Blown 346 cid Stroker 300

[BlownMGB-V8]

Doing a bit of trimming on the hood opening today to improve aesthetics and make a little more room for injector wiring and throttle linkages. I need to look at the cruise cable to see where that can go and I'll need a return spring of some sort as well as a longer throttle cable and a mounting point for the cable jackets. Still sorting out the fuel lines and FPR and will need a fitting or three, finding just the right ones might be fun.

I'm still holding off on deciding about the anodizing, and thinking about a new scoop design. It looks like there will be no trouble incorporating an IAC but I was playing with an electric throttle actuator and want to look at that again. The actuator doesn't have to be right on the throttle body so that opens some options. I will have to extend the fuel delivery line so it will get a second union up around the engine compartment somewhere making it a 3 piece line. And I'm still puzzling out the hood actuator mounts. That answer hasn't quite come to me yet.

Along in there somewhere I still need to make up new seat belts, which requires me to find a way to increase the top thread tension on the sewing machine. The heavy waxed thread I'm using doesn't pull back through the two webbing layers to where it needs to be. I get that adjusted though and it's a 2 hour job. So in reality more like a day or two. Then there's fluids, programming the ECU, start-up, break in, leak check and adjustments. It'll be a minute yet.

And of course reinstalling the AC compressor and the accessories belt and then charging and testing the AC system.

2 weeks to get all that done and tested to a level of reliability to insure a problem free thousand mile round trip? Yeah, piece of cake right? But the real goal is to button it up so it's driveable, pull out the Bay Car and get back on the bus conversion. Maybe next spring I can look at things like carpet, new electric wing actuators, the next inlet scoop, and maybe some body prep for a new paint job. Eventually I do plan to finish up on this car, even considering the feature creep.

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

Oh yeah, I also have to do something with the coils. Yep, not gonna make the meet deadline. Oh well, I guess I'll be forced to drive the Alfa. Such heartbreak, I even just got the seatbelt chime turned off. (I always use 'em, except in the driveway when the chime gets kinda annoying. It's way too loud.)

So I've been working on the mounts for the new electric bonnet lift cylinders and they are taking a rather innovative path you might say, since a spherical bearing needs to be incorporated into the mount at each end to avoid binding and the actuators come with a straight pin mount. I'll get some photos later on, today's job is to cut threads on the lathe, most likely a 1"x 24 thread and make up a pair of knurled pin spanner nuts. It's gotten a bit nutso on the design. Well that's not really anything new then is it? More later.

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

Got pictures this morning, first below are the cups I made to hold the spherical bearings. These are the ones to be attached to the inner fender and there are two more, not yet bored to depth that will attach to the struts later in the process.



Anyway here is one bolted to the lift actuator, it will compensate for the angular misalignment.



The fine thread is a 1" x 24 TPI which became necessary due to the thin wall of the cup. Below you see one screwed into the matching threaded piece which will be turned into a knurled pin spanner nut once the knurling tool I ordered off Amazon gets here. Supposedly today so probably next week sometime.



I welded the cups into stainless plates which bolt to the inner fenders using the knurled nut and a BHCS through one of the holes formerly used for the hydraulic fittings. A bit of fettling to make the plate flush and that end's done. There's room for a second bolt if I decide it's needed or even a 3rd.



Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

So that's one end attachment done:



The inside looks like this. Sort of automtive jewelry if you will, I suppose you could think of them as earrings if you wanted to. Totally extra but they do look nice:



The other end is liable to be a little tricky.

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

The forward mounts are now completed.



The geometry worked out well with full hood opening and closure, still a little work to do for fully smooth closing but it's nearly there.



Clearances are tight but adequate.



It's a little slower but the upside is that it now has built in limit switches so it can be switched to open or close and then ignored while it does it's thing. I may consider faster actuators later on, the next one is twice as fast but with half the power. That may be a good compromise.



The end pin is a hex bolt that has had one flat cut back to the shaft in order to fit in the socket and that works just fine with the spherical joint. It does however fix the pin so it does not rotate, so rotation must be done at the strut, meaning that the nut must leave a little play. This can be done with a double nut so I'm considering an acorn nut and locknut combo. That should work fine and there is plenty of room for it.

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

Had to flatten one tube on each header a bit to allow the wings of the bonnet to slide past smoothly when closing, this allows the rear of the bonnet to drop, which lets the fingers go down and under the drip rail so that when the assembly is fully closed there is an extra safety keeping the rear edge from lifting. It's probably not needed now with the electric actuators, but it's been proven that very significant dents or dimples in the header tubes do not impede flow so I'll easily get by with this. It helps the bodywork match up better, bringing that one step closer. I'll need to add two new tabs to the stainless grille trim and buff out the weld discoloration.



At any rate I've been testing the motion and it's been flawless with one exception. If I could limit the travel by about a quarter inch on opening it would keep the  hood trim from contacting the bumper. I went ahead and ordered a pair of the 2x-speed actuators, after all they are pretty affordable at $50 each. I'll fit those up and if they work I'll tear down one of the ones I have on it now and see what it'll take to shorten the travel a little bit. To me that'll be worth the premium. The analysis will be a fun task as well. The unused ones will not go to waste, I'm opposed to wastefulness so I'll use them in the RV on the bed platform storage lid.



Flattening the tubes was kinda fun actually. I have an old brass hammer that I first used a flapper wheel to smooth out the heads so it wouldn't dimple the metal. Then after marking the tubes I began working the metal slowly with light taps while smoothing it into the shape that was needed. There were two main areas of concern, first to not push in the center of the area being deformed so far that a bit of curvature can't be maintained, which would result in a dish, which would look bad. It could only go completely flat at the final point in the process. Second area was the boundary or corners of the affected area. A radius had to be maintained there all the way up to the end of the process when it could then be reduced. But that point had to be accurately determined. There was a fine line between too much and too little and I hit it with just a little tolerance for finger clearance at the drip rail. Pretty happy with that. Granted we don't like to see dings in the header tubes but they don't look bad, they serve a useful purpose and they don't impede exhaust flow so that's a win pretty much all around.



That brings me to the wiring and controls. Because the hydraulic pump was in the trunk the control wires went back there and will have to be re-routed to the front and go through the bulkhead seals which is in a crowded and poorly accessible area (typical though). Happily no relays will be needed as the current is low and a standard toggle switch will easily handle it. The current switch is momentary contact but fortunately toggle switches are easily found in almost any imaginable configuration. Two options seem suitable: ON-ON with no center position and this would be the simple solution, and probably the one most used. It gives you either open or closed positions. Or I could use ON-OFF-ON which would allow me to stop the motion at any intermediate point. I think I will start with that one and then consider the other later.



One advantage of the ON-ON switch is that should dynamic forces backdrive the actuators they will immediately power up and return to the park position. But with at least 660 lbs of force at the actuator required to do that it seems unlikely. I did have that problem with the hydraulic system, which had zero resistance to backdriving and would let the hood float. This became an issue at speeds above 110 and there were times when I had to consider lifting. I expect that will be a thing of the past.

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

Been absent for a few days, V8 meet and all that plus a few other distractions but I haven't totally been sitting on my hands. Today I expect to finish up the re-webbing of my Kangol magnetic latch seat belts using the proper thickness of webbing and I'll take a few photos and add some tips later. I've also found enough of the 10mm marine plywood to replace the burned trim panel for the trunk bulkhead but haven't started the layout, and I need to order a new inertia switch and connector.

The new set of struts came in, they will operate twice as fast which should be about right. They are also one inch shorter overall and although that means I'll have to drill and tap a new set of mounting holes in the hinge mechanism, it also means the bonnet will be stopping short of the front bumper, which is what I really wanted in the first place. So that's a fortuitous development and I'll see how it all works out once I've calculated the geometry changes to locate the holes. I got really lucky that the closed position was exactly right but I'm not going to trust the width of a sharpie tip to get it exactly right twice in a row.

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

The most difficult part of rebuilding a set of Kangol Magnetic Latch seat belts is obtaining the webbing. I finally found a source:

For and on behalf of FDTS Limited
Susan Taylor
MBA, BA (hons) Law, DMS
Managing Director
sue@fdts-seatbelts.co.uk
Tel:  01932342043

I ordered 7 yards of their black ZY webbing and all costs included paid 90 Pounds Sterling. With the belts completed I can now confirm that it appears to be the correct material but I haven't test driven it yet. I had better than a yard left over, so 6 yards is a suitable order size. You might get by with 5, I seem to have misplaced a 1/2 yard piece somehow though so I couldn't guarantee that.




The second hardest bit is finding all the plastic bits in good repair. They tend to suffer some abuse, especially the small webbing end pieces with the ones that slide along the lap belt getting the worst of it. Due to damage and lack of rivets I made up these bits and used 1/4" long x 10-32 stainless button heads.



For the sliders I folded some strip over the plates and clamped them in the vise. They ended up being a bit too tight going over the screw heads so I had to insert a putty knife and flex them upwards to get the proper drag.



The next hardest part is restoring the hard metal parts which are chrome plated and tend to rust and flake. I mostly replaced those bits with stainless, except for the adjuster frames and I just used the best ones I had. It's all completely disassemblable btw. The adjuster bar has an angle cut on one side that allows it to come out. I had to use a 400 series stainless for the hook, being a chromium stainless it is magnetic, unlike the 300 series nickel stainless but it is also considerably more expensive.



I'm satisfied with the results. I spent more in time and money doing it myself than it would have cost me to send them off to be restored but I would never have gotten the stainless hardware that way, and I refuse to send my precious parts out for fear they would not come back. Hey, most do not guarantee you get your original parts back in the return and even if they did, "mistakes" can happen. I have known raccoons who might latch onto a particularly tasty shiny bit after all. I couldn't chance it. Besides, it gave me a chance to get creative and I couldn't be more pleased with the results. I suppose I could have buffed the plates, but I can always do that later when I have nothing better to do.

Jim