Beeks Wild Ride

So, the other day I was trying to figure out something air-conditioning-pump related and I stumbled upon Matthew Overbeeks’ Coyote swap. It’s a 1994 GT with a Coyote — one of the first ones done and of all of the Coyote swaps I’ve come across, the only other convertible. Even more amazing, it was within short driving distance from the garage where I’m doing my swap.

If I had to count the number of coincidences I’ve had happen since starting my swap, it would be a long list — but this one is extremely hard for me to count as anything but divine intervention. I had a few questions that I was having a hard time getting answered and Matt has the solution in almost every case. How could that be coincidence? And only 15 or so miles away?

And Matt gave me a ride in his car — check out the video:


You should also check out Matt’s blog for more details, and for sure check out the engine bay on the car.

Thanks to Matt I have a much better understanding of how the heater plumbing is going to work. I also plan on duplicating or using a very similar strategy for the hydroboost plumbing. What I wish I had time for was to make my engine bay look as clean as Matt’s — just no time for it right now and given the magnitude of changes I’m up for, just going to have to settle for an engine bay that’s somewhat presentable.

Hats off to Matt though — you will probably find both of our cars at next years Car Craft show, sitting side by side.

That is, if I get my car running by then. I’m 99% certain that will be the case, but at times, the work stretching out in front of me is formidable.

-=FeriCyde=-

Engine Bay Painting Begins

Engine bay Photo Album (Painting)

Update: I’m waiting on a new A/C compressor (ok, a used one, but it’s new to me). The A/C compressor for 2005-2010 cars will not work (too short) with the S & R hydroboost + alternator relocation kit. Nor will the stock 2000 GT compressor, which is a real bummer because I’d planned on using it for this build. Anyway, I’ve gotten word that the alternator has been re-pullied (yay Dustin!) and between that and the A/C pump, I should be able to call the front of the motor complete shortly.

I’m also proceeding with my 6 volt battery mounting brackets (see photo album above for the first shot at these).

The engine bay painting has begun and will proceed to the rear of the car (full under-body coating as well). I will be using a base of POR15 for the metal, covered by either Rustoleum grill paint (high temperature paint) or covered by Herculiner, which will cover everything that’s under the car and not exposed to heat.

Cheers!

-=FeriCyde=-

Engine bay prep is mostly done

After pulling the engine, I’ve been consumed with getting the engine bay into shape and with fitting the new engine into place, albeit, temporarily.

Some welding, sawing and drilling was in order. First, there was some major rust around the shock towers to address. I hired a local technician to do my work as I don’t have a welder and given the cost, it wouldn’t have made any kind of sense to purchase one for this project. He came by on an afternoon, cut some custom patches for my shock towers, and sewed them into place.

During most of the work with the engine bay, the brake lines have been in the way almost entirely. If there had been some simple way to remove them I would have done that — I find myself wiring them out of the way a lot as a lot of operations involve moving objects in or relative to their space.

I’ve taken the liberty of removing almost everything else — all of the components of the engine bay have been cleared out, in preparation for the new engine. Some things go right back where they were, but almost everything else must move to a new location or be discarded. The brake master cylinder stays where it was, for example, and the fuse box will be in a similar location, as well as the air conditioning lines and canister.

Probably the most troublesome component to fit is the air box — it’s bulky, and simply doesn’t look like it’s going to behave when you first attempt to stick it in there. After looking at several other people’s attempts at this, I chose the location you see in the video.

I’ll be documenting the holes I’m cutting for the curious.

Next up — I’m pulling the engine for the last time — I’ll be cleaning up the holes I’ve cut, making some brackets and prepping the metal (Por15, a rust treatment, and painting a lot of surfaces). After that, the true build begins!

Talk soon!

-=FeriCyde=-

Engine Removed

The 2000 GT is now just a body, waiting for some frame preparation — oh, and the rear suspension is in-tact.


The engine removal, once I had worked out most of the kinks, was pretty straight forward. I’m very glad I’m doing this, as I’ve uncovered some rather serious rust that will have to be dealt with — minor in the back, major by the front k-member attachment point. It’s not life-threatening — but if this car had gone through another winter or two, probably would have given me some real grief, so it’s a good thing I’m doing this now.

The engine removal was actually pretty easy once I worked out the frame connection point I would use.
I took quite a few pictures, and you can follow this link to the album of pictures.

There were a few kinks to work out — for starters, I needed a frame connection point near the very front of the car. I initially wanted to connect the engine hoist to the strut mounting plates on the top — which would have put the legs of the engine hoist squarely under the k-member (which, if you walk through how this all works, means it won’t work).

To remedy this, I used a 36″ wide crow-bar, and attached it with the engine balance to two chains near the very front of the car, which allowed me to be able to raise and lower the car from the very very front.

The next problem was that the legs of the engine hoist were higher off the ground than the bottom of the k-member while it was sitting on the floor dollies — so, when I went to lower the body and motor down onto the floor dollies, the engine hoist legs hit the radiator support (no, I wasn’t happy at this point).

I spaced the floor dollies with some 2″ tall weights, which allowed me to set the engine+k-member+transmission down. The rear of the transmission was supported with a jack-sand on its side, so I could slip the jack under the transmission later without having to figure out how to raise the transmission up for the job.

At this point, I removed the remaining k-member bolts (half had been removed — one at each of the 4 connection points under the car). It’s imperative that you remove the bolts completely, as they will bind while you’re raising the body, which is counter to what you would think would happen — the body of the car does not simply “slip off” the k-member bolts.

It also bears mentioning here that the back of the car is resting on a couple of steel ramps, which means that the angle of attack for raising and lowering the car is greatly reduced — especially when raising.

I also removed the passenger strut, which meant that the entire wheel opening was available for engine removal.

Once I had the body off of the engine, I put the jack under each side of the engine and removed the spacers (the weights I used — see above). I made sure that the floor dollies were squarely under the k-member so that they would roll easily, and I oriented each of the wheels so that it would roll sideways. Then I slide the jack under the transmission and removed the jack-stand (on its side) that had been holding it up.

Finally, gently, I pushed the engine out of the passenger wheel well — it came out easily this way. Once clear of the car, I found that I could simply push on either side of the cylinder heads from behind and guide it around like any piece of furniture on wheels — it really was easy to move once supported this way (two floor dollies and a floor jack).

All in all, I can’t help but recommend that this be the way to pull your engine — especially if you’re doing the job alone, as gravity is much more on your side for this operation.

Now that the engine is out of the car, I can fully start the build. All of the parts I’ll need are in, from what I can tell, so the fun truly begins now!

-=Fericye=-

Engine almost out…

I’m down to the AC and PS plumbing — just a couple of items left before I can yank the old motor out of the GT. Almost all of the items have arrived that will be required for the swap. I’m still waiting on the fuel system (but am assured it’s on its way). The last few remaining pieces — ABS delete, some trim, a cooling sender radiator hose coupling, are on their way as well.

Oh, and some serious scraping and Por15 work awaits me.

It occurs to me that after this activity, there will be very little about my 2000 GT that I will not have direct experience tearing apart and putting back together. I never had the dash completely apart — but most of it (so that kind of counts) and I’m probably never going to tear into the guts of the rear end (I hope anyway — that’s honestly stuff I don’t want to know).

I don’t have a lot of pictures of the work — here’s a shot of the new gas tank:
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The fuel tank removal had only one real snag, and that was my hasty removing of the plumbing to the charcoal canister. After the tank was mostly dropped under the car, I just couldn’t seem to find an easy way to disconnect it, so I simply cut the line in an obvious location. The cannister isn’t going back into the car — there will be no need for it with the return style fuel system. Oddly enough, there’s still two lines going from the back of the car to the front — one of them appears to be a vapor line of some kind.

Here’s a shot of the fuel neck area:

And here’s the new home for the 2 optima 6-volt batteries (which will be wired in series):

I got the exhaust dropped off the car last week, the battery out of the car and the front brakes un-hooked.
This week I’ll most likely get the old motor out and mount the new batteries in there new home. I’ll probably get a good 1/3 of the bottom of the car prepped for the por15.

Steady as she goes!

-=FeriCyde=-

Day 1: Coyote Prep Begins

First … Still waiting on the fuel system …

Supposedly the parts will be in or are in or maybe not — I hope to report soon that the fuel system I ordered something like a month ago is in.

Anyway, I’m going on with the prep without the fuel system because I have faith that one way or another I’m going to get rid of the single-line fuel system that’s been in the car for 12 years and 170k or so miles.

I have stuff to do in the mean time — plenty to do. For starters, the car has some grime on it — 12 years and 170k worth of grime. Believe it or not, I’ve only cleaned the engine bay once, back in 2009. Two bottles of grease remover were used and a gasoline-powered pressure washer, and a jack and jack-stand of course. It’s bad enough having to break loose bolts that were tightened in 2000 (I’m sure I’ll bust a few during the course of this change-over), but to do it while covered in grease and road grime — ugh.

To reduce the grime, I decided to shoot as much of that crud off the bottom and from the engine bay as possible.

I’m taking my time and doing this right. Sorry it’s taking a while to get rolling.

-=FeriCyde=-