I haven't posted much in a while, but progress on the HJ has been happening. I did take some time off from the project to go to Detroit and NYC, and more recently to Iceland, which was a blast. When I was in Detroit I actually stayed in Ypsilanti with friend s for a couple days and drove past the old Willow Run plant a couple times which was really cool. I also went to the Ypsilant Auto Museum in teh old Hudson Dealership building. They have a great collection of orphan cars and memorabilia.
Anyway, so what have I been up to with the Henry J? While most guys were watching the Superbowl today, I was in the garage doing the final welds on motor mounts and the transmission cross-member, then actually mounted the motor & trans in the car for the first time. I'm pretty stoked about that!
I spent a lot of time working on the mount mounts and perches, and the cross-member. My welding is a lot better these days, I'm pretty happy with most of the beads, or at least I'm not embarrassed by any of them. I'm also very happy with my decision to get a membership with my local Techshop (
http://www.techshop.ws/), which has been very valuable. I have an awesome metal shop available to me now. The bandsaw, drill press, chop saws, metal brakes and other metal forming tools at techshop really made it possible for me to make some pretty precisely formed pieces.
For motor mounts, I bought biscuit style rubber mounts from Chassis Engineering. I then made the motor mounts and perches at Techsop and welded them all up at home.
Here are the perches welded to the frame:
Here are the engine-side mounts:
I used 1.5" OD .120" wall steel tubing to make the cross-member. It took a long time to figure out the correct angles for the end plates to match the angle of the frame rails, while making sure I had the width exactly right to fit tight between the rails. I ended up with apretty good piece though.
I made plates with welded-on captive nuts on the back to weld to the frame rails. Once I figured out their placement, I used a 3/4" hole saw to drill holes in the frame for the captive nuts to sit in. I made the captive nuts by grinding the flats off of Grade5 9/16" nuts, then wleded them tot he back of the plates. The attached them to the frame rails.
[img width="900"]https://www.dropbox.com/s/95ow60f7kckow45/crossmember3.jpg?raw=1[/img]
Here it is all bolted up with the T5:
Here's a look inside the car. This is the shifter that came with the T5. I'll have to find something shorter with less of an angle.
Back to the motor now. Here it is, solidly mounted:
Clearance between the head and the steering gear is less than a 1/4" which isn't great. These mounts are pretty rigid and I don't think the motor will rock very much, but we'll see. I might be okay as it is, but I can add some spacers at the motor mount to list the motor up and away in I need to. I planned for that when designing the mounts.
Next up is figuring out the brake and clutch master cylinders. I have a plan to use the original brake and clutch pedals, but modify the linkage to use modern hydraulics. I'm using all Chevy S10 brakes, but I'm going with manual, not power brakes. A 7/8" master cylinder is the perfect size, and I found that a Dorman M39736 is just right for this application.
It's a 7/8" bore cylinder, and has a deep pushrod bore for manual brakes. It's also aluminum which is nice. I am going to mount it in basically the same location as the stock MC, so I will have to convert the fluid reservoir to allow for a remote location. I hear that you can use fittings from a Nissan Quest master cylinder to use a remote reservoir instead of the attached reservoir.
As for the clutch, I'm using a Ram Clutches hydraulic throw-out bearing so I bought a Wilwood compact 3/4" bore master cylinder.
My plan for it is to use the stock pedal and make a pivot rod similar to the stock one, but shorter so that it will lever against the master cylinder mounted next to the brake master. I'll have to fab up some brackets, and I'll use the lathe at Techshop to make the pivot rod.