Another short update this week, not a whole lot of progress. I do finally have water lines that fit though, and for about half the price of the lines I initially ordered! So I’m that much closer to getting the turbo on. I also got to go for a nice cruise with the Benz, probably the last one I’ll get in this year.
Sunday was unreasonably warm, so I spent most of the day inside playing Fallout 4 trying to finish anything I could on the Laser. Unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot I can do without putting the engine back in, and I want to port my turbo housing before I do that. I really don’t want to have to take the turbo off again to do that next year.
So the first thing I was able to do was swap out my busted old hatch struts for a set of Strong Arms so that I won’t have to hold it open with my head anymore. That gets old quick.
This is actually a lot harder than I thought it would be. If you remove the plastic surround you have easy access to the bolts you need to remove. I didn’t do that. But it’s alright, because it turns out the struts I got are a bit wider in the mount area than my old ones, so they actually won’t fit without some breaking of stuff. I’m alright with it, I can cut the plastic later or mold a wider section for it if I really get that worried about it looking perfect. They work great though, my head/neck/back rejoice!
I next moved to the inner tie rods as I’ve been sitting on the inner and outer tie rods for a while and the swap is easier with everything out of the way. You’ll need a screw driver or something to wedge into the metal ring around the boot (which you’ll need to swap onto the new inner tie rod) so you can loosen it. Then use a needle nose pliers to pull the clamp on the front of the boot forward so the whole thing is out of the way.
With that moved I have clear access to the inner tie rod. Unlike on my Mazda, I can’t just twist the tie rod off the steering rack as there’s a ball joint that will spin as well. So you need a tie rod removal tool that fits over the entire inner rod and you can then spin it off with a ratchet. I don’t have that. Yet. Amazon is sending it my way, so I’ll take care of that this week instead.
So instead I went ahead and threw the sway bar end links on. It made me feel like I did something constructive.
That is honestly all I got done this weekend. On the Laser anyway, I also built a pretty mean fully automatic 10mm pistol on Fallout 4. It’s a shame I wasn’t able to do more, I had the time and the weather was phenomenal.
The next issue is that the turbo housing needs to be ported. I somehow got the only one in the entire world that hasn’t already had this done. I’ll need a rotary tool for that, and luckily my brother has one. It’s at his place of work though, seeing as he actually uses it. Must acquire this week and do some grinding.
I need to get rid of the inner lip portion, this restricts flow, might as well free up the airflow a bit while I’ve got access to it. The other part is the 02 housing, that also needs to be ported as it’s a well known source of boost spikes if you don’t smooth that out. You can see what I mean in the pictures below, the first two are of the 02 housing and the last is of the exhaust housing.
What, that’s it? Yep, that’s it, nothing else to see here.
I lied, bonus picture of my humble little stable.
