2118 replies to this topic

[Rockoz]

For your dipstick.

Would it be a worthwhile modification to utilise an over centre clamping arrangement like used on auto transmission dipsticks?

 

Shouldnt be too hard to adapt with your accumulated knowledge.

 

Cheers

 

Rob

[rodomo]

 auto transmission dipsticks?

 

You probably lost Heath about here.

[Shtstr]

I don't know if you did or not and it would require a full engine rebuild now to do this mod.
We use to drill out the oil gallery feeds to the crank to enlarge the oil supply to the crank.

[claysummers]

Mate if there was a hole to be drilled on this car you can bet driller Heath was on it. I recommend a read.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Heath]

I don't recall enlarging any oiling holes in the block... maybe grinding some transitions smoother but I was in a ridiculous Summernats rush when I put this motor so I wasn't looking for any extra jobs to do. The COME oiling mod (as shown on YouTube) was the main change. Anyway, whatever I did is covered in the build thread so you can look back and read it. I am not of the opinion currently that I have any oiling supply problems within the block, so I wasn't planning any changes.

Entered the car in the Mt Tarrengower Historic Hillclimb the weekend just past. Most entrants got 5 runs but my class only got 3 due to them starting at the top of the list each day (even though they didn't complete the list the day prior, lol). So as a newbie there with 3 runs including practice I was far from comfortable with things and would have loved a little more seat time, but anyway I came 1st in my own class and came 3rd overall at the event in a field of 90-something cars. God this car is fast, lol. The cars that were ahead were David Brown (Brown & Davis) in his heavily campaigned Datsun 1600 race car, and a Locost Clubman. Not a bad pair of vehicles to lose to!

The pits were full of historic racing cars and tasteful old cars generally. Our campsite in the paddock looked fantastic.


But that incredibly frustrating piece of shit dipstick was still leaking. I don't know if it's pressurising the tube, overcoming the spring and pushing the stick out, or whether it just has a totally ineffective seal on it. Whatever the story is, it is not sealing and making a mess of all the parts I just cleaned when the motor was apart. Argh!

Companies like Lokar make a ~$250 locking dipstick for Chev & Ford V8's, but not for a Holden V8, and I couldn't even find one of those in a store locally to see if it was suitable to be adapted or not.
So instead I picked up this Aeroflow one for a bit over $100 which I thought was reasonably priced. It doesn't lock, it doesn't even have a whole lot of friction to keep it closed, but it's a proper modular set of parts that can be fiddled with and that's a lot better than the chromed sheetmetal one I was playing with.

It does have these two O-rings under the knob. A good start.

I got a bit of alluminium bar stock and machined three O-ring grooves on it (tighter, and crowded together compared to the Aeroflow one) and a deeper, rounded groove to fit an R-Clip. The actual "stick" is not sheetmetal... it is a bit of cable with a peened indicator thing on the lower end) at the top end that is secured into the knob with a stainless M4 grub-screw, so I drilled up the guts for the cable/stick to go to the same depth and cross-drilled and tapped a little M4 thread for the grub screw to keep it in place.

Test fitted the cable/stick with grub-screw, and 3x O-Rings.

Drilled some speed holes in the bracket, drilled a 'tangential' hole through the nut for the R-Clip to stick through, and put a rounded knob on the end (featuring speed hole through the guts and a radial hole it intersects with to prevent it filling with muck)




Let's see if that fixes things.

[Peter UC]

Well even if it doesn't work better than the old one, at least the new dipstick looks better

[RallyRed]

Hi mate,
Regarding the dipstick leak...some of the 6cyl. track guys just memove the dipstick and cap it off with something like this ( of the correct size), with a small hose clamp on it.
I guess there'd be 2 caveats -
1 If crankcase presure/ windage is forcing it out
and you block it, then that pressure will find another way out?
2 Need to be confident your oil is at the correct level before you put the dipstick in the toolbox.
2 cents

Attached Files

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[Heath]

Yeah, that's certainly an easier way to seal it up. The guy at the speed shop also suggested putting a grub-screw into the Aeroflow one sideways, so you'd need to get an allen key out and stuff around with that near a hot exhaust. If I have to get a tool out of my fully loaded car at a servo to check the oil, that is failing the "uncompromised street car" design criteria in my opinion, so no bueno.

 

Another problem that I noticed is that one of the two taps in the LPG valve box is far longer than the other and was actually hitting the lid of the valve box when it was fully open... so the lid was sitting a bit open and the seal wasn't doing anything.

 

I marked out the centre positions of the knobs on the taps:

Found a bit of ally tube, cut two very short lengths and made some little ally discs that I welded into place, then tacked them in and made sure this gave me the clearance needed.

That'll do.

 

Additionally, I've been getting sick of having bugger all secured luggage space in the car, and I never liked how the area above the diff was pretty much dead space... it's so shallow that I can't squeeze a tent or anything in there so it mostly sits empty. I jumped on SolidWorks and drew up a simple tray & lid and had my mate plasma cut it out for me, then bead-rolled and folded what I could at his shop where there's a lot of nice equipment.

Back in my workshop, A bit of trimming & welding

 

Started to mark out a hole that I'd cut. The lid is only quite small but the box below it is of course a fair bit wider.

Dug out some more of that stainless piano hinge and marked out how I'd trim it back.

 

Actually had to trim a lot of the top off the box to get it in there... how I folded it was un-installable (which I kind of expected but I was trying to start with the max storage volume knowing I could cut it down in height if needed), then I made up some little bits of flat bar that I could drill & tap into, some tabs to act as "stops" that the lid would close against, a folded mount for the striker to bolt through, and some other tabs that I could pop rivet into from above. to hold it up. 

The "stop" plates needed a gusset to be cut in and welded to each so that they had some structural integrity.

Cut some black vinyl to suit:

Glued into place:

[RallyRed]

Nice work..as usual!

[neglectedtorana]

Hi Heath,

You've made such a great car with your own hands it is very impressive and encouraging, thanks for sharing all the details and congratulations on the cover. Must be very rewarding and definitely deserved.

After all the driving experience what do you think of the Wilwoods and what is your brake pedal like without a booster?
I'm guessing it's just a bit heavier than with a booster but maybe some more feedback?

I'm always considering different brakes and the Wilwoods fit with my wheels and I have found an engineer who is willing to entertain the idea of putting a supercharger on my car so I'm interested in no booster as an option.

Cheers, Tom

[Heath]

Cheers fellas. It is very rewarding I can assure you. 

 

Once the Wilwoods bedded in (I think the pads were a bit springy to begin with) I've been happy with them. I'm not a big brakes person... I don't use my brakes very hard; I am a bit of a pussy-foot on the anchors and generally just throw a car into a corner and let the tyres start deflecting and absorbing a lot of the energy. So I'm probably not giving the brakes as hard a time as people might think and certainly not covering the wheels in brake dust. The pedal effort must be heavier than standard but it's not uncomfortable. It seems in check with the steering weight and other control weights. I guess you do have to stand on it when you really want to hit the anchors hard, but normal driving it's very "comfortable" I would say. 

 

But nothing comes for nothing... it has a longer travel. So pad knock-back is exaggerated if you're cornering hard (with the alloy Wilwood hubs, even with my stub-stiffeners, pad knock-back is probably more than it may be with steel hubs also)

 

You can still generate vacuum under the throttle plate with a blower on your motor, but I do personally prefer manual brakes for feel. Much quicker to detect a lock-up and let you have another application quickly.

 

I cut the crappy carpet that was on my rear false floor so that it actually had a "flap" in it... much better than the single solid piece it was before. And I drilled and nut-serted in a few spots and added some little tie-down hooks for my big trip.

Now it's happy in the twisties even full of camping gear and beer etc. - so much better!

 

Camped at McPhillamy Park:

And then did the Bathurst Mountain Straight Hillclimb. 

I was the fastest Torana entered with a best time of 55 seconds flat, although there were a few pretty serious HSV's and stuff that were a few seconds faster (and some time-attack type AWD cars that were many seconds faster). I would have been one of the faster road cars at the event I reckon, so that's pretty cool.

 

And this time I actually got some footage.

[SHEEL]

Those Scenic shots and the 70/30 action shot on track are EPIC shots. You are winning at collecting memories that's for sure!

[neglectedtorana]

Thanks Heath,

I had guessed from the videos you used throttle and the hand brake/skid control lever more than your brakes.

Although I don't think I would be competitive I would love to try that hill climb or similar, where do you hear about that type of event or how do you keep informed when that stuff is on? Is it best to join one of the sporting car clubs?

I think there was a classic car bash recently that ended with a few laps of the mountain.

Cheers, Tom

[myss427]

Hi mate,
Regarding the dipstick leak...some of the 6cyl. track guys just memove the dipstick and cap it off with something like this ( of the correct size), with a small hose clamp on it.
I guess there'd be 2 caveats -
1 If crankcase presure/ windage is forcing it out
and you block it, then that pressure will find another way out?
2 Need to be confident your oil is at the correct level before you put the dipstick in the toolbox.
2 cents

 

Not sure if that would be fun on a hot engine with minimal room with the chassis rails and extractors in the way?

[Heath]

Those Scenic shots and the 70/30 action shot on track are EPIC shots. You are winning at collecting memories that's for sure!

Bloody oath. And now after 15,000km and what... Seven days of competitive motorsport in a year? I honestly think it has earned a bit of a break.
And I've earned a bit of a break from it, I think. I'm very happy with what it has done.

Thanks Heath,

I had guessed from the videos you used throttle and the hand brake/skid control lever more than your brakes.

Although I don't think I would be competitive I would love to try that hill climb or similar, where do you hear about that type of event or how do you keep informed when that stuff is on? Is it best to join one of the sporting car clubs?

I think there was a classic car bash recently that ended with a few laps of the mountain.

Keep in mind I was running rubbish rear tyres on it for a long time so I'd just roll on a lot of the time. If that wasn't enough, I pop the clutch or scando it to initiate. The hydro is good for when you're not going fast enough to throw the weight around properly or you want to (for example) do a tight U-turn on a narrow road/go from straight, gripped and composed driving to tightly turning around a cone..
With the new tyres it needs a bit more upsetting. But either way it's an incredibly easy car to steer with the throttle.

It's certainly not about being competitive, I'm only posting some of my results because I happen to be doing pretty well with the car and people seem to be interested in its competitive-ness. The reason I'm doing it is to do it, not to beat anyone. The key part is to have a crack.

I'm just generally on the look-out for good cheap motorsport events. The car was always supposed to be used for sporting stuff and I'm nowhere near exhausting what is on offer. I want to do Eddington Sprints, Geelong Revival, Ararat Hill Climb, Optima again, and Wilby Retrospeed again. They're all Vic based. But there's also Willunga in S.A. and many others in the calendar I haven't even looked at yet. I really want to do some actual drifting at speed in this thing as well... will need to build or buy some more wheels and take it to a proper Winton skidpan day or something like that.

There was a "Variety Muscle Car Run" (cars were from S.A.) that was in Bathurst on the same weekend, a couple of the cars entered the hillclimb but most were just there for a look. I regrettably didn't see that many of the cars as apparently there were loads of nice ones. They were all stickered up heavily.

Not sure if that would be fun on a hot engine with minimal room with the chassis rails and extractors in the way?

Agreed.

Footage of my best run can be found here:
https://www.instagra...zRlODBiNWFlZA==

I intend to do some more YouTube stuff (including this event) but gotta make time to do more editing.

[Shiney005]

Footage of my best run can be found here:
https://www.instagra...zRlODBiNWFlZA==
 

I did a few laps in a VT racer there years ago. It is so exhilarating driving up through that part of the track. It was a day I will never forget.

[Steve-UC]

G'day Heath,
Where did you get your hatch rubber seal from.
It looks more compact than the Rare Spares version - which makes the hatch sit up a bit on mine.

Cheers

Steve

[Cook]

Hi Steve. Heath will advise but I think he trimmed his. I had real problems with the Rares seal and no way it was going to get close. I tried a seal from Better-rubber (I think), which was better but still a bit high and needed considerable force to close the hatch.. Got a third seal from a mob selling the make that Mick (forum member) at Torandpra provides. I've found this to be the best in my situation but I have had to saturate it with rubber softener and leave the hatch closed for an extended period to get it where I am now happy. Also get it out in the sun. Also crack a window or door to help with the closure. Good luck with it. Cheers Ron

[yel327]

Sounds like not a lot has changed. When I painted my hatchback in the late 80's into the early 90's I had to find a NOS seal as the aftermarket ones didn't work right. Same with the hatch window rubber.

[Heath]

I started by trimming one down the back of a Torana RP&A one which is reputed to be the closest fit.

 

But with the glass hatch it was never going to work... the hatch is too thick so I needed something more lower in profile. All covered in the thread already.

https://www.gmh-tora...atch/?p=1083559

[Shtstr]

Hi mate. I can let you know what we use to do with 308 race engines to release bottom end pressure if you like along with improvements to help out return to the sump.
Send me a PM if you are interested.

[Heath]

Well I stupidly started telling people "I've done 18,000km now so I think just about everything that was about to go wrong has gone wrong".
 
(It certainly does feel like I'd dealt with more than I could have imagined I'd have to ever deal with)
 
Alas!
 
The car had been pretty great, so I went to earn some brownie points with it before Wilby Retrospeed by fixing a floater hub seal that was leaking on the other side:

Polished out these rough machining marks on this side (copy paste of the issue on the RHS)

A bit of irregular wear on the brakes so I tidied up the pads with some chamfers and figured that would suppress the issue a bit.

And went to do the first oil change since the new sump with external pick-up went on, and the fucking oil pump didn't prime back up. Clearly it doesn't like its new big straw. :( 
Out came the petroleum jelly. Not happy.

 
Anyway, overcame that, packed and got out of the big smoke with a big smile.



The next morning, my Retrospeed experience started going a little pear shaped. Had a warm up lap or two before starting to lean on it in my third lap and dropping oil pressure on the sweeper.

Not only did it go to zero, but it wouldn't come up again. It again wouldn't self-prime, even with a fair old shunt roll starting it to about 2,500rpm. People assumed it had broken a pump gear or shaft etc.
So I got a lift into Yarrawonga to get some bits and pieces so I could lie in the paddocks and pack the oil pump again, which I did, and then it primed again. Curiously, the oil filter was bone dry. Very odd.

Anyway, that's a big old hit to my ego after spending so much effort on the sump last year. Absolutely fucking gutted that it doesn't work, and when it gets a gulp of air, the car is fully disabled. What a heartbreaker.

Emotion of morning captured:


I decided I may as well take it for a warm lap (rather than a hot lap) since the track was still open, took it out, and the diff was absolutely howling. Totally unrelated problem, no idea what transpired as I don't remember doing anything retarded. Wasn't much to do other than coach a few other people in their cars to get their lap times down (and had fun driving one or two of them!) before hitting the beers.


Kind of funnily, I managed to put down the fastest time of the morning in my second lap before the problem arose but it was later beaten by 0.1sec by my mate in another Torana when I was crawling underneath mine, so I came home with silver.

In the morning we drove it back into town and I topped up the diff oil (without really knowing how much was in there) and then went on to finish our weekend with a few more stops and 5hrs of driving with a tremendously fucking noisy diff. Aren't I a great boyfriend.

Back on the hoist in Melbourne a day later, trying to figure out where the oil leak is coming from? Still no idea.


Okay so here is where I figure it out. The top arm has been trying to spread the diff hat from the diff housing during heavy braking pressure (plus I've had some tramping under threshold braking which no doubt has exacerbated the issue) and pulled the flange apart a little between the two top bolts (you can see oil at the bottom of the photo where it should be a dry flange)

Also, I've got a few crown wheel teeth in my hand after pulling them off the magnet in the diff. Another view can be seen below:

The wear pattern looks bad, and half of the teeth that hadn't snapped off had cracked.


Gave the upper link balljoint a birthday with a clean, grease, and adjust.


I want to re-inforce that flange area so drilled and helicoiled the rough cast hole in the top:


Bolt and crush tube installed:

Drilled & ground some space out of the diff hat to clear it:





I bought a new 3.73:1 Spicer gearset and ground the pinion back to clear the TrueTrac carrier. Tidied all the sharp edges in the hope that it may releive the stress concentrations and some other issues I was seeing with the old gearset.




Took it to the diff shop and did my best to refresh it with a decent wipe pattern:


Now for the stuff that remains unresolved...

Hmmm why is this bush rooted?

This is what an upper arm mount is supposed to look like:

This is what happens when you go through a corner on song in a Torana with decent tyres:


At some point it would be nice to drive this car to its limits. But I don't know when that will be possible. For now I've just had to put it back together with some light bracing on the shitty upper arm mount (and a new bush), and that'll have to do for Optima. I don't have the time to do anything further with my other commitments.

[Bigfella237]

~ And went to do the first oil change since the new sump with external pick-up went on, and the frOcking oil pump didn't prime back up. Clearly it doesn't like its new big straw. :( 
Out came the petroleum jelly. Not happy. ~

You would take a bit of a weight hit but you may have to consider fitting an engine oil accumulator in there somewhere?

[Shiney005]

The Porsche starting to look "more fun" now Heath? 

[RallyRed]

Hi Heath,
Regarding the oil surge issue/ track day surge issue.
I had a look back through your engine pics, but couldnt find any that showed rocker cover drains? ( maybe I missed them).
I have had the same issue on track days with a fully tricked up track sump. As the experts say, a trick sump only works if the oil is actually in there, and not all pumped up into the top of the engine.
We added drains ( 6 cyl ) and all good.
Apologies if this is all old news to you.