The V8 Owners Forum -

Not much to report

I've spaced the rear of the gearbox up by 6mm and made new spacers for the prop centre bearing to get the prop dead straight. No pics of this !

Also trial fitted MGW adjustable gear shift lever and Ford racing gear knob, the cranked lever moves the lever back to the stock Sierra position.



None of the plastic are screwed down in the above pic.

Also I've been having a go at the drivers side header.



It's taking me far longer than expected, real pain to snake it all past the steering and keep it away from the starter. One more pipe to tack in place then it will have to come off for final welding.

I was always under the impression that propshafts and joints were NOT supposed to run dead straight ?


And a smaller engine mount would help with the header. Or you could wrap the last tube around the outside of the steering. Monaro's have a 2 piece front tube because of the steering.

It's a two piece prop, the UJ's at the ends run at an angle but both sections need to be aligned or you get nasty vibes under acceleration going from past experience.

As for the engine mount, I really do not want to start over

One way or another I will get there in the end !

cheers

mark

Sections definately dont need to be aligned. Mine doesnt run straight, and Ive a live axle which moves up and down as well so the rear section is always moving, although not by huge amounts.

Mine runs smooth all the time.

Although never really understood why they say a perfectly straight setup should have problems either.

stevieturbo wrote: Although never really understood why they say a perfectly straight setup should have problems either.

I believe it's because the bearings will not wear properly. Lateral movement without rotational movement will form grooves....

Chris.

stevieturbo wrote:Sections definately dont need to be aligned. Mine doesnt run straight, and Ive a live axle which moves up and down as well so the rear section is always moving, although not by huge amounts.

Mine runs smooth all the time.

Although never really understood why they say a perfectly straight setup should have problems either.

When I built my last V8 Sierra I got vibes under acceleration that disapeared after I lined up both halfs of the prop.

Perhaps it's because the Sierra centre bearing is rubber mounted ??

Done a bit more today



Mark

Looks good, squeezed in not too bad.

All my centre bearings have been rubber mounted, although current one is now a stiffer poly mount.

Some of the older rubber ones really could move quite a bit !

Drivers side tacked up



Made a start on passenger side



I also bought some header flanges form US Ebay for a good price but they were very heavy and needed to go on a diet.

The one on the left was as it came, I matched the outside profile to the gasket, thinned it down and removed even more material leaving a step to give some stiffness



Mark

Plenty of room for a big single turbo there

looking very nice

I had considered a turbo but it just adds another layer of complication and expense

It's taken me nearly 5 years of parts collecting to get this far !

Mark

Getting there with passenger side.



Had loads of trouble with the tungsten electrodes melting that turned out to be a bad batch of argon, that along with a mask that was not sensitive enough to low power welding and my inexperience with TIG has lead to some not very pretty welds

New batch of gas and better mask has helped.

Now I need to tidy the shed !

Mark

Looks tidy compared to mine lol

I gave up in the TIG idea, I just MIG everything lol. I'm resigned to the fact my welding is crap, so no sense trying to make it look nice !

I had to remove the ARB to get the drivers side header off for welding so made up a couple of spacers to give clearance between the ARB and gearbox.



Then I unpicked the drivers sider header one pipe at a time and welded all the joints, after that they were welded back to the header and the merge cone widget was welded between the 4 pipes.



Can't believe how much work these have been !

That's why I just paid someone else to do it lol

I can accept when I'm in over my head. Looking good though