83 Mondial QV - EV conversion project using Tesla LDU

Thanks. I hit the front fender wells with a brush, degreaser, and pressure washer and came to the same conclusion; there was some kind of underbody coating covered with decades worth of dust/grime. I cleaned it up and will apint it with underbody coating/bedliner just as you have done with your car.

 

http://www.birdman308.com/service/bushings/bushings.htm

- Right now, I have all of the bushings removed from the F&R control arms.

- However, my order from ferraripartsexchange.com arrived AND while I expected to receive some poly bushings with removable sleeves, what I got were some rubber bushings that were already bonded to the sleeves. yeah, I don't really want to grind off and tack weld the new sleeves so I'll give them a ring tomorrow.

I also need to place an order with them from the tie rod endlinks and the upper and lower ball joints as well (all need replacing) and I still need the swaybar bushings and steering boots they sent me so I'm hoping we can work something out.

 

If you find yourself in need of a QV engine, I have one which I will be posting for sale soon. That will keep at least one more Mondial or 308 on the road for the purists out there.

You're welcome.
-g

 

Today was pretty interesting:
- I learned that you can separate the ebrake from the rear spindles. The end of the ebrake cable is a rectangular O shape. At least on the rear left hand side, I learned that you can push the table forward and get the O-shape off of a hook. Unfortunately, I learned this after I started disassembling the rear right hand side spindle. I got the brake disc retaining bolts out (one will need to be replaced) but had trouble separating the disc from the spindle so I decided to take a look at the other side.

- Once I had the ebrake cable off, I could then start cleaning the subframe. I had no idea that on my car at least, the subframe was painted the body color (my initial thought was that the red I saw was maybe a little overspray. However, after an hour or so of scrubbing with a wire brush, soaking in simple green, scrubbing with a brush again, and pressure washing, the subframe isn't clean enough that I want to hit it with metal etch and POR15. I checked with a friend and found a cheap powdercoating shop who should be able to sand blast this subframe along with my control arms for pretty cheap.

- My quart of roll on bedliner paint came in so I also started painting the front fenderwells. They are coming along pretty nicely.

- Finally, after working things out with ferraripartsexchange (good guys... i hope), I got some poly bushings from Nicks Forza on the way to me. These are a TON easier to install (allegedly).

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Huh.A friend is also telling me this cars nose is from a 3.2 and the rest of the car is a QV. I don't care. Im not going to win points for keeping this car authentic anyway.

 

After deciding that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life scraping away the crud on the subframe, i took it to a powder coating shop to sandblast/bake the crud off the steel subframe and the 8 control arms. This will cost me $400 (Bay Area California labor) but the afternoon I spent brushing, scraping the frame, hitting it with degreasers and repeated powerwashes yielded mixed results.

Today I also removed the gastanks. If I had an extra inch of room in any direction, this would have probably taken only 10 min. As it stood, it took me a bit over an hour of effort and a few curses.

My Basic Procedure to Remove the Gastanks
- Drain the gastanks by using the fuel pump to pump itself out (monitor the pump so it doesn't get too hot - really didn't take much time anyway).
- Disconnect hoses and remove plug from the RH tank to drain as much as possible
- Undo the 4 straps by loosening the top nut
- Since the gas tank is underneath the lifting plates of the mid-rise scissor lift I owned, I placed 4 jacks on the frame at their highest positions and then lowered the scissor lift to the floor. That gave me enough room to lower the tanks AFTER working past some issues

Observations/Issues/Hangups Observed
What I originally took to be a dent from the previous owner turned out to be a "design feature" necessary to get around some of these clearance issues.
- For example, the rearwards face of the LH tank has a concave face. It looks like that concavity is JUST enough clearance to allow the tank to be lowered past the round ring protrusion in the frame crossmember that the shifter linkage rod passes through. On one side, you could argue that the engineer maximized the gastank size. Perhaps more realistically, someone designed the tank, found that it wouldn't fit easily, and then had to adjust their design to account for the install/removal.
- I removed the RH tank first. First hangup was the bracket that holds the fuel pump That bracket was held in place by one nut at the top and two bolts on the bottom.
- Next, the RH tank was held up by the two hoses going down the central channel from the radiator at the front of the car. I suspect you might be able to pull the hoses forward from the front of the car but I suspect their resale value was minimal so I didn't mind shorting them enough to allow the tank to drop past them. I will likely only use this channel as a conduit (cooling requirements for the EV are much less than this engine). The cables going to the engine subframe and ignition control modules were in the way but those could just be nudged around.
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- The LH tank wouldn't drop without more of a fight. The first issue was the ebrake cable. Luckily I found that you could push the cable and it would disconnect from the loop that is welded to the frame (once you work the crud free).
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- Second hang-up was the long female-female coupler on the shifter rod. I had to "loosen the lock bolt" so in order to gain access, I pushed the shifter into one of the forward gears (2 or 4). That pushed the rod rearward and gave me enough access to get wrenches around both nuts. I was then able to work them free (think about which direction you want the nuts to go and squeeze/push the wrenches accordingly. With the female-female coupler removed from the shifting rod, the tank was more willing to drop free.
- As the tank drops, you have to work it around the central protrusion on the frame crossbar that the shifter rod passes through. You must take advantage of the concave face on the LH tank but it IS possible to get it out.
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- Even though I drained most of the gas from the tanks, there was still some in the tank that splooshed out when I started dropping the tank. Be proactive and place a tray underneath the disconnected nipples. Otherwise, you could find yourself covered in gas... which is no fun.
- Finally, I did notice a few design features. Since there is a 'seat shape' to the gas tank, the engineers DID put a hole to allow any water that works its way into the depression on top of the tank to drain out vs pool and rust the tank from the outside. That was a neat feature someone thought of.

Anyway, once the remainder of the gasoline evaporates from these tanks I'll take pics and list them for sale.

 

Yup. I reached out to them when the car arrived.

 

Well I haven't posted in over a week as my parents came into town and they haven't seen their grandson in 1.5yrs so family time was in order. Also, I had to play adult and deal with a burst water heater at the same time. Nevertheless, I did manage to make progress though.

1) First, I separated the subframe from the engine and bolted the engine to a pallet for sale. This was a little tricky in that I had to lift the engine, find the spot where the engine mounts landed on a 2x4 I screwed into the pallet, and drill an appropriate sized hole. I then had to source longer bolts for mounting.
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2) The subframe is now back from the powdercoat shop. I had them sandblast this plus all 8 control arms. Yesterday I found out that in addition to transporting a Ford windsor short block, a Prius can also carry a Mondial subframe. Who needs an SUV?
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The subframe and control arms got a dusting of rattlecan primer to prevent rusting and will get powder coated after I have tested the fitment of the LDU brackets.

- I noticed one of my control arms was tweaked when pressing out the old bushings. I had pressed too much without sufficient press support using the long bolt. With the new poly bushings in place, I was able to determine which of the arms had been tweaked and fixed it with my vise.
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- I also accidentally cracked a weld on one of the bushing sleeves so I have a new one arriving soon to weld shortly.

3) Printing of the LDU mockup is going smoothly from my friend who has a bunch of these things for side business. He found the right material (PETG vs PLA vs TPU) and fill-in but says that he's not sure it makes 100% sense as a second business given that it seems to tie up 5 machines for 2 days. If his printers were just slightly larger, he could do it in 5 chunks at 1 day/ea. That same amount of time (10 print/days) could make a lot more revenue building other products. My buddy is definitely doing me a solid favor here.


4) Subframe is now bolted back in place
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4) I also decided to go a little bling and powdercoat all of the suspension parts. The eight control arms, the sway bars, and the U shaped brackets that hold the LCAs to the frames will all get coated.
- I found that it was incredibly hard to clean the frame with the body still attached (specifically the frame crossmember between the engine subframe and the gas tanks). Even with wire brushes, degreasers, solvents, and the pressure washer I could get the grime off but not 100% of the layers of paint. The result of using POR15 is something thats serviceable in that the metal is now protected, not noticeable once its underneath the car, but its not going to win any Concours d'EV.

- My initial thought was to have the swaybar drop links and bushing brackets powdercoated as well but since the links and the front brackets were aluminum vs steel, I decided that would be safer for me just to coat them myself with POR15.

5) I also removed the damaged spare tire well fiberglass by cutting it off and am frying to remove the forward section (that seperates the radiator from the spare tire area in case someone wants to buy it from me by drilling out the rivets).
- This second task is a WIP because Ferrari never intended for this part to be easily replaced. I have already removed the LH headlight, the fuse box, one of the metal tabs that holds the fuse box in place, the cover of the A/C condenser, the RH fiberglass piece that covers the top of the battery, and every rivet and goo attachment point on the LH side but still, the piece doesn't want to come out.
Q: Any suggestions?
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- BTW, the front radiator is also not wanting to come out. I removed the two bolts at the top and disconnected the hoses a while ago but it doesn't want to budge. Any tips?


6) Finally, I also finished repairing the front steering rack boots. This was a pretty quick job especially since I had super easy access to the inner steering rod boot clamp from the top once the spare tire well was removed.
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Longer term, all of this mucking about in the front of the car has gotten me to think a little more about the A/C system and the brake booster.
AC System
For the stock A/C, I assume this is an old R12 system; I know these can be converted to r134a with some fittings and replacement of some components. However, given that I will need to wire in an aftermarket 12V electric driven AC compressor anyway, I suspect I'll need to replace the other components as well.
Also, logically speaking, I will likely keep a 12V battery up front so wouldn't it make sense to relocate the A/C compressor to live at the front of the vehicle anyway?

Therefore, is there any reason to keep the long hoses that run from the stock engine-mounted compressor that run all the way to the front of the car along the passenger side or even any of A/C components installed?

Brake Booster
A similar thought came to mind when looking at the brake booster. I will likely install a 12V vacuum pump and keep the stock brake booster in place (if I can confirm that leaving the clutch reservoir empty/plugged won't cause me drama. I can't think of any other vacuum driven devices to be installed in the rear of the car so why do I need to keep the stock vacuum hose that runs from the rear of the car all the way to the front?