2010 Merkur Rebuild thread

Get it here, I will commute it to work for a month and work my magic. Maybe fly me there over the winter for the epic re-wire...

C'mon, Grant, creamy delicious DooWops...

I think he's askeerd he won't be able to keep up...

I see what you guys are trying to do here...
Funny thing is that it's kinda working. All I care about is having good roads and good competition, which we all know exists at Doo Wops. Dave Kern's been convincing me to finish it also so we can play at the Bridgestone Winter Driving School in his BMW and my Merkur.
There's alot of work to be done though. Cut out a few bars, build a fuel cell mount and dual pumps and filter and bulkhead thingy. Weld in a few other bars (front strut reinforcement). Figure out what I want to do for rear diff stuff and reinforce the rear beam if needed. Fix or redo the rear shock pickup on the right rear STA. Source and install steering rack. Fix the front skidplate mount, clean up the headlight install spot (hey anyone have the Euro bulkheads for sale?), paint engine bay, reinstall stuff, remake ghetto brackets for oil and p/s coolers, and the aforementioned wiring nightmare.
But I will be here on Monday and Thursdays as well as full day Saturdays and some Sundays at least until ski season kicks off.

I have a set of bulkheads here that I believe belong to John, I will post them to you if he wants me to.

You fly me out there, we re-wire the car in a weekend, load up some spares, and I will drive it home. Sounds like a rally adventure to me. You guys can fly out for Doo Wops, and fly home. I will re-prep your car. I have an extra tow dolly, and I am sure we can come up with a tow rig for you to use.

They have a square beam ready to go. They want me to put one in my car too. It looks sweet!

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NoCoast
I see what you guys are trying to do here...
Funny thing is that it's kinda working. All I care about is having good roads and good competition, which we all know exists at Doo Wops. Dave Kern's been convincing me to finish it also so we can play at the Bridgestone Winter Driving School in his BMW and my Merkur.

Maybe we should move superbunny to my garage and the BMW to CP and we can have a race to see who finishes first. I think figuring out the mounting on the Supra diff is probably going to be the biggest hurdle for me. Of course in the rush to get mine finished, I'm leaving out alot of the things on my "would like to do" list. There's always next spring/summer to start shaving weight off it. Priority now is just having it driveable to get some RWD seat time.

I just ordered a set of snow tires for mine to help with the motivation. :p

Dave

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DaveK

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NoCoast
I see what you guys are trying to do here...
Funny thing is that it's kinda working. All I care about is having good roads and good competition, which we all know exists at Doo Wops. Dave Kern's been convincing me to finish it also so we can play at the Bridgestone Winter Driving School in his BMW and my Merkur.

Maybe we should move superbunny to my garage and the BMW to CP and we can have a race to see who finishes first. I think figuring out the mounting on the Supra diff is probably going to be the biggest hurdle for me. Of course in the rush to get mine finished, I'm leaving out alot of the things on my "would like to do" list. There's always next spring/summer to start shaving weight off it. Priority now is just having it driveable to get some RWD seat time.

I just ordered a set of snow tires for mine to help with the motivation. :p

Dave

Why the Supra diff? I have been beating on an E36 diff all season, and before that had one in my street Merkur that saw drift track duty. All the ring and pinions from the earlier cars fit, so many 4.1 or so gear sets at the junk yard. You can also put the LSD carrier in your E30 style case.

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phlat65

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DaveK

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NoCoast
I see what you guys are trying to do here...
Funny thing is that it's kinda working. All I care about is having good roads and good competition, which we all know exists at Doo Wops. Dave Kern's been convincing me to finish it also so we can play at the Bridgestone Winter Driving School in his BMW and my Merkur.

Maybe we should move superbunny to my garage and the BMW to CP and we can have a race to see who finishes first. I think figuring out the mounting on the Supra diff is probably going to be the biggest hurdle for me. Of course in the rush to get mine finished, I'm leaving out alot of the things on my "would like to do" list. There's always next spring/summer to start shaving weight off it. Priority now is just having it driveable to get some RWD seat time.

I just ordered a set of snow tires for mine to help with the motivation. :p

Dave

Why the Supra diff? I have been beating on an E36 diff all season, and before that had one in my street Merkur that saw drift track duty. All the ring and pinions from the earlier cars fit, so many 4.1 or so gear sets at the junk yard. You can also put the LSD carrier in your E30 style case.

Normal aspirated boys maybe want something a wee bit shorter than 4.1, Sean.
Like 4.56 or 4.88.

Any idea what a Bavarian Maggot Wagon 4.56 or 4.88 gear costs?

A MILLION dollah!

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phlat65
Why the Supra diff? I have been beating on an E36 diff all season, and before that had one in my street Merkur that saw drift track duty. All the ring and pinions from the earlier cars fit, so many 4.1 or so gear sets at the junk yard. You can also put the LSD carrier in your E30 style case.

My car came with a small open LSD (4-cyl automatic), and based on my reading, the small case would not survive useage on a 6-cyl. So, I knew I'd have to upgrade to the medium case diffs. BMW must mean "Bend Me (w)Over" on diff rebuilds, as shops were looking for $1000 for a rebuild. One of the cool things about RWD in my eyes is the ability to have two different rear diffs so you can radically change the top speed & effective gearing.

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john vanlandingham
Any idea what a Bavarian Maggot Wagon 4.56 or 4.88 gear costs?

Hammer, meet nail!

In the small case its easy to find open diffs up to 4.44, but once you look at the medium diffs, anything over a 4.1 is difficult to find. There were supposedly some 4.27s used, but I wasn't able to dig any up. Anything above 4.27 and you have to look at the "M" parts catalog, and then you're talking $1100 for just the ring & pinion. At that point I figured it'd be more cost effective to figure out the conversion and have two diffs made.

Freshly built supra diff with 4.56 runs right around $500, so I've still got "$1500" to get it fitted to the car for the same price as the BMW option...and with some luck it'll cost less than that and I'll have a second diff in the 3.9-4.1 range too.

Dave

Looking at your rear beam, it will be pretty easy I think.

Getting ready to paint the second coat on the engine bay right now then it will be time to start reassembly!

Sweet!

I am going to try the A237 cam again. got a proper boost controller, and think I can make that 250/250 easy now.

What boost controller did you pick up?

apexi AVC-R as per your buddies recommendation. What a difference that made. Plus I can have throttle position and RPM right on the display for in-car to see if I am a pussy or not...

grant taking a break after getting back to rolling.

he needs a different steering rack too.