The BAD AST Project - Faze II

[Motorcitydak]

I know exactly what you mean. Every piece of my car is being built by me and I am so nervous about a failure! I plan on painting everything grey to see cracks. Also I have some pretty vacant roads around me so I will probably put hundreds of miles on the car just around where I know no one else is in danger. Ill ditch it if I have to

[astroracer]

Yup, I'll be the same way. Taking it easy until I get comfortable with it...

I got a bit of work done last night. Nothing physical but it's done anyway. I had a dentist appointment last night which didn't take long at all. I drive right by my local auto parts store on my way home so I stopped in. We did a bit of research on the power steering fittings I need. Everything I am using, the '86 chevy pump, the '94 'vette rack and the '95 astro hydroboost all use the same fiittings. 16 and 18mm o-ring style. They let me borrow one to verify and it fit all of the 16mm ports. This makes it real simple. I will be ordering all of the fttings and hose I need through them. The ones I am looking at are less then 3 dollars each... I'll get pics when I get them. I'll mock everything and pull hose lengths, should go fairly smooth.
Mark

[astroracer]

HURRAY!!! The major sheet metal work is DONE! We got the right front wheel well finished up and all welded in today. We also got some closeout panels made and welded in. And, along with that, we cleaned up a couple of benches and swept the floor!
Here are a few pics of what we got done yesterday. Fitting and more fitting. This actually went pretty quick as we had already done the drivers side so we knew what to expect

This is the inner closeout clamped in place. We knocked off here Saturday. The same place we did last weekend. You can see the "bead centerline" marked out on the lower panel.

Today we rolled the bead on the closeout panel and finished up fitting it all in. Here is the closeout tacked and out on the bench.

Once we started tacking things together it went pretty quick.
All welded in.

This is one of the little closeouts we made to clean up the front of the new wheel wells. Compare this pic to the previous. You can see what we cut out and how much nicer this looks.



From underneath. This looks really clean and there is plenty of room for tire under here.


A couple of "clean bench" shots! This right here is a milestone all in of itself!!!


I have tomorrow off. Plan to do some running, picking up rivnuts at Grainger's, probably some power steering hose and I'll check on the Tig welder cover I ordered a week ago.
Thanks for watching.
Mark

[astroracer]

Picked up a few more fittings for the power steering install. These are the ones I picked up last week.
Two 90's on the boost unit. I mocked the boost unit into the van to check routing and didn't like the way things were looking.

Two 90's on the steering gear.

The 90's are better then straights and they will work fine on the rack but a couple of 135's would be better up on the booster. I called my LAPS and they said nobody makes the fittings in a 135 degree. CRAP! So, I looked them over and got out one of my cheapy brake line benders.
Chucked it up in the vise and used a piece of aluminum tubing that "just" slid over the 3/8th's steel line of the fiiting.

The short piece of aluminum gave me enough leverage that I could bend the steel line in small increments to get it to where I needed it.

All bent up and zero kinks!

Here is the bend I did for the pressure out line from the booster to the rack.

I left enough straight so I can install the crimp fittings.

Installed on the booster I have much neater angle. This points the line straight down toward the rack fittings. Otherwise it would be heading out over the steering column...

I did the same thing with the 18mm in line from the pump. Here is the unmodified 90 degree fitting. Kind of points out into space toward the front of the engine.

After I "sweetened up" the angles a bit... This points the line right down the inside of the engine cover openinig.

There is a stud on the sheetmetal that will carry a clamp for the line coming from the pump. You can see it at the bottom of this photo.

That's it for today. Back to work tomorrow. I have Friday after next off(the 14th) and the 13th will be my last work day this year! My son is coming home from Vancouver the 17th so I'll spend some time with him AND work on the van!
Thanks for watching
Mark

[Martin71RS]

So you've got your birthday off... ;-) I'll be watching for updates!

[astroracer]

So you've got your birthday off... ;-) I'll be watching for updates!

Hi Martin, after today and tomorrow I will be working a few more days then I planned. My dad fell early this morning and broke both of his wrists and his left hip, so today was spent in the hospital with him and my mom. The docs got both of his wrists in casts today and hope to have his hip fixed tomorrow. So tomorrow will be spent at the hospital waiting for his surgery to get done. He has been on home dialysis for almost 5 years and has been failing badly this last year. This has not been a good situation and the fall just made things worse. My mom has been a powerhouse all of her life and we can see her failing now too. Things are not looking good right now. Keep us in your thoughts.
Mark,

[FoxGranadaChuck]

Hi Martin, after today and tomorrow I will be working a few more days then I planned. My dad fell early this morning and broke both of his wrists and his left hip, so today was spent in the hospital with him and my mom. The docs got both of his wrists in casts today and hope to have his hip fixed tomorrow. So tomorrow will be spent at the hospital waiting for his surgery to get done. He has been on home dialysis for almost 5 years and has been failing badly this last year. This has not been a good situation and the fall just made things worse. My mom has been a powerhouse all of her life and we can see her failing now too. Things are not looking good right now. Keep us in your thoughts.
Mark,

Will do, Mark.

It was almost exactly four (4) years ago this time of year (just after New Year's to be exact) that I lost my Mom to lung cancer. It's tough.

[Martin71RS]

that's bad....and they are more important then any car. Take care, I will keep you and your family in my thoughts!

[dusterbd13]

ill be praying for your family.
aint none of this stuff worth is without someone to love it with you.

michael

[astroracer]

Thank You guys, your thoughts and prayers are appreciated. We just got home, dad has had surgery on his hip and left wrist and is having issues with low BP. The docs are putting in a central line so they can give him some meds to get his BP up. It was a long day and we still have some hurdles to cross. I plan to go to work tomorrow as there isn't much I can do while he is in these first few days of recovery. He is pretty looped out on the pain meds and they have him midly sedated to boot. My wife is a trooper and will take care of Mom so we should be good as lom=ng as dad is on the up-tick...
Talk to you later.
Mark

[keithq69]

Sorry about your father Mark,
I don't know you but have been following along for a while. Hope all goes well with your father.

My dad was hit by a car last Friday night, he was thrown pretty badly and ended up with a broken leg, broken hip and a huge gash on top of his head that too over 20 staples to close.
lucky he had no head injury. He's in for surgery on his hip as I type this. The guy who hit him kept going, left a man on the side of the road. Hopefully the police can find something.

Good luck.

Keith

[astroracer]

Thanks guys, Thanks Keith! I hope your dad pulls though also. They say the worst day is the 3rd day after surgery so my prayers are with you and yours.
Just an update on my dad. His wrist and hip surgery were Wednesday. Yesterday was Saturday the dreaded "3rd day"...And he had a very rough day of it, we thought we were going to lose him. He rallied around after the docs changed out his pain meds and got his dialysis back ontrack. This morning he was alert and could carry on a conversation so we are hoping he is over the hump and on his way to recovery. I have to commend the staff at McLaren Hospital. They are fantastic people and really took charge of getting my dad back onto the road to recovery. Obviously there was no work done on the van this weekend... Much more important things to take care of.

[astroracer]

How about an update? Dad is doing better! He still has a long way to go but he is on the mend and looks much better these past few days. Thanks for everyones thoughts and prayers, I think they worked!
We also had a scare with my wife's mom. She was admitted last Wednesday to the same hospital my dad is in! Dehydration and a kidney infection! My wife was just about to her wits end! Her mom is fine though, we brought her home yesterday. We just need to make sure she drinks A LOT MORE water!
My son is coming home from Vancouver today! He will get in around 11 tonite. The nurses on the floor said bring him up to see his grandpa...
As you can see there is a lot going on in the BadAst household this holiday season!!!
As we are getting into a routine with the hospital visits now, I have had some time out in the shop. Both my wife and mom said go out there and work! It will take your mind off all of the other crap going on. Mel was out Saturday and we got the brake and throttle pedal situation thought through. We cut up the brake pedal for lengthening and made a piece to weld in between the cuts. I have photo's of the process, I just need to get them downloaded.
I'll try to do that tonight or tomorrow.
Thanks for reading. Things will get better hopefully.
Mark

[Martin71RS]

Good to hear things are improving!

[astroracer]

Thanks Will, yes, slowly, but improving... Was up there tonite and he is much improved from yesterday!

Here are a few pics of the work we've gotten done. Saturday was a full day, I got the trans cooler mounts installed in the lower radiator support. I put in a couple of rivnuts for the isolators to screw into.

The shroud bolted into the lower isolators.

Once these were installed i could mark and drill for the upper mounts

The upper brackets bolt to the top of the rad support and carry the rubber expansion plugs that expand into the welded sleeve when the bolt is tightened. Works slick. I have a little tweaking to do to get everything squared up but it works!


We bolted the drivers seat, brake pedals and throttle pedals into the van to get an idea of how far we were going to have to move the pedals. The trhottle pedal was moved about two and half inches and the brake pedal needed to go over 4 inches.
After cutting the brake pedal apart Saturday and making the filler piece I picked away at the throttle and brake pedal mods Sunday and today.
Here's a shot of the brake pedal after we cut it in half.

Mel sliced out a chunk of 3/8ths plate to use as the filler.

We did a little bending in the arbor press to get the separated pieces to line back up. Here you can see the mis-match created by moving the pedal half 4 inches outboard.

Didn't take much to get them lined up. I re-cut the halves at slight angles to lessen the drop off as the new piece is welded in

All sides of the joints were bevel ground to get more weld into them

I'll post up more later... Leaving for the airport to pick up my son...

[astroracer]

I'm back. Picked up my son at Bishop last nite at 11pm and headed up to the hospital. We had arrainged to get him in late so there wasn't any issues getting up there. Dad was doing well and we visited for 15 minutes or so. It was good. We'll head up there this afternoon for the evening shift.
Here are a few more pics of the brake and throttle pedal mods. Once I got the pieces fit together I fired up the mig and melted everything together.
Fitment before welding. This is how I beveled both sides of the weld joints

Pretty good fit up

I cranked the mig up and burned these together in a few minutes.

I also did a little fill welding to help blend the top edges together.

Once I ground everything down it looked one piece again.

Mocking the pedals up in the van I think I will move the gas pedal over another 3/4 inch. I am just bending the rod up at the linkage bracket so it isn't hard to do.

With my size 12 on the pedals. Moving the gas pedal over a bit more will be good.


Thanks for looking.
Mark

[astroracer]

I decided to use the brake pedal bracket from the '95 donor van because it will work with the hydroboost unit with no issues. The '95 had a funky brake light switch. It is a cartridge style that was hung on the pivot with the brake rod. You can see it here.

Of course the '95 had a few more things going on with brake pedal actuation then the '88 did. I don't need the "press brake to shift into gear" solenoid. I don't need the torque converter lockup disconnect. And I don't need the cruise control disconnect... All I need is the brake light switch...
This is the '88 brake light switch. The '95 has a bracket something similar but the '88 switch wouldn't simply swap over.

So, after a little head scratching. I cut the mounting hole off the '88 bracket. Here it is cut out and cleaned up a little.

This is the '95 bracket. in the lower half of the pick you can see the tab that swings up in line with the large hole in the bracket. This is where the piece from the '88 will weld on.

And spot welded it to the '95 bracket.

Problem solved...
I also worked on the steering column and linkage today. I am using the tilt column out of the '95 so I was stripping a lot of unnecessary solenoids and wiring out of the way and cutting off the old shift linkage tab.
Here is a pic of the steering linkage in place.

I trimmed the 1" D shaft at the bottom of the column by about 3/4's of an inch to get the new double U-joint up a bit and make the angle less severe.
Here is a close up of the upper double joint and the rod bearing support.

I have to design and build a bracket to carry the rod bearing. Bolting it to the firewall is probably my best option. I plan to work on that tomorrow a bit.
Dad was doing much better today. He has been moved from critical care to a regular hospital room now so hopefully he is well out of the woods and on his way to a full recovery.
Thanks for looking!
Mark

[astroracer]

I did a bit of re-engineering on the steering rack brackets. I added angled towers to the existing brackets to kick the rack angle forward another 25 degrees... This really opened up the upper u-joint angle and also added some angle to the lower joint. Really eased the turn down to the rack and now the steering action is smooth and consistant.
This is a shot of the initial set-up. The initial tip was right at 10 degrees from verticle. The protractor shows where it will end up.

Here are some pics of how I set the rack up to maintain the centerline in vehicle and get the additional tip. I set up a jig on the welding bench and located the body of the rack with some clamped on angles. This let me rotate the rack around it's own centerline to maintain the location in the van.


With the rack installed back in the van you can see the amount of additional tip really helped the u-joints open up and work as thet should. Compare this pic with the first one in this post...

I can turn the steering by hand using the middle of the upper u-joint. It needs to be held in place by a bracket and I am designing that as I right this. It will bolt to the firewall and carry the rod end to support the upper joint.

I also need to order another piece of the DD shafting... Now that I have the position optimized the original one I cut of is 3/4's of an inch to short... It works for mock up but i want a longer stick in there when it comes time for driving...
I am planning to make the rod bearing bracket out of 1/8" plate. Is that heavy enough? Any input? I don't think this bearing will see a lot of torque, it just supports the upper end of the DD shaft to keep the Double U-joint from flopping around.
Thank
Mark

[twosaturns]

I really enjoy reading your updates! it doesn't matter that it's a van; EVERYone on here should be interested in following, just to see the engineering and creative solutions employed. it is SO refreshing to see a project that isn't just a collection of parts, or a simple bolt together affair.

nice job.

[Jetfixr320]

Awesome thread, Amazing work!

Steve