01/06 May
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Busy cutting, bending and shaping the engine bay aluminium panels. By
the end of Bank Holiday Monday I’d completed the inner wheel wells, and
formed the panels for the nearside footbox and the scuttle. I’ve flanged and
joined the panels to give the appearance of a continuous fabrication where
possible, though this has been more time-consuming than I expected. In a few
places I’ve had to use longer rivets than the 3/16” x 10mm ones bought in
bulk from Screwfix; fortunately I had a small stock of 3/16” x 12mm long
which has held out so far. In joining the flanged panels, the rivet has to go
through two thicknesses of aluminium and often an increased thickness of GRP
where the lay-up joins two mouldings. The rivet then has to fit through a
washer to clamp against the GRP rather than just relying on a crush fit in
the drilled hole. If working alone, the washer can be easily held in place by
masking tape while the rivet is expanded. Where it shows most, I’ve spaced
the rivets at 2” pitch. It looks right, but that’s an awful lot of riveting,
some of which is accessible only with a short-handled riveter. It takes its
toll on the hands!
If I’m going to get the engine in before the end of May, as planned,
I need to get weaving with the footboxes and scuttle panel. The latter needs
marking out and drilling for the heater inlet and outlets, and possibly for
some blind grommets in anticipation of loom and control cables. I’d like to
have had the footbox to install, at least temporarily, to finalise the brake
pipes before the engine goes in, but I’m still waiting for Gerry’s fabricator
to send it, after two months. Also still outstanding from him is the fuel
tank, grill and hood bows. Patience unfortunately is not one of my virtues!
I’ve almost talked myself round to NOT separating body and chassis to
fit the engine and gearbox. I know the fitting would be much easier with body
removed, but I have to balance this with the difficulties of body removal,
storage and re-fitting. I’m stuck with a single garage, and space is at a
premium. One benefit of the single garage is that I have a 500kg lifting beam
spanning it, another is that I’m lucky to have good headroom. So, with a bit
of fiddling with the slinging, I should be able to slide everything in
through the bonnet opening.
On BH Sunday Penny and I went to the kit car show at Stoneleigh. I’d
arranged to collect the seat belt frame from Gerry at the Hawk stand. On the
stand was a very well finished ‘Ace’ with BMW straight-six, and next to it a
new chassis featuring transverse leaf spring suspension! What next, steering
box and drag link for the ‘Ace’? The show provided an opportunity to study
colour schemes and interiors, helping us make up our mind on both counts. I
also found the little hinged escutcheons for access to the bonnet catches,
and the T-bar to operate them. This brought back memories of our TR2 some 40
years ago!
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08-12 May
|
A big effort these few days to finish the sheeting in the engine bay.
I bought some 3/16”x14mm rivets which make life easier. Overall I’m happy
with the result, there are a few imperfections which can be polished out or
disguised, and the overall effect is pleasing. As I still don’t have the
pedal box (promised for delivery by Andy Davies, Gerry’s fabricator for week
commencing 13 May) I’ve not riveted the offside footbox end panel in place.
I wanted to have the bulkhead panel drilled for the heater, and in
doing so I actually fitted it (maybe not finally) in place. It’s a bit fiddly
to install the necessary spacers. The heater’s from a Spitfire. It’s now
arranged as a ‘fug-stirrer’ rather than a fresh air type, by spacing the
inlet fan about an inch away from the bulkhead. Note that while the heater
should be mounted reasonably high above the transmission bulge, it’s upper
regions will have to compete for space with the wiper bundy tube. I’m not
quite sure how this is going to fit yet, so hopefully I’ve erred on the side
of caution when leaving space. Both the fan motor and the leak-tightness of
the matrix have been tested.
I’m almost ready to install the engine and gearbox. I have to flood
the oil pump with Vaseline to ensure it primes, and tighten down the cylinder
head bolts. Then the engine has to be transferred from the stand to the
trolley for the clutch and gearbox to be fitted. There isn’t room to fit the
clutch assembly when the engine’s bolted to the stand.
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14-16 May
|
Good news this week -all the
outstanding items from Gerry’s fabricator arrived on Tuesday – tank, pedal
box, hood bows and frame and grille. Spent some time assembling the master
cylinders to the pedal box, and also trial fitting the radiator, which
arrived from MGBHive. Gerry’s radiator support panels need to be fitted to
the inner front wings, then marked out in situ and removed to drill the holes
for the radiator. I found a new 14” Pacet ‘sucking’ fan on ebay, which looks
just the job.
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22-27 May
|
My target for the end of May was to have the engine fitted. The heads
were bolted down and carefully torqued, the oil pump opened up and all cavities
filled with Vaseline. I hoisted the engine away from the stand and onto my
tool trolley, where it sat a little precariously while I fitted the clutch,
using a home-made (but very accurate) aligning tool. The gearbox was then hoisted into position,
and with a little jiggling the input shaft engaged in the spigot bush. I then
realised I didn’t have any of the right bolts to fasten the two together (you
need 6 x 3/8” x 2” UNC and 2 x 3/8” x 3” UNC). I managed to find a couple of
studs and some Whitworth bolts which will be OK until the right ones come
from Namrick. Fortunately everything’s quite accessible with the engine in
place.
I’d originally planned to separate the body from the chassis before
installing the engine and gearbox. This would have made the installation
easier, but as it happened not that much easier. The length of the engine and
gearbox is about a foot longer than the bonnet opening, so it has to be
lowered on the slant, and then straightened as the gearbox enters the
transmission tunnel. I’d placed a wooden trolley under the car to support the
gearbox end, and this was moved back when the gearbox was lowered onto it.
The final lift of the gearbox end was manual, to locate the 8mm threaded
rubber bobbins in the holes provided in the chassis. The engine mountings
were aligned behind the chassis brackets. This took a very small amount of
persuasion, but to put them in front would have required more, and had the
crank pulley practically in contact with the brake pipe running behind the
front crossmember. However, looking at the gearbox mounts, they look slightly
strained, as if the holes should have been slightly further back, though the
end of the gearbox is very close to the chassis crossmember. Maybe a spacer
under the bobbins would help?
I’d worried quite a bit about clearance under the bonnet for my 3”
deep Edelbrock air filter. Gerry had given me the impression there was plenty
of clearance when we first met him last October, and this was confirmed by
approximate measurements before installation of the engine. Nevertheless, when
fitted it looked high. I was quite surprised when the bonnet fitted
perfectly, and when I investigated through the front grill opening (before
fitting the radiator) I found I could wave a length of ½” dowel between
filter and underside of the bonnet. Appearances can be deceptive!
I’d removed the gearchange extension before fitting the engine and
gearbox. Looking at the gearbox in place it’s obvious the extension needs
shortening, so this job will go on the list.
I fitted the fan to the radiator with the ‘quick-mounts’ supplied
with it – it seemed a bit odd to be poking the plastic ties through the
matrix, but after very slightly modifying the fan cowling to fit between the
top and bottom header tanks, it all looks fine and the mod is invisible. It
took a bit of time to accurately mark up and drill the radiator support
brackets, jobs like this seem so straightforward but invariably are time
consuming to get right.
Next job was the fuel pump. I wanted to do this before losing the
little rubber isolation mounts! Now this really is a job which would have
been much easier with the body off! I laboured for several hours on Sunday
morning, after which I hadn’t got it fitted, only measured up for a mounting
plate which I decided is needed. The problem is – when you keep the MGB lever
arm shocks – the pump and the nearside shock absorber are competing for the
same space, it’s very fiddly and then when I thought I had the pump mounted
right, the shock absorber wouldn’t fit back without fouling the pump inlet
connection. I’m now making a mounting plate which bolts to the original
mounting holes but positions the pump further forward, closer to the
glassfibre rear bulkhead. I’ll take a picture when it’s done.
I abandoned the rear end due to rain, and found a job I could do at
the front of the car, nosed into the garage. The grill opening has to be
trimmed back about ½” all round to clear the grill, and this needs a long
blade on a jigsaw, and plenty of protective tape around the front of the car,
as the jigsaw can’t sit flat on what it’s cutting. The flange through which
you need to drill four holes to fix the grill in place is narrow, and I found
only the bottom holes I drilled went through the fibreglass, the top ‘holes’
coincided with the edge of the trimmed fibreglass. I drilled some small
pieces of aluminium to form ‘washers’ which when riveted through retained the
grill in place firmly. The rivets can be easily drilled out for grill
removal, which if I don’t need to do for the IVA I will for spraying.
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Wednesday, 29 May 2013
May progress
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