spare radiator cap. The slide hammer worked on the hubs - but it was a lot of work - especially for hands that work in an office all day. Made an attempt at rear brake brackets but the only pair I could find the bolts rounded due to rust and could not remove. The weather was gorgeous but I was beat at the end.

Looking at the tire situation I decided there were three tires that needed to be reversed on the rims. Last week's meeting there was one in question but these other two had more waer on the outside edge so we need to make that the inside edge. One rim was caked with grease and dirt from blowing out the halfshaft boot last year so I cleaned that off and brought them all in this morning to the Firestone store to get them switched.

Other than that not much work on the car :)
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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MostMint
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by MostMint »

Tires have been dismounted and remounted

Removed the inner race from four hubs tonight. Used the cutoff wheel to score the race then cracked it using a chisel. Also removed the c-clip and pounded out the old bearing from the knuckle. My bearing driver kit does not have a good match for the size of the race. Will need to fix that before race weekend.

Ordered another SET39 Timken bearing (this is the tapered double roller bearing for the front).
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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MostMint
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by MostMint »

Forgot to post last weekend so here is the update:

Yesterday Dave and Chris came by to work on the car.

We now have two left and one right knuckle with the new bearings installed. Dave - I was able to get that right side hub to line up properly by driving the race further down on the hub shaft. It seems to have cleared up the slop in the bearing also.

We learned to dry fit the brake bracket to the knuckle to confirm the bearing is installed far enough on the hub. Also we learned to clean the threads on the studs on the new hubs as they tend to get a little rusty sitting in the junkyard.

We also found the RF hub on the car was loose on the inner race. Apparently the bearing had let go up there and when it was replaced they re-used the old galled hub. What this means is we need to put together one more RF hub and will need one more bearing.

We are actually getting better at doing these things. Must remember we can use a vice to press the bearing into the knuckle when a vice is available. Should we bring a vice to the race?

Also we made necessary modifications to the tent to support a 16x20 tarp. Hopefully we won't need that but I think we will want a little room to work under there in case of rain that is not falling straight down.

We are also recruiting a guy I know named Bill to help out. He stopped by yesterday to look at the car.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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MostMint
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by MostMint »

Last Sunday night I noticed I was starting to get sick - then missed three days at work. Nothing happened at all. This cause a significant delay in progress as I had to cancel two weeknight work sessions - one with Dave and one with John.

I have set us up to share our pit with a team I know. I met the guys at a track day earlier this year.

This weekend I got started updating our documentation for the race. I looked at the ads I had collected through the year and lowered the appraised value of the car from $308 to $268. With the value of the add on's we are at $428. This is under the $500 limit so no penalty laps. I updated the receipts to include this year's items and printed off receipts for our payments. Most of this was just refreshing the info I had collected for last year in the white binder.

Later I made it out to the garage and got to work on the knuckles and hubs. I used the vice to push the bearings to seat them properly and remove the free play in the bearings. I also took all the hubs and cleaned the threads on the studs, also cleaned the base of the hub and test fit to a rim. I set to work rebuilding a second LF knuckle. I removed the hub and bearing and cleaned all these parts. All it needs now is assembly.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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MostMint
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by MostMint »

Today I took the day off work and Fred32v came over.

I spent a good bit of time organizing things. Big things I am stacking in the trailer (staging area). Smaller things are going into 18 gallon tubs. There are a lot more things to go into the tubs than last year. Now I could have just thrown all that stuff in there but in the interest of being able to find things in a hurry I wrote down which items went into which tubs and bagged up some of the items.

The old man went right to work on the rear suspension - loosening every bolt and then re-tightening. I spent some time shagging tools and helping out with a couple nuts that were really rusted on. This will save us a ton of time in the event we have to replace any of those parts. We hope this was a waste of time as we hope all the suspension components back there stay in the car for the entire race.

None of this is flashy but it is the kind of work that needs to be done in order to increase chance of success.

I was showing him the RF hub/bearing I took off there and he noticed that while the bearings in the outer race were tapered roller bearings, the race itself was for roller bearings. Further inspection revealed the inner bearings were roller bearings also. So some hack created this Frankenstein bearing setup and we were unknowingly racing on it!
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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MostMint
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by MostMint »

Putting up a Facebook page for the race team:

http://www.facebook.com/MostmintRacing
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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TireSmoker
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by TireSmoker »

Thought I would post the summary of my on-track moments from this weekend's 25 hour race.. fortunately, they were very few.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMGRKDxQbKc

You can see a car spinning off ahead of me just as I'm pulling out on the track for the very first time, then a bone-headed self-induced spin, and then a nowhere-to-go wreck that, fortunately, didn't damage the car very much.

-Dave
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VeeDub
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by VeeDub »

I think you did a good job on the spin. You didn't look panicked at all and you never stalled it.
Also when you t-boned that guy.. You also were calm. You just got on the radio immediately to the pits to let them know what happened. There wasnt any emotion or getting upset, just business! Great Job.
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by TireSmoker »

Thanks. After the spin, what you can't see, but can kinda hear, is another car spin and almost hit me. That was a little unnerving to see coming at me. As I'm waiting to pull back into traffic, you'll hear another tire skid and you'll see a hint of reddish color between my helmet and the edge of the screen.

-Dave
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MostMint
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Re: cheap car racing

Post by MostMint »

A race within the race - the Saturn vs Ford Escort ZX2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcgM2UfN ... ature=plcp

We shared a pit stall with these guys
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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