MGB Roadmaster

[BlownMGB-V8]

That is true Dan, but since we're using the jag LCA's where they locate the hub relative to the diff would be the relevant question I think, as moving the diff will move the hubs and if they aren't originally on the same centerline it'd be best to know about it before locating the diff. I guess I should try to measure it. That means mounting both LCA's and both uprights but maybe I can find time to try it tomorrow... oops, guess that's today now.

Jim

[rficalora]

Wow, looks like you (you guys?) got a lot done this weekend.  Jim, where are the calipers fouling -- with the body or against something else?  Asking because on the IRS Todd made me the upper shock mounts ended up about 1/2" too high so I'm modifying the back shelf to add a little room (remember, my IRS was the prototype for his new design; he's since fixed that).  It's a pretty easy change; I can post pics later today.

[Bill Young]

Gentlemen, members of B.A.D.A.S.S. I have a proposal to make. I realize that our treasury is indeed small at this time, but I feel that we shoud try to do something to help Jim defray the cost of towing the project car up to Wisconsin at today's gas prices. I think we should designate $100 of the fund to be allocated to transportation costs. From the current state of the project we should have plenty of time to replentish this amount before the funds are needed for further parts.
The motion is made, is there a second?

[Citron]

Bill,
Great Idea.  I will Second that motion.

Steve

[BlownMGB-V8]

Todd, Evan, Ted and others like them deserve a lot more credit than they get I think, for developing  and offering for sale, the kits and pieces that make our life easier. That's a big project to take on and from what I can tell he really did a fine job of it. It certainly makes it a lot easier for someone like me to just come in and make a few refinements. Those guys are the real pioneers. I really appreciate what they've done, and if this was a standard conversion rather than the low buck group project that it is, I'd definitely be looking at what they have to offer and planning my budget to include them.

But, being the low dollar group project that it is, here'a a couple shots of the crossmember, which still needs the end pieces.


This one shows the notches pretty clearly.


Still working on getting the isolators. That's been one of the little frustrations that have begun to accumulate, that and the dammed 4140 stock that was oval instead of round. It's at times like these when a vote of confidence like those above is a real boost, and I want you guys to know it's really appreciated.

But as much as I want to thank you for your good intentions I don't think I can accept it. We'd be going to the meet regardless of the Roadmaster, as president of BADASS I can deduct the expenses so really I'm in better shape on that than most of the rest of you are, but the biggest reason of all is that I don't feel like we can spare the money. I don't know exactly where we stand, but Steve and I spent more than our combined contribution, meaning we could easily be down a hundred or so in the treasury. I still need to buy tubing for the axles and some 5/8" TGP round stock as well as some tubing for spacers and the forward LCA brace. Add paint to that as well, and that's most likely a good bit over another hundred. Then there's the T-shirts. I'm assuming we will have to put up some front money on that deal and a couple hundred won't go too far. That doesn't leave anything for travel funds, in fact we may run short. So as much as I appreciate the motion and second, and more than anything else the vote of confidence, I'm afraid I'm going to have to lobby against this one. Y'all can outvote me if you want, but I don't think you ought to. Just my opinion though.

In the meantime the work moves on. I may or may not be able to work on the isolators tomorrow but I will if I get the chance. I found some cushions similar to what we're using for front engine mounts for the main ones going to the shock mount and I thought I had some for the hanger strap mounts but haven't heard from the guy. Anyway when the rain rolls in on Wednesday I'll have to start hanging drywall and won't have the energy for anything else while I'm doing it. Then the 12th and 13th Dan B. will be in to work on his TR4 shock conversion. I may try to get some help with the drywall in exchange. Hopefully by then I'll have some of the supplies sorted out and can set up and cut the axles and LCA's.

We've moved the next Roadmaster Weekend to the 31st due to Memorial Day and we only have two work weekends left before the meet. I'm pretty sure I'll have the rear axle ready by the 31st. That means we can start putting fenders, doors and such back on and do whatever we are going to do with the flares, as well as dropping the engine and tranny in. I've accepted that for me at least it's going to be a no frills, cut to the chase, bare bones job of only what's needed to make it roll on and off the trailer. That's OK. If that's all we can do, we've still met our goal.

Jim

[Bill Young]

Jim, great job on the rear crossmember for the Jag unit, great design. I assume the shock mount will also go there as well, so it will really be neat. You mentioned end pieces, am I correct in thinking plates for bolting the unit to the tub or are you going to weld it in?
I will defer to your judgement on the travel costs, just thought that we'd help out if we could. It's got to cost more to tow a car up than drive the roadster.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Thanks Bill, I'm trying to incorporate as much simplicity as possible. There's plenty of beef for the coil-over mounts, and the ends will have shock mounts to the shock mounts (how cool is that?) and the limit strap mounts. I'm looking at a 1 x 2 cross bar between the front spring hangers to accept the forward inner pivots, this would completely eliminate any need to drill the body. It can be made to butt up to the rear flange of the lower tunnel plate for extra resistance to acceleration forces and will sit up in the recess forward of the battery boxes. I haven't decided yet how to allow for the pinion angle adjustment at those pivots but it'll come to me.

I totally appreciate your intentions re: travel costs. In fact I really wish we had enough budget to pay travel costs for anyone who wanted to work on the car. Guess we just need a TV show ;-) Then we could give away tools and everything, just like Hollywood. Oh well, that would probably come with short deadlines and all the creativity would just get buried. As fun as that approach might be, well heck the truth is we just don't have the contacts.

But that's OK. I remembered and old truism today. It's not how much time you have, it's the way you use it. Take the last year for instance. Was it worth it? Yeah, I'd say it was but we each have to answer that question for ourselves. How about the last month, or day, or 5 minutes? I'm not talking about reducing this to a religious question, regardless of what anybody's preacher might expect. I'm talking about enjoying life. If you do the things you do in such a way that you can enjoy what you are doing as you are doing it, whether it is the challenge of something new or the satisfaction of a perfect repetition, I personally think that's what it's all about. The more of that you can do the better life gets.

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

I picked up the rest of the parts today that I sent out for cleaning. It was more expensive than I expected but they cam back very nice (as they should for what it cost). It was a combined batch, I added in some SBB parts, but the majority was still BBB. The damages came to (Gasp!) 255 dollars. Now there was no way I could expect the project to cover that. But there was also no way I could justify covering it all myself. So I did what any conscientious person would do, I covered most of it and let the project pay $55. I figured maybe $100 was my part of it anyway for the SBB parts. I apologize for not doing the cleaning myself, but with the compressor down I can't use my blast cabinet and I won't have that working again for another month or more. Time was a factor also. So without further a-doo here are some photos:


We have two good intakes. I will pick one to paint and see if we can sell the other.


One of the timing covers looks to have significant erosion in the water pump cavity but the other should be usable.


An extra set of rocker shafts. If the shafts aren't too worn they should sell.

I'm about ready to post more parts for sale. You guys could really help me out there by suggesting prices. If I'm too high I sure as sh.. want to know.

Jim

[MGBV8]

I could have blasted them. Being 5 hours away doesn't help much, though.

[BlownMGB-V8]

No,... by the  time we paid for your gas it'd probably have cost nearly that much anyway. Time was a factor too, I've got to be working on the IRS. Still, I wasn't prepared for the bill at all. Talk about being brought back to reality!

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

I finally got a quote on the bushings for the limit strap mounts. $30 each and they have to be cut down. Luckily I made a contingency plan. For $35 I bought a pound of Devcon 97A durometer liquid urethane mix which should be more than enough for a set for this car and another set for my roadster. I just need to come up with the inner tube, shell, and tube for the shell to press into. I've been wanting to play with castable urethane anyway and this makes a perfect excuse. So it looks like my next task is to source the various bits of material to finish up the job. Drill rod for the long bolts, 1-3/16" ID 1/4 wall tube for the axles, and 2-1/4 OD sleeves for the LCA's. Looks like a call to the metal place is in order. Now if only I had a really good source for small lengths of stuff like this... buying 24 ft for a few inches sorta sucks.

Jim

[Bill Young]

Jim, seems a shame that you don't have a place like our "Metal By The Foot" in your area. http://metalbythefoot.com/
I did a quick search for the Cincinatti area and found this company that at least has remnant sales, have you tried them?
http://www.americanmetalsupplyco.com/ametal_remnant.html
For real small orders it might be cost effective to send me the material specs and let me price it here, might be better than buying a large quantity even with shipping, or I could deliver it in July if you could wait that long for some of it.

[accobraman50]

Try McMaster Carr for short lengths of tubing and tons of other engineering supplies.  I find them to be a great supplier with a vast inventory that is sure to please every gear-head.  You can order online and that's great for the insomniac crowd.

http://www.mcmaster.com

Arthur

[BlownMGB-V8]

Thanks guys. Tomorrow I plan to stop by the local tubing supplier and ask if they can sponsor us to the extent of our tubing needs. If they do the problem is solved. If not I'll be following up on the other suggestions.

If you haven't been following the classified thread, we now have another hundred in the treasury, deposited today. Dan B bought the wheels that Jim Stuart donated. I realize that's significantly below the $250 that Jim suggested they might be worth, but Dan laid a hundred dollar bill in my hand and I took it. I figured we needed it bad enough to justify the discount. And if it'd been anyone else among our contributors making that offer under the same circumstances the result would have been the same. No fuss, no muss, just money in the pocket and more floor space. We might have gotten more for them on ebay, or might not, but one thing for sure, the boxing, shipping and waiting would have added complications and no matter how you look at it complications cost money and slow things down so I felt it was justified. Anyway, it's done. If anyone feels I did wrong just let me know and I'll try to mend my ways.

I'm also going to try to go by Terry Kesselring's shop to talk about paint. There are other such tasks but I'll be putting off as much of that until after the meet as I can.

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

Guys, I need help.
I need someone to send me one or two pairs of front spring bushings form the rear leaf springs of an MGB. They don't have to be new as they won't be holding up the car and will only come into play under hard acceleration to control windup, and are oversized for the application.

I'm certain a few of you have old leaf springs laying around somewhere. Here's a chance to get some use out of them. I need them to finish the IRS layout.

Jim

[rficalora]

I have some; not sure what shape they're in, but will check this evening & could get them in the mail to you sometime over the weekend.  I'll plan to do that unless you let me know you got some faster.  Oh, I don't think it matters, but they'd be from RB springs; let me know if that's a problem.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Rob, that would be fine.

I went by the local tubing place, used to be Victory Tubing but is now Marmon. They will donate the 5/8" ID and some 2.250 OD which I should be able to pick up tomorrow. That leaves the following, if Bill or anyone else can help with it:

1-1/8 or preferably 1-3/16 ID 1/4" wall tor the axles. Should try to get 3ft or more of it. One size of material that would work well is 1-1/4" schedule 160 seamless pipe. It has a 1.160" ID. We can go up to 1.210" on the bore.

5/16 ID and .093" wall or thicker for the rubber bushings, at least a foot.

and the last two, 1" ID and 1" OD. These need to be sized for a light press fit. The larger should have about a 1/8" wall, the inner can be thinner, down to as little as .050" We need at least a foot of each. I can turn them to fit if they are too tight but if too loose I can't do much.

I looked at McMasterCarr but wasn't having that much luck with the sizes. If anyone can find those sizes of tubing please let me know.

Jim

[Bill Young]

Jim, I can't make it over to check until next week, but I'll try to get by on Monday after work and see what they have. Finding the DOM tubing that is a good fit like the last items may not be easy, most DOM isn't sized well for a "telescoping" fit. The tube for the axles shouldn't be too hard to find, but it will be heavy and expensive to ship. I'll get an estimate for that if I can. I'll let you know as soon as I can.

[BlownMGB-V8]

That's good Bill. I may come up with a few things in the meantime, I'll let you know. Marmon/Keystone  made good today on their promise for the tubing they promised yesterday. Thank you Allen!

Also, Dave Tetlow in the UK has sent us another donation of $100. His contributions at this point equal $250 and have been a great benefit to the project. He will be at the meet this summer with his car.

That's about it for now. I'll try to stop by Fastenall for the drill rod we need and see if they can contribute as well.

Jim

[rficalora]

Jim, I pulled the springs yesterday evening, but they've been out of the car so long I don't recall which end is the front & which is the back.  Are the bushings you want the smaller diameter ones or the larger ones?  They all look fine so I can send either (or both ends if you need them).

[BlownMGB-V8]

Rob, that would be the big end.

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

We're down to just one piece of material left that we have to have, and that's the heavywall tubing we need to shorten the axles. It needs to be 1.215" or less in the bore and about a 1/4" wall. We could go down to 1" on the bore or possibly even less, but in that case the wall should be thicker. Schedule 160 seamless 1-1/4" pipe should work fine. We should have 36" of it, but if that much is unavailable as little as 16" could possibly get us by.

This is the one piece of material that has the potential to make us miss the deadline, and I have to have it in the next week or two. We do not want to buy a full length of this material. It will probably cost about $200, possibly even more.

Jim

[rficalora]

Jim,. there's a place here that sells shorts but they're not open on weekends.  I have to go to California on Monday but I'll try & track down the number call sometime on Monday or Tuesday.

On the bushings, figures, that's the end that won't come out easy.  Any tricks or tips to get them out?

Rob

[mgb260]

Jim, You could sleeve the stubs with 1.25 O.D., .125 thick and then use the much stronger and easier to find 1.75 O.D., .25 thick tubing. the  weld will be to the yoke. Look back on page 10. ERA Cobra says the 1.75 is 4 times stronger than 1.25.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Thanks for the suggestion Jim. I do have some 2" hollowbar, which has a 1.250 bore and 3/8" wall so if strength was a question we could sleeve that and use it I guess. Be kinda heavy though.

Rob, last time I removed those bushings I used a press and a big socket. I only had two good ones though and put them on my roadster. There was one where I cut the spring eye but I knew I wouldn't want to keep that master leaf, it had some sort of deformity I suppose. Good thing we don't do that with people, a bunch of us'd be outa luck.

I'm about ready to cast some urethane, soon as I figure out the molds. All the parts are made. I drilled the heat treated 4140 and used it for the center tube. Massive overkill but quicker and therefore cheaper than scrounging for it. Some 3/4" pipe provided the outer sleeve, fully machined, and a chunk of steel tube bored to size will be the eye on the crossmember that the bushings are pressed into.

Incidentally if anyone feels uncomfortable with my suggestion that we could use pipe for the half-shafts there is little concern. The raw material that steel pipe is made from is very close to identical to that used for DOM tubing and has very similar properties. The main difference between the two is that the tubing has more closely controlled dimensions. The manufacturing differences are not that great either. As near as I can recall DOM is welded and then passed over an internal die and then an external die resulting in the finished tube where pipe is welded but not resized but seamless then has the internal flash removed by a cutter. The end result is that the DOM is a higher quality tubing, has some fairly minor granular structure improvement from the dies and is more uniform in size and shape, but it is not really inherently stronger in terms of the material. At least not much. Considering that I intend to cut the axles to the correct length before sleeving, the tube will be fully supported internally and due to the short length I'm pretty sure 3/16" wall would handle the torque just fine. It'd take some tremendous torque to twist that around the steel core. But we'll give it a 1/4 just for a safety factor. I'd like to use the pipe because it gets us up to a 1.660" OD, just .090" under the 1-3/4" tubing. But if you guys think that'll be too weak we can use the Hollowbar.

Anyway, here's a photo of the bushing parts and the guide tubes for the LCA's. The guide tubes will have to be turned to size. I made parts for both the Roadmaster and my roadster, no point in setting up for it twice.

Jim