ZR-1 in its natural habitat

[mike100]

On jack stands. I swear I'm almost done with the money bleed

[PLRX]

whats wrong with it now?

[mike100]

Originally Posted by PLRX

whats wrong with it now?

Nearly nothing now that I have pretty much gone through most of the major areas, but...

Since it is so close to being perfect, one of the rear u-joints was drying out and if you grabbed the rear tire in plane with the bad spicer trunion, you could make it wobble. I also had Bill B. aka the ZFDoc do his thing with my ZF last week when I was in AZ and the drivetrain is just so dang smooth now that I had to follow through with the rear half shafts (using the expensive spicer parts naturally).

One of the previous owners really liked banging gears- not a problem for the engine, but it has run a little over budget on the drivetrain.

Since it's up, I'm going to drop the front spring out because some jackwagon thought it would be cool to drop the car in the weeds and they flipped the spring spacers on the other side of the spring bracket. I ordered a ball joint separator tool so I don't have to use my picklefork. Otherwise that should be all labor and no parts.

what I have done since the last week of January (not in exact order):
---------------------------------------------------------------------

-Paid sales tax and spent 40 minutes at the DMV(not bad, actually- the wait, not the tax)
-finished the C5 front brake conversion from the parts the previous owner had collected
-bled the 15 year old brake fluid out of the car 3 times.
-removed radiator and oil cooler to wash crap and oil film off the front of the car for optimal cooling.
-replaced leaky oil cooler line (common LT5 issue)
-found like one of the last oem thermostats in the US-had to make hose from section of $12 Ford F150 V6 rad hose.
-r&r plenum to find vacuum leak (hosed popped off) $30 in gaskets and happy to be running right.
-found out 2 days later once the car was running good that it had bad injectors due to modern alcohol blended fuels (all 16 $$$)- plenum straight back off the car...
-ported plenum and injector housing while I was in there- took about 40 hours including the injector r&r.
-gaskets, injectors, carbide tools, supplies yada yada...maybe 7 bills more.
-bought a chip which made a little more mid range power, but mainly had improvements for driveability and a lower idle (an LT5 issue that everybody complains about)
-rebuilt/replaced all 4 Bose speaker amps (much nicer-and kind of cheap) took some time though.
-found out original chip in car was not stock(but passes smog with ease)
-new chip ran a bit dirty for smog so I took both to work and read the binary on a chip reader we have.
-bought adapter,$39 fee for TunerPro lic, and blank chips to burn my own prom (will be done on Monday actually).
-ZFDoc found the bottom of my wallet, but did a killer job replacing and/or blueprinting my 2nd and 3rd gear sychro and sliding ring sets. Beam plates, new pilot bushing, tailshaft housing bushing, C-beam squared up-the whole 9 yards. That shit shifts great now.
-traded a $1200 loud-as-hell 3" ZR-1 exh system for a $1200 ZR-1 Corsa system- it was a good trade, but I still had to take a day to swap and a few bucks for the muffler shop to adapt a flange.
- doing my front ride height and the rear universals-should be on the ground in a few days.

The only thing I could do now, but won't due to money would be to get newer front hub bearings. They only got 28k on them, but the LT5 is a heavier, stiffer car and I guess they won't last as long. They are ok, but not as tight as my 95 ones were, that's for sure.

So I guess that would leave me with trying to locate a new standard top (I have the glass one) and maybe getting together some cash later to get the CD player fixed in the radio.

Not bad for 3-1/2 months of ownership (I'm kind of impatient)

[Frizlefrak]

Damn....I wish I had your motivation. Looks like it's coming together....keep us posted.

[PLRX]

Originally Posted by Frizlefrak

Looks like it's coming together

[mike100]

UPDATE:

Finished up the rear u-joints easily enough. I can't express my joy at how well genuine Spicer U-Joints fit in the axle shaft yokes...omg, I used to think u-joints were a real tough job 4 out of 5 times, but I guess it is only when dealing with cheap imported stuff that doesn't fit right.


The work in the rear was easy compared to the grime and grit on the front end. Ordered a new ball joint tool to do the job without a picklefork. Loosened up the spring, but did not have to do the extra steps to remove it.



consulted the manual and verified that the front spring shims were on the wrong side. At least the guy who lowered the car was nice enough to retain the parts by swapping them to the wrong side of the bracket. I was able to slip them in on the top side without spring removal. (this is how I got the car-shims on the bracket underside).



The green code spring in the ZR-1 does have 2 shims to keep it tensioned more due to engine weight.



OMG! wheel gap:



of course one of the FX3 actuators had a fit, but after 3 tries and a shock bushing re-tensioning, it started working again.

This is still using a shaved top rubber using the aftermarket poly lowering wedges. The bracket smashed that fine when tightened all the way. It's so nice to roll into the driveway and not scrape Not a fan of lowering ...

[SQUIRMIN VERMIN 84]

Very impressive! You have great focus! Congratulations on a great job!