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Gordo's Banana: The Build Begins

49K views 654 replies 42 participants last post by  The Scifi Guy 
#1 · (Edited)
Some Assembly Required

Woop! Woop! The body shop is done with my car and it's painted and ready to come home. I'm typing this after seeing it, taking some of the loose items home in my SUV, and arranging for a tow truck to pick it. Best paint job I've ever gotten in the 40 years and 20 paint jobs I've given this Maaco shop. No specks and smooth as glass! It took them a whole day to paint. They ran out of yellow paint and had to call another shop to get more. It's C4 Corvette yellow with a coat of clear. This car and it's body kit are a remake of my beloved Ole Yeller GT that I drove for 18 years and 225,000 miles. My heart swelled with joy seeing it painted the same milky yellow that I spent so many years enjoying looking at.

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#476 ·
This is a re-envisioned type of FI fuel pump. Edelbrock realized that there's no good reason for modern cars to have a big pump at the back that has to pump all the fuel forward, to a surge tank/swirl pot, through a pressure regulator, then the fuel rail, and back to the tank. Why? No other liquid pumping system pumps the fluid in a big circle non-stop. So, they let you use your existing electric or mechanical fuel pump for your carb to bring the fuel forward or an aftermarket low pressure pump mounted back where the tank is. The fuel gets pumped forward to the reservoir/surge tank/swirl pot built into the FI pump. It's kinda like a toilet, when the tank is full it stops the incoming flow of fuel. The high pressure pump is in the other half of the pump assy and the reservoir keeps it topped off, when it goes low the reservoir refills it and the reservoir replenishes itself. The high pressure fuel pump is meant to be positioned up front near the top of the engine. It only pressurizes about 24" of fuel hose and the fuel rail and DOES NOT pump the extra fuel endlessly back to the tank, the fuel rail is dead ended, so the only high pressure fuel is in the hose and the fuel rail. Less work for the pump to do. So, it's really a 2 pump system. It's an excellent choice for old carb'd cars that go FI. Some cars, like ours, have inconveniently placed and configured fuel tanks that aren't return line friendly. Worse, our cars have the tank entirely within the car, if the return line leaks at the tank it leaks inside the car.
 
#478 ·
I put a little more time into the heater/fuel pump thing yesterday. Actually, a LOT more time. I added an L-bracket to stabilize the fuel pump and make it point straight. Another issue was that the 90* fuel line fittings sticking out the top were a little too close to the hood. I ended up drilling new holes to mount it as low as possible. I wouldn't have had to do this laborious chore if I had cut the flange at the front of the heater box area flush. I left it sticking up 1/2". I had also neglected to route the wire and plug for the electric inline heater valve. This heater has a thermostat that opens/closes/partially closes the heater valve.

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#479 ·
I did a bunch of odds and ends yesterday and today all I did was put on the peel and stick firewall insulation/sound deadener. I think that's it for pre-engine install engine compartment work, so now it's time to get my engine/auto tranny out of the basement and put'er in the car. I went to Harbour Freight and bought another large size dolly for the job.

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#481 ·
Ebay. "Firewall insulation" in Ebay Motors. 20,000 to choose from, all are basically the same. 10mm or 394 or so thick seems to be the better grade. They come in 2 foot wide rolls, pick the length you want. Also excellent for insulating and sound deadening the interior and floors. I suggest power washing your engine compartment with strong detergent and a scrub brush to get all that funky Opel oil off of everything. Remember: Preparation is often the most important part of the job. Here's a sample ad:

 
#483 ·
Cool! I will have to buy some. My grandpa doesn’t have a pressure washer so we will just do it with a hose and scrub it. We are also hoping to paint the engine bay the cars outside color if we can get it to match.
 
#484 ·
Each of those pumps come with their own filters. A small metal one goes just before the small red one and a lemon sized one goes in the output line of the main pump. I would guess that Edelbrock sells replacements, in case the pumps you bought don'y come with them.

VERY IMPORTANT FYI!: The big pump kit comes with this horrible "Russell" hose that just refuses to stretch and is virtually impossible to get on the fittings, even when heated as per the instructions. We aren't running massive dragster fuel pressures, so just buy some FI rated fuel line from the auto store.
 
#485 · (Edited)
Today I got the engine out of my dang basement for install into my Banana car. It wouldn't be so bad if the 4 steps leading down to it weren't in such a bad location. Oh well, this ain't my first rodeo getting engines out of my basement. This time, however, the engine had the tranny attached to it. It may have actually helped the situation. I had bought a fancy new handtruck back in the Fall and it worked marvelously. I bought a new cargo strap and a 2nd big dolly for the job, too. But, then I ran across the same problem of not having enough wood of the right size and strength to put over the steps to make a 7 foot long ramp. Some guys were gutting and fixing up a house down the street and they let me have one of the 100 year old hardwood doors they were throwing out. It fit perfectly! I fastened a large towing strap to my SUV and pulled the engine out of the basement as I normally do. Mission accomplished!

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#486 ·
When are you going to install an Opel elevator in that stairwell? You’re not getting any younger.

Opel-vator? You should patent that idea.
 
#490 ·
Dagnabbit! Two tranny things that I should have attended to while the tranny was in my basement on my workbench many months ago are biting me in the ass.

Opels use an approximately 3/4" threaded end speedo gear, but the standard American size is about 7/8". My electronic dash has a digital sender unit that screws onto the speedo gear. Just like with my other car I should have bought the larger size. I thought I already did this, but apparently I didn't. So I had to search Ebay for the larger threaded "bullet". They're a bit longer than oem Opel ones, so you have to also buy the longer blue 20-tooth gear. Luckily I found both in one purchase with new seals for only $13.50:

Oem:

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I also should have cut the braided flexible tranny hose and installed the AN fittings. I sort of felt that the coil of hose I had looked a little short. I bought my tranny cooler and fittings as a kit and assumed that it came with plenty of hose. I have the tranny cooler mounted to the horn mount cross bar, which is about 18" away from the pulleys on the front of the engine. Guess how much hose I have extending past the engine pulleys? 18 inches. That's too short, the hoses have to bend upwards to the tranny cooler and you really should have even more extra hose length to make install easier. The kit came with 10 feet of hose, which is fine if I put the cooler right in front of the radiator, but it's NOT fine with the cooler mounted 14" or so farther in front of the radiator.:

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On my other car I have this much extra, plus quick disconnects, approximately 14 feet of hose:

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I've had to pull my GTX car's engine several times and it is VERY convenient to have plenty of extra hose to work with to attach to the tranny cooler. I have to wait for the speedo gear to come, so, since I have to wait until the end of the week for that, I might as well blow some more money and get the correct length of braided tranny hose I want. The 10 foot length they sent me was part of a kit, so it was included with the one shipping price for all the stuff and I was charged $35 for it. I just placed the order for 15 feet of hose at $55, plus $15 shipping and tax for a total of $75. Dagnabbit! @#$%&!

Maybe it's a good thing that I'm held up until next weekend to do the install. I have all of the wiring for the front of the car lighting and stuff terminating at butt connectors just below the master cylinder, I need to sort through the aftermarket fuse box wires and attach the appropriate color coded wires to those butt connectors. Now, without the engine and radiator in the car, I can easily reach them with the car up on the lift and me standing in the engine compartment at eye level and reaching through the radiator opening to do the hook ups. If I put the engine in I'll have to lay on top of the fenders and reach down into the nose area to do the hook ups. Better to do it now and put the wasted days waiting for parts to good use.
 
#492 ·
I made new longer coolant lines today. Each one is now 2 1/2 feet longer and the coil looks similar in size to what's in my GTX car. If you compare with the pic above, it's hard to believe that they are 2 1/2 feet longer, from the ends to the engine pulleys, than the hoses above.:

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Yesterday I tracked down the fuse box kit's labeled wires that needed to go to all the butt connectors for the front lighting that were sitting below the MC and connected them up and ran them through the firewall for later hook up to switches and such. So, with all that front end stuff done I was able to bundle and put yellow sleeves over all those wires:

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And I had overlooked attaching my MC reservoir and tightening all the nuts and bolts on the brake booster support and related attachments. That's now done.:

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#497 ·
Engine Installed! Major milestone for this major disaster of a car. Probably the first time it's had an engine in it in 25+ years from back when it was a botched gullwing conversion. It's always nice to see your color schemes, silver in my case, start to come together.
I'm super-impressed by how far you've come with this car. For those who haven't been following the Banana origin story-this is where the journey started.
Great work saving a GT that most of us mere mortals would have abandoned long ago. Give yourself one of these...

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#498 ·
Having followed your most recent project, Banana, I must say, very impressive work Gordon - and I have enjoyed watching your most recent project evolve from the original concept, gull wing, to now and I am looking forward to seeing you bring it to a fantastic conclusion. While it is around a 10 hour trip, for me, from Mount Pleasant, SC I am thinking that I will just have to put the trip to Carlisle, PA on my list of things to do, so I can see your newest creation in person. Just don't see how I could miss that opportunity. So, will your first showing be this spring or next spring as I am starting to feel the need fo a long GT road trip, while I still have it in me. The last time I took my GT, on that long of a trip which just so happened to be up interstate 81 was back in 1973. I drove from NC to Aliquippa, PA. I recall traveling to Roanoke, VA on 220 and picking up Interstate 81 just beyoung and getting off somewhere around Winchester, Va and then cutting across West Virgina to Pittsburg, Pa. That was a long drive but did not seem that way at the time, it was an adventure. Keep up the excellent work. Best,Carl
 
#502 ·
I had to resolve an issue with my Charles Goin, custom, ultra minimal, low profile, multi-thermo sensor, thermostat housing. In his design, he left the hole where you normally would have the heater hose attached un-tapped so that you could put whatever fitting you wanted to put there. He sold all of his thermostats, but I was able to buy one from Keith Lundholm, who had bought it with a bunch of parts that a guy who threw in the towel on his Opel project and who had already modded the 'stat. All I had was the thermo housing and the one black fitting that was screwed into it. I would have preferred a simple hose barb sticking out there or maybe some sort of right angle fitting or the rest of the AN fitting that would fit a standard 5/8" heater hose.

Charlie helped on the phone a bit. Then I called Keith and found that he had no clue and the PO had tapped it to an unknown thread. Keith suggested that I go to a local hydraulics place. It turned out that the fitting was a 10AN and the threaded hole was some sort of British thread. The hydraulics place didn't have that size and sent me to the local Ben Pilla Speed Shop. Pilla conjured up the set up in the pics. He didn't have an AN fitting big enough for the 5/8" ID hose to fit into the nut, but the threaded shaft of the smaller AN end was just right to push the heater hose onto. So, I'll put some sealer or thread dope on the threads, push on a hose, and hose clamp it. Should be good enough, onto the next problem.

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#503 ·
Thermo housing issues resolved and it's ready for install. I started a side thread about a helicoil issue in one of the holes, here's a link to that:


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#504 ·
I didn't get much stuff done that was good to photograph over the past few days, but I did get a bunch of stuff done. Mainly, torquing all the various engine mounting and oil pan bolts. I also hooked up my tranny cooler and drilled a slot in my auto's bell housing to route a big hose clamp to hold my braided fuel lines and the kick down cable. The next job was to install the 3-core copper radiator and do some minor modding to make it fit. The 3-core radiators have to have the oem side metal plates, that have the grabbers for the rubber vibration isolators, flattened out because of the extra cooling fan width. This causes them to hit the window in the radiator wall and you can't slide the radiator in. On my other car I beat and bent over those straightened side plates, but it was difficult and high risk, so this time I trimmed 3/16" off of the side plates that were sticking out and hitting the radiator wall window, then painted the cut off areas. I thought I could then slide it in, but I had already noticed that the bottom center bracket and rubber mount was missing. Another dang part that was missing from this car when I got it. So I had to order some stuff from OGTS and wait for it to come.

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The part arrived really late today, so I only had enough time to mount the radiator:

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The weather was excellent and I didn't want to waste it, so I set about doing the big job of removing the dead tree in the center of my front yard. One of my prize plants needs that spot this year. I could have chopped it down last Fall, but I wanted to give the squirrels one last chance to spend the Winter in my squirrel house and make some more baby squirrels. They appear to have done so and now I need that tree to come down NOW and some of the bigger roots dug up. So I spent the last 2 days nuking my front yard to get those roots out. Next, I'll have to serve the squirrels the eviction notice. I don't think they'll be happy and they'll refuse to leave. Oh well, then I guess they'll go down with the ship. I moved all the plants out of the sunroom today, some of which are 200lbs. It's gonna rain for the next 3 days, so I'm not gonna get much done in the yard or the garage.

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#507 ·
I don't have a chainsaw and have been doing this with a sawzall and some loppers to cut off the small stuff, I'm down to the big stuff now. It's a mimosa tree, so it's pretty light, useless, wood. The lantern fly invasion killed it. Living in a neighborhood of row homes with small yards, not too many people have need for a chain saw, but there's a few folks on the block who have one. The guy across the street mows lawns for side money and he gave me one that won't sustain running. That's why I've dug out the roots, to provide clearance to use a chainsaw and not dull the teeth of a borrowed saw. I don't have much experience with small engines like that, so I've handed the saw off to my next door neighbor who likes to try to get stuff like that running. We'll see how that goes. If no luck, there's a guy with a good one farther up the street. Gotta get those squirrels to move out.......

I was or am toying with the idea of pulling it down with my SUV and a 25 foot tow strap. The tree is about 12-15 feet tall. At it's thickest at it's base it's about 12" round, but it's mostly about about 10" in diameter.
 
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