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Revival of the Chickenhawk...


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  • 3 weeks later...
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Got some steel box tubing and got to cutting...

 

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Made two of these...

 

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Then two of these...

 

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Drilled holes in them and cut one wall off of each...

 

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How we want them to be when finished...

 

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Hole drilled in frame rail to mount up the top piece...

 

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After test a few different angles and locations, it turns out that straight up is the best one...   :rofl:

 

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Bolted back into the car for a test fit and all looks good...   :thumbup:

 

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The reason we used such a small diameter bolt to hold it to the frame rail is because when it's in there for good we are planning to weld that piece of box to the frame. So the "tiny" bolt is just to hold it in place while it's welded on.   ;)

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Today was fairly successful...

 

Got the right side upper mount finished, so Tim got cracking on welding them in...

 

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Now to put the axles in, but first we need to install the same new, longer studs we used up front. Tuns out the old studs will come out with the caliper bracket in place, but the new ones won't go in...   :rofl:

 

Had to grind a small relief on one corner of the bracket to get the new studs in...

 

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Only needed about 2mm of clearance on one spot of the bracket, but now they are in there...

 

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Now with the axles bolted in for good...

 

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Bolted on the wheels, installed the springs and shocks, and it looks like we are just about done here...

 

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I like what we've done here...    :thumbup:

 

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Obviously we still need to install rotors, calipers, and the e-brake cables, but we are really happy with where the back is right now. Next time we are going to install the engine and roll it around a bit to settle it down because we think the front needs to be lowered a little bit. Right now, the rear is fairly soft with should make for good off-roading and a fairly decent ride. But the front is still really stiff.  So we are going to try and run shorter/softer springs with less preload to see if that softens it up a bit...

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As a side note, with all four links bolted up there is zero side-to-side deflection (which was a concern). And we checked to see how much it can articulate without binding. Tunrs out you can let one side all the way down to the floor, then raise the other side all the way up to the frame, and there's still zero binding.  B)

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I can't wait to see it in the dirt!

 

Thee and me both!  I don't remember if he mentioned the amount of articulation we have, but we can droop one side of the axle to the floor while the other is bumped until the spring perches touch.  I just about wet myself with joy over that!

 

edit*  Oops, I see he DID say exactly that... um, never mind.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Decided to clear out a few things so we could roll it in and out a few times to try and settle the suspension down. That did nothing.   :rofl:

 

So we said fuck it, let's install the engine then...

 

First to bolt the transmission on. Hmm... That throwout bearing feels gross... Pressed on a new one...

 

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And that transmission is super grungy, so better clean it...

 

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Got tired of cleaning it halfway through. Good thing I started at the front. No one can see that back half anyway...    ^_^

 

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Going up...

 

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Got about 95% of the way in and it just would not go any further. Crawl under to see what's up and of course, the bigger Z20 dogleg transmission is hitting the stock transmission mounting humps in the tunnel (original manual trans car, common problem). So got out the air chisel and...

 

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If anybody needs these, I saved them. They are in great shape...

 

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And now it slid right in there and fits like a glove. A very tight glove...   :P

 

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Transmission is a tight squeeze and may need some "creative clearancing" done soon. Tim rigged up a way to hold it in place with a ratchet strap. Shifter came out in the perfect spot as well...

 

 

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Now with some weight in it, we rolled it in and out a few times again. Settled down a LOT. I'd wager almost 3" in the front. Now it actually has around 3" of droop, where before it had ZERO droop. Also the front end doesn't feel nearly as stiff as it did before, it's now only a tiny bit stiffer than the rear. So we are thinking leave the fronts alone and get some front springs to use in the rear? We shall see...

 

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I love this stupid car so much...    :wub:

 

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Test fit the header and it is SUPER close to the steering shaft. Next order of business is to try and fab up a steering column, fix the clearance issue, then get a transmission mount sorted out. Then we will finish tweaking the front suspension. 

 

In that vein, it was tough to dial out all the toe out it had. We lengthened the TC rods a bit (had them cranked all the way forward) and that helped a lot. Gonna rework the outer tie rods to try and get it to about 1/8" toe in. Then probably adjust the LCAs out a little bit because at this height we are at 1 degree positive camber and would like to get it to 1 degree negative. 

 

After all that, we'll get the rear brakes sorted and get the rear axle mounting links adjusted and the location of the axle dialed in.  :thumbup:

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Now to make it steer...

 

Step 1, remove column from stock gear box, then cut it in half...   ^_^

 

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Collapsible column, so remove the lower half and...

 

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Since the lower half of the stock column slides into the upper half, and since it's diameter was fairly close to the rack's upper half, we got to welding...

 

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Got the whole shebang slid into the column and bolted up to the rack...

 

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Had to trim the intermediate shaft down a bit to get the u-joint over to the middle of the hole...

 

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At this point, slapped the wheel on and it steered pretty nice. Even with the huge tires the steering effort is fairly low. Has a tad under 3 turns lock to lock (with a LOT of steering angle) so it's fairly quick too. And steered over to full lock the tires are still far from rubbing anything important. Except maybe the fenders.    ^_^

 

Column itself is still a little jiggly though. The top is secured with a bushing, but the factory column shaft is held in place at the bottom by the gearbox itself. Since that's no longer there, we need to sort out some kind of bushing for the bottom of the column tube to hold the shaft centered in the tube...

 

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I like what we've done here...    :thumbup:

 

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This thread makes me happy. I dug back through but couldn't find the specs on the tires? My 510 wagon appears to have rally springs up front, so I was thinking of embracing it. Finding affordable aggressive tread in a 14 isn't as easy as I thought.

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This thread makes me happy. I dug back through but couldn't find the specs on the tires? My 510 wagon appears to have rally springs up front, so I was thinking of embracing it. Finding affordable aggressive tread in a 14 isn't as easy as I thought.

 

195/75-14... I believe.  John (datsunfreak) will tell us for sure next time he visits this post.

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Repurposing old parts...

 

Turns out the frame rails are the same distance apart on a B110 and a B210. So the abandoned V8-B210 swap gave up it's trans crossmember for this project. 

 

First some B310 motor mounts with the safety ledge cut off...

 

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Quick test fit and notice something odd. One side touches the frame rail, one side is 2" away from it. So...

 

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A few cuts and a few welds later...

 

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And now she touches the frame on both sides.  :thumbup:

 

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A few holes drilled and two new bolts and she's in there solid...  :thumbup:

 

 

Also spent a good amount of time head scratching on ways to fix the column problem and finally said fuck it. Went to the hot rod shop and got some heim joints, some steering shaft tubing, and a few other bits and we're just going to make a whole new column...   B)

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I'd like to ask that those of you who are cutting out rusty floors and replacing them properly, please ignore the half-assed floor replacement going on here.  Aw, who am I kidding?  They aren't even THAT good.  Please ignore the 1/32-assed floor replacement going on here!

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My 1st car was a 1200 coupe, I put in an a15 with a Turbo Tom's turbo kit and commenced to destroying granny's and rearends. Finally solved the rear end problem by swapping a mustang 8.8 wit 4.10 gears. Took the car with me to Okinawa Japan for 2 yrs while I was in the air force and got a 5spd that refused to break. Traded the car in 89 for a Turbo 260z, big mistake I really miss the 1200.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Back on the column today...

 

Got the new column shaft cut down to a more manageable two feet (had to buy six feet of it), and got to welding it onto the existing column shaft...

 

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Pressed the heim joints on the shaft and gave her a test fit. Looking good...

 

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With the column slid up a bit to get the shaft centered with the steering column support, the header clearance looks better. Tight, but manageable...

 

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Tim made this plate to attach to the stock column support panel...

 

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Got two holes drilled into the plate to bolt it up to the stock support bracket. Even with just two bolts it seems a lot more solid now. We are going to put at least two more holes in it to make it even more solid, though.   :thumbup:

 

Didn't get a pic of it in there because we took it all back out to add some lightness to that beefy steel plate...    ^_^

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It's already sorted now, but had you considered using large pillow block style bearings for the previous column? Probably could have found something from either an ag. supplier or McMaster.

 

You guys are rocking on this and it's really turning out great! Id be happy with stance as is!

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It's already sorted now, but had you considered using large pillow block style bearings for the previous column? Probably could have found something from either an ag. supplier or McMaster.

 

You guys are rocking on this and it's really turning out great! Id be happy with stance as is!

We had, in fact, not considered a pillow block style bearing for one simple reason... we forgot that pillow block style bearings exist.  Of course now the official reason for Heim joints is for steering shaft height and angle adjustment.

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It's already sorted now, but had you considered using large pillow block style bearings for the previous column? Probably could have found something from either an ag. supplier or McMaster.

 

Tried, but finding something small enough was the challenge. 

 

And as Tim said, the heims are nice for adjustability.  :thumbup:

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I ordered the female Heim joints and threaded rod to extend the steering links but I seriously doubt they will be here by this weekend.  (I also ordered a recirculation valve enloudener for the smart so it'll go "Braaaaaaapsssssssssssh! Braaaaaaapsssssssssssh!" with each shift... but I seriously doubt it will be here by this weekend either.)  So I'm not sure what we'll be working on Saturday.  We'll think of something I'm sure.

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