Aluminum (... waste of)

Imagine how many Seven one could have build with all that aluminum. What a waste! :-)
Cheers.

Current

With the bike battery being small and light, its capacity is lower than a car's battery. That's why I always connect it to a tickler to keep the charge. The new garage has no current yet, so out I went and bought a photovoltaic module and controller. The sun shining through the large window will allow this setup to keep the battery alive for future blatting.
Cheers.

Collecting

With temperatures of 38°C (100+°F) I'm not driving the seven and I'm not doing any mechanics. I will wait for winter and continue to collect stuff. Recently I was offered to buy pistons with 0.110 overbore. Since you normally only find some with 0.090, I bought them for the old engine block waiting. Next week I shall collect a T9 gearbox, so I can make a complete assembly and swap the engine together with the gearbox.
Cheers.

Stuff for free

A german enthusiast had this gearbox laying around and offered it to me for free. Well, I had to pick it up and he lives some 500km away. This made me a nice trip to northern Germany with the wife and some straps in the trunk. I will keep it as a spare. It is a 4speed from a Ford Taunus/Cortina.
Cheers.

More plans

With an even beefier engine, I will, at some point, want or need a limited slip differential (LSD). Therefore and for reasons of availability, I recently purchased a bespoke Westfield axle housing. This is mated to the Mk2 Ford Escort differential carrier and then bolted to the chassis via metalastic bushes (or Nylon if you prefer). Those housings are quite rare and when one came up for sale, I didn't hesitate. Today it was delivered and there are even oil seals mounted where the drive shafts enter the housing. Now I will have a look for a complete LSD diff and the front housing.
Cheers.

Plans for another engine

For some time now I started to collect engine parts to maybe some day assemble my first ever engine. Latest acquisition is a lightend and balanced flywheel with pressure plate and clutch. That flywheel is out of a Vegantune X-flow and is based on a standard flywheel. Another engine I recently bought came with an even lighter flywheel, but I don't know where it comes from. Both have 110 teeth gear rings. This gives me a choice of two (6kg or 6.6kg). Steel flywheels normally are sub 5kg.
The pressure plate apparently has been balanced as well since it spots some holes in the cover. It weighs around 3.6kg. I don't know if I will use the clutch disc, I may opt for a new one. The Sierra Type 9 gearbox needs a 1" 23spline pattern and I also have a very old (and very light!) four speed box, with a 7/8" 20spline pattern. That pattern is the right one for the clutch disc included with the Vegantune flywheel and pressure plate.
Some more parts to purchase from now to next winter, and maybe then I will assemble a nice, high revving, well balanced and powerfull X-flow.
Cheers.

Valves

Finally found some motivation to drive to that winter cold garage of mine for a short mechanical investigation on that second hand engine I bought. With the inlet and exhaust valves almost touching each other, I was curious about the exact measurements. The inlet is 41.3mm thus being exactly what I have in my engine now and the second biggest.
Available at Burton at the time being:
38.15mm
39.3mm
40.6mm
41.3mm
42.7mm
The exhaust valve is 34.9mm compared to 34.0mm actually in my engine.
Available at Burton at the time being:
31.6mm
34.5mm
34.9mm
36.0mm
36.2mm
So really nothing spectacular to report here. At first sight, the remaining flange between the valves looks quite narrow, but it is always best to unmount the parts when measuring. There is still some possible improvement when preparing the cylinder head of the replacement engine.
Cheers.

Brian Hart oil pump

Once a big name in racing engines, I was happy to discover that my second-(or more)hand engine has a Brian Hart dry sump oil pump. For a small introduction to the man, please refer to this Wiki. For my part, I started to clean that beauty the old-fashioned way with brake-cleaner, emery paper and a toothbrush.
Cheers.

Stack is back

Some weeks ago I sent my Stack odo/tachometer to ISA-Racing for repair. An uncommon fault... the needle was broken. Got it back today, repaired at the firm's expense! Happy!
Cheers.

Engine dismantling

So here we go for the first parts to come off:
Oilpan (top and bottom)
Aldon distributor
Rocker cover
Rocker shaft
Unfortunately I only took the metric tools with me and I couldn't get off the head to check the valves. This leaves some excitement for next time ;-)
Cheers.

Back-up engine

The idea was to buy an engine for back-up. Now this engine has some goodies aboard I didn't expect. A quick look showed duplex timing chain, twin valve springs, Brian Hart dry sump pump and pan... I'm looking forward to inspect more closely what the builder did to the crankshaft, conrods and pistons. One more challenge: how to plumb in a dry sump lubrication system???
Cheers.

Semi Slick Toyo Proxxes R888 185/60R13

 

So here we go for another change, up front to start with. Size comparison shows a slight increase in width from the 175mm Federal. Weight is plus 1kg which makes 13,2kg and 172,5cm circumference on a Minilite 6.5J/R13 rim. No balancing weight needed which says something about the tire quality as well. I will have to adapt the cycle wing to the new size.
Cheers.

"Winter" tires

For some time now I wanted to switch to 13" tires. My favourite rims are the KN Jupiter, quite an old design but looking good. When I bought them, I didn't pay attention to the bolt scheme and couldn't mount them. I keep them stocked, maybe one day they will end as decoration for a new garage...

My second choice is the classic Minilite style. A good friend sold me a set with Federal tires and I really like the look it gives to my car.
But it is not all about looks! This car type is all about weight to power ratio. Since I don't have a lot of power, weight savings are very welcome. Here we go, let's talk about figures:
What I had on the car until now at the front 195mm 15" Revolution rim 16.9kg
What I had on the car until now at the rear  225mm 15" Revolution rim 18.0kg
What I have now on the car at the front       175mm 13"     Minilite rim 12.2kg
What I have now on the car at the rear        205mm 13"     Minilite rim 14.2kg
Ok, the front tires are quite small and I may opt for 185 or 195 when I switch to semi-slicks, but at least I want to drive the car for test with the Federal tires for some time. Net weight savings:
front 4.7kg per side = 9.4kg
rear  3.8kg per side = 7.6kg
for a total of 17kg
Impressive!
Cheers.

Brake liquid level

Lights set, CO was ok right from the beginning (lambda control seems to work fine), bushing was a tight fit... but it was supposed to be, there was something left called BRAKE FLUID RESERVOIR LIQUID LEVEL INDICATOR CONTROL LIGHT ! To cut a long story short, if they want to check for the level at tech control, the reservoir normally has to be transparent. Since my car has solid aluminium reservoirs, I added a control light for the level indicators. The test button serves to check wether the bulb works or not. Fingers crossed for tech control on Friday!
Cheers.

Tech control prep

Technical control booked for next Friday and still some work to do.
List:
- driving light setting and control of all the bulbs
- control of CO and maybe some mapping to be on the safe side
- cabling of brake reservoir level sensor
- diff mounting bushes ...
... one being worn out beyond repair, I turned a new bushing on the lathe using Nylon. I will fit it this weekend to check and then renew all the other bushings as well.
Cheers.

... and talking about vibrations, AGAIN!

Maybe one of the last indian summer days to drive my Seven was yesterday, but when I started the engine, the needle of my Stack rev counter just broke :-( One more on the list of winter projects.
Cheers.

Rust + vibrations = fracture

Only a frew droplets of coolant on the garage floor and a loose waterpump mounting bolt... but when I wanted to tighten it, it showed that the bolt had broken. Since it is the same bolt used to tense the belt, vibrations may have killed it together with some rust inside the block. I had to use an 'easyout', a conical left drill bit, to get the remainings of the bolt out of the block. An M8 Helicoil repair kit did the rest. Always thrilling to bore into the block. Remount with new gasket and stainless bolt.
Cheers.

Cosmetics

While experimenting with the lambda sensor, I had more or less tinkered an adaptor to the old exhaust. Not beautiful, but functional. With a used exhaust offered from a friend, I took the opportunity to change for a permanent installation. It's an original Westfield can, but I had to weld a lambda boss to it and made a few other mods prior to mounting.
The pic shows the close to finished work in comparison with the old exhaust tube. I have to weld the rear support for the can but haven't started the engine yet. Curious to know how it sounds with the new can.
Funny enough, there is a part numbers match between the can and the manifold I purchased four years ago from another seven driver (16521 to be found both on the can and the manifold).
Cheers.

Daytrip

 

Short trip to Lorraine/France, a mere 50km from home but already some vacation feeling.
Cheers.

Feet position

Conversion to floor mounted pedals generated an unwanted drawback: the feet position was not ideal. To hit the pedal as supposed to, I had to heel off. Now I added a small pedestal to allow the ball of the foot to push the pedal at the right height.
Cheers.

Exhaust manifold heat management

The big exhaust manifold produces a lot of heat. Most of it finds its way to the driver's feet and legs. With the narrow body and the gearbox sitting midship, summer drives closely resemble a sauna trip. Adding this panel helps to derive hot air from the engine compartment to the outside. The opening is there since the rebuild and is not original (like so many things on my car). Test drives show improvement, but I'm also tempted to add more heat insulation.
Cheers.

Icecream rest

Shady spot for my old lady while resting with some icecream. Will definitively have to do something about heat management and those 'original' but ugly doors.
Cheers.

Luggage rack

This is the quick 'n dirty rainy Saturday after-noon stick together what remains in your bin. Two pieces of wood (28x4cm), four aluminium rods (48cm) and a little paint... TADA... The old suitcase comes from a flea market in France and will only be strapped on for longer trips.
Cheers.

SSF-Meeting in Luxembourg

A bunch of Simply Seven Forum members met in Luxembourg last weekend. Although the weather was awful with heavy rain during the Saturday ride, the mood was excellent. An expert photographer took pictures and I only slightly blurred the background in above photo taken by Lupo.
Cheers.

Stoned

Roadworks in my area give for a nice backdrop.
Cheers.