Carwash Crawler - Build Thread... again.

[carwash]

well, i will probably have 1500 pounds on you then.

[carwash]

Well, my painter left about an hour ago. Had the chassis, links, couple panels, etc all electrostatically painted. Amazing process, blew me away actually. Chassis charged negative, paint charged positive, just like powder coating, but no oven and it's done on-site, with no overspray at all. It's a perfectly clean and mess free process. Should be easier to paint match as well, powercoating is a ***** to paint match in a rattle can or spray. Painter left me about a quart of extra paint as well, ready to use for touch up.

Was primed first in a standard epoxy primer. The prep work to paint took me freakin' forever. Wiped it all twice with denatured alcohol after wirebrushing the entire thing. I wanted the paint to stick well and look good.

Here are some shots of it in prime. The primer isn't that different than the actual color. Went a little darker on the paint, close to a battleship gray. This paint mfr. called it "platform gray".







The paint application is bizarre. I was expecting a fog of paint, like an hvlp gun throws, but it was more like fine paint spatter drops coming out from an odd slinging ring. It wraps right around the tube covering almost the entire tube while painting from one side.

Some shots of it painted... I was amazed at the thickness of the paint and the high gloss that it dried with.







All that is required is that the part being painted can be grounded. he did this by tying into the ground of my shop through an outlet. I also had my links, supports, crossmember, bump cans, etc painted. I rigged up a piece of hanging metal, then hung each part from it by wired. This way he only had to attach to one part and the entire rack of parts was grounded. I did the two rear inner panels the same color as the chassis as well to make the outer panel pop more. they are aluminum, so we will cross or fingers to see how well the paint holds up on them.





One more money shot of the finished paintjob. Damn I'm happy. Now for the rebuild.

[fabricator]

looks good mike
congrads

[KargoMaster]

Nice!!! That looks super, super easy... (barring prep)

you working on it tomorrow/Wed... ??
you might get a visitor/assembler.

[tjjeepjeep]

Looking great Mike!!

[mckeddie]

when i worked at honda, that is how all the cars were painted in the surfacer booth, the cars had a negative charge, guns positive. you didn't even have to aim at hte cars to paint them (line 2 was painted by people, new line was robotic). it was awesome painting in there all night, really sucked when you got the gun close to your zipper though when touching the trigger, felt like someone was ripping your pubes out.

chasis looks awesome, can't wait to see it assembled and the skins painted! great choice of colors! i love a gray chasis!

[Nuts]

How long did it take,and did he prime and paint in the same day?

[cheech]

Gary Engle taking care of business

[carwash]

Originally Posted by cheech

Gary Engle taking care of business

Gary Engle indeed, you know him as well? I was put in touch with him by another buddy, race car guy.

[carwash]

Originally Posted by Snuts

How long did it take,and did he prime and paint in the same day?

Yes, he primed and painted same day. He got to my place at about 10 a.m. and was gone by about 2:30 latest. So, 4.5 hours, including all of his setup and cleanup.

[carwash]

Originally Posted by KargoMaster

Nice!!! That looks super, super easy... (barring prep)

you working on it tomorrow/Wed... ??
you might get a visitor/assembler.

I don't think im gonna touch it until this weekend. I have spent WAY too much time out in the shop the past few weeks, and with the holidays coming up, i'm sure i will be a bit busy.

I also wanted to let it cure for a few days for sure, just to be sure it was not going to get fudged. I still need to do some axle prep and welding, etc. Have a motor to build, etc...

Will let you know when i'm gonna be back out there. I'm sure i will be itching before long.

[DEZROCKS]

How much did that guy charge to paint it?

[carwash]

I can't tell you how much i paid... but a chassis along these lines would probably cost someone about 5 bills.

[Nuts]

Originally Posted by carwash

Yes, he primed and painted same day. He got to my place at about 10 a.m. and was gone by about 2:30 latest. So, 4.5 hours, including all of his setup and cleanup.

YOU SUCK! I have the better part of a week painting mine,and it still looks like crap!

[cheech]

Originally Posted by carwash

Gary Engle indeed, you know him as well? I was put in touch with him by another buddy, race car guy.

I have been going to Florence for the past 20 years on and off. Every Saturday during season for the past two years . Would I be assuming correctly if the Brandon your are referring to in some of your post is Brandon Green?
Into wheeling also, not into the club thing much, just lurk here mostly and chime in if not to lazy to type as you can tell by my ultra high post count.

[carwash]

cheech, yes brandon green is the one i speak of. very good friend of mine. I live about 300 yards form the dirt track, so i am immersed in the racing every saturday night whether i like it or not.

small world, eh?

[tinbeater]

Lookin good Wash.
If you keep it up it should be done in a couple more years???

[carwash]

Originally Posted by tinbeater

Lookin good Wash.
If you keep it up it should be done in a couple more years???

****

[tinbeater]

Originally Posted by carwash

****

[Coby]

lookin good bro.

[carwash]

I'm missing my little Mexican helper. You should stop by.

[carwash]

The rebuild is really a good time, so far. Couple glitches here and there, but nothing that i can't easily fix. Here are some shots of reassembly.

Final weld and paint and steering on front axle, and hung under.







Here, front and rear under and ready to roll...





And here is my first glitch... the bottom left bolt boss on my TH400 busted off. Don't know when or how. Looks like it had been broken for a long time because the there was a lot of oil down in the cast. Only about 1/6th of the hole is gone. I can see the bolt as it threads in, but it seems to hold some. Im gonna run it, would you? I torqued down the remaining 5 really good, and put a good amount of tightness on the broken one, and it seems to be holding just fine.

Cross your fingers for me.








Second glitch: Set my tranny in place, got it where it needs to go. There are 6 bolts that hold it to the STAK. Two of them are put in with the adapter as i bolt it to the trans. If not, you can't get them into it. Well one of those, the bottom one, is blocked by the plate on my trans skid. I can't get to the damn thing to tighten it. So i had to cut a 2x10" section out of the 1/4" plate so that i could get a wrench up there. Sucks to have to cut and grind on the freshly painted parts, oh well.





More to come soon, should get the STAK in tomorrow, and starting teardown on my motor...

[carwash]

Well damn.... never thought it would be so difficult to stick a t-case into a rig, especially when the damn rig was built around the tcase. you'd think it would slip right in... nope.

It goes in thru the top, sideways, then slips in, turn and slides over. Has to clear the tabs for the back mount the somehow slide under the bar that give is about 1/16" clearance, then somehow get the splines to meet up with the tranny, then somehow get some damn rtv smeared on it.

If that isnt bad enough, 2 of the 6 bolts that hold it all together are damn near impossible to get to. And then they tighten at the rate of about a 1/10 of a turn at a time. Christ. I have dealt with trannys and tcases in tights spots before, but this is ridiculous. And being all tube, it seems like it would be a lot easier. ugh.

Here are some shot of the tranny tcase combo in place and bolted in, waiting for the engine.








So, here is the bolt that added about a half hour to this process. this is the same bolt that required i cut this panel out of the freshly painted skid plate. That sucked.



And for those that asked (again) about the skid being solid mounted, you can see the poly mounts in this pic. There are four, one at each corner. You can only see two in this pic, but the other two are just opposite.



I have decided that if (read WHEN) i need to pull this tcase and trans back out for any kind of repair or replacement, i'm going to cut out the interior tubing for easier access. It is all non-structural tubing and would make install and take out much much easier. I thought about doing it right now, but can't bring myself to cutting apart the freshly painted thing... ugh. No reason to do it now tho, will be just as fast and easy when it comes time, sawzall, etc. Flanges, squirt some metal, done.

Maybe i will get lucky and never have to pull it... hahaahhah.



So, now motor teardown for rebuild... I'm on a roll now.

[carwash]

HA, so read above "So, now motor teardown for rebuild... I'm on a roll now." My roll stopped abruptly when we tore into my first motor. We should have done some more checking on the motor before doing any work to it at all. put new oil pump and screen on, put new cam in, new timing on it, then started charging the cylinders to pull the springs... Or i should say we TRIED to charge the cylinders, and couldn't get one of them to hold any air. In fact, the valves were so hung open that it was spewing RUST and **** out the intake and exhaust ports...

So, in my opinion, that motor is junk. It's the orange one in the back of the truck in the pic below. Has peanut port heads, recessed pistons, and way too big combustion chambers to make any power, to make it worth a $400 head rebuild. Piece of crap, was only supposed to be a temporary motor until i built my second one.

So, we move to the second motor, GenV truck motor. Also peanut heads, but smaller chambers, etc. We put air to each cylinder, and they are sealed up perfect, until the 8th one. Bent valve, bad. So bent i could hardly hammer it in. So, this motor also was so low power that it wasn't worth putting a $400 head job into. I was only using this one for the block originally to build up.



So back to the drawing board, i needed a motor. My buddy Byron's (ITTLFLI on here) father happens to be a great motor builder, and happened to have a motor for me that had just built and dyno'd. Even better, he offered to trade it to me for these two motors, some parts, and a little cash. So of course i jumped on it... here it is below...



GenVI 454, .030 over, roller lifters, domed pistons, oversized pushrods, 088 rect port heads, rect port alum GM intake, etc... Did 407hp and 486 lb/ft of torque on the dyno, he included the sheet with it. Should be all the motor i need.

I ordered a set of rocker studs for it so i can throw my rollers on it and had to exchange the flex plate, as they are different between MarkIV and GenVI. So, should drop it in next week, let you know how it goes.

[94Dodge Truggy]

Should suck the propane in at an alarming rate! I can't wait to hear this monster fire up! Will the crawler be running by the time of the benifit?