Sump-thing becomes an epic fail!!

Sunday morning rolled around, and Scottie arrived bright and early, bringing with him the custom made gearbox mount (just a big bracket really), that he had taken home the previous week to weld up using the "big welder" at his work.

Many thanks to Scottie's employer Rosemount Turf for allowing Scottie to use the big welder!!



The purpose of the welding was to add in some strengthening items - additional bracing to support the gearbox mount (both where the gearbox connects and at the chassis), and the inclusion of some "crush tubes", which actually prevent the box steel from crushing when the bolts are tightened.

Here's a nice close-up of the additional strengthening - look at the quality of those welds!!

Damian painted the inside of the box steel with black, then did the first coat of the green top coat for the gearbox mount... you can't have too much green on Booger Mobile!!

He then moved onto the work that he's more qualified for - wiring! First cab off the rank - hooking up the neutral safety switch. After identifying the correct wires on the plug, Damian was surprised that a test of the wiring failed to work... It did stop the engine from turning over, but it stopped it turning over even when it was in Park or Neutral!!

Damian decided that since the wires on the plug end were so thick, perhaps the thin wire being used to connect them was providing too much resistance, so he replaced it with thicker wire and hey presto - one working neutral safety switch!!

Later in the day, Damian would actually hook it up neatly through the firewall as necessary...

In the meantime, Scottie was tidying up the gearbox mount ready for painting and installation...

While it was drying, the boys went on a shopping trip to collect some bits and pieces that they needed...

Once they returned, Scottie got to work fitting the gearbox mount (here it is in all it's painted glory, with Scotties hands)!

Damian got to work installing the newly purchased choke cable, while Scottie decided that sump-thing needed to be done to complete the sieve (as the adjusted sump was now known as).

Once the new choke cable was installed, Damian decided that another picture was in order!! (The new choke cable is the black item on the right hand side.)

Meanwhile, in a last ditch bid to get the sieve to stop weeping (all the actual leaks were welded up, but there were just a few weeping spots), Scottie used the metal repair kit (which looks a lot like blu-tak) to go over the welds...

Would this finally seal it? Only time would tell...

After the liberal application of the metal repair putty, the new sump was finally leak free!! It had even stopped weeping, so it was time to install it in Booger Mobile!!

Of course, the new sump needed to match the rest of the engine, so out came the nice, blue engine enamel!!

While Scottie was doing that, Damian took the opportunity to investigate the clearance that there would be between the tyres and the rear suspension... As you can see, there is plenty of room, and the tyre in this picture is much wider than the actual tyres that the boys are going to be using, so no problems!!

After the paint had dried, the time had finally arrived to install the new sump in Booger Mobile, and resolve the clearance issues the boys had been experiencing... Well, it was the sump of the engine, but either way...

As you can see, the new sump (front) has much greater clearance at the shallow end...

Just in case regular blog followers haven't seen what is inside the sump on a 250 pre-crossflow engine, here it is!!

Scottie carefully applied the new sump gasket, using up the rest of the Stag (aka gasket goo) in the process...

The new sump was finally fitted, and the clearance problems were now are thing of the past!!! Or were they...

This is where sump-thing goes horribly wrong, and the whole sump-creation-project turned into an EPIC FAIL

After installing the new sump, admiring the handiwork and seeing that there were no clearance issues for the cross member, Damian suggested turning the engine over a few times (with the battery, not by actually turning the engine over) to check that nothing was banging, knocking or rattling inappropriately

After doing this, Scottie became very sad

The inside of the engine was hitting the newly adjusted sump... How could this be??????

The boys went back out to the spare engine to ponder what had gone wrong, when Scottie noticed something that made his heart sink, and he felt even sadder

Turns out it wasn't a 250 pre-crossflow, but a 200 cubic inch engine (from the outside they look the same), therefore the bits that sit inside the sump were shorter, hence they didn't hit the adjusted sump when the boys tested it, but the longer ones in the 250 pre-crossflow did...

If you look closely just to the right of the middle of the photo below, you can clearly see 200 stamped (cast, moulded, welded, whatever) into the engine

In fairness to Scottie, this part of the engine was not visible while the sump adjusting was taking place, and since the boys had been advised that the engine was a "spare engine" for their 250 pre-crossflow, they had reasonably assumed it was also a 250 pre-crossflow

Still, everyone knows what happens when you assume!!

The new sump was hastily removed from Booger Mobile, and the boys ceased working for the day... Prior to this happening (while Scottie was fitting the sump originally), Damian painted the drag link... seems anti-climactic now...

To recap, sump-thing became an epic fail... A wasted effort that caused much sadness in Team Booger Mobile (who not only have wasted three days or so, but have also still got to resolve the engine cross-member clearance issue!!).

Settling in to a quiet drink to reflect on the day's events, Scottie and Damian saw the funny side of the whole sump-thing debacle... They continue to live in hope that sometime, just maybe, something will be easier than expected to complete!!

As if!! :-D

Sump-thing Diff-erent today...

Before getting into the story of today's progress on Booger Mobile, the boys would like to send a big shout-out to Malcolm from ACTUM Consulting, who posted a picture of his new shoes... These could possibly be the official shoes of Team Booger Mobile!!

Although he's copped a bit of flack over them from some quarters, here at Team Booger Mobile, the boys think that Malcolm's new shoes are fabulous, and that subliminally he wanted to be reminded of Booger Mobile every time he looks down!! Great work Malcolm!!



On with the story... Today's story is sump-thing a little diff-erent. Scottie did arrive nice and early and attempt to transform the sieve into sump-thing useful, but due to sump-thing being a complete pain in the sump-thing else, Scottie decided to move on with some other stuff and return to finish sump-thing next weekend!!

The custom made cross-member bracket for the BW35 gearbox needed some extra bits and pieces sorted out on it... Damian pointed out to Scottie that this could be considered just another (albeit very large) bracket!!


The bits and pieces were tacked on ready for Scottie to use a larger welder to put it all together properly...

Meanwhile, Damian was hooking up gauges - the goal today was to get all gauges installed and hooked up completely - no extra wires running around the place

The first task was to locate where to attach the power wire for the accessories fuse box (from last week). Damian was going to run it directly to the battery, but decided that for accessories, it would be better to only work when the ignition was on (or on Accessories, funnily enough

After locating the accessories power outlet on the rear of the ignition switch and wiring it in, the next job was to mount the tacho on the dash.

After taking the photo, Damian realised that the tacho was reading like the engine was wound off the clock, so a bit of creative adjustment was performed, and the world was back to normal

Scottie took his mind off sump-thing that was annoying him by cleaning and painting one of the disc brake assemblies.

After that, Scottie remembered that the diff centre needed to be changed to get the ratio down from 4.1 (ute ratio) to 3.5 (sedan ratio

Note the size difference between the ute diff drum brakes (on the right) and the sedan drum brakes!!

Just to digress for a moment, Scottie and Damian made a fabulous discovery while performing open diff surgery... The brake shoes and drums, and the wheel bearings, were all basically as new!! Finally, something has gone right!!!!!!!

Check out the size difference between the sedan brake shoes and the ute brake shoes

Booger Mobile should have much better stopping power with these big boys on!!

And for those who haven't seen before - this is what's inside a diff!!

While Scottie was making heads or tails of the diffs, Damian was reading the wiring diagram...

and cursing because the wire colours don't match!!

Scottie inspected the diff, just for sump-thing diff-erent...

And used a hammer to remove the pinion... the ute diff had obviously been worked on much more recently - it came apart much easier, and was in much better condition!!

The gauges are all finished, and they even light up when the headlights are switched on!!

After performing open diff surgery, the ute diff (now with the sedan diff crown and pinion to make the gear ratio much nicer) was put back together...

And just to prove that Scottie's not all torque, he used this tool to increase the tension!!

At the end of the day, the gauges were installed and wired up, with lights etc. Damian worked out which connections go where on the BW35 gearbox to hook up both the reverse lights (XM's didn't come with reverse lights - that's a separate issue) and the neutral safety switch (which stops the engine from starting when the gearbox isn't in Park or Neutral).

Scottie did fabulous work as usual on brackets, sump-thing annoyed him, and he did a great job on sump-thing diff-erent - getting the crown and pinion swapped into the diff.

Another big day, where the visible progress doesn't appear to be as great as the actual progress!! Once the suspension etc arrives, there'll be some *real* progress!!

Sump-thing needed adjusting!!

Regular followers of the Booger Mobile blog may be aware of the slight clearance issue that the boys had when installing the slightly taller 250 pre-crossflow engine...

For those in need of a recap, basically the sump isn't clearing the engine cross-member by enough distance, so the boys had the options of a) removing the cross-member (knocked on the head due to the issue of lack of strength), b) lowering the cross-member by making a new mount for it (this is still an option for if adjusting the sump doesn't work, but requires the use of a titanium plate or something, therefore is a small issue), or c) doing sump-thing to adjust the sump (the big bit that hangs beneath the engine and holds the oil).

Since the boys have a spare 250 pre-crossflow engine for parts, they decided building a new sump was the best option to begin with!

Here's the engine block with sump still attached, sitting upside down ready to be adjusted... or sump-thing... (Get used to the sump-thing joke, it's going to be used sump-thing like a dozen times in this blog!!)



After removing the flywheel and doing a couple of cursory scratches on the side or sump-thing, Scottie began cutting!



Here it is, the new, converted sump... doesn't hold much oil now though!!

Meanwhile, Damian was busily painting sump-thing black!! It's how he rolls...

After many adjustments, and some adjusting with panel-beating tools, the (now somewhat smaller) section of the sump was ready to be reattached...

Partially welded, sump-thing wasn't quite right... The area where Scottie is pointing the blowtorch isn't the right shape to be welded, so he decided to heat it and beat it into submission!!

As you can see, it's glowing red hot, and the kink is all but gone... Top work, Scottie!!

And what was Damian doing during all this? You guessed it... he was painting more stuff black!!

Of course, after the section of the sump-thing had been shortened, the connecting piece needed to be adjusted and beaten into submission... Again, Scottie is the man for the job!!

Tired of painting things black, Damian turned his talents to applying foam tape to random items, in this case, the roof rack. The tape should make the board and roof rack less likely to vibrate and annoy the daylights out of him and Scottie while driving along...

Of course, chances are the boys will annoy the daylights out of EACH OTHER while driving along, but that's another story!!

Check this out... it's a little piece of metal that Scottie found, just the right size for the hole in the sump... is it fate? Is it coincidence? Is it pure blind luck????

Scottie took this photo... and the sun was shining very brightly... Best that Scottie sticks to welding, which as you can (barely) see in the photo, is excellent!!

And the roof rack is now attached, using all those nicely painted black nuts, bolts and bits of metal... Plenty of foam tape was used...

The roof rack now provides a handy place for Damian to store things... hey look, there's his watch!!

Scottie's welder decided it needed a little rest (poor darling), so Scottie decided it was time to implement Booger Mobile's remote boot-lid opener or sump-thing like that...

It feeds through onto the back floor of Booger Mobile...

To pop open the boot lid... ingenious!!

Here's the inside of the sump after Scottie welded it up... beautiful work there Scottie!!

Meanwhile, Damian was doing some welding, err, soldering of his own... Preparing a fuse box for attaching external devices - uhf, cd player etc...

Damian suggested to Scottie that since the sump was out, sump-thing should be done about fixing the existing dent in the underside... Thinking that Scottie would use his trusty panel-beating toolkit, imagine Damian's surprise when Scottie grabbed a lump of wood and proceeded to beat the sump into shape!!

The question was - would the newly adjusted sump hold oil? To test it, Scottie used the next best thing - water!!

It was a long, strenuous day, so Scottie decided to have a little sleep...

As you can see, the sump is leaking like a sieve!

Damian's dog Tonka decided to check out Scottie's handiwork... (he too noted it was leaking!)

Bugger - it leaks from this side too!!

Scottie circled all the major points where it was leaking, and decided he'd do sump-thing about it next weekend...

For those of you who aren't sure why the boys are making a new sump, the below image shows the current sump (which was pretty much the same as the sump that's being adjusted). Note the distinct lack of clearance over the cross-member (that large, round black thing in the middle of the photo).

Just to round out the day, here's a photo of the completed remote boot-lid release...

And the gauges that Damian continues to work on... (You'd think that they would give you longer wires to work with or sump-thing, but noooooooo)

There you have it... Another day, another blog post... another week gone in the march towards the 2010 Camp Quality esCarpade...

Will Booger Mobile be ready in time? Will the sump ever stop leaking? Will the boys get a seat in and some wheels on the car at the very least?

Tune in next time for another exciting episode of Booger Mobile innnnnnnn Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!! (Best said in the style of the Muppets "Pigs in Space".)