Shaved and Tucked ..engine bays

[Bfg]

.

Anyone here into shaved and tucked engine bays  ?  perhaps you'd care to share what you've done or seen ? 

Here's a starter for five . .

^ I think that's pretty cool.    I'm not that much into polishing but I really like the idea of neatly tucking away lengths of ugly wiring loom, the control cables and pipes all over the shot. 

 

OHC Flat four..   Shit,  had I known - I could have done that to my Citroen Ami !   In many respects when the air ducting was removed - its air cooled engine castings made it a neater engine than this one. 

The above photos came from < this > ' your guide to '  webpage.

 

Some in the VW fraternity have of course taken it to heart.  Many are a bit OTT to my taste but others like this are (IMO) just so incredible .  .

How the fc did they get that to work and drive normally ? (you know with .. brakes and steering, car heater, screen wash, etc. )

 

Of course companies like Jaguar, Ferrari and other exotics are past masters of the art . . .

 

^ And race prep cars have been stripped out, with as much as possible tucked out of the way ..ready for when the engine is next pulled out. 

 

On my own cars I've often tidied the wiring up  ..but when I buy the old Triumph I'm after -  I would like to take things a step further.  So if anyone has done a bit of this - do share.

This is what a 'tidy' engine bay looks like on a TR4A.  ..not nearly as impressive as it might be.  

...But how do you get rid of all those cables and pipes, and yet still retain all their functions. ?

Cheers.

[sierraman]

Often wiring is in a particular place for good reason. Rerouting it or moving it sounds like a recipe for a right electrical mess. 

[Bfg]

 

Surely, the usual 'good reason'  is that it's  cheaper for the car maker. 

And often the loom is universal to a range a models, so the same is used whether optional extras are fitted or not. 

Having cut out unused wiring, re-routed and adjusted wiring to length ..on cars and motorcycles many times in the past - I see no reason why re-routing should cause any issue at all ..as long as it's done to a professional standard and secure. 

 

[sierraman]

I’m talking about wiring being routed to avoid heat. Probably less of an issue for an old car but on anything even vaguely recent there’s fucking tonnes of wiring. 

[Asimo]

It is really easy to improve the look and reliability of engine bay wiring on cars of the TR's age. They are almost always wired with a body-loom that has spurs heading straight for the terminals on the engine. 

Much improvement can be made by looming all engine wires to a single point, I would use a connector, hidden out of the way.

Batteries are best in the boot.

 Ignition coils and condensers should be mounted together and on the body to keep them away from the  heat and vibration that they are both vulnerable to.

Dynamos should be binned, together with their worn-out regulators. I have never had an alternator fail, I have never had a dynamo that didn't.........

Modern wire, connectors and  materials are so easy to use and so much better than the car trade used 50 years ago.

Electric fuel pumps to replace the engine driven sort. Proper hose and fittings, not bits of rubber and jubilee clips.

Just don't bin the proper air cleaner / silencer. On cars of this era, they are often works of art.

[twosmoke300]

Slightly stupid question - whats the yellow engine? Subaru ? looks chain driven cams and I tought scoobys were belt 

[bunglebus]

[GrumpyCat]

Looks like a pointless waste of time, energy and money to me. Ideal topic for Retro Rides.

[Asimo]

2 hours ago, twosmoke300 said:

Slightly stupid question - whats the yellow engine? Subaru ? looks chain driven cams and I tought scoobys were belt 

It is a Subaru FA engine - as found in the Toyota GT86 and Subaru BRZ.

[spartacus]

I'm sure there's a thread for this on the blue.

ETA, I've just been through 20 pages on the 'general board' and I can't find it, I feel sure there is one though.

[sutty2006]

[sutty2006]

[Bfg]

 

As I said from the start - I have very little experience with this sort of thing, although I do habitually tidy up wiring rat's nests on the cars and motorcycles I toy with.  Some of you will have seen reference to and possibly previously seen the under bonnet photos of the '66  S-type Jag 3.8 ltr., I owned 5-years ago.  Below I've put them side by side as Before n'  After shots . . .

 

And others may have seen the thread and the under-bonnet piccies of my Citroen Ami-Super (..recently sold).  And again here the photos are side by side for comparison . . . 

 

So despite grumpycat's fur balling this sort of thing as being 'a pointless waste of time, energy and money' -  I'd do it again and again.  Bottom line being that I could live with the results  but I couldn't live with them as they were when I bought them.  Time and Energy ?  yes perhaps, but then I needed to pull things out to address maintenance, very old wiring and pipes, and rust issues anyway,   Money wise, they only came down to a couple of rattle cans of paint and a new length of heater ducting  ..oh and a second hand air-filter for the Jag.  So all in all - very much done on a tight budget.

These both just happened as part of the process of getting things together to be roadworthy and reliable.  But the next one (the Triumph) I'd like to put bit more thought and planning into. 

Thanks, Pete.

 

[DoctorRetro]

Nice job Bfg. 

I'm all for simplifying engine bays, it just makes so much sense. Not for an aesthetic 'look at my VW' kind of way, but as has been said, it's just easier to live with. I removed all the silly ducting from the top of the Perodua engine and added a cheap cone filter, it makes access so much easier. 

Of course you will always get the 'leave it original - car makers know what they are doing' critics, but then it's not their car... 

 

[Bren]

Mine are clean enough to see where a leak comes from.

Painting and polishing? Life is too short for that bollocks

[MorrisItalSLX]

A clean and tidy engine bay is a happy engine bay.

But there is a point where it becomes silly, re-skinning the firewall and inner wings comes to mind.

[Bfg]

.

^  if a car is being restored,  engine out,  sections of the wiring replaced,  wiper motor and other 'thing's rebuilt with fresh grease,  and of course welding done where battery acid has eaten the bulkhead tray away,  you know ...all that sort of stuff which leads to an under bonnet and inner wing respray.  Then how much extra work is it to skim the panel joints with a flexible filler rather than trying to get seam sealer looking neat ? 

This is the TR4 *  I partially restored in the early 90's . . . 

By far the major work was in the cleaning off the old crud and preparing it all to the primer stage.  If anything seam sealer is more difficult to work because its a  'get it right'  or  'make a mess'  type operation. There's not a lot of middle ground and not a lot of reworking one can do. At least with filler it can be sanded back easily.   ..no ?    

* I brought her back from the US. Subsequently registered AFP 508A and then sold to a chap in Holland.