PICS! Econo Car conversion to Kubota Diesel. 1997 Geo Metro, Kubota D1005 3 cylinder

[planejob]

I didn't forget about my project. My house got decimated by grapefruit sized hail and we've been busy with roofs and leaks and 11 windows, and daily driver cars that got destroyed.

[kimer6]

I got this news as I sat by a camp fire on my roof deck tonight. I heard about the insane storms and flooding in Texas. Everything was good until I read your post.To hear that you got devastated by huge hail was like getting a kick in the guts.

If I was there I would pitch in and help you get things right again. I assume you, the Missus and the little ones are OK. We went through the Loma Prieta Quake and know what its like to see your home and life in disarray.

Best wishes. Lets hope the bad stuff is over. Sincerely....Kimmer in Nor Cal.

[redneck]

Originally Posted by planejob

i didn't forget about my project. My house got decimated by grapefruit sized hail and we've been busy with roofs and leaks and 11 windows, and daily driver cars that got destroyed.

Bummer.


>

[jcp123]

Aw man, sorry to hear that. Haven't had anything like that up here in East Texas, but we were flooded four times this winter with El Niño rains. We have bad drainage problems at our house. Ended up having to tear up mine and my neighbor's back yards (neighbors are my parents, who were having flooding worse than ours and mold problems) to install a French drain system.

Hopefully things will turn out for the better for you!

[planejob]

Thanks guys. The family is fine. My 6 year-old daughter and I were hanging out in the front yard watching the storm roll in. Luckily my wife was not home, so her car was damaged by little hail but spared the big stuff.

My 1976 GMC pickup fared well! Thick steel is awesome, but it still dents.
My work truck, a 2014 Ford Explorer - WHOA, thin metal. 3 windows were broken out. the roof was caved in about 6 inches in one spot (crazy!).
The 2006 Subaru WRX... Hammered. Bent the sheet metal so bad that the glass company could not glue the glass back in. I had to buy a rear hatch from a scrap yard (it turned out to be cheaper anyway...)
The 1997 Geo - yeah, the project car. It was inside the garage. I've taken a lot of light hearted heat from my wife over that one...

The decking on the roof of our house was punched through by 50-60 hailstones, most the size of grapefruit. In two spot the sheetrock in the ceiling of the house was punched out.

We had 11 windows get broken out. That kind of scared the kid a little, but I warned her that it was about to happen: "The windows are about to break, don't freak out, ok?" "Do they have to break?"... lol.

Insurance dragged their feet, took 10 days to get an adjuster out. He signed up for a new roof, and new windows, and some flooring. Interestingly, they are balking at cleaning the broken glass out of the front yard and flower beds - said they don't cover "landscaping" and the broken glass isn't part of the window anymore....

We've got the roof patched with tarps and plastic, but we had a big storm last night and found a few more leaks. I'm getting good at making little tarps inside the house to drain multiple leaks into one bucket. It's a skill I may add to my Curriculum Vitae.

[MetroMPG]

That sounds absolutely crazy. Glad to hear you're OK.

With so many people on the forum from all over the world, I often wonder who's being affected when I hear about news-making events like those storms.

[GreenHornet]

The 1997 Geo - yeah, the project car. It was inside the garage. I've taken a lot of light hearted heat from my wife over that one...

You my friend are a true ecomodder Glad to hear the family is all ok including the Kubota Geo.

[elhigh]

Oh, man.

I saw some video of some of those storms. It looked like you were getting barraged by Ming the Merciless! Glad to hear everyone's all right.

Yeah, the hobby car can wait. Good luck, bud.

[planejob]

Well, we haven't made any physical progress on the house - but we have a plan in play. The roof is under contract, the garage doors are under contract, the flooring is under contract, the windows are scheduled. EVERYTHING has a minimum 28 day lead - it's like the whole town got hit by hail or something... lol.

So, with nothing pressing to be done on the house this weekend I decided to rebuild the Geo Transmission. There's a real handy overview over at geometroforum.com but for some reason that site has been down this week. Luckily I had read through it a few times - there are no "gotcha" steps in this transmission.

You may recall my car started life as an automatic. I purchased a junkyard transmission from the Atomic Cowboy pick-n-pull over on the 'good side' of town. Converting the car to manual was pretty straightforward.

6 or 8 weeks ago I had the mechanicals all buttoned up and drove the car up to the muffler shop only to discover along the way that I had no fifth gear. I pulled the black top hat off the 5th gear and found a TON of metal shavings.


To be on the safe side I ordered a complete rebuild kit. Complete turned out to be pretty accurate - they only forgot the needle bearings, but all of the other bearings and seals were there.

I borrowed a 12 ton shop press from my friend Geoffrey, who coincidentally goes by 'Geo', and set to work.


Pressing the bearings and gears on and off of the shaft is super easy. It is literally a grown-up version of the Fisher Price ring stack for toddlers.


I changed out the final drive from a 4.10 to a more diesel friendly 3.52... To do this you have to swap out the entire driven shaft because the pinion gear is integrated into it. No worries, though.


I rebuilt each of the two gear stacks, drive and driven, and put all new synchronizers in to compliment the bearings.


Switching from the 4.10 (larger ring, smaller pinion) to the 3.52 (Smaler ring, larger pinion) required me to grind just a bit on the case of the transmission - I spun the driven shaft in the case and let the pinion make some witness marks on the case, then I took a little sanding drum and clearanced less than a millimeter out of the inside of the case.

This is why I started this whole thing:


Look at the metal that has melted (off of the synchro? off of the gear?)


So it's totally back together and sealed up. I'm feeling pretty damn accomplished!







Here'a little video (if it works) of the storm that hit the house (click it).

[Baltothewolf]

Hey planejob, can we get some pics of the cars? If bad **** happens, might as well share it with us! Then all is not lost!

Also, awesome progress on the transmission! Going from 4.10 to 3.52's we be a massive differennce, trust me.