AMC 258

[bigred88]

Progress! I haven't posted anything because I've mostly been buying parts, then waiting too long for them to show up. I was hoping to have the engine at the machine shop by now, but I bought my intake manifold from Clifford Performance late December and it hasn't shown up yet... package coming tomorrow though! And since I'm having the head ported, I figure I might as well wait until I have the intake and exhaust before I take anything in. And of course, after changing my mind I bought a header from Clifford Performance last week... hopefully it doesn't take as long as the intake.

On to the pictures:
Getting rid of this leaky piece of junk... decided to switch to manual steering. Multiple reasons- first, this is a 2,500 pound car. Steering effort shouldn't be terrible. Second, simplify and add lightness- I figure I'll shed at least 50 lbs over the power setup (that pump is heavy). And, one less accessory on the front of the engine. Not like I'll be putting out 500 hp, I'd like to keep every one I'll have. Third, one less thing to leak.
The new manual box is painted and drying, hopefully on the car tomorrow.

Interior disassembly begins in prep for the manual trans swap. Should be placing the order for the trans tomorrow, and I think I've found all the other bits I need, still waiting for some of them to show up though.

This build is practically paying for itself!


Well, that sucks. I hate heater cores. Fortunately the metal seems solid- all the coating they placed on it seems to have protected it pretty well. I'm going to look into electric heaters. I know nothing about them, and I ha e no idea if I could make it work, but if I can ditch the heater core I'd be really happy. Also going to be looking into dynamat I guess, since I now have to trash the factory insulation.

And this is where I'm at. If you look close, there's a drill bit as my placeholder for the shifter.

Hopefully more parts start showing up soon, so I can start moving forward. So far all I've done is take stuff apart...

 

[bigred88]

I love the look of 6 into 2 headers.

Now I just need my intake to show up and I can get this whole thing off to the machine shop.

 

[Justin V]

Perfect for two turbskies

 

[bigred88]

I hate the little stuff that slows you down. Like I got my new manual steering box installed, only to then learn that the pitman arm is different for the manual and power steering boxes. Didn't see that one coming. Oh well, new one will be here in a few days.

 

[bigred88]

Perfect for two turbskies

View attachment 326695

I wouldn't be the first...



https://www.jeepstrokers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1888

 

[bigred88]

Well that was expensive. Just bought a brand new T5 from Modern Driveline, complete with all the conversion bits necessary. I've never spent that kind of money all at once on a car before, other than buying an entire car. Shit, that cost more than my DD...

I probably could have piecemealed it for a lot cheaper, but I would've ended up with a used transmission and a lot of difficulty making everything work together. This way should make for an easier swap. I hope.

It'll be worth it though. Gonna be really nice finally have a manual in there.

 

[acm]

I have the TKO600 kit from SST have had all kinds of problems with it.
Biggest problem is the bolts supplied and none of the brackets are "just right"

The upper two bolts supplied for the transmission are too long and bottom out before they clamp,
Also the head of the bolt doesn't fit inside they webbing on the trans.
There are several other bolts that are just wrong.
Not the end of the world, but kinda BS for the price they charge,

Just trial fit everything outside of the car first. Hopefully your kit is a bit more thought out.

The kit I have has the QT scatter shield, hydraulic clutch and is for the "boring" V8 for an old AMX.

 

[bigred88]

I have the TKO600 kit from SST have had all kinds of problems with it.
Biggest problem is the bolts supplied and none of the brackets are "just right"

The upper two bolts supplied for the transmission are too long and bottom out before they clamp,
Also the head of the bolt doesn't fit inside they webbing on the trans.
There are several other bolts that are just wrong.
Not the end of the world, but kinda BS for the price they charge,

Just trial fit everything outside of the car first. Hopefully your kit is a bit more thought out.

The kit I have has the QT scatter shield, hydraulic clutch and is for the "boring" V8 for an old AMX.

I sure hope this one is a little more dialed than that. On the other hand, this isn't exactly an off the shelf kit for them (or anyone), so I'll have a bit of figuring out to do. I might have to make a crossmember, or at a minimum do some custom adapting to the factory one. Still have to figure out the speedo. I'm going in expecting a hiccup or two.

 

[acm]

Yes, I hope so to.
I expected to have to do some fab but didn't expect to be just a grab bag of parts that are kinda close.
Talked to their tech dept about it, and they knew about some of the issues but didn't sale enough kits to worry too much about it... They definitely need to change the name from Perfect Fit Kits to Good Luck w/ This Shit kits!
The only bracket that is not generic is the mount for the hydraulic clutch but it would only take an hour or so to fab up.

The crossmember turned out to be pretty easy. Tremec puts the mount in almost the same place as the original T10 mount. Looks like a t400 mount, drill 2 holes and it's attached. I did have to shim the crossmember down about 1/2" so the top of the trans clears the tunnel. Still need to level the car out and check the angles. Should be simple enough.
Below are a few pics they sent me.









The speedo cable part number is SPA-T55. It's the screw in style like the stock one and came with a loose speedo gear.

It's all pretty simple stuff, it's just annoys me that they screwed up on the basic stuff like bolts (the 55-57 instruction book is also a nice touch). I did several test fittings of the scatter shield, throw out bearing and made sure all the bolts fit the threads correctly before I installed anything in the car. Test fit the trans to the engine which fit pretty good once the excess powder coat was removed from the Quick Time shield. Just didn't run those top two bolts down completely. Oh well, live and learn.

Always good to see another AMC getting thrown back on the road.

 

[bigred88]

Well, tonight sucked.


I've decided to do the floors in dynamat and dynapad, so I went ahead and pulled all the old padding. Only to find a few holes and some fairly advanced rust on the driver's side floor. I've never done floorboards before, and no one that I'm aware of makes replacements for a Spirit. Guess I'm gonna learn something new. Gonna be a bit longer until it's back on the road now, too. Oh well, better to find it and deal with it now instead of it just getting worse for a while longer.

 

[bigred88]

The T5 arrived!


There's something about billet flywheels...


More rust progress. Got the floors all cleaned up, gonna be patching both sides. The big hole on the passenger side is an old patch I had honestly forgotten about that my 15 year old self did with tin and fiberglass. Not the right way, but it worked surprisingly well. The rust progress there was minimal.

 

[bigred88]

This project is quickly costing me more money than I was planning. Just bought a sheet metal brake and a bead roller. Time to build some floor pans!

 

[bigred88]

Been a bit since I updated- trying to limit updates to when I have pictures. So without further ado:


Had surgery on my hand. I knew it was coming- I injured it last year and needed a second surgery.

So I haven't gotten any concrete work done on the car. I bought a few new tools, notably a bead roller and a sheet metal brake. I think I have everything I need to make floorpans now.

Also did some thinking and made a few other decisions. Gonna move the battery to the trunk, mostly because getting it out from under the hood gives me space to make a cold air intake. I'm also going to be running two electric fans, so two relays there. I figure while I'm at it I'll wire up some relays for the headlights, too. My downtime has given me time to do some research on what I'll be using for that.

 

[Greg Ducato]

Ouch! hope you heal quick and can get back to business

 

[acm]

I'm with Greg, OUCH!!!
A pic of the bead roller or brake would have been better!

Here's to a quick recovery.

 

[bigred88]

It seems to be healing quick so far. Nice that this time around the recovery period is in weeks, not months like when I first hurt it.

Here's the bead roller- nothing fancy, should be good enough for my needs though. I never even got the brake assembled. Similar hobbyist level tool though.

 

[imiceman44]

It seems to be healing quick so far. Nice that this time around the recovery period is in weeks, not months like when I first hurt it.

Here's the bead roller- nothing fancy, should be good enough for my needs though. I never even got the brake assembled. Similar hobbyist level tool though.
View attachment 330302

I have the same bead roller, never got to use it. It's rusting out.

 

[bigred88]

Couple more tool pictures- first the sheet metal brake that I finally got assembled today. Hand is doing well enough for lighter stuff like this, but it's not ready to go cutting out those floor pans just yet. Maybe in another week. I figure I should at least get the stitches out first... Anyway, the brake is an Eastwood piece, 20 inches, up to 18ga capable. Mounted in the vice for the picture, we'll see how that works but I can bolt it to the bench, too. Not the most badass brake ever made, but it'll do for my needs. For now...


Next is a bench mounted shear I scored for free! I occassionally get to help with some demos, and you'd be surprised what gets left behind. By the time I'm at them anything found inside is considered fair game- I've nabbed a few little things here and there (like an old 60s fire extinguisher that is decorating my garage) but this is the coolest thing I've found. No idea what it's limits are, but it just went through 16ga like butter without even being bolted down. And now that I have a bunch of new large tools I probable need to rearrange the shop a bit to be able to make good use of them.



And I just noticed I think I need to change the month on my CK5 calendar...

 

[bigred88]

Long time no update... but I have been working on it.

The hand is all healed up, so I'm able to really get back at it now. While my hand was recovering, I figured I'd find something I could do with a bum hand, so I did some wiring. Nothing too crazy, but I'm building a relay panel for the headlights and the electric fans I'll be running. At the same time, I'm moving the battery to the trunk. The location I'm putting the relay panel means I'm moving all wiring to the passenger side of the engine bay, and that and the relocated battery leaves the drivers side clear for a custom cold air intake (I'll be building that once the engine is in).

Not done with the relay panel yet, but I'm done with all the planning and just about ready to knock out the last couple steps. Here's a few pics so far:

First up, here's where the panel is going, in the recess in the center of the picture. Due to the very exposed location the panel will be enclosed.


Here's my mock up panel, making sure everything would fit in the space available:


Next, the box I made for a cover:


A few notes- I'm using an old cutting board as the base. I also realized I need to remove one of the flanges on the bottom side of the box- I can't slide the base in. That was dumb. I also wanted this to be removable- seems like a lot of the ones I saw while researching this were hardwired to the car. That may be fine if it's under the dash, but I wanted to be able to pull this easily enough if needed. So I'll be using flanged Deutsch connectors for the small wires, a couple bulkhead fittings for the positive and negative. Those connectors will also be separated (one for lights, another for fans, and a third for all incoming switched power), so I should be able to easily d/c any of those individual groups for troubleshooting or removal.

This has been taking a lot of time, and I'm ready to move on to the more fun stuff, but I'm also happy that my wiring situation should be pretty well squared away.

 

[bigred88]

Small update, just one picture. Got all the holes drilled, connectors in place. A little finish welding on the corners and some black paint and this will be done. Need to do all the actual wiring on the base piece, too..