Luna: The cause of, and solution to, all of my problems

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

Once you wire your horn in, the steering wheel won't be removable, correct? If you're interested in keeping it removable I have some pictures and CAD files you might be interested in. We have the NRG 2.0 release in our racecar, and I 3D printed a piece to go in the wheel hub that allows us to use the horn wiring as a PTT circuit while keeping the wheel removable. It would be simple to make that work for your horn.

Wow! that sounds incredible! I'd love to take a look at the files. Anything you're willing to provide would be thoroughly appreciated. Thanks!

 

I never cease to be amazed by the ingenuity of some of the people here.

 

 

 

 

 

More progress....

 

 Drilling holes in virgin carbon.

 

Proportioning valve hole

 

 

I'm going to eventually make a little shift boot for the valve body.

 

 

Blinker indicators relocated

 

 

-Working- Hazards

 

 

And where my GPS speedometer sensor is going to be mounted. I'm going to notch the vent piece where the wire exits, and with the fender welting I plan on using should make for a clean install.....hopefully.

 

 

Getting there. Making progress every day.

 

 

 

 

Also bought some new shop lighting. Sam's Club was selling these for $34 a piece. For that kind of money, I couldn't afford not to. I ended up with six. And to those who have bore witness to the terrible lighting (and subsequent pictures) that my garage provides, hopefully you'll notice a difference. I sure do.

 

 

Impromptu shot - you can actually see the true color of the car. Definitely the brightest the shop has ever been.

 

 

Between the wood stove and now the lights, damn - the shop is becoming quite the nice work space. At least compared to how it was....

Edited January 10, 2017 by OldAndyAndTheSea

[rturbo 930]

Good to see the car going back together.

 

What's weird is that it never occurred to me that I could put insulation in my garage without dry-walling over it. How long did it take you to insulate it? I would love some insulation, a bit of heat, and more than two(!) goddamn outlets. And some maybe even some light.

[calZ]

First picture is all the pieces I used. It was basically a prototype that ended up working well, so I kept it. You would only need the stuff on the right of the picture since you have a horn button to fill the space in the center of the wheel.

 

The springs and bearing balls go in the cylinders of the piece in the upper right. Balls make contact with the nubs in the quick release, and the wire ends are held to the square nuts in the other piece that is pressed on top. I think for you I would just integrate the nuts into the lower piece.

 

Second picture is everything pressed together. Third picture is how the bottom of the hub looks with the piece inserted. Fourth pic is the assembled wheel(minus two screws).

 

Do you know if your hub is the 2.0? If it is, I could just put one of the modified pieces together and mail it to you. I have extra pieces because the springs come in packs of 10 and the balls packs of 100. Actually, the hubs probably have all the same center bores, so it might work for any NRG quick release.

[calZ]

To add, I think if you have one of the nice, modern horn buttons you won't need any of this. They should be designed to work with a removable hub. If you're using an old school button I don't think that's the case.

[1969honda]

That's pretty slick calZ, if you're willing to share models or sell a kit I'd be interested. Please PM me any details if you are willing to share

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

Good to see the car going back together.

 

What's weird is that it never occurred to me that I could put insulation in my garage without dry-walling over it. How long did it take you to insulate it? I would love some insulation, a bit of heat, and more than two(!) goddamn outlets. And some maybe even some light.

Thanks! And yeah, although I'm already searching for brighter wall coverings to help my new lighting as much as possible. If you aren't going to drywall, Id suggest searching for white backed insulation. I wish mine wasn't brown - so I guess something white/gray will go over it. And I seriously chuckled over the two outlet comment.......I've worked like that in the past, and I know what that's like.  

First picture is all the pieces I used. It was basically a prototype that ended up working well, so I kept it. You would only need the stuff on the right of the picture since you have a horn button to fill the space in the center of the wheel.

 

The springs and bearing balls go in the cylinders of the piece in the upper right. Balls make contact with the nubs in the quick release, and the wire ends are held to the square nuts in the other piece that is pressed on top. I think for you I would just integrate the nuts into the lower piece.

 

Second picture is everything pressed together. Third picture is how the bottom of the hub looks with the piece inserted. Fourth pic is the assembled wheel(minus two screws).

 

Do you know if your hub is the 2.0? If it is, I could just put one of the modified pieces together and mail it to you. I have extra pieces because the springs come in packs of 10 and the balls packs of 100. Actually, the hubs probably have all the same center bores, so it might work for any NRG quick release.

That's awesome, very clever work! Let me investigate my situation a little bit and, if needed, I would gladly throw you some money for one of those parts.

 

To add, I think if you have one of the nice, modern horn buttons you won't need any of this. They should be designed to work with a removable hub. If you're using an old school button I don't think that's the case.

That's what I need to confirm. Thanks so much for the input.

 

 

 

Thanks for the support everyone. It really means a lot.

 

 

 

 

An ice storm late last evening knocked power out before I could post yesterday's update.

 

More fiddling after composites duty.

 

 

90% of the wiring has been tucked out of the way. One more day should finish that up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

notched.

 

 

almost looks like it belongs. Pre welting.

 

 

Welting. I can't get enough of this stuff. It saves my ass all the time. haha. Magic.

 

 

 

 

Best part is - Everything still works! For now at least. 

 

 

Soon...

 

Edited January 11, 2017 by OldAndyAndTheSea

[supernova_6969]

looks fantastic.   but can you dim the gauge faces ( I forget if you mentioned it before)?  looks like they could be very very bright against the night. 

 

but very cool looking...

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

To properly dim LEDs you need to use pulse width modulation, which is more complicated than I care to get into. You can simply limit current, but that's not the "correct" way to do it.....and I deleted my stock rheostat years ago. Coming from those damn, color condom covered, incandescent bulbs, I wanted BRIGHT. I got it. But, despite what the pictures show, they are not offensively bright. Since I've put the interior together, I've made a habit of going out and just sitting in the car, especially at night - for that very reason, to test brightness. I find them quite nice to look at in a night setting. Clear light. Easy to read. I should also note that I have light green eyes, so I'm fairly susceptible to light sensitivity. 

[calZ]

What format would you guys like the part files in? I made them in FreeCAD, but I can export them in just about anything. You just might lose the pad/pocket/sketch data.

[1969honda]

I have Solid Works 2014, but I can do .STP, .igs, .dxf, etc...

[calZ]

Ok, here are the 3 parts. I'll add the part numbers for the other stuff below.

 

Nut: https://www.mcmaster.com/mv1484009750/#catalog/94855A281

Screw: https://www.mcmaster.com/mv1484009750/#catalog/90272A106

Spring: https://www.mcmaster.com/mv1484009750/#catalog/9657K327

Ball: https://www.mcmaster.com/mv1484009750/#catalog/9528K15

 

If the links are broken for anyone looking at this in the future, the part numbers are just the last portion of those URLs after the slash. Hopefully McMaster doesn't ever change them.

 

The springs actually ended up being a bit light for the application, and the connection was not completely consistent. I put two bearing balls in below the spring, and that worked great. You could also just space it with whatever washer or chunk of metal you want. There's another spring option: https://www.mcmaster.com/mv1484009750/#catalog/9657k345. That might be overkill, but it would definitely maintain a connection.

QuickReleaseHornPTT.zip

Edited January 13, 2017 by calZ

[1969honda]

Can't wait to get home now and download the files, thanks! Gotta love McMaster-Carr for great pricing and hardware selection

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

calZ Thanks so much! I'm going to do some horn work tomorrow. We'll see what I determine. Thanks again!

 

 

 

Did a little chopping. Mounted the lens for my relocated high beam indicator. Sweet.







Then proceeded to mount a switch for some under dash LED lights.







Grungy.



Naked.



Powduh





Everything tucked.







Feeling good.

Tomorrow I'm going to play with my horn and see if I can make that work. Then the interior is pretty much buttoned up. Aside from modifying my a pillar gauge pod, that is.

Then it's back to mechanical work. Yay!

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

My LC-1 wideband decided to die on me. It suddenly stopped working in the middle of my dash install. I chalked it up to manhandling the harness and didn't think anything of it, since it didn't prevent dash stuff from happening.

Upon inspection I noticed that a 12v and a ground got pinched, breaking the insulation. Those wires touched, shorting out the controller and killing it (I can only guess). Innovate's LC-1 is known to be finicky on the best day, and I've had problems with it in the past.


so..

I decided to change it up completely, and went with AEM's UEGO - so simple in comparison to the lc-1. Wiring is literally 3 wires. Two if you weren't running the wideband signal to an ECU. So far I'm a fan. Seems to blend in with the rest of the gauges fairly well. The white face is an improvement over the blacked out previous look, I will say.








Feeling good, I sat and cracked a cold one by the fire. Cross another task off the list.

Edited January 18, 2017 by OldAndyAndTheSea

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

Injectors happened this evening.

out with the old, unknown conditions; in with the new flow matched RCs.




soooo dusty.....drives me nuts.



And I'm getting prepped to test Megasquirt again. I need to change my injector impedance settings as the new injectors are high, replacing the low impedance venom counterparts.

Distributor back in. Valve cover and timing is next. Then I can start spinning the motor, and rechecking for spark and fuel.



Then my brake vacuum booster..The remaining fittings arrived today, so I can go ahead and start that nonsense.

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

Pulled my master cylinder and vacuum booster today to inspect.




My guess: Wilwood master failed (!!!), leaking into the vacuum booster - subsequently compromising the seals in the booster. Not sure if I'd trust it, even after a thoroughly unpleasant cleaning.



I'll see tomorrow.... I just wanted to get everything apart tonight.

Then I get to see how tedious it will be to fit this amalgamation of parts.




I just wanna stop dammit!

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

Waited three weeks for this to come from the United Kingdom.



Totally worth it.

Before



So much better.





I'll also be ordering a shift boot, and emergency brake boot to match.


Next up, brake booster...not looking forward to it.

[calZ]

JF Customs?

[Spyder Z 15]

Waited three weeks for this to come from the United Kingdom.

 

 

Totally worth it.

 

Before

 

 

So much better.

 

 

 

I'll also be ordering a shift boot, and emergency brake boot to match.

 

 

Next up, brake booster...not looking forward to it.

I will tell you I've had great experience with Redline goods with my old Z32's shift and ebrake boot. Quality product, well made, and you can get custom stitching. 

 

Good grief I came back to this forum and still am in love with the S30. I need to just flippin' buy one even if its just to stare at.

[OldAndyAndTheSea]

^^Yeah, I really like their products. Definitely going back to order more. 

 

 

 

 

The replacement booster I purchased, at a premium, wont work on this car..It has the early 240 bolt pattern, and I'm not going to drill holes in the firewall......so I've since found, and ordered, an appropriate replacement. I've basically bought everything for this car twice, so I why stop now?

On top of that, I've been crazy busy, in the meantime, doing everything from attending the USSailing National sailing symposium in Austin, Tx, to painting one of the boats I'm currently building.

My new vacuum booster is supposed to arrive Friday.... Then I'm raging on the car.


..Until then, here's that boat.

15' classic Dhow design, made out of advanced materials, like carbon, aramid, and high density closed cell foam. The rudder, daggerboard, mast - and lateen rig are all made out of carbon.

I have about 150 hours into the bottom of this. Priming, blocking, repriming, blocking....etc...not to mention building the thing from scratch. My business partner and I have a lot of time in this little lady...that's for sure.






Enter: The best PPG paint money can buy. DBC basecoat, DCU clear. Two grand in materials there.



Color is Ferrari "azzurro" blue.




 






You can almost make out my Steve Irwin shirt.



(blame flickr for the last three being smaller. Not sure why that is...)

Next is to flip it, and paint the deck and the interior.