1992 VR4 #71/1000

[92AWDHX40]

Looks great keep up the great work

 

[iceguru1114]

Had a decent couple of days of progress recently. I started by ordering some new parts from JNZ (flex lines, EBC pads, and Hawk pads.. yes the brand mixing was intentional; coefficient of friction/sourcing combo of issues there). I had to buzz the paint off the EBC pads to make them fit. I also went ahead and ordered fresh hardware for the rear caliper carriers and installed the pads:

Installing the rear lines took a little bit of work to prep the brackets, but otherwise, went in perfectly:

Up front, I started with the lines by recovering the mounting brackets, which ended up being a slight adventure on the right side. However, once I got everything loose the brackets cleaned up reasonably well:

After the bracket cleanup I got the front lines and pads installed:

In order to "define" both ends of the system so that I can start running the hard lines, I had to finish the brake booster and the prop valve rescue missions:

Finally, I got the booster, new master cylinder, and prop valve, installed on the firewall:

After the parts cleaner project, the blast cabinet project, refurbishing the brake system to the point of "ready to install hard lines", completing a big project at work, and sleep training my son (definitely the hardest part of all), I decided to take a pandemic-responsible day trip to Keystone to get a break on the slopes:

In spite of the tough times we're all dealing with, I'm starting to find some good to enjoy here and there

 

[92AWDHX40]

Ooh I do love some skiing, headed to a friend's one day out in Boise to have some fun.

 

[iceguru1114]

Well, after taking 1.5 hours to run the first hard line, I'm really hoping the other 8 I still have to run take a little less time. Now that I have some practice with the tools under my belt the crimps may go a little faster, but I doubt the routing will... we'll see.

I had to practice a few times to get the process right:

I mocked the line up first with a coat hanger, then used my bending tool to get to the real deal set up. After that, I double flared it, cleaned it up, put it in, tightened it down and contemplated doing that 8 more times. Considering I've only ever done hard lines one time before, the first line could have gone worse. We'll see how things look after I've done this a few more times.

On a side note, I added a new horse to the stable:

I want to thank everyone on the forums for their suggestions and advice. I ended up going with the Aircat because it struck a good balance between cost and performance, it comes with a 2 year warranty, it's new, I know where it's been and how it's been treated (or hasn't been treated, rather), it's extremely powerful and, perhaps most importantly, it's only 86 dBA which is very important in a garage attached to a house with a sleeping baby.

More hard lines coming soon

 

[iceguru1114]

I made more progress than I expected today. I've now run 5 of the 9 hard lines I'll need to finish the job. Started with the t-junction for the front calipers:

Ran this buster to the front left:

Ran the jumper between flex lines at the front left:

Ran the jumper at the front right:

After this one was done, I was out of flare nuts to keep working. Parts on order to remedy that; 4 lines to go.

 

[iceguru1114]

The discerning observer will notice a mistake here:

Although you can find a few pictures on the web kinda sorta detailing this area, if I'd have just thought about Bernoulli's law for a second, it'd have been a no-brainer. Anyway, I had to redo the line going to the prop valve, this time running to the correct port so that transient pressure to the rear drops while passing from a larger to a smaller cross sectional area:

That routing will make a little more sense when the other 2 lines are run through that area as well.

I concluded the night by running the hard line from the front right into the engine bay:

I chose to put a break junction in this line to make servicing in this area easier because, let's face it, this is a DSM and I will have to take things apart again.

 

[iceguru1114]

I'll give you one guess about an upcoming modification to the car:

It rhymes with shalance baft and it's required to make the engine DSP legal. BTW, I probably should have hoarded parts for this car about 5 years ago. Mitsubishi is discontinuing a lot of stuff.

Now that the brake system finish line is within sight, I'm strongly considering turning my attention to the engine, fuel system, and ECU so that I can hear this bastard run.

 

[iceguru1114]

I finally got the front brakes completely done. The last line was definitely the toughest. I had to start by cleaning, drying, and mounting the firewall cover because that's a critical system interaction for the line that runs across the engine bay. It's a delicate piece, so dish soap and the bathtub worked well to get it freshened up without shredding it to pieces:

After looking at lots of pictures to remember what I needed to avoid and which bosses I could use for p-clips, I was able to route the line pretty precisely. Practice with the other lines resulted in a pretty good-looking piece:

In terms of hard line routing:

Now to route the rear lines, which I don't think will be nearly as cumbersome as the front system was. Only 3 lines left before I can test the brakes.

 

[92AWDHX40]

Looks great

 

[iceguru1114]

As I suspected, the rear lines, while much simpler to route, had their own challenges to overcome because FUBAR. I had to drill out several bolts and chase some threads to preserve the original line routing bosses. I did this about 4 or 5 times:

I was not too happy about my routing options in the rear subframe area, so I modified some t-nuts, drilled some holes and welded them into place. 6 in total:

Now I have all my rear line p-clip bosses "primed" and ready to go (trying to get my dad jokes polished up for when my son starts talking). I think the last 3 lines I have to run should be pretty easy. However, I do have a rear caliper modification to make so that I can use the parking brake and call the braking system done. More coming soon.

 

[iceguru1114]

Big milestone completed on the brakes; all lines have been completed!!! To finish this up, I started by running a line to the rear to create a t-junction back there:

After attempting my first flare on the line to the rear right, my flaring tool gave up and I had to perform some surgery to get it fixed. It was kind of impressive, actually. The wing nuts and the pin joints all gave up at around the same time so I drilled out the pins and replaced them with larger/stronger nuts and bolts, ran a die over the marred up threads, and replaced the stripped wing nuts with some standard nuts. Oddly, the end result ended up working better than the flaring tool did out of the box:

Back to running the lines. Rear right:

Finally, ran the last line to the rear left:

At this point, if I wanted to, I could put fluid in the system and use the brakes, which is a big psychological victory. For the first time in years, I made a subsystem on the car functional again. However, there's a little more to do on the brakes. The rear calipers that I got from Rock Auto are going to require some surgery so that I can mount the parking brake cable brackets in the correct place. As you can see they machined the wrong side of the bracket:

More coming to fix that soon. I'm also going to put some finish on all the line brackets to stop the rust on those, refurbish the e-brake linkage, and then call the brakes done.

 

[iceguru1114]

I thought this photo deserved its own, dedicated post. I added some choice clothing to my wardrobe and took this photo to summarize DSM ownership.

Owning a functional DSM is an awful lot of work, but you do it anyway because you’re the type of moron who buys clothing depicting his shitbox car. You put your shitbox together and you sink a hole in your wallet to keep your shitbox running. You’re proud of your shitbox even if no one else gets it until, perhaps, you blow their doors off with an apparent piece of junk. It’s a special kind of obsession.

Cheers DSM’ers. Keep calm and wrench on.

 

[DogWhistle]

Owning a functional DSM is an awful lot of work, but you do it anyway because you’re the type of moron who buys clothing depicting his shitbox car. You put your shitbox together and you sink a hole in your wallet to keep your shitbox running. You’re proud of your shitbox even if no one else gets it until, perhaps, you blow their doors off with an apparent piece of junk. It’s a special kind of obsession.

Hahahahaha! Best description of DSM ownership ever!

Enjoying the build, especially since it is pic heavy and can sympathize with your struggles every step of the way. Keep at it. We're all cheering for your success.

 

[TCB91GSX]

Awesome work!!

 

[iceguru1114]

Hahahahaha! Best description of DSM ownership ever!

Enjoying the build, especially since it is pic heavy and can sympathize with your struggles every step of the way. Keep at it. We're all cheering for your success.

Thanks man, really appreciate the support. I've said it a few times in this thread, but having the community rooting me on has definitely kept me going sometimes when I wonder if it's worth it.

 

[92AWDHX40]

It will be worth it in the end.

 

[habitatguy187]

.....damn. the end?

 

[iceguru1114]

.....damn. the end?

Lol. Nah, I'm still here. I'm going to finish the parking brake over the summer to 100% finish the brakes and to keep the project alive. Given my age, I'm taking care of a bucket list item that is currently consuming 100% of my spare time and money:

Updates — Adam Miller Racing

Updates for the 2022 season from Adam Miller Racing motorcycle roadracing with the AMA/MRA

www.adammillerracing.net

I've been trying to put together a full season of racing for a long time, now. If I don't make it happen now, I'll age myself out of being competitive as my reflexes slow and my risk aversion rises; both wonderful gifts of the aging process. The kids coming into motorcycle racing these days are fast as hell and have no fear, so it's not an easy thing for an aging racer to do while trying to remain competitive.

My wife is also pregnant with our second and FUBAR is facing its 3rd ultimatum since I got married, but nevertheless, it remains an important project for me to complete. Hang in there, folks. This might end up being one of the longest DSM projects on here to get from the cornfield (literally) to running again, but I promise it's still in the cards.

 

[Imback]

Just stumbled upon your build. Nice progress. I own 76/1000 and just had to redo my entire brake system as well . Anyway hope to see it finished one day.

 

[O_16581_72452_5]

Cool to see this car brought back to life. I owned it around '05, it was a pile when I got ahold of it and I did what I could to get it going again. It looks like the guy between me and you destroyed it again .

I can't remember what all I did to it, I know I put the bigger turbo on and FMIC (bumper support was already cut IIRC) along with a lot of sensors. I think that intercooler piping was me...granted it looked a lot better when it was new. I had to replace the transfer case and shift linkages. I'm sure I have some pics of it way back in the day, but I can't get into my Photobucket without paying for it now.

 

[iceguru1114]

The last few years have been nuts and not always in a good way. My bandwidth has been so limited I went atleast a year without even thinking about this project. Thankfully things are starting to settle down a little bit and I've been finding the spare hour here and there to widdle away at my oldest project.

It looks like in my last update I got all the brake parts installed far enough to use the system for a rolling stop. However, it wasn't really done because I still needed to finish the parking brake and connect the master cylinder to a pedal system.

Starting from the rear, I had to fix a back assward machining problem on the rear calipers. I have no idea how they were ever supposed to work as sent, but these calipers are so rare, it was better to hack them up then to go fishing for more. So that's what I did:

I had a backlog of rusty brackets at all 4 corners that needed to be freshened up as well. Removing some of them required my Aircat and some courage. Once removed, off to the blast cabinet

Hung them on the rack and applied about 4 coats of acrylic:

After the painting, refreshed brake line brackets went in at 4 corners:

and I also finally had rear calipers with painted brackets in the right place to constrain parking brake cables:

Pedals and parking brake cables are next. Both are mostly done at this point, so it won't be 2 more years before another update on those.

 

[iceguru1114]

On to the parking brake cables. As far as I can tell these are either very difficult to get or discontinued. As with so many other things on this car, I had to salvage what I had. I wasn't starting out with anything stellar, but atleast I had a pair of assemblies so that I could combine the best of each:

Step 1 was getting the brackets removed and sandblasting the rust off. Luckily the strength of the steel under the rust was still good:

Normally this is where I'd prime and paint, but I decided to try something a little different this time and went the zinc plating route with a hobbyist kit:

Zinc plating is really cool because it only requires a layer .0005" thick (about 10x thinner than paint) and it's much tougher and more corrosion resistant than rattle can paint. The downside is that when you electroplate, as shown, you have to have enough solution to completely submerge the part, so, if you're on a budget it's great for small parts but it can get expensive really fast for larger parts.

Great before and after of zinc plating. Shiny

All the parking brake cable brackets after zinc plating:

With the brackets done I had to dive into the cable and sleeve, both in need of refurbishment. As much as I wanted to avoid it, I had to start by removing the factory wire crimp:

With the cable out of sleeve, more sand blasting and zinc coating ensued:

Doing something about the crimp nuts in the middle of the sleeves was a little risky, but, sand blasting and zinc plating did the trick without ruining anything:

Finally, I had to put everything back together. I sourced some new wire crimp ends and dust boots for the business end of the assembly. Because galvanic reactions don't work on aluminum, and also because I don't have an anodizing kit (yet), unfortunately I had to paint the aluminum sleeve ends to contrast my sexy zinc plating everywhere else. All said and done, though, not bad:

Parking brake lever is next. Creative problem solving required on that assembly, so, should be fun.

 

[iceguru1114]

I had to start the parking brake lever by, of course, backtracking to the parking brake cables. Upon trying to put them in, I realized I was missing 4 brackets. I found 3 in my parts bin and made the 4th from scratch:

Added some zinc plating too:

To get the cable to stop crashing into the trailing arm, I had to bend the parking brake caliper bracket (with a hammer), and the repaint those:

Here's a nice trick for protecting enamel paint on brackets when you don't have the luxury of powder coating:

One more nice trick for anything plastic, rubber, or silicone based that's exposed to the elements. ATF has additives in it designed to prolong the life of transmission seals that work pretty well on things like parking brake cable sleeves as well. Wipe on a thin layer, give it a few hours and it seeps into the material, makes it look new, and prolongs its life:

Last, but not least, I finally got the parking brake cables back in the car:

Looks like I let some salt sit on the underbody too long after the last cross country move, so I'll be doing something about that soon. First, though, I just need a win, so I'm going to get the car to a place where I can use the brake pedal to stop the car, and the parking brake to keep it stopped. I might even upload a video. More coming soon (I hope).

 

[iceguru1114]

On to the parking brake lever. There was some surface rust here and there and, though there was no way I was going to tamper with the semi-permanent assembly parts, I still wasn't content to leave it alone without cleaning it up as much as I could. Here's where I started:

Pulled it apart:

Started on the lever side and tried out some Evapo-rust, which seemed well suited to something I wanted to treat without destroying to get apart:

The end result wasn't perfect, but it was much better than where I started:

For the brackets I could put in my blast cabinet without ruining them, it was more of the same. Sand blast and zinc plate:

On the home stretch, I cleaned the rest up and put the sub-assembly back together:

Finally, I got to put everything back in the car, hook up the parking brake cable and did a quick check to prove to myself that it worked:

Next thing is to clean up the master cylinder brackets

 

[iceguru1114]

On to the fluid reservoir which started out looking not so great:

Tore it down to start the cleanup:

Thought this would be fun; it's the guts of one of these reservoirs (after cleanup) for those that have never torn them apart:

Sand blast, zinc coat, inspect. This part didn't come out looking fantastic, but hey, it's protected now, it looks better than it did, and it's done:

Aaaaand back in the car:

To be frank, I had high hopes of putting fluid in the reservoir, bleeding the brakes, and stopping the car from a roll for fun this evening, but getting the booster and the pedal assembly to line up has been challenging and a little discouraging. I'm calling it a night and the ambition to use the brake pedal to stop the car will have to wait until next time.