1972 Rover P6 2300TC - Saab B234 Turbo

[10mpg]

Keep 'em coming!

I love how well thought out your mods are, even some of the best looking fabrication on this site that everyone coos and wows at is often a bit shonky from an engineering perspective but your work is top draw, all those aircraft must be rubbing off on you!

it's really nice to see this car coming together and no doubt it'll be awesome when done I 'will' travel to see this...

[sowen]

Feb 21, 2010 23:36:18 GMT 10mpg said:

Keep 'em coming!

I love how well thought out your mods are, even some of the best looking fabrication on this site that everyone coos and wows at is often a bit shonky from an engineering perspective but your work is top draw, all those aircraft must be rubbing off on you!

it's really nice to see this car coming together and no doubt it'll be awesome when done I 'will' travel to see this...

Cheers ;D

I like everything to be as 'right' as I can get it. I'm a fan of engineering and the processes from the initial design brief and conception to manufacture and in service maintenance and repair. This often makes me want to 'have a go' rather than have someone else do it for me, because I can see exactly what needs (I want) to be done, and that I can usually find a way of doing it with simple home diy tools, usually getting the same result or better compared to having a professional do the work for me. Some things I know I shouldn't mess around with, and I'm still to get a new propshaft made up for the axle conversion, but sometimes it really pays off like my wheels which I think are the dogs danglies . This car has really pushed my skills beyond what I thought I'd ever be able to achieve. It was only meant to be a quick engine change and respray... 7 years ago

I get heaps of inspiration from other threads on this site, and also from my dad who raced a Sunbeam Rapier back in the day, and he's sometimes come up with brilliant suggestions of how to do things and get around problems which I make for myself.

Anyway, after spraying the wheels, I found they just weren't drying very well, so I took them to work and left and infra red heater on them until they were nice and toasty . I finally got round to sorting the tyres out, and had the 225's put onto the freshly painted 8j rims, and two new 205's put on the 7j rims. All four wheel balanced well with only a few small weights added to each wheel:



The wheels are now all fitted, and whill I was in the garage, I temporarily fitted the lower diff brace bar:



It needs a little tweaking but seems to fit well.

[sowen]

I've got a few odd small jobs ticked off my list now. The engine had been difficult to start ever since I fitted it 6 years ago, so I pulled the cap off, and found the points had worn down so there was no gap, I'm amazed it actually run . With the bonnet up, I replaced the dodgy old facet fuel pump with a new one, and now it coughs almost immediately, although it still needs a full service and tune-up. I also made a blanking plate to fit over the old engine driven fuel pump hole:



I've also welded up the jacking holes on the passenger side sill, and sprayed both up in satin black, although the garage seemed to suddenly be full of dust just as I started so they need rubbing down and spraying again



I also plan to pull the engine out soon so that I can trial fit the v8 making any modifications that are required then respray the engine bay. At the same time I want to do a better job of relocating the gearlever to clear the handbrake lever. I got my tape measure out and measured the difference in length between my spare 4 speed box and spare 5 speed box from the bellhousing to the gearlever. The gearlever sat 2.5 inches further back on the 5 speed, so I had a look at my spare remote to see if it could be shortened:



I dismantled it:



Then cut a chunk out of the centre and put the two pieces back together:





I clamped the two halves onto a block of wood:



Then welded back together:



As I haven't welded much aluminium before it was a little messy, and I wanted to check it had welded properly so I ground down the excess:



The section I removed had one of the spring mounts on it so I put the spring back on to see where I needed a new mount put:



I made a new boss to mount the second spring retainer out of weld, filed it down so it matched the other mount then drilled and tapped to fit the screws:





Not bad for a second attempt at welding ally I think ;D . The selector shaft will be shortened when the engine is removed so I know I get it it the right length for the gearlever to sit upright when fitted.

[Seth]

Wow! Excellent work

[tonybmw]

Very Nice work, what did you use to weld the ally with,

[sowen]

Mar 6, 2010 22:31:18 GMT tonybmw said:

Very Nice work, what did you use to weld the ally with,

MIG!

I bought a small disposeable argon bottle and roll of 0.8 ally wire off ebay to give a try, and it seems to work a treat . It's a bit tricky but I was beginning to get the hang of it by the time I'd finished. I had the welder power on max, and the wire feed almost on max to do that job, and it is essential to pre heat with a blowtorch first so the first welds don't crack as you get going.

[stealthstylz]

I keep forgetting to check this thread, but when I do i'm incredibly impressed. The remote shifter work is brilliant, can't believe it was MiG welded might have to give it a go. What size welder have you got?

Matt

[tonybmw]

Mar 6, 2010 23:43:35 GMT sowen said:

Mar 6, 2010 22:31:18 GMT tonybmw said:

Very Nice work, what did you use to weld the ally with,

MIG!

I bought a small disposeable argon bottle and roll of 0.8 ally wire off ebay to give a try, and it seems to work a treat . It's a bit tricky but I was beginning to get the hang of it by the time I'd finished. I had the welder power on max, and the wire feed almost on max to do that job, and it is essential to pre heat with a blowtorch first so the first welds don't crack as you get going.

I am surprised at that, it looked like tig welding, I have never tried anything as thick as that with the mig, but will have to give it a go now. Thanks for that

[sowen]

Mar 7, 2010 15:02:46 GMT tonybmw said:

Mar 6, 2010 23:43:35 GMT sowen said:

MIG!

I bought a small disposeable argon bottle and roll of 0.8 ally wire off ebay to give a try, and it seems to work a treat . It's a bit tricky but I was beginning to get the hang of it by the time I'd finished. I had the welder power on max, and the wire feed almost on max to do that job, and it is essential to pre heat with a blowtorch first so the first welds don't crack as you get going.

I am surprised at that, it looked like tig welding, I have never tried anything as thick as that with the mig, but will have to give it a go now. Thanks for that

Yeah I was sceptical at first but at £25 or whatever it was off ebay for a disposeable bottle and mini roll of wire I thought why not give it a go. It is tricky because the aluminium doesn't exactly change colour, and if you get it too hot, it just runs away from you . I found that having the gun close to the work piece, the wire had a habit of fusing with the tip and coiling up inside the welder around the rollers, but if held about 3/4" to 1" away doesn't seem to be a problem. I think it works so well that I want to find something else to practice on now

[10mpg]

Cracking ally welding! esp on old oily cast...

I wouldnt have even tried, all kudos to you for trying and succeeding....

Although i have a decent tig i've often thought about trying to mig ally as an alternative esp for tacking ally body panels together, might well give it a go now...

Apparently with ally wire if you set the wire roller tension to really low it stops the birds nest inside the machine, as ally is so soft the rollers need hardly any tension to 'bite'

[sowen]

Mar 8, 2010 21:54:29 GMT 10mpg said:

Cracking ally welding! esp on old oily cast...

I wouldnt have even tried, all kudos to you for trying and succeeding....

Although I have a decent tig i've often thought about trying to mig ally as an alternative esp for tacking ally body panels together, might well give it a go now...

Apparently with ally wire if you set the wire roller tension to really low it stops the birds nest inside the machine, as ally is so soft the rollers need hardly any tension to 'bite'

The first time I tried it I ruined about five tips where the ally fused into the end, then coiled up inside on the rollers umpteen more times on this:





I made it as I originally wanted fuel injection, with the possibility of twin turbo's, but the lure of a supecharger was too much, and I've now been put off injection in preference for carbs ;D

I realised that holding the tip 3/4" to 1" away stopped the wire melting to the tip, which stopped the wire 'birds nesting' inside, so it became a success. Building up the boss for the spring took ages, as I had to let it cool a little after a few passes so it woldn't collapse on me, but paid off in the end as it drilled nicely, with only a few minor imperfections.

I would have a TIG, but limited space and the fact that I would only need it for a handful of jobs means I can't justify it, so giving the ally MIG a go was a worthwhile experiment. It means that I can now do minor mods to inlet manifolds and other cast ally parts which I would never have been able to consider before

Here's the welder and the setting is was on to do the aluminium:



The power was on max, and the wire feed between 8 and 9 depending on whether I was trying to get penetration or building up material.

[tonybmw]

I think that would be a worthy write up for the making panels thread, if you had the time, perhaps detailing how you heated it up first and stuff like that, all good reference material for other Retro Riders

[sowen]

Mar 9, 2010 18:15:37 GMT tonybmw said:

I think that would be a worthy write up for the making panels thread, if you had the time, perhaps detailing how you heated it up first and stuff like that, all good reference material for other Retro Riders

That's not a bad shout

I'm waiting on another sd1 gearbox remote to come through the post so that I can finish the shortened one off with the lever from it, to make 100% doubly sure there will be no clearance issues and no further modifications required to fit it. Once that's done, I could take a few more pictures and prepare a write up of some sort to go in there.

Back to the car, since I fitting the lower brace bar to the differential, I've been thinking about the poor ground clearance underneath it, as it only sat about 3 inches off the ground about 2 foot ahead of the axle centreline, hmm, not really ideal with what I've got in mind. Not to mention I won't be able to drive it in the garden without grounding out . As a temporary measure I've fitted a pair of standard rear springs to push the back end up. Now I have 4 1/2 inches clearance under the front of the diff brace bar, and both bumpers are at the same height. The sill at the front measures 5 1/2 inches to the floor, and 7 inches to the floor at the rear ahead of the back axle. This has however caused a slight problem in that the rear is really soft now. It looks like I may need to get another pair of custom springs suitably uprated to cater for the added weight on the rear now, but for now I'll just have to have fun with the jelly suspension ;D

[sowen]

Whilst brousing ebay looking for sd1 remote selector parts I spotted a pair of r380 gearboxes nearby just outside Leicester. I won them and picked them up during the week:



As far as my knowledge goes on them, they're an uprated version of the lt77 as fitted to the sd1 and other british leyland derived cars up to the mid 90's. I already have one from a 2600 sd1, one from a 3500 sd1 vitesse (currently fitted on my 2000) and one from a sherpa van (currently fitted to my v8). The two r380's should be far more suitable for the blown v8

They are however dimensionally slightly different:



The sd1 'box is at the bottom of the pic. The overall length from front to the output flange is the same, but the selector remote mounts are 1" further back, the front bearing cover is deeper and the rear mounts sit further back. Nothing major really, I just need to make sure they'll fit without any more tunnel mods.

Back to the car itself, after another little test drive in the driveway (rear suspension is so bouncy ) I put it back in the garage and pulled the front panels off and prepared the engine to be removed first thing in the morning:





The plan is to tidy up the engine bay, possibly respray it, re-shim the layshaft on the gearbox, then trial fit the v8 to see what work is required to fit it in the engine bay ;D . I'm expecting a little channeling to be needed below the steering box and steering idler to clear the exhaust manifolds, which I plan to fabricate myself from these stainless steel 180⁰ 1.5" bends and flanges I've bought:



The bends have been cut in half ready for trimming to get the right angle from the flange to run tight to the block:



I don't know if the exhausts will be a 4-1 or if space will allow, 4-2-1 yet? I've read that exhaust design is less critical on blown motors, but they must be large enough to flow well so I don't need to be too exact in getting the primary lengths identical, just need to keep them smooth with gentle curves.

[megzy]

the r380 gear box is a much stronger box the 380 denotes the no of knetons meters the box can take

the lt77 s and lt77 s where fitted to the 2.5 diesel and petrol landys the r380 later on and the lt85 (five speed) and lt 95 (4 speed with over drive) fitted to the v8s the 77 85 and 95 no being the distance between the lay shatf and main shaft the 85 and 95 being the most bullet proof boxes layland ever made

ps great build keep up the work

[sowen]

Out came the engine today:









The shortened gear remote now fitted in place:



I've not done as much as I'd hope to get done today, though the tunnel is now painted inside where I cut the sides out and plated them over to fit the 5 speed box, and I've made a start mocking up the v8 ;D



I've got a few clearance issues which I knew I would have. The 2000 engine mounts are in the way, so I'll take the rubber mounts off tomorrow and trim the mount back an inch or two, leaving enough to refit the rubbers so the 2000 engine can go back in. The sides of the tunnel where they meet the tops of the footwells and bulkhead are preventing the engine from pushing straight back. It is 3" short of the gearbox mounts lining up at the moment, but a little grinder and welder action should sort that out with a small plate to close it back in. The only major problem I can now see is where the starter motor will go. It is difficult to tell as the block is wedged on top of the 2000 engine mounts, but the drivers side suspension tie rod mount may cause significant clearance issues, but I won't know until I do the two other jobs first. On a positive note, there looks to be plenty of room behind the v8 above the tunnel ahead of the heater, steering track rod and anti roll bar to push it right back

[sowen]

Here's a few shots of the rear of the engine bay before I started trimming

Drivers side:



Passenger side:



Top of tunnel:



It has become apparent that the main issue is the starter and clutch slave cylinder areas on the bellhousing, so a little trimming and I had this:



Now the block sat back, the gearbox mounts lined up with the holes in the tunnel and bolted up . I dug put a spare pair of heads and have roughly bolted them down. The drivers side head is resting on the clutch master cylinder mounting bracket, not too much of a problem, as I can relocate the mount to the rear side of the bracket, and the starter looks like it may clear the lower suspension arm chassis mount . With the heads on, the next job will be to trim back the towers below the steering box and idler for the exhaust manifolds, which again will not require as much work as I'd originally anticipated

With the heads on the engine, I thought it rude not to get and old inlet manifold and lay the blower, carb and scoop on top ;D





Somehow, it all sits lower than what I thought it would, and the engine can still come down more as it's still catching on the 2000 engine mounts. I also have a shallow pancake filter which will fit, so that I can put a hoodscoop on and take the car out and not worry about light fingers around it when parked up in public places and the old bill taking a dislike to the scoop poking through the bonnet while I'm out and about

[welder]

Can't wait to see this finished, fantastic project..

[Davenger]

I just had a little sex wee.
That looks brilliant!

[tonybmw]

Excellent work,