A tale of a chassis

Well, I haven't posted for quite a while. Thats mainly because I haven't achieved anything for ages. I've DONE loads, its just that, as the French say, I have been peddling in the semolina ((They do, really!)

I managed to get the engine back together relatively easily. No great issues except:

1. New cylinder head bolts for the engine were apparently not available at the time, so I reused the old ones.
2. New flywheel bolts from a well known supplier of parts for ford engines are made of cheese. This time I felt it start to go and removed it, before it broke off, so I saved myself yet another trip to the engineers!

So, there I was with a nice newly rebuilt engine, bell housing attached and everything, and all ready to go in. I sourced a new pair of engine mountings attached them, slung the engine from the crane and lowered it into position.

Could I get it to fit?

No!

What ever I tried to do I could not get the engine attached to the mountings with the starter cowl clear of the chassis on the right hand side and the clutch slave bracket clear of the lower chassis rail the other side.

Bell housing fouls the chassis triangulation on the RHS

Clutch mounting fouls the chassis rail on the LHS 

I spent quite a while jiggling the engine around, but to no avail. I was beginning to think maybe I had the wrong bell housing or something like that. 

After posting my dilemma on Pistonheads and getting some helpful pointers, it became obvious several things were wrong.

1. The chassis was made with the wrong engine mounting brackets. These are the ones from my original chassis, taken from a photo supplied by the previous owner:

You can clearly see that the mounting face on the bracket is canted backwards and there is a curve at the top, pushing the mounting face outwards.

And this is the mount from the new chassis

The face is flat and there is no curve towards the top, which explains the odd angle the mounting is forced to take up in the second picture. 

2. The new chassis has one of the triangulations between the upper and lower chassis rails in the wrong place. Here again is the old chassis:

You can clearly see that the triangulation on the genuine S1 chassis is wider spaced on the RHS. The arrow shows where the bell housing comes.

This picture shows that my chassis has the triangulation identical on both sides, and you can see where the triangulation is fouled by the bell housing on one side and by the clutch slave bracket on the other. 

I have the original receipt for the chassis and it was clearly ordered as an 1800S chassis. If you look at an 1800S chassis it DOES have the triangulation the same on both sides! 

With the help of some very kind S1 owners, I have managed to work out that the chassis has the same dimensions as the Vixen S1 chassis, but does have the wrong mounts and triangulation.

So I bit the bullet and cut off the triangulation.

I am now waiting to get the chassis to a specialist who can put it on a jig, check the dimensions, add the correct mounts and generally check it over. 

Thats where I had got to in August last year and, what with one thing and another, thats where I still am.

Peddle Box Blues

Two posts in one day again. This post is by way of an antidote to the previous one and has a much happier ending.

Whilst the engine has been away, on and off, there has been precious little progress on the rest of the car, so I decided to get to work on some of the ancillaries. The peddle box looked like a good place to start. This is what it looked like when I got the car:

 

 

 

Pretty grim as you can see. One of the peddles was damaged when someone tried to remove the pivot, (which fortunately was in one of the boxes of odds and sods) and the remains of the spindle is seized into the shaft. The spindle had been cut in half to get the peddles out of the box.

 

 

Anyhow, it all cleaned up fine in Deox-C and the peddle was rewelded and straightened easily.

 



 

 

 

Off to the powder coaters who gave it a light blast, zinced it and then coated it

 

Then re assembly with new spindles

Needs a little fettling to get the accelerator spindle right and, on reflection, I will probably get a new lubrication plate, as the old one is not readable and kind of spoils the effect, but on the whole I am rather pleased with it.





A quick update to the peddle box:

I did, in the end, get a new lube plate, from David Gerald's.

 

Senility, new glasses and a bit of luck

This is a bit embarrassing so I am going to put it down to senility and poor eyesight.

So, I got the block back from the engineers. They managed to get the broken bolt out, but had to Helicoil the threads. So far, so good.

I have never really been happy with the state of the deck; there was some rust pitting around the waterways, probably either where the engine had been stored with water remaining in the block or where it had been run for a prolonged period with no rust inhibitor in the water. Also, with back and forth to the engineers in the boot, I had managed to  put a healthy scratch in the top. So I decided ot get the deck skimmed before the final assembly.

6 thou off and it looked reasonable, not perfect but OK. So I ordered a load of new bits from Burton Power, new bolts gaskets, locking washers etc. and I was ready to go. I had to wait a whole week before I could get on with the rebuild, the last thing to do was to give the whole thing one final clean up.

I started on the bores, which had gathered a bit of dirt over the last few months. They all cleaned up beautifully, except No. 1 which had something dried onto it. I wiped at it with an oily rag, but it stayed on. I wiped it with carb cleaner and still it stayed on. Engine cleaner, nope. I scraped it with a finger nail and no luck. I tentatively poked it with a screwdriver ...hmmm.

I went and got my new reading glasses and peered at it. I shone my new, super-dooper, retina burning LED torch at it......and it turns out it was not a mark at all, but a bloody great gouge out the wall of the bore, about 5mm across, that I had completely mistaken for a bit of dirt. Worse still, there was another imperfection, a long scrape, parallel to the piston rings, about an inch down the bore, and deep enough to possibly catch the edge of the top ring.

I went in and had a cup of tea; when I came out and looked at it again it was still there.

So there we are. The block has been bored out to +90thou, which is as far as one can go. It has a dirty great gouge in the No. 1 bore, which I, being clearly senile and partially blind, had missed for the last 9 months and was now, probably useless.  In despair I headed for the drinks cupboard, grabbed a G and T and logged on to E bay to see how much a second hand Crossflow was going to be. And there, freshly listed, was a barely used, +90 thou over bored, 711M block, 35 minutes drive away.

That was definitely going to be MINE!

Saw it, bought it, cleaned it and am now in the middle of a dry build using all the new bits from my engine. I am not going to prejudice the outcome by even mentioning anything else about it till its finished and ready to install.

Except,

It might be black now.

My eye has developed a twitch.

In which we make a bit of progress with the block and then have a bit of a bad day

Well, its now almost the end of March and, although I have almost nothing to add, I feel the urge to post something.

So, at Christmas I was ready to re strip the engine and start again. Before I did that however, I stripped and painted the head, using the grinder-mounted wire brush. I took the last few bits off with a small drill brush, then cleaned with "Marine Clean", the POR 15 cleaning agent, then with carb cleaner and then with Deox C gel to get any remaining rust, rinsed, dried and then a final clean with cellulose thinners. This is what the end result looks like

After 1 coat of POR 15 grey and 2 of Light Admiralty Grey engine paint from "Stationary Engine Parts" it looked like this.

I rather liked the effect, but having already made a start stripping the block again, I stuck with it and stripped the engine, right back to the bare block. I started to clean off the previous coats of POR15 and engine enamal, but it was a very difficult job, even with the grinder-mounted wire brush, so, in the end I sent it off to a local engineering shop to get the block stripped. The end result wasnt very good ultimately, so I finished it off with the brush.  I took out all the oilway plugs and cleaned the oil ways through with a brush. Then I cleaned it with "Marine Clean", petrol, and with carb cleaner and then repainted it the same as the head:

I then set about verifying that the engine was in spec.

I measured up the crank and found that it was 10thou under. This tied in with the markings on the main bearings which were 10thou over sized. Good start.

But, re assembling the crank in the block to check the bearing clearences, I found that the crank did not turn completely freely in the journals; there was a very slight resistance at one point on the rotation. Closer examination of the shells showed a very slight, and uneven shine on the surface.

Checking on the Marhle Damage Brochure (a very useful resource here), it looked suspiciously like either the crank was ground off-centre, or was bent, or the block was warped due to over heating.

With more than a little trepidation, I took the block and crank back to the engineers to get them checked. It turned out the crank was "out" and needed regrinding an additional 10thou over to rectify it. And thats where we are to date, waiting for the phone call from the engineers to say come and pick it up.

Amazing how fast three months gets away from you.

Right...a little update.

I got the block back this week and all is now well, however, I have had a BAD day

The plan was to soak the water ways with Deox-C to get rid of the corrosion and improve cooling, before re assembly. Pretty simple Huh? This is a great illustration of how a job can go rapidly down hill!

Cunningly (I thought) I was going to re-attach the old water pump to seal the front port, unfortunately, I couldn't find the bolts for the pump. I had put them somewhere safe, in a Zip-Lock bag all labled up, but couldnt find the bag. No problem, plan "B" make up a plate to seal the front, out of 3-ply instead. Brilliant.

Bolted it on with a squeeze of Blue Hylomar, just to stop the leaks. Tighened up the last bolt ...................and the head snapped off.

Deep breath.

OK I have some extractors.

2.5mm drill to take the extractor, annnnnd....it snapped

(Ha! I have a spare!)

It snapped too!

Fine, plenty of room in the stud, Ill go for a 3.5 and use the next size up extractor

It also snapped

I have spare of that too, but by now I am a little cross, so I have a cup of tea.

Using the last drill bit, I manage to drill a reasonably central hole in the bolt. The extractor even fits.....and then ........it snapped off in the hole.

So now I have a siezed in broken off bolt, in one of the bolt holes for the water pump and embeded in the bolt a high carbon steel extractor. Which of course I cant drill out because its HCS. And now the block has to go back to the engineers to get the bolt out

Words fail me

Last Post of 2012

Well, Its been a while since I posted and I have been feeling guilty.

Its not that I haven't done anything, its just that, well, I haven't actually finished anything!

Having got the diff. and the gearbox done, thoughts naturally turned to the engine.

As you can see, its in a bit of a crappy state, however, I was assured when I bought the car, that the engine had been rebuilt (come on, he was a nice guy and I believed him OK?). It might look a bit crappy, but closer inspection suggests that the carbs might have been rebuilt.

No, really look its got new gaskets and the linkages look like they were repainted

Anyway, I knew it was at least going to need stripping to the point I could confirm whether or not it had been rebuilt. And I had to paint it so, off we go. Ancillaries (well most) stripped:

Now, was good excuse to buy two pieces of kit I have always fancied. An engine stand and an engine crane.  Sad, yes, maybe but you try working on a bloody great Cross flow lump without them! Flywheel came off pretty easily and surprisingly cleaned up really well with a grinder mounted twisted wire brush. These things are the dogs. They really shift rust!

So, armed with two new toys, I managed to get the engine onto the stand (don't ask, believe me, there IS and easy way, it just took me about half an hour to find it).

So I put the brush to work cleaning the outside of the engine block before dismantling it.

Comes up well. 

This picture also shows that the engine has new core plugs; another reason to believe that it was rebuilt.

Here is another later picture showing how well the casting comes up with the wire brush

So, great, the block cleans up well. But rewind a moment. Taking the head off I got a bit of a surprise. The bores were nicely honed and unused, but, the waterways were filled with flaking rust and as soon as I pulled the head off, all the rust in the head fell out into the bores. Bugger.

So I was satisfied that the engine had been rebuilt, but I was going to have to strip it anyway!

Anyway, I pulled out the pistons and cleaned everything up. I gave the waterways a good poke out. Then I painted the block with one coat of POR-15 and two coats of black engine enamel and put new core plugs in.

So there we are:

I painted up the front and rear oil seal carriers and replaced the oil seals, just in case. Then I put the bottom end all back together with new water pump. I even got the ancillaries powder coated and replaced them, along with a new(ish) fan. But, and here is the really embarrassing bit, when I stood back and looked at it..............





I didn't like the colour.




Yes, well, its not that it doesn't go with the curtains or anything, its just that, well, I really didn't want to open my bonnet and have everything under there black.

So there I am. Bottom end cleaned and painted, ready to clean up and paint the head and I am bloody well going to take all the paint off and do it again in Light Admiralty Grey. Anyway, I was beginning to worry that I hadn't stripped it right down, checked the oil ways and everything and verified what cam was used (yes, that looked brand new too).

So Christmas holidays, I have a pot of Light Admiralty Grey sitting in my kitchen, staying warm. I have a new compressor in the garage waiting to be tried out and I am just waiting for the POR-15 grey to turn up so I can get on with it.

Just to finish on a positive note, here are the nicely powder coated ancillaries

 

Happy Christmas

Gearbox

So, I decided to leave sorting out the top diff mount until the engine and gearbox were in. That way I can be sure everything is aligned properly.

The next logical step was the gear box, but first a very quick diversion by way of the prop shaft, which I did months ago, whilst waiting to get around to something else. It was pretty rusty, but I cleaned it in petrol and then dismantled the U/Js and threw them all away. I am not going to keep anything like that, whether or not it looks OK. The de-rusting was quite satisfying as it eventually came up very well. I used DeOx-C gel, as I don't have anything big enough to soak the whole shaft in. Once the whole thing was painted with gel, I covered it in Cling Film and left it overnight. In the morning I washed it off and scrubbed it clean, rinse and repeat a few time and hey presto! no rust. A couple of coats of POR15, and install new UJs and that's it .

So, gearbox....

What's to say. The box was in a filthy state, but cleaned up well with a wire brush on the grinder. With all the surface rust gone I set about dismantling the box for inspection. I was a bit nervous it, but I read through the Haynes manual and jumped in. I had decided to renew the oil seals and bearings whether they looked OK or not, since the box has been hanging around for at least the last 13 years, and I've really no idea of its history. However, the more I took it apart, the more I realised that this box had hardly been used. I think it must have been rebuilt shortly before the car was taken off the road.

I did find some oddities: One of the gear selectors appears to have been replaced the wrong way around

According to the Haynes manual and pictures of the box I found on the web, only the reverse selector boss faces forwards. 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th selectors face backwards. What the effect of this is I don't know. Also,  the 1st/2nd gear selector was badly worn. I couldn't find any reason why this might be, so I can only imagine that it was not replaced at the rebuild.

The casing was full of sludge though!

In the end the only other wear I found was some chipped teeth on the reverse gear.  After scratching around I eventually found someone who stocked them. The price was a bit of a shock. £80 argh!, still,  in for a penny as they say, so I ordered one. After getting the box back together one came up on E-bay for £15.

On examining the lay shaft I found that it was poorly machined:

There appears to have been a fault in the steel before machining. This fault would sit immediately under the roller bearings at the rear of the lay shaft so it had to be replaced. New one on top.

There was a silver lining  to this minor cloud. Re-assembly of the lay shaft requires that you re-assemble the shaft and needle bearings on a short, dummy, shaft to stop the rollers falling out, then drop the shaft into the box and push the real shaft through from the outside, thus pushing the dummy shaft out the other end and keeping all the rollers in place. I now had a dummy shaft for the lay shaft re assembly. I just needed to grind off one end to size!

Anyhow, I replaced the bearings and the front and rear oil seals and reassembled following the manual, and it all seems fine.

Finally Back on her Wheels

OK, two posts in one day but I really wanted to give this a post all of its own.

After a lot of thought I finally decided to get new wheels for the car. I had the old ones checked out and they were a) completely shot and b) all different off sets!!

I opted for silver painted wires, 15 X 5 (although originally the car was fitted with 4.5Js). These are available with the correct TVR Vixen offset from MWS. so here she is on her wheels for the first time since about 1999

A small update to the above post. Having to get the car out of the garage to get some work done on the house, so I took the opportunity to trial fit the body:

This is the most complete NPY11F has been since about 2000!