Daves roffle MGF thread. emissions pass. Finally.

[dave21478]

Gave it a hoover out, cleaned the plastics, washed it and a quick lick of Autoglym. 

 

 

 

I sacrificed an old duvet cover to keep the dusty shit in my garage from covering it.

 

 

 

Having had a nosy round it, I think a left hand drive conversion should be feasable, so thats likely to be a project for the winter.

 

 

[chaseracer]

Dave_quitelongnumbers has officially won AS.

 

[They_all_do_that_sir]

Unbelievably fuss free collection. You make it sound like you just nipped up the road too, top marks!

Bonus points if you'd left an a frame in the escrote and framed the MGF home from the airport car park....

 

Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

[tonedepear]

Brilliant. So glad it's gone to a decent home, I'm equal parts devastated that it wasn't me driving the only car that's ever felt like "my car" since I binned off my capri in 2001, and also over the moon it's having such a brill adventure. That chavvy cone filter was worth every penny of the 7 quid or whatever it cost for the noise and the unexpected emissions pass. 10/10 would re-buy.

[meggersdog]

What an epic collection thread.

I'm gonna read it again it's that good.

[scaryoldcortina]

  On 24/09/2016 at 17:51, tonedepear said:

Brilliant. So glad it's gone to a decent home, I'm equal parts devastated that it wasn't me driving the only car that's ever felt like "my car" since I binned off my capri in 2001, and also over the moon it's having such a brill adventure. That chavvy cone filter was worth every penny of the 7 quid or whatever it cost for the noise and the unexpected emissions pass. 10/10 would re-buy.

It's all been ridiculously quick and faff free, it's only 3 weeks since I agreed to buy it off you - if someone had said then that by now it would be tested, raffled and in the south of france...

[holbeck]

  On 24/09/2016 at 17:19, dave21478 said:

 

Having had a nosy round it, I think a left hand drive conversion should be feasable, so thats likely to be a project for the winter.

 

From my previous life as a component engineer working on these, on a RHD car, the Electric Power Steering ECU is mounted to the LHD steering column bracket. It's plug and play, so no problem to remove and relocate, although not enough wire to move it too far unless you make up your own extension harness.

[dave21478]

The screeching wiper motor got attention today.

 

Its easy to get to so I undid the two torx screw holding the motor casing on and a load of rusty water fell out.

 

I cleaned it up as best I could, re-greased the bush on the end of the commutator and refitted it but it was no better.

 

Fortunately I never throw out car related stuff so had a spare wiper mechanism from the Freelander. The linkages are different but the motor and gearbox looked exactly the same.
Getting the MGF linkage out was easy enough but requires the clutch master cylinder to be unbolted from the bulkhead. No need to undo the pipe or the pushrod, just lean it out of the way and you can wrestle the linkage past it.

 

On the bench the motors were a perfect match apart from the wiring plugs so I chopped them off and fitted the F plug to the Freelander motor with crimps. Refitted it all and its now nice and quiet.

 

 

 

[purplebargeken]

MGF's are ace, France is ace. An ace combination. 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Great work!!!

 

 

This is such a funny picture, I keep chuckling at it. Know how he feels.

[Pillock]

I think the heroic bit here is not that you won a car in a raffle in a foreign country, and promptly drove it home within a few days, but that you're in all seriousness considering a LHD conversion. Although do I remember rightly that you've done it before?

 

Anyway, hats off to you for a fine collection thread. And back on so I can doff it too.

[dave21478]

I decided to have a look at this with a serious view to LHD conversion.

 

Get yer column oot for the lads....

 

Its a slightly unusual arrangement in that it uses a manual steering rack with an electric motor providing assistance directly to the column. This simplifies things for me as I just need to buy a basic manual LHD rack, which is quite cheap as opposed to a hydraulic one.

 

 

The dash cutout is less symmetrical than I had hoped. In fact it looks like Nigel at the factory hacks the relevant section out with a blunt axe.

Need to find a solution to cover that hole on the right if I cant get a LHD dashboard. I have some ideas in mind.

 

 

In the front I took the servo etc off

 

To remove the crossbar that links the left-mounted servo to the RHD pedals.

This can go in the bin.

 

The pedals then came out. These cant be swapped over without major re-working, but feck knows what the chances of finding LHD ones are. Not good, I suspect, so I will likely end up reworking them to fit.

 

Dash out to get at the wiring loom.

 

I will need to cut and extend part of the loom so I can relocate the fusebox on the left. This is less work that extending all the wiring to the column controls, plus if I left the fusebox on the right I wouldnt be able to fit the glovebox there.

 

Pile of bits....

 

And thats where I got to today.

I havent crossed the point of no return yet - it could all go back together as it was, but I reckon I will forge onwards and convert it. Its perfectly feasable....not the easiest I have ever done, but not the hardest either.

In an ideal world I would find a LHD one in a scrappy to get parts from, but they are mega-rare here. there is a couple being broken on LeBonCoin but its a hassle getting replies from folk and I doubt anyone could be arsed removing stuff like a pedal set to sell without asking a massive price.

I could do with other LHD specific stuff too, but its relatively minor bits like LHD wipers, air intake and heater ducting. I can do without/bodge as appropriate in the meantime though.

 

 

[Frogchod]

When you've LHD'd this import a low millage 2.0 Dispatch, sell to me, repeat a few times, retire.

[Dave_Q]

I'd wager a strange plastic fiver that the pedals are the same as something else that sold more in lhd-land - 25/45 etc?

[chaseracer]

Are the pedals common to other Rovers?

 

 

EDIT: Dave Q quicker on the draw there!

[dean36014]

Is it not worth looking over here for left hand drive bits? normally LHD stuff goes for peanuts as nobody wants it.

[DodgeRover]

  On 15/10/2016 at 17:51, dean36014 said:

Is it not worth looking over here for left hand drive bits? normally LHD stuff goes for peanuts as nobody wants it.

Seems to fetch more than equivalent RHD down here for export!!!!

[dave21478]

Aye, the days of cheap LHD stuff in UK are long, long gone since the French and pretty much everyone else in Europe realised the price difference and hoovered up all the good stuff.

 

During the week I will be heading to a few scrapyards. I also thought about other Rover group pedals, and even if they arent quite the same would probably be easier to modify than re-doing these ones.

 

Need to stock up on wire and heatshrink too.

[DodgeRover]

A friend here had a freelander converted RHD -> LHD for £700 collected and delivered back by trailer, it was a decent job but let down by the way some pipes had been lengthened. I would guess some parts must be available new at a reasonable price

[dave21478]

I converted my own Freelander years back.

There are various crews on ebay offering conversions for under a grand. Quality apparently ranges from "ok" to "deathtrap".

I looked at one for sale before doing mine and it had a LHD steering rack from fuck-knows what fitted in place with custom brackets made from bits of dexion shelving and big penny washers.

 

It all comes down to the price of the basic parts or the availability of donors in scrapyards. Freelanders are getting more common here so here are more cropping up in the breakers. However MGFs were never a big seller here and I can honestly say that I have never seen another one here apart from the odd UK one over on holidays.

[forddeliveryboy]

Why are the reads on here so much better than any contemporary motoring mag?

 

We need more.

[overrun]

I cannot get away with the driving position on these. So to drive one home from the UK, and then look to replicate everything on the 'wrong' side of the car to me gives opportunity for improvement.

Is that the plan, or are you 100% comfortable with the way they are from the factory?

 

Regardless, I am impressed and shall be watching. Plus, you will get the improved brake feel, that an eBay advertised, Chinky sourced 'booster bracket' for a RHD vehicle could only dream of!

 

Has Kevin given it his stamp of approval, yet?

[dave21478]

I quite like the position, but my body is an odd shape, so it suits me. And no, Im not doing this at the farm so Kevin hasnt been able to shit on it yet.

 

 

This afternoons progress was the wiring loom. In total about 35 wires of various sizes needed extended. I could probably have done less as I didnt think too carefully about the door loom. Mine doesnt have electric mirrors so thats a load I did for nothing anyway.

 

 

There is a main trunk that goes across the dash rail to the fusebox with hundreds of wires in. I didnt fancy doing all of those so my plan was to rerout this main trunk back over to the left where the fusebow will go and extend the stuff that goes to the right from the fuseboxes old location. This is mainly the ABS loom, right hand headlight etc and the right hand door.

 

Getting into it....

 

Obviously I only had 4 colours in the correct thicknesses, so....well, good luck fault finding that, future owners.....

I cut and extended one at a time as there are several wires of the same colours in the main loom that go to various locations so cutting them all at once would have fucked it right up.

 

Moving the fusebox and main trunk....

 

Nightmare. At this point I started wondering how many strands of wire I would need to braid together to make something strong enough to hang myself from the garage roof.

 

Stop being a pussy Dave, you have done worse than this....

 

Fusebox bolted in on the left (bracket is already there as standard)

 

Starting the neaten up and tape the bundles.

 

I have run out of tape so stopped there for the evening, but everything seems to be going well. I had to cut three ABS wires to unpick them from the main trunk, which I havent reconnected yet. Since resistance is crucial there I will solder those when I join them. Everything else has been crimped so far.

Still need to tidy up around the left hand side but I want to get the steering column in for a trial fit to see how long I need to leave the sections that go to the wipers etc.

Also need to reposition the power steering ecu which is the silver box on the left. I would say I plan on making a nice custom bracket to bolt it to, but realistically its going to get shoved down the back of the fusebox and held with cableties.

 

 

[The Moog]

Those pictures give me the fear... Hats truly doffed

[dave21478]

Its been one of those afternoons where lots gets done but nothing really shows in photos....

 

I finished the last of the wiring, neatened up the loom and clipped it all into place.

 

I then set about the pedals. I had a rummage in a breakers for something more suitable but didnt find anything at all, so just re-worked the originals. 

I screwed them to a wooden block to use as a jig/measuring reference, cut off the arms and rewelded them, then added some gusstes.

lol, Gussets.

 

I then hit them with some satin black and bolted them in.

I then did the accelerator, which is a seperate mounting and appear to have made a right cunt of it somehow. It sits far too high.

Eh, no biggie, its just a bit of 8mm rod so I will re-bend it tomorrow.

 

With the pedals in, I refitted the brake servo and clutch master cylinder. There is enough length of the clutch pipe to just bend it over to the other side, so that went in easy enough. The brake servo took a little thought, as without the right-to-left axtension bar thing across the bulkhead I had to join the pedal pushrod straight to the servo pushrod, but if I just used a pin or a bolt there would be too many pivot points on the rod and it would just pivot instead of pushing the servo. In the end I just welded the two together.

 

I re-routed the throttle cable, which runs down the sill to the engine compartment. Again its long enough to just run down the other side.

 

I should get the dashboard cut and installed tomorrow along with the steering column, so then its just a case of putting it all back together.

Last piece will be the steering rack which is apparently easy enough to swap, but will likely have to wait until after payday before I can order one.

 

 

[drum]

Who knew that hiding behind the thread title there was an epic international collection and rhd to lhd conversion, all wrapped together with excellent verbiage.

 

I struggled with wiring up the trailer harness to the Hyundai. Have you tested the electrics yet, as I know if I had done that job, I would be spending the next fortnight trying to solve the problem of the horn sounding when I indicated left and the windows going down when I turned the radio on.

[Craig the Princess]

Cap well and truly doffed, excellent work.

[Jim Bell]

I have nightmares about taking things apart and not being able to put them back together again. I take all of my hats of to you. Youre steaming through it like nobody's business!

[dave21478]

Another afternoon, another dose of progress. 

 

I refitted the steering column, plugged everything in and slotted the dash back in. With fingers, toes and bollocks crossed, I reconnected the battery and gave it a try. She fired up no problem and everything seems to work. I had a minor panic due to the indicators not working at all, but soon realised that I hadnt fitted the centre console yet so the hazard warning switch wasnt plugged in. Stuck it in and they started flashing away nicely!

 

I then refitted all the trim and stuff that I had removed, and chopped the dash away to clear the instruments which I fixed in place. The plastics are not symmetrical sadly so the hood over the gauges isnt a perfect fit, but I reckon a rubber seal around the bottom will hide the gap and look fine.

 I fixed the cut out sections from the left into the original hole on the right and it will obviously need some finishing work....

 

Im thinking some expanding foam in the gaps sanded down flush then painted black and then make a cover out of anti-slip matting or something.

 

 

Dont believe everything you read on the internet. I found some photos suggesting that RHD wipes could be converted to LHD by just swiveling the motor mount through 180 degrees, so I drilled out the spotwelds...

 

And rewelded it the other way round...

 

Prettied it up and while the action is pefect, it doesnt fit on the car! It matches the photo I had 100%, but no way was it going to clear the bulkhead, so in a huff I chopped it to bits again and started from scratch.

It can be done, but is a little more involved. First remove the end units and swivel them 180degrees. You need to grind off the end of the original rivits and knock them out. I used wee bolts to replace them.

 

And then with some trial and error on the car I found you need to weld in a spacer between the original motor mont and the frame...

 

And that works fine. Obviously had to extend the loom to reach the motor, but thats no biggie.

 

The wiper arms are cranked to one side...

 so I had to cut and reweld them the opposite direction, which was easy enough. I then resprayed them satin black to tidy them up. Forgot the finished photo.

 

One of the big drawbacks of my garage is the dust from the floor.

 

 

Tomorrow I reckon I will get the interior as finished as I can. I havent done anything about the height of the gas pedal yet as when I sat in it it seemed pretty comfortable as is so I will hold off on that until its running. No big deal to change it later though.

Then I will have a look at the headlight - I have a lead on how to convert RHD to LHD at no cost, so thats what I will try. 

Just need a steering rack now. Typically the cheap ones I saw are no longer available anywhere and the next I found are 150 euros dearer. With some help from google translate I found a second hand one on ebay Germany from a place willing to post to France and ordered it for a reasonable amount of money.

Should be here next wee some time.

 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

SRSLY impressive!!!!! Get your French citizenship applied for you jammy bast.