Big Sky Euro

Tool and rebuilt steering rack came today
Here's the tool. Harbor freight 20 dollars.

Here's the rack. I say dang, it even came with new copper washers for the banjo fittings.

Taking off the outer tie rod end. Tightened it down and she popped pretty easy. The hardest part was getting the ball joint shaft to stick good enough in the wheel hub so that I could remove the ball joint nut off the rest of the way.

Taking off the outer ball joint. Pretty much the same deal, except that I tightened the separator tool with the impact a little, then whacked the wheel hub with a brass drift and hammer where the balljoint is connected at.

You sure take nice photos

Old rack removed. No big deal, gunky

Look at this control arm bushing. Pushaw whimpy.

Here's what's going in. M3 CAB. It has an offset hole, which increases caster. So you can get them lined up, there's an index mark

Got to get that sucker off the control arm. The most common method is to light them on fire and burn em off. Then use a sawzall to cut through the rest of it and peal it from the "Lolly Pop". Pushed
Press out the CAB from the lollypop. Some random Subie part fit the job just fine

Old CAB out. Wheph, it was in there pretty darn snug. Tools FTW

Got the lollies cleaned and lightly scotch brighted on the inside to remove burrs.

To press in the new M3 CABs into the lollypops I scribed a light line down the side so I could line it up with the mark on the lollypop

Once it was pressed flush with the other side, I marked what half the amount that was poking up was, so I'd know when to stop pushing it centered in the lolly

All done.

Since I'm here, clean up the subframe a little bit. Shiny goes faster

Did find that my rebuilt rack didn't have the mounting points aligned to the same plane.

Emailed rackdoctor Saturday, and actually got a phone call on Sunday Turns out there's gland? nuts that tighten the ends down and you can either just use your superman arms to twist the ends so the mounting flanges line up, or just loosen those gland nuts and twist with Amy Farrah Fowler arms. I did the later
Nut

Tool

Once that was settled I could mount my rack, no problem at all. Notice another problem?

Yeah... Doh, I wasn't planning on this. Grrr... Time to call Revshift.

And because I was curious, I cut an old balljoint apart. Drilled the bottom off with a hole saw

Then, once your scrape the goop out of there (consistency of modeling clay) it's just a metal socket

The shaft comes out, with the left over pieces of the nylon cup that was in there with it. I guess it's the nylon that wears out and makes it loose.


Time for a break, you did a good job


Big thanks to a fellow motorhead, Tim out at Don's on east frontage road.

mmm, I love 16 yr olds

Well my motor mounts are well traveled. Revshift did not enter the suite number on the package so it came to Bozeman, went back to Michigan then back to Bozeman.
Whatever

Here's the old mounts vs the new mounts

Subframe assembled with the new mounts. No issues here. Hardest part was deciding whether the logo on the mounts should face up or down

Seems like when you are fitting new mounts, it always takes some persuasion tools. It's not that things don't fit per say... just that they need a little "help" moving into place.

While I was here, I cleaned out the PS fluid reservoir. It has a little filter element like a porous ceramic thing, so I soaked it in gas and drained it several times. There's a little clip inside that was a PITA to get off. Bah.


To get the rear control arm bushings and lollys on the control arm .. stems? I did the whole cold on one part hot on the other thing.

No one complained about using kitchen utensils for this.

Helps to have a pair of these from my previous life. These also double as my oven mitts

Using every bit of my Amy Farrah Fowler strength and weight I was able to get the CABs wiggled onto to the control arms.

Liberally applied copper anti-seize to the inner tie rod ends (no idea if this will help)

And sub frame's on, control arms on, tie rods on. Time for some lunch

Oh, incidentally, does anyone on the board here in Bozeman have some Smart strings or other similar type setup? I suspect I'll need to do an alignment.

Okay. Steering shaft re-installed. PS fluid topped off. Set back down on the wheels. Gosh, the under carriage it getting clean.

I think I'll drive it around the block, run it lock to lock a couple of times to the the fluid to circulate then drain the fluid and refill with fresh.
This close, it's foreseeable that I could be driving this thing around by sometime mid week.
Anxiety, what if something ... what if someone hits it... what if it gets dirty... what if it drives like poo...

I wonder if this is what cold feet before marriage feels like.

Man the gratification that you get from driving your project for the first time after major work is priceless. Great job man.


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Installed the ...173 DME tonight and buttoned her up.

Disconnect the battery. It's in the trunk.

2 philips & 2 plastic screws gets the top lid of the glove box down.

Little clip thing ejects the big arse plug

Four 10mm screw/bolts hold it in place

..173 DME was missing a piece of foam that pads between it and some air ducts. Fixed that junks right away.

The 173 DME had some additional ears on it for whatever reason

Drilled them off

Touched up with a step bit.. cause round holes

Reassembled, power-up achieved

Is that mocronic unit bettrr?