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This is a fairly long and involved story of how cutting corners and making assumptions can cause you difficulties. Please read it with the humour I intend it to have but PLEASE really think about it.
Some Board Members would know me for my yellow LS3 powered FARGO. Not the prettiest (or straightest) vehicle but decently quick and different.
As with most vehicles that are homebuilt there are a few things that don’t work out how you wished.
My vehicle had the following problems, I’ll own up to:
1. Minor oil leak from a porous weld when shortening the axle housing. Why would I start and finish a circular weld at the bottom of an axle tube? Stupidity!
2. Minor oil leak from transmission tail-housing following welding. I’ve had this out and re-welded 3 times and haven’t managed to get it to seal.
3. Vague gear selection on the auto shifter
4. It has a wiring issue where it would stop for no reason and then re-start when it wanted rather than when I wanted. The engine loom (not done by me) has given me lots of trouble.
5. It could always be faster! There’s a bit of Tim Allen in me.
First step was to swap the diff gears from 4.11:1 to 4.83:1. This would help get the car off the line better but as the car has a theoretical top speed of 285kph I wasn’t too worried about it working too hard on the Freeway. A few weeks earlier my tuner had a play with the ECU and he’s comfortable we’re seeing 350+KW out of it, with more to come. You could feel it get the front wheels off the ground but it couldn’t keep them up. Not good enough!
Over a two month period I acquired a new set of 4.83 gears, new shifter mechanism and linkages plus a new tail-housing for the 6L80E. I figured I’d take the car off the road over winter and go right through it.
After a couple of days under the car I’d stripped the diff, ground back the dud weld, re-welded it and installed the diff centre, axles and 4 callipers. One job done. Another day saw me wrestle the transfer case out (about 100kg) and install the new tail-housing in a different way that didn’t require any cutting/welding. By now I’m on a roll with the vehicle again (sort of) mobile all I had to do was find the loom fault, reassemble a lot of sheet-metal and other than the shifter I was done.
I started the car up and let it idle for an hour whilst I wriggled and giggled the loom and shook and generally disturbed all relays, fuses and joints I could find. I found a fault in the wiring for the main opening relay for the EFI. Things were looking pretty good at this point. Time to take the mostly assembled car for a run around the block.
Fired it up, backed out of the garage and drove 50metres to the street corner. At this point in stopped having any drive to the rear. Hmmm? I figured the transfer case had jumped out of gear. To explain, the car uses a Nissan Patrol transfer case to turn the drive though 180degrees and the case doesn’t use internal detents to retain the shift in gear. The way the case is installed means the external detents are on the unused Patrol gearbox. Without realising I had always relied on the shift lever being jammed between two components to hold it in gear. One of these components was sitting on the garage floor so I figured I’d nurse it around the block and all will be well.
Drove another 100 or so metres and it did the same again. I jumped out banged it back in gear and drove on. Another hundred metres and it did the same. This time I figured I would use a cable tie I found to restrain it and get home. Next time take tools!
I shut the engine down and tied the lever in 4High. When I went to re-start the engine it wouldn’t turn over. I slid under the car and found a clip missing from the selector shaft so the shifter wasn’t connected to the transmission. Don’t ask how that happened as the shifter didn’t get touched in any of the work I had done and had worked a few times after backing it out of the garage. I walked home and brought back a spare pin and installed it. Must be looking good now!
Would it turn over? No way. Losing a bit of patience I decide, simple pull the starter relay and jump it. I'm no longer seeing the funny side of this.
There are 7 relays in the OSR corner of the tray so I leaned over the rear of the tray and jumped the starter and the engine sprang into life. That always feels/sounds good. Only problem is the car is actually in reverse as the adjuster on the shift linkage must have spun around the threaded rod whilst disconnected and lost adjustment. I figured if I was quick enough I could wiz around to the driver’s side and turn it off before it hit the car parked behind me. At this point I should say I was fortunate the two cars were parked at an angle of about 15degrees to each other.
The car had other ideas. As I turned to go across the rear of the car it started to push me back toward the car behind. As the engine was now cold, after my walk home and back, it went into a fast idle to assist in its warm up cycle. The end result the car crushed me in the gap. It hurt a bit, but I figured I got out of it with minimal damage to either car. I limped to the driver’s door and turned off the engine, I slid under the car, disconnected the shift and manually selected neutral and rolled the car forward. I then put the start relay back in, so it could be driven home. I had every intention at this point of driving it home and sorting out that problematic shifter. Amazing what Adrenalin can do for you.
Around this time my right leg wasn’t too happy holding me up so I stood on my left one and held onto the side of the tray for about 10 minutes figuring out what to do. As usual when I need my phone it was on the kitchen bench! I had a passer-by call Helen to come and get me. I refused to let the passer-by call an Ambulance as I needed to organise a specific tow truck to take my car home. You need to get your priorities right! The Woman’s son said “I know this car, you built this in your garage and I would see it on the way home from school.” No hiding with a bright Yellow car.
By this time Helen was there and I was a bit second hand, sweating and feeling a bit nauseous. As I now couldn’t walk, I had them slide me across the rear seat of my ML320 to take me home. Sounds easy but I promise it hurt so much I couldn’t swear! The decision was made that the emergency ward at Hornsby Hospital looked like a good next stop after going home to collect Helen’s purse for the ever useful Medicare Card and Health Fund card. I was going to get some of my taxes back. It was probably faster to drive me to Hospital than wait for an Ambulance,
Unloading at the Hospital was a matter of giving instructions to stop the Staff rolling me over and rather slide a board under me to get me out of the car. After a bit of time in Emergency I was diagnosed with two fractures in my Pelvis and a broken tailbone. The Doctors said I did a good job but to be thankful I was still alive, as the incident could very easily have had a fatal outcome.
As a result I have 6-8 weeks in bed and a few more weeks in learning to walk again. We’re postponed a trip to the French WWI & WWII battle fields planned for July and a paid for trip to China and Japan in August is in the balance. I also need to inject myself twice daily with an anti-clotting medication.
So the lesson in all of this. Before taking that shortcut, think of the implications as they may just be deadly. And I mean really think about it. I’ve decided “she’ll be right” doesn’t cut it.
The funny aside is I always told my two boys “if there’s no blood, there’s no pain” I now know I was lying.
Damage to the car isn’t too bad, but it has shifted the OSR quarter around 100mm forward and 50mm outwards. The tailgate is quite distorted. I haven’t seen if there’s any damage to the fuel door or the aluminium panelling inside. You can see my body shape in the dents. I’ll make a decision on whether to part it out for the next project or repair it once I get to have a good look at it in the flesh in a couple of months.
Some Board Members would know me for my yellow LS3 powered FARGO. Not the prettiest (or straightest) vehicle but decently quick and different.
As with most vehicles that are homebuilt there are a few things that don’t work out how you wished.
My vehicle had the following problems, I’ll own up to:
1. Minor oil leak from a porous weld when shortening the axle housing. Why would I start and finish a circular weld at the bottom of an axle tube? Stupidity!
2. Minor oil leak from transmission tail-housing following welding. I’ve had this out and re-welded 3 times and haven’t managed to get it to seal.
3. Vague gear selection on the auto shifter
4. It has a wiring issue where it would stop for no reason and then re-start when it wanted rather than when I wanted. The engine loom (not done by me) has given me lots of trouble.
5. It could always be faster! There’s a bit of Tim Allen in me.
First step was to swap the diff gears from 4.11:1 to 4.83:1. This would help get the car off the line better but as the car has a theoretical top speed of 285kph I wasn’t too worried about it working too hard on the Freeway. A few weeks earlier my tuner had a play with the ECU and he’s comfortable we’re seeing 350+KW out of it, with more to come. You could feel it get the front wheels off the ground but it couldn’t keep them up. Not good enough!
Over a two month period I acquired a new set of 4.83 gears, new shifter mechanism and linkages plus a new tail-housing for the 6L80E. I figured I’d take the car off the road over winter and go right through it.
After a couple of days under the car I’d stripped the diff, ground back the dud weld, re-welded it and installed the diff centre, axles and 4 callipers. One job done. Another day saw me wrestle the transfer case out (about 100kg) and install the new tail-housing in a different way that didn’t require any cutting/welding. By now I’m on a roll with the vehicle again (sort of) mobile all I had to do was find the loom fault, reassemble a lot of sheet-metal and other than the shifter I was done.
I started the car up and let it idle for an hour whilst I wriggled and giggled the loom and shook and generally disturbed all relays, fuses and joints I could find. I found a fault in the wiring for the main opening relay for the EFI. Things were looking pretty good at this point. Time to take the mostly assembled car for a run around the block.
Fired it up, backed out of the garage and drove 50metres to the street corner. At this point in stopped having any drive to the rear. Hmmm? I figured the transfer case had jumped out of gear. To explain, the car uses a Nissan Patrol transfer case to turn the drive though 180degrees and the case doesn’t use internal detents to retain the shift in gear. The way the case is installed means the external detents are on the unused Patrol gearbox. Without realising I had always relied on the shift lever being jammed between two components to hold it in gear. One of these components was sitting on the garage floor so I figured I’d nurse it around the block and all will be well.
Drove another 100 or so metres and it did the same again. I jumped out banged it back in gear and drove on. Another hundred metres and it did the same. This time I figured I would use a cable tie I found to restrain it and get home. Next time take tools!
I shut the engine down and tied the lever in 4High. When I went to re-start the engine it wouldn’t turn over. I slid under the car and found a clip missing from the selector shaft so the shifter wasn’t connected to the transmission. Don’t ask how that happened as the shifter didn’t get touched in any of the work I had done and had worked a few times after backing it out of the garage. I walked home and brought back a spare pin and installed it. Must be looking good now!
Would it turn over? No way. Losing a bit of patience I decide, simple pull the starter relay and jump it. I'm no longer seeing the funny side of this.
There are 7 relays in the OSR corner of the tray so I leaned over the rear of the tray and jumped the starter and the engine sprang into life. That always feels/sounds good. Only problem is the car is actually in reverse as the adjuster on the shift linkage must have spun around the threaded rod whilst disconnected and lost adjustment. I figured if I was quick enough I could wiz around to the driver’s side and turn it off before it hit the car parked behind me. At this point I should say I was fortunate the two cars were parked at an angle of about 15degrees to each other.
The car had other ideas. As I turned to go across the rear of the car it started to push me back toward the car behind. As the engine was now cold, after my walk home and back, it went into a fast idle to assist in its warm up cycle. The end result the car crushed me in the gap. It hurt a bit, but I figured I got out of it with minimal damage to either car. I limped to the driver’s door and turned off the engine, I slid under the car, disconnected the shift and manually selected neutral and rolled the car forward. I then put the start relay back in, so it could be driven home. I had every intention at this point of driving it home and sorting out that problematic shifter. Amazing what Adrenalin can do for you.
Around this time my right leg wasn’t too happy holding me up so I stood on my left one and held onto the side of the tray for about 10 minutes figuring out what to do. As usual when I need my phone it was on the kitchen bench! I had a passer-by call Helen to come and get me. I refused to let the passer-by call an Ambulance as I needed to organise a specific tow truck to take my car home. You need to get your priorities right! The Woman’s son said “I know this car, you built this in your garage and I would see it on the way home from school.” No hiding with a bright Yellow car.
By this time Helen was there and I was a bit second hand, sweating and feeling a bit nauseous. As I now couldn’t walk, I had them slide me across the rear seat of my ML320 to take me home. Sounds easy but I promise it hurt so much I couldn’t swear! The decision was made that the emergency ward at Hornsby Hospital looked like a good next stop after going home to collect Helen’s purse for the ever useful Medicare Card and Health Fund card. I was going to get some of my taxes back. It was probably faster to drive me to Hospital than wait for an Ambulance,
Unloading at the Hospital was a matter of giving instructions to stop the Staff rolling me over and rather slide a board under me to get me out of the car. After a bit of time in Emergency I was diagnosed with two fractures in my Pelvis and a broken tailbone. The Doctors said I did a good job but to be thankful I was still alive, as the incident could very easily have had a fatal outcome.
As a result I have 6-8 weeks in bed and a few more weeks in learning to walk again. We’re postponed a trip to the French WWI & WWII battle fields planned for July and a paid for trip to China and Japan in August is in the balance. I also need to inject myself twice daily with an anti-clotting medication.
So the lesson in all of this. Before taking that shortcut, think of the implications as they may just be deadly. And I mean really think about it. I’ve decided “she’ll be right” doesn’t cut it.
The funny aside is I always told my two boys “if there’s no blood, there’s no pain” I now know I was lying.
Damage to the car isn’t too bad, but it has shifted the OSR quarter around 100mm forward and 50mm outwards. The tailgate is quite distorted. I haven’t seen if there’s any damage to the fuel door or the aluminium panelling inside. You can see my body shape in the dents. I’ll make a decision on whether to part it out for the next project or repair it once I get to have a good look at it in the flesh in a couple of months.
