A little late blogging about this, last weekend I participated in SCCA’s display at the First Hawaiian Auto Show. I put the rally FX on display. I get a kick out of people seeing this unassuming unglamouros vehicle among all the shiny ginamormous turbo and sleek cars. I didn’t even have time to wash it, it still had a coating of steel dust and weld splatter from the rust patches I was working on. Propped the hood open mainly so people could see the cool airbox art courtesy of Scat and Risu. Only Toyota 4AGE geeks would recognize that the engine was something a little out of ordinary. It did have my concession to bling with polished valve cover, but aside from that and the air intake box and tube it looks pretty normal.
Archive for the 'car' Category
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The new half shaft ends came in from DriveShaft Shop. Interestingly these ones are the type I’m more used to seeing, the tri lobed bearings. The old joint utilized six large balls in a cage type bearing arrangement. I don’t know which is better. The diameter of the cup is slightly smaller and the bearing assembly looks a lot smaller and lighter. Anyway, removed the old boots, bearing assemblies, and installed the new parts, grease spooge getting everywhere. Yes, rebuilding CV joints is a horrible messy affair, I usually don’t bother anymore, but racecar. No using mystery China/Korea CV shafts. Continue reading ‘Got the Shaft’
The LSD and transaxle are back in the FX, but the half shafts aren’t scheduled to arrive until Friday. In the meantime, tackled issue with the driver door not wanting to open. Took off interior door card and found disconnected linkage, and readjusted one of the pivot points. I noted that the door card is actually heavier than you might think, it has a sheet metal panel on the top edge. So that got me to thinking of being all racer since the FX is now in mod class. I’ve already removed the rear seats. The interior plastic is succumbing to age and cracking anyway, and I spied tucked behind shelf the pieces of plastic sheet I bought to fabricate the intake box. It was in perfect sized pieces! Set to work cutting and drilling yielded my new door cards. Good for a couple pounds, I’d say.
It’s nice to post a non-rant about customer service. You might recall (did I post about it?) that at the last rallycross event, I snapped one of my custom Driveshaft Shop shafts. These were 2/3 custom and supposed to hold up to hard use. I was well outside of the warranty period so was not expecting much, but I contacted them. DSS quickly got back to me and told me they would remanufacture and replace the ends, they had some suspect heat treat on parts around the time mine were made. All I have to cover is shipping, and they are now on their way. It took a while because the guy in charge of rolling the shaft splines had been out with a serious snowboarding injury, lol.
Part two of the story is that the shaft that broke was inside the differential side, in the KAAZ limited slip. To extract the broken part, I ended up welding a bolt to it and slide hammering it out. Ends up that I didn’t need to, could have inserted a rod from the opposite side and hammer it out that way, 20/20 hindsight. Anyway, doing so left bits of slag and the splines in the LSD were scratched. So I contacted KAAZ USA who also promptly replied. They gave me an initial estimate, which was far less than I expected, unless the housing was damaged. I shipped it off to them for closer inspection. They told me the damage looked worse than it was and said it should be fine if they just cleaned up the splines and bearing flange. The rest of the unit was in good shape and since they were in there they rearranged the clutch plates to shift the more worn ones around. They charged me nominal labor, the shipping charges came out far more!
I just finished reassembling and reinstalling the transaxle, which went in surprisingly easily. One kick and it slid back together. I guess having done it more than a half dozen times I’ve gotten the theorems down.
So shout out to The Driveshaft Shop and KAAZ, I would not hesitate to heartily recommend them to anyone!
Finally got around to replacing tires on the FR-S, the original Bridgestone Turanza finally wore down to point of questionable safety check. Everyone would ask, oh are those the Prius tires? The FR-S actually comes from the factory with either of two tires, the “Prius” tires are probably better since they are summer tires. The ones that came on mine are the Turanaza’s which are all season, although their performance in mud was laughable.
These Potenzas are a new model that came out this past year and are considered the new king of the street tires for autocross, 200 treadwear qualifies them for street/stock class. Summer tires meant for ultimate road traction. They do not like cold.
Continue reading ‘Tires Are Good – Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R XL’
So update on the rally FX16. I spent a day getting the broken axle spud out of the transaxle. I first tried to drill and tap a hole in the broken piece. I was able to drill a decently deep hole to start, but when I tried to go up to the proper size for the tap I wanted to use I didn’t go anywhere. Tried to use next size down tap, ended up snapping it. Oh well, there was enough of a hole to insert a bolt then hit it with the MIG welder. It was proving difficult, I was doing this with it still in the car. Finally dropped the transaxle out and got the bolt welded, a slide hammer on it, and the piece extracted. Unfortunately it looks like there’s some damage.
So now I need to open up the tranny to get the diff out. Another roadblock is the need to extract the 5th gears which are really tight clearance. My common two arm adjusty arm puller is too thick. Bunch of searching found straight arm pullers look like it would work. Further searching and I found Grainger stocks the right size Proto, at a premium price, ouch! I don’t mind investing in tools, this was a bit steep, but it is USA made. Of course that is not end of story. It’s too thick, so here I am taking a grinder to a brand new expensive tool! Ah well, it works.
The saga of the FX. Was working on until midnight last night, the day before event. Last I wrote I think was the starter, which I bought replacement at oreilly and changed. The alignment seems off, it makes an awful grinding and screetch. It starts though. Then battery went out so bought a AGM at oreilly that was a hair too big. Fit! Car started, went for test drive, got a block down street and the charge and brake light flickered on, bad alternator. Fortunately had spare, which actually was the one off old engine. Got that changed and finally got on rode to attempt break in at about 10:00pm. Went to town, kalihi, turned around, did a bunch of on a off freeway loops in the kapiolani-kaimuki area, then the check engine light came on and the engine got boggy. Got home with 40 miles on odo, that would have to do for initial break in, did a oil change, swapped ECU, and went to sleep.
This morning car seems to be working good, skipped my usual stop at Foodland to pickup lunch sandwich. Ran morning heats nicely. First run of afternoon heats and after fast straight, powering out of sharp left suddenly lost power. Engine revving fine. Krap. Sounds like driveshaft, again. Towed back to put, looks like shaft might have just pulled out of transaxle. Pulled stuff apart and tried to pound shaft in, wasn’t moving past a certain point. Pulled it out and this is what we found.
If its any consolation, I’m not the only one. Counting mine we had a total of 4 broken drive shafts.
Now waiting for tow.
Damn rental Altima bit me which sealed the deal for me, I do not like. The rear trunk has no damping so sprung up when I lifted the edge, this wasn’t the problem. The problem was I bent down to retrieve box from trunk as the trunk cleared, but it bounced back and slammed my head. Curses! I didn’t realize at the time that it actually drew blood. The other thing that bugs me are the brakes are super grabby. I had one of these as a rental a couple times back and recall that too, heck maybe this is the exact same car? Keyless entry and start are a neat novelty.
So the trials of getting the rally FX going continue. Everything is in and hooked up with exception of a water temp sensor with broken connector. Filled everything up, changed the valve cover to my one bling thing, and in process munged the PCV valve grommet. Gonna need to try and find a new one, can prob find something. Anyway, I disconnected coil and did not install any spark plugs. I wanted to spin the engine without starting to prime some oil. But when I hit the start the first time lights, but no starter. Second time it clicked, then whirred. It seems like the motor is spinning but not engaging the flywheel. Sheesh, too late tonight to mess with.
wouldnt you know it, I go to put the last part on, the air intake, and the banjo bolt plops out. So now I have that original bolt, the shiny junkyard one installed, and a spare I also grabbed at the junkyard yesterday.
Oh, and I found the keys, they had fallen off shelf where I usually keep my keys, but instead of falling to ground where I searched, the got caught in some cords so were dangling midair. Hopefully tonight will be the big moment!