OKC Project-8/1/15-Another fun car!

toayoztan

Moderator
CSAlltrac":1artsx9s said:
As far as structural stuff goes, eyeball that as straight as possible. Maybe come up with a way to tram measure to get as close as possible. Take a piece of string or something similar, measure from your passenger hood hinge bolt(the one on the car, not hinge to hood)to your drivers front core support, a headlight bolt hole or something else in that area. Then take that exact length measured and go from the drivers hood hinge(same hole/bolt that's parallel to the one you used) and go to the opposite front core support bolt. Measuring in an "X". Get that as square as possible and tighten. Any other voids you can make up in the sheet metal. If its confusing just shoot me a text or call, Ill help ya out

Oh yeah, I remember you know this stuff lol.

I'll definitely be hitting you up soon.

Bryan
 

toayoztan

Moderator
CSAlltrac":l3b1nykk said:
Where you at Bryan? Need my fix of your car!

Here you go! (still not for sale :p )

These were taken with my S3 phone. Didn't have my camera on me, b/c I quickly test fitted these. I'm in the process of closing on a house and moving, so garage is kind of a mess.

It goes RIGHT to the edge of the fender, give 1mm or so it looks like. I can't really judge though until I get it off jack stands (still working on the brake lines - bought a better flaring tool). Will I have to roll my fenders? Don't know, but I don't plan on tucking or anything, of course. I want to keep this as much of a functional set up as I can while looking good.

What do you guys think?

Enkei RPF1 17x9 +35 wrapped with 255/40 Nitto NT555 over a 25mm H&R Spacer.

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Bryan
 

ALLensTRAC

New member
Looking great with those wheels Bryan!!!! You can't go wrong with RPF1's. It looks as though a roll will be required unless you're going to run a decent amount of camber or keep the drop conservative. Honestly I would roll it just a bit to be safe. That way you don't ruin those new tires.

BTW why didn't you rebuild the rear CV axles and paint them? Just curious considering everything else is so clean. Keep the updates coming we all love your car!!!!
 

toayoztan

Moderator
ALLensTRAC":36kvelcf said:
Looking great with those wheels Bryan!!!! You can't go wrong with RPF1's. It looks as though a roll will be required unless you're going to run a decent amount of camber or keep the drop conservative. Honestly I would roll it just a bit to be safe. That way you don't ruin those new tires.

BTW why didn't you rebuild the rear CV axles and paint them? Just curious considering everything else is so clean. Keep the updates coming we all love your car!!!!

Thanks! I was going to keep the drop conservative. I can't tell, but it looks as though even if I rolled the fenders, the whole set up is sticking out past the fender by a margin, so it'd still hit. If that's the case, I may have to reduce the wheel spacer and get new ones. I'll see what happens when I take the car off jack stands.

Oh, those CV axles are just there for protecting the wheel bearings under load if I roll the chassis around (that's what everyone says to do, anyway).

The underside of the car is actually kind of "dirty" with water spots after rinsing the car off and some dust lol.

Bryan
 

ALLensTRAC

New member
You know you're probably right about the spacers. On my setup I used 25mm and they are out about 5mm. I was planning on getting 20mm instead. That would probably put you right where you need to be with just a little roll for protection. I can see why you don't want to roll them with the new paint.

Oh and when referring to your car "dirty" is definitely a relative term lol!! I meant to ask you I am in the process of cleaning the underside for POR application, did you use a pressure washer to spray it down after the marine clean? Any suggestions for doing this would be most appreciative! It seems like its taking forever to get the gunk off ugh!!!!
 

CMS-GT4

Active member
The rears got to be rolled no matter what. People even roll with 8" wheels and smaller tires. You can't judge the angle of the wheel with the suspension hanging down like that. The camber change at that height makes it appear like its much closer than it should be.
I run the same size except 38et and there is still at least 10mm between the tire and the fender. Unless something is unknown about your setup, this should be no problem once your rolled.
 

toayoztan

Moderator
Thanks for the comments guys.

I will probably end up rolling the fenders. I honestly don't care much about the new paint (the car can always get repainted). I just don't want to damage the quarter panel with creases, etc. I've seen very horrible jobs before when people are going too fast or not using heat. I am still kicking myself for not rolling the fenders ahead of time (it was something I completely overlooked during the body job) :doh:

I think you're right though, I do need to drop the car to get an accurate read on my camber, etc.

As far as the POR15, after getting ALL of the oil/dirt/etc off (I left the original factory/dealer option undercoat on, as the underside wasn't really that rusty on my car, so I didn't feel there'd be any rust under the stock coating), I sprayed it down with marine clean, then I just used a hose, that's all. Then let it dry. You can use a heat gun or whatever if you want it to dry faster. But yeah, you don't need a pressure washer, just get under and use a hose. You'll get wet, but if you're on a creeper, it helps.

Bryan
 

toayoztan

Moderator
Okay, so what's a good fender roller?

I like Eastwood products. However, their fender roller is 250 dollars. Yikes!

Bryan
 

CMS-GT4

Active member
Some places rent them. I think tire rack used to. Honestly since you already painted, I would consider paying a pro shop to do it. I would had have mine cut off instead of rolled if I had it to do over again.
 

ALLensTRAC

New member
toayoztan":3n5iuth5 said:
Okay, so what's a good fender roller?

I like Eastwood products. However, their fender roller is 250 dollars. Yikes!

Bryan

Honestly after doing about five cars in the last couple years I have found that rollers can cause more damage than doing it by hand. My best advice is get it going with a roller just so the lip is slightly bent up. Then take a plastic headed hammer and a body dolly or a heavy beaded bean bag. Slowly go around the edge with the bag on the outside of the fender and start massaging it up until you have the roll you are looking for. The bag I have has a hand strap on the back to hold it against the fender. The hammer I use is a 2 headed deal from harbor freight that has a yellow plastic side and a black plastic side. It is not very heavy as you dont want something that can warp the outer fender. Also make sure to body tape the entire thing and clean all the debris or other crap from above the pinch weld.

The most important thing is to keep the paint warm using a good heat gun (having a friend for this helps) and keeping a laser thermometer to track of the temperature. You don't want it too hot or too cold. I like to keep it around 100 F. Also take your time with it and it will come out perfect. I know the first time I did this it scared the crap out of me but I used the advice I gave you and it came out great.

Oh and stay away from the Eastwood. I find the PoweredbyMAX one works way better. Its a little more money but it seems to work a lot better. Thanks again for the advice regarding the floors.
 

darthripley

Moderator
first, off congrats on the new house! :)

could you not get the enkei rims in a more agressive offset to start with? i'm just curious, not meant as an insult as i don't know what they offer "off the shelf" so to speak.

my goal in ordering a new set of rims for vadar is to get a set that requires no spacer for them to be flushed out nicely. i will have to special order & pay a fortune for this to happen but i'm taking my time picking out a set of "forever wheels" for the car lol
i don't really like running spacers, even though i do right now on vadar it isn't getting driven heh.

on rolling the fenders, i've heard of it being done with a baseball bat. prolly not the most efficient or safest way to do it but it can be used as a tool for smoothing the roll if you go slowly with it.
the rear fenders were already rolled on the MR2 chassis when we bought it so when i slap on 7" wide with +25mm offset i won't have to worry about rubbing which is nice.
 

Meenya

New member
Honestly unless you'll raise it really high the rear will rub even with 2 - 3 negative camber so you must roll them.
I'm using 17x9" 30mm with 245 tires and 15mm spacer so effective offset is 15mm I had rubbing issue. Your effective offset is 10mm so the wheel is 5mm more out than mine and you use 255 tire.
 

toayoztan

Moderator
Yeah my buddy who painted my car, he actually said he doesn't do rollers either. He uses a rubber mallet with a few layers of duct tape and some heat. He doesn't like using the rollers either. His best advice was, take my time, it'll take 5x longer than I want or expected, but worth it.

I'm pretty sure there is a less aggressive offset so the wheels are flush, but these were local and I got a good deal on them. When the car is starting to be put to use on a road race track, I'll probably ditch the spacers and go with another set of wheels.

I'm going to pick a pretty warm day to get this done and see how it goes!

Bryan
 

CSAlltrac

New member
Sure wish I was closer to help ya out Bryan. You know I think the wheels are perfect :wink: The tire might prove to be to wide though. You could possibly get away with them using a thinner spacer in combination with rolled fenders. The hammer method is much more effective and as long as the operator is being careful and taking his time as your buddy said, the results are more than acceptable. Rollers are over rated by far. Gotta get your house dialed in so you can get to wrenching, you cant deprive us like this!
 

underscore

Well-known member
I'm pretty sure you're going to need thinner spacers unless your suspension is very very stiff, even if you roll the fender lips you still end up with something about 1/2" thick so unless you're planning on rolling the whole fender you'll have some rubbing under compression. The best part about spacers is you can play around with them to get the best fitment (hell you can use pretty much any material for measurement purposes), and then take them off the back when you're racing to get better handling.

I don't like the look of spacers (if anyone ever bothered to look inside my rims) but having the ability to rotate tires without getting them remounted and to be able to shrink the rear track width at will is fantastic.
 

toayoztan

Moderator
Haven't been able to work on it!

I had to move to a different city temporarily for 1 year about 100 miles away for my first residency year. Then in July, I'm going back home to start my Radiology residency, so things will be more kosher then, which means time to work on my alltrac!

On a side note, I bought a 3 car garage house with anticipation to work on my car there. However, my brother just bought a house with half acre lot, and he's building a 1200-1500 sqft shop, insulated, etc. So I'll probably move my project there, which will allow me to buy another car...or two... :D

Bryan
 
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