Manky Monkey Motors

When buiding a new race car, the first thing to do is set out seat angle,where the accelerator pedal needs to be,height of roll cage and on a slingshot (Black Pig Too will be a sling shot) position of rear axle (driver sits behind this).

Next take The Black Pig and completely strip it.

Next completely strip the engine ready for a rebuild.

Taz has got a Charger engine in similar condition -& no instructions.

Why do you need instructions?
That's what Brock's for if you catch him on a good day ;)

Yup that does look like my engine and it's in just as may pieces  :(

When you re-build it can you do a photographic step by step process so I'll know what to do please.  :)

First take a length of 1 1/4" CDS,cut to 18",chuck in lathe and reduce to 1 1/8th for 1/2" each end.

Take a piece of 1/4" bright drawn and set out 1 3/8th centre hole and 3 M6 threaded holes on 2 1/2" PCD. Allow  1/2 hole diameter around holes and join with 3" blended radi, then just make 2 of them.

Next take a piece of 1/4" bright drawn and set out 1 3/8th hole with 1 3/4" surrounding and 1/2" hole with 1" surrounding at 4 1/2" centre separation. Join the extreme radial points and chop it out. There's the leading links done.

Now take some 1/8th bright drawn and set out a similar profile to the end plates, drill the 3 holes 6.5MM and cut out. That's the end caps.

Weld the bits that need welding and assemble, easy.

Now the tricky bit, first spend some hours draughting the axle, KPI, spindle assembly and wheel's relationships then take a piece of 1 5/8" CDS and bend it to suit your resultant drawing. Machine two bosses to suit the Ford Pop spindles and using an old Pop axle as a jig fit the bosses to the axle tube and weld.

....realise why no none uses such a severe drop without a serpentine axle end and modify the joint so that the spindles will go on. These needed the top of the tube cut off flat and a plate welded in to allow the spindles to turn.

   set the axle up with the spindles attached and realise that the standard steering arms also foul on the deep drop tube, wonder why you bothered to draw it first, ponder it all for a while and then get the gas axe to it, heat the arms and reset so that they clear then spend an hour or so making sure that you have actually made a pair, not just two that fit.

 ....machine a couple of tapered spacers to fit into the steering arms, attach a couple of spherical rod ends, machine a couple of threaded inserts to suit 3/4" tube and make the connecting link

...set the whole lot together on the bench and connect the axle assembly to the "torsion bar" assembly with some little bracket like bits. We keep calling it a torsion tube but actuall it isn't. It's built to look like it is and if we could have sourced a VW beam fast enough I would have built suspension into it, however we didn't. The regs state that front suspension isn't required on cars longer than 120" and as that will be us, that's OK, I also believe that a ridgid front end will help the car react faster at the launch, however it also denies us any chance to "tune" that reaction and so may be something we live to regret. Hey-ho, push on, stacks to do before thinking about stuff like that.     

Impressive stuff.
I've never understood how torsion suspension works. Can you explain?

  big springy bar or series of leaves clamped in the middle of the tube and passing out through bushes in the tube ends, the arms fitted on the ends of it, as the vehicle passes over undulus ground the arms ( connected to the axle or spindles ) try to twist the sprung bar which in turn pushes them back down (or up), pretty simple really, Morris minors had a pair, one down each side under the floor acting on the lower link at the front. And that last comment has just made me cross, bugger !

Remember the bars under my Moggies but never understood how a solid looking bar could provide suspension.

I remember my dad explaining it to me when I had a Moggy Minor in my youth (a very long time ago!)

It went something like this...

   and all the time I was looking for a VW I had a Minor sat outside !

i sold a moggy  2 years ago broke me heart,but the kids disowned me.lol.it was a split screen 1956 model with the little semafore indicators that popped up each side,it was built like a tank,not out of tin and plasticlike todays cars,ive also had
11 capris,mk1/mk3s
4 escort mk2s
rs escortmk2
hillman imp saloon
imp stilletto
rover p6
vauxhall viva
lost count how many minis ive had
mini estate
fiat 127
and many many more
-----------
bikes
gpz 550
gpz 600r
gpz 900r
honda vf 1000ff
2 250 superdreams
xs 250
xs 400
cb 250
cd 185
mt 50
ts 250 custom x 2.

Sheesh! Eleven Capris?!
I could never understand how a twisted solid metal bar wouldn't just stay bent, rather than springing back every time.

 ...made a start on the motor mounts, they will be side mounts rather than the more common front plate or mounts, I rather like the way that they make the motor seem that it is just floating between the rails, the bottom of the posts will be joined to a split tube that will sit on the bottom frame rail and be held with a very expensive glorified Jubilee clip, the drive train needs to be set in the jig before the final length can be established.
   Recieved confirmation today that the chassis tube has arrived and is being bent to my specs this week. Just about to order a new set of engine internals to start the rebuild of that. We've decided to go with a 4340 forged 3/4" stroker crank, 6" H beam rods and some rather lovely forged pistons with "gapless" rings

Modified the old prop a bit today, well, just cut out everything that wasn't a U/J really. Now ready for cleaning and balance.

Also made the basic fixture to hold the rear axle on the jig, braces and hold downs still to be added here.

   We had a little run out to Manchestershire yesterday, met some really nice people, got to see a really nice race car and came home loaded with goodies to use in the motor rebuild.

JE Pistons, very nice pieces, specifically designed to use in a 383 combination with a long rod, the pin is so high that the oil ring goes past it and has to sit on a separate support ring. Rods are forged H beam by Scat, a full 6" long. Also still sat out in the van is a 4340 forged Scat crank, 3 3/4" stroke, all very lovely and hopefully will make a difference.

Ooh, pretty! Who was this purveyor of shininess then?

should have give me a bell id have invited you in for a brew ,only 30 mins from manchester

   A chap by name of Alan, we met at his dad's place where Ian ( the Dad ) keeps his Altered, "Gonzo the great". A really well designed and built car and ,unusual for an altered, fully suspended. It's starting to get a more common practice with the American E.T. racers leading the way, however Ian built his 25 years ago !  Really nice people and a great car, they hope to out again this coming season and we're looking forward to it.

hey Tony, thanks, but we were meant to meet with Sid while we were there ( he of the georgous Jag slingshot) as he was only minutes away but even that didn't happen, I don't know where the time went, it was nearly nine when we got back as it was.

oooo  gonzo topolino bodied altered  the devil plymouth bodied and jeans T  my 3 favourite rag cars of yesteryear

   I'm with you on Gonzo and the Devil but not sure I can put Jean's T in a top three, only really because it means missing so many others out, the Thunderbird for instance  ;)

Lesley spent some time cleaning the bare block and then we had a look, it all seems to have held up remarkably well all things considered. The bores still measure good, in fact when I dug out my original notes from when we re bored it there is still a 1 1/2 thou difference on number five ( I got struck clumsy on that one ) There are a couple of nicks right at the top of the bore lip where various valves have fallen in in the past but certainly salvagable, just a fresh hone and we are good to go I think.

Having always had white or cream motors before it's time for a change. So scour 'till your fingers bleed and etch prime

Did the prop while I was about it

The transmission, a Powerglide, was de greased and caustic cleaned, came up really well

 ....however, when all the grime was removed it was possible to see that it was showing signs of stress. A crack right around one of the mounting bolt bosses, it goes right through at one end but not for far, just another little job to attend to, should be interesting getting enough pre heat to work with it but not to damage anything else. 

Got a couple of coats of black on the block and lacquer on top, very shiny and hopefully not so arduous a job to keep looking good

....just need to clean and flat the decks and hone the bores and lifter bores and check the cam bearings and we are near ready to rebuild. Shot the prop too while there was paint in the gun

   And Today we did a lightning raid into Essexland, down past Chigwell, ilford and Barking and into sunny Romford, although to be fair it was lashing down at the time, to see the very nice Mr Johnny Hall ( He of the EBay ad featured elsewhere on this site) Johnny and I had been in correspondance since before Christmas about what I fancied doing and, with his input confirming a few details that I was unsure of, we placed an order for tube, lots of tube, and bends too. And Today we collected it. All exactly as we had asked for and the offcuts thrown in too. If anyone was thinking of stepping up to a better class of tube for their trike frame they could do a lot worse than giving the 'fella a ring, and if you could plot your bends I'm sure that he would be happy to do that too. Johnny is the last person in the country to run a six in a front motored nitro dragster, nice guy too. 

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...and just to round the evening out we dragged the old jig back in and leveled it up

We do seem to have come home with far more tube than I need, if only I knew someone else that was thinking of building a new car  ::)

   Today we have been jigging. It's fairly important to get all the grubby bits in the right order and somewhere near the right place as the chassis rails will be built around them. Pro chassis shops have huge and complex ways of doing this, Andy Robinson, for instance, has a surface table that must be five by ten in feet and well over a foot thick and being cast iron is pretty stable. Into the top of this are machined "T" slots into which all manner of stuff can be bolted to hold everything where it should be. We, of course, make do with something a bit less elaborate. A fourteen foot length of R.U.B. with adjustable legs on it. Last night I zeroed the surface to within a millimetre over it's length and tonight I started adding the bits that matter.
   First on is a small cradle that holds the torsion beam at the right height and square to the centre line. From this point I can then set out the wheelbase, all the dimensions are taken from drawings I did before ordering the tube. having set that out the rear axle cradle is tacked on, leveled, braced and welded. A quick coat of primer on the top surface of the beam to make it easier to see the markings and we are set.

   A passing big fella is collared to lift in the axle, the dummy motor ( thanks Chris ) and box are bolted together with spacers between to allow for the motor plate to be fitted later and the whole assembly craned over the beam

   A series of simple screw jacks are made up to sit on the beam and allow the various bits to be aligned with each other and leveled . If we were going to use a solid drive shaft I would have used an index bar bolted into the motor's main bearing caps to align it all but with a prop and U/J's I am confident without it.

   Having sorted the alignment, the whole lot is rechecked for level and centres

   The front end is then mounted to the beam and the axle fitted and leveled to ensure that all is square and dimensions are equal side to side and diagonally

   Then, just for fun, the first tubes were dropped into place. The seat area looks a bit tight so I will recheck that tomorrow before cutting anything. The nice Mr. Hall has left plenty of surplus on all the tubes so that I can still play with the final layout until I'm happy with it. The whole point of large scale drawings is to avoid this sort of thing and I am sure that after a couple of hours tinkering with it all I will end up with it as drawn, but still, a tinkering I will go. 

   And tinkering I was. About an hours worth before I just dummied up what I had drawn and sat on the floor, yep, that'll work, just like the drawing. 

Having rechecked everything a hundred times or so it was time to make some decisions. The length of the lower rear rails was set and the splice joint cut, holes bored to weld through and the tube set in the jig. The lower front rails were fitted and adjusted so as the bend was level with the front of the motor and the front scribed to fit the torsion bar

deep breath and weld. Just glorified tacks at this time but heavy enough to allow a bit of brutal handling should that prove necessary

   Now the more observant will have spotted that I had moved the position of the torsion beam cradle back along the beam, this was just to make it easier to walk around whilst the axle was mounted, not a critical thing really, but you might have mentioned that it leaves us short of beam at the other end.

   This really is too early in the build to be finding problems so we will just continue like it was meant to be. I cut the rear braces to length off of the drawing and scribed them to both the lower and upper rail sizes , having checked the rule book ( again ) I cut and fitted the cross member and fully welded it whilst it was easy to get to it all.

Obviously I realised but thought you knew.  :P
The spliced joint's interesting as Loony & I were chatting to his mate, who builds super tough off-roading buggies this evening. We chatted about cutting & sleeving steering columns & he recommending cutting them on an angle just like yours, to give a greater weld area than a straight cut.

   Then, as if by design, they will act as the jig to hold the top rails in place. Tomorrow, probably.

How do you plan to skin this beast Steve? In ally? Or is there another fibreglass mould taking shape that we haven't yet seen?

   I'm not sure at the moment, I would love to do it all in ally and polish it but I may not have the time (or talent) and would soon get fed up with the upkeep. I suspect that the side panels and floor will be aluminium and I may try a fibreglass body, and if that is the case I may try for something quite flowing and pretty.

Being "Black Pig Too", I kinda assumed it would be black.

   more than likley but maybe a bit flashier than the last one

   picking up from where I left it last night, a brief spell of re measuring everything and cross checking the diagonals and the rear uprights were tacked in place.

   Next on my list was the short uprights that separate the rails at the motorplate, these were a little awkward to cut as I don't really know the angle of the top tubes until they are in place and I can trial fit them, not a problem, back to the drawing and take both size and angle from it, cut a pair and tack them on making really sure that they match the angle of the motor plate. I don't have the plate yet but we have spaced the gearbox back to allow for it so it was easy to pass a couple of lengths of strap through the gap and establish the correct angle.   

   About here is the point that we lay the top rail set into the housed tubes and sort out it's length and position. Now, when I started this series it wasn't in any ego boosting "look what I can do" type way but more of a "look, this is a piece of piss, just have a crack at it" fashion, so when it all goes a little awry you'll get that too. Anybody that might be offended by that should look away now. When I made up the rear uprights as a unit on the bench I started by cutting a pair of tubes, or rather I made one that fitted, cut the bottom housing on a second tube, layed them on the welding bench with an offcut through the joints to keep them aligned and marked the overall length onto the second tube. At this point I guess I wandered off, maybe to stoke the fire or put the kettle on or maybe just ponder the great questions of the universe, like, that Anastasia, you know, the singer, does she want me and is just playing hard to get or should I pay more attention to the evil press saying that she tours the world along with what they call her constant female companion ? Anyway, whenever I got back to the bench I marked and cut the housing and welded everything fully, the only bit so far that got that treatment. When I fitted the tubes on to the bottom rails all was fine but when I come to lay the top tubes in the levels were way out. I think that I had marked the longest length and then cut it as the shortest so making the tube longer by the depth of the housing. Bit of a bugger as it meant having to put a couple of tempory cross braces in whilst I set it out correctly and re-cut it. I tried it without but it was vibrating like a tuning fork. When that was done it was out with a magnet on a stick to retrieve all the debris that had fallen down inside the tube. All in all a major waste of time as by then I had lost confidence in what  I'd done and went back to checking everything all over again !  Still, could have been worse, at least it was too long, not short, and the error was at the top. 

   After that little hiccup I went out for a while, made a call to Real Steel and ordered the bits to rebuild the short block, came back to find a rat had had lunch in my absence. Unfortunately it was my lunch. I have a little plan to deal with him tommorrow

   getting back into it, I layed the top tubes in and sorted out their length, cut the splice, set it up (again) and tacked it all   

   Once that was done there were only two tubes left to place in the perimeter frame, the upper front bastards. Awkward little buggers, needing to be clamshelled over the lower tubes as they meet the torsion bar. Time consuming rather than difficult, cut and try, cut and try, cut and try. Luckily I managed to stop cutting before the sweary stage. Put them in, check the front end is still square and tack. Call it a night whilst still winning 

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Tis a thing of beauty & a joy to behold, big brother.  :)

What was that phrase? oh yes "annoyingly talented". Not only superb fabrication but an honest n humerous write up.

  Thankyou gentlemen, although as I said, it's really not tricky, do the research, spend on the right materials and take your time, same as everything really.
   Still, onward. not a lot to see tonight but if it makes you feel better I have fought it every step of the way. Rear axle mounting, quite a simple concept, put a pair of big plates on the axle and a matching ones on the chassis and bolt them together. If I was doing this from nothing I would have made and fixed the chassis plates, then the axle plates, bolted them together on the car and then fitted the axle, however I am reusing our old axle which already has the plates on it and they are in the right place, a bit of a result. Not really, with hindsight I would have been better, or at least faster to cut them off and started again. First problem of the day was that the regs call for a single 1/4" plate each side, a quick check showed we had none, bugger. Further reading turned up an alternative in the SFI specs that allowed two 1/8" plates each side with 3/4" bosses through them, that's better we have heaps of 4 x 1/8 strip, we'll have it done in no time.
   I made a hardboard template and fired up the plasma, four plates, easy. Actually no. each plate has a different cut out as the axle tubes are tapered and different side to side. So, four more plates cut undersize and out with the die grinder.   

Looking rather spiffing Mr Field.

   Ok, that's better. Mark the holes through the existing axle plate and pilot drill as sets, place in the chassis and tack. Measure and cut the tubular upright that holds it all together and fit, or rather not. As the top rails slope down the tube is longer than the opening I have to get it through and another thing, how am i going to weld all round it with the plates there, I think that's another bugger!
   So, cut it all back out, dress it all back to look like new and start again. This time it's tube first, fully weld, fit the plates being a bit careful about aligning the three sets of three holes and tack.

  strangely the other side presented fewer problems

   When I pull the drive train out of the jig I will drill the pilot holes out to 3/4" and weld in thick wall tubes as spacers between the plates, the bolts will then pass through the tubes.
   Last thing tonight was to cut two simple cross members to lie in the floor line. The rear one has to carry a pinion support, a device to stop the axle rotating if everything else fails, and the front one has the gearbox rear support fixed to it. Somewhere between those two I have to find a way of mounting a 3mm thick split tube to shield the prop, I'm not really happy with anything I have sketched yet. I like brackets to do as much as possible for their upkeep and would like to devise something that served at least two purposes here, I'll play with it tomorrow.
   So a bit of a struggle really, failure to plan was the problem, I should know better. On the upside my little furry dining companion has gone, along with the twenty gramms of potassium cyanide I left for him, I guess he's having his spot of tea with little pointy faced angels tonight. Still no news from that Annastasia bird but as Mrs B said, "with nails like those she would be a liability working inside a race motor" so it's probably for the best.

Can you send over a packed lunch for our garden visitors please.
Taz has got equally lengthy nails, but they do come in handy for cleaning out all those awkward little places, like gearboxes.

   You might not want to be leaving this stuff where just anything can eat it, it's pretty indiscriminate, you'd need a shovel to get down the garden path.
    Mrs B also has a fair set of talons which she dangled in front of my eyes to remind me after reading the post. 

   Not a great deal to show tonight. After a couple of days of arsing about and wasting time I decided to get organised, I've got a list ! A sensible order in which to work through stuff and sketches of what I need to make.
   Tonight I looked mainly at the gearbox end, there has to be a support for the tail housing and the front end of the prop shield. A bit of time playing with cardboard and tape should help to keep the scrap bin hungry. I've got something I'm fairly happy with but it may well change as it evolves. 

   It looks promising, it will carry the lower section of the tubular shield in the shallow scribe on the second "leg". The side braces are yet to be fitted, and ignore the stacks of washers, I really must restock the bolt racks. Since starting this I have spoken to my little psudo Welsh mate at some length and it may well change again, so much for planning !

I wish I could weld that pretty.  :(
We've got a couple of bait boxes in the garden for the rats. Plastic bags of poison inside them. The rodents have dragged the bags out into the daylight, taken one look at them & left 'em well alone. I guess having "Danger, rat poison" written on them was a bit of a give away.

   I only post the pretty ones.  ;)
I've got some other stuff in the shed if you want to deal with the rats, remind me next time you're over. I used to have some stuff in little plastic sachets, they eat it all, opened the box and took the rest as well, seemed to love it.

Say Hi to Tony for me (psudo welshman) Brock, probably won't see him for a while as Dakota Draggin has been cancelled due to some old "stuffers" complaning about the noise.

Hello there, real shame about Dakota, I am sure people complain just for the sake of it.
You have to come up shakey.

Tony

Sorry Tony didn't realise that was you, glad you joined the site, hope to make it up to shakey some time this year, got to get my "Fix" of Draggin' somewhere.

Team Black Pig are always looking for pit crew & I'm sure the Cunning Plan crew are too. Take a tent & make a weekend of it Doc.

Would love to and will try this year.

  Right, well, while you have all been sat around socialising some of us have been pushing on with stuff. A trip to Devizes first thing saw us loaded up with bits of plate, strip and tube and back to the frozen wastes of a shed. I was pretty happy with the shape of the front mount and, having considered various other alternatives, decided that I had too much effort in it to scrap it. Some fiddly little bits later and the side braces were added and the whole thing bolted in along with a section of six inch tube that will stop the prop eating my socks.   

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   At the other end of the tube is a thingy that has to stop the axle centre section rotating if the Bad Thing happens, basically a strap that anchors the nose of the diff to the chassis. Back out with the cardboard and scissors and then transfer to a piece of plate, a whoosh with the plasma and a whizz with the die grinder and we're about there. Add a couple of sticky out bits to hold the tube and I think it will work. There's a bit more bracing to go in yet and the tube needs it's joining tabs fitting and then it can all be fettled and called finished, that'll wait 'till tomorrow, I'm home in the warm.

   This little section seems to be taking forever but I want to get it done whilst it's easy to access, one lesson learned from the previous build. So today I finished the A/R plate with it's little carrier brackets fully welded   

     and fitted up the prop shield complete with all it's fixings and brackets. I think it will still be in and out once more as I want to put a return flange at the ends of it but at least there is light at the end of the tunnel  ;D, see what I did there ?

 :D
Can't quite see from that photo Steve -is the tunnel in two halves that bolt together along the centre line or one piece with a gap underneath to fit over the prop? How thick is it?
I'm in the middle of making a prop loop for the Pop from 4mm wall thickness ERW toob.

   scroll up a couple of posts. It is a single tube split horizontally with tabs welded to the joint, these are drilled and tapped to accept the bolts that hold it together. The bolts are visable in the last shot but the joint isn't. Three mil. thick tube. I think that our rule book sugests a 6mm thick strap as a loop, to be fitted no more than six inches from the front of the prop, my "LPWM" may well be along soon to correct some of that. 

Yipee ! three days to sort this out, I'm fairly happy with it now although there are still two small braces to go in they can be done when it comes out next time.

I thought I'd try something less taxing for a while and put in the two short uprights in front of the motor

   and then started on the motor mounts

Just a quick visit today. Finished the motor mounts with a couple of small braces, they will get paint tomorrow and that's something else off of the list.

    put the cross member in that will form the scuttle, the front of the body, and carry the top of the motor plate

   and added a small brace to the centre of the gearbox mount. Then I went outside, came back in, locked up and went home. Just over two inches in less than ten minutes.

ya big girl !!!!  ;D




 ;)

yep  :D

   It took about half an hour to drive the three miles off of the main road to the shed, I was having fun by the time I got there, swing into the yard, lots of lock, little throttle and then.......Handbrake ! Whooooo ! Took about an hour to dig the van out and get it onto some straw so that I could leave tonight.
   I borrowed an extra pair of hands to lift the axle out (thanks Paul) and then craned out the rest. I dragged the beam outside to have a bit more space to work, stoked the fire and made a bit of a start.
 

   Etch primer and gloss black to some of the small parts, they will get a coat of 2K lacquer when there is a bit more to do.
   Set the chassis on the floor at ride height and walked round it a bit, axle centres tally so at least the wheels won't be off the ground when it's done

   Spent a couple of hours pushing seven yards of A16 under the TIG torch, would have been more but a dearth of gas put paid to that, BOC for me tomorrow.
   To see the evening out I roughed out the motorplate, oddly it all looks fairly good.

is this a new tarmac welding technique ????

 :)  it was actually just a lazy way to answer a question but it doesn't read very well does it

   Did next to nothing today, spent some time getting to BOC, got a fresh bottle from the nice man there, got back ready to finish welding all that has been done so far only to find my helmet didn't want to play. I'm sat here now pondering how wise it was (n't) to try as many times as I did, TIG arc is VERY bright. I did fit up the seat uprights before seeking some darkness. The piece of timber is there while I look at the kidney upright position ( a straight edge passed over any two adjacent tubes should not be able to contact the seat)  The piece of cardboard on the floor is a silhouette of the diff, it struck me that it would be a good idea to be able to get that back in between the tubes.

A16 is a medium carbon grade mild steel TIG rod

and not "A16 road (England), a road connecting Grimsby and Stamford"
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A16_road  ::) ;D

ok mate after reading your email, i have had a look.. yep you have been busy!... still cant see why you want to drive one of them against your altered.. by god they go in a stright line.. what ever next!.. maybe to be able to run msa events...

i will pop in now and then to see how its all going.. and yep as i have'nt got much to do to the car i spend my time playing about on the internet..lol

i even see you have that tony on board as well... so hi tony...

cul.. best you and the mrs.. mark..

Huh?

sorry.. steves email...hope it makes some kinda sense...

i have just found the thread on the brockmobile... now that looks better.. i guess your still waiting to complete the block...is that one on hold then steve, while your building the slingshot???..

now then to say you have been busy is a bit of an understatement.. ;D  been very busy...lol..

on the altered have you though of putting a floor in as it could save you a lot of msa technical issues ;) as if its all sealed including the bulkhead it clears a lot of red tape on other things... ::)

cheers mark :)

maybe should have put this in the other post ???

Hi Mark,
   glad you found us, expect an email soon re putting your car up. Mark is a fellow Pony Express owner, he has Mick's last car, a highly stylised "T" with an aero canopy, all in a rather fetching shade of red, other than the canopy that is.
   The altered is that tight I will struggle to put my feet in it let alone a floor, but I know what you mean. The motor's on hold for a while so we decided on something else to keep us occupied  :)

I know I've got photos of the Express at either the Hot Rod Drags or the Nostalgia Nationals. Just spent half an hour trawling through the Rally/Show Photos bit of the main site & can't find them. They're there somewhere.
Welcome to the site Mark.  ;)

Mark's car, Pony Express, Mark behind it in the blue shirt, my "LPWM" frantically taking notes in the fluro vest

   Still a bit chilly to be doing much today and to be honest I need a day or so away from it

    however I did manage to spend an hour or so quietly welding, starting to finish all the tacks to full welds

   I couldn't get into it today and that shows on the weld at the bottom of the side plate. Time to go home and try again another day, I will cut this right out and clean it back before re-welding.

.

Nice sunset.
Know what you mean about needing to take time out. Speak to you soon mate.  ;)

Another of the Pony Express

This one taken at Garys Picnic 08 at Avon park. We were at the very end of the strip to pick up Brock and the Pig.

 I got a couple of hours on it today, all the chassis bar the crossmember is now fully welded. The crap weld has been cut out and redone and the other side done to match.

   the seat uprights are finally fitted fully welded and the kidney bars are roughed out

                                Kidney bars fully welded

                                          Floor brace added

                 Floor mounting tabs added

                                         Floor plate roughed out

Looking good there Brock  :)

   Right, the PC's been a complete arse for the last couple of days but I think I've got a grip of it now, which is more than can be said for the bloody car.
   Having finished all the welding that had been tacked previously I had a walk round it and just looked, more of that later. It was time to move on. I decided that it would be good time to fit the axle, after that is done I can start looking at the cockpit proper and see what needs doing to fit a seat and controls etc. The axle is our old one and is generally in good shape other than needing a coat of tidy. The problems started when I moved it alongside the chassis, too heavy to lift and stretch to get it in. Ok, crane and chains, however it goes under the top frame member so the chains need to drop through the middle and then come out under the rail to the axle laid alongside. When the chains tighten the chassis lifts and everything starts to get away a bit. Two hours of swearing, light injury's and tears had it almost in, but wedged tight across between the mounting plates. A cup of coffee and some time revealed what I should have seen from the start, The whole car is covered in datum marks, the axle has been installed in position before and I only need the empty case to work with. So, end plates off, caliper brackets off, retainers off and drive the drive shafts out. The first one was easy and actually so was the second but wasn't I supprised to be standing in a gallon of EP80, bastard, I'm really not thinking this through at the moment. I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up and getting ready to lift the centre section ( diff unit) out. Hopefully a better day to follow.   

   further to the walking round and looking bit, I drew this car in quarter scale before starting anything, in theory it makes it all easier to see and get a feel for. However, whilst building it I have had an increasing feeling that something just doesn't "gel". With the car off the jig and on the floor at ride height I now think that the bends in the front rails are wrong. This is my mistake, Johnny supplied just what I asked for, it just isn't right. So decision made, we will push on with the rear end and get all the tubes and braces in to make it all as firm as possible, fit the motor plate, re-jig it, and lash the front end off. I think I will make the cuts three inches forward of the motor plate and start the taper from there. Probably. 

   Some idea of what we may end up with as regards to the lines

Is that guy in the last photo dancing the Hokey Cokey?
Nice to know even the clever bods have the odd hiccup. Still looking annoyingly good though big bro.

   I think that the guy above is kicking the car and saying "I wish we had put the bends further forward"
   Less of a hiccup, more of a great big heaving belch with a bit of sick in it, but I think I have it in hand now.
   A better day today, I started where I had left off and lifted the diff out of the case. The axle case is then very easy to move about and no trouble to slot in and line up. All six bolts and sleeves went through first time with no fitting needed so it was out with the welder and tack it all a bit quick.

   While I was waiting for that to cool I finished the floor, all rounded edges and tapped for stainless button heads.
   Take the axle back out, it's easy now, and fully weld the tubes both sides. Put the axle back in, I can barely stop myself taking it back out just for fun, and check everything is still where it should be, it is.   

   Being a bit early to go home I set out and cut the side uprights. Now it's a personal taste thing, but I like to see diagonal braces terminating in the centre of the joint they are supporting. To do this they  have to go in at the same time because they are actually too long to go in afterwards, so I sorted those as well. Whilst doing one it's as easy to do two so I did both sides.

   but it does lead to some awkward joints to weld, tungsten right out, smallest lens and up the gas flow, try not to dip the electrode into the pool, I think I'm winning, at the moment.

that's really coming together nicely, I wish I had my new workshop finished, I can't do a lot in my cold wet lean to at the moment and you're making me jealous

glad to see its still going forward.... seems to be a lot of work but not so much time now mate... i guess the later stages will come together a lot quicker? as i dawned on me last week thats there is only 7 more w-ends till the first test and tune and 8 till the easter thunderball and that included this w-end!

so been out in the garage today.. changing a couple of leaking oil seals... so both ends of the prop now ok and diff oil topped back up... couple of odd little jobs to do then a dam good clean and polish, that will be the car ready.

time then to move on to the truck and caravan and check all ok, make sure all spares, tools, and all the rest of gear can be found and loaded all ready to go! and lastley load the car on the truck to remember how to place all the bits of timber etc ::) as its surprising i have six bits of wood and there is loads of combinations to get it right!... :)

cul mark...

   Cheers guys, Steve, it may be a shed but it's still cold and wet at times, grit your teeth and push on. Hi mark, I doubt that we will make the start of the season but I will try, sounds like you are ready.

   A nice steady little start today, settled down and welded all the joints throughout the sides. Some were a little awkward but it's quite relaxing really

   after a couple of hours of that it was good to stand up for a while so I made a couple of small brackets to hold the bottom of the motorplate, welded them in and moved on to the top mounts. these are tubes passing through the scuttle hoop which the bolts go through and pull the plate back tight to the hoop. the lower mounts are 3/8" bolts as per the spec. and the top ones are 1/2", maybe because of the way the torque of the motor reacts against them but just as likely because I happen to have 1/2" bore thick wall tube and a hole saw that fits the O.D.  ;)

.

   Once the mounts were sorted the plate itself can be fitted and then trimmed to suit the body line. Now that the plate is firmly held in it's final position I can transfer the datums and set out for all the holes, crank, starter, mounting bolts and the one that will probably be missed, the little rascal that allows a socket through to the back of the flexplate to tighten the converter attachment bolts

   and finally for the evening it was out with the card, tape and scissors. I need somewhere to perch my arse and now seems like as good a time as any to look at that, the seat that is, not my arse. I'm not quite sure yet how the base will work out but I need to get the back formed to find out.

Is it just me, or is it starting to look like one of those galvanised tin baths.  :D

   Do you actually look at the pictures ? although to be fair I can see a bit of bath chair creeping in, stay tuned and I will dispel that later.
   Being fairly happy with the card template, I transfered it to a piece of 16g aluminium and cut that out with a jig saw. I spent a little time calculating the bend centres, as they taper with the frame rake, and then wrapped it round a spare MIG gas bottle. I was a bit supprised when it all ended up five inches too wide until it struck me that the centres were not what I wanted, I needed the point where the bend starts ! Back on the bench and a bit more tweaking had it close enough to put in.

The object of putting the seat back in was to find the height of the pan or sitty-on-bit for the tec minded. I welded in the mounting tabs and bolted the back into position and sat on some blocks of wood. There was something missing, after a bit of thought I went and got our old Woolfies with the 33 12's on them, that's better, I'm starting to get a feel for it now.

It became clear that I needed to be just a bit higher in the seat, the original placement put my eye level below the tyre top

I settled on four inches of rise over the bottom frame rail, that just lets me see over the tyre but still keeps it all as low as I think is practical, there is an added bonus in that I can also rest my heels on the floor plate rather than having them floating in the air supported by the axle tubes.

Having settled some of the details I finished the seat back, trimming it to final size and polishing the edges and radiusing the corners. I'm still undecided about upholstery so it will be nice if the ali looks OK without.

With a bit of time to spare before us tea I had a look at the brakes, no fluids allowed in the cockpit area so our old system will be rebuilt and reused. A master cylinder from an Alfa with two independent outlets and also twin remote inlets has proved up to the job before and will be going in, and, although I would like to rewire it all in braided, will probably be used as is for the time being. As the axle is relatively high in the car the space underneath it looked like it was made to house the master cylinder mounting, so I made one.

   Got a late start today, and a parking ticket, and a rather smart haircut. When I finally got going I spent a bit of time setting out the brake lever geometry and then welded in the master cylinder mount. I made a pivot for the lever from a length of tool steel, cut a thread on one end and welded a couple of small brackets on the other, these sort of saddle the lower frame rail and make for a good stiff attachment point. In the spirit of reusing as much as possible from the last car I have utilised the old brake lever although it will require some shortening and maybe a tweak or two to be right.

looking good bud....
dont forget when you sort out your seat hight to allow for the shield that covers the diff as you could end up not reaching the floor... i still cant see why people like them... they look great but when you sit in there with the diff shield nugeing your privates it dont feel very comfy to me lol....

keep up the good work ....

cheers mark  ;D

   Hi mark, I think that I have room to fit an internal shield in the diff case but I don't think anyone would believe it so there will be an external guard for the crown wheel. the problem, as such, is not so much the depth of the back of the case but that the bulk of the pumpkin pushes my legs out wide to the chassis sides which in turn limits the available room for controls, so, uncomfortable and uncontrolled, nothing much changes  :D

I have been waiting on an email with a copy of the set out for Chevy motor bolts, this is still not with me so I decided that, as I had mapped the dowel positions with the motor in the jig and our old plate fitted rather well, I might as well push on.   

   A combination of drilling and plasma got us close and when I remember where I have put the carbide burrs for safe keeping I will just finish it a bit tidier, but for now it will serve. Tomorrow I can remount the transmission and look at pedals and other stuff.

   Just to finish the evening I scribed a lump of the very wonderfull MDF to serve as a former to dress the seat pan over, always assuming that I get to Hungerford for some more ali in the morning.

I am enjoying watching this Brock...it's a bit back to my roots vibe for me

Hey Steve, you can't just say that and stop, details man, details.

   A bit of a slow day today. I have fought the seat base to a standstill, not quite beaten it but it's getting close. A lack of gas in the TIG stopped me in the end, I suspect that there is a very small leak somewhere that I can't trace, a new bottle tomorrow and rebuild the gauge set.

   To keep busy after the gas thing I cut and fitted the seat rail between the two seat uprights and also the two support rails that return to the rear uprights. The last two will need trimming to length when I have the seat set in place.

  Having backed myself into a bit of a corner at the back end I moved forward and craned the gearbox back in to confirm the motorplate dimensions and see what space I had for pedals and stuff. Everything seems OK so over the weekend I will have a look at some of that 

I spent most of my teens to mid 30's as a race mechanic, started in hotrods, stock cars and rallycross, group 1 saloons, progressed to formula ford 1600 and 2000, then sports 2000, formula 3, formula 2, can-am in the states, worked for a shop in texas where we did work for other teams including oval racers and the blue max drag team, then I got broody came home and ended up as a father  ;)

Bloody hell, I asked for that didn't I. huge respect there mate, I'll bugger off and hide now.


Ps, Beadle's car was one of the few that I can remember from even before I got seriously interested, outstanding.

   OK, I spent the morning riding around the county visiting gas suppliers, what did I learn ? none of them trades Saturdays, despite what they advertise. So with welding off the menu I moved on with the cutting and fitting bit. I had sorted the brake master cylinder position and had enough travel to operate it so time to tidy the lever. Cut it down, re-thread the top, bend it to be a comfortable reach and make a guide plate for it. The latter item is fairly important as it all gets a bit rough inside these things on occasion and you don't want the vibration throwing the lever around and fatiguing it so that it breaks, ask me how I know !

   Next on the list was somewhere to put my left foot (careful !) I had it in mind that I could do something fairly lightweight but couldn't quite picture it so this just sort of grew.

   Not being able to glue any of it together meant that I moved on to something else before finishing it, not ideal but I will get it done Monday. I spent some time playing with the geometry of the gear shifter and linkage and a couple of old shift levers before deciding to build a new one, again I'm not entirely sure how this will look yet but it will probably work, maybe.

that lack of glue can be a real pain in the arse can't it, I keep thinking that a spare bottle might be a good idea, I have a good deal with a supplier but they are about 45 miles away so it is a bit of a hassle when you run out right in the middle of stuff

   yeah it's a bit of a bugger. I thought that I might swap to a bigger bottle  but that would just mean running out on a weekend less often. A second bottle would be good but add about sixty quid a year to the rental. As to the Other Option for a second bottle, the ugly rumour service tells of a plan to introduce a barcode system on the bottles so that the Company can better keep track of the service life of them, additionally, of course, would let them check that the return is the same as was issued, not a good thing for some  ::). I struggle to believe that I am using as much as I buy and may well have a leak somewhere, all testing has so far drawn a blank but it's possible that it might be a solenoid valve inside the machine, another job for Monday.   

I heard that barcode thing too, I find a good flowmeter is invaluable for gas economy, my bottles last a lot beter now, I run 2 tigs ...one ac/dc and one cheap dc I bought when the main one went down in the middle of a project that I needed to finish ( as always) so I suppose 2 bottles wouldn't be such a bad idea and the extra cost would probably outweigh the hassle factor (if I wasn't so tight  :D )...maybe just a small emergency bottle even to keep the rent down

   I'm not sure where the time went today. I went into Swindon to BOC and after an entertaining and educational half hour left with a larger Argon bottle and some new settings to try. I wandered into Aldi to look at some air tools they had on offer but couldn't get excited enough to buy anything. By the time I had stopped off for coffee and a look at the Mustang project at Paul's place it was well gone midday and time to get something achieved.
   In order to clear some space on the bench I welded up the footrset and fitted it into the car. I'm not sure about it, it works fine but I may come back to it before calling it finished

   then I assembled the shift lever and pivot set and fixed those to the lower chassis rail

   next I worked on the shift linkage. I far prefer rods over cables and so rod it was. I was reusing the end fittings from the last car as I know they work and I have them, however when I checked the thread I found that it was 5/16" UNF, hmmm. Looking at the old linkage it seems that I actually cut the thread onto the ends of the rod, why would I do that rather than get something easier to work with ? Oh well, cut the threaded sections off of the ends of the old rod including about a half an inch length of plain bar beyond it, turn the plain section down to eight mill, draw the new link rod on the bench, calculate the length, cut a piece bright bar to suit, bore the ends to eight mill, drive the old threaded sections into the new bar and weld. Make a bending template, fire up the trusty gas axe and tease the bar to shape. After it has cooled try it in the car, go and have some more coffee, come back, cut thirty mill. out of the length of the straight section, jig it for straight and true and weld it back together, maybe it will be closer to the correct length this time. It was. 

   I really want a simple and uncluttered look to this, the last one I made had three side and front levers on the main stick to actuate the various lockouts, this one will use a gate and single lockout for reverse. Once the linkage was attached to the box I could run through the changes and map the gate pattern to suit the detents in the transmission. Make some small brackets with threaded holes to allow a bolted mounting and try it. Bloody hell, right first time, quite pleasing after a string of stupid mistakes recently. I still need to fit a reverse gate and sort out a mounting for the inhibitor switch but so far, so good.
   I have our old eight ball as a knob on the brake lever and now I need to decide on the shifter knob, any suggestions ? cue ball ? red ball ? something completely different ?

i must come over and have a look at this baby some time steve, as i can sort of see it would be fairly easy to fit a neutral switch in... and you have s**t loads of room for a solidnoid to shift her into second... i know its extra expence.... i am gona jump the gun here a bit!!!!... but what have you got planed for the electrics???? if you want to save this for later to keep the build pic etc in sync just send me an email..(sorry guys.. i dont want to spoil your build plans) if you need any help any help there just give me a shout...and just remember...rev limiter OOOHHHH...cheaper in the long run!! say no more. ;) (msd6???) 7al even better!

sorry if i seem to be pushing this a bit but i have had a hard time of late and need to put my thoughts into some thing else...again sorry to all....

so if you need half a brain then give us a call ;D

mark :-X

Screwball?? ...........(ooppss that one sit in the driver seat) ;D ;D

I've got a couple of red snooker balls & a cue ball, already drilled & tapped to M8, if they're any use Steve.

here Manky, I think we should build a Reliant powered version of this and "race" it in Manky colours ;D ;D ;D

   Cue ball please, I meant to enquire this afternoon.

Big bro, I'll deliver it to Mum & Dad's place in the next few days for you.
Shauny, Lunatic had a visit last week from a couple of guys interested in building a trike. They mentioned in passing that they were selling a drag car rolling chassis with the old Tiki Munkey T bucket body for "a couple of hundred quid". Hmm, the 4 litre Jag motor I intended to bung in the T roadster I was going to build a couple of years ago is still sat outside Brock's workshop. I've got way too many projects already, but would make a cheap, entry level racer for somebody.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I musn't >:( >:( >:( >:( got to get all the current stuff finished first

 ;D My thoughts precisely.

   Right, having got the shifter linkage and gate sorted and the 'box changing through the detents properly it was time to have a look at the reverse lock out. Regs state that it must be present and experience tells me that it needs to be simple and idiot proof, or at least close until someone develops a better idiot.
   First I machined up a small threaded insert for the top of the tube to allow me to affix the knob, and welded it in, then I welded a small tab onto the top of the lever with a 6mm thread in it to form a pivot. Using the old ball as a template I cut a sort of lever shape, added a small projection to the front of it to resist the spring ( which I robbed from an old crocodile clip ), made a little brass spacer to line it all up and screwed it all together. Then I spent some time sat in the car, slamming through the gears, Brrrrrrmmmmm, Brrrrmmmmm.   

   flush with success I moved on to the throttle pedal assembly. First a plate welded to the chassis rails to allow me to bolt the rest to it. Our last car just sort of grew, and all manner of things were welded to the chassis making it quite a chore to service. This time everything that can be a separate bolted in item, will be. No more fighting to get the transmission in and out.

   then a shaft with a back plate that bolts to the frame mount.

  then bolt it in, find a washer to fit and add the pedal pivot tube.

   I knew what I wanted the pedal to look like but the first effort at radiusing the ends was not good. The answer, a quick and dirty bending jig and the faithful gas axe, much easier and better looking bends too. The pedal is finished and mounted now but I have just deleted the photos (!) I don't know why or even how but it looks good enough that I will take some more tomorrow. Having seen the throttle in the car I think that I will re-work the footrest to be more of a match for it, I just need to find some 6mm bright drawn bar, I'll have a look in swindon in the morning.

Pretty colour!

pretty hot ! !

   Not much to see tonight as I had to come into town and see the accountant which sort of cut the day short a bit. I've also spent a bit of time finishing things, drilling for lock wires and split pins and the like. Here's the pedal, finished other than the linkage connection 

   and here it is mounted

   the other job I finally got done was the seat, this is now fully welded and linished on the outside and just welded on the inside. For some reason this just turned into a bastard of a job and I'm truly glad it's done. Tomorrow I can fit up the sub rails and belt mounts and move forward

   So I did, bolted the seat in and set out the lower front support rail, tacked it in and cut the two return rails that provide a degree of protection under the seat pan. These are just tacked at the moment and will get fully welded next time I have all the running gear out of the chassis.

   Having finished the throttle pedal, fitted it and tried it out (with appropriate noises) I took a dislike to the foot rest I had made. It was OK and did the job but I liked the throttle design better. So, off to Devizes, again, and return with some more bright drawn and start again. 

   and the matching pair installed

   Having pretty much got the seat and levers as I wanted them I thought that I had the cockpit sorted. Luckily a mate passed through and asked how the steering was going to work. Phew, that could have been embarrassing at the first meet. So I dug out the box and butterfly and had a bit of a look. I think that there will be a bolt in crossmember somewhere adjacent to the rear of the transmission and from that I will hang the steering box . It will mean a fairly long shaft to the butterfly but I have the option of another support rising off of the diff to deal with that. Any shorter and I couldn't reach it, bring the crossmember further back and I can't stand up to get in or out, so that will be the place then. 

   The crossmember will have a short tube welded across the bottom of each leg which will in turn sit between two small tab like brackets and accept an M12 bolt, probably.

   From the look of those photos I have already lost the second of the tabs, squint a bit and pretend that there is another one at the other end of the tube

......like this

   A busy day today but not much actual progress on the car. I did however make up some control arms for another project hereabouts and modify an Ossa gearbox casing to accept a different bearing. However it is not a bad thing to have a little break every so often and it gave me time to consider the next stage or two. What that actually means is that as I was slowed down a little (and yes it is possible to go slower) I didn't weld in the steering crossmember mounts that I had made. This in turn meant that when I sat in the car to be measured for the roll cage everything was still at a stage where it could be moved, which was a good thing. Whilst I sat in the car we were chatting about the details, where the cage would land, how the top hoop related to the tyre height, what rolling radius the tyres had, wouldn't the pitman arm rip the sidewall right out ! ! ! I'm not used to thinking about having the axle, and hence the tyres, so far forward and a bit of a rethink is in order. So, company can be a good thing, who knew ? The upshot of all this is I am having a complete redesign of the steering setup which will mean a day or so of just tinkering and pulling lines. I will return.
   Oh, and I did receive a rather lovely new shifter knob, thankyou.

S'O.K   ;)

this whole project of yours Brock is simply ore inspiring

   A funny old day today, I got half involved in several things around and about and it was quite late before I got back in the shed. I have had a bit of time over the weekend to think about the steering layout and I think that I have made some decisions, maybe.
   First thing was to find the rearmost point at which I could install the crossmember and still stand up to get in and out. This done I tacked the mountings to the chassis rails. Fitting the crossmember to the mounting points should have been a fairly easy exercise but another change of plan halfway through meant that I had to cut and extend it's width. Not a problem, and when I get it back on the bench and can work it comfortably I will make it pretty.   

   Staying with the steering, the next bit was to jump in, a relative term meaning sort of hop a bit, wobble and flop, and find out where I could actually place the butterfly and still wrap my sweaty paws around it. Just in front of the diff seemed OK. Now the butterfly it'self is a bit of history as, as far as I can ascertain, it started life directing the sometimes seemingly random path of the "Thunderbird", passed on to rein  the "Pony Express" continued herding our own "Black Pig" and now will find a home in the "Black Pig Too". Thirty three years of stirling service aiming dragsters, I like that.

   One of the decisions made over the weekend was that there was no need to build down to make anything simple, it would be easy to just use a long length of bar as a steering column with a bit of ally strap with a hole in it as a support. This is actually a common thing in the world of long quick cars, I just don't happen to think it's very elegant. So, a new boss was machined up, the back plate matches the butterfly mounting holes and the front end is bored to accept the column. The taper on the front end is because it will bear on the inner race of a bearing.

   The actual column support will have a pair of bearings in a tube, think miniature headstock, hung under the crossmember. I had looked quite a range of bearings and, when I checked the tube sizes I had, found one that could be persuaded to work with a small boring job on the tube. I didn't think that there would be  enough material left in the tube wall to support the bearing after the boring operation so just to make sure I bored two more short pieces of larger tube to be an interference fit, warmed them up and pressed them on the ends of the first tube, then rosette welded them to it. I will finish size the internal diameter when the bearings arrive.

   That was as far as I could go with that until I get the bearings, so back on to the throttle set up. I added a small bar under the throttle pedal, I had cut a 6mm thread on the end a put a small bend in it and, strangely, it worked first time

   Refitting the pedal in the car let me size the first rod in the system, a length of 6mm bright drawn, M6 thread and a 6x6 female rod end and lock nut got us started. The next step was to have been using two M8 rod ends to support the cross shaft on the firewall. Unfortunately, the two rod ends that were so generously donated have defeated me. I have no idea what size they are meant to be, the ball bore mikes at 7.92mm and the internal thread has me beat completely, absolutely no idea. I know what it isn't and that is everything metric and imperial, coarse and fine that I can gauge. Is there such a thing as metric ultra fine ?, 8mm dia with a pitch about .75, who knows, but more are en route, stay tuned for more cockups later in the week.   

   I got a fair start on the day today and thought that I would just finish the throttle linkage before looking at the belt mounts and maybe the cage. Nine thirty 'till Seven thirty, all bloody day, but I do rather like it.
   To start with I got out the carb and manifold and balanced them on top of the bare block. From there I was able to map the linkage runs and the distances I needed to move them, it was also possible, using the block dowels to plot the cross shaft position in the car. The first thing made was a small brass top hat with a threaded bore to allow me to attach a female rod end to the carb linkage. With that fitted, I threaded a length of 6mm bright drawn, screwed it into the rod end and used that as a temporary linkage to find the linear dimension from closed to WOT. Back on the drawing board to plot it all out and find how long a lever I need to provide a 70mm pull while remaining under 45 degrees of rotation on the cross shaft. About now a cable was starting to sound good. As the lever was going to be visible I made it from a scrap of T45 ali I had laying around.

  Next was to have a look at transferring the push of the pedal to a pull on the cross shaft. This required a bell crank. It was here or here abouts that I stepped through the door into that world where crazy people are. A simple bush would have been considered flash, a pin with a rocker on it would have worked well, four hours later I have a nine piece assembly running on two sealed micro ball races bearing on a hardened shaft in turn in it's own carrier that screws into a pair of mounts on the chassis brace. I have got to start getting out more. bloody lovely piece though.

.

   back to the drawing board and then the bench and put together a second arm for the cross shaft that will input the feed from the bell crank and, fingers crossed, move the carb link  to a point 70mm from it's start. All assembled and to be fair it looks good, a bit tricky to tell exactly until I get the cross shaft supports but I think it will work.

   So, there it is, six rose joints, four bearings, seven points of adjustment, and a day of my life. I think I payed three pounds for the universal cable on the old one !

Mighty fine looking set up, lets hope it works perfik ;)

Bet the cable wasn't half as pretty tho eh!

I'm fairly pleased with it, and it seems to work which is also good.

That's a bonus then looks the doggies dangly bits

   The throttle set up was nearly done, so to start the day I spent a bit more time on it ! To start with it needed a spring return, I looked a various lengths of coil springs but decided that I didn't like any of them and they all required another little tab somewhere to mount the "other" end. This was all starting to look a bit messy so I went to put the kettle on and have a think. Laying on the worktop beside the coffee was a strange shaped piece of metal, obviously been cut off of something but what ? then it struck me, it was the end of a shaft from a Reliant pedal set that I had used the bushes from. a dig through the scrap bin produced the remains, and wrapped round one of the bosses was the perfect spring. All I needed to do was file a small slot in the mounting bracket for the anchor end to lodge in. Another piece of tamworth's finest finds it's way into one of our cars.

   Left to it's own devices the linkage would go over centre on the return so the next job was a little bracket type thing that bolts on to a convenient boss on the bellhousing, this acts as a stop and sets the height of the pedal. 

   Having sat in the car and played with that bit it became obvious that I needed to limit the other end of the travel, an over heavy foot would put an awful strain on the carb. Luckily I had just fitted a bracket in exactly the right place. Take it back off and modify it with a piece of tube, a small threaded insert, a bolt and a little piece of plate and it looked like it was meant to be.

   Being at a bit of a loss about where to go next I put together the steering box mounting. I can't do much more to this until I receive the bearings and joints I've ordered but it's one more thing off of the list.

   I have just noticed that in that picture the M8 female rod ends must have arrived as the cross shaft is now finished and the locking collars fitted too. That must have been very first thing today, strange, I don't remember doing it !

   After going out and seeing a man who wanted a bloody great dovecote building, I came back for an hour or so and had a look at the roll cage. It took a bit of setting out as I want the rear members to taper in towards the front but I think that it is getting close. Both rear uprights are tacked at the moment as I need a second pair of hands and eyes to check the fit and line of them and that won't happen 'till sunday at the earliest.   

   It all looks a bit high at the moment but it conforms to the measurements we took earlier in the week and it's all a bit deceiving being right up on a pair of stools, I'll get a better feel for it on Sunday.

loving it, nice work

You sir, are a bloody genius!!  ;D

   Bit of a flying visit today, places to go, people to see, cake to be eaten.  The steering support bearings had arrived so I was able to finish bore the "headstock" and fit them. Also delivered was the length of 12mm bright drawn for the top of the column, a light polish and that was a lovely fit through the bearings, turn the end to a press fit to the butterfly mount, press it in and weld.

  A brief sit in the car to recheck the positioning, knock up a pair of hangers to hold the bearing tube under the steering crossmember and tack it all together. By now the cake was calling, I had to go, more soon.

   Oh, and thanks for the comments guys, but really there is nothing going on here that anyone couldn't do, that's really the point of this, easy may not be the term but difficult certainly 'aint. You just have to want to do it, and then do it.

   not many pictures today, but quite a lot achieved, honest. Having got the top end of the steering sorted, or at least turning freely and placed where I could reach it, i moved to the other end. I bolted the old steering box into it's new mounting bracket and placed it on the chassis rail. Taking the magic angle finder I set it up so that the input shaft was at the same angle to the horizontal as the steering shaft on the crossmember, this meant taking a small cut out of the front mounting point to get it to sit just right. Then I tacked it in place. Next was to make a new shaft and plate to fit the splined coupler as I had lost the old one. Not a big job, just something I didn't need to do, I found the old one later ! I had always thought that the old shaft looked very spindly so I upped it to 5/8" dia. I later found that the reason I had made the old one smaller is to get the cap head screws in beside it, I will reduce the head diameter to suit. After that it was just a case of fitting the knuckle joints and making a shaft to fit between them. Bolt it all together, sit in and try. Fairly successful.   

   Next I took the steering apart tapped the bearings out and fully welded the joints on the cross member. I added a small gusset to the back and Incorporated a mount for the tacho. Then tried it all back in the car. I bolted the tacho on to check it didn't foul anything and stood back to take a photo. The tacho was just a little "nose down" and knowing how picky some are I reached forward and gave it a little tap to raise it up. The bloody needle broke off ! Anyone got an Autometer monster tach with programmeable shift light they don't want ?

   It really is time to strip it all back down and spend a day welding all the bits and pieces that are just tacked at the moment. I couldn't face doing that tonight so I had a look at the roll cage. I have had the back uprights tacked in place for a day or so whilst I just looked at them. It all seemed a bit tall to start with but I have pulled some lines to find the tyre tops and the body/cockpit lines and I think that it will be fine. Any smaller and I won't fit so that sort of decided it really. I layed the front loop in place, took some measurements off of my helmet, double checked, deep breath, and cut off all the surplus on the rear uprights. The joint it'self is a bastard of a thing as it curves in all planes, but I got it close at the first attempt and it will fit nicely with a bit of fettling. I don't want to tack any of this just yet as I need to sit in it and make the final decision on the front line and that will have to wait 'till Monday, but at the moment I fairly happy with it.   

Loving the build chap. Can't wait till the next installment!

   Found a bit of spare time today so I had a play with the motor car. First off was to strip it right down and roll it about whilst fully welding all the little bits and bobs that were just tacked before.

   Next I had a bit of a sort out and found containers for all the little pins and springs and stuff, or they will all disappear before final assembly

   Having etch primed some bits as I stripped the car, I shot a coat of black on them and then some 2K lacquer. Then I had to make a shelf to put them on !

   The day still had some time left in it, so I fitted up the harness anchor points. These are pretty critical if they ever need to be used in anger so it pays to take a bit of time and sort the lines out so that they all pull directly on the mounts

   The shoulder and ASB mounts were pretty straight forward but the lap belts need to be directed around the side of the seat to a point where they pass through it. This meant that I couldn't get a direct line to the anchor point, I didn't want to wrap them outside of the kidney upright so the mounts got fixed to the side of the rear upright and got some additional bracing on the inside to offer a bit more support. All the mounts are just pilot drilled at the moment and will be opened up when we get the correct bolts and sleeves.

   I then spent some time compiling a list of jobs to do to finish the chassis behind the motorplate. The last thing to go on will be the cage and that will make access to the inside of the chassis a bit of a pig, so as much as possible needs to be done now. The first job I came to was to start the housing for the battery and brake reservoir. Technically these need to be outside of the driver's compartment so I will build a substantial mounting with a steel cover and omit the floor beneath them, technically outside the cockpit I think. A pair of cross rails go in first.

   then a pair of cross rails, then a really rather nice little frame to hold the battery and reservoir. Stand back and look at it. It looks fine. Put the axle in, bugger. The battery is too high to allow the axle to fit. Cut it all out and start again.
   Build a new tray and this time move it back toward the seat rail, paying attention to the axle at all times. Shame really, I would have been better advised to also watch the height against the seat rail. Now I have a battery placed so that I can't sit in the car. Cut it all out and start again.
   I put some thought into hanging a subframe behind the rear uprights as I have seen several American cars doing this, but it will make it very cluttered and awkward to sort the wheelie bars and parachute mount. In the end I went back to the original position but lower. So, fabricate an open bottomed housing from 3mm stock and weld it into the floor line 

   As I also want to put the brake master cylinder reservoir in the same container I added a short tower to carry that. It's a split unit with twin outlets which matches the twin piston/twin outlet master cylinder and allows us to split the feeds to the calipers, hopefully retaining brakes both sides in the event of a failure in the system. I also tried the battery in at this point, learning, but very slowly.

hindsight is a wonderful thing innit  ;)

   Now I had to make a case to cover it in such a way as it could be viewed as being "outside of the cockpit". After looking at a simple steel box and then a similar ali box I spent some time with cardboard and scissors before realising that it would be very easy to build something that I couldn't get access into with the axle in place. That would be a bit of a bugger come service time as the axle would need draining, the shafts pulling and the diff removing before checking the brake fluid levels ! In the end I went with a tapered front and back and separate lid, it's tight but it works. To do this and keep it's shape when open and being worked in I wanted to use a thicker ali, the only 3mm I had was five bar deck plate. I wasn't sure when I started it but thought that I could use it as a pattern if it was truly horrible. I think that I may keep it, it's sort of growing on me.

Hm.....

I guess it's functional........

   Hindsight is a bastard, it makes me look foolish  :D

   Hi Bobbi, yeah, I'm still not absolutely sure.

   It's very definitely tight, but workable.

   Just before calling it a night I started to set out the panel on the rear face of the axle. I want a bit of extra shielding here (  :o ) and also need to mount the switch gear where I can reach it. More to follow in the week.

Looking good chap.

   I spent the afternoon fighting fifteen separate pieces of 3mm plate into shape and gluing them to the back of the diff case. It will provide additional shielding from errant crown wheels and allow me to mount the electrics in such a way as I can reach them. One of the problems with TIG is that you cannot use magnetic welding clamps, they play havoc with the ionised gas flow and make it near impossible to control the arc, in turn making this little rascal a bit of a bugger to assemble. As it was one piece slipped as I was welding it and I failed to notice until it was too late, maybe a spot of filler before paint or maybe I'll feel better about it tomorrow and metal fill it.

   The eagle eyed will have spotted that all the welds have been ground down and having got a bit gobby about that elsewhere ( ::)) a quick couple of words may be in order here. I had intended to leave the welds "bare" but I could not get comfortable when running in one of the top beads and it looked like an epileptic ape had done it very late one Friday afternoon whilst mid fit. There was plenty of penetration and it was well burnt in at the edges but looked s**t, so I used an 80g flap disc and cleaned them all back. It is a slightly different situation here in that the box is made from 1/8th plate, all the edges are square cut and assembled so that only the very back corners touch, part of the reason it was so tricky to set up. As soon as the arc is struck the very small contact area burns away and filler rod needs to be added straight away, this in turn means that the whole thickness of the plate is welded throughout and additional filler above the joint serves no purpose. The great joy of TIG is that you can watch this happen and be confident that it has, the downside is the time it takes. The penetration beads on the inside of the box are as deep as the outer bead was. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
   Now I just need to find some switches and a weld in threaded bung for the drain plug and we can call the axle finished and ready for paint, unless I decide to add some brake line clips. I did have a button so I cut a hole for that to fit, well, it's a start.   ;D

   Not much of a day today, just couldn't get into it. Far too many half done jobs littering the place, I'll start to get bits in the post by the weekend and hopefully it'll move forward again.
   Made a start by fitting up the master cylinder, that's going to work, so that's good.

   Spent far too long drawing the electrics, I want to build the loom off of the car and install it properly rather than keep adding bits that have been forgotten as we usually do. This will be a much easier process if all the stuff is actually fitted to the car first, so tonight's job has been ordering all the outstanding bits needed to do that.

   Busy day but not much to show, I spent forever cleaning the rear axle case, metal filling the odd bit where old stuff had been, making and fixing some little brackets to carry the brake line clips, adding a drain plug bung and finishing the switch set out and holes. Degreased and washed it, dried it all and shot a coat of etch primer over it to try and get a feel for what I would need to do prior to paint, quite a lot of filling apparently. 

   I've just noticed that I have still forgotten the cable inlet hole !
Next on the list was to finish the battery box internally. I spent an age building a hold down strap for the battery, there was no room to use hooks to anchor it so the left end is welded to the lower case and has a hinge built in to the bend of the strap, the other end has a vertical tube through which passes a long bolt which in turn screws into a threaded receiver on the bottom frame. I think it will work and just as importantly, for me, all the clamping force is directed down through the sides of the case rather than flexing the top plate as a lot of others seem to do.

   Also finished up the bracket that carries the coil and MSD unit. It's been a bit of a bugger as I had forgotten how big they were and I have ended up squeezing them between the gear selector rod and the steering gear, just a couple of cable tidies to be added and it's something else that can be finish painted.

   quite a lot of filling, priming, rubbing down etc, etc, then a couple of coats of black to see what it looked like. I remembered the cable entry as I was putting on the second coat of black, that's now done and touched by brush !

   I made and fitted several small brackets to attach the cables to when the loom goes in, and had a look at the inhibitor switch mounting. The switch I have is not going to work so that will have to wait for a bit. I pulled the gear box out, again, and fully welded anything that needed it. I'm starting to get towards the bottom of my list of stuff behind the motor plate, the last two things, besides the cage, are parachute and wheelie bar mounts. I spent some time last night doing a bit of research and more time today sketching, I think I have it now. The first seven pieces nailed together

   and fitted to the car. The brace is almost where it will go when fitted. Underneath the sticky out bit I plan to have a pair of plates with holes in to connect the top link of the wheelie bars to, possibly with several choices of position. There are side braces to go on yet as well.

   having had a few days away from it, I decided that today I should make a determined effort to get something done. I welded in the parachute mount brace and made and fitted the adjuster plates below it for the wheelie bars.

   having made a bit of a start on the wheelie bar, I stayed with it. A bit of sketching and find a wheel. No idea where the wheel came from, other than it's not what you are thinking, no trolleys were harmed here. I have an old sack under the bench with half a dozen in it, they are quite nice high end casters with bearings and brakes. After removing the castery brackety thing I think it will serve the purpose.   

   I cut up the old bars of off the black car to reuse the rod ends and tube, made a carrier for the wheel and glued it all together.

   and the wheel fitted

Looking good chap, really enjoying this thread.

   than just a case of making up a short top link and fitting it all onto the chassis. The rearmost position is the lowest and further forward raises it. At the lowest point the wheel is just one inch off of the ground and at the highest, about four and a quarter, there would seem to be a ratio of about one to four and a quarter from the contact patch of the rear tyre to the bar wheel when compared to the front tyre contact point, so, on paper, we can control the rise from about four to seventeen inches. All of this may prove to be nonsense in practice but I have to start somewhere logical.  

   Being an automatic, or at least manually shifted auto, I need to have an inhibitor switch fitted so that we cannot start the car in anything other than neutral. The standard switch that I had was proving to be a bit of a bugger to fit in any way that I liked, it would have been nice to have it actuated by the shift quadrant on the box but this is in the middle of nowhere when trying to achieve a decent mounting bracket. I didn't want to be drilling the case and there were no handy fixings, so, next best is actuated by the shift lever. By now I was pretty fed up with the switch, it was big and clumsy and I had lost the locking ring from it, not the switches fault I know but it didn't help. A quick trip to that nice Mr. Maplin's place netted a small, simple roller tipped 12A micro switch. A few minutes ( I wish ) with some scrap tube and plate had a fair mount made for it. I was going to fit this to the bottom rail but a conversation last night revised this and now it hangs neatly under the shifter gate.

   Whilst thinking electrics, I moved onto the master switch. I had bought a metal bodied locking switch last week but it had a plastic handle, this is frowned on as they are too easily broken or burned off ( ! ), so a new handle then.

   A couple of mounting plates for the backing plate to the parachute pack

   and a mounting plate for the master switch. The new handle will require a bit more work as I have made it a little too tight on the shaft and the switch doesn't lock on as it is meant to, not a problem, a small bush will deal with it.

   Before leaving for the night I also shot a coat or two of lacquer on the axle case and prop shield, I'll see how that looks later in the week.

 ...or a week later maybe. I spent a little time with the car today, the axle looks OK, I will cut it back and put another couple of coats of clear on it to finish it off.

   I took advantage of a passing pair of hands and brought the beam back in, spent an hour or so setting it all back up and set the chassis on it. I have decided that I can't live with the front end layout, the bends look crude, although it is just what I asked for and it looked OK on paper I just don't like it.

  After marking it out and checking it about a million times I walked round and round it, checked it again and cut. No going back now. I fully expected an almighty bang and for the chassis to jump about as I made the last cut through, not a bit of it, it just quietly sat there, unbelievable, all that welding and throwing it about and there was no tension in it at all. Must be doing something right.

   It took longer to clean out the tubes than to cut them, telescoping magnet then a thinners soaked rag on a rod to get all the swarf and grit from the cuts out.

   I had thought to keep the whole front end together, just in case, you never know, but my steel supplier hadn't got me the spec. plate I had ordered and I was on a bit of a roll, so rather than wait and build another, I cut the old "torsion" tube out of the chassis legs, cleaned it up and will reuse it. The plate will be in sometime soon and I can always build another if I need to. I pulled the new rail sections off of the rack and cleaned them inside and out and was ready to start again.   

   I had asked Johnny to put a one degree bend in all the tubes, five inches from one end. Once again, bang on with his work. I then decided to pinch the front a bit tighter so having fitted everything I put a sash cramp across the very front and pulled the rails in to a block spacer. With it all held in place I warmed the bends and let the tubes relax into place. I may pull the front tighter still yet but to be sure I need to put the motor back on the jig and check the clearance around that, maybe later in the week. The photos don't do it justice but it really is a prettier setup, and I'm much happier with it. 

   The camera was playing up today, charging the battery seemed to cure it so maybe some more pictures tomorrow. Just 'cos you can't see it doesn't mean nothings happened though. I reset the dummy motor on the jig and decided that there was acres of room and pulled the front of the rails in another two inches, much better. The top rail was then housed down over the lower one and both pairs fitted to the front cross member and the whole lot tacked in place. The upright in front of the motor has been cut, fitted and tacked and a really small one further forward done the same. The front one has been cross drilled and a small cross tube fitted from one side right through and out the other, this will carry the back mounts for the radius rods. The patterns for the radius rod mounting to the axle are done as is the bush to carry the pitman arm for the steering. I think that I have sorted out the steering linkage, just need to make it now. If I'm really lucky the steel I have ordered will be in tomorrow and I can get on a bit, if not then not. 

you've been busy, i haven't had a look for a few days coz I've had a lot on, but  I can see a lot of progress

  a phone call this morning meant I had to go and play at making a living for a while, that coupled with a dearth of steel meant not a lot achieved today. Here's some from yesterdays efforts

 the holes took for ever to line up, four of them in a straight line horizontal and square to the motorplate. got there in the end and passed a piece of tube through them. Strange bit of steel, it doesn't seem to have a seam, the OD is nearer half inch than anything else and the bore is 8.6 mil, no idea where it came from but it is ideal as it will take an M10 thread straight in the bore with no work, which is handy 

   as it makes for an easy job mounting the radius rods

   it doesn't show too well here, but the radius rod is pitched out from the frame at the same angle as the frame tapers, not quite luck if I were honest but quite a pleasing line, sometimes pays to plan ahead

   The steering will start with the pitman arm, the dangly down bit from the box, an unfortunate delay in the supply of plate stock means that is on hold but I have modified the already modified steering shaft and made a bush to fit ready for when it arrives. The bottom of the Pitman arm will connect to a short drag link that will pass close in against the chassis to a point just forward of the motor where it will meet a rocker linkage. This rocker will allow me to vary the rate of steering if necessary and also make a change of direction, 'cos from there the long drag link makes a flying leap out to the spindle as shown by the precision stick. Notice how, at dead ahead, it is parallel to the radius rod in two planes, all going far to well for my liking.

   If I could have found the Reliant pedal bush and shaft that I have put somewhere safe I would have made a start on the rocker, I haven't so you can guess the rest. I did put another two coats of lacquer on the axle case this morning. This afternoon I put it out in the sun. The painters among us may wish to look away now

   when I got bored walking round that I set up the fuel pump and regulator. I had hoped to hide them somewhere less conspicuous to keep the chassis "clean" but really they want to be close to the tank and accessable so function dictated form in this case. Nothing to say the brackets can't have a bit of shape though. 

We still have Moo so you're more than welcome to nick bits off it Steve.

   Thank you for that. I know that I have one and have had it in my hand inside the last week so I'll have another little look today before robbing your good bits. Also, whilst browsing EBay looking for bronze bushes, I found a kit to rebuild Triumph Herald pedals, I know a man with a couple of those, and coffee too 

   picking up where I left off, I spent yet more time looking at it all. I finally made a descision about the radius rod position and made some mounts for the axle. Having got that done I could measure the rod length and cut those. I had made a load of inserts for the ends but not enough, so a bit of time coaxing our dear old decrepit lathe into action and run out a few more.

   then just a case of fitting the rod ends and bolting them on, wow, some progress on the front end.

   with the spindles on I could then determin the length of the cross link and fit that on too. The lesson previously learnt being that it can get fairly busy at the front end and it is best to have everything in position to save having to redo it all when two rods clash.

   with all that set out I went back to the steering box and had a look at the Pitman arm. I spent a fair bit of time on the last car working through the angles and arcs of travel, so it was pretty easy to copy that onto the new one. A simple drop arm was welded onto the bush and placed on the output shaft. Not having the ability to produce accurate keyways but needing something to hold it all together I set up the box in it's mid position and held the arm vertical, using a 2.5mm drill I piloted a hole on the joint of shaft and bush and then opened it up to 5mm. Being careful not to rotate either piece, I then tapped the hole to accept an M6 grub screw, job done.

    Well, I failed to find the bits I have put somewhere safe but did find another bronze bush and a piece of bright drawn bar that was the right size so it was back to the lathe and fight out an outer housing and mounting stub for it. The little shaft is installed in a hole drilled right through the upright and welded both sides and has a retaining screw in the end. The rocker arm was welded to the sleeve and the bush pressed in and the whole lot assembled on the car. It became obvious pretty quickly that the taper of the new rails meant that there wasn't enough clearance for the shaft to swing backwards so a double set was put in it. This was something I hadn't thought of when I changed the rails from parallel to tapered, hopefully nothing else will be affected. I've just realised that my lovely motor mounts are now scrap for the same reason !

   having that done allowed me to measure the length of the first drag link, cut it, weld the ends in, fit the rod ends and assemble. Sounds easy, why does it all take so long ?

   having got that far it was time to look at the spindles and decide what was acceptable steering lock and ratio. Again, having driven the altered with minimal lock and recently gone through it all on the new altered I applied very similar dimensions to this one. I looked at and tried several different styles of tubular steering arm but couldn't find something I was comfortable with when it came to bracing. I keep a very special memory of a meet at York when it all failed during a run, I have got away with it once, maybe not again, so 5mm plate it is. I have made a start on it but a chicken jalfrayjee was calling, I'll come back to it later in the week. The steering, not the curry.

   Having got the steering finished, I thought that it would be a good idea to try it all out on the ground. Not yet having the front wheels I wasted a pleasant hour or so knocking up something to do the job. It all seemed to work OK, so I rolled the rear wheels into place to get a feel for the chassis at ride height.

   The steering link to the spindle got to be quite ugly without me noticing while I was nailing it all together so that will be changed, but it does the job for now.

   I had big plans for the car over the weekend but the ali for the body panels hasn't arrived, My LPWM had also sorted me out a sheet and I have failed to organise getting that too, so that is that as far as the body work goes. I then thought that I would make a start on the roll cage, although I really wanted to hold off on that for a bit longer, it makes the chassis so awkward to roll about with it fitted. Scribing the main hoop in wasn't too bad, with that tacked I could scribe in the two rear uprights, they were harder but still OK. With those tacked I walked round it a bit, it's looking alright, so I welded all that in place, or at least I went about half way round it before the gas ran out, at five to five on a bank holiday weekend ! I must have just walked away at that point as there are no pictures of it, later maybe. 

beautiful to see a piece of solid well thought out engineering coming together....looks georgous m8

   Cheers Gareth, I got a bit carried away today, put a coat of etch primer on the front axle and while I had some in the gun, did the control rods as well, still having some left I knocked a bit about the areas of the chassis where the welding is complete. None of it looked too bad, so a quick flash over with a Scotchbright, wash off and try a bit of black. Now everything is sort of half done and out of sequence, but I'm happy.   

.

   Having got everything wet with paint I went next door and played with wood. I made the basic former for the fuel tank, I will make some disposable press tools for the end caps and hopefully all will work out OK, far too early to say for sure, but there is a chance. The finished tank should hold about seven litres or so, good for one run and change. As it is so long and thin the baffles are going to have to be good as is the sump and outlet or it will all bugger off up the front under braking and cause a bit of cavitation in the pump, not what we want at all, more in the week.

   A little foreign fella turned up for a visit today, bearing gifts. Always nice to see you mate and a good excuse for a lunch in the pub. Not a lot actually done but some useful alternative thoughts on some bits, mostly too late to make a difference to this car but in the future, who knows ?
   Anyway, I had got into Swindon first thing and collected a new bottle of gas so I used a little of it. I really wasn't happy with the Ugly Thing I had made to connect the wheel spindle to the steering so after a bit of thought I had made some little bobbins and sorted some bright bar and tried again.

   I think it will clean up OK and do the job without frightening animals and small children so for the moment it stays.

Look! turn my back and your taking photos (mine came out after) and making things, It was great to see both of you, hope Lesley gets better soon.
Lunch in a PUB, third time over the weekend,will be to fat to get into my firesuit soon.
Cars (As in both) are looking good

got home safe by the way ;)

   Glad to hear it, hope the weekend goes well.

 I've spent the last three days doing some work in a pub's beer garden, quite pleasant until today when we got wet, and then wetter. Stopping in at the shed to sort the van out afterwards I lit the fire to dry some kit, had a coffee and looked at the car. A couple of hours later I had put the mid hoop into the cage. I am still playing with the little crown piece that joins them at the top but should have it sorted first thing. The proportions looks strange at the moment but will, I think, come better as more gets added.

   And so today I added some more. The helmet bars are a bit of a pain to line up and there is a small detail at the rear of them that I am not sure of but it's too late to change now. It's also a challenge getting round it all to weld but we seem to have succeeded. 

   There was an area at the rear of the cage that was looking a bit too open, I couldn't decide from the regs if it would give me a problem later so I dealt with it now. I have never seen another car with a third top bar but I quite like it. Not having had a piece bent for it meant doing it in house. All the one inch formers I have are too small a radius to look right so I took a piece of tube and welded one one end of it to a passing cut down gas cylinder that was posing as a scrap bin, it was then a case of getting some serious heat into the tube and gently easing it round the bin, or former as we were now calling it. Surprisingly it bent round without deforming and now lives at the top of the cage, nice. 

   After giving it all a bit of thought and talking it through with some more experienced people I have decided to add a brace to the front end of the chassis where the cross tube attaches. It might be prudent to have a bit of extra reinforcement at the point of maximum stress particularly as it has one of the smallest areas of weld attaching it, it will also form the mounting for the mascot that we carry.

   A bit of a hit and run at it today, I cleaned up the front end and welded in the brace and then mounted the pig, ooh,er misses

   Then spent some time putting together the release lever for the parachute. I really must pay more attention to how other cars are built, I ended up with fourteen separate pieces in the lever set but it is quite nice and moves on two bronze bushes with full adjustability in the pully out bit. I may yet change the cable attachment point to something less likely to snag my suit but other than that there's another bit off the list.

that front end bracing is definately a good call, I would have been tempted to do the underside as well....but I worry a lot  ;)

At the speed's Brock will be doing I'd worry too Steve ;D

I think that there should be a sweep stake for guessing how fast the BP2 will do the quater mile?!

   Ahh, I'm touched. I did consider tieing the whole front end together with a sort of four legged three dimensional X brace but then thought it a bit over the top, a lot run successfully without one of any description. As to doing the underside, well, no one gets to see that and if they do, I'll be the one doing the worrying.

   Sweepstake would be fun but might generate far too high an expectation, I've got figures in mind but we'll have to wait a bit longer to see. On the plus side a journey to the dark side today netted materials for a big step forward, watch this space.

   Having had an International adventure yesterday, today should have been spent earning a living. However, shiny stuff is distracting. Late morning I found myself with a hour to kill whilst waiting for some glue to set, rather than just sit and look at it I thought that it would be a good idea to just rough out the first (and easiest) of the alloy skins, seven hours later and I expect the glue is done, I know the first four panels are. They all need dressing and the corners radiusing and the sides don't have their fixings on yet but it all starts to look like it might work. Many thanks to  my LPWM for sourcing this, well worth the trip.

   The sides were a little more tricky as they have a bend in them and it needed a little careful dressing and then some outright beating to get the edges to roll round the tubes top and bottom without creasing

   so far so good, I now need to find some info on setting up dzus fasteners and make the backing plates for them and I can finish the sides.

Hi Brock

Loving the build, I crew with pete pet and dave 'two lanes' on the scorpion stinger.

http://staging.southco.com/product/configurators/d4.aspx?coid=89&cid=7564

Link might help with the fasteners, I plate the things for Southco in Farnham. If you need any more info let me know as I know as I have a few people I can speak to who work there.

Keep up the good work

James

   Hi James, we were talking about you just earlier in the week when we first looked at these fixings. I think I need to identify what I actually have and then your tech sheet might be all I need, thanks. All I really want to find is the distance back from the outer skin to fix the mounting plates and the angle of the spring to keep the stud's slots vertical when locked. As I am having to make the backing plates I can then build these details in

   Right then, a bit of a disappointing day today. Having rounded up all the info needed to set up the Dzus fasteners I arrived in good spirits ready to start. When I opened the box it became clear that when you buy cheap Dzus fasteners, what you get is cheap fasteners. At this point I will stop using the word Dzus, they aren't, nor are they even close. However, the springs felt taut, the studs seemed straight and clean, the plates were a little on the light side but passable, so onwards. I took one from it's little bag, set up a dummy piece and took all the dimensions I needed to make a drilling template. Now most of the tin on this car is held with little 6mm button head machine screws as it will be rare to remove it, it's only the side panels that will use * fasteners. I figured five a side would do fine, so I made ten backing plates drilled for rivets at the sides and just piloted in the centre.

   I set out where the plates needed to go and welded them to the chassis. I could then cramp the tin in position and drill up through the centre pilot hole in the plates to establish the centre of the fastener on the tin. So far, so good. Having done that I opened up the holes in the plates to the 16mm needed to clear the stud and started to rivet on the springs. The first one, fine, the second one fell off ! the ends of the spring hadn't been wound round far enough to let the rivet grip. I dealt with that and then checked the rest, about half of them needed a little work. Whilst doing this I looked  a little more closely at the springs, the difference in height between highest and lowest was just over two mil, not a big thing to adjust, just not what I had expected. Next job was to open up the holes in the tin to take the fastener backing plate, that done the tin was layed back in place and the fasteners done up. Each one needed to have it's spring "adjusted" to fit it, not difficult just time consuming.

   Having finally got one side done I set the chassis upright, fitted the tinwork and stood back to look. Now, Real Dzus fasteners are a true quarter lock system, you position the slot horizontal, push in and turn it upright. A bloody good system and easy to see at a glance if any are loose. These, well, they seem to have the heads machined without any form of index to the stud slot at all, all over the place, bugger, in fact double bugger and I'm not even sure if that hasn't got knobs on it ! To have set these up "properly" I would have had to drill each backing plate as a unique set to a specific fastener, still, too late now ! so I pushed on and battered the other side into submission, not ideal but very few of them will be seen when the car is fully assembled ( can I get away with that ?)   

  The more I looked, the less similarity there was between the heads, not even all the slots are central and the quality of the facing work is very poor in places. BUT, Dzus are over four quid each and the springs extra again and these were a third of that complete, so I got what I paid for, or at least I will when I can find my bag full and replace those borrowed from the "International Connection", cheers mate and please don't take it personally  ;)   .   

   Having got over that little drama I moved onto the last two pieces of the tin work, the rear sides. Again, not tricky just a bit of time to get all the cutouts somewhere near right. Left side first and looking OK. These are rarely removed and so are screwed on, something easy to finish the day.

   I had left the rear edge of the tin straight as I quite liked the lines of it, it was while I was working the right side I realised that the main switch wouldn't reach if I left it like that, that's what will happen if you change a plan half way through. So, I beat the right side into shape and will attack the left again tomorrow

   Didn't feel much like playing today, so a very late start. Rehung the left rear panel and modified it to match the right and access the remote power socket

   After a spell sitting around doing nothing in particular I started to have a bit of a clear up during which I came across the former for the fuel tank. There was a little job I could just play with for a bit. I had taken a cardboard template off of the former so it was a quick job to cut out a bit of ali to suit.

   I transfered the bend centre lines to the ali sheet, these lines are the beginning of the bend and as I was using an inch and a half tube as a former I needed to set back a further three quarters to find the back line of the tube. I then cramped a scrap piece of timber to the ali sheet and placed the tube against it, then, nice and gentle, bend the ali round the tube. fairly successful, other side the same. 

   The next two bends were a trickier, there wasn't enough room to cramp a stop behind the tube, so I passed a length of square section through the tube and cramped the ends to the welding table, a bit of careful setting up and bend. The flat section left beyond the tube was really too short to get much purchase on so I used a piece of three mil plate slipped under it as a lever, seemed to work OK   

   Next I fitted the former inside the tapered tube I had formed, and with a couple of ratchet straps, pulled the tube in tight to the shape. Whilst I had it captured like that I tack welded several times down it's length and once happy with that, welded it. Then just for fun, I tried it in the chassis, it fits !   

   I was going to quit whilst fractionally ahead but there was still time to make a cock up so on I pushed. Some scrap MDF, a pattern drawn from the small end of the tank and a jigsaw and router got me a pair of cheap and cheerful press tools. 

   The bit with the hole was put on the bottom of the press, a piece of ali put on top of that and the "die" on top of that. Plenty of grease on the woody bits and twelve tons of pressure produced a passable end cap with nicely radiused edges and returns. No pictures of it out of the press I'm afraid, I was on a bit of a roll by then.

   Out of the press, break the former out of the ali shape (they always get trapped) dress the edges a bit, trim it back to size, beat it into the end of the tank from inside, check it's all sort of good looking and weld

   try it in the chassis, 'cos I can  :D, much better day than I thought it was going to be.

that tank looks bloody great :)

  Cheers Gareth, I think it will be OK with a bit of a polish. I haven't been able to get much time on it all for a while, but I did get a couple of hours today between other things. I have pressed out the other end cap although as you can see it doesn't always work first time, not paying full attention I made the first one to the outside dimensions of the tank and the second one exactly the same ! Finally I got one I can use. The internal baffles are simple ali louvre vents trimmed to fit and spaced apart by lengths of ali bar drilled and tapped to accept some M5 pan head machine screws, there are small tabs at the edges that act as barbs and hold it all in place, I know they work as I left a piece of ali strap loose in the bottom of the tank and had a hell of a job getting the baffles back out to retrieve it. I believe the filler neck, breather and outlet are awaiting collection from the Post Office so I might push on with this soonish

very neat, maybe Andy should give this bit it's own section

that looks so easy but bet it wasnt especially when it fits first time when i try usually fits with a big hammer on 3rd attempt after i lost my patience

The man's an artist!

he's modest too ;D

   Steady on now, it's just a bit of bent metal, mostly bent in the right places, eventually.

A trip to the Post office netted the bits that I ordered yesterday from Fay at Speedflow, couldn't ask for better service and nice stuff too.

   I seem to have missed a step or two here but that may be because there was a fair bit of swearing and linishing needing to be done to get it to look like this, so, breather installed and end cap welded on

   and filler neck added. It really is a nice piece, much easier to grip than the last one which used to lock it'self tight and need grips to undo

   Once the filler was fitted I could attach a small hose to the breather and, with the help of a bit of compressed air, gently balloon the tank. This got rid of the flat panel like look and helped soften the lines of it, also proved air tight, bonus ! More of this later.

   Next up was the sump. I wanted the outlet well below the floor of the tank and thought that it would be a good idea to have a "captive" fuel source to draw on when under heavy braking as at part to low levels in the tank I don't think the baffles will keep enough fuel at the back to stop the pump cavitating (drawing air into the system). I sketched up a simple box and transfered the dimensions to a piece of ali, then cut to size

   Again I seem to have missed the fun bit but basically it was all folded by cramping a piece of angle against the lines and gently tapping the sides to  shape with a block of wood and hammer. The ends have small internal returns at the sides to give an extra thickness of material which makes for an easier weld for an amateur to control without it all turning into a horrible steaming puddle on the bench, past lesson learnt. It looks like I added the outlet too. 

   Remember when I blew the tank up to put a crown in the flat panels ? See, I really don't know what I'm doing, it's just mostly lucky guesswork

   A quick bit of modification later and we were somewhere near fitting.

   To get fuel from the tank into the sump and keep it there when everything is trying to remove it I simply drilled three half inch holes at the lowest point at the back. If I'm lucky even with all the rest of buggering off to the front of the tank there should be enough trapped in the sump to keep the outlet submerged. Then it was just a case of a bit of final fitting and weld the sump pan on.

   That's pretty much it for the tank it'self, it all took an age to weld up because the breather is a threaded fitment and needed to be fitted before the end went on and after that I had to be really careful about over heating the tank as the anti spill device inside it is a pair of plastic balls and it would have been a bad thing if they had melted or even deformed. I did have an amusing five minutes trying to shake a stubborn piece of swarf out of the tank before realising that the rattling was those same balls in the vent  ::).

   Knowing that there was along weekend coming we have spent some time gathering all the necessary bits together to build the motor. So today we had a little break from making stuff to do a bit of simple assembly work, hmmm.
   We are going to rebuild our old motor, originally it was built by that nice Mr. Chevrolet in 1969 as a two bolt 327, we have since abused it way beyond that and intend to do it some more yet. Over the years it has suffered at the hands of an over exuberant driver and a lazy maintenance mechanic (one and the same person actually) and carries the scars to prove it. So, while it may not be the very finest of blocks to start with, it's what we have so we will use it.
   Now I have worked in the buildings where Honda built their race engines and have seen first hand the antiseptically clean conditions and controlled environments they employ to do so, however they have now had to withdraw from F1 and we are still here, if only they had just rented an old cow shed maybe they would have had a few quid left to do some development work, I'm hoping the theory stands up.
   First off the block was degreased and cleaned and after a little fettling, painted. The valley was re "polished" and a hone run through the bores. The bores retain the remains of a first class honing job that we had done some years ago but constant use of moly rings and refacing them have left it all a bit smooth in there, coincidentally just as current theory has it, smoother bores and heavy cuts on the piston skirts so the oil just carries on the piston rather coating the whole of the cylinder wall, they all catch up with us in the end  ;D   

   As mentioned earlier we are carrying some damage from previous incidents, will it make a difference ? I believe it will be marginal if any, there is nothing projecting to damage the rings and any combustion loss will be so fleeting as to be unnoticeable, hopefully

   Once the scrubbing and washing business was out of the way we had a bit of a measure up. Seven bores are right on the money and one is two thou big, who knows ? It's a little difficult to be sure with antique instruments but the two I chose at random to measure further are both true round and cylindrical so I'm leaving well alone. Just for fun I checked Mr. JE's custom pistons for size, I apparently need better kit to detect any deviation at all.

   The ring set is from Total Seal and is "file fit", so I spent a merry couple of hours doing just that. Each ring is carefully inserted in the bore where it will live, set level at one inch down and checked with feelers, then taken out and a little filed of off the end and retried until the gap is right. The gap used is dependant on bore size, piston material and intended use, after doing the maths we ended up with a figure of 18 thou, so sixteen rings were finished and assigned to a piston, and the set in turn to a particular bore.

   Having got that out of the way, we looked at the crank. It's a rather lovely SCAT piece (quite at the back !), forged and custom ground as it's a long stroke with small journals, nice. The mains were put in and smothered with assembly lube and the crank dropped in, the caps fitted and torqued down. A DTI was attached to the block and the crank rocked back and forth along it's centre line, five and a half thou of end float, perfect. A "proper" race builder would probably have checked journal and bearing sizes as well but firstly I am not a fan of repeatably torquing down the bolts and secondly, there is bugger all I can do about it if it's out of spec anyway, the crank rotates nicely so that will do. 

   We spent a bit of time cleaning the oil pump and checking the clearances before that was assembled and fitted as well. The rest of the afternoon was taken up with fitting the rods to the pistons, fully floating pins secured with spiral locks, and assembling the ring package, then each was dropped into it's respective bore to await fitting to the crank. 

   I seem to have painted the diff as well

   Oh well, best laid plans and all that. We went to fit the piston/rod assemblies to the crank only to find that we didn't have the big end shells. When we bought this stuff the guy selling threw a set of bearings into the deal, I didn't check that we actually had them. I know that he intended to give them to us as one rod has bearings in it from when the clearances were checked, so somewhere up Manchestershire way there is a box of seven Michigan's sat on a shelf, isn't he going to be disappointed when he next goes to service his race car.   
   Not to waste the weekend we had a big clear up and did a bit of polishing and a lot of pulling lines and playing with cardboard and tape, might have something more interesting to show later in the week.

 I'm not sure about interesting but definitely something. Not being able to get on with the motor rebuild until the shells arrive (they actually arrived today having been ordered yesterday, Real Steel, great service as always) I decided that the bodywork would be a good place to go. I was tempted to have a go at doing it all in ali but I am shy of using it at £90 odd a sheet, but I do have a load of fibreglass that needs using, so 'glass it is.
   The finished body will be laid up in a mould, this is great if you happen to have one hanging around, a little more time consuming if not. So, first we need to make a mould then, what from ?, OK first we need to make a buck then. Basically this is a full size replica of the finished product that will then be covered in fibreglass which will in turn become the mould to lay up the final body in, phew !
   To make sure we get the bestest fit possible to the chassis I am going to use the chassis it'self to jig it all on. I started by cladding the area I want to work on in hardboard, a bit like scaffolding to support the structure. OK, not a bit like scaffold but you get the idea. Once that was done I made up some slim strips of MDF with an over rounded edge and established where I wanted the edges to be, these were then fixed in place. Next up was a former to support the shape of the top, a simple set of ribs joined with a spar was all that was required.

   Next bit involved a sheet of flexible ply, good stuff but unfortunately not stocked in many places, a little jaunt round the country found us with a sheet of 5mm, I would have preferred thinner but this is better than nothing, so on we went. Fitted in two halves as this minimises the "creep" that invariably happens when wrapping a former with large pieces, also just easier to handle 

   As we have the throttle linkage controlled by rods on this car rather than cable I needed to provide a means of getting the final linkage through the body. A small raised section was added to the top front, hopefully in the right place, a slot will be machined through this later. We will have to make some form of quick release for the last rod end to allow the cowl to be removed easily. Whilst dealing with that it crossed my mind that a simple hole wasn't a very smart way to exit the steering gear, not unless we wanted to strip that right down every time we needed access under the body. I added a sort of horse shoe type affair to the area around the steering exit point, again, a slot will be cut here later and the built up edge should give it some strength. 

   Next up was a look at the "windscreen" area, I was just going to put a small rounded lip to the cutout, not sure when that changed but I think I prefer what is evolving

   I had a strange moment that distracted me when making a template for the cowl cutout, cardboard and scissors again, sketch one side, fold the card in half and cut out to get a symmetrical piece, put it on the bench.....what are those strange tall thin fish with silly little fins called ?

Lunch?
Angel fish?

   Just a case of throwing filler at it for a while now, it'll take a day or so to get right as I want the filler properly dry before painting to prevent it cracking

  No, not angle fish, much, much bigger things, I'll look it up 

  Whilst all that was drying I had a look at the back end. The proportions of this car are not really quite what I set out to build, it's close but not right on the money, oh well, next time maybe. Anyway, I wanted a sort of swoopy 'chute pack type tail for it but the first attempts at drawing it proved that the added length just unbalanced the whole thing, so, a shorter tail section it will be.
   This started with two vertical formers cut to profile and fixed to the rear up rights

   The tape on the cage is probably where the top of the rear section will come, or not. The next bit I added was the former for the 'chute opening and then some side ribs to start to get a feel for what I might end up with

   I then roughed out the top section behind the cage and temporarily fixed that and tried a piece of ply in place to see what the curve looked like, it's going the right way, at the moment.

   A Sunfish ! , it's called a Sunfish

Ahh. Right. Back to the plot. We seem to have lost it.  :P

   A steady little day today, I've given in and gone back to work, or at least gone and found a run of work rather than just picking at what comes by, so a couple of meetings first thing killed the morning and an emergency call out took some of the afternoon, I think I may have spent the rest of the time just looking at it, doesn't seem to be much changed.
   I cut and fitted the rear halves of the side skins........

   .....added a top panel to the rear and started to form some ribs to support the heavily curved junction of the panels

   At some point during the looking at it part of the day, it struck me that I have started to build an ugly slab sided lard arsed moose of a thing, not really the effect I had in mind at all. To try and remedy this at this late stage I will try trimming a section off of the underside of the tail piece and maybe see if I can get in underneath it to re-cut the lower side formers and pinch it all in a bit tighter, hmmm, is that disaster I hear knocking ? 

Must admit it looks more boat than race car. A very nice boat though. Nice wood workery big bro.

   Yeah, it's definitely getting away from the original sketches, I'll push on with it now and take a view when it has primer on it. Finished the lower ribs and access for 'chute shroud line and wheelie bar adjustment

   and started to infill the top section. First a layer of cotton scrim soaked in plaster of Paris, and then start to build it up to shape with bonding plaster. Drying time is now the issue, I'll find something else to do whilst waiting.

How did you form those "ribs" underneath? Are they simply very flexible ply or steamed & cramped into shape?

Those ribs look, well, like ribs. Almost lifelike, amazing workmanship, very tidy indeed.

Love it.

   The ply is "flexply" or sometimes "flexiply" and has two faces veneered over a softwood core, it is sold either long or short grain depending which way you want to bend it and will roll around a ten inch cylinder even when dry. The tightest bends still needed steaming to hold a regular curve.

   a bit more, just plodding on

   Now a decision. We need to carry a red rearward facing light "for night racing", I might add a fin to the top of the 'chute pack and use a brake light set into the end of it, but what shape ? any thoughts 

   the first one has the rear edge leaned further backward by the same angle as the rear edge of the tail, the second one is at the same angle as the tail, some more:

  the third one has the top edge as the previous ones ie. following the helmet bars but is lower, the fourth has the top horizontal. Which ever I choose I must be able to get a light unit to fit in the end of it, this may dictate the size. The other option I was playing with but didn't try is a tube, "fading away" into the rise of the rear deck  and fully round at the rear with the sides filled in, so think inverted horse shoe from the rear, and use a round light in the end. I rather like the idea of this and will try to dummy it up tomorrow, anyone got a source of '59 Caddy bullet lights ? 

I like the tube idea myself.

   yeah, I'm looking forward to trying that, anyone got any ideas for a light unit ? I could just about live with a Landrover one if it had a chrome bezel, possibly clear lens and red diode "bulb"

   but this is what I really want

   An extra pair of hands on deck today as the very lovely Mrs B turned in to start the assembly of her engine in earnest, I however, just kept throwing filler and rubbing my poor little fingers down.
   The piston/ring/rod sets had previously been assembled and now needed to be connect to the crank. So, plenty of assembly lube to protect the bearings and slip the first one in, snug down the bolts and, with a spacer tube and the damper bolt, rotate the crank. About half a turn, then, Clunk ! Not unexpected, but a pain all the same. The original motor was a 327ci, that's a 4" bore with a 3 1/4" crank throw, we are fitting a slightly larger piece in there, ours has a 3 3/4" throw, that extra half inch of swing means that the big end bolt heads foul on the opposite cylinder wall and the pan rails. Not a big issue, just time. Fit the shells, compress the rings, fit the set in it's bore, bolt the big end cap on, rotate the crank, mark the points of contact, strip it down and get in amongst it with a die grinder, clean it up, refit it all and try again, if successful, move on to the next set, if not go again. Then when it's all done, strip it all down and clean everything again, loads of fun. We may well have a similar operation when it comes to fitting the cam, if not it will be bloody close.   

   I wasn't going to post any more shots of yet more filler, but just to prove that I did do something today, here's more filler shots

   The front cowl is getting close and now has a couple of coats of paint on it ready to be flatted and spot filled as needed before looking at taking a mould off of it.

   and the motor parts are all clean and ready to go back in again

   OK, I've spent a lot of this week filling and sanding but I am still not happy with the shape of the rear section, it'll get there but I'm bored now so rather than just keep going and hope for the best I will leave it for a while and have a look at the front section. Mrs B joined me for an evening of doing stuff and we got a bit of a start on it.
   The cowl has been painted and rubbed down a couple of times and is looking OK, I will use a heavier primer on the next piece to fill some of the pin holes that seem to reoccurring but constant refilling dealt with it this time round. First we masked up the area we were working on

   ....then applied a couple of coats of wax polish, rubbed out between coats and buffed. While this was going on I scribed a piece of timber in to use as a dam along the centre line. I think we could just have got away with a one piece mould on this shape but if it failed to release we would be buggered, so two piece is safer. We will lay up one side against the dam and then the second side against the first, (plan A)

    finally, for the night, we applied a coat of release agent. This ended up a bit streaky as firstly we brushed it rather than spraying, and secondly I think the wax could have used a bit more time to fully harden. A second coat in the morning should ( I hope ) deal with that.
    Finished the evening with a surprise visit from the Senior Primate and Betrothed, they having been out and about in wildest Wiltshire doing their best Maurice Micklewhite gangster impressions, I'm sure more will be forthcoming in due course.

Not alot of people know that! ;D

You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!

   No , no , no, along with Brighton rock and Long Good Friday, the best of UK gangster films

Have to "Get" me one of those  .........

  ..  Hagar  ..   ;D

Ahh! Now I understand!
The very oblique & far too clever reference from Mr B was to the Carter carburetor Taz & I picked up for her Dodge Charger on Friday night. Bought it from a guy in Calne, Wiltshire -not a million miles from Brock's rural retreat.
So yes, we did indeed "Get Carter".  ;D

   Bloody Hell, it's hard work at times  ;D

Saturday morning saw the cowl getting a second coat of release agent, whether it liked it or not. A trip into Swindon gave it time to fully dry and then we were back on it. A decent layer of grey tinted gel coat was painted on.

   While this was tacking off we had a look at the motor, freshly washed and dried after the grinding operations we dropped the crank back in, rechecked the bearing clearances and fitted up the rods, torqued it all up and gently rolled it over, what do you know, it all cleared, result.

   With the fire blazing and the fans on, it was an almost too comfortable 80 degrees in the shed and the gel coat was nicely cured, well, at least enough to work on, a manic couple of hours later and we had three layers of mat laid up with almost no wastage of resin, it really does pay to measure quantities rather than just guessing as I would normally do, that's senior management control for you

   To finish it off and help with the cure we brushed a coat of flowcoat on top after the resin had gelled, I've not used this before and look forward to seeing the results

   Sunday morning dawned dull and quite late, with the fire well stoked the first job was to ease the timber dam off of the rear of the centre flange. It pretty much fell off, brilliant

   more release agent and cut a load of 'glass to size. The release agent went on far better which leads me to suspect that the wax wasn't fully cured on the other side, we waxed the whole thing in one go so the second side has had an extra day's time.

   While that was curing we went back to the motor, with the cam installed the timing gear could be set up. It should have been just that simple but I had lost the Woodruff key, it took a while before I thought to go and remove the old one from the previous crank  ::). While that was happening (slowly) Lesley had cleaned the heads ready to install.

   We would have put the heads on but there wasn't a scrap of Plasticine to be had anywhere in the shed, no putty, no blutack, nothing, and I'm not going to risk a new combination without checking the valve clearances to the pistons so that will have to wait 'till later in the week. We did get the first layer on the second side of the cowl though.

Looking good Mr and Mrs B. Can not wait to see this at the track.

Keep up to good work! Really enjoying watching the build. Keep the post coming.

James

im thinking one of these with maybe a small portion sunk into the top and a sort of "oval/tube/fin" along the length?? if you know what i mean?

loving the car by the way............ a lot... ;D.

               Brit Digger !!!

   Hiya Mate, sorry we missed you last weekend, choices needed to be made and the car won. I think I see where you are going with that, I have a similar unit and may try mocking one up, currently I am starting to like the smooth line on the top, but that may change.
   We've not been entirely idle this week but there is not much worth taking photos of. The second side of the front mold is now finished and may be struck this weekend depending on how it feels when we try. I have decided to extend and round the area around the chute opening, I think it looks better for it but it adds another couple of days drying time and more bloody sanding, there's nearly six kilos of dust on the floor now, or at least that bit of it that hasn't coated the entire shed, the balance resides in my lungs.

.

You could tuck it away underneath?
ive also got a very bright shift light here if you want it?.. just had a thought about that too.. ;D
make your own little caddy lens out of solid red rod, the magnifier in the shift light would make the light shine through?.

anyway enough about lights im off out to get on with mine now the rains stoped.

re last weekend you made a good choice for several reasons... this country needs a bleedin roof!!
looking forward to seeing you and the gang soon.

Sid.

Steve, I picked these up at an autojumble, intending to use them on the back of my Pop, but changed my mind now. Any use? Domed lens & about 3" diameter.

   thanks for the offer but they just don't leap out at me, I'll know when I see the right one. I've been given a deadline now so incidentals like lights may go by the board, I was just having fun building, how was I meant to know we liked being out there doing it as well !

   We have put in a whole new bottom end and reciprocating assembly, so it is a wise decision to check that the cam is not too aggressive for the new assembly. A couple of blobs of Plasticine (actually high end photographer's modelling medium, have you tried to buy Plasticine since Woolies closed ?) were neatly squashed onto the valve reliefs in the pistons, a used gasket was put on and the head fitted and torqued, the crank was rolled a couple of times and the whole lot stripped again. the depth of the "Plasticine" was measured, giving us the static compression clearance of the valves to piston. The figures will have to remain secret, this means that they are embarrassingly high, we could be running a lot more cam, it's a cost thing !   

   so much for secret !! happy that there was clearance we put the heads on

   with the Chevy it is sometimes necessary to remove some of the valve springs to get to the head bolts, however with good valve seals and a nifty tool you can reinstall them in situ, so we did.

    having bought a whole gasket set, it seemed silly not to use them all, I normally cut my own inlet gaskets from 40 thou art board to match the ports better but these seemed close enough to use, we'll see. 

   the newly painted inlet manifold was installed followed by the new timing cover, timing pointer, harmonic damper, manifold blanking plates, rocker boxes, bottom end gaskets and sparkly sump, guess when the camera batteries failed. Still, first time I have had to charge them this year so not too bad. The motor is now done bar oiling and installation, not necessarily in that order, and is wrapped up until needed, transmission next !   

Hi Brit Digger

When are you out with yours?

Looking at the nostalgia nats in june,
was coming out... oooer! end of this month but something came up and altered our plans...

when are you guys out?...

Sid.

       "when are you guys out?..."

Unfortunately we have nothing to come out with at the moment, although we have been busy all weekend.
Brock will post an update later,but the engine is now rebuilt and I have spent today stripping down the gearbox ready for a bit of an overhaul.
Would really like to go to the t&t in 3 weeks time,but as you know best laid plans and all that jazz.
If all else fails we will come up for a day out to the Nats.
Say hi to Mrs S.


         Lesley

 

   A bit more done today, the motor, now officially ready to install

Looking forward to the update as im thinking you dont have much more to do to get this car out?
engines done, quick coat of paint, bingo......

5 weeks should be plenty... ;D.

tried to phone brock today to say if you need these spare wheels ill post them down to you?

Sid... ;)

   we struck the mold for the front section from the former. I have to say that I was not absolutely thrilled with the quality, but there is nothing that can't be rectified and a few lessons learned, so not too bad considering what could have been

   Hey 'fella, I'll let you know, I would think that we could arrive with it on the dummy wheels and install at the track if it proved necessary, certainly save postage, I do appreciate the offer

   Next up on the list is the transmission. A two speed Powerglide, it has done a pretty fair job despite a general lack of servicing for two seasons so was overdue a little look. First in the order of play is to remove the tail shaft housing.

   next, make a little cradle to hold it and turn it upside down and remove the sump, all pretty black in there, should be bright red really, also smells burnt, never a good sign.

no problem mate.... like your last minute attitude..  :)..
im on the glassing stage with mine from tomorrow...
ill stick a couple of pics over to you to show my progress.

you know theres no way back after a slingshot dont you?..   ;D

Sid..

lesley,,, sheena "hopes your well and sends her love..X."

   there is a fair bit of glitter around the valve body so that will need to be interrogated as to it's source

   the rear shaft is stripped out and, after making the first of several special tools, the front pump body, shaft and clutches are removed

   Bob the shirt gave us some free sample shirts to wear whilst working on the motor and box, seems only fair to show them

   All of that left us with an empty case, a few sub assemblies and a bunch of other stuff. All that will now need to be cleaned and measured before ordering whatever proves necessary to rebuild with. So far the reverse clutches and brake band look good, but these are not major wearing items and the verniers will tell a more accurate tale during the week. 

    The rear body former has been being a pain recently, I am having trouble seeing it as it will be whilst it is all in shades of white, so to fill a bit of time I shot a coat of primer on it. I will give that a day and lay a good coat of filler primer on top , maybe tomorrow, and see just how much work there still is in it.

   finished the day, having rekindled some enthusiasm, starting to repair and finish the front ,molds 

so what did I find today ???
Must have passed the stall dozens of time, when I just saw it through a gap. It was the last one he had and was clear, so phoned Brock to see if he wanted it, broke my arm off when told it was only £15.
So sitting in the van until we meet again.

   Lookit ee, enem sweet, as they say out our way, or at least I imagine they would if they wanted a '59 Caddy lamp, or even knew what one looked like. Thanks mate, just the job, MMM forum power strikes again, thus proving the worth of the international connection.
   We have had a long and, in places, fairly successful weekend, more in a bit. 

   We started the shift with a final fill of the rear body former and then hit it with a couple of coats of high build primer

   Saturday dawned far earlier than I liked and we were back at it. If I were really honest, I am not happy with the finish on the former. Once in paint it looks pretty poor, I am, it seems, one of those that really should not be given the key to the filler tub. However, I am sick to bloody death of rubbing it out so I am going to take a mould and run a body out of it and will be looking for a body shop that can fit us in for half a days prep before paint. We are on the clock now, the date is set, the programme of works fully drafted, and it all seems feasible, onward.
   I spent an hour or so scribing a dam around the waist of the former to form a flange at the mold joint     

   While I was buggering about with that Mrs B continued with the transmission strip down. Having pulled all the assemblies from the case, that was given a bit of a scrub and polish and left out in the sun to dry

   Back inside and it was time to strip the sub assemblies and start taking notes on wear and play. We were looking for indications of what might have caused the gear shift to go soft and the numbers to drop off in the back half of the track. As it happened it was a fairly easy job to spot the problem. Below are a set of a steel and friction from the reverse clutch pack, this doesn't get a lot of abuse and is in fairly good nick with nearly the full 65 thou' left on the friction ring, both steel ( Kolene coated) and friction are flat and true.

   Next up is a similar set from the high gear clutch pack, ever so slightly completely bugger in all respects. The steel is on the left, that should be matt black, smooth and flat. The friction, to the right of it, should be a similar shape and have 60 odd thou' of red lining material bonded to it, now the glittery oil makes sense (good call mate) The second shot shows how the frictions have "coned" as they have heated up and hung on the splines on the drum and been forced to deform by the piston pressure, nice ! 

   The good news is that the billet clutch hub is still in good shape, the Kevlar brake band has virtually no wear and the pump gears and housing are well inside tolerance

   Before heading home we added a couple of coats of release agent to the section to be 'glassed. Oh, and caught sight of the paint sample in the evening sunlight

   We were meant to be going to the local football club to meet the Ossa King and B(SA)rian at a gathering of the Vulcan owners club but just as we were going out it struck me that we hadn't locked up the truck so back we went to the shed to do that and what with the High Street being shut due to a gas leak the time just seemed to slip away, probably for the best, I don't think I could have kept a straight face surrounded by all those pointy ears  ;D

    First up today was gel coat. Once that was done a coat of straight resin went on and then some "crunchie" foam strips to add a bit of stiffness to the edges of the opening and flange.

   then three layers of 'glass mat

    and finally, trim it all up and add a flow coat

   That sounded easy, how come it took three and a half hours to do ? In between cutting 'glass mat and wetting it out for me, Mrs B finished the stripping of the valve body from the transmission, all looks to be well and after a jolly good wash it will be treated to new seals and gaskets and go back in as it is. The temperature in the shed was a steady 85 all day long so the glass had cured enough to chance moving the former to allow me to get on with the next bit tomorrow   

Ello mr Brock! I have heard a rumour about the hot rod drags, let pete and I know so we can book time off work, family, etc! We miss racing!  8)

   Stuff is happening at an increasingly hectic pace, it's going to be sooo tight. got the first side of the rear mold laid up and managed to get the chassis turned without any damage to the former. I didn't get the fire lit 'till late tonight and that meant that it never really got warm enough to lay up the second side, a small delay but one that will now take a bit of effort to recoup. The second side is now in gelcoat and awaiting a bit of a go tomorrow. Also on my list is to grind out and scour and weld the fracture in the alloy bellhousing, clean down, etch, prime, paint, and laquer it, gelcoat the cowl and maybe start to lay up the rear body. I may have missed some items but my Manager has a rolling programme pinned on the wall to keep me honest. 

   I bolted the cowl mold together and gave it a final bit of "love" before a coat of release agent, I have high hopes for a small miracle happening overnight but realistically I will have to try and find the time tomorrow to attack it, by the time we went home the fire was in good form, shame I didn't think to light it earlier !

   Hey Marcus, Nostalgia Nationals, 27 & 28 June. It's already starting to look a bit ragtime for us, the truck still isn't plated, I won't get the tyres 'till next week and won't have time to organise that so it will be the van and a borrowed trailer, just to make it interesting it will all have to be alfresco as the pit tent has had to be condemned but we WILL be there. I fully expect to have to load it on the Friday lunchtime with some of it still in boxes and work through the night at the track to get it ready. Plan A is to arrive Friday and finish the car ! bed it all in nice and steady on the Saturday and, barring any unforeseen incidents, thrash it to within an inch of it's life Sunday. it should prove interesting if nothing else. You and Pete are very much part of that plan and we am so pleased that you might be considering coming, I didn't want to ring just presuming you'd be interested and had hoped to drop in to see you last week on the way to Bob's, Andy took care of that for me so it didn't happen, sorry. We are undoubtably up against it with regard to time but I believe it is feasable to debut the car in three weeks, see you there ?

   A bit more progress, I put a gelcoat on the cowl mold and whilst that was curing, ground out and welded the fracture in the bellhousing. With a bit of preheat it welded far easier than I had expected and beating it with a hammer didn't cause it to fall off so I am calling it a success. 

   After welding I gave the case a bit of a scour and clean, etched it and put a coat of silver on it

   While I had the gun out I put a coat of clear on top and then just for fun a dusting of iridescent micro flake, then back to the serious stuff.

   fighting the falling temperature, I laid up the start of the second side of the body and got a first layer on the cowl, I guess it'll still be there tomorrow, so I'll do some more then

Iridescent microflake....  ;D 8).  nice touch.
really hope you guys make nostalgias with this one itll be good to see it up close and in the flesh!.

looking good.

Sid.

Ill be there and so will pete. Ive got the marquee that we use at the transport festival, Ill bring that along so we dont have to do al fresco!

I'll be there on the Sunday. Hopefully Taz will too, to record the innaugral flight -you'll truly believe a Pig can fly!
-who's Al Fresco?

Having watched this thread with interest, I'd love to be there but drat and doubledrat!  I'm working.....   :-\

He is the one that brings the rain with him!

   Marcus, that would be bloody brillliant, when are you guys thinking you might join us ? and don't mention the "R" word.
   Bobbi, that's a shame, would have been nice to meet. Anyone else toying with it ?
Sid, we are pushing as hard as it will be pushed to be there.

   Sort of good and bad day today, started off quite well with a little spurt of activity that caught up the short fall in the programme. Mrs B cleaned the last of the transmission parts and started to get the bits ready to be beaten back together and I laid up the last side of the rear body mold and finished the cowl.

   After that it all went down hill a bit. The transmission side of the shop was OK with the reverse clutch pack going in the case and the first two shuttle valve sets being fitted up into the valve body but I was having trouble, the release agent wasn't releasing. I had quite a fight to get the cowl out of it's mold, I beat it in the end but at a cost of quite a bit of time. The first section of the rear body mold is still defying all efforts to get it off, brutality next !   

can you run water inbetween the plug n body as release agent should wash off and/or try an air line sometimes helps

   Hiya, hoped you might be along  :D, I finally got the cowl out of the mold, or more accurately the two pieces off of the moulding with the help of a lot of very near boiling water and brute force. It was not helped by the fact that I had 'glassed over the joint between mold and moulding when laying the final tissue inside  ::), when I ground through this it was easier, but still a fair job. The rear section is proving to be a propper bastard, I am using wedges and a steam generator at the moment though a chain saw is looking good. I suspect that I have pushed it all too fast and not left enough curing time, although the top rear section should be good. The problem would seem to be that the release agent simply is not doing it's job, I have areas on the cowl that have filler attached with PVA release agent between them and the moulding. More tomorrow.

I'm going to try to get up to the Nostalgia Nats, maybe for the weekend if I can.

   Always welcome in the pen of the Black Pig mate.

   Dear diary, I know it's been a while, lets see if I can make amends.

Monday, we turned up at the shed to find that the good fibreglass fairies had been in and sprung the mold from the former, Oh no, I remember now, they had far better things to do and it was still stuck fast. The smarter half of the team got busy with the steamer whilst I went out and kicked things, and then returned with a big saw and cut the bloody thing right in half. I'm not sure that it helped the process but I felt better. it actually took several hours of barely controlled force to remove it and large chunks of the former came with it, several lessons to be learned here I think. We spent the rest of the evening taking off the remains of the buck and reducing it to firewood and rubbish. We also had a visit from people bearing large Carter carbs, unfortunately I didn't think we would have the time to sort a manifold adaptor so had to decline the loan, thanks anyway chaps.
   

   Just to lighten the mood before going home we tried the front cowl in place, that will work nicely I think, a bit of work required to clean it up and we will paint it.

   Tuesday, probably, I made a cradle for the fuel tank to rest in and a little strap type thing to keep it there, not too tricky and a nice change from fighting stuff. However, if anyone ever sees this car up close and can spot the "deliberate mistake" there will be a bright shiny shilling awarded.

   Wednesday and Thursday I got the cowl into some sort of shape, added an internal coat of plain white gel and primed it

   Friday brought a fresh dose of enthusiasm and led on to a fairly successful but long weekend. First I finished all the outstanding welding on the chassis, all the little tabs needed for the body and some other stuff that I can't remember, then  we had a bit of a clear up and started rubbing down the chassis. A much bigger job than first thought, brings home where all that tube went to, but gave us a first class start to Saturday.

   Saturday, yippee, time off. Actually not. Bright and early with the team manager programming the work we got into it. We raised the chassis up and gave it a damm good etch prime, that'll show it. 

   The wheels got a bit of a spruce up and in between times the molds for the rear section had been having a sound thrashing. The molds in particular responded well and with a bit of work I believe they may yet prove serviceable

   The chassis got a light scotch brighting and we went in with a coat of high solids black, while the gun was wet I did the base coat on the cowl too

   No longer having the time to bugger about, as soon as the black had flashed off, I went in with some H.S. clear, the chassis is an awkward thing to get around with a gun, there always seems to be a bit that gets missed no matter how I plan it, the big hose on the HVLP system is no help either, but this time it seems to be a halfway reasonable job. Whilst I had clear lacquer on the bench and the gun wet, it seemed a small step to start the top coats on the cowl. Now, when we bought the micro flake the guy selling it said that he measured it out with the end of a wooden tongue depressor, two to half a pint, I have a draw full of lolly sticks from the old ice cream factory in Marlborough and they have proved to be just right, up to now. Buoyed up by having a reasonable day after a disappointing week I added one and a half tea spoons to 250 mil ! There may well be a law regarding description of colour and, if there is, we are right on the ragged edge of transgression with calling this black. I love it.

   Sunday, another bright day and we threw everything outside whilst we cleared some space. The chassis has a couple of bare spots that I dealt with, and a nasty case of dry overspray in the lacquer on the rear uprights, I'll deal with this in the week

   We un-sheeted the transmission and got that squared away, barely a single component left on the bench when the last bolt went in ! We are going to try it with fewer frictions in the high pack and see if this helps with the heat generation and wear issues that we seem to get, I may have been trying to cram too many in, in the belief that more friction area is best, well see.

   Did I mention that we had painted the cowl ?  ;D we also tried some paper templates to gauge the size of the graphics, a bit small this one

   Whilst clearing some space in the shed we found this, you can never have too much to do, apparently

   Tonight we tried a larger size for the graphic, I think this works better, a call to Bob the shirt soon I think. Having made some space, we got all the components out of storage, took a tally of fixings and got ready to attack it all tomorrow. Last thing I gave the cowl a light flatting and put another four coats of clear on it

That paint looks fantastic and has come out in the photos very well. Yes the larger graphics look better on it. It's all starting to come together nicely. Great work  ;D

Of course it's black - it's sparkly black!  Looks great.

   Sparkly black it is.

Tonight we went to start the assembly proper, Lesley cleaned all the ally bits that needed it, I watched. With all the specially bought new bolts laid out along with their correct washers and relevant Nylocs alongside we looked proper professional. This lasted until the third component when I realised that some fool had forgotten to weld the brake master push rod bits together, bugger. Still, we got the foot plate,battery and brake reservoir, brake master and lever and shift lever in at the back end, and I did some welding. 

   The forgotten brake bits were still a bit toasty to handle so we went right to the front and started again. Axle in, radius rods on, fuel tank in and strap attached, nice.

Very, very nice Mr B -& Mrs B.  ;D

oohhhh shiny shiny -  8)

Looking really nice guys

Thanks all,  ;D
 
     Hmmmm, an evening of minor frustrations, including stripping the threads on one of the axle bolts, and some progress. Seat in, harness mounts decided on and hardware sourced, rear axle in (but not fully bolted  ::) ) front spindles attached but wear shims lost !, another little job to do. Also did a bit more work on the rear body molds.

Saw Lunatic this evening -he mentioned volunteering his services over the weekend if you needed an extra pair of hands, but thought you might be finished by then.

   I doubt we will be finished by the weekend and company is always welcome

 "but thought you might be finished by then"

And for his next joke ;D

It's all hands on deck at the moment, any help would be gratefuly appreciated, we haven't been getting home evenings before 9.30pm for the past two weeks.
We have both booked Thursday & Friday off work but it's still looking very tight.

It will be good to see you again Doc, make sure you come and say hello in the pits.
Will also be nice to meet you TB if you can make it, can you wear a carnation or something so we know who you are though.


Mrs B

    another evening of little bits, got the brake master fitted properly and started to make up the lines, fitted up the levers and inhibitor switch, got the diff ready to go in, made a start on the fuel connections

P.D and I will be down on sunday to help out as much as we can.  8)

   thankyou guys, really appreciate it

   Little bit more, diff installed, half shafts in, all bearings, seals, spacers and brackets not only found but installed in the right order. Discs fitted up and caliper clearances checked, all good so far. Prop fitted.

   At the front end we now have the spindles fitted and measured ready for shims. Does anyone have a manual or know the running clearances on Ford Pop beam axle ? I will take a stab at ten thou' if not, enough room not to bind but not to "rattle" either. I know that they are set up with bronze washers as I have one (one ! ) but it is actually too big to fit so no good as a guide to size.

   caught this lurking in the late evening sun, sorry, couldn't resist  8)

   Spent most of the day fighting with fibreglass, it wasn't meant to take that long but did. We are still loosely on target but I could have done without the delay. Just to have a little break from it I machined a couple of spacers for the spindles and installed them, getting a bit carried away I went on and put the entire front end together, looking good I think.

The biggest understatement i`ve read in a long time

   yeah, got a bit cocky there for a moment , sorry, long day

   Got a reasonable start on it today, pre lunch on a Sunday ! First up was the gearbox, got it slung and dropped in on the mounts at the rear and a jack at the front, we needed to assemble the motor , flexplate and motorplate together before that could go in to support the front of the box.

   Our racing buddies from down Briz'l way, Ed and Ray, came up bearing gifts of harness hardware to allow the belts to be fitted, thanks guys. Ed also took the logo and script to run us a set in "chrome" vinyl

   Next up was the motor. At this point I realised that the usual lifting eyes were built into the throttle cable guides and return spring plate, bit of a bugger as these are not fitted to this evolution, a bit more time spent making some more. Next problem was that the legs on the stand and the hoist interfered with each other meaning we could not get a straight lift off of the stand, eventually sacrificed the stand bolts and with the help of the leveling bar got it off and somewhere handy.

   With the motor off of the stand we could fit up the motor plate and flex plate, or rather could have if the holes fitted ! I rather think that despite constant watching, the Boys from Briz'l had somehow contrived to make the holes smaller in order to delay our debut and snatching their covetted position of Club's most blackest car, nice try fellas, I drilled them out to the correct size. With the motor plate on and the flex plate and starter fitted, Lesley and I entered the sweary zone. It actually went pretty smoothly, only a few muted "no, the other left !" type moments and very little damage to anything. We even remembered to fit the torque converter, unlike some times before !

   A bit of a walk round and a look showed everything was pretty much where it should be, sumps a bit of a worry, I hadn't noticed it until I uploaded the photos, I'll check tomorrow. Other than that, all OK   

   Where I had cut the front off of the car and rebuilt it with a longer taper to the rails, the motor mounts needed to be cut and shut to suit. Could have been a bugger, actually wasn't, good.   

   While I was doing the mounts Lesley got busy ticking loads of "little" jobs off of the list. Strip the anodised fuel fittings and polish, why?, 'cos they will look better that way.

   Fit the prop shield

   The seat is now fully fitted and the brake calipers ready to be assembled, everything else should bolt right in ! did I say that ? Also in the background is the rear body work, this is looking like it might be the bit that misses the deadline, we'll see.

Very nice........Voodoo............

   Cheers.
Another long night without a great deal to show for it, more bits polished and finished, gear selector assembled and adjusted and inhibitor switch set up, foot rest in, ignition bracket fitted, coil fitted,  MSD .........., bugger! Having put it all together once before paint I was keen to avoid a clash with the steering gear, I missed the fact that the gear shift link rod needs to pass through the same space as the MSD unit wants to claim. No time to completely remake the bracket so a second frame now carries the magic box and that in turn bolts to the original bracket, more time lost, tick, tick, tick,

   We also put a couple of hours into the rear body, waxed the mold last night so tonight we applied a shed load of release agent, gel coat and the first two layers of tissue and glass.

   straight from work and into the shed, finish laying up the rear body section. We have made this a bit lighter than the front and hopefully a little more flexible with localised reinforcement where it will mount. It may still be a waste of time, we have to get it out of the mould yet and the last attempts were not encouraging.

   Big Fella stopped in to say hello and to offer his apologies for his antics late Saturday night, as penance we put him to work on the rear calipers, freeing them up, mounting them and fitting the pads. We never quite got around to telling him that we weren't actually there Saturday night 

   Lesley finished assembling the carb and fuel system and fitted them up, just needs the ends of the two lines made off, we now have the fittings.

   I set to and fitted up the throttle assembly, why don't I take just a few minutes more when masking ? I know all the shafts need to be bare steel but still I end up scraping paint away ! On the plus side we don't seem to have lost any parts and it looks to work as it should. We need to check clearance with the cowl on as it will be close but other than that we are good.

   A minor set back when we went to put the cowl on, I had allowed for the axle but not the mounting plates when building the mold so there will have to be a small amount of grinding done prior to it's final fitment, I don't think it will show and I still have time to sort the paint. By now it was getting late and little disappointments seem harder to take when you're tired, I was ready to go but my beloved just wanted to get a start on releasing the mold having read that it was better sooner rather than later. Good decision, ten minutes later we were draping the fresh molding on the car, it requires work to finish and a small repair where I had missed a layer right at an edge but certainly a high on which to end the night.

Coming together nicely! Good work Peeps.

The body looks great Steve -so is that a complete one-piece molding then?

haven't looked for a few days...you have really been getting stuck in...looks great

Looking fab guys - well done 8)

   thanks all, we are really up against it now but still confident of being there. The body molding is one piece and much lighter than the cowl, the surface finish isn't as good but can be dealt with, hopefully tomorrow.

   Well, we failed ! Well and truly trunked up the bum by the horny toad of Satan's evil wont right at the last hurdle. Apologies to those that planned a weekend around it, I really did think we would be there, if now was last night we would be.
   Thursday night saw it all together, the brakes were being a pain to bleed but that is always the case with these from empty, no wiring, but that was covered in the plan, rear body not quite ready, but that was expected, spare wheels on the front, slots on the rear, looking good. We let down the jacks and stood there watching the offside front wheel gently revolving. Under power it would be a good thing to see, sat on the shed floor, not quite so much. A quick look underneath showed the car was gently rocking on the sump. This was one of the first things that the large scale drawings showed up and was meant to have been dealt with during the motor build, I had just forgotten to do it. To be fair the exhausts were also a bit low but we would probably have run with them. Shame really the car was looking good. We have taken the decision to postpone the launch and this will also give me time to finish it properly and to change a few things that I am not happy with, stuff that has gone in in the last few weeks and really could be done better.     

   The front cowl is just laid on the chassis rails in the shots above and actually sits quite a bit lower when mounted.
   The exhausts are done, they are actually now as I first set out to build them, the primary pipes run horizontally rather than following the line of the heads.
   The sump is pretty much finished other than the drain plug. A day off tomorrow, watching some of our more organised friends at the track, then back at it Monday, more as it happens.........

Aww bro. That's a real shame. I've had feed-back from people all over the place who've been watching this build & rooting for Team Black Pig all the way. Really feel for you both. I've done the last minute rushing thing several times myself & know it rarely ends well. Things get bodged, compromised or just left off altogether & you're never truly happy with the results -admittedly I've never had one that ended up with less than it's full compliment of wheels on the ground though.
I'm sure you don't want to hear it but it's kinda heartening to know that even the great & good slip up occasionally! Enjoy the racing tomorrow then come back with a fresh eye & finish it the way it should've been. Can't wait to see it fire up & run.  ;)

Will the reduction in sump depth cause damage to the mota because it can't hold enough oil? I don't know much about it.

   The reduction is about one litre in volume and all of it below the pick up, it is usefull additional capacity but all we really need is enough to keep the motor wet for nine seconds under power, the cooling effect is marginal if any. I was toying with putting boxes out, like wings, to regain the lost volume but decided it wasn't needed, the problem will come at the top end under braking when all the oil buggers off up the front end and uncovers the pickup, there is a baffle inside to try and stop that.

O I C, thanks for that fine explanation. xD

avent seen this for 5 wks, its looking bloody awsome Brock  ;D

   Thanks all, a couple of days away and it all looks better somehow. I got a couple of hours on it tonight, checked the sump for fit and added the drain plug,

   took the steering box out again and finally got around to drilling through and fitting the bulkhead fittings for the coil and dizzy cables

   I had cut the headers off tight at the heads and ground the plates out, the glass coating took some shifting from the pipe ends but when that was done I refitted them with the pipes horizontal rather than square to the head and re-welded them. I rather like the look and it is what I meant to do when I first built them 

   We have had a reaction within the primers on the rear body so I will strip this right back and start again. It was not entirely unexpected and probably due to the wax residue from the mold, trying to rush it along again, more haste etc. The plus side is that it is stripping off quite easily and taking most of the wax with it and that in turn makes sanding much easier as the paper doesn't clog so fast.

   I spent a full evening removing all the paint from the body and flatting it deep into the gel coat, I'm pretty sure that it will take paint this time.
   Tonight I fitted a new piece of pipework into a compensator valve on the truck's rear brakes and fixed an air leak we had there before moving on to the next item on the car's list. One of the things that looked like a good traditional idea but turned out to be a big bunch of pooh was the joints in the steering shaft between the butterfly and box. It was not uncommon to use knuckle joints from tools as joints, we bought some pretty decent Big Name ones and built a shaft around them, even after I had worked on the pins they still had far too much play to be comfortable with, so , deep breath and order a pair of needle rollered universal joints from the local bearing shop. nearly a hundred pounds worse off but better steering, possibly a result

   The picture shows the original top joint, a new joint as received and a new joint machined to replace the top one.
   The bottom end needs to attach to the steering box and I am running short of splined connectors so the old one was cut off, bored through and a new shaft made to pass right through it welded both ends and in the middle it should do the job. This then fits into a bore in the new joint and will be held with a pair of grub screws.

   Whilst I was doing that , Lesley had a look at the rear brakes. We had not long ago taken them all apart but it was still too long to remember how they went back together. It is a strange system with Ford axle, Mercedes discs and Leyland calipers, it has worked for years but is quite sensitive to the spacing of the calipers and we had no notes of where the spacers went, try and try again 'till it worked. The calipers are really too big for the set up ( I have had to grind the Girling name off of the front to get clearance against the back of the wheel, that's tight ! ) and maybe I should have looked at some Citroen or even Metro ones but we will run with these again for now.

   Finally I assembled the new joints and made up a new shaft to joint them together, took forever to weld as the bearings are prelubed and the joint body is a big piece of solid metal, short high amp weld, cool the bearing area, weld again, cool again etc, I think that I got it without any damage, everything seems to work very smoothly

Looking good Steve. You get more done in one evening than I do in a week.

i was thinking the same thing

   Hmmmm, not so much so tonight. I spent more time than I thought I would setting the steering up, we seemed to have some free play in the box that was intermittent, strange. It turned out that the pitman arm was moving on the output shaft, as a temporary fix I have drilled through the pitman arm and on into the shaft, tapped the shaft and used a bolt to pull the shaft against the arm. I suspect I shall be calling on the services of our friendly tool maker to do his magic with keyways and stuff later in the development cycle. I forgot to take any shots of the complete linkage in the car, here's one after I realised that I had forgotton

   Next I spent some time setting the body up to make the mounts. Nothing much to say other than it took time and the top set are ready to weld tomorrow

   With the body sort of just hanging there we stood back and had a look. It seems a big area of black paint so maybe a small graphic to break it up

   I spent most of Saturday with the Big Fella working on the truck, it is booked in for it's test next Friday. Graham had organised a couple of new tyres to be fitted and swapped the wheels about to get a match on the axles. We took it off of the stands and gave it a run up and down the road, all seems fine, spent a little while checking fuses and wiring before taking the covers off the new side repeaters to find no bulbs installed  ::), so, a collection of bulbs to buy and a damm good wash and we are good to go, hopefully. I still have to sort out tie downs and the ramp system so it won't be ready to use this weekend coming, test or not, but it needed doing, time, it's all time.
   Late afternoon and I was back on the car. The top rear body mount was welded and installed, a couple of spacer bobbins made and fitted to the front kept that in line and I then sorted the lower rear mount, all pretty simple stuff with no real flair to it but it does what is needed.   

   Before the body could get a bit of work prior to paint there were a few things to try. One of the first was the auxiliary power input point, used to charge the battery. This is mounted on the lower frame rail at the rear and needed an access hole cutting through the body. It also needed a small extension the the original bracket to allow it to reach out as far as the body line, but we won't talk about that. 

   I had really had enough of it all for the day by then but needs must and all that, if I wanted to paint on Sunday it needed the parachute mounting made. This was a tricky little thing, only three tubes and four mounting plates but with no two faces parallel  and all cuts compound and no common datum in sight, a bit of a bugger. To be honest, after doing some sketches looking for a starting point, I guessed most of it. the high point of the evening was putting it in and all eight bolt holes lining up first time, result.   

   There it is, something else off of the list.

Looking great -not ready for use this weekend? is the car ready for a test run? Keep us informed please cos I'd love to be there for the innaugral flight.

all this detail work takes forever dunnit...still it's coming along great...I had the same no bulbs thing with some side markers on the van...bloody cost cutting  ::)

     "Looking great -not ready for use this weekend?"


  Yes we will be there this weekend, even if it means staying all night Thursday up there to get it ready  :)
  Brock will put a fuller update on tonight.
 
  No idae if we will have any crew though.

   It's been a heavy couple of days, I still can't quite say where all the time has gone, but it has. All the little bits and pieces have been etched and glossed ready for a coat of lacquer and are now just hanging up in the way, why ?, because I was going to do all the clear at once and that means the rear body too. I had mixed enough paint to do it all and had a drop left in the gun, rather than throw it out I put another coat on the body, cleaned the gun and went home. Turned up tonight and oh dear ! great big saggy mess both sides, too much paint to soon. Normally I would just let it fully cure and flat it back, now I'm short of time so it was in with a razor blade and touch it in with a rattle can. We have used this premixed paint several times without any problems but tonight it reacted and crazed, bum. I was having problems with the brake bleeding at the same time and was just about ready to walk out on it. Mrs B is made of sterner stuff and after another coffee she pulled all the braking system apart again and I went into the body with the 60 grit. Another couple of hours had the calipers air tested, the pistons move, the master moves fluid through both circuits and the lines are clear, and another twenty quids worth of fluid is keeping the weeds at bay outside. All rebuilt and we have some movement, I have a freeplay issue in the lever that I will deal with tomorrow. Again it looks like we are in with a chance for the coming weekend. The body got another skim of filler and primer, a quick flat tomorrow and it gets black (again) then clear, then sparkle, then clear, whether it wants it or not ! Our good friend Ed has Emailed to say the graphics are in hand and will be at the track on Friday. The wiring has been started, a last shopping trip tomorrow should see all that we need to finish in stock and it will be full steam ahead 'till the borrowed trailer arrives Friday afternoon.   

Most excelent peeps! Well done, and we want youtube videos of it in action please  ;D ;D ;D ;D

   well, it got propper hectic before it got calm again. It was nearing midnight Thursday before I got the last coat of clear on the body. It won't be the last coat, just the last we could get on before the weekend. I had to work Thursday and whilst I was there Paul took the calipers and re stripped and built them again, he also found a Ford master cylinder that not only had the same outlet positions but fitted the bracket on the car like it was meant to be, and after yet more fluid bleeding we had brakes. On Friday the Big Fella gave up a days work to be with us and, after an interesting couple of hours with the truck, got stuck in helping to finish the wiring and final assembly. By late afternoon we were there ! Graham went and collected the trailer he had arranged for us to borrow and we loaded up. With the front tyres hard against the headboard we had to compress the parachute spring to close the tailgate, snug ! By Eight O'clock, freshly showered, we were ready and set off.
   We arrived at the track at about half Ten to find the Club power parked in the prize pits. Our good friends from the North, the B-sting Boys had saved a slot for us and many hands soon had the pit ready. When we had loaded the car we had used two long straps to pull it down and forward and a third across behind the front slicks to hold it. The front strap had pulled both fronts away from the wheel beads and deflated them, a bit of a bugger and hard work to maneuver but we got it done in the end and parked it across the front of our pit and had a beer.     

   After an evening's meeting and greeting, Saturday afternoon dawned far too early. A bit of time on the car showed that we could inflate the tyres but they would not hold up for long. I have race tubes for these in the shed and will get them fitted ASAP, just not at the track. A further problem showed up in the ignition, during the installation we had managed to dead short the electronic module in the dizzy, this is something that has happened before but then I had a spare, not now. So that was us done for the weekend. One deadline we managed to get to the track but without a car, the second, with a car but not working, the next opportunity to look bad will be the first weekend in September, we will be there, it will be running.
   The weekend wasn't wasted as we learned a few things, one of the first is that we need more ground clearance. I have built the car as low as I dared and that's pretty low. The tyre thing showed that we really would be better off with another inch and a half in the scrub line. Having looked at the options I am of the opinion that a new axle is the answer, anything else will be a compromise and whilst there are several valid alternatives, none of them retain the clean lines that we have at the moment, so new axle it is. Another thing that showed in conversation with others is that the steering rocker bearing is considered undersize, I think it would be fine but weight of experience is against me on that, it will also give me the opportunity to change the way the two shafts meet, this was something I had penciled in to do at some stage.
   In order to achieve all the above changes I need to get some machining done, a couple of new axle end bosses, a couple of new pins, a couple of bearing "washers" and a bearing boss for the steering, our dear old lathe has finally given up the ability to hold a tolerance in a bore, I would be gratefull to hear from anyone if they fancy the job, I'm not looking for favours, just the ability to turn it round fairly swiftly for a reasonable cost

Looks awesome guys. Congratulations on finally reaching the track with it & commiserations for the problems. So the story continues. A gripping read!

That was nice, a couple of days of not living and breathing race car. The downside is that it gives plenty of time for making plans for future mods. Still, we've not been entirely idle, the electrical problem is sorted and a new photo eye for the dizzy is en route from Real Steel , power is restored to all switches and they illuminate too. The wheels and tyres have gone into Kennet Tyres in Marlborough, where they will make me some inner tubes that work with the wheel's valve position. I have spent some time looking at options and really do think that a  new axle is the way forward, it will lift the front of the car to give us a bit more clearance without spoiling the lines too much.

           "really do think that a  new axle is the way forward"

is that funny ?

   We collected a new light unit from our good LPWM at the weekend, a re-pro Caddy '59 unit, nice. I have been playing with ways to install it and think that this is going to be the way, any thoughts ? It looks to take a standard twin contact brake and tail lamp and I would like to fit a super bright diode type thing, anyone have a source ?   

   After a fair bit of walking around it and just playing with the height I finally decided to get on with  it. Stripped all the front links off and removed the axle,

   A trip to Devizes netted a piece of good stuff and a bundle of additional bits to do all the brackets and mounts and also to build a set of jacks that we can actually get under the car.

   I started with a full size drawing using an original pop axle as a jig to establish the camber. Our mate Steve ( He of the Honda engined Dutton with home made fuel injection, mid engined V8 four wheel drive Mk 3 Escort and Willys Jeep ) had turned up some new axle end bosses and some extended king pins to allow me to set it all up, thanks mate.

Looking great Steve.
Must be a bit daunting to start stripping it apart again now it's all painted & polished, but does look the best solution doesn't it.
Pop Browns sell those LED replacement bulbs.

Always loved these......green with envy at your engineering skills lol.....I can build a hardtail frame or a Trike frame but all the work that has gone into Black Pig Too is beyond what I could achieve....Very nice,would love to see it in action...Voodoo...

   As always, not how to do it, just how I did it.

First I needed to establish a line along the tube. It is a centre line but more importantly it has to be axially true, that is straight along the length, as this will control the relationship of the two bends to each other. Lay the tube on the bench and make sure it can't move, stick a piece of tape along it, take a piece of similar sized stuff ( it doesn't need to be exactly the same) and lay a rule across the two. Just rub the edge of the rule against the tape to leave a mark, continue along the tube at about a foot apart. Take a long rule so that it is easier to see any deviation from straight and join the dots. The rule left a mark about two mil wide so it was just a case of marking in the middle of that with a sharp pencil, nice and easy.

   Andy, it's only paint ! ! I'll check on the bulbs, thanks.

   VooDoo, if you can build a frame you can do this, it's just bigger, one step at a time and learn from my mistakes   ::)

   By lucky happenstance (?) inch and a quarter iron is very nearly inch and five eighths OD, just right, the former fitted without any messing about with packing so the trusty old pipe bender got an airing. To ensure that the two bends were in the same plane I set the tube in the bender with the bend centre aligned, put enough pressure on it to hold it, and rotated the tube so that the long line was on the centre. The centre height was found simply by measuring down from the top of the tube in the bender to the bench top and subtracting half the diameter and then setting my old scribing block to that dimension. Do this at both ends and the bends have to be in line.   

   I took the new bend line off of the drawing and used a big home made sliding bevel to transfer it to the tube in the bender, a bit of careful tweaking had two ends the same.

   Using the Pop axle laid on the drawing I transferred the centre lines of the new bosses onto the drawing and the laid the new tube on that and transferred them onto it. With the new tube laid on the bench it was easy to find the true centre height each side and pilot drill the marks. A rough pen line across the face of the tubes gave me a guide for the angle through the tube and a hole saw made the hole. To stop the hole saw wandering I had opened my pilot hole out to five mil and replaced the centre drill in the saw with an arbor made from quarter bright bar and turned down to four point nine mil, this keeps the saw true to the pilot holes.

   With the holes drilled through, the bosses were assembled on the Pop axle and pushed through. Actually they had to be put in the new axle and then have the Pop one fitted on top as the camber angle means they are wider at the bottom than the top, took me a minute or so to realise that, black clouds were gathering before a bright ray of understanding dispelled them  ::)

   It was just a case of tacking the ends in the tube and trying the spindles on then. Having been caught out on the previous axle I remembered this time

messy photo 'aint it

   Once that was sorted I welded the ends in. The attachment points were next, these were cut from five mil plate and drilled for the half inch bolts that hold it all together. before cleaning the up I punched a heavy dot on the centre line of the bolt hole to tube cutout, this allowed me to index them against the tube to give the caster angle when installed.
   A little bit of maths later and we had, 42.5mm dia, times Pi equals 134mm circ., 360 degrees divided by 134 equals 2.7 degrees per mil on the circ. ten degrees of caster means rotating the mounts so that the dots are 3.7 mil above the centre line, four is close enough as I can take some out on the radius rod joints if it proves too much. Then they were welded on too.

   Here are the old and new together, it looks more in the picture but there is only sixty mil between them, hopefully this will sort our little clearance issue, I should have the wheels back in the week and we can try it all out together and see.

Lookin good...thats one item that is on my to get list..Pipe bender

thats some outstanding fab work there.
very nice.

 Helfords and most parts shops sell them these days, looking good  ;)

   thanks all, I'll accept it all day long but should point out that this is actually a correction of a monumental cock-up made earlier, not quite so clever now eh ?

   I got a couple of hours on it this afternoon and added the radius rod attachments to the mounting points , the axle is now finished and fits. There is enough adjustment to gain or loose 3 degrees of caster so that should also work if necessary. I also remembered to add a heavier towing bracket as this will be used to lift the front end too

Looking good peeps. :)

superb work

   just sort of pottering along with it for the moment, 5th & 6th September is the next outing so we have weeks before I need to panic at the last moment.
   I have made a little dolly like thing to lift the front end and make moveing it about a bit easier in tight spaces, this proved that the new heavier tow eye was marginal in practice so I am adding a piece of reinforcement to it

  Hmmm, will I remember to drill the hole ?

Steve turned up tonight with some brand new, still warm, EN 303 king pins and a new larger shaft and bearing housing for the steering shaft rocker, very nice, thank you

   Whilst all the hot bits were cooling I attacked the paint on the rear body section with an angle grinder

   There was some method to the madness, having received the '59 Caddy lamp it seemed a shame not to use it, so a tubular mount is going to be formed, fin like, on the rear deck. I found the tube that the graphics arrived in was the ideal size, a nice snug push fit, so I soaked it in resin, scribed it to fit the deck curvature, and bonded it on   

   tonight it was all cured enough to try the light unit in it and see what a mess it might be, I think I like it. It'll get a bit of filler and some paint in the coming week

   I got a call from Kennet Tyres today to say that they had finished making the tubes for the front wheels, so I stopped in and collected them. The wheels are really made to run tubeless but we are having trouble getting the narrow tyres to seat properly, so, demount tyres, clean rims, shorten tube to fit better in the rim, remove old valve and patch, attach new valve to suit hole in rim, remount tyres, two wheels, £25 the pair. That's kennet tyres, Marlborough, thankyou.
   Having got those back in the shed I gathered all the bits together and nailed the new front end on. Using the newly built lifty up thing in the newly strengthened axle eye I gently lowered it all to the ground for the first time. Yep, that'll do.   

   I've spent some time going over the car recently looking for the error that lead to it being too low. The addition of a sump to the fuel tank was not in the original plan and that was part of it, the balance is really that these are not the wheels and tyres that I built to and now they are back on it is clear to see that they are much lower profile than the bike tyres that were measured originally, but to be honest it was just too low, looked great but not practical.

   In the odd spare moment recently I have been playing with cardboard and tape. The big velocity stack that we have been running on the top of the carb is a sort of long term loan thing from our LPWM, bloody right too as it was him that ran over my lovely shotgun scoop that used to be there, mind you, if it hadn't have fallen off I guess it might not have happened. Whilst it looks fine and certainly does the job I was thinking of something more "age related" to put on this one. I have tried a round flat thing and didn't like it, modified to look like a Caddy "flying saucer" and thought it a bit heavy, tried a traditional mail box type thing and it all got a bit tall and ugly. The latest one is more like it, fairly tight to the carb top, big enough to look right and sleek enough to fit in. It's not quite finished in the shots, the rear sides are yet to be added, but if I can find time in the next two weeks I think I will take some templates and try it in ally. I may jet add a peak to the top surface to take away some of the plainness

   As an aside, a bit of a sad day today in the camp of the Black Pig with the passing of John Ryan

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8167027.stm

The Black Pig being Captain Pugwash's ship of course. Shame.
Like the scoop Steve. Will it sit horizontal to the ground, or nose down as in your photos?
I didn't know you could have inner tubes made to order. Add Kennet Tyres' details to the Links for Commercial Purposes bit if you like -happy customers are always the best reference.

   The scoop will be nose down, as is the motor. It has a taper along it's length, being four inches at the front and only two at the back, so the top plane is less pointy downwards than the bottom. I'm still not entirely sure about it but I think I will make one in between other stuff and see what it looks like in the metal.
   I'm not sure even Kennet Tyres would make a tube from nothing but they can certainly alter them in any way that they can be altered.
   Not a lot worth photoing at the moment, the axle's been on and off five times tonight whilst I set the steering limits and polished the king pins, the new steering intermediate rocker is made and fitted on it's larger shaft and bearing and I have taken the opportunity to build in some adjustment to the ratio if needed. The 'chute release cable is routed and mounted and I tossed some black paint over the new rear light to see how it might look.

   Still just tinkering with stuff at the moment, I've spent some time playing with the steering trying to get the pitman arm and the new rocker parallel, decided that it couldn't be done as it was and ended up cutting the drag link down to get more adjustment, another little consequence of putting more caster in the axle. Whilst the sun was out (remember that ?) we took the opportunity to roll it out side and try it over some more uneven ground, everything now clears, result.

   With the car outside we could have a bit of a square up and find room for some new lockers and drawer units, all the nuts and bolts sorted and indexed, bliss

   During the week I have been looking at bits that I wasn't truly happy with and changing them where possible. One of them was the parachute mounting plate, still bright yellow from it's last incarnation it showed through the roll cage from the front. Now we have a nice polished Ali one. I chucked the parachute pack in the dishwasher, seemed to work. A smarter mind than mine put the parachute in the washing machine, that also worked, have you ever tried to peg one on the line ?

   Another thing that I want to alter is the wheelie bars and their mounts. Originally I had put them on the underside of the chassis, now I like the idea of mounting them from the back of the kidney uprights, it will give me a chance to move them up out of the way when needed. A relatively easy operation until I realised that we had no way of picking the rear of the car up. A jack was required. With the rear body on, the nearest I can get to the only point we can pick the car up on is about three and a half feet, so, a four foot long jack then, and only an inch and a half tall please, and could it lift about six or seven inches when installed ? Yes it can, the re-bar is just to prove the thing, I should have some 5/8" seamless by the weekend and I may change the piece of cork tile for a piece of steel plate  :D 

You built your own trolley jack?!

   Why buy anything if you can build something less good for more money ?

   I had got a bit fed up with all the little bits that don't really show so while I was waiting to get some tube for the jack I thought I would have a look at the scoop thing.
   First take the cardboard pattern and open it out, than cut a piece of Ali sheet to suit

   Mark up the pattern with a grid and transfer the lines to the metal. Carefully cut to the "cut lines" and not the fold lines !

   Finish the cuts and form the mounting holes, clean and part polish the lower inside face while it's still easy to get to

   Beat it into some sort of shape and start trimming the joints ready for welding

   we skipped a bit here, welding is a bastard to do with a camera in your hand. Welded twice actually, as I was trying it on the carb after finishing it (the first time) there was a sort of ping sound and two of the lower joints let go. Remember how we don't grind down welds unless we are sure we have complete penetration ? well, complete penetration is no good when you sand the entire corner off to give a nice radiused finish. As I was re-welding those bits several others split, so I redid the whole thing, then just cleaned it up leaving the corners with some weight in them.
   I'm still not entirely sure about it but it's the best we have at the moment so it will go on.   

I fink it looks Pukka Brock  ;D

Looks Great Brock!  8) 8)

  Thanks, we are going to use it as there is no time to build another, I may change it later. I rather wish that I had put a curved top panel on it, just a more interesting shape I think. It's looking a bit more finished now it has it's grille in, still needs a final polish to be right

   Cause and effect, action and reaction, raise the front of the car to an acceptable level, it will rotate about the rear axle and lower the rearmost part thus rendering the lovely speed jack you have just spent three days making obsolete. Ho hum. So, a bit of a redesign at the back end and now we have a better set up, or at least one that works. A bolt in subframe now carries the wheelie bars, a brace between the mounting points supports a strut that transfers load into the rear of the frame, this gives us somewhere that we can jack on. As an additional useful aspect it also allows much more adjustment in the bar's height and gives us a point at which we can attach a strop for winching the car in and out of the truck. I should have spent more time on this at the beginning, live and learn. I also took the opportunity to add a small tab that allows us to stow the wheelie bars when towing or we want to work at the back end.

   Remember that cause and effect thing ? moving the jacking point up to allow the jack in means that we can no longer raise it high enough to use standard axle stands to support the chassis during warm ups, answer, make new stands !

   Here's the latest "last bunch of stuff that needs making", hopefully that really should be it.

   All the "last bunch etc" is now painted and whilst the gun was out I put some more lacquer on the body. It's far from perfect as, once again, I'm painting in an open shed while combines and grain carts rumble past, just no consideration for others that lot. Hopefully we will have time to cut and polish it before going out

   Just time to assemble it during the coming week, fire it at the weekend, finish the ramps on the truck early next week, get to the track Friday week, should be another last minute panic, which is nice.

Probably a daft question, but... WB76, whats the significance?

Race number for the car "Wild Bunch 76" (mine is WB 96)
Dont know what number Brocks new one will have

"(mine is WB 96)" ???


Thaught it was WB1 till this season is finished ;D

Mrs B

Thanks Tony, sorry for hijacking the thread but i`ve two more questions now...
1st, Wild Bunch is the club you guys belong to?
And secondly, wheres your car thread Tony?  ;D

I've asked Tony several times for a write-up on his Cunning Plan car for the site -c'mon Tone, send us some piccies & words & we'll feature it in the Motors section.  ;)
Why not start a thread on your duties as a drag race scrutineer/track marshal etc. I just go along to enjoy the atmosphere & have very little idea of what goes on behind the scenes at a drag meet. This lot would be interested to know too I'm sure.  :)

  Hi TB, yeah, The Wild Bunch is our race club wot we belong to.

  Where is his car thread indeed, and as for track duties, make him do a weekly diary, idle sod.

  We however have been plugging away, the front end is now fully up together, the right bolts used and all torqued up, the wheels are on and the tracking done, I've lost the centre caps just for the moment but they'll turn up, the steering is set and the box adjusted

did not want to brag  ::)

Write up, see what I can do, mind you if you want a quick peek, take a look at www.cunningplan.net

Will do a bit on both Andy

OK Steve, just about to post and you stick you bit in  ;)

   the wheelie bar is fitted and adjusted and the surplus brackets removed, all the belly pans are fitted and nothing touches the floor !
   The big space behind the car where the body was is now just a big space as the body has gone to Hungerford, getting a decent finish on the top coat in an open shed during the harvest beat me, so it's gone to see that nice Mr. Benson and his controlled environment booth for a final lick of smooth.

......and then you butt in half way through, idle, rude, sod

Dont know if you have noticed, "Its on stands"  ::)

   I thought it strange that there wasn't an almightly crash when I took the wheels off 

amazing work there.
do you sleep,eat,drink,work......etc?
how the hell do you get all that work done and to a high standard!!!
cheers chris.

Magic elves Chris. He has a family of garage elves locked in a cupboard in his workshop, but I'm not supposed to tell anyone about them.
-oh poo.

i guess you need to be a good boy to get them :D not an ars.......le like me :o

         how the hell do you get all that work done and to a high standard!!!

   and they say the camera never lies !  ;D, bits of it are actually OK, some others will get reworked over the winter.
 
   Those garage elves are alright but they won't listen, they just have to be right all the time. The fuel tank was fine, the welds didn't need anymore linishing and it held up under air testing, there was no need to do it again, but oh no, would they listen ?, so better than three hours today chasing a leak. Got it in the end but hard work, should have just left it alone, still, having them there lets me blame someone other than me.
   The tank is now sat with five litres of 99 octane in it ready to fire it up tomorrow, well at least we will after I have replaced the plastic sight plugs in the carb with the original brass ones, or at least after I have drilled out the remains of the plastic ones, bastard things ! 

   well, carb level plugs exchanged and carb cleaned, fuel tank holding up, power to pump and fuel to carb, all looking good. Dizzy removed and a shaft used to wind the oil pump up to pressurise the system, No. 1 TDC rolled on and static timing set, getting exciting. Main power on and a stab at the starter to wet the bearings, hmmmm, a little tweak of the inhibiter switch mounting and try again, OK, another success. Pull the throttle right open a couple of times to fill the accelerator pumps and wet the bores, all switches "hot", grab a handfull of throttle and press firmly on the big black button...........,Ok, a little quieter than I would have liked ! We have fuel in all the right places, we have rotation and we have electric everywhere we should, apart from the distributer trigger, bum. A quick check of the diagrams shows conflicting methods of supplying the dizzy it's feed, having cooked one on this motor already and found that it is way the wrong side a 'undred quid to replace the module I was wary of just diving in and changing the wiring. The battery feed at the main power switch was reading 14.7V and I know the dizzy is frightened of much over 13 so I wasted a day or so searching locally for a ballast resister to knock it back. Tonight I retested everything and the battery voltage has stabilised at 13.7V ( previously still buzzing after a long charge perhaps ?), so deep breath and reconect the direct feed, nothing went pop so we pushed on. Right then, main switch on, secondary switch on, pump on, check neutral, ignition on, start, WHAT THE FU....., the shock knocked out two of the ceiling lights and brought down showers of crap from the rafters, a bit of deft throttle manipulation from the BIG Fella kept it alive until it hicuped and turned my lovely new scoop ( see, I like it now  ::) ) into a flame thrower and we shut it down. Bloody great, it lives !
   After giving it a few minutes to heat soak we went back in and set the timing a bit closer to the mark and adjusted the idle, it really does sound fierce, far sharper than previously. It is running a bit rich at the moment but I'll leave it jetted as it is until we can get some track time on it, I suspect it will take more timing not less fuel. So, slightly deafened and suffering late stage Carbon Monoxide poisoning we shut up shop for the night well pleased after a less than inspiring few days. All the roundy round bits stayed inside and nothing fell off, other than a small oil leak from the timing cover we look good to go at the weekend. Tomorrow I'll reset the dizzy a tooth or two back to allow us some scope to advance it further, fit up the last of the body panels and maybe wipe it down with a polishy rag, oh, and fire it up again, just 'cos I can  ;D     

. :o ;D

That's great. It lives again  8)

I had a phone call last night and all I could hear was thunder, well not realy, it was Mrs brock sticking her phone in the shed while the engine was running.
Great to hear, see you on the weekend.

Congratulations!  ;D
I never doubted it'd breath again, but must be a relief to have her up & running.
So if anyone wants to come watch you in action at the weekend, where should they be going & when?

Its a test and tune weekend at Shakey (Avon Park/Shakespeare County Racway) then in two weeks it the HOT ROD DRAGS

I'll definitely be at the Drags! Taz is working 7 days a week at the moment, so probably won't be there. She'll be gutted to miss the big public debut.

I'm counting the days, bags packed, trailers ready ;D

   your faith is touching, the internal architecture of the motor is different enough for it to be considered a new unit and I had my doubts that we had it right but it seems close. The Big Fella stopped by tonight and without him we would still be there now, more to do than I had thought, but we got it sorted. The timing has been reset and seems to like it better, the rear light connected so as to act as an external indicator for the main power switch, minor oil leak from the filter sorted and a second one on the timing cover also dealt with. The transmission topped off and tested, and the remaining body panels fitted. The car is now loaded in the truck along with pretty much everything else we own and spares for most of it, the whole evening was not without incident but nothing that can't be finessed with further experience. So, up at five and off to the track to see what breaks,

A great achievement, fingers crossed all goes as you hope it will.

Hi guys,

I found the build thread at last!
Just looked through all 43 pages and i just had to register to add my congratulations on building a fantastic new car.A real credit to you both.  ;)

Looking forward to having a closer look at it at the drags.
Take it easy and good luck with it,

Chris (ex Europrint)

Good luck on the maiden flight big bro.
Be careful mate.  ;)

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

She lives,maiden flight 11.55 @140 miles

Very happy piglets here at Shakey

Off for another go

Mrs B

Wooooo Hoooooooooooo! Go piggy go!

You'll truly believe a Pig can fly.  ;D

Just in case there's anyone here who hasn't got a clue what Mrs B's talking about, drag racing basically evolved from traffic light racing & involves pitting your car against the clock over a measured 1/4 of a mile track. So Brock's first run in the reborn Black Pig saw him go from a standing start to 140 miles an hour in the length of 4 football pitches in a tad under 12 seconds.
Well done to all at Black Pig HQ.  ;) Hope you got some photos!

well done guys!

Thanks Guys

Just having a well deserved beer,unfortunatley in the company of our little welsh friend(just kidding Tony :-*)

Second run of the day 10.393 @ 141.82,hopefully Tony has some video of it.
We then tried for a third run, but Brock was having trouble with the brakes, so that's us for today.

To quote those famous words,tomorrow is another day,and we'll get another few runs in.

Big thanks to the big fella for driving us up here.


Mrs B

you must be very pleased with yourselves, and deservedly so. do you plan on any adjustments overnight?

That's great guys. Glad all that hard work has paid off. Well done  ;D Good luck for today  ;D

So what's the new transporter like? That's worthy of a feature on it's own. Everything work as it was intended?

You don't know how I feel  ;D being Wenglish ::)

Great food Mrs Brock, thanks for the company.

Dont ask me how I done it, but managed to edit all three runs in one go, not the best of vidieos, but it moves and goes quick, not bad for the first runs.
I will let Brock tell you about what happened today.

nearly forgot the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8b6pYpO-GA

Looks absolutely amazing! Fascinating to see a vehicle we've all watched being built here, from the chassis to the engine to the bodywork, come to life on the track. Sounds really crisp. After being used to seeing the original Black Pig it seems weird to see my big brother in another car. Can't wait to see it run at the Hotrod Drags soon. Congratulations to all of you -Steve the driver, Lesley the team manager & Graham the roadie.  ;)

That's great Tony  ;D Good to see it running well done all. So come on then what happened?

Looks and sounds brilliant! well done again  ;D
For those of us who have never been drag racing, (yeah ok me then), can we have a few words to explain whats happening at the start of the runs please.

At the start they do a little burn out to warm up tyres to aid traction on lift off then Mrs B guides him back to the right place, (he can't see over his shoulder and no wing mirrors are fitted) then he waits on line for the lights to go green then lift off.
Ok not very technical but gives you an idea. Only providing I'm not writing total rubbish of course  ;D

(http://static.flickr.com/2380/2127704341_a91b17aecd.jpg)

Not far off at all, but the staging part.
There are two beams on the start line, they are 8 inch's apart, when the front wheel brakes the first one, the top "Pre Stage" light comes on, when you go another 8 inch's, the next "Stage" light come on. when the stage lights come on in both lanes, the race is ready to run, the starter will then press the button. and you go on green (Or if you are good, just before) and when the wheel un brakes the "Stage" beam, the clock starts running until you brake the finish line beam, this will be your ET (Elapse Time)
There are other beams down the track, 60 ft, 330 ft half track speed trap, half track 990 ft quater mile speed trap and the finish line.

I knew about the light thingies but thought it best someone else explain them and you've done that perfectly Tony  ;D

Aren't there 2 different versions of the light sequence?

Don't forget I will ask questions after.

Yep your right, Sportsman and Pro
With Sportsman, the three yellow lights run down in sequence (with .400 between each)
And Pro, all the yellows come on at once.
There is normally .400 between the last yellow and the green (One some trees its .500)
Your reaction time is from when the green comes on and the beam is triggered, so if you read the tree right (Much easy-er with the sportsman tree) you can get a perfect light 0.000 (It used to be 0.400)
Basically, as soon as you see the yellow, you put your foot down, but do it too soon and you just get a nice big Cherry (Red light)

Just seen this on the MMA for sale. Holley 700 double pumper £80
Looks like there are quite a few carbs for sale at the moment.

What was the problem on that last run Steve? Seemed to take off from the line & pull up 100 yards up the track, as if doing a burn out, then carry on again. Fuel or ignition trouble? Or just experimenting?

Is that same place?  Dates, times, what does it cost to get in?  Woiuldn't mind coming along after reading the build thread with interest!

or brain fade ::)

here you go, all the details, yes it at same place

Tony
http://www.shakespearecountyraceway.co.uk/eventdetails.asp?event=48

Thanks!

Shakespeare County Raceway, Avon Park or Long Marston, depending how long your memory is Bobbi.
Stratford on Avon. Same venue as the Bulldog Bash.

Event admission details:
Gate: £18 per person per day (Advance N/A) or £30 per person per weekend (Advance £25 - weekend only).
NSRA Members Discount £25.00
Run What Ya Brung Track Fee: £18 per person one day, or £30 per person two days, or £40 (Fri/Sat/Sun) for a weekend of unlimited runs.
*Children under 16s free (accompanied by an adult).
*Free overnight camping with weekend tickets.
*Catering and Bar facilities.
*Free Grandstands & Pit Entry
*Showers & Toilets

If you've never been to a drag meet before this is probably the one to go to. Not just racing to watch. It's also a weekend long celebration of British car customising with the emphasis on trad hotrods. Plenty of 50s bobbers & chops in attendance too. There's also autojumble & trade stands, plus bands & fireworks, even a drive in movie theatre showing continous hotrod films on the Friday night.
Plus of course, a free mug o' tea & bacon sarnie for all MMMotors forum members at the Black Pig crew tent -hee, hee, hee!  ;D
See you there.  ;)

   Well, hello again, 'pologies for me tardiness but I have been laid up since Sunday with the world's worst case of ( according to Mrs B ) a little bit of a cold. A bit better now which is good as there is still quite a lot to fit in between now and next Friday.
   Last Weekend, we set off about Seven'ish and , having stopped for a fried everything and large coffee en route, got to the track at about Nine. We picked a spot in the middle of the pits and parked up. It probably took about an hour to unload and errect the tent, sort the pit furniture and get the car and quad out. Virtually everything worked as it should, I need to put a test on the 240V generated power just for peace of mind and have a look at the fresh water drain cocks, mostly it was good. The only issue that could have caused a bit of an incident was when the generator developed a gas leak, a ten inch piece of rubber pipe on the high pressure side split end to end, luckily we caught it in time and had the right stuff to replace it. By about mid day we were ready to try a little run round the block, first time driven under power, it started reasonably easily and, with a gear selected, pulled away cleanly. A little potter round the pits showed that we could turn pretty much when we wanted to and speed up and slow down almost at will, about as good as it gets really. While I was out and about I drove it into the scrutineers bay and had it checked over, a big thumbs up and a ticket issued, we were good to go and play

   so there we were, memory being what it is you'll have to bear with me. Sometime after 1300 hrs we towed down to the line. The Big Fella had a spanner in his pocket as the motor had become quite tight and sometimes needed a little nudge to line the starter up, sure enough when the time came it did. We rolled round, found the water, did a little burnout, backed up, selected high gear, prestage, stage, first amber and drive away. It felt OK so I kept on it, giving it more throttle later in the track. The only surprise being the air under my helmet threw my head back in the cage, never had that before, always had a windscreen. I lifted at the 1320 beam and let it roll for some distance before slowly braking to a halt at the last turn out. Probably a thirteen at something over a ton ? Oh no, an 11.558 @ 140.16, well pleased would be an understatement. More, let's do more.     

   Later in the day, 16:44:29 if you must know, we went out again and ran a 10.393 @ 141.82, still high gear only and soft launch, I was getting cocky now, this was easy, Oh No. The next run the brakes went away after the burn out and I had problems slowing it enough to select reverse, off down the track to no time or speed, bugger, first driver error in the new car, if only it was the last ! Luckily for us the moment was captured on film and posted for millions to see, otherwise I could have lied, cheers mate !

   After a pleasant evening doing not much, drinking a bit of beer and watching the on car film, still actually on the car now I think about it, we rolled out Sunday morning ready to do some serious launches and see what it would do. We had spent the morning tightening all the loose bolts, that'll be all the bolts then ! The car didn't fire well and didn't want to stay alight when it did. After being pushed back and restarting once we did a short burnout and pulled forward, the whole car was vibrating so much I was having trouble seeing so I shut it down and we went back to the pits. Three of the carb bolts were loose and one had fallen out, that would be the rough running sorted but I felt the vibration thing was something worse so we called it a day and buggered off home.
   I was a bit despondent about it all for a while, but on reflection, not a bad first outing at all, far faster and quicker than I thought we would run and nothing broken, if only I knew ! 

   One highlight of the meet was pitting next to some fellow Wild Bunch members out testing for the Saturday, asking, in passing, what they were doing with the spare wheels leant against the fence netted "nothing, they're your's for a ton". Now I'm not allowed to play with cash, and for good reason, but I guessed that the Big Fella wouldn't be out without a drop about him, he's now the proud owner of a splendid pair of spindle mount wires  :D

   One sunny evening in the week after we got back I unloaded the car and put it back in the shed, will it ever be free of this place ?

   the next evening I started to fit up the new wheels, they looked every bit as good as I hoped they would. Not being able to put it off any longer, we started to strip the car down. One of the first pieces off is the cowl, putting it to one side and glancing into the footwell brought me up short, bad car, bad, bad car. The bellhousing on the trans was broken almost right through, that'll be the vibration sorted then. Further investigation showed both the rear mounting bolts were loose but whether this is cause or effect I don't know. A phone call to Andy Robinson soon had an Ultrabell on order, a sort of armoured replacement bellhousing, this will be fitted as soon as it arrives but in the mean time we had the Hot rods to think about. Out with the die grinder and fire up the TIG, a few hours later I had it looking like Dr. Finklestein's Sally but it was aligned and one piece again.

   The Hot Rod drags have been covered elsewhere and whilst we had a good weekend in the sun with some mates it would have been far better to have had the car running. Doc proved to be a bit of a star, keeping focused and active on the maintenance side of things whilst I got increasingly fed up with a series of small but significant failures, cheers Mate, you made a difference, just sorry you didn't get to see it run. Bobbi also turned up just in time to be commandeered, thanks again, and proved to be pleasant company.
   The car just didn't want to start despite a fair bout of work on it, sometimes you should listen to what your car is telling you !

   During the week following our poor showing at the Hot Rods the car was back in the shed and Lesley had got it stripped of all the ancillaries ready to lift out, I found a bit of enthusiasm lurking in the back of a draw somewhere and joined in toward the weekend. With the motor out and on the stand we could start going through it and see what might have happened to cause the problems

   by late Friday most of it was in bits and ready to clean and inspect. I spent Saturday with bore gauge and mike's going through everything and making a big list of figures before going and finding the spec's to see what they should be. Starting with the block I measured the bores, despite several years wear and re honing all the bores are still round and true to size, right down to No. 2 being half a thou' big, just as it was when I re-bored them. Next I flipped the block and installed the mains caps, once torqued, I measured them, all good. Then the same with the bearings installed, still good. Measure the crank journals, absolutely spot on, do the maths, 2 1/2 thou' oil clearance throughout, just dandy. Lube everything up and install the crank, torque it all down and put spacer tube over the damper bolt and a bar on that, 2lbs and it turns. All the bearings looked good, measured good and so were reused. Next I turned to the pistons, stripped the rings off and placed them in their respective bores to check the end gap, all good. I measured the pistons to death and can't find any fault, checked the spiro locks and the rod side float clearance, checked the rod bearings and crank rod journals, torqued the big ends and checked for roundness, cleaned the grooves and re installed the rings. Checked for orientation in the bore, both pistons and rods and beat the bastards back down the holes. As each piston assembly went in I rechecked the torque needed to rotate the crank, strangely ( ! ) it required more each time, but then for the cost of a set of total seal file fit plasma moly rings it bloody well should do. With nothing untoward found in the bottom end, I nailed the oil pump in and, using a magic new one piece gasket ( cheers Ed ), re-fixed the sump.   

   Sometime about this point we dropped the short motor back in the frame rails, re connected the torque converter and all those other little bits and I remounted the starter and shimmed it to rights. We threw some oil into the valley, primed the pump, connected a spare battery, as the Optima was on charge, and pressed the button, it turns !
   Having done all that and found nothing amiss we went through the heads in a similar fashion, clock the valve stems, check the guides, roll the push rods, etc. After a bit of a wash and spruce up the heads themselves were checked over and assembled, spring heights, guide plate alignment, standards torqued, then assembled onto the block and pulled down in steps to maximum torque. Try the starter again, all still good. Finally it got to the stage that there wasn't anything left to measure or to bolt on and other than three broken collets and a shagged set of valve guide oil seals, all of which we changed, I can't find anything that should be any different.   

   After all that the only thing left to do was try it. Reconnect the power and press the button, nothing ! The all conquering mighty Red Top has failed. The Big Fella took a quick trip across the yard to the curly headed pony boy and returned with a brand new battery (thank you Paul ), tried it and it worked, turned over nice. So we've had a bit of a frantic evening making an adaptor to the battery housing and all hands on deck to finish assembling the car and fire it, success is ours, so far.
   The car is now loaded, the power shortage problem on the truck may well be sorted with the Big fella making a change to the wiring on the split charging system, the genny is still playing about but we have a second one on board, another five hours and we are off to try it all out , five hours ! bugger, I'm off

So it was the battery after all eh! Bugger.

 ;D Good luck chaps!
If you're at a loose end this weekend, the Pig Posse are appearing at a drag track near you -if you live in Warwickshire. They'll be at Shakespeare County Raceway, Stratford on Avon all weekend.
Go say Hello & cheer 'em on.

   ....or not of course. Worked on it 'till well gone quite late Friday, left almost quite early Saturday, arrived in the middle of a sand storm, set up (4 anchor bolts in each foot of the canopy rather than one in each corner), got scruted, paid up for the weekend, waited 'till it died down a bit, ran one crappy mid eleven at a hundred and twenty something, broke the gear box again and trashed the ignition. Two weeks and we'll try again. I was all for beating it with a stick but have been talked into trying a carrot first, we have bought a brand new MSD start to finish ignition system for it and due to the unparalleled generosity of some fellow racers have come home with a different carb to try and buy if it works, unbelievable, take it, try it, pay us when we see you again, or let us have it back, thanks Ian, really, really appreciate it.
   On the up side it looked like quite an interesting meet , a fair few sprint bikes about, a lot of "fast" Fords and some FAST Fords, the HRG series reaching it's climax saw a lot of quick street rods and machines and That Jeep, now sporting a fifty cal. on top of the cage !, mental.
   A big thankyou to our LPWM for all of it, we'll see you in a couple of weeks
The truck behaved itself, water light and power all weekend, minor failure on the blown air heating system, probably a blocked filter, same as had us stopping on the way home for five minutes, the glories if travelling in a mobile workshop, tools, consumables, compressed air, washed and back on the road in no time.

   A few of the many bikes..........     

I admire your tenacity bro -or your team's powers of persuasion. Id've gone with the stick idea meself.

Any update? that two weeks mentioned is almost upon us.

In the absence of a full report from Team Pig, (hint, hint), this is the snippet of race info Brock emailed me:

"the car's all apart again while we work through the valve gear. There's a timing problem that I need to get to the bottom of. We did get it back to the 130s though, high gear only and a big miss-fire".

He also sent me a link to one of the press photographer's sites, with a great shot of Black Pig Too. Protected by anti copy software, so go look at it here:

http://peterdonaldson5305.fotopic.net/p61658097.html

    Hmmm, not a great deal to report really, we went, we set up and we tried. All was not well with the Black Thing, a persistant misfire and timing issues that made no sense. We also broke one of the exhausts at the manifold which didn't help. The brand new Red Top is a slightly different size to the old one and will not fit the box and a suspect tyre valve let the left slick down. All of that and three less than special runs saw the weekend done, car's back in the shed, one last chance this year and we're trying to be there.
   People having more success than us were Paul and Emma, the Mustang, Dutton and Honda owning fella and the lovely Emma brought the Dutton and old Honda 600 to the track and joined us for the weekend. They pretty much got their moneys worth in paper alone, with about forteen thousand timing tickets  (give or take a few) to show for their efforts. Neither the car nor the bike disgraced itself and both drivers seemed to take to it all fairly quickly and as a bonus we got to tow the Black Bastard about with their truck.
    As a weekend, not an absolute disaster but not our finest.

   The car is now fully stripped again, another broken collet in the valve gear was pretty much all the visible damage.
    The new MSD box and coil is fitted, since our old original unit was built they have made the boxes bigger, this meant a new sub frame to carry it. The new matching coil is also a different pattern to the old Mallory one and so needed the same treatment. Fitting the leads brought up another small problem, different style of terminals ! Our good friend Ed, one of the drivers of the Ramraider dragster and purveyor of finest racing consumables and safety equipment, made a special trip up to see us bringing a new set of leads, cheers mate. I have stripped the new MSD dizzy and taken out all of the advance springs and weights and locked it out, as long as it starts we don't much care what it is doing below two and a half grand and we want full advance as soon as the throttle is hit, so, less complex and hopefully fewer potential problems, we'll see.

   With the heads off and stripped a thorough clean up was in order, everything was covered in black oily soot, thinners, TFR, Scotchbrite and a bit of effort sorted that. With the valves back in the heads and plugs installed, the chambers were filled with thinners, no leaks, that's a good thing. Paul had been keeping on and on and on and on about lapping the valves, something I wasn't keen on with the machine work we had on the heads. As they held fluid without the springs installed and the guide section clocked true I was happy with them, but he did keep on and on and on and on, so I took them round to see him. he fired up his magic electric lapping tool and went to work, all was well until No. three inlet, a varying thickness of line showed all was not as well as I had thought. Spinning the valve in the lathe showed a wobble on the head. A few phone calls had access to Al's shed next door and a valve facing machine, only then did it become apparent just how wrong I had been, it needed what might be called a fair bit of cutting to get a usable face. No. four inlet was the same. Luckily he had kept on and on and on about it and then gave up several hours of his time to put them right, thank you mate, I appreciate it.

   After the pistons had been cleaned we started the reassembly using full copper head gaskets, just like a propper race car, another first class purchase from Ed, dsracewear.com for those that might need his services.

   The exhausts are on the bench all cleaned and ready to be welded and the rest of the motor is back together, the weekend is looking feasable. The missfire ? could it be that on the last rebuild some clown had installed the cam one tooth advanced ? one of the downsides of doing it all yourself is that there is seldom someone else to direct withering scorn at, shame really.  ::)

Glad you are getting it sorted. Must be so frustrating but will be worh it in the end i'm sure.

I don't really post much in this thread but am a regular and avid reader.

Good luck at the weekend.  ;)

stick with it mucka :) you've come so far with this build ;D

   Cheers Guys, it's been a little bit of a trial to get it running somewhere near to right, quite a few little things conspiring against us and some stupid errors caused by inattention to detail, that'll be me then  :-[ .
   I had a closer look at the exhausts tonight and the right bank is broken on all four primaries against the header plate, No. two is completely sheared. I am going to have to sacrifice the glass coating to get in to weld them and that being the case I may well add a tab to the collector to allow a brace back to the rear of the heads and either have them re-coated or, more likely, have a look at a stainless set for next year.

Keep at it Steve.

   That seems a long while ago, I did, eventually , fully weld the outside of all the pipes and then found a reason to hire in the world's biggest belt sander at work, borrowed it overnight and flatted back the flanges, they are now refitted along with a new carb and after firing it last night, I have to say it sounds a lot better, maybe not quite right but close. We have quite a busy Winter planned for it and to enable us to make a start I popped over to Basingstoke to collect the uprated bellhousing from Andy Robinson's place. I did make a small detour on the way back but to my disappointment the hardy hot rod builders had slipped away for they's tea !

almost a metalflake type finish on that :)

Bugger! What time did you call in Steve? I didn't get there till gone 4pm & didn't leave till gone 7 this evening. Thought you were going to phone first.

that looks like the front bit of a old mini wing with the headlight hole ,  :P

   "almost a metalflake type finish on that"

 Just about the roughest sand casting I have ever seen, it may just get a coat of clear to keep it clean.

  "that looks like the front bit of a old mini wing with the headlight hole"

 Thankyou for that, I'm crushed  :'(

 Andy, I think I was there on Tuesday at about five'ish, just passing by.

The car is now well and truly out of service for a while. I started to strip it down ready to lift the box out and whilst pondering the order of attack decided that it would be a good time to map the position of stuff ready to move the electrics about a bit, this lead on to thinking about battery size and cable runs and that meant a little more stripped off the chassis to get a good look, and so it went......

  By then I was thinking that it was just as easy to cut all the stuff out that needed it now rather than coming back to it later, that meant more stripping down and taking the whole loom and battery box assembly out , Bobbi might be pleased to know that the aluminium sandwich box is on it's way to the scrap bin, I never liked it much either. The floor is now covered with tools, nuts and bolts, and cable and I still haven't got near the gearbox !   

You'll have it done in time. ;D

 ::)  ;D

you love it dontcha mate!... good on ya.

mini front wing... :-X

"You'll have it done in time. ;D"


 117 days and counting :)
 
 He can't be trusted on his own up there, I take a couple of weeks off and we've got no car again.

Already booked three weekends off for next year's events Nostalgia Nationals, Hot rod drags and Super Nationals.

   There was so much I meant to get done over Christmas, actually did nothing ! Getting back into it slowly now, it's a fair job just getting to the shed at the moment but we managed it today. Lit the fire and had a couple of hours on the car. First we lifted the gearbox out, not quite straight forward as I have made it all a bit tight in there, it would have been better to have had enough "slack" in the sliding joint to the transmission to let the rear U/J come fully apart. No matter, we got there in the end, another bit dismantled, possibly the last before starting to put it all back together again. 

   The bellhousing was in far worse condition than even I thought, only the welds between the straps had really held. Part of this may well be down to the fact that we had omitted to replace the temporary bolts holding the rear mount to the chassis when we assembled the car, the plain steel nuts had come loose and let the mount move, the H/T bolts and nylocs are in a labled box on the parts bench, just didn't get fitted  ::)
   The object of the exercise was to replace the bellhousing so I had a tense few minutes trying to decipher the virtually unintelligible, smudged, photocopied instructions before throwing them on the fire and cracking on with it. Luckily it wasn't brain surgery and a bit of time with various cutters and grinders had us close, a bit of fettling with the die grinder had us right.
   With the old bellhousing off the difference was pretty clear to see 

   The casing cleaned back and the new Ultrabell trial fitted, all was looking good. Unfortunately the loctite and torque wrench are in the truck and the locker doors are frozen to their seals, I'll try and thaw them out tomorrow

Its a braver man than me that takes a cutter to a gearbox casing.

ok now that i can see what it is and were it goes it makes sense as there is something to scale it to. and i wasn't insulting you i just thought it looked like the top of a mini wing with a flange. as for the rest i can see it looks like a maxi with big wheels  :P

You do some s**t hot work fare play to yuhs :)

   Well, so far it all seems OK, the box went back in the hole without too much of the sweary stuff, just a few minor nicks in the paint to be touched up, strange really, it was a bit of a pig to get out.




   

   Everything lined up and even the tailshaft mountings went straight into their newly helicoiled holes, so I guess it's all close enough. With all the shields back on (and nyloc'd ) I connected the shifter lever and then went the other side to sort the throttle stop and return spring, aah, that's where the swearing had been hiding ! I'm not sure why this poxy little component has been such a pain, I've had four different ones now, the last was very much a temporary thing to replace one that just disappeared, one minute it was there, the next, gone, bizarre. Anyway, it did the job so I was going to put it back on, however, it fits to the bellhousing, or did. The new Ultra bell is far too pretty and expensive to go drilling holes in and it void the cert. if I did, so, yet another one to make.   

   Even that proved a bit much to do, evo 6 just needs a bit of cleaning and paint and it'll go on. Adjustable for both ends of travel it rests against the firewall and attaches with one of the motor mounting bolts, not brilliant but servicable.

   The new enclosure for the battery and mount for the electrics is nearing completion, I may fit it up tomorrow and start looking at a whole new loom, the old one had some really long runs in it and really just sort of grew, hopefully we can do better this time.

Nice!

When you get the doors open, spray the seals with some silicon lubriant ;)

??  wrong thread?

Thats what happens when you post last thing at night :-[

I knew what you ment ;)

Easy done  ;D

Can't even find the post it was relevent to now ::)

it could be further back in this topic when brock couldnt get into his race truck to get something because the doors were frozen up  ;) ;)

I assumed you were referring to this ;D

Must learn to type with two fingers.

 ;D ;D ;D thinking alike ??? :D :D :D

You know what they say about great minds ;)

 ;D ;D ;D

Thats the one :D Cheers! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,probably managed to get inside by now ::)

I think you will find it in this thread  ;D
http://www.mankymonkeymotors.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=6985.0

As well >:(

I remember - I guess Afghanman has slow reactions!

 ;D

   glad to see you've been amusing yourselves, I've been fighting motivational issues with this for a week or two, back on it now though.
   Gearbox all bolted and tight, everything fitted as it should, so that's good. Battery moved from below the axle to it's new mounting cradle and new electrics tray finished, painted and installed, had to slice the side off of one of the bolt heads to get the steering linkage past, no wasted space here ! 3mm rubber lining bonded into battery cradle and then ripped out and replaced with 1mm so that the battery would actually go in, properly snug. Ignition system bolted to tray , all new wiring, much shorter runs and everything now earthed directly to the battery. I moved the fuel pump and ignition switches down to the tray as I had managed to snag them with my fire suit and turn them off at least once and we only really use them when testing stuff. 

   Patched the floor below the axle where the old battery tray was, I like rivetted ali I do

   I stripped the parachute pack and added a stiffening plate in the back of it to prevent the fabric being pulled against the mounting bolts and then repacked it, that's a skill still to be learned. I did some work on the rear body section, added a couple of lower front mounts to help keep it held in tight to the tin work and then added a relief around the master switch, just a bit more tidy and easier to get to

   Minutes later, while testing the connections ready to fire it up tomorrow, the master switch failed. No drama , flashes or bangs, just stopped working ! Bloody brilliant, none of the others I have will fit the mounting plate and I have just repainted the chassis and cut the body ! time to go home and consider it.

Just join the two wires together so we all know if it works  ::)

   I resisted the temptation and bought another switch ! I still couldn't quite force myself to pay nearly sixty quid for a metal handled one so plastic it was. Next job, put a metal handle on it. 

    I had some of the "good" aluminium left from the motor plate on the altered ( the other new car ! ) so, with a bit of careful marking out and some fine filing and a shed load of M4 holes tapped we have something that will work and allow the fitment of a remote cable device at a future date.
   Hopefully fit it all up tomorrow and test it through, top the transmission up and fire it at the weekend, we'll see.

some great work going on there mate.

  Cheers Dave, all fitted up tonight and everything works, now. The master switch is slightly larger in the body than the last one which meant it was a tight fit and tighter still to get the locking nuts on, the terminals are 90 degrees out from the last one so all the main cables had to be untied and a little slack found to get the battery lead to reach cleanly. Once that was sorted I threw the switch and started to test through the system. The first problem was there was nothing other than a feed to the starter, finally traced to a terminal having been pulled off the internal cut off switch when I sleeved and tied the loom. Tighten the terminals and introduce a little more slack and that was solved, bit of a bugger to work inside the diff cover with the wheels and body on though. With the internal switch working as it should everything other than the oil pressure light worked first time. We use a diode type lamp for the oil pressure, powered through the white lead and earthed through the black to the switch in the block, ah, powered through the black and earthed through the white, I see. Laid full length on a board along the top of the car, soldering upside down inside the diff cover, viewed through a Triumph Spitfire wing mirror with a Maglite gripped in my teeth, nothing if not an interesting evening. Lower tin work installed, all the screws loctited and lock nuts too, and the car back on the ground.
   Tomorrow I will dip, clean and gap the plugs, check the fluid levels and maybe even fire it, again, we'll see.

as always  ;)

   Thank you gentlemen, if only you knew. Does this look familiar ?

   We did fire it, it didn't like it much. It took a lot of effort to light it up and then it wouldn't idle, none of the carb adjustments made any difference to it, the random but persistant misfire was still there and it's far, far too rich. To start with I had it in mind that there might have been an issue with the power valve in the carb letting extra fuel by but a vacuum check showed that was the right one and the diaphragm is good, the jets are pretty much where they should be ( and shouldn't be drawing on idle anyway), the idle circuits and air bleeds are as The Book and clean, fuel pressure is good, float levels are good, that pretty much covered the fuel side of it. The plugs are new, cleaned, gapped and tested both on the bench and on their leads. I must have pulled it through to No 1 TDC and set the static timing about a million times but couldn't get it to run cleanly enough to put a light on it. It was behaving like the timing was out, but not consistently. A nasty nagging thought was starting to form, time to go in, hopefully not too late.   

   We run solid lifters (tappets) and roller tipped rockers on this motor and they need to be adjusted for clearance fairly regularly, it's a little job I quite enjoy so they are always pretty close to spec. 17 thou cold is the figure, first picture is No 5 exhaust, just happened to be the one closest to the right place to check. Slight drag on the feeler, just right. Second shot shows No1 exhaust, the 5/8" spanner isn't really the recommended gauge but just the first thing I picked up, I could probably have got two of them in there, we may have a problem !
   Tomorrow we will start working our way down to where the probem lies checking for damage on the way in. The right head is already stripped down ready to lift off and already we have three sets of broken spring retainers and two rockers showing witness marks where there shouldn't have been contact. More as it happens, unless the shed burns down, but I expect even that's too wet for me to get a decent blaze going  ;D 

   After yesterday it was obvious that we were going to have to go in quite deep to sort this, so today we did. Motor out and a complete nut and bolt strip down, again. Some stuff was expected and there, some was unexpected but still there, and some stuff wasn't as bad as could have been, on balance a sort of OK result.

   The heads are easiest to strip whilst still on the block, so off with all the rocker gear and have a look at that. Several broken retainers and a bit of contact on one of the rockers

   Anyone pay any attention to that first photo ? Below is number one exhast lifter

    and compared to an unscathed one

   The cam is obviously shagged as well but I don't seem to have any pictures of that, maybe the camera's bolloxed too ! Cam bearings in the front half of the block are showing signs from the debris and will have to be changed which means the rear core plugs will have to come out, put them on the list !

Bug*er!!!! Shouldn't look like that I reckon!!!!!!!! :D

hope it's nothing too terminal buddy, as I've really been enjoying this build. Waaaaay above my abilities, but good to see what others (with more skill than I) can achieve!! Makes my not being able to remember which way to put a caliper back together into insignificance!!

Clive

   With the heads stripped it was an easy job to get to all the nuts and release them. With the heads off and the pistons and gaskets exposed the "richness" and misfire revealed itself.

   hey Clive, piece of piss to bugger it up like this mate, the tricky bit is getting it right  :D

Mate, I can get buggering up right ALL the time!! :D

Clive

   We haven't used the copper gaskets before and the best info we could get said to torque them as normal, so we did. They have obviously failed between the centre two pots ( both sides the same) and also let oil by, the water ways also had oil in them. I may hang them up as garage art and revert to Mr. Felpro's best composite ones.
   Clive, you'd fit right in

   After drawing the cam and releasing the torque converter we lifted the motor out and turned it over. The crank weights show impact marks from fairly large bits of debris as do the undersides of the pistons. I was pretty savage about it all by now and loosened the rod journals and knocked the pistons and rod assemblies out expecting the worst. Apart from some light scuff marks on the skirts they seem OK, even the bearings were reasonable, but will be changed, where's that list. Last out were the mains caps and crank, all remarkably clean considering what has been going on in there.   

   So, now it's fully stripped and we can start cleaning and really closely looking at stuff, it's certainly not as bad as it could have been, but not pretty. Minimum required will be cam, lifters, retainers, bearings for cam, rod and crank, gaskets, oil and filter. It is time to sit back and have a bit of a think about all of this and decide if we just replace like for like or step up a level, cost will determine it. There is also the issue of what happened first and why, heads will be scratched, chins stroked knowingly, perhaps a bit of nodding, and then we will nail it all back together again and see what breaks next  ::)   

Ooooooohhhh, bugger.
That's gonna be the most expensive engine never to run down the strip Steve.

 "That's gonna be the most expensive engine never to run down the strip Steve."

No that one's still across the pond ;D

 ;D
Can't remember -have you told the boys & girls about that one? I'm losing track of your stable of race cars. How many you got now? Is the Yankee motor destined for the Moggy Minor bodied Altered?

Come on, keep up at the back  >:(
http://www.mankymonkeymotors.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=4214.105

"Come on, keep up at the back "

 Thanks matey.

Just had a management meeting in the pub, to discuss our options. ;)

After a quick look he found the problem  ;D
(http://www.rodsnsods.co.uk/forum/imagehosting/3324b11a2768d67c.jpg)

   hmmm, not ours but just about the same cost to put right ! So far we are looking at Cam, Cam bearings, oil gallery plugs, lifters (possibly rollers), pushrods, guide plates, springs, caps and retainers, main bearings, rod journals, oil pump, timing chain set ( or maybe gears !) head gaskets, possible head skim, more oil and another bloody filter ! It looks like two concurrent problems, one part masking the other. The cam problem, I think, started with a little valve/piston contact, this in turn possibly promoted by weakened springs ? this wasn't spotted at the time as we were chasing a misfire and strange fueling issues. These were squarely down to the new copper head gaskets not sealing, letting oil into the bores and blowing through the centre two pots on both sides. The gaskets are good and work well on other combinations, just not ours, apparently, still, they'll polish up nice and look good on the wall. So, piss poor diagnostics (that'll be me) and failing to make the decision to fully strip it earlier (er, that's me too ) another leason maybe learned. We are currently awaiting quotes before deciding which way to go with this mess.

That's some tough mice you had in that engine Brock!   :(

 "We are currently awaiting quotes before deciding which way to go with this mess."

What he actualy means is he's waiting for quotes before he tells me how much more the b****y thing is going to cost me ;)

And the out come is,an order to real steel for new cam bearings,oil pump,head gasket,big ends and a new catalogue (F.O.C if you spend over £*** with them).

Several phone calls to our contact over the pond and lots of deliberating on how much we actualy need to spend as opposed to how much we want to spend, if any one can remember as far back as the start of this project, it was supposed to be a cheap and quick project to get us out on the track last year while we waited for the new engine to arrive for the new altered. (After 27 years with Brock you'd think I would know by now his idea of it won't take long isn't what the rest of us would term as not taking long),the outcome was we would have a shiny new cam and valve spring set to be shipped within a week.

Now bearing in mind how long we've been waiting for the other engine to arrive, when Brock said the Cam would be with us a week Monday (15th), I became very despondant thinking well that's it there's no chance we'll be at the track Easter weekend, so I had quite a shock yesterday morning when the door bell rang and low and behold there was the little man from fedex stood on my doorstep with new cam in hand.
Excellent service as it was still in San Clemente on 11th, 4 days door to door.

Now if only Brock can get him to deliver the engine ;) 


Oh and all things being equal Avonpark here we come ;D

   yep, big box from Mr. Fedex containing all we asked for. New cam, lifters, springs, inner springs, inter springs, titanium caps and locks, valve seals, lubes and gaskets, all packed in local newspapers, anyone want to buy a four bed, three bath house in gated comunity with own pool, $285,000 available immediately due to mortgage default, I'll look at the shiney bits instead.

  Cam looks nice, very clean and sharp, and so it should be. Lifters are solid with extra oiling hole in base. Titanium caps really are noticably lighter than steel ones. Springs go boing. A switch in gasket from copper to the steel shim took static compression from 11.4:1 to 12.6:1 simply by reducing thickness and having a tighter bore clearance, shouldn't take long to bugger that little lot up.

   Tonight we dialed in true TDC on number one, lubed the cam up, fitted it in and set the gears and spent an hour or so checking the specs on the card against the actual installation, all pretty close, as in parts of a degree out, I'm willing to write that off as being due to having a mil thick pointer on the wheel, should maybe have ground a point on it. Still, so far so good.

dont copper gaskets usually have piano wire too?

   Hey sam, according to the manufacturer we should have been good up to 14:1 static before it needed O ringing, something obviously not quite right there though. Heads and block check out Ok for flatness and I'm pretty confident about my torque wrench, but, I don't remember retorqueing the heads after the first weekend, it may have been missed while we were busy trying to kill the motor in other ways

   bit of a delay whilst I played games with the cam timing, I thought that it would be a good idea to get a feel for what is happening when I move the cam timing about, having the block stripped and a DTI mounted seemed to be the right time to do that, answer, keep it where it should be, any more than eight degrees advance leads to contact with the rod shoulders, see, I would have done it and wondered where all that swarf was coming from !
   So, here we are again short block buttoned up and in the rails, heads built up and old outer springs mounted

   yesterday we set the lash, built the top end up, cobbled together a water system to keep it all cool...ish and after a deep breath fired it up. It needed to run for about half an hour at a fairly fast tickover to break the new cam in, basically to seat the new lifters to the relevant lobes and hopefully get all the assembly lube out of the system. All went swimmingly well, quite bizarre really.

   Today we drained the oil and sieved it, all very clean and just like it should be, sort of black and sticky from all the zinc and other additives we flung in it. Next we stripped the heads, re-torqued them and replaced the springs with the new 400lb ones, new titanium caps and locks and had a brief look at the rockers before reassembly, that's where it went slightly awry. Two rockers had impact marks from the spring packs and, a little more worryingly, four had heavy scoring under them from contact with head studs.

   I pulled the offending studs out, checked the threads, measured them, measured the depth of the heads, reset them and measured the projection, all exactly as it should be and as it ever could have been, strange. No problem to us though, out with the die grinder and dremmel and relieve them a bit more, keep telling ourselves "this is engine building, not just assembly" ! As I was doing the last one a faint glimmer of light glowed above me, was that a thought ? Check the cam spec card, just as I thought, to get the extra lift the cam is ground on a small base circle, this means that the lifters have to go deeper in the bores to reach it, in turn the pushrods do the same and this means that the rockers need to be lower on the posts  to achieve that lash figure, if I had thought it through before I would have ordered 0.10" longer push rods, however !

   Finally we nailed it all back together, topped up the oil, that's nearly four gallons this weekend, and fired it up again. With the heavy springs in there was no need to be gentle with the revs, so we weren't, nice !

Be honest -does anybody here have any idea what he's talking about?  :P

   nope, not a clue. Pretty much sums up the entire endeavour really.

   Some of the problems we have encountered can be traced back to faults in the major components, the block is a '76 vintage and we have soundly beat it about for some years now, That Time is nearly upon us, evidenced by failure of previous repairs and even the mighty Helicoil letting us down, next time round I am going to have to do some fairly intensive work to the cylinder deck area and have a real close look at the heads, or go to plan B.
   Thanks to a fellow racer, Dex, wanting to be out of some of his surplus stock, and Scotty ( http://www.movinghotrods.co.uk/ ) wizzing around the country, we are now the proud (?) owners of a high nickel four bolt block and a host of associated gubbins just right for a bit of a refurb and another build. It'll be a true budget job this time as I want to build a lot of the "special" bits myself, (they'll be special all right ! ) I'm thinking tall tunnel ram with twin 650's and big exhaust valves  ;) There's a couple of other projects in front of it in the queue but we'll get there

I do ;D

just in case, i have 2 spare sbc in garage, and some boxes of very shiny things in loft if you run out of engines   ;D ;)

do you engineer blue valves to see if contact pad is central to rollers?

Me too!

I got a few of the words in his last post!! :D

Problems....faults....failure....budget....'special'....other projects

they all seem to be in my vocabulary fairly often. The rest............................................not a clue!!!!! ???

Clive

now to really confuse ya all what about harmonic balancing then? and that dont mean the big ring on the crank pulley ;D correct answer wins a packet of jaffa cakes ;D

Is that where you get a big weight attached to the exhaust (Or other part of a car) to stop resonance??

   I was talking to a young lad at work the other day, he was trying to explain about a damper that made exhausts quieter, did I dismiss him too lightly ?

   Problems....faults....failure....  crop up far too often for my liking

   Sam, if you ever find yourself in the strange position of having too much of Mr Chevrolet's kit laying around ( almost inconceivable I know ) you know where to find us, if I'm allowed full rein with the next one there will be breakage before I master it, and yes, we blued the valve tips, although round here that looks very much like a big felt tip pen, the contact is further back than ideal, as you might expect with the pushrod thing, but acceptable. I'm on the phone to the Colonies later in the week to sort the proper solution.

im just wondering if a stud girdle would help on rockers moving, plus i was under the impression contact point of roller was critical rather than close enough and adjusted with shims and different length pushrods to suit...

im a big fan of composite gaskets rather than copper, never had much look with copper gaskets personally..

Sam.
ps.

this is an interesting read mate..

http://www.centuryperformance.com/adjusting-valve-lash-spg-149.html
http://www.thedirtforum.com/pushrodlengths.htm

Yep  ::)

   sorry guys, missed this when it was posted.

  "i was under the impression contact point of roller was critical rather than close enough and adjusted with shims and different length pushrods to suit..."

   just playing with you Sam  ;D, the springs are shimmed to common height, I don't know if it shows anywhere in the photos but you might be able to see the different colours at the base of the springs, not sure why but some of the shims are bright polished and some are blued, has no relevance to the marked or measured thickness. After a few runs ( or whenever we are at the track at the same time as the guy with the tool) we will check the spring rates, strip the rocker gear and check the heights again to see how it has all settled in.
   Push rod length is the key to getting the geometry right but as with all things Black Pig it wasn't quite as simple as it could have been. I had lost, missplaced or lent my adjustable rod and didn't really have the time to buy or make another, so, I turned up a couple of bits of bar stock to a length that I knew would be too long with the ends radiused as the push rods and spent a couple of hours blueing the valve tip, fitting it up, rolling the motor over, strip it, machine ten thou' off and go again. When the first one showed signs of reversal I knew that I was within ten thou' of right and machined the second one ten bigger and tried again coming down in fives. As it happened I ended up with a measurement of 8.003 and as 8" is a "standard" they would do. Ordered Thursday night, delivered Monday morning, just the job.

Comp heavy duty 7.8", standard 7.8", two dummies

   The links made interesting reading, the point at which the roller is central to the tip seems to have several different theories applied to it apparently dependant on who your favorite engine builder is ?, aiming for the point of maximum flow, maximum lift or maximum anything else that takes your fancy, I fancy maximum lift and therefor, but not necessarily, against maximum spring weight. in all honesty it's a fine judgement call when the entire swept contact patch is only about 100 thou' wide, but I think we are close  ;)
   On lashing the valves I am firmly in the camp of doing it cold, just don't guess at the figure or trust what anyone else says. I spent a week of evenings running it up to temp and lashing hot then coming back the following day and measuring cold, mess with it a little, fire it up and lash them to spec hot, return the following day etc. I now have a figure that lets me quietly do the job in the morning at the track whilst all around me people are bathing in hot oil and the air is filled with the yelps that signify flesh to exhaust contact. It's also relevant, I think, that my engine won't change temperature by a degree while I'm doing the job whilst it's entirely possible to see 200 degrees in an ali head once it's heat soaked after running up and it'll be giving that off as fast as it can in an attempt to regain a balance with the days ambient temperature, possibly as much as fifty degrees during the time it takes to do the job ? surely that must have an effect on the figures. As always, just an opinion.

   Oh, Tony, I'll see you in the morning, which you'll already know of course as that was yesterday, and we'll see how the next chapter of this saga unfolds

shame you dont get oop north more, would be interesting chat  ;D

will take pic of my spares colection tomorrow ;).

sam

So...how did the racing go Brock?

spares collection in loft..   ;)

Now you've gone and done it now :o

and before I forget

   How did the racing go ? it didn't really, had a nice weekend sat in the sun though. Heads are currently away for some machine work and the block is having a couple of repairs that are so hillbilly that I'm not prepared to mention them further  :D. As these are the only two components left untouched from last year it seemed only fair to give them some attention. I think we are now at the bottom of the troubles we have seen and have high hopes for next time out (again !)
   Sam, you are a Bad Man hoarding kit like that, what are the heads, they'm pretty. It would be good to meet sometime, and I'm sure it would be interesting, although that can go two ways, only one of them good  ;D
   And Mate, it took a while, but that's an exhaust damper isn't it

yep ;)

they are pbm strike force heads with oversize valves, phospher guides etc..

its basically a full top end kit and cam to pop on one of spare engines when i get bottom end sorted on one of em..

need a crank for one as its spun a shell..

   been a while but with less than a week before the Hot Rods the Black thing is safely tucked up in the truck all ready to go and we are in front of the game for once....












    .......Oh No, that was all a dream ! with less than a week to go , whilst changing the cam timing and taking the opportunity to swap the gear set back in as I now have a very nice two piece timing cover with adjustable bearing'd cam button, I noticed something amiss at the front of the crank. Pulling the remains of the number one mains bearing out of the front of the block wasn't in the plan. I now have a crank just like Sam's !
   I will pull the crank tomorrow night, or at least Lesley will while I build a new sump, rebuild the oil pump and modify the pickup, but it's not looking good, I will be lucky to save the mains cap let alone the crank. New sump and bearings arrive tomorrow, block goes in the tank tomorrow night, everything else gets spirit washed and inspected Saturday, decisions will be made, Sunday sees the rebuild start, a hundred and sixty odd hours to go, no sleep 'till Long Marston ! 

Ahh, the joys of racing. Wouldn't be the same without the traditional last minute complete strip down & rebuild would it.  :P
Good luck guys. Taz & I should be there next Sunday to cheer you on.  ;)