I hope so. I got the shroud done. Although I had another adventure last night, the weather looked pretty nice around 5 so I went to the monthly cruise near Sonic. Not many guys there. Hung out for around an hour, then got a burger. By the time I headed home the sky was black, and didn't take long till I was into the heavy rain. There was muddy water flowing over the road in several places, several inches deep. Got dirt all over everywhere under the hood. But I made it home, the car didn't miss a lick. Got a bit wet, and I had to use my handy towel defroster a few times.
btw the shroud is made of robot materials, left overs from building the Virginia Tech robot for the move (renamed) Spare Parts. Set for Jan 16, 2015 release.
Having the footwell vents and the vent windows cracked open will help keep the windows clean A bit of water might get in, but the windows won't fog up so easily.
No footwell vents any more. And I tend to close the pass side vent window (and door window) if it looks like rain, since I can't reach it from the driver seat. When it gets so bad that I have to close the driver side vent window, like it did last night, there's not much I can do....
Great work on the shroud (and everything else) Jim, I'd like to learn to shape metal like that, I've tried a couple attempts at building a shroud, none of them look anywhere near as nice as what you put together there.
thanks! Not really much metal shaping involved here. It's real thin aluminum from the building supply, about .020" thick. It bends real easy, you can get a pretty decent bend using nothing more than two pieces of angle clamped in a vise, and use your hand to crease it. The curved part at the top middle just follows the arc of the angle that it's riveted to. I made a pattern from card stock first. the bends and the thin strips of angled aluminum give it it's strength. Pretty simple stuff, you can do it if you try.
Nice work , I say to my boys all the time "don't be afraid to fail" . Just give it a try , you'll never know if you don't at least try . Plus why pay someone else to do it if you can do it yourself
I made a pattern from card stock first. the bends and the thin strips of angled aluminum give it it's strength. Pretty simple stuff, you can do it if you try.
I make all my stuff out of cardboard first. In fact, I hear there's a warrant out for my arrest for cardboard abuse. The dash, dash top, air filter splash shield, etc, etc on the S-10 were all prototyped in cellulose. Easy and cheap way to make your errors - sheet aluminum is pricey while cardboard is free. If I'm doing big stuff (like the dash top) I go to the furniture store and they usually have mattress boxes.
If you need long straight cuts you can start on the table saw (I suppose a circular saw and a fence would work). Don't rush the saw thru the cardboard and it'll make a straight starting point. It WILL leave a lot of cardboard dust, though. If I had a sheet metal shear I'd use that. When I try to make those long cuts with a knife I always seem to go off the line, even with a straight edge.
Dan
Last edited by DanStokes; July 14, 2014, 02:26 PM.
When I made the templates for the new side windows on my suburban, I made them of cardboard first, then cut a set out of masonite. The windows did fit, too.
Anyways...I did a little more farting around stuff on the car. The transmission had an interesting clicking sound sometimes when putting it in park, and once I parked on a slope and it kept clicking. Seems I messed up in there when I put it together, same as the 55, put the park pawl retainer in backwards, So, I pulled the pan and fixed it, the fluid looked good, hardly any residue in the pan. The car has about 900 miles on it now. And I changed the engine oil again, put heavier stuff in it this time, 20w50, will see what happens. Also a front tire was losing air...dunked it in the horse water bucket, and it was bubbling from one spot where I welded up the rivet holes in the rim. So I took the tire off, ground and welded, and remounted it, and balanced it again. It's a lot of work without the right tools, too. We'll see how it works. I need to get one of those manual tire machines from harbor freight, I guess.
I went for a test drive with the shroud, it wasn't hot enough out to really test it, only in the low 80s in town. I got stuck in traffic as best I could, hottest it got was 217, and it cooled back down to around 205 when I got going on the country roads. I'll just have to wait and see, I think it will be ok.
I got nothing you don't already know. Double check timing, maybe lean it out at idle/cruise a hair, and maybe try a different temp gauge for a bit, though 205 isn't terrible, I'm not sure I'd want that temp for fear of detonation. Which isn't a huge concern with that compression if you stay out of the boost.
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