Justin Bailey

Just figured out how to quote. I may list it all in a while, I think it will be under $700. The bolts cost the most, the paint second, the rust soak was a lot because I bought 8 gallons total of it. There are the cost of abrasives and wire brushes, some new stubby and bent handle rachets I bought to help, wrench, socket, & thread cleaner for O2 sensor. I also bought a hose spring clamp pliers I wanted to try because I never used one before, used a vise grip to move them for uninstall/removal. I got all new gaskets except the manifold ones that look fine.

If for some reason the cats are ruined by my soaking and or somehow painting messes up their functioning, I will have to get new ones, which will cost over $1500, but I don't expect them to be needing to be replaced, but who knows.

If I do get new cats, I will definitely get a 12 pt flare nut wrench and try it to avoid dimpling the nut area again.

Justin Bailey

I worked on the y-pipe shield today.



Cut out the peices. Found that I could make them significantly larger, and cover more of the area. There is nothing gelatinous about this material. It has a dust to it and also an itch factor. Hoping it will not absorb water as much as what was in there.



Used a spray contact cement for the y shape peice from a leftover can, then switched to dap contact cement brush on for the rest.



Close up veiw of this material with a staple in place. I put the prongs of the staple on the inside this time.



Some one thousandth thick mica tape, no adhesive.



To stick down with permatex after squeezing it all around and under the standoffs.



To provide some contact barrier against corrosion.

That's all for today, need some dabs of paint on the clamp nuts that attach it around the pipe.

blnewt

iTrader: (13)

Lovin this! And Justin, I think this should be moved to the DIY section when you're all done and it will achieve instant "sticky" status. Of course w/ all your attention to detail it may never be completely done

Justin Bailey

Thanks blnewt, I am devoting a lot of time to this between my work schedule, I appreciate you hangin' in there as it can have slow development at times.

This project has been going on for about a month now, the car is up on 2x12's stacked 6 high, raising it 9". The battery is actually still attached and is on a 800 mA trickle charger. I need to try to get it done by November, because my local routed driving job may change then. I could use vacation time to work on it, but at this point, it will likely be done by the end of Sept.

I was looking at painting my steel front end support bracket, I think the RWD manuals have an aluminum piece instead for this, also perhaps next year, getting to pulling the prop shaft and or entire rear diff and axles along with brake rotor cleaning and painting, but for this winter, I got some fluid film to spray around the factory surfaces to deter rust.

Justin Bailey

The y-pipe is assembled now.



This is the most complex part of the whole system to try to restore.



The dampers were fine so just washed them and applied some silicone grease to the rubber parts. The mounting studs were painted along with the pipe, the original nuts were shot with with a vht flat silver spray.



Had to place the flange bolts through in advance here to fasten the clamp together. Painted the welded nuts and the inside of the bands with kbs stainless steel brush-on. They also got new 12 pt M6 x 10mm bolts and a washer.

Justin Bailey

Back to the muffler, had cleaned it and had it indoors to stay dry all week.



Masked off the tips back to the pipes.



Here is a before of a flange, just to show the level of rust removal achieved.



Kbs xtreme zinc primer spray, 1 light mist coat and another general covering coat. Had to aim carefully in the hanger bracket area. Wire has been duct taped to the tips to hang it from.

Justin Bailey

4 some color, a kbs xtreme stainless steel spray.



A high solids paint, lots of particles float around when spraying it.



It's similar to the aluminum but a little darker and a lot more metallic-flakey. It has a 'tooth' so I may get their gloss clear in the xtreme range they also offer to seal this better.



-July 2015-

Justin Bailey

One thing I was considering is using the high temp lab metal product that is good to 1000 deg, to use as a filler on the more severely pitted flange gasket surfaces, but thought new gaskets would do. Trying to avoid permatex on the joints, but the thicker paint applied there and some of my grinding at the very worst two might have them leveled out enough for a good seal.

Also the nice M4 threaded drain hole I put in the muffler, well I had gotten paint it it so tried to re tap it but ended up stripping it out, so now there is a just a constant drain hole, not a periodic, when-I-choose-to drain hole. .

Justin Bailey

Waited two weeks trying to see if this white primer will dry so that I can use a brush-on over it but no go, it just dissolves underneath, muddying the color. Now I am running a heat gun to try to heat cure it. May have to just spray only over top of this.



Capped off the top with big washers and also completely with a piece of metal to get it to circulate down the other side, it gets hot.

blnewt

iTrader: (13)

Never thought the oem Y-pipe could look so sexy Make a nice centerpiece w/ roses coming out the top

GdaddyNY

Justin Bailey

Decided to get more serious with pre-curing this part off the car.



Good ol' harbor freight heat guns, picked up two more of them, and a infrared thermometer, cheap enough. You can adjust the thermometer for the emissivity of different surfaces of materials. I found the darker color reads hotter.



Snap-on makes a nice 1/4 drive 4mm allen socket, but I got a cheap 4mm hex socket and a new wrench and cut off a piece of it and super glued it into the socket just the right length to make an ideal allen socket for the studs.



I got the pipes all the way to the top over 400, and at times the lower foot or so (meaning the rear part of the pipe) over 700 degrees. Haha.



I was able to lay down some brush-on a lot better, but there was still some dissolving of the white primer into the charcoal metallic where the heat-reach diminished. I could have left the heat on longer, and may do that before the next coat.



I'll let it dry overnight at least and then give it some treatment, let cool, then brush on another coat, treat again and then top it off with a bit of the vht cast iron spray to smooth it out just like I did the y-pipe. It's hard to get those resonators over 250 it seems, because they themselves are insulated or just have hollow cavities.



This is the coolant tube section I needed to remove over the driver side header/manifold area, it has a zinc plating, but was all ugly already from weather, so I shined that up too.

The 'sharkhide' product I got while I was going over the transmission case and engine aluminum, to use after cleaning them where I can reach, to apply an anti corrosion film. It is very expensive, at $65 / qt. but is a marine aluminum protectant. It goes on like paint thinner, and then feels a little tacky, then goes off fast like super glue and is dry instantly and leaves an invisible protective film. Says it can last 'several' years, Idk, just trying that because I don't really want to paint the aluminum engine or trans metals. If it's made for the ocean, it can probably do a good job on the road was my logic.

Justin Bailey

Or maybe some peacock feathers, haha.

I can imagine NYC among others where it's got coastal air along with winter conditions are especially rough on vehicles. I am in PA where the winter salt is a big enemy of metals, but yea, there has to be some way to combat these.

I like this system in the respect that it has no slip together joints, where one tube has to fit inside another, they are all flanges with gaskets, makes it very strong and easy to uninstall/reinstall.

Justin Bailey

Comparison of the original header/manifold studs and nuts (old on left, new on right) vs, the new SS ones. Four new studs not shown here were test fit at the time. They have the same thread pitch on both ends, unlike the cat-to-collector studs, that have 1.5 pitch on one side. They have the same thread length as the cat studs, but these are 55mm overall because of the little nut-starter tips and are the same overall in length as the manifold originals.



Still need to clean the gasket area but have it taped over right now. They have the same fit as the original, a close tolerance M10 x 1.25 thread, they are tight enough that you need at least a little allen wrench to turn them and actually turn easier the farther they get. Had gotten a chaser tap and tried it but it started to remove metal so I stopped and forgot that, the threads are not dirty anyway. They are supposed to be tight to resist pulling of the thread. I may use a non metal anti seize into the aluminum here and nickel on the nuts.



Checking out how they will look on the manifold.



I selected some 4mm thick, and 22mm diameter washers to match the original locknuts' overall flange diameter, so it spreads the load out exactly the same. The washers are also parallel ground.

slartibartfast

iTrader: (7)