Project 86 - Big technical worklog with 20V + brake + suspension conversion

[rthy]

this is what I had to do to fit my disks continuing from when I last modifed the diff to take the drums off and prepare the caliper mounts as shown in the earlier post (many pics soon):


* Modified the diff housing to lower the lower control arm mounts. I was going to do this anyway to correct the rear roll center but it also gave me the room to fit a caliper in there.


* Modified the diff housing to have the caliper mounts. The disks fitted on like they were meant to be there so that was all good but the calipers obviously needed to be held in place. So what I did is weld a custom caliper mount directly to the housing. The position had to be exact, too high and it would hit the body of the car, too low and the handbrake mechinism on the calpier would hit the lower control arm.


* Modify the body of the car, to make sure my car could handle the absolute worst case scenerio I took the springs and bump stops right out and then looked to see what would happen. I ended up bending one lip in because the bleed nipple had a theoretic chance of being sheared off. I also had to massaged the inner gaurd a little just incase a severe side load pushed the axle in one direction while being fully bottomed out. Just about impossible doing anything short of a wonky jump off something but still I have high standards. I also swapped my adjustable pan-hard rod to one of my own contruction which I had to carefully adjust with a tape measure. After all this I could make the diff housing touch the body of the car before the calipers did. I proceded to put the springs and chopped bump-stops back in then.


* Alter the angle of the hadbrake stays on each of the Corolla calipers, I found I had to have the handbrake cables come out from under the lower control arms. However the original calipers had the cables come out on an angle that made them likely to run against the arms. So I changed the mounts to have the come off straight. As a bonus the arms are now pulled on a more direct angle and therefore should have a stronger force imposed on them.

* Weld in 2 new hanbrake cable mounts under the car, this was to hold the handbrake cables in place so they could have the inner cables pulled. I had to weld 2 new moutns in because I stuck with standard Corolla cables and this way I didnt have to modify them at all. It was however a hidious job which I don't want to do ever again.

* had the original hard hydraulic lines shortened and reflared to take a new fitting. I then had 2 new custom braided lines made up. Each one of these lines goes from the join on the shortened metal lines, under the spring seat and over onto the caliper.

* Installed different cable mounts for the middle of the cable

[rthy]

However this still isn't finished, i still need to modify the handbrake, because of the changed angle on the calipers or the fact that Corollas have a different amount of leverage on the handbrake mine just doesn't pull the cables enough. So I am going to change or modify the original handbrake mechinism to have a greater ratio of cable pull. Maybe even make it with adjustable leverage.

I also have just about zero rear brake bias now, I am considering various ways to remedy this, I am open to sujestions on this one.

[rthy]

Bobski: they have a brake proportioning valve under the master cylender, the trick is to remove the internal spring. As shown here:



I will need much more than that though. I will need to look into it but maybe fitting one off a Supra will help. As for the 20V it's still ages away as I want to do other things first and I have so many other things in the way which limits the time I can spend on doing work. I do plan to finish my brake upgrade and also my suspension upgrade before anything else. But I am getting closer now.


monkeymajik: I didn't know whiteline sold traction brackets, but yeah what I did sure is a simple way to go. I like it because it was free and it doesn't stand out if someone sticks their head under there. I could imagine a police officer cringing if they saw something like that. I plan to do a few donuts in a mud patch once I have set it up to make everything like original and non shiny to hide my work down there.


I forgot to mention that I had to temporarily put my standard shockers back in. I won't be making custom mounts this time and instead I want to press out the original Commodor bush and fit a conventional one. I need to find out what fits though. I also need to fit some kind of stroke limiting device as the shockers have a longer stroke and that would cause the lower control arms to hit the caliper.

Lastly I plan to have heaps more photos in about a weeks time

[rthy]

Forgot to mention my stupid mistake. What I did when i put everything together finally after all those weeks is to check all the bolts for tension, all clearences and fitment of parts. What I didn't think of was the oil level, it was bone dry and I took it out, 10 minutes later I ground to a stop. I realised what I had done then and walked home. I managed to come back with some car oil and I filled it up a bit on the side of the road. This got me moving again and I got it home where I drained it and filled it with gear oil. Now I have since done a couple of hundred on it and its noisy as hell but its still ok. Still that's a leson for me. So now I have to change all 4 bearings and I am going to fit some diff gears out of a TA-22 celica with my newly arrived trd diff center.


Another stupid thing happened today, I went around a corner this morning at a decent speed and the whole car wobbled, I reacted instantly so it wasn't a threat but I knew something wasn't right. I pulled over not long after to find a dead flat tyre, oh yeah I just thought I would do a quick swap. I jacked my car up and went for my spare tyre when I remembered that I had a 13inch spare wheel, this thing wouldn't of fit over any of my 4 brakes I now have, my reaction to that was: oh F###. I had to call my dad to bring down a spare bbs wheel which was the wrong size but useable still. Anyway this is the price of having a modified car, I just hope my luck changes soon.

[rthy]

I managed to take some good pictures, this time a proper one of my custom diff housing:



here the extended brackets can be seen, I didnt grind the welds flush for strength reasons, this is one thing I can let go during a high speed corner. The braided line comes off the caliper and goes under the spring seat. The mounts are also visable and its obvious that I have just chopped the original corolla ones and welded them on. Also of note is how close the trailing arm goes to the handbrake mechinism. This is why I am going to have to put stroke limiting rods in before I refit my adjustable Commodor shocks.

[rthy]

The other side and end of the diff showing how the braided line joins on the original metal line which was shortened.

[rthy]

and for the handbrake cables, first up the mounts on the caliper were changed:




As shown here I chopped and welded a peice in so that they came out straighter. This allowed the cables to go under the lower control arms.





from here it runs under the body is a pretty simple way.





and I welded these additional mounts in to hold the cables in the right spot.

[rthy]

nightdevil: see below


So far this is what my diff cost me:


T-18 diff + adjustable pan-hard rod - $100
Rear T-18 tailshaft half - $35 (I think)
Brand new disk rotors - 2x $65
Calipers, mounts + cables - $40
Custom metal lines - $10
Braided brake lines - 2x $70

so the running total excluding bushes so far is $455 and no I won't do this for other people!


also a special mention for Rowvile brake and clutch, they have always been really friendly and only charged $70 for each of the 5 lines I have had made up so far and a miserable $10 to get both my metal lines shorted and refitted with a new fitting.

[rthy]

here you go, firstly the top:




and the bottom view:




its not finished yet though, even though I am using it and it's strong enough I am going to weld an extra brace on each one. Also Chris are you going to extend your lower pivot point on your diff? I really recomend you do.

[rthy]

I bought some "engine stop smoke" today for $4 from the warehouse, I plan to put it in my diff housing to see if it shuts the whine up, it's so very wrong but its not like I have much to lose. I will also parkt the car on an angle and fill it up with some old gearbox oil I took out of my friends car that has been sitting in a bucket for about 6 months.


79rollaboy: sorry for the delay, its "8A9". It is a respray however and does seem darker and more metalic than the original, however the difference is small and it could just be that its because the original had fadded.


boofis: thanks for the kind words, as for my modified mounts that work like traction brackets I don't have any better pictures than what I have posted but they are pretty simple to understand. Basicly I have chopped the bottom mounts of another diff that was identical and welded them on the bottom of my existing ones. What this does is make the lower trailing arms bolt lower down on the diff housing. This compensates for the fact the car has been lowered and instead of the bar being on an angle it's instead relatively level like an original unlowered and unsagged sprinter (try finding one of those!). I might try something with the top mount soon.