A Berkeley with Bite! (ccrunner)

[ccrunner]

7-18-2021

The Volvo has taken some time recently to prepare for its upcoming auction, but it's in great shape, and I'm now back on the Berk..

I'm going to trailer the Berk up to Reno for their annual Hot August Nights car show in a few weeks, but the car is not ready.. I have several issues I'll be chasing over the next few weeks, but the biggest problem is heat management; this car is miserable to drive as-is... the engine heat just blasts through the gigantic gaps in the firewall. It is difficult to see with the motor installed, but my challenge is to 'connect' the removable body at the firewall to the frame side of the body at the firewall.. In essence, my firewall is horizontally split (the upper part comes off with the body); I need to fab in a removable strip (green rectangle) that will join the two halves- the challenge is that this patch piece needs to be accessible with the body on.

So here are some pics of a thing that's very hard to see... In short, ALL of the pics below are of me fabbing up the LOWER (frame side) firewall section (yellow rectangle).. that little strip in the pic will be 'permanently' bolted to the frame side of the car, and will complete the yellow rectangle... eventually I'll be fabbing a simple, flat patch panel (green rectangle) that will bolt onto the upper (body side) of the firewall to fill the gap between the upper firewall (red line) and lower firewall (yellow rectangle)...

So how's that? Wayyy too many words to say I'm sealing up this damn firewall, because if I don't, I'm going to ROAST in Reno in two weeks

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**If the timing works out (which it should), I'm also planning to take this car down to "The Queen's English Car Show" at Woodley Park in Van Nuys, CA on August 1st- it's a one day event... if you make it out, please come over and say hi

--ccrunner

[davew]

Try to make what is called a ditch joint for the fire wall. It looks like an "h" and slips on to the low fire wall section. Does a much better job at seal off the engine bay.
Davew

[ccrunner]

Gotcha Dave ..I ordered a bit of rubber weather-stripping that will fit down over the top edge of the lower (fixed) firewall, then I'll attach it to the upper firewall with four 1/4" bolts.. In profile, it looks exactly like the "h" you describe.. I should have pics of this soon...

These pics below just show things going back into place around the lower firewall.. I'm spending maybe too much time sealing up ever little crevice... this car has been very hot to drive with it's semi-porous firewall, and I want to keep the engine heat away from the driver and have it to be more pleasant to drive..

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

Dynojet Autotune

With the front body section removed, this is a good time to wire things up..

The Dynojet boxes just represent the tech that's now wired in to help tune the car (ahem, bike ).. One of my biggest regrets with the Volvo is that I never took it to a dyno tuner to really dial it in for my specific application.. On this project, I've purchased a piggyback device for my Dynojet fuel controller called an "Autotune"... it reads an inline 02 sensor and builds a custom map under various driving conditions as read on this specific car (intake/exhaust).. So instead of using a pre-written fuel map, over several mapping/downloading sessions, this car will self-tune. I like this option because I can remap any time I'd like in the future if I change anything on the car (alter the intake/exhaust).. This fuel controller also allows 2 separate tunes to be accessed at the flick of a switch; in my case, I can toggle tunes depending on whether I'm running with the exhaust open, or through the silencer.

In the red circle I'm rewiring the bike's handlebar controls to toggles and rockers and buttons and such to better suit my needs.. Wiring is one of my least favorite things to do, but with a bit of time it all came together.. I also took this opportunity to wire in my yellow LED fog lights to the headlight low-beam circuit.. They won't be able to say they didn't see me coming

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

Yes, it has a cup holder

A few loose ends to chase.. the white paper patterns are for the panels that will cover and 'seal up' the frame. Surely they serve aesthetically to clean things up, but these panels are yet another way to isolate the engine (heat) from the driver.

The chrome square thing is a stainless steel collapsible cup holder designed for marine use. I like this little guy because it gets me a cup holder in a stealthy way, and it's not plastic.. the car is a 59, and I'd like to keep things 'period correct' looking (meaning I don't want to plop some modern, molded plastic cup holder into the middle of the interior)... btw, this 'period correct' effort only applies to the body/interior.. lift the hood and all bets are off

--ccrunner

[Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F]

The scale of the driver's seat and column looks so funny, like the driver might have a gland problem. Messes with the eyes, I'm telling you.

[ccrunner]

Outrunning zombies and joining AARP

I'm still blitzing on prepping the Berkeley for a few rapidly approaching car shows; granted, in an ugly patina sort of way

This post, however, is about some fun things we've watched recently... Theaters are open again, and when my wife saw the trailer for the new film "Old" by M. Night Shyamalan, I knew she would end up dragging me to see it.. I don't trust old M Night, since my wife took me along to watch "The Village" some years ago.. What a waste of time!.. so much so, that I committed the director's name to memory, so that I wouldn't go to any of his future movies (I was really mad when the big 'plot twist' was revealed.. ...A bit unrelated, but just as petty, I also want the years of my life back that I spent watching "Lost" on TV... stupid-stupid-stupid ending and a colossal waste of time ).. Anyway, I never win in these instances, so you know I did in fact end up going to see "Old" with Lisa yesterday.

It wasn't the best film I've ever seen, but my wife has had me watch a lot of horror/thriller movies over the years (I'm her 'ooga-booga' movie partner because I'm a good husband ), and this one surprised me with how entertained I was! it was well done, and everyone in our family liked it, even my fickle 18 year old.. Don't read any reviews, don't research it, just jump in and I think you'll like it. If you don't think it's a fun little summer romp, then you may want to ignore the paragraph below..

Totally unrelated, we've started watching a series on Netflix called "Black Summer." We're only 1.5 seasons in so far, but if zombies are your jam, you'll LOVE this! No real spoilers here, but imagine an end-of-days scenario where the zombies are tireless, and they run FAST!!.. a real threat.. and then there's the whole 'living people aren't too nice either" tack.. It's a mix of "The Road," and "Lord of the Flies, and "Night of the Living Dead," and a whole bunch of other dark, 'this is how it would really be,' end-of-humanity stuff. **A qualifier.. I also liked "The Walking Dead" for its first few seasons, but the zombies were a footnote joke, and the story and characters really bogged down..

For "Black Summer," season one needed a bit of time for exposition, but so far, it has moved along at a good pace with interesting characters and plotlines.. and the zombies are terrifying- in a good way

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

July 2021

My big plans for swapping the red body (aka the 'good' body) onto this car this summer have all but evaporated.. too many other things on the car to chase.. the short term goal is to have it running, ugly or not, for two different regional events in just a few short weeks (July work for August car-show fun )..

Several pics coming of random this and that- these pics show that I flopped the driveshaft tunnel over and installed a bit of heat barrier.. last two pics are of the removable firewall upper fill piece.. LOTS of effort upcoming to truly seal off this firewall and keep the heat away from the driver- not at all glamorous, but super important on this little hot box.

--ccrunner

[ohmite]

ccrunner,
Thank you for posting, I enjoy following along with your Berkeley build. Great progress. And always great to see you out and about in the car. I bet it stands out as unique, even though you could hide it behind my Spitfire I’m sure (would probably make the Spitfire look big). I always get ideas from watching how you solve the puzzles of your builds.

I read back through your Sexy Volvo (it sure is) thread, too bad the site lost some of the pictures. I’m sorry to see it go, it is a great looking car, will keep an eye out for it on BaT. I’m looking to see if I can use your marine radio idea in the MGA, want to hide it in the center console I will make too, we’ll see. Normally just an arm rest pad.
Cheers,
Eric

[ccrunner]

ccrunner,
Thank you for posting, I enjoy following along with your Berkeley build. Great progress. And always great to see you out and about in the car. I bet it stands out as unique, even though you could hide it behind my Spitfire I’m sure (would probably make the Spitfire look big). I always get ideas from watching how you solve the puzzles of your builds.

I read back through your Sexy Volvo (it sure is) thread, too bad the site lost some of the pictures. I’m sorry to see it go, it is a great looking car, will keep an eye out for it on BaT. I’m looking to see if I can use your marine radio idea in the MGA, want to hide it in the center console I will make too, we’ll see. Normally just an arm rest pad.
Cheers,
Eric

Thank you for the kind words Eric.. I'll be sad to see the Volvo go too, but it seems the right time.. I'm finding myself feeling guilty that it's not getting used more often.. About the PMX3 head unit.. I really love that little thing.. super compact (I think it's less than 4" across?).. it's a nice little unit.. lots of built-in features and available adjustments.. I use it with my phone/bluetooth and source Spotify and/or Pandora... It's also Serious/XM satellite radio ready.. cool piece that's easily hidden..

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July 2021

Last few shots of the upper firewall fill piece...

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

Driveshaft R&R

A short while ago I found that the rear joint (CV) in the driveshaft was flinging a bit of grease around, so I thought this would be a good time to investigate the problem.. Sure enough, the CV joint boot had a good sized rip in it (this driveshaft was sourced from a 2009 Pontiac Solstice, so the joint/boot is now 12 years old), so I took this opportunity the simply replace the whole joint.. While I was back there, I decided to swap out the Toyota Rav4 diff for a spare unit I had. I did this in the hopes that it would have less slop/backlash, as the unit I have been running seems to be a bit sloppy. At this point, it seemed easier to put new seals into unit #2 and just swap the entire diff out- we'll see if there's a difference..

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

July 2021

Since the driveshaft is the current focus, I have to find a way to cover the open area at the rear of the driveshaft where it bolts to the diff... Of special concern is that ring gear mounted to the pinion snout that's used for the electric reverse- it creates some funky complex-curves issues that makes it a challenge to create a graceful, aesthetically pleasing cover.

I dug around in my spare parts boxes and pulled out the oblong 'tank' you see in the pics.. This is a power brake vacuum reservoir that came out of the 63 Volvo.. I knew it would be good for something one day .. I split it in half, and trimmed it out to slip down over the CV/Pinion/ring gear... It's super tight on the driver's side where the seat needs room to push back to the back wall, so I had to cut in the slight recess you can see on the driver's side.

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

Ok.. now with these pics you can see how it slips on/over... This area will be getting a slight rework later when I swap the good body on.. the mounting 'ears' you can see on this newly-made cover will disappear later, as will the plywood rear wall (to be reworked in fiberglass- a small passenger seat will also be fabbed in).. The intension is to simply get this to be functional for now, and tidy it up in the final version..

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

Late July, 2021

A few hodge-podge pictures here.. of note in the first few is the gold thermal insulator sleeve installed on the morse shifter cable (very NASA-esque )..

There's a single pic of the SBC starter motor (this car's reverse motor) being wired in.. (Since this pic was taken I tested the reverse out, and it works really well! So nice to have reverse! )

Finally, a few glamour shots of my swanky cup holder

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

Things have taken a turn...

A downturn at the exhaust tip that is .. I had to pull the exhaust, so I thought I'd mod the tip a little bit and give it a downturn.. it makes a slight difference in the sound, but I'm not sure if it's the final version of the exhaust yet.. I may still come back and fab in a small silencer at the rear, but for now this is fine.. Also took this time to shoot it with some rattle-can high heat paint..

--ccrunner