Daves roffle MGF thread. emissions pass. Finally.

[hairnet]

that elecs pics made me faint

 

cojones of stone

 

respec

[Lankytim]

I wouldn't have even considered this sort of operation. Mega impressive! 

[michael1703]

This Fred is awesome.

 

Collection thread,engineering skillz and quality dobber graffiti!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I had an idea about this earlier. Don't waste money on an LHD rack, just put the RHD one back in upside down. You can easy stck a DYMO label on the dash to warn drivers that it goes left when you steer right and vice versa. Its just a case of getting used to it! CA$HBACK!

[Noel Tidybeard]

is it not an metro rack?

[brownnova]

Wowsers!

 

I wouldn't even know where to start!

[dave21478]

  On 21/10/2016 at 02:12, Frank Gallagher said:

is it not an metro rack?

I wondered that, but the part numbers dont match and  I am having difficulty getting the dimensions of a rover Metro rack to compare them. Im pretty sure its different to the rack in my A-series Metro anyway. Its maybe also a question of different internal gearing due to the electric assistance on the MG.

[oldcars]

Major respect for that wiring work. I once fitted a radio to a mk4 golf (well pluged it in) and still made a mess of it, no way would i tackle this.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

http://www.mgf.ultimatemg.com/group2/DIY/steering_rack/index.htm

 

Seems a TF rack has less turns, potentially a good upgrade. Is the rack maybe from the R8 rather than the Metro?

[drum]

Rope would be the height of my usefulness here.

 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Great work, and super detail on the penis. The real proof in the pudding will be when you take it for its first drive as a left hooker. If you drive like a complete knob, and assume you are KING of the road, the conversion will be complete.

[dave21478]

Got a couple of hours in this evening.

 

I put the re-worked wiper arms back on and the sweep area is literally perfect. I was wondering about me spacing the motor away from the frame which might change the geometry of the linkage and give a reduced sweep angle, but it worked out 100% factory fit....

 

I then cut and rewelded the accelerator pedal so it sits a bit lower. While it initially seemed ok higher up, once the throttle cable was connected, all the travel was in the higher end of its range so I had to hold my foot in the air while pressing it, so that was no use. Forgot the photo, obviously.

 

Expanding builders foam LOLs. I prefer repairing sills with this rather than dashboards, but whatever works....

I know that looks like a photo from one of those "There I Fixed It" bodge blogs, but bear with me.

 

Trimmed it down flush....

 

It still needs proper sanding and then I will give that area a few layers of satin black then see about making a cover for it, either that non-slip rubber stuff or....well fuck knows;....whatever I can find. Another solution would be to flock the dashboard with one of those diy kits, but thats beyond how involved I want to get right now. Definite possibility for later though.

 

I then set about the headlights, which need converted to dip the other way.

 

You have to take the bumper off to get the headlights out on these.

 

The front glass just unclips with a few metal latches and then pulls off no bother.

This allows you to pull the internals forward, unpopping them from the adjustment balljoints.

 

From behind there are four screws to remove the front part of the reflector.

 

You can then lift this bit of glass out.

 

Do the same to the other light and swap these bits of glass over between headlights. They only fit one way so you have to flip it over to get it into the other housing. Reassemble (dick of a job getting the balljoints back on) and the beam pattern should be reversed. 

 

 

The internet says (yeah, it said about the wipers too and that was bollocks) that this is literally the only difference between proper LHD and RHD headlight, just the lense flipped round. I have seen close-up photos of both and it seems to be true. Once the car is moving again I will test it against a wall, but I reckon it should be ok.

 

Thats pretty much all I can do for now until the steering rack turns up. Tomorrow will see a massive tidy-up session the garage. Me doing larger projects like this ends up with literally every tool scattered at random around the place, so that needs sorted before everything dissappears for ever.

 

Oh and speaking of diasappearing tools, I must have angered The Gods today as they demanded the sacrifice of a wee 10mm socket which disappeared behind the dash and Im fucked if I can find it. Obviously that will either fall against the back of the fusebox and burn it to the ground or make a really annoying rattle at anything over 12mph.

 

 

 

[Asimo]

Genius.

[DeeJay]

You're certainly cracking on with this.

After looking at the wiring I'd still be sitting in the corner, shaking my head and wondering why I'd knackered a perfectly good car. 

[HMC]

Astonishing! Top marks for making some hair raising stuff look a walk in the park. The sort of lateral thinking a development engineer would have used in period.

[Dave_Q]

I think my favourite part about this thread is the casual indifference with which the work is described.

 

"Yeah, just popped out and rewelded my pedal box to LHD" manages to come out sounding like a bulb change.

 

Great work.

[trigger]

This is the first time I've clicked on this thread, i didn't expect this content! Absolutely 1st class stuff from start to finish!

[Pillock]

I feel like I've been in a coma for three years, based on the timescales of me tackling something like this.

 

And by "something like this", I mean putting some new wiper blades on.

[hairnet]

because french tv est merde

[surprisingskoda]

  On 15/10/2016 at 19:39, dave21478 said:

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.

Good stuff yes, but what about MGFs?

 

 

 

(hiding behind keyboard now)

[dave21478]

I got an email last night saying a parcel was due today, so that killed plans for work.....miss the first courier attempted delivery here and thats you fucked for a week or so.

 

It was my LHD steering rack and for a change it came before lunchtime, so I sacked off work for the day and fitted it.

 

I never took photos as 1 - its not that interesting, and 2 - its done mostly by touch, so nothing to see anyway.

 

Oh, and whoever last fitted the front left wheel is a twat. Im no mechanical doofus and neither am I a six stone weakling, but I really struggled to get the wheelnuts undone. I have a welded-up old ratchet handle for such occasions to prevent ruining my breaker bar, so that plus nigh-on two meters of scaffold bar and some vein-popping heaves cracked each one off with a massive bang. No way would that have been feasable at the roadside.

 

The replacement rack came with track rod ends still fitted but they were pretty wobbly so I swapped the ones off the existing rack into place. Then I noticed that one of the TRE boots was split so I swapped a boot back off the ones removed from the LHD rack into place.....proper tight-arse. Wanged the rack on, pushed on the bottom end of the column, tightened the pinch bolt, clipped the carpet back down and that was it done.

 

I drove it up onto a flat bit of ground by the house and use my Trackace to set the wheel alignment. By pure luck dilligence when measuring the track rod lengths it was only a fraction out anyway. However the steering wheel was off by a quarter turn, so making sure the rack was centralised with a little over 1.5 turns to each lock I whipped the airbag and then the wheel off and refitted it straight.

 

My papers are currently not in order so I could only take it for an illicit wee spev up the road and back and everything seems fine.

 

I then washed all the dust off and gave it a hoover out and cleaned the interior plastics.

 

Yeah, the patched dash isnt fanstastic, but its good enough for me and the rest of the car isnt exactly concours material anyway, so Im not fussed. As mentioned earlier in the thread I will see about making a wee cover for that area or something like that. If I can be bothered. Which means I wont.

 

I had a last tidy up of the garage and checked the ice-cream tub...

errr....

eh, probably not important.

Seriously though, I can account for most of that with stuff that was removed and not refitted during the conversion.

 

So thats it finished.

Why did you do it Dave?

Good question, and there are a few reasons. Being RHD doesnt bother me from a driving perspective here....the Mazda is RHD and not feasible to convert....but I find its always a good idea to blend in as much as possible. Yeah a fucking blue rear-engined cabriolet isnt subtle in amongst the local Berlingos and Clios, but a RHD car sticks out here and people can be assholes sometimes increasingly often. I will get a French registration for it as soon as I reasonably can.

Secondly, even as rough as it is, its worth a fair chunk of money now. A quick scan on leboncoin shows only a hundred or so MGFs for sale thoughout the whole country and the cheapest running LHD one is still over 2k, so I think I have added to its previously very low value.

Thirdly, it was an experiment. I used to have a nice little side-line buying UK C15 vans, driving them down here, converting to LHD and reselling for profits. It was never going to make me a millionaire, but it was a nice cash boost every few months. Since supply of good ones dried up in UK and demand for them died off here as everyone moved to Partners and Berlingos, my pocket money income had stopped, and I have been looking for a replacement. Freelanders are possible, but more involved due to a non symmetrical bulkhead needing welding. C2s are possible, but need a tiny bit of welding to do too, and were never a popular seller here. I believe LDV Maxus vans are quite easy, but have never tried one....The MGF is a possible new project. Once its registered and I have got some shake-down miles on it I will put up a false for sale advert to see what demand is like. If people are in a rush to buy it, I will look into doing more in the future. If not, well, I have a nice cabrio for next summer and thats the end of it.

 

Anyway, thanks for reading, and thank you for the comments along the way.

[mrbenn]

Bloody hell, you don't muck about!

 

Very nicely done. Makes me a feel a bit embarrassed at putting off simple jobs. Cap duly doffed.

[holbeck]

Nice Job Dave, I guessing that having done it once, it'll be easier if you do it again.

 

Good luck to you.

[Dave_Q]

Yo numbers, for your next one, I reckon you could make the dash look good quite easily with that vinyl wrap type stuff.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Matt-Black-Vinyl-Wrap-Car-Air-Bubble-Free-Matte-All-Sizes-/190969655428?var=&hash=item2c76adb084:m:mhIHxqvu-qiDf9IIkPX3eYQ

 

Would cover over the infill section nicely, obviously you'd have to do the whole dash in one piece so it looked proper but it would be 100x easier and cheaper than sourcing LHD dashboards.

[scaryoldcortina]

  On 25/10/2016 at 16:01, dave21478 said:

Oh, and whoever last fitted the front left wheel is a twat. Im no mechanical doofus and neither am I a six stone weakling, but I really struggled to get the wheelnuts undone. I have a welded-up old ratchet handle for such occasions to prevent ruining my breaker bar, so that plus nigh-on two meters of scaffold bar and some vein-popping heaves cracked each one off with a massive bang. No way would that have been feasable at the roadside.

Wasn't me! I had similar WARS trying to get the front right wheel off so I could change the balljoint rubber so I'm going to blame some random fast-fit outfit in sheffield for the mega tight wheelnuts. They were too tight for the impact wrench and the breaker bar/scaffy trick was lifting the car and turning the wheel so I ended up with someone pressing the brake while I continued swearing. Three of them undid and one of them snapped its head off forcing me to weld a socket to the remains.

[scaryoldcortina]

Oh, also before I forget - changing the position of the steering wheel tends to mess up the steering angle sensor making the car think it's always turning. Jack up the front and start the engine, if the wheels shoot off to full lock then you need to sort it by putting the wheel back where it was and altering the straight ahead position with the track rod ends. You can also fine tune the SAS once done but it's only got about 5deg of adjustment.

[holbeck]

  On 25/10/2016 at 20:55, scaryoldcortina said:

Oh, also before I forget - changing the position of the steering wheel tends to mess up the steering angle sensor making the car think it's always turning. Jack up the front and start the engine, if the wheels shoot off to full lock then you need to sort it by putting the wheel back where it was and altering the straight ahead position with the track rod ends. You can also fine tune the SAS once done but it's only got about 5deg of adjustment.

 

^^ This, the EPAS input sensor is a potentiometer and has a centre position.

[dave21478]

Huh. I checked this today and by blind luck dilligence and care taken during the work, its fine. Steering sits central with the car up in the air, turns evenly to either side, doesnt pull to either side when driving etc.....

 

When I took the column off I set the steering lock before dismantling and never touched it until I refitted and with the LHD rack going straight on within a tiny fraction of correct toe settings, I guess nothing changed as fas as the input sensor is concerned. The steeringwheel was always pretty wonky to one side, so I dunno what went on in the past but its properly central now.

[scaryoldcortina]

Goodo! I discovered about the SAS when I put a rod end on one once and it suddenly decided it preferred pavement to roads.

 

Wheel has been wonky since at least 2012.

[Fabergé Greggs]

Amazing. I now feel even worse about all the tiny jobs I never do on my vehicles.