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Re-opening in 2020! Welcome to the home for lost rotaries. If you're just reading through this thread, I hope you enjoy my trials and tribulations with these wonderful vehicles and their (mostly) spinning triangle power plants. Some background: What started as a interest over a decade ago has morphed into a disease - to the point that at one point I quit my normal job, rented some shop space and worked on these cars as my primary focus. Like most good things, reality kicked in and I quickly returned to my long standing career- turns out benefits are worth the suffering. Almost. In 2014, I decided to build a shop and with the help of my equally crazy brother, we built a 30x48x14 shop to house our hobbies. Since then, I've been busy continuing to work on these cars as a hobby and my brother has been busy being married with children*. Last year I realized my stress level was getting out of hand and reduced, well everything. Including my contributions here. I've since taken a new job (10x better and less stress!) and again, refocused on what I want to be doing. So you might see less of other people's cars, but there will always be a project that sneaks in from time to time- but it's time to have some fun and build some cool cars. Enjoy! Original Post ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Here are some recent projects:  Site prep for the new shop.  A decently priced 99 Miata I picked up, my brother bought it after we got it through emission.   My FD.  Got a great deal on some RPF1's.   REW reassembly for Pineapple:   46k Touring that got the REW above.  65k S4 Sport with a Stage 2 street port, oil mods, full suspension,    04 RX8 with 76k in for a new Pineapple Renesis.  Rob loves his torch.   05 RX8 with 46k in for a reman:   Bare REW to full long block in 6 hours:     94 R2 in for a vmount and single turbo swap.   How the shop looks as of last:  New toy.  /shop part Now for a personal project: I finally bought a White 94 Touring yesterday. I've wanted one for years and way too good of a deal came up. It's a bit rougher then I wanted, but it will clean up nicely.  
the spyder fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Dec 23, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2013 00:08
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The REPU is Rob@ Pineapple Racing daily driver. 13B with a RX8 trans. Pretty neat little truck. Needs a 20b though.
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Aug 2, 2013 19:47
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Back to the 94. This came up just a few days ago with a blown engine (coolant seals) and tons of mods. A friend of mine saw it first and called. I messaged him and was able to work a deal. He wants some parts, I want the chassis- we will sell what ever we don't want. It's got 74k and looked straight in the photos. I took Wednesday off and road tripped it to Redmond WA (from Oregon) to pickup the car. Sadly, my saying of "There is no such thing as a straight FD" was yet again proved accurate. After 5 minutes, we knew it was a respray. After 15, we found the front end had been replaced and both rear QP's were replaced. The passenger done terribly. All the other work was done amazing, if it were not for the seam sealer and one uncovered weld, I would never have known. It must have happened young in it's life to have someone put that much $$$ in to getting it back together right. Our old trusty 304k truck made the 500 mile trip flawlessly.  Some before pics.  It came with some free trailmix bars! Sweeeeeeet.    It's got some dings in the drivers QP.  Vinyl stickers peeling off...  Interior and engine bay de-wired.  No more gauges and boost controller.  Oh hai electrical fire... Wonder when this happened.   It came with a TON of parts. (Except the Auto Bahn's, those are mine).   Wait.... this is the drivers side...  The passenger side....  Oh god. Bondo and rust, my favorite things!  Why is the there a lip sticking out?  Oh god, are those self tappers holding the bottom of the QP on?  The tires it came with are from 06.  Coolant was apparent on both midpipe and exhaust... Must be toast inside.  I'm tempted to keep my VS-XX's... I had them forsale and the one person really interested hasn't had time to look at them.   So this fall, I will be pulling the rear passenger QP off and fixing that fuckery. Hopefully it drives straight, haha. the spyder fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 20:05
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I wanted to tear more in to the white FD today, but my wife's mini cooper s decided to blow a strut mount.  *Edit- I did buy a quart of PT-Chaste White PPG today.
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Aug 3, 2013 05:12
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Shop lesson of the day: Hire a builder.  I can't pick up a hammer in my right hand anymore... it's covered in blisters.
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Aug 5, 2013 00:43
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So I had more energy then I thought... Tore in to the white FD again. I finally cranked it over... oh god it sounded like a giant bilge pump. At this point, the engine is a fricken paper weight. More scortched electronics. No idea where it came from yet.  Let's see... No vacuum caps, no orings on the primary or secondary injectors, and OMP removed- no noticeable premix in the tank... ugg.  Apart.  Truck full of parts.  Check out the 4" downpipe.  Where I left it for the night.  Vac caps zip tied on are totally a appropriate cap... jebus.  Yes that's plumbing strap holding the mid pipe up.  While taking the exhaust off I noticed a kink and a broken seam... Shoot me. Son of a $@#@$%@$#%   South Florida Performance T4 manifold- huge compared to what I see today.  Yay the fins look ok!  \The good news: It looks like a ACT clutch kit- The bad news: Anyone need a boat anchor?
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Aug 5, 2013 05:43
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Here's the deal with rotors and housings. I can get them, but cleaning and shipping are time killers for me right now when I have 100 projects going. So how about once a month I will give a rotor and housing away? I'll make a post and it's first come-first serve.
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Aug 5, 2013 18:10
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I work in downtown, but live just south on 99e.
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Aug 5, 2013 23:08
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Sockington posted:Just follow the trail of apex seals. More like blown coolant pumps. Thanks BMW.
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Aug 6, 2013 00:52
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oRenj9 posted:How much do you think it would cost to get that white one back on the road and looking good? Also, given how cheaply RX-8s can be found, are they a better buy than an FD? I see tons of RX-8s with ~100k miles for around $7,000 If a customer brought it to me and wanted it perfect: $15-20k. A basic rebuild/fuckeries fixed: $7-10k How much am I going to put in to it? $1500 + $7k in parts I already have. I would rather have a FD than a RX8 any day of the week. The Renesis barely will last 100k due to inherent design issues. Cost cutting and such by Mazda has made it a car I am not sure I will ever own. The handling is great, the styling meh, and the powerplant a joke.
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Aug 6, 2013 00:56
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1) Carbon. Why in gods name Mazda decided to strip the US cars of power and life is beyond me. The flash here in the states uses almost 2x the oil injection. This combined with poor maintenance leads me to 2. 2) Side seals. The "movable" sideseal grove allows carbon buildup to lock the side seals in place, causing compression loss. 3) Water seals. I don't know if it was the factory or the engineers, but I have seen more failed coolant seals then any other generation. 4) Apex seals. Smaller, thinner, and easier to chip/crack due to carbon buildup I've redone half a dozen 8's so far. All from carbon/waterseal/compression failures. Rob@ Pineapple is getting more and more Renesis in, all before 120k. Sure there will be some exceptions, but I can't believe the quality with this generation of rotary. For a company that wanted to bring the rotary back, they sure did not try hard to make it any more reliable...
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Aug 6, 2013 06:59
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My OCD kicked in tonight when I got home- I had to peel the worn vinyl off the door handles. That quickly turned in to pulling the turbo... hahaha.    More quality work...   Huge exhaust housing-this would have easily made 500hp.  I can't wait to get this back on the road...  Huge wastegate!  Ready to pull. 
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Aug 7, 2013 06:06
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More progress:    
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Aug 9, 2013 07:50
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Holy loving lol- I found out how the electrical fire started. In attempt to heat protect the wiring harness, the PO wrapped it in aluminum foil and silicon tape... On the secondary fusebox 8g wire, he wrapped aluminum tape ALL the way to the top of the terminal, connecting it to 12v power. This then charged the entire aluminum "heat wrap" and as soon as a ground was made, shorted the entire system. Amazing it did not burn to the ground. I will get a picture tomorrow.
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Aug 9, 2013 08:02
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Here are some quick shots- you can really see the aluminum on the engine harness. The nice thing is, there is little to no damage- which is good, because you're looking at $1500 in NEW OEM harnesses...    
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Aug 9, 2013 19:44
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I want to, there has to be more to the story then what he told us. So many things were wrong/broken/hosed then how he presented it. -No work on the car today, shop is kicking my rear end.
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Aug 11, 2013 05:44
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No car work this weekend. Just shop progress.  
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Aug 12, 2013 04:54
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I'm going to cautiously answer yes- only because I have not worked on a car he has tuned. I have used his base maps, but I had to adjust them for our climate here in Oregon.
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Aug 12, 2013 23:34
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Worked on the car tonight after fixing my 135i. I finished swapping the mazdaspeed struts/springs on and taking a few more parts off. After, I decided it was time to crack the engine. It mainly consisted of me going "Oh god". It's hosed.          
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Aug 13, 2013 06:02
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He claims he popped the rear iron heatercore line off and it overheated. It's one of the worst I have seen. Every iron is shot. The rear and center have 1" breaks in the coolant jacket. The front has had the nitrate baked out. The only salvageable bits are the rotors/stationary gear. We were really hoping we could sell it after Pineapple refreshed it- but alas. The parts will go up forsale.
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Aug 13, 2013 06:15
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Yes they will! And they will be a good upgrade.
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Aug 14, 2013 05:09
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Judging by the bearing wear- it was done during one trip. Otherwise I would have washed out bearings from the awesome coolant/oil mix. In the shadows... a new shop lurks!  Utility Miata?  Anything that comes in an anti-static bag- does NOT belong bolted to a engine block.   Decided to clean the engine bay.    What the hell is this poo poo? More hacked wiring...    
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Aug 14, 2013 23:56
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Mooseykins posted:The BMW new-generation engines' external electric waterpump! That would have been easier... I wish I had my lift up. Soooooooon! 
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Aug 15, 2013 21:36
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I spent too much money yesterday- this shop has me broke. At least this way I can finish the Black 94 Turbo upgrade. I'm still needing two 5/8-18 to 1/4NPT adapters though- I went to four places and just got funny looks. Oh well.  
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Aug 16, 2013 18:32
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IOwnCalculus posted:What are you actually doing here? Verifying that the $30 pump I bought off ebay works. I ended up with two somehow and one hums- the other is good though. *Further explanation: I bought a CK 250amp Flex Head watercooled torch from my local welding supplier for cheap. Watercooling helps prevent the torch from heating up too much and you can run more power through a lighter/more flexible cable vs gas cooled. I did not want to spend $300-500 on a cooler, so I gathered a pump, radiator, and reservoir to make my own.
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Aug 16, 2013 21:30
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Today I reminded myself two things. 1) I loving love nail guns, and 2) I am a lovely carpenter. Well- not that bad, but holy poo poo did I F' up good. My building is now 13' 11-1/2" instead of 14' due to me being an idiot. It effects basically nothing, but god drat was I pissed when I realized that. Oh well. Live and learn, live and learn. 
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Aug 18, 2013 05:36
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Aaaaaand it's ready for the roof!  Hopefully next weekend we will be all set. In the mean time, I burnt the gently caress out of my thumb welding. #shittywelder #shittycarpenter I do love having a mill!   
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Aug 19, 2013 01:14
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Fucknag posted:Wow, I've never seen an intercooler mounted like that, but it looks clean as gently caress. Thanks! I made this design a few years back for another customer and it's been a hit. Huge core, plenty of room for a intake/filter, and short pipes.
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Aug 19, 2013 05:15
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Larrymer posted:Are you going to vent the hood for that IC? The owner is I believe getting a mazdaspeed vented hood.
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Aug 19, 2013 05:16
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Welding tip: if you're not sure how lovely the material you are welding to is, try running a lap around. The contamination will float to the surface and you can add clean filler to weld to. It was pretty lovely still.  Added a short 1" snout on the turbo for the 90* coupler  I did not take any pictures, but I machined the waterpump housing to clear the 90* elbow. I also blocked the unnecessary turbo water lines.  My friend Ben was over and pulled the major accessories off my Black FD in prep to yank the engine. This was around 7pm.  Then I started to get tired and broke a brand new tool. God drat it.  Before I wrapped up, I wanted to try and fix the white FD's gas door. I picked up some Devcon plastic repair at Wilco, but it was bad. The "plastic" side of the two part epoxy was rock solid and would not squeeze out until I cut the tips off. There was no way to mix it. God drat it. I gave up for the night at this point.  Shop related, the pex for our heated floor showed up. 
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Aug 19, 2013 05:25
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We have 2! A 1962 J-head and a 1980 Boss CNC.
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Aug 19, 2013 06:22
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Hopefully it will keep the entire room heated around 55* year round for $30/m. In other news, gently caress. Astro is backordered for replacement mandrels and I'm trying to wrap this up this week. I'm tempted to weld the nutsert in. Maybe I will try that later...
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Aug 19, 2013 19:55
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I tried and failed- my new solution is to weld a captive nut in there and call it good enough. Annoying, but it will work. In other news, I am sick and I think it's because I have too many drat things going on. Stress = sick to stomach/can't sleep. No fun. I did however make best of staying up till 5am by watching some more welding videos. Today when I got home I had 4 packages, one with the two parts I needed to finish my watercooler. I put together a temporary setup to test for leaks and ran a few beads. Words can't describe how amazing this torch and gas lens setup are. I finally feel like I can move the torch freely. In celebration I melted many feet of filler rod before remembering all I was using for coolant was tap water and a bucket... Opps- it worked though and was still cool to the touch. I need to practice feeding the filler, but I got the move/feed step down in my mind. I can't seem to get ahold of my welding buddies either, so I am going to try and weld everything up tomorrow night on the vmount. Maybe after some more practice... haha.  The $6 fittings to go from 5/8 - 18 LH to 1/4 NPT.  Temp plumbing.   I :heart: this torch.  Slowly getting better...   My painter called and is ready to shoot everything for the white car :Icantwait:  I did find out some bad news today, I have the wrong Proto pump- these do not have the internal bypass/pressure adjustment and I found out the hard way that too much pressure=leaking pump. My ghetto plumbing (T as a relief, clamped to regulate flow) works for now. In unrelated news: This is why I hate the local RX7 community. Basically, two people who should not even be working on rotaries are fighting over what little business there is, on craigslist. Idiot 1 posts both of these back to back. http://portland.craigslist.org/wsc/pts/4011057152.html http://portland.craigslist.org/clc/pts/4011050778.html Idiot 2 responds and slanders me/pineapple racing, but speaks of himself in the third person.  Idiot unknown posts this: http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/pts/4012835896.html Idiot 2 removed earlier posting and replies with this: http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/pts/4013312158.html The funny thing to me is, this doesn't effect either Pineapple or myself- I only work on 3rd gen's now and I have a 6 month waiting list. Pineapple still builds his engines and is booked. It's like a terrible sitcom from the late 80's, but on craigslist. loving idiots. the spyder fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Aug 20, 2013 09:23
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Larrymer posted:What's that about you stealing stuff? I have no clue what he is talking about. The irony is, he owes me $2k for a car he never finished paying off and parts I included. I lost the drat contract we had, live and learn. I really wish I had screen shot the one before, or the one before that. They were something along the lines of my business is a failure, that I am the engine builder for Pineapple, that I'm a kid and my dad funded my shop. I really think he is off his meds. I'm saving all of them from now on, just in case Pineapple and myself want to pursue legal action. the spyder fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Aug 20, 2013 18:17
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Ponies ate my Bagel posted:Is that a CK torch? Yes, CK20 Flex Head. It's awesome and made just a few hours up I-5 from me. 
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Aug 20, 2013 18:20
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I'm waiting to see what happens. He is not hurting my business, mainly because neither of the idiots work on 3rd gens (thank god). Idiot 2 has been banned from almost every club for ripping people off and has claimed he is "Selling everything and getting out of the rotary game" at least a dozen times now. It will only be so long until he does something really stupid. To give a quick rundown of the quality of work I have seem from both idiots: 1) RTV used to plug fuel injector bungs on a FI to carb swap. 2) Front cover bolt fell out after 20 miles on a "fresh" rebuild. 3) JBWELD used as intake manifold gasket sealer. 4) "Screaming motor with new seals/housings"- that had all OEM 3piece used seals and trashed housings. 5) Porting that ate side seals because it was too drat big. 6) RTV used to rebuild a carb (no gaskets, leaked like a siv). 7) 12v power wire stripped and shoved in to a plug with zip ties holding it in place. 8) Zip ties instead of hoseclamps on coolant lines. The RHD white car was apparently Idiot 2's "show winning shop car"- It was a 10ft'r at best. The paint had runs, there was terrible body work, the RHD clip was bird poo poo welded on. Another bit of irony, he crashed it after leaving my house and buying front sway bar links- because he had none and decided to take a 30mph corner at 80 on the way home.... Like I said, I "love" my local community. the spyder fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Aug 20, 2013 18:36
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No clue, but I digress. People can choose whom ever they want to work on their cars- but I won't be fixing any of the mess those two create. /rant
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Aug 20, 2013 22:58
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I'm afraid all of this will get worse before it get's better. I'm just going to ignore it for now. Idiot 2 came back this morning and posted a CL ad of my FD after it got stripped. I talked to a former friend/business partner of his and holy crap, he is apparently loosing it. Completely unstable. It's a shame, he'd doing nothing but hurting the community around him and the cars he loves. Back to important stuff: I have 4 days to wrap up this vmount and the shop get's roofed Saturday.
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Aug 21, 2013 19:01
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These late nights are starting to get to me. I had to add a radiator to my watercooler- the higher amps/cast was starting to get it a bit too hot. Thankfully I had a spare FD heatercore. Some silver solder later and a cheap 110v fan = much cooler. I'm waiting for my stainless steel   Aluminum gets hot QUICK. My fingers are still glazed.  I'm still a shittywelder, but it shall hold!     Hump hoses showed up.  Coolant hose routing. The lowest part of the car is still the frame/swaybar.   Welded the old twin turbo water lines closed.  Extended the fan wiring. 
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Aug 22, 2013 18:49
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Ponies ate my Bagel posted:If you're going to be doing a lot of aluminum check this out: http://www.weldmongerstore.com/tig-finger/ It will change your religion. I'm about to pick up an older hobart tigwave and resell it to pay for a new Everlast 225LX tig. I ordered a 3 pack a few days back- I couldn't have gotten this far without Jody's videos.
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Aug 23, 2013 00:02
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