Harv's meth monster project

[Errol62]

Must be very clean with all those washers

FB ute driver, EK van project

[EK283]

Must be very clean with all those washers

FB ute driver, EK van project

Actually I was referring to the weld on calliper bracket !!!!!

Greg

[Errol62]

FB ute driver, EK van project

[Harv]

I have done some dodgy, dodgy crap in my time... but not that

Cheers,
Harv

[Harv]

Feedback from the engineer: OK to mill back the steering arm, but must leave a 1mm spot face (only mill about half the 8mm distance). The spot face prevents making a stress-riser on the steering arm. Mill the spacer back by that distance to suit.

I'll get that much machining done, and see how it goes... there might be enough to get clearance. If not, I'll start the conversation again with the engineer about milling back the caliper bracket.

Cheers,
Harv

[Harv]

With the milling now organised (many thanks Greg), I had a minute to think about the calipers a bit more.

I dummied up the caliper without the steering arm, to give a feel for what the next clearance challenge will be. With the caliper mounted forwards, the caliper comes very, very close to hitting the kingpin on full lock. It also fouls (just) on the top lip of the lower control arm. With the caliper mounted rearwards, there is heaps of room to the kingpin, as the steering lock/component geometry is different. There is still a little fouling on the control arm, but nothing that a hammer won't fix. So looks like the calipers will need to mount rearwards. This changes how the steering arms will be milled. To make it easier, I will mill both front and rear steering arm pads level, until one of them reaches a 1mm pad thickness.

I then got curious about the Torana calipers that Rob donated to the cause. Would they give me more clearance? Sadly, no. The cast ally caliper body is near identical to the HX-HZ caliper, so no better in clearance for the kingpin. Clearance for the wheels is no better either - the part that clashes (circled in green below) has the same clearance to the rim.

Torana versus HZ calipers.png (598.67 KiB) Viewed 872 times

Worse still, the HX-HZ units will retract to allow a 1.1” thick rotor. The 0.95” rotors used in the kit are a good fit. The Torana calipers, when fitted with new Bendix pads, will only retract 0.7”, and hence cannot be used with this rotor without fitting slimmer/worn pads. Approximately 1/8” would need to be removed from each Torana Bendix pad… this is 60% of the usable pad thickness. So all up, the Torana calipers will fit no better than HX-HZ, but will need the pads modified at each pad change in order to work.

I did learn some interesting stuff about the Torana calipers though:
a) Bendix Torana pads come with new anti-rattle clips... despite no mention on the Bendix site. Wonder if their HX-HZ pads do too?
b) the Torana overhaul kits on the market don't include the slide seals and rubbers, which are painful to obtain.
b) its only after you invest in overhaul kits that you manage to strip one of the caliper bleed screws. A few years of sitting idle had bonded the ally caliper to the steel thread.

Cheers,
Harv

[Harv]

With the EJ-HD steering arms nicely machined back (with thanks Greg - nicely done), it was time for a fit-and-fiddle.

Put the arms on, and sadly still have clash. It's hard to measure, as it is a round edge (steering arm leading edge) swinging in an arc and hitting another round edge (control arm outer edge).

Option A: skim down the caliper bracket. Played around with some washers, and I would need to cut the bracket down so it is only 3.5mm thick. That's less than half the 8mm bracket thickness. Probably not a good idea.

Option B: "massage" the control arm. Suspect this is the only option. Back to the engineer to discuss.

Cheers,
Harv

[EK283]

Harv,

I can't see away around it ?????

The only other thought is to make the control arm a stop pad for the steering lock and ignore the factory one.

Maybe weld on a plate and shape it so the arm stops flat / level ? Would have to see a photo.

Greg

[Harv]

With a green light from the engineer to modify the control arms, I ducked under the FB with grinder in hand. A gentle kiss of the control arm outer corners, both front and rear:

FB control arms clearanced.jpg (67.82 KiB) Viewed 734 times

Voila! The adaptors now fit without the steering arms hitting the control arms (nods to Greg, with thanks again for milling the steering arms). Removed the dodgy temporary bolts, drilled and tapped the four steering knuckle holes, and bolted up the adaptors, spacer and steering arms. All good, but one bolt 1/4" too short... needs a few threads to protrude to keep the engineer happy. Two 7/12-20x2" Grade 8 bolts to buy.

FB short bolt.jpg (54.3 KiB) Viewed 734 times

Bolted up the rotors and calipers, and other than some missing wheel bearing washers (see Parts Wanted post) all is looking pretty sexy:

FB whopper stoppers.jpg (71.12 KiB) Viewed 734 times

Quick check shows clearances look OK, except for the upper caliper mounting bolt (the one my finger is on in the photo below). It comes very close to hitting the kingpin on full lock (where the yellow cross is on the photo). Misses, but not by much. Will swap out for allan-head cap screws a'la Torana (thought that the cap screws that came with Rob's Torana calipers might have worked, but alas too short). Two 7/6-20 UNFx3" cap screws to buy.

FB kingpin clash.jpg (74.09 KiB) Viewed 734 times

Need to do some more thinking about the hose connection and bleed screw. The hose connection faces in to the kingpin, and is tight for space. You can just see the red plastic plug in the photo above. Maybe a 90-degree pipe adaptor needed. The bleed screw is up on the outside of the caliper... wonder if I can swap out the bleed screw and hose connections? Would make bleeding hard, but not insurmountable (undo caliper, rotate on rotor so bleed screw uppermmost, bleed, rotate back and bolt caliper back on). Hmmmm.... more thinking to do.

Cheers,
Harv

[ardiesse]

Harv,

The Torana calipers have the inlet on the outer side of the caliper body; but you may have hose-to-wheel clearance challenges (I did with my X2).

The alternative is to plug the existing holes in the HX calipers and bore a hole straight in from the side of the body, near the PBR logo. You could drill the holes with a drill press; but it'd be nice to machine a flat surface for the copper washer to seal against.

So am I right in concluding that the calipers sit near the 12 o'clock position in this installation?
(Late edit: No. Note position of garage floor.)

Rob

[Harv]

Calipers are close to the 2 o'clock position.

I think I will be OK with the hoses on the outer - I have a fat-finger clearance to the rim, and the calipers sit outside the rim (mostly).

Perhaps 90-degree elbows or banjo bolts. The drilling idea sounds like a plan though.

FB rim and rotor.jpg (79.33 KiB) Viewed 721 times

FB fat finger clearance.jpg (66.28 KiB) Viewed 721 times

Cheers,
Harv

[Errol62]

Progress. Banjo union would have been my suggestion. HX calipers, not too modern?

FB ute driver, EK van project

[Harv]

Too modern, but I have a conundrum. Engineer wants ventilated disks, and I want 13" wheels and kingpins.

Cheers,
Harv

[Harv]

Banjo bolts, banjo bolts.... now where have I seen those?

Aha! The leftover VN-VS front hoses from when I built the wagon. Wait... they look very close on bolt size. Maybe the Commodore banjo bolts will fit the HX-HZ calipers?

But no. HX-HZ are 3/8-24UNF, VN-VS are M10x1.0. Damn close. Maybe if you guys turn a blind eye I can cross-thread them on

Kidding. Used the hoses for mockup though. There is room to get the banjo between the caliper and steering knuckle:

HXZ alloy caliper with VNS hose.jpg (63.37 KiB) Viewed 673 times

But sadly, at full lock the hoses point straight into the springs:

HXZ alloy caliper with VNS hose clash at coil.jpg (65.57 KiB) Viewed 673 times

The hose needs to go on the front bleed point instead of the bleeder valve. It will need to point "down" though, otherwise at full lock the hose again points into the coil:

HXZ alloy caliper with VNS hose at bleed screw.jpg (69.3 KiB) Viewed 673 times

The VN-VS hoses have an allignment roll pin that stop them from rotating. Handy. The bleed screw is supposed to seal on the cone seat at the bottom of the hole. No good for a banjo bolt. It does have a suspicious round flat on top though... maybe a thick annealed copper washer in the flat to seal the banjo bolt. Would save me having a bigger flat milled.

HXZ alloy caliper bleed screw flats.jpg (59.31 KiB) Viewed 673 times

VN-VS hoses are a bit short, and are metric on the other end too (along with being a ball flare). Looks like I need to get a VN-VS hose made, bit longer, UNF thread on the non-caliper end. Should be easy enough for Burt Brothers once lockdown ends.

Cheers,
Harv

[Blacky]

aaahh the joys of modifying stuff, change one thing - change 3 others to make it work .....................








































...................... and they wonder why a man drinks