Project Coalnotdole's Scimitar - Machining work: Speedometer Drive Unit 12/4/19

[dozeydustman]

Great thread.

I hope to start my 6B restoration this spring. It is not too bad at all but I want to completely sort it for a long term keeper.  I bought the last new galvanized chassis from GW and reputedly the last two middlebridge bumpers. I was looking at a 4.0 Bronco V6 which is supposed to fit the std box. Mine is a 2.8 cologne with the OD box. Not man enough! 

 

Hope to go LPG direct injection as my Rover 800 LPG works really well. A King system. Again box issues are will the std unit handle it even if rebuilt? I really want to keep O/D as it is part of the character.

 

The standard manual box in a Scimitar is a modified to fit Ford Type-5 with a Laycock J-type overdrive, which was designed for the Essex V6's torque and was from what I can make out used in Racing 3-litre capris during the 1970s. I think max torque through one of these is around 250lb ft before they get fragile. They are much tougher than the Type-9. It's basically a heavier-duty version of the "bullet" 2000E gearbox. 

 

To fit a Cologne 4-litre, like the 2.9 Sheefag mentioned yesterday it might not bolt straight up to the block without an adaptor plate, in which case a T-5 might be your best bet. The MT75 could work with it, but max torque would be about the same as a Type-9 (180lb ft) without uprating unless you can find one out of a 2wd Cosworth. The 4-litre in OHV form is also a bit bigger than the 2.8/2.9 so would it fit easily without hassle? The OHC version would certainly need a lot of faff to fit.

[Sheefag]

Someone mentioned this firm in another thread that I can't find now. Might be worth considering for the rear screen.

 

https://www.plastics4performance.com/window-kits-windscreens/reliant-scimitar-lexan-rear-screen.html

 

https://www.facebook.com/Plastics4Performance/?eid=ARAc5mMbIqliCEXDScwc-9Pk3pl13VaACSOj_otsVk_Qrqzdk4LD4C_J8yfEB3wY6k3bBZEaUoAophG5

 

[Sheefag]

Interesting story here:- https://www.flux-capacitor.co.uk/screen-weight-saver/

[coalnotdole]

A Small update...


 

Or maybe it's just far away?


 

The heads have come back from the machinist, new valve seats have been fitted. So all they really need now is the valves lapping in and they can be built back up again. Slightly bizarrely they took it upon themselves to reface the inlet seats as well, I’m not entirely sure why as there was nothing wrong with them…


 

 

 




I sent the block (to a different engineer)  to have the bores checked,

 

 

Thats come back as all ok fortunately so no need to get it honed and I should get away with reusing the piston rings that came off. They also pressed the pistons off the con rods so that they are ready to be sent for balancing.

 




 




They also skimmed the flywheel...


 

 

There's also a plan in progress to DIY modify my existing tubular exhaust manifolds with some eBay parts, this should let me do away with the ball joints and move the collector and lamda sensor forward without the need for getting a new set of tubular downpipes made which was going to cost £££.

 

 

 

Back in December I ordered an uprated clutch from Burton Power but nothing has arrived. Chasing it up I was surprised to find out that it wasn’t likely to be ready until the end of January. AP racing clutches have apparently stopped taking new orders and this has meant the other main UK maker of performance clutches Helix Autosport have found themselves with a much bigger order book than normal, causing delays for anything not already on the shelf. 


 

This is disappointing as I can't get the rebalance under way until the pressure plate is here. So that means I'm probably not going to be putting the engine back together now until the start of February at the earliest.

 

Which I suppose is handy as I still need to sort the front pully / trigger wheel / crank position sensor and as hinted in my last post I've gone off on a gearbox related tangent. Spoiler Alert: ( this tangent involves multiple gearboxes, from different cars all of which are not entirely compatible with each other… Its become complicated and will probably be the cause of many headaches to come...) - Frankenstein's Scimitar will have a monster of gearbox to mach the rest of the car.

 

Cheers For reading

 

Joe

[Sheefag]

This is a great thread Joe.

[coalnotdole]

T5 Gearbox.

I've bought a gearbox... I Spent ages looking for a decent Cosworth gearbox at a reasonable price and to be quite honest I struggled, Some sellers were after £1200 for a gearbox that almost certainly needed a complete rebuild... (which costs IRO £1500+ If you send it to a specialist.) I've also run up against the fact that a lot of them have been used intensively and the newest of them was probably made in 1992...

I kept coming back to the TVR version as there do seem to be a lot of them out there with low milages. It is unfortunately quite different to the Cosworth box. Save for the fact that the clutch splines on both have 23 teeth (same as the GTE.)

The tailshaft housings are different, on the TVR's the gear stick is further forward. Also TVR boxes have no speedometer drive unit and the number of splines on the propshaft are different. There are other internal differences too... Mainshafts, 5th gear clusters all sorts of stuff which are unique to each different variety of T5.

The T5 World class Gearbox it seems comes in many different types. The US ones are not really that well suited to my application, They tend to use a 9 spline clutch, they have quite different gear ratios and 5th gear tends to have a lower final ratio than those made for the European market. The Cosworth T5 is a bit of a bastard offshoot with many of its internal parts being unique to it. The TVR box is marginally better, as it shares some commonality with T5's produced for GM applications.

There is a huge aftermarket parts industry for the T5 in the USA where they are very common, predictably most of the bits are geared towards the GM / Ford applications. Its very unclear which parts are shared in common between the gearboxes and which are not. Certainly there are far more differences than you would expect!

Heres' the gearbox I bought, a pallet of mystery misery!



Its a gearbox from a low milage, TVR Cerbera Speed 6. Its pretty much complete as removed from the car, I'll not be using the bellhousing or any of the TVR gear selector customisation. Coming soon to eBay...



First thing to notice is that TVR have cut the gear selector right down so thats going to need attention before I can fit a normal gear stick on there. TVR have also done their own thing with the reverse light switch!





Next step was to take the blank out that was blocking where a speedometer drive gear would run.





Which has revealed (predictably) that there is no drive gear presently fitted to the mainshaft, but there is a hole to mount one on the mainshaft. (Sorry rubbish picture) It also turns out that this hole is an entirely different diameter from every other T5 speedometer drive unit. Typical.

While the blank was out some ATF leaked out and it looked quite clean, a good sign!



I then tried fitting the T5 to Essex bell housing:



and put old and new gearboxes side by side to compare them for size / length.





The TVR T5 works out putting the gearlever about 4" further forward than the original gearbox, I had a rough idea that this would be the case when I bought it and had a loose plan to modify the tailshaft. Intending to cut the selector section out and get section of aluminium tube welded in to move the selector back so it would be in exactly the same position as the original. As part of this I'd expected to creating a new longer selector shaft from scratch.

A new gear stick would then be made that will closely replicate the cranked forward design of the original. There's probably enough room to cut a new hole in the gearbox tunnel and centre console further forward of the existing gear stick. Roughly where the phone is in this picture:



But cutting new holes in the centre console feels like a bodge too far... If at this point your wondering if this gearbox is worth the hassle? your not alone. Still I've started so I'll finish...

Heres a look at the bell housings side by side,

Theres a couple of places where there doesn’t seem to be much 'meat' around some of the bolt holes. it looks like the pattern wasn’t all that accurate.



I'm going to change the nose over for one designed to use a concentric clutch slave cylinder. This should be a better fit in the bell housing than the TVR nose.



Inevitably I then decided to take the new gearbox apart to evaluate what would be involved with the tailshaft mods. first stage was to remove the selector. I then drove out the roll pin and unbolted the tailshaft. There are dozens of videos of T5 strip downs and rebuilds on youtube and the workshop manual is downloadable as a pdf so I had a rough Idea how to take it apart.



Sliding the tailshaft off reveals the back of the mainshaft; the driven 5th gear and the 5th gear itself, The machined face with a drilling is where a speedometer drive gear would be expected to be fitted. The top rod is the selector shaft.



This rubbish photo shows that there is very minimal wear to 5th gear, this is a relief as they can wear in high demand applications.



With the top cover off things also look pretty good, minimal wear noticeable, no teeth missing!





Here's another picture of the tailshaft housing.



Now that I've had a look at it I've gone off the cut and shut option on the tailshaft. Theres' more going on with the selector shaft than I first thought and I think its going to be difficult to get the welded section to be accurate enough to keep the selector rod in the correct position.

There are a variety of longer tailshaft housings available in the USA unfortunately the cost of postage pushes them just above the price point where I want to randomly speculate on one.

So naturally at this point I went out and bought the cheapest Cosworth T5 Gearbox I could find... WCPGW?

[coalnotdole]

Gearboxes, Rustons and Radio Telescopes

 

The Cheapest T5 gearbox I could find was in Linclon (which is well known for being really near to costal west sussex.) Still I suppose It could have been further away... 


Naturally because all my collection plans are generally all quite badly thought out. I elected to drive up and collect it straight after finishing work at 11:30pm... I was planning to kip up on route somewhere and then collect it first thing Saturday morning... but in the end I made it to the outskirts of town before pulling over and getting 4 uncomfortable hours sleep in the car. 



Morning dawned and I collected a gearbox. The seller had just removed it from a Sierra Cosworth they were converting to 4wd. They had two cosworths in their garage. Security was taken with an impressive selection of bollards and padlocks! 



I neglected to take any photos of it while there so this rubbish photo from the advert will have to do... 




It's quite complete and comes with gear stick and speedometer drive, as well as a clutch fork and bellhousing which I won't be using. It was supposed to be ok in all gears with a bit of play in the tailshaft.




[Tangent alert] - Sorry If your desperate to read about T5 gearboxes you'll have to skip this bit...


At this point anyone sensible would have found a cafe and gone for breakfast then set off home... Instead I decided to have a look round a nearby factory that had formerly been part of engineering firm Ruston & Hornsby in Boultham. Naturally there was a demolition team on site with a 360 knocking the place down...


The firm had several factories in and around Lincoln and were renowned for their work on steam locomotives, engines and traction equipment and went on to pioneer heavy fuel engines and Diesel engines. At different points in their history they also produced planes, trains, aircraft, cars and tanks. Though they were always principally an engine producer.



Most of the Firth road Factory was built during the first world war and was initially used for aircraft production. I suspect some parts of the site may have been a bit older and were heavily expanded to meet wartime demand. Ruston Produced 2750 aircraft here during the war (including 1600 Sopwith Camels) and 4000 aircraft engines, At the time this factory was the largest aircraft producer in the country.

 

After the first world war they made a push into car production, lots of manufacturing companies did this and there was a boom in vehichle production and many short lived marques. Two versions were made, a 15.9 hp and a larger 20hp model. The R&H car wasn’t a commercial success and never really achieved the hoped for Sales. According to the internet about 1500 were made. The factory stayed part of Rustons until 1984. It then became home to a firm producing / packing fertiliser, they left in 2015.



Heres a picture of the R&H cars outside the factory.





and one I took of same shed (from the other direction)





Entrance.





And a few more factory shots, The sheds are historic but a bit empty, so I won't post too many.











I made one other stop off on the way home... somewhere I've been meaning to visit for ages: an installation of 1960’s Radio Telescopes….



Its an strange place to wander around on your own on a cold bleak winter’s afternoon. There are a number of disused antenna on site, Some have clearly been out of use for years, others look like you could flip the switch and power them back up. The site still has has several in use antenna but as its spread over a large area the disused parts give an artificial sense of isolation.

The track mounted dish arrays are part of 1960’s projects.







The earliest antenna on site was built in 1957 and that array is now well beyond use:








Science Shite: Your Decaying Radio Telescopes are our concern. Anyone else noticed how far this post is straying progressively further away from gearboxes?

By late afternoon I was feeling quite tired, Dave had got bored of Capri welding and wanted to come and look at the selection of gearboxes ruining my life. This meant I was now going home via Portsmouth. All told I think this gearbox pickup covered about 600 miles.

Next morning and we finally had a chance to get a good look at the Cosworth T5.




The remaining ATF was drained, It looked horrible:





With the tailshaft off it was possible to look at 5th gear, Its got a broken tooth and a reasonable amount of wear. Hard to believe it did not wine a bit when it was in the car.








Heres a comparison between the 5a's original speedo drive on the left, with the cosworth one on the right. It appears that the gear runs the opposite way.





The drive gear it runs against on the mainshaft can just be seen in this photo.




With the top cover off it was clear there was quite a bit of wear on the first motion shaft gear, no other missing teeth though.



Heres a close up:



Its quickly turned into a pile of parts:




Its probably what you'd expect from a cheap gearbox. I'm now pretty sure I'm going to use the cosworth tailshaft and selector to create a hybrid. I've got some speedometer parts on order from the USA, which seem to be taking forever to arrive, They will hopefully allow a speedo drive gear to run on the mainshaft in the correct place. I'll probably have to get Dave to make up a custom housing / adapter for it.

Cheers

Joe

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Looking at that, gearboxes now just seem like magic and wizardry.  I haven't got a singular clue what the Hell I've been looking at for the last five minutes.

 

But it was interesting.

[Matty]

As part of my work I service gearboxes weighing up to 2 tonnes. And they're still a fuck load simpler than car gearboxes!!

[Asimo]

That picture of the gearlever and centre console - I am sure I remember complaints that the Scimitar gear lever was too far back (in Motor Sport or Car Probably). Not a radically destructive mod. to move the lever forward?

 

Loving the pictures of the Ruston and Hornsby building, especially the trellis trusses, they are a real WW1 detail.

 

And the radio astronomy site - is that Cambridge University? I love the control room pic., I can practically smell those hot electrons! Nobel prizes won with all that kit, an epic part of science and engineering history.

[Guest Hooli]

Those telescopes are great, they do look worth a visit. As did those sheds.

 

Gearbox wise, why do I imagine that bloke's Cossies were running slightly* more than standard power?

[Jim Bell]

Loved the tangents and all the boxing. All highly interesting and entertaining man.

[coalnotdole]

That picture of the gearlever and centre console - I am sure I remember complaints that the Scimitar gear lever was too far back (in Motor Sport or Car Probably). Not a radically destructive mod. to move the lever forward?

Gearstick wise you may be right, I'm pretty happy with the standard location. Anyone else would probably just have just accepted the small move further forward... but I'm not sure its the route I want to go down unless I can help it really.

 

Loving the pictures of the Ruston and Hornsby building, especially the trellis trusses, they are a real WW1 detail.

 

I also loved the wooden roof on that building, Its a real shame that its being knocked down really. Its of a quality that really should have been found a new use. There is an adjacent workers housing estate which belongs to the same era, complete with co-op and other amenities. The context of the two together has sadly been overlooked by those happy to sign off on the demolition of the works.

 

 

And the radio astronomy site - is that Cambridge University? I love the control room pic., I can practically smell those hot electrons! Nobel prizes won with all that kit, an epic part of science and engineering history.

Your quite right about the location and impact of the radio astonomy site, including as you mention a Nobel prize for work on pulsars and a significant contribution to mapping astronomical featues and develping our understanding of the universe.

 

I can appreciate them just as stuctures though, As part of an asthetic that comes from time when science, technology and engineering were going to reshape the world. Maybe Its Gerry Anderson's fault I like this stuff!

 

 

Those telescopes are great, they do look worth a visit. As did those sheds.

 

Gearbox wise, why do I imagine that bloke's Cossies were running slightly* more than standard power?

I'm pretty sure there are hardly any cosworth YB engines that run the factory power outupt...! I'm guessing this gearbox has sat behind something quite tuned. One of the sellers cars was decaled up and had clearly spent some time on track.

[Momentary Lapse Of Reason]

Part of The Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory is on the part of the site of the Oxford to Cambridge Railway.

Some of the tracks are still in the location they were for the trains, but the other side of the four foot is now a lot further away than it was!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullard_Radio_Astronomy_Observatory

[The Moog]

I came for the gearbox and stayed for the telescopes.  This post sums up AS so much 

 

1) Finding a cheap part miles away

2) avoiding the logical approach and sleeping in a car 

3) tangent time into old buildings and history of UK 

4) Telescopes 

5) mate wants to see gearbox so take detour 

6) gearbox a bit iffy so dismantled  (No complaints about owner ripping you off etc)

7) sod it we will build another from the bits 

people reading it feel educated in areas that they hadnt ever thought about 

 

12/10 would read repeatedly and take on a first date to a lovely chippy 

[UltraWomble]

I came for the gearbox and stayed for the telescopes.  This post sums up AS so much 

 

 

This thread ( as pretty much all CND's threads) has so much WIN.

[coalnotdole]

Cheers, I took lots of photos that day as I was testing a new 16-35mm lens out on the camera for the first time.

 

I've deliberately kept the number pictures down as I did not want to drown out the car content too much by posting too many of them in one hit!

 

Here's a British Pathe film of the Mullard Radio observatory when it was newly established. It has some good shots of the 4c array in its prime.

 

[Guest Hooli]

Why can't educational TV be that educational these days? Even the presenters could speak properly.

[coalnotdole]

A Small Update...

It's been over a month and progress has been a bit slow and bitty. I'm working quite long hours at the moment and seem to be finding it hard to get into the garage.

Back when I stripped the engine down I slightly damaged the camshaft rear bearing (while removing the core plug.) In the process of trying to tap it out with a drift I made the damage quite a bit worse AND failed to get it to move...



on the Essex the camshaft gallery is pretty much enclosed theres very limied access from above, and none from below.



The manual helpfuly Illustrates that Ford reccomend using a special tool for extraction / fitting:



But I don't have one and there don't seem to be that many universal ones on the market, certainly not at a price point I'm willing to pay. On top of that Burton Power were out of stock on camshaft bearing kits and were not expected to have any new ones made for several months. I got lucky though as Graham walker had several old stock bearings (in ford boxes) and was able to sell them as individual bearings for not too much money.

With local macine shops a bit vauge on thier approach to changing it. Dave suggested making up an adapter and pulling the bearing out with threaded bar:





Which was an idea let down only by some poor quality bar...



After some messing about we finally managed to get the bearing out.



New one going in:



I've also started thinging about the Crankshaft position sensor / Trigger wheel setup, I'm hoping to move this onto the timing cover. Somewhere near here:



The plan will be to machine the rib off the timing case, create a flat surface and then bolt on a bracket for the CPS. I'm also going to change the front pulley for one that Dave made a few years back. The trigger wheel is slightly bigger and will mount behind the pulley instead of in front, to make fan belt changes easier. The ECU Needs the missing tooth to line up with the crank postion sensor when No1 is at 90° BTDC.





Here it is welded up so that the pulley can go to be balanced with the, Rods, Crank, Pistons, Pins, Flywheel and Clutch pressure plate.





At this point the only thing I was waiting for in order to get the engine balanced was the clutch pressure plate, which still haddn't arrived. Lots of chasing later and at the end of Feb I'd finally got another expensive parcel in the post...



The friction plate has additional springs, 6 vs 4 on a standard one. The center Is of a more substanital construction,




The pressure plate also has uprated fingers!





I gave everything a decent clean and sent it off to Swaymar Marine in Horsham for balancing.




David Martin has considerable experience with the Essex v6, uses the same approach to balancing that Cosworth used on the GAA. A formula he's used on many other 60° V6 engines. They balance the crank to below 0.25 of a gram at each end and Pistons to below 0.1 of a gram and rods to below 0.1 gram end for end.

I waas hoping I might get some photos of the parts being balanced but as I've had to delay pickup till next week, that seems unlikely. Heres a link which explains a bit more of their process: http://swaymarmarine.co.uk/balancing.html

I'm hoping to pick the balanced parts up next week so fingers crossed I can finally start rebuilding the engine soon. Theres been some more developments regarding the T5 Gearbox but I'll probably cover them a bit more in a future post.

Cheers
Joe

 

[Fabergé Greggs]

A Small Update...

 

It's been over a month and progress has been a bit slow and bitty. I'm working quite long hours at the moment and seem to be finding it hard to get into the garage.

 

Back when I stripped the engine down I slightly damaged the camshaft rear bearing (while removing the core plug.) In the process of trying to tap it out with a drift I made the damage quite a bit worse AND failed to get it to move...

 

 

on the Essex the camshaft gallery is pretty much enclosed theres very limied access from above, and none from below.

 

 

The manual helpfuly Illustrates that Ford reccomend using a special tool for extraction / fitting:

 

 

But I don't have one and there don't seem to be that many universal ones on the market, certainly not at a price point I'm willing to pay. On top of that Burton Power were out of stock on camshaft bearing kits and were not expected to have any new ones made for several months. I got lucky though as Graham walker had several old stock bearings (in ford boxes) and was able to sell them as individual bearings for not too much money.

 

With local macine shops a bit vauge on thier approach to changing it. Dave suggested making up an adapter and pulling the bearing out with threaded bar:

 

 

 

Which was an idea let down only by some poor quality bar...

 

 

After some messing about we finally managed to get the bearing out.

 

 

New one going in:

 

 

I've also started thinging about the Crankshaft position sensor / Trigger wheel setup, I'm hoping to move this onto the timing cover. Somewhere near here:

 

 

The plan will be to machine the rib off the timing case, create a flat surface and then bolt on a bracket for the CPS. I'm also going to change the front pulley for one that Dave made a few years back. The trigger wheel is slightly bigger and will mount behind the pulley instead of in front, to make fan belt changes easier. The ECU Needs the missing tooth to line up with the crank postion sensor when No1 is at 90° BTDC.

 

 

 

Here it is welded up so that the pulley can go to be balanced with the, Rods, Crank, Pistons, Pins, Flywheel and Clutch pressure plate.

 

 

 

At this point the only thing I was waiting for in order to get the engine balanced was the clutch pressure plate, which still haddn't arrived. Lots of chasing later and at the end of Feb I'd finally got another expensive parcel in the post...

 

 

The friction plate has additional springs, 6 vs 4 on a standard one. The center Is of a more substanital construction,

 

 

 

The pressure plate also has uprated fingers!

 

 

 

I gave everything a decent clean and sent it off to Swaymar Marine in Horsham for balancing.

 

 

 

David Martin has considerable experience with the Essex v6, uses the same approach to balancing that Cosworth used on the GAA. A formula he's used on many other 60° V6 engines. They balance the crank to below 0.25 of a gram at each end and Pistons to below 0.1 of a gram and rods to below 0.1 gram end for end.

 

I waas hoping I might get some photos of the parts being balanced but as I've had to delay pickup till next week, that seems unlikely. Heres a link which explains a bit more of their process: http://swaymarmarine.co.uk/balancing.html

 

I'm hoping to pick the balanced parts up next week so fingers crossed I can finally start rebuilding the engine soon. Theres been some more developments regarding the T5 Gearbox but I'll probably cover them a bit more in a future post.

 

Cheers

Joe

 

 

Great stuff as usual. Slowly I’m gearing up to building a hot motor for my Vespa PX clone- that approach to balancing is fascinating- I wonder how much benefit you’d get out of balancing the crank on a simple single cylinder 2 stroke?

[coalnotdole]

Great stuff as usual. Slowly I’m gearing up to building a hot motor for my Vespa PX clone- that approach to balancing is fascinating- I wonder how much benefit you’d get out of balancing the crank on a simple single cylinder 2 stroke?

 

 

 

I think the theory goes that any engine will run better if its closely balanced, Ultimately how much you can gain depends on how good the tolerance is on the factory parts... Potentially even on a single cylinder 2 stroke, you'd still be able to end to end balance the con rod and flywheel and any front pulley attached to the crank.

[coalnotdole]

 

Fun* things to do while your engine is being balanced... Part 1

 

While the waiting for the clutch to be made I did a bit of work sorting out how the speedometer drive was going to work on the new gearbox. I was going to need a way of mounting a gear onto the mainshaft and a driven gear to match it with a housing that fitted into the Cosworth tailhousing.

 

Heres a comparison photo showing the mainshaft, Cosworth tailhousing at the top and TVR tailhousing at the bottom. Theres a yellow dot on the mainshaft that marks the location that the drive gear needs to be mounted.

 

 

A T5 gearbox with a manually driven speedometer would normally have a raised surface on the mainshaft, on which a gear is mounted and retained by a small steel clip, the clip locates on a hole drilled into the mainshaft.

 

You can get a range of T5 speedo conversion parts from the USA where they tend to use this type of gearbox in quite a few hot rods and custom builds. The big advantage here is that theres lots of choice of gear ratios to choose from. It took a bit of messing about with online calculators and comparing the GTE's standard speedo drive but in the end I went for a 7 tooth drive gear and a 19 tooth driven gear.

 

The kit is to suit a GM type T5 on which shares some commonality with the TVR T5 gearbox, It comes with both gears, the retaining clips and a drive body thats not going to be used because its not the right diameter.

 

Comparison GM speedo drive VS Cosworth speedo drive.

 

 

New Speedo body / Cosworth aperture.

 

 

I've also replaced the Cosworth tailshaft bearing with a new TVR one. fortunately the outer diameters were correct and required no modification.

 

 

 

I've also got a new tailshaft seal to suit.

 

 

Meanwhile a second item from the USA arrived; this is a kit which allows the speedo drive gear to be mounted in alternative locations on the mainshaft without needing to drill the hardened steel of the mainshaft. The kit has an aluminium collar which clamps in place and allows a modified gear to mount on to it.

 

 

 

The kit from the USA test fitted to the mainshaft,

 

 

 

With the tailshaft on however there was a bit of an issue, the large aluminium collar fouled the inside of the housing... Theres not that much thickness to the aluminium on the Cosworth tailshaft at that point. So rather than try modifying that Dave's going to have a go at milling the hardened steel mainshaft... and hopefully then try and turn up a custom drive housing to work with new gears!

 

With the gearbox off to the IOW and the Engine components at the balancers, It seemed like an ideal moment to get the fibreglass out again...

 

If you've been reading this thread closely you might remember that when I fitted this fuel injected engine. I had a problem with the very limited clearance at the back of the engine bay. This lack of clearance makes it hard to find room for air horns, a plenum or anything much other than a very basic air filter. While the engine was still in the car I'd convinced myself that I would just put up with the lack of clearance and work round it...

 

Heres a recent-ish picture:

 

 

and an old one showing how little clearance there is for a spungletrumpet:

 

 

It looked like a really awkward area too modify, there are two curved surfaces that need to match up. If I got it wrong it would look a bit odd and would risk leaking engine bay gases into the fresh air system. not ideal. There was also the risk of uncovering some hidden fire damage and then needing to spend ages putting that right... but as the engine was already out this was probably the only really good time to alter the bulkhead...

 

 

I struggled to visualise the stages of this job, Dave had pitched an idea involving cutting and shutting the curved section of the existing bulkhead but I wasn’t all that convinced I could do a good job on getting it all to line up and wasn't sure how to make a tightly fitting cover. In the end we settled on a compromise plan of modifying the cover and seeing how that turned out...

 

Some jigsawing later...

 

 

We worked out the maximum depth we could gain and setup a card to give the new shape. (after this photo was taken the surface of the GRP was ground back and prepped. The card also had a coating of tape to aid release.)

 

 

Meanwhile Dave cut out the rest of the bulkhead before disappearing off to go and do something that didn't involve getting covered in fibreglass dust... Leaving me with an impressive hole in the back of the engine bay.

 

 

 

To be continued...

[coalnotdole]

 

Fun* things to do while your engine is being balanced... Part 2

 

Sorry these updates arn't more exciting, I promise the next post after this one will have some more gearbox excitement, including more machining and the creation of some custom made parts.

 

Once the fibreglass had gone off on the cover, the top edge was cut straight and the rough edges dressed back with a flap disc.

 

 

The top edge is straight I promise!

 

 

By using the the top edge of the cover as a pattern I was able to cut out some plywood sections and make a mold for a new bulkhead section. Parcel tape was used again to seal the wooden surface and aid release.

 

 

Here it is with the a lay up of fibreglass.

 

 

After release:

 

 

Curves all look pretty accurate.

 

 

Trimmed down, Trial fitted

 

 

Glassed in:

 

 

Bit of sanding back and a coat of black primer and this is the end result...

 

 

I've also had a go at cleaning out the waterways. I did try to find somewhere that could dip the block but drew a blank on finding anyone who could do it within 100 miles of me, so instead I decided to have a go at cleaning out the block using central heating cleaner. I reassembled the heads using the old head gaskets and a new inlet manifold gasket. As none of the sensitive components are attached at the moment It seemed a fairly safe option. I’d think carefully before doing this in a car with a water pump, radiator and heater matrix attached.

 

 

 

I blanked off all the core plug holes with plastic caps and added some Sentinel Heating system cleaner, topped up with water and left it in for 24 hours...

 

 

When I drained it the result was a fairly impressive amount of black crud,

 

 

 

 

I then did a few more hot water flushes and got quite a bit more grot out.

 

 

 

Before giving it a good rinse through with a hose pipe.

 

The hosing off revealed an old core plug which had been stuck in the water jacket I was able to lift up with a magnet and pull back out.

 

 

 

Sorry its been a bit dull,

 

Cheers for reading.

 

Joe

[loserone]

Cor, the state of that black fluid.

 

Are you able to see it noticeably "looking cleaner" inside

[Mally]

I've read much of this earlier.

I've just read it again.

I'm in awe of your tenacity, I'd have chucked it in a corner with a sheet over it by now.

[binhoker668]

What an epic thread. A great read fella - keep it coming!!!

[UltraWomble]

 

Sorry its been a bit dull,

 

Cheers for reading.

 

Joe

I keep telling you there are some pure gold quality threads on AS and this ( and the boat shite one) are up in the top 10 if not top 5.

[Jim Bell]

Nice fibreglassing. That looks mint all finished up and blacked.

 

Is there no area of restoration that you struggle with?!

[beko1987]

Bet that core plug would have ruined your day if you hadn't found it!

[Asimo]

Parcel tape for mould release. 

 

Brilliant. This bit of priceles information has been added to my toolbox!