The New Ranger 6 Build Thread

#41

I suppose it is possible that the g loads of the impact could have caused some distortion in the rear suspension, but I think that is unlikely.

#42

[quote=“jlevie” post=62032]I suppose it is possible that the g loads of the impact could have caused some distortion in the rear suspension, but I think that is unlikely.[/quote]The damage wouldn’t be from the g loads. It would be from the center of the subframe being jammed backwards by the engine/trans/driveline. As much flex as the guibos provide, I’d be willing to bet there was 12" or more of rearward movement at impact.

In Miatas it’s easy because the powerplant frame bolts the trans to the diff and snaps the diff every time there is a decent fore/aft hit (ask me how I know).

#43

[quote=“Steve D” post=62039][quote=“jlevie” post=62032]I suppose it is possible that the g loads of the impact could have caused some distortion in the rear suspension, but I think that is unlikely.[/quote]The damage wouldn’t be from the g loads. It would be from the center of the subframe being jammed backwards by the engine/trans/driveline. As much flex as the guibos provide, I’d be willing to bet there was 12" or more of rearward movement at impact.

In Miatas it’s easy because the powerplant frame bolts the trans to the diff and snaps the diff every time there is a decent fore/aft hit (ask me how I know).[/quote]
Good point!

#44

Scott

I would be willing to bet the rear subframe and/or trailing arms from the #6 are BENT.

Seriously, I would not consider using them.

AL

Scott, Al is right … 90% of front end hits cause the weight of the diff. to force the rear carrier forward at center. This will cause a rear tow out condition. Even with rear end alignment not worthwhile the trouble just to find out you can’t compensate after transfering … B)

#45

[quote=“IAP” post=62069]Scott

I would be willing to bet the rear subframe and/or trailing arms from the #6 are BENT.

Seriously, I would not consider using them.

AL

Scott, Al is right … 90% of front end hits cause the weight of the diff. to force the rear carrier forward at center. This will cause a rear tow out condition. Even with rear end alignment not worthwhile the trouble just to find out you can’t compensate after transfering … B)[/quote]
I worked my ass off to get a rear end that would adjust to an alignment that I wanted, and then stay there. If I don’t like the alignment of New #6, I’m going to a weld-on kit. Ideally, by using the rear end off of Old #6.

I can check the toe of Old #6 easily enough. If it’s ok, can I reuse the rear end?

#46

[quote=“Ranger” post=62073][quote=“IAP” post=62069]Scott

I would be willing to bet the rear subframe and/or trailing arms from the #6 are BENT.

Seriously, I would not consider using them.

AL

Scott, Al is right … 90% of front end hits cause the weight of the diff. to force the rear carrier forward at center. This will cause a rear tow out condition. Even with rear end alignment not worthwhile the trouble just to find out you can’t compensate after transfering … B)[/quote]
I worked my ass off to get a rear end that would adjust to an alignment that I wanted, and then stay there. If I don’t like the alignment of New #6, I’m going to a weld-on kit. Ideally, by using the rear end off of Old #6.

I can check the toe of Old #6 easily enough. If it’s ok, can I reuse the rear end?[/quote]

By all means, do check as you have an investment of a goal, time and money. My comment was made more towards a direct transfer first and bad news later. … :slight_smile:

#47

[quote=“IAP” post=62077][quote=“Ranger” post=62073][quote=“IAP” post=62069]Scott

I would be willing to bet the rear subframe and/or trailing arms from the #6 are BENT.

Seriously, I would not consider using them.

AL

Scott, Al is right … 90% of front end hits cause the weight of the diff. to force the rear carrier forward at center. This will cause a rear tow out condition. Even with rear end alignment not worthwhile the trouble just to find out you can’t compensate after transfering … B)[/quote]
I worked my ass off to get a rear end that would adjust to an alignment that I wanted, and then stay there. If I don’t like the alignment of New #6, I’m going to a weld-on kit. Ideally, by using the rear end off of Old #6.

I can check the toe of Old #6 easily enough. If it’s ok, can I reuse the rear end?[/quote]

By all means, do check as you have an investment of a goal, time and money. My comment was made more towards a direct transfer first and bad news later. … :)[/quote]
Yah, replacing a subframe is a bitch of a job. Would be a bummer to replace a perfectly serviceable one with another, only to figure out later that the replacement was dorked up. Some guys have reported that they swapped out a rear subframe pretty efficiently in less than a day. Me, I’d rather do 3 engine swaps than replace one subframe.

#48

its not too bad if its been out before if not it sucks. we have had good luck dropping the entire assembly and then transferring everything over on the ground.

[quote=“Ranger” post=62081][quote=“IAP” post=62077][quote=“Ranger” post=62073][quote=“IAP” post=62069]Scott

I would be willing to bet the rear subframe and/or trailing arms from the #6 are BENT.

Seriously, I would not consider using them.

AL

Scott, Al is right … 90% of front end hits cause the weight of the diff. to force the rear carrier forward at center. This will cause a rear tow out condition. Even with rear end alignment not worthwhile the trouble just to find out you can’t compensate after transfering … B)[/quote]
I worked my ass off to get a rear end that would adjust to an alignment that I wanted, and then stay there. If I don’t like the alignment of New #6, I’m going to a weld-on kit. Ideally, by using the rear end off of Old #6.

I can check the toe of Old #6 easily enough. If it’s ok, can I reuse the rear end?[/quote]

By all means, do check as you have an investment of a goal, time and money. My comment was made more towards a direct transfer first and bad news later. … :)[/quote]
Yah, replacing a subframe is a bitch of a job. Would be a bummer to replace a perfectly serviceable one with another, only to figure out later that the replacement was dorked up. Some guys have reported that they swapped out a rear subframe pretty efficiently in less than a day. Me, I’d rather do 3 engine swaps than replace one subframe.[/quote]

#49

You gotta have a plan…

I can drop a my subframe in 2-1/2 hours and put it back in about 3 to 3-1/2 hours, if I’m motivated to do the job quickly. I don’t consider it to be a big job at all and have done this probably four times on the 38 car. Three of which were to replace lost nuts or stripped bolts on the outboard adjusters. I don’t expect to ever have that problem again.

In Scott’s case I would not even attempt to reuse the rear subframe off the old #6. I think the trailing arms are probably okay, but the drive shaft, differential and subframe are all suspect. The transmission may also be bad. They might be okay but there will be a lot of wasted labor in the build if they aren’t.

#50

[quote=“Ranger” post=62081]
Yah, replacing a subframe is a bitch of a job. Would be a bummer to replace a perfectly serviceable one with another, only to figure out later that the replacement was dorked up. Some guys have reported that they swapped out a rear subframe pretty efficiently in less than a day. Me, I’d rather do 3 engine swaps than replace one subframe.[/quote]

I’d rather do the subframe 3 times than the engine. The only real pain was getting the original brake lines to let loose. I can balance the diff on a regular jack with the whole subframe attached and drop it out in less time than it would take to reassemble my cherry picker.

#51

[quote=“turbo329is” post=62087][quote=“Ranger” post=62081]
Yah, replacing a subframe is a bitch of a job. Would be a bummer to replace a perfectly serviceable one with another, only to figure out later that the replacement was dorked up. Some guys have reported that they swapped out a rear subframe pretty efficiently in less than a day. Me, I’d rather do 3 engine swaps than replace one subframe.[/quote]

I’d rather do the subframe 3 times than the engine. The only real pain was getting the original brake lines to let loose. I can balance the diff on a regular jack with the whole subframe attached and drop it out in less time than it would take to reassemble my cherry picker.[/quote]
Lets see how much I bitch when I (if) I swap subframes. At least now that I’ve R/R’d the parking brakes, I know how to do it. And…I won’t spend a couple days dicking around trying to get the subframe in w/o first banging up the subframe bolts up into the passenger compartment.

#52

When I first did it I made three trips and bought 3 sets of line wrenches. One from each store withing 20 miles and the only thing that worked was a pair of vice grips I already had. I’m sure if it’s already got braided lines it won’t be much of a problem. I also ditched the parking brake completely and have learned to live chock blocks.

#53

Scott, whatever you do don’t paint it Laguna Seca blue!

#54

Was up until 0200 last night painting the cage. The abrasion resistant paint is pretty thick and it says not to thin it. As a result the brush strokes are very visible and it looks crappy. It’s not helping viscosity that I’m at the low end of the temp range (50deg) that the paint recommends. I think I’m going to apply a 2nd coat of paint and then do some sanding to remove the worst of the brush marks.

It makes me think fondly of spraying instead of brushing. I had thought that masking everything in side of the car to paint the cage would be too much work. But it’s now looking like a bargain. The instructions tho, say that in order to spray this abrasion resistant stuff I should use a “2000psi airless sprayer”, and that I don’t have. Could one of these airless sprayers be used to paint the outside of the car too? Maybe it would be worth getting one.

Harness shoulder fastening points. IMO the angle of the shoulder straps as they go behind you is really important. I think that the rules say that the straps can decline down 20deg, but I really like them to be either perfectly horiz or perheps incline up just slightly. I found that when the shoulders straps decline down a bit it scrunches you down in the seat which was annoying for several reasons. Also if you were sitting nicely upright when you pulled the shoulder straps tight, when you inevitably got scrunched down a bit the straps have a shorter path so they ended up looser. To get the shoulder strap angle to horiz, 3yrs ago I welded on a piece of cage bar on Old #6 that lifted the relative anchor point of the straps by >2".

On New #6 the cage bar behind the seat is ~1" lower than Old #6 so the problem is even more pronounced.

Last night I cut that anchor point lifter out of Old #6. Hopefully I can just weld it on to New #6’s cage and it will provide enough lift.

#55

The recommendation not to thin the paint is made with respect to the coating thickness. If you thin the paint a coat will be thinner and thus not perform or cover as well. That is hardly a problem on the cage, which won’t see extreme conditions. Thin the paint so it will flow and use more than coat.

#56

I called up Benjamin Moore re. thinning their paint. The customer service rep stuck to the party line and wouldn’t give me guidance on how much thinner to use. All I could get out of him was to use mineral spirits. Not having done this sort of thing before, what is a logical amount of mineral spirits to use as my first thinning experiement given that it’s 50deg and I’m using a brush?

I looked up airless sprayers and they seem to all be wide coverage devices. Maybe if I could get the stuff thin enough I could use a small HVLP gun? Thinner % recommendation for that scheme?

#57

You won’t need much thinner, perhaps less than 4-6oz per quart of paint. Add some thinner, mix well, and see how the pain flows. Add more as indicated. When painting bare tubing, the mix is about right if the first coat is slightly streaky. The second coat will cover.

#58

I made my very first attempt to use a spray paint gun today. Although I have an unused 20oz Harbor Freight gun, I thought I’d try their little 4oz gun and see if that would work well for the cage. The too thick paint on the cage looks bad.

I got the air compressor working, connected a oil/water separator and pressure control doohicky, played around with all sorts of air connectors and eventually had air coming out of the gun.

Then I started experimenting with a sample of the abrasion resistant paint. I was looking for a visc approaching milk, but I chickened out at 35% thinner and went ahead and tried to paint with it. All I did was spray some paint on some cardboard for a while, but it did work. Very cool.

I pulled off both bumpers and will be putting the proper early model bumpers on after the car gets painted. I found during that effort that although I have the sheetmetal that is below the bumper, I don’t have the sheetmetal piece that is behind the bumper. That may require a trip to the PickNPull.

The TRIPLE PASS radiator came yesterday. It’s cheaper than the double pass radiators that I have been using. The arrival of the radiator triggered a hard look at the coolant system. I realized that I needed the coolant pipe that goes across late model engines. The Rev. Al came to my rescue and one will be in the mail Tuesday. The old coolant pipe is wrapped around the front of Old #6’s engine.

I got under Old #6 today and decided that the subframe looks ok. I won’t know until I check it’s rear alignment tho.

The thicker glops of paint on the cage still haven’t hardened so I put a heater in the car. Those glops need to get hard before I can sand them down and try spraying the cage.

The oil cooler came off New #6, and the new oil filter went directly on to the block e motor style.

I did some cutting on the excess sheetmetal on New #6’s sunroof. I wanted to leave just enough to anchor the sunroof’s mounting tabs. After that effort I couldn’t help notice how heavy the sunroof still is. Slapping a piece of sheetmetal on the roof would certainly be a lighter solution. I’m conflicted on which way to go with this.

#59

Did you remove the inner skin of the sunroof?

#60

Not the entire inner skin. I left the outer ~ 1.5" of inner skin so the “tabs” could remain.