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Coalnotdole's Scimitar - Machining work: Speedometer Drive Unit 12/4/19


coalnotdole

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Guest Hooli

I bought the fuel warning light control module as the standard Lucas one tended to turn itself on randomly below half a tank. and would be on constantly below 1/3rd of a tank.

 

 

 

So about 40mile range on the original carbed V6?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Wiring and Electrics - Part 4

 

This post continues directly from the last one about the electrics overhaul. You may remember the main loom was unfinished and awaiting a final decisions on which fuse box I was going to use and where in the engine bay I was going to put some junction boxes...

 

I bought two junction boxes when I moved the battery location, but was waiting till the loom was ready before finalising where I was going to install them. The new boxes will become the main meeting points for all the major electrical terminals. The positive box has the connection points between alternator / battery / amplifier / ECU and wiring loom's feeds. The negative will connect battery to engine & chassis earth points and connect to the amplifier and ECU.

 

A number of location ideas were explored...

 

Under the wiper motor:

 

989.jpg

 

Next to the main loom:

 

990.jpg

 

On a bracket next to the loom:

 

991.jpg

 

A complex double stacked arrangement:

 

992.jpg

 

I've probably got 10 more alternate locations that were considered and rejected for some reason or another.

 

I decided in the end that there may be room at the forward end of the battery shelf. Close to the headlights. I had Just* enough length in the cables to reach this far...

 

993.jpg

 

A fibreglass bracket was made:

 

995.jpg

 

Looks promising.

 

996.jpg

 

In the absence of any better ideas it was decided this was probably the best available option.

 

The loom was then able to be trial fitted to the car in order to find the lengths of cables. (We were changing the branching point for the power feeds in the main loom and finalising the length of the alternator wiring.)

 

999.jpg

 

I had also finally got a solution for the fuse box... managing to find a new old stock one!

 

 

 

997.jpg

 

And a few new old stock brass terminals (and a selection of good used ones not pictured)

 

1002.jpg

 

Which meant I had a bare fuse box that could be populated with new terminals,

 

1001.jpg

 

Dave modified the fusebox with additional piggy-back wires soldered in to spread the load, rectifying the major weakness of the original design.

 

1003.jpg

 

The main loom was then complete and once the binding was finished it was ready to fit; not many photos of pulling it through. as it was an awkward process with Dave feeding the loom into the wing in the engine bay while I crammed myself in the passenger footwell to work each of the connectors through one by one...

 

All of this lot gets pulled through a 1" 3/4 hole!

 

1004.jpg

 

Sub-dash back in,

 

1004a.jpg

 

Making dash connections:

 

1005a.jpg

 

 

I then moved onto the rear wiring loom which runs under the car to connect to the tailight loom and all the way up the c-pillar to power the interior lights / heated rear window.

 

I've gone for modern AMP super-seal connectors for all the most weather exposed joints. As used on modern cars, These connectors require a set of econoseal / superseal crimping pliers to fit but they provide much better weatherproofing than the old lucas-rists connectors. modern car makers use this style connector in a range of vulnerable locations. On a modern car its common to see both econoseal and superseal style connectors but the plug shapes and sizes vary quite a bit. Presumably they make their own plugs under licence utilising standardised terminals inside.

 

Superseal connectors:

 

1005.jpg

 

1006.jpg

 

 

Rear loom:

 

1007.jpg

 

Loomtaping:

 

1008.jpg

 

The cleaning and evaluation process was completed by going through the tailight loom heres the finished article:

 

1009.jpg

 

 

I then fitted the rear loom and tail light looms to the car and was ready connect up the battery for testing...

 

Heres what happened when the power was connected:

 

 

Yes the new alternator shat itself with a major internal short... Back to the drawing board then.

 

Cheers for reading,

 

Joe

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Cheers, The alternator actually did that twice the video was shot on the second attempt.

 

Heres a few pics from the autopsy...

 

Both regulator and brush box have got signs of having got incredibly hot on several of the soldered joints and theres signs of arcing between the brush box and regulator and the internal casting of the alternator. I guess the internal casing must different for internatlly regulated units to prevent this.

 

1010.jpg

 

1011.jpg

 

 

In the end it melted £45 worth of parts and I'm drawing a line under that particular unit and not wasting any more time and money on it.

 

I've bought another unit thats similar in size and has internal regulation as standard ( for Toyota Yaris MK1.) The bracket will need modifying to suit though! Here a picture of both alternators and the bracket on the bench:

 

1012.jpg

 

Please excuse the mess of part completed projects on the bench! A quick count shows parts from at least 6 GTE related jobs all going on at once! (ignore the seatbelts they are not Scimitar related)

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  • 1 month later...

More on Electrics

After the alternator sparks incident I pushed on with the wiring and after a bit of time connecting stuff up I was finally in a position to start testing:

1012a.jpg

I've also renewed the towbar wiring connections. I've gone for 4.8mm piggyback terminals (https://www.componentshop.co.uk/3-16-4-75mm-female-piggy-back-disconnects-uninsulated-pair.html) to connect the tow-bar wiring to the back of the bulbs, these replace an assortment of scotch locks, without needing to hack about with the original loom to add a multi-plug.

I then went in the shed to find my period Lucas towing board to test it:

1014.jpg

Around the same-time I also managed to refit the dashboard. Before going off on a tangent...

1013a.jpg

Brake Fluid Level switch:

As original equipment the 5a has brake fluid level warning switch in the cap of the master cylinder. Probably a smart precaution on a car that only has a single line braking system. I had an original one fitted briefly to the car in 2011 and it was worn out to the point of being useless. Frequently lighting up the warning light during hard cornering, every time it came on It was a false positive...!

Eventually I took it off and fitted a plain cap without a switch. But with the new loom going in and a desire to get as much of the OEM equipment working as possible I thought I should have another try...

A look in one of my lockup garages found a crate full of brake spares: (festering inside a rebel)

1015.jpg

Some rummaging later and I found a couple of original master cylinder caps both well passed their prime:

1016.jpg

Heres a closer look:

1017.jpg

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Theres not much to the design really; its a cork on a steel rod which switches the contacts in the cap should the level get two low.

Replacement caps are AFAIK unavailable but the originals use a SOVY switch and are closely related to the design used on the Jaguar E type. Which are still available...

Best price seemed to be buying from sng barratt:

https://www.sngbarratt.com/uk/#!/English/parts/e0073b0a-167c-4f2c-a79a-73320daef4e4

Heres what arrived:

1020.jpg

Time to start taking it apart.... The difficult bit is drilling the domed rivets out of the top of the cap...

1021.jpg

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The aluminum shroud around the cork drilled off easily.

1022.jpg

with the cap in bits I could insert it into one of the used lids I've got... these have a hole with a lip which has been macined into a standard cap.

1024.jpg

Shame that the new and old plastics look a bit odd.

1025.jpg

The cork and shaft were shortened and the new switch was fitted into an old cap ( so that at least the plastics were the same colour...)

1026.jpg

Here it is on the car:

1027.jpg

It works! :

 



Still the faded yellow plastics were bugging me so. I managed to get Dave on the IOW to turn down a replacement cap... This was apparently an awkward thing to mount in a chuck and the plastic did not really machine that nicely.

Still the end result looked pretty good:

1028.jpg

1028a.jpg

I've since transferred all the parts over and heres the finished result which I'm pretty pleased with:

1029.jpg
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The seagulls seem to approve!

 

You've lost me there!

 

Exhaust midboxes - Finished

 

This post carries on from my last post on exhaust midboxes. Its a bit of a break from the wiring posts. The main electrical work is now complete. Though there is another installment on radio fitment that I might come back to in future, If i can actually admit in public that I've ditched the Motorola Radio-cassette in favor of a modern* radio. :oops:

 

The last post on the exhaust system was on page 11, so this post contiues on from there: http://autoshite.com/topic/25299-coal-not-doles-scimitar-autosparks-update-0410/?p=1514504

 

I'd ripped up my old blowing drivers side midbox and bought some replacement silencers... with a view to welding them on to my exisiting pipes.

 

I sturgggled to get the passenger side silencer off, in the end it took lots of heat and a large hammer to free it from the tubular manifold...!

 

1035.jpg

 

The pipes i wanted to reuse were cut out and cleaned up with a flap disk.

 

1036.jpg

 

They turned out to not be a particulaly good fit in the new silencer. Not great for welding.

 

1037.jpg

 

So I took them to a local tube fabricator to get them stretched. Care was taken to avoid the old welds which could have cracked. Last time I came in they were making stainless handlebars for Raleigh choppers 8) I've had a few odd jobs done by this company in the past and they always do good work and dont mind doing small one off or custom jobs.

 

Heres a few pictures of the pipe being stretched:

 

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Test fitting:

 

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And a photo of their pipe bender just because I liked it:

 

1040.jpg

 

Heres the the finished job, £15 well spent:

 

1041.jpg

 

1042.jpg

 

Which was then ready Dave to weld:

 

1042a.jpg

 

Which menant the entire exhaust could finally be refitted:

 

1043.jpg

 

1044.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...

Doors & Doorframe Hardware, - Part 1

 

Looking at this photo you could be forgiven for thinking that I'd spent 6 months ignoring the doors..!

 

1045.jpg

 

But in amongst the other work I've been tacking odd jobs relating to the doors / door frames. Stripping the old frames off last year was the trigger point. The frames needed to come apart in order to fit a set of new quaterlight seals which have recently been remanufactured after being NLA for years. I'd bought a set as soon as they were available and they have been waiting for an opportunity to fit them ever since...

 

Heres a few reminder pictures that show the frames from before the respray:

 

1046.jpg

 

The passenger side quaterlight was taped up when I put the car on the road in 2011... which stopped an annoying whistling noise but looked awful!

 

The 2010 era base rubbers had never sat entirely right... (bought from a scimitar specialist)

 

1047.jpg

 

While the car was being painted I started taking the old frames apart...

 

1051.jpg

 

It quickly turned out that much of the steel door hardware was made of rust, many of these parts sit in a 'wet' areas and 45 years of damp was finally taking its toll.

 

One quaterlight pivot completely fell apart on removal.

 

1052.jpg

 

The corner brackets that hold the frames together were not really much better...

 

1053.jpg

 

I took apart two sets of window frames in the end and the condition of both sets was very similar... I'd guess there are lots of frames out there that due some attention... This put me off attempting to get more second hand spares and Instead I decided to remake the hardware from scratch. This time in stainless...

 

I sent the quaterlight pivot off to Dave on the IOW and he was able to turn down a suitable replacement. The shoulder that the spacer sits on was done on the mill. all told they consumed quite a few hours of work. The original spacers are being reused.

 

1054.jpg

 

He then brazed a piece of flat bar on to the top. One of the problems with remaking these in stainless was the difficulty getting stainless in the right thickness / diameter. In the end a batch of 3mmx 12mm wide flat bar was milled to be 3mm x 7.5mm.

 

1055.jpg

 

The spring support bracket was quite difficult to fold due to its tight curves, attempts to fold this on a bigger folder all proved impossible. But after a bit of messing about with some formers and some creative hammering and and I was able to get something pretty close...

 

1057.jpg

 

1058.jpg

 

All the brazed in rusty steel fixings were also removed from the bottom section of the window frame. Most were snapped off rusty stumps. I found it very hard to braze in the new fixings in without discolouring the chrome. So the majority of replacement bolts I'm using have captive heads instead.

 

1059.jpg

 

A first version of the frame brackets were also folded up...

 

1060.jpg

 

Drilled and tapped.

 

1061.jpg

 

I was finding working with stainless was quite hard on drill bits and taps. A tip from Dave saw me switch from using light grease /oil as a lubricant to Trefolex. Which probably saved the lives of many drill bits... It also smells great when you use it!

 

1062.jpg

 

Its pretty good for tapping too:

 

1063.jpg

 

Random photo of bracket being trial fitted.

 

With replacement brackets sorted I could finally fit the new quaterlight rubbers into the frames. At this point it became painfully clear that my 'ok' window frames could definitely have done with rechroming... which would involve more expense and weeks of delay… maybe next time.

 

Heres a close up look at the new quaterlight rubbers.

 

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Compared to the old ones that came off...

 

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The new quaterlight seals are very well designed they are an excellent fit. The hard work getting these remade was done by Australian Victor Pace, who has been has been restoring a Scimitar GT, He’s got a extraordinarily detailed build thread here: http://www.scimitarweb.co.uk/sgwrs/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=10292

 

The seals slide into the frames with a bit of help from some soapy water.

 

1069.jpg

 

The quaterlight pivot parts have all been replaced in stainless (including the spring)

 

1070.jpg

 

1071.jpg

 

I was then able to trial fit the frames on a door...

 

(Continued in the next post)

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Doors & Doorframe Hardware, - Part 2

 

Frames completed I was then able to trial fit them on the doors.

 

1072.jpg

 

1073.jpg

 

1074.jpg

 

I'm really pleased with the new seals, they are probably better in terms of finish and sealing than they would have been when new.

 

Before I could actually bolt them up I needed to sort out the trim that sits underneath the window frame. I damaged the old one while dismantling the doors, Its a vinyl cover backed on to 3mm scrim foam backed on to a plywood base board...

 

1075.jpg

 

1076.jpg

 

As all my bits of plywood were split I've gone for plastic mount board similar to that used on my door cards.

 

1077.jpg

 

The black vinyl gets sandwiched between a piece of channel section and the metal section that holds the drop glass felt. This is then riveted together... when I took my old doors apart some of the original channel sections had gone very rusty, causing bubbling under the vinyl.

 

1048.jpg

 

1049.jpg

 

In a bid to stop this happening again I've replaced the original channel with a new set in stainless...

 

1050.jpg

 

pre assembling the vinyl to the channel section:

 

1078.jpg

 

And then riveted to the door.

 

1079.jpg

 

The overhanging vinyl can then be folded round the plastic / plywood backing piece and trimmed,

 

1080.jpg

 

1081.jpg

 

and everything gets glued down with contact adhesive...

 

1082.jpg

 

The rest of the door furniture can then be built up... winder mechanism, plastic lining, door speaker and the frame can be bolted in.

 

The front capping piece is then screwed on...

 

1083.jpg

 

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Heres a few more pictures once the door cards went back on...

 

1086.jpg

 

1087.jpg

 

Job like these always remind me of how labour intensive it must have been to mass produce a hand-built car like a Scimitar...

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That's beautiful work.

 

Don't be fooled! I've edited out some of the less pro bits on this job! I probably wasted half a metre of stainless trying to make the little brackets for the quaterlight pivots and this happened while trying to get an old pop rivet out...

 

 1088.jpg

 

#NOTPRO

 

I'm now up to 3 areas where I'm going to need to get the paint work repaired...

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I treated my dad (who was supporting the door at the time) to a course in creative swearing...

 

I've since repaired the hole and dabbed a touch up over it so it doesnt stand out quite so much. I will get it fixed properly as its in such a visible spot.

 

It was really shit at the time, I'm slightly calmer about it now. Shit happens and its fixable. I keep having to remind myself that the origonal objective was to get the car presentable not concourse!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Radio Silence:

Readers of this thread with a good memory may recall that a few posts back I was planning on fitting a period Motorola radio cassette player in order to get a working FM radio.

Heres a picture of it:

1092.jpg

Looks great, right?

Having the cassette function was really just an added bonus really. Though I did waste a bit of time digging out some cassettes to try!

1093.jpg

As it turned out that making the new radio work with my existing amplifier setup was a major headache. (Picture: existing Genesis 4 channel amp and high level interface.)

1096.jpg

I wanted to keep a seperate MP3 input and to do this I planned on switching the input to the amplifier between the radio and a seperate line in from the ipod. Switching was going to be done by a phono jack switch, With it plugged in the mp3 line in would operate and with it unpluged the radio would be connected...

1097.jpg

It was a reasonable concept but once actually wired up there were all sorts of problems with it. The high level interface was having trouble detecting the change over and kept trying to take a feed from the radio. Additionally when the radio was working the amplified signal made horrible pops as you moved between the pre sets buttons on the front. In short it didnt really work together as I'd hoped. Time to take the Motorola back out...

1101.jpg

This head unit will be kept, its Ideal for a less high end insallation with some more period 20w speakers.

In an ideal world what I needed was a Radio (head unit) new enough to have a good quality line in and which could then be permanently connected to the amp. doing away with the need to switch inputs. Of course the problem is that any radio new enough to do this is going to look too modern and wont suit the dashboard...

Turns out that lots of American car modders also have this problem and there is a company called Retrosound who make a modern radio that can be adapted to fit into a range of different classic cars. The've got a UK distributor: www.retrocarstuff.com You' can also get them from moss-Europe and a few other specialists. The downside is they are not what you'd call cheap...

A hunt round on ebay and I found a used HERMOSA model for less than half the retail price. It offered most of the features I wanted, FM Radio, MP3 LIne in, Direct connection to an amplifier. It does blutetooth and hands free too but I'm less likely to use those.

Its this one: https://www.retrocarstuff.com/shop/retro-manufacturing-hermosa-black-euro-bc

The Radio itself is quite compact much smaller than normal DIN unit. It came supplied with a set of mounting plates and some contol knobs.

Here's a look at it:

1099.jpg

1100.jpg

After a powered test I had a go at fitting it with the face plate and dials suppied in the kit. If I'm honest I found the results to be pretty dissapointing. The plastic backing looked a bit cheap and I wasnt keen on the look of the rounded corners. Yes I'm a pedant, Detail matters!

1102.jpg

Next I tried an old radiomobile face plate and found the look to be much better...

1103.jpg

To get it to work properly The right and left control shafts were going to need shortening. To accomodate the much shallower radiomobile knobs.

The back of one of the control arms:

1104.jpg

Radiomobile knobs: The right hand one is a good fit on the new control arm as standard.

1105.jpg

This picture shows how much the arm will need to be sortened.

1106.jpg

The control arms Each have 5 functions, a sprung twist dial which opreates on the brass collar and a fully rotating front dial. The front dial also has a click function so the front knob and rear knob need a gap between them in order to operate correctly...

Heres a picture mid way through cutting the shaft lengths down.

1107.jpg

The final version:

1108.jpg

Test fitted:

1109.jpg

Fitted:

1110.jpg

In Car testing:



I've also replaced the panel dimmer switch with an aux / usb in which connects to the radio. as this seemed to be the tidyist way. I'll not miss the dimmer.

1111.jpg

Theres a final twist in this story but it can wait for another post...
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I can see the boatbuilder in you coming through with all of your replacing mild steel with stainless. I keep changing mild steel bolts on the DS for A4 stainless in exposed areas but whenever my mechanic gets his hands near it they all magically change back to mild steel. I have a suspicion that he is aware that I have large quantities of stainless and is gradually moving my bolts and nuts onto his car :)

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Speaker wise I’ve got a set of 12” macrom-morel subs hidden behind the rear speaker grills.

 

The midrange speakers, crossovers and tweeters are all genesis pro.

 

All the bits for that installation were bought secondhand in 2011 during my first rebuild!

 

I’ve considered getting a seperate genesis miniblock to run the subs in the past but always somehow managed to resist!

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  • 2 weeks later...

FFS Is it not Finished Yet? - Part 1

Yeah I know its not finished but its getting closer* all the time... (* TRANSLATION: its still miles from being 'finished'!)

I Had a brief tangent changing a perfectly servicable set of modern securon seatbelts for a New old stock set of Britax Auto Lok mark 3's. This was entirely unnessicary and not at all reqired to get the car back on the road... but as i had them I was going to fit them!

1112.jpg

1113.jpg

The seats went back in at this stage to help get the position of the buckels in the correct place, one of the main reasons to fit these is that the solid mounted stalks don't rub on the edge of the seat like the securons.

1114.jpg

The only used parts I was refitting were the buckels themselves. I touched the lettering up with white paint pen before fitting and gave them a good clean and inspection.

1115a.jpg

GOT NOS?

1116.jpg

Dave had a Saturday afternoon to spare and came over to the mainland to help fit the Heates windscreen, This was horrible job, its not a very good fit in comparison with the origonal one that came out. theres up to 1/4" variation in size in some places. As a result it does not sit as nicely in the rubber as the old one.

In the end it comes down to poor manufacturing, toleranances on the screen I've fitted just arnt accurate enough. I'd not be in a rush to buy another unless it was made to a more accurate standard. Hopefully the benefits once its installed will outweigh the downsides.

1117.jpg

I've still got to put some sealant between the rubber and the body this will be done once the back insert has been changed for chome and I'm sure the screen wont have to come back out.

With the screen in Dave and I were hoping to move on to get the last few engine bay items. reconnected and then engine would be running again. To get the car running I've refitted the old alternator, Its not connected. Just there to give the fan belt something to run on, the Denso Alternatior is not quite ready yet!

1118.jpg

As it turned out this took quite a bit of messing about before it came back to life, There were two leaks from the high pressure fuel rail. The worst was a cracked angle joint which chucked petrol out impressively.

1119.jpg

I've changed the body of the fuel pressure regulator for a slightly different one which mounts on the fuel rail instead of the bulkhead. So I've had some of the fuel connections off when I was trying to work out where to put it. The new pressure regulator body is made by Jenvy, its quite a bit more compact than the old setup.

Theres a video of us getting the engine running here:

 



The engine sounds a bit off, I had been putting this down to the valve clearances not being right. But after a bit more looking around I found a pretty big blow on the ball joint of the tubular manifold, (passenger side). The tubular manifolds are something that need looking at again really, the ball joints seem to casue no end of problems and even a minor blow is going to upset the results from the 02 sensors.


1120.jpg

I'm hoping that the current setup will be good enough to get me back on the road and then maybe I'll come back to the exhaust problem. I'm at the stage now where I'm desperate to get the car on the road!
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If you don't ask you dont learn, so what's a ball joint on a manifold?

 

I know what a ball joint is (I think!) And I know what a Manifold is, but the two things seem massively unconnected in my limited understanding. Is the manifold just blowing at a join?

It's a sort of spherical joint, only in a tube; there's a daddy part which is hemispherical with a hole through it and a mummy part which is tubular and belled out hemispherically, like a crap funnel. The two are held in intimate embrace by either;

 

1. shite pressed steel clamps that never fucking work, seriously who fucking came up with these bastard creations of beelzebub!?

or

2. a pair of flanges with studs, nuts and springs squidged betwixt to maintain pressure on the mating surface. 

 

Neither method works worth a damn but the 2nd is less of a massive pain in the arse.

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If you don't ask you dont learn, so what's a ball joint on a manifold?

 

I know what a ball joint is (I think!) And I know what a Manifold is, but the two things seem massively unconnected in my limited understanding. Is the manifold just blowing at a join?

 

Heres a picture, (Taken years ago when I'd bought a tubular manifold which did not seem to fit!)

 

228.jpg

 

 

The ball joint comes at the end of the tubular manifold, Its really just two stainless ball shapes acting as an interference fit.  I think the idea is that they can be adjustested to ease fitting and once on the car they reduce the chance of fatigue due to engine vibration.

 

They are more common on aftermaket exhausts than factory setups.

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