ZHPizza's red car

[ZHPizza]

Man I am so overdue for an update here...

Let's take it back to August when I got going on the poor man's spherical RTAB project.

There's more pics and info in that thread, but man, what a headache. I had so much trouble getting them to press in straight and replaced the lower control arm bushing with a bearing at the same time. The results: the rear end hits LOUD over 40% of bumps in the road, but feels amazing. I still have better fitting tires waiting to go on until I can decide if the noise is acceptable. On the current stretched/hard sidewalled tires, it is not, but the car crashed hard with those tires and OE rubber bushings. Just not loudly.

I was also chasing a creak in the rear, so I replaced the spring pads. No dice. Pretty sure it is the rear sway bar mounts making some sweet metal-to-metal music on the frame. I'll have to address that later...

On another note, I picked up a 1.4 bar expansion tank cap on the cheap! $11 for some peace of mind over the OE 2.0 bar cap and a lot less dollars than the 1.2 bar ANODIZED MACHINED VTEC cap from G.A.S.

[ZHPizza]

Let's see what else we got OH RIGHT. I went through the hell of trimming/rolling the rear fender lips. Never. Again.

I researched the shit out of this topic for months on end and finally settled on a plan to cut the fender lip back a bit, but not so much that it breaks the seam weld, then roll the remaining lip up out of the way. Did it go to plan? Well, no. Nothing ever does.

First things first, drink a beer. Then, pop another one onto the trailing arm with a mAGiCaL mAgNeT kOoZiE oOoOoOh



I got started cutting the fender lip with Spenser's dremel tool. Cute lil guy. Should do fine, right?



Quickly ate through one disc...ok...



...then it got real hot and started smoking a bit...ok... we'll wait for you to cool off...

While I was waiting, I googled "Dremel 400 XPR smoking." Apparently it's common for that tool to overheat and people were saying that it's better to just leave it on a low speed and let the fan cool it off instead of shutting it down hot...ok...

So, back at it, grinding away, speed 6, paying more attention to heat/binding, being real sweet to it, bitch starts spewing smoke again...ok...I immediately crank the speed down to zero...oops, wanted to keep it on low...oops, slid it back to 4 AND FLAMES SHOOT OUT OF THE SIDES OF THIS THING. 0. We're done playing these games.

I went inside, had a beer, explained to the wife what the burning hair smell was that had crept up to the main floor. Back to the garage 10 minutes later, clicked the Dremel on, it smokes, sparks, and sputters to its death. Bye bye.

This is how far I got. I'm done for the night. One casualty is enough.



And I still owe Spenser a dremel tool

[Sockethead]

mayber you'd be better off with a real cutoff wheel... air or electric. Those dremmels aren't designed to take that kind of load... as you found out

[tomnobes]

Looks like you haven't had good luck with your dremel. I bought one about 6 years ago (was the nicest one they sold at the time and I think pretty much still is) but every time I have had to use it, it has been invaluable for me..

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[704sw]

Looks like you haven't had good luck with your dremel. I bought one about 6 years ago (was the nicest one they sold at the time and I think pretty much still is) but every time I have had to use it, it has been invaluable for me..

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The XPR actually was the top model when I bought it. It’s been awesome for the HID retrofit/projector mods I’ve done to my cars over the years. It’s pretty much just used with a sanding drum to trim my dogs’ nails these days.

[tomnobes]

The XPR actually was the top model when I bought it. It’s been awesome for the HID retrofit/projector mods I’ve done to my cars over the years. It’s pretty much just used with a sanding drum to trim my dogs’ nails these days.

Gotcha. This is the one I have. And yeah. I feel like they aren't used too often but whenever I need it, it's something that no other tool would work for.

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[ZHPizza]

mayber you'd be better off with a real cutoff wheel... air or electric. Those dremmels aren't designed to take that kind of load... as you found out

Yep, I moved up to the $15 harbor freight angle grinder of death, threw on a face shield/ear protection and went to town.









The used a heat gun to soften the remaining caulk stuff enough to pull out



And removed the spring to test the fit



We're good!

[Sockethead]

What offset is that wheel? I don't remember...

[ZHPizza]

By this time I had bought a replacement for Spenser's murdered Dremel tool and used it to clean up the edges on the cut sheet metal. Then I tried rolling the remaining lip, but the wheel on my janky $25 fender roller was super soft, so it just kind of mashed it up a little bit and didn't really do anything productive. Whatever, I got the space I needed from cutting. All that was left to do was clean the inside of the lip and brush on a few coats of POR 15.



And I got all up in that ass



A little bid of bleed under the masking tape but it's on the bottom of the fender lip so idgaf party on rust free fam

[ZHPizza]

What offset is that wheel? I don't remember...

18x9.5 et35 with 235/40r18 stretched too far for comfort, but great sidewall stability for handling