Wyoming GTM Underway

[jamesfr58]

Well though I would get back into the forum as see what has been going on. Nothing good to show and I appreciate the advice on bleeding the slave cylinder hopefully now that I am back home, I will get back into the shop this week. It is great to see everyone progress and catch up the ideas here on the forum.

I have been in Wichita, Kansas, my mother had a massive heart attack no to lone after my last post and I left to go help my father and attend to some of there business while she was in hospital. She did make it through the heart attack and is now home recovering. Really did not want to travel with everything going on but made the trip and made it back so all good.

Now just need to figure out where I left off, bleeding the slave cylinder is one task and put on my working clothes and get back after it. Hope to start posting some more progress soon and I hope everyone has a safe and good thanksgiving as we have a lot to be thankful for, especially if we are sitting down with family at home verse where some others will send the holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone…….

[beeman]

I hope your mom continues on to a full recovery.
I just bled my clutch slave cylinder. Took 10x...no, 20x...as long as I thought it would. It finally dawned on me that the Porsche gearbox is inverted, so there was no way I was going to get the air out with the slave mounted. So I removed it and flipped it so the bleeder was up. Then I started pumping the pedal and... "POP!"... Blew out the dang piston from the slave. So I welded up a sheet metal fixture to hold the slave with a stop to prevent the piston from popping out. Pumped the pedal again and... "POP!".. The slave bent my sheet metal fixture and blew out the piston again! Fixed it again (deep socket and mallet) and welded a brace to the fixture. Finally got the dang thing bled. Firm pedal and releases enough to roll the chassis in gear. I haven't seen any fluid leak past the piston... Time will tell if it will hold up after blowing out the piston 2x...
Moral of the story.. Learn from my mistakes!

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

Yeah....you don't want to ever pump the pedal with the slave cyl removed. The only time we do that is with 2 people.....one person under the car who first loosens the bleeder screw and once it's loose, the other person slowly pushes down on the pedal. At that point, you're not trying to create any pressure.....you're just pushing the pedal enough to push fluid thru the bleeder screw. We do the entire bleed process with the slave cyl hanging loose below the car. Pumping the oil can to reverse bleed from the slave up to the MC....as well as bleeding by pumping the clutch pedal......none of it puts any pressure on the slave cylinder as the only time we push down on the pedal is slowly with the bleeder screw already opened before we begin pushing.

[jamesfr58]

Well, it’s been almost a year since I worked on the GTM in any major way. It has been to long but back at it again. Between my wife’s broken arm (the one where I bumped into her with the truck), then both my parents got COVID between Christmas and New Years (both are over 80) and having to take car of that issue, my wife had to have a hip replaced in April and I had health issue for a couple of month (not COVID) and trying to look after a project in West Africa I just never seemed to find the time but we are back at it now.

Thanks to Shane at VRaptor I believe I finally go my clutch slave cylinder bleed and now working. He sent me a procedure to bleed from the slave cylinder back up to the master cylinder and it is now working as it should. So, for the first time the kart is moving under its own power. Still need to set ride height but GTM is moving under power.

It got dark so decided to wait until tomorrow to take it out for a full road test, but here it is moving on its own……

Will get some more pictures tomorrow

[jamesfr58]

Here is a video of the GTM moving in the shop clutch works and shifted into gears, may need adjustment on shifter but will fins out tomorrow.

[jamesfr58]

My son and his wife were there to watch with two of my grandkids, so was great to have it work first time with all watching.

First Time Rolling Rear.jpg

Had to make a small cover for the transition plate to engine block at the starter location. Transition plate was made by Kennedy Engineering for my 996 G2 transmission and there was a good size opening that rock etc. could get up inside by flywheel. Nothing fancy but functional.

Cover Over Hole in Transition Plate.jpg

[jamesfr58]

Was a good to take the GTM kart out for a test drive weather was good and went to the annual local car show as a cart so people that have been asking what I was building could see it without the body. It was hit with the kids and the younger generation at least in my small town in Wyoming. But did get to drive it around and did not seem to me many issues, one with the shifter adjustment got to work but needs adjusting.

So here is a video of leaving the barn and returning to the barn, back inside shop for a few adjustments. I was really pleased with the way it performed so far now just need to get it in gear and finish.

Leaving the house head to town for test drive and to the Newcastle Show and Shine car show.



Here is the GTM at the car show with my RC GTM on the table to everyone would know what it would kind of look like when finished. Once we start painting the full-size car, I am going to paint the RC version to match the full-size version.

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[jamesfr58]

Coming home after the car show and putting the GTM back in the barn……



My dogs are wondering what is coming up the road, they haven’t heard it much so they all had to come check it out…..

[Shoeless]

Hey James,

Welcome back, again . That is so cool you were able to take your go cart out to a show with the RC version on the table. I actually tried to register mine the other day so I can do similar, but the county I live in slammed me with it has to be done and fully inspected. They were not joking around. So any out and about for me is totally not legal. I already got hit up by one Sheriff, but he was totally cool and didn't even ask me if it was registered. He kind of knew I was out and about with the laptop testing it.

[jamesfr58]

Sean

Know it is different in every state, county etc., the good thing for me is it was easy to do in Wyoming, I already have title and registered and all they wanted was the fee and sales tax on the purchase price of the kit...go figure cause I know other like you require build logs, inspections and a pile of paperwork to get one registered.

I did have a blast with all the kids and teenagers that though it was really cool to build a car like the RC car they took a lot of pictures. Thanks for the shout out

[Jkviper]

Welcome back on the build James, looking forward to seeing the progress!

[beeman]

Good to see you are back on the GTM project, James. I've also been away from mine for about as long as you finishing up my track Corvette and my Lotus Esprit turbo project, it's 95% done. Tino (LCD Dash) just completed my digital dash for that car, it's currently somewhere between Canada and Indiana. He did a phenomenal job with it!

[jamesfr58]

Got some items knocked out over the last couple of days after the first test drive, I found a few items I needed to adjust and clean up. Had to adjust the depth and gate on the transmission, it would go into R,1,3,5 easy but was having a hard time getting 2,4,6 and I needed to move the gate toward 5,6 to allow more room when getting into R. All adjustment made now shifts into all gears with no issues.

Finished the diffuser and got the back up lights mounted so this piece is ready to be installed. I smoothed the bottom non carbon fiber side as it was very rough and fiber bumps in different locations. After sanding, painted the parts you can see from behind the car in black and will clear coat prior to final install. This is what is looks like reworked and finished.

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Finished the wiring in the rear of the car as you can see, I passed the wires though the body mount to center them and keep away from exhaust. All wiring is also covered with heat shielding to protect from engine and exhaust heat. I have tested all the door poppers, window up/down backup lights and rear camera to insure everything working one last time.

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Also added power and ground set to front of car for front camera. After driving I know I will not be able to see the nose of the care or how close it is when pulling up to a parking spot with pole etc. So decided to add a nose camera in the front grill to ensure my dumb self does not run into something in parking lot or parking where they have parking poles. Though this would be a really good idea as I could not see the end of the nose on my test drive.

[jamesfr58]

Though I would show what I came up with to bleed the air from the radiator system in the front of the car. It is a stainless-steel needle valve that allows me to really control the bleeding of the cooling system. It worked out quite will and is much better constructed than the bleeders they sell for autos.

IMG_1192.jpg

It is good to be back in the shop if I can only remember where I put some thing away to make sure they did not get lost. I did either such good job at hiding them, or my mind had a brain short circuit over the last year and scrambled the information because it took me 4 hours to find the back-up camera and another 2 hours to find the back-up lights. I hid them well

[jamesfr58]

Beeman,

I did get a build on a 1986 square body with LS Swap done and sold as well as working on all my kids cars. The hung a sign on the door of my shop "Dad's Garage open 24hour a day" so had 2 pickup and 1 mini van in there for extended periods of time. Let me tell the pay a Dad's Garage is really bad.....but I at least made them try to help and hope they learned something. Also got 66 Nova finished and sold so now back to my car want to get it done this winter and ready to drive come next spring. Darn sure you don't want to try and drive it in our Wyoming winter weather, that would be really exciting if not a complete train wreck.

[jamesfr58]

Took the GTM out this weekend again for test drive and the adjustment on the transmission worked well it now shifts into all gears as it should. But with that being said, I found out why the speedo was not working, someone for got to put a constant power wire into the Dakota Digital GPS-50-2 that I was going to use as info to speedo. And, discovered I forgot to pull three wires into the doors for the push button door opener from inside as wanted them to open with the popper form the inside as well as outside.

So, and I am sure we have all done many times, well except for maybe Shane who has built so many he may not have the same issue, its take everything a part and fix these issues then put everything back together again. By the time I am done I should be able to almost disassemble and reassemble the care with a blind fold on…

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Well off to the shop to finish the task of hopefully finishing the last few thing I forgot then back onto the body work. With winter coming want to insure it is mechanically complete and can work on the body through the long an usually snowy winter in Wyoming.

[jamesfr58]

Getting ready to take the GTM to alignment shop, so does any pone have the specification that work best for aligning the GTM? Have heard it is difficult to meet some of the specifications so was wondering it there is one that can be achieved and works well. Also on ride height is there a preferred setting for adjusting the ride height? My thanks in advance for any information on these two subjects.

[Shoeless]

Getting ready to take the GTM to alignment shop, so does any pone have the specification that work best for aligning the GTM? Have heard it is difficult to meet some of the specifications so was wondering it there is one that can be achieved and works well. Also on ride height is there a preferred setting for adjusting the ride height? My thanks in advance for any information on these two subjects.

Amazing timing, I have started to work on my alignment in my garage and was about to post my progress. I'll share from all the notes I've gathered and saved along the way.

With respect to ride height, as you want to set that first, you want to set the front to 4.5" and the rear to 4.75". You measure the front from the 2" square tube at the front by the footwell and the rear from the 2" square tube at the rear by the fuel tanks. I got this from Shane and just set this on mine.

This next part I believe is from Crash and I'll just copy and paste it from my notes.

START HERE WITH ALIGNMENT
Front toe 1/8 toe in. No more though.
Front camber -.5 to -.9 degrees. If you put in too much you will get bad tire wear depending upon driving conditions.
Front caster AS MUCH AS YOU CAN GET! Normal car would be 3-5 degrees, but the Vette goes extreme at 10 degrees!! No way you can, or should, get that on a GTM.

Rear toe 1/16 to 1/8 toe in. 1/8 in the rear is alot and if you go too far with toe in or have ANY toe out in the rear the car will want to rear steer all over the place.
Rear camber -.5 to -.9 degrees again depending on tire wear from given driving conditions.
Rear caster is really not an issue because the rear upright should not be going through the travel that caster effects much if at all, so as long as both sides are straight up to a little positive caster, that should be fine, and both sides should match.

Hope this helps.

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

What Shoeless said. The only thing that I would add is on rear camber. If you're running very wide rear tires with very short sidewalls, you're going to find out that if you dial in anything more than -0.5, the outer part of the tread is not going to even be touching the ground. On cars that are running something like 18's with 305/30's in the rear, -0.5 seems to be pretty decent. On cars that are running something more like a 335/20, we actually set them closer to -0.3 just to get the outer third of the tire to even touch the ground. That also depends on what you plan to do with the car. Yeah, if you're going to track it hard, then I would dial in more caster. But for the street, IMO, not much sense in running a 335 tire with -0.9 camber because at that point, you're essentially really running a 275 rear tire with the rest of the tire just hanging out in space.

[Shoeless]

What Shoeless said. The only thing that I would add is on rear camber. If you're running very wide rear tires with very short sidewalls, you're going to find out that if you dial in anything more than -0.5, the outer part of the tread is not going to even be touching the ground. On cars that are running something like 18's with 305/30's in the rear, -0.5 seems to be pretty decent. On cars that are running something more like a 335/20, we actually set them closer to -0.3 just to get the outer third of the tire to even touch the ground. That also depends on what you plan to do with the car. Yeah, if you're going to track it hard, then I would dial in more caster. But for the street, IMO, not much sense in running a 335 tire with -0.9 caster because at that point, you're essentially really running a 275 rear tire with the rest of the tire just hanging out in space.

Thanks for throwing in that additional pointer on the rear numbers Shane, I'll update my notes

[crash]

Just for reference, we run a 320/710 18 rear and a 300/660 18 front.

[jamesfr58]

Thanks guys for the information it will be useful in getting my alignment set up, appreciate the advise and assistance.

[jamesfr58]

Was a good day today got the nose wire harness all built and temporarily installed as I hope they will be in the finished product. I did go ahead and get a very small Esky camera for the nose since as mentioned before I know I will not be able to see the nose. Here is picture of the little camera:

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Here is the nose with the wire’s harnesses installed back to where the nose hinge will be located where I will make the connecting between, the nose and the main body. The plant now is to use watertight connectors to connect the nose with the body.

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[jamesfr58]

Here is the nose with the front grill work installed, it is screwed and bolted to the opening and contains the front Esky camera and the two-front module for the built in Escort 9300.

IMG_1204.jpg GTM Front Grill.jpg

Have a little fiberglass work to complete while body in on body buck and hope to have the body back on the GTM in a few days to continue the body work and fitting the remaining interior items as well as start building the doors.

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

Very nice work!!

[jamesfr58]

Remade the back body mount as the first on did not match up well and caused a distortion in the body. Want to thank Shane for his advice on how to mount to rear of the car that was published on Shoeless thread as it make more sense and is a much better to mount and work with the rear of the car than in the build manual.

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I will mount the body and make adjustment to the rear mount plate so that is matches the angle of the body when setting flat on frame. Mount the plate to the frame than set the body to requires specification and mount body to plate. I took Shane’s advice and am using a piece of 14ga steel for the back mounting plate.

Did not like the way it mounted so really starting over with both brackets used to mount rear of car hopefully it will look better and mount easier this time....

[beeman]

I like that idea of a rear mounting plate!

[jamesfr58]

Shane

Do you cut both door striker brackets off to get body moved up and into position? I did have with the passenger side and cut that one off already but have not cut the drivers side yet. Have completed some fiberglass work on the body on the body buck and was getting ready to remount body to frame and position. But thought I would ask about the drivers side as I don't think I had an issue with this side the last time the body was on but if needed I would cut the drivers side before remounting the body.

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

No, I don't think we've ever cut the driver's side striker bracket off. It always seems to be right where it needs to be. We only cut the passenger side one....and it normally ends up needing to move forward around 1/4"-5/16" or so.

[jamesfr58]

Thanks Shane that I what I thought remembered from the last time I had the body on the frame but was not for sure. I mentioned I have removed the passenger side and will locate it once the body is in place. Still have to trim off the excess on the door hinges before I remount the body but think I am ready after that to place it in position and center it up.

Have another question on the exhaust grills you fabricate, was wanting to know how you place them and attach them to the rear of the car. Looks like they have tabs or part of the grill is bend 90 degrees then the grill is attached to the body with panel bonder. But thought I would ask...

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

I made the exhaust grilles the exact same size and shape as the original FFR perforated mesh and fitted and bonded them in the same way as the mesh. On "newer versions" of the mesh, I cut the top and bottom parts of the grille off since they really weren't doing anything.....so on the newer versions, the grilles are centered on the exhaust tips, then just the outboard ends are bent to match the opening (probably closer to 60 degrees) and then they are bonded to the body along the inboard and outboard edges.

[jamesfr58]

Added one more thing to the wire harness on the nose, as mentioned after driving I decided to install a front camera and did not want to pull more wire into the interior so install this Bluetooth video transmitter that will allow me to see the front end on the head unit or on the table installed in the console. Hopefully this will keep me from running into parking block or curbs.

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Since this was the last item to be added to the nose, I finished trimming around the wire harness clips that I installed using panel bonder and add a few more after turning it over and seeing ho the wire loom was held up. There was a few places I wanted to reinforce to insure it was secured to the nose.

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The nose is now complete from a wiring point of view and will add multiple pin connectors on each side to connect to the main body. This will allow me to remove the nose if needed.

[jamesfr58]

Here are my carbon fiber corner reinforcements for the top corner of the hatch opening. Hopefully these will add some strength to that area to hopefully keep them from cracking as they have little support in this area at the top of the hatch opening.

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[jamesfr58]

Guess I should have added they are sitting on top of the flange at the hatch opening in picture. I panel bonded them on the bottom side of the flange so they are hidden underneath the flange and will not interfere with the hatch.

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

Here are my carbon fiber corner reinforcements for the top corner of the hatch opening. Hopefully these will add some strength to that area to hopefully keep them from cracking as they have little support in this area at the top of the hatch opening.

IMG_1220.jpg IMG_1221.jpg

We do the same thing here with some 14ga steel.....

[jamesfr58]

Before the body goes back on, I decided to try and mitigate some of the issues that may or may not show up after the body is finished. When I had it on the first time, I noticed the back portion around the license plate area and cutouts for exhaust would twixt and move easily. To help stiffen the body and hopefully help prevent cracking at the corners in the cutouts for the exhaust I fabricated a stiffener with short wings on the bottom that wrap from the large flat portion of the license plate area to under the flange at the bottom (the one you use to level the rear end) and used panel bonder to bond it on the back side of the license plate area.

IMG_1224.jpg
This is the aluminum plate sitting in place on the outside or rear section prior to installing inside the body

I sanded the underneath side of the license plate area to knock down the roughness and prep it for the panel bonder. I also roughed up the thin aluminum plate (6061 T6 0.40 thickness) to get rid of the protective coating on the aluminum and help with the adhesion of the panel bonder between the plate and the body.

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Plate is fitted and held in place with cleco's, will fill the holes after installation.

Was just an idea I came up with to add additional support to prevent the flexing and hopefully reduce the possibility of cracking in the corners at the exhaust cut outs. The corners are rounded with 1/4” round file but figure any additional strength I can get is a good idea.

[jamesfr58]

And it give you a nice flat area to meet up with the steel angle for mounting the body to the frame...

[jamesfr58]

Well after reading my earlier post I realized I call the aluminum plate size 0.40, well did I get that wrong or at least my fingers did. The stiffing plate was a piece of 6061 that was 0.0403 inches thick. My brain pulled a vacuum and I just missed that one.........

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

LOL....so did I......I read it how you meant it since I suppose that's what my brain assumed that you meant.

[Shoeless]

Haha didn’t even notice .40 thick, funny what our brains can put it together the way we meant.