With the gluing of the exhaust mesh pieces into place I have officially completed the GTM Assembly Manual.  I removed the diffuser to get to the underside of the mesh easier.  Hopefully the weatherstripping trim pieces will hold up to the exhaust temperatures, but if not I will either roll the mesh back (like the manual has you do), or come up with something else to use.

After gluing the mesh in place I secured the intake tubing to the frame. Josh found some cool swivel zip tie mounts that take 2 zip ties and have a swivel in the middle for flexible mounting. The bottom zip tie goes around the frame the tubing passes over, and the top zip tie goes around the tubing, effectively cinching it down to the frame without the need of any hangers or mounts.

Finally, I cleaned up the hosing that connects each fuel tank vent to the air filter. I lengthened the fuel hose and secured it to the top frame member of the chassis running  behind the rear window, and then secured the filter to the frame. Lastly, another fuel hose was attached to the fuel filter ‘out flow’ port and ran to the back of the car for disposing of fumes away from the cabin.

Wednesday afternoon the GTM left me a present in the form of a puddle of fuel under the passenger tank. I traced the leak to the fuel sender unit mount and when I tried tightening down the fuel sender bolts more the leak got worse. I had to pull the fuel tank (after draining all the fuel) and remove the fuel sender unit. A quick inspection showed tears around several of the bolt holes in the tank gasket. I made a quick call to the GM dealer and they had a new pair for me Thursday morning (decided to change the other tank’s gasket as well since I had the passenger tank out already). Unfortunately the gaskets they received were not the correct ones. I promptly ordered another set of gaskets for 97-99 tanks in hopes that they would work. Luckily, I was able to get them overnighted again and got them Friday morning. They were the correct ones and I was able to swap the gaskets as Gorilla Gasket notes and get the tanks reinstalled in a half hour or so. Quick cycle of the fuel pump shows everything to be OK.

With the fuel situation under control we trailored up the GTM and hauled it to the alignment shop. No surprises (good), and the wheels are aligned properly now.

The GTM ships Sunday morning.

Productive weekend on the GTM. The fuel line was secured to the chassis with some padded clamps, and then then wire loom containing the fuel system wiring was secured to the main braided fuel line.  When I went to secure the braided fuel line to the frame I realized I had ran the line along the wrong side of the frame, so I had to drain some fuel and pull the braided line off of the bulkheads and re-route it. Kind of a pain in the butt, and resulted in a nice gas-fume headache. The hardlines were also secured to the frame.

The engine underbody panel was secured to the frame with the skid bars and the remaining exposed holes were screwed in for easy removal in the future. The previously ‘screwed on’ removable engine panel cover was riveted on instead since I made the entire panel removable. The engine panel piece was also covered with Dynamat. 

The last remaining passenger tunnel aluminum piece was riveted to the frame, then covered with Dynamat and Dynaliner – just needs suede!

My old college roomate came down to visit today and check out the build so I gave him a quick spirited ride in the go-kart. Definitely got on it a little more than last time. This thing is a blast to drive.

The other night the fuel filter output was finally connected to the fuel rail, and the transmission cooler was installed. With the cooler in place the AN lines were made and connected. I am using an inline oil temperature sensor that will activate the oil pump when the oil reaches 180 degrees. This connects to the cooler inlet and wires to the oil pump (wiring needs to be done yet). 

With the transmission and fuel lines completed the transmission was filled with Swepco 210 gear oil, the fuel system got 5 gallons of gas, and some coolant was added. When the engine runs the coolant fill procedure will be followed.

With some fuel in the tank I wanted to test out the fuel gauge. The gauge takes a switched 12v, ground, and the fuel sender wire in the painless harness. The first time I hooked it up it pegged at way past full, which was obviously not the case. After some research I realized I did not have to wire the fuel harness sensor ground to the PCM, so I cut the wire and ground it to the chassis and the fuel gauge worked. It reads at around 1/8th tank with 5 gallons, so it is reading low, but that is better than reading high!

I also replaced the oil-fill cap with a screw in K&N breather, and finished bleeding the clutch slave. To finish the clutch slave bleed the slave had to be removed from the transmission and held high with the bleeder at the highest point. This got the rest of the air out of the system and the clutch is extremely firm now. The pedal only needs to travel half its full range-of-motion to engage the clutch.

Finally got the cable shift working. Some extra fine-tuning and adjustments had to be made within the cable shift box to shorten the shifter cable, but things work great now. Nice short, crisp shifts.

After doing the cable shift I moved onto the passenger fuel tank installation. Before I could put the fuel tank in I had to rivet the second rear aluminum panel into place. With that out of the way I slid/forced the tank into place and connected up all the lines. The vapor exit tube was linked to the previously installed filter on the driver side fuel tank. All that remains to complete the fuel system is to connect the fuel filter output port to the fuel rail.

Finally, I cleaned up the engine harness some more by looming the starter wires, and moving any wires that stray too close to the headers.

Earlier today I finished the clutch pedal mod by placing some good grip tape on it. It looks pretty ‘factory’ now.

Tonight I started out by cutting the water pump hoses to length and then connecting them to the 45-degree fittings. Much nicer. I also started reconnecting the water pump corrugated lines – I decided to use better hose clamps for these connections.

After that I moved on to installing the driver-side axle. This was pretty straight forward. The passenger side will go in after I install the starter. I also noticed the trans/engine was off-center by a good amount, but after I slid in the rear frame member/transmission mount it centered up pretty good.

Lastly, the fuel crossover hose was installed on the fuel rails.