Sirpent

I have to laugh at some of you boys in the States when you pay me homage, seriously some of the work you guys are doing is some of the best I have seen in the "Z" community, you included SCM ! I hack away and eventually get it right, in the end if it isn't I trash it and start again so the thought process is constant. Keep up your great detailed work Buddy

LMAO One of my idea's bastardized and incorporated into your build !!!!!!!!!!!! I'm flattered that my amateurist idea's have inspired you and I'm figuring it must be something to do with the tension rod mounts? If I'm right, well yep mine is beefed up because it supports the dog legs in the chassis which were the weakest links, I kind of like them also as they look 18th century iron work overkill LOL The diff mounts are really going to work well "I HOPE"

Update time !

I'm just every time I see an update in this thread.................... Sensational work !

Yup I'm nuts, its confirmed, ripped into the old mounts today (Which happened to be Version 2) after securing the diff in its true position and fabricated the 1st of 4 new (Version 3) mounts which took me 6 hours. As I said, nuts, hopefully the next 3 don't take me 18 hours. Cheers John

well I ordered another set so 4 of them are going into the mix now, and after market poly replacements are available which just press into the old housings so think Im on a safe path with this set up

OK from daily updates back to weekly ones. This week I started a new role so gone are the days of being able to get up each day for 3 weeks and knock down the to do list. I bit the bullet and ordered 2 of the mounts I mentioned in my previous post and it was the Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrse of the century ! These are actually used on Land Rover Free Lander's as a single forward differential mount, I was planning to use 2 up front but after a bit of an eye ball fit up and placement today, there will now be 2 up front and 2 at the rear which will solve all my problems. The rubber bushes in these mounts can be pressed out and replaced, and the aluminium mounts are robust considering a single one is used on a diff up front, don't think I will have any issues with failures using 4 of them. Being Mothers Day this weekend, no work on the Zed, but I'm ordering 2 more of these mounts today so next weekend it's full steam ahead. Cheers John

Hi Olli Thanks for the thumbs up, but doesn’t compare to your endeavours I ran into a few small hiccup’s when I went to do the test fit, the mounts where 15mm to far forward, and as I suspected but hoped wouldn’t be the case, the old moustache bar cross member mount and the diff hat are not seeing eye to eye which means that it will require notching to fit this gargantuan LSD diff "My Bad" So as always, when you hit a brick wall like this, you start to re-evaluate the set up and I came up with the following arguments that I threw at myself. #1 The poly mounts will probably mean limited absorption, and a harsher ride! #2 The forward mounts are very large #3 Simpler off the shelf rubber mounts would probably solve issues #1 and #2 Therefore...................................... I’m now looking at using these instead which should not only function better but also unclutter the cradle and free up more space, I'm just waiting for the supplier to get back to me with a price. I will hold off on pics until I have decided which way I go forward from here. Cheers John

So the rear diff cradle is now in version 3. Today I started the final mount which will allow the diff to pivot based on the diff crown position relative to the axle outputs where the Ford diff previously relied on a mount located totally off position on the alloy diff cap. I have a few options on how to complete the rear mount now from dual bush set ups which would mean sectioning the pipe in the pic 50mm inward of both brackets on either side, to a singular set up mid point, at this stage I am still tossing up which path to go down although the latter is becoming the prefered option the more I ponder about it. Stay tuned, the old rectangular RHS mustache bar is now on the scrap heap and a totally new set up is on its way, there is a hint as to what it will be in the pics, lets see who can pick up on it. Cheers John

This weekends effort

So more progress today Completed both diff bushing mounts ready for positioning, the outrigger brackets from the diff side plates come next once I have a final position and can produce some CAD (Cardboard Assisted Design) mock ups. The pic shows the LH side mount more or less where it will eventually sit however the ends still need to be curved to better match the bush assy's, and the 2 forward LCA mounts nesting approximately where they will sit. A good day

Sorry Peter Try this

Small update today. I have now moved to the back of the chassis build to commence the differential alignment and mounting. Previously the 2 LCA bars which also act as the forward diff mounting points were only tacked in place, so today I set them both in their correct and final positions and welded them in place on the 4 bolt hanger plates after building a jig out of scraps to make sure they didn't move in any way. This was followed by positioning the diff once again using scraps as supports so as to work out (A) the differential alignment and angle to the box and ( what dimensions the new forward mounts would be. The first part was difficult, but luckily Tremec have a downloadable app specifically designed to check the box angle, tails shaft angle and diffeerntial angle all relative to each other then calculates if these are within tolerance for the universal joints, as you can see by the screen shot, I'm in Last after having positioned and aligned the diff, I started to make 2 forward diff mounts, one of the set is shown in the attached pic, The tube set in between the 2 gussets will carry the poly bushes, the other end will slide over the LCA and be welded in place, from the diff side mount plate 2 brackets will extend out to meet and be bolted to the bush mount. Cheers John

Inspiring, don't lose faith

So today I finished the gear box mount setting the box at its final height and position, the box is at the correct angle going by the secondary shiftercover plate which I was told is a true plane and is within .1 degree off to the engine and chassis which are both set at 90 degrees. However this box came out of an SS commodore and the rear gearbox extension housing is slightly set at an angle to the driver’s position and therefore so are the mounts. I was worried at first and then checked the original tiny Holden bracket and it confirmed that the right hand side of the bracket was set slightly lower than the passenger side. I then set about fabricating two brackets and these were welded to a base plate which the transmission flexible mount bolted to and then to the alloy cradle. It still needs finishing and 2 small reinforcement gussets added but its sitting spot on and the entire engine and trans are now supporting themselves on the chassis. It was time for a kind of proof of concept, so I rolled the chassis under the car and then rotated the body on the rotisserie over the entire assembly. 385mm now separates the body from the chassis, but it now gives me a great indication that all the measurements and calculations I have done are on the mark. Getting closer Cheers John

Completion of the engine mount today, outer edges still need fine TIG welding beads done and top securing bolt holes need to be drilled. Next onto the final gear Box plate followed by the diff mounts.

Mocked up both engine mounts and perches today, still have some finishing welding and additional gussets to add but the motor is actually nesting and sitting on both mounts now for the first time. Cheers John

There are a variety of 12V DC Ac compressors coming onto the market as these types of units start to become standard in many conventional vehicles. This is an example

Our average summer temps in fahrenheit in peak summer range from 90 -120 and its not uncommon to see 5 day heat waves in 120's

Very cool build and congratulations on the start up

OK so today’s efforts.............. #1 Relieved the motor of the Headers, Air Con Compressor and the Alternator, #2 Good news SH*T loads of room to have 3 into 1 headers fabricated and fitted #3 Alternator will need a simple extension bracket made up that fits into the original engine mount points and is replicated 20mm away and 40 mm upward so as to miss the original "Z" RH chassis rail #4 AC compressor cannot in any way go back to where it sat, and won’t be, instead I will be putting in an electric AC compressor I came across some time ago, you will all have to wait and see. #5 I thought there was no way I could use the OEM Benz engine mounts I purchased, but after a coffee, a few cigs and much pondering, I got stuck into it and looks like I have cracked it and started to fabricate some new mounts as per the pics below. So, having removed all the issue items, the engine dropped down to a point about 20mm above the E46 power steering rack and about 25mm clearance between the front face of the sump and the new cross member. I can’t see any issues with the motor rotating under acceleration and hitting anywhere. clearance for the steering cuppler to the rack won’t be an issue either. I propped up the rear of the gear box to a maximum height that would mean it wasn’t up against the tunnel and then checked the crank face and rear gearbox output shaft angles which both came in at 3.4 degrees. So the motor will have a 3.4 degree slant downward, If I wanted to zero it out, it would mean ripping into the tunnel and fabricating new sheet metal, and that’s not on the cards. Being a forced induction injected set up, I can see any reason this will affect performance but I’m happy to hear opinions from anyone reading this to the contrary. A quick calculation based on the tail shaft angle should be somewhere in the 1.5 to 2.0 degree range. Okay so that's about it, mother and child doing well and I will have pics of the mounts and final engine positioning in the coming days. Thanks for putting up with this long winded pictorial thread. Cheers John

One Small Step, One Giant Leap! So today I finished off the trolley, added the 8 castor wheels and completed the welding around the trolley frame and uprights. Took it off the car after it all came back to normal temperature and then dismounted the chassis and laid it down on the ground on the trolley for the first time bolting it all up to the uprights with no major issues. I looked at the motor sitting their and it was begging to be mounted, I couldn’t help myself and decided to do a trial fit of the motor trans and diff just to see how it all sits, and although it’s just sitting in place and the alignments are correct, the height of the motor trans and diff are not correct for a few reasons as per the following. #1, The air conditioning compressor won’t be able to be mounted in the original Mercedes position as it hits smack bang on the new chassis rail, once removed this will allow me to drop the motor almost another 10 cm's down. you can see the gap between the sump and cross member and in the other pictures how the compressor is basically on the rail, this will be removed tomorrow and I will get the entire arrangement sitting lower. #2 The engine mount arms are too long meaning they also jut out over the chassis rails, these will be removed and I will fabricate a new set. #3 The exhaust manifolds are totally wrong for this set up, speaking to Peter Mc today I will have him make up new 3 into 1 sets that take advantage of the additional 30cm's of room back to the firewall. This is not a big drama as i will have acres of room further back to have them swing down below the car. #4 The alternator may need some repositioning but will only know once the compressor is negated and the motor dropped down. The steering rod to the rack should have no issues, once again I will have a better idea tomorrow. The trans will need to come up 2 odd cm's at the mount point, I just need to fabricate a new riser from the base to the rubber mount which I knew about when I positioned the alloy cradle, at that point I couldn't raise it as the mounting points would have been inside the car ! The diff is aligned in both horizontal planes but sitting at the wrong height, once again this was just for the photo shot, it need to come down between the two LCA mount pipes which means dropping it some 10 cm's. Initial tail shaft measurement is 82 cm's As far as the rest, I have 28 cm's clearance from the back of the motor at the supercharger inlet to the firewall which I will need for the dual "Y' shaped inlets. Harmonic balancer to rad support will also be around 28cm's Gear lever comes up in exactly the same position as the original Zed's And as far as space around the rest, no issues so far with ample room for exhaust system etc. It was a great day and a realisation of what’s been in my head for 4 years now. Don’t hesitate posting questions if I have missed something. Cheers John

Thanks CalZ And today I built the skeleton of the trolley the chassis will sit on while I position the motor and drivetrain on, and eventually what the car will sit on when I re finish the undercarriage and its ready to come off the rotisserie. Building this to the chassis with mounting points while the chassis is still taunt on the body will mean that when I release it I can secure the chassis to the trolley, finish up any welding and then do all the other engine mount fabrications sure in the fact that it has all held its positioning and will bolt back to the body. Still have to do a lot of welding and add 8 wheels to it, but motor mounting time will be around the corner pretty soon. Cheers John

Not sure if that's sarcasm, but guess it would be an apt description.

As you all would have noticed earlier on, I disected the original front tension rod mounts from the body which impeded any chance of the new chassis being able to be removed from the car complete with drivetrain and visa versa. Today's effort was adding the final 2 fish plates on the inner chassis rails which required it to be removed from the body and welded on externally. These plates also act as mounts for the new incorporated tension rod mounts and the following pics show the process. Before I removed the originals, I made a plywood template so as to line up the new mounts later on, took me a while to find where I had hidden it but then it was a simple job of aligning the templates to the marked points I has left on the old rails and adding in an additional gusset on each side. I have a few gussets still to add to the new chassis but all in all there isnt really any additional heavy metal sections left, I will do a weight check tomorrow on the new chassis, any guesses out there as to what it may be? Cheers John