Its been a productive week or so on this build as I now have a rolling chassis!
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I picked up the chassis, axels and freshly painted wheels from the sandblaster prior to the long weekend. They came out absolutely fantastic. I was really happy with the quality of work and finish.
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The long weekend was great to get a solid couple of days to work on it. I've been able to install superpro bushes and parabolic springs along with the axles, so hopefully the ride is greatly improved. I've found that since installing the parabolics, the chassis is sitting about 2 inches higher than an ex military S3 my friend has. It'll be interesting to see how it settles after dropping in the engine, gearbox, bulkhead and the panels. Ive heard overall I'll get an inch or so extra from standard height.
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Next time I should put the rod inside the springs. I have to replace that tie rod end so had to disassemble that section anyway. Looks quite nice with new u-bolts, nuts, shackles and fresh paint. I took all the brakes apart and to my surprise there was a huge amount of meat left on the pads. no real noticeable difference in thickness to the brand new pads I have to replace them. No cylinders were leaking either. Looks like I'll be keeping the overhaul kit for later down the track (I had new pads, cylinders and springs to replace everything with). I gave the brakes a clean and put the drums back on. The challenge for me will be doing the brake lines by myself.
Whilst building up the chassis, I was able to make some progress on the engine as well. I managed to strip and paint the engine breather, side cover, breather cap, external oil assembly and a few more bits and pieces. For these pieces I used a combination of paint stripper and wire wheeling to get clean.
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I've also found molasses to work fantastic for some other rusted parts. Letting the items sit in a tub (ratio of 9:1 water to molasses), coming out great after a few weeks. I've been soaking the exhaust manifold and it has come up fantastic. I've gone a bit off from the traditional restoration, painting it a matt black. The molasses ate all the rust, showing nice crisp detailing of the numbers on the manifold. Even though the molasses ate the rust, the manifold wasn't very pretty. I didn't want to paint it silver, so I thought black would be a good option. Before molasses and after painting below.
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I'm glad I replaced the gaskets on the engine too. Have a look at one of the gaps on the rocker cover. There were 3 in total. What kind of effect would this have on engine performance?
Would applying a high-temp copper sealant (permatex) to the rocker cover side of the cork gasket hurt? I'm thinking that it might help prevent it slipping and creating these gaps in the future?
Also what is the appropriate torque settings for the bolts on the rocker cover and side cover?
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And this is how the engine currently stands. Colour is a bit off in the photo below. I'll try and find an accurate representation one day. looks too blue.
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Slowly getting there.
