1972 Hillman Hunter. Megasquirt, ITB's and wider arches.

[Hillmanjames]

Hillmanjames is back in a Hillman! But don't worry the V8 Ford Capri is still under construction.

It started off the same way most of my purchases go, by seeing it on eBay and buying it unseen!


The seller sent me some pictures, i won it on ebay then drove it 140 miles back late on a rainy night!
Here it is at a burger king on the way;


2 days later i booked it in to an MOT. I wasnt expecting much, maybe a few brake lines, ect, the usual stuff.

Anyway, a bucket full of rust later and 2 sheets of fails later and its nearly ready for a retest this coming weekend haha
Both inner and outer sills were knackered. along with seat belt mountings and the handbrake mount. Its nearly all sorted now, just a small patch at the front end to do.




I also installed a rev gauge seeing as it never had one from the factory.


That's it for now.
There's thunder and lightening outside so I'm not bringing the welder back out

oh yeah, this is going to be my super reliable daily as well


James

[stealthstylz]

I'm sure I saw this broken down next to the ring road in Leeds a few weeks ago.

[qwerty]

Looks great. Any plans for once its MOT'd?

[grifterkid]

That looks superb, a great basis for something very cool indeed... It looks like you've got the skills so I'm sure something very interesting is going to come out of this... Good luekc with the MOT retest!

[Hillmanjames]

Thanks grifterkid, I'm just going to be running it as a daily for now but it's inevitable that I'll find something to play with!

Stelthstylz that was me you saw! I kept pulling over to check it was Ok, looking for leaks ect, but never found anything wrong for the whole journey! Except the weather. That was rubbish!

James

[taurus]

Nice. I remember those light switches in the centre console, you can never find them in the dark.

What's the colour? I remember they did a metallic turquoise which they called Aquarius - which is the one we had. It was a bit prone to chipping off if you looked at it hard.

[Hillmanjames]

Ite been repainted in the past taurus so i'm not sure what colour it was originally!

James

[Hillmanjames]

The weather was nice today so after work i jacked the car up and set about changing the bushes on the leaf springs. I couldn't find reasonably priced Hillman bushes for it so i settled on the next best thing. Poly bushes for a mk2 Ford escort!

I started off jacking the car up and sticking some axle stands under it along with the wheels. I have had cars fall off the stands before and been saved by the wheel i chucked underneath it. Luckily that was just a polo and only my legs were underneath!



Next up I un-done all the securing bolts. doing these 4 last. Once they were all done a whack with the hammer and the spring was free.




Next up was the horrible job of removing the old bushing. Past experience has told me how awfull these are to get out. but on this occasion i was wrong and it practically fell out!


Now here is the fun part. As i am using the bushings off an escort , they are slightly diferent sizes. The only diference however, is the width of the spring. The external, flange (hehe) width and hole diameter are the same, along with the fixing bolt length. This is as the bushings came:


and the old:


To sort it i simply cut the difference out and shortened the metal insert aswell. I then pressed them into the axle with a rubber mallet!


Once that was completed i was left with these beauties staring back at me. All crusted up and brown. I didn't like this so i painted them black with some exhaust paint



With the wheels on it looks a heck of alot better now.

By the time this was all done it was only 7 oclock! too early to stop, so i started messing with the carb. The car came with a K&N filter and i have removed the centre silencer which was completely knackered! This made the car considerably more energetic, but you could hear the deathly knock of detonation if you didn't have the choke out a bit at all times. Too lean!

With the car having a later type Stromberg Zenith 150CDS carb you can fine tune the fuelling with an allen key by simply moving the needle up or down. i gave this a go and found that the needle is either maxed out or the adjuster is broken! The only other things that could cause it being lean were either the float height, then the jet. So i took it off and checked the float height.


The float height turned out to be 16.5 mm. Cock on the 16mm to 17mm specification in the Haynes manual.


So i drilled out the jets. started off with a 6mm then went up to 8. slightly rich is better isn't it?

Only messing. I measured them using the micro drill bits and found the jet is 2.2mm ish. I know that they are a PITA to change so i only went up 0.1 to 2.3ish. Once the carb was back on the car and tested for leaks i took it for a drive and hell, its better still. I might even have the factory 80bhp back!

anyway, time for some more Aldi beer. If you like the taste of Desperados but not the price, you'll love Sombreros from there!

James.

[Hillmanjames]

The clutch has broken! Oh no!

what better excuse to stick a more powerful engine in

Driving back from work the other day the clutch pedal went right to the floor, then rock hard when i tried to press it again. Its either the pressure plate or the release bearing as its jammed up pretty tight!

Anyway, i pulled it out today so that i can stick the MX8 1.8 engine in it that i am collecting this weekend. Pictures of a sad looking car:



Engine out:





Also dug these out to stick on the mx5 lump.



James

[Deleted]

What a great little project, even though l think you were secretly happy you had to change the engine

[Hillmanjames]

Don't tell the Ms, Rob!



Sent from my C6603 using Tapatalk

[Seth]

Good to see this one resurrected with a good welding session. I remember seeing it on Ebay. Shame about the clutch issue but will be interesting to see how the MX5 lumps looks when dangled in there, tunnel clearance etc.

[Hillmanjames]

Cheers Seth.
I'm picking up the engine on Saturday so hopefully I'll have it resting on some mounts by Sunday afternoon. The gearbox on the hillman had loads of room in the tunnel. The gearbox mount was roughly 3 inches high as well so I can move it all down after doing the capri, modifying the tunnel doesn't phase me!
I'll make a start on the wiring tonight and get the fuel lines sorted.

James

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[Hillmanjames]

Just a quick update as I'm pretty worn out!

The engine is all in now, wiring done, fuel lines, water ect done. Just have to get it started!

Having some issues getting a sign from the VR sensor. I've narrowed it down to a few things whilst having a think at work so I'll give them a go when I'm home tonight!

I'll also get some pictures up On here at some point. But for now there's a load on my instagram ( Hillmanjames)

Wish me luck.

James

[Hillmanjames]

And here is the reason that i have changed the title.


Last week the clutch failed me on the car. The pedal went to the floor, the rock hard suggesting that it had reached max extension. Upon closer inspection it looked like the clutch release bearing had given up (hadn't actually) 3 hours prior to this i had bought a MX5 1800 engine and gearbox for it. Ity came with the loom, mounts, ancillaries ect and i already had the Megasquirt.

Seeing as the engine/gearbox had to basicly come out to do the bearing i though there was no better time/excuse to stick the MX5 engine in it! So i pulled it all out, leaving a bit hole:


The next step was to assemble the engine and gearbox and give it a clean.



ta for the pictures Zoe!

The next job was to stick it in. The gearlever hole needed some enlarging as it is further back, but aside from the the engine mounts and gearbox cross member both lined up with the MX5 mounts.


Clearance on the sump:

The jack is there with an axle stand just out of shot on either side

Here it is fully fitted and running (the sound on the video is curse word! my phone couldn't handle it)




It was just started up running on a very basic tune. Since that i have fitted a fuel return to the tank using the stock regulator, new oil and filter, sorted out the vac lines and got the coolant temp sensor calibrated.

There are 2 jobs left to do now so that it can be driven:
- Get a prop shaft made
- Make a clutch line

Once that's done its engine tuning time!

James

[jimspolicev8sd1]

Speedy work. Nice one!

[Deleted]

properly cool!   Had an FB victor a few years back and realy wish id done an mx5 swap to that... The old 1500 was very shagged.

[Hillmanjames]

It was speedy work indeed Jim. I'm knackered now though!

Started on Saturday, engine in on Sunday and started on Monday at 21.45 after a wiring session when i got home from work! (sorry neighbours. Couldn't resist hearing it for the first time and seeing its the Megasquirt worked!)

The 1725 that it had in it didn't really have anything wrong with it, but it was old and tired.

I suppose 3x the power will be nice and an extra 2000rpm to rev to

James

[Seth]

Great work! Tunnel clearance all OK then except for the gearlever?

Shouldn't really be 3 times the power as a single carb 1725 ought to be around the 80 mark. Torque won't be up much at all with the Mazda lump but I'm sure it'll still go nicely as the Hillman is probably a similar weight to a Mk2 MX5.

[joe90]

Looks good mate, might be an idea to mount the battery in the boot as it looks a bit tight.

Bryan