Bye Steelies

Remember the widened steelies i made earlier? It turned out they were ridiculously too wide for The Dog and if i kept them on, i'd be buying tires and fixing fenders like crazy. Those steelies were sold just a few weeks ago to a KE70 owner and he promised me to send me pics with them on. Well, the guy kept his promise.

Here's what would happen to The Dog if i kept those steelies on her. The owner is planning to get some fiberglass overfender so he doesn't really mind the damage.

Those rims were part of a huge pile of stuff left over from building The Dog. I really gotta start selling those stuff before my house turns into a junkyard.. T50 gearbox anyone? Or a complete S-series diff? and I have too many small parts for me to remember.

Famous To Famous

Look what got delivered yesterday!

Wrapped my old tires around them.. This is what 185/55/R15 looks on a 7 inch rim.

Slapped on my 4x114.3 to 4x100 25mm adapters.. Getting these adapters is definitely one of the best decisions i made in this project. They open up a whole lot of options when it comes to wheel choice. I'm no longer limited by my PCD measurement.

Et voila!

You refer to RS Watanabes as banana wheels, us Indonesians refer to them as starfruits, all obviously inspired from the spoke design.

So what happened to my other similarly famous wheels? They were sold out of boredom to my friend, Jefry. Since i'm keeping my tires, he has to buy new tires. Yum.. new rubbers.. Here's the Equip 03 replicas on his car.

Poke On A Budget

Before we get all the haters rolling in, understand that i did this just for the fun of it. I'm basically going to sell my Axis OG and need something to fill the fenders until i collect enough money for better wheels. That's why cost was priority for this.

It all started with these steelies lying on my frontyard.

One set was from The Dog when i first got her and the other set was from my KF40 truck. They're all are 14x5jj. Mom had been bugging me to get rid of them so i thought instead of selling them for peanuts, why not make something out of them?

The idea was to make a set of widened steelies by combining both sets. One set will be the barrels and the other will be the outer lips. Running tubes is never a good idea for me so the end result must still be able to run tubeless.

To make the outer lips, start by machining the inner lip off.



Afterwards, grind off the welds that hold the center to the rim and get that center off with a BFH. It surprised me how very little welds are needed to make a steel wheel. There're basically only tack welds at four corners of the center. The press-fit fabrication must have really helped on keeping a steel wheel strong.


With the center off, you get the outer lips..


Making the barrels are much easier as you retain the centers. You need only to machine off the outer lip.


To ensure the barrels and lips stay centered when they're combined, the edges are actually made into steps, ensuring both edges match when they're combined. It's a bit difficult but below you can still see the step edge.


Then comes the combining and welding. The welds were ground smooth and rewelded a couple off times, while carefully checking for pores that could leak air.



Once done, i went to check for the fitment on The Dog. Here's how the front looks.


Crazy poke, huh? Keep in mind that i had to use about 30mm of spacer to fit them as my RX7 caliper would foul the wheels without the spacers.

A few hours and two cans of spray paint, they look easier on the eyes. They're 9.5JJ rears and 9JJ fronts. 9.5 inch is the maximum width you can get with two sets of 5JJ since getting the lips off would reduce some of the width.



Since budget is priority, i decided to get 185/60 R14 used tires, cost me only 50 bucks. Now here's the fun part. Stretch tire fitment has always been a challenge, especially here in Lampung where not many guys have done it. I tried first using the brake fluid method but it didn't work. Perhaps i didn't use enough brake fluid. Luckily, the machine shop has this awesome "air blaster" made, as i like to call it.

The final result, 185/60 R14 on 9JJ.



I let a fellow Daihatsu Charmant Community member and friend of mine, Jefry, borrow these wheels. He's the fellow who's going to buy my Axis OG. He just sold his 14 inch alloys and with the money, bought a set of new 185/55 15 inch tires to fit my Axis OG. We'll later exchange the wheels after he pays me. I chose to keep my tires as i'm planning to use them for the new wheels later. His Charmant is stock, at least around the brake and suspension area. So the next pics will show you how these steelies will look under stock Charmant




Baller!

TE37V

Contemplating on replacing my Work Equip 03 replica wheels lately and got my mind on TE37V. Some say TE37V would diminish the "retroness" and that it's better to find more period-correct wheels like Watanabe or the likes, although the V actually stands for Vintage and this series was made by Rays Wheels to cater the uprising of Japanese classics like AE86. Made myself a preview of how The Dog would look like on TE37Vs. What do you think?

My current ones, Axis OG

Bronze TE37V

Custom 4-Links Installation and Wheel Alignment

Last weekend, The Dog had finally got full spherical rod-end suspension links on her rear-end. After the installation of the lateral rod a few weeks ago, the 4-links were in. Everything went smoothly as planned, a sign that i did my measurements correct.

I decided to keep the stock diff angle for now so the custom 4-links were set to have the same lengths as the stock ones. With the Dog now lower than stock height, a diff angle adjustment should be in order.

Here's a comparison of the stock and custom link. The red Prothane bushings were only a few kilometers old but i'm swapping them anyway.

Here's the lower link installed.

Verdict? Except for the extra noise in the cabin, can't say that i notice any difference on normal driving. My previous polyurethane bushings were still new so that's expected. I wasn't surprised with the extra noise as metal is worse than rubber in damping differential noise. Anyway, albeit small, improvements are improvements. Let's see how long those rod-ends last.

Next was the pending wheel alignment. I changed my steering links months ago so i've been driving without proper wheel alignment ever since.

Usually, we can only adjust the toe and caster on Charmants but with the T3 plates, cambers are also adjustable on mine. I did a search on wheel alignments settings used by most AE86 owners and based on that decided to have mine something like this:

Front Toe: 0 deg

Front Camber: -2 deg

Front Caster: 3.5 deg

I left the rears as they were although with the 4 links, i can at least adjust the toe.

I learned later that i can only get to 2 deg of caster on the front. I already ran out of the threads on my strut rods so it couldn't be shifted further for more caster. I don't know why but maybe my RCA prevents the extra Caster.

Confused with the terms? Here's good depiction taken from Hayne's manual.

So why did i choose the preferred settings? A zero toe would guarantee my tires last longer, a moderate negative camber would help on cornering while minimizing impact on inner tire wear and finally maximum caster helps on straight highway drive as it stabilizes the steering better. Compare a Harley Davidson with Suzuki Hayabusa. The extra rake angle on the Harley helps to minimize move on straight roads compared to the sporty Hayabusa right? Well that's just about what extra caster do on your steering.

Here's the comparison before and after the alignment.

Notice what it says on the upper right corner? Yup AE86 P/S. The wheel alignment computer had no database for Charmants so i told the aligner to set it as Power Steering equipped AE86. Should be the same right?

Other than those, finally found the culprit of my cranking problem. It was the battery all along. Changed to new battery and starting the engine has never been easier. With this solved, i am confident that i can take The Dog to my workplace so i'll get to see her everyday.

Other than that, i also get to install some Hella horns in and fixed the door lock. It's the small things that makes the car more enjoyable to drive. The more minor problems you fix compared to the major ones, the more it tells you that your car's doing great.

Last thing, how about a new look on my OG Axis Oldskool wheels? Yeah, the Equip cap certainly helped to improve the looks, i'd say!

Ultra Racing AE86 Fender Bars & Work Equip Caps

Apart from the SLC DIY Wideband, these are on their way home: Ultra Racing Fender Bars & Work Equip wheel caps.

Why just the fender bars? I believe they're the most complicated and time consuming to fabricate on my own as they require me to remove the fenders before i can even start measuring to make the design. With very little time to work on The Dog, i prefer to buy pre-made fender bars. I will custom-made the other parts which would be the rear anti-roll bar, two-point front and three-point rear strut bars. Those should take just a day to fabricate and install, fender bars included. Heck, maybe i can even throw a front lower arm brace in. I think those should be enough to stiffen the front and rear parts. Contrary to what some believe, you can actually put too much bracings. Haven't decided what to use to strengthen the mid-section including the cabin. It could be a roll-cage or another set of bracings.

Anyway, i found a local distributor for Ultra Racing parts which gave me a good price on the fender bars. That's why i opted for the Malaysian-born chassis tuning parts. As can be seen below, they are actually for AE86, with part number UR-FD3-041.

but seeing that they fit KE70s..

i'm pretty sure also that they'll fit The Dog.

Not much to say about the Work Equip caps except that they're custom-made locally and will sit on top of my original Axis OG Oldskool wheel cap labels.

Rolling on New Wheels

Axis OG Oldskool 15x8 114.3x4 ET+28 on The Dog. Tires are both 185/55/R15 front and rear. They're Achilles ATR Sport for those who care. Contemplated on 175/50 previously but soon changed my mind seeing how narrow and weird they would look on Charmant's wide body. Hence, semi-stretched look yet maintaining balance with body dimension.

A word of advice: avoid using the same wheel measurement for your Charmant. 15x8 inch and +28mm of offset will give you headache. On the front end, the inner wheel lip will touch the strut housing. You'll need 20mm of spacer to get enough clearance between them, which is what i did. With that thickness, you'll want hub-centric spacers. Avoid universal spacers which only give you vibration and added risk.

On the rear, there's no problem with fitting the wheels but you'll soon realize that they will be too deep inside the wheel wells. Null effect on performance but also zero points on looks. You'll need about 30mm of spacers to poke the wheels out a bit for that extra thumbs-ups.

Those of you familiar with wheel measurements should already know that such positive offset is usually for FWD cars. Based on this experience, with 15x8, i'd say the maximum offset is ET+0. The lesser, the better. You can calculate yourself if you have other wheel size. For example, with 15x9, you don't want to go more than ET-12.

Enough with me blabbering. Let's get down to business.. Pics!!!

Now, with that done, are we getting closer to this guy?

Drool-worthy authentic Work Equip 03s.. Who knows when i can get my hands on them.

What The Dog desperately needs now is some lowering and that 30mm rear spacers. Lowering will have to wait for the T3 suspension parts to arrive and spacers, well, let's see if i can get lucky again just like on the front ones. Got the front spacers for sale just when i was confused on the inner lip-strut problem but i don't think i'll get so lucky this time and have to go the long way of having a machine shop make them for me.