Week 12 rolls around and our wheeling season is creeping up fast.  I am definitely on the downward slope for project completion and digging into the little details during every spare moment I can. 

During the week I concentrated on getting the front seat mounts finalized.  Last week I finished the drivers side, on Monday I finished off the chassis brackets for the passenger side. On Tuesday I fabricated some adapter brackets for the new passenger side slider from .18 thick aluminum angle.  The sliders were from Jegs, # 555-70220 .  You could also order the sliders with a pre-made adapter bracket from Kartek, #PRM-SS2.

On Friday night I did what I hope will be the last major welding on the chassis after I discovered I would need one more cross member out back to serve as a limit strap mounting point. I also fabricated a bracket to hang the rear exhaust pipe from the chassis.

Next up was something I didn't have the budget to do in the first build-up: new brake lines. To save money on the original build the brake lines were a hodge-podge of inch and re-used metric stuff from the parts Toyota and Zuk I had. It took forever to get everything to fit and stop leaking but I did save money, or so I thought. Since then I have learned a bit and had seen how some of the sand car braking systems are wired plumbed with all SS braided hoses. After some research I discovered for about $200 I could order all the adapters and hoses required to do the whole buggy along with some spares (Source: Speedway Motors). Considering the stock rubber lines for the calipers cost $26 from Autozone each I'd say the SS route is cheaper if you implement it from the get go. Another plus is you can carry one 48" long SS line and you can repair any line in your system, cost is something like $14 for the SS line.
 

Best of all it took maybe 4 hours to install all this stuff, at least an hour of that was spent pulling the old stuff off/out.  I'd guess I spent several days getting the original stuff in there, most of that time spent fiddling around with the tube bender and cursing at the flaring tool.

Starting at the Willwood master cylinders I used two AN 3 to 1/8 NPT fittings (# 617-4244 @2.95 ea) and a pair of 36" long braided SS lines with 90 degree fittings on one end (#910-31894-3 @ 17.95 ea).

The front line goes to a line lock (2 more AN 3 to 1/8 NPT fittings (# 617-4244 @2.95 ea), then thru a 48" long braided SS line with straight fittings (#910-31847-3 @14.95 ea) down to a bulkhead T (#617-4330 @6.95 ea).  From there I ran a 25" long braided SS line (910-31845-3 @11.95 ea) to the drivers side caliper and a 36" long braided SS line (#910-31846-3 @12.95 ea) to the passenger side caliper.  the lines are connected at the caliper with a 7/16" to AN 3 banjo fitting and banjo bolt found in a kit (#6172930 @27.95 ea),  The kit does two calipers and is for the early GM calipers with 7/16-20 threads, a metric version is also available.

The plan with the additional line lock is to lock out whatever end of the rig I do not want to brake and use my brake pedal as my cutting brake lever to control the end not locked out. Conversely I could also activated the brakes and toggle the line lock, then release the brake pedal effectively holding the brakes on one end only which is what I have been doing for a while now with the rear brakes.

For the rear line I connected the line coming from the master cylinder to a AN3 Male Tee Adaptor (#10620312 @7.95 ea) that has an 1/8 NPT port to screw the pressure brake switch (#910-31305 @9.95 ea) into. 

From the fitting I ran a 25" braided SS line (910-31845-3 @11.95 ea) to my rear line lock (1 more AN 3 to 1/8 NPT fittings (# 617-4244 @2.95 ea) and I left the short piece of hardline in that connects the line lock to proportioning valve in because I am lazy. The proportioning valve uses one last AN 3 to 1/8 NPT fittings (# 617-4244 @2.95 ea) connected to a 48" long braided SS line with straight fittings (#910-31847-3 @14.95 ea) attached to the final bulkhead T on the rear axle (#617-4330 @6.95 ea).

From there the rest of the system duplicates the front: a 25" long braided SS line (910-31845-3 @11.95 ea) to the drivers side caliper and a 36" long braided SS line (#910-31846-3 @12.95 ea) to the passenger side caliper.  the lines are connected at the caliper with a 7/16" to AN 3 banjo fitting and banjo bolt found in a kit (#6172930 @27.95 ea).

On Saturday I had Dennis attempt to bend my aluminum swaybar arms in his shop press and it appears to have been successful (anything higher than 50 series aluminum tends to fracture and break).  We put a 15 degree bend in the arms to clear the lower links. Once I got back home I realized I goofed when I mocked up the arms by not having the exhaust installed. It looks like I can mount the rod ends on the outside of the arms and have the swaybar links clear the exhaust but clearance between the rod end and lower links is going to be tight. I am to the point where the only way I'll know if everything clears will be to actually articulate the rig on the trail.

Earlier in the week I installed a new passive transmission cooler in front of my radiator and moved the fan cooled original unit to under the rear seat (we'll see if reversing the fan in the winter makes for a good heater). Part of the reason for doing this is both my motor and transmission were running hotter than I'd like during the summer and I was wondering if the cooler fan was conflicting with the radiator fans.  Either way I added cooling capacity this go around with the extra cooler for the transmission and a combination of electric water pump and some Redline water wetter for the engine. On Saturday evening I re-wired the rear cooler, fuel pump, electric water pump, front line lock and thinned the stock ARB wiring harness down a bit. 

As you may know I replaced my 6 year old ARB compressor with a cheapo model from the local parts store as detailed here(also seen them at Costco). The replacement compressor has been working good and with it's longer duty cycle it does fill tires much better than the little ARB compressor.  Having proved itself I decided to remove the old ARB compressor, (it was still hard mounted and could be wired in if needed) this meant I would need to come up with some sort of air tank as I was still using the ARB's tank which is integrated in with the compressor housing. I ended up converting a used fire extinguisher I had lying in the garage after discovering the aluminum screw on head of the extinguisher had plenty of room to drill and tap for 3 additional ports: one 1/8 npt for the compressor connection, one 1/4 npt for the pressure switch and one 1/8 npt for the ARB solenoid.  I ordered a 1/8 npt to 1/8 bsp adatper from McMaster Carr (#5832T111)  to adapt the ARB solenoid.

I didn't get much done on Sunday other than making a few floor templates, hoping to start those this next week along with installing the final suspension links and spring (when they arrive).  Also not shown is all the filling of fluids which managed to kill a few hours last week. As of right now I just need to add gas and hook up a battery to test start the buggy to verify all my new wiring. 

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