Em
Part of things
Fuel Injected? Carb Infested!
Posts: 601
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Mar 23, 2014 19:19:59 GMT
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Gota big thumbs up for the ingenuity Cheers Rob! Could you not drill and tap the flat spot on the thermostat housing for a screw in take off? Hi APB. Don’t think so, that would still be on the ‘closed’ side until the ‘stat opened, wouldn’t it? I might try drilling a hole in a spare ‘stat, anecdotal online evidence seems to suggest that works…! You could use a router tool with carbide bits and guide bearing to mill the aluminium. Clamp the template to the aluminium and let the guide bearing follow the wood. I like your engineering Cheers for the tip Sonus! I’m almost (!) there with it now, will bear that in mind if I ever need to do another though! Excellent updates If you were still struggling with belts and pulleys I was gonna offer to help as I have a couple of good industrial transmission component suppliers, but you seem to have gotten there. That blower bracket is gonna look lovely when it's all polished up Thanks Mr. S! Actually, if you do know a good belt supplier that would be useful! I’ve been finding out that although a company lists something on their website it doesn’t always mean they have one or can even get one. Grr… Good progress Em. Can you not chop a section out of the bracket to allow the vac advance unit a bit more room to turn? Assuming that is where the problem lies? If the timing is set statically then its unlikely you'd need to move it more than say 10 degrees in either direction from there. Or run without the vac advance fitted? Cheers Seth! Yup, I could, and that’s exactly where the issue is. I’m hoping that as you say, I won’t need to move the dizzy too much but what with my recent forays into diesel and new-fangled EFI it’s been sooooo long since I’ve had to twist a dizzy I’ve rather forgotten how much is likely to be needed! I think ultimately given that blowers have ‘specific’ dizzy requirements and all the bad things I’ve read about the stock Lucas system I’ll look into some sort of stand-alone distributor-less setup like on your Herald. Loving your updates as usual. Looking good. Cheers Fella! Much appreciated. Back in the garage, I’ve got this far cutting my bracket. Don’t want to go too much further until I’ve actually got the belt I need in my hands… No shortage of other jobs to be getting on with though! I while ago I started thinking about finally filling in some of the many, many gaps that remain in the ‘erald’s panels. Here’s a very rough guide to where the bumps are on an LT77 bellhousing. And here’s how that might be accommodated in sheet steel. The same bit, in the car. You’ll notice it ‘steps back’ a couple of inches – this is to allow enough space behind the heads to let the engine lean back when being lifted in and out. And this’ll be a clearance template for the ‘box itself. Funny shaped things, these; they don’t get any narrower as you go back… A while back, to save time (or so I thought) I ordered a load on panels cut to size from 1mm mild steel, for area like this. Didn’t realise until much later that it’s actually nearer 1.2. Not much you’d think (and I guess I’ve got more metal for my money) but the downside is it weighs a load more and is much harder to work with than the 1mm I’ve been using thus far. Here’s me trying to wrestle the tunnel section into shape… Beginning to get there. This is going to be one big tunnel, although it won’t be quite as long as this. My plan is to keep the interior as standard looking as possible (I’d got hold of a stock Herald gaiter with this in mind) but to be honest, I’m not going to be fooling anyone! Folded out the lower edges that attach to the chassis rails. Although the removable nature of the standard Herald’s tunnel is a boon for easy access, I’m electing to weld mine on in the interests of keeping sound and fumes to a minimum. Hope I don’t come to regret this… These bits of cardboard represent the individual panels that will make up the bellhousing cover. This side is fairly straightforward… …this one’s going to be a little more awkward because of the no-parallel angles in the middle panel, needed to get around the starter motor. This might be ambitious with all the angles involved, but I’m going to try and make this in one bit. I’m struggling to cut this with my trusty old Gilbow shears, but happily the previous recipient of the “Bloody Useless Tool of the Day” award proved its mettle (pun intended) here. Next step, trying to fold it up accurately! Cheers! Em.
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MrSpeedy
East Midlands
www.vintagediesels.co.uk
Posts: 4,786
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Mar 23, 2014 23:26:19 GMT
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Drop me a PM with the size/spec you need and I'll see what they can do
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Mar 24, 2014 11:24:30 GMT
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Good progress EM, have you left enough clearance to shoe horn the engine and gearbox in? as l guess your tunnel will be permanently fixed.
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Mar 24, 2014 14:13:42 GMT
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LOVE your vision of this car!...you are doing great work...very cool
JP
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I know its spelled Norman Luxury Yacht, but its pronounced Throat Wobbler Mangrove!
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Em
Part of things
Fuel Injected? Carb Infested!
Posts: 601
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Mar 31, 2014 21:44:14 GMT
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Drop me a PM with the size/spec you need and I'll see what they can do Cheers Mr.S! You have PM… Good progress EM, have you left enough clearance to shoe horn the engine and gearbox in? as l guess your tunnel will be permanently fixed. Cheers Rob! Yeah, I think so… It’s going to be rather tight (but what isn’t on this poxy car?!) but I think it should just go. The engine goes in with the tailshaft almost dragging on the floor and the front pulley pointing at the stars. As it goes back, I stick the jack under the ‘box, drop the crane and level it off. Got it down to a fine art now! Yeah, going to weld the tunnel in and try and keep the fumes and noise out of the cabin as much as possible. LOVE your vision of this car!...you are doing great work...very cool JP Cheers JP! Much appreciated! Right-O, back to work! Here’s my bellhousing panel all folded up and drilled for plug welding. With hindsight, that’s too many holes… About to tack it into position into the fireplace panel. Looks OK from the back…
With a few tacks in place, it seems to fit quite well! Other side looks OK too. Here’s the clearance I built in at the back, to enable the engine to lean back for fitting. Hopefully it’ll be enough…! Next I started to think about the rear wheel arches. (Logic would dictate I carry on closing the front bulkhead off, but I need to get hold of things like a heater unit, wiper motor and stuff like that before I go any further there.) I bought a set of outer arches about 20 years ago when I was planning on running Sherpa steels, but with the Cosmics I’ve now got there’s no way there’s enough room in there. In fact, I’m going to have to trim the outer lip back pretty tight as it is. Bolted on a wheel and set it at ride height… …then jacked it up into the full bump position and drew around the tire to give an idea of the clearance I’d need. Clamped a sheet of steel around the outside of the arch and drew the shape of the lip onto it. Finally, combined the full bump wheel position and the arch outline onto the same panel. The idea is to fold a small lip around the arch line (for welding to the arch) and then attach 90s Pro Street wheel tubs around the outer edge of the wheel position. Hopefully this will become a little clearer next time! Cheers! Em.
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Mar 31, 2014 21:49:57 GMT
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Hi Em, Nice work Mate. Can you come over to NZ and help me with my panel work....I'm getting better slowly. That tunnel is looking very nice in deed
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69 Herald 13/60 with Turbo 1600 MX5 engine, Lexus 5 link rear end, 17in wheels,300mm ventilated disc's and subaru 4 pot calipers
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Em, like the tunnel and glad you have enough room to get the boat anchor in mine you you only need to fit it once lol, l found l had to remove the steering rack to get mine in and out. Good progress on filling all those voids with tin the ride hieght is going to be cool 8)
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Em
Part of things
Fuel Injected? Carb Infested!
Posts: 601
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Hi Em, Nice work Mate. Can you come over to NZ and help me with my panel work....I'm getting better slowly. That tunnel is looking very nice in deed Wotcha Frank! Ha, now there’s a tempting offer! Looks to me like you’re getting on just fine though! Thanks for the comments, quite pleased with the tunnel too, in a dramatic break with tradition it worked out better than I’d expected! Em, like the tunnel and glad you have enough room to get the boat anchor in mine you you only need to fit it once lol, l found l had to remove the steering rack to get mine in and out. Good progress on filling all those voids with tin the ride hieght is going to be cool 8) Cheers Rob! I also need to remove the rack to get the engine in and out. Not ideal at all, but this whole project has been an exercise in packaging… Boat Anchor, though?! How very dare you Sir!! (Although if I was starting this project now and not 20 years ago, I might be looking at something a little more modern. It would still have to have 8 cylinders, though…) Right-o, as promised last time, more wheel arch action! You’ll be accustomed to me jumping around from one bit of the car to another by now, so you probably won’t be that surprised to find my next step was to fit the roof. (Yeah, it’s white. It was the late 80s, it seemed like a good idea at the time what with the white bumpers at whitewall tire flaps I was running…) Anyway, the reason for sticking the roof on is to see how much room it takes up when folded down, and whether it was going to interfere with my planned wheel arches. Looks like I’ll just get away with it here… So next I trimmed around the wheel arch lip (after adding a 15 mm flange (snigger) for welding) and started folding it up little by little all the way round. Once I’d got the flange (snigger) to around 45 degrees I started dressing it back with a hammer against a bit of old box section. Really should invest in some proper dollies one day… And Viola! I’d expected this to bow quite badly, but it seems to have gone rather well, I suspect partly as a result of clamping it to the bench. Here it is in-situ, following the arch lip better that I could have hoped. And here’s its opposite number, loosely clamped in place on the outside of the chassis rail. So the next step would seem to be to make the arch ‘top’ but before I do that I need to know how wide it needs to be all the way around. I’ve had to trim the wheel arch lip a tad as it was rubbing on the tire toward the rear of the arch. I’m also going to push the trailing edge of the arch out a little, about half an inch, to gain a bit more clearance. I’m not sure if the arch has ‘sprung’ in a bit without the floor to hold it in place (need to have a look at s standard Herald) but I don’t think this little ‘tweak’ will have any adverse aesthetic affects. Fingers crossed… To help work this out I next made this, the boot corner panel…
…that goes here and help set the wheel arch gap. The hole on the right of the shot is where the exhaust will have to come through to link up to the silencer which is slung underneath this panel, hiding behind the quarter valence. Here’s how it looks from the inside. That’s all for now! Cheers, Em.
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Lovely progress. Just lovely
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djay
Part of things
Posts: 34
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Lovely neat work. Are you going to do the same with the front arches?
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Em
Part of things
Fuel Injected? Carb Infested!
Posts: 601
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Apr 26, 2014 12:19:46 GMT
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Lovely progress. Just lovely Cheers MightyMork, much appreciated! Lovely neat work. Are you going to do the same with the front arches? Thank you djay! Yeah, think I’m going to have to do something similar. Not really thought about that bit yet, will cross that bridge when I come to it…! Right-O, even more wheel arch action! This is the beginnings of the actual inner arch. The mounting lip nearest the camera is straight and is the inner edge; the other one, which joins onto the wing is contoured to follow the shape of the inner wing and create as much space for the wheel as possible. Here I’m starting to put the curve in it with the shrinker/stretcher. Damn useful tool this! It took me quite a while and a great deal of swapping from the shrinking jaws to the stretching jaws and back again to get this right… …but got there in the end. Not quite big enough to really be called Pro Street, maybe more Pro Cul-de-sac… The view from the back. A final quick check to make sure the roof still goes down all the way. It does, just…! From the back you can see how close it is. Next I mocked up all the individual arch panels in-situ with the boot corner to make sure everything still fits. Things have a habit of shrinking or even growing when I’m not looking I’ve discovered… I’ve tidied up this corner a bit, was never very happy with how it looked after chopping off the ends of the rear-most cross member.I still need to put in the distance tubes that set the distance of the over-rider and I think I’ll come up with a nicer way if terminating the cross member, but that can wait for a moment. Before the arch goes in for good, I’ll need to weld in this closing panel for the end of the sill and the chassis rail I knocked up… …but before that I need to tack the outer edge of the arch to the upper edge of the wing panel from under the arch. (This is because I’ve elected to ‘spot weld’ the outside edge which you can’t get at when it’s all in the car. If that makes no sense, the picture below should explain it better than I can!) Also, I’ve realised that I’ve not previously been very smart with preventing future rust, so I’ve given the back of all the faces to be welded a good coat of weld-through primer. To be honest, I hadn’t even heard of weld-through primer until I joined Retro Rides…! Although not shown here, I also had to employ some shrinker/stretcher action on the wing panel; although it seemed a fairly good fit at first glance, I realized that it was ‘flatter’ than the actual wing and being made of thicker, stronger metal, pulled the wing inwards when clamped together. Not what I need when space is so tight! A bit of time in the jaws and it’s a much better fit. Finally, with a few tacks holding the panels together, it was safe to remove it for welding on the bench. Hopefully it will still be the same shape when it goes back in… Cheers, Em.
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Apr 26, 2014 12:25:42 GMT
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Hey arch-de-triumph great progress Em, how many sheets of steel have you used so far :0 l used 2 2mx1m sheets so you'll end up using loads lol!
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Em
Part of things
Fuel Injected? Carb Infested!
Posts: 601
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Apr 26, 2014 12:43:49 GMT
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Hey arch-de-triumph great progress Em, how many sheets of steel have you used so far :0 l used 2 2mx1m sheets so you'll end up using loads lol! Cheers Rob! Ha, lots! I'm currently steaming through a second 8' by 4' sheet, and I also bought most of the floor panels already cut to approximate size to save time. I reckon it will have consumed at least three full sheets at the end!
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fogey
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,587
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Apr 26, 2014 13:45:27 GMT
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Superb Em, absolutely superb!
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Great progress! Keep up the inspiring work
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Just been catching up on this build and had a skim through the last 4 or 5 pages - awesome work I don't know if it has been covered as I didn't read every post but I think you might have 2 issues with your exhaust system : 1, Very hot oil in the sump 2, Very hot oil in the rear dampers Neither of which is a good thing. Better get the exhaust ceramic coated and run some heatshielding too if you can.
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I'm IMMORTAL - well so far !!
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This car is the dogs dangleeeeeeys!!!! Should go like the proverbial of a shovel when its done!
Awesome work, just awesome
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Em
Part of things
Fuel Injected? Carb Infested!
Posts: 601
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Jul 25, 2014 18:22:36 GMT
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Superb Em, absolutely superb!
Thanks Fogey, much appreciated!
Great progress! Keep up the inspiring work
Many thanks Hastandard, will do me best!
Just been catching up on this build and had a skim through the last 4 or 5 pages - awesome work I don't know if it has been covered as I didn't read every post but I think you might have 2 issues with your exhaust system : 1, Very hot oil in the sump 2, Very hot oil in the rear dampers Neither of which is a good thing. Better get the exhaust ceramic coated and run some heatshielding too if you can.
Hi Niterida, thanks for the comments!Yeah, the oil temperature is something that’s been worrying me a bit lately. I do have an oil cooler to go in (although I think it may not be big enough now) and I’ve been umm-ing and ahh-ing about the relative merits of ceramic coating or heat wrapping the manifolds and downpipes. The real problem is that I messed up when making the sump; it’s just far too close to the downpipes. I think a re-design is on the cards. I imagine the existing set up (with oil cooler) might just cope when the car’s moving, but stuck in traffic on a hot day is just going to lead to trouble. I was even thinking about a dry sump system (there was one on ebay the other day) but they aint cheap and add more complications like belts, brackets and reservoirs, all of which I’d rather avoid. If I can build a new sump that keeps some distance from the downpipes (and maybe adds some extra oil capacity) I may be OK. Watch this space… Must admit I hadn’t actually considered the rear coilovers; was kinda hoping things would be a bit cooler that far back in the system but heat shielding is a good call. I’ll look into it. This car is the dogs dangleeeeeeys!!!! Should go like the proverbial of a shovel when its done! Awesome work, just awesome
Ha, thanks! Yeah, I’m hoping it won’t hang about although it’s getting heavier by the day!Thanks for the comments! Right then, a little more “Arch de Triumph” (©Rob, 2014) action! (Sorry Rob, I only just got that joke!) This’ll be the last of it for now, then we’ll get on to something more interesting, promise! I should have included this shot in the last post really, just to illustrate that I did in fact tidy up the welds and give the unreachable areas a coat of paint before welding in for good. I used Bilt Hamber Electrox aerosol here after a recommendation from Seth. Lovely stuff, goes on good and thick and smells rather good too… Time for the other side then. I usually find when doing something a second time it’s a good deal easier but in this case the opposite was true. I don’t know what went wrong but the near side arch was a complete pain in the bottom in terms of getting it to fit correctly. The main problem was getting the lip that attaches to the outer wing to follow the same contours. As mentioned above, my arch is made of thicker steel than the wing and when clamping the two together, the wing tends to move in, rather than my bit moving out, which would not only leave less space for the wheel and tyre but look bloody awful when the paint is on. To try and help, I put a swage in the panel to try and ‘push’ lip outwards a bit. I’m not sure this picture makes much sense (we’re looking up at the underside of the arch from directly below) but you might be able to make out the problem here; the brighter, silver metal strip is the inner arch not snugly meeting the grey primed strip of the outer arch. The problem is exacerbated by the matte paint on the wing and the gloomy lighting on that side of the garage that means you can’t really see what’s what. Anyway, to cut a long story short, after a lot of messing around with the shrinker/stretcher I eventually resorted to the rather less subtle but considerably more effective method of just wacking the panel with a big rubber mallet and eventually it began to conform to some sort of shape. And here it is, tacked welded in place completing my Pro Footpath rear end…! I’m going to wait until the body/chassis combo is back on the rotisserie before doing the final welding. Hopefully by splashing some paint around and tactical positioning of my portable flood light I can get both wings looking about right. You may have noticed in the pic above that I’ve done a bit more to the exhaust. Best bring you up-to-date! Firstly, I had been planning on using this fine pair of British-made Cherry Bomb silencers. However, I clearly wasn’t paying attention when I ordered them as they were far too big and there was no way on God’s green earth they were going to fit in their allocated space. Happily, at the NSRA Essex Swapmeet in the spring I managed to pick up this pair of American-as apple pie Turbo II Mufflers, made (with pride) in the good ‘ole US of A. These will be the first non-British parts on the car, to my knowledge… (Actually, where are Bridgestone tyres made...?!) Some more tight-radius bends were employed, along with a bunch of rubber mounts, various and sundry U clamps, a pair of reducers and a pair of flanges (snigger). Here’s the result. The pipe at the back is the existing section, with the mount beefed-up a bit and a new flange (snigger) attached, while the pipe in the foreground is a new section. I’ve tried my best to make sure that these individual sections will all be removable once all the currently missing boot and floor panels in place. Time will tell if I’ve accomplished this…! I didn’t really want to have to weld mounts directly onto the silencers as experience tells me this is the first place they’ll fail but given the confined space under the rear quarter valence, making a combined mount/connector seemed quite tricky. Here’s a closer view of how the pipe snakes around the dampers and into the quarter valence. The little horizontal lip on the wheel arch inner panel will be where the boxing-in panels attach.
Finally, here’s the off-side silencer all tucked tight in its space behind the rear quarter valence. It’s all pretty tight in there and there's not a great deal of movement but with the urethane engine and gearbox mounts I’m using I guess I don’t need much. Just the same to do on the other side then I can get back to the front of the car and work towards firing the engine up! Looking forward to the promised “smooth, mellow sound”…! Cheers, Em.
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fogey
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,587
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Jul 25, 2014 21:35:44 GMT
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Wow! You've been busy Em! And before you ask . . . no, I haven't
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Em
Part of things
Fuel Injected? Carb Infested!
Posts: 601
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Aug 17, 2014 21:15:18 GMT
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Wow! You've been busy Em! And before you ask . . . no, I haven't Yeah, getting bits done here and there Fogey! Ha, ok then, I won’t ask…! Right then, back to the old ‘erald. I mentioned above that usually, doing something second time around is a little easier than the first pass, but much like the wheel tubs the near side exhaust was a little more taxing than I’d anticipated. Anyway, it’s done now and both sides of the car now have a complete exhaust system. Forgot to photograph this, so you’ll just have to take my word for it… Back at the front of the car, I’m working towards firing up the engine. You might recall I’d inadvertently designed by blower support/idler bracket around a belt length that seemed to not exist. Massive, massive thanks are therefore due to Mr Speedy who managed to source one, in an attractive toothpaste colour scheme. Cheers fella, much appreciated! With that piece of the puzzle finally sorted, I could finish off the blower support/idler bracket, which now looks like this. And here’s what they both look like, on the engine. I while back I paid a visit to Think Automotive in west London and they sorted me out with an oil cooler and a bunch of fittings to hook it up via a remote cooler, all in anti-bling black. None of this red-and-blue-anodised-finish for me, thank you very much. Far too lairy! Here’s the remote filter temporarily mounted. It’s just bolted through a convenient hole at the moment; this front section will need to be remade later on to conform to the SVA’s crumple-ability standard. You’ll notice the oil cooler is absent; there seems no point mounting that, especially as the car won’t be moving at this point. To help prime the oil system, I knocked up a little oil pump driving tool… …which I span in the drill until I started to see oil around the rocker gear. At which point the drill started to smell awfully warm and some smoke came out... Next it was time to look over the blower. Naturally, I’d stripped it down as soon as I’d got it to check it over and it all seemed OK. There’s a few marks inside where it’s ingested something small, but no serious scores that I could see. Stragely, Halfords don’t do a gasket kit for a Sprintex S102 so I got hold of some gasket paper and made my own. Here’s the various manifold bits… …the gear chamber and front of the main casing… …the rear of the main casing…
…and the back end. In other purchasing news, my perma-search for Sprintex stuff on eBay turned up these rocker covers. They were on sale down in Newquay where I got the blower from and a quick check of my eBay records showed that it was the same seller, so I now have the rocker covers that came with the kit when new. Here they are on the engine together with a new(ish) valley gasket and the mildly overhauled distributor. With the blower bolted down and the carbs cleaned up, adjusted and supplemented with bits from a spare SD1 manifold I bought from Hardcore at the January Jumble a few years back, we’re getting closer. Here you can also see the Facet Red Top fuel pump and Sytec fuel pressure regulator all (temprarilly) plumbed up and ready for action. Finally for this instalment, I knocked up a quick control panel to isolate the various different circuits. Sadly at this point I ran out of electrical terminals so the big fire up will have to wait. Again… Cheers, Em.
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