ZMotorsports Shop Projects 2.0

[zmotorsports]

Need a shot with the lights out except the cabinet lights for kicks & giggles.


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I guess I’ll have to get a shot of that.

 

[Boosted1]

Do you do a lot of transmission repair / rebuild?

 

[zmotorsports]

Do you do a lot of transmission repair / rebuild?

Not as much as I used to.

Back when I was racing I was building a lot of friend's and competitor's transmissions. I have built quite a few TH350's, TH400's, Powerglides, some Torqueflites and a few C-4's and C-6's. Not many of the Fords though.

Then it seemed like I was building just as many of the TH425's and TH400's for motorhomes and tow vehicles which then seemed to lead into a ****-ton of the 47RH's, 47RE's behind the Dodge Cummins pickups that guys were using to tow their cars to the track.

In the GM's and the couple of C-6's I ended up installing wide ratio gearsets after doing mine, friends were seeing how well they worked out and having me rebuilt theirs with the wide ratio sets. I also became a dealer for the Gear Vendor's units after installing my first one on our first motorhome back in the early 90's. I ended up selling and installing quite a few of the Gear Vendors overdrive units on people's motorhomes and tow rigs.

I have also built about 10-12 of the 700R4/4L60E's for people in street rods and sport trucks, again after doing mine with a bunch of little tricks. I was actually getting quite familiar with those and could make them very reliable and shift fantastic but shifted gears into the sand drag scene in the late 90's so wasn't doing as much with the 1/4 mile stuff.

I then ended up doing a lot of VW engine and transaxle work and even dabbled in a few of the Medeola's for a bit.

 

[Boosted1]

Wow that is a lot of trans experience. Now I understand why you were willing to spend the $695 for the ez driver set.

 

[zmotorsports]

Wow that is a lot of trans experience. Now I understand why you were willing to spend the $695 for the ez driver set.

It will actually come in handy on more than just transmissions. I also work on a lot of motorcycles where it will be beneficial and items where it will be nice just for pressing bearings.

It is a lot of money but it will be a time saver compared to having to go to the lathe and machine an adapter each time.

Thanks again for checking in and commenting.

 

[Finallygotit]

.......It is a lot of money but it will be a time saver compared to having to go to the lathe and machine an adapter each time........

Ah man, where's the fun in that. Crankin' handles and making chips is fun!

 

[heffneil]

Cabinets look great! I saw a set of 4 for super cheap (don't know which line they were. New Age has too many product lines to follow). I think it was Sams Club or Costco but then it disappeared and they were cheap . I regret not ordering.

Since the hurricane here I am trying to avoid on the wall storage so I can roll my stuff up on the moving truck and scadoodle.

 

[zmotorsports]

Ah man, where's the fun in that. Crankin' handles and making chips is fun!

Agreed Dan, making chips is definitely fun. However, when I'm in the middle of a job and merely need to press a bearing or two, I hate taking the time to build task specific tooling. Some people enjoy that but I would rather get the job done and in many cases machining the tools to do the job can take longer than the actual job.

I get you point though and enjoy machining in general.

 

[zmotorsports]

Cabinets look great! I saw a set of 4 for super cheap (don't know which line they were. New Age has too many product lines to follow). I think it was Sams Club or Costco but then it disappeared and they were cheap . I regret not ordering.

Since the hurricane here I am trying to avoid on the wall storage so I can roll my stuff up on the moving truck and scadoodle.

Thanks. I can't imagine having to be in the mindset of packing and leaving with short notice. That would drive me to move to a different location.

We have some close friends that we RV with that are from Oklahoma and lived in Texas a fair amount as well. We were sitting around visiting with them in Texas three years ago at an RV/Jeep rally and they were talking about "the first tornado" that hit their house and ripped the back porch off. I immediately interjected "THE FIRST????" "How many have you had experience with?" They informed us that their home had been heavily damaged by two separate tornados and "brushed" by a third. I don't know what the hell "brushed" means but personally I would have moved after ANY encounter with a tornado.

**Funny story about the same trip to Texas three years ago.

We were staying in Palo Duro Canyon just outside of Amarillo with about 18 other couples from this group we travel with. The clouds were going this really ugly shade that was neither black nor deep purple but eerie none the less. One of our friends in this group is quite the electronics gadget guy and has a full weather station that he sets up on the back of his 40' coach when staying for any length of time anywhere. Myself, my wife and about 4 other friends (two couples from Texas) were standing outside visiting and having a cup of coffee. One of the guys phone goes off as he has a weather alert app on his phone about the same time as our friend with the weather station sticks his head out the window of his coach and states "hey did you get the notice that there's a funnel cloud that just touched down?" I immediately got nervous and started asking questions. Hell, I'm from the mountainous state of Utah and know nothing of this tornado ****. The one guys says "oh we're fine, the alert states it was 34-miles away." Again, I know nothing so I am freaking out and state "34-miles away? That's NOT very far!!! Hell I can see 34-miles away and there's a tornado touching down????" Keep in mind, we are a group of about 18-20 RV's in the bottom of this canyon with a tornado only 34 miles away. My wife pipes up and says "haven't any of you seen the movies?? The tornado always hits the mobile home parks first and destroys them!! We are just a large mobile home park here." They all laughed but it still didn't get me any answers that I needed. I could see that they were NOT getting that my wife and I were quite nervous so I bluntly asked "where the HELL do we go if there's a tornado coming?" Our beloved Texan friend shrugs his shoulders and states in his thick Texas drawl "ah hell, we're too far away, we're fine" and goes about drinking his coffee. NEVER ANSWERING MY QUESTION!!!

Our other friend, the Oklahoma/Texan, proceeds to tell me that the restrooms are all concrete, if the tornado gets that far head for the concrete restrooms. Like that's comforting?? "Then **** will really hit the fan" I say. While they go about drinking their coffee and BSing without a care in the world. The situation was stressful to say the least and they all had a good laugh at how nervous we were.

That night we had the absolute worst thunder, lightening and rain storm we have ever been in while in our coach. It was the kind of storm that the lightening never stopped, one lightening strike merely rolled right into the next lighting up the sky constantly and the thunder just rumbled one into the next. This went on for several hours with my wife and I WIDE awake, fully clothed and glued to the windows looking for that funnel cloud to appear so we could run to the concrete restrooms. It finally subsided around 4:00am and we closed our eyes to get some sleep. By 6:00 am we were up and heading to the meeting area for the day's events. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was a beautiful sunny morning. I walked over to our Texan friend who was again, sipping on his morning coffee and I asked if those kinds of thunder storms were common in this part of the country. He looked at me in all sincerity and actually said "what? did it rain last night?" I replied "are you shitting me???? You slept through that???"

Yeah, that was a trip to remember for sure. We still get teased about it from most of the group. The following year they again wanted to do a Texas rally but further south in Terlingua/Big Bend NP. The emails and texts started going out in mass and everyone had some smart *** comment about whether or not they would EVER get my wife and I back to Texas again. They did inform us that by choosing the dates for the rally that they had chosen, we "should" avoid the weather issues. That really didn't make me feel better, but we went on our second trip to Texas and had a great time and no foul weather.

Sorry for the long ramble, but thought you would enjoy the funny story about our limited severe weather related travels.

Thanks for following along on my projects thread. I've sure enjoyed following along on your shop build.

 

[heffneil]

Yeah it’s not a short notice move I’m worried about. It’s the not getting deeply rooted. I can’t stay somewhere when things can be so up in the air


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[Bob Heine]

Mike, you probably should avoid Florida from June through December. That's hurricane season and that storm you went through in Texas is our usual afternoon/evening shower.

In late August 1971 we were camping on an island in New York's Lake George when the tail end of hurricane Doria came through. The winds were no longer above 70 mph but the rain was heavy enough that our dock was under water. Had one of those arguments with my wife -- she wanted the manual bilge pump for the inside of the tent and I wanted it to keep the boat from sinking (the canvas came loose in the wind and funneled rain into the bilge). It was our first boat (wooden) and it didn't have an electric bilge pump. When I reminded her the boat was the only way back to shore, she relented.

The following year we decided to go to Lake George early in the season when a hurricane was less likely. We arrived at our island campsite (in a newer fiberglass runabout) the last week of June 1972. The remnants of Hurricane Agnes dumped more than a foot of rain on us. Once again the dock was under water but our boat had an electric bilge pump. All of the sane people had headed to shore so we were able to get a really nice site to ride out the storm. One tiny problem brought our vacation to an end. All of the islands were flooded with enough water to flush the contents of the outhouses into the lake. Even though we boiled our water from the lake, our daughter came down with amoebic dysentery.

We tried boat camping one more time on the Long Island National Seashore park. At the first sign of a breeze and rain (OK, it was an unnamed tropical depression) we rolled the two tents into a ball and threw them in the boat with the rest of the camping gear. My wife and children took the last ferry across the Great South Bay while I made the crossing in the boat (the bay is shallow enough to walk most of the way across).

Our subsequent boat camping trips were made on the Cunard Princess, SS Norway and a dozen other similarly sized campgrounds.

 

[zmotorsports]

Mike, you probably should avoid Florida from June through December. That's hurricane season and that storm you went through in Texas is our usual afternoon/evening shower.

In late August 1971 we were camping on an island in New York's Lake George when the tail end of hurricane Doria came through. The winds were no longer above 70 mph but the rain was heavy enough that our dock was under water. Had one of those arguments with my wife -- she wanted the manual bilge pump for the inside of the tent and I wanted it to keep the boat from sinking (the canvas came loose in the wind and funneled rain into the bilge). It was our first boat (wooden) and it didn't have an electric bilge pump. When I reminded her the boat was the only way back to shore, she relented.

The following year we decided to go to Lake George early in the season when a hurricane was less likely. We arrived at our island campsite (in a newer fiberglass runabout) the last week of June 1972. The remnants of Hurricane Agnes dumped more than a foot of rain on us. Once again the dock was under water but our boat had an electric bilge pump. All of the sane people had headed to shore so we were able to get a really nice site to ride out the storm. One tiny problem brought our vacation to an end. All of the islands were flooded with enough water to flush the contents of the outhouses into the lake. Even though we boiled our water from the lake, our daughter came down with amoebic dysentery.

We tried boat camping one more time on the Long Island National Seashore park. At the first sign of a breeze and rain (OK, it was an unnamed tropical depression) we rolled the two tents into a ball and threw them in the boat with the rest of the camping gear. My wife and children took the last ferry across the Great South Bay while I made the crossing in the boat (the bay is shallow enough to walk most of the way across).

Our subsequent boat camping trips were made on the Cunard Princess, SS Norway and a dozen other similarly sized campgrounds.

That's funny Bob. Guess we all have stories like this of our mis-adventures and can laugh as we look back on them. Although they aren't funny at the time.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your story Bob.

 

[mbaulfinger]

Hi Mike, Great looking garage. How does the New Age Pro cabinetry stack up against the Gladiator and Husky cabinets that you can see at the various hardware stores? Better quality? Heavy duty? Is it a noticeable difference? I noticed you only went with the hanging cabinet and not the floor standing. I'm interested in getting a few floor lockers to go along with the hanging cabinets. Did you consider the Saber at all? Hopefully I'm not too far off topic with these questions...if so feel free to ignore them!

Thanks,
Mark

 

[Kiwi Canuck]

Thanks for the reply and the video review, there aren't very many.

The Grizzly G4003G would probably be enough machine for my needs, but I don't want a Chinese lathe and it's not available in 3 Phase. The PM-1340GT with an added VFD is on the top of my list, but it's hard to justify (expensive).

I'm sure you've checked out Precision Matthews site but in case you haven't they have a new 12X36 Taiwanese Lathe PM1236T that is a little less expensive than the PM1340GT.

http://www.precisionmatthews.com/shop/pm-1236-t/

I went with the 1340GT after watching Mikes Video review, no regrets either.

David.

 

[Kiwi Canuck]

Mike, I meant to ask how the HF 44" cabinets are working out and how's the quality/

Shop is looking really good, you make awesome progress compared to some of us.

David.

 

[Firstram]

I'm sure you've checked out Precision Matthews site but in case you haven't they have a new 12X36 Taiwanese Lathe PM1236T that is a little less expensive than the PM1340GT.

http://www.precisionmatthews.com/shop/pm-1236-t/

I went with the 1340GT after watching Mikes Video review, no regrets either.

David.

I have seen it but, for a few bucks more I'd rather have the extra 4" and 3 phase.

 

[zmotorsports]

Hi Mike, Great looking garage. How does the New Age Pro cabinetry stack up against the Gladiator and Husky cabinets that you can see at the various hardware stores? Better quality? Heavy duty? Is it a noticeable difference? I noticed you only went with the hanging cabinet and not the floor standing. I'm interested in getting a few floor lockers to go along with the hanging cabinets. Did you consider the Saber at all? Hopefully I'm not too far off topic with these questions...if so feel free to ignore them!

Thanks,
Mark

Mark, thank you for the comments and for stopping by my thread.

I briefly looked at the Husky cabinets at my local Home Depot a while back and although they seemed like they would have been fine for my application, I have had some bad feelings towards Home Depot lately after a few recent mishaps and I just couldn't bring myself to purchase from them again.

I continued to look around and after looking more closely at the New Age Pro 3.0 cabinets I realized they were made of thicker material (18-gauge steel), were 14" deep vs. most of the others available only being 12" in depth and lastly had the soft close feature, which really wasn't a big deal but is "cool". I also then realized that I could purchase them from a fellow garagejournal member and support him and they were comparably priced, so that was what made my mind up. So far I am very happy I went this route.

As far as the free standing lockers, I had purchased the ones from Global before I researched the New Age but the New Age were more than double the cost of the Global (I'm sure they are a bit higher quality) so I am still very happy with my Global floor mounted two-door cabinets. With just my son and I using them I am certain they will last a lifetime, or at least the rest of mine.

 

[zmotorsports]

Mike, I meant to ask how the HF 44" cabinets are working out and how's the quality/

Shop is looking really good, you make awesome progress compared to some of us.

David.

David, first off let me preface by saying I am not a fan of most things Harbor Freight and usually avoid them like the plague. That being said, I only went and looked at these due to several fellow forum members whom I follow and seem to trust their judgment and their reviews of these boxes. I can honestly say they are much better quality than I thought they would be which is why I initially purchased them. Now after having them in the benches and using them for several months I can see how they will hold up quite well in this application and I am pleased with them so far.

Thank you very much for following along and I hope that answers your question. Please feel free to ask if you have any more questions of want more specifics.

 

[jbmatth]

Mike,
I don't know how I missed your projects thread 2.0, but here I am and have now finely caught up. As per your usual I've really enjoyed reading what you've done and can see you haven't been taking too much time off to smell the roses.
JB

 

[zmotorsports]

Mike,
I don't know how I missed your projects thread 2.0, but here I am and have now finely caught up. As per your usual I've really enjoyed reading what you've done and can see you haven't been taking too much time off to smell the roses.
JB

Thanks JB. Glad to have you aboard for the ride.

Thanks for taking the time to catch up and for following along.

 

[Kiwi Canuck]

David, first off let me preface by saying I am not a fan of most things Harbor Freight and usually avoid them like the plague. That being said, I only went and looked at these due to several fellow forum members whom I follow and seem to trust their judgment and their reviews of these boxes. I can honestly say they are much better quality than I thought they would be which is why I initially purchased them. Now after having them in the benches and using them for several months I can see how they will hold up quite well in this application and I am pleased with them so far.

Thank you very much for following along and I hope that answers your question. Please feel free to ask if you have any more questions of want more specifics.

Thanks Mike, I appreciate the candid response.
I currently have a couple of mismatched boxes, one Canadian made from Home Depot which is pretty average and one from Costco, Homak IIRC, which is OK but not big enough.

So time to get a new setup and I am leaning toward the HF 44" units and building them into a bench like you have done.

David.

 

[zmotorsports]

Thanks Mike, I appreciate the candid response.
I currently have a couple of mismatched boxes, one Canadian made from Home Depot which is pretty average and one from Costco, Homak IIRC, which is OK but not big enough.

So time to get a new setup and I am leaning toward the HF 44" units and building them into a bench like you have done.

David.

I don't think you will be disappointed David. I haven't had mine for as long as some on here and many have said theirs are holding up very well.

I hope they continue to last because they are not coming out of the benches without a lot of effort and I don't want to go down that road.

 

[Finallygotit]

You know, you can never have too many clamps. But now I need to run to the store because I seem to be falling behind in my collection.

 

[zmotorsports]

You know, you can never have too many clamps. But now I need to run to the store because I seem to be falling behind in my collection.

Yeah, that is quite a few. I picked up most of the actual C-clamps at an estate sale about 15 or so years ago but the Vise Grip style I bought one at a time as needed.

I think I'm covered on clamps for a while though.

 

[GRN96WS6]

Haha that clamp pic reminds me of Jimbo's Garage recent YouTube upload.

 

[zmotorsports]

Haha that clamp pic reminds me of Jimbo's Garage recent YouTube upload.

I haven’t seen that one. Now you’ve spiked my curiosity.

 

[zmotorsports]

Picked up the last of our interior components for the coach from the upholstery shop today and finished getting everything installed tonight.











Thanks for looking.

 

[Nlped]

Interior looks phenomenal!!!


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[GRN96WS6]

Do you have before shots? Was the prior leather or covering worn out?

 

[Ohmthis]

Very nice!!!

 

[zmotorsports]

Interior looks phenomenal!!!


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Thank you. I’m very pleased with the results.

Thanks for following along.

 

[zmotorsports]

Do you have before shots? Was the prior leather or covering worn out?

I’ll have to look and see if I have before pictures.

The leather was getting quite distressed looking and I really didn’t care for the pleated design. I much prefer the smooth look and the Ultra Leather material is so much nicer than the original leather.

Thanks for commenting.

 

[Boosted1]

Looks like you have a very good upholsterer.

 

[Scuderia-F1]

Interior came out great Mike!

 

[zmotorsports]

Looks like you have a very good upholsterer.

Thanks. Yes, he’s awesome. I’ve been using the same upholsterer for over twenty years now and we have a good working relationship and he treats me pretty well.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[zmotorsports]

Interior came out great Mike!

Thanks Anders. I’m very pleased with how it turned out.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

[zmotorsports]

Nothing major this weekend, I finally got around to fixing the leak on my steering gearbox on my 2006 Duramax.



Pulled the left front tire/wheel and inner fender.


Access is easier if you pull the intercooler piping but to save time I opted to pull the gearbox without removing the piping. Here is where you can access the pressure and return lines.


The return line is fairly close to the frame rail and a wrench was on too much of an angle so I used a crow’s foot to get straight onto the fitting.


I have some Cognito steering components on my truck that I installed back in 2009 when I first purchased the truck. These need to be removed prior to removing the gearbox. Here I’m removing the nut off the sector shaft/pitman arm.


Space is limited to remove the drag link from the pitman arm so I used my OTC puller.


Once the gearbox is out and on the bench I used my OTC pitman arm puller to remove the pitman arm from the sector shaft.




I cleaned the oil residue from the inside of the frame rail so I could touch up the paint on the frame rail.


Pitman arm cleaned up, painted, installed on the remanned gearbox and ready for reinstallation.


After purging the air from the system, adjusting my steering wheel on center and a test drive determined another job complete and checked off the white board.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Bempa]

I´m impressed over how clean and well organized your shop is

 

[TimeWarpF100]

You know, you can never have too many clamps. But now I need to run to the store because I seem to be falling behind in my collection.

You need clamps to hold the clamps in place . .

 

[TimeWarpF100]

I was able to get all of my New Age Pro 3.0 overhead cabinets hung tonight.

Two cabinets hung over the 6’ bench.




Four of them hung over the 12’ bench.






Started putting some of my service manuals away in one of them.


I hope to be able to start mounting my LED lights under them tomorrow night. These Pro 3.0 cabinets also come with a light deflector or shield that I will install as well.

I could hide my entire garage and contents in just your storage cabinets