1982 Frame Off Restoration

[Helirich]

I haven't commented in this thread much, but I am following along and look forward to each update. Thanks for continuing to document the process in such great detail as well as the hurdles you've encountered along the way. This is one of the few threads that keeps me coming back to DMCTalk, so keep up the great work!

X2

[SupercoolBill]

I haven't commented in this thread much, but I am following along and look forward to each update. Thanks for continuing to document the process in such great detail as well as the hurdles you've encountered along the way. This is one of the few threads that keeps me coming back to DMCTalk, so keep up the great work!

Glad you like it. Thanks Mark!

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[SupercoolBill]

X2

Thanks

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[SupercoolBill]

Two days ago I dropped the case half off to a buddy of mine to have him TIG weld the hole back in so we can re-thread it again. Unfortunately when I was drilling out the old bolt I accidentally went through the case so just doing a Helicoil wasn't an option anymore.
He got it done that night and I picked it up yesterday. He only charged me $25 (I gave him $50).

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[SupercoolBill]

We were happy to be on the right track. I didn't want to just drill a hole in the center of the boss incase it didn't line up with the bracket. So I bolted on the transmission rear section with the gasket in there to make sure it was 100% accurate. I used a center punch to make a centered punch mark. If you work on stuff or fabricate stuff and you don't have a center punch kit...GET ONE!! So handy.
Much to my surprise that gave me a punch mark way off from center. So now what do I do? If I drill in the center off the boss then it may not line up with the bracket. But if I line up with the center of the bracket the hole won't be centered in the boss.

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[SupercoolBill]

I had my wife remove the tail section of the transmission so we could lay the case half down flat. Suddenly the case dropped....bending the gasket and snapping it in half. So now we need a new gasket.

Since we already had a deep punch mark in the boss I decided to go with that option.
We measured how deep we wanted to go on our drill bits, put tape on the bits, and started drilling. I was drilling and suddenly the bit just dropped in further. I looked through the hole with a flashlight. As far as I could tell my buddy left a void in there when we welded up the boss. I went up to the correct bit size for the M8 tap. The same thing happened "clunk" I broke through then dropped into a void. Lovely..
I tried drilling past the void but it wasn't going smoothly so I stopped. We decided to just tap the first 12mm or so and see how that goes. I had my wife tap it. She went through the top section, through the void, and was trying to tap into the next section which we hadn't really drilled very far.
I told her to be careful because aluminum strips out easily. Well....I'm pretty sure she went too hard and started to booger the threads. We tried a M8 bolt in it. I didn't like how loose it fit.

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[SupercoolBill]

What a frustrating night....ugh....I am not blaming anything on the wife. I could have made the same mistakes. It is hard to not get frustrated though.
I called around and found a store that had a M8 Helicoil kit so we went and bought it. Well that cost $54. Geez....So now we are over $100 into this stuipid broken bolt repair.
We drilled and tapped for the Helicoil. My wife had never done one before so I had her do it. I am not sure if I have mentioned this before but I always put some thread locker on the threads before threading in the insert. I have had Helicoil inserts back out with the bolt before. It turns into a mess. So now I lock them in.
So the wife screwed the insert in. I told her to go until it was flush or just below the surface, but I could see that it suddenly got harder to turn so I told her to stop. I didn't want to push our luck so I left it there and cut off the little bit of excess with a Dremel tool.
We punched out the inner tang and fished it out. We threaded a bolt in. It felt WAY better! Nice snug solid fit. This will work. We just need to make sure we use a shorter bolt on this side.

After all the back luck we decided to quit on a win and call it a night. She went home and I went to the brewery up the road for a beer and a burger

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[SupercoolBill]

I was messaging Rob Grady and asked if the gasket could be used and he recommended not to use it.
He said he'd send me one free of charge due to my recent purchases. Awesome!

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[82DMC12]

I was messaging Rob Grady and asked if the gasket could be used and he recommended not to use it.
He said he'd send me one free of charge due to my recent purchases. Awesome!

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What a swell guy!

When I did my frame off I had two or three pretty frustrating situations where things did not go the way they should have and snowballed into a worse situation. But, each time I had patience, an open wallet lol, and eventually made it through. Keep it up!

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[SupercoolBill]

What a swell guy!

When I did my frame off I had two or three pretty frustrating situations where things did not go the way they should have and snowballed into a worse situation. But, each time I had patience, an open wallet lol, and eventually made it through. Keep it up!

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Then someone sees your car now that it is all perfect and they say "It must be nice" or "Can I drive your car?" And can't understand why you say no.

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