The new speedo drive gear turned up in the post around lunchtime, so it was out into the garage this afternoon. With the new gear fitted, the engine and gearbox were ready to go back in. Everything went smoothly, with Debbie performing stirling service in the 'assistant mechanic' role. It's not her natural habitat, but she worked the hoist and jack without complaint. Refitting the bolts that attach the gearbox mount to the chassis is really fiddly, but taping the washer to the socket got them on
If you put in the hours, you get the results. The axle is back in (and full of oil), the hydraulics are completed and bled and the engine is back out. The seats and windscreen have been refitted, so it all looks a lot more like a car again. Unfortunately the handbrake mechanism is still proving troublesome, firstly because the axle rests on it when the suspension is on full droop, and secondly because you can't adjust it once the fuel tank and boot floor are fitted. The job list now looks like t
Today I tackled the first two jobs on my list (see http://www.lotus7.club/logs/boring-bits). The axle is in and the hydraulics are complete. I dug out my easy-bleed and charged it up. I was a bit surprised at how much fluid went in, and when I went round to the back of the car I could see why. I'd forgotten to tighten the nut going into the rear T piece and there was a big puddle of fluid on the floor. There must have been 200-300mL of fluid to mop up! My current headache is why I can't turn the
The boring bits seem to take an unreasonably long time. The transmission tunnel is a pretty busy place, with fuel line, wiring loom, brake line and handbrake cable all having to be tied down (or perhaps up), safely out of the way of a spinning propshaft. I've positioned the T piece that spilts the rear hydraulics between the left and right calipers on the rear bulkhead behind the drivers seat. I just need to make up the short connections from the T to the two flexible hoses and the circuit will
It's nice to get anything ticked off the to-do list, and today's result is that the plumbing from the in-tank pump to the fuel rail is sorted. A visit to Think Automotive resulted in coming home with the missing fuel connectors as well as the bits to hopefully complete the brake hydraulics. I swapped the routing of the fuel line down the tunnel from the RHS to the LHS to make everything line up a bit easier. The wiring loom, handbrake cable and rear brake hydraulics will all still go down the RH
With holidays intervening it's taken a while, but I've got my calipers back. The handbrake actuation mechanism now has new levers to match my existing live axle cable. http://www.colinferns.com did the work, to a standard that makes it look factory! I can now really get stuck in and finish the axle, which will be a big boost to morale.
It's rarely anyone's favourite job, but I started doing the wiring loom for the new injection system. I'd bought the half loom that was available with the OMEX600 ECU. This consists of the multipin connector populated with pins and wire. The wire is good quality and colour coded for easy identification, so the bulk of the work consists of cutting the wires to length and either crimping on connectors or splicing to existing wires. Locating the ECU and relays took a couple of iterations. I still n
Whilst the car is still up on axle stands waiting for brake calipers, I thought I would push on with a trial fit of the induction system. I was worried for a bit the the throttle linkage would clash with the chassis tube, but it's looking good.
With the axle casing away to get new brackets welded on, I turned my attention to other suspension bits. The bushes were all well past their sell by date and Redline had provided replacements. As usual, they were completely stuck in place, specifically the A frame outer ones. Complete destruction was the only way to get them out.
Maybe it's because the passing of the years has made me vulnerable to future shock, but the cost of my axle upgrade is rapidly reaching 'head in the sand' levels of disbelief. The diff is probably the least impressive thing I've spent £1217.90 on! The problem is that once you start you can reach the point of no return. I can only comfort myself with the thought that I will no longer be living on the edge.
The UPS man delivered my package from Jigsaw racing containing a new crown wheel and pinion for a Morris/Ital/Standard/Triumph axle. Road and Race transmission can turn round my differential in about 3 hours, and will pop round the corner to Quaife for an LSD. I was contemplating doing my own diff rebuild until I found out how many special tools I would need, and there is also a substantial scope for cock ups. A local garage will weld on replacement suspension pickups, so the project is positive
With the axle out of the car, it's condition became easy to assess. The suspension pickup points will need to be replaced as they have worn or rusted right through, as you can see from the pictures. I don't think there is much more to say, other than that it's probably for the best that I discovered this now! With support from Blatchat, I've got the backplates and half shafts off. Next job is removing the diff from the casing. The credit card has taken a pasting as I've ordered a new 3.6:1 crown
Having got the car back with the corroded chassis tube repaired, it became obvious as we unloaded it that the back axle is leaking oil. I decided it had to come out so that I could get a good look at it. The rear suspension hasn't been apart for 15 years, so it was all a bit seized up. It serves me right for not slathering it all with Copperslip when I assembled it! I resorted to making some custom pullers to push the tubes out of the A frame bushes and the shock absorber lower bushes. The 'hit
I'm really pleased with my new timing marks as they will be so much easier to read. They cover TDC to 30 degrees BTDC, which is more useful than Ford's 12 degree range.
Yesterday's goal was to fit the oil pump. I'm running a dry sump, so it's effectively two pumps in one. The pressure pump takes oil from the tank and pumps it into the engine whilst the scavenge pump takes oil from the sump and returns it to the tank. Fitting all the extra plumbing in is a tight squeeze, and the pump originally fouled the oil pressure sender. I originally took a file to the pump to get clearance, but with my trusty mini-mill beckoning, I took the opportunity to make a better job
Crossflows are notorious for leaking oil, which might have been acceptable in th 1960s but is now a bit embarrassing. I decided to try and do better, and a close look at the sump flange showed that at least a third of the holes were pulled proud of the mating surface. Some attention with a hammer brought them down slightly below flush, which means the bolts should now pull the flange down on the gasket. With the engine inverted on an engine stand, it's also really easy to see what you are doing.
With an accurate and repeatable way of determining crank angle, cam timing becomes quite straight forward. A dial gauge on cylinder #1 inlet valve showed maximum lift at 117 degrees ATDC, a rather large 7 degrees behind the reccommended setting of 110 degrees ATDC. On a crossflow, the cam timing cam be adjusted using offset dowels to positively locate the sprocket on the cam. The dowel can go in either way, to advance or retard the cam, but the head scratching paid off and I got it fitted the co
I might be going back over ground I've already covered, but now that the pistons have been machined for clearance for the bigger exhaust valves, it's time to have another go at the cam timing. I've always been troubled by the standard timing disk because when you turn the engine over on the pulley bolt, I worry that the bolt may drag the disk around. Not wanting to blame my tools, I've modified the disk by bolting it to the pulley using the attachment holes for the trigger wheel. I then cut the
Now that I've finished my new cabinet for the garage, I can get pack to the quality time with my mill. I've removed even more metal from the crank timing disk, to the point where I'm happy with it. More to follow soon I hope.
This weekend was mostly spent on the un-scheduled replacement of the joists under the dining room floor. The deadline was monday morning, when the floorboards were going to be put back down. What to do with the old joists, which are stopping me from putting the car back in the garage. An assessment of the old joists reveals a fair amount of useable 2" by 4" timber. Jointing 3 pieces gives me boards that are 12" wide, so the plan is to make shelves that wide to go along the side of the garage. Th
This weekend I've been making a lot of swarf! With the help of my mate Ralph, I've been working on a revised crank shaft trigger wheel. The standard setup clamps a solid wheel to the front of the pulley with a spacer washer underneath it to pack out the space created by the dishing of the pulley. The drawbacks of this arrangement are weight, poor centration and poor repeatabiity on angular location. I measured the weight of the pulley, trigger disk and spacer washer at 1010 g. My revised arrange
Today I hit a couple of snags. My goal was to set the cam timing, so I started by finding TDC. I bolted the timing disk to the front of the cam and I screwed a pointer to the alternator bracket. Next I offered up the new head gasket, but the head bolt holes for the dowel positions are too small. I'll have to talk to the supplier why this is, but I'm expecting to have to buy a different one. That's my first snag. To press on, I swapped back to the old head gasket and bolted the head down. I then
I can't resist a bit of precision engineering, so I ducked out of work and fitted my new Newman cam. It's their PH3 sprint spec FORK/290/401 for reference. The crank is also back in, although the drive sprocket on the crank nose put up a bit of a fight. It's hard to keep the legs of a puller under the sprocket teeth, so I had to resort to a clamp around the puller legs to stop them popping off.
