Brunton StalkerXL #23 Build

[jevs]

Got some smaller stuff done today.

The dip stick has to be modified to clear the headers. A little has to be ground away and the paint touched up.

 

Also, I made up the brake booster hose. I have a whole tub of hoses from various cars I have built/rebuilt over the years. I found a brake booster line that was the right size with the one way valve and restrictor in it. I could not tell for sure what the hard spot in the line was, so I got my little snake camera out to see. That red ring is the restrictor that is embedded within the hose. The other picture is the one way valve.

 

I notice that Brunton had a plumbing shut off valve on the green car they built inline with the brake booster. I can only assume this was being used as an adjustable restrictor. I do not see a check valve though. Hopefully the check valve and restrictor in my line will work out well. I can always remove it or replace it with a different size if needed.

[jevs]

Finished up the clutch lines as well. I only needed one adel clamp for each one to keep them from rubbing or being close enough to vibrate against anything.

 

I mounted the clutch bleeder in the same place Brunton did on the car I have pictures of. I did have to enlarge the adel clamp holes to fit it over the stud. The MS21919-WDG8 holds it perfectly snug.

[jevs]

Installed the starter. Not much to say about that.

Installing the alternator consumed an evening though. I did not receive the large spacer with my kit so I had to make my own and figure out how long it needed to be. This involved some string and taking it apart several times to remove material from the spacer a little at a time on the lathe.

Basically you wrap the string around the tensioner, crank pulley and alternator pulley. Then you can stare down the string across the top of the crank pulley and alternator pulley. Keep trimming the spacer until the string is parallel with each side of the crank pulley grooves. The string going up to the tensioner must also line up perfectly with the string on top of the other pulleys when everything is parallel to the grooves. Lining that string up as well is critical to making sure it is all straight because it forces you to be looking at everything straight. A string just between two pulleys or trying to look at the belt for alignment is not going to be as accurate.

This ended up making the large spacer 126mm.

The small spacer length is not critical as long as the heim clears everything. I did however true up the edges on the small spacer. It was cut by hand or something and not truly flat on the ends.

Rather than stacking a bunch of washers on the end of the large spacer bolt, I ended up cutting 12mm off the threads. This gives full engagement on the head without bottoming out and you can use one washer just so the bolt head is not grinding into the alternator when your tightening it.

[jevs]

Mounted the radiator. This took a little head scratching and fabrication, but I wanted the radiator isolated from the frame. I used the same snapper grommets for the top that I used on the exhaust. I had two left. I used the bobbins for the bottom that I was also considering for the exhaust but did not use.

I was thinking of using 4 of the exhaust bobbins, but one broke on me so I did not trust them. This way the radiator is always captured. Even if a bobbin fails or a grommet wears out, it is not going anywhere. This will not allow it to move enough to ever hit the suspension. Even if the grommet wore out, it would hit the bolt before it could touch the suspension.

I drilled and tapped the provided mounting points on the radiator to 5/16"-24.

This turned out to be very solid and should stand the test of time. It did take me awhile to figure it out and fit it. There is not a whole lot of extra space in there.

I also had to shave the useless bolt boss down on the front of the steering rack to clear the lower radiator fitting. I cut the tab off the lower frame that was provided for mounting, it was in the way and in the wrong place for me to use it.

Edited May 26, 2015 by jevs

[jevs]

Mounted the fan. I used stainless button head screws and nylock nuts. I had to drill holes and dremel the center ribs of the mounts since the original fan hole are just slightly outside of working.

I got all the large radiator hoses made and installed.

I replaced two of the bolts in the steering rack with button heads just to provide more clearance. The originals were probably ok, but I like to have at least 1/4" clearance since it is rubber mounted down there.

[jevs]

Had to remove the two tubes from the water pump. I clamped a socket in the tube and put vice grips on. I then used some spacers for protection and hammered my wedge in to pop them out.

3/8" and 1/2" NPT Taps are needed to tap these out. The holes are already in the right size range so that no drilling is necessary. You can vacuum out the shavings and blow air from the inside out afterwards with the thermostat housing off.

I capped off the drivers side vacuum port where the evap system would normally be connected.

I played with different mountings of the drivers side catch can and ended up drilling one hole in the bracket and mounting it like this. It clears everything including the hood hinges. I did not want it to share the alternator mounting because my spacer for the alternator is machined on both ends to keep it as straight as can be. Also using that hole on this side head makes the can crooked anyway. You can see I leveled the car up and made sure that can was mounted level side to side.

[jevs]

The surge tank has been mounted. I made two tabs and TIG welded them onto the can. It is rock solid and will not move from vibration or flex around when your trying to unscrew the cap.

It had been a long time since I used my TIG welder, but I did recently buy a new pedal for it because I knew I was going to have to do this. I previously had a thumb wheel on the handle. Don't ever buy one of those. They suck. They might be ok if you had to get somewhere that you can't uses a pedal, but controlling the current is much harder. There may be better ones, but the miller one is too cumbersome to use. It is hard not to dab the tip in the puddle when your scrolling the wheel with multiple strokes to control current or shut off the arc.

[jevs]

I was able to mount the passenger side catch can without any mods. I just put it as low as it would go in order to have enough clearance for the hood hinges.

I welded the MAP sensor bracket into the intake. I also made a nipple and welded it into the intake for the clean air supply to the valve cover vents.

The intake was sanded, scotch brighted, wet sanded, and buffed back out so it looked decent again.

I will finish up the PCV hoses and the coolant hoses next.

Edited June 1, 2015 by jevs

[jevs]

Finished the venting and catch can setup. Straight hose would not make the bend nicely on the rear drivers side valve cover fitting without sticking way up. I found a hose in my hose tub that had the proper bends and joined it in with a straight barbed fitting.

The passenger side catch can just takes the place of the U hose to catch the oil that would normally spurt out of the valley cover and suck back into the intake to be burnt.

The drivers side catch can is only there to catch anything that might burp out the valve cover vents. Normally this gives fresh air, but at times it could potentially burp back out into the intake. This prevents that.

Technically you could plumb your motor just like this without the cans and it would be fine as well. You would just be burning the oil instead of capturing it which is basically what a stock motor does.

We will see how much these capture. This will keep it from gunking up the intake and valves.

I also got the surge tank to water pump lines made.

[jevs]

Cooling system and catch can stuff all done.

Anyone doing this setup with a surge tank should know that the catch can connected to the surge tank should not be plumbed as a recovery tank. The hose should go to the top of the can and always be open to air (the catch can has a small air hole in the top). The hose should not be submerged internally or connected to the bottom of the tank.

This tank only serves one function and that is to catch any fluid that comes out of the surge tank when something goes wrong (over heating, over filled surge tank etc). Once your surge tank has settled in and has the proper air space in the top of it, nothing should ever come out into this catch can. It is not a recovery tank like you see on most normal cars. Those do need to suck fluid in and out in order to maintain a full radiator because they don't have a surge tank setup. You don't want to make a fluid trap in this setup that would force the surge tank to suck fluid in and out. You don't want your surge tank to ever be full. You want your steam ports venting into the upper air space.

If you make the catch can a recovery tank and it gets fluid in it, it will cause the system to not really function as intended. Eventually it could burp all your air space from the surge tank and it will just stay full. You may never see an issue if the catch can never gets fluid in it, or you never push the car hard or make steam from the steam ports etc, but it won't really be right. In fact you can run without the catch can at all if you want. Many people just put a hose down to the bottom of the frame. Once the system is stabilized, it should never really do anything. The catch can should not be an active part of the cooling system. It is just there to keep the EPA happy & the race track people happy if you should ever overheat or run so hard that it needs to burp a little.

 

I also mocked up the parking brake a little and set the seats in to see if it was going to hit my arm. This location seems great. It will be pushed over to the passenger side as much as I can. I have an idea on mounting it nicely. This was more just to see if it was going to be an issue with arm clearance and spark ideas on the placement. I kind of need to think about the parking brake cables at the same time as the fuel system so nothing gets in each others way.

Edited June 4, 2015 by jevs

[toedrag]

Lookin' good.

 

...I kind of need to think about the parking brake cables at the same time as the fuel system so nothing gets in each others way

Definitely. It took me a long time to get this part squared away. Don't forget to include 1/2" of space for the electrical harness to pass through there. I don't know if you remember my location for the lever, but putting it up on the seat back panel has worked out well so far and frees up space in the tunnel.

 

A note on cable length & clamps: To account for up & down wheel movement, give your cables enough slack and don't clamp them too close to the outside of the frame.

[jevs]

Putting it in the tunnel for me and having my parking brakes flipped right to left from yours with the cable connecting point up top is going to make the cables a pretty nice straight shot on nearly the same plane with just a curve back to the brakes I am hoping. I am trying to keep the cable routing around things and bends as minimal as possible. I would consider the back panel, but now that I tested it where it is, it does not touch my arm at all. I could pull it while driving if needed. Of course nothing is set in stone yet. I will hopefully be looking at it more seriously this weekend and making some progress. I have to get everything in place without cables since I am having custom made cables with no screw clamped ends. Hopefully I can get the lengths right on the first try.

Right now I am considering making some threaded steel spacers that weld to the passenger side of the frame tunnel. Then the handle assembly will just use 2 bolts to attach nice and clean and simple without all those L brackets they want you to use totaling 6 nuts and bolts to get it all mounted.

 

Attached a pic to kind of show what I mean about the lines staying on nearly the same plane without going around anything.

Edited June 5, 2015 by jevs

[jevs]

Finished the parking brake setup minus cables.

 

Drilled out the clevis to take a 5/16" rod which already fits the cable pull part. The clevis captures a nylock nut just right. There is a nut on the other side as well to lock it in. This way you can adjust it by just turning the nylock nut on the part that the cables latch into. I added some nylon washers and a metal washer to the clevis so there is no slop in order to reduce rattles.

 

A plate was welded in the back to mount the cable holder. This gives a clean shot through above the differential. It is mounted with ¾” button head bolts so there is plenty of clearance for the cables. This setup allows you to remove the cable bracket just in case it is in the way of wiggling the differential out or anything.

 

The spacers for the hand brake were made on the lathe and tapped to 5/16-24. The spacers were then welded to the frame tube. The rear spacer needed a little notch so the hand brake could come down fully without touching it.

 

There may still be enough room to pull the driveshaft out the top, but I believe it will come out the bottom anyway. This setup is very solid and only requires two bolts to mount the hand brake.

 

I will put the tank in and then figure out how long the cables need to be and get them ordered.

Edited June 8, 2015 by jevs

[jevs]

After sitting in the car with the seat about where I wanted it, I decided to scoot the parking brake handle over more. I actually had the handle mounted closer to the driver than when I first test fit it in order for the cable bracket in the back to have plenty of room for the cables without touching anything. I could tell my arm was going to touch at times while shifting which would be annoying. Now there is plenty of room so my arm should never touch it. I also wanted two of the bolts for the boot ring to hit the frame tube. This way when I make my padded cover plate those screws will hold it in place. I am thinking of using some slide tabs in conjunction so maybe no other fasters will be needed. I still have to think about that more.

The spacers ended up being 5/8". I just cut them off and tapped them deeper.

I switched to the button head bolts that came with the handle since the others I had were a little too long now.

I welded up the original hole in the clevis, beefed it up a little with a weld bead across the top and bottom and welded some steel to it making a bracket that offsets the mounting hole 7/8" from where it was. This also captures the bolt the same as the clevis did. The piece in the back for the cable mounting cannot be moved or the cables won't clear everything nicely. This takes care of that. I had to paint it since it is no longer zinc plated, so I could not install it yet.

This gives even greater clearance to remove the driveshaft from the top if wanted also.

Edited June 12, 2015 by jevs

[jevs]

Not much happened on the car this weekend because I am putting together a Jeep.

I did put the parking brake stuff back together with the offset clevis I made.

 

Here is the off road project if anyone has time to kill and likes Jeeps. Something most of the family can ride in. I am anxious to take it to an off road park soon.

http://www.wranglerforum.com/f322/jevs-1998-tj-4-0-sport-manual-chili-pepper-red-lcog-build-1291865.html

[ohhiken]

Boy, which Minehart do you know? I ordered XL020 (turnkey) on Feb 21 and received it Sept 4th in Oregon. And all installments were paid in advance. Wow!

 

I like your journal and see you have those magic hands and gobs of energy. A-fib hit me a few years ago and pretty much lengthened or cancelled a lot of projects. That is why I ordered #20 turnkey because I wanted to use it before I died and I ordered in Feb so that I could use it in 2014. A promised 3-month build. As you can see it took 6-months I didn't get much use out of it in 14'.

 

Looking at the many photos in the journal, I could best make out the hanger used to mount the front of the rearend on page 16 the fourth photo down. I hope you don't have the problem I had in that the hanger crack in half and ripped out as the torque the driveshaft delivers in combination with tire traction was apparently too much for the material Scott used. I advised him of the failure and he requested photos which I sent but have heard nothing back from him.

 

You appear to be having a great time. Hope you enjoy the ride, after sorting, as much.

 

..................Ken XL#020

[jevs]

I have not worked on it much lately because I am building a Jeep that is taking longer than I initially thought. Can you send me some picture of the damaged bracket? I will PM you my email. It would be easy to modify now rather than later if needed. I can't imagine it would take much.

[jevs]

Current pic

Edited March 21, 2016 by jevs

[jevs]

Made the panel for the parking brake boot and padded arm rest. This gets held to the frame with the passenger side boot trim ring screws. The plan for fastening the rest of the panel will be N52 neodymium magnets. Once I get the scrim backed foam on it and the covering, I will drill holes in the tunnel panel and epoxy magnets where needed to the arm rest panel. The magnets will stick directly to the frame.

 

The hole in the top of the tunnel panel was cut so that it can be raised straight up and off without doing anything with the parking brake handle. The arm rest panel slides over easily. At first I looked into mounting the boot to the tunnel panel, but it was harder to maneuver the tunnel panel over the parking brake. This will be much easier.

[xcarguy]

jevs,

 

Does this mean you are keeping and finishing the car?