Adaptor to cover

Since I changed the crankshaft ventilation, I always had some engine oil spilled all over the bay. Some recommend to connect it to the rocker cover, so I had to modify it. Bore a hole of 8.5mm, thread it to 1/8"27 and loctite an adaptor to Dash 6 ... here we go. Test drive soon!
Cheers.

Rear brakes (MOT fail)

The ACL is the luxembourgish (national) automobile club. Some years ago, they started to offer MOT for young- and oldtimers. This year was a first for me to try this service out. Unfortunately, my car failed the brakes test due to a rotten rear wheel cylinder. When I disassembled it, I found a completely blocked cylinder at the rear left. I made my shopping list:
rear wheel cylinder - Hitec H27270 (19mm)
rear brake shoes - TRW GS6125 (38x203mm)
shoe fitting kit (springs) - Hitec H7514

The cylinder is measured inwards and not at the stub protruding, the shoes measurements are simply measured width per length of the brake pad glued to its carrier. The next post will be about the reassembly.
Cheers.

New hose

Crankcase and rocker cover breathing hose redone with Aeroquip fittings, everything cleaned and delete of breather box (see previous post). Next modification will be some sort of protection for the oilsump and connecting plate to the gearbox.
Cheers.

Crank case breather box

original breather box                               modified aeroquip fuel filter casing

fuel filter casing                                       position on block

breather elbow from Burton

The engine recently started to spill some oil out of the dipstick and the crank case breather box. A known issue with tuned engines running high rpm and big oil pumps and high oil pressure. The internet is full of modifications to remedy this problem. Burton is a supplier for Kent xflow engine aftermarket parts and has some usefull information on their internet site. Since I haven't anything else to order, I was looking for some other solution than the elbow they suggest to use instead of the crank case breather box. By chance, I had a fuel filter lying around with almost the same diameter than the original nozzle going into the engine. After some modification on the lathe, I fabricated my own adapter to which I now can connect an aeroquip aluminium connector and matching oil conduct.
Cheers.

Coyote

This weekend I made a test with a radar warning device named Coyote. It is legal and not only shows fixed and mobile speed controls, but also accidents, traffic jams or obstructions on the road ahead. I positioned it fairly in my field of view and it is quite pleasant to drive this way. My +300km trip through Luxembourg went without any major issue. I let her cool down before I stored her in the garage until the next blat.

Cheers.

Just another rainy weekend... + update

How do you call the day after two days rain? - Monday!
Yet another rainy weekend without any possibility to drive. Since I had the digital read outs (DRO) laying around for two weeks, I decided to convert my Proxxon mill. X-axis done.
(Y-axis done soon after, I only added the proof pic)
Cheers.

Official insurance shots

Since the rebuilt, I was driving with just the minimum of risk coverage to keep charges low. But always with that memory of lots of cash spent for parts, workshop rental and tools in mind, I didn't feel right. Lately my insurance company came up with a good deal for a new kind of tariff for car collectors and classic car drivers. They needed to know the average mileage per year and wanted current pics, so with the fine weather on last Saturday, I took the shots above. Consider this to be the "official shots".
Cheers.

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.