Kev's JDM 1997 Protege

[irishkev90]

Ring gear bolts finally arrived. Guess I'll be able to put the transmission back together this weekend.

[FE3-323]

what are you going to do about the runner difference?

[irishkev90]

You mean the shape of the runners compared to the ports in the head? Or the overall length?

For the shape, I'm going to have to leave it. I was thinking about porting the head to match the header, but there's recesses between the ports that kind of botch that plan. As for the length, I've been trying to find measurements for the ZM second cat pipe to see if that will reach both the header and the resonator pipe already on the car, but can't find any measurements. Might just cut the flange off and weld in a short section of pipe to make up the difference.

My boss is allowing me to borrow the work truck to get back and forth to work until my car is back on the road, so I don't really have the luxury of time for any heavy work. At this point I just gotta do what I gotta do to get it running again and I'll pretty everything up later.

[FE3-323]

yeah, you need to weld fill the runner shape to match with the gasket. else you'll be burning the gasket up in no time.

[irishkev90]

Yeah, looks like I'll have to do some welding on the header. Another day, another speed bump. You can see the slight gap where the recess between the cylinders is. I was hoping the header ports weren't that wide, but oh well. I'll either have to weld the oval ports to match the round head ports, or fill in enough to close off that gap and cut a custom gasket to make up the difference.





Good news, the gear sets are back in the transmission and the ring gear bolted back to the diff. I was extra vigilant with cleaning the bolts and diff. Cleaned everything with brake cleaner and before applying the threadlocker, I used a Qtip and rubbing alcohol to clean the threads on the bolt and the diff. Torqued them down as best as I could, but didn't really have a good way to hold it in place. Anyway, I'm letting it sit overnight before final assembly, but I did temporarily reassemble it to make sure I got all the controls situated correctly.



I've also been fighting with the upstream O2 sensor on the old manifold for the last few days. Heat, penetrating fluid, hammer, pipe wrench... it's not budging. Ended up just rounding the corners. Only other option I see is to attempt to drill/cut the manifold around the sensor, but it's easier just to buy a new one.





I think I also need to fab up my own adapter for the EGR pipe. I got my measurements, but I can't find an adapter/coupler/reducer/whatever with the combination of diameters I need. So I ordered a piece of 1"x6" hex rod and a couple tap/drill sets. I'll have to bend the pipe, as well, but that should be fine.

[FE3-323]

definitely weld the header. thats your best bet. having it resurfaced flat again should be easy

[irishkev90]

Yeah, gonna have to. In somewhat related news, these arrived today...



M22x1.5 and M18x1.5 tap and drill sets, 6mm-24mm tap handle, and 6" of 1" wide aluminum hex bar. After countless hours searching for an adapter for the EGR pipe with zero results, I decided to just make my own. I only need about 1.75" max length (will probably end up closer to 1.5") for the adapter, so 6" will give me a little wiggle room to make mistakes. I may have misjudged my sizing, diameter-wise. The 22mm tap doesn't leave much material left between the threads and the outside of the hex bar. However, seeing as it's not a very structural piece and probably not handling very high pressures, I think it will be okay. Famous last words, right? If it does fail for whatever reason, I'll move up to a wider diameter bar and probably something like stainless steel. I went with aluminum for my first attempt because I wanted something soft to work with since I've never done anything like this before.

Still need to finish assembling the transmission and getting everything else checked/replaced.

[FE3-323]

now wait a minute.... do you have emissions?
If not, weld that SOB shut and hack the pipe. the ECU isn't smart enough to know theres a difference

[irishkev90]

I've read removing it can screw up the idle or something which is why I was trying to find/make an adapter. But I do have enough material to make an adapter and a cap, so if capping it off doesn't work out, I can just go the adapter route. Need to find something to block off the port on the intake side then.

I do want to keep it easily reversible in case I move somewhere that does require emissions testing, though.

Now that I think about it, I think we do have some steel plates I could cut for a blockoff plate.

[irishkev90]

Progress has been made. Slowly, but surely.

Got the transmission completely reassembled and buttoned up. My brother brought home some gray gasket sealant from work, they use it on Mack trucks so it should be fine. I test shifted and rotated the input shaft and I couldn't feel any binding or anything hitting, so I feel good about putting it back in the car. Before that happens, though, I'd like some advice on the clutch/PP/flywheel end of things. I'm 100% certain the PP and flywheel got soaked with transmission fluid as I had to clean it all off. Surprisingly the clutch was completely dry, so maybe it didn't get deep enough in the bellhousing to reach the clutch, but did reach the bottom of the PP and flywheel.

Anyway, I cleaned it all up and since this is my first manual vehicle, I'd like some input from more veteran drivers.













I know it's not a very scientific test, but it's the best I could do. I put the straightedge across the flywheel and everything looked very flat, no noticeable light leaking through. Unlike the pressure plate. I'm guessing these can be resurfaced, right? Also the clutch material is very smooth to the touch, almost like glass. Is this a sign it got cooked at some point or is that normal wear? I can still feel material between the surface and the rivets. Any advice on this stuff is appreciated, as, like I said, this is my first manual vehicle and my first time checking these since installing them 5 or 6 years ago.

In other news, I finally got the steering rack bushings replaced.







They felt a little stiffer than the original rubber bushings and they slipped on and clamped down perfectly. I was kind of worried about that since it's some rando eBay brand, but they're a good fit and I didn't notice any movement when I slipped a pry bar under the rack and started yanking around. Still a while to go before this thing is back on the road, so I'll update then how it feels.

Moving on, I attempted to make the blockoff cap for the EGR port on the header.





I could probably drill it a little deeper to hide more of the threads, there's plenty more material on the end for that. Then I'll probably shape it a little bit and polish it up to make it look nice. My pilot hole was perfectly centered, but the hole ended up slightly off center by the time I enlarged it with the 18mm bit. The 18mm was a bit choppy going in, so I probably could have stepped up my sizes from pilot to final a little more, but the hole is straight and it fits perfectly and it's not that obvious it's off center once it's on the header. I'll get the blockoff plate for the intake side fabbed up tomorrow if I can find where those steel plates ran off to.

I also ordered a Pacesetter 2nd cat pipe from Rockauto for the ZM to see how that mates up to the header and hopefully still reach the back end of my exhaust. I kind of also want to get new transmission mounts before I put it back in the car. I replaced all four mounts when I swapped the transmission in a few years ago, but the front mount has a very slight tear showing and (with my gf having trouble smoothly taking off from a stop) the rear mount might need some love as well. I was thinking of a solid rear mount because of such a pain it is the get back there and remove it and a solid mount will probably last longer than another OEM mount. Unfortunately, there are no solid rear mounts for a BHA, though it does look very similar to a BJ rear mount which AWR does offer a kit for. Is AWR the only option, though?

[FE3-323]

a quick yet light sandblasting on all of your clutch friction surfaces can bring some life back into it if there is any question/doubt in your mind.

[irishkev90]

That's good to know. It was holding fine before everything happened, but I wasn't sure if getting splashed with trans fluid could have ruined it. What about the other pieces? Find a shop to resurface the flywheel and pressure plate? I'm going to be replacing the pilot bearing because I stuck my finger in it to spin it and it was extremely crunchy. So if you think anything should be replaced I'll get them the same time I get the bearing.

[irishkev90]

Little bit of tidying up done today. I finally tackled to enormous rats nest of automatic transmission harness. I cut most of it out and redid some of the wiring I still needed from it. Got it all tucked away and put some braided sleeving over a few connector wires (reverse switch, MAF, IAT). I also drilled the EGR cap a little deeper and polished it up a bit, looks much better now, as well as cutting a blockoff plate for the intake. I'll probably paint the plate at some point to keep it from rusting, but I don't have any paint right now.

[irishkev90]

So, decided to go solid front and rear because the price wasn't that much more for the pair. I had to drill out/elongate the holes slightly in the crossmember for the front mount. I went with 70 durometer so hopefully it won't be too harsh. The entire rear mount assembly is still in the car so that will be a project for the weekend. Speaking of the weekend, my ZM second cat pipe should be here Friday or Saturday so I can see how well that joins the header to the rest of the exhaust (or not).



Hopefully I can get the transmission back in the car this weekend now that the mounts are here.

Oh, anyone know where I can get some new crossmember bushings? The front bushings are completely worn out.

Edit: Never mind the crossmember bushings. Found some from Jim Ellis. Also, they're apparently called "insulators" for the front two and "engine mount supporters" for the rear two. Themoreyouknow.jpg

[irishkev90]

Scratch that whole "putting the transmission in this weekend" thing. I forgot I need a new pilot bearing before I can do that. Silly me.