360S S3 "Yellowjacket" Build in Upstate SC

[Yoram]

... resuming installment plan of Lessons Learned.  Sorry for the long pause.

 

 

360S S3 "Yellowjacket" Build - Lessons Learned V

Diff Install and Fill
1.  Brake line routing
Prior to diff installation check ability to align the end of the copper brake pipe which is routed from the tunnel with the fitting attachment hole in the chassis.  The fitting will connect the copper pipe to the braided hose going to the axle.  Should be possible to loosen and adjust the routing of the pipe in the tunnel and bend it to ensure its end is aligned and square with the chassis hole (without modifying the hole, as I needed to do).  The brake pipe is not accessible in the tunnel once the diff is in place.  Install the fitting to the copper pipe and the chassis hole finger tight making sure the fitting is perpendicular to the chassis surface before tightening.

 

2.   Floor jack fixture
A standard loor jack with a home made diff fixture allows solo installation and adjustments working under car.  I made mine out of wood and attached it to the jack’s lift point with an M24x1.5 BMX bike fork bolt (your jack may require a different fastener).

 

3.  Shim stacks
A feeler gage helps determine the required shim stacks.

 

4.  Diff Fill (after driveshafts installed!)
-  Save time and shipping cost by ordering upfront 3 x 0.5L bottles. Accounting for some necessary overflow, it took ~1.2 liters.
-  Make sure the car is level before fill – I needed to lower the front jack stand to level the car.
-  Easy hose routing to the fill hole with the trunk wood board removed.
-  Could find no torque spec for filler plug - tightened by feel.

 

Propshaft Bolts
1.  Dry run
Verify ability to torque all 4 propshaft bolts to the diff flange (torque wrench access and sufficient counter-torque) prior to applying Threadlocker!

 

2.  Access
Access and torquing are difficult.  Access to torquing one of the bolts is compromised by a grease nipple - requires a spherical hex bit.
Orienting each bolt off center, not dead bottom, allows the best access from below with a long spherical hex bit + extension.  May consider adjusting the target torque to account for the small angular misalignment (x 1/cos).  Access from above is worse.
If, like me, you have not installed the engine+gearbox by now, then lifting and supporting the front of the propshaft high up in the tunnel helps improve access.

 

3.  Counter-torque
I was hoping that the handbrake, once adjusted, would provide enough counter-torque to allow torquing the bolts to spec.  This turned out not to be the case, at least not in my case.  I ended up inserting a padded conical punch in the U-joint yoke reacting against the frame.

 

Rear Axle/Suspension
1.  A-Frame
Make sure outer shim chamfers in each stack face outboard.

 

2.  deDion Tube Ears
-  Washers:   There is some confusion in the instructions re washers at the ear/tube/hub connections.  Washers under the middle bolt locknuts, especially the bottom one, are likely to interfere with the tube flange weld -- cannot use washers in that position.  No need for washers at anti-roll bar brackets.  Therefore, I ended up installing no washers under the middle and front ear bolt locknuts.
-  Torquing:  Torquing is done on the bolts due to difficult or impossible access to the nuts (and no nuts on rear bolts).  Bolt heads are shallow and require socket extension which risks damaging them.  Difficult to do solo.
-  In hindsight, based on the above, washers would be useful under the bolt heads, as shown in the IKEA guide only for the rear bolts.  Unfortunately I have not installed them there.

 

3.  Anti-Roll Bar
-  Bushings:  The instructions call for stretching and pulling the bushings over the bar’s ends into position.  I found that very difficult and potentially damaging to the bushings.  Instead, I assembled the bushings onto the bar by filleting each bushing lengthwise on one side and orienting the slit horizontally on the bar.  Lubricated the bushing ID, not OD.  Once installed and torqued, the bar swivels freely in the bushings (not a bushing-twist design).
-  Shimming:  As installed, the bar has notable axial free play, and in my opinion needs shimming and alignment (centering) vs. the deDion tube ends, although this is not mentioned anywhere.  I installed "home-grown" shims between the bar bushings and arms to minimize the axial play.

My shims were based on Ace Hardware nylon washers, 12.8mm ID, 19.1mm OD, 1.5mm thick.
I split each washer (shim) radially in one spot with a box cutter, unbolted the bushing blocks from the chassis and slid them inboard to make room for shim installation.
Lubed each shim with silicone grease and mounted on the bar outboard of the bushing by flexing the shim like a key ring.
Total free play initially was 5 mm so needed 3 shims.  Biased them left vs. right side to minimize asymmetry vs. the axle ears (drop link attachments).

 

 

Edited February 10 by Yoram

[Yoram]

Trickle Charging

 

This one is quite self-evident but thought I'd share anyway...

 

I left the Se7en in the garage without starting or trickle charging for over 3 weeks, and of course found the battery not able to crank.

I suspect the dang immobilizer but given this is a British motorcar and I am the amateur builder it could be anything.

BTW, this failure mode was predicted by Josh Robbins (and I'm sure many of you) and I should have listened and hooked it up to a trickle charger;  most of it is me being too lazy or hesitant to remove the bonnet...  I've already scratched the scuttle a bit in a couple places while replacing the bonnet and dislike this maneuver.

 

So I decided that I need a solution for easy and quick connecting to a trickle charger without removing the bonnet.

I got a 1100mA trickle charger with SAE connectors on Amazon.  I also got there a 6' dual lead extension cable with ring connectors at one end and SAE connector at the other.  I ran the extension cable from the cockpit through the bulkhead hole for the (deleted) heater valve cable and hard-wired the ring ends to the battery.  Had to cut the positive wire of the extension cable in the middle because of the fuse housing on it to get it through the grommet and bulkhead hole.  Reconnected with a butt connector and used some RTV to seal the grommet.

 

When not charging I shove the capped SAE connector into the side hole in the fusebox cover.

 

 

Extension lead fuse housing visible at bottom of battery

 

 

...the second small negative wire is the whip LED ground.

 

 

Under dash:  At left the bulkhead hole, at right the SAE connector end entering stowage in the fusebox cover.

 

 

Charging -- SAE connectors engaged.  Right side comes from the charger (below).

 

 

 

 

Cheers!

 

 

Edited April 28 by Yoram
verbiage cleanup

[Yoram]

On 4/28/2024 at 12:54 AM, Yoram said:

Trickle Charging

 

This one is quite self-evident but thought I'd share anyway...

 

I left the Se7en in the garage without starting or trickle charging for over 3 weeks, and of course found the battery not able to crank.

I suspect the dang immobilizer but given this is a British motorcar and I am the amateur builder it could be anything.

BTW, this failure mode was predicted by Josh Robbins (and I'm sure many of you) and I should have listened and hooked it up to a trickle charger;  most of it is me being too lazy or hesitant to remove the bonnet...  I've already scratched the scuttle a bit in a couple places while replacing the bonnet and dislike this maneuver.

 

So I decided that I need a solution for easy and quick connecting to a trickle charger without removing the bonnet.

I got a 1100mA trickle charger with SAE connectors on Amazon.  I also got there a 6' dual lead extension cable with ring connectors at one end and SAE connector at the other.  I ran the extension cable from the cockpit through the bulkhead hole for the (deleted) heater valve cable and hard-wired the ring ends to the battery.  Had to cut the positive wire of the extension cable in the middle because of the fuse housing on it to get it through the grommet and bulkhead hole.  Reconnected with a butt connector and used some RTV to seal the grommet.

 

When not charging I shove the capped SAE connector into the side hole in the fusebox cover.

 

 

Extension lead fuse housing visible at bottom of battery

 

 

...the second small negative wire is the whip LED ground.

 

 

Under dash:  At left the bulkhead hole, at right the SAE connector end entering stowage in the fusebox cover.

 

 

Charging -- SAE connectors engaged.  Right side comes from the charger (below).

 

 

 

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

This ended up an epic fail.

 

Counter to good advice (discovered later) and judgment, I left the trickle charger connected and "unsupervised" for 4 weeks with the bonnet in place.

When we came back there was not enough juice to turn on the headlights, let alone start the engine.

When disconnected from the charger the Banner read ~2V.

I took it out of the car and found only one of 6 cells with fluid (not all the way up), the rest empty.

Having decided that the Banner was fried I tried to fit a Duracell SLIU1RXHD battery from BatteriesPlus only to discover that the terminals are too tall...

By that time I had modified the battery bracket and strap for all 3 dimensions of the box but neglecting to pay attention to the terminals...

BatteriesPlus were good to take it back for a full refund.

 

So next I decided to try and revive the Banner.  Got 2 quarts of battery acid from NAPA and patiently filled all cells.

I then charged it with my trusty analog trickle charger at 2A for ~24 hrs, disconnected and left it on the bench to monitor whether it holds voltage.

So far it's been sitting for ~15 hrs at 12.91V.  If it stays stable for another day I will put it back in the car.

Problem is that my bracket and top strap cannot be "unmodified" and I need replacement original ones.

 

I posted in the For Sale/Wanted Parts.  If any of you reading here have an original Banner bracket and top strap lying around that you are willing to sell and ship please PM me.  (I do have all the fasteners.)

 

Once the battery and mounting hardware are sorted I will pursue the trickle charger issue.

 

Cheers,

 

Yoram

 

[pethier]

On 1/28/2024 at 9:49 PM, pethier said:

I think the bonnet essentially holds the top of the nose in-place if the bottom is fastened.  I'm not ready to rely on either concept, though:  I think I am going to fasten the nose at all four locations.

I have completed a conversion from Dzus to push-button-release in all four locations.  Pix and text will appear in its own thread when i get caught-up around here.  It took a bit of fettling, but I can now remove and refit the nose without tools.

[Yoram]

10 hours ago, Yoram said:

 

This ended up an epic fail.

 

Counter to good advice (discovered later) and judgment, I left the trickle charger connected and "unsupervised" for 4 weeks with the bonnet in place.

When we came back there was not enough juice to turn on the headlights, let alone start the engine.

When disconnected from the charger the Banner read ~2V.

I took it out of the car and found only one of 6 cells with fluid (not all the way up), the rest empty.

Having decided that the Banner was fried I tried to fit a Duracell SLIU1RXHD battery from BatteriesPlus only to discover that the terminals are too tall...

By that time I had modified the battery bracket and strap for all 3 dimensions of the box but neglecting to pay attention to the terminals...

BatteriesPlus were good to take it back for a full refund.

 

So next I decided to try and revive the Banner.  Got 2 quarts of battery acid from NAPA and patiently filled all cells.

I then charged it with my trusty analog trickle charger at 2A for ~24 hrs, disconnected and left it on the bench to monitor whether it holds voltage.

So far it's been sitting for ~15 hrs at 12.91V.  If it stays stable for another day I will put it back in the car.

Problem is that my bracket and top strap cannot be "unmodified" and I need replacement original ones.

 

I posted in the For Sale/Wanted Parts.  If any of you reading here have an original Banner bracket and top strap lying around that you are willing to sell and ship please PM me.  (I do have all the fasteners.)

 

Once the battery and mounting hardware are sorted I will pursue the trickle charger issue.

 

Cheers,

 

Yoram

 

 

P.S.,  my re-filled Banner does not seem to hold charge; in stand-alone disconnected state it dropped from 12.92 V to 12.83 V overnight.

Looks like an Odyssey PC680 is next for me too...

 

[wdb]

On 6/27/2024 at 11:57 PM, Yoram said:

 

This ended up an epic fail.

 

Counter to good advice (discovered later) and judgment, I left the trickle charger connected and "unsupervised" for 4 weeks with the bonnet in place.

When we came back there was not enough juice to turn on the headlights, let alone start the engine.

When disconnected from the charger the Banner read ~2V.

I took it out of the car and found only one of 6 cells with fluid (not all the way up), the rest empty.

 

 

I'm sorry that happened to you. What I see as the likely culprit is the charger. If you had completely dry cells, your battery was severely overcharged. If that was my charger I would throw it in the garbage.

 

I routinely leave cars on chargers for weeks at a time, sometimes months. I have never had a charger cook a battery, in fact quite the opposite. I use CTEK chargers. (I have 4 of them, it used to be 5 but I sold the lithium-specific one.) They cost a bit more but they are worth it.  One non-fried battery more than covers the difference. I also used CTEK's "recover" feature on one battery, which saved me from purchasing a new battery for our E93 for over 3 years. I was impressed by that! It took the charger over a week to go through the whole process, but it genuinely "recovered" the battery and gave it a new lease on life. E90 BMW's are notoriously finicky about battery voltage too.

 

This is just my personal experience. There are probably other equally good chargers on the market. I've seen a few folks say NOCO chargers are good quality, for example.

Edited June 29 by wdb

[Yoram]

On 6/28/2024 at 11:56 AM, wdb said:

 

I'm sorry that happened to you. What I see as the likely culprit is the charger. If you had completely dry cells, your battery was severely overcharged. If that was my charger I would throw it in the garbage.

 

I routinely leave cars on chargers for weeks at a time, sometimes months. I have never had a charger cook a battery, in fact quite the opposite. I use CTEK chargers. (I have 4 of them, it used to be 5 but I sold the lithium-specific one.) They cost a bit more but they are worth it.  One non-fried battery more than covers the difference. I also used CTEK's "recover" feature on one battery, which savee me from purchasing a new battery for our E93 for over 3 years. I was impressed by that! It took the charger over a week to go through the whole process, but it genuinely "recovered" the battery and gave it a new lease on life. E90 BMW's are notoriously finicky about battery voltage too.

 

This is just my personal experience. There are probably other equally good chargers on the market. I've seen a few folks say NOCO chargers are good quality, for example.

Thank you, @wdb!  Very helpful.  I'm thinking the same thing.  In fact I think that the digital charger I use is for some reason not compatible with the Banner.  I do have two of these, one trickle charging my '87 911 for months on end with no issues.  I swapped them several times between the 911 and the 7 and they behave consistently vs. the car -- either 911 charger shows fully charged after awhile (2 solid green LEDs) while either 7 one keeps showing trickle charging (lower LED solid green, upper one blinking) forever.  Should have cued me into diving deeper into this early on.  Duh.

Right now my re-filled and recharged Banner seems to have stabilized at 12.8 V (disconnected).  I will put it in the car and keep an eye on it.  Before and when trickle charging I will have the bonnet off, take voltage readings and observe the cells, and not leave it charging for more than 24hrs at a time.

 

Still looking for a replacement original tray/bracket and top strap.  I made my mutilated bracket and strap kind of work for now with longer screws, but am not happy with it.

I will certainly look for a better charger - Lessons Learned.  

 

Thanks again and cheers!

 

Yoram

 

[Yoram]

On 6/28/2024 at 1:13 AM, pethier said:

I have completed a conversion from Dzus to push-button-release in all four locations.  Pix and text will appear in its own thread when i get caught-up around here.  It took a bit of fettling, but I can now remove and refit the nose without tools.

 

Looking forward to your detailed account of the conversion!  if you don't mind please include a link in this thread.

[pethier]

On 6/29/2024 at 10:02 PM, Yoram said:

 

Looking forward to your detailed account of the conversion!  if you don't mind please include a link in this thread.

The button-halves are out of the nose just now because the nose was being painted.  I will look around for photos I have and take more.  So many irons in the fire just now.

Edited July 3 by pethier

[pethier]

On 6/28/2024 at 12:13 AM, pethier said:

I have completed a conversion from Dzus to push-button-release in all four locations.  Pix and text will appear in its own thread when i get caught-up around here.  It took a bit of fettling, but I can now remove and refit the nose without tools.

 

[Yoram]

On 6/27/2024 at 11:57 PM, Yoram said:

 

This ended up an epic fail.

 

Counter to good advice (discovered later) and judgment, I left the trickle charger connected and "unsupervised" for 4 weeks with the bonnet in place.

When we came back there was not enough juice to turn on the headlights, let alone start the engine.

When disconnected from the charger the Banner read ~2V.

I took it out of the car and found only one of 6 cells with fluid (not all the way up), the rest empty.

Having decided that the Banner was fried I tried to fit a Duracell SLIU1RXHD battery from BatteriesPlus only to discover that the terminals are too tall...

By that time I had modified the battery bracket and strap for all 3 dimensions of the box but neglecting to pay attention to the terminals...

BatteriesPlus were good to take it back for a full refund.

 

So next I decided to try and revive the Banner.  Got 2 quarts of battery acid from NAPA and patiently filled all cells.

I then charged it with my trusty analog trickle charger at 2A for ~24 hrs, disconnected and left it on the bench to monitor whether it holds voltage.

So far it's been sitting for ~15 hrs at 12.91V.  If it stays stable for another day I will put it back in the car.

Problem is that my bracket and top strap cannot be "unmodified" and I need replacement original ones.

 

I posted in the For Sale/Wanted Parts.  If any of you reading here have an original Banner bracket and top strap lying around that you are willing to sell and ship please PM me.  (I do have all the fasteners.)

 

Once the battery and mounting hardware are sorted I will pursue the trickle charger issue.

 

Cheers,

 

Yoram

 

 

Gave up on the Banner battery and completed conversion to a sealed Odyssey PC680 following Josh Robbins' advice.  The PC680 was sourced from FCP Euro after 2 failed attempts to get it from 4Wheel Online/Amazon (twice shipped the wrong one).

As part of the conversion I replaced the original battery tray and strap (which I had mutilated in a misguided attempt to fit another, wrong battery) with a factory one from Josh, to which I riveted 2 aluminum angle profiles to contain the much thinner PC680 in correct clamp position.  Minor rerouting of cables was needed due to the reverse orientation of the terminals required to achieve the clamp position.

The PC680 arrived with 13.25 V and the car started immediately.   Now just looking for a small well fitting positive terminal cover to complete the job.

 

 

 

 

Cheers!

 

 

[CBuff]

I had a similar issue with my battery terminal covers not fitting the new smaller battery.  I got these on Amazon and they worked great.  Didn’t need to even trim them. 
 

before 

 

I thought I took an after photo but can’t find it.  But they now fit snuggly over terminals. 

https://a.co/d/9O5wvHK

 

[Yoram]

3 hours ago, CBuff said:

I had a similar issue with my battery terminal covers not fitting the new smaller battery.  I got these on Amazon and they worked great.  Didn’t need to even trim them. 
 

before 

 

I thought I took an after photo but can’t find it.  But they now fit snuggly over terminals. 

https://a.co/d/9O5wvHK

 

Thanks!  Looks like you may be running a Lithium battery based on the location of the terminals, or what battery is it?

Can you share the Amazon link?

 

Edited July 22 by Yoram

[CBuff]

It’s an agm. I was going to go with lithium to replace the banner tractor battery but my importer put in the agm. Which works great so far. sorry link was in there but not obvious 
 

https://a.co/d/9O5wvHK

[Yoram]

15 minutes ago, CBuff said:

It’s an agm. I was going to go with lithium to replace the banner tractor battery but my importer put in the agm. Which works great so far. sorry link was in there but not obvious 
 

https://a.co/d/9O5wvHK

@CBuff, thanks a bunch and sorry - my bad -- did not catch the link which was in plain view....

[ralph]

Another option for reference:  Lithium battery saves a few pounds at a relatively high position in the car's center of gravity, and provides plenty of Amps.  I've heard some caveats about using Li, both because of how they charge and how they spit out voltage, but have had no issues.  I did put the Banner back on during troubleshooting an initial engine start issue, but that turned out to be the disconnect switch being miswired at the factory. 

 

Because the battery is so much smaller, foam blocks and zip-ties were employed for fitment -- ghetto, but hasn't budged.  I have a connector cable for a battery charger on the second (rear) pair of terminals, but rarely use it unless the car will sit for a while (I do use the disconnect switch routinely, just as a habit).

 

[Yoram]

53 minutes ago, ralph said:

Another option for reference:  Lithium battery saves a few pounds at a relatively high position in the car's center of gravity, and provides plenty of Amps.  I've heard some caveats about using Li, both because of how they charge and how they spit out voltage, but have had no issues.  I did put the Banner back on during troubleshooting an initial engine start issue, but that turned out to be the disconnect switch being miswired at the factory. 

 

Because the battery is so much smaller, foam blocks and zip-ties were employed for fitment -- ghetto, but hasn't budged.  I have a connector cable for a battery charger on the second (rear) pair of terminals, but rarely use it unless the car will sit for a while (I do use the disconnect switch routinely, just as a habit).

 

 

Thanks, @ralph!  This sounds consistent with @JohnCh's experience.  A Lithium battery will be one of my aspirational future improvement projects...

I first need to amortize the investment and work spent on the current AGM solution...

 

[Yoram]

Added a positive terminal cover from Amazon (trimmed height by about 4mm).  Sleeve ID is 10mm but pretty stretchy to pull over and stay in position on the cable.

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088ZT2LFL?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

 

 

 

 

 

[CBuff]

finally remembered to take a pict of the silicone covers.  

Edited August 3 by CBuff

[Yoram]

On 8/3/2024 at 9:29 AM, CBuff said:

finally remembered to take a pict of the silicone covers.  

These look very good!  Thank you for sharing.

I chose the ones I did because they seemed slimmer (least axial protrusion over terminal) due to my top vs. your side terminals (and because they were cheaper...).

 

Cheers!