Our F85 Power Tour Project

[PhillipM]

So I finally was able to download the rest of the photos that I have so far. We currently are sitting with the exhaust, rear seat and trunk floor still needing to be addressed. Along with that I need to get some shocks ordered and also a new driveshaft coming.. So much to do still! Yikes.


Cutting off the old bag mounts..


Forgot that we left the original ones under the new ones... twice the cutoff work.. bummer..


Here are the new bags on the right.. you can already tell how much shorter they are. Slam Specialties RE 6's



Marking out for the notch.


Deciding that the rest of the tunnel has to go.




After calling Metco hoping that they would build us some longer adjusting shafts for our upper control arms, and getting shot down, we decided to build our own with parts sourced from my favorite online store... McMaster Carr!




Here is my buddy working on the upper shafts..


The new tunnel back in it.


The notch and fish plates welded in and cleaned up ready for some paint.



That pretty much brings us to where the project is today. I have a lot more finish work to do yet but I will be chiping away at it. I can't say enough how much bigger of a project this has been then I ever imagined.

-Phillip

[PhillipM]

Well after finishing up a TON of little things like raising the trunk floor, remounting our air distribution block and computer, re-working most of the exhaust system, remounting the ride height sensors, changing the angle of the rear shock mounts to match out new pinion angle, and measuring for a new drive shaft I can finally say that I drove this car for the first time in 3 months last weekend. If we go back to why the rear suspension was torn apart in the first place it was because of 2 things. It rode like complete dog pooh at the height we wanted (too little air in the rear bags) and the car was un-drivable at speeds above 70 mph because of a driveline shake suspected to be in the front U joint (you mean your transmission/driveshaft/ and rear-end cannot be in a straight line??? NO.). Now that the rear bag mounts are mounted off of the bottom of the rear end and not the top, the bag is extended to the proper distance at our chosen ride height giving an absolutely amazing ride. We are now using single adjustable shocks in the rear instead of double adjustable for the shear fact of cost. Although I am already noticing their down falls they will work just fine for this car. Moving on to the driveline shake, I spoke with as many people as I could and got just about as many different opinions as questions. In the end I used this (http://www.vibratesoftware.com/) software and advice from this (http://www.iedls.com/guide.html) document to decide that I would run down 2 degrees on the engine, up 2 degrees on the pinion with a upward slope of 1 degree on the drive shaft and the whole system looking like this \ / \ . I am extremely happy to report that even cruising at 85 mph this car is very smooth now. It is absolutely amazing! Am I upset that the original builder will still not admit to his mistake on the drive line angles?? Very sad, but that’s how he rolls I guess. I hope to have the final pictures posted in the next few weeks but we’ll see, still need to get the upholstery and a few minor details wrapped up.

Thanks for reading.

-Phillip

[Gearhead Dude]

Cool build Phillip! Thanks for all the details in your build thread.

[gearheads78]

Great to hear Phillip. I'm looking forward to the pics.

[PhillipM]

A small but important update for the Olds... With the new much lower ride height we had created quite a rear tire rub when doing anything but driving straight. Rather than stepping down to a 255 series tire we decided to do a slight inner fenderwell massage on the back side of the rear wheel well. We basically picked up about 1" of clearance and has fixed pretty much all of our rubbing issues. All while keeping our 275's out back! Nice.

[ScotI]

You should be ashamed for giving us this update w/o pics!

[1964_442]

You should be ashamed for giving us this update w/o pics!

x 2 hehehhe

[PhillipM]

You should be ashamed for giving us this update w/o pics!

I will see if I can't snap a pic of the finished product tonight for you guys. It really was such a small little fix. I had the metal work done in only a few hours. And this was while I was running my C02 laser system that we just got!! So not a lot of work but the finished product produces a nice quite ride

[PhillipM]

I don’t think it was chronicled in this thread but we were having a problem with our ididit column. While someone was driving it would be really loose in the tilted position and even at times would snap back up to the top. After a short call to the factory they wanted us to send it back so that they could warranty the parts out. While I wasn’t too excited about removing the column it did give us time to do some rewiring that we wanted to do and also add a new custom tachometer. So, this is all leading into a very scary thing that happened last night driving the car home from work on the 101 headed south out of Scottsdale, Arizona.

I was driving in the far left lane going about 60 mph when all of the sudden I went to adjust the wheel and I had nothing. Not even a little bit of steering. (You could basically spin the wheel as if it were one of those cheap video games and it would go around about 100 times.) So as I started to freak out the car started to slowly drift to the right cutting off person by person over the next 1/8th mile, receiving a nice honk and an arm full every lane I took over. Luckily and amazingly I made my way across three lanes of traffic without hitting a single thing and now I am approaching the right shoulder where there is a small lip and then a steep hill leading down to the on ramp for the freeway. The front wheel hit the small rolled lip and bumped along it and kept me on the road and yet still away from traffic.

So, I am now sitting on the right shoulder of the freeway uninjured and with all the original paint still intact. First I pull off the horn cap to see if it was something up there even though that didn’t make sense. After seeing everything still tight up there I hopped out and opened the hood (which was difficult because I was still shaken up). I didn’t see anything right away but reached in and turned the wheel while watching and that’s when I saw it. The Borgeson joint had slid off of the bottom of the column! I didn’t install the joint but my Dad did and he said that it was tight. According to Borgeson we should have filed a small flat edge onto the spines to give the set screw something to bite into. Has anyone had this happen or know of it happening?? I didn’t get much sleep last night as I lay in bed thinking of all the bad things that could have happened, like a 10 car pile up as I sideswiped everything and everyone in sight! I guess it is better to be lucky than good sometimes. This weekend we will go over the rest of the car again with a fine tooth comb to check every last nut and bolt that we can get to.

Sorry for the lengthy post but if you have taken the time to read it I hope that you will take the time to check your stuff every once in a while!

[wolf28]

I can imagine that phone call to Paul. Haha

[Gearhead Dude]

Praise God for keeping His hand on you during all of this! That is no small event! Glad to hear you're safe!

[Jim Nilsen]

Glad you are still in one piece and the car too!!! With the tires we run you could have hit a groove in the road and been spinning around in front of cars and trucks. Someone was trying teach someone else but not you a lesson it seems.


You are making me glad that I am doing checks on every system in the car to make sure. Then I am going to have 2 other friends go over it too. I found 2 cotter pins that weren't in going over the front end this morning.

[Blitz]

Glad that you made it out of that unscathed. Count your blessings.

Question for you: As far as the carpeting, what type is that? It looks like the "Mercedes Carpet" that I sometimes read about but have never been able to find a source for. Also, what are you plans on covering the Dynamat on the underside of the trunklid?

Like most have said that is a really nice build. Keep the updates coming!

[Radlark]

Glad you made it unscathed! Regarding the joint when I installed mine in the Chevelle it was recommended that I actually drill a small hole just deep enough into the rod for the set screw to kind of sit in! Never had an issue

[PhillipM]

Glad that you made it out of that unscathed. Count your blessings.

Question for you: As far as the carpeting, what type is that? It looks like the "Mercedes Carpet" that I sometimes read about but have never been able to find a source for. Also, what are you plans on covering the Dynamat on the underside of the trunklid?

Like most have said that is a really nice build. Keep the updates coming!

Thank you so much everyone for the kind words and support. It definitely was the scariest thing that has every happened to me. Unlike accidents and other dangerous times, the feeling of being out of control and on an unmanned ride was just crazy.

As for the type of carpet that we used as far as I know it is just standard late model "pile" carpet rather than older "loop" carpet. If you are still having trouble let me know and I can give you the name and number of our interior guy to see if he could send you in the right direction.

The dynomat... Well that was placed there on a last minute deal to get rid of vibrations from the stereo system. The entire trunk floor is done as well but is done from the underside above the gas tank. I have had a few ideas like laser cut thin plastic or even just scuffing it and masking off for some black paint. Does anyone else have any ideas???

[PhillipM]

Glad you made it unscathed! Regarding the joint when I installed mine in the Chevelle it was recommended that I actually drill a small hole just deep enough into the rod for the set screw to kind of sit in! Never had an issue

Did you do this on the splined part of the column or on the Double D shaft? I could see doing that on the Double D but Borgeson recommended filing a flat portion into my splined shaft. I'm hoping that I can see where it was on the shaft so that I don't need to get it aligned again.

[PhillipM]

I can imagine that phone call to Paul. Haha

Chris you work with Paul right??

------------------------

Ha! Yeah went something like this...

Hey Dad, we're luck we still have a 65 Olds in one piece..

Why?

Cause the steering shaft feel off the bottom of the steering column..

HUH!!! WHAT!!!

I need your AAA memember # text to me asap!!!


He was actually pretty relaxed and just glad I was safe. I do need to tell him to increase his towing on his AAA though. 5 miles?? that's it? Both times I've had to use it I had to fork over another 20 bucks or so for the tow.

[wolf28]

Thats me.

I've had to make some unfun phone calls to him myself.

Sounds like you got off easier that I did. Haha.

Glad everything worked out. Someone was definitely looking out for you that day.

Chris you work with Paul right??

------------------------

Ha! Yeah went something like this...

Hey Dad, we're luck we still have a 65 Olds in one piece..

Why?

Cause the steering shaft feel off the bottom of the steering column..

HUH!!! WHAT!!!

I need your AAA memember # text to me asap!!!


He was actually pretty relaxed and just glad I was safe. I do need to tell him to increase his towing on his AAA though. 5 miles?? that's it? Both times I've had to use it I had to fork over another 20 bucks or so for the tow.

[rockytopper]

Darn Phil, thats to bad, I sure could have used those nice wheels on my F-85

[1offwizard]

Glad it worked out ok! I'm loving the stance!