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Techboy's 99 4G63

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TRANSFER CASE INSTALL - ATTEMPT #1

I was having a hard time getting my transfer case installed, so I thought I was being all smart and I made these studs from some old bolts to help mount the transfer case.

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But, it turns out the reason I was having trouble getting the transfer case installed is I have a pretty rare transfer case. I happen to have a 22 spline iron head transfer case. It was always my understanding that all 22 spline T-cases were all aluminum, so I never even bothered to count the splines when I removed this case. As you probably guessed, my transmission has the more common 23 splines, so that is why I could get them to go together.

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So, what to do ... luckily for me I still had the damaged transmission that was from the donor Talon, so I was able to go to that transmission and remove the output shaft and then swap it with the shaft in my new transmission.

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You can pretty clearly see the difference in the 22 and 23 spline count.

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The details of how to swap the shafts I'm going to detail in another post, but, in short you have pop off the 5th gear cover on the transmission.

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The details of how to swap the shafts I'm going to detail in another post, but, in short you have pop off the 5th gear cover on the transmission.

This would be a good mini-write-up for people, I've seen the question asked a couple times recently and some documentation would be great!

Keep plugging away, it's looking good!
 
TRANSFER CASE INSTALL - ATTEMPT #2

So, with the transmission output shafts swapped I thought it was time to hang the transfer case and get moving forward on this project again. But ... I was wrong. After trying to install the half shaft before putting the Tcase on I discovered that I had the wrong AC bracket. I had a spare actually that I thought was from an AWD car, but it turns out they were both the same.

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For those of you who are reading this and confused, let me explain ... .for the 97-99 half shaft Mitsubishi changed the carrier bracket on the half shaft and added an additional mount point to the AC bracket. The 95-96 style half shaft has a carrier bracket that mounts onto the far right lower hole of the AC bracket with a longer bolt. My half shaft was a 97-99 style, so I either needed a 95-96 half shaft and use one of my current AC brackets, or get the 97-99 style AC bracket and use the shaft I had. It was cheaper to get an AC bracket. But, of course, I had to wait to find it, buy it, and for it to arrive.

I did get one though thanks to a kind dsm eBayer. In the meantime, I also jumped on Extreme's website and ordered up half shaft mounting bolts and a spacer.

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Time to get the half shaft installed.

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Bolted up much better this time.

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Now, with that bad-boy installed it was finally time to hang the transfer case. This time it took me about 5 minutes in comparison to the hour and half I attempted to install it the first time. Slid right onto the 22 spline output shaft like butter.

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Looking at the picture above, Im realizing I need a new oil pan. Looks like puke.

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Done!!
 
NOW we are finally getting somewhere!!! All that is left to do is to install the driveshaft, hang the exhaust, put all the control arms, suspension and hubs back in the wheels wells, and rebuilt the GSX brakes. Sounds like a lot, but it's all pretty easy work so it should go quick.

Since everything was out of front wheels wells, I thought now would be a good time to totally grind them out, clean them up, and refinish them - very similar to what I did with the rears. So, it was off to work with the grinder and wire wheel.

Passenger side:
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Drivers side:
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So I've spent most of this past week undercoating the passenger and drivers side front wheel wells and putting everything all back together. Here are some pictures from my progress this past week.

Passenger Side:

Part way through the undercoating process.
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All finished up.
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After letting everything dry for 24 hours, I started putting everything back together. I discovered while taking my passenger lower control arm off it was shot, 20 years will do that I guess. So, I ordered both sides up from RockAuto.

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There's a trick to getting the old ones out if you've never removed these before on a car. Once you take the nut off, don't bang down on them with a mallet - they'll never budge. Instead, whack the side of the hub assembly once or twice and it will fall right out. Here's the new installed.

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Before putting the hubs back in, I put some anti-seize on the mating surface. These things were a pain to knock apart on a 20 year old car, so I figured I'd make it easier on myself for the next time around.

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Hub bolted back on.

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Slipped the axle through and spun the nut in place.

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Pull back shot.

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Torqued down the axle nut with a 32mm impact and slipped a new cotter pin through.

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Dropped the suspension setup back in place and hooked up the swap bar links.

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Passenger side done.
 
Drivers Side:

Pretty much a repeat of the passenger side, so I won't post quite as many pictures. Here's a picture from when I was knocking everything apart.
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All ready to start undercoating.

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In progress shot.

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After everything dried I put the suspension setup back in place.

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Hub back in place.

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New lower control arm, and you can see the axle coming through from the half shaft here.

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All done and put back together.

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This weeks coming agenda is to finish rebuilding the GSX front brakes I tore apart, get them, the rotors, and steel braided brake lines installed.
 
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GST >>> GSX BRAKE UPGRADE

So if you've been reading through this thread, you remember that I just reused my original rear brakes and just gave them a quick clean up and repaint. For the front however, we are going to ditch the single-pot GST brakes and go with the dual pot GSX brakes. There's a probably another 'big brake" upgrade in my future down the road, but these came off my donor car, so they were essentially "free". It's a straight forward upgrade as all the parts mount in the factory locations. There is no modifications you have to make to a GST (or GS or RS either) to install GSX brakes.

They were a bit rough. They don't look too bad in the picture, but knocking them apart was a PITA, as years of neglect had them all locked up and rusted.

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When I finally got everything separated I decided I really didn't feel like dealing with cleaning them up myself, since I have plenty else going on, so I dropped them off locally to have the bead blasted. This is what they looked like when I got them back.

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Instead of applying paint directly to the bear metal, I hit them up with a coat of primer. I didn't want to get any paint in the cylinders though, so I cut out little pieces of cardboard.

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Then I went ahead and hit them up with some black primer.

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Then I used the same brush-on Rustoleum paint I used on the rear brakes. After several coats, they looked like this:

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In the meantime I started purchasing up everything I need to rebuild the brakes and make everything work. I hit up Rock Auto and ordered up new brake pad, rotors, clips, rubber boots, internal rebuild kits, and caliper guide pins (not shown).

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GSX BRAKE UPGRADE: PART 2

With the paint dry, it's finally time to get these things rebuilt and installed.

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The one set of pistons was really bad, so I bought a new. The others looked like they had recently been replaced, so I reused them.

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If you've never totally rebuilt brakes before, this is what a normal rebuild kit looks like. Gaskets, o-ring, circlip and a new cap for the bleeder.

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The rebuilding process can be a bit a tedious if you've never done it before, and it's even more challenging with a dual-pot brake. Needless to say it's a 2 hand process, so I didn't really take any pictures of the rebuild, but here they are all done. I actually had to wait 24 hours to rebuild them. I had to stretch the gaskets over the pistons over night to stretch them out b/c I just could not get the pistons to pop back in once the gaskets were installed.

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Throw these little guys in the brackets

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Time to install the new pads. You can see new caliper guide pins laying there too.

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The other 1/2 of the SS brake line kit I used in the rear.

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All put together and ready to go.

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Slid the new rotors on next.

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Mounted up the brake assemblies.

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A closer look ....

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Brake line hooked back up, time to do some bleeding.

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FINISHING THE UNDERCOATING

Before installing the driveshaft and finishing up the exhaust I wanted to finish up undercoating the car. DISCLAIMER - I will never do this again on my back. I actually have access to my father-in-laws lift, but b/c the car isn't really driveable yet I figured I just go ahead and do this - but it sucked. I spent about 3 evenings on and off grinding all the junk and Mitsu undercoating off. The black all over the floor is probably about 1/2 of what I grinded off.

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Here's the end result. I said this before, but, if this car starts to rust, I should be dead. This car is now undercoated from the rear bumper to the firewall and all 4 wheel wells have been done.

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Man your build is amazing, your attention to detail is amazing. Can you rust proof my car for me? Let me know when you're available and I will drop it off, thanks!
 
Awesome attention to detail and excellent write-up! Only question I have is on you're axle install, you said you tqd it with an impact? Or did you actually use a tq wrench?

Otherwise it all looks amazing!
 
nice work ...awesome thread ! ...rebuilding original parts may be time consuming but is definitely satisfying and cheaper on the wallet ...and you know what you've got

Man your build is amazing, your attention to detail is amazing. Can you rust proof my car for me? Let me know when you're available and I will drop it off, thanks!

Thanks guys. Appreciate the props. Boomdeeze, if you wanna drop it off, it's gonna be a long drive.ROFL

Awesome attention to detail and excellent write-up! Only question I have is on you're axle install, you said you tqd it with an impact? Or did you actually use a tq wrench?

Otherwise it all looks amazing!

Gosh, that was several weeks ago already. I honestly don't remember. I think I just tapped them on with the impact gun. They're easy enough to access, I can check the torque spec and tighten them or loosen them up with a torque wrench if need be. Thanks for the heads up.
 
DRIVESHAFT INSTALL:

I sent the heat shield underneath out to be epoxy coated like maybe a year ago. I might have even posted a picture of it somewhere else already in this thread. Here it is:

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Here it is installed with a couple of 10mm.

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Got the driveshaft laid out in place.

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Installed. I had to do it twice. I put all the bolts in for the hangers first, only to find out you can't bolt up the diff flange b/c there's a lip on it. So, I had to drop it, and slip the bolts through the diff flange first. GSX noob mistake.

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You can see the exhausting hanging in this pic, but it's not really installed yet. I just put some bolts through loosely and even duct-taped it together at a few spots just so it would hold enough to try starting it up for the first time.

Here's how things sit as of now:
pcIg0x.jpg
 
EXHAUST:

About a year or year and half I bought this Megan Racing downpipe off a local member here on the board.

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After doing some exhaust research, which was pretty limited since hardly anyone is making 2G GSX exhaust systems anymore, I decided to go with the STM system. Now, I realized quickly that the Megan dp was not going to work with the STM b/c the flanges are clocked differently. So, I came up with what I think was simple solution. I ordered 2 3inch flanges from Vibrant and cut the downpipe back about 16 inches and just rotated the pipes to the proper position and rewelded everything back together effectively creating a test pipe.

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I also dropped the downpipe off at JM Fab and had them add an 02 bung for my wideband.

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In the meantime, my STM system showed up.

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The first thing I noticed that I don't like about the STM so far, is that the tip is up against the underside of my bumper. On my Greddy system for the GST it utilized all of the exhaust hangers, the STM only uses 3 of the 5 exhaust hangers. One mid-ship where it bolts to the dp, and then 2 on the muffler. So, it wants to twist clockwise. If it utilized the one by the driveshaft hanger, I think it might not do this ... something maybe I'll try to fix down the road.

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Wideband hooked back up.

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And now, here's where I ran into my next exhaust problem - I have a major exhaust leak at the 02 housing/dp joint.

On the front side, everything seals up pretty good...

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On the back side, looking from the oil pan forward, I have almost 1/8' gap that I stick a screwdriver blade into.

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Even though there is a flex section in the downpipe, I can't get it to close up b/c the downpipe is against the bottom of the oil pan. So, I'm not sure if it's my 02 housing, or the Megan dp, or what, but, basically, what should have been a basic hanging of exhaust has turned into something a bit complicated.

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My plan is to take the car down to JM Fab and let those guys custom rig something up, but, my other problem right now is I have no brakes. I bled them, and I have solid streams of fluid at all 4 wheels, but no pedal. I think something is up with my master cylinder, so I can't exactly drive the car anywhere to get the exhaust sorted out until I get the brakes sorted out.

For now, that's where things stand.
 
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It might be a good idea to wrap those new pieces of pipe. Multiple sections of it are close to the oil system. Not only is it close to the oil pan, but look at how close it is to the oil filter. And a few of the oil lines.

I like what you've done with the car over the years. Keep up the good work!:thumb:
 
It might be a good idea to wrap those new pieces of pipe. Multiple sections of it are close to the oil system. Not only is it close to the oil pan, but look at how close it is to the oil filter. And a few of the oil lines.

I like what you've done with the car over the years. Keep up the good work!:thumb:

I totally agree with you. My last dp was completely wrapped. Once I get everything figured out I'll probably remove it and wrap it. Right now I don't even have enough room to put wrap on there ... LOL.
 
So a quick little update here:

Life has been busy lately and I haven't touched the car in almost a month ... until tonight. I finally figured out what was wrong with the brakes. I feel like an idiot, but somewhere along the line I mixed up my rear brakes and installed them on the wrong side, so the bleeder was the wrong way creating an air pocket. I don't know how I didn't see it the other two times I tried to bleed the brakes and fix the problem, but my buddy noticed it tonight and we laughed about it. So, after flipping the rear brakes and re-bleeding the whole system again from the master down we now have brakes. FINALLY - it's time to get this inspected and get it on the road. :hellyeah:
 
So my next quick update. Car got PA inspected on Friday. The drive to and fro from the inspection station was the furthest I'd driven it up to that point - about 10 minutes each way and it felt good.

I dropped the car this morning at JMFab. That drive was about 1/2 hour (yes, I'm hat close to JMF), it felt good on that drive as well. They're gonna sort out the downpipe. Maybe a week to a week and half, and then it'll go to R/T Tuning for a 4 wheel alignment. And then ..... DONE.
 
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Got the call from JMFab that the downpipe issues have been fixed. I went down the other day to pick it up and drove it directly to R/T Turning an alignment.

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I really have to pinch myself that I am this close to having this car back on the road after all this time. It's been one heck of a project, but we're almost there.
 
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