340 upgrade

[MGBV8]

Let me help you old fellers out.  Stick these on the back side of your safety glasses, welding helmet, etc.

http://optx2020.com/p-20-hydrotac-stick-on-lenses-for-safety-wear.aspx

Much cheaper thru Amazon.com or other sources.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Sounds like a good idea Carl. Have you tried them?

Here are some more photos. The bumper overrider idea didn't work out so well. Too deep at the end and a bit too heavy, so I formed up some sheet metal to work. I think I'm ready to mount the radiator and fans now, once I do a little more painting. Made enough clearance for a fat filter too.

JB

[roverman]

Jim, I don't recognize the harmonic dampener, looks"aftermarket ? Share ? Thanks, roverman.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Sure Art.
http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?2,274,page=12

JB

[DiDueColpi]

Hey Jim,
Cars lookin good.

FWIW Miller offers magnifying lenses that fit into your welding helmet. Many different styles and magnifications.
They are a great help for us more "experienced" individuals
.
Cheers
Fred

[MGBV8]

Sounds like a good idea Carl. Have you tried them?

Nope. Don't quite need them. I use 1.0 readers for very small print.

I did get a set of these for Robin to use behind her torching glasses.  They are like the bottom half of bifocals. The pic shows the case. The lens is a half moon shape.

http://www.amazon.com/OPTX-20-Stick-Bifocals-2-00/dp/B000W7HQCQ

Fred's suggestion from Miller would be a better choice for a welding helmet.  The stick on bifocals from Amazon would be better for safety glasses.

[roverman]

Jim, I took a "read". Somewhere-back there, you mentioned a Fluid Dampener ? Is that cast iron hub going to last ? I've modified smaller dia ones,(F.D's) from sbc's, to fit our motors. Nice work. roverman.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Should be fine Art, not much stress on it I think. Didn't see any real need to go massive there. The worst loading is the blower and the biggest stress is the harmonic impulses. It's certainly not overkill but I think it'll do.

I'll check out those lenses next time I go to the welding supply, maybe they'll have some I can look at.

This LCA mod has been kicking my a$$. The clearance cutout is pretty huge. After 3 different approaches failed I decided to try something entirely different. Instead of trying to reinforce the front arm of the LCA I started thinking in terms of enclosing the rack, meaning visualizing the clearance space needed and once I did that a picture started to take shape. The rack, boot, and clearance forms a tubular space and a 3-1/2" tube can easily enclose that, centered on the rack, with room to spare, and intersect the LCA forward arm in appropriate areas for welding and reinforcement. Slice off the upper half of the tube to allow articulation, round the corners and such to make it look presentable and I think I'm there. So I ordered some tubing. Next week we'll see how it all works out. It will definitely look unusual, but I think the strength will be there without adding much weight.

It's been a rough week. I've had a very few small successes but overall it's been one of those days where you wish you could just start over... or not, and a week of it, and there's no reason for it. Maybe tomorrow will be better. Anyway it'll pass eventually. I probably need to get out more.

JB

[BlownMGB-V8]

I'm Back! The LCA's are finished and installed on the car, see the Roadmaster thread for photos and details, same approx. date.That worked out very well and even looks good. The airbag people sent me some smaller bags and I'm test fitting them on the car but it'll take a lot more air pressure so time will tell how that works out, for now I'm thinking the original bags will be the way to go but we'll see, this option may be useful. From there I moved on to the headers, trimmed and rewelded the port flanges to match the 340 and welded on some pieces I made up for port EGT probes, drilled and tapped those to 1/8 NPT and then bead blasted the headers. But first I had to make this dust sucker for the blasting cabinet from an old dryer fan and parts I had lying around:



...and naturally it turned out that most of my beads were as light as the dust so they got sucked out too. Have to get some bigger beads. Along about that time the house AC quit and all of those hard to find bits and hard to figure out details also seemed to come home at the same time so as you can imagine I've been a little busy. Did the AC install myself and the house now has a wonderful coolness factor, plus a little side benefit is that my office now has a nice little window unit that keeps it nice and cool. I'm really loving that! At the same time I was running conduit and 4 ga wire to a sub panel to power the old house oven, getting some ceramic header coating ordered (went with Techline) and finding insulation to make an oven extender box. About that time I figured out I also need a vibratory tumbler so I went and dug a 55 gallon drum out of the shed along with some conveyer belting to pad the inside. Next project coming right up! Wonder if pea gravel will work for a polishing media?

Meantime since I was looking around for something to do to relieve the boredom, I pulled the hubs and rotors off the MG and redrilled them for a Chevy pattern, along with the spare tire:





That worked out so well that I decided to leave the brakes alone for now. They are plenty lighter due to the new lightening holes where the Ford stud pattern went and new brakes after all, so the new Outlaw calipers can wait. Interesting though that the outlaw calipers fit the Mustang rotors. They are 24mm thick. Maybe by the time I wear out the Stang brakes again 24mm scalloped rotors will be available. But Lordy them things is heavy! Just the brackets to match the MG spindles weigh as much as the Outlaw calipers!

There's no rush. I decided the things that don't need upgraded right now can wait. Much more important to get the things done that're keeping the car off the road. Driveshaft, shifter, fuel rail and then the last really difficult piece, the air inlet and throttle body. (that's not including a new hinge assembly for the tilt front end, and I'll likely go with hydraulics on that) That will be a challenge but having done one already I have some ideas, and I have better equipment to work with too. The plan is for three main inline butterflies and below that two very small ones to be run by an actuator of some sort for idle air control and possibly throttle blip on downshift. Part of the challenge is going to be deciding how large to make these two small throttles and how to construct them. More on that later, any ideas gratefully accepted.

JB

[J Man]

Out of curiosity, why did you use the triple bags rather than the conventional double bags?

[BlownMGB-V8]

They are taller mainly. Also the crease lines up pretty well with the mount for the bump stops so a little less grinding is needed to fit them in. But really just for a better fit.

JB

[J Man]

Are they smaller diameter than the double bags?

[BlownMGB-V8]

No, I'm sure they are the same. I've had both here and the diameter difference would be pretty minimal. I am experimenting with a smaller diameter bag but it requires twice as much air pressure to carry the weight. 150+ psi takes a pretty good compressor, so I'm not sure they will make the cut. You can find 80 psi shop air just about anywhere.

JB

[BlownMGB-V8]

Ordered the wheels two days ago. I'm still suffering sticker shock and buyer's remorse. Geez I hope that goes away soon. They'll be here in 3 weeks. 17 x 11 on the back and 17 x 8-1/2 on the front. Weld S71.

JB

[Dan B]

Cool!  Black or Chrome?

[DiDueColpi]

Buyers remorse and sticker shock both at the same time.
Hmmm.
The doctor orders a strict diet of steak and scotchy scotch until the symptoms subside.
Cheers
Fred

[Bill Young]

Those are really going to look great Jim, can't wait to see the car finished with the new blower system and IRS.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Well Fred, I just overloaded on murderburger and oreo blizzard ice cream cake, is that close enough?

The wheels are polished, they are the "high pad" version which gives more brake clearance and has kinda curved spokes since they came the closest to my ideal offset. 43mm offset on the rear and 24 on the front. Anyway it'll make things a lot easier when I go to fit up the light weight brakes in front. So now I get to sweat worrying that the offset is going to be right. It might not be that big a deal, except that they cost almost twice what I paid for the car. OTOH, factor in inflation and maybe they cost less than the car. I can't figure out if that is good or bad. I don't know what the weight is, I forgot to ask. But they should be pretty light. Regardless, I figured this'd be my last chance before tax refunds so I'd better go for it. Edith took it pretty well. Did you ever notice that women are thoroughly confusing creatures?

JB

[DiDueColpi]

If you feel better Jim, then the RX is on the money.

Right there with you on the confusing creatures.

Taking the lovely Lynne to France next spring for one of her culinary courses. Or she's taking me, I'm not sure.
She said "we'll be near Italy maybe you should stop by the Ducati factory again and pick out a little souvenir".
I said that I have enough T shirts and key chains.
She said " I was thinking more like a new bike".
I said
I love that woman.

Cheers
Fred

[MG four six eight]

Jim

Once you install those wheels, buyers remorse will just fade away. Should look pretty good!

Bill

[BlownMGB-V8]

Bill, surely you're not saying it'll be with me for 3 weeks while I wait for them to get here? ;-) Actually Edith's birthday cake helped quite a bit... I ate most of it.

Well, it'll be nice to get the right wheels and tires on the car. That will probably help me stay motivated to work on it and to find inexpensive ways around what still needs to be done. Heck, it's already motivated me to find a way to hook up power to my shop oven without spending any more. Sometimes a fresh look at things is all you need to see a clear path. Once I realized that the only thing the sub panel really needed to power right now is the oven, I was able to grab a 60 amp breaker slated for a future improvement, slap it in the main panel, and voila! The oven works!

I've been sandblasting the headers and they are coming out good. The coarse blasting sand is taking off the old coating pretty well, feathering the edges where it doesn't, and leaving a good surface for adhesion of the new coating. But it takes time. I've also been grinding down the welds where I can reach them. So far I have one small hole that needs welded up. Not bad for 25 year old headers, but naturally it's in the collector's center seam between the tubes. I think I can reach it with the mig but there couldn't be a much harder spot to repair. I may try that this afternoon or tomorrow if I get the chance. I also realized that I don't necessarily have to have the new front tires right away. I have some 225/45-17's that I could use short term. They are old and hard and a little small but have adequate tread. But then, maybe I'll get tires for my birthday! And even if not it'll give me a decent chance to look and see if a 265 might be a better choice than the 245s I've been planning to use. I hate to give up any width and the old size was 265/50-14 but they'd be a little taller. Which might end up looking OK.

In a way it's a lot like when I bought the transmission. I may be a little miserable for the next few months but that will pass and I'll be glad I did it.

JB

[BlownMGB-V8]

About 3 decades ago Dan B made a deal with Harry Johnston for some LBC parts, and though I always knew Harry to be more than fair, he got Dan to agree to sand blast an old porch glider that his wife's family had given them. You know the type, sheet metal, floral pattern in the back and seat. wraparound arms and straps to hold it up, 30 gazzillion coats of white paint, and of course, rust.

About 3 years and several tons of sand later, Dan brought it back saying he'd done the very best he could, and really he had. But when at the end of the day you see about one square foot cleared its sorta tough going.

That's about the way I'm feeling with these headers right now. On the good side, I did at least find out why the coating failed. Somebody left rust on the headers when they were coated the first time. I'll not bother naming names because it was 25 years ago and things change, but I can see obvious proof of just how important it is to get to bare metal. The sand I'm using is coarser than recommended and that's a good thing because I'm rapidly turning it to dust. But I'm closing in on the last spots on one header and am pretty far along on the other one too. And I still have more fresh sand. I'm not sure how long it'll take to finish because at this point I'm turning the sand to dust so fast the dust sucker can't keep up so I get a few seconds where I can see and then it all goes cloudy. The coating is darned close to the same color as the bare steel, so I've taken to making stripes on it with a red fat tip sharpie. Many many load/unload cycles. Tried black but just didn't get enough contrast. The red seems to be working, I'll know more on the next unload. Put a new window in the blaster and that helped quite a bit. So anyway the work continues.

JB

[74ls1tr6]

"Wow" brings back memories of sand blasting my TR6 frame, and all the parts. I ended up having sand everywhere and blowing sand dust out of my nose even with a mask on. I think it was the dirtyest jobs of a rebuild.

The frame was on saw horses, had plastic stapled to the ceiling all around the frame to the floor. Probably spent 40 hours or more to clean it up. What a pain in the A. Used a little box(full of sand) that was strapped to my back to carry around. Blast, vacuum up, fill blaster box, blast, vacuum up, fill blaster box, over and over untill is was dust. New sand and repeat.

You will be glad when its done a big mile stone to pass. This will soon pass, then you can move on to the more fun list to do's

Calvin

[Jim Stabe]

Jim

I'm sure you know the hazards of using sand to blast with - silicosis if you breathe any of the dust. If you are going to use sand be sure to use a good respirator. Better to use a non silica media like some of the ground smelting slag (Black Beauty)

[BlownMGB-V8]

Thanks guys. I'm thinking another day or two and I'll have it pretty well knocked out. Now it's lots of short blasts separated by walking away to do other things so the dust can settle enough to be able to see. I'm not using the old open hopper blaster, except to supply the sand. You are very right about the dangers of silicosis. Luckily I have a blast cabinet with a dust sucker connected to it that vents outside. That maintains negative pressure in the cabinet so no dust gets out. No sneezing and no dust in the nose. What an improvement from the old days!

JB