Vlad's rides thread

[Charlescrown]

I know the design your talking about. I have a need for a large one around 12mm in dia but figure I'll just turn one up and braze or weld it on. Not necessary and out if sight to go to the trouble of replicating it. The seal issue might be overcome with some sort of sealant used during installation. I was stunned when I first saw how easy it was to push cam seals into a Toyota. Very little effort needed and I thought I had the wrong seals but they were genuine parts.

[vlad01]

The seal literally falls in, like under it's own gravity. That is clearly going to piss fluid out, not to mention the seal falling out in operation.

Several pages back from 2 years ago, the one in the shitbox when I was rebuilding the T5, I use an aftermarket seal. It was firm to install but could be by your thumbs with good pressure. It leaked around the outside and killed the clutch within a day or two, but the clutch was already DOA so it didn't matter than much. A genuine seal that needs a socket to install even with oil on it is what's needed to keep the fluid in. That genuine seal is the one that falls in on this billet retainer. So for these seals it is pretty critical for the housing/seal tolerances, they are picky from my experience. The seal is very small, so the % error is much greater per given absolute unit of measure.

My machinist will sort it though as I will have him measure a genuine retainer and sleeve it to the exact size. I'll also get him to sort the missing undercuts on the outer flange and bearing/shim seat as well as the oil pumping/drain channels. Once that is done, the only thing left it to get the right combo of shims that packs the bearing out as the place that made these made the bearing seal about 0.3-0.4mm deeper than OEM, so the bearing end float is massive with the same shims the box had reused. I know each retainer is slightly different, but only a few 100s of a mm, not a few 10s.

Stuff like this annoys me. I mean, the effort to get 95% of a part made spot on with high quality, for that 5% to have it all undone from sheer lapse of attention to detail or whatever other reason like that just isn't something I think I'll ever understand.

The other thing is, as a business, wouldn't you want to avoid warranty and part returns when they become flawed in a way that makes it unfit for purpose?

And since we are talking about a CNC machine that is making the part, it's all in the, measuring, programing and making sure the machine and tools are calibrated. I personally think it was a measurement mistake and oversight when checking the part the CNC machine spat out which lead to the error being missed.

I worked until more recently as a field service engineer for more than a decade on CNC flat bed cutters, that's all I pretty much I did and was the most senior tech for that line of machine in Aus until the end, not as fancy as a CNC that the auto industry uses, but all the same basic technologies none the less. 99.9% of the time when customers blame inaccuracies or errors in sizing or shape on the machine, it's was their files or a setting that was wrong.

Garbage in = garbage out.

Small deviations outside of user error were usually due to the material behavior or blunt tools, which is basically a form of user error once again.

Given that most of the specs on the retainer were spot on, and those few deal breakers were way out, I'd say human error for sure.

[Charlescrown]

Thats unfortunate so I guess they are now binned and start again. I hope he didn't make too many. CNC is great if as you said measured and the tooling set up correctly but things can and do go wrong where one off manufacturing is usually a bit more successful. I have seen where a CNC machines left unattended only to find a total disaster after a drill broke and the program didn't have a follow up check in the process. There was over 200 engines involved so they all got donated to TAFE colleges around Aust.

[vlad01]

They said they would sleeve them and asked me to send mine back to do that, only 5 were made to test the market including mine and they weren't willing to remake them due to the time involved.

But in the end I decided I'll use my regular machinist and get him to do it instead as I have other jobs on my list for him anyway and he pays attention to what I asked to be done. Also he will add the missing oil channel and finish off the exit of the one that the other mob did mill in. They weren't willing to do those channels as the OEM did and said what they did was adequate, but I am sure they serve an important purpose as all the OEM and other aftermarket replacements, even the cast steel ones have the same design and specific shape.

It should be pretty straight forward to correct the issues by the machinist and make it completely usable and an actual upgrade over the OEM ones

I've also having the bellhousing brace machined on the driver side, the whole side off some 10mm or so for exhaust clearance. Not something I can do neatly with the tools I have, but will be light work for a mill. Small angled chamfer on the front bottom of the brace to aid the PS rack installation as the rear integrated hard line hits on the way in when fitting the rack, it just squeezes in, but a few mm off on the bottom edge on an angle will make it way easier to install.

The possibility of a tool for the hard line barb forming is another thing I need done if he can do that one. I need some hard line from my mechanic first and some drawings to explain what I need.

Last thing, but it can be a latter job is some nice 10mm pins with the right shank/thread length and a neat low profile head with two flats for a spanner. This is for the safety pins in the engine mounts. I want to remove the factory ones, and replace them with these removable pins so I can slip in a poly bush that is a few mm thicker than the pins to limit and also cushion the engine mount travel. The bushes are something that would need machining too, I am not sure if he had machined poly on a lathe before, but it should be dooable. Some superpro 80A 25mm universal poly rod,10mm hole through it, machine the outside down to 18mm.


This is an idea I had for a while to limit and cushion the engine mount limit safety pin to less compression and extension under extreme loads in both directions but still have a good air gap under more normal driving loads so the NVH remains the same.

I also hope the full compression loading with such bushings stops that bad rattle/rumble and clunk when the limiting pin limits by smacking straight into the K frame engine mounting points. That is the horrid noise you get when you turn corners fast or gear down hard/dump clutch.

I always thought it was the exhaust touching the chassis somewhere for more than a decade and a half, but only in the last few months worked out it was just the engine mount pins maxing the limits against the K frame. So a bushing on that pin, even a couple of mm thick should at least stop the loud chatter and clunk sounds, but more importantly for me, limit the travel some to gain even more effective clearance for the exhaust. Basically making it impossible for any future exhaust clearance issues in combo of the direct exhaust clearancing I've done so far.

Kinda like using solid engine mounts without the NVH drawbacks.

[OZ38]

T5 retainers are ready!

Just note that I have not made my way there to pick one up put aside for me, so I have not been able to double check fitment into the gearbox with shims, bearings and seals yet. So hopefully there are no oversights but there always could be.

I'll update that once I have my unit in hand and do a mockup and check over it.

https://crdengineering.com.au/product/h ... -retainer/

Hi Vlad,
Been a while since being able to get back to your rides thread.
Are the V6 T5 retainers ready to purchase ?
I see the issues you mentioned with seal bore sizing & depth of bearing bore.
Have they been rectified do you know ?
Do we purchase through yourself or straight off the web site link above ?

Cheers

Deek

[OZ38]

They said they would sleeve them and asked me to send mine back to do that, only 5 were made to test the market including mine and they weren't willing to remake them due to the time involved.

But in the end I decided I'll use my regular machinist and get him to do it instead as I have other jobs on my list for him anyway and he pays attention to what I asked to be done. Also he will add the missing oil channel and finish off the exit of the one that the other mob did mill in. They weren't willing to do those channels as the OEM did and said what they did was adequate, but I am sure they serve an important purpose as all the OEM and other aftermarket replacements, even the cast steel ones have the same design and specific shape.

It should be pretty straight forward to correct the issues by the machinist and make it completely usable and an actual upgrade over the OEM ones

Hi again,
just read this after posting from the other earlier post you put up.
Am I right in assuming the other 4 examples they made will not be modified to better locate the seal ?
Could I possibly buy through you & have your machinist modify another to the standards you have mentioned above ?
Happy to pay the costs involved.

Cheers
Deek

[psyolent]

vlad, you do know engine masters tested the dents in header pipes and it made zero effect on power output bud?

i needed a TLDR of p344, so put it into chatgpt.
chat reckons 'he is doing God’s work for VP preservation society — just with a strong whiff of “if I don't do it myself, I can't trust it” madness.'

[Holden202T]

[vlad01]

vlad, you do know engine masters tested the dents in header pipes and it made zero effect on power output bud?

i needed a TLDR of p344, so put it into chatgpt.
chat reckons 'he is doing God’s work for VP preservation society — just with a strong whiff of “if I don't do it myself, I can't trust it” madness.'

That is gold Tanner! But it's pretty accurate.

Yeah I know about the header denting. That's why I am squashing them, the clearance is far more important than imaginary Hp loss.

The reason I think that dents make little to no difference is that headers work by wavelength of sound and also primary tube volume to a lesser degree.

Dents don't change the length or even meaningfully change the termination point in the tube, and lastly the volume reduction from dents is minuscule compared to the rest of the volume, often as you squash or dent the tube, it deforms outward either side of the dent, this offsets some if not a large portion of the volume loss of the dent itself.

Obviously once a dent makes up most of the area of that part of the tube, eg, nearly crushed flat, then you'll get into losses that are significant, but that is a bit extreme and no one would be that stupid to crush a pipe flat and pinch it off.

[vlad01]

They said they would sleeve them and asked me to send mine back to do that, only 5 were made to test the market including mine and they weren't willing to remake them due to the time involved.

But in the end I decided I'll use my regular machinist and get him to do it instead as I have other jobs on my list for him anyway and he pays attention to what I asked to be done. Also he will add the missing oil channel and finish off the exit of the one that the other mob did mill in. They weren't willing to do those channels as the OEM did and said what they did was adequate, but I am sure they serve an important purpose as all the OEM and other aftermarket replacements, even the cast steel ones have the same design and specific shape.

It should be pretty straight forward to correct the issues by the machinist and make it completely usable and an actual upgrade over the OEM ones

Hi again,
just read this after posting from the other earlier post you put up.
Am I right in assuming the other 4 examples they made will not be modified to better locate the seal ?
Could I possibly buy through you & have your machinist modify another to the standards you have mentioned above ?
Happy to pay the costs involved.

Cheers
Deek

I can only assume they haven't sorted the seal issue. But if you want to buy one and check it out yourself, if it's no good, I am happy to get yours fixed with mine.

However, I have been super busy moving into the new house with my partner and I have had zero time to even do any car stuff. So it will be weeks at least.

The only update I have is I stripped the VR out and took the box out of it, but found it was in a sad condition for the stuff I needed, input and retainer, albeit next to no wear is defective from factory. The tube is partly crushed in a few spots and the bearing for the clutch jumps over the steps that came from these defects. Input shaft was bad, pitting on the seal surface from rust, fissures in the teeth, some is acceptable according to Tremec, but these were deep and pretty large. I probably posted about this, but my memory is shot now after the medical ordeal the last few years which is still ongoing.

Managed to get a good input from a guy in Sydney, but I think it was the guy that likes to bead blast all his parts, and before I said can you not blast anything when he went to check if any of his units were good, he did and now I need to get the thrust face inside the pocket reground, he said it's fine and the usual spiel of "I've done this for 30 years" But I have found a place in Melbourne that did precision grinding and metal surfacing for CNC spindles mainly, and they said no probs to correct the surface finish for the pocket. I don't trust running the needle thrust on a frosted rough surface. The bearing certainly sounds noisy when spun compared to another shaft I have. Other than that, the input shaft is pretty mint, as mint as they get for the age at least. Some few tiny fissures but well within acceptable from the Tremec service manual.