We will immediately be moving to this forum as the Official site of the MGB Roadmaster group project under legal authority of the non-profit organization, British American Deviant Automotive Sports-car Society, LLC or BADASS, NLC for short. I will put notices on all three existing forums to that effect.
This upcoming weekend is the October Roadmaster weekend (Oct 27th-28th) and participants are invited.
The address is 9406 Gunpowder Rd., Florence, KY 41042
I may be reached at: Jim (at) BlackwoodLabs (dot) com or at: (859) 816-2187.
Jim
It all began with the ravings of a madman/genius:
"It'll work, I swear to God! I just was eyeballing and measuring a 430 Buick engine and comparing it to my 215 install, and there is room!"
"Think about it, the MGB-V8 started with the smallest Buick V8 engine ever made. It just won't be complete until it has been done with the largest Buick V8 engine, now will it? We simply have to do this, and by all rights it should be a group effort for the benefit of MG posterity. Let's show the world that we CAN hang with the big dogs, and do it with style, flair, AND a small budget!"
Then gasoline was poured on this spurious/deviant/harebrained idea:
"I think you have a great idea, Jim. I would love to see this concept car happen.
To get the ball rolling, I have a spare T-5 to donate for this project."
This is the original thread where it all began:
https://www.mgexp.com/forum/mg-engine-swaps-forum.40/big-block-mgb.538455/
Donations to the Roadmaster Project can be made to:
Rick Ingram, Treasurer
1372 County Rd 2275 East
P.O. Box 588
St. Joseph, IL 61873
mowog1 (at) aol (dot) com
Checks should be made out to:
"British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society" or "BADASS"
I didn't think it would take Jim long to get moved over here. At last a permant home for BADASS. Feels good to be home Jim.
Curtis, since BADASS is building a MG but will be supported by a lot of other owners of British V8s can we get a link off the other boards as well? Thanks.
Didn't take long at all Bill. If you'll recall, Curtis was one of the earliest supporters, assuring us that we would have a place at the British V8 Newsletter. Well, he's made good on his promise and so are we. Personally I'm 100% in support of the newsletter. I know what it was like before there was one. Things are now so much better that it's impossible to make a comparison and it's getting better still. There's a lot we can do working together that will have the synergistic effect of helping this project and helping the newsletter at the same time and Curtis understands that as well as I do. Better probably. So onward we go.
I have some photos from the Roadmaster Weekend. There's still one day to go but I probably won't get all of the news in this post anyway and there are more than 4 photos.
Friday evening, Dan Masters brought the Jag IRS. He had been up to Ted's place and sorry to say he was behind schedule getting home so he couldn't stay even long enough to come in for a bowl of chili, in fact in the rush I may not have even remembered to offer it. Apologies if not Dan. Anyway we went out to the lab and unloaded all the parts and Dan even managed to explain some of it for me, and then he was on his way. I had gotten him to help me lift the center unit up onto the upside down GT and position it. That's one heavy piece. Anyway today I got to spend some time unpacking all of the parts. To Dan's credit, he did not just give us a junkyard takeout. The suspension had been disassembled and inspected, and many new parts purchased including bearings, seals, bushings, 4 new u-joints, stub shafts, yokes, and a pair of brand new Brembo brake rotors. MVC-253S.JPG
In fact, as far as I could tell by looking the only part we still need for it is one hub flange as one of those appears to have been damaged in disassembly. It might be usable but should probably be replaced so if anyone can get us one.... It's just the flange that the wheel bolts to. We will be needing a set of brake calipers for it and I'll have to have those before I can mount the housing to the car as I need to check clearances, but I will contact Bill Guzman to see if there is anything he can do to help on that.
MVC-252S.JPG
The fit of the center unit is nothing short of amazing. It's almost like the MG engineers had planned for it. I have a Ford 8.8" unit from a T-bird and set it up on the mule and it didn't fit at all. The front mount eyes hit the battery boxes with the ring gear in the space needed by the tank. Just no practical way to use that and keep the boxes. The Jag unit is near perfect. With a 1/4" plate between the shelf and the housing the brake rotors have good clearance all around and the mounts for the lower pivot brackets line up very well with the corners of the battery boxes. In fact they are exactly the same width. A top bolt-in mount will be quite easy to build and with minimal reinforcing the battery boxes will make perfect anchor points for the pivot brackets. Remember, those battery boxes are structural. They do provide a significant amount of bracing where the transmission tunnel ties in. People have removed them without ill effect it's true, but that is just a testament to the strength of the body shell itself. Until the brake calipers are on hand I won't be able to say for certain, but it looks like the battery boxes will stay, largely unmodified.
MVC-251S.JPG
The plan is to replace the lower control arms with welded up tubular units similar to those offered by several aftermarket suppliers, along with redesigned welded up pivot brackets. Measurements show that there is room to go to tubular half shafts as well, and these two changes will eliminate a great deal of weight from the assembly, half of which is unsprung weight. The tubular half shafts are also dead simple to make up to any custom length.
MVC-250S.JPG
We will have to come up with a pair of coil-over units of course. I hope someone can donate a set.
Jim
Jim,
I apologize for being so rushed, but it took me about two hours to get through Cincinatti, after encountering a lot of road construction all along the way, so I was running way late. I got home right around 11, after leaving Ted's around 8.
If there were no brake calipers in the box I left, I most likely have them here at home. I'll look and see and let your know. I'm pretty sure I didn't toss them out.
Jim--OK--In regard to the alum. 300 heads (and associated pieces)--I would be happy to ship these items truck freight (and absorb the cost as a donation). But my main concern is damage and whether or not I'll be able to adequately protect from damage without running up outrageous freight costs. So...........I live in Chattanooga. I'll be willing to drive 3 or 4 hours in any direction from here to deliver to someone headed your way.
Anyone headed toward Jim's within the next month or so--that lives within 3-4 hours of Chattanooga?
Let me know. I'm at jackmorris99@comcast.net.
Thanks!
Thanks Jack. Steve DeGroat is bringing the engine up the first weekend of December. He lives near Columbia, SC. That's 5 hours from you but I'm guessing that he can route his trip up through Knoxville which brings him within less than 2 hours of you. Perhaps you could arrange to meet there and make the transfer. Alternatively, since Dan M. lives at Alcoa, TN that might make a good drop-off point, or a better alternative might be our VP, Carl Floyd near Johnson City. That'd be just a hair over 3 hours but might be a better route for Steve.
Hey Carl, is that Kingsport or Kingston? I think I may have it wrong in the spreadsheet. Incidentally I put the aerosol supplies in the spreadsheet as donations also. Which reminds me, Steve when you are here we'll talk about getting receipts to our contributors so that they will have documentation of their donations for taxes. I think we can make that a fairly simple task. We do need everyone who has made a donation and has not already done it to send us their address, phone number and email address. We are missing that info for a lot of you. Also lest I forget to mention it Steve, you and Margaret are more than welcome to the guest bedroom that weekend and we'd love to have you stay here and save the motel costs.
We have accomplished quite a lot at this point. I'm guessing that Dan will probably find the calipers, (Incidentally I totally understand about the rush. As you said, we'll have time to socialize at Ted's winter party.) someone else will come up with a set of coil-overs for us, and a good hub flange will materialize, clearing the way for assembling the IRS. I still can't believe how well that fits in there. I can purchase four U-joint yokes and some tubing to make up the stub shafts and as short as they are they may not even need to be balanced if I use seamless tubing. I will also need to buy tubing for the lower arms, probably 1-1/8 or 1-1/4" diameter, some 1 x 1-3/4" rectangular tubing for the upper brace and a small piece of 1/4" plate, but I will talk to Victory Tubing about making a donation and see what it gets us. Come to think of it, maybe Dayton Clutch and U-joint will contribute the shafts, at least I can ask.
Finally, Jim Stuart, if you've caught this post, could you let me know what the rim width and backspacing is on that set of wheels? I may have asked you that already but it would be buried in the old threads somewhere and I'll need that info before I can determine the control arm length. Even better would be if we can find a way to get the rims here, but I'm thinking maybe we can coordinate that with the trip to transport the engine to Dale Spooner's shop. Thanks everyone!
Jim
Jim,
I found the brake calipers, and I also have the emergency brake assemblies as well.
According to Mapquest, the route from Steve's home in Columbia, SC passes through Knoxville, about 20 miles from my house. Steve could drop by and pick them up without going a long way out of his way. I could give him a tour of my TR6 V8 project while he's here.
Dan--could I drop my items off at your place--assuming Steve will actually go thru Knoxville?
Thanks!
Jacmo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dan--could I drop my items off at your
> place--assuming Steve will actually go thru
> Knoxville?
Jack,
That would be fine. We should be hearing from Steve or Jim soon as to Steve's route.
Jacmo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dan--could I drop my items off at your
> place--assuming Steve will actually go thru
> Knoxville?
Jack,
That would be fine. We should be hearing from Steve or Jim soon as to Steve's route.
everyone,
We will be coming up through Knoxville on Thursday, 12/29. We can come by Dan's and pick up whatever is there. Don't know what time we will get there. We will leave Columbia about 9:00 to avoid the morning traffic here. I will try to get an aprrox. time of arrival in Knox.
Jim- thanks for the offer of the spare room, but we will probably stay at the same motel, it is cheap and easy.
Anybody that has stuff to donate that can get it to Dan's, we can pick it up.
Hope all this works out.
Steve
Unless anyone has an objection, we will move the November Roadmaster Weekend to the 1st and 2nd of December to accommodate Thanksgiving and coincide with Steve's visit.
I've gotten a four part article from Dan M. about the Jag IRS that looks pretty complete. In looking at it I can see where Dan has already done a lot of work on this IRS and spent a fair amount of money on parts. Thank you Dan, that is a very significant contribution. We have the upgraded UHMW control arm bushings as well as new bearings and u-joints. I've come up with a design for the differential support and I'm working on the details of the mounting cushions. I also want to make it adjustable for pinion angle. A range of 0-6 degrees would be more than anyone would need, but I won't know what angle the BBB will take until it's test fitted the next time and it would be good to be able to match the engine angle within 1/2 degree or less. The best I recall the engine angle is 2 or 3 degrees, so really if we have a range from 1 to 4 that should be plenty. I think I can find a way to build that into the mount.
The lower control arms are the next issue but they don't have to be completed until the car is ready to set on it's wheels. Still the sooner the better. It might be possible to use the stock arms, but space by the battery box corner is tight and they have to be shortened as well. A built up set should work fine and could be made adjustable so they can be set parallel with the ground. I'll give that some thought as well.
Jim
Just reread my post. We will be going to Jim's on 11/29 not 12/29. So we will pick up whatever at Dan's on 11/29 if that suits Dan.
Steve
That suits me fine.
The December issue of Hot Rod magazine has an interesting article on IRS setups that might be worth a look.
I went out and bought the magazine, figured I might as well subsidize those 4 old articles even though by now I think I've seen most of it on the web anyway. It is interesting what guys are doing with IRS these days, and apparently some of them are spending a lot of money doing it, up to twelve grand in some cases. I don't think such overkill is necessary for our car though. I see a lot of what looks suspiciously like Jaguar geometry on those conversions and that is probably because the Jag geometry is very simple. I have yet to see a good explanation of the principles of anti-squat and rear wheel steering in terms of how the forces are applied to the different suspension components, where and how the pivot points can be located to control it and which direction does what. That would be handy. I used to have Fred Puhn's book around here somewhere but I can't find it anymore, might have gotten some pointers out of that, but I don't recall him going into any great detail on the IRS either. If someone would send me that excerpt I'd add it to the Jag IRS binder though. We could probably make fairly minor changes to the Jag geometry as we go if it would be helpful, particularly in terms of anti-squat and traction control. I'm not sure the Jag has much of a problem with anti-squat just looking at the layout, but anything we can do to control wheel hop would help.
I get the idea that anti-squat is more of a problem with cars that have the lower control arm (LCA) mounted at an angle to the long axis of the car, and I suspect this is done to control wheel movement fore and aft. The use of a radius rod for this purpose means compliant bushings are needed somewhere. The only other alternative is widely triangulated inner pivot points, but this can also be accomplished with radius rods that have their inner pivot on the axis of the LCA inner pivot and this can be either forward or behind the axle. With that arrangement it is still possible that there could be some reactionary forces that tend to compress the suspension, but I don't know.
Wheel hop to my mind is largely the result of flex in the driveline and suspension and this is greatly aggravated by the way the Jag unit is made. Starting with the half shafts, a solid axle will twist somewhat under heavy load so going to tube axles will help, if only incrementally. We can do little about flex in the tires but going back the other way the upright (hub bearing carrier) is only supported at the bottom at two points. And as much as the UHMW bushings are a good idea for replacement of the stock timken bearings, they do have more give to them and will contribute to the problem. The stock LCA uses a large heavy tube and this is extremely resistant to twist, much more so than a built up LCA would be, but it is at the disadvantage of having the load applied through a lever arm (the upright) which is several inches long and this is the basic problem with the design. Jaguar did a fine job of designing around this problem by using rigid components and zero clearance bearings but the source of the problem is at the upright. Finally there is the connection from the LCA to the body of the car which includes the isolator mounts for the IRS cage. Other components that can contribute are the spring hub on the clutch and the motor mounts.
So knowing that twist at the upright is the biggest problem how do we fix that? Clearly if there was a way to tie the top of the upright to the body so it couldn't move fore and aft but could still move up, down, and sideways that would take care of it. A radius rod to the LCA doesn't do that, it would require an attachment of some sort at the top above the spindle. I suspect that Jaguar experimented with something along this line at some point but I've never seen anything on it. Two possibilities come to mind right away, the ubiquitous radius rod which in this case would need to be a little contorted or tie into the body in a higher location and this might work well with the UHMW bushings, and a strut of some sort similar to a McPhearson but shorter. A Watts linkage also should work just fine, provided there is room for it.
Now for anyone who has made it this far and wants to know why the half shaft is not enough for the upper control arm (UCA), although the half shaft is fine for controlling lateral movement of the upright it can do nothing to control fore and aft or rotational motion because of the u-joints and because it rotates, leaving every bit of the reactionary forces to be carried by the LCA. This explains why the LCA is so beefy on the Jag, and also should be a cautionary note to anyone considering built up LCA's, as they will not resist torque as well as the original arms do. Basically, that tube has to resist all of the torque output of the engine, multiplied by first gear and the ring and pinion, so if the engine produces 300 ft/lbs of torque which is multiplied by a factor of about 10 and the diff has a posi that's 3000 ft/lbs of torque that the LCA has to resist, applied through about a 6 inch lever. If it is correct then to say that we have 3000 x 1-1/2ft/lbs that converts to 4500 ft/lbs, or about the equivalent of me jumping up and down on a 20 foot lever and I guarantee something in that suspension is going to give. So there's your wheel hop. Not such a mystery anymore, is it?
Jim
Fred Puhn's book is excellent... but when you're thinking about engineering your own IRS you've moved on to other territory. I'd recommend "Tune to Win" by Carroll Smith. It has long, detailed, extensively illustrated suspension chapters. That were written primarily for people designing their own open-wheel race car suspensions (e.g. "Formula Fords"), but all the same physics will apply to your IRS. All the Carroll Smith books are outstanding, by the way.
Have you ever spoken with Tom Hoagland? He has recently retired from doing MGB V8 conversions (he formerly operated a shop in Michigan under the name "Richland Motor Cars"), but while he was in the game he built up several Jag IRS MGBs. I don't remember too much of our discussion about them, but one thing I remember was he stressed his preference for working with the E-type IRS vs. the later components.
I don't know if this contact info will still work for Tom:
P.O. Box 311
Palmyra, MI 93010
telephone: (517) 410-7628
e-mail: Tom_Hoagland@hotmail.com
Wow! You people have lost me. If it helps any, I plan to bring my Jag when I come up with the 455. We can look at a working model.
Steve
Hi Jim, I've been following this project with interest - it should be one torquey beast when complete! Reading what you wrote about the Jaguar IRS and the torque loads on the control arms and the uprights got me thinking about the design of that system.
It strikes me that the torque reaction to the rotating drive shaft - which is transmitted to the body structure of a beam axle car through leaf springs and spring shackles or by ams attaching the axle to the body is quite a different scenario to an IRS set-up where the differential is bolted solidly to the body structure.
In this case the torque reaction would be transmitted to the body by the differential mounts and the suspension from there on out would not be subject to those loads. This should mean that the outboard suspension would not need to be that strong in a rotationally resistant sense and this is probably the reason for the inboard discs with their mounting points being part of the differential assembly as then the braking torque loads are also not placed on the uprights or the control arm - only the drive shafts
The suspension still has the job of locating the rear wheels vertically, fore and aft and laterally and of absorbing full braking and acceleration loads in a fore and aft sense. So hopefully the only new control arm needed would be the lower trailing arm, similar to the Jaguar item, to provide fore and aft stability for the wheels. I look forward to seeing how this conversion runs as I have been thinking of a Jaguar IRS for my car for some time. Its great to see a cooperative effort like this and I wish it every success. Bob Elwin
I believe you are right Bob, that does make perfect sense. However, the arm still needs to resist the force of the tire gripping the ground and acting as a lever against the anchor point, which is the upright pivot. So with a 24" diameter tire (for simplicity) transmitting 3000 ft/lbs of torque to the pavement that means 3000 lbs of acceleration force is being applied ( 3000 X half the tire diameter or 1 ft.) to the pivot which is halfway between the contact patch and the stub shaft or the center of the wheel. That (roughly) 6" distance means that at least half of that torque will indeed be transmitted through the torque arm simply because there is no other member to resist twist on the arm developed as a result of the acceleration force from the contact patch, even if there is a radius arm attached at the pivot to absorb linear acceleration forces. Does that sound right? I still think it is this twisting force that generates the wheel hop and it makes sense to me that an upper link could control it quite easily. What you just pointed out though is that the link only needs to be about a third as strong as I had originally thought, a great advantage.
I will try to contact Tom Hoagland later today. I haven't gotten much done on the car in the last week other than theorizing. Jim Stuart is going to send one of the wheels so we can set the hub to hub distance and shorten the arms and shafts, but we need one hub. I can machine the new stud pattern but I don't want to set up the mill for that until I have both parts since it involves removing the vise and dialing in the index table. I'd much rather not have to do that twice. The stud pattern has to be machined before the hubs can be assembled into the uprights, and the uprights have to be assembled before the half-shaft length can be determined. So I really need someone to find us a hub and send it to me. That's the flange that the wheel bolts to. One is good but the other one is broken under the inner bearing race. We might be able to get by with using it that way, but it's risky since the bearing wouldn't be supported properly. I don't think that is the sort of risk we should be taking on this car.
Jim
MVC-282S.JPG
Hi Jim, Your quite right about the lower radius arm mainly taking lateral and vertical loads as the base isn't very wide for all the fore and aft loads. That is where the trailing arm comes in to maintain the rear wheels in the correct fore and aft location against acceleration and braking forces. I think the tractive effort as the tires turn will still be taken by the differential mounts with the hub carrier and its lower arm acting purely as a bearing and a means of maintaining the wheel in the correct position. The reason for this is I'm hoping you can get away with the lower trailing control arm alone as there may not be enough room for an upper one as well.
I remember driving a very tired E-type many years ago which would change direction left or right depending on whether you accelerated or braked accompanied by strange clonking sounds from underneath - perhaps the trailing arm had rusted away from the body!! Cheers, Bob.
Well, here's what I'm thinking Bob, as the thrust of acceleration is applied to the trailing arm the point at which it attaches (the upright pivot pin) acts as a fulcrum or pivot for the load that is applied because the force is applied at the tire contact patch, rather than 6 inches higher where the trailing arm is. In other words, there is a 6 inch long lever arm applying the load to the trailing arm pivot. This creates a torque load on the lower control arm equal to the axle torque divided by the radius of the wheel/tire and multiplied by the distance of the pivot above the road. In our example, resulting in 1500 ft/lbs of torque applied to the lower control arm. Attachment of the differential is irrelevant in this case because we are dealing strictly with a linear acceleration load at the trailing arm which is then translated into torque by the offset between the point where the load is applied and the point of rotation. My numbers could be off but the transmission of forces is accurate I believe. Your idea of dual trailing arms is a good one as that would control the torque thus created, in effect moving the rotation axis back to the center of the hub or depending on the geometry of the trailing arms allowing it to be located where it would do the most good. I think that is the basis of a good four link system on a live axle, though in that case it has to deal with rotational loads on the housing also. I don't claim to really have a handle on this, it's been a long time since I studied force vector loads and I'm plenty rusty. Plus there's a lot going on back there, much more than just rotation and counter rotation. However, just taking the basic geometry as a good starting point I think if we do no more than transmit the rotational force created by acceleration to the body of the car we should be able to just about eliminate wheel hop. But the next question is where it gets tricky. If we do that with an additional linkage will it cause the body to go up or down under acceleration? I think that depends on how and where it is attached.
Jim
I found boxes for 2 wheels & will try to get them to the UPS guy this week.
Thanks Jim, that will help a lot.
Guys, somebody needs to step up and find us a wheel flange (photo in above post) as soon as possible. I can buy one but it'll deplete our funds by probably about $75 after tax and shipping. Doesn't anybody know some Jag people who might have a spare lying around?
Roadmaster weekend is coming up in another couple of weeks (Dec. 1 and 2). There well be several people here that weekend. Steve and Margaret are bringing up the 455 engine, Pete Mantell mentioned that he'll try to contact Rick and Dave and see if the three of them can run over, Dan B is coming in, and several local club members are planning on coming to the BCC-S meet Sunday afternoon which hopefully will be a good opportunity to make introductions. A few more weekends like that and we may be able to achieve critical mass.
New shop equipment is on-line.
MVC-283S.JPG
The new buffer is now operational, it is a 15hp 3 phase large frame motor with a 16" diameter 2-1/2" face buffing wheel. I've tested it out on some stainless I'm using for the control set on my motorcycle and it works well, though I'm not sure I have the right compound for it yet. Very stable and vibration free though and impossible to bog it down. I've nearly completed the foot pedal for the TIG as well and hope to finish it by next month.
MVC-284S.JPG
Still have a small bracket, the cord and a protective cover to do and then attach the cylinder holder to the welder and wire in the solenoid, pedal and hook up the torch, but with luck that'll be ready for the weekend. We still have some trimming and straightening to do before we need it. Incidentally for those of you who show up, all of the shop equipment is available for your use while you are here so if there's something you need to take care of on your car you can do that. Just another added incentive, courtesy of Blackwood Labs, LLC.
That's some buffer Jim, you could buff a brick to a high gloss with that thing. I like the TIG pedal too, nice idea to use a bass foot pedal, shoud give very good control with a good switch/rheostat attached. I know I promised another contribution to the funds. It will come, but I got bogged down a bit with the purchase of another driver last month and the associated license and title fees. Definitely by this time next month you'll have it, that should make the hub problem easier to overcome.
You mentioned redrilling the hubs, what bolt pattern are you going to use? I thought the Jag sedan bolt on pattern was the same as Chevy and you've already figured out how to do the front hubs on your car. I'd think you'd just use that pattern with the much larger wheel selection it brings.
Indeed, that's the coolest buffer ever.
---
I'm reading these posts about IRS... but I keep thinking "Why not deDion?" In theory it could be quite lightweight. Tomorrow I'm scheduled to get underneath a Rover 3500S and photograph its one-of-a-kind "telescoping deDion" rear suspension. It shares a few features with the Jag IRS... inboard disc brakes for example. Some photos are included here (although the ground restricted camera access...)
http://www.britishv8.org/Other/LanceLaCerte.htm
Thanks Bill. Since Jim Stuart has been gracious enough to donate a set of wheels I think we'll just stay with the stock lug pattern, plus it's easier to drill the rear hubs to that pattern than it is to change the front hubs to the Jag pattern. As for the DeDion, not a bad option but again I think it'll be easier to go with what we have now and probably easier to package into the available space.
Call me a penny pincher if you like but I'm very much resistant to the idea of going out and buying a replacement hub when I just know there has to be one sitting in a corner somewhere that could be donated. Same with the tubing, why buy it if it can be donated. I just called Dan B and asked him to check with a buddy in S. Charleston, WV that some of you may know, Dave Chenoweth. Dave used to be pretty heavily involved with Triumphs and Jags and I'm hoping he might still have some parts lying around even though he moved on to BMW's several years back. If I could persuade a few of you to make similar inquiries I'm sure we could turn up something.
I just got a check in from Robert Sisk in Conneticut for $25. Actually I guess I've had it since the 1st of the month but I had inadvertently set a laptop down on it when it came in. I can tell winter is settling in when I start doing that sort of stuff, sorry to not give you credit for it sooner Robert. That brings our total up to $377.40 and I'm saving up for tires and coil-over shocks so that our "roller" will actually be capable of rolling by next summer's meet. I think that explains my reluctance to just buy a hub. As for the tubing, we will need small quantities of some specific sizes, most importantly, a few feet of 1 x 1-3/4 rectangular tubing with a 3/16 to 1/4" wall. 4 or 5 feet sould be sufficient. This is needed for the main differential support. We will also need some heavy wall round tube for the halfshafts but I'm not sure of the size and may have something that will work. Since the stock shafts are center drilled the easiest way to shorten them is to put them between centers and turn the shaft to fit the tube ID and then cut and weld using the tube as a sleeve. This is probably the most common method used on Jag half-shafts. I probably have most of the other needed materials on hand for fabricating mounts and such but I will need some isolator bushings and haven't decided on the configuration for those yet.
Jim
All,
The 455 is now at my house in SC. I haven't gotten a ggod look at it yet, but will over the weekend.
Thanks to Allen for the donation and to my brother for picking it up. It rerally was not on his way, but 500 miles due south.
I will take a look at it and get it re-situated n the trailer for the trip up.
The stuff I pick up in TN need be be in boxes or something since it is an open utility trailer. Don't want anthing to slide off on the way to Jim's.
Looking forward to seeing some of the other crazies in Kentucky.
Steve
What do you guys think about the idea of using both the forward and rear spring mounts as attachment points for radius rods for the Jag upright? I know it would introduce some twist, haven't tried to work out how much yet but it might be little enough for the UHMW bushings to handle. A bracket would have to be welded to the top of the upright. Looking at it all upside down gives you funny ideas. What if the top bracket could be linked to the forward spring mount rather than using the bottom pivot? What if both the top and bottom were linked to one pivot point on the body? What if the standard radius rod to the front spring hanger was used but then a brace to the top of the upright was attached?
Well, none of it sounds really very good, binding is sure to occur. In fact, some binding with the standard radius rods is inevitable. Food for thought though. I'd like to add a triangulated upper control arm personally, but with the fixed length half shaft that's pretty tricky.
Jim
Moderator Wrote:
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> I'm reading these posts about IRS... but I keep
> thinking "Why not deDion?"
The first, and only, time I saw a deDion IRS it was attached to a vintage Lotus 7 race car. I looked it over real hard. I could almost see it in my MG.
Jim,
As suggested in our earlier discussion keep it simple and use the triangulated lower links, once you have the diff location finalised just run a rod through the inner wishbone pick up points to the rear bulkhead of the passenger compartment and you then have the exact location for the inner pick up of the triangulated link. You will probably need to relocate the battery to the spare wheel well but thats not much of a problem
If you use straight radius rods from the original leaf spring front mountings, you will have bind in the suspension and very undesirable bumpsteer unless you build a lot rubber into the link and this will defeat the object.
If you are concerned about the torque reaction on the upright, I have seen a small Watts linkage set up on a Cobra replica that used the Jag rear end, but this utilised there own cast uprights, you could probably still do it by adding a support bracket on top of the jag upright and run the watts linkages for and aft to the chassis rails.
I think the kit manufacturer was Contempory Cobra but not sure they are still in business.
Personaly I would not worry about a top link as the works Jag XJ12 coupes ran without them and the only weak link was the failure rate of the inner bearings which took all the lateral force of the heavy XJ12C and the grip obtained with the wide full race rubber.
Also I wouldn't be too concerned about a little squat, as this is good for traction off the line and grip out of corners.
Regards,
Kevin Jackson
Thanks Kevin, I recall that discussion.Please bear with me, the winter months aren't my most imaginative, or productive either for that matter. You are quite correct of course. The simplest solution is just to axe the boxes, put a torque arm on the LCA that carries the pivot axis forwards to the bulkhead for better torque control and run a diagonal brace to the outer end of the LCA for fore/aft control and let it go at that. Then if the UHMW bushings don't control wheel hop we can put timkens back in it for more rigidity. Use of a fairly stiff set of bushings for the diff should help too.
Jim
No problem Jim, I tend to hibernate when it gets below 5 degrees C.
Just to clarify what parts you will need.
Top and bottom Plates for the diff mounting and lower location points
Two link straps to tie the front and rear wishbone pivots together. Previously done by the cage.
Two triangulated radius arms
Two anti climb bars located at the diff end on the bottom plate and the chassis end angled up to the chassis rails and not to the front spring mounts as this will not prevent the torque reaction.
I realise that you want to make as much of this as possible but most of these bits are quite cheap to buy.
Make sure you use the correct bolts for the top mount of the diff, they are special taper.
If I were you I'd get one the catalogues from one of the Hot Rod companies that use the Jag rear end and that would give you a clearer picture of what you need. I could probably Fax you some info I have from a UK hot rod company if that would be of any help. I don't have a scanner so can't post it directly to the BBS
Kevin.
Thanks Kevin, I can use all the help I can get. By the anti-climb bars do you mean the braces that go from the forward corners of the lower pan to the floor area of the car? I was thinking that I could incorporate that into the LCA by extending it forward and tying the front pivot to the floor/bulkhead. I'll take another look at it tomorrow.
Jim
Jim
The anti climb bars for want of a better name, go from the bottom plate on the diff and are angled up and out to the chassis rails forward of the old lever arm damper position.
If you don't have a Fax I can try and photograph the relevant pages and post them here but not sure if they will show enough detail.
Kevin.
I appreciate the effort Kevin. Didn't have much of a chance to look at it today, but we did have a pretty good discussion about bracing the diff earlier, having to do with it wanting to rotate on 2 axis simultaneously. I'd guess that's the function of the braces you're describing. Is the bottom plate really essential? I was considering doing away with it.
In other news, Jim Stuart shipped us two wheels of the set he has for us and they got here a day or two ago, apparently in good condition. I've not had a chance yet to open both boxes but I'll take a photo and post it, just not tonight. This means we can determine track width and begin narrowing the axle.
Jim
You should have the first pair of wheels- sent UPS last Thursday. As soon as I find some more boxes, I will send the rest. I have a bunch of lug nuts and washers I will send as well.
Jim, I was looking at the photo of the rear hub that's damaged. If we can't find another at a reasonable price, what's the chance of building up the chipped area with weld and then turning the ID and OD back to size in a lathe? It doesn't look like the spline area is involved, so it should be a realtively easy machining job and certainly strong enough to support the inner bearing race.
Jim, in case I forgot, thanks for the wheels!
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They look pretty good and they haven't even been cleaned up yet!
Bill, in looking at the broken hub I think I would feel better about using it as-is rather than trying to weld and machine it. That's right where the timken inner race rides so it would be hard to get a proper match after welding, and the race itself will bridge the missing area (shown at the bottom of page 1). Kevin would you care to comment on that?
I mocked up what I had in mind for the LCA. Bear in mind that those are not necessarily the materials that will be used, nor are they in exactly the right positions (the battery boxes will go), it's just an approximation for illustrative purposes, the idea being to extend the forward pivot in line with the existing ones which both are retained and run a rigid diagonal brace to the outer end. This should also take care of any reactive torsion at the differential on the transverse axis, leaving the reactive torque on the longitudinal axis to be dealt with by the top mount. Your thoughts Kevin?
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Jim,
Re the damaged hub, I was going to suggest the same solution as Bill Young but do not have enough knowledge of metallurgy to know if this is a satisfactory solution, I think I would keeep looking for an undamaged one. Another thing to check very carefully is the alloy uprights themselves, there have been cases of them with hairline cracks so give them a really good clean and inspect carefully.
Re the diff, you seem to be going in the right direction with the triangulated LCA's but it is essential to use the tie straps on the front and rear wish bone pivots, this job was done previously by the cage.
You are also still going to need the anti-climb bars which fit onto the front tie bar and then up and out to the chassis rail, otherwise the diff will try to rotate under torque loading with dire results.
You will need also to address the required ride height of the car, as this will determine the height that the diff is mounted in the car to maintain correct suspension geometry.
I'm still a little concerned that not using a crossmember is going to cause problems in the location of the diff and not provide sufficient structural strength, and not giving you the top mounts for the coil spring dampers.
Apart from going bloody fast what do you see as the likely use of the car, road,drag, low flying whatever?
I am going to get the relevant pages from parts catalogue and some other illustrations copied, if you have a fax no. let me know, otherwise I will post it to you.
Kevin.
Thanks Kevin, lots of good info there. Afraid I don't have a fax, the blasted things break and seem generally unreliable so I try to make do with email.
As far as the metalurgy goes I do have some practical knowledge about it, enough to know that a reliable repair would be real tricky. The likelihood of a failure from the damaged area is actually pretty small the way it is assembled, but certainly greater than with an undamaged part. I think we should keep looking for one.
Tie bars: I'm with you on that, absolutely. For the torsion braces though (anti-climb bars) I think crude vector analysis allows us to control the rotation in two separate axis rather than combining them with one link (per side) across 2 or three planes (running at an angle as you described). It seems simpler (to me) and easier to understand and implement, if we take counter-rotation around the drive shaft and separate it from counter rotation about the half shafts. That way we can control the rotational motion about the half shafts via the forward pivot of the triangulated LCA, (although this could arguably induce squat or hop - I don't think it should if the pivot points are on the same centerline) and control rotation about the drive shaft via the top mount if the special top bolts are adequately strong and perhaps with additional small braces from the outer ends of the top mount to the rear tie bar if not. Admittedly it is not as elegant in terms of engineering by combining functions but at least that way we don't have to deal with calculating the correct angle of the strut in 3 axis. Which I really don't want to do anyway. I guess you could say that the stock cage also has the lateral braces built into the cage itself which then puzzles me as to why the anti-climb braces need to be angled outwards.
But let me reassure you about the top mount. Either the top part of the cage will be used, or a stronger counterpart fabricated instead. The planned fabricated part will be tied into the shock and hanger strap mounts with isolator mounts and have mounts for the coil overs so it should duplicate the stock cage in most respects, but I won't know the exact configuration until I start building it.
I hadn't given any thought to the ride height, that's something maybe we can try to address next weekend. Certainly it influences many other decisions, and is largely decided by factors currently beyond our control such as final engine weight and front suspension configuration, but we can make an educated guess. We also need to accurately measure driveline angle.
Use of the car? Ah yes, that is likely to be quite varied. It is likely to see duty as a driver, show up on a road course here or there, be entered in a few autocrosses and even make a few dragstrip passes. It's basically up to the person in custody of the car at the moment. So we should consider all possibilities as far as it's feasible to do it. Odds are it will end up being a little over built, but that's better than the other way around.
Jim
Jim,
I may be able to get an old scanner working and hopefully be able to post the drawings and info directly on to this board possibly later today, if I can get my son to help gettting the scanner linked to the computer.
I'm sure you are going in the right direction and some extra visual info may assist.
Kevin.
I will be leaving in the morn for Alcoa and than Florence. Anybody who wants to help tear down the 455 and other stuff, I'll invite you to Jim's.
Steve
Steve I will be looking forward to your arrival. Hopefully it won't rain any more and the drive to the shop will stay dry, I'm working on getting some gravel for it but it hasn't happened yet. I got the EIN number from the IRS and gave it to the bank, and there's some paperwork I need to give you. We'll tear town the 455 and see what is needed on it, and maybe if we have time after that we can do a little sheet metal work, or calculate the axle lengths that we need. Or, I guess we could just sit around and drink beer.
Jim
Sounds like fun. Will not get there till after 6 pm. Traffic may make it later. Will leave here at 8 am and should see Dan about 1pm. I think it is about 4 hours from there to you.
Steve
Hey Kevin, maybe you can answer a question for me. If we assume a stock ride height for a '69 MGB-GT would you be able to tell me how much space there should be between the Jag differential top mounting pad and the floor area of the car above it? (disregarding the differential bulge that is in the panel) That would really be a big help.
Jim
Jim,
Sorry I've been busy this week and not been able to get the scanner working, the socket for the USB lead appears tp be damaged.
Re you query re the relationship of the diff to the body of the car, frustatingly one of the documents I was going to send, is a diagram covering this subject, tomorrow I will try doing close up photos of the stuff I want to send you.
The diff height is calculated by setting the rear suspension at its optimum ride height, ie where the geometry of the suspension will be under load and then calculate the required ride height of the car, say 14.5"-15" centre of hub to chrome strip and the difference between the diff and its mount position should be clear. The standard ride height for the suspension itself ie the distance between the coilover top and bottom mounts should be 11.75" under load. you can substitute a piece of angle iron with holes 11.75" apart.. Your problem is going to be that you don't have a top mount position at the moment to use as a reference.
I'll try and send the digrams tomorrow which should help to clarify what i'm trying to describe.
mg_066.jpg
Pic may help to explain what I'm saying.
Hopefully will send other docs tomorrow.
Kevin.
Thanks Kevin but I don't quite understand. At normal ride height shouldn't the half shafts be horizontal, or parallel to the ground? That would seem right to me. (thanks for the measurements btw) Preliminary measurements indicate that the half shafts and LCA's will need to be shortened approximately 4" on each side. Certainly not difficult, but as I've noticed that the two are not quite parallel it would seem that taking an equal amount out of each one would change the camber. Would that be correct?
We've made great progress so far this Roadmaster Weekend. Steve and his brother Eric have been here since Thursday evening and we've got some really interesting information for everyone concerning the engine. I'll give a more complete report later, perhaps Sunday. But as a teaser, we weighed the short block and it came out at 300lbs.
Jim
Jim,
Sorry if I wasn't explaining it very well, if I was standing next to you with the car it would be very easy.
The angle of the wishbone should angle down from the diff outwards as per the pic of the red car, whether shortening the wishbones and drive shafts equally will have any effect on the geometry I don't know, but this seems to be the accepted way of doing it.
I would have thought that the geometry would remain the same at standard ride height but whether there would be any change under bump or rebound would need calculating,
I have attatached the documents I previously mentioned which hopefully you can read, if they are not clear enough I could re shoot them in high definition so you can blow them up, if you save them to your my pics folder, just let me know.
Re the setting of the diff position, you could mock up the suspension using a bit 3" x 2" timber and use that tomount the diff and the lower wishbone with the suspension height set with the angle iron as suggested,you can then measure from the hub to the chrome strip position to see where your diff should be sited.
Kevin.
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Jim,
Sorry posted a house plan by mistake.
PC010004.JPG
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Kevin.
Jim,
Did some surfing and came up with a couple of Jag installations.
3942Jag-Axle-Ready-to-go-in-4-1-02.jpg
104_0325.jpg
Those look good. we did some closer measuring and came up with about 6" per side that needs removed, that should be within 1/4" or so. Still more measuring to be done, including the drum-drum width of the old axle. I want to get an accurate measurement of the vertical distance between the half-shaft and the LCA at each end, and that will tell me how close we are to being parallel, and also tell me how critical it is to calculate any difference in the amount to be removed both places.
The 455 parts that need to go to Dale Spooner are loaded up on Steve's trailer and went out early this morning. That includes the block, crank, damper, flex plate, rods, pistons and two sets of heads. The engine is a '70 and the head casting numbers match, but they are bare heads. We tore down the 430 to get the valves, springs and such and because the casting numbers indicated one was a big port head and the other was a small port head but as far as I could tell the ports were the same and measured bigger than the '70 heads so we sent them along figuring we'd just let Dale pick the best ones. Naturally if we do manage to get the aluminum heads it won't matter but that hasn't happened yet and I like having a backup plan. By the time you read this Carl will have the parts tucked away in his storage building and Dale is making the trip down there every few weeks so with any luck they will be in his shop by Christmas or shortly afterwards.
Here are some engine component weights, as measured on a digital shipping scale:
Complete short block minus flywheel, starter and engine mounts: 300#
Bare block: 177#
Crank: 66.1
1 rod and piston: 4.0
cam: 8.8
Cover and pump: 8.2
Damper: 6.8
distributor: 2.0
timing chain and gears: 1.8
iron intake: 48.9
bare head with rockers: 57.1
flex plate: 4.2
pan: 7.0
I realize that adding up the weights results in an error of 2 or 3 pounds (we were at the limits of the scale) and we'll take a closer look when we have clean parts to weigh during reassembly, but it gives us a better look at the weight we're dealing with here. We came up with 465 lbs for the complete engine minus starter and flywheel, where we had 500lbs for the 430 similarly equipped. This would seem to indicate that there may indeed some basis for the claim that the '70 455 is 50 lbs lighter than later engines. At any rate anyone would have to admit that this is very light for a big block motor. Add flywheel and starter and we're still real close to 500 pounds. On their website TA performance states that their aluminum heads are lighter by 30 lbs each. They also state that their intake is 30 lbs lighter. That would get us down to to around 410 lbs depending on starter and flywheel used. If we can manage to put one of Ted's suspensions under it, we'll be down to an effective weight of 330, which is as light as stock!
But even if we use the iron heads and the stock suspension (I'm sure we can come up with a used alloy intake) if we take into account the heavier Jag IRS and the rearward weight balance of the GT body, our front to rear weight distribution is going to be right on the money, and the only real issue we will have to deal with is an extra 150 lbs on the front of the car. Well guess what folks? I happen to have a stray set of springs that have wire the same size as Huffaker -1" street/track springs but are a couple inches longer. I think that's "Problem Solved!" I'm not real sure what they came off of, but I highly suspect it's TR6 related.
So that's a lot of progress for a cold winter weekend. We actually did have some heat, courtesy of a propane tank and my home made pipe bending furnace and that was enough to take the chill off and give us a stove to sit around for breaks. Maybe by the February meet I'll have the gas furnace operational. In the meantime this should do for December and January is at Ted's. It looks like the December meet will be back on schedule, the weekend before New Year's Eve, and Ted's Winter Party is January the 26th. and that is consistent with our "last weekend of the month" schedule as well.
If anyone would like to learn how to do a front end kingpin renewal, maybe bring parts for your own car or use cores I have on hand, swap them out and send the cores back, I have the tools and the reamer and have done that job before. It's not complicated or difficult. We need to at least inspect the GT kingpins and possibly renew them. Just bring a rebuild kit to the December meet, I'll show you what to do and help you make sure everything is done correctly and you can do both sets at the same time. That would help put us a little ahead of schedule, which is a really good idea since we're bound to hit unexpected delays before the summer V8 meet.
Jim
Folks, I've got the draft of the liability release done for whoever drives the car or takes possession of it. Bear in mind it's a draft and can be changed, but it's something to start with. Those of you who are interested should have a look at it and post your comments. It's written in plain language rather than legalese. I could have done it either way but I don't see any reason why its meaning shouldn't be perfectly clear to anyone who signs it. It says pretty much exactly what any conventional one would. Anyway, here's the text:
Assumption of Liability
I hereby assume all liability for anything that happens with the car, (MGB Roadmaster) except what insurance will cover. I fully understand that we're talking about dangerous equipment here and I'm putting my life at risk by operating it. Not only that, I may blow up the entire neighborhood in the process. Might as well hold a loaded gun to my head with my finger on the trigger, nobody is making me step on the gas pedal. I'm fully qualified to know if the car is safe or not, and by signing this I'm saying it is as safe as it is reasonable to make it and safe enough to satisfy me. If it turns out that I'm not qualified then I lied about that so I could drive the car. If you don't believe me check my signature. I also don't have any idea whether I'm even qualified to drive the car. Most likely not. I expect it to go like a bat outa hell, and be faster, quicker, and more vicious than anything I've ever even thought of driving before. I'm looking for a thrill. Probably a real bad idea to even consider driving it, but that's exactly what I plan to do and if it rears up and maims or kills me then I have nobody to blame for it except myself. Not only that, but my family and friends have nobody to blame except me. This paper puts it all on my shoulders and I'm agreeable to that. If I try to say otherwise I'm lying. Either that or I lied when I signed it so I could get to drive the car. Either way I'm taking full responsibility. If the guys who built it made a mistake somewhere and that causes an accident, injury or death I'm not going to blame them for it. They're doing the best they can and for something like that to happen it would have to be beyond their control. So I'm not going to come around asking them to share the blame. In fact, I'm sure enough of what I know about cars that I'm going to assume all of the risk any time I'm operating the car or while I have it. In fact, even if I loan it out or if someone takes it without me knowing it I'll take responsibility for it. You'd better believe I'll make sure there's proof of insurance and the registration is valid. That should just about cover it, and if there's anything I've left out I'll take responsibility for that too. And if some judge says there's any part of this the law won't allow that's fine, but the rest of it stands.
This is a legal document, so it's to be interpreted in accordance with Kentucky Law.
Signed and dated below:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------
I know it's not what you're used to seeing, but I don't see much point in trying to sugar coat the facts. Anyway I look forward to comments.
Jim
Here's another option.
jagirswattsbar.jpg
Jim, I think that pretty spells it out in language that we all can understand, no "party of the first part" etc. Even this old Okie gets the point, if I drive it and break it I fix it, and if it kills or maims me it's my fault for being there in the first place.
An interesting linkage in the photo Dan posted. That little Watts linkage does clear up a clearance issue with a lower mounted radius arm on that chassis, but requires a custom hub carrier on the other hand. I'd think we would have room for a radius arm pretty much in the location of the original leaf spring. Using poly or rubber/steel bushings would allow for the slight amount of side to side movement required as the IRS works.
Actually the "break it/fix it" part gets put in the custody agreement which I haven't started drafting yet, but I have given it some thought. There are a few issues to work out on that yet. Nothing that can't be done though.
Dan, that is one thought provoking picture. The Watts link on top is just what I was thinking about. I can't see that it's going to totally control fore/aft motion of the upright but the triangulated LCA would do that. It would however do a good job of controlling rotation of the upright about the LCA pivots induced by fore/aft motion, in effect absorbing half of the accel/decel forces. In doing that it could possibly eliminate the need for the LCA triangulation. I'd like to hear Kevin's opinion of that. If we add the top link can we lose the lower strut? The reason I ask, is that in doing it that way we might be able to keep the battery boxes, beef them up a little, and tie them into the front tie bar. That would make a very strong reinforcement to the diff mounts, and since the battery boxes do provide some body stiffening I'd like to be able to keep them.
As far as custom uprights, yes Bill you are at least partly right. We should be able to heliarc a pivot bracket to the top of the stock ones and do the same thing. Guess I need to finish up that TIG rig.
Jim
Jim,
Pretty sure that is the Contemporary Classic Cobra chassis I mentioned a while ago, it's certainly the same set up for the Watts linkages, I used to see a few of these as a friend of mine was the UK agent for Contemporary, and built some superb cars that you would be hard pressed to tell from the original.
The Watts linkages were used I believe because there was no room on the chassis for the traditional lower links, I still feel that it would be a lot more work to try and adapt the watts linkage than just fitting a pair of triangulated radius arms and not sure there would be enough meat in the top section of the standard hub carriers.
Re the battery cages, I'm fairly sure they are going to have to go if you intend to run with rear brakes!
Keep up the good work,
Kevin.
Thanks Kevin, how were the Contemporary Classics cars for laying down power and avoiding wheel hop? Do you know how they behaved? For instance, when mashing the loud pedal did the rear of the car squat or hop? It would sure be helpful to know that as well as what kind of HP or torque they were handling.
That bell section of the stock upright is heftier than it might look. (No cracks btw) I've not done any measuring but the edge looks somewhere between 5/16 and 3/8" thick and I expect it gets thicker towards the bearings, so a chunk of say 5/8 or 3/4 plate cut to match the curve of the bell should spread the load well enough. It might be possible to tie the links into the shock mount holes on the front and the shackle mount on the rear.
Jim
Jim.
Most of the cars my late friend built were Ford 427 side oilers as per the originals and had 450-550BHP and handled that sort of power without drama.The original cobras just had a lower wishbone and a transverse leaf spring as the top link. I personally have not heard of an IRS car suffering from wheel hop, with the suspension properly located it should just sit down and launch. I used to have back in the late 70's a Jaguar XJ12 coupe and this had the most unbelievable traction, it had a power lock diff that helped and one year we had heavy snow it got me past all the other cars stuck on the hill out of our valley, I just pulled out on to the virgin snow in the centre of the road and drove up the hill. no other cars made it this being in an era before the urban 4 x 4's.
Kevin.
Thanks Kevin, that is most helpful. That also seems rather consistent with the T-bird layout, where there is a massive LCA along with a small UCA but no struts. Interesting approach to be sure. Well, I've been singularly unmotivated to do anything at all the last few days and the tasks I have immediately at hand will prevent any real progress on this for a few days more, but I'll see what I have in the way of materials for an upper lug at least. Perhaps I can get some more done on the tig as well. But mostly I need to make room in the workshop for a job that's coming through. We'll be setting up a prototype line all the way across the building and that means I have to move almost everything and the 'things' have not been cooperating by getting finished. For instance, my roadster is down for brakes. When I converted it to '73 Mustang front brakes I thought the parts would always be available but not so! They've redesigned the hub and rotor into a one piece assembly and I've only found one NOS two piece unit. It's very discouraging when you have to fight a job that way, and if it was only that one it wouldn't be so bad. Just my luck, there's three of them. (Not the RM, but they do keep me from moving it out of the way) Some weeks things just fall into place, and then there's last week. Maybe this one will be better.
Jim
Things are moving a bit better today. Here's a shot of the upright sitting on some aluminum plate to illustrate about what I had in mind for the upper attachment point. The plate would be trimmed to fit the radius and moved outward towards the wheel an undetermined amount. Some of the 'bell' may be trimmed back as well to clear the frame.
Jim
MVC-333S.JPG
Chris Palmer in another thread characterized people as 'wrench turners' and 'polishers' and that's a good analogy as far as it goes. I think you can take it farther than that, for instance I would characterize myself as a metalworker. Not in the sense of a guy who puts up building frames or works in a foundry, but in a more artistic sense, as one who enjoys shaping metals and other materials into new forms by whatever means is available. Heaven to me is being able to create the rough shape and knowing that I can turn it over to the polisher to make it pretty. Sometimes I think the polishers would be better at administrative tasks than I am, but somebody's got to do it. So with that excuse I guess I'd better do a proper job of reporting on the last Roadmaster Weekend. I hope nobody is unhappy that I let it go this long, there were an unusually large number of people involved and every one deserves credit for their unique contribution.
Perhaps we should start with Eric DeGroat, brother of our Secretary and Treasurer Steve. By going along with Steve's request that he travel out of his way 500 miles to the south while on his vacation and haul a trailer which he probably didn't otherwise need, Eric allowed our project to continue on schedule and with the best of parts. Most of you know that Allen Mandeen in Eureka, Kansas had offered us a 455 BBB for use in the project, but that getting it from there to here was a big problem. So Steve and Eric took it upon themselves to solve that problem and get it not only back to Steve's home in South Carolina, but to bring it to Northern Kentucky for teardown and inspection, and then transport it back down to Carl's house in Tennessee. I think we all owe them a really big show of appreciation for that.
It turned out that Allen Mandeen had given us a real jewel. 1970 was the prime year for the Buick 455 and that's exactly what this engine was. Not only that but it showed minimal wear. Truthfully, we could have bolted the heads from the 430 on with fresh gaskets and seals and used it just as it was. But since we expect the car to cover a lot of miles we went ahead and pulled the pistons, which slipped out easily with only a light nudge at the top. The bores looked good and the bearings did too. Allen had evidently used the valves and springs somewhere else, but the heads had a brand new set of rockers. For a donated motor we couldn't have asked for better.
Steve characterizes himself as a wrench turner and he's good at it. Eric is right there with him and they were very efficient about the disassembly. We got quite a bit done but we still had plenty of time to relax in between. During one such intermission I turned the records over to Steve and put him on the bank account. Steve, I'll get the paperwork turned in to the bank today, sorry for being lax about it.
But that's really only part of the story. Dan Masters, who contributed the Jag IRS and the engine stand, had searched through his parts and come up with practically all of the brake pieces we needed, including brand new brake pads and rebuild parts. Steve and Eric made a detour to Dan's house on the way up here to pick those up. Also, Jack Morris in Chatanooga had donated some miscellaneous 300 SBB engine parts in the hopes we could find a way to use them, and he had transported those parts up to Dan's house where Steve and Eric picked them up. The 300 parts turned out to be useful, though their value has not yet been determined. The heads appear to be usable, provided one spark plug hole can be welded and repaired and should be better than the other set I have, so I will buy them and make a donation to the project. Same for the flex plate, which I do not have. Of the remaining parts I'm not sure there is any value there but I haven't completely gone through the box either. So basically I'll be contributing the value of a set of heads and flex plate minus repair costs once we know what those numbers are. Steve, Jack Morris needs to be added to the list of contributors, and Jack, could you please send Steve your contact info? Thanks.
The credits continue though. Carl Floyd managed to set aside precious space in his storage building for us to keep our parts in until Dale Spooner is in town, as well as checking casting numbers and combustion chamber configurations for me once the parts got there, and Dale has volunteered his time and equipment to do any needed machine work on the engine, as well as transporting the parts from Carl's place up to Danville, Virginia and back. For those of you who don't know Dale, he has an excellent reputation for his work with Rover engines, another part of the Buick family. (sort of)
I hope I haven't left anyone out. To be sure we've had lots of support from spouses and other close ones. Let's keep them happy if it's at all possible.
Finally, I'm not sure if I should say anything or not but I feel obliged to mention that Pete might appreciate some sympathy and support for him and his family. It's up to him if more should be said or not but he's our close friend and we want the best for him.
Jim
re: Finally, I'm not sure if I should say anything or not but I feel obliged to mention that Pete might appreciate some sympathy and support for him and his family. It's up to him if more should be said or not but he's our close friend and we want the best for him.
*******************************
Everything is A-OK in the Mantell household. I was over there on Wednesday.
:)
rick
Thanks Rick, I'm sure glad to hear that.
Also noteworthy, Bill Young has donated another hundred to the cause. Thank you Bill!! This gives him the distinction of being the biggest cash contributor and we sure need the cash. We now have enough to start thinking about what tires we want to put on the car, and we'll have to get those in, mounted and balanced by the start of summer. If we have to we can use solid struts in place of the coil-overs on the rolling chassis but I think the tires are going to be mandatory.
I wanted to post a couple of photos from the last weekend but I've let them disappear somehow. If I can find them I'll put them up. Also the library got me a copy of Tune to Win by Carrol Smith and I'm about a third of the way through it. It'd be a pretty good reference book and for $20 would be worth buying. So far I haven't seen anything there that would require us to change our approach on the suspension, another indication that we are going about this correctly.
Inclement weather and the need to put in some time on some of my own projects has slowed me down a bit but I'll try to get the final measurements for the narrowing of the IRS done this weekend and start cutting metal next week sometime.
Jim
The least I can do to support all the efforts of you guys on your end. I'm too far away to make the Roadmaster weekends, althoug I'll try to make at least one during the next year if I can. I'll try to keep the funds coming, the goal is at least the same amount each quarter.
Bill,
Thanks for your donations. As treasurer, when Jim gets the paperwork done, I will try not to lose it.
BADASS really does appreciate the money. We can certainly put it to good use.
Steve
Jim: Glad you could find a use for the 300 parts. About 10 years ago, I stopped at a junkyard in Lexington, TN asking about small block Buick parts and learned that someone had driven this car in the day before I arrived. They dismantled it for me on the spot and I took all I thought might be useable. The crank, rods, and front cover should be useable to someone--don't know about the oil pan.
I've sent my contact info on to Steve.
I might be able to make another donation in the spring. I've got about 5 or 6 complete 215 engines that might be useable as trade material. Let me know.
Good luck!
To Jim and all the BADASS gang.
Have a very Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.
I am looking forward to seeing further progress reports in 2008
Kevin Jackson.
In the very cold and slightly foggy UK.
Thanks to everyone and a merry Christmas to all. If that's not PC enough for anyone, then Happy Holidays to you as well. It's been a good year. The Roadmaster dream was not even a faint glimmer a year ago and look at it now. In only 3 seasons we went from a suggestion by someone over on the V8Buick board, to me sort of tongue-in-cheek trying to persuade someone, *anyone*, to actually try it, to where we are now with a full fledged charitable organization championing the cause and a car well on its way to becoming the real life embodiment of the dream. All of us doubted that it could actually ever be done. By now most of us have become believers, and many of us have pitched in to help it become a reality. The dream has caught our imagination, fed it some nitrous and set it aflame, and now here we are at the start of the new year, very well prepared to carry out the plan, meet our projections and complete the project as intended. It's true we are short of money, but I expect we always will be. Few of us have the resources to divert serious funding to the project, and really I don't think we've promoted that part of what we're doing very hard, or gone looking for any serious money. In a way that's not a bad thing since a big sponsor would naturally want some say in what we are doing and how. As it is, we're working together to build a big toy that we can all play with and have some fun, and I really think we're going to be able to end up with just that. Along the way we've made it possible to promote our sport as well and I can't see that being a bad thing, plus we're pushing the boundaries of what has been done and what can be done. I think when this car is finally ready to roll that we are going to learn that we really like it a lot. It will scare us, intimidate us, astound us, make us think that our buddies have really pushed us over the edge this time, but when we strap in for that first drive I honestly feel we will come back with a grin so wide and embedded so deep that it will never afterwards completely go away. And that's why *I'm* doing it. I think that's why we all are.
So on we go. We will need everyone's help in the coming year, by whatever means is available to you. More than anything we need those of you who are willing to put in some hard work to come in whenever you can and make your efforts count. I won't try to tell you it's easy work, for the most part it is not. It tends to be dirty, difficult, and nasty, but it is rewarding. Every single person who has worked on the car has contributed greatly to bringing the dream alive, and as we've gone along we have taken care of the worst jobs first. I think it's safe to say that with the exception of the bodywork, from here on out the dirtiest work we still have to do will be the welding and possibly kingpin work if they need rebuilt though, so it's safe to say the worst is over. Probably Denny Williams and I had the worst of it. Denny in grinding away welds and removing body panels for use on the car, and me in waterblasting all the crud off the bottom of the car, but we had company too.
Now the next Roadmaster Weekend is the 29th, and it will honestly surprise me if anyone does make it here to work on the car. But if they do we will go out and work on it. In January instead of having a work weekend we will meet at Ted's winter party the weekend of the 26th and drink some beer. We may do some planning, that would probably be a good idea just to keep up appearances if nothing else, but I expect we will have the largest number of our participants in one spot since this thing began, with the possible exception of the last V8 meet. So our (semi-annual) meeting will most likely be held over brewski's while sitting around in lawn chairs in the evening. February, as the coldest month may not see much physical progress either, but as the weather warms up so will our inclination to push on. By then we may be close to getting the engine back from Dale Spooner (Motion Machine, Danville, VA) and we'll be full of incentive to get the roller done in time for the V8 meet. To be fair, it'll probably be rough at that point. I don't know if the sheet metal work will be done, so far I'm the only person who has stepped in to do any of the welding and if it's left to me to do it as well as the IRS it may have to wait. But the main thing is that we have enough done to put it on display for the meet. When we do that I think we will catch the excitement of the rest of the V8 "brigade" and have the support we will need to finish.
But whatever else happens this I promise you, though I may become tired and need to rest occasionally, I will continue to come back to this dream, continue to lead, continue to work, and continue to encourage you all to do the same, so that we can stand together at the V8 meet in 2009 and look at our handiwork as it's cutting donuts out on the autocross course and share our pride of accomplishment for having created not just a car, but a whole new way of working together. And for that I thank all of you.
Jim
If I make it to Ted's, will you have room for the other 2 wheels? That will save me the shipping cost.
Absolutely.
A little more progress here, I was at Fastenal looking for some steel strap and found a length of 1 x 2" rectangular tubing which is what's needed for the main support over the differential. So I bought it and brought it home. I'll cut that 34-1/4" long tomorrow after I pick up new blades for the cutoff saw and it will drop right into place in the recess (or hump) in the shelf, and then work up the end attachments and center plate. It's good to get things moving again.
Jim
By the way... anyone following the progress of the Roadmaster may enjoy checking out this Newsletter article on it: http://www.britishv8.org/Articles/MGB-Roadmaster.htm
I cut the 1 x 2 tubing and fitted it, looks just right. I have a 1/8" difference in length for the GT and for the mockup mule (roadster) so I take it the assembly fitting jigs had tolerances that made panel fitting something of a slap together affair. Anyway, I'm working up the attachment points, but will have to get some more materials for that. A couple feet of 1-1/4 x 3/4 rectangular tubing with about a 1/8" wall would be perfect but I'll probably have to buy a 20' length to get it. Things like this really slow down the project, I mean look how long it took me to get the 1 x 2 tubing. The good news is that I can work on some of the rest of the mount in the meantime. I'd like to get the diff attached to the car and then cut the axles that way I don't have to worry about anything moving around.
Been thinking about the pinion angle. We didn't measure the engine angle as installed, I guess we overlooked it, which means I really should reinstall the short block and tranny and check it. I won't be able to attach the front motor mounts but should be able to approximate the engine's position by blocking it up from the crossmember about 1/4". Of course that means having to bolt the xmember back on as well. Ain't hindsight great? I don't remember if the xj6 diff had a built in angle or not but 6* seems familiar, guess I'll have to look at the articles. If it does that would be about perfect because I can build in that much adjustment in the opposite direction real easy. That way the diff could be bolted in place and the optimum pinion angle set and locked by drilling the plate for the second shock bolt while the first one with an adjustment slot holds the adjustment in place. The correct links for the LCA's could then be selected to keep the arms horizontal. Doing it this way there's no need to worry about the driveline angle at this point, it can be dealt with at any time, even after the rest of the car is finished. If there is no built in angle it gets a little trickier, as the adjustment has to start out with an offset of several degrees somewhere and I haven't figured out the best way to do that yet, probably have to weld the diff mounting plate to the cross piece at an angle. Wouldn't be nearly as neat that way.
Jim
I've confirmed the 6 degree housing angle, so the next item is vertical height of the housing. Here I need some help from those of you who either have or have done a Jag swap. I need to determine the distance from the top diff mount up to the shelf (or to the top of the raised rib that the rear bulkhead attaches to, either will work) and to do this perhaps the simplest bits of information for you to get is: 1) Do the half shafts run parallel to the ground normally, and 2) what is the distance from the (bottom edge of the) body trim line to the hub centerline?
If the shafts run parallel at rest it should be a simple matter to derive the housing height from that measurement. If they do not, perhaps having a friend or two put their weight on it until the shaft is level (parallel with the ground) and then measuring the hub distance would do the trick. Thanks guys.
Jim
Jim,.
Just to remind you the lower wishbone should be 1.5"- 2" lower at the outer end depending on suspension width to maintain correct geometry.
I send you some pics earlier and diagrams showing the use of a fixed lengh of angle iron in place of the coil spring damper units which makes things easier to work out and arrive at the desired installation height.
Kevin.
Thanks Kevin. I really appreciate being reminded of details that have escaped my attention. It's not so much that I'm a dumba$$ (which I suppose we all do from time to time) as it is that I've got so many things stuffed into that little brain pan that I now find it necessary to forget the name of a dead president any time I want to remember something new. In short, things get lost in there. Sorry about that, can't help it. I was trying to decide on how far away from the body I could position the top of the differential, and working on the assumption that the u-joints would be happiest with no angle at normal ride with a full tank and driver aboard. Of course the half shaft and LCA are not parallel and the LCA will angle downwards more than the half shaft will, so without assembling the hub it's going to take a lot of measureing and calculation to get from the LCA angle to the half-shaft angle. (Lots of opportunity for error) I was hoping for a quick eyeball confirmation of half-shaft inclination but from the measurements I've been able to get I'm beginning to suspect it's a moot point anyway because the diff is going to have to be mounted as high in the body as the sheet metal will allow. But again, this is based on imprecise measurements.
I also think it's about time for me to call Bill Guzman at Classic Conversions to talk about our options on brakes.
Jim
Bill is going to provide us with a brake kit for the front which will include rotors and calipers along with a new master cylinder and an adjustable proportioning valve. He says we need to replace the pedal assembly with a late model assembly. I don't have one of those so somebody needs to step up and donate one. I'm guessing it can work with or without the booster assembly, hope so anyway. Can someone confirm this? Thanks
Jim
Jim, saw Derek post this link on the MG Experience board... if you haven't seen it, it may prove worth reviewing... http://www.mgbv8.co.uk/rearsus.htm
Thanks Rob, that's a good reference. It's likely that a well designed LCA could eliminate nearly 50 lbs and that tubular half-shafts could drop another 30, making total weight very comparable to stock. We won't be doing that here, but perhaps on another car...
Carl has notified me that he effected the transfer of engine parts to Dale Spooner over the weekend. As I understand it Dale was going to make the round trip to Carl's place to pick up the parts but Carl felt that since Dale was already doing the machine work he shouldn't also have to make an 8 hour drive to do it, so he met him at Galax to make the transfer. I'm trying to visualize that and I keep getting this image of Carl muscling that 455 block into the back of a pickup truck from the floor of his storage building. Well the block isn't as heavy as a BBC but it sure isn't light either, and then two sets of BBB heads, a crank and assorted other parts and I start wondering how his back is feeling. Hope you're alright Carl, we all appreciate your efforts. I don't know if Dale will be at Ted's this coming weekend or not, but one way or another I'll be getting in touch with him within about the next week.
Speaking of the weekend, we have the semi-annual BADASS, NLC meeting coming up on the 26th to be held at Ted's place, and though I certainly can't speak for Ted when I say so, I do believe that anyone who wants to attend is welcome to be there. Nothing is set in stone but I think we'll have a somewhat informal meeting in the evening whenever it becomes convenient to do so, open to anyone who would like to attend. I hope to see a lot of familiar faces there.
Jim
Jim, I have a late model pedal assembly that I'll donate. I disassembled it to check some clearances on my project so I'll have to put it back together and make sure I haven't lost any of the parts. Then I'll break it down for shipping and find a box. I'll let you know when it's on the way. Give me a couple of weeks if you can.
Thank you Bill, that will be great. A couple weeks or so is no problem whatsoever.
Jim
Time for the monthly update. I have BIG news so stay tuned. I suppose eventually I'll come up with some catchy title for it, but since Roadmaster Weekend is the last weekend of each month it seems pretty obvious that within a few days after that I'll always be posting something to pass on the occurrences of that weekend. Today I'm a little hampered by skin splits on my fingers caused by the dry winter air and by general wear, tear and all around abuse, which means using different fingers to type with. That means I get a lot more errors than usual, but I hope you'll bear with me if I don't catch them all.
As you know, we held the January Roadmaster Weekend in conjunction with Ted's winter party. It's a relatively small gathering of diehard enthusiasts, as Ted has limited space, but as a fair number of members were going to be there it seemed to make sense to do it that way. Whether we should always do that is a fair question to ask, as we don't want to wear out our welcome, but this time around at least, it seemed to work out well. I will attempt to name those in attendance and if I embarrass myself by overlooking someone I hope you will bring it to my attention. I was there of course, and Carl Floyd. I understand Steve DeGroat had family duties to attend to and couldn't make it. Naturally family comes first. Also present, Ted Lathrop of course, Dan Masters, Pete Mantell, Rick Ingram, Graham Creswick and Steve Carrick. Seems like I missed somebody. Well, I do have a little trouble with names so please remind me. I've been known to forget my own sometimes. At any rate, out of 40 members that's a pretty good turnout, a rate of 20% or better. I credit very much of that to Ted of course.
We did not interfere with the party itself, simply conducting several matters of business in small conversations over the course of the day. Sunday morning after meeting at Ted's shop we all went to breakfast at the Big Boy and having two officers present I asked Carl if we should conduct a meeting, which we promptly did. The meeting was called to order, a call was made for any old business, new business, monkey business, or funny business, and none being raised and no objections given to adjournment the meeting was promptly closed and we continued our breakfast. There are two points I should mention. Having failed to determine the date of the next meeting before adjournment, the question was raised immediately thereafter and I responded that it would be the last weekend of February, or Roadmaster Weekend. That is incorrect. Roadmaster Weekend is an activity, not a meeting of BADASS, NLC and the next regular meeting will coincide with this summer's British V8 Meet in Wisconsin, hosted by Paul and Mary Schills. The second point is that we have set a few precedents and unless there are objections or alternate suggestions I suppose we will continue along the same path. The first precedent was that of having 2 of the 3 officers present to conduct a meeting. I would further suggest that one of those 2 could be represented by a proxy assigned by them. The second precedent was that we met over breakfast at a relatively quiet place. I think this was an excellent idea.
During the course of the party I had opportunities to discuss several important aspects of the project with very knowledgeable people with positive results. One such conversation was with Ted concerning the Jag IRS and that has led me to an entirely new perspective on the rear suspension, one in which I have greatly revised my calculations of loading on the rear lower control arms (LCA). The upshot is that we should be able to make a much simplified built up LCA using a triangulated forward mount and perhaps moving the inner pivot outboard of the brake rotor. For those interested the reasoning follows, if you could care less skip the next paragraph:
Taking 500 ft/lbs of torque and multiplying it through the gearbox and diff we come up with about 4500 ft/lb split equally left and right or 2250 per side which is transmitted to the ground through a 1 ft long lever (roughly 24" tire) resulting in 2250 lbs of thrust being applied to each hub in the forward direction if we could prevent wheelspin. This thrust is absorbed through a 6" lever (the upright) and transferred to the LCA through the two lower attachment points which are about 6" apart. This means that a 60" lever tied to the rear attachment at one end and also to the front one should be capable of accepting my full weight at the other end of the lever without deforming the LCA. If it can do that, then it should handle the torque output of the motor. To add a margin of safety it should be able to handle me bouncing on it as well, but if it can handle all the force I can apply at that end by jumping up and down on it with all my might (with no signs of distress to the LCA) then it is probably too heavy. Ted's initial thoughts that a 1" x .125" wall tubing construction would be suitable, should be right in line with that analysis, and I can easily construct a test setup to determine if it is strong enough. So that is on the agenda, and will allow us to remove a considerable bit of unsprung weight. I think we can simplify the attachment and setup in the process, though some issues dealing with pinion angle adjustment remain. However, I really am beginning to feel that except for the lack of a top link and CV half-shafts the Jag IRS represents an excellent choice, and very near the best choice for an IRS in an MGB.
There were a number of other ideas that were picked up which we can use without any extra work, but the real BIG NEWS is as follows. I was pleased to meet and have a long conversation with an enthusiast named Arthur Mitchell (Chicago) who has joined our ranks. Arthur has been building a Cobra and is nearing completion, but felt dismay and discouragement that the ancient design of the front suspension was not in keeping with the rest of the kit, and had nearly lost interest when he discovered Ted's front suspension. He immediately procured one and fit it to the car, much pleased and with his enthusiasm rekindled. He was at the party, thrilled to find such a fine group of like minded enthusiasts. As excellent as all that is, there's more to come. I had just been discussing with Rick Ingram the possibility of using MGC spindles on the front of the Roadmaster to match the JAG hubs, and it seemed fortuitous to say the least that the MGC used the same Chevy lug pattern used by the Jag. That was followed by a discussion with Kurt Schley regarding the difficulties of acquiring said MGC hubs, with some thoughts of getting them from the UK or Europe (and if anyone can help with that please contact Kurt or me). Well, sometimes I'm just a little slow to connect the dots and it wasn't until the next day when Ted suggested it that I realized Arthur had our solution sitting right there taking up space in his garage if he was willing to help us out. I got home and one email later I had our answer. Not only was Arthur willing to help, he is donating to us the entire unit, a modified MGB front suspension with 11" Camaro brakes and other significant upgrades such as greasable pivot bushings, extended LCA links and galvanealed parts. Now admittedly this is not on par with Ted's excellent unit, and notably heavier, but since we don't have adequate funds in the treasury to buy one of those and Ted is not in a position to donate one to the cause, this is an excellent second choice. It allows us to keep the stock Jag rear hubs and personally I feel that having an extra lug with the kind of torque we're dealing with is a very good idea. It does mean that we'll need different wheels. That makes this the biggest mistake I've made so far on this car, in not planning for 5 lug wheels, but a few things changed along the way. I will coordinate with Jim Stuart how we will deal with the wheels we now have, but it looks like those may be available for sale, and we need to get a set with the Chevy lug pattern.
All in all I must say that this is an excellent activity for the middle of the winter, bolstering enthusiasm and raising the overall mood. It makes me want to go right out and build that LCA test setup. Ted said he can provide us with a front swaybar or perhaps with rear LCA's after the design is set. Now I want everyone to understand that I did not go up there with the idea in mind of soliciting contributions, nor did I conduct myself in that manner while there. There is a certain amount of that sort of thing I must do, just so that people know that the opportunity is here, or that they don't inadvertently forget past pledges of support that they have made. But I also realize as well as anyone that circumstances can change and sometimes what seemed possible turns out not to be. I don't want anyone to feel in any way that they are being pressured into helping to make this happen. It is and will remain a totally voluntary project. If that means that our timeline has to slip a bit, that is better than having even one member feeling like they had been coerced. With everyone's support we will indeed complete this car, and then we'll have some real bragging rights. In the meantime we have a really neat way of bringing everyone together to work on a common goal.
Jim
Arthur's MGB/Cobra suspension
IMG_0213.jpg
Hub
IMG_0211.jpg
Brakes
IMG_0216.jpg
Pivot bushing
IMG_0207.jpg
Jim, thanks for the report. Looks like a lot of progress is being made. Welcome Arthur to our wacky world and thanks a ton for the front suspension. I have found almost all the parts for the pedal assembly, missing a couple of nuts and screws, but nothing hard to replace. I'll try to get it boxed and shipped this week. Jim, I included the two master cylinders and the brake booster but don't know if they're any good. Thanks to Jim and some of the others who are close enough to join in on the Roadmaster weekends the project is coming together fine, just wish I could be there. I'm going to try and schedule at least one trip to the hills of Kentucky this year and help.
Jim,
Good to hear you are making progress and that you have acquired a more than half decent front suspension for the project.
I've not been doing too much recently as I had a bit of poor health, most of the bits for my new 4.35 engine are in place and I'm just waiting for the pistons to be shipped by Summit, should be on their way in a couple of days,once they arrive I can get the internals balanced properly. I do have a couple of queries regarding the Buick 300 heads,see seperate post,and wonder.I think it was Dale Spooner who was doing your heads,could help with a bit of info.
Regards,
Kevin Jackson.
Is anyone heading through or near Chicago, and then heading to or near the home of the Roadmaster Project? I have a complete MGB suspension that has 11" vented disk brakes, New steering, rebuilt everything + a few other small parts that I would like to donate to the project.
If you can help transport the items that would be great!
Thanks,
Arthur
Thanks for posting that Arthur. I've been a little distracted lately (wind damage and such).
Guys, can someone step up and help with this? I know we can do it, just a question of who, when and how. Arthur, if nobody else can do it maybe I can make the trip at some point.
Kevin, hope you're feeling better. On those 300 heads, you are correct about Dale. In fact I need to call him asap. I'll take a look at your other post.
Jim
Jim use super glue to close the cuts in your fingers, by the time it wears off the cuts are healed. I have been doing this for years
and carry it in my pocket during the winter months. This was used during the Vietnam war to temporary stop bleeding. Once you
put it on, sometimes two or three layers the throbbing stops in about one minute. You can work with out any discomfort what
so ever. It doesn't burn it just stinks,wash your hands first because you will glue the dirt under and it makes you hands look
bad. My hands in the winter time feel just like 60 grit sand paper.
Denny
Thanks Denny, that's a great tip. Works real good too. Have you found that any particular type or brand is best? My hands get in terrible shape in the cold months and hand lotion just doesn't get the job done. Gets to where I just have to quit working on anything at all and wait. I try to pace myself, but ultimately the end result is the same. I only hope it never spreads to the summertime.
Arthur, I wonder if it might be practical for us to split the difference? If you could get the parts part way south I could probably meet you to pick them up without too much trouble.
I mentioned wind damage, the wind has disabled my air compressor temporarily, something of a handicap as I use it a lot. So how does the wind disable an air compressor? Simply by blowing over the carport from whose rafters it is supported, severing the air and power lines and dumping the crankcase oil in the process. With some help I got the carport back to it's original position. Luckily there was no structural damage, just some bent and torn tin. But it will take me some time to fix the line that carries the air to the shop and the power conduit, to say nothing of re-mounting the compressor itself and making sure it all still works correctly. Had it staked down with seven 3ft rebar stakes, a 200+lb outboard suspended from the rafters and the compressor also but the wind just picked it up and flipped it like it was a toy. Guess I should have concentrated a bit more on getting a concrete slab poured for it which would hold it down. My mistake. Well, winter will be over soon and I can start putting things in order.
I'll try to call Dale tomorrow to see what he thinks of the 455.
Jim
Jim, sorry to hear about the damage. The pedal assembly should arrive today via UPS. I couldn't find the nuts that held the booster to the bracket or the ones for the master cylinders. Also one of the clevis pins is missing. Sorry, I'll look for this stuff, but I didn't think any of it would be a show stopper so I shipped the unit without.
It's just an inconvenience Bill, I'll have things pretty muh back to normal as soon as we have a week's worth of nice weather. Can't hardly do otherwise. In the meantime there's plenty to do.
Don't worry about the small hardware. I've got a bunch of that stuff. I'll be watching for the package.
Jim
Hi Jim,
With regard to the front suspension, If no one is passing through, or near Chicago in the near future. Where South would be a good meeting place for the hand-over?
Sorry to hear of your property damage. I hope you are up and running soon. I know how inconvenient property damage can be. Two years ago an 8" Fire hydrant was accidently opened up by a pipe fitter. High pressure water blew a hole through the wall and my shop was blasted with water for about an hour. Still recovering from it.
I don't know what the deal is with your hands. Chapped? I find that too much exposure to industrial/automotive fluids plays havoc with mine. Also, correct humidity levels in your home/workplace during winter is essential. When I moved here from sunny Australia, I too had skin dryness problems for years, until I found only two things that work; Lubriderm skin cream & Carmex. Work gloves too. I guess that's three things.
This forum is starting to look like a health clinic.
Regards,
Arthur
Yeah, sorry for the hijack, but I'll try your recommendations Arthur.
Took me a couple days but I finally got the chance to look at the map. Looks like right at 300 miles with the halfway point being where I-865 meets I-65 north of Indianapolis. I haven't traveled that route enough to remember what's there but I think it's pretty urban, there's an exit at Rt.-334 (Kingsbury Way) just north of Royalton, perhaps that would be a good place. Could anyone familiar with north Indy make a suggestion?
When would be a good time for you? My schedule is pretty flexible except for Roadmaster Weekend which is the 23/24th so let me know what works for you.
I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have your shop blasted by a water main! Mine gets a little wet sometimes and it's very irritating but nothing like what that would do. I'd say that qualifies as a genuine disaster.
Jim
Arthur, Jack Renaud had a good idea he emailed me about, (you probably met Jack up at Ted's) we could meet at the Indy Speedway Hall of Fame Museum which is on the north side of Indy if you're interested. I don't know if you've been there or not, but I haven't even though I've been to the Speedway a couple of times for the 500. It's open 9-5, 7 days a week. Let me know if you like that idea, seems a lot better than a truck stop parking lot or something. Admission is 3 bucks.
http://www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com/museum/
Jim
Jim, Sounds like a firm plan is in the making. I have been to the Speedway Museum and I would enjoy seeing it again. Now we have to pick the day.
I'm pretty flexible too. I'm working on the Cobra full time Monday to Saturday until it's complete, a break would be fine at anytime. I would prefer a week day. Pick some days that work for you.
Arthur
Arthur,
Would Friday work for you? If not, perhaps Saturday. Say perhaps around Noon?
Jim
Jim, This Friday will be fine. I'll see you at Noon. Email me me your cell phone number.
Arthur
Arthur and I will meet Friday at noon in Indy to effect the transport of the front crossmember. Anyone else who would like to join us, perhaps for lunch and a tour of the museum is quite welcome, the more the merrier.
I've also filed our annual report with the secretary of state, and I covered the filing fee so there's no cost to the Society. Steve is working with the bank and with his tax person to square away the other necessary details and no doubt will fill us in on that as needed.
Then of course there's Roadmaster Weekend coming up in a week and a half. Please let me know if you plan to be here. Steve has expressed a desire to come in March and things are warming up for the spring efforts. We need to get cracking on the sill repairs and fit up the front end, start cutting metal for the IRS and get rubber under the car. I talked to Dale Spooner and he'll give me a report on the engine in a few days, we're going to see if it's feasible to re-ring the pistons, so we could have an operational engine in time for the meet. I'm hoping rings, bearings and seals/gaskets will put us there at minimal cost. Once I get the sponsor promo sheet finished I'll get back in the hunt for heads and paint as well but I may be a few more weeks doing that as I'll do a better job once the weather improves a bit.
Jim
Jim,
Maybe I can get the engine on my way up, if it is ready. It could work as the reverse of bringing it down. Let me know and I'll talk to Carl about meeting him and getting it.
steve
Steve,
I'll be surprised if it is ready to go that quickly.
Jim,
I am planning to come up the end of April not March. My mistake.
Steve
That will probably make it much more likely that we can get the engine ready for transport by by then. In the meantime I'll fit up the front unit, determine track for the rear and get some steel for the lower control arms on the rear. Then in my spare time (yeah, like I'm going to have any of that scarce commodity) I'll straighten and fit sheet metal panels. Somewhere along the line I think I'm going to have to get a mig welder. Maybe Harbour freight will come up with a good sale.
Jim
Hi Jim, Here is a list of items I'm donating towards the Roadmaster project:
1: Rebuilt, complete MGB front suspension with 11" vented brakes. one grease cap removal tool.
2: New rack & pinion steering with new ball joints.
3: 2- Rebuilt steering u-joints. Misc. hardware, thrust washers, spacers.
4: 12" long 48 spline intermediate steering shaft.
5: New MSD Programmable timing computer #8981. This was fitted to my Cobra then removed after fitting.
6: New MSD Soft-Touch Rev Control #8738. Was fitted to cobra then removed.
7: Two Aldan AS-656-G adjustable shocks. Fitted to cobra then removed.
8: One quart catch-can/overflow tank.
As you may not have use for everything, you mentioned that Ebay may be a source of revenue when you sell what you don't need. I've listed the items here so other members may get first pick.
See you Friday,
Arthur
Jim, I've looked at the HF units and I'm not impressed. I have been looking for another MIG machine for myself and have found several units at good prices on Craigslist. I suggest that when you're ready take a look there. Here's an example that's priced hundreds less than when new. http://kansascity.craigslist.org/tls/561859433.html
Thanks Arthur, see you tomorrow. My wife and son will be coming as well, so we're looking forward to the tour and may get there just a little early depending on traffic.
Bill, thanks for the tip. I guess as a rule cheaper is generally cheaper, but I really don't expect to be able to spend more than a couple hundred on one. Always looking for a bargain though., and there's no tremendous rush. I've got the gas torch and the stick welder and can get by quite well with those until a deal comes along, but I certainly appreciate any leads.
Jim
Bill, please call me at (859) 816-2187. The guy is willing to deal on that welder and one of us should get the benefit of it.
Jim
Check this one out good guys. I may be wrong, but could swear I saw the same pics on one of the TX (Hou, Dallas, Austin. San Anton) craigslist sites sometime in the last 6 months.
Thanks Rob. Bill is going to make arrangements with him to go get it, I'm sure he'll be able to find an outlet to plug into and fire it up if he feels it's necessary. No money will change hands beforehand so we should be OK.
Jim
Had a touch of insomnia last night so I spent some quality time on the IRS design. It was all in my head so I'll have to look at the actual parts to see what will work but I got a lot of the details of the LCA fleshed out including inner pivots and mounting cushions, and I've pretty much decided on 1-1/4" x .125" wall tubing which will be substantially stronger than the 1-1/8 I'd been considering. Well, off to Indy with us..
Jim
What a day it's been. Sorry to say Arthur got stuck on I-65 an hour or so from Indy and had to spend over 2 hours sitting and waiting for a wreck to be cleared from the freeway and we all know what a frustrating ordeal something like that is likely to be. Luckily we were in touch by cell phone and an hour in had everyone at the desk of the museum trying to find out what had happened, but information was slow in getting out. By the time I was able to call and pass on what little information we could get, traffic had started moving again. I sure hope he had better luck getting back home. For our part, we got to sit in the Indy rush hour traffic coming back so nobody completely escaped the mess. What was I thinking setting this up for a Friday? Fortunately there was plenty to distract us at the museum while we waited there, I only wish Arthur had it so easy. But in due course he made it in. Turned out we weren't quite as close to the midpoint as I had expected, I think he traveled about 180 miles, maybe a bit more, while we went about 130 one way and 140 the other, but it certainly was a good place to meet and I think we all enjoyed looking at the cars that were on display there. The parking lot was quiet, uncrowded and a perfect place for taking the parts from his van and loading them into the back of my truck.
So the transfer was made and we're now back home. Beautiful parts too, I must say. In the morning I'll do a proper inventory, for now I'm content to let them rest in my trunk while I rest from the day's activities.
Arthur once again I must thank you for this most generous contribution and you may rest assured that in doing so I am expressing the gratitude and appreciation of each and every one of us who have embarked on this quest. We welcome you to our ranks with open arms, and look very much forward to meeting again at the summer meet.
psst: Guys, he should have his Cobra running by then. Now that's a car I want a ride in for sure!
Jim
The trip home was a breeze. When I reached the site of the accident on my way back, traffic South bound was still backed up for a mile or more and the debris clean-up was still in progress. Bad day for a couple of truck drivers.
Jim, When I got back to the shop I found that I did not pack the 12" splined shaft. It will stay in my steel rod supply unless someone has use for it.
Regards,
Arthur
Jim, have you seen these IRS suspension mods?
Arthur
http://www.streetrodgarage.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=584
http://www.cp-performance.com/photo5.html
Thanks Arthur, quite interesting to be sure. The MG is probably Kevin Jackson's car, he posted a photo on page 3 above and has been a lot of help in sorting out the IRS. The other link is something I hadn't seen before but it has some nice touches. The inboard coil-overs have the wow factor, but unless we were building an open wheel car where wind resistance was a factor I don't see much point in them and would rather have the inboard brakes for unsprung weight reduction. I do like the easy toe-in adjustment link though and a top link is an advantage. I'd like to see more spread on the LCA pickup points or a triangulated UCA for better thrust control but it looks like a decent design. Might not fit under an MG without major modifications. At the very least the battery boxes would have to go. Also the way the toe in adjustment link is made reduces the rigidity of the LCA in torsion to a significant degree. With a triangulated UCA it wouldn't matter because there'd be no torsion but the two point link gives no resistance to acceleration forces.
I do have a question or two about the IFS. This is an Arntz/Butler unit right? Is there a page where I can look at the specs for it? I'd like to know what calipers and rotors it uses, others on this board may be interested in going to a chevy lug pattern. I noticed on the Cobra board that they use Camaro, Jag, Nissan and Mustang brakes and I'm just wondering how much interchange there may be between them and in what ways. This is an area where I think we have much to learn from the Cobra people and it could give us a lot of wheel and brake options that we don't now have. I recall you mentioned that these are the 12" Camaro brakes and I see where there is also a 10.75" chevy option which would require a different caliper of course but could be useful for someone who wants to stay with the 14" rim size. Believe it or not, there are a few out there, and I also run 14" wheels on my car currently, though that is likely to change within the next year or two.
I must confess I tend to hibernate through this part of the year so I still haven't unloaded the truck. I did open the box with the sparky parts and had a quick look, but I'll no doubt have more questions as we go along if you don't mind.
Jim
Hi Jim,
I've just gone through my records to refresh and reboot my brain on what was involved in doing the Cobra brakes. The brake rotors are 11" diameter 1968 Camaro. I have notes that also show that these may be the same as: 1968 to 1988 Nova. 1969-1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass and F85. A GM parts supplier should be able to make sense of it. I knew a guy at NAPA that gave me some of this info. I also noted that I found that these rotor-hubs were available from from a performance supplier as a two piece hub-rotor combination. I did not keep part numbers, as I saw something (Fast Cars) in the future, although I did'nt know of Ted at the time. The two piece combo would be ideal for anyone wanting to do this mod today, as the hubs require some machining.
There are no places to read the specs about the Butler brakes. The inner and outer bearings on the Camaro have the same inner diameter dimension as the MGB stub axle/bearings. So the Camaro bearings would fit right on to the MGB. However the the distance between the inside and outside of the Camaro bearing as installed in the rotor are about roughly *3/16" wider then the MGB. (* will find out and confirm this exact dimension.) Butler's cure was to machine the rotor hub inner bearing recess deeper by the roughly *3/16". to align the plane for proper bearing/seal fit.
The rotors on mine (yours) are different. I did not machine the inner recess of the Camaro hub. I worked a couple of doors down from Berry Bearing (now known as Motion Industries) and found a bearing set that was thinner. However, I ended up having to machine the outer bearing recess roughly 1/8" deeper so that the castelled nut would be deep enough for the cotter pin to fit the hole in the axle. Thinking about this now it may have been easier to change the outer bearing to a thinner one too and eliminate the machining. I don't know why I did'nt take this approach. It may be worth looking into now, as there are so many bearing combinations available from bearing suppliers.
The caliper/bracket is not a modification I would consider doing today even though the caliper is still available for about $75.00 from NAPA. Have other MGB guys created brackets to fit multi-piston calipers to the Bee? The bracket for the caliper was modified by Butler Racing. Caliper and bracket were 1974 Dodge Dart 400.
Let me know if you need more info.
Arthur
Hi Jim,
While combing through my records on the suspension today, I took the opportunity to put together the the costs of the items that I donated to the project.
Front suspension parts & labor $ 3,110.00
MSD 8981 $220.00
MSD 8738 $ 69.00
Aldan shocks $100.00
Catch tank $19.00
Total $3,518.00
I've not included anything for the delivery service to Indi.
Please review and let me have your comments.
Regards,
Arthur
Arthur,
Awesome contribution!
"...the same as: 1968 to 1988 Nova"
I believe you meant 1968-1972 Nova. That is what I scrounged disk brakes from for my '68 Camaro.
More interchange info:
http://www.chevy-camaro.com/faq/chevy-camaro-faq-first-gen-disc-brakes.shtm
Arthur, that sounds like it is probably accurate. We should get with Steve DeGroat (sec/treas) for any followup paperwork you need. Interesting how close that comes to the Fast Cars IFS, but then Cobra parts have never been known for being inexpensive. These parts will serve our purpose quite well. As I mentioned on the thread before, we are not building the ultimate BBB/MGB, merely pointing the way. It will likely remain for others to build the 2200 lb car.
I imagine we'll exceed the $5000 reporting minimum this year which means the IRS paperwork will have to be filed, including about a $400 fee. So we need to plan for that. The paperwork and fee won't have to be submitted until closer to the end of the year but I'd think we'll all feel more comfortable sending it in sooner. Any contributions earmarked for that purpose will be set aside until we have enough to cover it and a regular report made as we approach that goal. Currently we have $449.46 in the treasury.
At the next Roadmaster Weekend where we have visiting participants (always the last full weekend of the month unless announced otherwise) we will inventory our parts and select surplus for auction, decide on how to distribute those parts and do whatever packaging is deemed necessary. Everyone's input here is welcomed. My own thoughts lean towards offering the parts to participants and visitors to this site first at a fair market price, and then taking them to ebay. In that way some of the enthusiasts here can support the project indirectly, bearing in mind that even if they could get the item elsewhere for less, in buying it here they are supporting the Roadmaster Project.
Looking forward to a good summer.
Jim
Arthur,
Thanks for the great donation. As trs. I will have figure out how to get you a receipt for you records and what else to do.
I will seeing my tax person this month and will discuss it with her.
Steve
More good news. There will soon be a mig welder here that we can use on the Roadmaster project. Bill Young sent me information from Craigs list and I made a deal with the seller, then Bill made the exchange and will ship it to me here while at the same time I will send him a check to cover cost and expenses. This will not come out of the BADASS treasury, but I will make it available for use on the project. The unit is a Snap-on 120v with variable wire and heat, spot and stitch weld adjustments. I have a bottle of gas to use with it already and Bill has checked it out for arc and feed so we should be good to go as soon as it arrives. Looks like the sill and floor work just got a whole lot easier.
Jim
edit: Incidentally, in case anybody was wondering why I own this mig instead of BADASS, I left it up to Bill to decide since he found it, whether he wanted to keep it, donate it, or let me buy it. He chose the latter and I think that choice satisfies all parties although I know Bill is still looking for a welder for himself. The reason I say this is because it furthers the project, which was Bill's intention. It doesn't cost the treasury anything which also helps keep us on track, and it gives me personal control of the asset which I like in the event our construction site should ever change. Just wanted to be sure that made sense to everyone.
J
Bill Spohn: "People tend to underestimate the forces involved in the suspension and I can't count the number of bent Panhards and lower links I've seen. "
To add to that sentiment, from my own knowledge and experience in dealing with loads and stresses, I can't believe the number of poorly designed rear suspension links I've seen. With the amount of development work that's been done you would think that some of it would have been carried over from F1 and Indy cars to street IRS setups but somehow most builders just keep overlooking the monstrous forces applied to the rear suspension components. My theory is that they look at the slender and lightweight links used in F1 and want them, but not understanding the forces involved neglect to account for the weight difference and other factors like durability and differences in material choices, then make design changes without understanding how different loadings affect the part. LCA's are a perfect example. Any LCA on a car that uses the half shaft as the UCA is going to see some pretty large torque forces. Jaguar accounted for this with a very heavy LCA and beefy pivots. So what does the aftermarket do? Replace the rigid hardened steel bearings with plastic and make up a light weight LCA that cannot possibly handle the same torque load because they do not recognize that there even is a torque load on that part. And if they do add a UCA they don't triangulate it but attach it at two points only and expect it to compensate for a spindly LCA without accounting for the fact that a two point attachment cannot control torque in the least. Sorry for the rant. I've been trying to understand it and it just doesn't make sense to me.
On a lighter note, we have the new front suspension unloaded and sitting on the front of the car.
MVC-431S.JPG
Obviously things are getting a little cluttered but we'll get that all sorted out soon enough. There are so many things in the photo that you almost can't see the suspension but I'll get to those other items shortly. It's a pretty decent suspension, just heavy, difficult to make adjustments to, and not possessed of modern geometry but quite capable of doing the job we ask of it. Much of the weight is in the brakes, and as Arthur noted, the '74 Dart 400 calipers are a heavy choice (and becoming hard to find). But, consider this. In 1980 I went from wire wheels and stock brakes to Mustang brakes (roughly equivalent to what we have for the Roadmaster), 265/50-14 tires and 11 lb wheels and the overall weight of the package was virtually unchanged. Those wire wheels are HEAVY! So our wheel choice can definitely offset the extra weight of the big brakes, and with a little extra sprung weight the ride should be about the same.
MVC-430S.JPG
Here is our current choice of springs. The pair in the center are the old ones out of my roadster, Huffaker -1 with a little sag. The yellow springs are Cobra. I haven't checked wire size but they look very similar to the first ones, and could very well be identical (when new). The next set is stock GT and the outside set is probably TR-6 front springs. At least we have choices.
MVC-432S.JPG
Here we see our ignition system shaping up nicely. In addition to the MSD-6 donated by Mike Domanowski we now have a soft touch rev limiter module and an electronic timing control module, all msd so it should all be compatible.
MVC-434S.JPG
Here is the thermostatic fan switch, Jaz catch tank and there are various other parts lying about as well.
So have fun looking at the photos and trying to see what you can identify. Something to do whilst being snowed in.
Jim
Jim, I would have been more than happy to donate the welder, but after I thought about it for a while I realized that the assets of the organization will eventually have to be disbursed when the project is complete and any physical assets other than the car could be a problem. Better to let you purchase it and continue my cash donations which can be applied to the car for parts or services. I think I've already found another small MIG machine, so no problems there.
Thanks Bill.
We're now officially cutting metal on the IRS!
MVC-436S.JPG
Here you see the original half shaft alongside one that is rough turned. The diameter is 1.215" and will be turned to finished size after the tubing is purchased for making up the finished part. These stock half-shafts are not balanced, are in the rough forged condition and as such are not round and not especially straight either. The turning was done on a small 7" bench lathe with a cemented carbide tool at 850 rpm and there was a fair bit of bouncing going on which eased up noticeably as the shafts were turned round and straight. There are still variations in the ends but the balance overall should be much better when we are done
MVC-437S.JPG
Here we have both shafts rough turned. The dark streak is all that remains of the original forged surface. Since the original width was 66" we need to remove 7" from each shaft to reach the MGB's 52" track width and could consider taking another 1/2" or so to fit wider tires. This would be the marks on the unturned shaft above, showing how much shaft will be left to insert into the tube as a pilot. Simple mild steel tubing should suffice, but with a wall thickness of around 1/4". I have on hand some 2" x 1" hollowbar but that would be overkill and add more weight than we need, as well as requiring a good bit more turning. These shafts need to be able to stand up to about 2200 ft/lbs of torque so a thinwall tube just won't do. CWI uses a 2-1/2" .156" wall tube for their driveshaft style half-shafts, our OD will be about 1-5/8 to 1-3/4" so a thicker wall is needed.
Jim
Guys,
Great project !
I see a lot of brake/hub/ work.
Has anyone got a good supplier for upgraded MG B lite weight O/E disc rotors - ones vented, slotted and much drilled for SCCA road racing ?
Phillip G
Jim,
Great job on the turning of the half-shafts. Will these be a press fit into the tubes?
After reading about the vibration you encountered while turning them, I'm concerned that I never once considered having the half-shafts on my Jag rear end balanced. I don't know why the thought never crossed my mind, Duh! Had the engine balanced, and flywheel, clutch, driveshaft too. Never considered the half-shafts.
I'll be dismantling the Cobra to get it ready for paint in about three weeks. At that time, should I consider pulling the shafts & U-joints to have them balanced?
Would appreciate all comments .
Arthur
Arthur, I don't think I'd tear a car down to balance the shafts, but if I was in there anyway I'd plan on having the balance checked. Chances are good you'd never notice it, but if everything else is running nice and smooth you might. At highway speeds depending on tire size you would be in about that range. Your machinist should be able to balance one without drilling holes in it I would think, grind a little off the high spots. I'm guessing you have XKE half shafts. Being shorter they should be a little better balanced to start with. The probable reason most people don't bother with them is that the half shaft rotates 1/3 to 1/4 as fast as the driveshaft. I could have run these up to over 3000 rpm but wasn't comfortable with doing that. I'm sure they would have shaken rather badly at that speed. As far as the brakes go, the rotors should be pretty well balanced to begin with. I can't say I know but I'd think the manufacturer takes care of that for you. Still it would be interesting to check just to see how close they are out of the box. Should be really close. The half shafts have a center hole drilled in each end so they are mounted up between centers for machining. A driveshaft shop should have fixtures for attaching them by either the flange or u-joint to their balancing machine. Sometimes U-joints come center drilled also.
Once I have the tubing the shafts will be turned for a light to medium press fit in the tubing ID. Although a heavy press fit might sound better, in practice it requires an absolutely straight setup in the press to avoid deforming the tube and with the rounded ends of the yokes that is difficult to achieve. I'll probably use a .002" interference fit, leaning towards the tight side and then weld the ends with the shaft between centers on an old scrap lathe bed, then pop it back in the lathe for final cleanup and to make sure it runs smooth. I've had lots of practice on driveshafts and have no doubt that this will give us the right part for the job.
A tubular driveshaft such as those sold by CWI would be a lot lighter, something worth looking into if there is clearance. In our case I'm not sure if it would be an option, but this is a low bucks project so we're going the low bucks route.
Something else worth thinking about if you build an IRS with a top link (UCA), Spicer sells various sizes and lengths of splined couplers. By proper selection it may be possible to combine a male and female spline with the proper u-joints and flanges to get the needed half-shaft length. Since these are fully machined parts no balancing is needed and this gives a viable alternative to CV shafts. In fact it is probably the simplest route to converting a Jag IRS to full control arms and floating half shafts.
Jim
Jim,
I'm tearing the car down to paint it and the frame will go out for powder coating. So the Jag rear end will be out if it. I may consider having it balanced at that time.
It would be interesting to hear if other Jag rear end owners did a balance job or not, and what the results were.
Regards,
Arthur
Arthur, check out this thread:
http://www.clubcobra.com/forums/shop-talk/16600-help-builders-mechanics-do-halfshafts-require-balancing.html
It should answer your questions. Looks to me like the only issue is the difficulty of removing the stub shaft from the hub flange. The right puller should handle that.
Dale Spooner called me this morning about the engine. Turns out we have about .006" of cylinder wear. I didn't think it was that much, but then he has better instruments for measuring that sort of thing. The good news is that he has a possible line on a decent set of pistons which are .040 over, so if he's able to get those he'll go ahead and finish the bores to match. Meantime I have to get back to work on seeing if I can get us a set of aluminum heads. Just a little paperwork to finish up and I can get back on the phone calls. I've been putting that off but I think the time has come to see how my best effort reads. More soon.
Jim
The "Vendor Presentation" is now completed. It includes Photos and hyperlinks and I have sent it to Curtis to see if we can post it somewhere on this site. I also want to send it to our officers for their final approval and will do that later today. Hopefully by the first of the week I can start prospecting for heads, painting and other parts that we will need to finish the project. Who knows, I may even be able to get us some tires. Wouldn't that be grand?
Jim
Jim, the shafts look great. this is probably stuff you know, but I couldn't help but think of Larry Shimp's snapped 1/2 shafts... I don't recall the details of the Hoyle IRS, but the donor car 1/2 shafts are bigger diameter than the hubs so they're turned down & resplined at one end to fit (to be fair to Hoyle, I don't know if that's their design or based on donor parts Larry was able to find in the US). Anyway they broke right at the edge where the smaller diameter met the bigger diameter.
If the tube that'll reconnect the shafts on the Jag parts will be welded to the yokes, there's probably no issue. If it's going to be welded to the shafts, it might be a good idea to radius where the turned shafts meet the yokes.
This is a great project...and the organizational skills of Jim is certainly helping to keep all of us well focused.
Jim...I'll help out more by contributing to the fund needed for our IRS donation mentioned in your post of February 18th.
I have your address....how would you want the check made out?
rick ingram
PiecesOfEightLogo_1.jpg
Thanks for the compliments guys, I do appreciate it. Rick the check can be made out to BADASS, NLC if you like. Wouldn't hurt to put something like "Fees" in the memo field or after the "who to" entry. I'll make sure it's earmarked for that... have to make sure Steve knows.
Rob, the welds will indeed be on the yoke. There was a question somewhere about using tubular units. That's an excellent idea but two things argue against it. First I don't know yet if we have enough room, basically every inch increase in the diameter is a 1/2" decrease in potential suspension travel so I'm not too eager to go bigger until we look at tire clearance in the wheelwell. The second reason is cost. The Spicer yokes will cost around $15-20 each so it adds about a buck in costs. Tubing cost will be close either way. I'd rather put that money on tires or coil-over shocks.
Weekend Report:
Not a whole lot happened this Roadmaster Weekend, but that wasn't a big surprise. So there really isn't anything to report. Dale missed out on the pistons he was trying to get, so we need another line on a deal. We'd like to get .030 or .040 over and around 9 or 10 to one compression. Maybe the boys on the V8 Buick site know of some. Everything else that's been going on I've pretty well kept up on the reporting. Let's try to plan for something next month, it should be warming up enough to get out and do some work. In the meantime hopefully there will be some nice days so I can clean up the Lab.
Jim
Jim,
When you weld the halfshafts at the yoke are you planning on inserting a solid fitted shaft through the eyes of the yoke to hold the alignment and prevent the weld from distorting the yoke?
Arthur
Arthur I hadn't considered doing that. It isn't a bad idea, but would require a very precisely made piece (x2) in order to be able to mount it between centers. Perhaps a good alternative would be to measure the spread and recheck after welding to see if they had opened up any. I expect we'll be OK on that though, it doesn't seem much of a problem on tubular driveshafts which have a less massive yoke.
We may have our pistons. One of the guys on the Buick board has a set, he's going to measure them for wear. Looks like $50 plus shipping, .040" over but an undetermined CR, maybe 8.5, maybe 10. I'll ask if he's willing to donate them but even if not I think we should buy them if they check out.
Jim
Looks like I have two extra Omni flares that I can donate to the project so that'll get the rear done. The ones I have are from the rear of the car. They have parts of the inner fenders still attached. I'll cut off the excess so I can get them in a smaller box & get them out to you next week.
Worst case if we can't come up with two more for the front, we could make fiberglass ones using one of the Omni ones as a mold. I'm probably going to make molds out of mine anyway since they're getting harder to find & I may want an extra inch or two on the back (drawback to IRS is once made it's even harder to further narrow than regular axle & I had Todd make mine about 1-1.5" wider than I should have!!) I'm thinking making fiberglass Omni flares a bit wider than stock ones is easier/cheaper than narrowing the IRS! -- Learn from my mistake & get the width right Jim, which means you have to know the wheel width & offset & even have a good idea of your tire section width -- ideally have them on hand & mock it up, then measure between them for the IRS width. Err on the narrower side since you can get wider wheels, bigger tires, &/or use spacers way easier than you can deal with a rear end that's too wide. Sorry for the preaching... I just get frustrated with my screw up every time I think about it.
Rob
Rob,
Time for different wheels? The Weld Prostars that Jim picked out have a choice of 3 backspacings for the 15X7s. 3.5, 4.5 & 5.5. That could make all the difference.
http://www.weldracing.com/wheels/details.asp?wheelid=36&name=Prostar&style=96&desc=1-Piece%20Forged%20Alloy%20Polished
Yeah, but I like my wheels...
2006-10-04NewwheelsonCarforLookSee002.jpg
I think I'd rather adjust the flares than sell these & replace... althought i do also like the Weld Prostars. Maybe i'll look for some of those when i tire of these.
Those are very pretty wheels. Couldn't make out the name but they look vaguely familiar.
Another issue is lug-centric vs hub centric. We'd be better off if we can get wheels that use tapered lug nuts. Of course I suppose tapered seats can be installed... if you can get them. I noticed the centers on mine are definitely thick enough to do that.
Jim
Hi Jim, they're American Racing 427's -- American Racing's version of the Mustang Eleanor wheels. These do use tapered lug nuts (e.g., lug centric). By the way, i'm not sure I still have your address... i'll look in the earlier pages, but if it's not in there somewhere, email it to me so I can send you the flares (assuming you want the two I have).
They look like the original Halibrands.
The Welds won't have tapered seats. I have Weld Dragstars on my Camaro. They use long shouldered lug nuts. And no, you can't have 'em. They're 15X10 & 15X6, anyway. :)
Yea, very similar to Halibrands, but aluminum instead of Magnesium. Pretty sure the halibrands were magnesium... they're way more expensive these days than reproductions like these anyway & magnesium has a tendency to crack.
"Pretty sure the halibrands were magnesium."
Yep. They are making them again for the Cobras. $700+/wheel.
The Jag hubs don't have a centering boss so if we use untapered wheels we'll have to put in seat inserts. I need to do this with mine also so I'll probably set up to machine some seats. That'd be about 40 pieces so it'll take a little time but not too bad all at once. I'll have to come up with the right sized counterbore tool though. Carl, do those 15 x 10's have a 4-1/2" backspacing by any chance?
Jim
Jim, if the wheels use a shouldered lug nut lilke most older style alloy wheels as long as the shank of the lugs is a good snug fit in the wheel bores I've never had any problem with centering the wheels. Either way you're relying on the accuracy of the lug studs to locate the wheel. The 113X7 Americans I run on the Midget don't index on the Midget hubs or rear axles and I've had no problems with any balance issues or vibration. I'd use caution machining any wheels in the lug area not to remove any of the design strength in this area to fit tapered inserts.
Jim, Checkout this site on Jag IRS in a early Mustang. Dazecars.com early Mustang IRS. Also did you notice the Toyota 4X4 Jag set up on CWI site. It uses the leaf spring mounts as does the newer Mustang Cobra IRS.
photo25compressed.jpg
Here is another idea. The shock prevents wheelhop. I was thinking that you could make a bracket like that only facing the frame for your upper A arm idea. 1/4" strap twice as long sandwiching in the hub carrier.
10059DCEWHKT.jpg
Nice find on the upright brackets Jim N, and the diagonal anti-torque braces on the back are a nice touch as well. That one is clearly a top end system as evidenced by the custom uprights. Looks like they were attempting to use the shocks as a replacement for the radius rods but it seems that solution would be less than ideal.
I did some more checking this morning and first things first, the Jag hub does have a pilot boss for the wheel. At 2.900" it is larger than the Chevy boss at 2.781" but could easily be turned to match, meaning that we should be able to use just about any GM hub-centric or lug centric wheel. The Jag uprights raise a whole new issue in terms of backspacing though which came to light when I looked at Jim N's brackets.
Also, Bill you are absolutely right about machining the wheel centers. On the Weld wheels IIRC they have two 1/2" sections mated together which if so might not allow the necessary machining. My Centerlines may be the same. As for the discussion of whether hub centric wheels can be run on lug centric hubs, I can only say that is the setup on my car and I've never gotten rid of the wobbles entirely. 'Course it could be the tires. There have been complaints about them.
The issue with the uprights is twofold. First, a top link is going to be difficult to design due to the need to go inside the frame rail to allow maximum space for rubber in the wheelwell. Otherwise the link will take up at least 1" of tire space with a conventional design and materials, and attaching it inside the frame rail is likely to severely limit wheel travel and lowering of the body. So we need to make a decision here: Do we move the wheels out and flare the fenders similar to the flares on my car to get the needed tire space? Or do we forgo the suspension top link, beef up the LCA, go back to timken LCA bearings instead of Delrin and hope for the best?
I had some light outside wheel rub with 1" spacers and maximum lowering and with the spacers gone have about 1-1/2" averaged clearance to the shock bolt heads on the inside, so possibly 2" of clearance that I am not using with these tires. (10.37" section width, 8.35" tread) so the potential is at least there for 12" wide x 27" tall tires maximum, or 11" wide with a top suspension link.
Adding compexity to this decision is the configuration of the uprights themselves. If we use a conventional backspacing of 3 to 5 inches the bell of the upright is the limiting factor in upward suspension travel. It may be possible to trim it to get more upwards movement. But there's another possibility.
I have some old Probe GT wheels which are 16 x 7 with about a 5" backspace. I set a hub and upright in the wheel to see how that works out:
MVC-442S.JPG
MVC-443S.JPG
MVC-444S.JPG
As you can see, a careful construction of the LCA could allow use of a deep backspacing, moving the upright further inside the wheel and thus moving the bell closer to clearing the frame rail. From this it looks like the new FWD wheels could be very useful. Something like a 17 x 10 with a 7" backspacing would probably let us clear the frame and leave room for a robust LCA attachment.
Obviously the fronts would have to be different. But since it's generally easier to find wheels in pairs this may not be a bad thing. We could stagger the diameter and width and use the Omni flares on the front. Neutral handling can be restored with a stiffer front bar and staggered tire pressure so I'm not that concerned about the handling changes this would cause.
Guys, it looks like we are moving ever closer to the drawing that we need for our club logo! Wonder if there's a way to run open headers out through a set of ventiports?
Jim
Anybody think we should try to buy these?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110226743947&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=001
Jim
Are you wanting the tires or the rims?
Zoom that last pic. That rim is cracked pretty bad.
I missed it anyway, oh well. Cast wheels obviously huh? That's what I meant about the wheels sticking out past the tires. I'm seeing a lot of damaged rims.
Looks like the 255/40-17's are real common, and 265 and 275's are not exactly scarce. Apparently the 50 series 14's and 15's were dropped in favor of them. Go figure.
Of all the 50 series tires that used to be made, there's nothing much anymore bigger than a 225 that I can find, with one notable exception: the 295/50-15 (LR50-15). Now why is that? A Corvette tire perhaps? That'd be my bet. And probably after tires are no longer used those tires for old Corvettes will still be available. I found the page for calculating tire dimensions, and that size works out to a 26.6" diameter and 11.6" overall width. My handy dandy chart for BFG TA's (who still make them) shows a rim of 9-11" and a design rim of 8" wide, overall dia of 26.21" and a tread width of 9.4" meaning that they could probably be fit into the rear wheelwells of my roadster, or if we made similar flares on the Roadmaster they could work there also. Interestingly enough, the 295/35-18 tires for the Z06 Vette work out to very nearly the same dimensions and the front tires are 265/40-17's which might work on the front. The modern Vette wheels also have some serious backspacing, which could be real helpful on the rear, but only if we went to the 17 or 18" wheels.
Which gets us back to 35 or 40 series tires and rims wider than the tread, and curb damage. But, a typical offset for these wheels may be the 57mm I saw on a 9.5" wide rim (rear). That works out to a 2-1/4" offset, or a 7" backspacing which is pretty ideal for our Jag IRS. If this is typical for Corvette then it gives us a ready source of wheels and rubber provided we can stuff it under the car. It also matches the rim to the tread width and gives us a 1" sidewall bulge to protect the rim. Although I wasn't really planning to do another set of rear flares I can see where this would be a real advantage.
On the front things are a bit different. We need a wheel with a 3 to 3-1/2" backspacing in order to clear the inside and we are more limited on the diameter. We may be able to use as large a diameter as we can in the rear but even with the Omni flares we can't go all that much wider, and as we increase the diameter the offset to the inside has to decrease to keep from rubbing the footwell (going from memory here, corrections encouraged.) This all means the wheels are likely to not match if we go this route, unless we make up a pair of big honkin' billet spacers about 3" thick. Can be done, theoretically no worse loading on the spindle. Any fans of that approach here?
So you see, all of this stuff just gets to running around inside my head to the point where I have difficulty doing anything at all. Much easier for me if someone just says, "Here, this is what you have to work with. See if you can find a way to make it happen."
Anybody got an old set of Corvette wheels lying about the place? Bill Guzman are you out there?
Well, it's a thought anyway.
Jim
What about these wheels?
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=200203206735&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=010
A little wide for the back maybe. Any comments?
Jim
Maybe we ought to just put N50 wrinklewalls on it ;-)
I'll play devil's advocate for a minute:
I don't understand the appeal of huge wheels and tires for a little British sports car. The trend towards extra big tires on little cars is about as silly as fashion trends get, and will surely run its course and reverse sooner or later. ("Low-riders" were popular just a few years ago. Seen one lately?)
The MGB GT V8 is only a 2400lb car - even with a big block - and it only needs so much contact area to stick like glue. Unless you're going to fill the wheels with huge brakes, I don't see any point in driving up the moment-of-inertia (i.e. "flywheel effect") so high. Instead, why not pick the cheapest "just big enough" new tires you can find with really, really sticky compound? (Also, I would expect that keeping scrub radius as small as feasible should help with steering-effort/"returnability".)
Consider the Falken Azenis RT-615, which is a nice sticky tire for autocrossing and other sporting uses. The 255/40-17 version weighes a whopping tremendous 27.5 pounds, and it's recommended for use with a 9" wide rim. The same tire in a far more sensible 205/40-16, only weighes 18.2 pounds, and is recommended for use on a 7.5" rim. (Unsprung weight isn't the only issue - the average distance of weight from the axis of rotation is the other key factor to moment of inertia. Radius squared, right?) IMHO, the smaller tire will BE quicker and will feel quicker. It'll be quicker to get up to operating temperature. It'll certainly be easier to package, and it'll save about $168/set too every time they need replacement. (The cost difference is $80 vs. $122 per tire, before installation.)
---
Rim protection has come up as an issue in this discussion. If this is a big issue, some of the newer tires are advertised as having a special rim-protecting bulge molded into the rubber to help avoid curb scuffing.
I agree with Curtis. I am not a fan of big rims.
Probably not what you want, but I have a set of 85 Jag XJ6 wheels in good condition if we need them. If we don't, then I will keep them for my Jag.
Steve
Steven, I agree with you for the most part and am not a fan of the modern thin sidewall rubber bands on the 17" or larger wheels. They just don't have the right "look" for the MG. I think we could do pretty well with the Jag wheels and something like a 235 50 15. We're not drag racing so having steam roller tires out back isn't necessary, just something that will give enough side bite and handle well. They would enable us to find both reasonably priced wheels and tires for the project and probably be available for years to come.
BlownMGB-V8 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Much easier for me if someone just says, "Here, this is what you
> have to work with. See if you can find a way to
> make it happen."
I spent a lot of time on this delima this past summer. 15" tires in widths we'd like -- especially for the rear -- are hard to find & seem to be getting harder. 16" & 17" tires with good widths and even reasonable diamters are relatively easy to find. But, 16 & especially 17" wheels are hard to find w/o very deep backspacing (very positive offsets). That can be ok for the rear where you have more control over the rear end width, but becomes a problem for the front. And, the wheel/tire combinations are generally way heavier.
Given we're on a Budget (capital B intended :) ), I'd suggest the first order of business is finding either 15" or 16" wheels that'll work.
-- If you/we find 15" wheels with 6-7" wide front & 7-8" wide rear, go with either 205/55/15 or 215/50/15 front & 225/50/15 rear.
-- If 16" wheels with reasonable offsets & 6-7" wide front/8-9" wide rear can be found -- which would be my 1st choice if looking again, then use 205/50/16 front & 245/45/16 (or 225/50/16) rear.
In either case you want something with close to 0 offset. A little negative offset on the front helps, but spacers can make up for a bit of positive offset. The rear doesn't matter as much as long as it's not so positive that the control arms cause a problem.
Once you find the wheels, you can close on tires and with that, the rear end width & whether you'll need spacers on the front -- which I don't think would need to be more than 2" with any of those combinations. If, however, spacers are needed, you want to do the type that bolt to the hubs & then have their own studs that bolt to the wheels for anything in the range we're talking.
I know it's frustrating to have to hold off working the IRS till you have the wheels/tires, but it's really the best way.
Hey, you asked for someone to say here's what you have to work with... now go make it happen :)
Rob
It does get a bit silly at some point. :)
(http://www2.mgcars.org.uk/images/bbs/posts/8_2008021019591430479_20972892200012_1204568866.jpg)
Bawhahahahahahaha!
So then, no wrinklewalls? Pity. ;-)
The Mig welder was delivered today. Thanks Bill Y, it arrived relatively unscathed (or about as scatheless as UPS gets I suppose) and was soon put in working order. The feed was erratic but on pulling the drive wheel I found the shaft key lying below it and that was promptly remedied. All looks fine so far. Bill I apologize for not getting the check out sooner, it was deposited in the mail first thing this morning so it should be there in a day or two. So we're ready to get on with the body work.
Incidentally, I sent the Vendor Presentation (VP) via email to Mike at T&A and plan to call him tomorrow. If I get a chance I'll also make some calls on wheels and tires. Maybe I can get ahold of someone at Weld and Goodyear. Guys, just let me mention that anyone who wants to approach a potential sponsor is welcome to take the VP and do so. Nothing says it has to be me that makes the contact. If you can't get ahold of me to get a copy, Curtis, Carl, and Steve have copies also.
So I guess XJ6 wheels are 15"?
If I understand the consensus so far, we're mainly looking for 15 or 16" wheels, 16 preferred. Then something like a 7" front and 8" rear width, no offset on the front, maximum backspace on the rear, does that sound about right? No stagger of diameter between front and rear?
That sounds OK to me, I like 50 series tires on the MG personally but they're being obsoleted. My theory is that with gas prices going up they're replacing the older and less expensive tires with new ones that are more profitable, and the old ones will all either disappear or become scarce and therefore expensive and profitable. So while they're cheaper right now, by the time we wear them out there may not be any difference. Anyway I figure to start with if we don't have a sponsor we can look for a deal on ebay, especially for the rears which may not last long anyway.
I really do appreciate the input. I don't want to be on the phone with Weld saying something like, "Uh well, maybe a 15" wheel would be good, or 16. But then a 17 might work too or even 18 maybe. Width? Oh somewhere between 6 and 10" I think. I'm not sure about the offset. But I do know the lug pattern....
Obviously that'd get us nowhere real fast.
If anyone has some good contact info send it along and that'll be my first call.
Jim
Jim,
I have been e-mailing with Dale. He will have the 455 ready for me to pick up in Danville the last of April. Let me know if you want the Jag wheels. They are 15's. Don't know back space or width. They are standard 85 XJ6 wheels. They are in the attic of the shop and have I beleive very used Dunlops on them. If you are interested, I will dig them out and get the tires removed.
Steve
"The MGB GT V8 is only a 2400lb car - even with a big block - and it only needs so much contact area to stick like glue. Unless you're going to fill the wheels with huge brakes, I don't see any point in driving up the moment-of-inertia (i.e. "flywheel effect") so high. Instead, why not pick the cheapest "just big enough" new tires you can find with really, really sticky compound? (Also, I would expect that keeping scrub radius as small as feasible should help with steering-effort/"returnability".)"
I agree, Curtis, especially for my car. ;) This car is looking at hooking up 500 ft/lbs of torque. I haven't noticed that the big, fat 18-19" tires hurting Porsche any.
I see the 16" wheels/tires as a transition from the 15" to the 17". I think they will go away faster than the 15s. 17s are here to stay, but are more costly than the 15s.
Rob,
You'd have hard time convincing me to bolt a 2" spacer on the front hub of my car. I'd rather use what will reasonable fit & live with it. That said, I have no problem with running different size wheels and/or diameter stagger.
Jim,
I think the deal with the 295/50-15s being still available is that back in the day before the Pro Street movement when someone wanted impressive meats on their muscle car, like a 1st gen, Camaro, they used those N50s. Later, big radial came along (along with better handling). The BFG T/A 295/50-15 was the biggest radial made for street rodders for a long time. My Camaro currently has BFG Euro T/A 305/50-15s. I don't think are made any more. Any way there are still a lot of muscle cars (including Cobras) using the 295/50-15. I think it will continue to be available for a long time (I hope).
"If you/we find 15" wheels with 6-7" wide front & 7-8" wide rear, go with either 205/55/15 or 215/50/15 front & 225/50/15 rear."
I'm with Rob.
I just got off the phone with Greg Smith at Weld Wheels. He is very informed about the MGB V8 swaps, enough so that I wanted to ask about his background, but I stuck to the matter at hand instead. Greg said that the Pro Star is really not made for the kind of cornering forces this car will see, but it turns out that they will be introducing a wheel called the G Force that sounds ideal for us and it is due to premier in June 2009, right about the time we expect to get our project finished. These are the kind of coincidences that you just have to love.
He validated some of Carl's comments above, in that first off, Weld does not make a 16" wheel. The G-Force will be available in 15 and 17", and in a wide enough variety of back-spacings to easily accommodate our needs.
I sent him the presentation package and invited him to visit this thread. Let's be sure to welcome him in a most cordial manner. There were no promises made or asked for, but we'll get to that once he knows us a little better.
I also talked to Mike at TA Performance this morning and sent him the presentation as well. He had some rather interesting news. It turns out that he has decided to look into making a head to fit the Rover. Now this came about because of an Aussie who contacted him and pointed out that with a bit of cut-n-paste the V6 head could be turned into a V8 head, and as we know, that means a head that will fit the 215, 300, and 340 as well. It sounds like he is really wanting to do this, and I've got to tell you, the SBB 350 guys are just going to go absolutely nuts when they hear about this one! (But with different manifolds and bushings for the cam bearings they'll be able to use these heads too so they shouldn't feel too bad.)
OK so that's off track a little but I thought you guys would want to know. Sharing ports and valves with their aluminum V6 heads we're talking some serious go fast parts here and a major boost for the BOP/Rover/SBB to MGB swappers. He'll have a better idea of how he might be able to help us after he sees the presentation.
I will continue to follow up on both of these contacts until we know if we can count on them, or if we should move on. In the meantime I soon plan to move on to tires, and in that vein I think we have more to discuss.
If we are able to get the G-Force wheels, my vote is for the 17's at least on the rear. What we run on the front doesn't matter to me anywhere near as much. In fact, a 15/17 stagger with about the same sidewall height at both ends is going to make a visually appealing combination, and as I said earlier, we can flare enough to accommodate wide and tall rubber in the back. At this point I'd worry a bit less about cost as I'm confident that if Weld comes on board we can find a tire maker who will also.
So we should be able to handle up to a 5" sidewall with the stagger. What does that allow us in tire sizes and what does it require in rim widths? (Remember we can use up to about a 7" backspacing. Can you guys help me out with this?
Jim
Here's what I'm getting at. Walmart carries one 17" tire in stock. It's a 245/45-17. That tire has a 4.3" sidewall and is about as close as we're going to get to a 50 series. It can be mounted on an 8 or 9" wheel and has close to 9" of tread. It's 20mm narrower than my tires but a 25.7" diameter. That's probably a good size for the rear. On the 17" wheel it gives plenty of room for suspension links and can tolerate 6 or 7" of backspacing which lets us get the upright away from the frame rail. Tire rack shows 98 tires in that size starting at $63 for the Sumitomo HTRZ.
A compliment to that might be a 215/50-15 which has about the same sidewall height and a 2" smaller diameter but Tire Rack only carries two of those. A 205/55-15 has a 4.4" sidewall so that's real close and they show 17 tires in that size starting at $66 for the Fuzion ZRi.
Or, we could go to a 55 series on the back. The 205 works pretty well there and will fit without much fuss but there are only 5 of them and all above $130. There are 33 in the 215/55-17 and 70 in 225/55-17 starting at $65 for the Avon Tech M500. That tire is 26-3/4" tall so that's about all we can do in a 55 series.
Jim
We need to have some sort of consensus here. It sounds to me like the majority is leaning towards tires in the 205 to 245 range so that's why I picked those sizes to play with, plus seeing the 17's at wallmart.
I don't think I'd put too much weight on how many tires Tire Rack lists in a given size... because that criteria would seem to give preference to a size that's popular for all sorts of vehicles (from sports cars to trucks) and for all sorts of tire types (from summer/performance tires to studded snow tires). That doesn't seem helpful to me. The real issue is whether suitable high-performance tires will remain available for the chosen wheel size. If there's one just good reasonably-economical high-enough-performance tire available for the chosen wheels, that's enough.
The BF Goodrich g-Force Sport is a pretty okay and pretty popular tire. Although it's not the first tire I'd chose for my own car, it IS one performance tire that's available in a whole lot of different sizes. So, I took a minute and pulled up the Tire Rack specs chart for this specific tire model: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Spec.jsp?make=BFGoodrich&model=g-Force+Sport&partnum=255WR7GFSP&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes&place=1
Here's a quick summary:
205/55-15 ... $77 ... 20 pounds
215/50-15 ... $86 ... 21 pounds
215/55-17 ... not available (but if it were, it'd weigh about 25 pounds)
225/55-17 ... $94 ... 27 pounds
245/45-17 ... $122 ... 25 pounds
Or, to put it another way: 17" tires cost about $20 more and weigh about five pounds and 25% more than "comparable" 15" tires.
Good points Curtis. True there is a penalty for 17" tires. But they allow us to get the rear suspension upright out away from the frame rail as much as 3 inches further by using a wheel with lots of backspace, and this is also my argument for wider rubber in the back. Wider rubber means more potential backspace, which means more room for the upright. No need to go overboard of course, I can trim the "bell" for clearance also. That may bring other limitations naturally. (I also agree with Carl's point that we're trying to couple 500 ft/lbs of torque to the ground. I don't care how sticky a 225/whatever-15 is, it won't handle that job. Maybe no tire we can fit under there can, but in my opinion that's not any excuse for not making some attempt.)
The LCA outer pivot will not fit inside a 15" wheel. So with that we're limited to about a 3-1/2" backspace, a severely trimmed bell, and will still probably have to space the rim away from the inside by lots more than we'd like. A 16" rim could be made to work, but as we see that's a risky proposition.
Anyway, having once had my tires obsoleted already, I do think the number of tires offered by various manufacturers can be taken as an indicator of future availability. 70 or 90 tires in a performance size is going to mean a pretty good selection of summer performance tires available, as opposed to a list of five or 2 or 1, or now in my case, zero. It is also going to mean more choices on price, as I've seen a direct and solid relationship between the number and the lowest cost tire. So if I can buy a good ultra performance summer tire in a 245/45-17 for $63 I think there's no cost penalty there.
There is more weight, as noted. How exactly tire weight plays out as unsprung weight though is a little less than crystal clear. For one thing the tire is the initial absorber of shocks and impacts. Regardless, I think the better geometry makes it a fair trade off in the rear (only!) but in the front I see no such reason to pay that penalty and I am in complete agreement with Curtis on that end of the car.
Jim
Carl, I know you know way more than me about this stuff so maybe you can explain what's behind this...
"You'd have hard time convincing me to bolt a 2" spacer on the front hub of my car."
I've yet to have anyone give me a good explanation for what the difference between a 7" wide wheel with +40 offset (which are pretty common these days) with a ~2" bolt on type spacer (effectively resulting in -8mm offset) and a 7" wide zero (or slightly negative) offset wheel?
Now, I get that you wouldn't put a spacer on a wheel that would result in a heavily negative offset.
And I get that you wouldn't want to use a spacer of the type that slips over the lugs between the wheel & hub for more than about 1/4" (if at all). But, that's not what I was referring to. I was referring to this type... http://www.skulte.com/product_info.php/cPath/21/products_id/55. Seems like once bolted on, a size that results in roughly 0 offset, would put the same stresses on the axles, bearings, etc as a +/- 0 offset wheel which is what a lot of us have. Unless the concern is related to lug nuts coming loose which seems unlikely?? What am I missing?
Another trip to Walmart, another 17" tire. 235/55-17. Nothing like walking through the tire store and actually looking at them. Oddly enough, many of the new 55's visually look thinner than my old 50's. Guess it depends on the tire. Anyway, that tire is 27.18" tall so it's pushing things a bit and would be a tight fit. Very available though (not a surprise) with 50 to choose from at tire rack. The Pirelli P Zero is $91. For a tire with an appearance more in keeping with the traditional look and maximum rubber on the 17" wheel, that one's worth considering.
Is there *ANYBODY* other than me that thinks a 17" wheel on the back is a good idea?
I saw a lot of 16's. It will be awhile before they go away. We could take a chance on them for rear tires and still make the suspension fit, though it'd be tight. I'd rather have more room to work with but it looks like it could be done though it may take some trickery. They are most common as 60 series although 55's are about 3/4 as common. The 225/60-16 is 26.6" tall and should fit rather easily with the flares I would think. These take about a 7" rim which means a maximum backspacing of about 5". Not wonderful but I could work with it. The bad news is that we can't get wheels to fit from Weld.
Opinions please?
At this point I have to assume that I'm the only person who sees a 17" wheel on the back as being a good thing. If this is the case, we may as well use Steve's Jag wheels, put the car together, and then if Weld wants to give us a set of G-Force wheels just spec them out the same as the Jag wheels. Although that approach may sound like it simplifies things (and in terms of wheel and tire selection maybe it does) I want to go on record here in saying it could cost us 2-3" of rear suspension travel in compression. Even if I cut the bells, the U-joints have to go somewhere.
Jim
Rob,
I'm not a suspension guru, just a student.
IMO, The reason you haven't received a good explanation for your above example is that with the spacer and wheels that you referenced their is no difference other than the mechanical coupling.
My problem is with using a spacer plus the wheel offset. This with disturb the suspension geometry. It will put more strain on the spindle (front geometry)& the bearings plus ruin the akerman angle. Probably okay for street use, but I lean on my car pretty hard in the corners. I already worry if I'm gonna break something. No need to aggravate it with spacers (regular spacers scare me).
I asked Ted years ago how wide he could go with his front end without screwing up the geometry ( 'cause I was fixated on the wider Miata). He said two inches. He has built & installed quite few 2" wider front ends since then. Wish I had one.
Ok Carl, sounds like we're of the same school of thought... aside from concerns with mechanical coupling, spacers that bring a heavily positive wheel back close to 0 offset isn't bad for suspension geometry, spindle, bearings, etc. Using spacers in a way that results in a significantly negative offset is bad those & using regular slip on spacers is questionable if not bad (certainly anything over about 1/4" is bad).
RE: [Ted] has built & installed quite few 2" wider front ends since then. Wish I had one.
The front end width combined with discussion of 17" wheels was behind my comment about spacers... because I have Teds IFS & had him do it 2" wider than stock. With my 15x7's with 3.5" backspace (approx 12mm negative offset -- which is about as negative as I wanted to go), and 205/55/15's, I barely extend beyond the stock fender, let alone the Omni flares (see pic).
So, given the front suspension on this car is stock width or 2" narrower and Jim was planning for flares on all four corners, it's going to be hard to fill the front wheel wells. I'm not sure it can be done without spacers or really negative offset wheels. And, I think it will be even more difficult with 17" wheels since they almost all have very positive offsets and from having looked a lot in the past, it'll be really hard to find the same wheel that comes in 17" with a big positive offset (e.g., in the range of 5" backspace discussed above) that also comes in a 17" or 15" with zero or close to it offset. If they are available, finding them on the cheap will be really unlikely unless we luck into a sponsor that has that option & donates.
This all just brings me back to the need to pick the wheels -- factoring in the IRS design, the front end width, and whether/where flares will be used -- before the IRS design & width is locked down -- it all has to work together.
Rob
2006-10-04NewwheelsonCarforLookSee003.jpg
"So we should be able to handle up to a 5" sidewall ..."
Okay, make me get my calculator out.
Using the extreme, with a 5" side wall (also known as section height), on the rear with an aspect ratio of 50 the width would be 10"(254mm), 40 series would be 12.5" (317.5mm). Rim sizes, using the 90% rule would be 9" & 11 1/4".
A 285/40-17 on a 9-10" rim on the rear would probably be the most we could go. I think a 275 would be good.
On the front, I think we should be more conservative, maybe a 205/65-15 or a 215/60-15 (225 at the most) on a 7" rim.
All,
I am preety well lost on the suspension discussion. I don not usually mess with that with my engine swaps. I just usually use the stock stuff.
I am not against the 17 in. wheels.
I like a small wheel with a large sidewall tire on my street cars. I just like the look. I know the lower profile tires are much higher performance. Since this car IS higher performance, the 17 sound good.
Will too much tire strain the front end too much and cause breakage?
Steve
Steve, larger diameter wheels and larger tires shouldn't add any extra stress to the suspension unless the offset is quite a bit different from stock. There will be some additional loading during cornering because of the larger contact area, but the weight should be within a range that you shouldn't notice any difference. If the wheels and tires are considerably heavier than the original steel wheels and 14" tires we may have some control issues from the front shocks because of the extra unsprung weight, but the alloy wheels should offset most of the added weight of the tires.
As I've already said, I'm more of a fan of the traditional wheel / tire packages rather than the newer large diameter rims and narrow sidewall tires, but with the older style sizes getting harder to find we may have to move into the present day. It would be nice if we could find some stock steel wheels with the width and offset we need such as the Chevy Rally wheels so we could go ahead and do the mockups and then get a replacement alloy in the same size and offset later. I took a look at the American Racing site and saw a wheel that would be neat if for no other reason than the name, they call it the "Roadmaster". Another wheel I liked was the Salt Flat Special. Either would look good on the car.
b132.jpg
b470.jpg
It took me a while to figure out what Rob was saying but I think I understand now. Sounds like you have a +1" spindle, a zero wheel (7 divided by 2 equals your 3-1/2" backspace) and a 205 tire that sticks out past the fender a bit. With a stock front end it'd clear fine, right? So you're seeing problems with using a wheel with lots of backspace on the front of the car. I agree, and if that's what we were planning that is where this business about spacers got started. In a case such as that I think the billet bolt on spacers would be OK, but would rather avoid them. Probably the best way to do that is as you suggested, find a sponsor such as Weld who can give us a wheel in both a big offset 17" diameter wide rim and a zero offset 15" moderate width rim. I agree that is the course we should pursue if nobody has any serious objections. We haven't heard back from Curtis on this and he was pretty vocal about not needing the big tires, so Curtis, do you remain unconvinced, or does the need for suspension room sway your opinion a bit? I'd rather we were more or less in agreement before I go back to Greg with sizes and to see if we can get some info on the appearance of the wheel.
I like Carl's recommendations. I think they satisfy the conflicting demands well and will look good on the car. The tire size selections are relatively common which should be a good thing. It remains to be seen if we can fit the 275's under the Omni flares but if not we do have an alternative. I also like Bill's suggestion that we use cheap beater wheels for the build and we can probably find something usable on ebay if nobody can donate anything in the sizes we're looking for. Those are some pretty wheels you found Bill, I especially like the top one but maybe it's just because I like spinners. Let's keep those in mind, but for now I'd like to stick by Greg and give him a chance to follow through for us. We've not even told him exactly what we're looking for yet.
And to that end, if we assume that we can get no more backspace than say, 2 inches less than the wheel width, shall we specify, for the front, a 15 x 7 zero offset wheel (3-1/2" backspace) and for the rear a 17 x 10 with a 7" backspace? The 10" would have a 3" frontspace, which is 1/2" less than the front wheels at 3-1/2" so they should be pretty close in appearance. We can juggle the backspacing and width a bit if we need to.
So the question is: Does anybody have serious objections to these sizes? Speak now,... Please! I would like to send Greg an email tomorrow afternoon.
Jim
Works for me & you got what I was saying. One thing to be aware of... when you talk about backspace, you include the wheel lips. But when you talk about wheel widths, the lips aren't included. So a 15x7 wheel is 7" wide between the insides of the lips (where the tire bead mates to the wheel). The lips are typically 1/2" wide each so a 15x7 wheel is actually 8" wide -- 7" inside to inside of the lips + two 1/2" lips. That means a zero offset 15x7 wheel has a backspace of 4". My 15x7's with 3.5" backspace actually have a 1/2" negative offset. Backspace is measured in inches; offset in mm. 25.4mm to 1" so my 1/2" negative offset are about 13mm negative offset.
When you talk to Weld about wheels for the front I'd suggest you shoot for 15x7 4" backspace (zero offset) or even 4.5" backspace (+13mm offset). Without flares on the front & with a stock width front end I'm pretty sure the 4" backspace will just barely fit; 4.5" should give a little breathing room. If you're going to use flares on the front, you'd probably want to go with 3.5" backspace to push them out a little. I may have a pic where I measured my combination, if I do I'll post it (on my wife's PC right now so don't have access to the pics). I also drew a pic that explains backspace, offset, etc. & will post that later too.
Here are the pics I mentioned this morning I'd post...
As you can see, with 3.5" backspace 15x7 wheels & 205/55/15 tires & and stock width front end (which would move wheel/tire in 1" per side compared to this pic since my front end is 2" wider than stock), the tires probably wouldn't fit under the stock fender. A 4" backspace would likely fit ok. Or 3.5" with a small flare would work well. One other thing to consider, as you shift the wheel inboard (e.g., 4" backspace instead of 3.5) you need to be sure the wheel will fit over your brakes (some wheel barrels taper as they approach the hub) and that you don't start having other clearance problems with front suspension or headers.
2006-10-04NewwheelsonCarforLookSee004.jpg
This 2nd picture is the diagram I drew to help share the relationship between wheels, MG body, flares, axle width, etc.
DimensioningExample.jpg
Thanks Rob, that really helps to clarify things. One other item though since I just put the wheels back on the front of my car and was looking at it. It has 14" wheels and a (based on your clarification) 3-1/2" backspacing, which I suppose gives about 13mm *negative* offset. (Negative is when the wheels move outwards?)
The rim is pretty close to the steering knuckle. In a 14" diameter I doubt you could use a 4" backspace with that wheel. What would really help is for someone with 15" wheels and the stock suspension to check the steering knuckle clearance to let me know if a 4 or 4-1/2" backspace is going to clear it.
Jim
RE: Negative is when the wheels move outwards... That's right...
RE: steering knuckle clearance... are you referring to where the tie rod ends attach to the steering levers on the back side of the king pins? If so & you don't get a quick answer (e.g., no one happens to have 4 or 4.5" backspace wheels sitting around) you can check it pretty easy... Just hold a straight edge across the front hubs on the flat part. Mark a spot 7.5" from the center of the hub; that'll reference close to where the inner part of the wheel barrel will be (stated wheel diameter, e.g. 15" on a 15x7 wheel, is the diameter at the inner edge of the tire bead). Clamp another piece of wood to that spot at 90 degrees so it sticks in 4" (or 4.5", etc.) so you can see whether/where you'll have clearance problems. If it's close anywhere (e.g., around the steering linkage, shocks, etc.) you'll need to have the wheels you'll be using as the barrels are shaped different on different wheels. Some taper more than others as they approach the hub mounting surface.
I've attached another pic that helps visualize the taper... Credit where credit's due; I found this pic on www.buicks.net :)
Rob
WheelMeasurements.jpg
According to your directions the 15" wheels should be no problem and just about any reasonable backspacing should work. Since Ted's making us a swaybar we shouldn't have to worry about that, which leaves our headers. We'll be making those so hopefully we can avoid the tires with them.
Jim
I just sent Greg an email about the wheel sizes and such. He won't get it until Tuesday since he's out of town for a trade show but I hope to hear back around the end of next week. I suggested that in order to display their products sooner we could use a different wheel for this summer's show, so we'll see what he thinks. So the next step will be to find some tires. I'll get on that next week.
Jim
Great diagrams, Rob!
Jim, you want to borrow my 305/50-15s from my Camaro? :)
Sure, Carl, wait until we decide on 17's and then offer them!
I got a response from Greg. Looks like Weld is in, provided their 2009 budget will cover it. I broached the idea of some set-up wheels. Now for the tires. Might as well see what Goodyear has to say. So far our success rate is pretty hot. I think once the weather breaks I'll go see Terry Kesselring to talk about paint. In the meantime, keep an eye peeled for a set of cheap back wheels just in case.
I sent off a check yesterday for the pistons which Kyle will ship to Dale. Steve, I went ahead and paid for them so you don't need to be concerned about a treasury pay-out. Cost me $69.76 including shipping and money order so I guess you can put that in the donations column if you like. Only way we're going to get pistons for less is if someone gave them to us. (Wait a minute,... I think I just did!) These are .040" over from a crate motor, Kyle thinks about 9 or 10 compression. They should serve us well. Let's see, 4.3125 + .040 works out to 464 cu.in., marginal but acceptable ;-)
Jim
Anyone live in/near Witchita KS? There's an Omni for sale on eBay that's there. 99 cent starting bid, no reserve, & 0 bids so far. Guy says he'll take $100 for the whole thing as a buy it now which puts the flares at about $25 each (a little less than I paid)... but someone would need to pick it up, cut them off, & then sell/scrap what's left.
Jim, I haven't gotten to the flares yet to cut away the excess metal & box them up, but will do that tomorrow. I also got you two more. They'll come seperately via greyhound (cheaper shipping). They're the ones I mentioned that I'd found in louisville.
rficalora Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anyone live in/near Witchita KS? There's an Omni
> for sale on eBay that's there. 99 cent starting
> bid, no reserve, & 0 bids so far. Guy says he'll
> take $100 for the whole thing as a buy it now
> which puts the flares at about $25 each (a little
> less than I paid)... but someone would need to
> pick it up, cut them off, & then sell/scrap what's
> left.
I was under the impression that it was only the front (or perhaps only the rear) flares that were used (I cannot remember which)..so we would need two Omni's...right? (Or did I sleep through that class?)
You can use both front & rear flares form the Omni. They're the seam except that the rears have the inner fender portion to cut away to make them useful to us... so it's way easier to use all fronts but Omni's are getting harder to find so the extra work to prep the rear flares is worth it.
Rob and guys, I forwarded the link to this board to a fellow LBC enthusiast with the Wichita British Car Club to see if we can generate some interest there and perhaps get a volunteer to get the flares. Hopefully we can find another misguided soul who is crazy enough to join us in our adventure.
There is some news to discuss. Bill has also been scouting for fender flares and came up with a nice pair of fronts for a good price. Don't know if he's bought them or not. Bill and Rob, you guys can decide what to do about those can't you? Sure would beat me trying to decide for you.
The pistons have been paid for and shipped, coming from Greenbriar, TN. Well, actually Kyle promised to ship them out yesterday so if he was able to they should get to Dale Monday.
This weekend will kick off spring cleaning here at Blackwood Labs. It's time to put everything away and make some space. It's been pretty wet the last few weeks but I now have the funds set aside to properly gravel the driveway and will place the order as soon as the ground is dry enough to support the trucks. In addition I hope to purchase enough materials to sheath the lower walls (which are 4 courses of block) and thereby eliminate once and for all the annoying water seepage. This will give us a much better place to work.
I'm still talking to TA Performance and hope to get a decision one way or the other early next week on the heads. I left Greg a message and will try to touch base with him also and ask his recommendations for a tire sponsor. I'd like to have that all settled by Roadmaster Weekend, which is the 29th and 30th this month. Actually we may have to make it the 28th and 29th since we have a schedule conflict. Anyway, there's plenty to do. We need to begin sheet metal work on the body. Finish cutting out the old rusty panels and fit the replacements and weld them up. I've been using the mig on some heavier work and it has done well so I'm pretty confident that it'll work fine for our repairs. But first all of the parts and pieces need to be put somewhere else besides on the (upside down) floor of the car body so we can tip it over to a convenient angle to work on. Now that it's starting to warm up a bit it will be much nicer doing those things. Next winter I plan to have a proper heating system in operation.
Jim
Here's an interesting photo. Not British though.
MVC-457S.JPG
I passed on the car in KS since we didn't have a way to get the flares off of it & then dispose of it. eBay listing is still going but there's 11 bidders & it's @ $96 w/12hrs to go so he's going to get more than the $100 we'd agreed to anyway. I have a couple more leads, but will get with Bill & we'll figure something out & let you know.
Jim, here are more Jag IRS pixtures: ERA Cobra's use the tubing method for their axles. 1 3/4" outside 1/4" thick, with 3" stub interference fit.Supposed to be 4 times stronger than the smaller 1.25" one in the middle. Also tubing insert in control arm with gussets.
sleeveinsert.jpg
jagshort1.gif
Halfshaftcomp.jpg
........4 brand new Omni fenders for sale on Ebay - cheap!!!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/4-NEW-OMNI-FENDER-2-R-H-and-2-L-H-78-83_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ33642QQihZ023QQitemZ360032693936QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW
..........and in Ky.
I will defer to Bill and Rob on the flares and assist when needed. The Jag info from Jim N is right in line with our intents, with the welded small tube half-shafts being exactly where we're headed. The LCA is still up for grabs. Thank you Jim for those photos.
Sponsors: I have e-mailed Greg at Weld Wheels regarding a prospectus that got lost in the ether, shop wheels, and a recommendation for tire sponsor. I contacted TA twice by phone but have not been able to get Mike away from his work but I will try again. In the meantime I have also contacted Edelbrock and Poston Buick in an effort to solicit a set of heads. Hopefully one of the three will come through for us.
Membership: I was just wondering if we should consider allowing dues paying members to join? As we know we did not begin with any dues requirement, although I don't think there was ever any promise made that dues would never be paid. But it occurs to me that we may have a fairly significant following of individuals who would be more than happy to support the project in the form of a dues paid membership. So I want to just throw that out there for discussion and see what the general consensus is. As you all know I'm all about keeping the costs down, and that applies whether it is in regards to the car or to the membership. But I realize that I may be a bit more stingy than most.... no, better make that a LOT stingier than most and I don't want to be out of step with the general desires of the membership. What say you?
Jim
Jim,
I am not for dues.
No particular reason, other I don't want to have to keep up with a membership list more than we have already got. I am a bolt turner and not really good at paper work.
Steve
I agree with Steve, no dues. Those who wish to contribute time, money, or parts to the project are more than welcome and highly encouraged to do so, but it's strictly voluntary. With this great bulletin board to communicate by we shouldn't have any problem maintaining our enthusiasm levels until the project is completed and ready to be shown to the world. The completed car should have a panel or such attached where the names of those individules or companies that have contributed can be displayed and featured in any promotional material we would distrinbute. Is there anyone among our group that has experience setting up a web site? This board is great for us to communicate among ourselves, but I think it would be nice to have a web site we could refer potential donors to which states our purpose and keeps track of our progress. Jim's reports on this board have been great, but we could distill those down and make the story much easier to get for a newly interested enthusiast.
QuoteI think it would be nice to have a web site we could refer potential donors to which states our purpose and keeps track of our progress.
Sort of like this? - http://www.britishv8.org/Articles/MGB-Roadmaster.htm
On the flares topic, I sent a pair of them to Jim last week & Bill got a 2nd pair that he's going to mail so I think we're set on those.
Exactly Curtis, I remembered the great article you published about the project, but I didn't think that we could update it as work progressed since it was part of a newsletter issue. There have been several bits of progress since the article. I was thinking about somewhere we could include these bits of information, 1, What is the project, 2 Who's making it happen, 3 What is the current status, and 4 What can I do to help? The newsletter article addressed the first two items, but not the current status or really address how people can contribute.
I propose that someone from the project write an article for each new edition of the Newsletter. There are three editions a year... Each article should include at least a few nice photos. I could easily create a page that would serve as a hub or index for those articles. That index page could include a couple phone numbers, mailing addresses, etc. - It should certainly include a link to this message thread.
That sounds like a nice solution Curtis, thanks for the help. I guess now we need to see who wants to take on the job of "recording secretary" for the group. Of course since I opened my big mouth I guess I should step up and volunteer, just need the guys to send me any photos and information that hasn't already been published on the board. I can cut and paste from the threads to fill in the rest. Just need to know your submission deadlines for the issues Curtis. Of course if anyone else wants to become a published author you're entirely welcome and would have my hearty support.
Jim, How is this for a lower control arm. It is not Jag but custom Halibrand IRS.
Copy_of_IMG_0404-1.jpg
That is very nice Jim. Thanks for sharing. It does however appear that there is no upper control arm and if this is correct then torque is transmitted through the LCA, apparently a frequently overlooked component of LCA design. The wide spacing of the tubes is helpful in that regard, but a small increase in tube diameter would be very helpful indeed in controlling for/aft wheel movement due to rotation of the upright. Some triangulation across the center opening would be a good idea also. In terms of torque resistance the stock Jag LCA is far superior, but the question must be asked, just how much torque resistance is needed? Theoretical loading has no advantage here over real world testing and it may well be that the design is more than adequate for the installation. I have doubts, but it really depends on the rest of the car.
Bill, I applaud your efforts, particularly as they relate to informing the public and to fundraising.
I'm a little befuddled though, why paid membership is bad when we said that anyone who contributes becomes a member. Isn't that about the same in terms of record keeping? Not that I'm pushing for it you understand, I guess I'm just missing the distinction.
Jim
Jim, perhaps it's my take on the word "dues" which implies to me an annual contribution. I'm sure there are some supporters out there who like Arthur have major items to donate and it's really appreciated, but do we want to then say that they have any further obligation? I don't think so. Donations of money, parts, or time should be strictly voluntary and can be a one time thing or a continuing level of commitment, it's their choice.
Jim,
I agree with Bill.
Steve
The suspension in photo is on an AC Cobra replica from Texas. Owner Russ Richard. Russ is having Ted install a Fast Cars IFS. Now there are two Cobras with the IFS. I'm sure Russ would be happy to answer any questions about the IRS installation. It is not the original IRS that came with the Butler Cobra.
Arthur
Dues: Thanks for clearing that up, somehow I'd overlooked that aspect. Certainly I see no reason why we'd want to kick anyone out, which is what annual dues would imply.
Fundraising: We really do need to start doing something to generate funding for the project. What we've done so far is enough to cover us for the federal filing later in the year for nonprofit status with the IRS but it won't cover the cost of other purchases we might like to make. For instance, Edelbrock has offered us distributor pricing on components such as aluminum heads. I don't know what those prices actually are yet or if we want to pursue that, or even if we can get a better deal from Poston or TA, but then there are also costs such as buying a replacement hub flange for the one that is damaged, a posi unit for a Dana 44 differential (3 series) and other expenses. What about selling a patch? Someone would need to design it of course. I'd buy a few.
Incidentally, Weld will not be able to provide us with setup or "shop" wheels because they don't have anything in their current line that matches our needs, according to Greg. So that means we have to come up with something for the car to roll on. A pretty generic 15" wheel should work for the front, Steve can we use 2 of your Jag wheels for that? (I promise I won't find anything else to stuff your car with.) The rear will be a bit more of a challenge but maybe ebay will have something. Greg suggested approaching BFG as a tire sponsor, as they are easy to work with and have tires that are good for multiple uses as opposed to being more specialized. I'll be following up on that as soon as I can.
Arthur, I would love to be put in contact with Russ. Can you help with that? I'd like his opinion of how stable that IRS configuration is.
Jim
Jim, a patch would be a nice thing to have, good idea. How about something like this?
badge.JPG
I like it a lot Bill. Can we add a little California rake? Maybe some tire smoke (flames?)?
I just talked to Mark at Poston Buick and he seems very willing to be involved in our project. Poston sells the Bulldog brand of aluminum heads. Bulldog is a little behind on their deliveries right now but Mark assured me that if he can get Bulldog to deliver then he can provide us with some heads. I think this qualifies as cause for celebration.
I will concentrate my efforts on tires next along with a set of shop wheels. And sometime in the next few weeks I expect to find my way over to Kesselring's to talk to Terry about paint. I'd say we have a pretty good chance of bringing him in too, especially now that we have some other big ticket sponsors.
Assuming Mark is able to get us the heads, maybe we can tap Edelbrock for an intake or something. I'll broach that possibility with them.
We're moving along pretty well. Let's keep it going.
Jim
Jim,
How many wheel do you want me to bring. For just shop use I will leave the old tires on. Have to see haw space is with the little trailer. May have to bring the larger one.
I like the patch idea. I'll take a few also. I, also, Like the proposed design.
Steve
I hadn't considered the tires Steve. We won't be setting the car on it's wheels until late spring, so really those could wait if they could be brought up later by someone.
Jim
"Incidentally, Weld will not be able to provide us with setup or "shop" wheels because they don't have anything in their current line that matches our needs, according to Greg."
Sound like we need to go back to the 15X7 Pro Stars & 225/50-15s.
I may have caused some misunderstandings with that post. Weld is still a sponsor and will provide us with the wheels the car is going to ride on at and after the 2009 show. They will be a new product for them, a wheel designated the G-Force which is designed to accommodate large side forces and modern offsets. I still don't know what those wheels will look like, but in general Weld makes a pretty attractive wheel.
What we are using Steve's wheels for is to have something to set the car on until those wheels are built. Then we will switch them out. I was asking Weld if they had any wheels we could use for that purpose. The answer was that nothing in their current line would match the specifications. That would be true for the rear wheels, but I felt it unwise to press the issue on the front wheels which are in a size they do make.
I will be looking to see if something the right size for the rears comes up on ebay at a low bid. If not, we'll just measure back from Steve's wheels.
Facilities: Good news for those of you who have been here and those that will. The first gravel truck brought it's load. 26 tons of #2&4 crushed limestone. This will give a good base for the driveway to the lab. In the next week or so I'll get out with the antique D4 and spread and compress it, then loads #2 and 3 will finish the job. For those who wonder about such things, that will be in the neighborhood of $1200 of gravel. That income tax money sure comes in handy sometimes. I'm also awaiting a bid on the tin to sheath the lower block walls, which will eliminate the water problem once and for all. Both of these improvements will make for a cleaner, neater work environment.
Jim
Jim,
I think I still have some Camaro Z28/Chevelle rally wheels. Was going to use them on my S10 a long time ago.
(http://www.nastyz28.com/faq/wheel/70z-whl.jpg)
Nice wheels Carl. Why don't you contact Steve and the two of you can sort this issue out for us if you don't mind. No reason why I should have to make all the decisions and we need more group participation anyway. Thanks.
Jim
It's a heavy 15X7 steel wheel. Not sure if I have any decent beauty rings. I'll look for them in the storage building & measure the backspacing.
Oh yeah, no tires mounted on them.
The Omni flares that Rob sent came in and I got them unpacked today. (photos later) These appear to be the rear flares judging from what looks like the recess where the door closes. The appear to be in good shape. I've not done a set of these before so I will need some help in fitting them up properly.
Jim
Jim,
I'll get with Carl about the wheels. Doesn't matter to me. I would like mine back when the new ones come in. Mine are just stock XJ6 wheels. Not very pretty, but would suffice for rolling around.
Steve
Jim, the flares I sent are from the rear. If you feel along the edge where it drops off to the rear door recess you can feel that it flattens out before it turns down for the recess. I haven't fit mine yet either -- next month, two max, but Bruce Mills is having his done right now; I'll send you the pics I have & I can put you in contact with him so maybe you can chat with his body guy.
I plan to mount the rear end, wheels/tires & use them as a gauge for how high on the body to install the flares. If you'll be installing before suspension is in place, you'll need to mock up where the tires will be to figure it out.
Rob
Jim, I had sent an email to Russ regarding his Cobra rear suspension, have not heard back as yet. Will keep you posted. If you need to contact him in a hurry, I can send you a link to the Cobra forum.
Arthur
Jim, don't take the photos of the flares yet, there are two more due in this week and you can show them all. I can't help with the proposed patch much more, my limited ability on the computer and software won't allow me to clean up the image or as Jim requested add tire smoke or flames. Do we have a good graphics artist among the crew?
V6 Midget Wrote:
Do we have a good graphics artist among
> the crew?
I hope so. The one guy I know hasn't responded. If we go another week or so without any help on that let's just go ahead with what we have. As the first patch it will have significance even if the artwork isn't the very best. I think we should start with a shoulder/chest sized patch and consider a full back patch, t-shirts and jackets later, maybe after we get the artwork refined a bit. If someone could volunteer to handle the order fulfillment, we could take orders online.
I heard from Dale, things are looking good with the engine:
455hone.JPG
455deck.JPG
Everything looks pretty straight. Allen set us up pretty good with this 455. Dale's comments:
"Update on the Buick. Pistons are ok size-wise, the packing job left a lot to be desired. They are dinged up pretty badly on the skirts so I'll have to file/deburr them. Fortunately the rings were still on them so the grooves did not suffer any damage. The line bore is perfect on it, no need for a line hone.I have it rough bored and decked and am attaching pictures. I did it on my bore mill with it's 90 degree fixture that automatically corrects the deck angle is relation to crank/cam centerline. The right side was absolutely perfect, less than a thou end for end and side to side (very strange for OE). The left side was out approximately .008" side to side, more typical. I only cut enough to clean, the piston is way down the hole anyway, going to 0 deck would have required about .060" off the decks. With a non-adjustable valve train, not a good idea. The Keith Black piston available for the 455 is .055" taller than stock to make up for this. Anyway, I have rings and rod bearings coming as I need them for the balance job."
It's clear that Dale is committed to the project and moving things along right with our time frame, as well as investing his own resources. This is the kind of committment that will bring us success.
I've been looking at Corvette wheels, I figure if I find something suitable at the right price I'll go ahead and get them and maybe use them for my roadster after we're done with them on this car. I'll let you all know if I buy anything.
Been fighting off a touch of the flu and will be out of town next week, and maybe out of contact as well. So far nobody has made any plans with me for this month's Roadmaster Weekend, but we're still doing it nonetheless. Can't guarantee how clean the shop will be though at this point.
Jim
Won the auction on some rear wheels today:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=200208826114&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=010
I don't know if that page will pull up, the number is 200208826114
The price was right. The wheels have been chromed so it'll be next to impossible to find anything to match them on the front, but since they'll be going on my car once we get the Weld wheels that'll be my problem. The important thing is that it gives us a wheel to work with and we can spec the Weld wheels to match. I'll get shipping costs tomorrow and should have them in about a week. One more piece in place.
Jim
Jim,
You have wheels, so that means I will not bring mine?
Leaves a little more room in the trailer.
I think the patch idea is a good one.
As highly esteemed treasurer of the project, I will coordinate the sales of the patches. Let me know who will be procucing them and cost and so forth. Maybe this will be worked out at the July meeting? Maybe before, we could sell some at the Conversion Show in Wisconsin.
Steve
I think that's a real good idea Steve. Bill Young has the Graphics file, somebody needs to get prices and get some patches ordered, as well as some envelopes to mail them out in, all those sort of details. If you guys can handle all that it'd be great. Wouldn't hurt to contact Dan Masters too since he's been doing the t-shirts and jackets for the British V8 meet, and maybe Rick Ingram as I think maybe he might have coordinated the paraphanalia for the Spurrites and they do have some nice jackets. I'm not recommending jumping in with everything all at once, just suggesting some possible sources for pricing and such.
As for the wheels, we will still need two wheels for the front, whether yours, Carl's, or someone else's makes no real difference. But we can get by without them until maybe as late as mid summer.
Jim
Jim, Here is a idea for rear radius rods on a jag rear. It is a Unique Cobra. Butch Caps does Jag rears for Unique Motorcars in Gadsen,AL. He owns Mid South Gear in Knoxville,TN and is a Guru in Jag rears and Toploader 4 speeds. Speaking of trans G force builds T-5's to handle the power of the 455. I know any Pontiac,Buick,Olds bellhousing will work, but the GS standard flywheel is pretty rare.
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Thanks Jim, that's a real good shot. Radius rods to the rear would be lighter and more effective at controlling hub movement under power than just about any other structure. Unfortunately for us the gas tank is right in the way. Although it might be possible to put a link under the gas tank, it doesn't seem like a particularly simple matter as there's not a lot of ground clearance back there. But it's worth keeping in mind.
Well, as another Roadmaster Weekend draws to a close, as before over the winter there's not an awful lot to report, but what there is, is good. Best of all, the driveway is completed with fresh gravel, graded out and smooth. I'm sure Steve will appreciate the improvement, no more mud to drive through when bringing the engine parts in next month. I'm also waiting on a set of wheels which I'll loan to the project, they should be in this week sometime. All four Omni flares have come in and they look good. The mig welder has been working well, and I'm hoping time and weather will permit sheathing of the block walls so we have no more water coming in. Plus it's getting warmer.
I have a good bit of spring cleaning to do in preparation for next month, and one week will be lost to vacation but I do think everything will be in order by then. We have a lot to do this summer to get ready for the show.
Jim
Fellow Members,
I would like to buy from BADASS the wire wheel rearend and the steering rack. I installed the rack in that car, it was a used unit, but is still good. I have two cars that use the the narrow rearend, so would be nice to have a spare.
I don't want to be accused of insider trading, so what would these items be worth?
If the rack is still attached to the front cross member I could take the whole thing, if the price is right.
I will be able to pick them up the end of April when I deliver the 455 and stuff.
We will not be using them as Dan donated the Jag rearend and Arthur donated the entire front susupension.
Thanks,
Steve
Steve, I don't have any problem with you just taking your parts back. You donated them and since they aren't going to be used they are excess to the project and you should have them back. You've already shown that you will continue to lend support, I'm sure there will be something else along the way you'll be able to kick in. For those parts that were dontated and are not wanted by the donor and we won't be using then sale at a reasonable current market value to help defray expense in other areas is great and I for one will defer to Jim as the custodian as to what ever price he can get. We do need eventually to dispose of all material and money donated to the project. The last thing Jim needs is a shop full of old parts left over from the project, so even if it's sold for the scrap value and the money donated to the project it's fine with me. What ever parts such as some of the items Arthur donated which Jim has said he would buy for his personal use or any others that are not needed for the project are fair game to the highest bidder or should be returned to the donor if he so wants.
Heck, Steve has already spent more in just gasoline than what those parts are worth! Besides, as Bill mentioned, it was his car. Whatever comes off that we don't use if he wants it back, I say absolutely & at no charge.
Carl and Bill,
Thanks for the kind words, but feel I should buy them at some price- Say $100?
Steve
If you feel you must then the project and the group would be greatful. There's no doubt that pretty soon we'll be gitting into areas where there won't be any substitute for some cash in the treasury to cover some items. I'm working on an update to the original article Curtis published, trying to get a handle on where we are and what parts or components we still need and in what order. Looks like the fender flares are sorted, what do we need as far as repair panels for the body? Someone out there might have some extra sill pieces that went unused from a project that they would donate. How about seats? I have a pair of APC seats I bought several years ago for my Midget but they wouldn't fit, the upper back side hits on the edge of the cockpit. Don't know if they'd fit the GT but if they will I'll throw those in when the time comes. They look a lot like the grey ones shown.
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I agree with everything above, and however you guys want to handle it is fine with me. Personally I feel like Steve is entitled to any of his donated parts that we don't use. We have to keep in mind the tax considerations, but that's easy enough.
Looks like I will be able to use one of the 300 heads that were donated, I decided not to use the one with the bad spark plug hole, so I'll need to deposit some money for the one head to the badass account. I've been watching online auctions and as near as I can tell the going price for rebuildable heads in fair condition is around 100 to 150 a pair and I was really waiting to see what Dale is going to charge me for putting them into usable shape before making the deposit. I figured that would be a fair indicator of the actual condition. I should know how much that is before Steve gets here. I can't remember if there was anything else I wanted to use, nothing comes to mind right now.
About the steering rack, we'll have to do some thinking about how to handle that the best. Arthur's crossmember and rack are not usable without modification due to the steering relocation. Steve's crossmember and rack have the modifications that are needed. I don't recall if there is another rack or not, but I'm thinking maybe not. Assuming Arthur's rack is unmodified Steve could use that but it's a new unit. Also he could use Arthur's crossmember but it's hot dip galvanized. I do however have a couple of other stock crossmembers and Steve, you are more than welcome to one of those. I know that doesn't help all that much with the rack but we can look around and see if there might be another one here, or we can agree to what Steve should give the project for Arthur's steering rack if he wants that one.
Steve, if you don't mind I'd like to inventory our parts while you're here and decide which ones to offer and which ones to keep. Maybe we can raise some cash that way. The other thing is that we do have sheet metal parts that Denny and Dan B took off the mule and maybe we can decide what else we need then. Pete has asked us to let him know what sheet metal parts we need, as he may have some of them. I'm going to keep after tires and also since it looks like the flywheel will be a hard to find item I'll see if I can get TA to donate those instead of the heads. Andy B (my other brother) is working on getting us a blower and I hope to know something on that in about a week or so. Hope you guys don't mind.
Jim
Jim,
All that sounds fine.
Gives us something to do while I'm there.
I have gotten in touch with friend who works for Custom Printwear. They embroder t-shirts and nearly anything else. I just sent him the picture of the patch. He will get me prices and so forth. They do not make patches, so we have to use womeone else. At least we will get some idea of the prices.
How many do we think we'll need?
Steve
Jim, a few folks mentioned the Roadmaster project isn't going to be using the CB pedal box. If that's true let me know what kind of shape they're in & what the project would want for them.
I have a pedal box & pedals from a CB parts car I bought a while back, but they're a bit crusty & pitted. If the one from the project isn't rusty or pitted, that'd save me some time so I'd I'll buy them. Or, if the project needs a RB pedal box &/or vacuum booster, maybe I can trade the set-up from my '76 with the project... anyway, let me know.
I'm back, well mostly anyways. Florida was a real nice change of pace and the warm weather followed us back, temporarily anyway. But then I had to tolerate a minor medical procedure, one of those things you have to put up with occasionally and it'll be a few days before I'm right and even more before I start feeling caught up.
There's good news, the wheels came in and I've got some photos to share. Let me know what you think. Also, on the patches, we need to get pricing for different quantities. I'm thinking an initial order of 100 should be manageable but we should get pricing for 50, 100, 250 and 500. Rob, I'll have to get out there and look, give me a few days and I'll try to have an answer.
First shot also has the flares, more on those in the next post
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The rim width is 9-1/2" which gives good backspacing for the suspension. As long as the rim clears everything else should (except the tire)
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I set up one shot to try to get a sort of visual on how it might look
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The rim width puts it in contact with the inner fender on the inside and flush with the bodywork on the outside. That would be ~10-1/2" so with a 3" flare we have probably a max of 1-1/2" per side to play with.
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Jim
Jim,
Glad your back and hope you get to feeling better.
The wheels look great to me. Do you still need my Jag wheels?
I have some pricing and will discuss it when I'm up there.
I will try to post a picture of the design that the company here came up with.
I am still planing to get there on the 24 th.
Dale said to get in touch with him on the Monday before I leave to see if he has the work done. Hope so.
Steve
No rush on the pedal box Jim. I had some time on Sunday so I modified the one I have to fit. I'm still interested in the one from the project -- mainly for the pedals, bushings, & hardware -- if they're in good shape. My pedal box itself wasn't as bad as I originally thought, but the pedals themselves look like they sat in a bucket of water for a while.
This in from Steve DeGroat:
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Of course I like it Steve, ready to order a couple in time for July. Also would be nice to wear at a lot of our local events to stir up interest in the project.
The design in the post above is from the people at the embroidary company. Thaey midified the original a little . They claim it will be easier to read and see, AND for them to produce.
If it suits people, I will get with Jim about quantities and costs.
Steve
Is that going to be the color of the Roadmaster, or am I going to have to buy another shirt after it's painted?
It would be nice to have the correct color right off the bat.
Carl,
Good point. That is the original color of the car. Has there been any discusion of color?
Steve
Good point Steve, I don't think we've even thought about the final color yet. I picked that image from the web because it was both a clean image to work with and it was a similar color to the car we're starting with. I kind of like a dark green GT and it would give us a little more leeway on interior color.
Carl,
What's wrong with changing colors and having people buy another shirt. This is supposed to be a fund raiser.
Steve
Besides that I need more funds for my own MG? ;)
That's right Carl, we have to keep our priorities in the right order. ;-) Looks like "Frank" is going to need a new set of tires this year, so my cash contributions to the project my have to suffer a bit. Got to keep the midget on the road though. I'll still figure out at way to get a shirt or two and some patches when the time comes.
Here are the photos of the fender flares:
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You can see in the photos that the red ones are from the front and the white ones are the rear. They have the indentation for the rear door, and on the back side you can see that while the fronts are attached to the inner fender by removable fasteners, the rears are welded together, meaning a bit more work to use them. You can also figure out which rear one is right or left by the indentations but I don't know how to tell the front ones apart.
You guys have been doing great on the t-shirts and all. My compliments. About all I can think to add right now is for Steve: Yes, we will need two wheels for the front.
Jim
Ok, it's taken me awhile, but here are the photos of the car with my roadster's wheels and tires sitting in the wheelwells. I reckon we can use these for layout and to display the car at the summer meet, but after that I'll have to reclaim them. The size is 315/35-17" and as we discussed using 275's for the Roadmaster that would leave us 40mm of extra clearance and I think that will be right handy. Although it looks like the flares will cover them, we're tight against the inner fenderwell.
Jim
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Bill, does that look like the way those fender flares are supposed to attach?
Rob, I haven't had a chance to look at the pedal boxes yet, I've got to flip the car body over so I can see if we'll have any issues with clearance using the later box. I'll try to do that tomorrow.
J
Jim,
Wheels and tires do look good. Also the flares.
I will bring the two jag rims with me Thursday.
I have e-mailed Dale to see if I can pick up the engine stuff. Hope I can. That would get it up there easily.
Are we still on for this weekend?
Steve
Jim, the flares look good. I never realized how well they fit the profile of the MGB body until I saw these photos. Most of the time you only see the job after it's done or at least the trimming and welding is done. I also just had a "duh" moment, I just realized that you hadn't managed to find a way of alterning the rule of gravity with the tires, but that the car was still upside down and the photos just inverted. It was some thing in the background that caught my attention and then "Duh" a V8 moment. Hope you guys have a good time and get a lot accomplished.
Pro Streeter City!!
Looks awesome & worthy of a BBB.
Sorry to say that I'll be at my cousin's wedding this weekend. Only fair since he was at mine 19 years ago. Besides, it's high time he joined the misery at age 43. :)
V6 Midget Wrote:
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> I also just had a "duh" moment, I just realized that you hadn't managed to find a way of alterning the rule of gravity with
> the tires, but that the car was still upside down and the photos just inverted. It was some thing in
> the background that caught my attention and then "Duh" a V8 moment.
And I was just thinking hanging the spare wheels fromt he ceiling was a great idea -- out of the way & they don't get scratched up...
Well is That what happens when you turn the camera upside down? I think you guys give me too much credit. How about this?
One side,
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And the other side.
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OK, dumb. But I thought it was kinda fun anyway.
Steve, we're still on and I've been cleaning up the place. Been great weather for it. I noticed that I do have a vacant engine stand (the one Dan left) so if you want to leave yours home that would be OK. Is Margaret coming, and when do you plan to arrive? I understand that Dale bought a set of rings and bearings so we may be able to begin assembly while you're here.
Jim
Wow!!
That is some "Wide as in BIG" rubber and makes that GT look Bad A-- :-)
Jim,
I sent you an e-mail.
Margaret is not coming with me, she will be in Paducah from Wednesday to Sunday. Separate vacations?
I can bring the engine stand or not. You tell me if you will need it.
I have the two Jag wheels and will get the 455 stuff from Dale.
To all concerned we have $449.46 in the account as of the end of March. Might be a little short to finish the project?
Are there any tools that I should bring to help with the assembly?
Steve
Steve, I don't think we need the engine stand. As far as tools, I believe I should have about everything we need, but if you have a favorite....
Looking forward to seeing you.
Jim
Here's some photos of the machine work in progress, courtesy of Motion Machine in Danville, Va (Dale Spooner)
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Jim
Jim,
I should get there in the late afternoon or early evening. I hope to be in Danville by 9:30. It is over 500 mile from there to you.
Steve
That will be fine Steve. I sent you an email with my cell phone number, and also mentioned that we have a spare bedroom if you would like to use it. See you tomorrow.
Jim
V6 Midget Wrote:
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> Jim, the flares look good. I never realized how
> well they fit the profile of the MGB body until I
> saw these photos.
Yes Sir! Makes me want a set! And some super sticky 225/50-15s.
Y'all have fun this weekend. I'm leaving tomorrow for sunny Florida. Shucks, gotta go to my Cuz' Disney wedding.
More photos: First, more of Dale's shop.
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Steve got here around 5 or so and we unloaded and laid out the engine parts for assembly. Dale is one very fine individual for sure. He put all new valves in the heads, bought us a set of rod bearings and rings, did all that machine work and cleaned everything up nice and even installed the galley and freeze plugs.
Tomorrow we will pick up a set of main bearings, head gaskets, rear seal and timing gears and begin assembly, and we hope to have the heads on by evening. Saturday we plan to inventory our parts.
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Jim
It looks great, all laid out on that table in your shop. Wish I was there!!!
Jim, kudos to Dale for his fine work. That's going to be one beautiful BADASS big block Buick! (Try to say that several times quickly) I think we ought to paint it in a nice MG maroon engine paint so it looks "stock" don't want to lose any coucours points do we?
Oh lordy no Bill! Everything must be factory original!! So we're going with the original Buick Red for the engine.
Steve and I took care of the main bearings, head gaskets, timing gears and neoprene crank seals. Steve bought the wire wheel axle for $100 and I bought 1-1/2 300 heads for $100 and then spent about another $40 on the seals. We should be bumping up the treasury a few bucks, maybe enough to get some better springs for the heads if we end up using them. The bearings and head gaskets should be here tomorrow. So we took inventory today and then put the front suspension together.
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Sorry about the wobbly pictures.
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We also marked the cut lines for the flares
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Jim
We did some measurements for the IRS too and determined that the differential needed to be spaced down a couple inches from the body. I had bought some 1 x 2 tubing for a cross brace but the new measurement meant we needed (or could use) 2 x 3 tubing and I happen to have some on hand from another project so I cut a length to fit. This is a hefty piece of steel and will easily control torque from the differential. It also moves the pivot points for the LCA's just below the corners of the battery boxes, which is a quite significant design improvement.
Jim
Hey that front suspension looks pretty sweet. All these great components....
BMH should look at this thing and donate a new body shell.
Yeah, Arthur really set us up good with that. I'll get the steering rack put on in a few days and check on getting some used tires for the front. Rob and Carl, what size of commonly available 15" tires do you think I can find to use for this summer's show?
Today we picked up parts and began engine assembly. The short block is assembled and one head in place but a number of details remain. The cam has a chipped tooth on the front gear and it would be best if we can find a new one for it. We bought engine paint, lug nuts, and another head gasket, I guess Steve will give a treasurer's report as soon as he can. We also took accurate measurements and worked out more of the details on the IRS.
It seems like suddenly we are a lot closer. For the show we only need to get the rear done, install the engine and tranny, and stick the doors and fenders back on. While it is true that we only have two Roadmaster weekends between now and the summer show, I see no real problems in our way.
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Jim
Jim, 225/50/15 for the rear & either 205/55/15 or 215/50/15 up front is what I'd suggest... but since they're just temporary, the best sizes are probably what you can find at the local salvage yard. Also, if you're going to use larger diameter tires in the end, be sure to allow for that when putting the flares on.
What we'll do is fit the rear up with my wheels and tires for the roadster (315/35-17) which will give us an extra 3/4" on each side when we go to the 275's on the back as we;d discussed earlier, my wheels/tires being on loan for the show. The for the front we just need something to fit Steve's 15" Jag rims, again just for the show. I was wondering what would be the most commonly available sizes that might compliment the rears, which I could find used. Should I be looking for 50 series or something else entirely?
The second head is now on the engine, as well as the rocker arms:
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And the engine is bagged while waiting for tin and an intake to be cleaned:
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Also the steering rack is mounted:
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And some more layout is done on the IRS, more details in the 340 thread:
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Jim
Jim,
If you need a stiffer set of springs in the roadmaster up front for the engine weight, I will donate the TR6 comp springs that are not cut on one end, I will probably never use them and I'm sure they are strong enough for the application.
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The red pair on the left are the competition springs.
When the time comes of need just let me know and their yours for the project.
Calvin
Thanks Calvin, we'll know more as we get closer to the summer meet. We have a set of stock TR springs that might do the trick, or yours may work better, but hopefully we will still be getting the aluminum heads. I very much appreciate you giving us that option.
Today I picked up some 1/4 x 1" steel strap and some 4140 heat treated 5/8" round bar to use in making the mounts and long bolts for the LCA attachments. Steve, I have the receipt for that, $48.11 to Fastenal using check number 1026. I will have to buy some 1-1/4 ID tubing for the axle shafts and I'm trying to find some bonded rubber bushings. Hopefully by the first of the week I will have the final axle position set and can start measuring for the axle and LCA cuts. I'm going to try to have that work about done by the end of the month so that we can concentrate on prepping the car for show-n-tell.
By the way, does anybody have an objection to moving Roadmaster Weekend to the 31st/1st rather than Memorial Day weekend?
Jim
Hey Jim, have you looked at the inner wheel wells any more? I noticed when I started messing with my flares the other day that the inner fenders appear to tie into the end of the rockers. That made me wonder if I really want to do it the way I mentioned I was planning to a few weeks ago. It was getting dark so I didn't spend much time looking at it to decide. When i get a chance I'll let you know if it looks like there's a better answer. That'll likely be next week sometime (cub scout camping trip this weekend) so If you get to this first, let me know what you think.
Rob
Jim, don't forget to allow for pinion offset.
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Jim N, thanks for the tip and I will certainly keep that in mind. Looks like 1-1/8" offset I believe. How do you like that setup? Looks like quite a few miles on it and I see there are no rub lines on the driveshaft. I'm guessing your radius rods attach at the cross braces? I'm trying to decide how far I can move the axle to the rear and get away with it, but inclined to think much more than 1/4" will be noticeable. Looks like either the battery boxes will need some trimming or perhaps an aftermarket caliper that is more compact could be found. Time to call Bill G I guess.
Rob, I'd have to look at it again but I think you are right about that. On our car the rockers are pretty well eaten away so we have to do a sill and rocker replacement anyway and right now we've removed most of the rust so there's really no good reference points right now to look at but I believe the inner fenderwells are sound. We have patch panels for the lower outer fender and I'm thinking those should go on before the flares do. I think you had mentioned that you wanted to extend your flares out another inch or so, but I'm wondering if you could use a wheel with less offset instead? Seems like getting that extra inch in sheet metal might be a little tricky. How wide do you plan to go on the tires?
I got the tin back from the shop:
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The rocker covers are pretty beat up:
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Some scarring by the crank:
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So I did what I could for them. Far from perfect but they'll serve to keep the dirt out. Hopefully we'll find something better and not have to use these. The pan should be fine though.
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Jim
I was lucky enough to get paint on the parts before it rained:
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I think they came out fairly decent. The 430 pan (center sump) is pretty bashed in on the bottom, I haven't done anything with it yet. It and the valve covers make me wonder just what they did to that engine. Let the dog roll it around the shop floor, or what?
Jim
Also, I started a thread in the parts for sale forum to list the extra parts we can sell to raise cash. I'm doing my best to suggest prices but would welcome recommendations either way.
Jim
I took more measurements at the rear accurate within 1/64":
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Sorry about the blurry photo. What I found was that I was too far forward with the differential by 3/4". The proper position of the differential results in a clearance from the rotor to the gas tank of only about 3/4" but it maximizes the space to the front where the calipers are mounted. Very close quarters in there, but with a slightly modified caliper I do believe the MG engineers could have fit it in. There is not adequate clearance above the rotors for the parking brake unless the crossmember is notched about 3/4". (Odd how that fraction keeps popping up.) The front mount bolts will center 3/8" behind the forward edge of the crossmember, meaning that an access notch may be adequate on that side, along with a chunk of angle iron on the back side. Getting the calipers off still may require a notch in one battery box but we'll see.
So the question must be asked, " is the hub on the same centerline as the differential?" Ordinarily you would expect that it would be, but as Calvin experienced with his Datsun differential conversion to his TR6, sometimes it is expedient to have the differential centered slightly in front or behind the hubs. I sincerely hope that is not the case here but I may have some difficulty in actually measuring it before assembly of the rear suspension, and then it'll be a little late to change it.
The 4140 bar stock turned out .003" oversize which means a lot of polishing. I may see if I can get some TGP stock (turned, ground and polished) at the same time that I order tubing for the axle shafts. The tubing will have to be 1-3/16 ID x 1/4 wall so not the most common size.
The crank seals came in. I'll try to button up the bottom end in a few days when I get the intakes and the front covers back.
Jim
The picture of the pinion offser is not my car,just a picture I found doing research on IRS. I actually have a Nissan R230 I picked up on Ebay. The offset to the pinion on it is 2.5".
<<So the question must be asked, " is the hub on the same centerline as the differential?">>
It really doesn't matter as long as the hub centerlines are parallel to the diff centerline and concentric with each other. Being forward or behind is no different than being above or below, which they will be, and changing, as the car goes down the road bouncing over bumps.
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
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.
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?
Bill,
Great Idea. I will Second that motion.
Steve
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.
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This one shows the notches pretty clearly.
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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
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.
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
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:
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We have two good intakes. I will pick one to paint and see if we can sell the other.
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One of the timing covers looks to have significant erosion in the water pump cavity but the other should be usable.
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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
I could have blasted them. Being 5 hours away doesn't help much, though.
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
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).
Rob, that would be the big end.
Jim
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
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
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.
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
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I cast the bushings this morning. The first photo shows the molds that is used, I decided to go ahead and make up proper ones and knocked that out last night.
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The next shot is with the work area all set up with everything needed to do the job. The resin and catylist are mixed by weight. The resin is water clear but the cat is black. (Come to think of it Edith has a black cat too.)
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This next shot shows the weight calculations for a proper mix ratio, weighed in grams.
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And here we have the balance scales used to weigh out the ingredients. This is a very old set used in a dental office, along with some cannibalized weights and pans from an old Metzler precision scale.
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I pulled a vacuum on the first batch to remove air bubbles. This is a standard procedure for castable resins so even though the directions did not call for it I went ahead and did it. However it turned out that the mix cooked off a lot faster than I expected, so on the next batch I was careful in mixing to keep as much air out of it as I could and then went directly to the molds without the vacuum step. Even so the mix began to thicken a bit before the last mold was completely filled.
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And here's the finished result. They look pretty good don't they? This urethane is a pretty hard grade. It'd been a long time since I played with a hardness assortment and I could have gotten the 80 durometer stuff but I didn't want to err on the side of it being too soft. As a result, it may transmit a little more noise than we'd like but I'm hoping it won't be that noticeable.
Jim
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Neat Jim, what a nice solution to making custom bushings.
Does this mean you don't need the bushings from the springs Jim? If so, that's good because I don't have a press & couldn't get them out with my attempts using various clamps, vises, sockets, etc. If you do still need them, there's a machine shop not far from the house; I'll see if he'll press them out for me when I get back in town this weekend.
Rob
I still need 'em Rob. These bushings are for the hanger strap brackets above the stock axle. The spring eye bushings will mount the forward cross bar which will hold the forward pivots of the LCA's near the center. May be hard to visualize but it'll make sense when you see it. They will mount to the stock front spring mount brackets.
Jim
Jim, Work on the Roadmaster project is really coming along nicely. Thanks for informing me of this site.
Just to bring everyone up to date. I picked up some 1.5" OD .250 wall DOM tubing yesterday, 3 feet for the axles, $33 plus change. Estimated shipping costs to Florence via UPS is about $22, so for $55 we have the material for the axles. Jim should have it by early next week. Does beat the $200 for a 20 foot length of tubing which we didn't need most of.
Some more progress, here I'm cutting the brackets for the bushing sleeves. I use holesaws a lot in my shop.
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The results:
MVC-597S.JPG
And fitted into position. Next the addition of some 1/4 x 1" strap and it all gets tacked up and welded.
MVC-598S.JPG
Jim
Bill, BADASS can reimburse you for the costs. I have enough money in paypal right now waiting to be transferred.
Jim
Jim, i had told Bill I was going to send a donation check in, but haven't had a chance to write/mail it... PayPal is way easier, what paypal ID can I send the donation to?
On the plates you made, how did you do that? Looks like a drill press table, but i'm guessing you have a milling machine... still, never having used one, I'm wondering how you move the piece to make clean/even archs like that. I'm thinking I could have saved a lot of time with the right equipment... and know how!
Mike, good to see you made it.
Rob, it is indeed a drill press, a floor model with double reduction pulleys that I bought years ago new for about $150. If you'll notice, one of the clamps hold the plate and the other is a stop. Hole saws will easily cut a partial circle if your setup is reasonably rigid, in fact they prefer an interrupted cut as it clears the teeth, so in thick materials placing a drilled hole in the arc of the cut can be very helpful. The drill press was quicker and easier than setting up the mill for this job. Also good holesaws are essential for cutting metal (not the cheap wood cutting ones although they can work if run slow enough) and cutter speed needs to be kept as slow as possible, especially with the larger sizes.
As for paypal donations, they can be sent to me at:
Jim@BlackwoodLabs.com
I'm still working on adding the BADASS account to paypal so that I can transfer funds to it, I just need to confirm the token deposits and we should be good.
Jim
Anybody coming over for Roadmaster Weekend? May have to tack another year onto the schedule if I don't get some help here. After all, I've got just as many other things to do as everybody else. Could go camping, could ride the bike, could visit the folks, could mow the yard, finish remodeling the basement, set up the pool, heck, I could even work on my roadster, imagine that. Or take it for a ride. Just because the IRS isn't finished doesn't mean there's nothing else to do. Hang doors and fenders, complete the engine assembly....
Oh yeah, btw there's a guy on V8Buick who said he'd donate an aluminum intake if we pay shipping.
Jim
Jim,
This is the unfortunate truth about a project whose membership is scattered all over the continent. I'd love to spend more time in KY but circumstances won't allow a lot of travel.
I believe that most of us want to see the project build status in Wisc in July, regardless of the state of completion - should be enough of us there that we could actually help with some assembly.
Jim, wish I could be there, but it's almost 600 miles from my place to yours and if I drove I'd just get there and almost have to turn around and head home immediately to be at work the following Monday. I do want to take part in the actual construction if I can, trying to figure out some time off this fall and make the trip, we'll see if the budget and work schedule will allow. If there was anything we could farm out that would help a bit. Do items like the wiper assembly need to be rebuilt and repaired, that's something I could do here and then ship the parts back. Not too heavy so shipping shouldn't be a problem. Anything else we can do? It's early in the build I know, but there will be tons of small things to detail when the time comes I'm sure. Above all , live your life, this project's not worth your happiness or that of your family. It can wait if it has to.
I try not to gripe, guess today was just my day. It's just that there are only two weekends left and Steve's been the only helper this year. I'll get it on it's wheels if I can but I'm feeling the deadline, and with other jobs that have to be done the number of days I can spend on it is dropping fast.
Anyway, I know you guys are with me on this and I'll do what I can. Bill, the tubing came in. It looks like it should do just fine. I still have some fabrication work on the crossmember before I can shorten the axles but I'm hoping to get to that by the end of the week.
My summertime challenge is to avoid letting my workload build up to where it starts stressing me out too much. Right now I'm kinda close to that but the good thing is that I recognize the problem and know what to do about it. Consistently remembering to take action (by inaction I guess) is the challenging part. But when I start taking it out on others that's a real strong signal to just mellow out and find a way to do nothing for a bit. So I guess I'll go watch it rain for awhile, maybe do a few low priority fun things just for the heck of it. Apparently I'm not that easy to live with right now and that needs to change. Thanks for understanding.
Jim
Jim,
I may be able to come up the middle of June. I can't make it this weekend or the end of June.
I'll let you know.
I spoke with one of my local club members and he has offered a new set of inner and outer sills for the project. Hopefully we can use them. Will let you know about them also.
Sorry all the weight is on you, but that's why you get the big bucks, right?
If I can make it up, can I stay in the basement?
Steve
You sure can Steve, provided it's habitable. The spare room upstairs is an option too. We're nearing completion on the drywall, hopefully get at least part of it painted and floored by then, at least enough to spend a night or three. Then maybe Carl can't complain about me selling his bunk house.
Funny how much trouble I've been having in spending those big bucks... guess they must be for retirement or something.
In other good news, I bought a 175 ft roll of 3 ft wide conveyor belting yesterday. This is to wrap the block foundation of the lab and permanently cure the water problem. No more fording streams and rivers to get from one side of the shop to the other. Only thing is, you guessed it, I have to hang the stuff. At least I can start with the smaller areas and take my time on it. But soon now water in the floor will be a thing of the past. After fighting that for several years straight I'm really looking forward to that day.
None of which is directly connected to the project, but all of which will help make it easier. And cleaner. May even be able to finally repaint the floor, or at least part of it.
Tomorrow I mow the yard, Friday break down the new Jag IRS, and Saturday complete crossmembers and make final measurements for narrowing. With my schedule, that's about as far in advance as I can try to plan. If anybody does show this weekend we can finish the engine or hang sheet metal.
Jim
projectroadmaster.jpg
Hopefully attached is what the local print shop recommends for the t-shirts.
We need to pick a color. Those shown are just the one they think look best. We can get another color.
Cost will be $12 for small through extra large. Anything biggeer will be $2 extra.
I can have them for you at the WI gathering. If you need to have them shipped to you, you will have to pay shipping.
We will make the most off of the white. I think the red looks good.
Let's here from you guys.
Steve
Look great to me Steve. I'd go for the white or yellow, cooler in the warm weather when I'd be wearing it. I'll need two in XXL. If I can't make the V8 meet I'll send money and cover shipping.
P.S. Just thought, you might need the money up front, if that's the case let me know and I'll send you a check.
Steve,
Mark me down for a white XL.....it's usually hot in Kettle Morain country in July.
No Yellow!
I like the Carmine Red. ;)
Would match your B and my Midget well wouldn't it? That wouldn't have anything to do with your selection would it? ;-)
Jim,
I can come up on june 12-13-14 and leave on the 15. That is not a regular Roadmaster weekend, but that is the only one I can make. If it doesn't suit youlet me know and I'll stay home.
I can help get the car back on it's wheel and get the fenders and stuff put on it.
Let me know.
Steve
Carmine red would be my choice too or burgundy. xxL, at least a couple of them.
Steve, that weekend will work, though I may have an old friend in town and have to jump on the bike and go off riding for part of the day friday or saturday. Not that I'd have to be here the whole time anyway and it isn't a certainty either, just something to figure in.
Got some heavier wire for the mig yesterday, and some aluminum. First chance I get I'll play with that some. It'd be handy to be able to mig aluminum parts if we need them, like for a custom intake. We may be getting one though, more on that when I have it.
Jim
Guys, please check "The Pub" for the post from Dan Masters. I'm almost without words, I'm sure Dan and his family are in all our prayers during these trying times.
Bill Young
I'm still sort of in denial. It's hard to come to terms with it, especially with as much time as we had spent on the phone. I only wish I had known. It'd be the height of presumption to think I could have changed anything but I wish I could have tried. Life is a struggle for most of us and we can be thankful there is enough support to keep us going. I feel like in some way we let him down. The only thing we can do now is to listen more closely for the quiet cries for help that so often go unnoticed. I'm glad to be able to say he was my friend. I wish I could say I had listened more closely. Not so much that he ever let on, but I'm sure there was more I could have done to encourage him.
Jim
I hear ya, Bro.
Mike was such an upbeat, fun guy to hang with, I didn't even see this coming. We are all going to miss him. I really am depressed for Nico, Mike's son that Dan brought to several V8 Meets. He & my son were born 10 days apart. I won one of the V8 Meet autox with Nico riding shotgun. My son, Mitch, has never ridden with me (or watched me) do any driving events.
I had a double whammy yesterday. First, I was waylaid by the sad news about Mike. Then I had another good friend undergo surgery to remove a tumor in his lung. He died shortly after going back to ICU yesterday evening. I'm still about 90 proof. Life just sucks, sometimes.
Well, don't start questioning your own purpose in life, that leads to no good. I find that living in the present and hoping for the future works best for me. There's always some sort of hope there if you look hard enough for it. Sometimes it might just be hoping to make it through the next minute, but still it's there.
So on that note and no disrespect intended, back to the matter at hand. Nothing got done this weekend. I'm sure you all understand and sympathize. Still, that's not getting us to Port Washington. Steve, are we still on for next week? I'll do my best to get things moving on the IRS.
Jim
Jim,
I will leave here on Thursday, june 12 and should get there late afternoon.
Maybe we can get some work done that evening.
Friday and Sat. should let us get it on the wheels?
Is the spare room or the basement available?
Sorry to here about Mike. I didn't know him but Dan and family are in my prayers.
Steve
I'm afraid it'll be the spare room Steve, I'm finding it hard to get everything done, and feeling little satisfaction in what I am getting done. However, I am still making progress on all fronts, just slower than I'd like.
Get it on it's wheels. Yes, that would be the goal. We will need to get a couple of 2nd hand tires for the front, should be available close by for about 10-15 bucks each. I've got some more work done on the crossmember, should have that done by then, and if I haven't gotten the LCA's and axles done you can finish up the engine while I finish the job and then we'll bolt 'er up and take it down off the rack before moving on to the engine/tranny and tin. Or however much we can do.
The basement's a mess. Drywall dust everywhere and still more of that to do. It'll be nice when it's done though, maybe next time. At least I did get the belting up around the shop building so if it rains we shouldn't have water in the floor any more. That should help some.
Jim
Jim,
Spare room is great.
I will leave here on the morning of June12.
I will bringing with me, besides my dynamic personality and boyish good looks, two Jag rims with tires and center caps for the rims, lug nuts for the rims, inner and outer sills (new), the turn signal switch (borrowed last time), and southern BBQ. ( should provide at least one meal while there. The BBQ will be mustard based for one batch and one vinegar based. about 3 lbs of each.
I will be bringing back home the 2.78 gear for the Ford 8 in.
If any of this does not suit you let me know.
Steve
Steve, keep talking about that good sounding BBQ and I'm liable to drive over! ;-) Hope you guys get a lot done and don't have to work too hard. Wish I could be there to help.
Steve, that all sounds good. Especially the BBQ! I've got the Xmember done except for the shock mounts, (Don't know where to locate them until we get the coil-over units we'll be using but we'll need a temporary strut of some kind for the meet) front hanger brackets, and paint.
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Should be able to finish up the brackets tomorrow evening and perhaps paint also. Then I think I should mount the differential and measure one last time before cutting the axles and LCA's.
I was going to try to do the axles and LCA's for both cars at the same time but it turns out that my hydraulic press isn't able to press out one of the hub splines. So instead of holding up the Roadmaster while I retrofit the press I'll just plan to do that later and concentrate on getting one axle setup finished. The axle half-shafts will have to be turned down to 1" to fit in the 1/4" wall tubing. One builder, using 1-3/4 OD tubing presses the ends into the tube and then welds it. This concentrates the torque stress between the ends of the old half shaft. Instead of doing that what I will do is machine for a snug slip fit, which will give good alignment but allow the torque stress to be evenly distributed along the entire length of the tube, and also leave a minimum gap between the ends which will give full internal support and resistance to wall wrinkling under torsion loading. I think this will give us a more reliable part with the size tubing we are using.
Jim
All,
The sills I am bring up were donated by Tom Caine here in wonderful Lugoff, SC. We really need them and will be a big help with the Roadmaster.
Steve
Thank you very much Tom! That will certainly make the bodywork easier.
The crossmember is now completed. However in the photos you may notice the conspicuous absence of a shock mount for the coil-over units. This is because we do not yet have them of course, and the reason for that is because I'm pretty sure we don't have enough cash in the account to buy them. I'll double check with Steve next week in any case but we also need to decide what we want to use. I think possibly the QA1's from Summit might work, seems the pricing on those was pretty good. Anyway, we can just cut a chunk of 2x4 or something to stick in there and hold up the car so we can get it to the meet.
MVC-619S.JPG
Here's a close-up of the pinion angle adjustment slot and cushion mount. I went ahead and cut these to allow the full range of pinion angle adjustment, from the stock Jaguar 6 degrees down to zero. We expect to be right in the middle of that range and that will give us adequate clearance from the bodywork. Once the assembly is bolted into the car and the pinion angle is set, these bolts are locked down and the front of the bracket is drilled using the other shock mount bolt hole as a guide.
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This shot shows the teeth of the hardened washers which will bite in and securely lock the slot adjustment.
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Last but not least, here is the completed mount sitting atop the Jag diff, (almost) ready to be jacked up into place under the car.
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Next task is to take final measurements and cut and narrow the axles and LCA's. Steve, I think there's an excellent chance I'll have that done by the time you get here next week.
Jim
Looking good, Jim!
It's really coming together. Wish I could afford talent like that!
Jim,
That cross member you made is very custom top notch work I must say.
Well thought out with the pinion adjustment way cool.
I can't wait to see some more of your work on this project.
This makes me want to go out and purchase a big Smithy http://www.smithy.com/products.php?cid=1
Calvin
"Under the spreading chestnut tree the village Jonesy stands..." Anyone know the next line? (Moose and squirrel)
There's a lot you can do with that modeling equipment. Patience and a good imagination can take you a long way.
There is one place where the design is a little weak, that being the adjustment slot of course. However, once the adjustment is set the tooth washer can be welded to the bracket thereby permanently locking the angle. We'll probably do that on the Roadmaster due to the torque it'll be handling.
I haven't had the chance yet to look at coil-over units, maybe this evening.
Jim
Rocky says something like "Jonesy? Shouldn't it be Smithy?" And Bullwinkle explains some moose logic....
Ah yes, indeed it was! So what was the next line in the rhyme? I just can't quite grasp it.
Nothing new to report today except that I did look into coil over shocks and springs. We're looking at something in the neighborhood of $500 by the time you figure in the cost of the shocks and the springs. I know it'd be nice to be able to tune the suspension but for this we either need a sponsor or a large donation. In any case that would have to happen immediately for us to be able to get them on the car for the meet. Anybody need a moderately large tax deduction?
I've been kept pretty busy with fixing the pool and other things after the big storm so haven't gotten back to the Roadmaster yet and today I'm in the office for awhile. To be honest I'm working up my nerve to cut the axles. Got to be right on when I do that, really no room for errors. I think what I'll do is to bolt up the axle assemblies off the one for my roadster, put on the wheels and tires and take measurements and use those to cut the axles and LCA's. It's probably the most intimidating part of the conversion, even though the task itself isn't really that hard to do. If it's done right, the rest of the work in that area will be a good bit easier but if not, then all sorts of troubles can creep in. One thing that concerns me is the camber change that would result from cutting equal segments from the axle and LCA. The two do not run exactly parallel, and to preserve the exact geometry that now exists would require a slight difference in the length of the cutout. How slight I do not yet know, but I soon will. It could be inconsequential, it could be easily adjusted with the rotor end shims. I doubt it will be that much, but I can't disregard it until I know. So that's what's on the agenda for this evening, provided the pool plumbing goes smoothly. Wish me luck! On the bright side of things, I was able to ride the bike to work today so maybe I'm catching up a little.
Jim
Hi Jim,
Good to se you making such impressive progress, I been looking in on a regular basis and am in awe of your engineering abilities.
Re; the coil spring damper units, don't know if the figure mentioned was for 2 or 4 units but 2 should be fine and possibly Bill Guzman could advise what spring and damper rates he is using on his four link rear end which should be pretty close apart from more unsprung weight.
My new 4.35 engine is now built and apart from some fine tuning on the the valve gear geometry, is ready to go into the car which should happen fairly soon.
Good luck on your continuing progress with the Roadmaster.
Kevin Jackson.
I've been following this for a while as I'm in the process of putting a narrowed Jag rear in my B. I had the axles, lca and the cage narrowed. I recently bought a rusty rear B clip so I could fit everything together with the clip turned upside down as your doing. As your about to shorten the axles I have to pass on this little bit of information. I used tubing that had a 1.125 ID. The wall is about 1/4 in. During the welding process of having the ends welded on, the turned down yokes turned in the tubing. This caused the yolkes to be out of phase. I had some shafts made before the welding, that slipped through the yokes and set the whole thing on a thick piece of steel channel. You could see the yoke start to rotate as it was being welded, even if it was tacked in different spots. A solution was to drill a hole through the tubing into the yoke stub and then plug weld the hole. The axles were then secured using the made up shafts through the yokes. This should minimize the shifting. This may not happen to you. This is just to make you aware of a problem that may arise. I discovered that when I put these shafts through the u-joint holes on an unmodified axle, the factory axle ends were slightly out of phase. This might have been about 7 degrees. I checked 5 different axles and they all had a twist in them. They were also checked on a level, flat steel plate with known shims to check if my finding was accurate. I got the same results the second method and that the factory axles were out of phase a little. This could be caused by the torque of the Jag engine and the weight of the car. Hope this info helps and keep up the good work. Willy in Winnipeg.
Jim,
We have $450 and change in the account.
Jim Thompson from Mauldin,SC donated the Jag hub that is needed. I plan to bring it with me. It will need new bearings.
Steve
Good to hear from you Kevin, thanks for the kind sentiments and I'm really interested in seeing how your upgrade turns out. That price was for 2 units, but we'll have to do some figuring to get the right springs. I'm sure Bill's input would be helpful. I'll try to call him as soon as I get a chance.
Willy, what a timely post! It's pretty normal for welding to cause some distortion but that twisting you reported is certainly something I wouldn't have expected. I definitely appreciate the heads-up. The stock shafts being twisted is a bit of a surprise as well. But I just wonder if it might have been caused by hard braking rather than engine torque? Really hard to say. But if we find it to be a problem I suppose we can go to larger diameter tubular half shafts later on.
Citron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jim,
> We have $450 and change in the account.
> Jim Thompson from Mauldin,SC donated the Jag hub
> that is needed. I plan to bring it with me. It
> will need new bearings.
>
> Steve
Another timely post! Steve, is there any chance you could also get the washer that the inner seal rides on?
MVC-635S.JPG
We're missing one of these and the hub can't go together without it. We have new bearings and seals courtesy of Dan M. We also need four rotor shims but that's not so critical. Your timing couldn't have been better. After test assembly with the arms and such of the IRS for my roadster I realized that I couldn't get an accurate width measurement because the vette wheels won't fit the jag wheel center pilot. So I cut down the pilots on the two hubs we have and began the upright assembly by pressing the races into place.
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I got to the point of pressing the bearings on and quit because I didn't feel like packing them. A very lucky thing as it turns out.
I have another question, maybe Willy or someone else can answer it. The hubs for my roadster appear to have a dust shield behind the hub flange:
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which the ones for the Roadmaster do not have:
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This seems to be a part that is commonly left off, though it does appear in the parts diagrams. Anyone know what the story is with those?
I have more photos for you also.
Jim
As mentioned I did a test assembly to get width measurements. As mentioned the arms aren't parallel, though at first glance it might seem like they are, especially at full droop:
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or at normal ride height:
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But at full compression the picture is obviously much different:
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Note what happens with the camber changes. Under compression the contact patch moves outward as the wheel angles in at the top, and when unloaded the opposite occurs though the effect is not so pronounced. But if you can visualize the car leaning and both tires still in contact with the ground, it would appear that the outside wheel is still relatively square with the pavement with the outside edge loaded more heavily than the inside. The inside wheel on the other hand is angled in relative to the pavement, tending to lift the outer edge of the tire off the ground first. None of this seems particularly troublesome, but it's graphically obvious that we do have camber changes with body lean due to the unequal lengths and offset pivot points of the arms. You would intuitively think that shortening the arms would exaggerate those camber changes, but at this point I can't say exactly what happens, since I've not made a study of unequal length suspensions. The easy choice would be to shorten each one by the same amount. Anyone care to step in here and help us out with an informed explanation? I'm all ears.
Jim
Finally, I have the shots I know you all really want to see.
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This first shot, featuring all sorts of stuff stuck to the gas tank, shows the full width axle with the vette wheels and tires, and how far they stick out on both sides. Well, actually they would stick out maybe 3/8" less per side because of the hub pilot mismatch, but it gives a pretty good idea.
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Here we have the left side
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and the right. You've noticed I'm sure that the tire sticks out further on the left, this was a direct result of centering the pinion in the transmission tunnel and means that the left side will need to be shortened more than the right. How much? Roughly 3" on the right and 4" on the left, though those numbers will be much more accurate once we have the uprights with the machined hubs fitted. I'll try to get one pressed up tomorrow and fitted. Stay tuned!
Jim
Jim, check out Art Morrison.com catalog on page 42. Coil over poly bushed street shocks $210 a pair with springs. They also have a 160# - 250# variable spring available. They use Gabriel adjustable shocks inside.I tried to scan a picture but could'nt.
http://www.uk-hotrods.co.uk/v2/tech/jag_rear/tech_jag.php
I'm sending this attachment in regards to your concerns about the control arm and the axles not being parallel. The UK hotrodders have shortened many Jag rear ends and it seems what your encountering is not unusual and not really a worry.
Jim, those look like a good deal, provided we can use that style top mount. I'll call them later today and ask about them. Thanks a lot.
Willy, thanks for the link. I saw some good discussion of the radius and torque arms but wasn't able to find anything about the LCA's or half shaft shortening. Is it there and I just didn't look in the right place? Also on the radius arms I was sort of waiting on Rob to send me a pair of MGB spring eye bushings (but he's had trouble removing them from the springs) before making up the radius arms. The plan is to run a cross bar between the front spring hangers and locate the forward end in the center of that bar intersecting the inner pivots. By using longer rod for the pivots enclosed in a tube for the extension, this addition can be welded solid to the LCA and act as both the radius rod and the torque bar. But that may have to wait until after the meet. What I really want to concentrate on right now is the narrowing of the track.
Jim
But, but, wider is better! Leave the track, widen the body!!!! ;-)
Looks good Jim. Good to have Willy's input on the rear end, experience is always appreciated. Remind me again why we're using a big block Buick instead of something more exotic? I see you have the Florence anti gravity machine working again, so some power source using dilithium crystals should be easy! ;-)
I think we need to leave the body width alone, I don't think I can find any flares wide enough to cover those meats unless the rear axle is narrowed, we were just lucky with the Omni flares showing up at the right time, don't press our luck.
Looks like I'll be able to make the trip to Port Washington after all, so seats will be delivered for the car there. Anything else I can bring up from KC?
Jim,
I was in Mauldin yesterday. I can not get the seal washer.
Had scare here over the weekend. I was loading the wheels and tires in the trailer and something in my right arm popped. Lots of pain, many phrases used that I learned in the Navy. Sore all weekend. DR. says I have a ruptured bisept tendon. They don't usually fix that sort of thing. Just leave it alone. Arm now feels fine. I may not be able to leap tall building anymore.
Steve
"I think we need to leave the body width alone, I don't think I can find any flares wide enough to cover those meats unless the rear axle is narrowed"
I wasn't talking about bigger flares. Split the whole thing right down the middle. Hand me a chop saw! ;-D
It's OK about the washer Steve, it turns out it can go in later by unbolting and removing the spline. I can maybe find something for a temporary spacer. It'll be late tonight before I can look at it. Sorry to hear about your arm. Won't that make driving painful? I wouldn't expect you to make the trip in your somewhat weakened condition.
I'd respond to Carl but that might only encourage him. Bill, I'm sure glad you can come, and not just because of the seats either!
Jim
Jim,
Arm does not hurt, but is not strong yet. I will be albe to drive with no problems. I will leave in the morning, not sure what time.
Should reach you by late afternoon or early evening.
Can't wait to see the progress. Really want to see it on it's wheels.
Steve
Steve, we'll do it if we can.
I put the one good hub assembly together and installed it on the car with the vette wheel and 315/35-17 tire. Now bear in mind that we're planning to use 275/35-17 tires on the car, so that means we have an extra 40mm to play with, or about 3/4" per side, inside and outside. With that in mind I've taken measurements on the long side (right, or passenger-US spec) at various points in the suspension travel. Droop is limited by LCA interference with the brake rotor and beyond a certain point has no bearing on track width, but at a point somewhere in the neighborhood of 3" below nominal ride height it does limit track by interference with the inner shock mount bolt head and with the frame section lower seam. This seam can be folded inward somewhat but clearance to both it and the bolt head with these tires is almost exactly 2", measured on an axis roughly parallel with the half shaft.
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The other limiting factor is in compression, at the point where the tire would contact the inner fenderwell. Because we have not yet cut the fenders for clearance we cannot take a direct measurement of this so it must be measured indirectly with the tire removed. Luckily I can do this. You will recall there was a single vette front wheel that came with the two rears which was not used. This wheel is the same diameter but is 1" narrower and has 1/2" less backspacing. Taking the 5/8" that the tire protrudes beyond the rim, adding that 1/2", plus our 2'' dimension for narrowing gives us 3-1/8" for our dimension from the rim to the inner fender at full compression.
Maximum compression is limited by u-joint interference with the LCA which occurs just beyond 6-1/2" of compression from our nominal point where the tire is resting on the existing fender lip. However, at this point even including our 3/4" of extra clearance we are into the inner fender some 1/2". At 5" of compression though the picture is much rosier and we have exactly 3-1/8" which is our target dimension.
MVC-643S.JPG
This tells me that we can compress the suspension 5" and allow considerable droop as well, for a potential total suspension travel of around 10-12 inches! Too bad we can't hope to match that on the front. It also tells me that a 2" narrowing of that side of the car is appropriate. The other side should come in about 1-1/4" more for a total of about 3-1/4". Not bad, and mostly made possible by the deeply offset wheels.
More photos coming.
Jim
Here is a side view of our compressed distance of 5". Looks to me like that should be adequate upward travel, I have yet to see if the differential clears the ground at that point, but it looks as if it would.
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Here is our nominal ride height.
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And here is maximum droop.
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Now I know what you're thinking, this isn't an off road machine. And you are right of course. We will plan to set the ride height 1-2" lower than nominal which will cut our jounce to 3-4 inches, a very workable range, and then allow another 3-4 inches of droop for a total travel of 6-8 inches, very very respectable in a car of this type.
Jim
The other side checks out. In fact the 3-1/4" dimension is right on the money. Now the question must be asked, do we wish to "cheat" by stealing some of the 20mm clearance we will have on the inside with 275 tires? The question is a very valid one because at nominal ride the tire sticks out past the fender about 2-1/2 inches. Even subtracting the 20mm there (3/4") that's 1-3/4" that we're asking the Omni flares to cover, plus they don't do a whole lot for us as we move on up into the well. So things could get real tight on the outside.
The counter arguments would be that first off, what if we go to a 285 tire due to availability problems? Now we just have 15mm. Plus, how much is the tire going to deflect under hard cornering? 5mm? 10mm? 15mm? 20 even? (Personally I doubt that last one but I certainly do not know.) Some of you guys with tight tire clearance should weigh in here, especially if you run a panhard. Tell us if you've had tires rub and at what clearance distance. If we have to go 20, we'll go 20. But it may impact our tire choices.
Jim
Oh, and I did get to thinking about what Carl said. You know, that would give us a little more room in the driveshaft tunnel so that we could keep both sides the same length... and we could have enough room in the engine compartment for conventional headers... and wider seats... But Nah!! Just the windshield alone would be problem enough to say faggidaboutit. But maybe someday...
J
One more thing before I call it a night. Is it just me, or do you guys think those tires just don't look right from the side? Tomorrow I'll look to see how much clearance we have inside the rims and shoot a photo or two of it. We may be able to get by with 16" rims. I doubt we could go 15 but won't know until then. Of course that will make tire choices more of a challenge and we've been through this already, but we may as well make it look as good as we can, within reason.
Jim
I agree Jim, something doesn't look right with those 17s. We should be able to use a 15" rim, that's what Jag used with those rear uprights. I realize that the sill is missing and that would add a bit of depth to the body, but the photo of the car at nominal ride height looks pretty high with those tires and wheels. We probably need to find something a little smaller that would tuck up in the wheel wells better. I realize the limitation is with finding tires these days in a 15" rim with any width, but I think we could get by with a lot less width if we want and still have a car that hooks up pretty well. Of course from the onset of the project I've leaned towards the "sleeper" look so smaller tires fit right in there.
"...for a potential total suspension travel of around 10-12 inches! "
Whoa! I raced motocross with less travel than that. My MG may have 3" of working travel.
Outer fender clearance: When I sit on the quarter panel, I can barely get my index finger between the fender lip & the tire. No rubbing with 205/55-14s since installing the panhard rod. The amount of deflection will change with the aspect ratio.
Jim, don't forget more elbow room with the wider MG. ;-)
Bill,
Hook up? With 500 ft/lbs of torque? Not without wrinkle walls.
OK, the first photo shows clearly why we can't use 15" wheels. Those are 1" gage blocks sitting on the pivot and they obviously will not fit between the pivot and the rim. Jag did not use a deep backspacing on their wheels, so it wasn't an issue for them. For us, it keeps the upright away from the bodywork and allows the use of longer suspension arms for better geometry and more tire clearance.
MVC-648S.JPG
The second photo shows a section of bar stock sitting on the floor for a visual reference.
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It is even with the bottom of the cross braces and forward rails but would be slightly below the sill and roughly even with the jack tube. I measured 9" to the contact patch area. On my car the rear of the sill is 8-1/2" above the floor, you might check your own car. considering that we'll pick up 1/4 to 1/2" on sidewall bulge and that we plan to move the tire upwards into the well 1-2" I believe this puts us right where we should be on ride height, so the visual is somewhat misleading. But my car isn't the best reference as the new springs make it sit a little high in the back so a second opinion would be good.
Anyone care to look for a 16 inch tire with a 275 width and a fatter aspect ratio? We could get by with going perhaps as much as 1" larger on the diameter than what the 315/35-17's are but no more.
Jim
Steve got here about mid afternoon, and after the usual pleasantries we got down to business, catching up on changes and such and deciding on our plan of attack. First we did some work on the hub he brought from Jim Thompson, removed a seized bearing race and the other old bearing and spacer, then turned the hub pilot down to match the other side and cleaned up the bearing journal. Incidentally for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of removing a seized bearing, what we did was to slot opposite sides of the race almost down to the shaft, and then used a heavy chisel and a hammer to break the remaining part and split the race off. The trick is to do it without nicking the shaft. We did get a small nick but dressed that out with a very small chainsaw file to remove any stress risers. The journal had picked up metal from the bearing race and was close to .010 larger on the diameter than it was supposed to be. Without a lathe and an accurate setup this part would be scrap, but we were able to dial it in and turn it back down to the correct size. We then assembled the second upright with new bearings and seals and matched them up with a pair of spline yokes. Good enough for the uprights, at least for now, we next turned our attention to the half shafts. First we rough turned the shafts to 1.020" and then set up for finish turning and polishing, cutting both shafts to 11-7/8" x .997", which gave us.0005 to .001" of clearance with the tube.We precisely cut the tubes to length, squared and chamfered the ends, and cut the shafts to exactly fit the length of the tubes. On assembly the fit was dead on, so close in fact that the parts slid together easily but snugly, trapping the air inside and bouncing before being shoved home. They snugged up just right as they seated, but still could be rotated. I don't think we could have gotten a more perfect fit for this application. Once welded the internal shaft will provide full support for the tube to help resist wrinkling under torque, and the slip fit will allow the torque to be absorbed by the full length of the tube rather than a short section between the ends. Given the weight of the car I think they will hold up well.
Tomorrow we weld. Also cut down the LCA's and prep them for welding. I think we'll have this car back on it's wheels soon, maybe by tomorrow evening.
Jim
I agree they don't look right in the pics. Not sure it's the overall diameter though as 24.6 isn't that different than the ~24" a lot of MG's are running. I think it's a combination of the diameter & small side wall. Look at Evan Amaya's car http://www.britishv8.org/MG/EvanAmaya/EvanAmaya.htm. He has 205/45/17's which I calculated as just .3" less diameter & it looks fine. Now, at the risk of opening a can of worms... I still like the look of 15" or 16" & even more side wall. There are a few companies making 275/50/15's although those would be about an inch bigger diameter - not sure how that'd look. There are also a few doing 245/50/15 which would be the same diameter as the 17s you have now, just more side wall (and depending on wheel offset might make the IRS work w/o narrowing it at least on the side that only needs 1 1/2" narrowed). I think that's what Joe Shaeffer is running & they fit with the omni flares. Of course, that'd mean a little over an inch less width in the contact patch. Something to think about maybe. Pretty sure both those sizes are staples in the Cobra kit market so they're noy likely to go away any time soon.
Thanks for the last couple of photos Jim. I see the clearance problem, it's close but no cigar for the 15" rim. I don't know what it is but the second photo now looks like the ride height will be ok. I guess it's just turning off the anti gravity machine that makes all the difference to my eyes. As to the wheels looking big, maybe it's just the flash of the chrome and the style that makes them appear all flash and no tire. I agree with Rob, on Evan's car the 17s look fine. I'm like him though, still old school and like a little more sidewall showing and less rim, but with those sizes getting harder to come by we need to look at something that will be replaceable in the future at a reasonable price. I don't doubt that with 500+ foot pounds of torque tire life will be significantly shortened if we're not careful.
You guys have been missing all the fun! We finished all the cutting, welding and painting by lunchtime.
MVC-650S.JPG
So nothing would do but that we had to start putting things together.
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Pretty soon we had this:
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And then we just had to flip it over.
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By then it was after supper but we really felt like we had to go one step farther...
Jim
So we did this:
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and then we played,
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played some more,
MVC-656S.JPG
and sat around a bit and dreamed about how we are going to play when it's finished!
Jim
Then we put the cars to bed,
MVC-657S.JPG
tucked them in for the night,
MVC-658S.JPG
and called it a good day's work. I will probably try to give more details later about the work we did but for right now a shower's in order and something cold to drink.
Jim
That sure is one awesome toy box!
(http://forum.britishv8.org/file.php?2,file=1420)
This photo qualifies for entry in the photo contest!
Steve,
Hold your hands closer together. I don't think we need a 20" steering wheel. ;-)
Jim,
Just been having a re read of what you were saying about the narrowing of the drive shafts, and noticed that you are suggesting that one side is going to be 1"+ narrower than the other.
I'm probably throwing the proverbial spanner in the works, but I do have concerns as to having effectively shorter upper and lower wishbones on one side of the car and what that will do to the geometry, and the effect on camber change, ie the camber gain will be different on each side of the car and the handling strange to say the least.
The other point is ride height, for the geometry of the Jag suspension to work correctly the lower arm needs to slope down towards it's outer pivot point by 1 1/2" - 2" with the car on the ground.
I would be looking at a ride height of approx 14 1/2" measured centre of hub to underside of the chrome strip position and then check the angle of the lower arms to see if it's in the right ball park,
Hope you don't think I'm interfering but thought it important for you to consider these issue before you get to far advanced.
Regards,
Kevin Jackson.
Thanks for the suggestions guys. Curtis, I'll send that photo in. I was looking for a link of some sort for photo contest submissions but didn't find anything.
Kevin, I don't think the camber change will be enough to tell the difference, one side to the other. No street car is perfectly symmetrical anyway. They can't possibly turn right exactly the same as they turn left, yet nobody seems to notice. The difference in the arm length is minor given the overall length. The total is 1-1/4" due to the pinion gear being 5/8" off center in the differential housing. In order for the driveshaft to be centered in the transmission tunnel and not offset from the engine centerline the only way to do it was with a small difference in the length of the control arms. Anyway we only removed 2" from one side and 3-1/4 from the other so our control arms are still much longer than in the typical MGB installation, therefore our rate of camber change is much less to start with. This gives us a more forgiving geometry. I'll measure our present dimension to the beltline. It may be a bit over that spec but I'll try to find out tomorrow. We can easily vary the ride height by a couple inches and still keep the axle shafts near horizontal so I think we'll be in good shape on the drop of the LCA's.
So moving right along, here's our first photo of the day.
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I'm sorta proud of that shot, put up a backdrop and everything. But as you can see we got the 455 and T5 ready to put in the car. Here's another view.
MVC-660S.JPG
We really made far more progress this weekend than I expected. I would have been really happy with getting the car on it's wheels. (and I was!) But Steve was so apathetic about what we did or didn't do to the car that every time I mentioned what would be the next thing that would have to be done we ended up just doing it. By the end of the weekend we had this.
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It's all Steve's fault really, once we had it shiny side up I just couldn't keep him out of it.
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Jim
I have some more photos, several of the engine in the car.
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Rear view
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clearances
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and with the hood in place
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From this point I don't expect to have much trouble getting the car to the show, but if anyone would like to help, there is still time to do that.
Jim
Jim,
Fantastic progress, the engine and box look great and sit in the bay nicely. When I posted, I missed that you had already done the narrowing of the rear end, and what a nice job you've made of it.
Kevin.
Wow!!! You guys really got a lot accomplished and it looks great. Love the stance. I agree with Curtis, Steve's photo needs to go into the photo contest hopper, talk about "fun with our cars" his expression is priceless in the second shot where he actually is holding a steering wheel. The Omni flares are really going to fit well with those tires as well. That car is going to be one bad motor.
Had a great time at Jim's. We did get a lot done.
Just to let everyone know, I usually go to Jim's to repair my car. This time it was just tires. One flat on the Trailer and on on the car. Good old road debris. Had a good trip both ways though and I get to make a contribution to the Virginia Highway Patrol Retirement Fund. He was not pleased with 67 in a 55. Oh well.
T-Shirts: I am going to order 15 white and 15 red in sizes M through XL. If you need a size larger let me know by PM and I will get that ordered.
I will bring the shirts to WI and you can get them there.
Not going to WI? I will have to find out what shipping is to your location so I can add that on.
Prices: M through XL: $12
XXL and XXXL are $14.
PM me with all orders or just get them if WI in not sold out.
Make checks to BADASS.
If you will be in WI and tell me to hold shirts for you, you can pay there.
Steve
Well, taking the measurement Kevin recommended, we sit 1-1/2" high at the rear (Is that CB height Kevin? If so then we're at about RB height right now, plus the extra tire diameter of course.) The front tires are larger in diameter than what we will run, actually an inch larger than the rear tires. But they'll be fine for the meet. The tin is only set in place and will have to be secured. One interesting thing to note, I stood on the ends of the frame rails and jumped up and down on them as energetivcally as I could and the suspension was working very well. I could just almost get it to leave the ground but not quite and I never did get it to bottom out, so I think that Cobra suspension is going to really do the job for us. Thanks once again to Arthur for that one, as it looks like no worries in that area! We put angle iron struts in the rear to hold the car up as specs for the coil-overs have yet to be determined, so the rear suspension is quite stiff. The tires do have a little give though but I don't think that's going to do a great deal for the ride. There are no brakes and no driveshaft yet so if we run it around the autocross course we'll be relying on people power to go and stop. Steve has volunteered to drive. The steering is quite light, much lighter than my roadster and Steve even said he thought it was lighter than his car. Rather amazing really.
I'm really sorry to hear that Steve was asked to contribute to the Virginia tax fund. They seem to be reverting to their old ways, y'all watch yourselves going through that state now. Guys, Steve should be commended for his dedication and sacrifice in seeing this project through. Do you realize that he's been the ONLY PERSON who has come to a roadmaster weekend this year? And he's done it TWICE! Being a part of this project does require some level of participation. I'm as aware as anybody that times are hard, and not showing many signs of getting better. But without member participation there is no BADASS NLC. The Roadmaster project will go on of course, it's come far enough that the car will eventually be finished somehow, by somebody. But to be a group project it has to be done by more than two people. Don't think I'm discounting the contributions of people like Bill and others who still find ways to support us despite the distance, I'm not. And I understand that the project isn't quite as much of a novelty as it was at this time last year. I also expect the appearance of the car at the meet to generate a great deal of interest. But guys, by this time last year we had at least six times as many people who had showed up to work on the car and that's just going from my memory which isn't too good. It's a pretty poor showing, and Steve is really making you guys look bad. I guess it's a little late for a call to action, but I do want to enter one cautionary note. The active participants of the group do have the ability to make whatever changes to the structure of the group is deemed advisable. Now I think it's pretty good as it is but that only holds true as long as we have participation in the project. If things pick up after the meet I think we'll be fine. But if they do not, things are bound to change and not in ways that everybody who has contributed is going to like. That's really all I have to say about it right now. I'm an optimist for the most part and I know quite well that we can pull together on this and do what we set out to do, even though gas prices have gone up and the economy has gone down. We can still do it. We're way stronger when we all pull together.
I just talked to Paul Schills about the meet. Looks like we'll be doing the Roadmaster tech session Monday morning at 10:00 am before heading out for our noon activity, so hopefully this will be a good way to kick off the meet and get things moving. I know there's been a lot of interest in the project and a lot of excitement to really see the car in the flesh so to speak, and Steve and I will be there to go over the details of the conversion. Obviously the two big areas of interest are going to be the engine/ transmission and the rear suspension, plus we'll probably field some questions about the front suspension as well. Arthur, could you see what you could find out for us concerning the specifications of those springs? The wire measures the same diameter as my old Huffaker -1" street/track springs but I couldn't compare height as mine had sagged. It's possible they could be one and the same but there's no way for me to verify that. The other thing I'm really looking forward to and I know others are too, is the chance to put the car on Pete Mantell's car scales and see what we get for the corner weights. So far I haven't heard anything from Pete as to whether or not he plans to bring his scales, but on behalf of all, I'd like to ask you Pete, to see if you can do that. It's an added burden, but one which is appreciated by many.
So in an effort to avoid this becoming another "Blackwoodian" post I'll stop now and keep it short, (It helps that I've run out of things to say). In the days ahead we have final preparations to make but only a catastrophe of epic proportions could now prevent the appearance of the B.A.D.A.S.S. MGB Roadmaster making it to Port Washington next month. In the meantime I'll keep posting updates as there is progress to report.
Jim
What is this "Blackwoodian" ... ? Something about your truck, maybe? Can't be a family reference....
Not sure exactly, but I think it's rumored to have something to do with long windedness. Personally I always thought it was good entertainment, but at times a very few persons have been known to go to sleep... Narcolepsy I suppose...
Jim
Jim,
The supplier for the front coil springs was a Chicago company that went out of business some time ago. I'm doing some research to see if I can track down more info. Will post my findings here when I find something.
I've been silently enjoying the progress you've been making. Great to see some fine engineering and design. And looking forward to seeing the results.
Have not touched my project since the end of April. A scuba vacation and work got in the way. As a result, I will not have my car ready for the July event.
Arthur
We'll miss seeing it Arthur, but you're still coming, right? I've been sitting here just gettin a buzz on, and it occurred to me things are getting dull around here. Am I right? Everybody is just being all nice and it just SICKENS me. Where are the OPINIONS?
"Well he's going off the deep end." you think. Hell yes! Let's stir things up a little! Somebody mentioned we got a lot done last weekend. Yes we did! We literally KICKED ASS! Did we not Steve? Coupla real BADASSES here I'm tellin ya! I'm just waiting to see anybody top it. Ain't gonna happen. Let's see what'cha got! And if that ain't good enough for ya, we made it look easy. We got out and ran around a bunch, swapping trips between Steve's GT and my Roadster and having a gooood time doing it. Plus we ate good. That BBQ was FINE! We took our time, but made our time count. It was a top performance by top people and it had all the makings of a Sunday at the shop. Gentlemen, it doesn't get a lot better than that.
Jim
Jim, sounds great. I do envy you and Steve and any others who are close enough to make it up for a Roadmaster weekend. I swear that I'll figure out some way to attend one and contribute some labor to the project. I'm looking forward to meeting you all in Wisconsin as well.
Bill, when do you expect to arrive at the host motel? Considering you're bringing seats I thought I'd just leave the old ones here, but we need to be able to let people sit in the car.
An aluminum intake was sent to me by Mike C. in Atlanta from over on the V8Buick board. It's a Poston S-Divider single plane. Cost us about $20 shipping. If nothing else it would make a good base for an EFI intake. Plus shave 24 lbs off the front end, that's got to count for something. I'll be sending out a check to Mike once I get his address.
When Steve was here we swapped the steering arms side to side to reduce bump steer caused by lowering of the steering rack (another reason we can't use 15" wheels btw, interference with the knuckles and the brake calipers.) but it was too much. In the last couple of days I have modified a spare set of arms to move the ends up 5/8" which gets us very close, probably within 1/8" of parallel and I expect that's good. Modified how? An old technique taught to me by a master fabricator/machinist and metallurgist a long time ago. People are generally fearful of attempting to modify steering arms, and with good reason. If the arm fails you're screwed. But if done correctly it is safe. The steel used in these arms is quite good quality as a rule, they are forgings and quite tough. Cast iron steering arms went out quite some time ago. But even so one should be wary of creating stress cracks and otherwise damaging the arms in the process, and proper stress relieving afterwards is an extremely good idea. But it doesn't have to be overly complicated. I simply clamped the arm to a heavy steel bench using a hand held vise, heated it cherry red, bent it the required amount, reheated it and then placed it in a bucket of clean DRY sand and covered it up and let it cool off slowly. The sand slows heat loss and relieves cooling stresses in the metal. Afterwards you want to wire brush the part and inspect it carefully for any signs of surface cracks. While very small cracks may be polished out, this is a danger sign and generally means the part should not be used, as excess bending and/or heat has damaged it. You should also be careful not to heat the part too hot as burning of the metal can occur, again creating scrap. But done correctly the process results in a part as strong as the original forging, and with the geometry that you need.
So the bump steer is corrected. Next I put the car on jackstands and set it so that I get a level indication checking at the front of the engine block. No photos yet on any of this, maybe tomorrow. A quick check of the differential indicates a downward angle of 2 to 2-1/2 degrees. I will check this more closely later as I want to see what it is with the weight of the car on it.
The timing chain came in, still in the box, we may as well install it at the meet. I cleaned up the old distributor and bolted it in place (no oil pump gears yet) bolted on the damper and fitted the water pump pulley. I think I might just tack the fender flares on before doing any more with the doors and fenders, and then it'll pretty much be ready to go on the trailer.
As for Roadmaster Weekend this month, unless someone notifies me of their intent to come I'm making other plans. Matthew may be in a championship game Saturday and I'm thinking we may just have a pool party for the team here on Sunday.
Jim
Jim, This is how I am doing my clutch slave cylinder. A Wilwood pull type.
DSCN1045.jpg
Jim N - is connection between the fork & cylinder just a nut on the back side? Seems that might wear pretty fast?
Leonard Marshall has a similar set up. He started out using the stock MG Slave but later switched to a NNN. Similar concept -- pull slave. But, mounted flat against the tranny housing & drilled a hole through the bell housing - about where I see a circle on yours Jim N. Then the fork is cut off just inside the square hole & a simple plate is used over that hole for a dust shield. I don't have a good picture, but the slave he's using is WAGNER PN EW33721 which fits 56-70 Ford F100 pickups. Available at just about any parts store & runs about $35 if I recall. He matched that with a Wilwood 1" master (950-260-6766) w/the resovoir milled down a bit so it'd fit under the cowl flange.
[Note, ignore the "NNN" above... intended to put the PN info there... net is Leonard used the 56-70 F100 slave referenced].
Rob, That slave is in a Datsun Z. Just an idea of what I plan. I've used a rocker arm ball with a chamfered hole in the arm on a similar setup. On mine the length of the arm will be shorter. The circle is the pivot on the bellhousing on the Z. Maybe a Chevy V8?
Jim, I should arrive around mid day on Saturday. I'm not sure the seats will fit the GT because of the shape of the upper back area, it hits the upper cockpit surround on a Midget and a MGA. The GT should be a bit wider, but can't tell until we try. It might be best to leave at least one seat in the car just to be sure.
Not getting many requests ofr tee-Shirts. Remember if you wnat one in XXL or XXXL you need to let me know before I order. Will be ordering on July 1, 2008.
Steve
Steve, I'll sign up for two in a XXL size. Do you need the money now or wait until we get to Wisconsin?
Bill,
You can wait to pay in WI. I do need to know what color? Rd or White?
Thanks,
Steve
How about one of each for variety. Thanks.
Bill,
I will have them in WI.
Steve
Steve,
Just confirming my intentions from an earlier post - set aside a white XL and we'll settle up in Wisconsin.
Graham,
I have you on the list. See you in WI.
Steve
Hey guys. Not much going on this weekend but I did get the car ready to load on the trailer. I probably won't be able to bring tools, jack stands or anything like that but I did load the doors and rear hatch as well as a few other parts in case some of you want to play around with it while we're at the meet. I loaded the tub of old bolts and hardware too.
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Dan B suggested that we work up a list of tasks that could be done at the meet. Not a bad thought. I should have a legal pad I can bring for that. Some that come to mind are:
Install the hatch
Install hatch and hood gas charged struts (Donated by Pieces of Eight and me)
Attach doors and latch plates
Fit Bill's seats
Run the autocross course.... no wait, that would be a group effort.
Install timing gears and chain and front cover
Set pinion angle on rear suspension
Determine the position for the rear Omni flares (I'm looking for my roll of clear packing tape)
Weigh the car
Even better would be if someone wants to take the car for the next year's worth of work. I should be able to get away to come and help some.
It should be a fun time. We definitely need to have a meeting too, that'd be the 2nd semi-annual meeting of B.A.D.A.S.S. NLC, and I propose we have it in the evening after dinner one night, somebody suggest which night. Open attendance, everyone welcome, drinking encouraged. Maybe we should get Paul's input on when would be good.
Jim
Another item for the list: wash the car.
Hey, does anyone think I should bring the doors and the hatch? Does anyone think I should bring the second set of Omni flares? Is anyone interested in taking the car for the next year, six months, or even 3 months?
Jim
We could bolt the doors and hatch on for photos, but they'd be in the way later and have to be removed, so your call. I can't see any reason to bring the flares, we can't fit them there for sure. I've never considered moving the project around, but it's certainly an interesting idea. Wish I had the room in my shop for both it and the MGA, I'd take it for a time and get the sills etc sorted out. I like that type of sheet metal work. My vacation time for this year is pretty well booked, but I would like to plan on taking a week next year (anytime after the first of Jan when the vacation time rolls over) and do a long Roadmaster weekend.
Too bad KC is so far from Houston. I have the room, but not the time (as evidenced by my 2yr project approaching year 3).
I could probably be persuaded to transport the car to another shop. Most of my area of expertise is done, about all that remains would be the headers and the intake. Really as Bill mentioned the body work will take precedence in the coming year, and I don't think anyone is going to give me any awards in that area. Just about any car you care to look at has better bodywork than mine. I think it makes more sense to move the car around anyway, since that should generate more member participation, and really the car should be where the expertise is, whether it's driveline, suspension, bodywork, interior, wiring, trim or whatever else it needs.
If we do this, rest assured I will continue to do my part for the organization, will continue to help with the car, and will continue to serve as president of BADASS until I'm elected out. (Speaking of which, when should we hold elections again? We never really set a term length.)
Now one more thing. Moving the car around like this is very likely to mean it will take us longer to finish it. I think that's a fair trade off for more member participation and probably will mean a better car anyway, but it also means we could lose one or two potential sponsors, such as Weld Wheels, as our completion date may likely slip past their release date for their new wheels. But considering that we don't have a firm commitment (their support is qualified by their promo budget) it isn't exactly fair to say we'd lose them, and we might not. And, if I'm not fretting about getting the car done I should be able to devote more time to finding sponsors anyway, so I'm not convinced it's a bad thing even at that.
There's no hurry. The plan is to take the car to the meet and bring it back here. Obviously taking it somewhere else will involve some logistics but we have time to figure that out.
Jim
Having a little insomnia?
Jim, I think the idea of moving it around is a great one. It may be short notice, but I hope somene will agree to take it -- doesn't have to be a year commit either. A lot can be done in 6 months even. I need to get my car done -- which I'm still expecting will be sometime this year (a couple of weeks work is all it needs, but those couple of weeks get spread an hour or two a week with my schedule). When it is done, I'd certainly agree to take a shift. Assume someone else takes it for the sill work, what'd be next on the list?
I ordered the T-shirts yesterday. If you PM'd me then I have yours ordered. I will have large , x-large, medium shorts for sale in WI.
Not going to WI? Then PM me and I will get them shipped to you. Prices $12 for M-XL.
I ordrered no XXL unless I had a PM to do so, they cost more.
See you in a little over a week.
Steve
Jim,
I've had no luck tracking down information on the 'yellow' front suspension coil springs. I only know that these were rated as MGB performance springs and that the front of the car would be 1" lower.
I was planning on taking the entire week and coming to the event. And, staying on at Elkhart/Road America till the following weekend. But now that I'm so far behind schedule, and will be without toy, I think I'll just drive up for the day.
See you then,
Arthur
The car is on the trailer and sitting in the driveway waiting to be hitched up. I did take it over to Terry Kesselring's shop to show it off a bit and see if he was interested in helping us with the bodywork. Unfortunately my timing could have been better, as they are just finishing up an advertising job so we'll have to look elsewhere. Had my fingers crossed guys, but no dice. We may as well plan on doing it ourselves.
You know, there were a lot of things that it'd have been really cool to do with this car, but when I think back to the start of the project and what our objective was coming in, we weren't kidding ourselves about what we were going to do. We were going to build a streetable 455 MGB, and that really was the entire definition. When you go right to the core of the matter, the only thing that really matters is that the body be as strong as a stock MGB GT in good condition. We're more than capable of doing that, and when you get right down to it smooth bodywork and paint is an option. Now for the benefit of all who have contributed to the cause, and our sponsors especially it would be good if we can make it look nice. But if we get to next summer with a sound body and the items completed that it needs to run I think we will all deserve a big pat on the back for pulling this off. For my part, just getting to drive it will be a big part of the reward.
We'll probably arrive late Sunday afternoon and the first thing will be to pick a display spot, unload the trailer, and hopefully bolt on the doors and perhaps the gas struts. I'll bring a few tools, whatever isn't scattered all around the shop, and maybe some minor visual aids, Maybe even manage a jackstand or three but the floor jack might be asking too much. I'd like to get it up on stands for easy viewing, guess we'll just see what we can do. I want some of you sharp youngsters and some experienced towers of knowledge to give me your time in looking at the rear suspension since I'm at the point where I needsome bright fella to make a suggestion or two which will pull all of the work back into focus. It's comparable to the compression calculations on my 340 today which went awry until I found that the dish volume needed to be in negative numbers and all was clear. This should be similar but I won't be in the mode to look at it until we've settled in.
Somewhere along the line I'll come up with a list of components we still need and with luck there may be enough to go around. If not we may need to buddy up on some of them
Jim
Jim,
I should get there in the early to mid afternoon, so will be able to help.
We leave early morn on Sat and spend that night in IN.
Anything I can bring?
Jack stands?
Tools?
Steve
Jim,
Do you have any room for my son's chair that you rescued last year?
Carl, I believe that chair is already in the back of the car, not to worry. Steve, bring whatever is handy, how much and what we do on the car will depend on the group dynamics. There are a few relatively small tasks, obviously nobody wants to be taken away from the festivities. But if we find ourselves with time and motivation... I'll see if there's room to toss a creeper in too. I'll be doing the last of the loading tomorrow evening.
Stake us out a good location if you can.
Jim
Carl, be sure to keep your receipts for expenses. As an officer of BADASS your costs to attend the meeting are all deductible.
Jim
British V8 2008 is now over...and was VERY enjoyable and informative!
Our "fearless leader" brought the BADASS GT up for all to see...and a tech session for same was held on Monday morning.
Small tasks such as installation of the doors and hatch were completed...then Jim did a "walking tour" of the project.
It is great to see this "dream" begin to come to reality!
A "brief" organizational meeting was held on Monday night...BADASS is on the right track in my opinion!
Here's a couple of pics of Jim's walking tour:
BadassTech.jpg
BadassTech_1.jpg
How many CFM does a slice of cheese provide?
BadassBlock.jpg
Rick neglected to mention the struts visible in the last photo which he donated along with rear struts for the hatch and installed at the meet. Thanks Rick.
I'm glad Rick got a couple of pictures to post, since I didn't. I'm afraid that's one of my shortcomings (and one that Edith complains about bitterly too), I just don't think of taking pictures at events and occasions. Too busy trying to be the center of attention or so I've been told. So I'm really thankful for those of you who do think of it.
Wow, what an event this was! As you may have surmised by now there's been a lot of variety in our annual V8 meet and this was no different. How about a 4 mile road course that makes Nelson Ledges look like a horse cart trail? (Don't get me wrong, I really like Nelson Ledges but it's in a different league) How about a Garden Party second to none? How about the comraderie of old friends and new who are just like family? How about an autocross the likes of which you'll never see again, and lest we forget, how about the incomparable BADASS MGB Roadmaster project? The meet was smaller, most likely due to the gas prices, but because of that those who attended were really motivated to be there. People like Ted Lathrop, Pete Mantell, Bill Guzman, Brian McCormick, Steve Carrick and Rick Ingram showed up to represent our favorite vendors. Y'all keep that in mind next time you need or want something for your car. Incidentally, Steve is taking over Advance Auto Wire, which is really good news for all of us. I have complete confidence in Steve's ability to take it to the next level. Steve also assured me that Dan and Mike Master's pledge of assistance with the wiring would be honored, no small consideration.
Your officers were in rare form, parading around in their custom made BADASS Officer's shirts courtesy of Margaret DeGroat. Carl became the unofficial announcer of the meet, and we all turned to him to let us know the important stuff. Steve DeGroat was an instant hit with the crowd with his t-shirt sales. There's no way for me to describe for you just how good they looked but maybe someone will have a photo of somebody wearing one. I had bought 2 of them before they even came out of the box. As for me, I'll leave that to others, but I did have a great time putting on a show in the autocross with the Lincoln Blackwood truck. Speaking of officers, Steve has been kept pretty busy with the Treasurer's duties and would like someone else to pick up the job of Secretary if I understood him correctly, so we have an opening for which we can accept nominations (I can make a nomination if someone lets me know they are interested in the position). One of the benefits of an officer is that your expenses associated with BADASS, NLC are tax deductible, such as gas, food and lodging when attending meetings or events, a pretty decent incentive.
Our tech session kicked off the meet's events first thing Monday morning, and I have seldom seen more interest and participation. From the time we began to set up a crowd started to gather, and it seemed only fitting to give some people the chance for a little hands-on participation. In short order the car was up on jack stands, two tires removed for ease of viewing (no idea who's idea that was, but a good one nonetheless) the doors mounted, hatch fitted, and before we were ready to start the session the struts were installed, front and rear courtesy of Rick Ingram and Max Fulton. I tell you, these guys are fast! I then gave an overview of the project, it's history, it's progress, and future plans, interspersed with questions about the car and other interesting comments. It was all about as informal as it gets, with Steve selling t-shirts, people taking pictures, and altogether a real good time. But one thing I overlooked. We really should have had people get in the car to get their pictures taken. Next year if I neglect that, please someone remind me. That's a photo which will be long remembered and treasured by more than a few.
The BIG NEWS is that during the tech session Terry Schulte (Pres. Schulte Management Co., Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Subaru in Sioux Falls, SD) offered to paint the car for us. This is very big news indeed, and I'll elaborate on that in a bit. But a very big THANK-YOU to you Terry, from all of the rest of us. We have now come one very large step closer to completion and I think this means more to us and to the project than you know. At least I hope it does! And lest I forget, a number of other very significant donations were made as well. Bill Young brought us a set of NEW APC seats which are quite attractive, functional, and comfortable. (Carl kept trying to trade his Miata seats for them ;-) Bill Guzman brought us a combination master cylinder designed to be used with 4 wheel disc brakes and the late model brake assembly, sans booster, and there were several cash donations made as well. Steve would have the details on those.
Regrettably there were some who could not attend and we missed you guys. People like Dan Masters, Kurt Schley, Arthur Mitchell, Dale Spooner, Rob Ficalora, Jim Stuart, Mike Domanowski, Denny Williams and others. We sure hope you can be there next time, maybe even for the Winter Meeting.
Anyway the days and events ran together to the point that it was hard to remember which day it was and it was all over way too fast, but the day we had the pizza, also Monday iirc we called an open meeting of BADASS, NLC right afterwards and moved indoors to a conference room which we packed to capacity. The women folk called us out after we'd been at it an hour and nothing would do but we wrap it up and rise to the challenge, but while we were there we got a lot done.
It was decided that the current occifers would serve through the completion of the build before an election would be held, provided nobody wanted to step down. We discussed moving the car from site to site for the more specialized parts of the build and this was generally approved of, and we decided that doing rust repair on the current body is not as good of an idea as it would be to get another body to use which is free from rust. (But also noted that without the current rust eaten body we'd have never gotten this far.) During that discussion Bill Guzman said that he has a rust free body which he will donate to the project. We just have to transport it to the build site here in N. Ky. for prep work and modifications before taking it up to Terry's place for final finish work and paint, prior to moving on for wiring, glass, trim and such. Those of you who have seen Terry's GT are well aware of his own personal standards in terms of fit and finish. While only Terry would be able to guarantee that these standards would transfer to our project and I personally think that would be asking for more than we should, still it is such a phenomenal advantage to us to have this part of the project covered. Between that and elimination of the need to do rust repair we can potentially gain MONTHS in our build schedule, enough to make completion by spring a distinct possibility if we move swiftly. Joe Schafer said that he has some contacts in the transport industry and will investigate reduced rates for return trips and get us some cost figures, and Bill mentioned that he may have a trailer that we could use to haul it in stages cross country. After the meeting Steve DeGroat also informed me that he knows of a potentially suitable body in S.C. which he will check on, so it looks like we may have a couple of options, but we need to move quickly if we hope to finish the build by next year's meet.
I have to admit, the generosity of our contributors sometimes takes me completely by surprise. Sometimes I have an inkling that a contribution might be possible, but when people like Steve, Carl, Allen, Dale, Dan, Arthur, Bill, and Terry step up and make the kind of contributions that they have it just boosts my spirits and gives me renewed confidence that we can do what we set out to do. That's an incomplete list by the way, if you're not in there it doesn't mean you're not included. I've been given undue credit for finding contributors and sponsors. There's no magic to it and no mystery, but you do have to be willing to ask That's really about all it takes, and that has to be true, because I'm about the world's worst salesman ever, so if I can do it, think what anyone with an ounce of talent could do. Don't be bashful about asking for help on the project, it's a worthy cause. Speaking of which, Terry recommended we ally ourselves with a well known charity of some sort, an idea which we should discuss as soon as we can.
Anyway, by now this definitely qualifies, in the words of valued contributor Graham Crestwick, as a "Blackwoodian" post, so I'd better wrap it up. But that gives me an idea. Graham, would you have any interest in the Secretary's position?
Finally we headed home and some 11 hours later rolled in the driveway, having endured one shredded tire on the trailer and one 10 mile wrong turn, but NO Chicago traffic, no 25 dollars worth of toll fees and no 75 mph burgers. Very much worth it, and definitely a trip we'd all do again.
Jim
"two tires removed for ease of viewing (no idea who's idea that was..."
That would be your "'Occifers" backing you up. ;-)
Two of our B.A.D.A.S.S. occifers, Jim & Steve, checking things out....
jse_100_2903.jpg
Jim, never thought I'd be asked to do a secretarial job without knowledge of shorthand - do you have a job description before I accept?
Yeah, just attend the meetings, give a report on the last meeting and take a few notes on anything of particular importance, you know how formal we are (not). If we were to decide to send out any sort of promotional materials you'd likely be involved, and it'd probably be up to you to maintain the contributor list and official documents such as they are. Plus keep these danged Occifers in line, somebody needs to do that... Gee, I hope that's not asking too much, might be sorta like herding cats.
Jim
Let's give it try - can't be any harder than the Vice President's position.
As far as giving a report on the last meeting - you've already done that admirably and in true Blackwoodian fashion.
I'm sure those of you who were at the meet took care of this there, but I want to thank Jim for the tremendous amount of work he's put into the car and also for working to get sponsors -- paint being the latest & that's awesome -- and probably the biggest deal... for sacrificing by leaving his car behind & hauling project BADASS to the meet. So THANK YOU Jim. I know a bunch of other folks have helped out both w/parts, financially, & on the work weekends, but this project wouldn't be off the ground w/o your drive & dedication!
"Let's give it try - can't be any harder than the Vice President's position. "
Official BADDASS Secretary Uniform:
(http://socialitelife.celebuzz.com/images/2006/09/Christina-1.jpg)
MGBV8 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "Let's give it try - can't be any harder than the
> Vice President's position. "
>
> Official BADDASS Secretary Uniform:
>
> http://socialitelife.celebuzz.com/images/2006/09/C
> hristina-1.jpg
That is SO Graham (Norton)!
:)
We made it home with no further problems.
Money: We got donations (thanks Rick and Kelly) and shirt sales ( thanks for buying) of $517.
After paying for the shirts we aill have $722.56 in the account.
We aint rich, but we're better off than before.
End of Treasurers report.
Steve
Citron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We made it home with no further problems.
> Money: We got donations (thanks Rick and Kelly)
> and shirt sales ( thanks for buying) of $517.
> After paying for the shirts we aill have $722.56
> in the account.
> We aint rich, but we're better off than before.
> End of Treasurers report.
> Steve
I spoke briefly with Steve and our BADASS Boss, Jim regarding the potential of selling shares of BADASS , NLC.
We would need to look at the legalities and limitations involved....but 10 to 20 shares at $250 to $500 per share would give the organization some good working capital for needed (but not yet donated) parts and services, as well as insurance, etc.
Think about it....
And, as Jim said in our meeting on Monday night, in addition to funding and donation of parts, MAN HOURS of LABOUR (other than Jim's) is also a necessity!
>Official Secretary's uniform:
He wouldn't look as good in it I'm afraid. Seems to me we need to fill a couple of other positions too, BADASS Webmaster and BADASS poster girl, uh, I mean, Marketing Director.
Well, I'll nominate Graham for Secretary, do I have a second? Any other nominations?
Thanks for the kind words. I'm just trying to help. And on that note, the FIRST order of business is the replacement body.
1) Joe Schafer are you here? If not we need to contact him regarding transport quotes.
2) Can anyone sign up for the trailer shuttle from LA should we decide to do it? What is the cost of a flight there, U-haul truck, and fuel to bring it back here? Fuel cost to drive there and back? Other alternative?
3) Steve, how soon can you report back to us on the condition and terms of the local car?
Next item, parts needed:
1) SBC mini starter (generic)
2) Box o' bends for the headers, probably 1-5/8" would be acceptable for the primary tubes, don't want to get too big.
3) Mini Alternator
4) Crank trigger wheel and pickup (allows more flexibility in radiator design. I seriously doubt the one Pete donated is going to be enough)
5) Flywheel/clutch/pressure plate/HTOB (If I get my car upgraded before the final build we can use my old HTOB)
6) Throttle body, maybe a large dual throat unit.
7) Injectors, probably a set of 42 lb port injectors would be fine
8) A/C? Something we might want to consider at least.
9) Water pump ('67 430)
We need to continue on the car while sorting out the body, and our timeline is short. There are some design decisions that should be made and parts fitted and fabricated before the new body is sent out for paint, above and beyond the present modifications. The most important of these are fitting the starter, headers, intake system, and radiator design and placement. For this we need hard parts, and some design assistance, particularly on the radiator. As much as I appreciate Pete's donation of the aluminum radiator and fan, the more I think about it the more I feel it will not be up to the task, and I really don't want to be redesigning that system on a freshly painted car. Does anyone have a formula for matching radiator to engine size?
Next item, continued t-shirt sales. Should we reinvest some or all of the t-shirt proceeds and continue to sell BADASS t-shirts online?
In conjunction with that thought, can we set up a web page (link) to order them, as well as post promotional information about the project like how to contribute, what items are needed, and a sign up sheet for work weekends? Does anyone have the expertise to set that up?
Title: I will hold off on transferring title of the present body but will check to make sure BADASS can hold title. Please nudge me if I'm overlooking anything else we need to do. Do we have anyone in the group who is an insurance professional?
That's quite a lot for one post, but I'm going to try to get in about one post a day to cover the necessary business, progress and such. At the moment we have a lot of ground to cover.
Jim
Jim, I don't have any magic formula for radiator sizing, but my experience with the Midget shows that good airflow is at least half the battle. I used a stock MGB radiator designed for an 1800cc engine with my 2.8 and it cools fine with a large electric fan for low speeds. Considering that the original radiator for the Buick had an engine driven fan which wasn't really well shrouded I think with a good seal around the fan we could do ok with a smaller surface area, add the fact that the core is aluminum and that it dissapates heat better maybe the unit Pete has will work. I can certainly get one of the large Bosch fans like I used on the Midget and MGA for the project and make up a mount with shroud.
The shifter is modified and will be on it's way back to you this week. Takes a stock MG Midget or B knob.
DSCF0651.JPG
Jim.
Local car is worse than ours. Still looking.
I can get a rad made by Griffin Radiator, built for an MGB. Just found out about it. It will stick below the car and will need a sheild built to protect it from road debris. It is supposed to handle 600 HP. Very thick, 3.5 IN ? All of this is from the owner, I haven't seen it yet. It is not free. He said $380. I hope to see it in the next couple weeks.
Steve
Bill, that shifter looks really great, fast work too! Steve, thanks for the report. On the radiator, I have a couple of ideas for a more creative solution if we do need something oversize, I guess we can try Pete's unit and see how it works. I'll get dimensions on it later, it really is a slick piece with the integral fan, I'm just not sure it's big enough. I'm also giving some thought to a design that might not require the front panel to be cut on the new body, I'll give it some more thought, try to mock something up and take some photos.
Re: Rick's idea of selling shares, is this something we discussed back when we were deciding the organizational structure we were going to use? The issue that comes to mind for me is the problem of private ownership of a non-profit organization and I'm not sure how we'd get around that. I think it would have to be a private philantropic society of some sort. If anyone has any information about such a creature please illuminate us.
IMPORTANT! We need to decide how we are going to transport Bill's GT. We need information. Help me out here guys, this needs to be done quickly.
Here's one (very) rough estimate. I got 13 mpg on the trip to Port Washington and back, which roughly equates to 3 miles per dollar. I mapquested Bill's address, roughly 2200 miles one way, 4500 both divided by 3 gives us $1500 in fuel costs. Is this the best we can do??
Jim
FYI, I believe the first Griffin radiator for an MGB was built for my car back in 2001, it cost me $600.00. It does hang down a bit but I've had no problems with clearance or road debris and once I hooked it up with a 2950 cfm 16 inch "Perma Cool" fan and "painless" fan relay kit I haven't had any cooling problems even in 90 degree plus temperatures.
I have a top shot of the radiator here:
NOS215front.jpg
If you want I can take a photo of how far it hangs down and post it later.
Jim,
There is a GT in Alfred, MA for $650. That is about 1000 miles from you or me. Carl French has it and says the rust was repaired and then the car was stored.
If you want to drive to CA , I will ride with you, but cannot go until late August. Classes here start Aug 25 and now is the rush time for admissions.
Hopefully someone else will be able to get the car from CA.
Steve
Seems to me like shipping would be less than that, especially if there was a truck coming your way that was not completely full. John Riffe paid $350 for a truck to haul his TR6 to Milton from Kansas City about 4 or 5 years ago.
I hope we can do it for less than that. Don't guess anybody has heard from Joe yet?
Here's a few shots of the radiator:
MVC-707S.JPG
In this shot the radiator is positioned as high as possible, limited by the hood latches and water pump pulley as shown below.
MVC-708S.JPG
MVC-709S.JPG
Here's a shot of the back side
MVC-711S.JPG
The core is 13 x 18 x 2-1/2" while overall is 17 x 19 x 3 and overall thickness is 7". It is a Griffin radiator. Does this seem adequate for a big block engine with 400 hp+?
Jim
Shame it's not a down flow, if you turned it on it's side it looks like it would fit much better even though the difference is only 2" between height and width.
That is not the same radiator that I had Griffin build for my car, mine is a downflow, I'll get back to you with the specs, I probably still have the napkin that the original design was sketched out on.
It should be easier to manage the heat with a crossflow, the main thing here is whether the core is large enough.
I've sent out RFQ's for shipping Bill's car back here. So far the low quotes have been $1245 and $1125 all inclusive/no fuel surcharges. This is roughly $500 more than we have in the treasury. If we are going to do this we need some donations, at a minimum 6 or 7 hundred. It's time to pony up and bring out the wallet guys. Contact Steve DeGroat with your donations: sdegroat@truvista.net
I sent a private message to Joe but haven't heard anything from him on the shippers he has contact with. I also contacted Bill to ask him to give the car a close inspection. When I talk to him I'll ask if he can put a steering column in so it can be steered to load and unload.
Up to now we haven't asked for much from you guys, and look how far we've come. This truly has been an econo build. But you as a group decided to jetison the existing body in favor of one without rust and I agree with you. So now is the time to make it happen. We have the body, we need the money to bring it here. So please help all the other great guys in this group by making a generous donation now. One that will make a dent in what we're trying to get done.
I thank you, and all the great members of BADASS thank you.
Jim
There is no difference in performance between a crossflow and a downflow radiator - it is solely a function of chassis packaging. If running a WP mounted fan, it could be a matter of maximizing fan sweep over the core. However if an electric puller/pusher fan is used the rad configuration is immaterial.
Jim's right - it's up to the membership to advance this project - otherwise it comes to a halt and we miss next years deadline.
I'll have a cheque for $100 in the mail by the weekend!
Jim, I just sent Joe an email letting him know to check his PM's here. Hope he got home ok.
Joe's home...he got home in good shape, travelling through the UP of Michigan and surving a few really good thunderstorms.
He's posted over on the MGBE a couple of times.
We exchanged messages. Joe is going to see what he can find out today. The current low bid to transport the car is $1075 and there are a bunch of bids clustered within a hundred of that. I think Steve said we had seven hundred and change in the treasury, Graham's makes eight, so we need at least three more.
Consider it an investment. How often have you paid a hundred or more to go on a thrill ride? OK, maybe for you and someone else. And how long did it last, a few minutes? Maybe half the day if you count all the preparations. Here you're getting in line for a once in a lifetime experience, at the very least one that you will pilot yourself through the autocross course, and if you like, a thrill ride that will be sitting there at your beck and call for weeks at a time! Heck, you can't hardly even get a rental car anymore for much under a hundred a day, how can you resist an offer like that? Have I ever failed to live up to even one of my promises to any of you guys? You can believe me when I say that this car will be finished. Even if by some odd quirk of fate I wouldn't be around to do it, it's far enough along that it would be a travesty of nature NOT to finish it!
So come on guys, send in the dough.
Election of the secretary: Carl, Steve, somebody second Graham's nomination already. Then we can vote him into office. Got to comply with the formalities.
Headers: We need materials to build a set of headers and this SHOULD be done before we send the new body off to Terry for paint. Tubing bends, header flanges, collectors. You guys need to get us those parts. 1-5/8 tube is fine.
Here's an interesting bit of news. On perusing the TA Performance website I've discovered that their casting for the Stage II and higher heads have a shortened exhaust runner. Instead of the runner curling down beyond the outside wall like the stock heads do, they terminate at that wall in a similar manner to say, a SBC head. What does this mean for us? Not a lot. But for whoever builds the next BBB car it means a great deal. These heads leave enough room between the port and the inner fender to make the first bend, meaning a set of RV8 style headers can be built. Even better, the rear port will very probably clear the unmodified steering shaft! Someone who would build such a car, and pay the price tag of $2500 for those heads might also very well buy the aluminum block, and at this point a genuine supercar is in the works. Considering the end product, it would then seem quite reasonable to begin with a reinforced BMH shell, Ted's front end, the TA engine and end up with a car worth well over 100K. It's the car MG NEVER could have built.
So come on guys, get those donations in.
Jim
I'll gladly second Graham's nomination.
Since there have been no other nominations I declare nominations closed unless someone immediately protests. All in favor of Graham? Well I vote for him, that beats the other candidate. So congratulations Graham, barring any protest you are the new Secretary. We won't make you wear the dress though.
Jim
But at next year's V8 meet he should sit on the president's lap and take dictation shouldn't he? He's got my vote as well, sorry was late getting in on this ballot.
I'm about tapped for the time being, but when the personal treasury tops up again after paying the credit card bills from the V8 meet I'll try to at least come up with the cash for the U bends if nothing else. Don't know about buying a share though. I'm not through with my contributions to the cause by a long shot, but even if my total isn't up with some of the others it's still a bit on my car budget. So far it's been $200 in cash, one pair of Omni flares ($30 plus gas and shipping), a power brake assembly ($50 plus shipping), and the seats ($150). Someplace along the line that should be worth a share I guess.
I, too, will vote for Graham. I will need his shirt size to try to get him a BADASS SECRETARY shirt.
Steve
I think that "payment in kind" would be acceptable for a share, as long as the governing body (read officers) are in agreement with the individual transactions using an agreed formula for all such transactions.
I do believe that we need to find a means of creating a cushion for expenses (planned, unplanned, mandated, etc) to make this a viable project....which means the collection of cash.
Looks like the leading candidate for BADASS Secretary wins in a landslide, mostly attributed to his well run campaign platform of free beer at Hooters.
Unfortunately, once elected, campaign promises aren't worth squat but I will extend an appreciative thanks for the votes of confidence.
Also, the likelihood of wearing women's secretarial apparel has about as much chance of happening as a Bill Guzman V8 conversion.
ex-tyke Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Also, the likelihood of wearing women's
> secretarial apparel has about as much chance of
> happening as a Bill Guzman V8 conversion.
Hmmm, you might be wearing that red dress, yet. ;-)
MGBV8 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ex-tyke Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > Also, the likelihood of wearing women's
> > secretarial apparel has about as much chance of
> > happening as a Bill Guzman V8 conversion.
>
> Hmmm, you might be wearing that red dress, yet.
> ;-)
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
mowog1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think that "payment in kind" would be acceptable
> for a share, as long as the governing body (read
> officers) are in agreement with the individual
> transactions using an agreed formula for all such
> transactions.
>
> I do believe that we need to find a means of
> creating a cushion for expenses (planned,
> unplanned, mandated, etc) to make this a viable
> project....which means the collection of cash.
I agree Rick, so I can appoint you as Chairman of the newly formed "Ways and Means" committee. I'll also appoint Steve DeGroat, Bill Guzman and Bill Young as your committee members, feel free to pick whoever you think would be able to help you and we'll appoint them as well. You have full authority to investigate any and all ways and means of funding the project and the organization. I trust your judgment implicitly. There is one thing I'd like to mention which you'll have to investigate concerning this share idea, I don't think a non-profit can have private ownership because it's function is to benefit the public. I'm not sure how to reconcile that with your ideas but I'm sure you can find a solution. We've also discussed such methods as dues to raise funds, your committee members can fill you in on that discussion. Feel free to explore any and all options and we'll be expectantly awaiting your committee report when you are ready. Thanks, on behalf of BADASS, the MGB Roadmaster Project and all of our contributors, sponsors and members.
Jim
You're on a roll, Jim, The next positions up for grabs are the "Office without Portfolio" and the "Minister of Silly Walks"
Perhaps the focus should be on disposal of non essential car parts from project BADASS through Craigslist, ebay, V8 forum classifieds, etc.
BTW, funds sent to your attention on Saturday.
Thank you Graham, could you pm me and let me know if that was via mail, etc? I'll watch for it.
You are quite right about disposal of non-essential assets. What do we name the committee? I could put you, Carl and Rob on it.
We also need an internet committee. I have the following email:
"Jim, thanks for the additional feedback -- much appreciated.
I have taken a look at the link you sent. I have built several sites with the requirements you guys need. I have actually built an entire mortgage companies intra-network. Basically, it handled all of their day to day tasks ranging from processing to loan officer lead/file management. I have also a lot of experience working on shopping cart style web sites.
At any rate, it looks like you need a small combination of those. Are you looking to combine all of that stuff as a backend link where your group of associates have access or it is all for the public (including the list of tasks and parts). It seems like you would need several pages... one for the donations and sales of t-shirts. One for the backend for your group to keep track of tasks and parts needed, along with scheduling working weekends. You can also put together an entire smaller site which has a shopping cart on the front end, and some management features on the backend. It could also incorporate a message board directly on your domain. Anyhow, that is something you can think about.
I can show you some examples of shopping cart sites I have built:
http://www.thebestbabydolls.com -- currently in progress
http://www.antiquejewelryco.com/shop/catalog -- they are in the midst of launching
If you wanted something more simple than the full sites above, yet still effective for getting initially setup to sell shirts online and build some funds, at the same time manage some tasks etc... I would be willing to help get this off the ground for about $350. Down the road, you could always expand it into an entire site/community.
Let me know some of your thoughts!
Best Regards,
Steve Schwartz
Director / Developer
Innovative Solutions LLC
http://www.think-is.com"
This is to give an idea of what could be done in that area. Curtis obviously should be on this committee as well as Kurt if he wants to be, and Dan Masters would be a good choice I think.
Suggestions anyone?
Jim
Shopping cart front end? When Paypal is free and easy to set-up? Sounds like a waste of money to me, unless you're keen to create a full-time business. If t-shirts are that lucrative, I need to start selling them too!
If what "Roadmaster" really needs is a message board of its own, I could set that up for a lot less than $350.
ex-tyke Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You're on a roll, Jim, The next positions up for
> grabs are the "Office without Portfolio" and the
> "Minister of Silly Walks"
> Perhaps the focus should be on disposal of
> non essential car parts from project BADASS
> through Craigslist, ebay, V8 forum classifieds,
> etc.
> BTW, funds sent to your attention on Saturday.
At least I'm not required to wear a dress, Graham!
;)
Rick,
RE: >> At least I'm not required to wear a dress, Graham!
...watch it or I'll sick Madsen on you....
Moderator Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Shopping cart front end? When Paypal is free and
> easy to set-up? Sounds like a waste of money to
> me, unless you're keen to create a full-time
> business. If t-shirts are that lucrative, I need
> to start selling them too!
>
> If what "Roadmaster" really needs is a message
> board of its own, I could set that up for a lot
> less than $350.
Curtis, this is exactly why I'd like you to chair the committee, and I'd like to have some web savvy members on board. You know the details of how this should be done and your committee should be able to take your directions and do it, each one contributing their own small part. Can I count on you to oversee this piece of the puzzle? And because it is to our benefit to do so, I'll authorize the committee to assist where it can in taking some of the workload off you in connection with the BritishV8 website. Towards this end, feel free to recruit anyone you like to join us.
Rick has accepted, pending spousal approval. (Man I hate it when that happens...but what 'ya gonna do?) so his committee is practically up and running. So far this is coming together pretty well as everyone is interested in helping.
One last thing I can think of is that we should have a search committee to find components we need for the car. I'd like Carl to chair that committee. This should be a somewhat large committee I think in order to spread out the workload of determining what we need and finding the best way to get it. So I'm going to appoint a pretty long list of members:
Pete Mantell
Dan Jones
Kelly Combes
Jim Stuart
Arthur Mitchell
Jack Morris
Brad Carson
Mike Domanowski
Dan Blackwood
That gives us 10 people and Carl, if you want someone else on there or if someone else wants to be on there just let me know and we'll add them.
Your BADASS President,
Jim
OK, I was wrong there is another committee that I need to form. The Detail Committee. I bet y'all can guess what that one is since one of the single biggest challenges facing us is to get people to come up and work on the project. I intend to name three people to that committee but I haven't settled on who they should be yet, it can wait for another day. But the purpose of the committee is clear, it is to organize work details for Roadmaster Weekends.
Now, some of y'all may be wondering why the sudden emphases on occifers and committees. The answer is very clear and very simple. As president of this organization I am responsible for what gets done as well as what doesn't. When that meant only waterblasting the shell of a car it was a fairly simple thing to manage and I didn't mind carrying the full weight of that responsibility. But the scope of my responsibilities have expanded over time and it should be clear to anyone, especially you, the members, that it is now more than any one man can be expected to handle by himself. We are now at the point where I have two and only two choices before me. My first option is to delegate some of the authority and responsibility to you the members, and this is what I am attempting to do. My only other option is one that I am trying as hard as I can to avoid and which I am not prepared to exercise at this time, and that is to resign. But it is very clear to me that if I am incapable or unable to exercise the first choice the time will soon come when the second option is forced upon me. So I am depending on all of you to help me avoid that second choice.
That is the reason for the sudden interest in committees. By serving on or chairing a committee you are doing what you agreed to in the summer meeting at Port Washington, that being to support the project. Everyone there acknowledged that I cannot do it alone, and everyone there was in agreement that the membership had to help. So if you would, please accept appointments to the committees and serve on them as if you have something to contribute, because you do. This is your organization. I serve at your discretion. And like you, I can exercise my right to serve well and faithfully, or to avoid involvement. I choose the former, because that is what real men of good conscience do. Now as a committee member you have the full authority of the organization, the duty to exercise that authority, and the responsibility to exercise it well. I hope I can count on all of you, my good friends to do just that.
Now I would like to take just a moment to touch on the plight of the BritishV8 Newsletter. We all know and appreciate the great work Curtis has done in bringing the newsletter into the modern age. We are astounded at what he has accomplished with the website. But Curtis has overextended himself. Those of us who paid attention know this, and we saw it coming, yet we stood by and let it happen because we didn't know what to do about it. Well Gentlemen, the time has come to take action, and we'd better be right about what we do, because the newsletter is in crisis and if we do not act decisively and correctly we will not have a newsletter, and we will not have a website. This is a great concern for BADASS, as this is our permanent home, and nobody wants to see us homeless. If this great website is to continue we must step up and take actions to save it.
I have recommended to Curtis that he consider the concept of delegating and see if that can be used as a vehicle to save the newsletter. I have recommended that our Internet committee be given the authority to assist in that effort. Now I am asking for all good men who have any skills that might be put to use in that endeavor to step forward and unite, that we may do what must be done. Contact me, contact Curtis, post on this thread, send an email or pm, but please, step forward. We all have a lot to lose if we let this slip away.
Jim
OK...I'm in as "Ways and Means".
Who has a copy of the NLC that they can share with me so I can look into the legalities of individual shares.
Steve, Bill, and Bill.....I'll be in touch.
Thank you Rick, on behalf of the entire organization and myself. I will dig out our incorporation paperwork and any other documents we have, send you what I think applies and also send all the documents to Graham so that as Secretary he will be in possession of all of our documentation. It is as minimal as I could legally get by with, (I felt that would be the least limiting) and I don't believe we have any official bylaws because it wasn't a requirement of incorporation. All of the documentation should also be in this thread btw or on one or all three of the old forums,(links to those are on the first page but the Enthusiasts forum has moved it to the archives) with the exception of the actual incorporation form. I'll try to do that before Friday, as we go on vacation then for a week or so. I think what you'll find is that you have to look to relevant law regarding ownership of a non-profit.
Steve has the most current membership list, Graham you need to get a copy from him.
We should have an online depository for all official documents and records. I need volunteers for the internet committee and for the Detail committee. We should be thinking about a membership committee as well and that should pretty well finish it up.
Chairmen, I am counting on you to exercise your position. Remember to delegate tasks to your committeemen, and when you do, allow them to be responsible for that task. I will do whatever I can to help you when you need it, but I have my job to do as well, so as long as we all pull together on this we'll make the most progress. Thank you.
Jim
Graham,
I will get you what I have as a members list next week. Leaving for the beach tonight.
What is the status on getting the BGT from CA?
Steve
BlownMGB-V8 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Chairmen, I am counting on you to exercise your
> position.
> Jim
Hey...no one said ANYTHING about exercise!
I'm happy to help list stuff on ebay/craigslist. Will need the best pics we can get of the parts.
I could still use the patch panel from the right fender. Let me know what you guys think is fair for that.
Well Rick, you might have to exercise your elbow a little....
I've just sent out an email to our occifers and committee chairmen, please let me know if anyone doesn't get it, all of our official documents are attached. I also made some suggestions on what I see as the most important initial issues for the committees where I thought that was a good idea.
I may be out of contact off and on for a few days, but please keep in mind that we have a Roadmaster Weekend coming up the 30, 31st of August (Friday is also available). Once our Detail committee has been formed though it will have the authority to schedule work days at the convenience of the membership.
Now about the car: Max Fulton noted that the pinion flange on the differential sat off center a little. I have jacked the car up and looked at it, and indeed it is 1/4" off center. Investigating further I discovered this to be a result of tolerance build up between the body, the crossmember, and the compliance of the bushings, about half of which we may be able to remove by careful assembly. However, we decided to replace the flange yoke with a (Dana 44 or Spicer) U-joint yoke and felt that the location and diameter of the driveshaft tube could be made to clear the handbrake bolt without too much trouble, since it will be a fixed location. Nothing else has been done with the car, as I have been trying to get caught up on my roadster. However, once I have the half-shafts shortened on my car I will finish up the IRS assemblies on both.
I have recognized that prepping the new GT body and sending it out while using the existing body for assembly of the headers is going to be a convenient way to proceed. That approach puts considerably less emphasis on getting the header materials. Plus we can work up the coolant system before the body goes out. However, we really do need a starter to make sure we have adequate clearance, and it can be an inoperative one or a loaner for test fitting. I found this post:
>I have a stock chevy mini starter on my BBB and it works perfectly.You need one for the 80s up with the 153 >tooth flexplate.
>I did check and found that the chevy mini's with the duel bolt pattern will bolt right on and work with no >problems.And yes even some of these come with a spacer to get the pinion in the poper location.These can >be found some times at a starter/alt. repair and sales outlet.
>The sarter i am using is oen that come off a GM 3 liter Hyster lift truck but is the same as you would find on a >88 305-350 with the 153 flywheel.
I hope one of you can come up with something we can test fit. It doesn't look like there's room enough for the stock starter. I understand one of these mini's sell for about $99 but haven't checked the auto parts places yet.
Jim
I received the mailing with attachements today....I've not yet opened the attachments.
Who has the BADASS logo as was on the t-shirts....can I get a copy for BADASS letterhead?
Jim,
I can't make the Roadmaster weekend this month. It is rush time for admissions at the college. Hope someone will go.
Steve
BADASS Ways and Means committee members:
Steve DeGroat, Bill Young, and Bill Guzman:
Please send me via e-mail your own e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
mowog1@aol.com
217-469-2007 (home)
217-373-0702 (work)
Thanks!
rick
Some more good news. Graham's check came in, so that's another hundred in the till. Also I just got off the phone with Pete and he has volunteered to chair the Internet committee. Pete doesn't claim to be any more web savvy than many of us, but he shouldn't need to be, as he should be able to rely on his committee members to find the best ways to proceed. I've recommended Graham, Dan M, and Curtis as potential committee members along with anyone he feels would be an asset and they can organize as they feel appropriate.
Guys, it's an honor and a privilege to serve on these committees because it's a chance to do something good for your friends. I know a lot of times it may seem like you don't have any idea what you can do to help and it seems like a bother and a waste of time when you have more important things on your mind. But many hands make light work, and if you just make a phone call or send out a few emails, by the time you multiply that by our number we become a much more powerful force. Plus these phone calls are mostly going to be to people you like talking to anyway and what could possibly be bad about that? Maybe asking someone if they can help seems like a hard thing to do, but when you realize that they are expecting you to ask them, doesn't it just give you something else good to talk about?
We have two committees yet to fill. Detail and Membership, and I'm asking for volunteers or recommendations. Here it is almost September and nothing's been done on the car. Personally, I sort of doubt anything will be done on it until we have a Detail committee setting up work weekends. So until we set up the Detail committee I'm skeptical of anything else getting done on the car at all. When that happens is up to you guys. More on Membership below.
I haven't heard anything from Carl as to whether he can chair the Search committee, maybe because I haven't gotten around to a personal invite. Sorry Carl, my mistake. Well, I'm just a volunteer same as the rest of you guys so I hope that's excusable. Can you do it Carl? We sure need you. We also need to know how much the Inop car transport companies Joe gave us can transport Bill's GT for. If they can get us down around 7-800 bucks I'd think we're suddenly in the ballpark.
Now a little something on membership. Today I went over to the lodge to help out with a yard sale and since I was taking Matthew along I took my roadster. Almost immediately it drew a crowd, and it seemed I couldn't get much done for answering questions so I took the bottom of one of these foam boxes you take food home from the restaurant in and wrote on the bottom, "Like this car? Go to: BritishV8.Org 1971MGB/215Olds" and I was left in relative peace after that. But the crowd around the car stayed, ebbing and flowing as people came and went, most of them reading the placard which I had placed under the wiper. The car attracted people in off the street who then bought food and drinks, and many of the curious were younger drivers.
We have talked about how we need to attract younger drivers to the BritishV8 group and this will benefit BADASS as well. So this is just one small example of what we can do to move the cause along. Make up a dash plaque to leave in your car when you take it out. You KNOW people are going to look at it, it's like a magnet already, so why not use that magnetism to do some good for our entire group? They are our friends, right? If we all do that one small thing I don't imagine we'll have much trouble attracting new enthusiasts. Do we need a membership committee for this? Not necessarily. Should we have one? I don't know, and there's no reason why I should have to make all of the decisions. It'd be easy duty if anyone wants it.
Jim
Here's an idea... Since Bill's donation of the car body is in CA, and it is to be painted in Terry's shop, also out west, why not have the western contingent of BADASS complete the bodywork through the paint stage? All the mechanical fitting can be done on the body that is in Florence, then transferred over. Eastern US Roadmaster weekends for the next few months could concentrate on mechanicals, and western US Roadmaster weekends could concentrate on bodywork.
Thoughts?
that's seems like the most efficient flow in terms of transportation expense, but any cutting, welding, etc. needs to be done before body work/paint. Not sure how that could be accomplished if the shell doesn't make it to Jim's 1st.
I can give exact specifications for the body mods. There are only three things other than location of the radiator and the fender flares that need to be done, and I can mock up the radiator mounts and give exact specs for that too by the time you guys get to it. I can ship the fender flares and the steering cone section which is a simple cut-n-weld modification. That leaves the right side bulkhead mod which is a simple matter of taking a 1/2" slice and shoving the corner back. The engine mounts are easy enough, drill a hole through the frame rail, weld in a length of tubing, and weld a cap on top of the rail and I'll provide the parts and hole location. If we miss the mark a little we can tweak the engine plates to line up. What's left? Oh yeah, header holes. That's done with a holesaw and I can make a template.
There's an outside chance I could have found some aluminum heads. They have been damaged, the engine was dropped off a truck so they'd have to be welded and I've only just made the inquiry. No telling how that'll come out. But they;re full-on TA racing heads which means they have the short exhaust ports. If we're able to get them, that would mean there would be enough room for a log type exhaust manifold or possibly even RV8 style headers. I'll keep you all advised. I have been too busy the last few months to be able to call sponsors and pursue deals but I'm hoping that will change. I do enjoy talking to those guys but I'll admit I have to work up to it. I want to be at my best before I pick up the phone to ask someone to sink hundreds or thousands of dollars into a car he's never even heard of before. If they enjoy talking to me maybe I have a chance but I don't dare touch that dial if I'm even a little down. Anyway, that means we should probably leave the inner fender mods for last.
Dan, I think that was a great idea, and Rob, you're right, that's the key to making it work. You guys are the best.
Jim
Where in California is the car body?
Calvin
Bill is in Camarillo, CA. Some of you western guys should take a trip out there to look the car over real close, and figure out a place to work on it. If you need it, I think I have a spare steering column that might work on it.
How do you guys think we should set up the Detail committee in light of this new development?
Jim
BlownMGB-V8 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How do you guys think we should set up the Detail
> committee in light of this new development?
>
> Jim
Regional representatives....by time zone?
I think that's a reasonable idea.
I hope we can get some people to volunteer for that, I'll be here, in case anybody wants to. I don't see much activity directed towards getting things moving on the west coast but maybe in time something will happen.
The concept of Roadmaster Weekend probably needs to change. This year we've seen participation in roughly one out of four scheduled weekends and not only does that make scheduling difficult for me, it may induce a sort of apathy, since the next one is always there. So I'm canceling all scheduled weekends as of today. It will be up to the Detail Committee to schedule the next one.
On a positive note, I've been able to do a little work on the forward link for the IRS. It's slow going but that's allowed me to make a few helpful revisions.
Jim
Just to stir things up a bit (acting like my big brother) I just fired off an email to Horsepower TV. Here is the text:
"Joe and Mike,
I don't know if you have heard of the little nationwide project undertaken by some of the British V8 people, so I am sending you a link to the forum:
http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?2,166
This is the thread that is taking the car through the conversion from a stock MGB-GT to a fire breather with 455 Buick power! On the thread you can read about the organization and its desire to achieve synergy with great handling British sportcars and good old American V8 muscle!
Currently the body for the car is being prepped in California, and the mechanical work is being done in Kentucky, with volunteer members of the organization working as time permits, traveling weekends to the garage where the car is. All the parts have been donated or paid for with donated money or other parts that were sold for the needed revenue.
This project is truly what your show is all about. You may want to do a segment or two on it.
Dan Blackwood
South Charleston, WV
1966 TR4AIRS EFI
1980 TR7 DHC"
Dan B Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just to stir things up a bit (acting like my big
> brother) I just fired off an email to Horsepower
> TV. Here is the text:
< snip>
Excellent.
Other potential outlets are My Classic Car (after the porject is down the road a bit) and Car Crazy.
Stacy David (formerly of "Trucks!") is also doing a program for SpeedTV (I think); this may be right up his alley. (He recently featured a V8 Miata).
RickandStaceyDavid.jpg.JPG
BarryMeguire.jpg.JPG
It looks like our committees are becoming successful. We have empowered our members by giving them positions of responsibility and they are taking the reins and moving the project forward. I love to see creative approaches like those above, and there has also been a good bit of activity on a more concrete level. Our members have found what may be a suitable GT at what may be a reasonable and affordable price and are currently in negotiations with the owner.
All of this activity tells me that forming the committees was the right thing to do, even if the structure may not be the best. Well, what can I say? It's all still pretty new to me too and I gave it my best shot. But at the winter meeting I expect I'll hear some suggestions for restructuring, which again, will be a good thing. And let me just apologize to anyone who felt I overstepped my bounds. I'm sure you're right and I probably did. I guess it goes with the territory. The important thing to remember is that it is your organization, and it is from your decisions that the organization gets it's direction, whether by general consensus or by committee. I'm just a temporary custodian and it is an honor and a privilege to serve in that capacity. I'll try my best to make the correct executive decisions to achieve our objectives, but it is the will of the membership that rules.
Anyway, I hope there will be some good news for us soon, so stay tuned.
Jim
JIm,
I paid for the 69 BGT today.
It looks good to me. I will pick it up on 9/6/8. What shall we do with it then?
Steve
That's excellent news Steve. Since a number of us will be in Townsend in about a week, I'd suggest you tow it there and we can get it up here from there. Pete mentioned shuttling it up here, that would allow your car dolly to stay with you. Otherwise I could use that to tow it here, so those are a couple of options.
Jim
OK.
I will tow it to Towsend.
See you next weekend.
Steve
Steve...talk with Pete Mantell...he may be delivering a conversion to South Carolina in the next few weeks, and could pick up the GT shell from you and deliver it to Kentucky on his way home.
Rick,
I plan to call him tomorrow. Jim called and left a message saying the same thing.
I can not reach Pete by e-mail, for some reason.
Getting Pete to pick it up will let me take my BGT to Townsend. That is better than towing a car up there. More fun.
Steve
Steve gave us a report on the new GT at Townsend. From all indications it is an extremely solid body with very minimal rust or other damage, perhaps a badly repaired ding in a rear quarter as I understood it. The car is now at his house, awaiting transport via Pete's trailer to Florence. Once it is here we will assess the situation and I will recommend a course of action after conferring with Pete, Steve and whoever else has input. It would be premature to recommend action yet but we did have some discussion as to how the project should progress.
First item to come up was the exhaust system and the heads. It has come to my attention that the alloy heads made by TA Performance are of two distinct configurations. Stage 1 heads are extremely similar to the stock cast iron ones in terms of most major dimensions, other than ports and such, but Stage 2 and higher are different. Where the stock head has an extended exhaust runner they do not. Instead they are more similar to what we see on most V8's where the manifold bolts to a very short port projection, almost right up against the side of the head. The difference between the two could be as much as 2" per side and this is a huge thing for us. It means we should be able to make up a set of RV8 style headers and run the outlet out through a single hole in the fenderwell. It means we would not have a tube wrapping around the lever arm shock and blocking it's oil fill hole. And of course there is the weight savings.
After discussion, we decided this was something we should pursue. Mike at TA has expressed a willingness to help us so I'm projecting a cost to us of about $1500 to pursue this option. In addition we need a starter, flywheel, pressure plate, clutch, and HTOB. Jim Stuart suggested we need to raise about $3000 for this stage of the build and I would say that is reasonably accurate. Our Ways and Means committee is looking into how we might do that, several suggestions were made and discussed.
Ted Lathrop strongly suggested that we make the car street driveable prior to sending it out for paint. Although we are not at the decision point for that yet it is something to keep in mind. This was not a formal BADASS meeting but since we had a number of occifers, members and committee members present I brought up a couple of items for group discussion and we went from there. If anyone has more to report or comments to make please do so.
Jim
I sold the Dayton wire wheels on ebay for $122. The buyer also bought the 3 stock wheels for $50 and the front suspension units for $75 (for which he will be sending a check) so in total $247 that I should be able to deposit soon. That gets us closer to being able to buy the heads or the rear coil-over units, or the clutch/starter assemblies.
It's too bad I don't have more time to sell off the other spares or to get photos and descriptions to Rob or to package and ship them, as I think we could raise some cash that way. But I've come to the conclusion that it's more important that we have a collective project to work on than it is to meet any sort of arbitrary deadline. True, we'd all like to be able to drive the car this spring, but that may not be very realistic since there is so much to do to make that happen. I've been pretty tied up with getting my car back on the road and hope to be there in a few more weeks, and while I'm working on that I'm also figuring out how to put the finishing touches on the IRS. It turns out to have been a very good idea to install an identical unit in my car, as I plan to upgrade that while the car is up on jackstands for the engine repair, and I can complete the Roadmaster's IRS at the same time. When the time comes I will see if I can get any discount by buying 4 coil-over units at the same time which could help on both cars.
Jim
Jim,
I have two tires mounted on Jag rims in the car. The tires are 215 65 15. Hope they are small enough.
Steve
Sounds good Steve, that will let me get my wheels and tires back, and I'll need them in another week or three.
I've been thinking about how we can raise the money for the alloy heads. Once the new car is up here we can sell off parts from the existing one, starting with the hood and fenders. I'm guessing that the aluminum hood might bring a couple hundred bucks. It'd bring more if it wasn't slightly tweaked at the hinges but the damage is slight. Unfortunately I don't know how we could straighten it without using heat and taking a chance of warping the skin. I'll give some though to that, and if anyone has heard of a procedure for it PLEASE let us know.
How much the fenders might bring on ebay I don't know. As I recall they are in pretty decent shape. After that we can look at other items. Depending on what the bids are we might possibly raise enough that way to buy the heads, or we may need some contributions to make up the difference but it should at least get us close. Then we'll be able to start work on the headers.
Taking into account Steve's buyer for the engine and the sale of parts from the old body, the new GT body is going to come pretty close to costing us nothing and we could possibly even turn a profit on it. The wheels and suspension brought almost $250, around $200 or so for the engine, Steve paid $100 for the axle, plus whatever else we can get out of it. It's looking like we really came out good on this one.
I talked to Mike at TA Performance yesterday. Regrettably he's had to lay off due to the economic downturn and isn't in any position to sponsor us so we will have to pay full price on the bare heads or something very close to it. The price for the bare castings is $1395 + shipping. We will also need to use the TA head bolt or stud kit apparently. The bolts are $145 and the studs are $210. I see no real need to go with studs unless we will be considering a significant horsepower upgrade at some point. (and we will certainly have the heads to support that) So basically we're looking at about $1600. If we want the aluminum valvecovers that's $159 for painted (black or red) , $139 for satin, and an extra $65 to machine them so the raised areas shine. If someone wants to do the detailing for us we could save about $85 on that. I'd also recommend that you guys be watching ebay for a deal on a set. It's pretty clear that we do have the strength to make it happen. What's not clear is how long it'll take us. Between now and the time the car gets here though I'll see if I can get a couple more items on ebay just to keep things moving.
Jim
I just pulled the engine and trans out of the Blue GT. It's been a long time since I have done a junk yard pull. Sure is easy.
I have a buyer for it on Sunday at the car show in Coloumbia, SC. $300.
Now the car is ready for trnasport to KY>
Steve
That's great Steve. I just deposited the $75 check for the front suspension units. Will wait for the car before ebaying body parts but I'll take a look to see what I can sell off.
Jim
i still need a passenger side lower front fender patch panel. I think they run about $50 new; let me know what's fair for that if it's something the project's going to sell.
I sold the engine and trans yesterday. The check is in the mail to deposit the $300.
I have not repaid me for the cost of the BGT yet but I will.
I will be glad when the car in KY and out of my yard, that way we can work on it.
Steve
That's good news Steve. Just as a guess that should put us close to $550 towards the heads. More good news came in the mail today in the form of a check for $400 from Paul and Mary Schills. It seems there was a surplus from the summer V8 meet so they sent us a part of the remainder, with the rest going to the newsletter and next summer's meet. How much went to who I can't say, but I'm certainly thankful for what came our way and just as thankful for the additional support for the newsletter. I think this sets an excellent precedent for disbursement of surplus funds and want to commend Paul and Mary not just for their frugality but also for their insight.
So that means, pending Steve's official tally, that we need to come up with roughly $800 still in order to buy the heads, head bolts, and valve covers. That's not bad at all, and once we're able to decide what surplus parts we can sell I think we'll be really close.
In other news, our Ways and Means committee is hard at work cultivating high level sponsorship deals. It's a little early to give details but a plan is afoot to approach Buick. Obviously should that deal go through we will enter a new realm with our grass roots project, but we'll do everything possible to retain it's current character.
Jim
re: I think this sets an excellent precedent for disbursement of surplus funds and want to commend Paul and Mary not just for their frugality but also for their insight.
************************************************
FYI:
Not to take ANYTHING away from the Schils'.....but......
"Excess" funds (after all operating expenses have been paid) have been forwarded on to the next British V8 event for the past several years now. Sometimes it's a good chunk of change.....sometimes it is not.
:
And how much was forwarded on to next year's event I do not know. I do know there was money forwarded. If I were to guess, my own personal imaginary number would be close to what was forwarded from last year, or perhaps more, not knowing what was forwarded in either case. But this much I know for certain, the newsletter has been in dire need of support. To see it get that support in this manner is something I find gratifying, as without it our group loses a great deal of cohesiveness.
Now the other question, should this MGB Roadmaster project have also been supported in this way and in a "similar amount"? Maybe so, maybe not. But when you consider what it has done and continues to do to bring our community closer, I can't see it being a bad thing.
But then that's just my opinion, and I certainly make no claim to represent the majority.
Jim
I've been working on the IRS LCA's triangulated section. Progress has been slow because I'm using the mock-up for my roadster to develop it and had some catching up to do, since Steve and I ditched the duplicate parts in an all out effort to get the GT on it's wheels for the meet. I've also been busily scurrying about repairing storm damage. But I think I'm caught up now and maybe a little more on the IRS, (still some storm damage to go) and am ready to begin polishing down the extended pivot rods. That may be time consuming. I have to get some bolts and other hardware, a set of gears for the roadster (they have to be installed before final assembly, which must be done before the forward mount can be made), and then I can put the finishing touches on it. Realistically, I expect to be done by Thanksgiving. It turns out that the GT and the roadster both use the same 3 degree driveline angle, which is fortunate because it means I can continue to develop both units without tearing down the GT's rear suspension.
I've been thinking about what to make the angled brace from. There will be a tube over the pivot shaft extending forward of the stock forward dogbone and the angular brace will be welded to the forward end of this tube and extend back to the point at the outer end of the LCA where the stock forward strut bolted on. This brace will have to be curved in order to clear the battery box under full compression, so a simple tube will not be adequate. I would very much like to be able to take a larger diameter tube and press it into an oval cross section but I'm not at all sure that my hydraulic press is up to the task, even if I do the planned upgrade to it first. I would have to do it a little bit at a time and I'm not at all sure how that would come out. Clearly some experimentation will be in order. Anyway, I won't be able to start on that until the diff is bolted to the crossmember and the final assembly well under way. But if anyone has access to a big press that could flatten about 1-1/2 ft. of tubing at once that'd be a big help.
It seems Pete's delivery date has slipped a bit. Well, that's to be expected when putting the finishing touches on a customer's conversion. Hopefully he will be able to take advantage of the current lower gas prices.
I've heard nothing new from our internet committee but I trust they have been considering our needs and working on a plan.
Rick and Co. (Ways and Means) have cooked up a pretty good plan to contact Buick but I think we need someone to find us a good contact person inside the Buick Division. Then someone can be chosen to approach them whether it be a committee member or one of our officers.
Then we also will need to buy a set of coil-over units so we can finish up the rear suspension. Quite a lot on our plate, but we're moving along nicely.
Jim
Jim,
Sounds like you are making progress.
Pete will pick up the car Oct 29.
I hope to make it up to help in Nov. It was cold last year that time but maybe we can get some work done then.
When the GT gets there, check it out. If it passes inspection, I will pay myself back for the purchace.
I do not know any one with a large press.
Steve
Thanks Steve, I don't think there's any need for my inspection before you're reimbursed, but in a procedural way I can see it making sense. I just hate for you to have your funds tied up so long.
The cold will be much less of a problem this winter. Some of the catching up I've been doing involved pouring a slab on the north side of the lab and installing a propane storage tank, as well as another slab inside the car port and setting the air compressor back into place. Granted I still have to hook up the furnace (and the compressor also) but I plan to have that done before cold weather sets in. This winter we should be just fine, and if all goes well, by summer I may have the heat pump in operation also. Wouldn't that be nice? I'm also repairing tin on the carport and part of that will include installing a garage door. With that installed it won't take much at all to make the carport a usable paint booth. Not that we'll need it for this project, but it could come in very handy for others.
Jim
Money report.
We have $2295.42 in our account, but will have to pay me $1050 for the GT when it passes inspection by Jim.
The GT left my house on 11/4/8 and should be at Jim's on 11/6/8.
Steve
The GT is here and certainly did meet with the approval of all present including Rick, Pete, and myself. It is solid as described and will save us a lot of time. Definitely money well spent, and as noted before in many respects a zero sum switch. Now Steve, write yourself that check! Well done guys!
Willis brought the car up, in the back of a box van. Pete and Rick brought his GT and they headed back, Willis driving his GT and his son driving the van. Rick and Pete stuck around to work on the MGB-Roadmaster, and we got quite a bit accomplished. First we hoisted the old GT up and sat it on a cart, then removed the engine/tranny, and then we dropped the front suspension out, and finally dropped the rear suspension also. We also emptied out the new GT, lifted the seats out, and sat the APC seats in place. The new GT has some pretty decent carpet and sound deadener and where the APC seats were a tight fit in the old GT they are a little more than snug in the new car. Rick said he has a set of Fiero seats we can use for it though and he though it would be best to sell the APC seats and use those. I'm inclined to agree.
The new car has a fiberglass hood so at this point we have many choices. Aluminum, fiberglass, raised fiberglass, and I believe there is a steel hood as well. We need to assess what parts we are going to use and use the ones we are not to generate some cash, so when Steve comes up in early December that's something I hope we can make decisions on. If I understood his report correctly we should have about $1200 after paying for the car and we need to generate about another $500 in order to be able to buy the heads. We should be able to get close to that with parts sales and then we can work on getting the coil-over units and maybe a posi. If anyone can donate a 3 series dana 44 posi we need one, and it really should be installed before the rear suspension goes in the car. Somehow I don't see that happening but it could. Everything is still pretty fluid and we might pick up a posi off ebay, buy the coil overs and wait to buy the heads until we raise more cash. All you guys are my advisors, you have to advise me regarding the best choices to make sometimes or I might go astray. It's your project and I'm just helping move it along.
Anyway, Rick took pictures and I'm hoping those came out and he'll be able to post them here, and maybe he and Pete can report their impressions of the day as well. I know you've all been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this new body, as we have. It's not a raving beauty, there is missing paint, surface rust, and crazed glass, but there is a lot of good material to work with. I think we'll be fine with this one.
Jim
I'll post pictures and my impressions tomorrow (it's been a long day!)
FWIW - Here is the original "ad" for the car that caught my eye...and brought about this MGB/GT's purchase for the Roadmaster project.
http://www.mgexperience.net/phorum/read.php?42,890667
In my opinion, we are way ahead of the eight-ball when it comes to time and money invested!!
OK...we "did good" in purchasing this shell. I could not see any structural areas that will need repair/replacement. The sills appear to be solid, the floors appear to be solid..everything is there that we need to progress. Money once earmarked for rust repair can now go to other purchases!
BADASSII_3.jpg
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BADASSIILeftSill.jpg
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And more....
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And more....
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BADASSProjectLeader.jpg
BADASSRearDiffAssembly.jpg
And more....
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And some more....
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And more....
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Abbadee...abbadee..abbadee.....That's all folks!
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Interesting ramp setup. ;)
Great work guys, the old shell stripped and ready to send away. Just don't forget to recover Ricks struts and that aluminum hood before it goes. Looks like I will have to carry over a few days of vacation this year, so I'll have a little more time next year and may be able to get over for a Roadmaster weekend.
Bill Young Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just don't forget to recover Ricks
> struts and that aluminum hood before it goes.
>
Hopefully, we'll salvage more than that....the hatch and possibly the roof for sure..
I haven't been keeping up like I should... but if the body shell is going to be scrapped, cut the bulges from below the tail light areas. Someone will be able to use them on a RB to CB conversion. That's how I got mine -- from a shell that a guy was about to send to the crusher.
More good news. Larry Shimp was going to donate some body panels but because we got this new GT he decided to make a substantial cash contribution instead, in addition to making some welcome suspension recommendations. I have his check in hand and plan to deposit it today. This puts him among the ever growing group of our top contributors and we are certainly grateful for his assistance, thank you very much Larry!
As soon as Steve and I get the chance to do it we will see if we now have enough to order the heads from TA. I would like to make it a complete order, including the studs and valve covers if we can manage that. Mike told me he was sponsored out but I'll also ask him if there's a chance he can give us a friendly price.
Jim
OK, I just looked at the TA catalog again and did a rough tally. Estimating shipping costs we are approximately $150 away from being able to place our order, which will include the heads, the studs which are required to use the heads, and a set of valve covers with fill caps and such. My suggestion is the black krinkle finish, they look really good. If a couple of you guys could help us out here we'll get those on order. Or we can wait. Maybe after Thanksgiving we can ebay a few parts and get enough cash to cover it. Up to you guys.
Jim
Larry, on behalf of the Ways and Means committee, I thank you!
All is in readiness for another exceptional MGB-Roadmaster weekend. Well, maybe not "all", since the lab is a bit untidy, but we have heat, we have light, and we have most of the tools we might need, plus tunes and refreshments, so I think we'll be good. I've been trying to make some more floorspace and in the process getting distracted by tasks, great and small, all shouting my name in a cacaphony of chaos and it's a little distracting. I pulled out the old spare Olds engine to see if it made sense to swap it into my roadster while I ready the 340 driveline but it really makes more sense to sell it instead unless I'm really desperate to drive it. It probably would make more sense to find a running LBC of just about any description instead to put around in. So I have things to shove back into their corners and about a Gazillion half completed small tasks to consider between now and Thursday. I might not finish. In fact I'd say it's just about a dead certainty. But we can work around that. The extra GT has taken up some space and it'll be touch and go to get Steve's car inside overnight but I'm betting we can do it. (Where is that overhead lift when you need it?)
There's just no telling at this point what we will decide are priority items for the weekend so right now I'm not going to attempt to project what we might get done. The suspension work is important of course, and we have another opportunity to reconsider our approach to steering clearance, with both the new GT body and new heads to soon be ordered. (In fact, I think we could probably go ahead and order those and get the valve-covers later.) We may decide to set the drivetrain into place and estimate what the clearance will be with the new heads. Or not. But in any case there's plenty to do.
And now some news. Though it doesn't affect us here, it is of great interest to anyone considering a swap such as this. TA Performance has published the weight of their new aluminum BBB block! This is a bare weight, without cylinder liners and main caps but is good for comparison purposes. The weight is 110 pounds! That is 67 lbs less than the stock cast iron 1970 455 block that we are using, which weighs 177 with main caps. It is also only 50 lbs more than a bare 215 block without main caps. By the time the caps and liners are added we'll be back to about the weight of a 300 or 340 (or SBF) block. Which means that with this block and alloy heads and intake an MGB could be built with the BBB that would easily weigh less than stock, using other lightweight components such as in the suspension and brakes. Who will be the first to own one? I don't know, but once this one is out on the circuit it shouldn't be long before we see one.
Jim
We have a nice suspension system on our Historic Race Car a Modsports MGBV8,we tried to use the original layout with uprated units for many years but this proved a bit Neanderthal,especially as the Historic Racing rules stipulated we could not alter.
Lucky for us there is a new motorsport club that caters for the many V8 Modsports and Special Saloons cars like us in the UK ,Europe and USA.To try to revive all these Historic race cars they have simplified their rules to allow various configurations of suspension systems using modern technology.
HMSA Historic Modsports and Saloon Association, www.historicmodsportsandsaloons.com
So now we are using all Alloy adjustable units,fully rose jointed,new pick-up points and it works a treat with our lap times coming down considerably,especially compared to the Sunbeam Tigers and many Jaguars.
Next on the list is to have manufactured some light panels made out of Carbon Fibre,have a look at this HMSA its got lots of V8s registered.
That sounds interesting Peter, I don't suppose they'd let us run the MGB-Roadmaster in that would they?
So anyway, the crock pot is full of stew, and I expect Steve is on his way, should be here sometime tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to getting back on this project. We'll fire up the furnace and get right to it. As always, anyone who'd like to stop by is welcome and will get a warm meal and good company.
I have a link to some photos of that TA aluminum block:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wizkid45/sets/72157606528278536/
Very beefy for a 110 lb chunk. Seems like they put the metal in all the right places. They claim it'll support 3000 hp. That might be a little much for an MGB, but it should never break, and with replaceable sleeves it should never wear out.
Jim
Hope you & Steve have a productive weekend!
Thank you Carl, and we did. Steve came in Thursday evening and we had a bowl of beef stew and then went and unloaded his car and trailer. Thanks very much by the way for your assistance in transporting my 340 Buick engine to and from Dale's shop in Danville, Virginia. I now have some very nice engine parts and will be putting up some photos on the 340 thread just as soon as I can get some good shots.
Anyway, I had turned up the heat earlier and we had a reasonably comfortable place to work. My recollection may be a little fuzzy on the details and the sequence of events but hopefully Steve will jump in to correct my errors. So we unpacked the parts, pulling Steve's car and his trailer inside where it was warm, after we had first moved the two GT's around to where we had enough room to do it. I tried to take a picture of that, at that point we had 3 GT's, a roadster and a half, and a trailer all inside, and the amazing thing was that we could still get around all of them. But the camera battery chose that moment to die, and the next morning we went back out without the batteries and had begun moving things before we thought of them again.
Anyway Steve soon had the rear axle and suspension out of the Blue GT while I was adding the upper coil-over mounts to the IRS crossmember and attaching it to the Jag pumpkin. We used hardened socket head countersunk capscrews and red locktite for the mount bolts and I'm happy with the attachment. I think it is a good bit stronger than the original. Then we put the axle under the green car, only inserting the forward spring eye bolts since all it has to do is roll. Next we removed the front suspension, took that up and put it under the front of the green car, just dropping a couple bolts through for positioning, and took the Roadmaster's front unit and mounted it in place under the blue car.
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Steve did most of the work on that part. In fact, he took on the dirtiest part of the job and had it knocked out in record time. I tried to hold up my end as best I could. It turned out that the steering shaft was pretty close to the stock '69 large style U-joint so we decided to unbolt the steering rack and see how well it would fit.
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As you can see the shaft is a little long but not enough to cause any problems. If we can fit the 455 with the alloy heads in without moving the cone then we'll just drill through for the pinch bolts and be good to go. But we won't know until we get the heads. I plan on ordering them tomorrow.
So by then the paint was dry on the rear suspension and we slid it over and jacked it up into place and bolted it in. We positioned it for maximum pinion angle initially. That will have to be measured, readjusted to 3 degrees and locked into place permanently but that's another day, and I'll have to make another post to load the other photos.
Jim
Over the weekend we polished off a big crockpot of homemade beef stew and also managed to devour a couple packages of cured ham that Steve thoughtfully brought along so we ate well. Friday and Saturday we had the lab up in the 50-60 degree range and were quite comfortable, working with our jackets off most of the time while the outside temperature hovered around 15-20 degrees, but we did learn that turning off the heat at night let the floor get cold and probably didn't help on fuel usage either. We were watching the weather closely due to the snow flurries but the skies cleared by nightfall last night, the roads were clear, and our biggest concern was the driveway which Steve maneuvered easily (I hope) this morning by swinging over into the yard to go down the hill. He should be getting home in a couple more hours.
So back to the car. Here's a shot of the Green GT this morning sitting outside. We will be removing some more parts from it as we go along, and it will always be a part of the Roadmaster MG. We are grateful for this car, without it the project would have never happened.
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So with the IRS bolted into place and the car on the ground we got our first look at the new candidate.
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At this point the fixed struts we had put in to hold up the rear of the car were too long and it sat a little funny so we shortened them a bit but I don't have a photo of that. The tires clear though and it rolls real nice. Steve and I were debating the possibility of getting a pair of wheels with more negative offset and fitting a tire that will go inside the stock wheelwell on a 17" rim. I don't know if such a wheel is made though. It would have to have the mounting flange flush with the tire bead to work. At this point we'd prefer to concentrate on making the car run. Then when it comes apart for paint we can worry about bodywork and other things, including wide tires.
Jim
Steve and I then had a look at the front of the car and decided to go ahead and install the motor mounts. That required removal of the old mounts so to make the work easier we removed the grill, bumper and the valence panel which we discarded as too damaged to reuse. The bumpers on this car are pretty decent, especially the rear one. It was at this point that we realized the car had been in a front end collision. The damage had been pretty well hidden by the grille and the slam panel but the slam panel itself was a bit mangled which should have tipped us off. So that came out, along with the brace and the horizontal shelf the brace sits on, and the box beneath the shelf. The left (facing the car) inner wing's extension forward of the radiator mounts will also need to go, including the left end of the shelf (whatever that panel is called) but the right side can be straightened. Luckily the green car can supply those parts. Also, the left front fender has a splice above the wheel arch. I haven't looked at the other one. Since I seem to recall that the green car has splices at the rear of the fenders, and the job on this one was average or better we can wait to address that until we're ready for paint.
We went ahead and chiseled away the radiator brackets and then using a transfer punch, located and drilled the frame holes for the motor mounts. We used a 5/8" holesaw this time to enlarge a 1/4" carefully drilled pilot hole and they came out way better this time than the first attempt on the other car, and the top braces dropped right into place on the support tubes. I'll be welding these in soon, probably at the next break in the weather. But we put the parts together and took pictures.
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Jim
Jim, Steve,
I'm sure you are aware of this but just in case, it looks like there is a mismatch of the front fenders, the right is pre-69 and the left is 69 or later...the placement of the turn signals don't match.
-- Scott
Scott,
I'll admit that I had not noticed.
Jim and I had a good time and got enough work done for 1 weekend.
The Food and lodging were great and so was the company.
I had little trouble on the way home but the car and trailer are filthy. Snow was falling in Ky and VA on my way home, but traffic was light and the snow never built up.
I left Jim's at 5 and got home at 2, not a bad trip.
When Jim gets the new heads we can find out if the steering will work as we have it.
See you all at the V8 meet in NC.
Steve
Scott68B Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jim, Steve,
>
> I'm sure you are aware of this but just in case,
> it looks like there is a mismatch of the front
> fenders, the right is pre-69 and the left is 69 or
> later...the placement of the turn signals don't
> match.
>
> -- Scott
I had noticed that when the car arrived last month...but promised myself that I would not bring it up. The Concours/Originality folks tend to get bent out of shape on these things.
:)
Jim's remark about previous front end damage is proven with this mismatch.
It's still a GREAT bodyshell in my opinion!
:)
Rick,
I wasn't trying to be negative at all with my comments and, obviously, I couldn't care less about originality but now is the time to address this if it matters to the decision makers. I think both sides should match but that's just me. If it were my car and it had two different fenders on it, that's all I would see every time I looked at it.
From the pictures I've seen, it does look like a fantastic find!
Regards
-- Scott
Scott..I did not take your comment as a negative one. Hence the smiley. Just think of how many heart attacks that the BBB will induce.
:)
When this car is done, I doubt seriously if one will be able to see the difference in the wings, as one's attention will be focused elsewhere.
QuoteI think both sides should match but that's just me.
I don't think anyone would disagree with that, Scott. Symmetry is good! :)
I think maybe Pete or Rick might have mentioned that, can't remember for sure. But since the left fender is spliced and the lip under the hood is a little wavy we might want to do something about it before we paint it.
Until then, I could care less. I'm just tickled to death to have something we can just drop a motor in, fire up and drive around. We can paint sponsor's names on it with a Sharpie, stick on decals, or paint peace signs and flowers on it for all I care. I think Steve is right, we just need to make it run. After that we can worry about polishing it. (Of course if anyone wants to stop by and do a little polishing in the meantime, by all means go right ahead!) And if anyone wants their artwork on it you might be thinking about how you want to do that. I think peel-n-stick is a good option for now. Or freehand. We should try to get the layout finalized before we paint.
I've been sorting out the plan on the heads. We have enough to buy the bare heads and studs with a little left over. I'm still getting a feel for what the iron heads are worth, presently the high water mark is $800 for a set of Stage 1 heads which these are not, (smaller valves, single springs, same casting) so $600-700 might be in the ballpark, I can't say yet. If so, that would pay for the springs, valves and such. It's a bit of a gamble either way, I heard the standard valves for the heads we are getting are Stage 1, so if I order them that way we're stuck with selling the heads complete, like it or not. I think maybe I should wait until after the first of the year to sell them. Maybe we can get a few bucks out of the 430 parts too.
Jim
Today I ordered a bank card for the B.A.D.A.S..S. account, since I reasoned it would get here almost as quick as a check would get to the west coast and thereafter make online purchases forever easier. Once it gets here I'll order the heads and studs.
Meanwhile, Dale filled me in on the head work, which with parts is a $600+ value. Add in the bare heads and $800 would not be out of line. We are fortunate that these are the most desirable castings with the highest quality of parts and workmanship, but unfortunate in that we did not consider installing stage 1 when we bought valves and seats. Had we done that, this price might be easy to get, and for little or no more expense. So I'm guessing that we might have to come down off that price some but that's what we'll shoot for. Perhaps we'll have enough left over after buying more new valves and such to get the valve covers.
I sent an email to Tire Rack asking for maximum backspacing on a 7 or 8" wide rim. I'll let you guys know what they say.
Jim
Jim, and everyone else, thanks for the hard work. It's really coming along. The new shell really looks great even with the mismatched fenders ;-)
Jim have you had a chance to contact the guy with the intake manifolds or do we even want to consider either one of those? If he's as nice a guy as his son is he may wind up being a great supporter for the project and a BBB fan to boot.
I'll be putting in my vacation request right after the first of the year, have we considered any project time either before or after the British V8 meet? If so I can probably swing a couple of days extra as I'll already be over your way.
I also want to thank everyone for all the hard work. It isn't easy to plan and coordinate a trip to a remote location, spend a day or two wrenching and such, and then return home to try and catch up on your own projects, and I appreciate everyone's efforts. It really is starting to pay off.
Bill, I just got off the phone with Trevor Jessie's dad. His name is Ron Jessie, he lives about 20 miles south of Louisville, and he makes periodic trips to the John Deere dealership which is about 2 miles from my house. We'll probably email some photos back and forth, he has shots of a 350 Midget you'd probably like to see. He also said he really likes the Poston intake (which is the one we have) and that was reassuring, plus he has a friend who has a building with about 40 LBC's stuffed inside. (in various stages of disrepair but interesting nonetheless) I invited him over to look at the car.
As for the next build date, I'd recommend you schedule one. We quit doing regularly scheduled monthly weekends earlier this year, but I can accommodate most reasonable requests. While it'd be nice to have a good crowd, obviously we can get a lot done with just a couple of us, and to be honest, it really helps me to get motivated too. So just about anytime you'd like will probably work. I have a spare room at your disposal, to save motel costs. More good news, we just ordered the flooring for downstairs. The plan is to try and finish the basement by summer, and that will give us a downstairs suite with a private entrance and a pool table. It doesn't get much better than that.
Jim
Bill Young Wrote:
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> have we considered any
> project time either before or after the British V8
> meet? If so I can probably swing a couple of days
> extra as I'll already be over your way.
I might be able to swing that too.
Since it was mentioned, here are some photos of that midget that were taken in 2004.
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And a few more...
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Once my father saw this Midget I had to remove my Midget from his garage because I found him measuring the engine bay and trying to figure out how easily a 289 could fit. ;)
I think your GT might be a little more practical for the street.
Anybody know how to contact the owner of that Midget?
No? Think maybe you might see the car again someday?
Why not download and print-out this little template, and put it in your glovebox?
http://www.britishv8.org/How-It-Was-Done.doc
I do not know him, but I know where his shop used to be. I have not seen him nor the car for a couple of years.
What about that barn full of MG's? Does that really exist?
Maybe. Kind of. It was three barns about 6 years ago when I bought my Midget project from him. And they were not all MG's. There were a few triumphs and fiats thrown into the mix. And some nissans and a fiero and a some other assorted things. But mostly MGBs and Midgets. Since then, he has sold off some stuff and it may be down to one barn now. If you are ever around Litchfield it is worth trying to get in touch with him to see if you can find something of value that he'll let go.
Wow, why didn't I find this site before starting on my conversion? Didn't know anyone else was even interested in sticking V8's in MGB's! We must share the same mutated gene or something. It's been interesting reading the posts and seeing some of the same problems I've ran into. I've sent info to Curtis but I realize he is busy as heck.
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2973575
I'll have to checkout BADASS.
Best Regards,
Bill
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Nice looking B, Iceman!
Welcome to the V8 forum.
You may also want to check out http://www.mgexperience.net/phorum/list.php?40
As with this website, there is a lot of good information there, too!
You should also think about attending the V8 meet this summer in Raleigh/Durham, NC in June!
Bill and Rob (others as well), when would you like to schedule some work time? I'm thinking maybe Feb or March might be the earliest time practical. We have the holidays to get past and then there's Ted's party on the 17th. But anytime after that should be doable. Let me know what you have in mind, I can probably accommodate you. May even have the floor down in the downstairs bedroom by then. I imagine we could put you up both at the same time, depending on your needs of course.
Jim
Jim, unfortunately my budget at this time won't allow for two trips over your way, so I'd have to combine it with the trip over for the V8 meet. Things are a little tighter this year than last, the cost of my mother's care has risen about $1300 a month, so there's a little less to go around these days.
That's no problem Bill, maybe we can see what we can get done either before or after the meet. Plus that way you'll have a place to spend a night on the road. We have several guys wanting to come by to work on the car, about 5 or 6 I think at last count. Any way you guys want to do it is fine with me, one at a time or all together, it's all good. Just let me know what you want to do and when you want to do it and we'll work out the details.
Jim
Yesterday was the winter Solstice so since we're now headed for Spring it's good to get out and get moving. The temperature has come up noticeable from what it was only a few hours ago, and it's certainly encouraging to know that mid-winter has come and gone. I have good news! Friday I placed the order for the aluminum heads, the studs, and the wear-plate for the oil pump. In talking to Sherry at TA Performance I mentioned to her that if Mike could give us a bit of a break on the pricing that we'd order a set of valve covers if we were able to, but considering that he's had to lay people off I'm not holding my breath on that one. Nonetheless, in a couple weeks they'll be shipping the heads to us and we'll be able to put the engine in the new GT for the first time and see how it fits. That will be an exciting time because it'll show us just where we are with the steering.
I put the aluminum ford 8.8" IRS axle housing that Pete donated on ebay but it didn't sell. I'll try re-listing it for less, and as it warms up this week I'll get a few other items listed. Also parts are in for the other Jag IRS so work will resume on that and help complete the one for this car. Since the tail end of winter tends to be the coldest I probably need to break out the insulated coveralls, but I'm pretty excited about getting things moving again. Spring is going to be here before we know it, better get ready!
Jim
Jim,
Going back to the pictures on pages 18 and 19 there are Jaguar "kent" alloy wheels fitted on the front of the car. From what I can see in the pictures the front it using standard MG suspension. As the Jaguar wheels are five stud are you using MGC hubs. If so dies that mean that the MGC and Jaguars use the same stud size and spacing?
Thanks,
David
David, I'm not sure about the MGC pattern, but the front hubs on this car are GM items, not MGC. Jaguar and Chevy did use the same pattern. If you go back and follow the build history you'll find that the modified front end was donated by Aurthur Mitchell from Chicago (page 5 has photos) and was modified for his Cobra kit before he decided to install a Fast Cars front suspension.
Thanks for answering that Bill. Quite correct.
I wanted to let everyone know that the heads have shipped from TA and should be here in a few days. I'll plan on bringing them with me to the winter meeting at Ted's place, (Fast Cars in Michigan).
Jim
THEY'RE HERE!!!! THEY'RE HERE!!!!
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And man aren't they purty? Big ol' monstrous ports too. That sure is going to be a fine looking engine with all that aluminum up on top. And I'll tell you what, if we don't pretzelize this car we'll definitely be putting an end to worries about the strength of the body. I have a couple more photos to post.
Jim
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Nice label on the side.
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Here are the studs we had to have to go with the heads. These are pretty fancy too, what with the necked down shanks. I guess we could have gotten bolts but there wasn't that much difference in the price, and this way we can rest easy that we won't have to worry about the head gaskets at all. Should be a nice plus if and when we let it go to a new life also.
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This booster plate is highly recommended by all of the Buick performance guys and fits the entire Buick line. It not only provides a hard wear surface for the oil pump gears, but it helps prevent flex of the gear cavities under pressure. We are taking reasonable steps to insure an adequate oil supply to the bearings without getting crazy about it. This is one of those steps. At a cost of $21 it seems reasonable.
But, now we are out of money.
Jim
Wow! That is very "purdy" . It's so purdy that it can set right up on the kitchen granite counter top. I wonder if your wife was home when the photo was taken. That would have been the only time I could have done it :-)
She did squawk a little when she got back.....
I pulled the iron heads and intake off the 455 today, threaded in the new studs, and set the new aluminum heads in place along with the Poston alloy intake. Looks pretty good:
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These last two photos show the difference in the exhaust ports. As you can see, we have probably about 2" of extra space and less of a downward angle. So the next task will be to set it in the car and see if we can get tube bends with a tight enough radius to clear the inner wing. If we can do that then we just might be able to build some RV8 style headers to do the job.
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And don't worry guys, the heads will still be coming up to the get together, as they're not bolted down. It looks so good I think we might bead blast the front cover just to show more aluminum. Which brings up a question:
Do you guys paint your aluminum engine parts? If so what do you prefer to use? I find that just shooting them with clear sort of makes them look as if they've peen painted with gray paint.
Jim
Wow. That's starting to look REALLY good.
Paint aluminum? "No, I prefer the woodgrain look..." What a silly question!
Sounds as thought the Ways and Means Committee needs to get hopping again.
As we had originally planned on contacting Buick for some assistance....I wonder if there is any bailout maoney available to us?!
:)
That really looks good Jim. I agree, the front cover in natural aluminum along with some detail on the pulleys would really make it look sharp. How much weight are we talking about now with the aluminum heads and intake? Like you said, except for some of the aftermarket aluminum BB Chevys, we're probably going to set a nice mark for pounds per cubic inch in the motor. If we can get some good photos of our project collected into a managable folio it would be nice, then we could present that to prospective donors so that they could see what we've accomplished. I'll try to go back through the ones posted here and get those together, but we probably will still need a few more up to date shots and details. I'll put together an album on one of the photo sites so everyone can take a look.
QuoteI'll put together an album on one of the photo sites so everyone can take a look.
That sort of album is exactly what our message board's "Project Journal" section is for...
Curtis, what I have in mind is a presentation (Power Point) that we can give to potential donors. I would reference this board as well as the Project Journal or Roadmaster article as well. Short and to the point without all the technical detail that we gearheads like, but enough to let them know that the project is for real and worthy of their support.
Here's the link to the draft Power Point slides I've created. This should be a good basis for a nice presentation to a prospective donor. http://picasaweb.google.com/kcmidget/ProjectRoadmaster?authkey=IfTo82k2quY#
The slides I see on Picasa are only 406 by 304 pixel jpgs, and clicking on them doesn't enlarge them.
If they were in our Project Journal section, they'd appear 600 pixels wide. With our forum software, if the actual image files are larger than 600 wide (e.g. 700 pixels wide) then clicking on them would link automatically to the full-size version.
I love what you guys are doing. It really helps a lot.
I was hoping someone who was at Ted's would report back here but I guess the cold weather has everybody's fingers frozen. We had a mildly stressful return trip what with the rampant black ice and a misfire that developed 80 miles from the end. Hopefully that isn't anything serious, I see the InTech motors had coil-on-plug issues. Hopefully I'll know in a few hours. I'm used to snow. Roads that look normal but turn you sideways for no good reason, not so much, and we had quite a few miles of those to cover. 50-60 mph on that kind of a surface gets you a little tense, but we actually had more of a close call on the way up when emergency vehicles on the side caused traffic to stop and the Mercury behind us wasn't paying real good attention. But no harm done.
I guess there were about 30 people there, mostly the core group of dedicated conversion enthusiasts, at least those who could brave the weather and the distance and the schedule conflicts. Attendance was down a bit. Others can fill y'all in on stuff not Roadmaster related, so I'll concentrate on that. The first thing Steve DeGroat and I did was bring in the new aluminum heads and set them on the bench, where they quickly drew a crowd and much admiration. Steve and I had hoisted the engine into the new GT before packing the heads away, and took a photo and I carried that diskette around in my jacket pocket all weekend and then it disappeared. I think it may be in the floor of the truck and I'll look for it when I go out to plow the snow off the driveway later. What it shows is that we will have to do the steering column mods as anticipated but we gained an unexpected advantage on the exhaust. We knew we would pick up a couple inches per side on the width but what we didn't consider was that the ports are also nearly an inch higher than stock. This very neatly puts us above that bottom curve in the inner wing. I may have a surprise in the works on the headers but won't know about that until later.
We also weighed the bare heads, and they came out at about 27 lbs. I have the exact number but that's within a pound. I'll try to remember to weigh a bare 430 head for comparison. The ports are quite large and straight but would benefit from some light porting to remove edges and such. Just for fun we bolted one of them to Pete's plastic LS block but the cylinder spacing was way off.
As before, we had our winter meeting after breakfast at the Big Boy restaurant in Wayland the next morning, where matters discussed largely centered on the budget. Regrettably our Secretary had to return home and was not in attendance so we have no minutes and I certainly cannot remember what all we talked about, but discussion largely centered on the budget, t-shirts, and web development. We had donations of $140 at Ted's and it didn't occur to me at the time but perhaps we can get some feedback here.
Do you think we should pass the hat at the conclusion of business in our semi-annual meetings?
It seems this might be a good way to raise some funds, but I don't want to do anything to discourage attendance. At any rate, we didn't have an exact figure due to delays in banking but we presently have something under $200 in the treasury. We need to buy coil-over units for the rear, flywheel, clutch, pressure plate, starter, carb, distributor, and header parts. The flywheel is going to be the big expense, $300 from TA plus shipping for a 38 lb steel unit, but some of the other parts are nearly as much. I also sold the aluminum 8.8" IRS axle housing Pete donated, (well, in truth he gave it to me but since I decided not to use it I felt I should pass it on) and the extra set of 300 heads from Jack Morris in Chatanooga, though the money isn't in hand yet. I had given $75 for the one good head but then I sold them as a pair so I will take my costs out of the proceeds and remit the rest to the treasury. Between those two sales we should have around another hundred to work with, maybe a little more. And I will continue with other sales as I can. I appreciate that Rob wanted to help with this but I think the logistics are a problem. Now if he was to come up here with a trailer... ;-)
I think that's about it. Y'all feel free to add to my report.
Jim
More good news!
I talked to Dale Spooner (Motion Machine) today, and he's done so much for the project already, I was a little hesitant to ask him to do more. But I felt I really had to since he's been our go-to guy on the machine work. His response when I asked if he could do the TA heads? "Well of course." Now there is a guy who is truly dedicated to the project. Considering he's already donated upwards of $1800 worth of labor and parts, a sizeable part of which went into the heads we are selling, nobody could really expect him to do more, but he did anyway. Now there is a shining example we can be proud of, and I for one am pretty tickled to be able to say, "He's one of us."
Well after that nothing would do but I had to go out and get some work done on the car. I've made all of the cuts for the body mods, made an "adjustment" here and there, and will try to get the seams welded up tomorrow. Then the engine will go back in for a final test fit before cleanup. That will be our first real chance to see what we're looking at on the exhaust.
Jim
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Guys, this is an essential part for the Jag IRS. Jaguar wants $69 and change plus shipping for it. One of the ones on the IRS for the Roadmaster had been cut up with a torch and completely destroyed, as opposed to the unit I'm using for my roadster which was complete and fully assembled. I loaned one for the meet last summer, but I'm afraid I cannot buy one for the project, and I don't think it is wise to spend treasury money on it either. Can't one of you guys who has Jag connections come up with one for us? Until that happens, this car is going nowhere, no matter what other work we do. Here's a photo:
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Just the washer.
Thanks for your help,
Jim
I have some progress to report. The iron heads off the 455 just sold on ebay for $522. I would say that the buyer got a pretty nice bargain, but at the same time we will be getting operating funds that we have to have to make progress. I don't think Dale will be too disappointed, though we really were hoping they would go over $600. In addition to transferring that money into our account once the purchase is paid for, I will transfer the funds at the same time that came in from the 300 heads and the diff housing. After deducting the money that I have in those parts it leaves $91. That should put us somewhere around $700-750 in the treasury, Steve can report on that at his convenience sometime after the deposits are made if he likes.
I have contacted QA1 about coil-over units. It sounds like we can get what we are looking for but I have to take some more accurate measurements and work out the geometry to get the correct spring rates working with them, and then we will have Ted Lathrop order the units using those specs. They will be very similar to the #8552 units he stocks but will need different mounts so I will probably call him also in the next week or so to figure out the details.I can get pricing at that time. We will have to buy valves, springs, retainers and keepers for the TA heads. By the time we've done that we'll be short on funds again, but I promise I'll find time to look through our spares and see if we can't auction off a few more things to help out. For one, we have a brand new steering rack which we won't be using, I'm sure we can get a few bucks for that.
Jim
First test fit of the alloy head 455 in the blue GT:
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Looking good.....nice job with E-Bay, as well!
Dave Van Wyck stopped by a couple of days ago on his way back to the great white north (Michigan that is) following a stint in the sunny south (and how I envy that trip). We met at Ted's winter party and it turned out he was looking for some 215 conversion parts and also was in the business of making custom exhaust headers, now mostly retired. Dave was very interested in our project and wants to be involved, so he took measurements and photos and asked me to get him an exhaust manifold gasket, which I will order as soon as TA Performance opens for business the first of the week. Dave is going to lay out the parts and prepare sketches of two options for exhaust, one a tubular shorty fenderwell header, and the other a tubular fenderwell log exhaust, and once we have those we can pick which one pleases us the most. Then once he has had the chance to cut the pieces we will take the car up to his place and let him fit it all up. This is great news to all of us and neatly handles one of the more troubling aspects of the conversion, so now, those of you who happen to be somewhat well heeled and waiting in the wings just to see where this experiment will go, the riddles are mostly solved and your very own all aluminum Buick 455 engined MGB is one large step closer, as Dave will undoubtedly keep the patterns. It looks very much like our pledge of leading the way to a BBB MGB with the same weight as a stock vehicle is well on the way to being met. Not that this one will do that, but we are close enough that a TA aluminum block and Ted's IFS will surely finish the job.
We put him up for the night, greatly enjoyed the visit, and sent Dave on his way a happy man, several steps closer to his own 215 conversion as many of the parts I will not be able to use with my new 340 were now in his truck. He was happy, I was happy, the project got a big boost, and just as importantly we made new friends. In the end I think that's probably the greatest benefit of all.
Jim
Jim,
That really looks good.
We do have about $700 in our massive treasury.
I have alittle trouble keeping up since I get most of the information second hand.
Hope there will be something left to do when I get up there in April.
Steve
Oh, I don't think there's any worry about that Steve. Right now I'm negotiating for parts and I should know more in a day or two. I've got the specs for the coil-overs and will try to contact Ted about them tomorrow plus check on a starter, then there's a package deal I'm working on which could net us most of the engine parts we need including a flywheel. I'll post again when I have more details.
Jim
The coil-over shocks are ordered and should be in within a few days. We all know these are expensive, but I figure Ted saved us close to a hundred by getting them for us at his cost. Also, Jamie McClinton from the V8Buick forum donated a mini starter to the project. Jamie is a very respected vendor on that site and sells mini starters that fit the BBB, SBB, and V6 Buick for $165, which is quite a bit better price than you can get for a generic one at the local parts store. He takes extra steps to insure that they fit, work right, actually start the engine the way they are supposed to do right out of the box, and to improve durability and reliability. He's the go-to source over there for starters. He also supplies starters for the Nailhead motors and may have something for the BOPR as well, though I haven't asked yet. http://www.v8buick.com/member.php?u=226
Another member over there, "Coach", has donated a mild Isky cam, lifters and pushrods, and another, Kurt "455 Powered" http://www.v8buick.com/member.php?u=17463 has valves and associated parts he'll make us a deal on so we're rolling along pretty good. At this point we have maybe $250 we can afford to use and still keep a minimum balance in the checking account. I have a little over a hundred of that yet to deposit but I will probably wait until after I transfer the title, probably tomorrow. I had the Sheriff's deputy out today to inspect the VIN number and after hearing what we were doing he waived $10 of the $15 inspection fee.
I have people looking for a flywheel and other parts, but one thing we really need badly and that I am quite certain somebody has, is the lower oil pump housing, or cover that the oil filter screws on to. The one we need comes off a 215 and has the oil filter shooting straight out rather than going off at an angle. This was the stock 215 piece so there have to be quite a few of them out there but for whatever reason I'm having a real problem getting one. I just know one of you guys have got one you aren't using. So give it up! Donate it to the project already! Or, if we must, we'll buy it.
Jim
Remember Allen Mandeen? He's the Buick guy out in Kansas who donated the 455 engine that we're using in this project. Then Bill Young and Dan Jones transported the engine back here so we could begin the build in earnest with the proper engine.
Well, Allen has just donated a flywheel. This is no small matter, manual transmission 455 flywheels are not that common and aftermarket ones start at about $300.
We will have to surface it, and get a clutch and pressure plate, plus the one other part we will need is the HTOB. We may have to take up a collection for that.
This is great news! One more major hurdle bites the dust!
So can we make it by June? I don't know but we're sure going to try.
Jim
I should have the oil pump housing. I'll look later today.
Thanks Carl, that'd be great. That one little piece will allow us to use a standard screw-on filter and avoid oil lines and such.
I need to make a small correction, it was Eric DeGroat, Steve's brother who brought the 455 back from Kansas, and then he and Steve brought it up from down south. A small mistake but I want to give credit where it is due whenever possible. Bill and Dan were going to do it but had trouble making the connection with Allen due to distance.
We're looking at right after Easter to do the exhaust, then the heads go to Dale. We also need to get him the flywheel and flex plate for balancing, Allen said he'd go ahead and get it resurfaced for us.
That pretty much leaves clutch, pressure plate, and HTOB. A plain generic GM clutch and pressure plate should do fine, (11 inch preferred) and any HTOB that will work in a garden variety GM V8 application should also work.
Jim
We're one step closer. Dale will get us the parts for the heads at cost and defer payment until after the meet. Now I realize this is "credit" and something that I had hoped to avoid, but the amount is probably going to be around $300 which is surely not more than we can raise, if by no other means than by selling spare parts. I don't have time to do that until after the show and Rob's too far away, but I have a small trailer load of parts if someone wanted to take on that part of the project. Just make a road trip here and load them up.
That leaves the HTOB, clutch and pressure plate. I will check out prices on the clutch and pressure plate and probably pick them up locally. I will then let you all know what funds we have left to put towards the HTOB and other final expenses. (For instance, flexible brake lines.)
Guys, we've almost made it as far as the purchases go. There's still a lot to do and I'll need help with it but I think we can pull this off.
Jim
Jim, I have a lot of -4 teflon braided stainless hose salvaged from my job. I've used it on my Midget throughout the car without problems. Give me an estimate of the length of the lines we need and I'll send you some tubing. I don't have all the fittings, but I'll try to get lines long enough so we can cut them and make two lines from the original piece and only have to buy one new fitting for the cut ends.
Excellent Bill. I'll do some measuring in the next day or so.
Jim
I believe I now have the paperwork all squared away. I deposited the $113.70 that was left from the sale of the heads (that includes the last of the proceeds from the donated alloy 300 heads) and aluminum 8.8 housing after subtracting costs of the coil-overs, header gaskets, redi-sleeve (for the damper seal) and VIN inspection plus shipping on the mini starter, and I just got back from the clerk's office. On the title transfer we were asked to pay $84 in fees and taxes($75). I'm inclined to think that we should be exempt from the tax but without a ready answer I just had to go ahead and pay it. When I get the chance I'll look into that and see if we can get that back, but it may not be before the fees come due again next year.
Bottom line, with a balance of $278.97 before title transfer we are now at $194.97 and of course we need to keep at least $20 or so in the account. So we've got $175 to work with. I found a GM OEM HTOB for about $125 on ebay including shipping and sent the link to Carl to see if he thought that would work. I've also found several clutch and PP sets at about the same price. Well, the clutch & PP come first so that the PP can be balanced with the flywheel. That puts us about $75 short on the HTOB if everything works out, plus if we ship parts to Dale we're looking at nearly $200 in shipping charges. (both ways) Add in what we'll have to pay Dale for the valves and such and we're almost $600 short. I'll do everything I can to make this work, but I can't even possibly cover that, you guys are going to have to help out some if it's going to happen. It probably won't take $600 but a hundred here and there should come real close.
Oh, and I did finally set up the bank account for online access. I will be getting the log-in information to Steve right away.
Jim
A clutch package has been purchased and shipped to Dale. It's a pretty generic 11" Corvette setup. Allen is sending him the flywheel after it has been surfaced and is sending us a rebuilt Q-jet carb and $20 for flywheel bolts. We also need to buy pressure plate bolts. The starter has arrived and is bolted into place. It clears nicely. We are waiting on the cam, the coil-over shocks, and a few other small bits. I'm working on completing the engine mounts and hope to finish up within the week. Then I'll get back to the rear suspension and finish that up.
I've begun fender and tub work on the mule and now know where the cuts will need to be made for the flares. What has to be decided is how wide to go and to fit up the Omni pieces and see how well they will cover and at what width. http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?2,7495 next to last post.
The last mechanical piece of the puzzle is the clutch release. We have two choices. Well, three really. HTOB is the simplest. An external pull cylinder is also an option, it appears there is room for one. Third possibility is a cable release. I haven't really looked into that one but will investigate it a bit more today. I kind of like that idea really, if we can make it work. But with the later style pedal box I have doubts.
Jim
Jim, any chance on the clutch that you could use a setup similar to the solution I found for my Midget? I'd think if you have room for a pull type slave that you might have room on the engine side for a small diameter slave cylinder such as the Spitfire/1500 Midget piece and it's mount.
Braided stainless lines shoud be there tomorrow or Wednesday. Let me know if you need anything else.
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I don't know Bill, it might be possible to go through the area where the extra starter bulge that we cut out was. We'd have to shorten the clutch fork pretty drastically... well we don't even have one yet so we'd have to get one first.
By the way, the brake lines got here today along with the brake pawl. Looks pretty usable to me, tomorrow should be warmer and I'll try to get out to the shop for awhile.
Jim
Jim, if I remember correctly I took about an inch off my clutch arm. I mounted the slave just about as far out as I could in the ear and angled the push rod slightly out and up to get it in alignment. With the stock diaphragm pressure plate from the Camaro the clutch effort is still pretty comfortable. We may not be able to do that with the stronger pressure plate for a V8 car though. I was mainly suggesting that the Spitfire slave was nice and slender and the mount wasn't too large either, certainly should be easier to make room for than a stock B slave which is pretty bulky in design. If you need any more line just let me know.
Bill, I don't think the clutch arm is going to be able to extend out beyond the opening in the bellhousing. For sure there isn't room for a push rod out there. The rod will have to be inside if we can go that way. There isn't a flex plate on it right now so I don't know how much room we're going to have outside the ring gear but the rod will have to sneak by pretty close to that. Should be room enough to do it, since there's room for the starter on the other side, but we'll probably have to cut 2 or 3 inches off the clutch fork. That won't be a problem if we get the right slave cylinder but it could take a good bit of experimentation to get it right, and the parts stores aren't real fond of taking cylinders back once you put fluid in them.
Hopefully tomorrow I can get a better look at it. We may be able to run some calculations to get close.
Jim
Jim, if there's not room outside the bellhousing for the release arm then I think as you first said the HTOB is the way to go. Without that length on the arm, getting the ratios right and the correct slave cylinder would be a pain in the butt.
It'd be the simplest but we don't have any money to buy one.
Jim
A couple photos of the starter, showing the clearance with the frame rail:
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And the coil-over shocks which just came in.
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These were only available with the 1/2" eyes, so we must reduce the 5/8" mounts to that size. Easiest way would be if we could get some 5/8" x 1/2" (1/16" wall) tubing. I'll check my stock but I think all I have is .040" wall stainless. Bill, any chance you've got something?
Jim
I guess I'm not following you Jim on the shock mounts. Are the eyes in the shocks 1/2" ID? and the mounts on the Jag lower control arms 5/8" OD? Those are bolts that run through the lower control arm so what you need is some shim of some sort to take up the difference between a 1/2" bolt and the control arm? If that's what you mean then try a piece of 1/2" copper plumbing tubing. It's thin wall and shouldn't pound out in this application. If there's any play at all you can tin the outside with some solder and drive it in place.
Jim can you get a photo of the clutch side of the engine and bellhousing like you did of the starter so I can get some idea of the clearance we're dealing with, maybe I can come up with one of my hair brained ideas for the clutch. ;-)
I will try the copper tubing. Need to buy some bolts.
The title for the car came in today so that part is done. Also Dave Van Wyck has informed me that he's sending the template for the exhaust flanges so I can test fit it before the parts are laser cut. I did a little bangin' and beatin' on the front sheet metal that needs attention, and now the motor will need to come back out for final tweaks and welding of the sheet metal and the engine mounts. I also have some parts to make for the IRS yet, and the fenderwells need to be cut.
I'm about ready to give up on the mig welder and just use the gas torch. Bill and Carl have been a real big help but I just can't get consistent results. I'll try more tension on the drive wheels and see if that helps though.
Bill, here are some photos of the clutch arm area.
Jim
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Jim, thanks for the photos. I've done a bit of brain work and decided you are correct, no way anything is going to fit in front, so it's either a pull type slave or a HTOB. Take a look at this slave cylinder from Speedway and see if you think it will work for us with the bore size and stroke length? If so I'll step up and buy it, just sold an old Midget jack so am flush with cash, well enough to cover most of this anyway. http://www.speedwaymotors.com/SPEEDWAY-PULL-TYPE-SLAVE-CYLINDER,7169.html
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Tell you what Bill, there's a clutch fork coming up on auction in a couple hours, I'll see if I can get that. Then once it gets here I'll take measurements and try to decide if it will work. Just at a guess, maybe if we can use a M/C with the 11/16" bore.
I shipped the flex plate out to Dale today, and picked up some bolts and washers for the shock mounts and engine mounts. About $50 worth. There are some places where stainless just should be used and coil-over shock mounts is one of them. Since I needed most of the same parts for my car I picked up the tab but there's a limit to how much of that I can get by with, I'm no different than anybody else there.
Jim
Bill, how about this. We know some of the V6 Buicks used a cable clutch. A search turns up:
http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/raframecatalog.php?carcode=1022331&parttype=1972&a=FRc1022331k495376
Clutch fork, $19.12
Clutch cable, about $20-30 depending on which one you buy.
These parts are for the 1978 Buick Skyhawk so the cable and arm will be made to work together with only an anchor point for the cable required, and configured to work with the clutch pedal. That much we can do, the parts should be available locally to test fit and return if necessary. It seems easier and more straightforward than cutting off clutch fork arms and juggling hydraulic cylinders.
Jim
I have been talking to the t-shirt man again. It was discussed at the Winter Party that Gray was the desired color. Do you know how many shades of grey are out there?
I will be choosing the shde soon( with help from the group) . Should have t-shirts to sell soon.
I will post a picture of the revised shirts soon. Looks like they will sell for $12 for small through x-large and $15 for the xx-large and up. I will need orders for the xx-large and up shirts. I plan to order 50 this year.
Any thoughts.
Also, I can pick up stuff from Dale and bring it to KY if you need.
When do you want me to come up and help.?
Steve
Whenever is convenient for you Steve, there's lots to do. The gages from Bill Guzman just came in today and look right good. We'll need to put a dashboard and seats in the car and start hooking things up. There's a seal washer and parking brake pawl to install, plus other stuff too.
I'll ask one more time. Does anybody have a good set of rubber front bushings for the rear leaf springs? I've cut the forward 6" off the main leafs from the green GT but the rubber is in sad shape. I'll use them if I must, but I'd much rather have something better. Those leafs can be cut with a portaband or zip wheel on an angle grinder, no need to press them out. Just leave at least 3" of the leaf extending from the wrapped eye and I can make it work. Those are the big ones that go towards the front of the car.
I have to match-drill and finish the tie bars and front brace and then make up the diagonal brace arms, for which I have to also come up with some sort of a pivot. It's a bit unusual because the arm leads off at about a 45 degree angle. I'll have to give that some thought. I expect to get all that done by the end of next week and then get back to the bodywork. At that point I'll probably cut the rear wheel arches.
For the most part things are coming along well. Here's a photo of the gages.
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A slave cylinder behind the engine needs to be a push type cylinder. Cables and pulI cylinders go out towards the front of the car. I used a CNC push cylinder on my Ford 302/T5 set up by making a bracket for the cylinder that bolted to ribs on the transmission case. For the master cylinder, I used a Tilton unit. The Tilton master cylinders have a mounting flange that bolts up in place of the MGB cylinder, and the Tilton units come in about 7 or 8 different bore sizes, so it is possible to find the ideal cylinder for any slave cylinder bore. The only problem is that the Tilton stroke is only 1 inch and so the push rod bearing hole has to be moved down on the clutch pedal. This also means that the push rod itself has to be bent so that it is a straight shot into the master cylinder. But these modifications are easy, and much better than a pedal stop as the full clutch pedal stroke and leverage is available. This set up has been reliable on my car for over 25,000 miles. Let me know if you need more details and/or pictures.
Jim,
I have a set of poly spring bushing is that will do. Be aware that they are purple, hope they won't clash wit anything.
I'll bring them up next weekend.
Steve
Those will be fine. I just ordered heim joints for the diagonal brace, heim joint seals for those and the shocks, a 3/4" x 16 tap and I need to buy a length of some 1" x .156" wall tubing. I want everyone to be aware this stuff is all out of pocket. I know I'm sort of expected to do at least some of that, but I operate on a tighter budget than most of you and the only way I can do this is by selling off stuff on ebay, whether it's BADASS stuff or my own. Most of my really good stuff is already gone. Usually when I need stuff for my own car I just buy double if it will be used on the Roadmaster too, but I have my car to finish as well and I can't pay for everything. I've listed the doors from the mule for $100 each and you could really help the cause by buying them for spares or whatever. I'm also going to list the steering rack off of Arthur's suspension which is brand new and maybe we can get a hundred out of that.
Anyway, I have the uprights off at the moment and will shim the bearings, install the coil-overs and button that up and probably cut the wheelwells while waiting for the heim joints.
Jim
Is that a CB or RB rack? I can't remember.
It's CB
Figures.
Jim,
How much for the rack?
Steve
Hundred bucks. Want it?
Jim
Jim,
Yes, I'll take it. See ya, Thursday.
Steve
Found it!
It's not new & shows it. Has a bit of scoring, too much?
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Not at all. The wear plate we got from TA will take car of that anyway. That's great Carl.
The details are beginning to drive me buggy just a bit. I had ordered seals for the heim joints and shocks for both cars... I thought. Came up one pack short of each and had to reorder. Decided to cut the threads on the pivot rods at full size (5/8-18 NF) and should have gotten the die for that days ago. Luckily it looks like Graingers has a couple of good choices.
As it turns out, in order to be able to position the brake calipers a crescent shaped piece has to be cut out of the passenger side battery box. This I did on the test mule. Even then it will be difficult to get at the caliper bolts and I think it may make more sense to just drop the suspension to do the job. Let's see, a u-joint, pair of brake hoses, 6 bolts and a brake cable. Well I guess it's a toss up, but that way the battery box doesn't have to be cut.
But wait! There is a different brake caliper configuration available. I have yet to identify it since all I have are the caliper mounting brackets, but they each only have one bolt hole that passes through a milled slot and is out in a location where it should be easy to get to. If that turns out to be correct, it could be a very neat solution to the pad change problem. I will continue to investigate, but sadly the Jaguar dealer is a 45 minute drive so that may not happen right away. Here's what the bugger looks like:
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And here's another shot of how it bolts the the two holes on the bearing retainer where the earlier style calipers all bolted up:
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I'll try to get a photo of it on the housing tomorrow but if you can imagine those two inner bolts are the very dickens to get at to remove and reattach the caliper. The single point spaced further out would just about have to be much easier. But it would take an entirely different caliper to make it work.
Jim
We had quite a weekend, just finishing up. Along about High Noon on Thursday these two rascals showed up on my doorstep:
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Most of you know Steve, on the left and a few may know Tom Caine. Anyway, by the time they left early Sunday morning they had nearly worked me to death, meanwhile complaining to Edith that I was a workaholic slave driver. I'm in a little less of a panic about making the meet with the car running by now, at least it looks like we can make it if enough of us pitch in to help. I'm still stiff and sore but at least my hands have quit hurting enough that I can bang out an update. As usual Steve and I got a lot done, and Tom's presence ratcheted the whole works up a couple more notches. We started with the bushings and soon had one cross brace completed except for paint. I think I'll box in the ends to keep dirt out, but except for that and the rub strip this one's done. The heim joints came in and we did some more work on the IRS which is nearly sorted out, Steve mounted the coil-overs and cranked them up enough to give us some tire clearance, and I finished the tie bars. Meanwhile, Tom took to the bead blaster like an old pro and kept coming back to us with new looking parts we hadn't even missed yet. Now that I think back on it I believe his theme for the weekend was cleanliness, because he did more to make the parts and work area neat and clean than I've done in two months!
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In no time at all the engine was back on the stand and had been touched up a bit for more steering clearance, the steering column was bolted in, and we were hard at work completing the welding work in the engine compartment. I'll get to that shortly but first some more photos.
Jim
Carl was right about the bump stop humps. So as soon as we had the IRS on the mule assembled enough to properly look at clearances it was obvious that hump had to go. We did both sides of the mule, minus the welding of course and the following photos show exactly what is involved. It is a simple procedure, carried out with a 6" zip wheel, sawzall, and ball-peen hammer. First a slot was cut straight across the bump stop pad along the inside of the frame rail, and then a "V" cut up the side. The long slit was made as deep as the zip blade would go and finished with the sawzall. There is an internal brace under the pad which must be trimmed.
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Here you can see the removed pieces and of particular interest is the "V" shaped cutout which shows how much metal has to be removed to lay the ends up against each other for welding later.
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After that we worked the bulge down with a hammer, going from the edges of the bulge inward towards the cut.
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And, the finished job, ready to clamp and weld. This can be done on the car without much difficulty and results in a good 3/4" more tire clearance to the inside.
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I'll be back soon with more of the report.
Jim
I had planned to move on to cutting the wheelwells of the GT but finishing up the engine compartment seemed to be a more pressing priority, and a much more attractive option after Tom had jumped in and cleaned out all the accumulated debris. So I broke out the gas torch and we got to work on that. All seams were torch welded with the exception of the inside corners around the rail caps that support the engine mount stanchions. Although I had considered brazing in some spots in the end I decided to go with steel.
In my absence, Steve and Tom had checked out the Snap-On MIG and concluded that it did indeed have some sort of a problem and we didn't even consider using it. So Acetylene it was, and after watching a bit of torch work Tom commented that he didn't know why I would even consider using MIG. Well, MIG has it's applications, and is particularly useful where a thicker metal must be welded in close proximity to a thinner one, but we managed to get by without too much warpage, and in the end buttoned up the engine compartment quite nicely. It is not without flaws. But, this isn't your average $100K build either and we were very pleased with the results.
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We also replaced the damaged front section of the right inner wing with a panel cut from the green GT. That car has proven to be a very good parts car and is not yet finished with supplying the project.
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At the very least I expect we will be using it's gas tank as we do not have any other at this stage.
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While all this was going on, Steve and Tom somehow found time to install Bill G's gages in the best dashboard we have, a "pillow" dash with a NOS replacement cover that looks quite good. They found that by careful positioning they could replace the old rectangular oil pressure gage with two round gages, thereby giving a full compliment. At some point we will have to install and connect this, perhaps the same weekend that we install the seats. We decided that as much as we would like to use Bill Y's aftermarket seats they just won't fit well enough without some sort of surgery and so far nobody has had the chance to look at them and see just what would be required.
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Here's a side view with the shocks cranked up a bit. steve was ultimately able to get about another inch out of them, enough to be able to drive the car, provided the big bumps were avoided.
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Finally, after cleaning up and getting ready to cover the bare spots we were able to spray some semi-gloss black in the engine compartment, giving the car an altogether more civilized appearance.
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But then as you can see we went and spoiled all that.
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Now before I sign off I have a question. We purposely cut one side of the mule for oversize tires and left the other stock. It may be possible, with a maximum backspaced wheel to fit a tire in the rear wheelwells. I don't know for sure, the mounting plane would have to be right about at the outer tire bead and the lug nuts would project a bit beyond the sidewall but it might be possible to find such a wheel and fit it to the car before Durham. OTOH, we now know exactly what cuts must be made to move the inner wheelwell outwards enough to retain full suspension travel with oversized tires. Unfortunately it does not look like the Omni flares will cover this very well, although more mocking up needs to be done.
What I need is some sort of a consensus before I jump in and make the wheelwell cuts. I know Steve favors the first approach, but the rub lies in finding usable wheels. I favor the second, and in fact I am not the biggest proponent of Omni flares, one only needs to take one look at my roadster to see that. What I would propose to do is to make the wheelwell cuts, drop the suspension back down, and if time runs short, leave the outer wheelwells off for Durham and then sort out the wheelwells afterwards. If we can cover them with the Omni flares using the tire of our choice that's just fine, and if not I do have an English Wheel which we can use to form some sheet metal to give a pleasing result. So what say you, oh members of B.A.D.A.S.S. at large?
Jim
RE: the mounting plane would have to be right about at the outer tire bead and the lug nuts would project a bit beyond the sidewall
I think it's going to be hard to find a wheel like that. Plus, unless you do a similarly backspaced front wheel, the fronts will have more dish to them than the rear which would look odd IMO.
The omni flares wouldn't cover my rear tires (just 225's but wider than stock rear end) so I extended them. It was pretty easy to do using just a slip roll. I'll post a pic later today.
Wow, you guys are amazing. Looking very good. I can't tell from the photos how much the rear tires extend past the body, but I think it would be better to use the Omni flares and widen them if necessary as Rob did. That would give us a greater selection of wheels as well, although the ones on the car look pretty good for a Grand Touring machine. Don't need a lot of flash when you're packing big inches. ;-) Have you decided on the clutch setup yet? I'll be glad to send a check if you don't want to go with the pull type slave cylinder, or if you do want to go that way I can order it and have it shipped directly to you. Your choice.
I will go ahead and cut the fenders and then we'll figure out the sheet metal after we've finalized the wheel/tire choice. Steve is in agreement also. Brian is going to try to help out on the clutch. I know as a young guy with a family to raise it represents a significant strain on his budget, but he wants to be a part of this and I think he's an asset, so whatever we can do to work with him to make it happen would help. Any way you look at it the HTOB is going to be the easiest solution for the clutch.
I will be dropping out the IRS and relocating the upper shock mounts and adding in clearance for the calipers so that the brakes can be serviced more easily, then adding the final touches before the unit is reattached, at which point it will be complete except for the brake lines and cable. While I have it out I'll cut the wheelwells and flatten the bump. This all has to be completed before Easter. Anyone want to help?
Now I have another item to discuss. Some time back when we were talking about induction systems, hood treatment and such I mentioned the Buick GS "Star Wars" air cleaner. It's time to revive that discussion. Here is a link to the repop units made by Ron:
http://www.buickperformance.com/67GSaircleaner.htm
These are cast aluminum but not cheap, at $500 complete, in primer. I've talked to Ron and he'd really like to help out but it's a very small volume business, very labor intensive, and I just suspect that he'd really be going out on a limb to put the assets represented by one of these into advertising. I've renewed discussions in the hopes of maybe getting an unfinished one at a reduced cost, but here's the thing. The air cleaner is going to stick through the hood. There is simply no question about that. We sat the Qjet carb on the intake and even the fiberglass hood like Kelly has would not close completely, and that is without an air cleaner stud in the carb. So there's no way possible that we can avoid cutting a hole, and I think you would all agree that a round chrome air cleaner sticking through the hood is just going to look terrible, even worse if we leave the hood off. But, the hood that came on the car is fiberglass. It could be trimmed to the contours of a "Shaker" style scoop and look just fine. And, the Buick air cleaner is the closest thing we can get to an appropriate shaker scoop. Personally, I think it would look just fine poking out above that fiberglass hood.
What do you guys think? I know it isn't the easiest thing to visualize, but take a look at that link and give us your thoughts.
Jim
I agree Jim, it would look great and really set off the big Buick theme of the car, but it's pretty expensive for our budget at this time I guess. If we could get a "footprint" of the unit's size so we could cut the hood now we could probably whip up something that would look ok for now and install the StarWars scoop later.
I'm not sure about the large Buick lettering though. Seeing that in the center of the hood would somewhat take away from the MG or British side of the car which is what I thought we were trying to stress as well as the V8 theme. Looks like the lettering can be changed, perhaps we could use an MG logo instead and see how that looked. What would really be nice would be if we could get the BADASS logo made up for it!
Something like this perhaps.
starwars6.JPG
Bill,
That looks good to me. Hope we can manage something like that.
Steve
I have ordered brake caliper pistons from the UK, cost us about $50. We made $150 on the doors from the mule. Steve paid $100 for the rack and in addition to the eighty or so in the account leaves us with $250 to work with. That's the state of the finances fellas. Not enough to buy an air cleaner with just yet, but we've got half of it.
Jim
I'll go along with whatever y'all decide. I personally think that a $500 air cleaner is real hard to justify on a shoestring budget project.
I completely agree, but what are we to do? We could leave the hood off but it won't travel real well that way and be a real nuisance to clean up. We could leave the carb off but then it won't run very well. I don't know that it's going to run by June anyway so maybe it's a moot point. But if it does it will have to have some sort of an air cleaner. The only one we have so far is an old rusty chrome 14" Mr.Gasket or some such cheap thing and I sure can't justify holing an otherwise good hood for that piece of cr@p.
But let's take stock of the situation a second, what is the car worth as it stands, or as it will stand in June? The body is decent, solid, good interior and custom modifications. Probably worth a couple grand or close to it. The engine? The heads alone are worth (when complete) about $2500 so probably close to 4 grand. Custom bolt-in Jag IRS rear suspension? Probably close to double that. So we're already talking about a $15,000 car here by the time you add in things like tranny, radiator and such, and that doesn't even address the paint. That's our cost. That's what we as a group have donated to this project to make it happen. So by the time we finish it, we'll be looking at a $20,000 car which is so unique that it cannot be assessed solely on the cost of assembly, and that rightfully should have a fair market value of about double that, or possibly even triple.
Now I know what you guys are going to say, an MGB conversion is never worth what it costs to build one, but is that really a true statement? There are some very unique examples that may be exceptions, and the three that immediately come to mind are the Berlin GT, Dan Master's GT, and Terry Schute's GT. Do I feel justified in placing this car in the same category? Very much so. It is the first of it's kind. The first 455 Buick powered MGB, the first grass roots group project conversion car, the first completely bolt-in IRS suspension and perhaps more, and we hope to eventually bring the paint and the wiring up to the standards this demands. Perhaps at some point the interior as well.
So I don't think the question is what is reasonably affordable, I think the question is, what are we capable of achieving? We've already proven that we could do more than anybody ever had any right to expect. We bought the second body outright. We paid retail price for the heads. Did anybody ever, in their wildest imaginings even dream, when this project first started that we'd ever do anything like that? I didn't.
I think what we should look at is what value is added to the car. Now if we cut the hood and slap on the 14" round filter, the value of the car and of the project as a whole just drops like a stone and our image goes to $h*t. There's just no other way to look at it. Please correct me if I'm wrong, that round filter sticking through a round hole in the hood just screams of blacksmithery. Not that I have anything against blacksmiths but their efforts are more properly directed towards horseshoes than fine precision machinery. OTOH, if we pay the man his asking price and buy the star wars filter (and it may be possible to raise the funds to do this by selling off spares, if the two items on ebay right now sell we could do it) and then neatly trim the paint-matching fiberglass hood for that filter housing, this immediately sets the car apart as something different and unique. For Buick enthusiasts, nothing screams BIG BLOCK quite as effectively, and the car will be instantly recognizable from a distance. As you are all aware, that is an area which I do know a thing or two about. The fit and finish on my roadster may not be what it could, but that is likely to change and more highly skilled hands will be at work here.
So it isn't just about the cost of the part. It's more about the image of the project. If anyone hers can make a suggestion as to how we might elevate that image as effectively and do so at a lower cost I'm certainly all ears, but I've about exhausted my stock of ideas and this is the best one I've been able to come up with.
Jim
I'm not 100% sure how the "starwars" air cleaner will sit with the bonnet profile. I'm also not sure how large the hole will need to be for a hinged hood (as opposed to a lift off hood). I'm sure if I was looking at it in person I could get a better idea.
However, it may behoove you to fabricate your own air cleaner so that you can better accommodate the lines of the bonnet and clearance needed for a hinged opening.
Trevor "I don't a dog in this fight" Jessie
Jim, I'm not against using the air cleaner, in fact I think it would look great on the car. I was just thinking about the expenditure at this time. If we knew that we would definitely use the Starwars and we could get the dimensions we could cut the hood now which would allow the carb to fit with the standard air filter. Perhaps a bit of sheet metal welded up for a new top cover would make the air cleaner blend with the star wars cutout a bit cleaner and we'd have something that would look decent until we could fit the real item into our budget. I wish I was closer, I know I could take some of my spare 20 gauge and bend up a reasonable likeness to the star wars top that would fit over the top of the Mr. Gasket piece. A little paint and we'd be in business until we had the extra money. I pledged something towards the car this month, at least $50 towards the clutch or what ever, so I'll send a check this week for that and if we can scrape up the cash for the air cleaner and still get the drive train hooked up go for it.
OK, here's another option sent to me by my brother Dan:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260324260637&indexURL=3#ebayphotohosting
Rough casting, no base, and no knob but to my mind very acceptable. What do you guys think?
Jim
Well, you have been touting fuel injection real hard on the other forum. What is this carb business, anyway? ;)
Is there a low profile MPFI option?
BTW, I'm bugging out for Florida in 2 hours & may not have internet access 'til the 29th of March. Y'all have fun without me.
Still need an air cleaner. The carb was a donation. Someone wanna donate a low profile MPFI? No? Well I guess it's a carb then. We may manage to go to efi at some point, but not before June.
So what about it? We have the money to buy the rough cast unit. Do I get it or is there a better suggestion?
Jim
I say but it. Offer 170.00. You can do a lot the with the 330.00 saved to make it look great!
Thank you Tom. Any other recommendations?
Jim
He has 8 of them. Offer $100.
I doubt that will fly. This guy has runs made of the rough castings. Ron buys the castings and finishes them. They may not be moving real fast in either category but the cost of the production run is probably close to a c-note each and I doubt he'll just give them away. The existence of the "Make Offer" link suggests he may give some on the price depending on circumstances and with the current economics maybe a bit more than otherwise, so I'm guessing $150 might be pretty close to what he'll take. But that's just my opinion and it's no better than anyone else's.
I can't recall if it was Ron or this guy I talked to on the phone before, but either way I got the idea there wasn't a whole lot of slack in the operation, that they wanted to help but didn't have much wiggle room.
Any other recommendations?
OK, I'll make the offer and we'll see.
I've changed the timeline a bit. Instead of waiting to get the heads done and then frantically trying to finish everything, I have them boxed up and will ship them to Dale in the morning. He has the clutch, flywheel and pressure plate balanced and should be able to finish up the heads before Easter. This means I have to contact Dave, Steve, and Brian to get things worked out there as well as I can. I've also got to come up with a cam, lifters and pushrods. Dave hasn't come through for us on that stuff, so I'm going to have to see what I can do to find an alternative. We also don't have a battery or alternator and I'm not sure of the condition of the water pump. For an alternator I think the small Denso unit is the best choice, and a junkyard pull is acceptable, especially if it comes with the connecting plug.
The main reason for rearranging the timeline was that is gives us more time at the end to work out the details as opposed to having a lull over the next three weeks. I hope everyone is ok with that. Tomorrow I should have matters a little more sorted out on the wheels
Jim
I can pick up a Denso alternator locally. Let me know so we don't duplicate. Single wire?
That would be excellent Tom, go ahead. I'm OK with either 1 or 2 wire but you might check with Steve to see if we need to drive an indicator light, I don't recall exactly what you guys had planned for the dash.
Our offer has been accepted for the air cleaner housing. Dan, I should have listened to you and bid lower, we might have saved some more money. Sorry. Well anyhow the deed is done, $172 including shipping.
I shipped the heads to Dale this am. $58.90 priority including $16 worth of insurance.
Jim
Jim,
Since we have a volt meter installed, I think the one wire will do fine.
Steve
Jim,
So when do think Dale will be done with everything?
I'm trying to figure out if I can pick them up and bring them to you. Time is getting short near Easter.
Steve
Steve,
He's going to try to finish up the heads before Easter. They should get there Wednesday but he'll have to get valves and springs. Probably it'd be best for you to get in touch and follow his progress so you'll know what works out the best. I'll try to keep Dave advised also, so that we can coordinate it as well as possible. Haven't heard back from him yet (I think he's on vacation) but maybe the weekend after Easter would work out OK. If you can follow your customary pattern of coming in on Thursday we should be able to have the car together and ready to go by the time he gets here.
I finished up the cross brace. Pressed out the bushings and welded in gussets, then annealed, normalized and needle-peened the eyes so I think the bushing mounts will be plenty strong. Once the paint drys and the bushings are back in everything will go together except for the diagonal braces, which I haven't made yet. They have to be done last.
I did some more checking on the wheels and tires, and a 17" wheel with up to 6" of backspacing should work fine on the rear. We could probably get by with 6-1/2 and maybe a little more if we have to. The front needs a 17" wheel with 4-1/2" backspacing max. Any more than that and the tire will contact the bulge above the shock I think. So Tom, if you want to start looking around at wheels those are our targets. As far as rim width, I don't think we can go narrower than backspacing plus about 1-1/2" so that probably means at least a 6" rim in the front and 8 will probably be OK. On the back about a 7-1/2" rim with 6" backspacing *might* be made to fit under the stock fenders (I haven't cut the sheet metal yet) but we could go as wide as 10" I think. I see where Weld has undergone some sort of reorganization in a management buyout. I'm still going to call them but we'd better make plans in case they can't come through for us.
Oh, Carl, I've started on oiling modifications so the sooner I can get the pump lower housing the better.
Jim
Jim,
I can probably make it the weekend after Easter. I'll check with Margaret and see.
Steve
Jim, here's what I did to extend the Omni flares on the back of my car. I added about an inch an a half this way. In addition to adding width, it also brings the flare up a bit higher on the side of the car too...
2009-03-18RearFlareextensions2.jpg
Sounds really good Steve, if you can do that. If not, we'll just have to figure something else out. If some slippage is unavoidable, we'll just deal with it as well as we can, which is what we're trying to do in other areas as well such as the cam for instance.
Rob, that does look really good. In fact it isn't that much different from the way I did the flares on my car, just used a wider piece of metal. I'm sure that approach can be made to work. I don't know exactly when I will cut the wheelwells, could be today, could be next week, but probably sooner than later. I've nearly finished up the IRS and I'd like to complete that first though. How far we extend the inner wheelwell will determine the exact fender treatment. I will initially retain the wheelwell lip and tack the pieces into place I think, and then take a look to see what will work the best.
Honestly guys, I can't guarantee that we'll get this car running in time. I know we'll be real close, but there are still key pieces missing. We have 73 days left. That's 10 weeks and 3 days. I know that sounds like a long time but it's easy to lose a week or two at a time so really it's not. Take out Easter and it's even less, figure in shipping delays and we're coming into the crunch. I'm putting as much time aside for this as I can but I'm afraid it may not be enough. So anything you guys can do to help things along is a big benefit.
Some things we need which are still real uncertain:
Water pump ('67 430 Buick, aluminum)
'71 cam, lifters, pushrods
clutch mechanism- Brian may or may not be able to handle this piece, I haven't gotten a definite commitment from him. (EDIT: Correction, I have just heard from Brian. He said just give him a date and that's when we'll get the HTOB. What a guy, eh? It's great to have such enthusiastic supporters.)
In addition to that we need to do many many small tasks of every description, from removing the struts off the green GT and installing them, to brakes, to interior work, to wiring and plumbing. If anyone can come and help, now is the time to be doing it.
Jim
Edit: see above.
Jim,
I will pick up the stuff from Dale the weekend after Easter.
It may be just me, don't know if Margaret can make it. She rarely works on the car anyway.
Steve
Re Denso alternator. I plan to go to Pull-A-Part and pull one and then have it checked out. I've tried finding an application chart to no avail. Anyone with knowledge of which cars/trucks these alternators were used? It seems p/n 8060 and 8162 were higher amp and single wire and they don't take up much space.
The higher amp ones do not have the tin cover on the rear, and they might have a little better plug I'm not sure about that though. They are just slightly larger than the tin cover ones.
Jim
I'm quite happy to be able to report that aside from a few minor hardware details the IRS suspension is finally complete. If you've been following the 340 thread there may be a few of you with especially sharp eyes who will be able to pick out the tell-tale differences between the two units. Visible differences are there, I assure you.
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But this is not the only news. First, Bill has mailed us a check to cover the water pump, plus we sold the Holley carb that Tom donated for about $225, at the moment I don't recall the exact figure, and I made a deal with one of the V8Buick guys for a new cam, lifters and pushrods for $165 including shipping. The upshot is that it leaves us with about $65 in the bank, but aside from a battery, belts, hoses and things of that nature we have or should soon have everything we need to get the car running. Well, other than wheels, tires, and whatever else I've forgotten. But the point is, there should be no other major items that can prevent us from meeting our goal. So now it's just a matter of getting everything here and putting it together.
I spoke with Dale today, he has the heads and is in the process of ordering parts. Incidentally, that cam is a Crower # 52241 and I guess I sorta messed up on it a little as it's going to be a little hotter than stock. The powerband is 1800-4500, but as Carl or somebody suggested earlier on that might let the tires have another second or two before they turn to jelly. I don't have a clue what we'll be looking at for horsepower but I'd bet good money it isn't going to be much under 500. Well, it may not be the perfect cam, but those guys have been saying the Buicks like a lot of cam so maybe it'll be OK. I hope so anyway. Oh, and while we're on that subject, I told Dale to go ahead and put the big valves in the heads. At about the same cost and labor it seemed like it'd be a shame to fit smaller ones. So I guess the heads are going to breathe pretty good. This really wasn't the plan and it's a good thing our ignition system has a rev limiter.
So next on my to-do list will be to cut the fenders. Can't say for sure when I'll be able to get started on that, but in a few days when some supplies have come in and I have both IRS's ready to install it's going to get real interesting trying to put those up into place using just a floor jack. We did it before without the front mounts, but I had help then. And I'm not going to wait until after Easter to do it either. Having to get the crossmember over the wiring harness and fuel lines makes it interesting to say the least.
Jim
Jim,
I gat an E-mail from Dale and he will have the stuff ready for me to pick up after Easter, so it is is go for me to come up and work starting on 4/16/9. I might be able to make it on the 15th. I'll have to check with work, Dale, and most importantly Margaret.
Wish I could get there to help with the rear suspension.
Steve
Jim, Steve I picked up the Denso alternator and a slightly smaller one that was on a Mitsibusi Galant. Its a little more compact. No luck yet on the rims. I'm hoping to have a pair by the time Steve's trucking and delivery goes north.
There may be a slight delay, Matthew has an "Odyssey of the Mind" state competition that I have to go to on the 17/18th, so maybe we should push things back a week. Getting out of that is extremely remote. Does this work with you guys? That will leave us with about 40 days left to finish up.
Also, do either of you need a table saw or radial saw? The table saw needs a motor and the radial saw sometimes won't start if the blade is in the wrong position but they are otherwise good tools. Craftsman and Delta, with stands. They are extras that were given to me and I need the space.
I think I'm going to concentrate on clean-up for a few days now that the mule is freed up and can be rolled outside. Be a good time to do some minor re-organizing and get everything put away. Then during the final push missing parts and tools shouldn't be much of a problem.
Jim
Jim,
I can't make it at all before Easter.
Is there something I can work on while your at the Meet?
Steve
Steve, I was thinking about the 23rd instead of the 16th. You may have misunderstood my intent. Does that help any?
Jim
Jim, I put my car back on the rotisserie this weekend -- came up with a way that worked easily & will help with one man IRS install too... Essentially, I used the engine hoist to raise the back end. Used a come-along from the cieling to hold it while I then moved the hoist to riase the front... engine hoist made it easy to lift the shell offf the IRS -- opposite would be true to... lift the back end, slide the IRS under. Slowely lower the back end adjusting position of IRS as needed to slip it in. Come along or something else for safety just in case the hoist were to give out. Thought this may give an idea or two for how to get the IRS under the Roadmaster or your car working single handed...
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Jim,
We are working on it. I may be able to make it as early as the 22 nd.
It would be late at night. I'll let you know.
Steve
Thanks Steve, I appreciate it. It will be good to finish the engine at last.
Rob, those are good suggestions. We dropped it out on a floor jack but going back in is a little more complicated, the big thing is working around the wiring harness and fuel lines. But I'm not going to even try until the fenderwells are cut and some shop cleanup is completed. Things have really gotten quite out of hand here and I have a big job on my hands getting it all straightened up again. Spring cleaning I guess.
By the way, the air cleaner came in today. The casting is a little rough and we will need the knob to fill the large top recess, but we will now be able to fit and trim the hood once the engine is back in the car. Perhaps we can adapt the base of the 14" round chrome air cleaner to use as a base.
Jim
Jim,
I'm hoping to go get the parts from Dale the week after Easter. I'll keep them here and then come to KY on the 22nd. I will probably get there in the early evening, about 7 to 9. I s that okay? That way we can work Thursday, Friday and Sat.
Steve
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This is, I hope, the t-shirt we will be selling this year. Notice the changes from last year, some maturity has overtaken the group so we no longer spell out BADASS.
The cost will be $12 for sizes Regular through x-large. If you need an xx-large or bigger PM me and I will order them. They will be $15.
If you want to reserve one PM me and I will hold it till British V8 2009.
The color is sports grey.
Steve
Looks GREAT Steve. I may have to get a couple of the x-large too just in case the xx-large ones I reserved are a little big! I really like the design. Be forewarned though, we may have to change the wheels next year. In fact, you might check with your printer when you have the chance and see if we can superimpose a photo of the actual car. By next spring we should be ready to do that.
Guys, like last year, this will be the only chance you have to get this shirt design. There is a limited number being printed so if you don't buy one now the chance will be gone for good. Better not risk it.
Steve, I will contact Dave and inform him of the schedule change. I am looking forward to your visit this time around probably more than any other! We will be getting very very close to operational. And yes, Wednesday is quite fine.
Do we have anyone in the group who is an artist? Or enough of one to make an attractive job of putting the names of the contributors on the car? At this point I'm thinking felt-tip markers would be perfectly acceptable since we will be painting over it anyway, and it gives a lot of room for trial and error. If nobody steps up I'll be forced to do it and you've all seen the 'lovely' job I did on the driver's side quarter of my Roadster. Is that the sort of artwork you want on your project? Probably not, so step up and be counted! Otherwise, you already know what it's going to look like. Heck, I haven't even been able to come up with an acceptable logo for Blackwood Labs, and I've had 20 years to work on it. So PLEASE, somebody save us from this madman!
Jim
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Guys, we need an air cleaner base. This can be any old thing which we can cut down but it needs to fit a 8-1/2" I.D. filter element and it needs to fit a Rochester Quadrajet carb. (Holley should be the same, as well as Edelbrock and Thermoquad) I probably had an old I-H one that would have worked but it is long gone. Have a look around your local junkyard or scrap pile and see if you come up with anything. You won't find the original (too valuable) but we just need something we can make do the job.
Jim
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I have a carb base I think will work. Its made out of aluminum and is a little "dinged up". I Think the base will do ok. I'll pass it along to Steve
Thanks Tom, very helpful. One more thing I won't have to worry about.
Well we should have the cam in a couple of days, maybe less. Final fitting on the shocks is finished, a little more work on the brake lines and the IRS is ready. Then on to the wheelwells.
Everyone concerned has OK'd the schedule change after Easter so we're good there as well. Steve, when you get here we need to check the steering for anything out of the ordinary before the engine goes in. I'm mentioning it in case I forget.
Jim
Guys, we need to raise some more funds. Dale is putting up the money to buy our parts for the heads and that is beginning to get into some money. By my reckoning (which is probably low) he's already spent $200 on valves, needs to spend that much more on springs and retainers, and probably close to another hundred on keepers and spring seats (locators) plus there are also the seals which may be another $50 as well. I know he said he'd front us the money until after the show but is it really fair of us to ask that of him after all he has done for us already? So here and now I'm calling for some donations. If you've got $50 you can spare then all we need is 10 or 11 donations that size to cover it. Dale is also going to considerable trouble and expense to host us at his place of business during the V8 meet. I think it's only fair to spread out the burden a little.
So do what you can if you will. Better we should cover this early than end up dragging it out.
Jim
Jim....Do we have a PayPal account set up anywhere for cash donations?
If not, I would be happy to accept this type of payment on behalf of the Deviant Project and forward a check on to Steve.
Rick, as Chair of Ways and Means I think that would be quite appropriate for you to do that and I certainly have no objection. Please carry on!
The cam, lifters and pushrods came in today and look just fine and the cam slides into the block just as it should. The card lists somewhat different specs than shown in the catalog, .505 lift vs about .530 and I'm happy with that. It also gives spring recommendations which should help Dale a bit. I've found the brake line fittings I need and have marked the fenderwells for cut lines. Now that there is going to be a dirty job. The wheelwells are lined with mud. Not looking forward to that one.
Jim
It's time to start thinking about how we are going to set up the rotation schedule.
As a prelude however, at present it appears likely we will have a driveable car at the meet. If we have time to make it safe and street legal I will try to put tags on it. This presumes insurance coverage and we do not have the funds for insurance. So, I am going to try to contact McKeel Hagerty and see if he can work out a special deal for us. If that is successful and the car can be registered (title is already transferred) then we will be able to take it on the street, provided everything checks out properly.
This will take us into the next phase of the project, namely testing. Ted suggested that we test for a year prior to tear down for paint and wiring. That seems reasonable to me. The question then becomes, "Who is going to do the testing?" Initially I will do that for obvious reasons but I would not expect to have to spend more than, oh say something like 3 months to get all the bugs worked out, after which it can go to the next member and make the rounds until it is time to tear down.
So what factors do we use to determine who takes the car when? Obviously the individual has to be willing to do so, but do we go by largest contributions first? Geographic location? And then there's the issue of pre-paint vs. Post-paint. Do we start the rotation over after paint for instance? This means the members who weren't able to contribute as much will have to wait longer to have the car but it also seems appropriate for the big contributors to get it after it's freshly painted.
I know we're a congenial enough group to sort all these details out without anyone feeling mistreated, but if you would, please give us your thoughts on the matter. What seems right to you?
Jim
More progress, the brake lines on the IRS are plumbed and ready to connect, and I cut the wheelwells.
Now not everyone is going to like what I've done, but before you complain I'd just like to point out that you weren't here and that everyone had plenty of notice and more than a fair chance to come on over and do the job to your own satisfaction. You left it to me. Also bear in mind that the last time I did this job I did it with a cutting torch and this time it's much neater. I got a little better job of it on the passenger's side, practice y'know. Bill, you'll notice I used hard lines instead of the braided ones, there just wasn't room for them, but they might really help in making the connection to the car. So now everything is in readiness for final installation of the IRS, and without further ado, here are the photos.
Jim
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Jim,
Everything looks really good. Can't wait to see it in person.
Steve
Cash donations for the British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society can now be made via PayPal to:
mowog1@aol.com
Please indicate "BADASS Donation" in the subject line of your correspondence.
All proceeds go to the building and maintenance of this big-block Buick powered MGB/GT. HAve you got $10, $20, $50, $100 to spare to help get this project on the road? Your donation ***could*** also be tax deductable.
This low-budget, group effort of British-American engineering of a high performance sportscar by unpaid professionals and amatuers could use a financial shot in the arm...and YOU can help!
If you are not familiar with this project, you can follow its process here:
http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?2,166,page=1
Thanks in advance for your assistance....
rick ingram
Chairman - Ways and Means
I wonder if we should consider starting a photo-journal separate from this log? We could then send the hyper-link to any individual interested in its photo-history.
I've had a couple of requests to see pictures...and folks are hesitant to wade through 33 pages of dialog to catch all of the photos.
We may be able to get more donations this way as well...by giving the car some photo credibility.
Just a thought.
Rick, if you can mine this thread for the photos, or use the embedded links in this thread then I'd say it is worthwhile. You could then place regularly spaced links back to the whole story for those interested in the entire history. I just checked and you can bring up the photos' properties along with the link location and should be able to copy and paste the jpg's as well. The file numbers are not sequential, indicating that they are not segregated by thread so it would appear there is no quick and easy way to grab them all at once though. I do have most of them in a couple of folders but there are also photos I didn't use for one reason or another and some that I never copied over to the folder. But there must be literally hundreds of photos by now.
Anyway, it seems like a reasonably good idea if you want to go ahead with it. Let me know if I can do anything to help, but please remember I'm trying to get the car done, first and foremost.
And, having said that, the IRS is now back under the car and partially bolted in. I should be able to get the rest of the bolts in tomorrow and then I'm going to fit some tires to it and play with the spring settings, and maybe even hook up the brake line and look at the e-brake cable.
Jim
Jim, the brake lines look good, no problem with me there! Use what works and if the lines I sent you don't work then use them on your car or do whatever you want with them, I have plenty and they didn't cost me a dime. Rick, the photo journal sounds like a good idea. I've already mined a few that I included in the Power Point presentation I was working on. I'll send you an e-mail with the link to them when I get them posted.
OK, got more photos:
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Here is what it looks like with the Corvette wheels and tires at full suspension compression. Good clearance all around but it needs 1/2-3/4" less backspacing as inside clearance is inadequate and it hits in a couple places. This wheel has 7-1/4" backspacing so 6-1/2" would be the correct amount to use, pushing the tire out another 3/4". This tire is a 315/35-17 on about an 11 or 11-1/2" wide rim. It wouldn't take a whole lot of flare to cover these but here again, they would stick out another 3/4".
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This is with the Jaguar 215/whatever-15" tires and 4-1/2" backspacing. These work on the back OK and don't stick out too bad at all. The matching wheels on the front hit the Dodge brake calipers though. With a 5/16" spacer they would clear (I stacked washers to check) but the lug nuts we have give only 1 thread of engagement, really only adequate for checking and not even enough to put the weight of the car on it. Jaguar used some lug nuts that had a shoulder that extended down into the wheel and if we had those we might get by with these wheels temporarily. It looks like 16" wheels will clear fine in both the front and the back and 17's give a nice safety margin.
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In the above photo the suspension is set too low and I raised it to the proper height for the IRS. I don't have a photo of that, maybe I left it in the camera. What is considered the normal height of the chrome strip? We're at just a little over 27" at the bottom.
The suspension feels good and it's going to give a noticeably more comfortable ride but we will probably need a sway bar back there as well as in the front.
Jim
Jim,
I have a set of Jag lug nuts, but they will not fit the studs on the front of the car.
We would have to find some with the right thread.
Steve
Yeah, I remember there being something a little weird about that but it doesn't make sense to me. Both the front and the rear use a 1/2" stud and the rear hubs are stock jaguar. So I don't know what is up with that. That would be a goofy fix anyway and we don't have the spacers. I sent Tom the new info on the wheels, maybe he'll get lucky and find something off a GM car that will work. Who knows? Cadillac maybe?
I bought the water pump (Thank you Bill) and I'm getting ready to order pan and valve cover gaskets. I think it will be a good idea to enlarge the oil pump pick-up passage as this has universally been recognized as a problem area. I can enlarge that passage in the block without contaminating anything, but the 5/8" pickup tube is expensive at $69. Still it's a lot cheaper than wiped out bearings and now is the time to do that. This and the other oiling mods should guarantee a good supply of oil to the bearings. Regrettably we do not have enough money to cover the cost of the gaskets and the pickup tube. That old song is getting real familiar.
Jim
I have heard from Dale and will picking up the heads this Wednesday.
We have only six, count them six, t-shirts ordered so far.
I plan to place the order with the company the first of May. If you want something bigger than x-large, let me know.
Steve
I sent you another check this morning, Steve.
XL works for me.
XL works for me as well....BTW Curtis.....please ignore the "report this thread" notice you just got....I'm used to hitting a "reply to this message" button. Oops. rki
Apologies for not posting an update on the weekend sooner.
First off: Steve, Dave VanWyck would like 2 extra large shirts. I'll take 2 XL and 2 XXL as we discussed. Guys this shirt will be a unique design. It is different from last year's and will be different from next. So it's a one time deal and if you have extras a couple years down the road they will be valued, so buy an extra one and don't be saying, "I wish..."
Roadmaster Weekend went well but not without a hitch or three. Steve and I are now perhaps the only people in America who have ever rebuilt an MGB lower steering column bearing. Turns out that despite the cheap construction it actually is a pretty good bearing, if more than a little weird. Uses 29 balls and a convoluted process to get them in place. The steering feel is now quite good.
We weighed the engine using a beam balance of my own design with a 10:1 ratio and a 50 lb electronic fish scale. The reading of 44lbs 9 oz (or 44-1/2 lbs) gives an engine weight of 445 lbs. This is with aluminum heads intake and water pump, mini starter, damper, stock distributor and engine mount brackets, but without the flywheel, carb, alternator, pulleys or brackets. Let's see, 100 lbs for an extra 345 cubic inches.... hmmmm. Yeah, I think I'll take that trade.
We massaged the gas tank and also the skirt behind it, whatever that panel is called, so that we could get the tank to go in with the IRS in place, and cut a new hole in the floor so we could center it. Plus we finished assembling the engine. It will need a custom set of pushrods, figure about $65 cost. Once we got to adding the tranny we hit the third great challenge of the weekend. Our dimensions did not stack up as we had hoped. We have a 11" diaphragm type pressure plate, Corvette application, common as dirt. But, as luck would have it the short GM throwout bearing that came with it has only a little more than the required end play when assembled. The Howe HTOB is almost a half inch longer and is 1/4" too long according to our measurements. With no ready solution, we punted. We assembled the car without the HTOB and sent it to Dave on Sunday. That problem will have to be solved when it comes back. In the meantime, one of my reference books shows 3 different length GM TOB's and states that the intermediate length one is used with a Borg & Beck pressure plate. A ready solution may have presented itself, if the B&B TOB is at least 1/4" longer. Keeping the fingers crossed on that one. On the down side, the PP will not be balanced to the engine. Another compromise I'm prepared to accept. If someone has a good 11" B&B PP they can trade we would be happy to exchange the new 11" diaphragm style one for it.
Jim
I talked to Dave yesterday and he's made pretty good progress on the exhaust. He sent me some photos last night. These photos should give a pretty good idea of what we will have when he is finished. It will be a log manifold system and will give good clearances pretty much everywhere we need it. The system will run just inboard of the jack attachments (which will very likely go away), come back outboard of the front brace for the IRS and then loop over the half-shafts in the space formerly occupied by the axle bump stops. I believe he is running 2-1/4" tube and some or all of it may be stainless. Some people will say that is small for a big block but I think it will compliment our install by offsetting the lower rpm torque loss of the cam we're using. According to Jim Weise an acknowledged expert in the field, we should expect to see 450-475 hp with a 5000 rpm redline and torque that is greater than stock (500 ft lbs) in the cam's operating range, roughly anywhere over 3000 rpm, and slightly less than stock below that. The exhaust will enhance the lower end of that range and shouldn't hurt the upper end much at all if we stay with that redline. So it should end up being a pretty tractable package.
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Dave also has a GT with fiberglass fenders which he would like to convert back to steel and he'd be interested in trading them to us. That might take a few pounds off the front end and sounds like a good idea to me, the only problem being that our fenders are mismatched and the right one has a splice. The ones on the green car are also spliced and kinda rusty. But if we can come up with a fair trade I'd like to go ahead with that. I'll be taking a closer look today.
As far as getting the engine running and making the car operational, there is still a lot to do, and only 34 days left to get it done. Part of that time I'll be gone. Longer pushrods need to be ordered. We need to resolve the pressure plate issue. Question: Is a Borg and Beck at least 1/4" shorter than a diaphragm PP? Someone here should know that answer. The driveshaft has to be made, radiator mounted and plumbed, front drive built and installed, oil pump installed, distributor rebuilt and installed, carb installed and set up, fuel pump, throttle linkage, air cleaner drilled, tapped, assembled and installed, hood cutout, wiring sorted, dash installed, seats installed, brake master cylinder installed, front brakes sorted out, brakes bled, and maybe then, if nothing critical has been overlooked the engine can be fired for the initial break-in run. Realistically, I can't see it happening at this point. The car won't be back here for another week, and even if it was sitting here now I'd have my doubts. 2 or 3 weeks just isn't enough time to get all of that done and I've been having a little back trouble which doesn't help matters. So, I will concentrate on just making the engine run and if that is achieved will consider it a victory.
But since I've mentioned my back, I'm now going to ask if there is anybody who can help me get this car to the meet this year? I am obligated to make a trip up into Iowa the last week of this month, about 900 miles each way, and between that drive and the one to Durham I'm expecting trouble. I know everyone is taking their own cars to the meet, but if there was a way I could avoid doing all the driving because of towing the car it would really help a lot. I don't know if there's any help for it, but I though it wouldn't hurt to ask.
Jim
Exhaust looks good, Jim!
I'm guessing that there will be very little engine torsional twist?
I'd expect that to be correct Rick, based on our front engine mounts. Here are some new shots of the headers:
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Dave is hoping to be able to finish the exhaust system in the next few days. I'd say it's a pretty elegant design for a compact tubing manifold and should flow quite well.
Jim
Nicely done. Those will be just fine for the Roadmaster. Glad we got the aluminum heads, gave us enough room for the headers without hacking up the fenderwells to much and saved a lot of weight.
Here's a quote from Dave that I thought y'all might like:
"I wish I had a video cam in the workshop to record the dropped chins of the folks that have seen the BBB. Tonight, a friend stopped by to pick up an adapter set I made to space out the wheels on his old John Deere. He looked under the GT (up on the hoist) and stated "I didn't know that MGs ever had IRS." I told him to go look at the front end and his eyes just bugged out. It's been fun!" Dave
We should have the car back down here Tuesday or Wednesday.
Jim
VBG....wait til they hear it/see it run!
Photos:
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More photos:
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Wow, that's pretty. Nice work Dave. It's getting closer Jim. You guys have done an amazing amount of work to get this far. I'm really looking forward to seeing it in NC running or not. We're going to have to get a recording of the sound that big block makes when the time comes so everyone can hear that rumble.
Is there anything needed that we can physically do to the Brute when it is at the V8 meet with the limited resources that will be available?
YES!!!
I'll need to make a list. But what immediately comes to mind.... dashboard, wiring, electronic ignition & rev limiter, struts (again, but I don't have a portable drill this time) seats, and various other odds and ends, correct lug nuts, bleed brakes (assuming I get the front calipers on right this time). Maybe's.... throttle linkage, radiator hoses mounts and wiring, grille, and the biggies.... B&B pressure plate (& bleed HTOB) and driveshaft.
I will try to get the pushrods, get something going on the driveshaft, rebuild the distributor, set up the front drive, mount the alternator, mount the carb, mount the air cleaner (it is painted now) cut the hood opening, see if the brake calipers will fit, and if I have time, try to do something about the pressure plate. Oh, and build the oil pump and install a filter. I did get a chance to port the lower housing that Carl sent.
I really did enjoy the break while Dave has had the car. Gave me a much needed chance to straighten up and clean up. My place will never be one of those TV show garages, but clean and neat is sure nice.
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Dave is a wizard with tubing. I suggested to him that we might run the exhaust out where the bump stops had been and he did the rest. I really like that location a lot. It's a long distance away from the brakes and that's a real plus. There aren't all that many sharp bends so it's pretty free flowing, and it's almost completely out of the way of everything else under the car. I think he's done a masterful job on it. He's also looking at what can be done to connect the stock gas tank filler to the relocated tank, a rather difficult task. We have scheduled the next exchange of the car for Sunday afternoon, then he will be concentrating on his own V8 conversion.
If we do not manage to get it running, we will at least be so close that there's a good chance we could finish the necessities and fire it up at the tech session, provided we have access to the things we may be needing. (such as running water) That would certainly be a high point.
Jim
Dave has finished the exhaust and the car is back in Florence. It's a fine looking system, made from a special type of aluminized stainless tubing which is nearly indestructable. So as long as we're happy with the sound and can avoid dragging the mufflers it's good for life. The first thing I did once it was back was to check again to see if the front brakes might go on with these wheels. Same result as the first time, no mistakes and no dice. Next I swapped the GT front springs in place of the yellow springs and picked up a little height in the front. Not much, maybe 1/2 to 1" but that will help and we'll know how it sits with 30 yr old stock springs.
I called Zoom and they told me a diaphraghm type and a B&B would both have the same finger height. That leaves two possibilities. Either the Corvette pressure plate we have is taller than a random GM unit, or we need a shorter HTOB. I'll try to contact Brian to get his input but it's doubtful we can resolve this by the 7th.
The air filter came in but I need a carb base gasket before proceeding with the intake system. Maybe tomorrow I can make some progress on the pushrods, pulleys and such. I'll be gone from the 26th to the 31st. We'll just have to see how far we get.
Jim
Here are the photos we've all been waiting to see. I'm afraid any thoughts of making it a sleeper just aren't in the cards though.
Jim
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Looking good!
Jim,
Looks good to me. I really like the air cleaner.
Steve
Yeah, it's starting to grow on me. The more I look at it the better it looks. Too bad we don't have a sunroof though, it's going to be pretty hard to put in an "8 ball" shifter knob that sticks up above the roof without one. Then we need a set of big old gnarly slicks to put on the back and we'll just about be there once the smoke starts rolling off the tires. That'd be a cool photo op. Well, I guess that gives us something to work towards for next year.
But hey man, next year is going to be a little different I think. I'll probably only work on the car when other people are here to work on it too. I mean, it's not my car you know? And my car needs put together too. Plus Indy is only a little over an hour away so I really need to have my car ready by next year's meet because we can get both of them there with it that close. Unless of course somebody else has it by then, doing the body work or something.
Anyway I've got a few more pictures. I've been trying to get it close enough that if anybody wants to do things like change plugs, run wires and things like that then maybe we can fire it up for the first break in run while we're at the meet. And Dale knows a guy with a dyno so I'll try to weld up a driveshaft if I have enough time to do it, but no promises. And I've been thinking about the radiator. I'll bring the one Pete donated but I don't think it will be big enough, so I mocked up the biggest one I could stuff into the available space made out of cardboard boxes. It's around 230-250 sq. in. of surface area and would be a 2 pass cross-flow design, maybe in 2 core aluminum. That might be big enough to do the trick. The driver's side end tank might be a little tricky but nothing we couldn't sort out.
Jim
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Jim, Might want to check your core area calculations. My 3 row crossflow rad is about 16" wide x 18" tall (approx 290 sq in) and your mocked up rad looks significantly larger than mine.
Yeah, you got me there, that was the number for the radiator on my car. So now maybe I measured wrong but I keep coming up with about 600 sq.in.+
I'll bring the mock-up to the meet and we can draw lines and circles on it and make notes. For an engine-forward car it could be the ultimate radiator but it requires moving the slam panel to work I think.
Jim
I did some "whitttling" on the CAD radiator program (cardboard aided design) and overdid it I'm afraid, the thing got all wobbly. So I'm starting fresh with a new box. It's thicker at 3 inches, and the dimensions are a little closer so it's a better fit. I blacked out the end tank areas at 2" but then calculated area based on 1-1/2" tanks because that is what the hose necks on the engine are. Here's what the new design looks like:
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I have no idea what was going on with those numbers I was getting earlier, but my calculator seems to be working much better today. Sunspots I guess. Anyway, the radiator from Pete is 13 x 18 for 234 Sq. In. of fin area and 2 rows for 2-1/2" of thickness. This mock-up at 3" thick has 336.5 Sq. In. of area, or 320 with 2" end tanks. Assuming Pete's rad is good for a 302 application and using the roughly150% displacement increase we'd be about 20 sq. in. below optimum and we could pick that up by extending the bottom another 1-1/2 inches. Using Graham's 290 sq in as a guide we're about 100 sq in undersized and his is a 3 row. We need some more information on typical radiator sizes for BBB applications I think. It looks to me like going this route and making the core as thick as is practical is going to just cover it. But I'm hoping someone with some industry experience can jump in here and set us straight. What's you opinion Graham?
Jim
Victor Guerrero has a T-shaped radiator in his MGB: http://www.britishv8.org/MG/VictorGuerrero.htm
(http://www.britishv8.org/MG/VictorGuerrero/VictorGuerrero-CA.jpg)
For reference, Victor has dyno-test reports that show his 383 Chevy at 435hp.
But frankly, I think James Bowler has a better idea:
Fluidyne aluminum 2-row universal/racing single-pass crossflow radiator, with Chevy ports.
(Overall: 22"Wx"19"Tx2.50"D. Core: 17"Wx19"Tx2.25"D. 1.5" upper hose, 1.75" lower hose.)
323 square inches of racecar radiator for just $180. How can you beat that?
(http://www.britishv8.org/MG/JamesBowler/JamesBowler-DA.jpg)
(http://www.britishv8.org/MG/JamesBowler/JamesBowler-EA.jpg)
Additional photos appear here: http://www.britishv8.org/MG/JamesBowler.htm
You'll want to complete the installation with blocking and seals so airflow can't bypass the radiator core. Install a big fan, preferably "pulling" and with the motor spaced away from the core but with a shroud or fan ring to improve fan efficiency. An air dam that routes air to the sides (as opposed to a gravel pan that routes air downward) should improve cooling by helping to keep air pressure relatively low under the car. Surely airflow is a more important cooling system parameter than radiator size.
Way to many variables here to say what core area would work and the selection will probably depend more on getting good fan performance/airflow. Shroud design, recirc design, fan resistance, use of additional coolers (like A/C condenser), etc, all enter the design picture.
I'm totally in agreement with Curtis as trying to promote a conventional shape rectangular core rather than a "T" shape, not only for cost and simplicity but also to promote better airflow (better fan sweep on core), and through allowance of a better shroud design. In short, concentrate on promoting airflow rather than overpromoting core area.
Other things we may consider:
1) Since we are unlikely to operate this vehicle in the Winter months, use a 20-80 Glycol/water mix in lieu of 50/50.
2) Use a 180F stat in lieu of a 195F so that coolant flow starts earlier.
As a thought, maybe you could take a walk through the local bone yard and look at some cooling combinations for big block engines (C3 Corvettes w/454, '70's TransAms w/455, Buick Centurian, GS w/455, etc ) and get a feel for rad sizes and fan sizes.
Yeah probably someone should do that. There aren't any good junkyards around here.
I don't know if James' idea is better or not though. He doesn't have a front bumper. And with or without it, one little tap at the front end and that radiator is toast. He's created a crumple zone right around the radiator tanks and that's the path of least resistance. Somebody backs into the car parallel parking and it's time for a new radiator, even if the bodywork is minimal. Considering all the different people we are going to have driving the car I'm just not confident that weakening the main frame rails in between the bumper supports and the car body is anything close to a good idea. It just seems unsound to me. I mean, sure if you consider anything forward of the engine to be cosmetic, but don't we need a little durability on the street? Not everyone is going to be that careful, especially not SUV driving soccer moms with big plastic bumpers. Heck, for that matter, with my trailer I rely on the bumper and overriders to keep the hood and grille away from the front trailer bulkhead. A good hard stop would probably be enough to trash that set up. And reinforcing the body to add back the strength lost by notching the frame rails will cost more than the extra for a custom radiator I would imagine. I've had custom radiators made, and there are shops that specialize in that kind of work who charge reasonable prices.
Of course we could just install Pete's radiator and take a chance on chronically overheating the engine. I've been down that road too. How long do we want this engine to last?
Jim
Another idea, how about if we separate the different sized radiator sections?That way each piece is optimized for it's location and it might even be cheaper that way. Maybe we could even mount the top section more upright and slant the lower one more. Or, maybe a section above the frame rails and a longer one below them. There'd be a gap between them of course, space for a future oil cooler maybe? What we lost on height we could make up on width. Just throwing out ideas here, I'd like to come up with a good solution without cutting the car body, and I'd like to get as much radiator in the car as we can within reason. My experience is probably not representative of the average but it does tell me that you can't get too much radiator area. Getting enough airflow through the radiator is the second leg of this problem of course. It does seem to me that there is such a thing as too mush airflow. Once it starts kicking up dust from underneath the car it becomes objectionable. My crank driven 6 blade 17" rigid fan did that. Well guys, you know me, "There's no kill like overkill." Maybe we could pipe the coolant to the rear and stick a big radiator up into the airflow above the tail. Shape it sorta like a wing and use it to generate downforce too. I know, deflect the air downwards through the core. That way we could have this big honkin radiator built into a big honkin rear wing, run the coolant up one side and down the other and all the heat would be behind the car. Wouldn't be no problem getting a big enough core that way and with a big enough core, who needs a fan? That would work, right?
Jim
Edit: I meant deflect the air upwards. How's it going to make downforce unless it goes Up?
In the photos above, I don't see any sheetmetal at all between the bumper and the engine. And now you're talking about crashworthiness, Jim? Were you planning on putting some sort of reinforcement back into that area? The MGB chrome bumper is weak... and you seem to be assuming that the frame extensions on either side will protect the radiator in an accident. They might, but they're not particularly strong by themselves. If no reinforcements are being added back in, I don't think your proposal protects the radiator(s) appreciably better than James Bowlers' approach. James left the slam panel (where the hood latch goes) and he also left in the front part of the stock radiator shelf... Have another look at the tubing he's added back in to reinforce the area too.
Assuming someone might one day have to replace a radiator, wouldn't a $180 off-the-shelf replacement be preferable to a custom radiator (or radiators) that cost twice that or even more? I'm skeptical you'll buy any custom aluminum radiator for less than about $400 - let alone a great big one.
I have a tip to pass along about semi-custom radiators:
AFCO charges very minimal fees for modifications to their standard radiators. Compared to buying a true "custom" radiator, this can be a great bargain! I bought an AFCO "Scirocco" dual-pass aluminum radiator last month and I had them weld in a 1.5" port where a 1.75" port was standard (as preferred for Chevy drag racers. My radiator is routinely used by 900hp cars, but only for a quarter mile out and a quarter mile back!) I also had AFCO weld in a bung for my vent line to the header tank. It was a bargain, and only added a couple days to delivery time. AFCO customer service is exceptional.
I wouldn't be surprised if Griffin offers a similar rework option, but I know Fluidyne doesn't.
Great tips Curtis. I just got some relevant info on sizing that should get us in the ballpark. According to a company that does only hot rod cooling, their rule of thumb for fin area is 1 sq. in. per cubic inch of displacement, (about what Graham is running) and for 400-600 hp engines (ours will be right at 500 according to a knowledgeable BBB engine builder) 2 rows of 1-1/4" tubes. So about 460 sq inches, maybe a little less with a 3" core.
So here's a thought. The top of our mock up is just over 200 sq. in., meaning we'd need 260 or so from the bottom. At a 6" depth (putting the bottom about level with the crossmember) that works out to about 42" across. I think it would be possible to fit a 42 x 6" unit under the car but the shrouding would be a challenge off course. On the other hand, if we just cut away anything that's in the way, a 16" tall radiator 29" wide would do the job just fine. The bumper goes away of course, there's no feasible way to support it. If that's what you guys want to do, we can. There's probably a stock radiator real close to that size. That's 32" with minimal end tanks so we'll need to cut the channels where the fenders bolt down or else put it in from the bottom, cut away the inner fenders and box them in, and probably remove everything else in front of the radiator except the slam panel and the grille. It doesn't sound all that pretty but it would be cheaper for sure. And easier. So we probably ought to discuss those two options and anything else we can think of and bring it up for a vote on Monday the 8th. How else can we solve this riddle?
Jim
No more ideas? I'd thing there would be other ways to do it. It's a GT, how about a roof radiator? Hasn't that been done? I saw several rear mounted radiators in the LeMons race photos...
Jim
Seems to me like if folks can kick up the rear of a chassis & that handles the stresses of the rear suspension, we should be able to kick out the front rails in a way that allows a wider radiator & still leaves sufficient strength for the bumper in a mild bump. Let's face it, with much more than a mild bump there's going to be plenty to fix anyway.
I'm skeptical of rules-of-thumb. There are so many variables that it's nearly impossible to know what "safety factor" is built into them. My instinct is to go with as big a radiator as fits the space reasonably, and then try to make it work by optimizing every other aspect (specifically airflow, airflow, and airflow...)
Yes, its a 500hp motor but it's hardly ever going to be producing a quarter of that because the car is relatively light and relatively aerodynamic. This car should purr down the Interstate at idle speed. How much horsepower will that require?
The engine will never have to work hard for more than a quarter mile or twelve seconds (whichever comes first.)
I expect the biggest challenge will occur when sitting still. This car may need a great big fan (or two) and a really smart fan shroud.
Jim,
If I can offer any advice for the car it would be to fit the biggest practical size rad you can in as near stock position as possible and then make sure airflow is maximised.
The best solution to my mind is to make sure the air actually passes through the rad and to do that you need to make up a duct out of ally sheet like a square U section that fits between the the bottom of the front valence and seals to the bottom tank of the rad with the sides going up and fixing to the chassis rails.
This stops the air escaping under the car and bypassing the rad which also has the benefit of reducing front end lift at high speed.
You then need to allow the air to escape from the engine compartment and I suggest cutting some round holes in the inner wings to the low pressure area in the wheel arches, which will also have the effect of reducing drag.
In my car when the fans cut in, the amount of hot air that escapes through the front wheelarches is enormous.
Or if you are feeling really adventurous you could as I've seen in a race MGB mount a rad in the spare wheel well with it angled high towards the front of the car and low at the back fully ducted and pulling air in through a mesh section in the floor and exiting through the rear panel with a big fan and then you also have a ground effect fan car! You'd have to find some where to mount a fuel tank though, but the front end could be sealed except for ducting for the carb if necessary, the aerodynamic efficiency would increase dramatically.
Kevin.
OK, now we're getting somewhere. What other suggestions? My experience in this area is limited to the 250 sq. in. x 3" radiator in my roadster. With a maximum efficiency core (brass), fully shrouded, and a solid crank driven 17" 6 blade fan on my blown 215. (so more than adequate airflow) More would have been nice, but it was adequate. That was at about 300 hp. Considering the service this car will see I'm not sure adequate is good enough. Not to belabor Curtis' point which is very relevant, I agree that sitting and idling in traffic is going to be the biggest cooling challenge if we do our job right. Potential horsepower is certainly relevant, but I don't know if it's more relevant than displacement. The people I copied the recommendations from base fin area on displacement and core thickness on horsepower. Exactly why that is I don't know but there must be some basis for it. I think Kevin's suggestion has some real merit and would suggest we explore that idea further, as well as ideas for modifying the front of the car to allow use of a suitably large radiator. We're in relatively uncharted territory here so any help from any similar application should be a benefit.
I just got back from Iowa, a trip for Matthew's benefit, and found the pushrods waiting for me. They look perfect (and should!) so I'll get the top end buttoned up right away. Our valve covers will undoubtedly leak oil, but for now they'll keep the dust out I think. I'll probably go ahead and fill the crankcase and prime the oil system and I'll try to remember to re-torque the heads one more time.
About the paint, has anyone given any thought to doing the body up in a "wrap"? Does anyone know what the cost of that would be? Can anyone find out? It would be nice to know if that is an option.
Jim
The car is on the trailer and ready to go. As we expected, it isn't ready to be fired up just yet but we haven't missed it by much. Close enough in fact that for all practical purposes I think we've met our timeline goal of making it run in time for the meet. In fact, we *could* fire it up but in the interest of safety and a long life we should wait for a few things like the radiator and the clutch release bearing to be installed. I'm bringing along quite a few parts though in case anyone wants to take a crack at the remaining items.
So that's about it for now, see ya at the meet!
Jim
The Roadmaster is coming along nicely...great to see it in Durham.
Thanks to all who bought t-shirts, made donations, etc.
Let's stay on track and have this car roadworthy for British V8 2010 in Indianapolis!
Yes, what Rick said. A few items of interest. The day at Flying Circus was very good for us. Not only did we get to put the car up on the lift so that one and all could inspect it from every angle, not only did we meet the representatives from Grassroots Motorsports who took a great interest in the project (Let's all be watching for their next issue to see if they mention us), but before we left we had an answer to our wheel and tire dilemma.
Having ridden over in the tow vehicle, Steve DeGroat was over by the car selling T-shirts to help raise money for the project, Bill Young, Bill Guzman and I were over by the banquet table (betcha didn't see that one coming) debating the lug nut sizes on the car when I suggested we just look at them. Since we had no measuring tools with us Bill G was going to measure the stud diameter with his "stud" (according to Bill Y) and I wasn't touching that one at all. But as it turned out we had a full set of lug nuts so there were no exposed studs to be seen. Ever ready to help I suggested we just look at one on the parts cars parked nearby and we'd no more than set off in that direction when I spied a nice looking set of 17" wheels and announced, "We need those wheels!" "MAX!!!" "WHERE"S MAX!!!!" "WE NEED THESE WHEELS!!!"
Max was soon found, convinced, and went off to find Toby and we were soon trying them on for size while I asked Toby what sort of a deal we could make. Now I'd like to point out that I left a lot out concerning all parties involved, Including Toby's accidental answering of the initial question that sent us on the quest in the first place. We learned we have BOTH sizes of lug nuts on the car, 7/16 on the Malibu hubs and 1/2" on the Jag ones. But more to the point, after a short consultation Toby came back and said he'd like to contribute the wheels and tires to the project!
MVC-277S.JPG
Someone later tentatively identified these as Jaguar XK8 wheels, they fit well, will let us run decent sized rubber, and clear the brakes so I'd say we owe a big thanks to Flying Circus for helping us out here. We loaded the tires up in the GT and since cars were beginning to leave, went ahead and trailered the car, after which I got artwork from Toby, again expressed our thanks and headed back to the Motel.
Anybody notice something missing in this story? Yep, sure enough after we unloaded the car in the motel parking lot I realized I didn't have a chair to sit in. So I called Carl who was still back at the Circus helping repair a member's car. Said, Carl I have a favor to ask. "So do we." I left my chairs. "That ain't all you left! You left the T-shirts, the table, your HAT, and what about STEVE?!!!"
I guess the excitement was just too much for me. Steve was good natured about it, but I don't expect I've heard the end of that episode. Everything got worked out, and best of all, WE GOT WHEELS!!!! Very nice ones at that.
There's a lot more to tell and I hope some others will jump in here and share. Stories about racing, partying, and all the rest. For now I should probably stick to the project. Anyway we couldn't possibly have hoped for a better outcome in the tech session. Who knows, we might even get some good publicity from it. But at the very least we sold shirts, raised donations, showed off the car from every angle, and GOT WHEELS!!! (I'm still a little excited about that.) Dave Van Wyck's beautiful exhaust system was a work of art and a real big hit by the way, with comments like, "That's the first time I've EVER seen the exhaust run over the half shaft, it looks great!" (Bill G.)
Back at the motel we continued discussions on various aspects of the car and it soon became pretty obvious to most of us that there were a couple of guys who really knew their stuff when it came to cooling systems, and the result was that our noble Secretary, Graham Crestwick and our honored benefactor Curtis Jacobson agreed to come up with some specific recommendations on the radiator and fan setup for the car. These men have my full faith and confidence, if anyone in our group is able to get us a suitable cooling package it would be these guys.
We had the second annual meeting of the British American Deviant Automotive Sports-car Society outdoors amid strong attendance. Pete Mantell was good enough to set up his scales and we weighed the car.
weight.JPG
As you can plainly see, the results are pretty consistent with what we've been seeing in many of our conversions, and not much different from a stock MGB. Now admittedly we still have to add some weight. Radiator, battery, seats and dashboard still to come plus front calipers, coolant and some fuel. But it looks like our 2500# target is well within reach. Another target was to have the car running by this year's meet and strictly speaking we were a little short, but so close that in principal that I announced the goal accomplished. In truth though we *could* have fired up the engine we're better off waiting to put a good radiator in the car.
Two final things and then I'll finish up. First, we did take a sharpie and write all over the car. Contributor's names, sponsor's logos, funny comments, I'd love to post a photo but since all we had was black it doesn't show up too well. But this is a tradition that we need to continue at least up until the time that we put a quality paint job on the car, and perhaps beyond. so those who plan to be at Pete's cook out, bring your markers! Finally, the last thing I want to mention is money. This time it's good news! We all know the struggle we've had to finance this project, the corners we've cut to stretch the dollar. And we've done exceptionally well. Maybe at some point Steve can give us an idea of how much actual money we've spent on the car or maybe not but by any estimate it is going to be well below the cost of a comparable or even an average conversion. We came into the meet owing Dale nearly $500 for hard parts which he had bought for us to be able to complete the heads. After contributions and T-shirt sales we came away with around $1200, and this was after we paid back what we owed to Dale! Rick Ingram once again leapt into the breach, with a pledge that Dale would not go home empty handed. Well, not only did he not go home unpaid, he sponsored us even further by putting a certificate worth $500 in machine work in the Banquet auction. That certificate sold for $300 which went directly into the Deviants general funds and the winner took home quite a bargain. Those of us who bid but did not win all agreed we would, any one of us, have gone much higher had we an immediate need, and even so coveted the prize.
I could go on and on. The Banquet and auction itself is always the high point of the meet and this year was exceptional. (Except for Steve Carrick stealing my water glass) But some of those stories are for others to tell and I'll leave you now with this thought. Progress on this project has been nothing short of phenomenal and we fully expect to drive the car next year. Some changes are in the works, in September it will probably go to Mantell Motorsports where a different group can easily come into play and it may travel more after that. But the thing to remember is that this is your car. It isn't mine, or Steve's or Pete's, and for us to reach our goals which sooner than later will have us enjoying the fruits of our labors we need to pull together as a team. But just as importantly, we are a family. We share a closeness and cohesiveness almost never seen in organizations of this type. That, more than anything else that we've done is something to be cherished and nurtured.
GO DEVIANTS!!!
Jim
MVC-283S.JPG
I'm going to copy the task list from the work weekend thread. Below is a list of small tasks that we can take care of:
-Install front brake calipers/install master cylinder/bleed brakes
-Install HTOB/clutch master/bleed (Brian is exchanging for a shorter unit)
-Install shifter
-Install fuel pump, connect carb, check operation
-Install engine wiring
-Install throttle linkage
-Install battery
-Install dash/connect gages/hook up wiring
-Install seats
-Install new e-brake pawl
-Install console
-Install spark plugs/wires/distributor
-Install PCV plumbing
-Install hood struts
-Install hatch struts
-Install radiator/hoses/wiring
-Install interior trim
-acquire and install the correct lug nuts
Dave Kirkman is getting a battery and K&N oil fliter, Tom Caine has picked up a Jag XJ6 radiator as suggested by Graham, Dave Van Wyck is bringing a pair of fiberglass fenders. Can somebody look into getting the lug nuts? XK8 wheels, 7/16" lugs on the front (chevy) and 1/2" lugs on the rear (JAG), it looked to me like a shanked and shouldered lug nut with a flat seat.
Jim
Jim, I have been following other threads about T5 trannys and I would be concerned about the strength, with all the torque of the Roadmaster. You should give G force a call, maybe they would rebuild or exchange for advertisizing.
Great idea Jim, could you do that for us?
Jim, I E-mailed G Force and will let you know what they say.
I recieved a E-Mail back from G Force saying they have stopped all sponsorships for the year because of tough economic times.
Yeah, we've heard a lot of that. Well, carry on, better luck next time.
Jim
Guys, do you think we should buy a set of aluminum valve covers for the car? The old tin covers are guaranteed to leak the first time we start the car up. I don't know the full range of what is available and at what cost, or what our chances are of buying used, it looks like the tin or chromed ones are nearly as much as new aluminum if you went by ebay prices but it might be possible to get a set of tin ones for under $50 on V8buick. New aluminum is probably going to be $150 but they will seal better.
Jim
I thnk that this should be one of the final purchases we make.
Oh, well I was just concerned about getting oil all over everything. We won't be able to run the engine with the ones that are on there. The only job they are doing is keeping dust out, they will never seal the oil in. I know everyone wants to see and hear the engine run but it's a real mistake to fire it up with those old bent up covers. We'll never get it all clean again. How do you think we should solve this problem?
Jim
Jim, I can start looking locally. What other engines use the same cover?
Tom, any of the big block Buicks would use the same covers. So the 400, 430 and 455 will all fit, though they don't all look the same. The mangled tin covers we have are from a 430, and if we have a choice I'd pick the ones from a 455 just because they identify the displacement, but any of those will do.
Jim
Somebody should have an old M/T set laying around.
Well, Jim...you didn't let us know that those crappy old covers weren't functional!
:-)
I like the idea of the Buick 455 covers.
Jim, You have a PM.
Hey Jim... I think you have a PM :)
Thanks guys! I'll give Tony a call tomorrow and see what is up.
Things are shaping up nicely for the first work weekend. I'll have more to write after I get a chance to make a couple of calls tomorrow.
Jim
I talked to Tony Sarvis today (Astro Performance Warehouse, Inc. in Tavares, FL) who turned out to be a very interesting fellow and quite knowledgeable about the T5 transmission and all of it's variations. He is interested in being involved in the project and once he has had a chance to look over the tag numbers I sent him will make some recommendations based on the possible participation of some of his suppliers. The upshot is that we have a very good chance of ending up with an uprated tranny more suitably matched to the car. I'm sure we will be in touch again soon, he'll need axle ratio, tire size and such to recommend tranny gear ratios and I'll pass along information as I have it.
Jim
It's looking like I will likely be able to make the 1st work weekend in July.
That's great Carl! C'mon up. It'll be a good weekend.
Jim
Link to Tony's work. http://www.mustang50magazine.com/techarticles/m5lp_0707_mustang_t5_transmission_upgrade/index.html
There are several sets of 455 valve covers currently listed on evil-bay.
Are we interested in any of them?
Only thing I see is Pontiac and Oldsmobile.
edit: that was on a search for 455 valve covers. Searching Buick valve covers I found one set of 400 tin covers for $99. Before I'd buy those I'd go for the new aluminum ones.
Jim
There were a lot more than that. :)
Like this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Buick-GS-Skylark-1970-74-455-OEM-Valve-Covers-studs_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trkparmsZ65Q3a12Q7c66Q3a2Q7c39Q3a1Q7c72Q3a1171Q7c293Q3a1Q7c294Q3a50QQ_trksidZp3286Q2ec0Q2em14QQhashZitem4147388c18QQitemZ280367762456QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories
Yes....or these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180376064884&viewitem=
I never cared for those stamped steel covers that are prone to leak. I was thinking something along these lines (for a Buick, though).
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/M-T-chevrolet-BB-valve-covers-3276396-with-oil-drippers_W0QQitemZ170349388088QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMotors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories?hash=item27a99d6138&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A1171
At this point I really don't care anymore. My own personal preference would be aluminum but that's $140 + for new. If anyone runs across a set of used ones that'd be dandy. Tin works, chrome works, we just need something that will let us run 'er up. Rick, you made a comment in regards to the chromed ones, but I'm a little dense sometimes. What were you saying?
Jim
Great news everyone! Rick has a set of chromed valve covers for us. Now could somebody else get us a set of the spreader bars that go under the hold down bolts?
Jim
More good news! Jeff Schlemmer (Advanced Distributors http://www.advanceddistributors.com/ ) has finished up the ignition system and shipped it, so it should be here in time for the weekend. Rick is going to try to ship the valve covers tomorrow so they should be here also. Steve is bringing the radiator.
So, depending on how fast we decide to work there is an outside chance that we may be able to start the engine. Sorry to say the shorter HTOB won't be here for a couple more weeks so test driving it isn't an option, aside from the fact that we don't have a radiator fan yet, but it would be great to hear the engine run.
Looks like we'll have a pretty good crowd. In addition to Steve, Max, Carl and of course me, Dan B might make it also. Looks like the downstairs bathroom is going to go online just in time!
Jim
Be sure to take video in case it does get started up!
We are going to crank it. I will/would be in the driver's seat, but I plan to defer to Jim since it's his brainchild.
Plus, I just got home from a Peter Frampton concert & I gotta get up in 5 hours & drive 5 more hours to get to Gunpowder Road, Florence, KY.
We need an update!
OK Rick, you asked for it! ....here's an update of Frampton
frampton5.jpg
Thanks, Graham!
And now from his new album, "BADASS Comes Alive!"....
"Waaaaa...wa-wa-wa-wa-waaaa...wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-Waaaaaa...
I wonder how it's running.....there's ringing in my ears....."
He was playing this gutar:
(http://www.modernguitars.com/imagefiles/frampton/framp2.gif)
As for the Roadmaster, it's.......ALIVE!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OwKAwVElKk
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9OwKAwVElKk&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9OwKAwVElKk&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Fantastic!
Good stuff gents.....great job!
Looks like your choice of radiator worked fine. Did you find a fan yet? If not give me dims and i'll scrounge around.
Congratulations guys, a great job done.
Was expecting it to be a lot louder!
Kevin.
Great job guys, another milestone! I wonder if Peter Frampton knows he is involved in this project? LOL
I'm hoping Steve, Carl and Max will give you their impressions of the weekend once they have rested. In the meantime I'll write up a report.
Steve came in on Thursday and for the next couple of days we busied ourselves with foraging and the braking system as well as properly securing the wheels. We got the correct lug nuts eventually, and Keyston/Marmon gave us some square tubing. There were modifications needed to mount the master cylinder that included a cut to the bulkhead shelf for brake arm clearance (we rounded the edge over for the 'proper' appearance) drilling of mounting holes, and fabrication of a new actuator rod and clevis, and while Steve worked on that I began on the radiator support structure. By the time Max and Dan got here Friday evening, Steve and I had put in a couple of full days and had just sat down with a cold one to relax and plan the next day. That didn't go according to plan.... I've noticed that usually once the beer is brought out that marks the end of the work day, but in this case that didn't work either. Apparently Dan and Max were just plain tired of sitting. Or excited at the prospect of working on the car, or both. Whatever the reason, we didn't knock off until well after 2 am, and it didn't get any better when Carl showed up the next day! I gotta tell you, these guys were so gung-ho about firing this thing up that I had to tell them when it was time to eat and time to quit. Now that's not a good thing. I'm terrible about scheduling, and if it weren't for Edith calling me and asking when we planned to eat, I'm not sure we ever would have. As a matter of fact, after she left Sunday to visit the family we kept at it until well into the afternoon with nary a thought of lunch, even though it was sitting there waiting on us. I'm not complaining, but if you're wondering how we did what we did, that was it.
We really kicked it into high gear. As of this point, the dashboard is wired and in the car (not bolted down yet) and most of the gages work. Most of the electrical system is sorted out, thanks to Max and Carl and we have notes on what still needs attention. This is with the old wiring system of course, which we will use until the car is painted, at which time Steve Carrick (Advance Auto Wire) will upgrade it. Dan and Steve got the throttle system up to snuff, making linkages, and sorting out a myriad of other details, such as spark plug wiring and on and on. There is no way I could keep it straight as to who did what, because it was like a well orchestrated game of musical chairs. I mean, these guys are talented, and it was nothing to see all of them working on any one part of the car at different times, and sometimes all at once. The key thing is that with the clear goal of firing off the engine and being able to do a sustained run for break in, every task needed to make that happen was accomplished by Saturday evening. And there was a lot. Fuel pump and lines, tank filler neck, hoses, coolant, surge tank, battery cables, and many other small tasks. At long last we stood in readiness, and as you can see from the video the engine fired right up! The run wasn't perfect, we have a serious lean condition and we glowed the headers rather quickly and shut down. A couple of quick changes to the timing smoothed out the engine quite a lot, and a change from #67 to #72 primary jets helped but there is still a good ways to go. The jet change took a good solid hour to accomplish, maybe more even with Carl's and Max's assistance, and after that I simply refused to endure that ordeal any more, so that was the end of our tuning efforts for this weekend. After seeing what was required to change QuadraJet main jets none of the others wanted to take it on either, and the only reason I did it the first time was to demonstrate just what a horrible task it is.
Steve had wisely called it a night before we tore down the spare Q-Jet he had brought along in order to get the jets, as he was rolling out about 5 in the morning. Sorry Steve, we didn't put it back together. The rest of us kept at it until the wee hours yet again, and put a serious hurt on the beer supply in the process. Sunday we were all up bright and early, and my great appreciation goes out to these guys for their efforts in tidying up the shop before heading for home. I know Steve and I had made a bit of a mess by the time the rest had arrived, and the shop was no showplace when Steve got there, so they left it much better than they found it.
As for my overall impressions of the startup, it was simply awesome! Kevin mentioned that he thought it would have been louder, but any u-tube video of a car running tends to be underwhelming and understated. I will say this, the exhaust note is as good as I could have possibly hoped for and much better than I had expected. Dave VanWyck didn't let us down. As a street car it will be quiet enough to be a comfortable driving machine and will bark when wanted. If the rest of the car lives up to this part we've really got a show stopper on our hands. Despite the poor initial tune the engine is very smooth. Oil pressure is great, in fact during pre-oiling there was so little drag on the drill that we had our doubts that the gage was reading accurately, but when running we showed a solid 45 psi and more. Regrettably we weren't able to sustain a run long enough for proper cam break-in, that will have to wait for proper carb calibration, and that brings up a thorny question. What to do about the carb? I will not do another Q-Jet main jet change. I simply refuse. I realize there are people who like those carbs but I am not one of them and I do not and never will understand how such a thing is even remotely possible. I'll happily change the carb, but if I NEVER so much as even SEE another Q-Jet main jet it will be several lifetimes too soon. Holley, Edelbrock, no problem, but no more of this. Now Dave Kirkman will be here next weekend and he may be able to get us special pricing on an Edelbrock replacement carb. My recommendation is to go with that and do the break-in run next weekend. What say you?
Jim
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Not a Quadrajet fan either. There are other spreadbore replacement carbs that are better. Holley spreadbore, Edelbrock (has a Quadrajet clone). Pony caburetors has a Autolite spreadbore( Nice but spendy, plus Ford carb on GM sacriligous.).Then there is Summit's new carb(750cfm square bore,would need an adapter;only $259 with the best of Holley and Autolite features).It would be about 1" taller. Maybe they would sponsor and put the car in the feature section of their catalog.
Guys, how about another possible option that would save us both money and tuning time, use a GM Quadrajet throttle body such as used on the big block Chevy Pickups back in the 80s and 90s along with a closed loop controller such as this one sold by Holley. http://www.holley.com/534-27.asp We should be able to pick up an used TB pretty cheap. We'd need some changes to the fuel pump pressure I would guess and possibly a swirl can or return line, but it would solve the drivability issues in any part of the country and eliminate any jet changes. I'm not sure if this would work for us but if you think it's worth some investigation I'll certainly do some research and find out what would be needed.
Bill, if that will fit a spreadbore intake and meter out enough fuel for a 1/2 race cam I'd say let's look into it. I'm guessing we'd need an O2 sensor, and will the Star-Wars air cleaner work with it?
Tom C, it appears the Mitsubishi alternator we used (with the 4 wire round plug) may use an external regulator. Could you see if the car it came from has one? There should be a simple 4 wire harness to link that to the alternator and 2 wires to connect to the car's wiring harness, I think 1 wire to switched power and 1 to the idiot light (Ign).
I think the radiator will work but we will need to have the lower hose neck angled inward at a 45 degree angle to clear the tire. Might be possible to shift the whole works to the other side a bit, I'll look into that. It'd be good if we could keep it an off the shelf item. Our core area is 27 x 17 with 3" of clearance behind the radiator (leaving about 1/4" to the water pump shaft). The core support on the car now will have to be cut off and re-designed as it interferes badly with the tires. In the process I think I can pick up another 7/8" of lower clearance. If we have to we can increase the rear clearance just a little but at the cost of losing the existing hood latch pin, so I'd rather not do that if we can avoid it.
Tom and Graham, we really need a fan package before the radiator support can properly be finished. I believe we have consensus that electric is the way to go, and the entire fin area should be shrouded. If there is a stock shroud that will accept an electric fan, or a fan package that is close to the right dimensions those seem to be the obvious choices. But we need to get that all done before September, including building the new radiator support structure, which will take several days of work and which we should really allow a couple of weeks for. So figuring in shipping that gives you guys only a couple weeks to get that part sorted out. Go with the above dimensions and I will see if we can shift things sideways any for tire clearance. It would probably have to go several inches and the rad neck mod may be the easiest fix but I'll look into it. We may also gain something with a tight bend section from a formed hose as the coupler and we need one of those for the top hose as well. None of that will affect the fan package.
Curtis and Graham, we modded the old recovery tank out of my roadster to use a surge tank. It's ugly, angular and not a particularly good fit but it will work until you guys can come up with something better. There's enough room for a pretty big rectangular clear plastic tank if you can find something suitable. The drain fitting on the radiator lower neck is 3/4" but we can make 5/8" work.
Jim
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Awesome job guys! Well Done!!!
Cheers
Pete
WE DROVE IT!!!!
And.......???
Uh, better just leave it here... You wouldn't like it.
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:)
COOL!!!
That looks like fun... and sounds good too.
You guys must feel like Dr. Frankenstein after seeing it move for the first time. Well done. I wish I could see the video, the IT police here at work seem to have that blocked.
Awesome!
Sounds like a 455 Buick GSX!
Just a thought. Next year, the StreetRod Nationals in Louisville KY will allow custom cars 1980 and older. I think that car will be a real crowd attraction.
I just got back from camping. Had a great time working with those guys. We gat alot done, butr it seems the next group got it to actually drive.
Jim, it looks good in the drive. What carb did you use?
Is the clutch working now?
Steve
I just got back from camping. Had a great time working with those guys. We gat alot done, butr it seems the next group got it to actually drive.
Jim, it looks good in the drive. What carb did you use?
Is the clutch working now?
Steve
Jim Weise from V8Buick gave us some good advice re: the q-jet carb and we were able to finish the break-in run with it by choking it enough to keep the pipes from glowing, and afterwards it seemed to run pretty good so we left it on there. That right there saved us about 5 hundred smackeroos. We only ran it down the drive, turned around in the front yard and back to the lab twice. We're still waiting on the HTOB and fittings for the brake lines. So we had no clutch or brakes except the e-brake but since we stayed in 1st gear engine braking was more than we needed. The radiator will have to be rodded out, it was 230* at the top couple inches and 80* the rest of the way down. The lower neck can be angled in at 45* at the same time for tire clearance. The fan shroud Tom sent came in today but I don't see how we can use it as the fan opening is offset quite a lot. So we still need a fan package. One more cut and weld is needed on the shifter, the valve covers will have to come off and be sealed one more time probably (3rd time for these valve covers) and the leak we noticed below the car appears to be the rear main seal. Those are the immediate things other than detail work on the wiring and the bodywork. And of course the radiator support needs to be reworked. Tires rubbed the body on both front and rear. On the front it will be easy enough to trim the fiberglass fenders for clearance once we have them. On the rear a little trimming behind the tires is needed and the passenger's side inner wheelwell needs bumped in behind the tire. Plenty of clearance on the other side so who know's what that's all about. Probably another Abingdon oddity. The springs on the coil over units are probably not nearly stiff enough, and the seats really need to be bolted down. Dave hit the gas and I thought I was headed for the trunk!
Sorry you didn't get to drive it first Steve, but it'll just get better from here on.
Jim
;)
I knew you were driving it without a clutch. I'd have done the same thing!
Here's another weekend update:
Graham and Curtis have been diligently researching our options for a fan package and a surge tank. We have a number of fairly good choices for the tank (and of course we can use the old recycled steel one until we find the best choice) but so far they haven't been able to improve on the dual fan package from Summit. There's no point in doing any more to the radiator or front structure until we have that. Dave Kirkman and I had swapped to a rubber top radiator hose last weekend after the corrugated stainless one left it's moorings and gave Dave a hot shower. The fault was in the use of tapered rubber sleeves for the ends so I do NOT recommend the Pep-Boys item for that unless you use straight ends instead of the tapered pieces. The Summit product has better chrome anyway and is a better hose in several ways. Dave was OK but he got a pretty good scare. Luckily we were running water with a small amount of additive rather than glycol so once he dried out he was fine, or at least said he was. We used the stainless hose for a pattern and went to AutoZone and picked out one that matched it's bends, and that does a better job of allowing the hood to close also. Not as much bling and it's regrettable that we wasted the group's money on that, but at least it did make a great pattern. Most importantly though I don't think we need to worry about a repeat performance.
Friday night Dan B came back to help me go get Edith's new chariot (a white Buick V6/auto TR7) but Sunday we were able to do a little work on the Roadmaster. First we wheeled it out and made 3 laps around the farm before the temp came up and we had to park it, and a few observations are in order. The carb needs tuned. It's rich in the bottom end and lower midrance. Very rich, in fact it blubbers a bit. By starting near the bottom of the driveway we were just able to clear the carb and get into the bottom of the powerband by the time we had to shut down for the crest of the hill, and even at that point it is IMPRESSIVE! Coming up the driveway the car hooks up very well. Some slight initial spin with the right tire is all. But once we were into the power, it rips the left tire loose from the concrete in a gradual but fast building way that lets you know that unless you ease up there will be smoke and lots of it. Folks, we have a very fun toy on our hands here.
So anyway Dan and I did a little trimming to help with the worst of the tire rub so we got a little more done than just testing. Ken and Katie will be here this coming weekend Sunday and Monday so hopefully we will make a bit more progress then.
I think we have made fine progress on the project up to this point. If we could it would be good to sort out the front structure before the car is handed off to Pete in September, but even if we don't manage that we can be proud of our accomplishments up to this point. We've proven that a big block Buick is a practical swap into the MGB in terms of fit, weight, performance and cost, and we have a car that is driveable at least for testing and which will soon be on the street. I am happy at this point to be able to hand off to some others who can bring their own unique skills to bear on the project, and I thank you all for your support and encouragement during the first phase of the build. As we go forward into August and then September for the hand-off and beyond let's do our best to continue that support and complete the build in accordance with our timeline that we set up when we started the project. We've done a great job of meeting our deadlines up to now, so let's support Pete and the boys out his way in a manner that will get the job done. I'll still be here of course, plugging away. We all want to drive the car, so let's make it happen.
Jim
Jim,
Sounds like things are really moving now. Wish I could have been there for the test drives. I guess I'll see it a Pete's in Sept.
Congtats to all involved.
Steve
Jim:
KUDOS!!!!
I was tickled to watch the videos! Sounds awesome!
[Glad to see the car didn't have an electrical fire. :-) ]
Whatever you want to do on the carb, I'm all for it. (You come up with something easily tuneable, and I'll volunteer to dyno tune it!)
I was there for the Q-Jet jet change, folks. It's ridiculous. Carb is only good out of the box. It would take HOURS on the dyno to get it right... :-( :-(
Max
Max is right, but to be fair there were one or two things we were missing on the jet change that makes it a little faster and easier. It's still ridiculous in my opinion but not nearly AS ridiculous. Most importantly is to drive out the pin from the accelerator pump pivot (just far enough to clear the arm, it is then pried back into place with a screwdriver. A bit hokey but it works.) Enthusiasts claim that with practice, hooking the choke linkage isn't really that bad either. We don't agree, but... at least that can be left off until the thing goes together for the last time. Last but certainly not least, later model Q-jets have a mechanism called APT, stands for part throttle enrichment or something like that, and the spare Q-jet that we have does have one of those, provided I didn't lose too many parts. It's a screw in the center of a conical dome on the float bowl and can be used to tune the primaries without pulling the cover. Of course, putting that on the carb that is on the car and working would mean making sure all the parts are there, swapping the base plates to get the right throttle linkage and other stuff, and again, some enthusiasts say the earlier carbs are actually a little better. I'm guessing we just need to put the original jets back in the current carb (and a new accel pump piston would be a good idea) and it'll run pretty good. We never did adjust the idle mixture screws either, but that can wait until the radiator and fan are sorted.
Speaking of which, it now appears that our best option on a fan is the Flex-a-Lite 298 that Graham found some time back.
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http://www.summitracing.com/parts/FLX-298/
This fan pulls 4500 cfm and should fit. I can do a little more careful measuring to be certain before we order. It costs $369 which seems like a lot, but so far we've not found anything else that will do the job. It does not appear to come with any kind of a thermostat switch however. To get that we would have to order the #295:
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/FLX-295/
Which costs $90 more but has a variable speed control.
We have about 1 month left before the car goes to Pete's place. Now I have no doubt that Pete can do just as good of a job with this part of the project as I can, maybe better. I thought I'd try to build the front structure before it goes there if I could, but there's no point in messing with it until we have the parts and one of you may be able to find these parts at a better price (wholesale maybe?) or a suitable substitute. But we can afford to do this and it has to be done if the car is going to be driven at next year's meet.
I'm asking for your input, advice and suggestions. How should we proceed?
Jim
Jim, I have had excellent results on my Midget using the GM thermoswitch that simply screws into the head or manifold wired to control a relay. They are available in several heat settings, I use a 212 degree unit, and cost less than $15. Combined with a 190 degree thermostat the coolant can circulate at speed without the fan and the fan only comes on when the temp rises above 212.
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I'm also a fan (no pun intended) of using Bosch fans that I get at the salvage yard from BMWs and Mercedes. They move a lot of air, cool great, and are very high quality units considering that they have to live up to the manufacturer's warranty needs. The downside is that someone would have to fabricate brackets and shrouds for them. Here's a two speed unit from a Merc I'm installing on my MGA project to reference the size. That's a TR4 radiator it's attached to. If I remember correctly it cost me $35.
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Fair enough Bill, and that represents the other end of the spectrum. Time verses money. I just read a thread where the owner was complaining about fan noise and certainly a variable speed fan will eliminate most of that. Is that a consideration worth an extra $75? He would have said it was. Also, we cut corners on the radiator. We think it will be big enough but won't know until we drive it. What will it cost us to rework the front of the car if we have to go to a thicker core radiator later on? Plus, we now have to have it rodded out which means removing it and making at least 2 trips to a radiator shop and paying whatever they charge for the service. There is no shop right around the corner that I would trust so that means at least an hour's driving time doubled or even tripled. Did we save anything over the cost of a $150 aluminum radiator? In reality maybe not. We bought a set of tin valve covers for $75, paid 2 shipping charges (all donated actually) and the upper lip had to be bent to clear the head casting and they still leak. Would we have been better off with aluminum covers made by the same manufacturer to match those heads? Maybe. So I guess the point I'm making is that I personally have a very limited amount of time available to work on the car before turning it over and I'd rather make that time count as opposed to spending it running errands, rummaging through junkyards, and reworking parts to get them to work the way they should have worked in the first place.
Incidentally though, Pete's place should be a lot closer to you than I am, maybe you could help him sort out the fan? I could make suggestions, maybe even run over that way every now and then. We do have nearly a year after all to make it driveable.
As you might have guessed playing lame duck isn't a role I'm real comfortable with but I'm giving it my best shot. If I get a little impatient I hope you will all understand that it comes from being goal driven and not from anything done or not done by any of the group.
Jim
Jim, I didn't mean to imply that anyone had to do any junk yard treasure hunting. I just wanted to offer an alternative for the guys to consider. If time permits and I could get a good diagram of the area we're dealing with I could probably work up something here and ship it to Pete. The temp switch is definitely an easy thing though if you don't need the variable speed, an off the shelf GM part available at any auto parts store. Hook that up with switched power to control a common Bosch relay and you're in business. Works great with around a 190 degree thermostat in the engine and a 212 degree fan switch. That allows the engine to run on the highway without the fan if the radiator and air flow are ok and then switch on the fan when the temp climbs a bit in traffic.
re: $90 for a thermostatic switch and variable speed fan...
I don't know... perhaps a thermostatic fan switch makes the car a little more "idiot proof", but FWIW I've never had a thermostatic fan switch on my car and I've never missed having one either. It's just not that hard to turn "on" a fan manually, and a thermostatic switch would be easy enough to add at a later date anyhow.
Noisy fan? What a sissy thing to bitch about! If the mufflers are loud enough, there's no way you're gonna hear an electric fan. I thought this car was supposed to be badass? If so, fan noise should be the least of your/our worries. Celebrate loudness! "Open up your engine, let'em roar. Tearing up the highway like a big ol' dinosaur!"
Variable speed fan? I do not think that is necessary... unless the fans you buy sound like a jet engine and are maxing out the limits of their bearings. Then I could see where variable speed fan control would be useful.
My father's 455 streetrod had a temperature issue at speed. Despite improvements in air ducting he felt it was still running too warm. His rear mounted fan had a shroud and he removed it to see if it would improve the situation. It did not help, BUT removing the shroud did not cause any overheating at idle (so he left it off).
Ultimately, he fixed the problem by replacing the "corrugated" flex hose with a preformed rubber hose. Now it stays cool at speed and idle. Looks like you guys already figured that one out.
For my Sprite, I mounted a fan behind the radiator and it is on/off with a thermostat as Bill described. Cheap, and effective.
Bill, the dimensions are 17 x 27 x 3 and it's just a big ole' rectangular space. Since the lower fitting will need angled in the shroud will have to provide for that at the bottom driver's side corner. The fan from Summit may actually be too thick depending on where that 4" clearance is needed. does that give you enough info to start with? We can bolt it to what is left of the frame rails after cutting those for clearance.
Jim
Curtis, point well taken. But you'd be amazed at how comfortable this "big ole dinosaur" is going to be to drive.
Jim,
You think my fan's that came off the 2002 Camaro Z28 would work? I'm not going to be using them. If you think they would work , take them! I could do some measuring in the morning!
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They just might Calvin, they look about right. I'll print that out and go out in the morning and take a good look at it. I think the critical area is going to be at the water pump pulley, I'll get an accurate measurement of exactly where that is in relationship to the rest of the radiator and we can see if we have enough depth at that point as well as how the box fits. And thanks. Do you have any of the wiring for the fans?
Jim
Calvin, I have some measurements for you to look at. All Right/Left directions are facing the rear of the radiator, or seen from the driver's position. Visualize the water pump pulley shaft as being a 3" diameter circle. The center point of that circle is centered 3" down from the top edge of the radiator core and 12-1/2" to the right of the left hand edge, 14-1/2" left of the right hand edge. Total width 27". This circle is just over 3" from the face of the core. It might interfere with the lip surrounding the right hand fan, or it might not. If it does it may be possible to trim the lip slightly if interference with the fan blades does not result. If it does, it may still be possible to slightly trim the tip of each fan blade for clearance, and we have another 1/4" or more at the edge of that circle.
Now visualize a second circle, 6-1/2" in diameter. The center of that circle is centered 9-3/4" below the top edge of the radiator and 13-3/4" to the right of the left hand edge. So yes, this circle is 1-1/4" shifted to the right of the top circle. This lower circle is 3-3/4" away from the face of the radiator core. It may interfere with the lip surrounding each of the two fans. If it does, about the only thing we can do to help it is to tilt the bottom of the radiator forward.
That's about it. Please take a look and let us know how it compares. Overall size, 27 x 17"
Jim
OK Jim,
Looking from the driver seat again here facing the fan motors. My measurement 0/0 corner would be the passenger side at the top. I'm measuring everything from that corner.(Top photo) (even though the corner was broken off some how , maybe find that piece somewhere).
Talking fan motor center location first. Right fan center 8 1/4" down from top of straight edge (0) (Not from the little tabs up on top edge), 6 1/2" right to edge (0)
Left fan center, 11 3/4"down from 0 edge at top. 19 1/2" right to edge (0)
From fan shroud outside circle to fan shroud outside circle "Across" full width measurement from 0 side to left side would be the furthest measurement is 26 3/4" (not using the tabs or straight edge measurement)(top photo).
Measurement from 0 down edge to edge 18" for shroud... could do 1/2" trim top and bottom for your 17" measurement? Probably wouldn't bother anything.
The depth of fan motors are from motor face to 1" lip furthest measurement of fan shroud (You can trim this back some) (bottom photo) 5 1/2"
From your measurements on the 3" diameter water pump pulley 3" down and 12 1/2" from the left edge, and with just over 3" from radiator face, would bring you close to the right fan but I think it will clear fine (Don't know where your fan belt rides on this pulley) The bottom photo with the 1" lip on the top of shroud(close to my wall in the photo) you will have a 2" clearance there away from the shroud face. Maybe a 1/4" to 5/8" or more from the fan shroud circle on the outside of the circle( not the fan blade). Good to go there!
The 6 1/2" diameter pulley 9 3/4" down from top and 13 3/4" from left hand edge, and 3 3/4" away from radiator( look at the top photo and look at the"right" fan support blade for the fan motor, at just below 9 o'clock position blade, outer edge, you will see a tab with a small hole on that support blade. If you measure 1" to the left from that hole, that is the center measurement for your 6 1/2" pulley center. With the 3 3/4" depth to radiator
clearance you have there,.... from the back face of the shroud to the fan shroud circle lips for both fans measure 2 1/2" out (bottom photo) if you added 1" for the depth for the top lip you would still have a 1/4" clearance still.
I think this fan setup might work for you!
I don't have any wiring for the fans, but it is a standard 2 male spade clip type GM connection.
Can you understand my garble on this, by golly I think this will work for you? I can weight it in the morning!
Is there anything else sticking out from the engine?
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That is very good news Calvin! What is the overall width btw? It sounds almost like it was made for our application. There's nothing else sticking out from the engine, and I think we have room to trim back the frame rails and pan to clear. So I guess the next thing would be to get it here and test fit it. Is there anything else I can do to help with that?
Jim
The overall width measuring from the the 4 plastic tabs that stick out to hang the shroud from, from tab to tab across is 28 1/4", but if measured outside to outside shroud fan circles across is 26 3/4" cut those tabs off and mount it some other way for your 27" across radiator.
The fans are 12 1/2 " diameter circles.
If that is your address where your avatar is? I'll send it there for you. Monday will be the day I will send it. I will clean it up from all the dust on it and box it up for Monday.
Gotta love the sound of Gunpower Rd in the Blackwood forest labs!
Just maybe I can source the wiring from my friend if I have the time before Monday.
Calvin
That'd be great Calvin. The address is correct, and we really enjoy it here, far enough out to avoid the worst of the traffic and noise but close enough to be convenient. The address was just a bonus! We feel very lucky to be here. If you ever find yourself in the Cincinnati area make plans to stop by. You're always welcome.
Jim
The fan shroud that Calvin sent came in today. After some initial trimming here is the first fit:
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If you can see it, the only place where clearance is inadequate is where one strut hits the lower pulley and that is easily remedied.
Jim
Well it looks like it fits in there like we thought would. "Great" I'm glad it went to good use.
Calvin
"Water Wetter" to help for temp reduction? For future think, gads of (2)x 1" row alum. rad's in Jegs for $165. Knocksensor helpful? Your eardrums probably overwhelmed with "other" sounds? Good Luck, roverman.
Preparations are underway to bring the GT to Pete's place in Sidney, Illinois in a little over a week, where a number of us are planning to gather for a cook-out or some such activity. This will mark a transition in our build program, as we move further from the actual fabrication and conversion and more towards tuning and refinements. Towards that effort, Dave VanWyck has been attempting to get some fiberglass fenders to us, we're still working on that. I expect we will find a chance to sit down informally and discuss where we are and what should be attempted between now and next summer. As always the goals have to remain somewhat flexible, but sorting out the radiator and carb certainly are near the top. Pete has given me every assurance that the car will be well cared for, but at the same time we must acknowledge that he and those who come to work on it must drive and test the car in order to tune it properly. I think we are placing it in good hands. As a driver with racing experience and a consciousness and respect for the cars of others, including his customers, Pete can be relied on, and he certainly is familiar with high powered automobiles. I have satisfied myself that at low speeds the car is safe and tractable, but as we develop power we will need to be ever alert for any signs of trouble and I can't think of anyone better equipped for that task.
So the next week and a half will be a busy time for me, as I get things ready on this end. I know several of us will not make it to Pete's for various reasons but look forward to seeing those who are there.
Jim
Looking forward to seeing you and the Roadmaster this weekend.
OK, just so I have the dates down right, I understand Pete's shindig begins Friday evening the 11th and runs through Sunday the 13th, is that correct? So that would be 9 days from today, right? If I'm in error please correct me quickly!
Jim
The "gathering" is technically 11am Saturday until we quit that evening. (I mistated "this weekend"...medical leave has made the days become somewhat of a blur.)
So, yes, you have the correct weekend....9/12
Hotel accomodations at Chateau Ingram are currently at maximum occupancy, but I already have your reservations covered.
I live about 2 miles north of Pete.
Kelly S. and Mike M. are arriving on Friday...you are more than welcome as well. I'll send an e-mail with directions to you.
I can sleep in the barn. ;)
Carl...I can squeeze you in the house with no problem. You're just a little feller. :)
And yes, the office in the barn is still available..and has its own bathroom.
Wish I could join you all but no time this year. I think Kelley is going to drop by KC afterwards on his way to Nebraska so he can bring me up to date on the activities. I agree, the project is going into good hands, Pete will cerainly take good care of it while he gets it tuned in.
Fiberglass wings for the Roadmaster have arrived....Roadmaster is now temporarily "residing" in central Illinois pictures to follow.
Good News Everyone!
The MGB-Roadmaster has a new home. From now until next summer's British V8 gathering the car will be in the custody of Mantell Motorsports in Sidney Illinois, a virtual stone's throw from Champagne (though why anyone would want to throw stones at champagne is beyond me...). With a fair number of enthusiasts within just a few hours drive, more of you now will have the chance to gather at Pete's place and help in readying the car for next summer's meet. There are many small tasks yet to be done, but with good participation we can easily have it ready and humming like a swiss watch (a very LARGE swiss watch) by then, and we can all go out and tear up the parking lot. Odds are good we'll even have insurance and tags as well, I'll be working on that end of it.
As some of you are aware, Terry Schulte has renewed his pledge to paint the car once it is ready, and that should happen after next summer's meet, over the winter. For that, we will need to finish out the fender flares, arrange for transportation, and dissassembly/reassembly. There are other details to be worked out as well and I will be looking after most of the administrative details to help smooth the road ahead.
Over the weekend we fired the beast up, whereupon Carl and Pete drove it around the yard a couple times, then we removed the steel front fenders and attached the fiberglass ones. Many thanks to Mike Moore for transporting both sets of fenders for us. He's got a great little lightweight flat bed trailer that tags along behind his muscular 300 Buick MGB roadster. Our guestimates indicate that we probably dropped somewhere around 30 lbs with the fender swap. Since they will come back off for work on the car maybe we'll get more accurate numbers later.
So for the next year Pete is The General. With Ricks help (and mine) he will set up the work weekends and make on the spot decisions that affect the build. As usual the big decisions will need some sort of common consensus among us but since Pete is housing the project he should decide if an immediate choice is needed. The rest of our organization remains the same, at least for now.
So, there's tuning work to do, some cleanup, an oil change, work on the radiator and fan and so forth. Many hands make for light work, so everyone contact Pete and tell him when you can be there. Plus it's a ton of fun!
Jim
Aka: Badass Boss (BB)
Here's some pictures from this weekend.....
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....and some more....
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...and a couple more....
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...we did take time out to cultivate some corn! :)
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...and watch the NASCAR race...
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Looks like you all had a good time and got some good progress made on the car as well. Now that I can see the frame mods for the radiator I really like that design, good work guys. Kelly warned me about that group though, don't go to sleep early or someone might be about up to no good in the corn field. And I heard some rumor about doughnuts or such from the Roadmaster, how about that Carl?
Here's a shot of our gathering at Mantell Motorsport...a few cars (the BADASS Roadmaster, Merv Hagen's MGB V8, Ron Davis' Morgan Plus 8, Tom Bowles TVR, Jim Zivic's MGB, Dik Sleeth's supercharged MGB,and Pete Mantell's Land Rover) are not visible...this does not include a couple of customer cars in the workshop (one 302 conversion and one LS2 conversion) as well as Pete's Factory Five Cobra Coupe. Note the additional available horsepower in the background.
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What happened on the frame mod was that I made the forward extensions long enough for standard bumper bracket attachments and then attached the diagonals to the car and this put them back too far and into the tire space. The remedy is to move the diagonals forwards about 3 inches or so, and then make everything else fit them. Then I think the tire clearance will be correct.
Jim
Good News Everyone! It seems our Ways and Means Committee chairman, Rick Ingram has been busy, and his efforts have culminated in an offer by "Mr. Mike" to provide us with a set of seat upholstery to fit a set of Fiero seats which Rick has set aside for this project. Thank you Rick! This is the kind of participation that will help us have a really nice car when we finish!
Rick has asked for suggestions for seat colors and patterns. Feel free to comment here. Following is a link to Mr.Mike's website where you can see various combinations:
http://www.mrmikes.com/fierohome.htm
We have also been trying to organize another work weekend out at Pete's shop in Sidney Illinois. This can happen anytime after the 6th of October, so whoever can make it needs to suggest weekends when they can be there. In order to have the car driveable by summer we really need to have at least 3 work weekends by late spring. I will not be available on the 11th but otherwise should be able to go. Who else?
Anyone who likes is welcome to route their trip through here (Florence, KY just outside the Cincinnati beltway) in order to travel together, cut costs, overnight, etc.
Jim
I would like to publicly thank Mr.Mike for this generous offer!
I was looking at the flares on the rear of Philip Leonard's SCCA GT2 class racer (in a thread under the racing section) and I like the looks of his rear flares. (Though I favor a more rounded wheel arch personally) What do you guys think of those panels?
Jim
Can you provide the link to save (us) a little search time? :)
Sure:
http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?9,1582
Scroll down about 3/4 of the way.
Jim
Hi Guys,
Due to coaching soccer and SEMA show the first work weekend in Sidney can be Saturday Nov 14th.
We have games both Sat & Sun until Oct 31st. Then it's SEMA Nov 3rd back on Nov 7th.
Check your calenders and let me know if that works for anyone.
Thanks
Pete
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I'm planning on being there, who else can make it?
Jim
Pete and I scored some ancillary stuff for the Roadmaster today....two "Roadmaster" trim pieces from a 90's Roadmaster wagon and an owners manaul (vinyl cover will be neat for a photo album or something!)
The Roadmaster lettering trim is about 12" long by about 1" high.
Pete,
I will be arriving with Jim for the work weekend on Nov 14. Should be fun.
Steve
Jim and Team BADASS,
A couple of posts ago you asked about preferences for flares. I just saw in the latest issue of MG Enthusiast magazine a body kit I have never seen before.
It's the MGB Airline body kit, reportedly carried by Halls Garage in the UK. Here's a link to the website.http://www.hallsgarage.co.uk/Specials.htm
Kind of an IMSA flare look. No price listed. Probably too expensive for the project, but looks sharp and might seed some ideas.
Johnny
P.S., Love following the progress. Looks like great fun.
Thanks Johnny. The comments and the link are appreciated. Hopefully over the winter we can get that squared away.
Good News Everyone! I talked to Brian McCullough just now and he can add a much needed link in the chain. Turns out that not only is he just about 3 hours from Terry Schulte, but he is willing to take on some of the disassembly/transport/storage/reassembly we need in order to get the car in paintable condition to Terry! Now if you look at your map, Brian is a little north of St. Paul in Stacy, MN so that leaves the matter of getting the car to him sometime after this summer's meet. I'm just guessing that Paul and Mary (Schills) might be the next closest to Brian and we probably need to enlist the help of someone in that area for the next leg, and then we have the segment from Pete's place in Sydney, IL up to Fredonia, WI. Breaking the distance up into 3 pieces that way will make it much more manageable, and we may be able to divide the disassembly/reassembly task up a little too.
So this is wonderful news and brings us so much closer to completion. We can work out the details between now and the summer meet, but I found it exciting enough that I just had to share it with the rest of you.
Jim
Jim,
Sue & I plus Alex & Kenny, can deliver the Roadmaster directly to Brian. Sue's brother lives near by in the Minneapolis, it'll give us an excuse to visit family & Brian's shop.
Cheers
Pete
Pictures of the Roadmaster treasures found yesterday............
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Whoa, that & a bit of powdercoating, awesome! ;)
Hi Carl, No powdercoating, just camera flash. Cheers Pete
I like it! When I get the chance I'll turn a knob for the hold down nut out of aluminum or stainless. Those have gotten way expensive, even the repro ones are over 30 bucks. Plus there is a tri-shield emblem that goes in the round recess on the front if anyone happens to run across one of those.
Jim
I might have a tri-shield emblem out in the barn. I'll measure the diameter of the circle on the Batwing and see what's out there.
I got the Fiero seat covers ordered from Mr.Mike today.
Black with dark grey inserts in the "Vetter" style. Should arrive in 7 to 10 days; I'll begin the install as soon as they arrive.
Woo-Hoo!! Way to go Rick!
Jim
They will look similar to this:
Fieroseats-Vetterstyle.jpg
You're really pushing for that light body color, huh? Well, doesn't matter to me as long as it isn't some color that's BORING. How about bright yellow? (Wanna back me up on this Max?)
Jim
Bee YELLOW. Bitch'n Yellow...I like yellow!
Oh, Rick said, "Black with dark grey inserts in the "Vetter" style" oops, my mistake...
Jim
When it comes to painting the Roadmaster, we need to consider its "resale" or "auction" value and use a scheme that will be pleasing to a majority of potential buyers/bidders in the market place.
Just a thought.
Solid black seats would have covered more ground for exterior colors if resale is the goal. I want my tranny back if y'all paint it Yellow !!
I'm not sure resale value is even a consideration here. Maybe I'm wrong. But if that is a concern, considering the radical nature of the car with the BBB and hole in the hood, one-off (OK 2-off) suspension and graphics on the paint with names and sponsors, it will never appeal to buyers who want something moderate. I think flashy is the name of the game here, and when you start thinking about flashy and exotic sports cars, red has got to be the number one color choice. I think Joe has one of the best color combinations, with his gold-on-red paint scheme. I also like black-on-red. At any rate, by summer we need to have a pretty good idea where we are going with this.
By the way, it looks as if Dave VanWyck will be coming to the work weekend, along with Dave Evans who is also building an MGB-V8.
Jim
I got very little input when I asked for comments on the Fiero covers. I chose two-tone grey/black as a way of giving some eye relief in what can be a very dark cockpit in a GT....and these tones will go with most any exterior colour that we choose.
If we are to auction this car off, we will get a higher dollar (and therefore a larger dollar amount to give to charity) if the colour chosen appeals to a wide cross section of the population....this is true if it is a stock MGB/GT or our highly modified Roadmaster.
Rick, I think the choice of interior colors is good. I agree with you that we should be building the car to appeal to a wide audience considering the final disposition. Yes the paint with all the sponsor names and logos will be a bit different, but if we keep those "tasteful" in their design and placement they'll be a plus to the car instead of a negative. If we use vinyl graphics for those they can eventually be remvoed and the clear coat buffed out without a trace for the new owner if they wish. We don't want to go too conservative, but I personally don't think that yellow would be the best color. I suggest we try for agreement on a fairly standard mid spectrum color such as a blue or green and stay away from heavy metalics so that if any repairs are eventually needed they will be easier to match. The original blue that's on the car now or the green of the first body would be fine with me and both would work well with the seats. If you guys want a bit more flash then consider the MG orange color "vermillion" used on the Bs. Not too flashy, but definitely an eye catcher.
True enough Rick, but before we go too far down that road, I'd like to ask, what is our favorite charity? Could it be B.A.D.A.S.S.? So do we auction off the car and give the money to B.A.D.A.S.S.? And then do what with it? Build a proper fuel efficient sports car? Or did you have something else in mind? Certainly if we auction it off and give the proceeds to, say for example the Red Cross then that is the end of B.A.D.A.S.S. since it is our sole asset.
My point in saying this is that the car will be out on the road for several years before we even reach that decision point, and it is entirely possible that we may decide that the best way to promote our sport and educate the younger generations is to just keep it going. And if we do, the effect of color choice on resale is simply not a factor. Or, at that point we may decide that a respray is in order to enhance marketability. Or, the car may have gained such widespread recognition that a market exists for it no matter what color it is. Those are some of the reasons I say marketability may not be relevant in the color choice. As long as we don't paint it some totally stupid color we will probably be allright, but to my mind the entire purpose of the car is to attract attention and get people to look at it. To do that it should be as bright and flashy as possible.
By the way Rick, I think you were dead-on with your seat color choices.
Jim
I thought I would get a little "action" when I suggested YELLOW. I don't mind it on someone else's car I just wouldn't want it on mine. Besides we can't go far with a tranny! Red looks fast. I had 94 Porche red on my first BV8 and it was RED' Like you said Jim it needs to be flashy whatever color it is. M2C
Black on Black on Black. Using various levels of gloss it would have quite a striking effect. Black out the windows as well. Think of the money you'll save on chrome. ;) Sort of Grand National like.
QuoteI got very little input when I asked for comments on the Fiero covers. I chose two-tone grey/black as a way of giving some eye relief in what can be a very dark cockpit in a GT....and these tones will go with most any exterior colour that we choose.
I didn't chime in because I didn't have a problem with anything you proposed. You didn't mention yellow two-toned seat covers. ;)
How 'bout we paint it what we want & worry about resale later........much later. Maybe even repaint it much later.
Good thing I passed on the pink covers, eh?
Might be a good idea to check w/Terry if he's still going to do the paint & body work. Darker colors show imperfections more so require more hrs of labor to get ready for paint. Just a thought.
When I spoke to Terry on Labor Day he did mention that he hoped we'd pick a lighter color because of just the problem Rob mentioned. Maybe Steve has something there with his white with blue stripes. ;-) Those are the FIA racing colors for the US, would be appropriate in that sense.
OK, I can understand choosing a light color for a volunteer project to reduce prep time. But if it were my car it would be dark, sleek and ominous. :)
Considering the ties to Buick, the GN scheme certainly does have some appeal. Also the current body is straight so aside from the flares should not need much additional prep for a dark color.
Jim
Just for giggles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeZQs1oi5cs
Trevor's ideas sound B.A.D.A.S.S. - but rather than black why not flat gray? This might be a good car for one of those rat-rod paint schemes that looks like primer. Gray works well with other colors. Sponsor decals would look especially good on a gray background. You could potentially accent the gray with some elaborate flames, or a British flag motif, or maybe stripes in gloss black or charcoal.
I'd recommend losing unnecessary chrome trim too.
If not gray... orange is pretty sharp:
(http://www.britishracecar.com/p-Contributors.jpg)
OK, since we are talking paint schemes... light ice blue with dark navy blue hood/top/hatch.
I like the orange idea too, but I'd go with a satin finish and black out all the chrome and tuck the bumpers.
Silver is over done and can be difficult to spray.
Roadmaster work weekend ... this Friday/Saturday....11/13-14
Yep, we've got a pretty good work crew lined up if everyone shows, so we should be able to get a lot done. Somebody will have to be designated as weekend photog so we have pics to share, and I think pretty much anyone who wants to show up is welcome. We all know where Pete lives, right?
Steve DeGroat and I should get there Friday evening.
Jim
Sorry guys, I'm not gonna be able to make this one. Probably be pretty low key after all that Viva Las Vegas. ;)
Pete told me today that the radiator has a bad core so we need to reconsider our options. Do we look for another XJ6 radiator to modify? Do we buy an aluminum radiator? Let's have some suggestions on this.
Jim
Pete Mantell, Dave Kirkman, Steve deGroat, and Jim Blackwood are working on the Roadmasdter today. Some decisions have been made regarding the radiator; it was planned to have the brakes plumbed; and a look at the clutch hydraulics was planned as well.
Next work weekend will most likely be in January.
A fantastic work weekend it was.............
As Rick mentioned we worked on getting the brakes plumbed, clutch fork & hydraulics & radiator support.
The work crew was:
Jim Blackwood
Steve deGroat
Dave Kirkman
Tom Bowles - White Heath, IL
Dik Sleeth - St Joseph, IL
Pete Mantell
Rick Ingram
Steve, Dave & Tom concentrated on the brakes, Jim worked on the Rad support and I worked on the clutch parts.
New brake lines were bent & master cylinder installed.
We pulled out the T5 from under the car and loosened the bellhousing, I then fabricated/modified a clutch fork and wilwood pull type slave cylinder, which then was attached to the side of the transmission.
Jim cut off the tube steel rad support to enable the wheels to be turned lock to lock.
It was then trimmed and re-installed pending the new radiator.
Here are a few pictures of the weekend.
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And a few more..................
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And more..................
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And a few more.........
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Plus, I took a couple more photo's with borrowed front fenders, just to see how it would look..........
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I will work out a schedule for the upcoming work weekends and post ASAP.
Well guys, I think if there was any question in anyone's mind about the wisdom of moving the project we've just dispelled them. The project has moved along quite smoothly and we've made progress in directions we wouldn't have had it stayed here. A case in point, it turned out that Pete had that brand-new in-the-box pull cylinder that we needed lying on the shelf waiting for an application and he didn't seem to mind donating it to the car. So not only was the cost of buying it avoided but the time spent acquiring it was avoided as well. And it turned out that his feeling that an external slave cylinder would fit and work was well founded. Some judicious trimming of the release arm and very slight bumping of the tunnel and we had a good 3/4" of clearance. (There is an existing bulge in the tunnel, we simply smoothed the rear edge of it.) The hardened release arm was near impossible to drill for the pivot bolt to the slave but it turns out that Pete has quite a skilled hand with the plasma cutter and with the hole at near finished size and shape a simple clean up had it in good condition. Anyhow, these guys really worked on the car, but there was quite a bit of joking and tomfoolery going on as well and a more congenial and agreeable environment you'd be hard pressed to find. We did take a break for an extended executive power lunch at the local bar and grill. Some of us might have thought at the time that those were wasted hours but with such an almost extravagant rest break we were well able to work into the evening, when Rick showed up with a much welcomed pair of extra large pizzas. Steve, Dave, Tom, and the guys were meticulous in their preparation of the braking system, even going so far as to consult with Bill Guzman over the phone to insure that everything in the braking system is as it should be. Turns out that the flex lines are a bit short but that is the last piece of the puzzle and all else is in readiness. We have a few fittings to acquire for the clutch lines (pressure and bleed) as well, but those are very minor issues which we can square away next time around. Speaking of which, we'd like to see some more new faces at the build, so sign up now!
As mentioned, we made some decisions, one of which was the radiator, which was ordered from Summit and will be arriving at Rick's house on Tuesday. With that we will finalize the front support, bumper mounts and grille attachment. This weekend we simply moved the doglegs forward where Pete securely welded them into place. So personally I really didn't do much other than make suggestions but I feel those were valuable as well. Rick's able assistance in that area helped assure that all was in order. The "new guys", Tom, Dik, and Jim (last name started with "V" if I recall correctly) were immensely helpful in too many ways to recount.
In the end, we rolled the car out, much closer to being roadworthy than it was before and quite satisfied with our efforts. Another weekend like that, maybe two, and some time spent tuning and we'll be very close to ready for the meet.
The one thing that needs to be settled however is the matter of the rear flares. I was a bit surprised to see that photo of the Sebring fender on the car, hadn't realized Pete had the photo to post. But doesn't the car look GREAT?!! Is it just me, or is that exactly in keeping with the character of the build? Already being at the point of glass fenders it really isn't much of a stretch from there to Sebring but look at how much better it matches with the wheels and what an aggressive stance it gives the car! If we could do something comparable at the rear the end result will be something that every single adolescent boy with an ounce of red blood in his veins is going to simply drool over! Much as we may have graduated to a more moderate approach, don't forget that this audience is who we want to reach with our message about the synergies of big American engines and little British sports cars. If you like this look please let us know. So many surprise benefits have come our way in this build that this should certainly be thought of as a possibility. Of course matching the rear to that should be a priority, and I for one just wonder if there's any chance that someone like Bill G with his newly acquired skills on the wheel might come up with something for us.
Jim
I had a great time at Pete's. We did get a lot done. Jim has covered the work we did.
Just wanted to say thanks to Pete and ARick for having us there. Stayed at Rick's and really had a great time.
Met new people and worked well with them, I don't always play well with others.
I do hope to make the next work weekend and hope to see some more people there.
The Sebring fender look great, hope we can get them.
Steve
I'll second that emotion regarding the Sebring front fenders.....even if the ARE fibreglass! ;)
re: The "new guys", Tom, Dik, and Jim (last name started with "V" if I recall correctly) were immensely helpful in too many ways to recount.
That would be Tom Bowles, Dik Sleeth, and Jim Zivic.
Sebring fender looks great. Gives it a more muscular look! You got my vote.
I don't think those fenders are available. I do think a mold should be made from them real quick! ;)
I think ***those particular**** fenders just *****might***** be available.
Here's the new radiator...arrived today from Summit:
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You guys wanta put this on the car?
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OK...I give....WTF if that?
old.
Really? Nobody recognizes it?
It looks like an old detonator to me.
Dale
Naw... C'mon guys, surely somebody here is old enough to have seen one of these before. It *is* automotive.
no clue here. looks like some sort of early battery, but not aware if early ones were a dry cell of some sort.
Some kind of a big capacitor?
Some kind of a big capacitor?
Well, it *is* an electrical component, and a very necessary one at that.
buzz box coil?
Well I guess it *IS*!
Yep! Rob got it, a Model T coil. Used by the old time hot rodders to add "flame throwers" to their tail pipes by running the lead to a spark plug in the exhaust tip.
Jim
I may be gettin' old, but I'm not any where near that old!
Oh yeah? Them high school kids may disagree with ya!
Bring it! :)
Carl, you get across that old Model T coil and you'll be an old man. That thing will bite your butt in a flash and leave your hair grey. Jim, think we should wire it up for flame throwers? That would get the folks at the British car shows rolling I bet. I guess I'm one of the old men in the group, recognized it immediately when I saw the photo, but the answer had already been posted. Once upon a time we used to charge up old condensers using one of those and leave them on a shop towel for some mechanic to pick up. That's the sort of things those old timers taught me when I was a kid along with some more useful mechanical skills.
I got started on the Fiero seats this week. They are going to look good.
That's really good news Rick. It'd be great if you could post a shot or two of the work in progress. That's going to make a real nice improvement to the appearance of the car.
Jim
Here's what we're starting with.....
Inthebeginning......jpg
Fiero seats as found in local "U-Pick-It" salvage yard
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...and a hint of things to come!
Fiero seat progress....driver side done (other than cleaning up and installing the seat rails).
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And the seat bottom....
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And here's the finished product. It sits lower than the original as the seat rails have yet to be installed. The Roadmaster driver seat was originally the Fiero passenger seat - and visa versa.
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Very professional looking job Rick - didn't realize that you had that much talent.
Thanks, Graham.
I'm impressed, as well. That's damn fine work for a pill counter! ;)
Thanks, Carl.
Does look good Rick. Had you done that before?
Rob...this is the first pair that I've done in Mr.Mikes vinyl. I was impressed with the quality of the kit from Mr.Mike.
I used Mr.Mike's leather kits for my MGB/GT and for one of Pete Mantell's cars. I have a set of seats to do for my 1978 tourer; I was going to use leather on it, but I may use vinyl now. I also have another customer in line for a set of seats; he's leaning towards vinyl.
Mr.Mike also has kits available for Miata seats. Again, I cannot thank MrMike.com enough for the donation of this vinyl seat kit for the Roadmaster!
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Mantell Fiero seats (the tabs sticking out beneath the headrests wil fold back in once shoulder straps have been inserted through the openings...see picture below)
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Ingram Fiero seats - note perforations for speakers in headrests
Thanks Rick, MrMike is going to be doing my Miata seats. I've been talking w/him for a while now. He was slammed getting kits out before Christmas so will be sending me some vinyl samples when he's finished those. I have the ostrich (simulated) that'll be used in the center sections & had the place I got it send him some too. He's finding me some coordinating plain material for the outters & backs. I'm planning to do mine w/slots for a 4-pt harness although still debating that because the miata seats are narrower up top.
Is he doing that actual recovering job for you as well?
Or making the kit and sendng it to you to do?
Curious as to the differences (if any) in the Miata vs Fiero in terms of "degree of difficulty"
Be sure to post pictures!
He's making the kit & sending it. Will definitely post pics.
Some down and dirty advise:
The first time I did seats (for my GT)...I watched the supplied video a couple of times....then did a seat (with the video on pause for quick reference).
The second seat goes a LOT quicker than then first.
Take your time in prepping the seat foams, supplementing the bolsters, have a roll of duct tape by your side, etc.
Keep your fingers away from the hog rings and pliers. I've donated some blood on each seat I've done! :)
Today I sandblasted the seat rails for the Roadmaster's new seats...tomorrow I will paint them.
Yesterday I completed the bottom seat assembly of the passenger seat - and repaired the seat back.
If time allows, I will finish the seat back tomorrow and then reassemble the seat.
Then all they will need are the seat rails re-installed and adapt the rails to fit the existing mounting holes for the MGB.
GOOD NEWS Everyone! (I just love saying that.) We have an upcoming MGB-Roadmaster work weekend scheduled for a week from now, the weekend of January 16th and 17th, in conjunction with the Spurious Winter Party, all to be held at Mantell Motorsports in Sydney, Illinois! (Pete, I *seriously* hope you are ready for the onslaught!)
It's been longer than it should have been since I've posted to this thread and I hope you will all excuse me for that. Edith, Matthew and I hosted the Blackwood family Christmas party this year and it was quite an ordeal getting the house in order for the party, and then getting back to normal afterwards. Suffice it to say that between completing the basement, setting up the 115 year old family billiards table, converting it to an 8 x 12 ft banquet table, and all of the furnishings, decorations and other preparations, it has all just flown by in a rush of activity. So I hope my absence can be excused.
At any rate, we are very much looking forward to renewed efforts on the project, having a first hand look at Rick's reupholstering job (and trying them out) tidying up the cockpit of the car, completing the brakes, completing the radiator install, and finally, working up a comprehensive punch-out list of remaining items that need to be completed before the summer show. I honestly do not know what the chances are of getting the car out on the lane in front of Pete's house, but I'd be the last to object if it can be done safely.
I'm also very much looking forward to the annual meeting of the Spurious, with the attendant chance to socialize with close friends and make new ones.
Our venerable Treasurer, Steve DeGroat and I will be traveling together from my location and we will be bringing Matthew along as well. His presence for this meet is virtually guaranteed, as Edith will be out of town that week.
In winters past we held the semi-annual B.A.D.A.S.S. business meeting on Sunday morning after festivities had wound down and unless suggested otherwise I see no reason to change that precedent, so if you want to make the business meeting you need to plan on staying overnight. Or coordinate a different time slot that is agreeable to all. The parent function being the Spurious meet, in the past I felt it would be inappropriate to interrupt that activity but I am open to change if the Spurious welcome it.
So I am very much looking forward to seeing everyone there and have high hopes for a very enjoyable weekend.
Your humble servant and President of B.A.D.A.S.S.
Jim Blackwood, Esq.
We had a good work weekend.
Jim Blackwood, Carl Floyd, Steve deGroat, Pete Mantell, Richard Moor, Mikel Moor, Three Toms, myself, and several locals worked on the car.
Radiator is in and needs proper hoses. Seats are in. Clutch hydraulics and brake hydraulics (with new front hoses) are functional. Sebring-style fibreglass front wings have been appropriated and will be installed.
Pete has pictures to post.
We had a good crowd at the combined Spurious winter party and Roadmaster weekend. I'm not too familiar with the newcomers so I will defer to Pete to make their introductions and will instead try to concentrate on giving a decent progress report. The car was up on the rack when Steve and I got there Friday just in time for supper, and much of the evening's work involved discussion of what should be done, the laborious task of processing beer, and inspection of parts. But things really got rolling along well on Saturday and a good bit was accomplished. Rick brought the new seats over and I'm not real sure exactly who was involved in installing them, seemed like at least half of the crew were helping at one time or another, maybe more. They had to modify the seat rails, touch up the paint, drill holes and all that stuff and I think Mike was pretty much leading the charge. While that was going on, another crew led by Steve was installing brake and clutch lines, Rick had another team installing the hatch struts, Carl was completing the modifications to the shifter with welding help from Pete, and I was working up the lower mount for the new Summit aluminum radiator and Camaro dual electric fan package, also with Pete's help. So as you can imagine we were crawling all over the car or so it seemed at times. As it stands now, the seats are in, brakes and clutch work, and the radiator is in place, We gave it a rather rakish angle, leaned back by about 20 degrees and it fits in quite nicely with 5-1/2" of ground clearance and a hefty bar below it for protection. The new fenders will need to be fitted up, work done to flare the rears to match, and a new combination slam panel/ radiator and fan top mount bent up and installed. It looks as if we may be able to use the old top radiator hose on the bottom (it fits amazingly well into the space but is a bit small on the radiator end) and the old bottom hose for the top.
Does anyone have experience in fitting up light fiberglass fenders? Richard mentioned that warming them in the sun is a common practice to help with fitting. These fenders are not going to just bolt right on so if anyone could make suggestions that would make the job go more smoothly it would certainly help out a lot. Plus, Pete has mentioned that he would like to try his hand at laying up some glass and perhaps in the process create some flares for the rear by taking molds off a car he has access to. This seems to me a good approach, and I think I still have a pair of inner fender sections we can weld in for the wheel wells on the back. As an alternative, I have an English wheel that we can try out if anyone wants to see what they can do with it, and it's small enough that I think I can load it in the back of the truck for the next trip to Pete's. We'd need some sheet metal to work with. It's the HF unit with some minor reinforcement and the one set of wheels that comes with it. I can bring it along in Feb if anyone wants to try that. There will be some inside trim to reinstall and other detail work but we are real close to our goal for the summer meet.
Richard, it turns out is an experienced hand with the quadrajet carb and so was officially dubbed, "The B.A.D.A.S.S. Quadrajet Carb Guru" and we are all much relieved to find we have a solution to our carb tuning worries. I will do my best to get him some Buick specifics and put him in touch with Jim Weise to make the job easier for him.
Pete had a pot of some really good chili for us that we all enjoyed, and we had a very productive day despite being blinded by Merv's hat and confused by Carl's purse. (Unabridged report available via Spurious e-mail)
On to the business meeting. In attendance were Pres, VP, Treasurer, and 4 other members if my memory is correct. Minutes and treasurer's report were approved, business included future plans and ideas for funding. Some items deferred to the summer meet. T-shirt design and color was discussed among other things. This year we are going to see if we can put an actual picture of the car in its present condition on the T-shirt, and it looks like we will be able to put the last remaining shirt from last year in the dinner auction. We currently have about $550 in the treasury. Regrettably our secretary wasn't there to take minutes so this will have to do. Those who were there feel free to add to the report. Meeting was adjourned and after putting away the car, parts, tools and such we all went home with a projected calendar date of the last weekend in Feb for the next meeting. That would be the 27th and 28th so make plans now.
Regards,
Jim
Aka "BADASS Boss"
QuoteDoes anyone have experience in fitting up light fiberglass fenders?
This might be a good starting point: <a href="http://www.britishv8.org/Articles/Sebring-Fender-Flares.htm">
Simon Austin's article on installing Sebring Fenders on his MGB</a>
"...and confused by Carl's purse."
Hey, if you must know, I was test marketing a name brand designer laptop bag for my 17" Dell Vostro laptop.
In the greaser-garage arena, it failed, miserably!
That's Carl's story and he's sticking to it.
:)
BTW...nice PINK hat, Carl!
Jim, I have a full set of rollers for the HF English wheel if anyone is willing to take a stab at using them. I can get a of 4' x 4' of sheet metal as well and toss that in the back of the truck. 20 gauge ok?
Should be about right Bill. You coming to the Feb weekend? I think I'll only have to spend a little time on the slam panel and then maybe I can help with the rolling. I'd like to learn how to use the wheel. I have a pretty good general idea but I've never tried rolling compound curves. If 2 or 3 of us want to experiment with it I'm sure we can make some good progress.
Rick, did Merv give that hat to Carl? Someone said he had it packed away in his Murse.
(Wonder how much of this nonsense Carl will tolerate before he goes off?)
Jim
Tick....tick......tick......tick........tick.....
Yes, I'm planning on the February weekend. Whoever tries their hand at the English wheel needs to bring some good heavy leather gloves like welding gloves. Those rollers can mash a finger or thumb so fast it'll make your head spin and your eyes see stars! BTDTGTTS I haven't put too much time in on the wheel yet. So far my efforts haven't resulted in much curve to the metal, but I learned from a friend that I'm not using enough pressure on the rollers it seems. So far I've had better results using the shot bag and mallet then finishing with the planishing hammer and a final roll to smooth things out a bit. If Pete doesn't mind the noise I'll throw those in the truck along with the sheet steel.
Bring it on...and call us the Fantastic Fingerless!
Nothing Pink at my house 'cept "Dark Side of the Moon".
I ain't goin' there...
Startling development this afternoon. Terry called and he wants to get the paint done as soon as possible. As he put it, "Get that car out here so I can make good on my pledge!" He is chomping at the bit and isn't in a mood to wait. I told him we'd have to do the rear fenders and get the fronts mounted and his reply was, well then get 'er done! I have to confess this took me completely by surprise, but it's fortunate we are as close as we are to being ready. We didn't discuss the condition of disassembly, I basically put him off until the end of next month because of the bodywork. This puts new emphasis on completing that work at the next meet, and I am confident we can do it, but we'll need all hands on deck. Definitely moves the timetable up and we'll need to clarify exactly what we expect to do and when we can hope to transport. Let's make sure all the important participants are informed. Pass the word. In addition to the rear flares and front fenders we will have to install the front slam panel, fit the radiator hoses, and then really should close in the tin work around the radiator.
Jim
Alright, you guys need to get your heads outa the gutter. No wonder you haven't evolved!
Now, Mike, Rich, & I had a discussion about the front fenders. Since time is of the essence, this should be seriously considered. Those front Sebring fenders are going to consume many hours to be fitted properly. The brown stock style fiberglass front fenders fit much better & had the headlights already mounted. It would be easier & faster to fit fiberglass Sebring flares to them. Pete can make a set of front flares from the car he has in storage. Think about it.
Wow, Terry's offer does put the hurry on things. The body work is going to be the biggest issue as Carl says. I'll have to defer to Pete about working with fiber glass. The only other option would be to use the steel Omni flares, but I don't know if we have a decent set of steel front fenders to use. It would also be good to have at least the basics of the wiring and plumbing items roughed in so that the amount of drilling on the painted body would be minimal. Do we need any line or wiring clamps? I have some black nylon ones I could bring if you need those.
I've evolved a lot. Back in the day my nickname was "Caveman". (How do you think I liked those Geico commercials?)
Please, let's not begin going off in different directions at this point. We have a plan, so let's do our best to stick to the plan and carry it through. The Sebring fenders can be fitted. We may need to set up some heat lamps and/or do some trimming, and maybe even some filling but let's not get carried away with doubts. Clearly attaching the panel inside that bolts to the body is one of the early things we'll need to do, plus build up the mating edge back by the windshield, but we're not that far off otherwise. Somebody is going to need to bring some materials. I have a few pieces of mat and maybe some cloth but the resin I have is old and likely to have gone solid. I'll check. Welding the tin will go pretty quick once the pieces are formed and several of us know how to use a mig so all of the welding doesn't have to be done by Pete. I think the tin work will go faster than the glass work so if we keep the glass work to a minimum I think it'll help our chances of pulling this off.
Terry wants to see the car back together at the summer meet so I'd expect him to get it back to us in time to reassemble. I'll get back in touch before next month's gathering to see how far he wants us to tear it down. Any time or people we have that's not required to prep the body should probably be devoted to tear-down. Any ancillary details such as small hoses and such may have to wait, but the lower radiator hose must be routed and the slam panel created. Steve needs to be notified so he can get started on the wiring kit.
Jim
I thought Steve already knew our needs for the wiring harness?
I am in the process of installing Sebring front and rear fibergalss flares and can offer some comments from my experience. Carl is right, they take a lot of fetteling to get them to fit properly but it can be done.
The front fenders do not have the piece that connects it to the side portion of the front slam panel. This needs to be removed from some steel fenders and then affixed to the glass fenders. I can send photo's of how they look once completed.
The rears require some metal cutting as well as removing the outer portion of the inner fender, adding sufficient new metal to extend it out to meet up with the edge of the glass flare. Then you trial fit and adjust and repeat and repeat and repeat until you get them to fit. I have spent many hours on this but am sure it would go faster with more hands to help. I can also send photo's of the rears as well if you wish.
Hope this info helps, see everyone in Indy this July.
Richard Woodley
Steve doesn't know about the accelerated time-line. Once back from paint we'll need the new wires.
Richard, anything you could send us would help. You can post it here so everyone can see or send it to me, Pete, or Rick directly.
I've fired off an email to Terry, will follow up with a call if I don't hear from him.
Jim Weise will be happy to talk to Richard about the carb. I need his email address to send him the contact info if someone can send me that.
Jim
"Terry wants to see the car back together at the summer meet so I'd expect him to get it back to us in time to reassemble."
That's an extremely ambitious timeline!
Yes it is. I didn't suggest it.
Jim
I don't want be the one to piss on the party, but 6 work weekends to finish the car? That's just not very realistic. My wife is the world's best at under-estimating a time frame for a job & even she wouldn't do this to me. In case someone wants to make the argument that more people equal more man-hours, I have observed that more than 5 or 6 bodies tends to start slowing things down.
Did I mention we all have our own cars to get ready for July?
Everyone understands what you are saying Carl, so what would you suggest?
My personal thoughts on the matter are that we should turn out for the Feb weekend intent to prep the car if possible. Finish the tin work on the front (slam panel and splash panels), at the same time make and install inner wheelwells and flares on the rear, set to work on the front fenders, and if there is any extra manpower begin disassembly, first of the interior and then as soon as possible pull the engine/tranny. Yes, that's a lot to do in one weekend, but it's a whole lot faster taking things apart than putting them back together and we have the advantage of knowing the fasteners will not be stuck. Also since we know where everything goes, the usual slow process of bagging and tagging does not necessarily need to be followed. Provided Terry gets it back to us a couple months before the meet, we may be able to reverse the process and have it together in time, although the wiring does concern me a bit.
By the work weekend I should know how far down we need to go and that will probably be a negotiation between Terry and me, balancing out prep work against time. At some point he's going to have to give one way or the other. On our side of the ledger, we can always take our time and paint it ourselves sometime on down the road. I'm not too worried about that, the real trick is in trying to keep everyone happy and sometimes that just can't be done. But don't worry, my loyalty is to this group. However I do feel that we can do this.
Philosophically though, is it better for the group and for the sport as a whole to knuckle down and crank it out in the shortest time possible and get on with the program? Or is a more leisurely approach better, where we have continued cooperation over an extended time period and more time to plan out refinements? I don't know. Both approaches have advantages. I for one have enjoyed the weekends at Pete's, where we have devoted more time to social niceties and by necessity therefore less time to actual work on the car. But, it would be nice to be able to set the rotation schedule into operation. I suspect that in the end the matter will be decided by how many people show up for the Feb. weekend and by how much actual work we get done. And either way we will continue forward. So it's not the worst dilemma to be facing.
Jim
We also need to remember that this is all 'voluntary' and supposed to be fun...........
When we have difficult deadlines to achieve, the voluntary side of tasks becomes more 'strained' etc.
FWIW
Pete
OK here come a few pictures of the work weekend.
First pic is the Friday and Sunday crew L- R Mikel Moor, Carl Floyd, Pete Mantell, Rick Ingram, Steve DeGroat, Richard Moor & Jim Blackwood.
2nd pic is the Saturday crew L-R Tom Bowles, Merv Hagen, Tom Huber, Jim Blackwood, Pete Mantell, Steve DeGroat, Rick Ingram, Carl Floyd, Mikel Moor & Richard Moor. 2 others not pictured who also helped, were Dik Sleeth & Tom Lea.
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Fiero seat install time, seats were re-upholstered by Rick Ingram and installed by Rick, Mike, Tom H & Carl.
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More seat pics................
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Hatch gas struts were installed.............
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Radiator supports (Tusks) were modified for the new aluminum radiator.
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Brake system was completed also.
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Richard Moor worked on the Q-Jet
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Well most of the time........... :)
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Great pictures, Pete!
Wow, those really came out great!
Jim
"...so what would you suggest?"
Since you asked..... ;)
We explain to Terry that that is too short a time frame for this part-time project. We continue to work towards having it drivable by the V8 Meet. We deliver it to Terry sometime in the Fall for paint.
This a steady pace that keeps the project moving forward without wearing the group down.
Apparently a phone call is in order. I'll try to get hold of Terry next week and hash out a workable plan. At this point I think I have a pretty decent working knowledge of what is desired by the various parties and it should just be a matter of forming the right compromises to make it all work out. The biggest obstacle is that our rate of completion is an unknown. From my perspective I agree that paint after the meet stands the best chance of bringing the desired results, but we'll see what Terry has to say about it first.
Jim
I just got off the phone with Terry and it's all good. He would like very much to see a painted car at the meet but also recognizes what we're up against in terms of the work needed to get there, and also understands the attraction that a running car that can be driven has. To his credit, he is willing to go the extra mile to make the job easier for us. Not only is he willing to do finish work such as attaching flares and fitting fenders (provided he doesn't have to make the flares or determine their mounting position) but he is also willing to pull his guys off paying jobs in order to give us a 2 week turn-around. Now that's dedication.
In the end, we reached much the same conclusion that the rest of us have, that this next work weekend will largely determine the direction that we'll go.
I asked him also what condition he would want the car in, and what we're talking about is a roller. Interior, glass, and engine removed. Suspension in place. In my opinion we can strip the car to that condition in a week-end's time without too much difficulty. The trick then is putting it all back together.
So that's where we stand. Terry is willing to paint it either before or after the meet but he'd prefer to show off a shiny new paint job at the meet and that's certainly understandable. So let's not worry too much about it, just see how much work we can get done in Feb. and take it from there.
By the way, Pete and Rick have some sort of a meeting set up in Indianapolis for early Sunday morning so they were wondering if we could adjust the schedule a bit, and work on the car from Thursday through Saturday. I have no objection to doing it that way, in fact Steve often came to my place on Thursday for work weekends and that approach has been very productive in the past. The question is, can our members get away to go early? I probably cannot and therefore will only be there from Friday evening on but if others can it would certainly help.
Jim
I have attached the photos re the Sebring wings. The front piece must be removed from a steel fender and attached to the front corner of the Sebring fender.
As for the rears, the pictures are whats needed if you are using fiberglass flares. If Bill is going to make flares using an English wheel, less metal needs to be removed as well as the inner fender needs to be widened to accommodate the wheel.
Hope this is of some use.
Richard
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I can get there on Thursday late afternnon or early eevening. It's a long drive.
I can start taking things apart. I am no good at body work. I can assist only.
Leaving early Sunday would also suit me fine.
When going to Jim's to work we would work in the evenings, after eating, for a few hours. We could do that too, but it take alot of the social aspect out of it.
Just let me know.
Steve
I can still adjust my vacation days I requested, but need to know for sure about the schedule by the 15th as my boss requests a couple of weeks notice if possible. I will see if I can take 3 days off and drive up Wednesday so I'd have Thrusday, Friday, and Saturday there.
That would be great, Bill....I'm working Thursday morning, but will be available later that afternoon as well as Fri-Sat.
You are welcome to rest your bones at Chateau Southpark d'Ingram
Pete asked what I thought we should line up as tasks for the upcoming work weekend Feb 25, 26 &27th (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) at Mantell Motorsports in Sidney, Illinois. So I wrote him this reply and then thought it would be appropriate to copy here: The question was, should we make the car drivable or tear it down for paint?
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What to do, what to do? Guess this is why I get paid the BIG BUCKS eh? (or was that funny money?)
Well here's my take on it. Terry can go either way. Doesn't especially want to but he will. Which ever one, we still have to fix the fenders so that is what I'd be inclined to start with. Plus the slam panel of course. I am not sure we are at the decision point just yet, and part of what we do will depend on who shows up. For instance, if Richard makes it, carb tuning should be done.
I won't be there until Fri. evening so that limits how much I can do. Finishing up the slam panel will probably be about it, plus hopefully the tin work around the radiator. But I am also bringing the inner wheelwells for the rear so that work will be delayed unless I ship them to you (Pete) right away or they pull parts from another car. If no 'glass is available for the rear and we are to use tin, well I'm also bringing the 'wheel so that work is held up too and about all that can be done there is to make the filler strips for the inside and templates for the outside.
On the front we need a decision. The OEM glass fenders fit well but do not have enough flare. The sebring fenders are an admittedly crappy fit but do have the flares. One member has objected to cutting the flares off the sebring fenders and bonding them to the OEM style fenders but personally I think this is the best way to get the job done in good time and at minimal cost. I'd welcome your opinion. If we use this approach that would give something to work on Thursday, fitting up the OEM fenders, positioning parts, marking cut lines and possibly even preparing the parts for bonding. The justification in objecting to this approach was that we might sell the spare fenders to generate cash. I do not know how much cash we could sell the OEM style fenders for, but personally think it would be a pittance compared to the man-hours required to make the Sebring fenders fit properly. Besides, no one except me has ever stepped up and sold any spares and I'm about done with that game. Far as I'm concerned anyone who objects to splicing the fenders can take on the job of selling the spares.
I think I will post part of this writing on the Roadmaster thread and see what responses we get. Seems proper to give the membership the chance to decide, whether they take it or not.
See you soon,
Jim
---------------------------------------------
OK, there it is in it's entirety. Make your wishes known. How we handle this decision is up to you and if you want it done differently from what I've suggested then you need to step up. But understand this before you do. I'm not interested in hearing a recommendation that we make either set of fenders work and sell the other unless it's from someone who knows fiberglass work and is willing to show up and at least direct the work. This isn't one of those deals where you can coach from the sidelines, you need to be in the game.
JB
Also, for those who are coming to work on the car, please bring along your filter mask if there's any chance you'll be helping with the fiberglass work, otherwise you won't be able to help with that. It will consist of cutting the pieces, fitting, prepping for bonding (light grinding) and bonding the pieces into position (no mask needed for that). Terry said he could take it from there. Pete is understandably concerned about health hazards and we certainly don't want to contribute to silicosis. If you don't have anything suitable, something should be available at a HF nearby at a reasonable price.
JB
Jim...we can cut the arches out of my 67 GT if we need to do so...probably not in this weather...but it should be melted by the end of the week.
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Is that Jean? We all know it's not you. :)
No...that's me (from 2006!)
Jean is in Ft.Myers, Florida this weekend.
Oh yeah, Girls Getaway!
We had snow here in SC. Not much, just 5 inches. Lots of meeting were postponed to the last week end in FEB. I do not know why as my BGt went everwhere I wanted to go. But anyway, I can't make the Roadmaster weekend. Sorry, but you'll have to suffer along without me.
steve
First work-comp claim of the project.
Bill fell off of the lift.
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Jim,
Off topic but I came across that clip of you and the blown 215.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTWfscgM3x0
Kevin.
Did they have the one where he & his brother, Dan riding shotgun, were getting goofy sideways playing around?
Carl,
Haven't seen that one but will keep a look out for it if it's on you tube.
Did you mean this one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmVHgNmnmHw
Kevin.
It may not have been filmed. Jim made a run with his brother, missed a cone, then decided to "drift" the course, getting silly sideways & 360s, not really making a run, just playing.
Mike Moor's our Donut King, though. I can't find any video of his tire shredding, spinning on a dime antics. I know it has been recorded at a couple of events.
Those Blackwood boys, always being a "bad" influence. I blame them both for my hang over on Saturday morning. We did get some work done on the car though and even got to gather at Hooters for some refreshment.
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Yeah, them three day hangovers are a bitch.
It was another great weekend, and we got a lot of work done. By the time Dan and I got there, the guys had the front fender flares cut and fitted up and a good start on the rear tin work. Of course Bill fell off the wagon. So anyway we painted the flares black, attached them with sheet metal screws, and went on to the front tin work while Bill and Tom continued on the rear. Dave K and I went over to Rick's and cut a couple panels off his car to close in the tin work around the radiator (Dan sand blasted all the purple paint off) and Bill and Pete welded them in whilst I beat the holy crap out of them to make room for the radiator. Still a little work to do there but the radiator fits. I came back with a pattern for the slam panel which I'll get Spring Grove Sheet Metal (one of our contributors) to bend up and then ship to Pete for final fitting. Dave took the corrugated stainless upper hose with him to see if he can find a formed hose that will fit, and I brought the air cleaner back to do a little clean up on the mill, then Pete is going to powder coat it I believe.
We got far enough along on the rear that we were able to tack weld one wheel well into approximate location (It isn't right and will have to be re-positioned) so that we could lay up the sheets for the outer panels and determine the cutouts for the wheelwells. Then using a scrap piece we experimented with the English wheel enough to get a rough idea of what we needed to do to make that work. But that was it, we were out of time. So we took the car back around to storage, and I left the wheel with Pete so that he could experiment with it. Best of luck Pete, and I mean that quite sincerely.
Now I had an excuse for taking so long to post. What with all the beers these guys pushed at me on Saturday night it's a wonder I even made it home at all! Anyway at the very least I was expecting to see some of the photos that were taken over the course of the weekend. Believe me, there is a very good photographic record and if I was you guys I'd demand to see them!
Later,
JB
They were pushing beers at you on Saturday night too? No wonder you took so long to recover. Must have been after I went to bed. Maybe you meant Saturday morning? The way you were swinging that hammer Saturday evening, it is a good thing we were staying with a pharmacist. And nobody twisted Bill's arm! In fact, I think he is the only one who was hanging out with Mr. Jamison. How can we be blamed for that?
But seriously, Bill and Tom did great work on those rear wheel wells, and the front end of the car is shaping up nicely as well.
We decided to mill the top surface of the air cleaner, then Pete's going to powder coat it. Here's a photo:
MVC-536F.JPG
I had Spring Grove sheet metal bend up a slam panel out of polished stainless (a $75 value, they are a contributor) but I don't have a photo for you yet. It still has the white protective plastic on it and I need to figure out the ends where it attaches to the body. Luckily I bought the same radiator for my RD so once I get my car on the lift and modify the front end for the new radiator I can make it fit my car and it should fit the Roadmaster. (I had them bend two panels, and naturally I paid for mine.) Since I'm nearing completion of the intake for my car that should happen in a couple weeks or so. Then I'll ship the parts to Pete and hopefully he or someone else can fit them to the car.
JB
That looks a lot better, Jim!
What colour for powder coating?
Well, by now some may be tired of hearing me say Buick Red, but to me that would be the logical choice. That was the only color used on these by Buick and purely for the recognition factor I'd stay with the stock original color. Considering that these air cleaners are not only scarce but highly prized by Buick enthusiasts and therefore highly recognized not only for their distinctive shape but for the difficulty and expense of obtaining them, I think this gives us an immediate advantage in recognition from that group that we ought not squander by changing the color. After all, how many people do you know who will go out and pay upwards of $500 just for an air cleaner? But these guys do, and willingly. IF they can find one.
I realize this impacts our color choice for the car itself and limits us to a complimentary color choice. We'll take a vote at the summer meet on that if someone wants to enter a motion and can discuss it in the meantime. Personally I think red is a good color for the car itself and think black would also be real sharp but like the rest of you I have one vote. So if you have a particular color in mind you might want to think about drumming up support for it. However, I am most definitely opposed to any pastel color and if you guys decide to paint it pink you'll have my resignation on the spot.
JB
That top looks a whole lot better even if it's missing the original texture. Nice work Jim. There were just too many voids in that casting to leave it that way. With the Roadmaster logos on either side and perhaps the Buick or MG logo built into a hold down screw it will be the crowing glory for that 455.
The way the air cleaner juts through the hood I think it really needs to be painted or powder coated in a color that blends with the final color of the car. As an example, and I'm not advocating this color combination, if we were to paint the car white with a blue stripe similar to what Steve did on his car then I'd paint the air cleaner blue to match the stripe. A red car with a white stripe, then the air cleaner would be white. That Buick red is nice, but I'd think that color against most backgrounds other than white or a matching red would make it stand out a bit too much.
Hi Jim,
It definately looks much better.
Send it to the shop when you want it powdercoated.
Cheers
Pete
Thanks Pete. I'd figure 2-3 weeks.
Bill, maybe I'm just confused but I don't get it. How much is too much? I'm thinking, here we'll have a car with fat tires, swoopy bodywork, the engine sticking through the hood, and all kinds of sponsor artwork and contributor's names all over the body and you're worried we might stand out a little too much??? I'm thinking that's a mighty fine line you're drawing there ol' buddy.
JB
Can you powdercoat it in plaid for Bill?
"Considering that these air cleaners are not only scarce but highly prized by Buick enthusiasts and therefore highly recognized not only for their distinctive shape but for the difficulty and expense of obtaining them, I think this gives us an immediate advantage in recognition from that group that we ought not squander by changing the color. After all, how many people do you know who will go out and pay upwards of $500 just for an air cleaner? But these guys do, and willingly. IF they can find one. "
Do it up in Buick Red & we'll have to put a padlock on it. ;)
Not to worry Carl, ours is not original so they probably wouldn't want it, especially after we milled the top off. But they would definitely do a double take when they caught a glimpse of it.
JB
"He's a Lumberjack and he's OK..."
Jim, there are things that stand out in a good way and things that don't. I want it to be one of the former like a pair of 36Ds on a high school cheerleader not like a zit on the end of her nose. Both stand out but I'd bet I know which you'd most likely look at. LOL
Dan, I'm looking for a pink plaid shirt for Indy!
Bill, I don't know if Pete can do a tartan powdercoat job, it seems to me it'd be a very difficult thing to do. But if he can would a Stewart tartan satisfy you? At least that wouldn't clash with the engine block and Jackie Stewart already set a precedent by wearing it on his crash helmet. (-;
JB
Aluminum sometimes looks really good polished, "brushed", and/or simply left to develop a natural patina. Pete can mask and then only apply powder to part of the air cleaner, right? Perhaps it would look badass with some parts flat black (or whatever) and other parts like the edges of the ribs in natural/brushed aluminum?
(I wouldn't suggest clear powdercoat on aluminum... Often looks like hell when it ages.)
Curtis may be on to something. Would definitely allow for more color scheme options. Or could just hold off caoting till after the summer meet - would save postage and color would allow for color vote 1st.
As an outsider... I just realized that air cleaner is begging for some old school pin striping. ... I'm just say'n.
I have polished aluminum on my MG & Camaro wheels. My opinion is it's a PITA. Chrome it or powder coat it.
If i'm thinking right there is a product called zoop seal for polished aluminum that holds the shine for a long time, I havent looked but it might be found on a link @ gearztv.com
http://www.zoopseal.com/products.htm
RE: I have polished aluminum on my MG & Camaro wheels. My opinion is it's a PITA. Chrome it or powder coat it.
Given the polished brackets & pulleys I have for engine accessories, i'm hoping that zoopseal stuff works!
Money report:
We have $752.08 in the account now that Bill has bought the flares. Thanks Bill.
I will not be skipping the country with this large amount of money.
Steve
Country, no.
County.....I doubt that, too!
I don't remember if Bill is right on the date, but what the heck, close enough. To celebrate I'm giving the MGB-Roadmaster and BADASS a little gift:
MVC-552F.JPG
JB
Lemme guess.......the Roadmaster gets a stainless nut for its Birthday!
That....looks.....great!
Nice work Jim, looks good and I noticed that it's an octagon to carry on the MG theme. I took the date from the first post you made about fitting a big block into a B on the MG experience bulletin board. http://www.mgexperience.net/phorum/read.php?40,538455,page=1 As is said, from that point on the rest is "history" and I'm both glad and a bit proud of having a small part in it.
Yeah, that 1st page of posts from 3 years ago was fun. A real blast from the past.
What would look nice to me is if the hood tapered up to the air cleaner like a shaker hood as I have illustrated below.
Roadmaster.JPG
Not bad Will, you want to take on that task?
JB
I wouldn't mind doing it , 4 pieces of sheet metal rolled on the end at the right length. Flair out at the bottom over a piece of heavy tubing to blend into the hood. put the four pieces together to form the box. Rounding the compound curves on the corners would be the hardest part but no harder than hand making a Chopper tank.
A piece of rubber seal around the sharp edge sticking up would be a nice touch and I think it would look factory rather than just a hole with the cleaner sticking up. Not that I don't like the Rat Rod look , but it looks like you are all doing some really elegant work on the Roadmaster and it would take it to the level it deserves.
Will
It would have to be fiberglass Will, that's what the hood is made out of.
JB
Then it would be a lot more easy ! A little foam , a little Bondo make a mold , flip it over and make the part.
I know I make it sound easy , it does take some time to get the shape right, but then it is easy from there.
I do think it would look good and give it a finished look !
Will
I don't think anybody else is going to do it, but if you want to work something up and bring it with you to the British V8 meet we'll sure take a look at it.
JB
I would need to do it on the car otherwise it would be impossible.
Why is that? All you need is a stock hood to use as a buck and an outline of the air cleaner, couldn't you make just the bulge as a "preform" sort of like our fender flares? They will be bonded on just prior to paint, why couldn't the hood bulge be done the same way?
JB
How high does the air cleaner come up off the hood in the back and how high does it come up off the hood in the front ? If I had a an outline of the air cleaner and a few measurements I may could come close but it would never be spot on , it would look like a suit off the rack rather than tailored. I would want it to fit like a glove around the air cleaner so when I glue the rubber door seal on the top edge of it and the hood came down it would seal around it and even keep water out. I think a nice neat job would be in order . This thing would have function as well as look good. Maybe it would be neat to bring all the supplies and tools and put on a demonstration at the event on how to make a custom part !
It would. Why don't you just plan on doing that?
JB
Steve sent me this artwork for this year's T-shirt. I picked the colors, but I don't know, looks pretty Christmasy. let us know what you think, the colors can still be changed.
JB
projectroadmaster.jpg
I see what you mean Jim. I tried some other background colors but nothing popped in my eye. I think what you have will work, might change the color of the "Project Roadmaster" text to black or the gold/brown in the Buick logo and it would be less like Christmas with the green shirt. I like the car in red. Definitely a color to consider when choosing the final paint color. Either way, Steve can put me down for a couple of XXLs again.
Remember the shirt is Forest Green. Let me know what you want changed.
Bill's idea the change the writing to black is good.
Let here from you, I don't want shirts that will not sell.
Steve
I like it. Need an XL.
Marc
One more XL, Steve. ;)
the order for Roadmaster t-shirts will go in on June 12. If you want somthing larger than X-large, let me know before then.(send a PM)
If you want to reserve a shirt, went me a PM.
Shirts will be $15.
Steve
XL for me too
The Roadmaster will be in Indy for BritishV8 2010!
Yes, and that is good news but the news is not all good. Although we made tremendous progress on the car there are a few things still not finished which have to be done before it is: A) ready for everyone to drive and B) ready to send out for paint. So it's with regret that I must inform the membership that for the very first time in the history of our organization we did not meet our annual goals. The blame rests squarely on my shoulders I'm afraid, for I have not been able to finish the slam panel/top radiator support. I had hoped to get far enough along with my car which will use a near identical design, to allow me to complete the parts for the Roadmaster, bring them along to the meet and do the final fitting there, but I have run into snags on that project and won't even be able to work on that part until afterwards. There are a couple of other fairly minor details as well. We really do need a bracket where the (pull type) clutch slave cylinder attaches to the transmission case. Right now it is bolted to a small cast tab, which it will surely break eventually. I have seen at least two builders on this site who have made up brackets for this mount and that is what we need there. It would be fantastic if someone could step forward to deal with that problem.
The last issue are the rear fender flares. We have the steel and we have the English wheel to form it. What we don't have is the experience to finish the job. I left the wheel at Pete's but he has been so buried up that he hasn't had a chance to practice with it so I've asked if he can bring it to the meet so I can bring it back here. If anyone has used one before, that will be a great opportunity to put on a tech session at the meet, and finish up that detail at the same time.
So anyway, I'm sorry for letting everyone down. I really wanted to meet our goals and am as disappointed as the rest of you that we didn't make it. But we didn't miss it by much, and other than not getting to drive the car we are still pretty well on track. And who knows, if we can get that bracket maybe we can find an acceptable way to secure the top of the radiator and drive it anyway.
JB
Don't beat yourself up, Jim.
I think we've made tremendous progress on the Roadmaster this year.
Time is a precious commodity to everyone.
We're doing fine.
Jim, I can only agree whole heartedly with Rick, you've done a great job, nothing to apologize for at all. Considering the very essence of the project that it would be the product of a team effort I think you and the rest have done a great job to this point. It took me 3 1/2 years to build my Midget and we're only a little over 3 years since you came up with the idea of a big block in a B let alone have a car to work on. Engineering something on that scale takes time as you know, your work on your 340 upgrade is proof of that. A lot of new ground to be broken. We've seen the video, the car runs and can move under it's own power, that's a lot to say for the team, especially you, in such a short time. I'm sure we can get some more build time on the Roadmaster this fall and winter when Pete's commitments slow down and have it a lot more finished by next years meet.
Don't worry guys, I'm not beating myself up, there really wasn't anything more I could have done. Regardless, I am a little disappointed. This was supposed to be the year we all got to drive it around the autocross course and I really did want to see that happen.
JB
Just picked up the Roadmaster shirts for this year. Notice they are now called Roadmaster shirts and not Badass shirts. Guess we are growing up some.
They do not look Christmassy. The green is to dark for that.
They do look good though.
Remember to buy them at Indy.
steve
Time for an update on the project.
The car will be at the British V8 meet at Indy this week. It is currently in Dave Kirkman's garage and we will move it to the motel once we get situated. Graham has made a slave cylinder bracket for it, and so except for the top radiator mount/slam panel we are very close to where we wanted to be at this point. We also still have rear fender flares to form and attach, a few small sheet metal details to square away at the front, and the bumper to attach, as well as figure out what sort of valence/air dam we can fit. But I do believe that we are far enough along to be able to secure the top of the radiator in some way (gorilla tape comes to mind), put coolant in it, and fire it up and drive it around the parking lot, and perhaps even the autocross course. I believe we can be optimistic about having a bit of fun with the car this year.
After the meet the car will not be going back to Sidney. I want to publicly thank each and every participant who contributed and assisted with the build during the past year and especially want to send a big thanks to Pete and Mantell Motorsports for hosting the project. You can believe me when I tell you that it is a big sacrifice and Pete is entitled to as much goodwill as we can send his way. Rick Ingram was involved also in a major way.
The plan after the meet is to transport the car back here to Blackwood Labs where we will finish up the details and then disassemble the car so that it can be transported to Souix Falls so that Terry Schulte can apply the paint. I'm pretty confident that by early September we can be at that point, and that will give Terry most of the winter to work his magic, leaving us the spring for reassembly in time for next summer's meet.
So overall the schedule looks good. There are a couple of things I'd like to do and I'm asking for your approval, and if possible, participation. First, we plan to have the English wheel and the sheet metal panels for the rear fender flares (and perhaps a smaller scrap or two) and if anyone at all has even a little experience with the wheel we would dearly love to put on a tech session and try our hand at forming the rear wheelwell flares. If anyone could do it, please step forward to help with this. Don't worry about messing it up, we can get more sheet metal. Spring Grove Sheet Metal in Cincinnati is one of our sponsors and even if we have to buy it they can give us a good price.
Next, we have a number of spare parts that we do not need for the build, several of which are valuable. With your permission, I would like B.A.D.A.S.S., NLC to donate these items to the British V8 Banquet Auction. This serves a number of purposes, all of them good. First, it eliminates a millstone around our neck in the form of bulky parts that we have to store. Considering that we will still have to store all of the parts from the car while it's being painted that's a big concern. Next, the British V8 Meet is the kind of recipient that our non-profit organization is fully justified in donating to, as it definitely fulfills our mission statement. In the past the British V8 meet has donated substantially to our cause and it's only fair that we do likewise, especially where it isn't costing us anything to do it. The parts presently under consideration include a new raised fiberglass hood like Kelly has on his car, a stock steel hood in good condition, an aluminum radiator with attached fan, the set of new APC seats that were donated by Bill Young and anything else that is worth bidding on and that we do not need to complete the build on the car. At present those items reside at Mantell Motorsports and will need to be transported to the meet so anyone who is coming from the west and who can divert their trip through Sidney, please offer your help if you can pick up anything, even if it is a small box of parts. There will also be items that we would not expect anyone to bid on but which we do not expect to use. I have suggested to Pete and to Rick that the rest of the spares can be discarded or disposed of as they see fit. I think we can trust their judgment on that but if anyone has concerns please voice them here. I think it is to our benefit to have any items belonging to B.A.D.A.S.S. in one location and to minimize the surplus. So contact Rick or Pete if you can help.
With that said, I invite you to voice your opinions. If none are expressed that is how we will proceed, but I hope some of you can help out in one small way or another. I am very much looking forward to seeing everyone who can make it to the meet, (and will miss the ones who can't) and we will have our annual meeting as usual where we will discuss the future of the project. Regards to all,
JB
Sounds like a plan.
But....
I'm not sure about how to get the bulkier items to the meet; Pete and I are both leaving for Indy on Tuesday...and whoever buys these items would need to get them from the hotel to their final destination...sometimes a difficult task with small cars. :)
Let's toss around how to sell these items at the auction.....if that does not work, perhaps we can offer them for sale here on BritishV8.org or E-Bay them.
Rick, do you know if Pete is planning to have another cookout this fall? That might be one answer. (But we lose the chance to auction the parts unless we can get them to the Banquet.)
JB
Let me see what I can do.
It was pretty darned cool watching the Roadmaster abusing the parking lot tonight!
it didn't happen w/o video proof ;)
Here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO7p42hiXgI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy1O3LNHQJU
:)
Well, I'm just plumb wore out. I know I'd give a better report while it's fresh in my mind but I'll likely be a little slow on the keyboard for awhile. We all made it back safe and sound and the car is unloaded, though when I tried to fire it up the fuel pump refused to run so it's sitting under the awning. My car is on the lift awaiting engine mounts and steering rack mounts before it can be moved so not much will be done before that but the good news is that I've picked up a piece of 10 ga. stainless to make the engine mounts for my roadster out of and I have the patterns made already so that job should go rather quickly once I start cutting metal, and then I can put the rack back on and make way for the Roadmaster.
We need to discuss scheduling. The first priority is to schedule another Roadmaster weekend. Since we were able to actually fire the car up and take turns playing with it in the parking lot, we did reach one of our goals for the year, but if you will recall we also wanted to have it ready to tear down for paint immediately after the meet. Since we had a bit of slippage and that didn't happen it means we are a little behind schedule and therefore have a bit more work to do in a short time period. I have told all interested persons that I think we can have the car ready to deliver sometime in September and I think we can do that. Here's what I see happening. We schedule a work weekend after school starts, say maybe the first weekend in September and those who can come make plans to do so. On that weekend we plan to remove the interior, engine, etc, finish up details and do what we can to prepare the car for paint and have it ready to transport.
Now obviously for that to work I will have to finish up the hood details in advance and also form and probably attach the rear flares, as well as sort out the issue we had with the tires rubbing on the last two runs. (If you recall, our final tire choice is to be at least one size smaller than the current rubber for clearance at the front and that will also help at the rear.) The brackets for the slam panel have to be made and attached, and the hood latch sorted out also. Details of grill mounting, bumper, and air dam attachment could wait if necessary but it'd be better to have the bumper mounts in place before paint if there is time, at least any internal spacers that will be needed. I could use help with the welding and fiberglass work if anyone with those skills could come either for the work weekend or before hand. I feel we should remove the front flares, grind and bond them in place, form a lip at the wheel openings and then if possible do the rough fill work, and also finish the cut edges of the hood opening and form up a pan to go between the carb neck and the underside of the hood for aesthetics and water drainage. Those are rather specialized tasks but if anyone with the needed skills can help we will get done much quicker and with better results. If I have to do it myself we may not be entirely thrilled with the results. Bill Young has made certain that I will have a full set of dies for the English wheel which should make the job easier, and I will look into the possibility of getting a pneumatic planishing hammer for the metal work but my 'glass working tools, skills and supplies are minimal.
Guys, the hard part is over. We've built the car. It has amazed everyone who has looked at it and we've all been greatly impressed with how it drives and performs. Now is the time to polish the apple. There is obviously some tuning we can do to improve it in many ways but it is clear to anyone who cared to look that we have done a fantastic job of pulling this one off. I would love to see some comments here from those who drove or rode in the car, giving us your impressions of the experience and I really think we owe that to the community at large. It's not enough for me to report on the spectacle, obviously I'm the project's No.1 cheerleader and my perspective, no matter how terse or concise will be weighted by that fact. So let us know how you felt, what you experienced, your overall reaction to the car, anything that you think might be of interest. We are all hungry for the details.
JB
"Holy Mackerel !!!" Boy, ain't that the truth. Sounds awesome. As Mark Donohue said: "If you can make black marks on a straight from the time you turn out of a corner until the braking point of the next turn, then you have enough horsepower."
I'm expecting to start work again on the car by the end of the week. If anyone wants to help, you know where I live.
Next Roadmaster weekend will be the weekend after Labor Day if nobody objects. The plan is to pull the engine & tranny, remove trim, glass and interior, and get the car ready to trailer out to Souix Falls.
Comments?
JB
Are you planning a birthday party or something?
I've been so wound up with getting this done that I forgot. You know what, that's also the weekend of the Putnam Park Chump Car series and I really did want to see that race. So how about this, Steve will probably get here on Thursday and we'll get the big things out of the way by Friday evening. Maybe if we can get enough done we could load up the car, go watch the race and then head on out to Terry's place to deliver it.
I don't know if anyone could take a Friday off to help out, but then again so far Steve is the only person who has said they'd come.
>>> Chump Car is the extremely low budget clunker/junker race where the winning car can be bought for $2500 after the race. I just gotta see that.
JB
Jim,
If we are taking the car to Terry, when will we get back to your place?
I can be there on thursday, but will need to take monday off to return home. That would certainly suit me.
Steve
That might work, I guess we'll get it sorted out before long.
Work has resumed on the car, and it is up on the lift. That noise we heard from the rear was indeed the tires hitting the inner fenders, there are black marks on both sides in about the same spots. First off, the springs on the coilover shocks need uprated. Those are 250 lb springs and I think we should go to 375 lb springs. Fast Cars sourced the springs originally and Ted said if we didn't mark them up he could take them back and get us heavier ones if we needed them so I guess the next thing would be to contact Ted and ask about doing that. It would also be a good idea to put taller bump stops inside the top caps. The ones we have are maybe 3/4" tall and we could stand to double that, but I don't know what is available there.
Anyway, I'll keep posting as there is stuff to report.
JB
Did a little work on the rear wheelwells today
MVC-641F.JPG
MVC-642F.JPG
MVC-643F.JPG
MVC-644F.JPG
Seams are now fully welded but the passenger's side is still missing the front and rear lower patch panels and the inner arch needs bumped out a bit more. Just barely touches at full compression. I've found a couple of rubber pieces to add to the bump stops.
I talked to Ted Lathrop (Fast Cars) earlier today. He said he can exchange the springs for some 375 lb ones and that should firm up the rear nicely.
JB
A couple more photos:
MVC-645F.JPG
MVC-646F.JPG
Now attaching the outer tubs and 1/4" wire bead. Pretty smooth so far except I trimmed a bit too much off the driver's side at the meet. Oh well, I'll just have to form up a couple of pieces to replace the ends. Since that's got to be done anyway, on that side they'll just have to be a bit longer.
JB
Inner fenders and wire beads are installed and welded.
MVC-651F.JPG
MVC-653F.JPG
Ready for the outer skin. I may go to the front of the car next before forming the flares and finish that part up, find out tomorrow.
JB
Three items of interest, all the weekend after Labor Day.
1) Chump Car racing series at Putnam Park on Saturday the 11th of September, 9:00-4:00.
2) Tentatively scheduled delivery of the MGB-Roadmaster to Terry Schulte in Sioux Falls immediately thereafter. Since Putnam Park is on the way to Sioux Falls the races will be a stop on the way.
3) Work weekend scheduled to prep the car immediately prior to delivery.
So far:
1) Dave Kirkman has volunteered to come help with the car over Labor Day weekend.
2) Steve DeGroat has volunteered to come up Thursday, help prep the car and assist with the delivery, returning home on Monday.
This is the big final push. If you've kept up with the progress you know that with no other assistance offered so far other than Dave and Steve I'm making the final part of the build happen as you read this. It's not easy. But I fully intend to meet the above deadline one way or another. If you ever intend to pitch in on this build, now is the time. As of now the rear inner fenders and fender lips are completed but there is still a list of 5 key items that need to be completed prior to tear down
July 31- Aug. 4
Aug 29
On the above dates I won't be available to work on the car but otherwise should be here, slaving away. Come and help if you can.
JB
No pictures today. I worked on the flares, formed up some pieces and had a fair fit on the front 3/4 and had it fitting into place with tack welds but when I got to that rear quarter I had a big bulge. The metal needed shrinking. So not being a sheet metal guy I did the natural thing and grabbed up my trusty torch and that's when things got real ugly real fast. I got it shrunk, and even back to a rough approximation of the shape it needs but the operative word here is rough. There is going to be a need for bondo.
Well, what can I say? I warned every one of you that if I had to do this job the results were going to be unpredictable and so now here we are. I'm sure glad it's the weekend because I'm tired of working on it and I need to take a couple days off and think about it.
The other side isn't tacked on yet so maybe there is still some hope for that side, but likely as not it'll be a repeat. Let's just hope the fiberglass work goes better... I have even less expertise with that.
JB
Jim, what shape are you going for on the flares -- something like sebring flares or where they curve vertically as well as around the arch? Or more like the Omni flares that are flat vertically & curve in essentially 1 dimension? Recall I had to make my omni flares wider in the back so had to make a portion of the flares. I used some poster board to figure out the shape where they attached to the car. Also used a thin piece of wood bent into a bow with string to ensure the curve was even. Once I cut the metal out I just had to put the curve in it with a slip roll & then twist the ends a little to tie in at the bottom of the car. Since you're doing the full flares, you'd need wire or some other way to finish the outer edge, but the idea can maybe be leveraged? Here are a few pics...
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No new pictures today either but the driver's side fender is now firmly tacked on.
I switched off to the front end. All but 3 welds are done there and it's looking good. I cut the frame stubs to match the angle of the "tusks" and plated the ends, reinforcing the attachment in the process. I also reworked the driver's side for radiator hose clearance and I think we're good there, and added a bit to both sides for fender attachment in the grille areas. Then I started on the slam panel brackets and have worked out the details, and should finish up on that tomorrow. I need some 1-7/8" square tubing for the bumper brackets but there's no rush on that.
So, good progress and I'll try to get some photos up tomorrow. Looks like we've rescheduled Dave Kirkman's visit for the 21st of August and I think we'll be ready to begin teardown by then. Steve also mentioned coming up in August, I'd say that weekend would be a good one for a work crew.
JB
Photos: The perspective isn't what it should be, and especially makes the front end shot look much more "toothy" than it actually appears. Once the bumper goes on it'll look much more in proportion.
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The slam panel is complete except for the hood latch. Unfortunately I just copied the pattern from the old slam panel without looking at the latch and it has to be turned around to work so I'll have some extra work there.
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QuoteFirst, the RM and also my roadster run a Summit generic aluminum radiator that is approximately 2" x 32" x 17" and costs a couple hundred dollars US along with a Camaro dual fan that's about a hundred. Pretty cheap setup for that level of cooling. The slam panel was about $40 and square and rectangular tubing less than $50. And a little paint and a few bolts.
The triangular pieces are removable and are held by the fender bolts. The front weld nut on each side has been drilled through and the triangular piece has a section of 1/4" strap welded to it that is threaded.
The slam panel secures the top of the radiator, the radiator fan, the grille, the hood latch, and the safety catch. The AC condenser is separately attached, make sure the safety catch does not contact it.
There is a lower support structure that also protects the bottom of the radiator that is integral with the bumper supports and the frame rails. You should be able to find a photo of that on the Roadmaster thread. Essentially the splash pan and frame rails were cut along the inner fender line and replaced with 2 x 2 x 1/16" square tubing with stubs running up and down at the front. The lower stub got a length of 1 x 2 x 1/8" rectangular tube joining them as the lower support with a 1" angle iron support for the fan. The parallel 2" tubes at the front that terminate as the bumper supports get a 1-7/8" square telescoping section that is welded to the bumper bracket and a 3/8" through bolt on each side with a welded nut for easy bumper removal.
The Camaro fan runs the motors in series for low speed and parallel for high. This requires 3 relays.
The rework for the radiator hose came out fine but the welds will need some clean up when the engine comes out.
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Not a great shot of the flare. It actually does look a little better than in the photo.
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JB
Jim
I'd like to see more photos of the rear flares when you have time.
Jim, really nice work. The slam panel is great! I knew it would be good, but it really looks better now that the brackets and stuff are in place. The flare, both inner and outer are very nice. Good work on the English wheel. Wish I could have been there to see you work the metal, I would have definitely learned something from you. Any idea what we can do about the interference with the upper radiator hose and the alternator and belt?
Nice!
Dave Kirkman is helping with that. I noticed the thermostat neck on Tim Duhammel's car pointed straight forward and Max had the part number, so Dave got one and we'll fit that when he's here Aug 27th & 28th and see if we can find a one piece hose to match. Or cut and splice the one we have. Either way we'll eliminate that big loop.
Jim, I'll get some better shots soon.
The front is finished except for the bumper attachments and the air dam, and about 5 minutes clean up work with the grinder. The hood latch is installed, hooked up, and works correctly. I went shopping for pots and pans and found a couple I think will be useful in making the new air cleaner base/tray that will seal to the bottom of the hood. Luckily I have a decent stock of aluminum sheet that should be heavy enough for the tray. Graingers carries 1/8" thick fiberglass sheets in 24 x 24" size so I plan to get one and use that to trim and reinforce the hood cutout. That leaves bonding the flares and creating a reinforcement for the opening, and tacking on the other flare, and we should be ready to begin tear down.
JB
Looks good Jim, I like the round opening in the rear flares. I think the Sebring rears would look better if they were trimmed up more rounded like the front. Just my opinion. When you do the front fiberglass ones, look up West Systems Marine Epoxy(G/Flex adhesive). I have used their bonding resin on scoops,flares and helping a friend build a river boat. I used a 80 grit DA sander on both surfaces. Just paint on a generous coat on both surfaces like you would contact cement. Use sheet metal screws or rivets to attach. Never has cracked! You smear what oozes out the seam, as filler.
I'll try to get you those photos tomorrow, if not it'll be the end of next week before I'm able to do it, which should be about the time I begin to attach the other flare.
Today was the air cleaner. The plan: To make a new filter base that will support a tray that fits below the air cleaner assembly and seals to the hood when it is closed over the air cleaner. Towards that end, yesterday I bought a heavy aluminum cake pan and a big aluminum skillet. These will become the assembly that supports the tray, which will be made of sheet aluminum that is probably around .045" thick. First the cake pan.
This pan had straight sides and a flat bottom with a radius of maybe 1/4" at the bottom. So the first thing I needed was a buck to use in flattening out that curve. I selected a pine "stump" I've been using on the flare work and set to with axe and then skillsaw and finally belt sander to get the shape I needed.
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Here is the log before sanding, and you can see where I used a mallet on the corners of the pan, working from the inside. Not a bad start but the metal along the sides is stretching, going the wrong way.
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Next using the sander I smoothed the log.
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After which I began working from the outside.
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As you can see the metal was shrunk quite a bit and a lot of dimples were created at the same time. More to come...
JB
Alternating inside and outside mallet work I got a reasonable shape and adequate room for airflow:
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Next, another round, and this time beginning on the bottom:
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Looked pretty rough. I needed more room to stretch out the bottom, so I set to work making a larger cavity, eventually ending up with this:
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To get there I used a large holesaw and cut as deep as it would go, then hollowed out the inside with a forstner bit, then chiseling away the last bits. I used my angle grinder and belt sander to smooth the edges. After that the final shape began to take form:
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This allowed me to continue smoothing and stretching the bottom. To be continued (TBC)...
JB
Eventually the bottom split. Fine by me, I expected that but I could have prevented it by annealing the metal. Anyway this let me stretch the metal out to conform to the bore, which was 5-1/2" diameter, just a bit oversize for the carb throat:
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Taking advantage of that, I shrunk the metal back inward, forming a lip to sit on the carb gasket, and after a considerable amount of hammering I had the shape I wanted.
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Next the skillet: I cut the bottom out and removed the handle, and then with just a bit of shrinking around the hole to match the base I had this:
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Now it's ready for the tray. I've cut the center hole and notched the corners for bending and will visit a friend who has a press brake, possibly tomorrow and then begin fitting that up. Here is how it looks with the filter element:
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TBC...
JB
...and finally, with the air cleaner in place:
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Last, a shot of the front of the car.
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You may wonder why I didn't use the filter base we had. It was a bit flimsy, did not fit the carb as well as it might have, and this one gave about 3/4" more drop and tilts the air cleaner forward slightly. It is very stout and has a strong bead at the bottom also. I had a lot of fun making it too, plus it is one more unique item specifically designed and built for the car. I'm just sorry you guys didn't get to see the whole process.
JB
Wow, Jim, MacGyver ain't got nothin' on you!
I'm suitably impressed.
You're taking this new found metal shaping craft seriously.
I'm implressed Jim. I think I'd have tossed it when it looked all wrinkled in the pic above... How long did it take to do that?
I am impressed. Nice work!
Thanks guys, I'm sure you'd have appreciated the work in progress. Aluminum is very nice material to work with, you can push it a very long ways before it complains and I really took it to the limit by pounding down those wrinkles the way I did. As for time, well I figure somewhere between one and two hours spent on making the buck and somewhere between 3 and 4 hours on metal shaping. A good bit of that was going back and forth between checking and adjusting the height, shape of the dome, and size of the center opening and bead. One of the really cool things was that after I had the shape and size I found it was really easy to change the height (drop) and the hole size, so it was no problem to get a perfect fit. I've had no reason to try it, but that suggests to me that with an off the shelf drop base it shouldn't be too hard to change the height, which could be really helpful for hood clearance problems. Also, starting to pound down the bottom earlier would eliminate a ton of the wrinkling and result in a smoother final job. Of course, the air isn't going to care that much, and it's hidden inside the air cleaner so it won't be looked at much. A perfect candidate for a first try.
JB
Here's a first shot of the tray:
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That's all I'll get done on it for a few days but not a bad start I think. Probably doing everything in the wrong order. Again. Oh well.
Jim, here are some shots of the fenders:
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To get that curve, all I did was bend a 1/4" rod around a rim bead, 16" I think, it had some spring. But it isn't that easy welding sheet metal to the heavier rod.
JB
Thanks for the pictures. The contour look nice, I can't wait to see them blended in and painted.
Jim
I'm back, spent a few days in Florida soaking up the heat.
Ted sent the new rear springs while I was away (Fast Cars) and the epoxy adhesive for the fiberglass work came in also. I'm headed over to Graingers to pick up some 1/8" fiberglass sheet to dress the hood opening with. More work on the tray is scheduled for the next couple of days, then attachment of the other fender flare and some bolt bosses for the bumper bolts.
We need some 1-7/8 x 1-7/8" (outside dimension) square tubing for the bumper supports. About 4 ft of it would do the trick nicely. Wall thickness in the range of about 1/8 to 3/16" would be ideal. If anyone can find a piece of that it's probably one of the last pieces of raw materials we are going to need. But it isn't a real common size.
Scheduling: OK this is where I do poorly, and I've been on vacation for a few days so at this point I'm thoroughly confused and won't be right for several days. (If you can call my normal state "right" which is highly doubtful) Several of you have expressed an interest in coming to help work on the car and we have a couple of weekends scheduled. Some time in the next few days I'll attempt to add some clarity to the picture, that's about all I can promise. But the good news is that we are ahead of schedule.
JB
New springs are installed and the ride height adjusted. I think it has a pretty good stance but I'm not entirely happy with the mismatch between front and rear flares. There's only so much I can do though.
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More work on the air cleaner pan. The hood will now close on it and it's far enough along to start fiberglass work.
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Obviously the edges need trimmed and shaped and the whole thing needs painted, probably semi-gloss black. Anyway, it's back to the flares next. I can't wait to get this all done so I can clean up the shop, but no point in wasting effort on that while I'm still generating great horrendous messes!
JB
Jim, I wish I were closer & could come help out. You've taken a ton of hours from your car & it would probably be on the road again if more of us could make it out there. I guess the good news is there's light at the end of the tunnel & its looking great.
Short of shaving the fiberglass front wings, what can be done to make them appear more like the rear flares (which look GREAT).
Speaking of which, the rear flares are done.
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Have to weld a 4 bolt reinforcements to the "Tusks" for the bumper mounts and then I think all the welding is done.
I think the second flare came out a little better (as is usually the case), at least I had a lot less shrinking needed on it and I think the lines are slightly cleaner. But don't worry it'll take a close comparison to see the difference, and it's in keeping with the old panel beater's tradition anyway. Like I said before I started, what you get may not be what you had in mind. It is what it is, and it'll be fine. Very solid.
I guess that leaves the fiberglass. Can't put it off any longer.
By the way, I really need some 1-7/8" square tubing. The front of the car will definitely not look right without the bumper, due to that godawfulbig radiator.
JB
I expect some of you have been wondering about the progress, well it's finished. The fiberglass work is done, the air cleaner tray is done, and we're ready to start stripping down the car. We really should install the hood struts before it goes to paint but afaik the struts are still sitting on the shelf at Mantell Motorsports so they'll have to get here for that to happen. Here are some photos.
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Graham is coming down to work on the car next Friday and Saturday, Dave Kirkman will be here the following Friday and Saturday, and then Steve D will be coming in the Thursday after Labor Day to finish up and transport the car. Right on schedule guys!
JB
Looks great Jim. I didn't hear any more about the steel you wanted for the buper mounts, figure you found something else for that. I'll send a check to help with the transportation expense after the first of the month.
Thanks Bill. I'm still looking for the 1-7/8" square tubing and expect to keep looking until I find it. I've found one large supplier who makes it but hope to avoid minimum quantity charges. We should have plenty of time on that, as the bumper will slip in and be secured with two bolts.
Let's take a moment to look back on our accomplishments and think about what we have done.
We've created a whole new way to build a car that, to my knowledge has never been done before. No small feat in today's world. Couldn't say if it'll ever happen that way again, but we did do it.
We created a fledgling charitable non-profit organization. How long it will last and what it will accomplish is still uncertain but it is "our" charity.
We created a focal point to pull the brotherhood together, and I think it has worked. (Not meaning to exclude female owners here, I just couldn't think of a better, more inclusive word) Certainly we know each other better and are a more cohesive group than when we started. We are stronger and have members previously unknown.
And then there is the car itself. Although it pales in comparison to the above accomplishments, it is a powerful statement in its own right. The first street driven MGB to have a big block engine, we managed to do it and make it look almost stock. Were it not for the fender flares and the air cleaner, once the car is painted and assembled no one would be the wiser. We could have easily built it without the flares, and we could have built an intake that let us keep the stock hood, if that had been the intent. Under the hood it looks as if the Buick 455 grew there.
At the same time we developed an entirely new IRS rear suspension that as a unit can be bolted in place of the stock rear suspension and has significant advantages over the commercially available units.
In addition to this there have been a notable number of smaller but still quite significant accomplishments. A completely new type of exhaust system. A completely new ultra high capacity cooling system, custom seats, custom brakes, custom gages, hood and hatch struts, and more. And of course there is the paint.
I'd love to be able to go through the entire list of contributors and give credit where it is due, and by the time the car is completed I hope to do just that, creating at the same time a sort of press release that can be displayed with the car. For now, we are pretty familiar with those who have contributed, especially the major items. I don't want to leave anyone off but it's just impossible to find the right place to draw the line and I'm not going to list everyone right here, so that will have to come later. Despite that, we all know that practically every one of our traditional BritishV8 vendors have found some way to contribute to the cause and have helped make this project possible. If I was a little less frazzled from the end of the build maybe I could do a better job of representing them here as well as all the smaller contributors but have no fear, I'm bouncing back and will be back in top form before long. Our list of contributors is 45 members long and there are many others who have made anonymous donations.
I just want to give a big "Thank You" to you all. Give yourself a pat on the back, have a Bass Ale and celebrate! You deserve it.
JB
Just to add perspective I added a bit of rattle-can paint.
JB
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Perhaps I should post a retraction. NOT the first street driven big block. Perhaps the first street driven only, most likely the first street driven only BBB, but definitely not the first street driven big block. My humble apologies to those who have gone before.
JB
Congratulations on producing a working big block MGB! It also looks like the rear flares came out really nice.
Now that the Roadmaster is finished, how much has it been driven? I know that the people building the car were very experienced, but this car stretched the bounds of technology. Therefore, I think it would be a good idea to drive the car enough to make sure it is working properly and is free of annoying traits before it is painted. Once painted, making changes becomes much more difficult or impossible. Even a car that has been restored to stock condition usually has some issues, especially if it was not running before the restoration.
Normally I'd agree with you Larry, (and thanks for the compliments btw) but in this case the advantages of driving the car are counterbalanced by other factors. We have no plates yet. We are now working on getting insurance for the car and this may take some time. Terry is in a bit of a hurry to get the paint done, and finally we really want quite badly to have the car together for next summer's meet if at all possible.
I really don't foresee any issues that would impact on the bodywork or paint, other than the need to go one size smaller on the tires, an issue that we recognized a year ago. And in the worst case, if we have to repaint a panel or two due to repairs or modification we can do that, at least that way we can stay on schedule.
I think most of the mods, taken individually, are pretty conventional and well proven so I have no concerns about that. Possibly we could run into trouble where they combine, or in the final assembly with items such as the cooling system surge tank, so if anyone has spotted a potential problem area please point it out. Other than that, as much as I do appreciate the suggestion and agree wholeheartedly in principle, I think by this point we are all more concerned about seeing the car put into operation than with making it perfect. If I've made a false assumption there, of course I'd like to be corrected.
The bottom line is, we could drive it. But in doing so we will delay the project one more year. And I'm not saying it would happen, Terry's a stand up guy and is good for his word, but risking the loss of the paint to me just doesn't seem worth it and you never know what tomorrow might bring. I think we need to make hay while the sun shines.
JB
"make hay while the sun shines".... just like my pappy used to say. ;)
Where you from, Trevor? I know Jim used to get around quite a bit....:)
Hay! That's not Funny! ;-)
Here's a photo of this weekend's work in progress:
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As you can see, Graham is hard at work while I'm off messing around with the camera and stuff like that. Under those conditions it's quite surprising how far we got, and we continue at this point to be ahead of schedule. All of the interior is out except for the headliner, most of the trim is removed as well, and we even managed a couple of the mechanical bits such as the driveshaft and exhaust. The wiring harness is out as well. So next week when Dave gets here we will first concentrate on the final configuration of the upper radiator hose, after which we can remove the radiator, the brake parts that need to come off, and the rest of the trim. That will leave the simple task of hoisting the engine and transmission out and Steve is bringing a cart we plan to use to store that when he comes. In the meantime I will talk to Steve and Terry about possibly modifying our delivery timetable since Steve and I won't need a day and a half to pull the engine and load the car.
The project is coming along very well guys, and I sure can't wait to see how it looks with paint.
Now, a quick word about our finances is in order. At present we have something over $500 in the bank. Truthfully, most of that is money we managed to carry over from the V8 meet a year ago in Virginia. For whatever reasons we were much more effective that year in fund raising than in this last meet and that is going to cost us. I really appreciate those of you who bought T-shirts and made donations but sales were down dramatically and donations were hardly enough to even make a comparison. Obviously we were not as well organized, and of course the economy played it's part as well. But the bottom line is that we do not have the money we need to assemble the car. That is a crucial problem if we expect to have it at the meet next spring. Few, if any of the soft rubber parts are usable. We must buy door and window seals, door panels, and a variety of other parts that you are all familiar with to put the car back together, including new hardware. I'm fully aware that it doesn't have to be perfect but a ripped and wasted door seal or a panel with the lower half rotted away is simply not acceptable. Better to put it together without any at all like a race car in my opinion. And then there's the insurance, which we have one or two members looking into, and finally there are the tires. The tires on the car WILL rub paint off the body if they are left on there. We must go one size smaller. They hit the bulge in the inner fender in front and wheel spacers are not an option. I know we'd like to use them up first, so maybe we can go one size smaller on the front and use these on the rear until they're slicks before buying new ones there and that will spread the cost out some. And lest I forget it, there is also the cost of fuel for delivering the car to Terry for paint (Schulte Management Company, Chrysler,Dodge, Jeep, Subaru, Sioux Falls, SD). So, if you can see your way clear to do it, now would be a good time to send a donation to Steve DeGroat our Treasurer. http://forum.britishv8.org/profile.php?2,56
JB
I'll be sending a check to Steve after the first of the month when the interest checks come in. As for tires, what size do we want? Front and Rear will be the same size? I'm hoping we can get some sponsorship in that area, after all the tires are very prominent on the car and the car will be shown all around the country so the sponsor would certainly get good bang for their bucks.
Thanks Bill, that will help.Anyone else who would like to contribute, it'll be a big help this winter when we are putting the car back together. As it stands right now we don't have enough money to do the job and that is the one thing most likely to cause us to miss our deadline.
Bill, the tires on the car right now are 245/50-17 and they rub just a little too much on the front inner fender bulges and touch the frame extensions as well. On the back they are probably within 1/8" of touching in several places. So I'm guessing maybe a 225 would be what we'd want, or perhaps a 60 series might work also. I think we can tolerate a little extra height possibly, depending on the profile.
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Dave did a lot of work this weekend, while I took picture...(just one). I think we have it ready to transport and we even loaded it up on the trailer before he left. Among the items left undone, we didn't remove the headliner, as we felt Terry's guys would do a better job on that, and we neglected to remove the chrome strips from the doors. But I think we took care of everything else that could reasonably be expected to be done to prep it for cleanup, bodywork and paint. Hopefully the bodywork won't amount to much other than smoothing and covering some seams.
In the days ahead I'll get to work on our travel plans. We are expecting to stop by Putnam Park to check out the Chump Car series on Saturday morning. Can't say yet how long we'll be able to stay but if anyone else is curious about it we'd be pleased to meet you there.
JB
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My sister gave me some tires we can try on the car for fit. They are a couple sizes smaller than the ones that are on there, 225/45-17. Should at least give us an idea of final tire selection.
Saturday is the day. The plan is to leave early enough to stop at Putnam Park and check out the Chump Car Series before heading on up to Terry's place to drop off the car Sunday morning. Anyone who would like to meet up with us at the race track is certainly invited. I don't know much about this racing series but it sounds like a lot of fun.
JB
I talked to Jim a while ago. They were in Iowa, planning to make Sioux Falls, SD this evening, spend the night, and drop off the GT body with Terry in the morning. Thanks to Jim and Steve for making the trip.
Also, Happy Birthday to my OLDER brother.
Dan B.
Happy Birthday, Jim!
I spoke to him a little over an hour ago, he & Steve were almost to Sioux Falls. Didn't think to wish him Happy Birthday, though.
Happy birthday, Boss!
Thanks for the birthday wishes guys, it was indeed a day to remember. But first off, I am now back home and partially rested, but Steve DeGroat is still on the road. The guy is a real trooper. There is no way I could have made the trip without him and yet he drove about 7 hours to come here and is doing another 7 hours to go home, having left here a little after nine this morning. We got in about 4 AM. So how he could be doing anything but running on fumes is way beyond my comprehension. I traveled about 1800 miles, but Steve? Well you'll just have to ask him. Have a safe trip home Steve!
To hit the highlights, naturally our visit with Terry Schulte at Schulte Subaru in Sioux Falls, South Dakota was the apex of the trip. But I'm going to approach it more chronologically and start with the main event of Saturday which, despite what some may think, was not driving through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota, not to mention Ohio and Kentucky. Hitting seven states in one day and then coming back the next may be a pretty good accomplishment but instead I'd have to pick the visit to the Chump Car Series races at Putnam Park. We only stayed a couple hours, but ever since then Steve and I have been asking each other, "How about that car?" The basic Idea is that of a very low budget way to go racing, and actually be somewhat serious about it, and we came away wanting to take a close look at the rules to see what we could do to campaign a car in a few races possibly next year, and have a reasonable chance of winning. Well, heck, OK I'll admit it, I want to dominate. But hey, that's only natural, right? Because they place a $500 limit on the purchase price of the car (not including safety equipment) and then have a provision for the purchase of the winning car at a fixed price (not often used but there has been one instance this season) it helps to even the field and the low cost keeps tensions down. It's an endurance event, with 12 and 24 hour races being common, although at Putnam Park they were running a 7 hour race each of the two days. So it is a multiple driver effort, with each driver limited to 2 hours of continuous racing. That's about all most people would want in one stretch anyway. Minimum number of drivers is 2 and there doesn't seem to be a maximum, so I can think of a pretty good sized group among us that might be interested. As far as costs go, each driver pays $100 per race and if they need driving school that is another $25 for about an hour and a half. Team registration starts out at $500 for the first race and drops by 10% per race and then the 6th race is free. For that to apply two drivers must participate in all of the races and the team name must stay the same. After that I don't know. Their provision for purchase of the winning car is around $1500 but it seems there may be a provision for buy-back for another $250 but here we're getting into the details that we need more research on. The overall mood was quite relaxed, there was nowhere near the kind of intensity on pit row that many of us are used to seeing, and track action was altogether more of a gentlemanly sort, although we did see a decent amount of sliding, agricultural racing, and at one point even a large cloud of smoke rising over turn 8. The range of cars was striking, with everything from a Neon to a Volvo and a Buick Regal, with a fair number of small cars that we just couldn't quite seem to identify. The level of hokiness was surprisingly low for such an event, although one car did have a chicken on the roof, another had a pair of bat wings, and the Regal had the shaft of a golf club sticking out one of the back windows. Our impression was that it would be a lot of fun.
As for other highlights, we saw an amazing number of wind turbines, and quite a few trucks carrying blades and other parts. We thought they should put high intensity LED lights on the blades to make a light show at night. On the way back, Steve noted that some of the turbines were turning clockwise while others were anti-clockwise and I thoughtfully informed him that this was so that the rotation of the earth wouldn't be thrown off. We then speculated on whether the wind was turning the blades or the other way around. As you can see, by that point "Rapture of the Road" was peeking over the horizon. Through upper Iowa and Minnesota we collected so many bugs on the windshield and the front of the car that it looked fuzzy. The next morning we left our motel and discovered that in addition to all of the bugs we had a bunch of flies which had landed and were feeding on the bugs and they stayed until the wind blew them away.
And that brings us to Schulte Subaru. I want to thank you all for sticking with me through the rambling build up, and I realize it was more fun for me than it was for you, but just the same I hope some got a chuckle out of it or found a useful nugget.
Terry's Subaru dealership is a nice medium sized facility somewhere in the middle of town and you wouldn't suspect there was anything special about it other than a decently large number of cars waiting for their new owners until, passing the building at the end of the lot you glanced through the large front window and saw a Ferrari red Griffin sitting inside, Or his fabulous MGB-GT, or sandwiched between them a very slenderized and mean looking black Mercedes, or any one of the other cars he keeps and rotates through the show room as his whim dictates. It could be said that a tour of the facilities has a way of overwhelming the senses. Now I have a confession to make. I have not been a student of the esoteric in the automotive and sports car world, so the names of many of the cars Terry owns do not simply roll off my tongue as if I were born next to the tracks they were racing on. I have seen them, heard of them, and in some cases even know a little about them. But for me to sit here and try to tell you about them in intimate detail of any sort would only serve to display my own ignorance. I mean, how do you describe "that beautiful bright yellow exotic sports car with the big honkin' V8 engine that they only made 27 of but Terry has the 28th one that was sold only after the company went bankrupt, only for the moment the name escapes me"? Oh, and it's worth boatloads of money. I mean, change a detail here, a detail there and it fits any of his cars. I'm at a total loss! I'm really just praying that Steve can help bail me out here. If only someone like Pete or Rick had been able to go along! Each of these cars has a history, some of which we were privileged to hear, and to his credit, Terry has collected the cars that have some sort of significance to him personally. He is a true enthusiast, and even has a basement full of spare parts to prove it. The complex has two separate buildings, one of which is the dealership building, and the other, with the aforementioned showroom, is Terry's office building, to which he has essentially retired and left the day to day dealership operations to his son Mike. It seems to me a fine sort of retirement. The office building appears deceptively small on the outside, yet once inside it just goes on and on and on, room after room, and I'm not just talking offices here. Offices he's got, and his own personal office is fittingly lavish. But I think the man has happened across some sort of space warp device somewhere in his past because there's just no way you can fit all of those rooms, cars, parts, space, showroom, offices and other facilities in a building that size. As a fitting side note, I'm pleased to say that Terry honors his father in a way I found quite right. It turns out that in a back corner of the showroom on a stand he keeps a go-kart. At a casual glance you might not notice anything special about it but there is, oh yes. This was the kart lovingly crafted by a father for his son, using only the parts found at hand and the ingenuity God had given him. The transmission was taken from a Maytag washing machine and had an over-riding clutch that made it a 2 speed, by far just about the most glorious thing that could be imagined. It didn't end there. For the steering he crafted a true rack and pinion, using a small straight cut gear and a flat rack that from all appearances he might have cut himself out of a square bar, the whole works cradled in a simple bent metal bracket. Ingenuity at it's very best. Then for a nerf bar he adapted an inverted set of bicycle handlebars.
This is the stock that Terry and Mike come from, true Americana at it's finest. They've worked hard, succeeded at the American Dream and are rightfully enjoying the fruits of their labors. I for one am pleased and happy to be able to count them as friends and co-conspirators in the MG-Roadmaster project. If you can arrange it, pay them a visit sometime. I'm pretty sure you will find it worthwhile. Oh, and Mike is a fine salesman with an extremely good history so if a Subaru could be in your future it sure wouldn't hurt to talk to him.
I could stop now but there is so much more to tell. To begin with, Terry is most proud of his and his employees' accomplishments not only in assembling the car bodies (in many cases going to great lengths to replace or repair long since unobtainable parts, trim and components) but perhaps even more so in their craftsmanship when it comes to the car interiors. Now I've done some interior work, made some custom pieces, and even done some seam work and having that experience really does give me a true appreciation of what these guys have the skills for. Time after time we looked at one-off restoration or custom interior pieces and never was there a stitch out of place or a crooked line. I don't honestly believe I could ever do that, no matter how much I practiced. And I'm really not that bad at it. These guys simply are on another level entirely. I'm thrilled to death that Terry has taken on the paint and finish body work. But at the same time I'm afraid we will probably embarrass the paint with our interior. Steve made a valid point of course, we don't want the car so nice we are afraid to drive it, but it sure is nice when all the edges are nicely and properly tucked in for instance, and that just isn't one of my strong suits.
So maybe that is a good spot to discuss some of my shortcomings on this project. Paint, obviously (take a close look at my roadster for instance), interior, and then wiring and general tidiness. I do try but, well let me just say that within our group I'm not within the top ten percent. Or twenty. Or thirty... You get my point I hope. I do very well in other areas but not those. Steve has informed me that Jack Austin (Twigworker) has offered to install the wiring and I think we should look into that. As for the interior, I don't have any answer yet for that other than to just slap in the old stuff. There could be some possibility Terry might have some interest in that part as well but I think it's best to wait until he's done with the paint to even explore that possibility. I know Mike was mentally watching his workload go up in order to pay for what Terry has already taken on and I respect that. So we'll just have to see how things go. As for the time-line, Terry said that the first of the year would be too soon to expect the car to be done so finishing the car before May is probably out of the question. With luck though we may be able to have it there to show off it's new paint.
JB
Cool!
Thanks for that Blackwoodian type summary......sounds like you had an interesting trip.
Awesome update, Jim. Not sure how you managed it, since you just landed a few hours ago!
Thanks for the update.
Wish I could have made it...it would have been fun. Alas, I was in St.Louis at a corporate meeting.
Have we discussed final colour of the Roadmaster yet?
As for wiring install....I would trust Jack Austin with this task; he's a VERY capable mechanic.
I think Ferrari Red would be a good color.
I'll let Terry pick it out, he'll make a good selection. As long as it isn't pink or plaid! ;-)
I think this needs to be a joint decision.
You guys already know how I feel about red.
I only said that because Terry likes Ferrari red, and he is painting it.
I don't think we are going to get a joint decision Rick. Last time around everybody wanted the car painted the same color as their own car, so the votes, such as they were, followed that order almost exactly. If we got two votes for the same color it was because we had two owners with the same color car. Like Steve and Pete with white and a blue stripe or me, Carl and Joe with Burgundy, or you Mike and Steve with purple. There was no consensus anywhere. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned it's pretty much out of our hands anyway. I can't see accepting the donation of a free paint job and body work and then laying down terms about how the job is going to be done. Personally I'll be happy if he doesn't paint it metallic blue and gold like the WRX on his lot (a suggestion he did make, in jest I hope) or bright yellow, another color he likes if his cars are any indication. Far as I'm concerned Ferrari red will be just fine. Not my pick by any means, but one I can live with, and a choice I think more of our members can get behind.
Red is a predominant color for good reasons. It has a strong association with fast cars and I think that is a good thing. It draws attention, and for promotional purposes that is what we want. Let's not forget that promotion was a large part of the incentive for our biggest sponsors to put up valuable assets so that we could build this car in the first place. Now is not the time to start getting conservative.
JB
I didn't suggest purple.
I sugggested a lighter colour such as white or silver in order to keep things a little cooler in the cockpit.
I see, and I generally agree with you (I only assumed you like purple because of your other car, plus it made for an easy counterpoint to burgundy), but then, I generally agree with most reasons for selecting any given color so I'm sort of glad it's out of my hands. But I think it's safe to assume it's going to be Terry's favorite color. I guess it has to be someone's. As a practical matter, if anyone hates Ferrari red enough, I suppose they could go get the car and paint it a different color. But it'd have to be done right now, before they start working on the car, and there's the finish bodywork to be done also. I'd have no problem with that, but Terry might not especially like it so it'd be a good idea to call him right away.
Should I hold off on sending out the promotional T-shirts I was going to send to Terry, Mike, and the 5 guys on his crew who will be working on the car? I mean, if someone else is going to step up and do it I really need to know this morning because that's going to put a real dent in our stock of t-shirts and I might not be able to do that twice. Those guys need the incentive to feel a part of the team and they need it now. I can't wait on fence-sitting.
JB
Did Terry actually say that he was going to paint the Roadmaster red, or has this been assumed?
We talked about it. He offered me three choices. Ferrari red, a very bright yellow, and a bright metallic blue/gold which I don't think he was serious about. (it might not look bad actually) A racing stripe was agreed upon as well. Color undetermined but if I had to guess I suspect he may have been thinking of white. If we want to change the color choice we'd better present a united front. I don't think that is going to happen. I did mention to him that if the color was my choice it'd be a metallic burgundy. He didn't seem too interested in that.
Oddly enough, I talked to Steve D this morning and he reported on an article that claimed that in testing, body color had minimal impact on interior heat, citing glass area and interior color as being much more determinative. We both found that surprising.
JB
My vote is same as Jim's. I DO NOT think it would look good BLUE. :). Let Terry do his thing, I'm sure it will look great
Good News Everyone!
I talked to Terry (Schulte Management Co, Sioux Falls) a day or two ago and he is organizing after-hours work parties to finish up the bodywork and paint the GT. He hopes to get about 7 or 8 volunteers to work on it a couple times a month and thinks that could result in the car being painted by the end of the year. Nothing radical in the approach, just straighten, smooth, fill, correct any obvious defects, and paint. So we're moving along nicely. It won't be as nice as his full-on resto/custom jobs but it'll still be very good and much better than what we'd hoped for.
A week or so ago I sent him the hood struts, a tank floor cutout and a rear valence section that he needed. At that time he expected to have about 5 guys working on the car so I sent him some T-shirts including one for him and one for Mike. A small price to pay for the work they are doing, and a productive use of our surplus. At present I think we have 7 shirts left, in M, L and XL. Also the bill has come in for the gasoline burned up in delivering the car. We spent $441.31 on the trip, and accounting for a $100 donation from Bill Young we now have about four hundred dollars in our account I also have someone interested in the fiberglass hood at a price of $200. So much for the financials, I hope that meets with everyone's approval.
I told Terry that it would be reasonable to try to get the car to the V8 meet this May with the paint completed and he was optimistic that it would be finished by January. He may be able to help in transport. The next step will be the wiring. Steve Carrick (Advanced Auto Wire) will provide the wiring kit, and Jack Austin, before he crashed the Morgan, mentioned some willingness to do the install. Now obviously that changes things and it was never a confirmed promise anyway so we wouldn't want to try to hold him to it. So Steve D has been asked to meet with him when convenient and broach the topic. If he is going to be too backed up to do anything, I know Max is expecting to assist on the job and we have others who can help. So all those considerations will affect where we are by spring, but I think it's safe to say that we can have the car operational sometime next summer.
JB
.
If Jack is able to do the wiring, I am only about an hour & a half away.
A maroonish red would look AWESOME!
QuoteA maroonish red would look AWESOME!
Ya mean like yours!
Personally, I think a reddish Maroon might be a better colour.
Actually, as opposed to Fire Engine Red.
Just for kicks, pick a red:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Shades_of_red
Carl, you know that isn't going to work. Even if we could agree on a color online it wouldn't look the same on the car. Actually though I think that probably you, Graham, Joe and I could be unanimous about one particular shade, and that might be the largest block of votes that we're going to get. And then after all that, Terry will probably paint it Ferrari Red.
Of course I'd have to go with DuPont RM222K.
JB
Good News Everyone! (I just love saying that.)
Bill Conrad bought the fiberglass MGC hood (it's like Kelly Stevenson's hood) for $200, which I deposited in the account so that will help when we get ready to buy window seals and things like that.
Max contacted Tim Duhammel and after digging through his parts bin he sent us a thermostat neck similar to the one he had on his car at the meet. I think it will work quite a bit better than the existing one.
If anyone is interested in the APC seats (NOS) that Bill Young donated it'd be a good idea for us to turn those into cash also. Black with subtle blue highlights, they're just sitting here collecting dust. Tight fit in an MGB but...
I shipped the carb to Mike Moore, but haven't heard if Richard has had a chance to do anything with it yet or not.
No news currently on the paint job. After the elections are over I'll get in touch with Terry to see how it's coming along. (Reckon I are now a politician, just trying to do my part to help.)
That's all for now. I've been sidetracked with building an office in the Lab and will be busy with that for awhile yet, but it will be complete well before the GT comes back from paint.
Also, last I checked Steve D was going to check with Jack Austin and see how his recovery is coming along, I imagine he has some catching up to do. As things stand I would think we'll get the car back about the first of the year, reinstall the driveline and a few other bits and then decide how to tackle the wiring. It may or may not be driveable at the next meet, I think we will need to decide if that is a priority.
JB
Every now and then it occurs to me that it might be a good idea to go back and read this thread from the beginning. I'm up to page 4, including Curtis' link to the first progress report and I'm amazed at how much I'd forgotten. For instance, do you remember that we originally intended to have the car completed and out on rotations a year ago? What an ambitious lot we were, yet even so the car will probably be there sometime next summer. And we might have actually pulled it off too but I think what is more important is that we created a focal point to bring more unity to British V8 enthusiasts as a whole. Not only did we create a new concept in custom car building, and one which so far has been amazingly successful, combining the assets and skills of many many participants, not only did we envision a new plan for sharing the fruits of our labors, but we embarked upon a rather unique method of actual construction as well. The car is currently at it's 3rd home at this point in the process, and may have yet another before we are through. In a sense it has already begun the "rotation" process while still in the build stage. Happily, I now have some news about how the present stage of construction is progressing.
Terry called me up yesterday wanting to send some photos. Perhaps reflecting on how we've built the car so far, he has managed to get together a crew of volunteers to work after hours at Schulte Subaru during scheduled build days to complete the body work in preparation for paint. As I understand it, this is a rather informal arrangement very much like the way we did the mechanical construction here at Blackwood Labs and over at Mantell Motorsports. The biggest difference in this case is that we don't know any of the new guys other than Terry, and he doesn't seem familiar enough with our website here to post the progress photos for us on this thread, so he had Shelly email them to me. How do you guys feel about it? Is it just me, or do you also think these guys who are coming in and working on the project should be encouraged to join us here and at our meets? If the spirit of what we are doing means anything, it seems to me to mean that these are our brothers, every bit as much as anyone else who has contributed or helped. With that in mind, I intend to write back to Shelly (she simply transferred the photos for Terry) and encourage her to take a more active role in establishing communications between us and the members of the work crew so that in the very least they will be able to find this link and get some feedback from us on the work they are doing on the car, and in the end, also get to play a bit with the new toy.
Here are three of the photos. I have some more but will need to resize before I can post them due to the 600kb file size limit:
IMG_0612.JPG
IMG_0611.JPG
IMG_0618.JPG
JB
I can hear 'em....."Who in the heck installed these flares?!" ;)
Thanks for the update!
I think they each need a Roadmaster T shirt at least for their efforts if we have enough left over. Glad we got the photos. It would be good to get their names to add to the contributors list as well.
I sent Terry the shirts. He's the gateway for these guys and I have no idea how he persuaded them to be a part of the effort but I applaud him on the results. However, if they are to find their way into our group it'll have to be through him, as it's likely our only contact with them might be if they can deliver the car to us on one of their pick-up runs. That is, unless someone decides to go by for a visit and it happens to coincide with a work session or they recognize one of the shop guys or something like that. Of course eventually the car will make it's way back up there on rotations, but it'd be nice to know who these guys are, wouldn't it? I'll try to remember to mention it next time Terry and I talk. (and they're probably also saying, "*&%#$ that, who the heck MADE these flares!!??!")
They want the radiator and the air dam so I boxed up the radiator and as soon as I can come up with their shipping address I will send that and also order the air dam from Vicky, PN 19-798. The center will have to be trimmed to match up to the radiator and a strip may have to be added at the top but otherwise I think it will match up OK. It's the same one I've used on my car for a couple decades now and being plastic it is a little more resistant to curb damage than glass. I should have the address around here somewhere, if I was a little more organized it'd make things easier. But that'd be going against a lifetime of bad habits and why start now?
I'm starting to see what it feels like sitting on the sidelines. Watching, waiting, maybe every now and then getting a chance at a t-shirt shot from guns. It's a humbling experience and I appreciate you guys all the more for sticking with this project all the way through. It hasn't been easy and it hasn't been quick and I know there have been some who have sort of lost interest because it's taking so long. I can't blame them. But seriously, the worst is behind us. (I know Terry might not agree with that thought but it's still true.) And before long the fun will begin, when we'll all get to hop in and drive it. Insurance might have something to say about how, when and where, but they'll not keep us off the autocross course at the very least and I for one have more ambitious plans and I've not been known to listen very well when the word 'no' has been used. Don't worry, we'll find a way.
JB
The radiator and a brand new front spoiler are on their way. Cost, $178.45 total including all shipping.
I notified Terry and we talked about the guys. He's handling that end of things but said a letter from us to them after all is said and done would be appropriate, and he appreciates our desires to see that they feel appreciated and respected.
I also ordered a spoiler for my car at the same time and will see how it fits once it gets here, that way we will know right away about any possible issues with fitting it around the new radiator support.
JB
I talked with Terry again yesterday afternoon. They've straightened out and matched the rear flares, bonded one of the front fenders in place and gotten most of the rough sanding out of the way. He thought they might 'glass a wire into the front wheel openings to create a bead there and he wanted to mold the front spoiler in place but I suggested it should be replaceable in case somebody damages it badly. Anyway the work is moving along very well.
A couple of side notes about Terry that some of us might find interesting. He has a winter home in Arizona which allows him to escape the cold from time to time. Perhaps we could put him in touch with Kurt. And he is a very big enthusiast of the SEMA show. (He said of the country's great wonders like Mt. Rushmore and Niagara Falls, the Sema show was about 3rd on his list of must-see sites.) So if a few of you SEMA enthusiasts wanted to contact him, there's one more of our crowd to hang out with. He almost had me convinced to go, but I've got to ratchet up support on the home front before that will ever happen. Still, with a little advance planning, it seems a good thing to shoot for.
JB
You can start planning now for next year, Jim.
SEMA is a MUST SEE for car enthusiasts.
Venue for British V8 2012? Thinking a few days @ SEMA preceded or followed by a few days of doing our normal thing... would need a left coast volunteer of course.
You also need a contact to get into the SEMA show. It's not a walk-in type of thing.
I ***think*** that Bill Young is planning on doing BritishV8 2012 in the Kansas City area.
Money report: We have over $500 in the roadmaster account. I' just giddy with excitement.
steve
Rick and all, I volunteered myself and Bill Davidson and Don Bonar to host in 2013. Tentative plans are for a location in Omaha, NE as they have facilities and places of interest there that KC lacks. I'm still a working stiff, so lack the time necessary for all the planning at this point. Will be retiring in Aug of 2012 if all goes well and ready to have some real fun.
We'll have "Omaha's Wild British V8 Kingdom" in 13.
I think there's some obscure rule about V8 Meets & the Mississippi River......
Bill....from what you sent me earlier, it looks to be a fantastic meet in the Kansas City/Omaha area!
Can I meet Speedy?
Rick , I would suggest you and several more drive over to Lincoln to visit the Speedway Museum. That place is awesome! After I left your house last year, I drove to KC and then up to Lincoln to visit. You can visit the Speedway counter and purchase an item and get admission to the Museum w/o charge. The parts invoice is your ticket to enter.
BTW. is it Speedy Bill Young or Speedy Bill Smith???
Kelly, that's one of the attractions on the list for 2013 as well as some go kart racing and some track time at Mid America Motorplex. Still a lot of details and cost information to be ironed out over the next couple of years so everything subject to change of course.
Speedy Bill is well into his 90s now and I don't know if you'll get to meet him or not by that time. Let's hope we can.
Pete and I saw Speedy Bill at the SEMA show last year (2009). He looked well.
Here's a picture of Vic Edelbrock and Speedy Bill (in hat).
VicEdelbrockandSpeedyBill.jpg
Sometimes things just work.
Free Sample!!
Today a 6 ft length of 1-7/8 x 1-7/8 .077 wall square tubing is shipping out of Aladdin Steel as a freebie. I promised to let them quote my next tubing order in exchange and that might be a win for both of us. But at the very least it means we now have the sections we need to complete the bumper supports (also the ones for my car). Not bad for hard to find material, this time the internet search came up roses.
The material will be cut to length, checked for fit and adjusted as needed, welded to the bumper backing bars with gussets as needed and set aside to be marked and drilled for the securing bolts when the car comes back.
JB
You're just like Radar O'Reilly, aren't you?
Maybe sometimes.
Oh and I need this requisition signed for 500 cases of socks... or was that scotch...
Got a call from Terry the other day, he wanted the grille and bumpers and to ask a couple questions. After hearing the grille was in sorry shape he offered to buy one so I said sure, you can do that if you like. The square tubing came in right after that and naturally it didn't quite fit. So I had to resort to some blacksmithery to make it do so. Luckily I was able to take care of that, then pulled the bumpers, along with the ones off the '69. The overiders were in sorry shape and I know most of you don't like those anyway so I removed them, then went and bought some stainless carriage bolts and fitted those, boxed everything up and shipped them out, along with some instructions for mounting the front bumper. Terry said he was thinking about blacking out the trim. (said something about red with black trim and a black racing stripe) I said it sounded OK to me. If he does that he may use the split rear bumper, which has the license plate lights in the ends of the bumpers and that would solve the light problem, but we also need to figure out what we are going to do for front turn signal lights. The old ones are pretty crappy.
JB
Jim, let me check with Bill Davidson on those turn singal lights. He converted his GT to some custom LED types and I think his originals were in pretty good shape.
Latest from KC. Bill D doesn't have any good turn signal lamps for the car. He is a VB dealer and will extend his discount to us if we want to order some from them.
The Tire Rack declined to offer any support for the project, so we're on our own for tires. Any ideas?
I might have some in decent shape that might clean up good. I'll also look into the boxes of spare parts that came with the car when I got it.
I just have to dig them out of the shed when I go get the Xmas stuff out this weekend and I'll let you know!
Some of the guys have been using some aftermarket lights. I'm pretty sure I saw them on Dan's GT. Anyone have info on those? We don't have to go with the stock lights, as the original holes were fiberglassed over and we'll have to drill and cut for them regardless of what we use. A surface mount light of some sort would mean the least work.
JB
I was thinking that the holes were glassed over, I only dug back about 5 pages to see if you wanted early or late type. Either way I'll look around.
http://www.britishv8.org/MG/DanMasters/DanMasters-DO.jpg
Dan indeed does have a different style of lights.
The lights on my car came from Factory Five Racing, and are the ones used on their Cobra kit cars. Part #10621
One of the best improvements made to the looks of my car, I think.
Yes Sir!
Thats why I did the same but I went with the clear lenses.
Whoops!!! busted, did I write that out loud???
Those do look good, but would require even more work than the oem lights.
JB
Jim and all, what about something like these lights, item 3906 on the page. $25 each plus we'd need the low current flashers for LED lights.http://www.taillightking.com/hot_rod_light_assemblies.htm
39306_Amber-10AmberLED_Chrome_SurfaceMountStick.jpg
How about this:
http://www.taillightking.com/images/HotRod/38792_AmberLED_Clear_OvalTLAssy.jpg
http://www.taillightking.com/images/HotRod/38214_AmberLED_Amber_OvalTLAssy.jpg
Or one like this if we could find it with a chromed base:
http://www.taillightking.com/images/Rod_Lights/79690KNS_Amber_Rectangular_ParkTurnLightAssy.jpg
JB
Hey Jim, I have the old signal lights from my Interceptor that are in perfect shape.
I'll get a picture off to you tonight to see what you think.
I like the clean look so I've been putting the turn and running lights inside the headlights for a while now. This might look good on the Roadmaster.
I use quartz headlights and cut a square hole in the bottom of the lens with my Dremel. I can then use a GM side light pigtail and an amber bulb. This doesn't affect the headlamp aim at all and the orange glow looks pretty cool.
Cheers
Fred
This is what they look like on my old Europa
lotus_030.jpg
That is nice Fred, but I bet it's hard to see with the headlights turned on.
JB
Actually they work better than you would expect. With the headlights on they alternate from white to amber.
I usually wire them in as a daytime running light and have them flash with the signals. This lets you get away with one lamp which saves some room inside the smaller housings.
I'm still trying for the pictures of the Interceptor light housings. Seems my digital SLR has a little too much res. for this application. The kids are going to show the old man how to dumb it down tonight. If they look alright I can ship them off right away. What else are you needing for the project? I seem to have all sorts of (junk according to the lovely Lynne) valuable trinkets lying around.
Cheers
Fred
That's quite ingenious Fred, do you mind if we try that on the MGB-Roadmaster? Only thing is, the controls are starting to sound a little complicated so we may need some help on that.
Bill Young was also wanted a Christmas list (sorry Bill, I didn't mean to forget about you).
Right off the top of my head the things that come to mind are all the window seals. I think we have enough bits to put together two good tail-lights and most of the hard parts should be salvageable. The carpet is a little ratty but certainly not bad and someone skilled could probably make it look quite good (not me btw, my carpet installs never come out right). I'm not sure what is left but if you guys think to ask about particulars I can probably give a fair idea of the condition.
JB
I'm ordering new seals for the windows, doors, vents, and rear hatch as well as the guides for the door glass so that will all be new and clean. Might not be able to have them there by Christmas though. How's the console and arm rest if we have one? Want the insided to look as good as those nice seats from Mr. Mike.
Are the seat belts too sun faded? I don't remember how they looked at Indy.
Horns?
Thanks, Bill !!
Turn signals......how about some nice little round MGA turn signals up front?
http://picadearchive.photoshelter.com/image/I0000Rv6M2jjiAyU
Don't remember how the console looks (if there is one it's bound to be a bit battered), the seat belts are about what you would expect in a 30 yr old car. Horns? What horns?
Carl, I don't have any problem with MGA lights either. I told Terry to just finish out the fenders without openings so we just have to decide what to use and how to make it fit, but no more bodywork and no more drilling and cutting than is absolutely necessary seems to make sense to me. I like Fred's turn signals, but Fred, let me see if I have this right... If the lights are off the headlight flashes with the turn signal? If the headlights are on there is no other running light? (If one headlight goes out it looks like a motorcycle?) Just trying to understand the system.
JB
Jim, as I understand from Fred's post you have to use the Halogen conversion lamps with the seperate lamp and reflector, then modify the reflector to take the socket from a GM unit to mount the amber turn signal bulb into. No change in the wiring as the headlight and turnsignals are still on seperate circuits.
Jim...a 1968 MGB/GT had no center console. Just a radio console.
I can come up with a pair of Buick/Pontiac/Cadillac horns. (They're out in the barn.)
The MG-Roadmaster got a Christmas package from Bill Young:
MVC-729F.JPG
Nice bits Bill, these will really help us build a nice looking car.
JB
Good News Everyone!!
I just got off the phone with Terry. His guys are finishing up the last day of bodywork on the car and will send it out for primer right away. The doors and such are being primed today. He says he thinks we'll like what he has done with it, but declined to tell me much, saying he wanted to surprise me with it. But he did talk about making some changes to the flares and a bit of trickery around the front end. I can tell you this much, I've gathered that is is going to be something special, as he stated that they had 300 hours of labor in the job. Truly an impressive donation towards a project such as this, Terry has more than kept his word in a most honorable fashion. He expects they will complete the finishing touches in about 2 weeks and then we can sort out how we are going to get it back here to begin the reassembly.
He told me the colors will be Burgundy and silver, with a stripe matching the wheels. Personally I couldn't be more pleased.
JB
Woohoo! It's not YELLOW!!!!! Sorry, Jack. ;)
Burgundy & Silver will be awesome!
Sweet Burgundy for anyone that remembers Tommy Bolin (Killer solo album called Private Eyes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m22A8HHJFo
t
Anybody that chooses to paint a car burgundy must have impeccably good taste......
BEightatWGI.jpg
Awesome news! Can't wait to photograph it!!!
QuoteSweet Burgundy for anyone that remembers Tommy Bolin (Killer album):
Thanks for reminding me. Now there's an artist who doesn't get enough airplay.
Would that color match Dickel and Grape juice? Aghh! Maybe Dark Cranberry Juice? Forget it, DIckel and 7- Up, just a little off clear. Jim, absence makes the heart fonder! Been a while since you've seen it. Sounds like Terry and his guys did a great job. Can't wiat to see it.
LOOK OUT TOWNSEND!
Guys, we don't have enough money in the treasury to get the car back down here from Terry's place. This is something of a problem. Steve tells me we're at about two eighty something and although I don't recall exactly what it took to get it there I know for sure it was over three bills. I'm going to have to ask for donations. You can send donations to me or Steve DeGroat, paypal works fine but if you plan to mail a check we've only got a couple weeks before we need to get going. As a group we all thank you for your support.
JB
Jim,
It took aliitle over $400 in gas to take the car up there.
Steve
Paypal contribution on it's way!
Thanks Graham, that will help. Now if a few more people will kick in a few bucks we can cover the fuel bill. It doesn't take much if several people help.
JB
You Have Mail! Thanks for all your WORK
I'm in too... any pics from Terry to wet our appetites? It's getting exciting!
Check's in the mail!
Thanks guys, it's really great how everyone pitches in to help out. A few more dollars in the treasury and we should be in good shape. It seems some are sending money to me, some to Steve, and some to Rick but we'll let you all know the talley once we know. Anything over what we have to spend on gas will go towards the final assembly.
The car should be back from being primed so Terry's crew can go over the primer before it goes back out for the color coat which I believe should happen sometime next week. Terry said he'd be out of town for a couple weeks though so pictures will probably have to wait until we go pick the car up. But I'm like you Rob, I can't wait to see how it looks!
JB
Steve, I'll stop by today with some cash
Ok guys, we're starting to put together a schedule for the Roadmaster to tour the country. I've started a map to try to make the best route in order to make as many shows as possible and give all the Roadmaster crew some time with the car. Choose the events you'd like to take the car to and let me know and I'll add them to the map. We're starting in Townsend if the car is complete by that time or as soon afterwards from Jim's place in Kentucky, so the earliest dates would be the end of May or early June this year. If there is more than one show in your area and they are not close together time wise then give us an option such as I have done with KC, either September of 2011 or June of 2012 would hit one of the two major shows here. There is a good show in St. Louis later in September as well that either I or someone else might like to take in. Might be a good place to transfer the car to the next person as well. We'll try to take that sort of thing into consideration as well to make transfers easier for all.
us_map.jpg
One show we should try to make is the Buick GS Nationals in Bowling Green, KY on Oct. 19-22. I don't care who takes the car there but our supporters on the V8Buick site really do need to see the car.
Another Big hotrod show is the Rod Run and Doo Wop in Charleston, WV in October. The dates are not on the internet yet, but this year it was October 7-10. Somewhere around 1000 cars were in this show.
http://www.charlestonwvcarshow.com/
Money from Kelly and Graham has been transferred to the bank account (is now in the process of being transferred and may take up to 3 days).
Graham, as your contribution had no fees deducted, what did you do different to avoid that if I might ask?
JB
Probably PayPal Gift Option. The sender will incur the fee if his/her account is linked to a credit card or no fee if linked to a bank account.
Good way to go for us trusting each other. :)
Carl has it figured out!
I just sent in a deposit from Tom, Rob, Dan and Merv. Total was $275. We should now have plenty of $ for the fuel to get ROADMASTER back.
Steve
Pete and I have been talking and can pick up the Roadmaster when it's finished receiving paint in South Dakota.
Will be a one day trip out and a one day drip back.
The car can/will reside in Champaign County until plans are made for transfer to Kentucky.
Can you take Dave Kirkman with you? He wanted to help.
Rick,
When you go, save the gas receipts and then send me a bill and I will write you a check.
Steve
No Hooters receipts!!!!
Update:
Terry's in Arizona at his winter home but will be back at the end of this month. In the meantime the car has been primed and a couple guys went over to the paint shop to do touch-up after the primer was on. They had a little mix up about the color coat but that's not a problem. Rick and Pete have volunteered to make the trip to Sioux Falls to pick up the car and Dave Kirkman has asked to help. Terry knows they will be coming and expects to give them the nickel tour. I'll send them his phone number.
Dan Masters would like photos of the car for his flyer for the 2011 British V8 meet. It'd be a big help if Rick or Pete could handle that for him, plus obviously we'd also like to see it. I'm particularly interested in a detail shot of the front of the car.
After it gets back to Sydney I expect I'll make arrangements for Dan B to come over and we'll take his vehicle and tow my trailer to Sydney to get it, since the rough running of my truck has proven intractable so far. I'll add a removable wind deflector to the front of the trailer to protect the car.
Then we can get started putting the car back together, probably scheduling a work weekend sometime in March. The weather should ease up a little by then. Thank goodness we're only 3 weeks from spring, I've had enough winter for one year.
JB
Paul and Bill have also donated $. We are really rolling the money now.
Steve
Steve, any word from Jack Austin?
JB
I'll call Jack if you wish. I talked to him last Thursday regarding a different subject.
Had he offered to install the wiring?
or....
????
Rick, Jack had offered to install the wiring but that was before he had his accident. Out of consideration, and allowing as how that probably put him behind on his work we wouldn't hold him to it, but still we need to plan. Since the offer was originally conveyed to Steve I asked him to follow up on it but I guess he hasn't had the chance to do it yet. I don't think he'd mind if you did, assuming you are a close acquaintance. I didn't feel real comfortable stepping in as I do not know Jack personally, and I don't think we've communicated directly other than on the MG Experience forum. I'd like to remedy that of course but would feel better about letting someone else bring up the topic of the wiring who knows him a little better and can accurately gauge how much of a burden it would be to him.
If he'd still like to handle that part of the build, the car can go to him immediately after Townsend rather than coming back up here and I can tell Steve C. that we need the wiring kit at the meet. If not, it can come back here for the wiring.
JB
Jim and gang,
If jack can't get to it, or would rather not under the circumstances, leave it here and Jim Watson and I will wire it.
I'm only 2 hours from Dan & Jim W., although his plate's pretty full (Jim's).
I talked to Jack and he said he would do it. I told him we could bring the car after the Townsend meet.
that's as far as we got.
I'm sure he would let other do it they want. I can call him or Rick can.
steve
I've sent Jack an e-mail and copied Steve and Jim.
Should hear from him soon.
I'll follow up with a phone call to him as well; giving him time to read the e-mail, of course.
I've talked with Jack...he is happy to accept the Roadmaster after the V8 meet in order to install the wiring harness.
He is also planning on coming to Townsend for a day to meet us.
I told him the beer would be cold.
Excellent Rick, and guys, thanks for helping with that. I don't know Terry's exact schedule so it'd probably be a good idea to get in touch in the next few days. Rick, since you and Pete are going up and need to coordinate anyway would you like to call him?
JB
We can do that.....please e-mail or PM the contact information. Address of the dealership as well, please!
I sent Rick a PM with Terry's info.
Terry just called me and the car is finished and ready to be picked up. Terry will not be back to Sioux Falls until mid March so Rick, it is now up to you and Pete to schedule the pick-up. There will be some paperwork necessary that Terry has to clear with Mike or whoever oversees the pick up so you'll need to discuss that with him.
Steve DeGroat, we will need to send Terry three receipts for $5000 each in donated work and materials, one for last year, this year, and next year. If you need his address I can send it to you, it is also in the spreadsheet of contributors.
Terry is going to have his guys send me some photos of the car. It is maroon with a silver stripe. Can't wait to see it.
JB
With an indicated value of $15k in paint and bodywork, I bet it will look pretty darned sharp.
Gentlemen, I'd say we've just turned the corner.........now it's all downhill.
Don't forget, that was just the finish work. There was quite a bit of bodywork done before the car ever went up there. So it'd probably be realistic to say that the car has about 20K in body and paint. If you include the body mods for the BBB it'd be even more. Once we start tallying up the other improvements, about 7K for the IRS, 3K for exhaust, 5K for the engine, then seats, wiring, tranny, radiator/fan, and various odds and ends plus labor and it wouldn't be out of line to put the value of the car around 50K in my view. Add in the value of it's unique character and circumstances of it's creation and, well it depends on what value the market sees in such things but what that does mean is that we've just done an outstanding job of achieving what we set out to do.
Yes, we have turned the corner. From here on it is all just reassembly. We will have a chance as a group to decide exactly the direction that reassembly will take. Remember, when we started this project the goal was just to prove that a BBB could be installed in an MGB. We've had a bit of "feature creep" along the way, with the paint job as the obvious high point. Honestly, it now has the potential to look better than the cars most of us own. That is way far and beyond our original concept but on the plus side, it means the car will just be that much more effective in fulfilling it's role in attracting new blood to our sport. Where we would have relied on flash, now we can almost completely support that goal with substance. It will indeed be a most impressive car, and one that any one of us can be proud to drive around town in. I can only hope this will give each of us enough incentive to get out there and show it off when we have custody of it, rather than letting it languish in the garage unseen. After all, that is the whole point.
JB
By the way guys, I ended up going with American National (ANPAC/Chrome) insurance. Seemed the least restrictive & had good rates. I talked with them a bit about insuring the Roadmaster too. They do write policies for vehicles owned by a company, non-profit, etc. I need to know some details for them to write the policy ---
Valuation we want to put on it -- may ultimately need an appraisal but value we think is enough to get a quote.
Owner -- e.g. to whom is it titled -- and if not a person, then the name of the company, state of incorporation (if incorporated), etc.
One of the things that seems to affect the insurance is who the drivers are... that may not be easy to answer -- I doubt having multiple drivers is as much of a problem as knowing the driving record of the drivers. I'll have to talk w/them to see how we could handle the car being moved from person to person.
Sounds good Rob, let's continue to explore that. It wouldn't be the only time we went with plan B. B.A.D.A.S.S. LLC is the owner. We'll know who has it when before we start and they regularly request driving records in their business.
JB
I will need a picture to use for the T-Shirts for this year.
Let me know when you get some.
Steve
First order of business, Rick, when will you guys be able to pick up the car?
JB
I thought you said Terry was not available until mid-march?
We also do NOT want to risk any blizzards, etc.
I would anticipate the last half of March sometime.
He said he doesn't have to be there for you to pick it up. But that's OK, do it when you can, and by all means stay away from blizzards. Edith claims there's some bizarre ratio of blizzard size to weight gain and the Oreo ones are the worst! (I don't listen of course) Anyway back on point, I'll try to get up there the following weekend if I don't have schedule conflicts. Spring break is out of course but hopefully we can squeeze in a work weekend before Townsend, maybe the last weekend of April.
JB
Jim,
I have tried to e-mail you and have not been successful.
Please send me Terry's contact info.
Steve
Done.
JB
Spurious donated $500 to Roadmaster. It is now winging it's way to the bank. We now have over $1200 in the account.
Steve
That is good news. We are working on the logistics to bring the car back from Sioux Falls, and weather permitting, we will try our best to do that on the weekend of the 19th.
JB
Another deposit to the account today, $190 courtesy of Bill "Jail Bird" Yobi.
JB
Tomorrow is the big day. Everybody pray for good weather. This afternoon Steve DeGroat and Tom Caine will arrive and help complete construction of the wind deflector on the front of the trailer. This is as close as we'll get to an enclosed transport I'm afraid, and we've had to spend nearly $250 to build it, but it should at least keep the birds and stones from hitting the fresh paint. The nose of the car will be enclosed about 4 ft back. We will complete that this evening and make such other preparations as are necessary, then bright and early in the morning we're off to Sioux Falls. The drive takes 14 hours so if we roll out at 7 we should get there by 9. Terry has graciously invited us to overnight at his house, which will save us the cost of a motel room.
But most importantly, tomorrow evening we should get to see the car. Terry has been real secretive about how he dealt with the front spoiler, grille and bumper so I am very curious to see what he did. I will take pictures of course, but obviously won't get to post those until we get back.
JB
Can't wait to see it. I wish I was able to make the trip with you. Godspeed!
Me too! Be safe. Looking forward to updates along the way.
Safe journey to you.
Expect pictures ASAP.
Almostreadyforpaint.jpg
Hmmm, looks like Mater's cuz. ;)
Have a great trip & check the trailer brakes.
OK....where are the pictures?!
QuoteOK....where are the pictures?!
Patience, Grasshopper!
Does anybody know if they made it?
They're back.
Jim, Steve, & Tom are doing a photo shoot right now.
I just talked to Jim. Steve and Tom are helping him reinstall the engine. I won't say anything else, except they seem to be pleased with the result of Terry's work. I am sure we will see pictures and a detailed post from the BADASS Boss soon.
Dan B
Sooner is better than later!
I'm remembering what it was like to be a kid on Christmas eve!
Still waiting....but not so patiently......
Hi guys. Yes, we're back. And yes the body and paint job is everything we could have possibly hoped for. The car is drop dead gorgeous. I'll get a 'teaser' photo posted later today but before I post a full frontal I'd like to bolt up the carb so that the air cleaner can be properly mounted. I'm hoping that will come in today or tomorrow, I sent Cap'n More-Gone my shipping address before we left. He said Carb-n-Fiber had completed it and it was better than new. The car just doesn't look right without the air cleaner.
What a trip! Terry showed us the utmost in hospitality, inviting us into his home and feeding us, even insisting on going to a specialty shop down the street to pick up some completely outrageous deserts for us while we waited at his house. Now that right there is rolling out the red carpet, guys. I'm not sure what we did to deserve the royal treatment but I'd sure like to let everyone know it was appreciated. He lives in a nice old neighborhood just a few blocks from his dealership, amongst an interesting mix of a fair proportion of very expensive houses interspersed among more moderate homes. This seems to fit their personalities just fine. His wife Trish made us pancakes for breakfast, and their daughter and about 3 or 4 girlfriends were in from college, providing a little entertainment that went well with the down-to-the-last-second local high school championship basketball game on TV, a photo finish in which the favorites won it at the buzzer. Their house, though not ostentatious had enough space that we all had private rooms, though Steve had to use the bathroom down the hall. Rumors aside, I personally do not believe he walked to the bathroom naked, shocking and horrifying the innocent youth of the household. Somebody probably made that up just for the excitement of it. Who though, I cannot say. We had a wonderful time sitting around the table swapping stories and talking about cars. Terry is a true car guy and I have no doubt he drives Mike, his son, a little crazy with it. Turns out that like me, Terry is a "serial parent", his son and daughter being about 20 years apart. For my part, one at a time was all I could handle. Terry has retired, handing Mike the reigns of the dealership while reserving the privilege of hijacking his technicians every now and then. And let's be honest about it, what car guy wouldn't jump at the chance to work on an exotic sports car instead of ma's grocery wagon? Mike had to make some very real sacrifices to see this part of the project through and we owe him every bit as much as Terry for the beautiful results which we will all soon be admiring at Townsend. In fact my very next duty after I get this posted is to write up a suitable thank-you email to Mike.
I'd love to say that the drive up and back was uneventful. The weather was perfect and except for certain events it was, but we had oddly coincidental happenstances that we'd just as gladly done without. The first of these occurred right after fueling up near Champaign on the way up. I was half asleep as Steve drove when rudely awakened by an instantly recognizable powerful vibration and cowl shake. Deja-Vu, all over again!! How could this be? Same place, same circumstances, same problem! More bad gas? We will never know for sure, but we soldiered on same as on the last trip and carried with us a nagging reminder that disaster could strike at any moment. Somewhere in Wisconsin the intermittent cowl shake changed into a steady persistent misfire, which worsened somewhere on the first part of the trip back and we made the return trip driving a 6 cylinder instead of a V8. Apparently by the time we were an hour or so from Indy a connection somewhere had had enough of the vibration and the alternator failed, so at 10:30 pm we found a Wal-Mart, I went in and bought two new 12v batteries and that was enough to make the trip in the rest of the way. It was the best solution available. Irritating to be sure, but at least there is a known consistent problem to solve now and hopefully the fix won't be extreme.
So after a reasonable night's sleep we unloaded and decided to install the engine. Along with that we did the radiator fan, the exhaust pipes (but not headers just yet), made up a new slave bracket for the clutch and installed the driveshaft. Then I noticed an odd thing, the rear suspension is very stiff. That is something we will have to look at next time it goes on the lift. Nothing looks out of place but it is as if the car was very stiffly sprung. Mine has identical shocks and springs and is right so it is a real puzzle, but one we can easily solve by unbolting one end of the shocks so that goes on the to-do list. The other big item is installing glass, hood struts, and door latches. I will leave the struts to Rick. Steve D is ordering the rubber seals for the windshield and hatch glass. I will order a new exhaust manifold gasket for the one that tore on removal as well as a spherical rod end for the slave cylinder. We need to set up a work party to do these things, set the dashboard in place, install taillights and get the car ready for wiring. Also the IRS will have to be unbolted so that the gas tank can be fitted into place, and the fuel pump needs to be mounted.
We need to revisit the front marker lights. As there are no body openings or provisions for them the two best options are probably either in-the-headlight or surface mount.
So the car currently rests peacefully inside the lab, concealed within it's cloak of invisibility. Once the carb gets here I will unshroud it, bolt on the carb and get some proper photos and then back it will go until the next Roadmaster Weekend, to be scheduled as soon as I can take a look at it.
JB
Jim, I just saw Bill Davidson's new V6 powered GT. He put some headlights in it that had a halogen main bulb but also a LED section in the lower area which acted as a turn signal and parking lamp. Nothing else needed on the front with those. I'll find out where he got them. That would solve our problem beautifully and not have to do anything to Terry's body and paint work.
Are those headlights 7"round. I think Bill is talking about these in the link below>>
http://www.itsasnapwireandcable.com/7_halogen_headlights.htm
$175.00 a pair. Ouch!
Those are pretty cool.
If they were more like $75-100, I'd buy a set for my MG.
MVC-769F.JPG
Those are the same headlights I have on my car. I got them from Chev's of the '40's I if I recall. But, I got them a few years ago when they were about $125 for the pair. I first bought a pair from AutoLoc but they were junk.
Those are the ones Bill used. Not cheap, but he says the light is very good and I've seen the turn signals in the daytime and they are bright even in sunlight. Still considering that we don't have to mess with the front sheet metal/fiberglass or paint it might be worth the money. The only downside I could see is that the outer lens has a distinct blueish tint to it and looks more modern than traditional lights. The light is nice and white, the blue isn't enough to cause a really blue light, just a hue to the plastic you can see with the light off. Perhops they would consider a bit of sponsorship to help with the cost?
Jim, nice photo! What a tease you are. At least it's the first time I've seen the front spoiler on the car, that looks good!
When the time is right you need to get it out in the sunlight and do a video to the music of a stripper, take it off, take it all off! ;-)
Is that new rubber on those wheels?
For the headlights with integrated led turn/park.
You might try yogi's and see if they'll cut you a deal in return for promotion (since this car is touring). Worth a try.
http://www.yogisinc.com
Now, now Bill, this is a family oriented site. I'll not be responsible for the posting of any strip-tease videos!
What a sharp eye you have Carl! Brand new Continental Extreme Contact 225/45 ZR17, courtesy of Terry and Mike at Executive Touch Restoration and Customization Services (banner ad on this site). Now what we need to do is see if Max can score us another pair of XJ8 wheels that we can put some cheap tires on (and I happen to have 4 of them we can burn up, donated by my sister) for playing in the parking lot.
I like the idea of the headlight/turn signals a lot, is there any possibility one of you can get someone to donate them or cut us a deal?
Steve has ordered the windshield and hatch glass seals and they should be here in a few days. I will try to order the exhaust gasket today. I also just threw that car cover in the washing machine, it was getting pretty nasty.
I'm not entirely satisfied with the front spoiler so if time allows I may see if there is anything I can do with it. I can see the challenges Terry faced in trying to make it work and it won't be real easy but I'd like to at least change the angle of it a bit and add some grillework between it and the bumper.
I think I should be able to get another photo of the car posted a little later on today.
JB
Hey Jim,
I have ordered a set of headlights for the car.
They have the amber light in the top, H4 main and dipped in the center and a H3 driving lamp on the bottom.
The whole thing looks like a Bosch 7" quartz headlight.
It does take some mods to fit into the headlamp bucket. But what doesn't?
I will send you a picture when I get home tonight.
ETA to me is 3 days then shipped to you.
Cheers
Fred
Wow, thanks Fred on behalf of all the guys involved with this project.
With that taken care of we're getting really close.
That is great Fred! Thank you very much. The carb came in today so the unveiling is not far away. In the mean time, here's another teaser:
MVC-772F.JPG
On a more sober note, the Blackwood is officially dead. Zero compression in No. 6, not even a whiff. So getting the MG-Roadmaster to Townsend could be something of an issue.
JB
No Jim, you wouldn't post a strip tease video, instead you tease us with a little ankle shot and then a bit of calf ! That skin looks soooo smooth compared to what we had in Champaign last year, the guys up in the great white north did a wonderful job! And I like that color, rich and yet sporty. What a Grand Touring car this will be.
does look great. Can't wait to see the whole thing! Jim, just thrash on the roadmaster and drive it :) A tall order for one month but could be done.
"Zero compression in No. 6"
Put the spark plug back in. ;)
Bill, I'm sure I have no idea what you mean. But just the same this next one is just for you! (Sweetie pie!)
MVC-783F.JPG
Um, Wow,.........honey I need help with something.......
You guys are killing me!
That IS Bill's quarter, isn't it? He did a much better job than I rmembered... :)
Ahh, a little glimpse of thigh. ;-)
Yeah Dan,that's the quarter I was working on when I suffered my terrible injury and fell off the lift onto my butt! I have to commend Jim on finishing the job after I was wounded, his flares look great. I predict that there will be some folks we asked for support that will regret not getting on board after they see the car finished and tourning around the country. This one will be a hit anywhere it goes.
"This one will be a hit anywhere it goes."
That's an understatement Bill. Even with the glimpses you can tell the care is a beauty. A head turner with the power to back it up!
So here's the picture of the headlamp.
This is an old one that I have laying around.
The new ones are exactly the same.
headlamp004.jpg
headlamp003.jpg
Should do the trick.
I'm sending some special bulbs with it that you're going to like a lot.
Cheers
Fred
Yeah I think we can make that work.
You guys! I can't believe nobody noticed the wheels. Just not sexy enough I guess, but take another look... Oh and don't give me too much credit for those flares, Terry's guys have uncountable hours in making them look right, all I did was rough them in. But if you'll notice they do bear a remarkable resemblance to the ones on my roadster after all was said and done.
Bill, was that the day you fell off the wagon? My memory on the details is a little dim. Well to help ease the pain of the memory here's another shot:
MVC-784F.JPG
More to come...
JB
Now you move up topside, is that a hint of a breast I see there, almost looks like a fancy Buick GS air cleaner.
Yes, Jim I noticed the newly painted wheels, just didn't mention them. Is it paint or powder coating? I figured that was the reason for the new tires, they had the old rubber off to do the wheels and just couldn't see putting those old things back on the car.
Fell off the wagon? I never was on the wagon, but I did slip off Pete's lift while I was welding the inner fender panel and would up on my butt on the floor. No damage to Pete's concrete floor though, just bruised my pride a bit. It was later that night after dinner at Hooters we got together in Rick's kitchen and really proceeded to ease my pain with some Bass and Irish whiskey. No doubt that the memory is a bit fuzzy, mine is also that way. From what I remember we did have a good time though, Rick, myself, and the Blackwood brothers.
Great color match!
This car will end up on some magazines for sure and not just BV8.org.
Well Done!
No seriously, go back and REALLY look at them.
JB
Personally, I would leave the front spolier alone for the time.
It ain't broke...don't fix it when there are so many other things to get done on the car.
FWIW - YOMV
MG centers,nice touch!!
Great work Gentlemen!!!!!
Cheers to all of the talent that went into this!!!!!
It's looking fantastic. From the teaser photo's so far, looks like Terry's team did a great job!
Great job everybody!
Pete
As someone who has seen the car up close and personal I have to say this car is perfect. Look down the side and it is absolutely straight as an arrow. The flares are matched and look like they belong there.
We got it "back to the barn" installed the engine and tranmission etc with NO DINGS. That paint job is not to be believed.
You got a winner there guys!
If "the devil is in the details" then this car will be pure hell!
Here we go!
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Car Porn alert! Wow, that is terrific. I'm glad we have photos of the entire build, no one would believe what we started with compared to what it is now. When we get all the glass and trim on the car it's going to be fantastic.
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Terry and his boys really made a swan from an ugly duckling.
................This calls for a celebratory swig of suds tonight!
A silk purse from a sows ear!!!!
NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've been thinking about the Batwing.
I believe it would look best and stand out if painted either Flat Black or Gloss Black.
A plus side of this is that the ROADMASTER emblems will really stand out.
We need a little contrast.
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Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da
BADASS!
Well... if you want to. But I ain't touching it!
JB
I don't think "standing out" with this car will be a problem.
Besides subltey has it's rewards. We have a silk covered sledge hammer here!
And remember the three colour rule.
We already have silver, burgundy and chrome.
Notice how the air dam, as the fourth colour in black, just doesn't quite work.
At this point I wouldn't change anything.
There's a lot of other stuff to do in a very short time span.
Jim and his henchmen have done an outstanding job.
Holy shmaboly!
I am impressed beyond words.
"Everything is Beautiful, in its own way!" The paint is AWESOME. guess we will skip the christening with Dickel and just celebrate wtih a drink! Look out Townsend
Wow. I can turn wrenches, but those paint/body guys make magic!
I'm thinking Burgundy Batwing.
QuoteI'm thinking Burgundy Batwing
Why don't we just paint it PINK and be done with it!
Hey Jim,
The lights are here.
A little different layout than the ones that I had gotten previously.
But should work just fine.
Will ship them off in the morning.
Cheers
Fred
Thanks Fred I'll be watching for them.
If someone wants to order them, we need one exhaust manifold gasket from TAPerformance.com and one rubber valve cover gasket. The exhaust gasket is for the SE heads (round port) and is made of the gray material. We need it so we can hook up the exhaust.
The next Roadmaster Weekend will be held on the last weekend of April, which is the weekend after Easter and a couple weekends before the meet. We need to hook up the exhaust, install glass and latches, fit the lights and dashboard and in general get the car ready for wiring and to show at the meet. We also need to change the oil, filter has already been changed. That should be about enough for now but if we have more help we can go ahead and install the brake pedal assembly and hook up hydraulics so we have no open systems.
JB
Nothing like a "sleeper"! Nice work guys, love the body color.
Rick
Steve ordered the windshield and hatch glass rubber from the Beehive and they came in yesterday:
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He said he'd see about getting the exhaust gasket and I think the valve cover gasket as well.
Fred Key really sent us a bonanza on the headlights. Did anyone have any idea that what he was sending us was a HID headlight kit? I sure didn't. This will be one of the very few MGBs with HID headlights. He also included a nice set of front marker/signal lights with chrome brackets in the package. Presumably these attach to the bumper in some fashion and are in case we are not satisfied with the lights in the headlight. But I expect they will be just fine.
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Roadmaster weekend is a month away, put it on your calendars. 29th of April to the 1st of May.
JB
Yep, exactly right Jim.
The signals are just in case everything went sideways.
The brackets are stainless so feel free to bend them if needed.
Cheers
Fred
PS. All the delivery charges were paid up front but they couldn't guarantee anything at the border.
If there are any fees send me the bill.
Thanks
Small world.....tonight after work I had a couple of beers at BW3 in Savoy (IL) with the salesman who sold me my F150.
He grew up in Souix Falls...and knows Terry Schulte.
Jim,
Just ordered the gastkets. Should be to you by the end of the week.
I will be arriving on Wednesday of the work weekend.
I will need a head sount for BBQ.
Steve
On the subject of headlights... I dug out the old headlight buckets. Unusable. Rusty and the spring clips to hold the trim are gone. Plus the new headlights will not fit inside them so we need a new idea there. Also the trim rings are dinged pretty good.
It might be possible to use the adjustment tabs on the new headlights (plastic) to hold the trim rings. It will take some very careful trimming and it is pointless to even do it with the old bent rings. So we need a new pair of trim rings. As for the buckets, I might be able to make something to attach from the inside of the fender and keep crap out of the headlights, maybe in aluminum, but that will take me most of the Roadmaster weekend to do and means other stuff will not get done. Stuff like installing the shifter, brake pedals, and, oh yes, I've decided that if we have enough man hours to get the essentials done I will donate and install an air-bag front suspension kit. But since that only takes one or two wires it isn't at the top of the priority list like the headlights, tail-lights and dashboard, and since it isn't needed to keep crap out of the car it is behind things like glass and latches. That means without more help it's probably one of the things that won't get done.
JB
I thought all MGBs used the same buckets?
If so...a new set of buckets isn't going to solve the problem if the new headlamps won't fit the old ones.
What am I missing here?
I have a pair of buckets from the 67 GT that you can have if needed. I can probably also scrounge up a pair of trim rings.
The new integrated HID headlights with turn signal and running lights are considerably larger in the rear than stock headlights so they will not fit the stock buckets. OTOH, a pair of good flanges (cut from the buckets) would make attachment of the trim rings a good bit easier. For the back I'm thinking we need a pair of appropriately sized stainless steel bowls that can be adhesively attached to the backside of the headlight opening, or something along that line. Rick, if you want to send along what you have I'll do my best to make it work. Maybe the Dollar store will have some usable sized bowls, or even better, a laboratory supply house. (Know any good ones?) As far as the wiring goes though, we can at least mount the HID modules I think.
The key right now is to get enough people working on it to get everything that uses wiring installed. The glass and latches are the first priority, but Jack can't wire what isn't there so it concerns me a little that we only have 2 guys and a 3rd maybe, myself included. I know as well as anyone that it's getting close to crunch time and we all have our own cars to get ready, heck I've still got a head to put back on my truck before it's usable for the trip, and as usual it's fighting me for every inch. But this is one of those deadlines that will cause us a considerable setback if we miss it. If there's wiring that can't be done because the car's not ready then there will be other stuff that can't get done later, until we can finish the wiring. The interior won't go in for instance. Even worse, Jack won't be able to complete the job in accordance with his own standards and I think that would be deplorable.
Of course, those of us that are here will do our best.
JB
Can we make the stock buckets deeper by cutting & spot welding the the back half from another set of buckets?
BTW, I am working on getting up there for, at least, part of the Roadmaster Weekend.
I found a new pair of headlamp gaskets today that I'll send down if needed. Let me know.
Are the headlights already weather tight? Do they need full enclosure?
Jim, I see you took a computer to the Grand Canyon with you. I am planning to come for the Roadmaster weekend.... details later. Friday evening is iffy.
Jim, sorry I can't make it this time. I know you want the project to move forward as we all do , but you and the guys can only do so much. I'd much rather see you and all my friends in Townsend than the car if it comes to that. It's the people that are making this thing happen that are most important. Sorry to get all mushy, but I just heard this morning that we in the Spridget community lost another great guy, Frank Clarici, and I'm just remembering what is really important in our hobby.
I'm using a hotel computer but will be home tomorrow.
The headlights aren't really sealed and even so we don't want road water coming around the trim rings. OEM gaskets might help, but I don't think we can use anything from the OEM buckets except the flange. The opening just isn't big enough.
That's about all I have time for, but thanks for the good wishes. The car will be there, and as complete as we can make it in the time we have. Thank you for the offers of help.
JB
Back home now and trying to get caught up a little but I haven't even been out to the Lab yet. Everything looks normal from here though. Bill I'm sorry to hear about Frank. Even though I didn't know him, we all hate to see one of our own pass. Your point is well taken. The cars are nothing more than a bit of glue that helps bring us together. Still, they allow us to indulge our passion which is no mean consideration.
Carl, and Dan, I hope you guys can make it. With your help we should be able to make a most presentable showing at Townsend. But anyone else sitting on the fence about coming out to help on the last weekend of this month, we still need your help too. There are many things to be done. Almost all of the components that need to be reinstalled in the car need to be cleaned up and painted or otherwise made ready first. It'd be a crime to reinstall the same ratty old heater for instance. To do the job properly the housing should come apart, be bead blasted, painted, and reassembled before being installed. The same goes for almost everything that goes back in the car. All that stuff looked OK before the new paint job, but I know you guys are going to agree (once you actually see the car) that it just wouldn't be right to simply put it back together that way. I also know that this was not our objective originally. We never set out to build a show car, and the only thing changing that at all is the very high quality of the paint. But since we do have a high quality paint job it seems clear that we should show it off to it's fullest potential if we can. I know we are limited in what we can do. Some things just won't measure up. But with enough help we can at least put in the effort in places where effort will show to good advantage. Then with everybody getting a chance to look the car over, we can decide how far we want to go down that path. Townsend is the obvious place to decide that, and I very much look forward to seeing all of you there.
By the way, our new T-shirts for this year are going to be something special. Not to steal Steve's thunder and the details are not yet finalized, but not only will the breast logo include an actual photo of the car, the same logo will be enlarged on the back, also with the actual photo. Final color selection will be decided in accordance with recommendations from the shirt maker but we discussed tan. We also talked about putting the year in the logo. Shirt sales have declined the last year or two, and last year we just broke even. However, we were able to make use of a number of the extra shirts for promotional purposes, which turned out to be a good tactic. I bought a bunch of them myself, which helped pay for any number of miscellaneous costs. We still have a few of those left if anyone wants one, I think they run to the large sizes. It's a good color and makes a very handy shirt to just grab and go. We will have the new shirts at Townsend but neither Steve nor I especially wants to be stuck with selling shirts all weekend. That might have had a little to do with the declining sales. We can sell them during the B.A.D.A.S.S. annual meeting and the tech session but other than that unless someone else wants to help out you'll probably have to ask for them.
Finally, I'm grateful for the vacation. It gave me a chance to get a little better perspective on things and to slow back down to a more reasonable pace. I think we all need that from time to time.
JB
Jim,
If the shipping isn't too much, I have a blast cabinet. I can blast some parts, then spray bomb 'em (don't have a real spray setup), & bring 'em with me.
Thanks Carl, I'll see what I can send your way.
I measured the headlights and we need a pair of bowls around 7-3/4" ID (to also enclose the adjustment screws) or could possibly use 6-5/16" to only enclose the back of the headlight itself. Stainless would probably be the best.
JB
Do you want me to ship the MGB headlamp buckets and gaskets to Carl or to you?
Better send them to me since we'll have to modify them regardless.
I hope to have a spare bay cleared out and the lift available by the time we start work so I'm going to be pretty busy with that since to do it I have to finish repairing the truck and also finish re-fabricating the steering rack mounts on my roadster, but if I get the chance I'll do some preliminary fitting and try to get out and look for bowls. I have some old stainless bowls that came from my great uncle who was a dentist and I'm pretty sure he got them from a medical supply house somewhere. They aren't the right size and I don't have two of any one size either but they have a good shape. If we knew of a suitable supply house we might find just the right thing. If any of you could find time to look for those it'd be a big help. 7-3/4" inner diameter. I have some welding to do today and bench space to clear and straighten up, but I'll try to go through some of the things to send to Carl if I have time.
JB
What about plastic? Those metal bowls from Uncle Dorsey are probably 50-60 years old, and surely hard to find anything similar, but plastic stuff should be easy to find and cheap.
I thought about that but stainless would be more durable, about the same weight, and easier to work with I think. One more thing for me to research I guess.
How do you guys like the new t-shirt design? Any suggestions?
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JB
Love the shirts, can't wait to get mine. I'm glad that this year the meet is early so that I will have the shirts to wear to all the local shows this summer. Can we get the "Project Roadmaster" area on the small version for the front of the shirt filled with color the same as for the larger version on the back?
Have you thought about vaccum forming.
It's easy and cheap. My two favorite things.
And you can make pretty much any shape needed.
I've been using it to reskin doorpanels and dashes lately.
But have also made headlight covers, consoles, stereo bezels etc.
Works like a charm.
By the way, that Tshirt will be "Badass".
You need a small disclaimer on it like the printer has.
Something like "Due to build differences your car may not be able to keep up"
Cheers
Fred
Bill, I'll pass your question along, as well as the idea of putting the year on it.
Good idea Fred, but more time than I have to put into it right now. I do have the basic machine but it's never been tested and I'd have to make the forms, frames and such. Quicker and easier to just buy a couple bowls. They'd have to be at least 4" deep and 7-3/4" ID. Might get out tomorrow and look for them if I can. This one might be a good choice, depending on measurements: http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Stainless-Mixing/dp/B0012RRH7Y/ref=sr_1_428?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1303195419&sr=1-428
I'm in a time crunch on my truck now, still waiting on valve seats. I've never had a vehicle fight me so hard. It's a dam*ed good thing I allowed a greatly excessive amount of time for the repair. In the meantime, the TR7 I'm driving leaks atf so badly I'm going to have to put a fire extinguisher in the trunk just in case, and I have to drive ghetto style because the seat is too high and my head hits the top. Not exactly conducive to getting out and running around, and too wet to ride the bike. E's out of town so I can't even commandeer her jeep. But hopefully the head might be done tomorrow so maybe I can look at bowls when I go to pick that up.
JB
QuoteHow do you guys like the new t-shirt design? Any suggestions?
Looks awesome!
Be real careful how they are done. If the fabric can't breathe, the t-shirt will become a sauna.
If you want a 2x or 3x large, e-mail me at sdegroat@truvista.net or pm me on this site.
I do not plan to order many of them because they cost more to make.
The order will go in the first part of May. When I return from Jim's.
steve
The headlamp buckets and new gaskets went into the mail to you today (4/22), Jim.
Thanks Rick. I'm in Milton this weekend but will ber bsck about the time it gets there. Meantime I'll try to look for bowls.
JB
Will be leaving early AM tomorrow for Roadmaster. I have southern BBQ. Looks like it will be Jim, Dan and me. Hope we get it done.
Will probably run in the rain the entire way up.
Will be driving the 4 cyl BGT as the V6 killed a big dog and is the shop being fixed.
steve
Looking forward to it Steve, stick to the high ground for sure. Got bowls, got headlight buckets, got a need to see glass in that beastie. A few errands tomorrow and rock-n-roll. Right arm, right arm, right arm, man. Boy do I wish we had enough help to make it run.
JB
Sorry, guys, but I gotta work the pharmacy this weekend.
Made a last minute plea to the WV British Car Club. I don't know how much interest there is here, but it's worth a shot.
Got some bowls that I think might work.
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We have done a little work on the car:
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We didn't install the expander strip in the front or rear glass seal because we don't know how to do it. Someone else will have to take care of that. If someone has whatever tools it takes and knows how to do it, the V8 meet would be a good time to install them. Also the hood struts won't be installed before then so with Rick's expert guidance maybe we can install them there. I think Carl mentioned that it would be good to have some hands-on at the meet anyway so those are a couple of things we could do. I think someone might want to bring a cordless drill and drill bits. I don't have one.
JB
Truth be told it looks better without the strip
Steve wants to know, "What strip?"
We worked on the truck today. The head was finally finished and we figured that the GT probably wouldn't make it to the meet without it, plus it was on the trip to Sioux Falls that it was injured, so we decided to put off the MG-Roadmaster for a day. Made good progress on that though and should be able to fire it up tomorrow if all goes well this evening.
JB
Steve, That useless piece of aluminum that defies installation, front and rear glass seal
Tom,
I agree. We do not have that so will not install it. They are really more trouble than worth.
Steve
I ordered t-shirts today. Had too, time running out. I did order 15 XXL, so get them quickly. No one told me they wanted one, just hoping.
18 XL
15 L
12 M
Steve
Steve, I thought I sent you an e-mail months ago wanting a couple of XXLs. Maybe I forgot though, I am getting old you know. Anyway, put a couple aside for me and you know you have some sold.
Regarding those stainless bowls. Are you welding those to the mild steel flanges. I'm asking because I may want to do something similar. If so, are you just going to use some 309 rod?
I'll have to see what materials I have out there to work with. I'd like something about 1/8" thick for good threads but material choice is pretty open. Can be mild steel, stainless, or even brass though that would be heavy. Or it could be just tabs where the screws need to go. To be honest, I've been recovering from last week's work marathon and may not even look at it today, as I still have alternator issues on the truck to sort out. But the bowls will have to be cut down about an inch for tire clearance then have internal flanges or tabs welded in. I also considered pressing and gluing plastic flanges into place.
Looks like I'll be making a solo trip down to Townsend so anyone coming through Cincinnati on the way, it'd be nice to have traveling company. I don't expect to have any problems, but then I never do.
I've begun placing odds-n-ends in the car that need to be installed but which I will be unable to take care of before the meet, in the hopes that anyone will feel like working on it there.
Of the three of us that were here last weekend, Steve, Dan and myself, we put in some very long and strenuous days and by Saturday night were pretty ragged out. I personally did that for 5 days straight and I'm still not right, but another day or two of taking it easy should do the trick. It's probably pretty pointless to report on our progress, the car will be there for all to see in a little over a week. I passed out t-shirts to the participants. Depending on how the new ones sell and how many we have left over, we may make that an incentive of the MG-Roadmaster weekends in the future. If it gets guys here to work on the car it would be well worth it.
JB
I'll have to say the Barbecue that Steve brought should be an incentive as well!!!
Here's how I decided to do the headlights. the black mounting rings are a near perfect fit in the truncated bowls. Epoxy behind the flange should do the trick.
JB
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Headlights:
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I did not attach the trim rings because I do not have the special removal tool, and even if I did I'm not sure it will work with these headlights. So we'd better leave them off until the wiring is completed and the headlights are adjusted.
JB
Another job nicely done Jim!
You continue to impress.
Cheers
Fred
I picked up the shirts yesterday. I think they look good. Wore one to work today.
Steve
Cool!
Loaded the car on the trailer last night. Still some packing to do today. I am bringing some small tasks that can be done if we want.
Rick, please come. I'm counting on you to make sure the hood struts are installed correctly.
JB
Report on Money: $500 in donations: Radiator sold for $150. AND we made a whopping $16.27 on the t-shirts.
I was pledged another $350 by various people but have not received it.
Steve
I think we can all be pleased with the response to the MG-Roadmaster at the meet. It drew a continuous crowd and instantly became a focal point. Credit is due obviously to Executive Touch for the fantastic paint job and the work they did on the body, including re-sculpting the flares, but equal credit is due to everyone else who helped make this happen and there has been an incredible level of contribution from an equally amazing group of people. I would love to go into it name by name and maybe a bit later on I will, but for the moment I think it better if I stick to reporting on the meet. But I do want to mention that we have something like 50 individual contributors, not including our anonymous donors, who are numerous.
But a word about our goals is in order. In looking at the big picture, it is clear to most of us that our biggest concern is to get this country back on it's feet. Equally clear is the fact that our young men and women are the key to our future. By helping them we help ourselves. We may be a small segment of society at large but we are a highly visible one, very widespread, an extremely positive one, and clearly a very capable one. What we must do, more than anything else in life, is transfer those qualities to the youth and teach them how to succeed in the world they are facing. That is a pretty tall order given the challenges we face ourselves, but it is the attitude which is all important. We need to convince them that they have opportunities, that they can seize them, bend them to their will, and build a better world for them and their families, never forgetting that family, above all, is the bedrock upon which a successful society is built.
So what does this have to do with sports cars you might ask? It is simple. Present a teenager with an enticing enough hook, grab their attention, motivate them, and then set them to a task which they feel empowered to succeed and excel in, and you have just created a powerful force. Multiply that by large enough numbers and you have created an invincible army. Make it widespread and you have created an unstoppable society, and this is the American heritage. We are a small group and our numbers are few but we can still make a difference and we must do what we can to put America back on her feet. The effort itself is contagious. So where does the car fit in? The car is that hook. It is the focal point that grabs the attention of young and old alike. It is the enticement that gives us the opportunity to teach and show the young that there is more to life than play-station and fantasy worlds. It is a real concrete fantasy which has been brought to life, but which is within the reach of each and every one of them if they will only ask how to do it. It is the irresistible bait.
But in order for that bait to be effective it must be used properly and followed up effectively. We can't just lock it in a garage and expect it to have the desired effect. No, it must go out on display. It must be brought into concentrated audiences. All of you are creative and thoughtful people and it is up to each of you to find the best way to do this. Take it to a car show, show up at a fish fry, make arrangements to appear at the local High School and pass out flyers, be a center of attention at the tailgate party. Use your imagination. Be the stone that ripples the water of the pond. Be the individual of great personal wealth (in terms of wisdom and life experience) who holds up a shining beacon of hope for the young. As you help one you help many, for who among us finds great excitement then fails to pass it along?
The crucial message is this: You can build this car! You can start from nothing and achieve great success! You can create beauty out of the ordinary! You can make your life better. And even if you try and fail, we will accept you, applaud your attempt, and help you along. What better message could we possibly offer our young?
The car itself is a wonder. It has far exceeded the expectations of any of us who were here in the beginning. In that regard it is a metaphor for what we can do with the society in which we live, and in fact what we should do, and must do. I want to publicly thank each and every one of you for making this journey possible and for making it so rich in its perception. As we go forward in taking this experience to the public at large, let us always remember that spirit of cooperation and generosity which is the pinnacle of human achievement, that we can teach others how to walk that path on their way to enlightenment and personal fulfillment. We have created a true work of Art, and it now becomes our task to allow that art work to play its part in lifting the downtrodden and and giving hope to the needy. This we can do. This we MUST do. And most importantly, THIS, it is our PRIVILEGE to do.
Your President and Servant,
JB
B.A.D.A.S.S. Boss
PS: We're not out of the woods yet on our build costs or what we'll need to put the car on tour. So if you feel inclined to contribute now would be a good time. You can contact our Treasurer Steve DeGroat http://forum.britishv8.org/profile.php?2,56 or me. Thank-you very much for your support.
JB
Jim,
What a superb job you and the guys have done in creating that incredible MG.
A heartfelt congratulations to all of you.
Regards,
Kevin Jackson
Thanks Kevin. Hopefully we can do something constructive with it. At the very least though we are going to have one H*ll of a time playing with it!
Now on to a certain financial matter. Fuel expenses for the trip to Townsend towing the trailer carrying the MG-Roadmaster, on to Blowing Rock to deliver it to Jack Austin, and back home ended up being a little over $300.00. Once again the truck was injured in the process but the good news is that I've been able to get it back to where it was before starting the trip at a cost of $250 in parts. Realistically, had I driven Edith's TR7 to Townsend and back the trip would have cost me about $100.
Travel expenses was the last issue I was going to bring up in the annual meeting but we were cut short by the incoming pizza so it never happened. As a result Carl and Steve formed an Ad Hoc Executive committee to address the issue and authorized up to $300 in gasoline reimbursements over what I would have spent were I not bringing the GT. This would make that amount roughly $200. I present this for your approval or rejection. I think it reasonable but at the same time I recognize that it is going to bite into the proceeds that we have for purchase of components that Max and Flying Circus will use to complete the interior of the car in August. So having said that, I will take no action for one week to allow comments. Let me know how you think we should proceed. Incidentally, we DO NOT have sufficient funds to complete the build, even with Flying Circus' retailer discount and even with the $200. We need to raise some more donations. I would have simply let the matter of the gas expense slide, but I'm presently running on a really tight budget and the repairs have been an expense I hadn't anticipated. They have indicated the need for more as soon as I can afford it. I'm just hoping the rest of you are in more forgiving circumstances.
JB
This is a legitimate project expense - given all that you have done for this project, I can't imagine that anyone has an objection for reinbursement.
What Graham said!
What Kelly said!
Jim, I concur, please take whatever reimbursement you feel is appropriate. The time and money you've spent on the project should not be a total donation for sure. We'll find more funding as we need it. It's going to be a busy summer beating the bushes for donations and sponsors but we'll get there before Max and the crew need the parts.
Gentlemen and Ladies, here's what we are working towards. In the attached Excel file you'll see a list of parts needed to finish the Roadmaster when Max gets it in August. He'll only have a few weeks in the shop for the car, so we need either the parts delivered to Steve DeGroat by mid July or the money set to him by the early part of August so that we can get the order in to Moss and other vendors for the parts needed. If you have a part to donate, then send it to Steve, Max doesn't have room to store the items until he gets the car. Some of the parts on the list have already been pledged, but we won't update the list until we actually have the part in hand or the check. We will try to refurbish a lot of items but we want the car's interior and trim to match the quality level of the body and paint, so we're shooting for very nice condition items if used.
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QuoteAs a result Carl and Steve formed an Ad Hoc Executive committee to address the issue and authorized up to $300 in gasoline reimbursements over what I would have spent were I not bringing the GT. This would make that amount roughly $200.
Actually, I said paying for the additional gas expense should be the minimum reimbursement. I think we should pay him the whole $300, at minimum. Jim has hauled this project to Wisconsin, Illinois, South Dakota, Tennessee, North Carolina...the actual hauling expenses far exceeds that.
Treasurers report: We have $751.88 in the account now.
I still have one person who gave me an IOU for $100 that has not been sent to me.
Steve
Do you want me to send Vito Octagonalli out to collect?
I think Carl has the right idea. Nobody has put more into this project than Jim has, and broken the tow vehicle nearly every trip, at least recently.
A week has passed. I will act in accordance with my earlier stated intent and write out a check for $200. As much as I appreciate the sentiments expressed here and the appreciation shown, it is as much as I can in good conscience accept for the transportation costs. Anything some of you might feel is deserved over and above that, you can consider another donation.
So speaking of donations. Max is getting a little antsy about his role in finishing up the interior of the car because the money simply isn't there to buy the parts that must be purchased. Believe me Max, I completely sympathize with you on this, and were it not for certain unscheduled expenses that I've had, some having to do with the project, I would be the first to contribute another hundred or so to help the cause along.
Remember what we're doing here guys. In our own small way and hoping to affect others to do their part too, we are trying to rebuild the country. We want to show people that as a people we still have what it takes, we still have the things that made America great in the first place, and all of us have the ability to build great things from humble beginnings. This is the real message of the MG-Roadmaster project, so won't you help us take it to the people in their time of need? Surely you can spare a hundred bucks for a cause as worthy as this. Contact Steve DeGroat our treasurer http://forum.britishv8.org/profile.php?2,56
JB
I've posted on the MG Experience Forum requesting parts or cash donations for the final stage of the project, hope that brings in some support. As the saying goes, my check is in the mail and we're still working on the water filler neck project. I'll buy some aluminum tubing tonight after work and try my hand at tig welding up a 90 degree elbow if I can.
Two weeks later and we have trimmed the list a bit thanks to Max and crew as well as some other dontations. Still a lot needed guys.
Roadmasterlist2.JPG
I wanted to post a bit of an update. There's been a behind-the-scenes email circulating amongst those most involved in the project since Townsend, exchanging more or less daily information. This group has included Max, Bill, myself, and several others and I just added Larry and need to add Dan M and probably Gary Walker to it but sometimes I'm a little slow. I'll try to do that today. Anyone who feels they need to be on that email please let me know and I'll include you. It has to do with the details of the work, the parts needed, and the major object is to get the right parts ordered in time for Max to finish out the interior, like what we talked about in the BADASS meeting at Townsend.
And on that note, someone, and I can't remember who it was, came up to me at Townsend and said they had a complete headliner with a fiberglass backing that they would donate. Whoever that was, could you please contact me right away? I'd like to avoid a situation where the guys either buy another headliner or find a way to make the existing one work, only to have a brand spanking new headliner show up after the rest of the interior has already been put in. Larry tells me the headliner has to go in first. I apologize for my poor memory, it's not one of my strengths I'm afraid and by no means a slight. Under the right conditions I'd forget my own mother.
At any rate, in terms of the finances, we just deposited a nice healthy donation from Merv, I took T-shirts in lieu of cash for my fuel expenses for Townsend then promptly gave two of them to Steve to give to Max's helpers so that deduction didn't happen, and I'm told we currently have somewhere around $690 floating around the mail/banking system somewhere between Lugoff and Cleveland. When that money does surface my estimates would put us somewhere around the $1500 mark, reasonably close to being enough for Max to order parts. But the timeline is starting to get kinda short. So anyone who can help out a little, we could use it.
I'm sorry I can't report on the progress of the wiring, maybe Steve can give us an update soon, We noticed an interference between the steering rack and lower control arms which cut the rack boots and my car has the same geometry (once the LCA blocks are removed) so hopefully later this week I will be able to make up some new front pieces for the LCAs and send a pair of them to Max. Bill and Gary made up a very nice thermostat neck and I will try to post a photo of that in my next message, and are now looking into a surge tank to protect the TA heads.
So the car is coming along nicely. I'll report more as I have it.
JB
Jim, I don't recall if I just thought about it or actually emailed Bill, but I have a rear bumper I'm donating to the cause -- it's either new or rechromed but new I think because it has black plastic peel away protective stuff still stuck on it. I peeled a little off and it looks great. I'd bought it for my car & then went with the sebring rear.
I'll also send a set of wiper arms. They're the stainless type & look pretty good.
And, lastly, I have the map pocket that came off my '76. I'm not using it so will include it when I ship the other stuff. It'll only be useful as a form assuming the interior kit comes with the material to recover it. It's not damaged, but the interior in my car showed it's age.
I probably won't get a chance to ship that stuff till next weekend -- I've been working crazy hours (like 80-90/wk for the past 3 wks) & that will continue this coming week too. Things should settle down a bit after that. Anyway, I'll scan the list again between now & then too.
Rob
Thanks Rob, all those things sound like stuff we can use.
Here's a photo of the thermostat neck:
bill4.jpg
This should make finding an ideal top hose pretty simple.
JB
The last piece for the cooling system is a surge tank to fit in the area above the passenger side footwell shelf. This space is an approximate 7-1/2" cube. Ideally the tank should be square or rectangular with nicely radiused corners. A 1/4" to 1/2" corner radius would look extremely good. For a bottom (drain) fitting it would have a 3/8" pipe thread bung, and it would have a 1/8" bung for a vent line to connect to the thermostat housing in the photo above (I'm assuming that is a 1/8" bung on the filler neck). Finally, it would have a neck to accept a standard radiator cap. It would attach at the base via a pair of horizontal tabs. That is the ideal. Now, if anyone happens to have anything close to that made of aluminum, it is quite likely we can modify it as needed. Volume should be at least a couple quarts and there is room for close to a gallon. For instance, if the fittings or the mounts aren't quite right, several of us are now good enough with the tig welder that we can change it and hopefully make it look acceptable, and for that matter there is no reason we could not use a round tank as long as it is big enough. I have a roughly triangular shaped one made of steel as a last resort but it really does not look right in that location, I made it to go down beside the radiator of an earlier car. We would consider any sort of a square or tubular aluminum container that is sturdy enough to hold about 30 psi and can shorten it if needed. An old scuba tank comes to mind. That would be rather thick of course and add weight, but would look better than the triangular one and have more volume.
Why do we need it? Fair question. Our radiator is oversized and works great. The problem is that the radiator is mounted below the heads which means that there is a very small volume of water in the system above the hot areas over the combustion chambers. Even the slightest inattention to coolant level can uncover those hot spots as there is at most maybe a half quart of coolant above them, and if they are exposed, almost immediately the coolant will boil and the heads may warp. This can happen sitting at idle. The job of the surge tank is to provide a safety margin above those hot spots. The reason a recovery bottle is inadequate for this job, is that it relies on the heat/cool cycle to refill the system and is not always reliable, whereas the surge tank is at system pressure and relies on gravity to do it's job. So as long as there is fluid in the surge tank the system is full. In fact, a recovery bottle can be used with a surge tank as a second back-up although it isn't absolutely needed. I think we can all agree that this is cheap insurance compared to the cost of a new set of TA-Performance, Street Eliminator heads.
I've progressed enough on my roadster to start on the lower control arms so I hope to have something to report there by week's end. The mounting plate for the choke and throttle cables is done, painted, and ready to install so I'll send that to Max once he has the car. And unless I've overlooked something these pieces will complete the mechanical part of the build, leaving just the wiring and interior to complete. Not to minimize those parts, I say "just" only because it is a relief to be that far along and that close to completion.
JB
Thanks to Gary Walker for his great TIG welding work on the thermostat housing. This part is indeed a "team" effort just like the rest of the project.
Rob, I'd passed your offer along to Steve, but thanks again for the donation.
So far no updates on the list other than these items mentioned. I should be getting a report from Steve pretty soon when he has a chance to inventory the parts he got from Jim and then we'll update.
Bill,
the stuff I picked up from Jim was already knocked off the list or rather never put on it. It was seats and the old capet, nothing that I see on the list.
Steve
Dan Masters sent Roadmaster a check for $1000 from the 2011 V8 meet.
Thanks Dan. That should be more than we need to finish up at Max's.
I will be goiong to Boone on thursday and will try to get to the Roadmaster in Blowing Rock to try on the new thermostat housing.
Steve
Steve, this is just phenomenal news and I have to admit, I never even saw it coming. Thank you DAN!!
In further financial news, The two checks that got lost in the mail have not surfaced. One was a check drawn on Steve's personal account so we will recover that easily enough but the other is a different matter:
It was a check written as a donation of $150 and given to Steve at Townsend. So please, please. If you wrote Steve such a check look at your account and see if it cleared. It was stamped for deposit to our account so I do not suspect foul play but we'd like to ask you to help us on this.
I have a care package ready to send down to Steve, containing a few bits including the new front links for the lower control arms. This will cure the interference problem with the steering rack. I have installed the duplicate set on my car and they work just fine and will be plenty strong. It does add 9/10 of a pound per side and part of that is unsprung weight, probably about a third or roughly 5 ounces per side as extra unsprung weight but it was the best I could do and any of you are very welcome to improve on it. Photos below.
JB
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Nice work Jim, clears and offers some support as well as protection from road damage at the same time. Good design.
Hi guys, if someone want to send a check to help fund the project, where does one send the check and to who do you make the check out to? I was the guy that was at Townsend and ask a lot of questions and took a lot of pic's of some great little cars and also picked up a T shirt. I live in Spartanburg, SC and I am getting some of my parts for my transplant of a Rover 3.9L and a T5 trans. so at some point I will be asking some dumb questions. The check will not be big but I guess some is better than none. I am funding my project out of my rat hole money and it's getting a little low.
Just let me know and I will see what I can do.
Regards
Phil Quinn/flipsmg
Phillip, anything at all will be highly appreciated, thanks for wanting to help. Steve DeGroat is our treasurer so you can send donations to him at:
Steve DeGroat
101 Lakewood Drive
Lugoff, SC 29078
You can make out the check to Project Roadmaster or just to Steve, which ever you want.
I remember you in Townsend, didn't get a chance to speak to you much, but welcome to our wild and wacky world of modified British cars. Don't worry about asking and dumb questions, we're all here to help you in any way we can.
Sorry to give the game away, Jim B, but I think I recognize an "inverted wing", when I see one ? Pretty crafty ! This should tend to offset the added unsprung weight, hey hey ? Keep em flyin low, roverman.
Shh!.. No point in telling everything. Anyway looking again I think the unsprung weight is closer to 3-4 grams per side, certainly much less than the difference made by shaving the tread.... not that any of us would do that.
JB
NO Jim, say it isn't so. None of our group would shave the tires, some of us would let them wear down to the point that the original tread pattern was more of a shadow than actual tread though. Makes running in the rain a bit dicey but hey when it's dry they stick like glue. I did change mine when I got back to KC this year though, how about you Carl, those Toyos still on your B?
What's this, ground effects on the Roadmaster?!
Shaved tires? Only racers do that. ;) Tread squirm, ya know.
Slick Toyos? Yep, just like you saw 'em at Townsend. Awesome on a day like today!
Hello, Steve, Jim & Bill as we say down south the check is in the mail. It's not big but maybe you can pick-up some of the small parts for the car. One question, is the little car still at Jacks for the electrical are has it moved. Steve after it is done and if you get to have it in Lugoff, I sure would like to make a few more pic's before it gets gone. A any rate you guys stand by for the bumb question that I will be asking.
Regards
Phil Quinn/flipsmg
Phillip,
thanks for the check (not here yet).
I hope to have the Raodmaster here between Max's and returning it to KY for shack down. I'll let you know.
Steve
Forgot. I was in Blowing Rock last Thursday and tried the new Thermo housing on the Roadmaster. It will fit but the dist will have to be re-aligned. The Vacuum advance is in the way now. I left it with the car. It should make it much easier to fine an upper rad hose.
Steve
Sounds good Steve. We expected that the distributor would have to be clocked to move the vacuum advance away from the filler.
Phillip,
Your check came in the mail today. It is one the way to the bank since it wasn't enough for me to skip the country with. thanks for the donation.
Steve
Steve, I know it's not much but every little bit helps. Maybe next time I can add a few zeros to the check and you can skip out with the RoadMaster and the cash. Us it well! I will go up to my shop and open up a few more cans and bags to see what falls out. Thats my where I keep my rat hole money but most of the time it's just a rat that falls out. Regards to all.
Phil/flipsmg
The Roadmaster is currently residing in Durham, NC at Flying Circus English Cars where Max Fulton and crew will be tackling the wiring and interior issues.
I finally got my act together & boxed up the rear bumper/brackets, wiper arms & map pocket. Shipped out yesterday; should arrive @ Steve's on Thurs.
Rob,
Nor here yet. Maybe tomorrow before I leave for Max's.
Steve
I'll have to track it when I get home from work. The expected delivery date was today.
I know Max is hoping for some help on the leaks in the air bag system like we tracked down on yours and mine Steve. The new parts should do it, plus he was asking about upgrading the compressor to a Land Rover pump. That should work very well and if it does as good as I think it will, you might ask him if any more are available for your car and mine (at bargain prices of course;-). Might be a good time to swap out the control arm struts too.
JB
Rob,
It has arrived. They put in a defferent place at the house. I did find, now I just have to find room for it. It will get to Max's though.
Thanks for the parts.
Steve
Thanks Arthur, quite interesting to be sure, great post
I'd like to catch up on some photos and progress reports. There are a lot of photos but unfortunately all but the last few are way too big and the last ones have the wrong file extension to upload, but I'll try to see what I can do.
As an update though, Max and his work crews have worked magic on the car over the last few weeks, installing wiring, interior, and finishing up the car with the exception of a few items that we will have to take care of over the winter. My understanding is that we need to bench bleed the brake master cylinder, rewire the alternator, and do a few more things before the car can be driven. At this time we are finished at Flying Circus and the car will soon make it's way back down to Steve's place in Lugoff, SC. We've not worked out the details of how long it will be there or when it will come back up here, but I think we can all offer Max a huge round of applause for his efforts in making this stage of the build happen. We are much more than just one step closer, we now have a complete car that, in Max's words, needs a few minor repairs. Thank you Max!
JB
Awesome news - thanks Max & crew!! Can't wait to see the pics.
Roadmaster is now in lugoff, SC. Stopped on the way home and had the spreaders installed. One job done: Cost $0. Nice folks at Turner Glass.
A big thanks to Mike Speer for the loan of the trailer and another to Tom Caine for using his truck to tow it from Durham.
Thursday I will try to get the brakes working and then on to the carb and timing. After that is the altermator and the temp guage.
Used my comperssor to pump up the front end to unload and had no troulble.
Steve
BADASS has $775 left in the account after our last bill from Flying Circus.
Steve
Steve, glad to hear you made the trip safely.
JB
Just got back from a test drive in the neighborhood. Does not over heat, stopped the fuel from gushing down the carb.
Only one fan comes on, but heat is below 200 at idle and even lower after the drive.
Brakes still need mor work, but it will at least stop using all four corners.
I still plan to get the front end aligned and get keys cut and check some of the electrical isues: temp guage and air bag compressor.
Lots of fun and sounds good. Didin't do over about 30.
Timing is at about 20 degrees and the vacuum advane is hooked up to ported vacuum. So far no troulble.
More tomorrow.
Tom Caine came over to help with the brakes.
Parking brake now works a little .
Steve
I talked to Steve Yesterday and he had done quite a bit in the short time the car has been with him. Advanced the timing, backed off the idle speed adjustment, and several other things en-route to making the car driveable. Depending on how much he is able and willing to do, the car's days of being carried around on a trailer may be pretty much over. He had a few minor gripes and I think most of us will. After all, that is exactly why we customize our own cars, and of course this car is not the personal transportation of any one of us nor was it ever intended to be. About the most we can hope to do there is to make it as comfortable as possible for as many of us as possible.
So next we need to put insurance and tags on the car. I'm in the process of trying to figure out the best way to contact McKeel Hagerty to see how we can settle this issue, but if anyone has a way to contact him or anyone else highly placed in the insurance industry your help would be a big benefit to us all.
JB
Just got back from Roadmaster's first cruise in. It was quit the hit.
All guages now work except for the speedo and tach. Tach reads but is not accurate.
Alt now charges at 13-14 volts depending on RPM.
Engine runs at 190 degrees all the time now. That is the thermostat.
Brakes are still not great.
Goes in for alignment on Monday.
I drove it around about 20 miles today. Does run good.
Steve
OMG! STEVE DROVE THE CAR! ON THE STREET!
This is what we've been waiting on for, what? Five years now?! Now THAT is what I call exciting news!!
JB
That's awesome! Any pics of the car @ the cruise in?
What's the issue with the brakes?
No pics.
The brakes seem to have air somewhere that I have not been able to bleed out. Will try again after the alignment.
I have been afraid to open it up because of the brake issue. It will stop, but in a emergency it would be bad.
steve
I know I'm a relative newbie to the project.
But that's the coolest thing ever!!!
Everyone involved should be immensely proud and excited by it's mere existence.
And while a myriad of people have been involved in it's birth I think a special recognition is due to Jim.
What a phenomenal accomplishment.
For a relatively small group of online buddies to produce something like this is a inspiration at the least.
Well done! to everyone involved.
I am humbled to be in your presence.
Cheers
Fred
Do we have insurance on the Roadmaster now?!
Um...no,... why do you ask?
JB
"I knew him before he was king"
OK, a couple of new developments. Most of you may find this boring so be forewarned, still in the interest of full disclosure I should post it. First the good news, earlier today I fired off an email that I hope will reach the attention of McKeel Hagerty of Hagerty Insurance. No guarantees, it's not easy to find his personal email address, I suppose for pretty obvious reasons but we'll see where it leads. Anyone with an inside contact feel free to lead.
The not so good news is that my timing could have been better. I wasn't really satisfied with our organization's business designation being LLC on the official records when the application form is designated NLC and my apologies to all but this summer I accidentally allowed the license to lapse while thinking about what to do about it. A week or two back I had re-filed using NLC as the extension but it was bounced, so this morning I called the sec of state and worked out a solution that allows our registered name to indicate our non-profit status. The new form went in this morning using the extension: ...Society, N LLC, the N standing for the non-profit status. I realize this is a minor detail but the details are important.
I pretty much have to make hay when the mood hits me so I also later wrote the letter to McKeel and then sent it out. The down side is if he checks background on the organization before the new application is processed it will raise a flag. Not my brightest move I'm afraid, but there you have it and we'll have to deal with it as well as we can.
JB
If Hagerty doesn't like it, there is always Grundy, etc.
Not to worry.
The brakes are now very good. Hard, high pedal. This is thanks to Unlimited Auto here in Lugoff. No charge. Great guys.
The fuel guage has died. Tach still reading 8000+, Speedo not working.
The four wheel alignment turned out to be a 3 wheel job. Right rear would not adjust in. 5/8 tow out.
I took the rod off today and removed the jam nut which gave some more adjustment. Now it seems fine. Tom Caine helped with that.
Just drove it another 7 miles. No over heating, ran great.
Timing is now set at 25 degrees with the vacuum hooked to manifold. It is much happier this way.
The rear end is not quiet, it whines on decel. Everything is greased really well.
Will take it to the cruise in on Friday and will take pics and try to post.
Steve
Great updates, thx Steve!
So what DID you ultimately do on the brakes? Sounds like the first four bleeding attempts got nowhere...
And with the timing at 25 idle (manifold) you'll only get 25 degree FULL when you punch it! (Kinda short....)
I can't imagine you got it to stop running on the primaries, but what did you do to the carb to stop "the gushing"? You mentioned being at 20 degrees with PORTED vacuum-- was the port NOT being pulled? (That would be awesome). It's too bad the engine wants so much timing-- the distributor isn't curved for it.
And, lastly, did you get the other fan working? I'm guessing the top connector where both wires came in.... (Or did we have a partially seizing motor-- now done-- which might explain all the blown fuses!)
Cheers!
M
PS: My apologies for the HUGE pix I sent to Jim. (It was late. I was tired. I'm a Luddite, blah blah..) HOWEVER... I think I (now) know the quick way to downsize, so maybe I'll post a few <here> for those watching in the wings. :-)
Okay, let's see how this goes.... M
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Hey, it worked! (Note: Carl in his natural habitat!)
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Okay, the previous were: a) interior b) "modified" TR6 heater valve c) the tricky dash repair d) Lights Work!!!
Last ones: 1) Front Lights 2) Jim's modified control arms 3) Passenger door 4) (nearly) Ready to Roll!!!
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Max,
Carb: I advanced the timing and turned down the idle speed screw and kept balancing them until I got the butterflys closed. Then I could adjust the mixture screws.
With the timing where it is it runs good and accelerates faster than I want to. I fugure at cruise it will have about 40 degrees advance.
The brakes: took the car to a friend who has a bleeder set up that pressurizes the MC. Then just open the bleed screws one at a time and watch the air come out. Worked great and fast.
Have not messed with the other fan. Runs cool on one right now.
I will look at that and the tach this weekend, I hope.
Max, I finally contacted Jeff who responded that it was set up to run manifold vacuum with 16 degrees of initial advance, so Steve could probably add in some more but getting the car to run with the hose unhooked to time it seems to be something of an issue. We'll probably get there eventually, but we don't really have a benchmark for what the engine wants due to the cam and the alloy heads and intake. In the meantime it looks like we're in the zone. Too bad we didn't get it on that dyno but them's the breaks.
I got a response from a Hagerty agent today and wrote back. He forwarded my post to their sponsorship guy and to McKeel so we'll see what happens but he really felt, after talking to his underwriter, that a commercial policy might be the best way to go. I have absolutely no experience and zero contacts with commercial insurance people so somebody else needs to step up here and take the reins to at least open a dialog. I would be completely shooting blind. Once we have a contact or two I don't mind negotiating the policy, but I'm completely clueless as to who to contact.
JB
Jim:
Good friend of mine's wife is a muckity-muck at an Insurance company (obviously here in NC). I could try sending out a feeler email, just to see what advice she'd give on how we should proceed and what to look for? I'm clueless like you....
RE: distributor. I've curved it: It won't work with manifold. You got 20 mechanical and 20 vacuum. If you time at zero and do manifold, you get 20 idle and 40 cruising but only 20 WOT. If you time at 15 you'll get 35 idle (!!), but also 35 WOT and 55 cruising. What is working well for Steve just idling and driving around will be WAY retarded when he goes Wide Open Throttle!
You need more mechanical if you want to run manifold. Like 30 degrees in the weights.
IF Steve got it to stop running off the primaries then I would go 15 idle, PORTED. This would give 15, 35, 55. That struck me as a ported curve, for just those reasons. Any other car would love those timing points.
Apparently it doesn't like 15 idle.... I wonder why. (Scientifically, you don't need more than 18 @ idle. Big cam, lowered vacuum is probably making it a little harder to get the mix in and light it off.)
M
Rethinking......
Okay, COMPROMISE setting could be this:
Time at 10 (where does Schlemmer get his 16 initial with MANIFOLD? That's 36 degrees at idle, and the damn thing likely only wants 33 full!)
Hook up manifold port-- now we're 30. (Vacuum unit starts pulling at 10", all in at 15"-- engine pulls 16" at idle).
This will give 30 WOT (our minimum) and also 50 cruising-- not bad.
So... hook up that other fan (!) and maybe it can survive 30 degrees of idle timing.
I think that's the only way you can try to get that distributor to work with manifold vacuum.
As you say, with ported the issue seems to be that it doesn't idle with 15 deg mechanical timing. (And that's a different issue.)
M
"In general, a modified BBB will like between 30 and 36* total advance, and 12* plus initial." - Larry70GS "The Wizard"
If there is an actual 20* of mechanical then we should have 10-16* initial. Max, at what RPM is the mechanical all in?
It really depends on what the car likes. At idle it will probably like about 24* There is no way to get that with ported vacuum and still be in the right range at WOT, so manifold vacuum will be needed. However 20* of vacuum advance seems high on both ends but we can't really say without knowing where the engine is happiest. One advantage of using manifold vacuum is that it should automatically retard the timing when cranking, for easier starts. Jeff mentioned that big engines tend to use manifold vacuum and smaller ones ported, perhaps this is why.
What I've seen recommended is to set initial so the engine runs best, (which will also let the idle speed screws be backed down off the transfer slots and allow adjustment of the mixture screws) and then make full throttle runs and set the mechanical advance just below pinging. (Or adjust the base timing for ping and then check initial to see how far it is from what the engine likes and correct the mechanical with bushings for total and springs for rate.) If that can be done without any vacuum then ported vacuum can be used and set for around 50 total advance. (will require about 10* of mechanical) If it cannot be done (which seems to be the case here) then manifold vacuum is used to get good idle timing and a compromise is made between total timing and idle timing based on the number of degrees brought in by the vacuum can. If needed, the vacuum can may be replaced with one that is adjustable, or a sleeve installed to limit its movement. Something in the 10* range should be about right.
Currently I think Steve is on the right track but we may need more initial advance and have to limit the vacuum advance. Aside from that I find his results very encouraging.
JB
Jim:
With wonky tach it was hard to know when timing was all in when the crew was setting it initially.
It is NOT a long curve-- I think it was likely all in between 2400 and 2800. Perhaps 3000, but I did NOT have to rev it much to set the WOT point...
Yes, Steve's news IS very encouraging, if only just for getting out on the road. We have all winter to get the timing right.
IF YOU can come up with another distributor, we can probably curve it for how we'll want (manifold).
Personally, I still think we should figure out why it doesn't idle with 15.... must be that cam. :-/
M
I am probably conservative on the timing, but the car does run well. No ping(i think) and idles fine below 1000.
I have not tried wide open yet as I am not comfortable with this much power. I have no place to really try to hold it open and see what happens.
Once Jim gets the car he or you or whoever can play with the timing all they want.
I just wanted it to run well and not get hurt by too much timing.
I am not sure with the engine noise and my bad hearing that I could detect ping anyway.
steve
Steve:
You made two posts re: timing. One said ported, other manifold.
WITH the manifold being pulled, where is the idle timing? (I thought I saw 24 degrees?).
If that's the case, pinging is NOT the issue-- the timing will be retarded for WOT.
At the moment, if we aren't dynoing it, no worries. But we certainly won't get all it has missing a good 10 degrees of timing! :-)
Remains to be seen in driving conditions. LIkely we're surviving because of the partial throttle/vac cruising. (Which is around 44 it sounds like.)
M
I used to have a 400 Pontiac(67 Firebird) used manifold vacuum stock. 12 initial,34 total. I think the vacuum can only pulled 8". So at idle it would read 20" with hose hooked up. Maybe you need a late 60's Pontiac vacuum can. I also used lighter springs to have all the timing in at 2500 rpm. Better gas back then though. Still had to use Premium because of 10 3/4" to 1 compression
Max, could you have your friend check on the commercial insurance? I guess we'll probably need to get that if we hope to get the car away fro Steve.
JB
Jim, if you or someone can email me the LLC or other incorporation info I'll check with my carrier, I remember asking about it a year or two ago and they indicated they do write policies for LLC's & non-profits. I have ANPAC/Chrome. They're not as well known as Hagerty or Grundy but they are one of the bigger ones and when I researched, they had the least restrictions of the agreed value collector policies.
Latest is: The car now sits down on the drivers side by 1 inch. Just noticed it today. It wasn't that way before.
Any ideas?
Steve
Rob, the formal name of the non-profit is:
British American Deviant Automotive Sports-car Society, N LLC
The new registration paperwork should be back this week sometime, is there something else you need?
Steve, I really don't know what to make of that. Have you been eating more than usual? I suppose the first thing would be to check tire pressures and then to keep an eye on it the next few times you drive it. Could be nothing more than those plastic bushings in the rear suspension sticking. If the problem persists we may have to go back to the timkens and needle bearings. That would be a hassle and cost us a few hundred dollars to fix so I'd rather avoid it if we can, so the car probably needs to be driven more to loosen them up.
JB
Hey Steve, another thought occurred to me. You can adjust that out without too much trouble with the coil overs, so that seems like the best approach. Possibly the small difference in control arm length is making itself known, or maybe the shocks are adjusted a little different, or maybe the installed length is a little different. Probably a combination. Anyway it's probably not a big deal at all and once we have it riding like we like, then sometime later we can check the corner weights to see how we are really loading the tires.
JB
Don't know if they'll need any other info but can imagine it would have to be insured in the state of the LLC &/or registration. Is that KY for both?
Yes, KY would be correct for any question such as that.
JB
Steve:
Air bag pressure still the same? Any chance of a leak, that side only?
How about, now that it's being driven, the bag has "settled" into the holder and thus is actually fine, but is now trying to cover more distance? (Course, wouldn't the pressure have equalized from side to side and balanced the ride for both?)
How about front shock is blown? Lack of resistance there isn't helping the air bag keep that side up? I'm not sure that would be it (should be independent), but it's just one more thing to check while you're poking around.
Not sure how the rear would play into this, unless similar issue: a coil over wasn't seated properly or something. (You'd think we would have noticed!)
$.02
JIm: I'll make enquiries re: insurance.
M
Jim:
What type of coverage are we looking for? Just the value of the car, or liability with many users, or....?
My friend's wife is doing some checking. Her company is affiliate with Keystone Insurer's Group, which may have offices in your area.
She'll get back to me in a few days, probably. (Her specialty is Life & Health, NOT Property & Casualty, so she'll have to get a coworker to work out a prospectus.)
We'll see what she says.... I told her to assume "all possible" coverage, and then we can just drop options from there....?
Stated value of car is $30k, yes?
M
I'd say that's low Max, but for purposes of insurance coverage we can consider a wide range of options. I'm really only concerned about the liability side of it, but if some fool does wreck it, certainly it'd be nice to be able to repair it, and for those purposes something in that ballpark might be appropriate. We've discussed value before and added up what we've done to build the car, compared it to other high end builds, etc. I'd say it should value at something north of 60K everything considered, but that doesn't mean I think the policy should be that high. OTOH, if we insure it for less than we think it is worth then the policy certainly should contain a clause that allows us to keep the remains in the case of a total.
JB
"If" car has Urethane bushings, per "Energy Suspension, brand", they will need to be lubed. I'm assuming not used in torsion ? As a bushing, urethane is fairly high friction,(needs lube). Good Luck, roverman.
I have a call into ANPAC. Will let you know what the options are there. We'd definitely want "agreed value" vs. "stated value". The former is what you and the insurance company agree[/i][/u] the car is worth. In the event of a total loss, that's the amount they pay. Stated value is the amount you say[/i] it's worth. In the event of total loss they'll pay up to[/i] that amount based on what they determine the value to be at the time of the loss.[/i]
I agree. If we can get this squared away within the next week or two I can get the tags and mail them down to Steve before his brother heads back east. That would allow Steve to drive the car up here and have his brother give him a ride home. That would save us a bundle because Steve has already said if he can drive the car up he will pay for the gas. But if we have to trailer it that will cost us. My opinion is that we built the car to be driven and to do that we need insurance and tags. And the sooner the better.
JB
Fixed the diff leak today, all day.
To take the cover plate off, you need to remove the gas tank, and some rearend parts,and the right side exhaust. The plate had been overtightened and was defromed. Got that fixed and now it doesn't leak.
The gas guage started woking again. I had to pump the tank to remove it and I now think it must be the float sinks.
The car now only sits down by .5 in in stead of 1 in.
Put another 20 miles on it and it does run good, at least I think so. I have not hit it hard and probably will not. Too much for me.
Will go after the tach next.
steve
Forgot to say that the car has a 3.54 gear in it.
46over 13 teeth.
Steve
Steve, how about getting some photos of it on the road? That would contrast nicely with the shot I got of you "behind the wheel" when the car was in Port Washington. A great before and after.
Dscf0624.jpg
3.54 makes more sense (and better than the reported 3.7!). Much more common...
Steve: IF the float is sinking, I can probably come up with another one. Is it still the MGB sender? Let me know anything else you might come across that I could scrounge for nothing. :)
M
It is still a sock MG unit.
If you have one, please send it to me.
If not I will order from B hive.
I have pics at the various cruise ins I have gone to but through my lack of computer knowledge I can't share them.
steve
PA140512.JPG
PA140520.JPG
PA140517.JPG
PA140519.JPG
Here are pics from the Cruise In....at last
Steve
got a call back from the agent ANPAC referred me to. Not sure why, but they gave me an agent in NY licensed for NY, NH, and Conn. Will have to call back and be sure I get a KY agent.
Photos look good Steve, had some interested spectators it looks like. Exactly what we wanted to do with the car, spread the word about performance modified British cars.
That looks great. The wheel arches have come out very well.
Talked with the KY ANPAC/Chrome agent today. He's doing some research but 1st question to sort out is whether we can use a "personal" policy or need commercial policy. Latter is a good bit more expensive but has less restrictions on drivers. Personal policy is much better price but requires drivers to be named on the policy and may be limited to 5. Premium depends on driver records and vehicle value (likely will require an appraisal). Idea would be to name the drivers & uduate that whenever the car is moved from one area of the country to another. He's supposed to get back to me with more info tomorrow.
Oh, & the pics do look great!
Great work Rob. I suspect we should try for the personal policy if we can get it, as we can easily name who the drivers will be for any given 6 month period. See what you can get in that area and we'll work around it the best we can. 6 drivers would be great but 5 will work. I agree with Max that an agreed value of around 30K, possibly less, would satisfy any needs we might have for repairs in the case of an accident, but if we can I think we should stipulate that we get to keep the remains in the case of a total, as the driveline has significant value to us. That's all I can think of at the moment, the paperwork is back from the state by the way so we are clear to proceed. Do you have Steve's phone number?
JB
Continuing to work with the agent to clarify details. For now, I've answered as follows -- let me know if any of you think we need different answers...
Value -- $30k - happy to get appraisal if/as required for policy.
Racing - No.
Track time -- only for parade laps.
Driven or trailered to events -- typically driven.
Info about drivers -- no drivers under 25? This is going to be the hard one. Typically they want to know the drivers when deciding whether to write the policy & price it -- drivers records, etc. Asked them to let us know what they can make work & what choices we'll have & we can go from there.
Note, in the mail he forwarded from the corporate office was this... "This [personal policy for variable drivers] is something we don't normally do but see if we can work with the client once more information is received." Above were the questions they had & my answers.
Oh yeah -- a couple of other things...
I also included the recent pics from this thread -- Steve, if you could email me the full size images that'd probably be good -- I'm guessing they'll want bigger/higher resolution than the little ones I sent. I'll PM you my email & if you could include your phone number when you send them that might make verifying info faster.
And, I told them the car is registered in KY -- pretty sure I confirmed that w/Jim but memory is fading!
That all sounds good Rob, and yes the car is titled and will be registered in KY as soon as we have insurance. The under 25 restriction is something we can probably work with. I'd have to check our contributor's list but off hand I don't remember anyone who would be under 25 so it may be a non-issue. If there is anyone maybe they'll be over 25 by the time the rotation comes around to them so again not an issue. If they need it we can provide the driver's names in advance, probably a year or two's worth or whatever they want. For that matter we can give them the whole list in advance. Some of the people on that list won't want to be in the rotation though and that's something we'll have to sort out over the winter.
It sounds like you have a real good handle on it though, so proceed as you had intended. Once you have a quote go ahead and post that here, we'll ask for discussion and approve it if we can afford it. Then Steve can pay the premium out of our remaining funds. The two of you can decide what to do with the policy papers, and I'll need a copy of the proof of insurance to get the tags.
JB
I got the other cooling fan working today.
Max was right about the MPG. I had 99.7 miles on it when I tanked up this AM. I managed to put in 12.9 gallons.
I thought they had a 12 gal tank.
The tach reads 8000 all the time, so adjusting the switch on the back will not help.
Haven't tried the speedo yet.
Car still sits high on passengers side by .5 in. Will also adjust that.
Steve
OOOF.... sorry about the MPG guess! (I'd said 8 at one point with the presumed 3.7 rear and you didn't even get that! OUCH.)
What was the issue with the fan?
Speedo needs the adapter for the tranny, remember. GM part. There was a little 3-wire harness set up to run to it-- do you have that?
Should we punt for the moment and just install and Old lucas tach so you have something to look at? (Oh, crap--- not 8 cylinder!)
JIM/Rob: Would it be too much trouble to also get the Commercial Quote as well, just so we can see the difference in cost? My thinking is the convenience for ANYONE to drive it, but also the *possible* fund raising aspects if we decide to allow it to be joyrided, etc. :-/
Cheers.
M
Will get a commerical quote too. My gut is telling me they're going to decline on the personal policy try anyway.
Fan: I disconnected the positive side and checked for power, then checked the ground side for a good ground. Every thing was just as it should be. When I reconnected everything it worked great. Oh well.
The unit for the speedo is already in the trans. I will have to work out how to connect it to the speedo. Will the speedo come out of the dash? I am not removing the dash.
The drivers seat has broke loose on at least the right front bolt. How was that attached?
I will remove the seat tomorrow and see what I can do.
Steve
Too much "G" loading Steve?
JB
Fixed the seat, leveled the car ( I hope ). The seat had pulled out of whatever was in the floor. I just drilled a hole up through that cross member and put in a long piece of threaded rod. I used 1/4 - 20 instead of 1/4-28 but that was all I had.
Steve
" I used 1/4 - 20 instead of 1/4-28 but that was all I had. "
Oh-oh.
We've become a "DPO"!
The seats were originally bolted into the factory captive nuts if memory serves me correctly.
Yes they were. But rust must have reached to this one.
Steve
Steve, the original bolts were 5/16" fine thread so if 1/4" bolts were used they will pull out. In which case just chasing the threads and using the correct bolt should work. Another option if it does not is a helicoil.
Hopefully Rob is making progress on the insurance, when is your brother coming in?
JB
Jim is mis-remembering-- OE bolt is 1/4-28. The floors are very rusty-- he's popped the capture nut. (The drivers side was worst I believe.) There only were the front capture nuts remaining on each side-- rears are already bolt-through.
Had a different thought:
Steve-- when are you heading up to Jim's? Is it worth getting you to divert over here so we can try for the dyno? We'll need to have some Q-Jet spares on hand to make it worthwhile. At this point, we'd be saving YOU money on gas mileage if we could at least get it dialed in! :-)
We'd also have to have a plan re: that distributor. Apparently asking it to run ported (despite that's how it's curved) means cranking in too much of the primary.
Can we come up with ANOTHER distributor, or vac can, or such so that we at least have some options? Ideally, I'd like one I could actually recurve and mess with...
Whaddaya think, Jim/ Steve?
M
Max, they probably were 5/16" in Jim's car. Remember, it was raced on dirt tracks......
I think mine had been tapped out to the larger size, plus some weld repair to the ones that cracked out. So... sorry for the mis-information. 1/4" bolts are too small to hold a seat down that is being used by Americans anyway.
I do think dyno tuning would be beneficial. That car should be getting an easy 15 mpg and the first place to look for mileage is with more base timing. But Max, let's just stick with manifold vacuum OK? It works fine so let's not try to make it run like a smaller engine. Like Jeff said, big blocks like manifold vacuum, and besides it will run cooler that way and have a stronger idle. If all we manage to do is get the base timing and idle mixture right that is a good start. Check with Carb-n-Fiber on the tuning parts, he should have some metering rods for the carb that you can try, and if you don't have any on hand, most hardware stores and hobby shops have some small rectangular brass tubing that might slip over the actuator rod on the vacuum can that can be cut to length to create a stop that will limit the vacuum advance.
JB
Jim/all - no reply from the insurance guy yet. WIll follow up with him sometime today. Not sure if the question about brother coming was for me? My brother lives in NC & as far as I know isn't headed to Houston (although he had thought about coming this way a month or two back; I may have mentioned that, don't recall).
I put a bolt all the way through the floor. It will hod just fine.
The car runs good and I could bring it up to Max for a dyno run if the insurance is done in time for me to make that trip and still meet my brother. He said he was coming aback the "middle of November". No set dates yet.
I think the car will run just fine with the present dist. I have been thinking of bumping a little more timing and will try that this week. I like to run as much advance as the engine, any engine, will take. That will help the MPG also.
The MPG I got was the worst kind of mileage. It was tuning and playing and all in town. I think it will get mid teens on the open road as it is.
Steve
Got an update today on the insurance -- no-go on personal insurance with variable list of drivers. Two issues for them:
1. They perceive a liability given the pool of potential drivers is much larger than the 5 or so we might have listed. Potential for someone else to drive it & mess up -- even if just in a parking lot or something is high in their judment (my iterpretation of what he said).
2. Their model calls for reviewing driving records of named drivers. It becomes administratively burdensome for them & costly at the collector car insurance rates to be doing that on a recurring basis.
Alternative is commercial insurance. Geoff (the agent) is doing some checking. Difficulty there is it is expensive for 1 vehicle. He is working with two companies -- his preferred of the two will take a few days to hear back from. The other is a company that writes one off policies for odd situations like ours -- but he said we'd need to get our wallets ready if we have to go that route.
If anyone else has ideas, it's probably worth starting to check into them. One thought I had is whether someone with a related business could add this vehicle on their existing commercial policy? Anyone in our group fit that category?
Rob
Clan, From a different perspective, what do "Driving Schools and Racing Schools " use. Just a thought . Good Luck, roverman.
Aviation insurance companies do this a lot with "club" airplanes. Is there an Aviation insurance group which also does cars which might understand this? On a take from what Art said, could you have a certain "Training Agreement" which would satisfy the insurance company; basically a blanket statement that said you have gone over the do's and don't.
That's an excellent suggestion Gary, do you know an aviation insurance agent you could ask?
JB
I am not sure. I will have to do a little looking.
Something else I was thinking; make it a non-for profit rental car company and make people have rental insurance.
Jim:
RE: dyno. Hey, you want manifold, I'd do it for ya-- if the damn thing was CURVED that way! It isn't. So, have to make a call here-- I can set it up for Max Power (that IS my middle name, btw. No lie!) just so we can see the numbers-- but it's unlikely to idle afterwards.
With the retarded timing, as Steve points out, it's NOT going to get the best gas mileage. And, truthfully, THAT sounds more important right now!
I can try modifying the weight gap for MORE curve (go up to 30" from 20") but it means fucking with the distributor. (And.. ahem... no going back without welding!) I'd rather NOT mess with Jeff's unit, thus why it would be nice to have another donor to fuck with First! (Not to mention I have NO spare springs for a BBB V8 distributor, unless Rover ones are similar...?)
The 10Deg Vac can won't get us the best gas mileage, but WILL get us good idle and WOT timing! (14 static, 24 idle (man), 34 WOT, 44 cruising). I understand setting up the stop on the travel, but with the time needed to screw with it and measure the tangential distance vs. radial degrees, why not just BUY a dang 10 deg can? :-)
And I'd rather have the OTHER distributor all ready for "plug and play" if we're going to be on the clock at the dyno. I can always put the Schlemmer unit back in afterwards, etc. And it's one or the other: that either needs more mechanical timing OR the shorter vac can (but it doesn't need both!).
RE: Jets. Carb'n Fibre put in "the biggest I had"-- and couldn't tell me what size that was! So, our starting point is unknown. :-( I'm guessing, by Steve's dented wallet, that we're probably pretty rich. :)
(STEVE: Pull plugs and confirm?)
If you want to do this, we have to mobilize quickly on parts. Dyno-time is all about having options to try.... Otherwise, it's just a baseline with bad news. (Seriously-- what does "300 hp, not enough timing, and we're fucking spewing fuel" do for us? Tells us three things we want to Fix... on the dyno!)
$.02
M
Gary, not a bad idea on the rental concept. We could do that easily enough with a very simple rental agreement. Do you think you could check it out?
Max, the distributor is identical to the 215 distributor except for the drive gear and perhaps the bob weights, springs, and vacuum can. So anything you have for a Rover might work as well. Swap gears and a Rover distributor is a direct swap into the engine. So take a Rover distributor, set it up the way you want it and try it. That way we can always swap back if it doesn't work out. You should have all the parts you need that way.
As I recall, secondary QJ jets are fixed, cast in place, and tuning is done by changing the secondary metering rods which is a simple operation involving one screw. Find someone the dyno operator knows who has a QJ tuning kit and you're good to go. On the primaries there are replaceable jets but the metering rods are replaceable too. I'll try to look at the book.
I sent Carb-n-fiber contact info for a Buick QJ guru so he could get the calibration correct. Don't know if he made the call... you can lead a horse...
JB
It would be a while Jim. We are working 11hr days right now 6 days a week trying to keep customers happy..
Gary
I believe I have a rover distributor you can have. I can drop it by Steve's.
ANPAC came back and said they can't write the policy as a personal policy. They are working on getting us a commercial policy estimate through Triton, Iowa First. I hope someone else is checking into the rental or aviation club model - I wouldn't know where to start on that. I have a feeling the rental car companies are self insured and they use the insurance they sell to renters as just another revenue stream but hopefully there'll be something that works that we can find out by researching that approach.
I know if it comes down to it, there is a process for posting a bond. I don't know the mechanics or details of it, but DUI offenders have been using this method for years in order to get insured and be able to drive. Hopefully somebody knows somebody who might know how that works.
JB
I just hit a dead end on insurance...
Good Afternoon Rob, I have tried Northeast Agencies, Tryton, and have been unable to find a Carrier for the risk. From what I have learned it will require a specialty Insurer and I have been unable to find one. I am sorry I could not be of help.
Chet Martinez
I did learn the husband of a friend at work is a pilot and is or was a member of a flying club. Am asking him how they insured the planes.
The Roadmaster just gets better and better. Each time I take it out the road manners get better. It no longer seems to steer itself.
I have the timing at 15 and manifold vacuum as Jeff said it should be. Runs great.
Went to Carolina Motorsports park for the British Invasion today and let Hap drive it. He will post on the Experience site his reactions to the car. I was impressed with both the car and Hap. I did not drive on the track as I thought Haps feedback would be more valueable than my feeble attempt as driving.
I will be driving the car to Jim's on 11/20. My brother comes through there on 11/21 and I can ride back with him.
Now has about 300 miles on it and the last tank was just over 12 mpg. I think It will do 15-17 on a trip.
Carb is rich. I do not play inside carbs. I turn bolts.
Jim has found ins and will get the tag next week and mail to me.
All guages seem to be working except tach and speedo. Someone else can take the dash back off to try and fix them.
Steve
It will be interesting to get Hap's input....he's not a big fan of V8 conversions.
Concerns me that you will be taking a personal risk driving the Roadmaster to Kentucky sans insurance.
It will have ins. Jim is getting that on Monday. He will send me the tag before I drive up there. Thank you for your concern.
Steve
What insurance did you find Jim?
I have it on good authority that Hap REALLY liked the Roadmaster!
I look forward to reading his comments......
Hap posted on the MG Experience today. I do believe he was impressed.
http://www.mgexperience.net/phorum/read.php?40,1904633,1904710#msg-1904710
He could hardly have written a more positive report. Guess we won't be trying to mount that front swaybar if his impressions hold up. Possibly a little stagger in the tire pressures would balance things out if it is that close.
Rick, the insurance agent I've been working with was out of town today but one of his associates said Taylor accepted the policy so I should get the POI cards tomorrow. Steve will be legal.
After reading Hap's report I'm more anxious than ever to get behind the wheel. Can't wait. We are certainly off to a great start.
So, a couple of business matters. First, we spent about $550 for one year's insurance. We need to decide how we are going to continue to pay for that as well as tires and whatever other running costs we have. I think there are a couple hundred left in the treasury.
Bill Young, if you are there, I will try to call you in the next day or so to do some planning on the rotation schedule since we need to have that ready by May. Is there any time that would be more convenient?
I especially want to investigate Hap's report that the car is eager to turn in and see what I think of that, and whether I feel it is likely to raise any concerns.
This has certainly been a great day for the project and all of us who have worked to make it happen, and I'd like to thank all of you for the opportunity of representing you.
JB
Good News everyone!
The plate and proof of insurance card are on their way to Steve and are guaranteed to be there by 3:00 pm on Saturday. This one went right down to the wire in just about every way imaginable, but now we should be set for Steve's trip. His plan is to meet his brother here on Monday and catch a ride back home with him. So, the car's days of riding a trailer are officially over. We paid about $550 for one year's insurance, about $35 for tax and tags, and 18 plus change to send them south. Which probably means we have about a hundred bucks left.
Steve reports that it runs and drives better almost every time he gets in it, the parts are getting familiar with each other and he's been enjoying the car a lot. All of which is good.
I also talked to Bill today and I think we're on the same page with the rotation. He said he'll post a message to help set that up so we should be seeing that in due course.
In the meantime, I got an email that says the car was mentioned on Hagerty's facebook page, if anyone can find that could you post a link to it? Sounded like a positive sort of a thing.
JB
Steve got here about 2 this afternoon, said he'd had a pretty enjoyable drive. Got 15 mpg starting out, then 17, and on the last leg cruising with traffic on I-75 around 80 or so, about 20 mpg. Used 2 quarts of oil, did well in the light rain he hit on the last leg, and looked good when he came rolling in. We figured that since it's pretty well impossible to put a load on the engine, the oil usage was from break-in and the mileage improvement was a combination of that and hitting the "sweet spot" in the speed range at highway speeds.
We ran out to the parts store and picked up oil and a filter and I drove around the "block", probably about a 4 mile loop. Very tractable even in the wet and although I hit the gas fairly hard a couple times it never spun, just accelerated hard. Just gobs of torque and power, I doubt you could stall it out if you tried. We put it on the lift, did an oil change and looked it over. Snugged up the oil pan bolts and fittings on the oil filter housing and everything else looked fine. A little seepage at the rear transmission seal and pinion seal and the rear spindle bearings had vented excess oil. Neither of us could find any sign of rubbing in the wheel-wells. I'll drive it around for a few days to get used to it and see how it does. Oil pressure is running about 35 which is a smidgen on the low side, I'd rather see 45, so a stiffer relief spring may be in order.
It looks to me like we've done an exceptional job with this car. Naturally there are going to be some flaws but over all it is fitted out very nicely. The car now has about 800 miles on it and should be pretty near finished with break-in. I'll keep a close watch on the oil usage to confirm that. I believe it has conventional cast iron rings so we should not run into any difficulty there, just a longer break-in from not being able to load the engine.
Eric got here about 9 and they will be heading out early in the morning so we won't get the chance for any extra-curricular activities, but that may be better saved until later anyway. Although it drives very easily as a regular car under normal conditions, using that power may take some practice to get acclimatized, and I have to get comfortable with running hard without worrying about breaking things. In other words, the car is about to enter a more intense testing phase. It was never intended to be a delicate flower and now is the time to prove it. (Hopefully without breaking anything.) I DO feel that installing the rev limiter would be a good idea.
JB
OK, having had about a day to assess the car, my first impression is that is isn't finished yet, and there's quite a bit of work yet to be done. I think we need to schedule another Roadmaster Weekend to tidy up the loose ends.
I have a direct reading pressure gage that I will use to check the actual oil pressure and we can take appropriate measures. It appears to be running just shy of 30 lbs and I thought I heard a lifter tick so that is of first importance. But in addition, the speedo, tach, and radio do not work. The heater controls aren't right and we need a control knob, Mark-II style, left side. The heater fan needs to be upgraded to something that will move some air. The MSD and programmable advance boxes need to be installed so that we will have a rev limiter and perhaps that will fix the tach at the same time. This should also let us tailor the advance curve to more closely match the needs of the engine. The E-brake squeals but that may get better once the weather dries up a bit. It needs a better tune, could probably run more advance and lean out the idle. Tail pipes are black as coal. The hood needs to be fitted up better, and this is just the short list.
If anyone can be available sometime during the next couple of months to help with some of these things please let me know. I foresee a good part of the session being involved in test driving, for which I do have a G-tech meter though I haven't used it much. We also may manage to sneak off to a local abandoned road race course if we feel the car is ready.
We're pretty close guys but we're not to the point where I'd want to take the car for my turn in the rotation and I don't think any of the rest of you would either. Maybe I could do it alone, but since it is our car, we need to get it ready. Steve is right, it runs pretty good and it's very strong, but it just isn't quite there yet.
JB
This afternoon I noticed the driver's corner of the hood was popped up about a half inch, turned out it was the gas struts causing it and that particular one was hitting the brake M/C. No real way to fix that except to reverse them and pick new mounting locations. Well I never really liked the way they were attached so close to the hinges anyway so I removed them and started measuring and such. Then just for giggles I grabbed the new surge tank and tried it, and it fit right in there where it was supposed to go so I went ahead and mounted it. The new strut locations will clear it easily, here are a couple photos.
MVC-014F.JPG
MVC-015F.JPG
Max was afraid it would overpower the engine compartment but I think it looks just fine.
Taking all that stress off the hood rather drastically changed the way it fits the latches up front so that will need readjusted. The struts will now be pushing it forward rather than rearward and I think that overall it is going to fit better. I'll try to pick up some fittings tomorrow to properly re-plumb the surge tank.
Incidentally, Max, one of your bullets came off the wire as I was repositioning those two inline fuses. Not too well crimped I'd guess. And what is that loose wire at the front of the intake manifold? White/black with a ring terminal on it. Also, is there a wiring diagram for this thing? (with your installation changes and notes, fuse designations, component locations and such)
The fuel gage seems to be accurate, but is wildly affected by slosh as it nears empty, readily swinging between E and 1/2 after turning. And just for those of you who will want to know, to put fuel in, insert the nozzle as far as it will go, pointed 90* to the left and it will flow at max.
JB
Jim...as you know, I've always been concerned with the used of the struts on THAT particular fiberglass bonnet, as well as on the aluminum bonnet that we previously used on the Roadmaster.
I now have a strut that can be safely used on both fiberglass and aluminum bonnets. (Mike Moor has a set on his V8; Brian McCullough also has a pair in hand for evaluation.)
I will bring a set with me and exchange out the struts currently installed on the Roadmaster the next time our paths cross.
Here's a picture of the new struts installed on my aluminum bonnet on my MGC. These are the first struts that I was wiling to install on my own alloy bonnet for obvious reasons.
While I understand your comments on strut orientation, I don't believe that it is necessary in all examples.
MGCInstall.jpg
Pieces of Eight! alloy/fiberglass bonnet strut kit
Thanks Rick, that should help. Regrettably though, the brake cylinder knocked the paint off the one strut. I was thinking about the way the strut applies leverage to the hood, and the new ones you have will probably be better for the way I am going to mount them. I will move the hood mounting point to about 2 ft away from the hinges and this will greatly lessen the force acting on the hinges and therefore the flex along the rear hood line. The hood will not open as far that way but personally I like the look better even if access is not as easy.
There is a BIG problem with the car, and that is the steering wheel. It is totally wrong. Way too big at 16-1/2" diameter, not only does it feel like you're driving a truck but there is no leg room. That in combination with the sharp corner on the later console makes the driving position extremely uncomfortable. The extremely thin rim does not help either.
Someone needs to donate a wheel. At this point I don't even care what condition it is in as long as it is smaller. 13" would be ideal. It can be all lumpy, wrapped with tape, corroded and warped. I don't care, just SEND IT!
JB
Jim, sorry, but don't have any steering wheels that would fit. As for the rotation schedule I need some input from the group about what shows and events they feel the Roadmaster should appear at and which ones they would be sure to enter if they had the Roadmaster at that time. Don't have to be in your immediate area, I think an out of town show would be an ideal place to swap drivers with minimal travel expense for those involved. As an example I could take the car to the St. Louis show and Rick or Pete could pick it up from there to take to their area. What we're looking for is the best exposure possible. Street rod events, British car events, Buick events, you think it would draw a crowd there they we should try to make it. So far I've picked out some events for 2012 from the Hemmings calendar and some other websites, but what a larger list for the entire season before we can begin to work out a rotation that gives the car the best exposure and allows those who have contributed so much some well deserved time behind the wheel. Send me your events at bkyoung@kc.rr.com
Jim, hopefully someone will have the correct wheel, but if not if you happen to have an old 3 spoke hot rod type wheel around you can make what I'm using on my MGA project pretty simply using the center of the original banjo style wheel and the rim from the Superior type wheel. I found an old rusty Superior at a flea market and cut the vinyl covering off, it peeled right off after cutting through with a utility knife. I removed the original center and ground those welds smooth then carefully measured the spokes on the MG wheel and trimmed them with a cut off wheel. A bit of fine fitting work and some small TIG welds and I was ready to go. A little Bondo or glass work around the spoke base and a leather cover and presto, a nice small wheel with a thick rim and the original MG look. Still waiting to lace on my cover to avoid any damage as the car is still under construction, but you can see the result so far.
DSCF0032.JPG
Jim...regarding heater fan....we could look into a Fiero unit.
It would involve enlarging the hole in the MGB heater box a bit, but other than that seems to be a rather straight-forward upgrade.
Let me know, and the next trip over to the salvage yard I'll nab one of the squirrel cages from a Fiero over there.
Please do Rick. As for the wheel, I really don't want to put in the time on it to custom make one but we really have to do something about it. Time to put out a call to the Spuriites I guess. I do like the way the banjo wheel keeps the gauge area unobstructed. But I'd gladly trade that for a smaller wheel. Honestly, I don't know why we don't have a Mark-II wheel lying around somewhere, but somebody has GOT to have a usable spare.
The surge tank is in and plumbed correctly. I'll try to get some photos tomorrow. All the hoses match the barbs and vice versa, the heater return and thermostat vent are plumbed to the top and the 3/4" line to the water pump and the suction side radiator tank vent are plumbed to the bottom. This will assure proper operation. I'm aware that some feel this tank is not necessary, but we have yet to drive it in the summer time. It's very good insurance. We should try to maintain a coolant level in the tank of about half to 2/3 full when cold and 3/4 full when hot. That will add almost a gallon to coolant system capacity, plus guarantee that the system is bubble free. Before I top it up I will have a look at the heater control valve in regards to interference with the air cleaner tray. I also removed the kinked heater hose and fitted a proper formed hose to the thermostat bypass. Might as well get the details right all at the same time. I'll fit a street 90 to the radiator vent so that hose will clear the fan thermostat control that somehow got mounted right up against it. Then the hood struts can go back on, the latches get readjusted, and after that I'll have a look at the oil pressure. Funny how one thing sort of cascades isn't it?
JB
Will the steering wheel from a '76 fit the column. I have one - it's not pretty but can probably be cleaned up enough to be presentable.
Rob, it'll fit just fine. Before you send it could you check the diameter?
JB
Jim:
See emails re: steering wheel.
Re: struts. I liked Rick's mounting and it seemed it was going to work, but didn't have time to mess with it, esp. with the wrong surge tank.
Re; wiring. Sorry about the bullet. :) Must've been one of those 12ga... :p Anyway, white/black sounds like the tach wire (?), esp. with a ring terminal on it. Front of the intake manifold you have temp sender (should be green/blue, but Steve did something to get the gauge to work, so....?). Also, when it left here both the Alt wires were off the back of the unit. One of those is white/BLUE. You'd have to ask him about the wiring around the alternator. I would presume TACH, as Steve was messing with it. (My two cents: it's the TACH. It's never worked right, it's not GOING to work... :p )
RE: wiring diagram. If it didn't go with the "list of things to do", then I probably still have it in the folder. We did NOT update it as we went, however. There are about three circuits NOT used ("remote start switch", this sort of thing) and we added in a brown wire (yes, actually BROWN!) to power up the compressor from the starter.
Everything else is as per AAW diagram/colours.
M
Jim,
I am using the heater fan from a 80's Hyundai Pony. 2 speed, and really puts out the air. You need to cut out about 1/2 from the mounting plate and also from the bulkhead. Mounting holes on plate also need to be repositioned.
Also I have a 16" wood wheel that I made one cold winter, it is thick, if you like it that way. I would be glad to contribute it to the project if you think it's not too big.
Take a look at the pictures and let me know
Photo's attached
HeaterFan001.jpg
HeaterFan002.jpg
HeaterFan003.jpg
If already covered, I apologize, does this car have a collapsable column ? If not, consider an aftermarket colapsable hub with quick disconnect ? Quick disconnect will make ingress/egress a breeze and help prevent theft of the car. I used a "Formuling France" set up on my race car and it worked well. Cheers, roverman.
Sounds like the 14-1/2" LE wheel would be the best choice, followed by the standard 15-1/2" mark-II or later wheel. In addition I'm going to have a look at the gas pedal, as it is too high and is a big part of the problem.
Anyway, I got the plumbing all sorted out and finished up and just need to add some coolant. To get the air cleaner tray on I had to shorten the temp sender about an inch and that took just a bit of creative machine work so now there are some linkage issues to work out, but since I'll be working on the gas pedal anyway, why not.
Richard, can that blower be installed without cutting the hole larger in the firewall, or does it extend through the hole? I'd like us to be able to pull off this mod without removing the heater box to do it, even if we have to give up a little flow.
Thanks Art, but it's not getting in and out it's driving position.
JB
"Sounds like the 14-1/2" LE wheel"
If the LE wheel was 14.5" it would still be on my car. Check your email, Jimbo.
Jim,
You could just cut out the front mounting panel and not do the firewall. You would lose some flow but probably would still work.
I have attached a photo of how much I had to remove from the front panel.
Richard
72Sebring014.jpg
JIm,
Re Hyundai heater fan.
The squirrel cage is 1/4" wider than the standard cage and it fits inside the heater compartment with about 1/2 " between its outer edge and the back of the heater compartment so yes, you can fit it without removing the heater.
Richard
Jim, careful on wheel selection, there were at least 3 or 4 different spline designs over the MGB lifespan and they are not interchangable. That LE wheel wouldn't fit the early spline anyway.
Bill is right. And rather than messing about with swapping for a later style column, perhaps we should do an 'all-call" for WHAT aftermarket wheel of a proper size (sounds like 14 or 15") have people installed on their 62-67 MGB's? Get those people to send pics, what they paid, where they got it, etc.
Maybe there is some cheap "Grant" wheel that looks okay for less than $100, etc.
$.02
M
Bunch" of Grants pictured in Jeg's, 13-14". Cheap !
Spline is 5/8" (.620) x 36 spline. Can anyone confirm what hubs fit this?
JB
OK it looks like our best bet might be to change to a later column. I'm pretty sure I have at least some parts on hand but don't know the spline size. I'll check tomorrow and if we're lucky I may be able to mix-n-match parts and fit a later hub.
Put the car back together and did a couple short test drives today. I had to find a clip for the air valve blocker on the carb. It was back to running only on the primaries, but trust me, that was enough. Anyway when the secondaries open it really does wake up that big motor. Goes from too much power to JEEZ! in nothing flat. Surprisingly even traction from both tires given the open differential, as it gladly laid two even stripes up the driveway. I did get a little wheel hop though which was a surprise. I don't know if it was a fluke as so far it's been the only time it's done it. Anyway I think Carl is right in being concerned about the life expectancy of that T-5, and we'd be smart to get Steve to begin getting the 2004r I gave him ready as a replacement. There will be some cost involved with that, but at least it will hold up behind this engine.
Anyway the strut change worked out great and works well. Rick we may be good with these, I remember we swapped struts with somebody at Townsend whose were getting weak so as not to stress the glass. As long as they don't lose any more pressure we'll be fine I think.
The throttle cable support bracket has been modified for the 4th (5th? 6th?) and hopefully last time. Good thing too as very little of the original remains. It has a nice organic shape now though, not that anyone will ever see it hidden under the air cleaner tray. I bent the gas pedal so it will go closer to the floor and that helped with the steering wheel problem, but it still sort of feels like you're driving a tractor. That wheel seriously has to go.
I should be able to get some photos tomorrow.
JB
Sorry, still no pictures but maybe tomorrow. We're still in Thanksgiving mode around here, kinda laid back and lots of great food, I hope everyone out there enjoyed the holiday as much as we did.
I took the car over to Fillmore's drive in this evening, knowing full well that with the cooler weather and the drizzle that it would be deserted. And it was. But I got to go for a short drive and I agree with Steve, the more you drive that car the more you like it. It is just so understated. That may seem an odd thing to say about a car with big flares and a shaker hood, but it's just got such mellow manners. I jumped on the freeway for an exit on the way home and it wasn't until I got off that I realized how quiet the car is at speed. Max was right to install a sound system. Now if I could just get it to power up.
The BCCGC cancelled their Dec. meeting and I was informed that their christmas party is for members only, which I haven't been for a few years, so unless Eddie Cole can get me in (anyone have his phone number? PM me if you do please) it looks like they won't be seeing the car for awhile. But there are several businesses locally to whom I owe a visit with the car, so I will start with them and maybe run across some events I can take it to.
Oh, and the mods to the gas pedal helped quite a lot but there's a little more work to do there to get smooth movement.
At this point I'm thinking a work weekend some time in January should let us tidy up most of the remaining tasks on the car, but I'm going to need a pledge of support from a few of you who can come to help out.
JB
I got back late yesterday. I do have a complete '76 steering wheel, hub, & horn button. Needs to be cleaned up, but would work if it'll fit the steering column. I also have a complete steering column from a '72 or a '74 (not sure which). I didn't have a chance last night to check the spline count but the steering wheel was 15 1/2" diameter. I'll check the spline tonight & verify if it fits on the extra column I have.
Jim,
I can come up in Jan and work. My brother is having hip replacement some time in Jan, so that might be a problem. Early in Jan would be better for me.
Steve
JIm:
re: Sound. Well, as you'll note on the List it still needs an antenna. But we powered up an iPod and were cranking that at the shop!
The fuses (except maybe for the new 30A?) are all tell-tale-- they glow RED if they are blown! Uh... you sure you just haven't hit the "source" button or something? :-)
RE: steering wheels. Reminder that the dash light switch is in the left side cowling. Also the column switches have all been "adapted" to the new harness. (I think Tim adapted an OE harness, which is now looking to be Genius... :) )
IF swapping columns, remember to line up your Indicator cancel with the tires being straight! On that column ('72?) it should just be a moveable clip, but on other cars/years, it's set to the column shaft itself. Just be aware, etc......
You should have caught this one before, Boss. Pretty dumb to be going back and redoing steering columns and wheels at this stage.... :-p
Live and learn. :)
M
Don't worry Max, before Jim does anything drastic we have an option. I'll buy a new wheel and installation kit, just needed to know what year the coulumn was. It appears that it's a 69. That way we wouldn't disturb the wiring or dash fit. I thought the black leather with the satin aluminum spokes would be best for the car, what do you think?
steeringwheels.jpg
Steve noticed there was a problem with leg clearance, I just identified the causes. Anyway, if you guys think a new wheel is the best answer it's fine with me, certainly it'd be easier than changing out the column. But Carl thinks a 14" wheel is too small. Here's a thought. Kelvin has offered to help with getting a matching hub and says a TR6 or early Spitfire wheel is a direct fit. We'd need a proper horn button of course but that could be worth looking into. Bill, any chance you could call Kelvin and see what's up with that?
The radio doesn't power up. I don't think it matters if the lights are on or not, though I haven't tried to turn on the radio with the lights on. I could try that if you think it'd work but it doesn't make much sense to me. Anyway there's no indication of power on the radio. I haven't looked at fuses yet, or any of the wiring, mainly I guess because the overall appearance is not exactly confidence inspiring. I'm not complaining mind you. I greatly appreciate all the work that went into getting the wiring installed. I just think it needs to be tidied up a bit.
Max, is the connector for the speedo sender still there in the box the gauges came in? The sender is there in the transmission but there's no pigtail. I don't have a clue what connector it would use. The pigtail should have been there. I'm guessing you guys didn't run any wires down to that area to hook up the speedo sender, would that be correct? If you can find the pigtail you could send me that along with a couple of appropriate wires to hook it up with if there was something in the kit designated for that. I think Rick said he used a pink wire. ;-)
On the alternator, there is a brown/yellow wire coming out of the plug and a matching brown/yellow wire in the harness but they are unplugged. There is a white/blue wire from the plug with a ring lug and I'm guessing it was hooked to the big terminal on the alternator. It is disconnected. Do you have the sketch for the alternator wiring that identified the plug connections? One should have been to the indicator light and the other should have been a sense wire that went independently to the battery, but of course if they were switched it would not work. Am I to understand that you guys fixed it by disconnecting it? I thought you guys knew what you were doing :-p
From all indications I will be going into the back of the dashboard to hook up the speedo at least. Steve said there isn't enough wire to pull out the guages so it sounds like the dash will have to come back off. That means everything will need to be fixed at one time, including loose instruments, the choke cable that is hard to pull (doesn't seem to work) and the tachometer that doesn't work. Max, do you have the directions for hooking up the tach and speedo? Nothing came back with the car. I'm going totally by guesswork here. I'm inclined to think that the easiest way to get a solid tach signal is going to be to install the MSD and programmable advance box, and use the MSD tach output. Thankfully the instructions for those came back with them. Steve and I identified the connections and the install looks straightforward enough once I find a suitable location. Might help with dialing in the timing advance too. I see we have two wires coming out of the distributor. Anyone know what we have in there?
JB
I sent Kelvin an e-mail asking if he could arrange any sort of a discount on the 15" Tourist Trophy wheel that Moss sells, but no reply yet. I'll go that way if we have to have a 15" wheel, but personally most MGBs run a 14" aftermarket wheel just fine but perhaps with the extra weight up front and wide tires we need the extra leverage. The Moss wheel is almost $100 more than the one from VB, enough to warrant some questions for sure. I sent Carl a message asking his opinion on a 14" wheel as well.
We'll get it sorted out before Christmas for sure Jim, just want the Roadmaster to have something in it's stocking on Christmas morning.
Jim,
wires in back of alt. They are disconnected because with the attached the battery went dead. It works as a one wire and self excites.
I ran a blue wire from the temp gauge to the sender and left the green one in place.
Steve
The steering on the car is probably lighter than stock. Remember it has those 17" wheels and the steering knuckle actually sits inboard or closer to the wheel centerline by a couple inches. I don't know what Carl is running for an offset or tire width but I know his wheels have to be offset farther to the outside because he is running 14" rims and the knuckle has to clear the rim and tire. So as likely as not a 14" steering wheel might be OK. Kelvin responded to me that he'd like to contribute to the project Bill, he mentioned a 15" black Motolita wheel and hub. What do you guys think about black? Personally for that type of wheel (3 spoke drilled) I'd rather see polished aluminum but Bill, whatever you can work out with Kelvin or otherwise is fine by me. I trust your judgement. Something in the 14-15.5" range I'd say. He has contacted me via MGE PM but I really wish we could all discuss it in the same place. I feel like the middleman in keep-away.
It looks like the speedo sender probably uses the pigtail that fits a #881 fog light bulb. (Has two locking tabs at the sides) I've not been able to find one though. Any help?
Alternator: I don't know about being self exciting but if it works that way I'm fine with it, I guess we'll see. Normally the indicator wire is turned off with the ignition and the sense wire (Brown/Yellow? Blue/White? Has to be one or the other.) has to go through a relay to keep it from draining the battery, which it certainly will do if it is wired up directly to the battery, or perhaps more appropriately in this case, to the large yellow wire. I'm pretty sure that was on the diagram.
JB
QuoteWell, as you'll note on the List it still needs an antenna
That's cause nobody wanted to drill the hole in the new paint. I thought we should mount the antenna horizontally under the dash. No external antenna. The megawatt station will come in. The heck with the rest.
Steering wheel:
On my car, when cornering, a 14" wheel felt like the car was driving me. A 14.5" wheel provided more leverage & confidence that the car would go where I pointed it.
We won't really know what feels right on the Roadmaster until we try 'em. A 14.5-15" wheel should be great, but a 14" might feel fine.
Bill, that black leather steering wheel would look awesome!
Forgot to mention, I have many, many years experience (38+) driving a MG with a 16.5" steering wheel. My dad's '63 B & my sister's '53 TD. The big wheel seriously encroaches on the leg room. So, whatever we need to do...
Jim:
See answer from Steve re: Alt wires. The brown/yellow is the ignition light wire. (See diagram I sent you.) As he says, ignore the connections-- they kept the light on and killed the battery.
The ONLY "wiring diagram" we were given for the ancillaries was the instruction with the HDI lights. There was nothing for the alternator-- we only copied (with the new harness) what had been there before. You mentioned swapping the black/yellow and white/blue-- we didn't try that. (We were worried about alternator. Steve has had it checked and has reinstalled it. If he says it's working, then it's working!)
RE: Gauges. NO INSTRUCTIONS. There were none in Kentucky when I wired them up for the first start up, and there were none when it came to FC. (Rem: late night phone call to Guzman?!?) I'm not sure why the green/blue in the harness didn't work on the temp gauge, but Steve ran a separate wire and apparently that does make that gauge work. I've never seen the Tach work correctly. Dan and I tried every combination (5-settings) in Kentucky in the blessed hours and it NEVER read correctly.
RE: Speedo. What came with the gauges was an Angle Drive for an MGB-style speedo (NOT a T5 tranny with electric sensing). No pigtail, else we would have put it in. IF there had ever been such, I have no idea. There IS a green wire for you to plug into, once you get it wired. It's up by the pedal box area. :-) Carl thought you could just get the appropriate pigtail from an appropriate Chevy. :-)
RE: tach. The wires are all ring terminal and nuts. Given access from behind (read: "upside down, stick head in foot well" :-) ) it can be disconnected. The dash is wired with it's own harness-- yes, it means No slack in wires (to "keep it tidy"), but it also means less mess-- no labelling required, etc.-- and easily removed. I would *strongly* consider just trying a "normal" 4-cylinder tach and seeing if it reads double. That at least would verify the wiring and condemn the SW tach for good....
RE: distributor. There is a Pertronix under the cap. If you hook up the MSD, note that it does NOT work with a Lucas tach! (Whether that means it also won't work with the SW, I don't know. At 5000 rpm the tach goes totally haywire. This is a known problem in the racing community, and why you rarely see anyone racing with a Lucas tach! (And if they are, they are usually still racing with Points!))
RE: radio. Should come on with the key. With gauges being messed with it's possible some connection has been "disturbed". I would probably check the ignition switch wires first-- whites or white/green (if there is one. I'm forgetting.) The memory setting (clock, presets) is off the purple circuit in the center console-- if the power outlet works and the interior light works, then so should the radio presets. But the MAIN radio power comes from the ignition switch.
Bill: I think that's a GREAT idea with the Steering Wheel! A 14" will only be 1.25" in from each side-- I don't think it'll be too small. (I've run 14" Momo on a couple of my cars.) It'll block the view of the gauges somewhat, but neither of the big gauges is working right now anyway. :-) :-)
Cheers,
M
Ok guys, I'll order a wheel today, Jim you should have it by early next week. We can always change it if it proves too small for one of the larger 15" wheels from Moss or such. If no one else has a need for the original wheel I'd like it to use as a base for another of my cut down wheels like I did for the A and I could use the horn button on my MGA as well as I don't have a good one for that wheel.
Jim,
When you start first Roadmaster and let it idle, the volt meter will read battery voltage. Rev the engine and the voltage goes up to 13-14 and then stays in that range, whether at idle or above. It will vary some, but not much. It needs about 1500 rpm to self excite.
steve
Steve, how the heck did you discover that? Who would have thought that the Japanese alternator we put on the car would work by just connecting the heavy battery lead and nothing else? Then again, why wouldn't it? It just makes sense to build it that way if you think about it. But the thing is, the implications of this go much farther than just fixing the charging system on the GT. By and large Japanese electronics share many commonalities so it is entirely possible that this feature is common to most if not all Japanese alternators. (Another common feature is the need to disconnect the sense wire with a relay to avoid draining the battery.)
What this means to us is that there is a very good chance that we can go out and grab almost any Japanese alternator, mount it, belt it up, hook up a battery wire and be done with it. Not only does this greatly simplify the wiring but it cleans up the engine bay at the same time.
Nice find!
JB
Jim/Bill:
Shouldn't be a worry with Horn Button on the "new" wheel-- I'm pretty sure the '69 is a horn button on the Stalk Switch! :-)
Jim, verify? :-)
M
QuoteWho would have thought that the Japanese alternator we put on the car would work by just connecting the heavy battery lead and nothing else
My Delco CS121 74amp alternator works the same way - just a heavy battery feed and one connection at the 'L' terminal for the charge light (which is optional).
You're right about the horn Max, I am using the early B column in my A for that reason as well as to get rid of the original MGA vacuum type turn signal switch. I called it a horn button, but all it is is a decorative cover for the wheel center.
I drove the car today but I completely forgot to check the horn. Well, maybe tomorrow.
GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!
I think we're out of the woods on the low oil pressure, the next few days should tell the tale. It had a standard (old, used) pressure relief spring so I swapped it out for the heavier yellow performance spring which is nearly twice as stiff. Then I used one of the long braided hoses Bill Y sent and hooked up a direct reading gauge and started the car and checked the pressure before relocating the sender to the firewall area where it is MUCH more accessible. The gauge reads a little low, maybe as much as 10 psi at midrange (which is 40) and maybe as much as 20 psi at full scale. I know this because when cold this engine produces 50 psi at idle and 100 psi and maybe more when the rpms are brought up, I didn't feel like going for max pressure with a cold engine. So just running around today doing short trips I was regularly seeing readings around 45 psi indicated with the engine speed up. That should be fine if those results hold up.
In other news today, Mickey's column and wheel came in. Usable as a backup plan but requiring quite a lot of work. Obviously we'll be better off with Bill's efforts. Incidentally, judging from driving around today, if we go with something closer to 15" or even 15.5" rather than 14" I think everyone will be satisfied with that and the legroom will be acceptable.
JB
From experience with high oil pressure I would ask how are your oil lines. If you run a remote filter with hoses using hose clamps the high pressure can blow lines off (ask me how I know)..
Gary
re: antennae
I ran my antennae on the floor along the passenger side of the transmmission tunnel, then laid the carpet over it.
Works fine for me.
The new wheel looks pretty good:
MVC-020F.JPG
Didn't care for the screws supplied so I modded it (of course) with nutserts and 10-32 stainless countersunk SHCS, buffed naturally. Leg room is now quite abundant and I think it drives pretty good with the 14" wheel. Others may disagree if they wish and are welcome to come up with something better if it's that important to them. I think it's just fine. The leather is a little slick but it'll wear in.
Oil lines: Only one we have is the braided one to the pressure sender so no problems there. We used the 215 filter mount and it fits just fine.
I still haven't figured out how to turn on the radio, so I don't guess an antenna is a big deal. Someone will figure it out.
Bill Young, if you want the old wheel I see no problem with that. Except it might be too nice to cut up.
Merv, if you're out there, how do you get the Jag E-brakes to not squeal? Do they just need to wear in?
And Bill Guzman, you had asked about another Roadmaster shirt. I've been "spending" them on small parts and such and so far as I know the only ones left are the ones Jim Watson took, saying he would try to sell them and give us the proceeds. I'd recommend you contact him to see if he has any left. Dan Masters should be able to help you get in touch.
JB
"The new wheel looks pretty good"
That was fast! Looks great.
I saw Jim Watson last night at the ETMGDC in Morristown, TN. He does still have some shirts. What size & how many? I'll call him.
For my antenna, I just cut the end off a generic antenna, stripped the outer insulation and the copper braid off, plugged it in and just let it hang behind the dash out of site. The inner insulation was left on. I left it about a foot long. It works great on local stations. It won't be as good as a regular antenna between towns, but I'd just as soon have bamboo splints under my fingernails as listen to commercial radio anyway.
antenna.jpg
Wheel looks good! Thx again, Bill! Way to step up.... :-)
M
Thanks Max, don't mind helping when I can. Can't make many of the work weekends so try to help in other ways. Jim, the wheel is pretty good, we should probably sell it and put the money back into the treasury for the insurance or tire fund. I'll find another one somewhere along the line.
Bill, if you make it to the gathering of the Spurious why don't you just take it with you and dispose of it as you see fit?
I still haven't gotten the car out on a curvy road but I think it's about ready now. I have noticed that it does lean a bit and the steering has some slight play in it. Possibly the rack can be tightened up a little, I seem to recall that it might be a new unit that came off Arthur's Cobra so it shouldn't be worn. Maybe I can get out tomorrow and run Hathaway Rd. down to the river to get a little better feel for it. So far nobody has gone to the edge of tire adhesion in the corners so we really don't know which end is going to let go first, although Steve's interpretation of Hap's comments was that he seemed to think there's more lean in the rear. Anyway, I don't think it's that bad but before we go thinking about swaybars we need to know which end is sticking better. Conventional wisdom would suggest that the rear will be the first to go and a front bar would even things up a bit while controlling sway. Yet Hap suggested rear bar. So we need to do some testing. We also need to do some tuning.
Dave Kirkman has been looking for a pigtail for the speedo sender. It is the same pigtail that is used on #881 fog lights on the '98 Dodge Neon and some '83 GMs and 2005 Fords. The connector has two retaining clips, one on each narrow side of the connector. Steve is going to check with his local junkyard also but at any rate we have to have this part before the speedo will work.
The fuel gauge is super erratic at anything under 3/4 full, I mean it jumps all over the place and is very fast. If anyone has any ideas to slow that thing down now would be a good time to mention it before the dash comes back out. I was thinking maybe a capacitor across the lugs would dampen it a little but I have no idea what size one to use, so even a good guess would be helpful.
I'm planning a short road trip in a couple of weeks. Steve warned me about the sharp edge of the console but with the revised gas pedal and the new wheel it may not be too bad. At any rate that will give me the chance to evaluate it.
And last but maybe not least, Max, how do you turn on this stereo? Just push the big round knob, or is it something else?
JB
Speedo Sensor; check items #120 & 121 about 2/3 the way down this page:
http://www.transmissioncenter.net/speedometer_calibration_______va.htm
Sway bar:
If we have more body roll in the rear & more front weight bias (tending to create a push), I can see Hap's rear bar recommendation helping with both conditions. With the power this car will have when dialed in, I think retaining a bit of understeer is good.
121 is a standard 2-pin Weatherproof connector. If that's it, let me know - I'll be ordering some in the next few days and will add it into my order. 120 is probably a standard Metri-Pack (not sure how they spell that). If that's it & someone can I'd it for sure, I can order that too - most suppliers stock all the variations.
It's the #120 with the two side clips.
I don't know yet whether the car will push or wag its tail but I plan to find out soon and will pass it along just as soon as I know.
Carl, do you know how to turn on the radio?
JB
Don't remember off the top of my head. What is the brand/model #. Or post a pic. Bet my son can turn it on. ;)
JIm:
Pretty sure the radio instructions DID go with the car! (Check the rear tire area). New radios are either hit the main knob OR (if not an individual "power" button) hit the "Source" button.
If none of that wakes it up, then maybe we have lost connection somehow. I don't think Steve had to mess with the center console, but we know he was playing with gauges. Thus, why I thought maybe a drop at the ignition switch....
You can sell that 1" front sway bar-- it isn't going to mount on that car, anyway. (Frame rails modified). You'll have to custom make a front bar, if it comes to it.
We made our own rear sway bar for the race car, using a cut (and rewelded--tube) 9/16" front bar. Mounted it below the battery boxes, which we welded up with plates. (The plates provided different mounting locations for some "adjustability".) Not sure the Roadmaster would provide a similar possibility, but I would think going lower would be easier than higher, what with the Jag rear.
Can you play around with rear spring rates first?
M
Sorry: "spare tire area". :p
M
We build a great frickin' car.....
.....and cannot figure out how to turn on the radio....
....without the assistance of the younger generation....
.....which is why we built the car in the first place....
....to get the younger generation involved....
....I say....
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
<grin>
Went for a drive this morning to test the ride and handling characteristics and I'm sorry to say that I didn't make much headway on evaluating the handling. The roads I chose just weren't challenging enough to test the limits without going WAY too fast, and I found myself in 4th gear most of the time. In reality this is a credit to the sticky tires because the road was twisty enough that I thought it would give the car a decent test, but I just couldn't get it to push. The closest I came was on a sharp left hand off camber cresting a hill and even then all I did was begin breaking traction on the inside rear tire. Which doesn't mean anything anyway because I was into the loud pedal pretty good at that point too (in 4th btw). So much for that, I'll need to find another road.
There is some body roll but it isn't bad. I'd say we could get by with no sway bar at all, but if we do decide to fit bars my impression so far is that we'll be likely to want them at both ends. But there's no hurry since we aren't racing it. I didn't hear any sounds of body contact but it feels like if it's a hard enough and long enough corner to cause maximum body roll we could get some contact.
Speaking of gears, 1st is good for parking lots, steep uphill starts and jumping across traffic. 2nd is fine for starting out. So is 3rd. 4th is no challenge. 5th is doable. It'll complain a little but not enough to strain the clutch or engine. But a higher gear isn't needed I don't think, as 5th is really only good for 40 and up as it slows the engine down too much.
It has a little transient trailing throttle oversteer but it quickly goes away. Not sure what the cause of that is, it seemed a little unsettling but not particularly dangerous. Might be the looseness in the rack. Otherwise it was capable and predictable, though certainly different from your average run of the mill MGB.
The ride was something I did manage to test pretty thoroughly, and I can say that roads with rough, uneven and just basically bad pavement don't slow it down. Both front and rear suspensions took on everything I could throw at them at whatever speed I wished to do it. I think I did manage to hit a bump stop once or twice but it was just a momentary increase in stiffness rather than an abrupt jolt. Directional control remained stable and though I can't say for certain that it wasn't present, I did not notice any bump steer. We will need to have the driveshaft balanced.
It's been awhile since I spent any time behind the wheel of a very high powered MGB and there are some necessary adjustment that take a little while to make. Your driving style has to be matched to the car and to the level of power available. Ultimately you end up using all of that power infrequently and only for short periods of time because that is what makes sense, and anything else is just showing off. And you can't very well be doing that all the time now, can you? What we've built here is a very very fast cruiser that will handle any sort of roads extremely well. If your goal is to make good time over a long drive this is the car to do it in. The power is effortless, the handling very good, and the ride superb for a car of this size, and better than some large luxury cars.
Not bad. In fact, very good.
JB
Sounds like our mission was accomplished, to build a true Grand Touring car with plenty of power and torque to make highway driving quite and smooth yet be able to handle the twisty bits without any drama. A job well done! Considering what the general idea of that much engine in a B would do to the handling before we started I think we've proved that point as well. Careful selection of the light weight block and the aluminum heads and other accessories has kept the weight well withing limits and kept then handling sharp without too much steering effort. I'm looking forward to getting a turn behind the wheel on the Power Tour or such to see just how it feels on the road.
Jim,
You posted the weight of that engine once, I believe - do you still have that data?
Rick, I think you are right... so Carl, are you bringing him with you next time up?
Bill I think you are absolutely right and this car fits the definition of a true GT in every sense of the word and should be a worthy addition to the Power Tour. There are a few items that need our attention first but we'll get to those I'm sure.
Dan, this is from Page 3 of this thread, near the bottom. Hope it answers your question:
"Here are some engine component weights, as measured on a digital shipping scale:
Complete short block minus flywheel, starter and engine mounts: 300#
Bare block: 177#
Crank: 66.1
1 rod and piston: 4.0
cam: 8.8
Cover and pump: 8.2
Damper: 6.8
distributor: 2.0
timing chain and gears: 1.8
iron intake: 48.9
bare head with rockers: 57.1
flex plate: 4.2
pan: 7.0
I realize that adding up the weights results in an error of 2 or 3 pounds (we were at the limits of the scale) and we'll take a closer look when we have clean parts to weigh during reassembly, but it gives us a better look at the weight we're dealing with here. We came up with 465 lbs for the complete engine minus starter and flywheel, where we had 500lbs for the 430 similarly equipped. This would seem to indicate that there may indeed some basis for the claim that the '70 455 is 50 lbs lighter than later engines. At any rate anyone would have to admit that this is very light for a big block motor. Add flywheel and starter and we're still real close to 500 pounds. On their website TA performance states that their aluminum heads are lighter by 30 lbs each. They also state that their intake is 30 lbs lighter. That would get us down to to around 410 lbs depending on starter and flywheel used. If we can manage to put one of Ted's suspensions under it, we'll be down to an effective weight of 330, which is as light as stock!"
There was other discussion which pointed out that with the weight added by the IRS the weight balance of the car was unchanged. The car has picked up a couple hundred pounds overall and hopefully we can weigh it in May. I suspect it will be very close to 2500 lbs which was our target. Obviously the extra weight is not a problem but for an MGB it's true that it is "extra chunky".
JB
If you would like a comparison, my brother is 2600lbs with his Cobra, 605 cubic inch with over 700hp at the rear wheels.
(http://www.rc-tech.net/cars2/shakedown.jpg)
If you have to much roll take some weight of the front.
T-shirt ??? that is ok. I was just trying to help out.
Interesting comparison Gary. For a bunch of reasons I'm not sure how valid that is, but what the heck, let's go with it. Naturally your brother has more money in the car so let's consider what we could have done with a bigger budget. First, a TA Performance alloy block drops 67 lbs off the front end, which Bill G should also like. And since the size limitation on that block is something like 700 cubic inches we could easily achieve parity in terms of displacement and horsepower with an accompanying decrease in weight. Of course there are no pretensions that this is a race car so there wouldn't be much point in doing that, but we could have. You didn't say and I don't recall if your brother's car is FF or something else so does it have side windows? We could replace those with armored Lexan, weighing about 2-3 lbs each. The window cranks wouldn't be needed with such light windows either, so we're talking about 5 windows plus wing glasses, probably a hundred pounds or more right there. Quite a few MGBs are down in the 2200 lb range and with the alloy block the engine is within about 30 lbs of stock so a 2300 lb car should be easily done. If we went with the Fast Cars front end (minus 80 lbs) and a set of tubular half shafts and alloy lower control arms (minus probably close to another 80 lbs) that's another hundred fifty pounds or so removed and now we're at a very light 2150 lbs or near thereabouts with basically unlimited horsepower potential. I'm not sure at what point you say enough is enough but for most people we are already well past that point with our current build and this whole exercise is just extremely excessive, but the point is, for a reasonable amount of money, had it been available, we could have done these things if we'd wanted to.
Now you, being an MG guy are in the perfect position to go tell your brother that, hey, the Cobra isn't really so special... if that's what you'd like to do. And if so I'm happy we could give you the ammunition. But the Cobra is a truly iconic car and nobody can ever take that away. The MGB? As we've shown, seriously under rated and under developed, but a car with incredible potential nonetheless. All that being said, most of us drive MG's instead of Cobras because we like MG's more than Cobras. There are about as many reasons for that as there are owners.
JB
The Cobra is a Superformance long before they became Shelby licensed cars.
http://www.superformance.com/mkii.aspx
Years ago Shelby left the country to evade debtors. When he left he told the people building kit cars good luck with the Cobra's because he never made any money. Later back int he states, Shelby went on a campaign to sue all the Cobra manufacturers. Superformance was one of the few Cobra builders with real financial backing to actually fight him off.
Superformance spent a great deal of time and money in the design of these cars. When they wanted to build a Daytona Coupe, they went to the original builder Peter Brock. Peter Brock said I don't do kit cars. The people at Superformance said you don't understand. They flew Brock to the plant in South Africa and discussed how they build a car.
You see, when Brock built the Daytona Coupe, he was not finished refining the car when Shelby said, we need to race it; build what you got.
Superformance said the car will not be built unless you do it. They gave Peter Brock the key to the design studio and said stay don't come out till you are done.
It became the Brock Coupe and was not a replica of the Daytona Coupe but the finished Daytona Coupe Peter Brock designed. Later Shelby wormed his way in and now it's a Shelby car. The car is an amazing car in all aspects.
Superformance took orders and hooked up with people who would put engines in cars and for the most part people bought a complete car. For a while it was the brother of the shop where my brother got his car who put engines in the Superformance cars...until the DOT came in and said, well that's a bit much like selling a complete car.
Now that match cars up with other groups to put engines in them...but my brother was one of the first to put the engine in himself and he bugged them everyday about details int he instructions which obviously had never been used. Point being he don't have as much in that car as you might think. He does his own engine work so there is nothing exotic there either.
As far as performance, I would wager you a lot of money if you had 100 more hp you would not be able to take this car in a road coarse; it's bad ass and it is sorted out and well balanced. As far as 1/4 mile he has ran it a couple times and it's in the 10's. Problem is running 10's requires a full cage and once he runs he really can't do it again.
Last time he was at a track he was running with a lotus group. The Elise were speed bumps as were the Lotus turbo Esprit. There were several Cobras at the track and the only 2 he could not take were raced prepped small block full race cars. One blew the engine and the other blew it's engine latter that summer.
The car has not been babied. He has almost 70k miles on it. They have spun it off a track a dozen times and flogged it routinely.
If you build an MG like that.....I have seen what this car is....Sorry, but my money is still on this car 10 fold.
Thank you very much for that history Gary, it was quite entertaining as well as informative. I can see that your brother is heavily involved in the Cobra scene, and many of us here have always felt a close affinity and respect for Cobra cars, their owners, and the organizations. In fact you or your brother may know Arthur Mitchell, one of our early contributors and an Arntz-Butler owner who donated his NOS unused front suspension when he switched to Ted's "Fast Cars" front end. As I'm sure you know, Arntz-Butler used MGB front ends.
I have no intention of bench racing with you Gary. The car we built is not a race car and was never intended to be one. It's purpose is to be a marketing tool to bring youngsters into our sport, and while racing can be an effective way to do that, our budget is no where near enough to allow for it. Gary, you say your brother doesn't have that much in his Cobra but that is compared to other Cobras. When I say that we don't have much in the Roadmaster that is in comparison to other MGs. The difference in the scale is massive and it's a little disingenuous to suggest that your brother's investment in his Cobra is similar to what we've spent on this car. Given those considerations and the size of the handicap who would not expect the Cobra to win on the race track? If it did not there would be something seriously wrong with it. That's not saying the GT would not be competitive, only that a comparable amount of money would probably have to be spent to make it so, and that there is indeed an upgrade path which would allow that. But we aren't going down that path so it's pointless to argue it. If someone wants to build one to compete with the Cobras I'd be more than happy to offer my services though with full expectation of success.
Having said that, I have to ask. Did you post in this thread in an attempt to set up a grudge race or something? I mean, your posts have sort of inferred that whereas the Cobra is your brother's car the MGB is yours. I realize now that you never said that and it occurs to me that you may be a Cobra owner wannabe living on your brother's glory. There's nothing wrong with that if that's what you're doing and you are welcome here, but if you want to jab people who have put in solid work to build good cars you really need to show us what you have done too. This isn't the thread for it though. If you're going to do that start a new thread, and you can link to it here with no complaints. This thread is a very special one, the only dedicated "Sticky" build thread in the entire forum, for the specific purpose of covering the build and development of a car intended to benefit the participants in the sport as a whole. It has been here as long as the web site itself and really should be respected as such. It isn't really here to discuss other cars except as they might relate to the B.A.D.A.S.S. MGB-Roadmaster Project. Please pardon me if I've stepped on your toes. That was not my intent. But as President of BADASS I do have a responsibility to keep things on track, and right now that means getting the car ready for the annual British V8 Meet in Palestine, TX this May. You are cordially invited to come to the meet, see the cars, and mingle with the owners, many of whom you've encountered here.
JB
Grudge? Hell no Jim, my brother's Cobra is just a benchmark I am familiar with. I think we all launch form benchmarks we are familiar with. I see what he has done a little more then bench racing because he's actually done it. Like he always said, it doesn't matter what you brung, some one brung one faster. My MG doesn't hold a candle to it nor ever could. The things he's done with that car would rip mine in half which does beg one question.
How do you think the MG GT's would hold up to 700 rwhp, 900 engine hp? I know years ago I know a Chevell with less hp twisted and popped out a back window?
ps.....it's about the journey!
Wake up, Jim. I think yer asleep. Cobra owner wannabe? I'd rather have Gary's Pantera! ;)
Thank you Gary, I'm glad we didn't end up in a misunderstanding.
To date we are pushing the envelope of what the MGB monocoque will stand, far beyond what has ever been done before with an un-reinforced shell. At this point with an unverified and estimated (based on credible engine builders' projections) 500/500 power level we are seeing no signs of any stresses whatsoever in the body, windows, or any other indications. How far beyond this we can go is anybody's guess, but the MGB body shell is remarkably stiff. The primary causes other than the fairly straightforward construction has a lot to do with the thickness of the panels (the car is heavy and overbuilt for it's size) and the small size itself which lends stiffness. For the purpose of comparison, I put a convertible MGB on the lift and applied a force of around 11,000 lbs to the center of the door sill in an attempt to deform it. With that much force I got only 1/4" of deflection in the door opening and this was with the rocker panel cut away. It sprang back when the force was removed. For contrast consider a typical TR7 in good condition which will flex enough just from being lifted that the doors are hard to open or close. I can't give you a measurement of flex but the force applied is way less. We have long recognized this characteristic in the MGB and it was undoubtedly a major factor in its successful racing history but nobody seems to know the reason behind it other than it being the first unibody design to come out of Abingdon.
So would I be afraid to go to 700 hp? No, not really provided the shell was sound. Some extra seam welding might be advisable but until we start to see deformation we don't even really know which seams would benefit from that and which ones wouldn't care in the least. It was because of these unknowns that we chose to go with the GT bodyshell since the roof adds a great deal of strength, but I'm currently building a convertible which will be at a similar power level: http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?2,274,page=19 and which should be a suitable test bed for the rag top. We'll see where that goes but I expect it to do just fine.
JB
Carl: Gary's Pantera? and here I though you were a Chevy guy. ;-)
Did I say anything about retaining the 351C? Noooo, I was thinking LS7............. :D
Well Jim what your doing power wise to a shell intended for a 90hp engine is amazing. I would say the MG shell both the convertible and the coupe in the 1960's was the most amazing thing they did to the cars. It was if they were 15 years ahead of their time on the shell and still in the stone age n the rest. Since they made so many MG's it makes it a great car to screw around with. It will be interesting to see the failure points on the car as you thrash it.
Carl it's a Ford 400 stroked 434. The 400 is basically a stroked Cleveland although they were packaged in truck configurations. The other Pantera has and will retain the 351C.
Yeah, I think it really will tell us a lot about how much the body shell can handle, and that was one of the original objectives anyway. What it puts me in mind of is the spring hanger connector that guys have been adding. It's a really good idea and adds a lot of stiffness to that area without adding more than a very minimal amount of weight, but is it really necessary? I've seen spring mounting holes wallowed out but I can't say I've ever seen a spring hanger that had been deformed from power. Also the additional spot welding that BMH offers and the extra seam welding that some builders do. I don't doubt that both add stiffness which benefits handling, but are they needed to handle more power? We really don't know. You're right on the money though. How in the world they managed to build such a good body shell when everything else they put in it was either old, poor or abysmal really makes you think. The only thing I can figure is that they were hoping for better times and felt they needed a platform they could use for a long time. At least they got that part of it right.
And Carl, you're right, I was napping. Overworked and underpaid don'tcha know? Hey I do have an excuse though, Gary hasn't been around for awhile.
MG: http://www.britishv8.org/MG/GaryWalker.htm
Pantera: http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?10,26882,27210,page=2
(You know Gary, there IS a section marked "Not actually British (But included for a good reason)" in the photo gallery. It'd be a good place for your Pantera if it isn't in the gallery someplace else that I missed.)
JB
One more thing though, I do think that the MGB has the potential to go toe-to-toe with any of the Cobras out there, given comparable funding. Inherently it is a very good platform and can be made better. I wouldn't mind building such a car, but I'm afraid I'm getting a little too old to drive it in anger. Man I hate it when that happens!
Quote: "I wouldn't mind building such a car, but I'm afraid I'm getting a little too old to drive it in anger. Man I hate it when that happens!"
Man, after the go-cart event in Indy, I was hurt for 2 months. My back, my gut, I had to lift my legs and rotate to get out of bed!
... and I didn't feel a bit sorry for you guys!
JB
LOL!
That was some fun reading right there!!!!
Gary, I'm just curious, what engine is your brother running?
JB
Gary, you're not as young and spry as I though you were, my aches and pains didn't last that long after Indy. LOL Better get in shape for 2013, we're planning on some kart time again.
Jim, as if your blown 340 wouldn't be up there in or near that league. I hope you're still ready to at least get a little miffed when you drive that!
Bill I got a bad spot in my back. I hit one of the walls hard at once that knocked the breath out of me.
Jim, he runs a 460 bored and stroked to 605 with aluminum heads and intake. He has worked pretty hard getting lifters to work with such a strong engine; it is the Achilles' heel of rpm. It s the prime reason I chose a low RPM tq engine for the Pantera. I only get 500hp out of my 434 but it is all under 5500rpm making 450ftlbs at 2000rpm. With aluminum heads and intake he is only 100lbs more then the small block. The trade off is durability. The engine is bullet proof and completely streatable with no power adders.
He is pretty amazing with engines. He is light years ahead of anything I do with a crank shaft. Email me and I will tell about some of the other engines he is working on which are very cool.
A machine shop in Owensboro Ky runs the big block Buicks in the engine masters. He may be a source for you. My brother ran his 702 V12 on the dyno down there:
http://automachperf.com/
I really can't say enough good things about the work Dale Spooner (Motion Machine) did on this engine, well actually both engines, this one and my 340. I knew about Mike but have not been down there, it's about 2-1/2 hours away I think. Taken as a whole the BritishV8 guys and particularly the Spuriites have been a lot more supportive of the project than the Buick guys. I'll qualify that by saying that the Buick guys did get us going with two engine cores, flywheel, carb and several other parts, but it was Dale who stepped forward and did the machine work as a donation, and then on top of that made another large donation at the V8 meet that year. As good as AM&P is (and by reputation they are very good indeed) from what I can see Dale matched them in the quality of the machine work. So for the forseeable future I have to stand by Dale. In particular he took great pains with the crank and bore centerlines to get everything squared up properly, and then when we changed horses in midstream by buying aluminum head castings he didn't complain in the least about preparing two sets of heads for us. On my engine he also cut o-ring grooves and had quite a challenge producing a straight align bore with the mismatched crank caps that came with the reman engine I used as a core, but when finished it was as near perfect as I could have asked for. So my opinion, if it counts for anything, is that he supported us and we should support him.
I understand what you mean about durability, I think that will be one of the strong suits of the Roadmaster. That engine is SO understressed. I swear, I don't know how we're ever going to put enough of a load on it to get the rings to fully seat in. We could have installed a mild stock camshaft in it and that would have been just fine. In fact I sort of wish we had. Not that this one is any sort of a problem, but just having this kind of torque along with a dead smooth idle would be kind of a kick.
JB
There is enough written about the engines he has done for the Engine Masters it may be worth seeing what he has done; not that your going to change anything now.
Got the choke fixed. Anyone know how to turn on the radio?
JB
Dim the headlights, sprinkle a few transistors on the seats, strip some wire.
What radio wouldn't be turned on?
Might take a little more than that Fred. I think the heater blower isn't working either and I'm wondering about the radiator fans. Oh well. Tom Kruer, a local friend of mine is coming over tomorrow to help with the ignition modules so maybe we'll get a chance to look at it.
I advanced the timing a little today, that made the idle speed increase and it seems to run a little smoother. I also yanked the spring off of the choke cable. It doesn't need it and it wanted to pull the cable back in so now that's gone.
We definitely need to balance the driveshaft, but I'm not sure we have the money we need to send it out. It doesn't shake real bad, but it does shake. Also the rear end whines so we need to be saving up for a new center housing.
Still no speedo or tach, which makes driving it sort of interesting, but mostly I've just run with traffic.
JB
Did you ever get Edith that GPS? If you did, borrow it so you can monitor your speed. Is your new phone and Android? If it is, you can download a speedo app and turn on the gps in it, but it sucks the battery dry. I did that with my TR7 when the cable was broken. Short term fixes to keep you from getting into trouble with the boys in blue.
As for the other electrical problems, with all the non-british parts, I would bet that you are running short on Lucas Smoke. Probably needs and injection
We got a lot done today. I think everything on the modules is hooked up and ready to go and we moved the compressor to the rear (for the air suspension) which will allow using a larger compressor later on. There is just one wire for the alternator to hook up yet, the sense wire to the battery, but we installed a relay for that wire. The voltage seemed to be dropping off a bit so I figured that would help. The way it works is that the resistance of the wires is taken into account by running a separate wire to the battery, The charge has to go back to the battery on the heavy wire and there is a voltage drop. Then it has to go back forward on the sense wire and there is another voltage drop. So the alternator charges enough to compensate for both of those drops instead of accounting for neither one if it is just hooked into system power. Routing of the wires may be less than perfect, but then all the interior was already in the car.
JB
Yeah, but does the radio work? ;)
No!!!
I even found the manual, looked up the right button, and pushed it! Nada, zip, nothing. No lights.
On the plus side, the heater blower was working... but the wipers weren't.
Didn't see any glowing lights on the fuses either.
I don't think this is a "very delightful thing" right here, you know? I mean, how can you drive without radio and wipers? Hmmm... wipers were working, I drove it in the rain. Maybe they only work if it's raining? After all, there ARE still bullet connectors in the wiring...
JB
So... "The Lucas is strong in this one"....
Possibly the electricals just need some tea , biscuits and a proper introduction.
Dan's right, You need a jar full of Lucas Smoke for the radio to work! LOL
re: I don't think this is a "very delightful thing" right here, you know? I mean, how can you drive without radio and wipers? Hmmm... wipers were working, I drove it in the rain. Maybe they only work if it's raining? After all, there ARE still bullet connectors in the wiring...
Very easily...I've done it in the 69 MGC since 2003. Lots of Rain-X...and the exhaust note suffice as my tunes.
Max said someone pointed the washer nozzles forward so I Guess we'll Rain-X the shaker scoop, but at least it'll be nice and sparkly. Maybe this afternoon I'll get a chance to double check the new wiring, zero the advance pots, and fire the beast up again and see how it runs with the new ignition. But right now I'm cooking turkeys for a benefit dinner.
As for the Lucas smoke, I was just wondering if this would work?
JB
Here you go Jim! Just trying to help!
http://www3.telus.net/bc_triumph_registry/smoke.htm
Well, it does have a 455 Stereo! :)
Sorry, I forgot the link:
http://mail.quentwhys.info/576ad9bbc77998cd22511a87265056f7c70ce
Carl, it's really surprising how quiet the car is at highway speeds. Most of the noise is from the R&P gears and the driveshaft vibration. The stereo would work really well on long trips. Umm,... that is, if it worked.
JB
JIm:
Okay, hate to say it, but-- stop whining about the G-D radio!
There are THREE wires to power up a frickin radio: One ground, one ignition, one battery. The ground and battery are in the center console, the ignition comes from the switch. Find the break-- fix it!
The radio WAS working when it left HERE (!!!!)-- as evidence I give you those PHOTOS I posted for everyone here in this Forum-- there is a back-end shot of the car a blaze when the lights were checked--- you can clearly see the RADIO is all fired up as well!
IMG_0427.jpg
Maybe the radio just doesn't LIKE you, Jim? :-) It's testing your resolve. It's upset at your absence. It wants an Antennae for Xmas? Who knows with a British Car..... :p
M
Now this is turning into fun reading.
Rob, you're stiring the pot aren't you? I understand Jim though, when I bought my Subaru I couldn't figure out how to get the radio in that car to work either as the only knob didn't seem to do anything. All tiny push buttons without much labeling. I'd settle for an older type that had two knobs, one on the left for power and volume and one on the right for tuning and perhaps balance, but then again my hearing is so bad I don't listen to the radio much anyway.
Well, crap!! The radio isn't working in my Silverado, either! The heated seats do. ;)
We have heated seats??!!!!?? Who Knew?
JB
What?! Rick didn't install them under the Mr. Mikes covers?!
A bit of news, the rewire of the ignitor did the trick and after a few hiccups the car is back to something close to what it was before. It had begun idling a bit rough earlier on and was no better afterwards. Worse in fact but most of that was traced to a loose distributor cap and incorrect placement of the plug wires. I had noticed that Tom's reorganizing job looked just a little too good but I hadn't questioned it. GM plug wires look like a nest of snakes no matter how carefully you arrange them. Then there was the black thing I'd seen on the floor a day or two earlier. Turned out to be a large vacuum cap split down the side and that made a significant difference in the idle. Oh, and the idle mixture screws were out about 6 turns which accounted for the rich idle. I ran them back in to 2-1/4 which is right where they should be and the car idled well and smelled better. Checked the timing and set it to about 15 with the vacuum removed, that went to about 38 connected and that's maybe a bit more vacuum advance than we need. However, I don't think the car likes 15 initial too well either as it wasn't all that happy starting with it. So tomorrow I'll probably back it off some and then maybe look at what the mechanical is doing. If I get real energetic I may see about making a stop for the vacuum can. About 16-18 should be just right, that will be the 23 or so it has now minus the 7 or so the base is advanced over stock and should at least be in the ballpark. Then I suspect the mechanical is going to be high also. That means pulling the rotor and magnet disc and then finding a way to lock the advance mechanism. That's not something I've done before so suggestions are welcome. Once that's done the timing computer can handle that part of the curve. I think it has initial advance (useful for setting base time on the dyno maybe) slope, and the rpm point where the advance starts. Then there is a chip to retard high speed advance a few degrees if needed. It seems pretty limited to me but we can work with it.
In the midst of all this I installed a pin on the intake to locate the tray and air cleaner and keep them from turning. The air cleaner had a tendency to spin around on the filter and it actually put a small chip in the paint in one spot. But it's not very noticeable. Anyway that is fixed now. And I'm re-plumbing the air ride. We moved the compressor to the tail of the car so it had to be done. Still a little work there but I expect to have it ready to drive again tomorrow afternoon.
The plug Dave Kirkman bought for the speedo drive came in late this afternoon. Twenty bucks for a pigtail. Ouch! But we needed it. That should go in tomorrow too I hope and maybe we'll be able to get that working. The Tach seems to be dead. But, maybe we will get lucky and it's a power issue. More on that later on.
Bill Yobi thinks he may have an rpm chip we can use for the rev limiter, which would be a real good thing. Carl says they can be modded to give the rpm you want so if Bill can't come through for us maybe Carl can. Regardless one way or another we need to get that sorted, especially until the tach is fixed.
So there are a fair number of things corrected and I think I may just putter about in it for awhile before looking at any of the other issues. Like the radio for instance. I know that still isn't working.
JB
I'm just guessing that I found the problem with the radio, the tach, and the console light. There's a burple wire (or was that Violent?). Anyways aforesaid wire has a bullet on the end but no matching socket in sight. I found this by removing the dashboard. Happy, happy, Joy, joy. Looks a lot like the console will have to come out to see where it goes. Good times are here again.
On a lighter note, the PCV is all worked out, the speedo sender is connected and a very butch shielded twin lead cable I found on the road dead yesterday (Seriously!) is routed up behind the dash all ready to connect. Tidied up the wires on the dash a bit, so once I've figured out Steve's ghost wire and where the Violent wire goes I should be able to tidy up this nest of snakes a bit and slap the dash back in, just in time for the trip to appear at the W.... uh, wait. I think that's supposed to be a secret. So....., where's the Violent wire go? (Oh yeah, to ANOTHER Violent wire.)
Anybody got a Mk-II temperature control knob? We don't have one.
JB
I'm sure I have temp control knob-remind me what it looks like again and where to send it. dave bash
Thanks Dave, it is the cone shaped black knob that was used before they began using back lighting on them, so it is completely opaque, jet black everywhere, with a chrome button in the middle and white lettering that says stuff like warm and hot. We have the one that says defroster and it looks new, so we're good on that side.
Jim Blackwood
Blackwood Labs
9406 Gunpowder Rd.
Florence, KY 41042
I've got a question about the way the radio is wired up. This car does not seem to have an ACC position in the ignition switch. That means any time the radio is on, the fuel pump (NOISY) is also on. Is this the way we want it wired?
Found the socket for the violent wire, it was loose. Typical bullet plug failure. I squished it with pliers and it didn't split so we got lucky. Probably should zip tie it so it doesn't come apart again. Did I mention I hate bullet plugs? I thought so. Well now I hate them more. If that's possible.
JB
Steve's ghost wire (green/blue stripe, but that stripe is really hard to see) is now active and his substitute blue wire removed. The problem was a bad ring lug installation at the sender, which illustrates that even the very best termination (and it was, adhesive lined heat shrink and all) is of no use unless it is properly installed. The wire was not fully inserted. More likely it slipped out just as it was being crimped. Regardless, the adhesive got in and insulated it from the lug. The new lug is a little less sophisticated, but it is well crimped and insulated and should do fine. That leaves some leak-down testing on the air system before it all goes back together, and it will be ready to drive, but I want to have a look at the headlight wiring. It would look a lot neater if it was routed under the slam panel in the channel above the radiator and would be a shorter run as well. As long as it's on the lift.... And then I think I'll take a look at the way the chin spoiler is attached. May not be able to improve on that, but then again, I'll never know if I don't look at it. Then I'll be ready to take it off the lift. Hopefully that will all go reasonably quick.
Don't worry guys, I'm sure there will be other things that need to be done, but isn't what we all really want, to be able to drive it?
Besides, my name is associated with this car and I want it to be right.
JB
Jim:
Your ignition switch has only whites, browns, and the white w/ red (starter). There is no "aux" position. An alternative is to connect the RED from the radio also to the purple-- now radio will be HOT all the time (and you'll have to use the Power button to turn it OFF.)
For someone who gave little guidance about how he wanted the car DONE-- boy, you sure have a lot of comments about how it WAS done!!
If I'd known you were going to make it a point to REDO all of Tim's, and Mine, and Carl's and Steve's hard work-- hell, I wouldn't have done it in the first place!
I'd have gotten less negative feedback from you having done NOTHING to the car ("Don't worry-- we won't think any less of you"-- remember?) than the work actually being done!
Part of the trouble with a Car done by Committee--- it doesn't get to be the way YOU want it. It doesn't get to be the way anyONE wants it. It's a symbol of everyone's efforts! (And a collective mis-mash to boot-- oh well.)
Your reasserting Your Will on the car is just stepping on a lot of toes, Boss.
You gave up control and shipped it to Pete, then Terry, then Jack, then Us. You should accept all the work that was done and appreciate the fact that it WAS done!!!.
I would only change that which needs to be "fixed". If you don't like how something was done-- lump it. [Otherwise, you should have kept the car and done all it it yourself if that's how you're going to be about it.]
We spent a LOT of time wiring up those lights. And they work. Leave them alone, please. There is other stuff that actually needs to be FIXED. Do that.
[Jack was right-- next time, I'll just let it sit at the shop for 2.5 months. I'd get less grief!]
I'm not excusing some of the errors (with a crew they happen, it's unfortunate, we find them and fix them, etc)-- but going back to REDO stuff that others have spent brain power on is just insulting.
I did exactly what I said I would do-- assemble the car. I did it in the time I stated and I spent the amount of money (within a few hundred) that we initially budgeted. We even handled MORE of the mechanical issues than expected because we were trying to get to the Dyno as well (The "Carrot") and (like you're finding) there were More to do than initially thought. Well, the car wasn't fit mechanically, so we had to punt that for a later time.
You're now sitting in a MUCH better position with the Roadmaster than you could possibly have imagined back in May, Jim, and yet all you do is bitch about the way that it got there! You should be happy you're driving it around! When we talked in May you weren't even sure it would be ready for next year!
You're basically showing that you don't trust anyone else's ideas--- so, why should anyone else bother to help? I certainly won't bother going to the Winter Gathering. Instead of feeling like I busted my hump for a Car the Spurious could enjoy, I feel I made a personal car for someone who doesn't even appreciate it.
$.02
Max (who really wishes he'd never bothered because Jim has been such an ungratious bastard)
Also, Max-- who would like his name REMOVED from the car, because it IS basically just "Jim's Car" and I was stupid enough to work on it FOR FREE for 135 hours!!!! I had a LOT of fun with my crew over three weekends, and that'll be the memory I keep. But I'm not going to keep coming back here to give Jim back-information so that he can redo stuff we all slaved at. That's just nuts.
Enjoy the rusty, impractical dinosaur with the wrong distributor, wrong carb, and incorrect, worn out differential!! THOSE things need fixing! But by all means, waste time on a steering wheel you knew about for YEARS and the fact that YOU don't like where the light units were placed! J F C
(Yeah, yeah, I'll regret sending this later. But i'm REALLY pissed about those lights!)
You could try the Dagobah System!
Wow.
OK, I'll try to lighten up. And I apologize for needling you Max. You do realize that you make yourself an easy target though, right? I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Really I don't want you to feel unappreciated. The interior looks great. I'm just absolutely amazed at what you guys did with the headliner. And you know what? I think the radio is even going to work now. Oops... sorry again. You guys did an awful lot of work in a very short time and it was expected that there would be some things that wouldn't come out quite right. Was it irritating to have to pull the dash back out to hook up the speedometer? Hell yes. Was it unexpected? No. Would I rather have avoided it? What do you think? And would you have bitched any less if the roles were reversed? I doubt it. It doesn't mean I value your contributions any less, just that I'm guilty of being something of a perfectionist. I ask you in all seriousness, do you really think anyone would have looked at the wiring job and said, man that's a neat job, I'd like to wire my car that way? That's a rhetorical question. The interior, yes, the wiring, no. And in your defense, let's not forget that you did not originally plan to do the wiring, only the interior. Only a stray comment over a beer and a tight schedule (yours btw) caused that particular curse to descend upon your head.
Like it or not, this car is destined to be a show piece. People are going to be looking over and picking at it from every angle. So where a piece of corrugated loom can help the appearance I think it should be used. Where a wire can be re-routed to hide it without too much trouble it should be done. That is the purpose of this final phase of the shake-down, and I have little choice in being the one who has to do it. Do you think I'd have been the only one who bitched about the tach, radio, and console light (that I didn't even notice) not working if I hadn't fixed that wire? Of course not, Steve already did. So while we're getting all offended, lets try to keep in mind that I'm the one who is putting in countless hours on a car that everybody else will get to play with while my own car languishes right next to it.
As for it being my car... no, I don't think so. Sorry you didn't get to drive it first, sorry you haven't gotten to drive it at all. But we'll fix that pretty soon. Change your mind about the winter gathering please, you will be missed by all. I never had any intention of getting you all pissed off Max. I'm probably guilty of over-reporting on all of the minutiae of the work being done on the car, and I never got the memo about keeping hands off any work anyone else did. But here's how I see it. We've all done a lot of work to get the car to where it is now. It works and is driveable. But it isn't what it could or should be, and what is going on now amounts to a bunch of little tweaks to bring it into a car we can be proud of on the Power Tour. Without every person's individual contribution we would not be at this point. Now, these small tweaks individually don't amount to much, and I don't think anybody would object to a little modification of the job they did if it makes the car look or work better. But they do add up. In the end it's even reasonable to think that enough of these tweaks could completely replace what someone has worked long and hard to do to the car. But that does not make their contribution any less valuable, because we wouldn't be here without them. Or you.
How about the guys who worked on the green body shell? How about Denny Williams who took on the nastiest job of the entire build, cutting out panels from the Mule, which then ended up not being used? That good fellow was covered from head to toe in rust and grinder dust! Was his contribution wasted? Absolutely not! He did a job that needed to be done, did it gladly, and made his contribution. It will not be forgotten. And when the car goes out on tour my time with it is done. You and Pete and Steve and Terry have served another very valuable purpose. You have provided a break and a relief that I could not have continued without. So without you I certainly could not have done my part in all of this. You can believe me when I say that it has been a very heavy burden to bear, (Ted and others will attest to that) and I honestly have no way of seeing when it may end. You, as much as anyone else, have made that burden light, because I've been doing it for the benefit of friends like you. Please don't take that away just as we reach the end of the tunnel.
JB
Update:
Dashboard is back in place but not bolted in. 2 minor wiring issues resolved. Headlight wiring is repaired and re-routed (4 wires running under lower radiator support had insulation ground off). Speedometer sender is connected. Everything should be back to normal.
Max, Tim, Carl, Steve, and Max's assistants did a really good job on the wiring. It might not have been all that pretty but on the whole is functional and effective, and looks like it should be reliable. That's really all anyone could have expected given the time constraints they were laboring under. I have added some corrugated loom tubing in the engine compartment and other places where it looked to me like it would do some good, and I think the appearance is improved. I haven't changed any of the wiring circuitry, and only re-routed those four wires that were damaged. Thanks guys, and I'm sorry I let my frustration get out of hand. I think I'm better now.
I added a pair of leads to the fuel gauge and will try connecting those to a capacitor to see if it will damp out the wild fluctuations in the needle. If it does I'll experiment to find a good size and mount it somewhere out of sight.
At this point I think everything should be pretty much working as it should, although I have more work to do on the air system due to changes needed in routing the lines. I also have a better compressor on the way and will install that when it gets here. We have a brake line that really should be re-routed, but it does work fine as it is. The differential is still leaking a little, possibly at the vent tube. And we still have a slight oil leak somewhere around the rear of the engine. I think we can balance the driveshaft in place if we go about it right, The R&P should be OK for quite awhile yet before we have to replace it and that should give us time to decide if we want a different gear ratio. (current ratio is 3.54)
So as soon as it's all buttoned back up I think the car needs to have some miles put on it to see if any other issues come up. I hope to have that done by the end of February, leaving some minor tuning and dealing with the oil seepages and such. Bill Young, as soon as I feel the car is going to be reliable enough, you will have the green light to begin the rotation. There is not necessarily any need to wait until May.
The carb seems to be working well. Although some fine tuning of the fuel metering rods could be beneficial, (particularly the secondaries, as Steve was getting 20 mpg on the primaries) we may find the current settings to be as good as it gets. The distributor I believe we can deal with by limiting the vacuum advance, locking the mechanical advance, and using the timing computer to set that. With those changes we should be able to get a near ideal timing curve.
Max, have you reported to Bill Young on the local events you would like to take the car to? It's important to get that done in order to get on the rotation schedule, and if it's possible for you to do it, it might be a good idea to coordinate with Dale Spooner as it makes good sense to schedule his rotation adjacent to yours to help out with the logistics. Of course Bill is in charge of that, it's just a suggestion.
Guys, I realize Max might not be the only one with symptoms of dissatisfaction but I'm grateful to him for bringing it to the fore. It's not my intention to be high handed, but I can see how I might act that way in trying to get this project finished up. I'd like to apologize for that, and want you all to know that it is your responsibility to keep me in line and tell me when I'm not. I know that, you know that, and I'll not hold it against any one of you.
JB
Jim:
Thx for your responses.
And... I think I figured out our problems. It's two-fold. (Don't groan-- this is benevolent. :) )
a) communication
b) Expectations.
On the first, to give an example, I think I took offense that you would complain about the appearance of the wiring, but you never actually bothered to ask "what were we thinking?" A lot of your complaints I read about HERE and you never bothered to get an explanation from the source, or, really, to "debrief" from the last crew unto the next.
The wiring harness is a PERFECT example for ironing this out.
We did everything democratically at my work sessions. When You now offer a differing opinion, it's already been at least 2--1 if not unanimous for something to be done how it was. The wiring harness, for instance, was voted 2-1 to be left UNWRAPPED.
Our main reason was ACCESS. We had NOTHING in the car-- everything had to be wired, some locations still figured out. And until the car ran, we had no idea if these would be good choices or not. We figured keeping the wires seen and easily tested and accessed might be beneficial. Also, at the time, it was a HUGE time saver for getting the harness IN and Working. (Working was good. Car a big unknown, blah blah)
In the end, despite your current objections Jim, this WAS the right decision! In the time since we routed the wires a) you informed me of the surge tank needing that entire corner, so two different wiring bundles had to be moved (starter and green circuit wires), and b) you've just moved the compressor from that corner as well! In both case, HAD the harness been wrapped-- what a pain in the ass! Now, once you are happy with ALL the wires--- you can wrap it, all wires will be included, and it'll look AWESOME. (Yes, it's some back-tracking, but read on....)
Our other reason on the wiring harness, was, hilariously-- Perfection. We didn't think we could get it! (I'm not laughing, it just seems like I am.) We saw the rot holes in the floor, the waves in the glass fenders, the rust bubbles around the glass... and, well, we realized the car would NOT be "perfect", so we focussed more on making it A CAR so we could see what it could do! (REM: Big 455 under hood! Drool, drool...) Thus, our focus, nearly from the outset, was just to get the car ASSEMBLED into a "car", and sweat the little stuff later (like You're doing Now...) when it all actually WORKED. Basically, we had "The Prototype". (Or "Mule" might be even better, seeing as how we never got to drive the car!)
Seriously (to ask You the "think about it"-type question): wouldn't it seem a bit ridiculous for our two months to be up and I gave you back a car with nothing else assembled, and yet a PERFECT wiring harness? Seems a little anal to Me.... "That's all you did, the wiring harness?!?"
(One of My pet peeves is the owner with the tidy wipe in the car who keeps everything dainty-- while the car is a mechanical mess! I say "Yep, sure will look pretty... by the side of the road!") I think things need to work First. (I'm a "drive around in primer for a year" kind of guy.)) Pretty comes later, after you actually KNOW that it works, you like where it is, and you're ready to "step up" to that level.
Which brings us to point two: Expectations.
Frankly, I finally realized that I should be flattered at your criticisms. (Took me AWHILE... obviously.. to figure this out! Sorry...)
Think about it: Jim has the LUXURY of Nit-Picking! That's how good of a job we did on the car! He's so close to driving it around he can actually complain about small stuff! I finally realized that must have meant, given Our above goal ("get it assembled")-- that we must have done okay!
As for the harness, here's the simple Baseball Analogy:
We (the crew) are standing on 2nd base after a Double! Jim is hollering that we should have gone to Third!
But we're all on the bag going "Yeah, we got a hit!!" :-)
I'm glad you think it can BE a show car, Jim. You have that pallette to look at and work from.
We had an empty cabin, a dead battery, and piles of used parts to start with. Hell, I was tickled to hear Steve drove it to the Cruise In!
Simply put, our expections were lower than yours are now-- we had to resurrect a restoration project, but you have to work out the fine details of what you hope will be a show car. Different stages, and you weren't here for Ours and we only got to attempt some of what you're having to finish now.... Obviously, associated emotions are different, too. We were all very disappointed to not make the dyno (our "carrot".) We had too many mechanical issues. I should be pleased, then, that the car has progressed to inop radios-- we had inop BRAKES!!! (Seriously. Car couldn't stop. Rolled down the parking lot...)
I'm pleased You are able to have higher expectations, as I'm sure we all are. And I'm not saying you're wrong ("striving for perfection")... merely that maybe we should get the baby walking before we throw the Debutante Ball? :-) (I've missed baby's first steps, as it were, so that's how I'm out of the loop!)
Next time, just ask me what the devil We all were thinking when you don't like something! Because we had our reasons... I don't think anything was installed on that car without some conferring. Steve, with his continuity to the project and most time spent with You, had more weight in his opinions than the rest of us. We figured he likely knew more about what was intended. Still, most of the decisions we made were NOT appearance based but functional-- we wanted stuff on the car where it could work.
You complain about the gauges but... so did we. (Did you notice how the dash wasn't FINALLY installed until the *last* session?) I felt you were just rehashing all the same stuff that we suffered through already.... waste of time, etc.
When doing a "Car by Committee" you have to honor the efforts of others. (You've made reference to all the others before, and you are quite right-- it takes ALL the fits and starts and failed attempts to finally get something right! (Read: Harness Beta 1.0)) A lot of what else motivated us was this underlying knowledge: "Well, somebody donated it...". Which made us try a little harder to make it fit, get it to work, etc. Sometimes to the detriment of progress.
However, I'll also confess that we had to take a 4th Down approach: first install, one attempt to fix, maybe one more-- then Punt and move onto something where we COULD be productive! No beating our heads over "one little thing" when there were HUGE issues still facing us. That was a luxury we didn't have, or, honestly, would have seemed INappropriate to take.
It's this thinking that explains why we had no working tachometer or temp gauge, but were trying to get to the dyno. The first two seemed like "liveable" problems AT THE TIME (kinda like You're mentioning Now with other things?)-- "hey, I got a tach in the timing gun and an infrared thermometer"-- in light of the bigger goal of getting to the dyno.
Anyway, that's why you're wiring harness is just a trunk of wires. :p Yes, it was intentional. No, we didn't expect it to be permanent---just to work! :-)
Peace,
M
Those last few posts are a perfect example of how you cannot read emotion through a message board. Knowing you guys and following all through this project, I can see that you both are saying a lot of the same things. We can apply all kinds of analogies to help explain, but the bottom line is Max and crew(I wish I had been able to make it!) did their phase of the job, really more than expected, and taking up slack from Jack, and now Jim is tidying up. This is in keeping with the entire project really. i think a lot of the work we did at Pete's was reworked again in Sioux Falls, we just didn't have the body shop guys reporting on it.
I think what is important about this project is not so much the car, what gets done to it or what gets redone, or even the mission of promoting the hobby to the younger generation. In my mind, the most important thing about the Roadmaster is the cultivation and growing of the personal relationships between all the contributors. This is a great group of guys!
Thanks Max. Good to have you back. Lots of very good points, and you're right, I do have the luxury of nitpicking. In fact that's job one right now and it never would have been possible without everyone else's help as you pointed out. Your approach was exactly the right one and it's allowed me to improve the appearance of the car noticeably. Along with Steve's work on tuning which got the thing driveable, we are almost there. So very close in fact that I have a great deal of trouble not being drawn into working on the GT when I should be doing other things. It's like this huge sucking magnet in the corner of the shop. Every time I wander too close, there I am sorting out some detail. How close is too close? Well, leaving the house might qualify...
But that's OK. There's not that much left to do and it's really, and I mean REALLY looking good. A couple of reliability, comfort, and tidiness things to work on but I think that's about it. So far we have accomplished everything we set out to do, so I guess the next challenge facing us will be putting it on the road.
JB
Well, I'm glad you two kissed & made up! :)
We've been good friend for many years and it greatly disturbed me to read this bickering in the Roadmaster thread. I've been trying to figure out what to say to smooth the ruffled feathers. I guess nothing, now, 'cept don't do that no mo'!
All bichin', moanin', & groanin, must here on out be done in person.
Guilty as charged.
Seems reasonable to me.
JB
I had a chance to do a short test drive this afternoon and have several positive things to report. The tachometer is working correctly and is rock solid. The alternator is holding 14.5 volts which is fine. The capacitor trick on the fuel gauge is going to work but I have to find a place to hide a 34,000 microfarad capacitor. The radio works. The speedometer does not. Luckily Dan requested installation instructions so when those get here maybe they will help, and having the tach working will be a big help. The hood latches properly, the air cleaner doesn't try to rotate anymore and the air ride system is working correctly. The PCV and tray are in place, there is a heat shield on the heater hose and the seat back adjuster tabs are in place and working but not yet glued on. I think we are getting down to the more minor annoyances.
Of those, and pardon my whining but that's what you guys are paying me the big bucks to do, we have a problem with the heater controls. Apparently not all of the gearboxes are the same, and the shafts on the ones we have are too short to allow the early style knobs to lock in place. Really I'm just guessing here because I don't exactly know what is going on or why, I just know the knob keeps falling off. Someone needs to figure out why and find the parts to fix it.
That leaves the speedo, balancing the driveshaft, the noisy diff, and a few minor oil leaks. And apparently the console light which I will probably fix later today, and then go over Max's knock-out list to see if there is anything I missed.
I think everyone deserves a big congratulation at this point, because by George, we've done it! Although I really do think we need to balance that driveshaft before doing any more long distance trips, its a two man job, requiring one to operate the controls while the other places the adjustable weights to eliminate the vibration. So it may be February before we can get to that one.
JB
Sounds like great progress Jim.
I don't have any good knobs, but I'm pretty sure I have at least a couple of the heater switch mechanisms. Let me know if they'd help.
What year car did they come from Rob? David Bash was going to send a knob ('69-'71 {at least} style with the white letters) but I'm not sure he's gotten the PM I sent him with my address. David, I should have just said send it to the address under my avatar. Sorry, I forgot it was there.
Anyway the story on those gearbox mechanisms is that we had a couple of broken ones and a couple of good ones and picked the best and tossed the others, never noticing if there was a difference. Then there was a vinyl overlay applied to the dash but none of us expected that to add enough thickness to cause any problems, and now the shafts are too short by about a quarter inch. I've never run into this problem before so I'm not quite sure what the remedy is. But at any rate, what we have is the infamous "Abingdon Pillow" dashboard, as used at least from '69 to '71. I suspect we have gearboxes for a different year.
JB
My email to SW bounced back to me, so I guess the instruction may not be coming. According to their tech support website, the wiring diagrams are in the SW Catalog, so if anybody has one. please check to see if they are there for the Wings series.
I am talking about the electronic speedo head, BTW....
SW catalogue in pdf format....... wiring diagrams on p.49
http://www.stewartwarnercanada.com/media/pdf/catalogs/SW-HDCatalog.pdf
...see if it helps any!
OK, there's the problem. We're using the wrong sender. It doesn't work with the one that is in the transmission and I'm guessing that's a GM sender. So what we need is a conventional speedometer drive for the T-5, and install the other sender that came back in the box of parts, then we can rewire the thing and get the right gear to correct the reading for whatever error it has. (The diff uses 3.54 gears btw.)
Anybody got that plug-in?
I got a call today from an apparently well heeled individual in Florida who would like awfully much to be able to buy the car at some point. It sounds like we are starting to get some recognition.
Also I had some extra keys made today. Figured that would be cheap insurance.
JB
Edit: A little too quick on the draw maybe, in looking at the drawing for a magnetic pickup which seems to be what is installed, our connection to the speedo head is incorrect. This can be fixed but may require the dash to come back out. I will have a look.
J
Jim, I'll have to check when I get back home tomorrow. I think I have some from each of 67, 72, and 74. Will dig them out and measure the posts.
Thanks Rob, that should help immensely.
JB
The speedo works. It reads about 2/3 scale.
JB
I wonder if SpeedHut would consider donating a GPS unit?
Is the speedo programmable? If so, there'll be a sequence you follow to put it in programmable mode, then you drive a pre-determined distance (e.g., autometer is 2 miles), then do a couple more steps & the speedo "learns" how many pulses per mile. If you have the model number I can see if I can find the manual on line.
I don't think it is. It's the Stewart Warner "Wings" series. I don't remember seeing any sort of button or switch anywhere on it.
Rick, you're certainly welcome to try. One thing though that might make it look a little odd is that the gauges all have an obviously convex glass. I doubt SpeedHut would duplicate that. Also it would mean taking the dashboard back out to swap them. Maybe changing the drive gear would work?
JB
Tranny shops have gear adapters you can put between the cable and tranny.
2Well, the sender plugs right into the tranny so I don't know how well that might work. Rick's idea might be the best, and the dash isn't all THAT hard to remove. It would definitely be worth doing if one was donated... no issues with calibration. Might be worth asking them how close they could come to the "Wings" series gauges.
I drove to Milton today and borrowed Edith's GPS for the trip. The speedo is reading right at 60% of road speed so about 45 for 75mph. If there is a way to calibrate it I'm all for that.
So about the drive... First off, the car performed flawlessly. Not one sign of bad manners of any sort. It just keeps getting better and better. I think the car and the engine are beginning to become happy with each other. That's not to say there are no annoyances, but everyone's hard work has certainly paid off, and this is an excellent representative of the British V8 in the form of a GT. It is indeed a master of the road. Good handling, great roadholding, and of course just gobs of completely effortless power. In addition it is getting excellent gas mileage. Regrettably I did not reset the GPS until halfway through the trip, but at 180 or so miles I'm still showing half a tank. I do believe the bottom half to be considerably smaller than the first half but even if I burned 8 gallons that's over 20 MPG. The return trip should tell the tale, but Steve got 20mpg on his last tank and I ran the mixture screws in about 4 turns each and that should be good for a bit. We will see.
Now about those annoyances. The steering needs tightened up a bit, the driveshaft causes some vibration around 60, some exhaust gets in the car, and we have noise from the fuel pump and possibly the ignition module, anyway something is buzzing at engine speed. Despite all that, the car is very happy just loping along in the mid 70s with the engine ticking over somewhere in the neighborhood of 2100-2200 rpm. That's not really in the powerband for this engine but even so it has all the power you need, even for passing.
I got to do a couple short laps "around the block" of the MRRRC (about 4 miles estimated) but at night and with passengers was not going for a real test. The car does really well in the tight sections but the rearview mirror is very much in the way, no real surprise. On the straights I opened it up a couple of times in 2nd and it's really, REALLY quick. I began to get some spin as the engine got happy. With these tires I don't know if it'll do that in 3rd or not but that test can wait.
The car has gotten a lot of attention so far, and people really like it. The hood latch may become one of the most used things on the car. I had a pair of window cards made up and laminated then placed those in the rear quarter windows. That will satisfy many people's curiosity but an unexpected side effect has been questions about the car being for sale. Well, I suppose if you'd rather ask questions than read that is to be expected.
JB
Jim, we all want to know what the maximum speed is. With the GPS on board were you not tempted to find out. The only time I was in the US your country roads were so straight and quiert. There must be one near you where you can max the car and also measure the standing 1/4.
That dripping sound you hear is me drooling with envy! Sounds like a lot of fun. As for all the questions, I was thinking of having a small brochure printed explaining the project and it's purpose that each of us could carry along in the car for car shows etc. Perhaps you could write something and then with a couple of photos and the group logo on the back it would be pretty slick.
David, I suspect the TOP Speed is probably not attainable. Even with 250 less HP less and comparable gearing, the car may not be controllable at 140-150MPH. My SBF is 1/2 the power of the Roadmaster and I do not hope to max it! If I remember correctly, when the early NAMGBR show was in Lake Tahoe in the 90's, several members (NOT NAMED) with V8's drove back across nothern Nevada and opended up the small Bucik V8's and attained speeds of near 140MPH. They noted the front-end got light, (wanted to wander) and backed off. The aerodynamics was the limiting factor not HP. With probably 500 HP and 500 #'s Feet torque, the BBB, would get AIRBORNE! :) The pucker marks on the driver's seat should indicate the WOW Factor. LOL Imagine a 1mile power slide or barrel rolling for a mile.
SAFETY FASTER!
You could probably hit that straight stretch near Culloden....just make sure Merle doesn't have a hot rodder pulled over before you punch it.
I dunno Kelly, that Roadmaster chin spoiler should keep the front end glued down at 150
Kelly, remember that with the air bag front suspension if it starts to get light Jim can always drop it down a bit and get more effect from the front air dam. Maybe we should include a stop at Bonneville on the car's way to California some time. ;-)
Maybe someone with extra large GONADS would try to top-end it?? not me :)
Wow Kelly, that's way more than I needed to hear about the size of your Gonads! I agree though, such antics are best left to the young guys who still think they are indestructable. ;-)
Did you get the speedo programmed yet? They usually program by either an external wire/switch that goes to ground to trip it, or by holding in the trip button when the key is turned on.
Here is an example instruction sheet:
http://www.stewartwarnercanada.com/media/pdf/install_instructions/B-764%20115067%20Speedometer.pdf
And please excuse my ignorance, but what is MRRRC?
Make sure the weather cooperates with that Bonneville stop.
I didn't drive on the salt this June because the salt was wet and sloppy. The Visitors Center even advised not going out on the salt as they had called two trucks for three vehicles that morning.
Also important to go to a car wash to clean the salt from beneath the vehicle ASAP.
SaltFlats6-10-11_2.jpg
SaltsFlatsSign.jpg
When we got the insurance certificate for the Roadmaster, did we get a Agreed Value policy or a Stated Value policy?
At what value do we have it insured?
Would it be prudent to have a professional appraisal done on the car?
Just thinking "out loud".
ToastedMGB6-4-11.jpg
MGBGTinLaCarrera.jpg
lastphotoofrhybuddbgt.jpg
ByebyeMGBGT.jpg
Thanks to Jim for presenting the car at the first annual Christmas party of the West Virginia British Car Club. It was VERY well received and drooled over.
1.jpg
The party was hosted by one of the members who is a corporate jet pilot, in his hangar..
2.jpg
Always lots of discussion around the car.
5.jpg
My daughter loved it.
Was Jamie Chenowith there? He bought the AH3000 that I found here in Champaign and picked it up a couple of weekends ago...unfortunately, our paths did not cross.
Nice looking young lady you have there Dan! First shots I've seen showing the headliner and some other interior details, Max you and your crew did an amazing job! Gary did a great job on the thermostat housing as well, it really curves around the distributor nicely towards the radiator hose. And Jim's hand formed drip pan under the air cleaner really came out nice as well. I think a lot of people never thought we'd attain that level of detail and have such a beautifully finished car. Well done all.
Yes, Rick, Jamie was there. He showed me pictures of the Healey he stole! It is most definitely in good hands though.
Thanks for the compliment, Bill. Obviously she has her mother's good looks ; )
I think it was quite mind-boggling to the members of our club. Everything is integrated so well and finished to the degree of a well-refined car. After the party was over, I had the opportunity to drive the car for a short test drive. It really is a well-mannered beast, not the brute you expect. It really is a true GT.
Good to be back home. I did get a chance to do a lap of the MRRRC late this morning while it was dry and nice. The full loop is 11.2 miles and the block is 4.7 miles. Dan, you'll be interested to hear that they've replaced the telephone pole and moved it out. (Or had they done that before the last time we ran it?) I'm pretty sure the only way you can tag it now is to go in the creek. I didn't try the jump as there was just too much traffic, and really, it's just way too dangerous anyway. Hard for me to believe that was a regular feature. Anyway, driving the GT on it was a hoot to say the least! It was a good run. Seriously, you guys have just GOT to try the 4th gear downshift to pass. It's unreal. I swear it looks and feels like you go from 55 to 90 in about a hundred yards. Didn't do that on the loop though, that was on the AA on the way home.
How fast will it go? I'd say 200 with the current gearing. It does 65 at 2 grand so the 6K rev limiter puts you at about 195 and the heads and cam will just about be peaking out. But for now as the guys say it's unattainable. Angle is wrong on the chin spoiler, steering is too loose, and vibration issues need resolved. I've had it up to 90 and it feels stable enough otherwise, but there was no time to be looking at tach or speedo, I had to rely on the GPS max speed. Things were happening quick. Passing has never been more fun. I wish we had a telltale on the tach, because I don't think I've wound it past about 4500 yet but there's no way to tell for sure. The motor seems pretty happy but I think a good session on the dyno would really pay off.
It's funny, you start out thinking about the motor a lot. But after driving it awhile you realize that what you've got there is a source of seemingly limitless power and it becomes a lot less important, and I think it's at about that point that you begin to finesse and learn how to drive the car. It's going to become a very, VERY good car once we work out the remaining bugs.
JB
David Bash sent two sets of heater control knobs. It turns out that the flat black ones with the white lettering and the extended shaft hub to the rear do fit the gearboxes. HOORAY! However, the RH defrost gearbox appears to be slipping the gear so it will have to be taken out and tweaked a bit to get it to work right. David, I hope you don't mind if I wait to return the unused knobs until this is resolved? It shouldn't take long.
Scott Costanza from Columbus, OH is coming down Saturday the 14th of January to help balance the driveshaft. Anyone else who would like to show up that weekend is more than welcome.
"Doc" Blackwood, out.
Maybe I missed it, theres no roll bar/cage? 200 mph ? I suggest an iron clad/boiler plate-"release and hold harmless", be signed by everyone who drives and rides in this rocket ship at over legal speeds. Reveiwing the carnage pictures of what "could" happen is wise here. This to protect all those involved with the car. Safer Faster, Good Luck, roverman.
Hey guys, finally home for a full day today & had time to dig around and find the heater knob controls. I have two each of two different styles...
'72-76 style (see http://www.mossmotors.com/Shop/ViewProducts.aspx?PlateIndexID=29082).
The posts on the mechanisms are 15/16 to 1" long. These are for the backlit style 72-76 knobs. The mechanisms & light cups I have are good; the dials and knobs are pretty far gone (although the chrome on the dials looked ok; it's the lettering & black background that are fadded out.
'68-71 pillow dash style (http://www.mossmotors.com/Shop/ViewProducts.aspx?PlateIndexID=29081).
non-backlight, knob is bigger and fans out as it gets closer to the dash. Ears are integrated into it. Mechanism has a longer shaft - 1 3/16". Mechanisms are good. Knobs would be fine on a daily driver but would probably need to be reconditioned to look good next to fresh paint & new gauges. I can clean them up but wouldn't know how to restore the lettering.
Let me know which the roadmaster need and I'll get them out to you.
>I suggest an iron clad/boiler plate-"release and hold harmless", ... roverman.
Art, would you like to do that for us? I'm sure it is something we could use.
Now as to the liabilities involved, for contributors to a Charity, liability does not transfer except to the extent of their donation. In other words a suit can take your donation but that is all. As for the officers it becomes slightly more complicated but the rule is, barring intentional misconduct or ... what's that other word? Not malpractice that wouldn't apply here... oh yeah, negligence. Barring negligence liability does not transfer. I'm guessing it might be negligent to encourage someone to "See how fast you can drive it." So I'm not going to suggest that anyone drive this car over the legal speed limit and I recommend that no other officers do so either. Other than that, we are most likely held to contemporary standards in construction, and as far as I can tell we've satisfied that requirement. Just because the car may be capable of reaching a given speed does not mean it should be driven that way any more than your new car should be taken out and matted on the freeway. It is impossible to make any car completely safe, and the legal concept is well established that a person who willingly puts them self in a hazardous situation is assuming the risk associated with that activity. I dunno, maybe Will was right.
Anyhow, we can get bogged down in the paperwork, we can slow the whole thing down trying to pay lawyers, or we can make it a static display if that's what our contributors and members of the charity want to do. I'm just here to do the bidding of our members in that regard. And to be completely honest about it, I really do feel like I've pretty well completed my term of service. The car is built. It works. It is every bit as much a usable, driveable conversion as any other car out there. That was what I set out to do and it is done. I agreed to act as president until the car was built and that is finished. There is no reason why someone else can not take the reigns from this point forwards, and if I were to suggest a successor at this point I would have to recommend Bill Young for the work he is doing on the rotation plan. Maybe the safeguards Art suggests should be put into play. I'm not the right person to steer the organization through those waters. I'm a risk taker, and that isn't what we need from this stage forward. We would be better served by a more conservative approach and that's one hat that I chafe under. So, I would recommend that we all consider who we want our officers to be as we move forward into this new stage of the game. Let me be clear, it has been an honor and a privilege to lead up to this point, and I do not use those words lightly. But I am very conscious that my duty to the organization includes recognizing my own limitations, and we have reached them. I do not wish to put any of us at risk by exceeding them.
Rob, I will try to take some photos later this afternoon and we can work from those. My descriptions seem somewhat lacking.
JB
First Jim thanks for the confidence you show in me. I fail to see why you should step down as president, you have completed your job of building the car for the most part and now you should be able to sit back and delegate the remaining items to be done to the others in the group as you have passed the responsibility of coordinating a rotation plan on to me.
Art, we will have such an agreement for each driver to sign, but I really doubt if most such hold harmless agreements would really stand up to a court challange, that's the reason we have the protection of the limited liability incorporation. We do have insurance on the car and it's drivers as I now understand. We all drive and build high performance cars that will exceed most posted speed limits with ease but we also are a more mature group who know that we're no longer bullet proof. I'm not too worried about too much risk of extreme high speed antics from the group. It's not like we were giving this car to some 16 year old and saying go have fun. I hope that our group would show a bit more maturity and responsibility. Bedsides the idea is "If you break it, YOU fix it" That alone should make most of us very careful on how we behave behind the wheel. I know I don't what to have to buy another V8 T5 so I'll keep the drag racing down to a minimum.
Well Said Bill! I agree with you and Jim on the thoughts regarding the Roadmaster and its use. Just because it is there, does not mean you test it at each departure. TIME seems to mellow some of us.
I say give it to Hertz and let them rent it out..................HAPPY NEW YEAR.......
What would it take to really clean up the aerodynamics of an mgb? I'd say the GT is cleaner than Rdst. I've always thought an air dam out front and wings on top and bottom of rear hatch would look wild.
No I'm not 18 but I would drive it until the front end got light........or is that too close to the edge.
Are the builders of this awsome car going to chronical the build or do I have to read all 79 pages!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
David, to really get an idea of what we went through reading all 79 pages would be great, but not required. We haven't written a short form of the story yet, but I hope to do that and incorporate it in an article for the newsletter to update the one Curtis already started. http://www.britishv8.org/Articles/MGB-Roadmaster.htm
The idea was first started by Jim back in April of 2007. http://www.mgexperience.net/phorum/read.php?40,538455,page=1 It's taken us four and a half years to get to this point, so there's a lot of effort tied up in the car.
I'm sure that some of the guys will drive the car a bit quicker than "legal" but most of them after contributing time, effort, cash, and parts to the project won't abuse it as we all have an investment to protect. That's re reason driving will be limited to those who have been part of the project for some time. Other people will get to drive the car, but I hope always with a member riding shotgun to make sure no one overdoes it. We don't want guys driving it like "they stole it" when they don't have the investment of time and money in the car to protect, they'd have nothing to lose like we have. If we can get together when the car is in this area I'll be glad to let you take a turn behind the wheel though. I have collected all the photos of the project that have been posted on line as well, so have a pretty complete pictorial history of the project. With permission from those guys who posted photos I'll try to set up a album on one of the photo sites so you can all share.
Thanks Bill I'd just like to take a ride How many of you worked on this and how did you all meet to do this? It seems like everyone in the story is from a different place...
David if you read the article Curtis published and the original post on the MG Experience site you'll begin to understand how it all took place. The original group were the 32 members in at the founding of the project. Others contributed along the way and will be part of the tour drivers. I never got a full count of all the people who have been involved over the past 4.5 years, that's another thing we need to address, getting a full list together. There were people who worked on the car during Roadmaster build weekends in Kentucky, Illinois, North Carolina, and South Dakota that I'm not aware of and need to get listed I suppose. I have most of the donors of parts and funds already listed, but there are probalby some that have been missed. I just hope they'll speak up and make themselves known.
David, your first chance to see The Roadmaster may be at Shreveport La in May. This is the Saturday overnite stop on the way to British V8 week in Palestine Tx. We have a block of rooms at the Best Western as noted in the announcement on this and the MGE forums. You would enjoy the variety of cars and people. Come join us
OK here's the knobs that work with the gearboxes that are on the car now and one of which is damaged:
MVC-022F.JPG
This next shot is of the control knobs on my '71 and I'm pretty sure they are the ones installed originally, not that originality is much of a factor. I personally like the appearance a little better but functionally they are no different except for the shaft length needed to make them work.
MVC-023F.JPG
I don't know which is earlier or later. The flat knobs use a shorter shaft. I think there is about 1/4" difference in the length. I do not know if the longer unit is the same as the one used with the illuminated knobs used later or not. I do not know what would be required to fit illuminated knobs. I do not know what the preferred remedy would be here. The options seem to be, in order of difficulty:
1) attempt to repair the defective gearbox and use the flat knobs.
2) have Rob send a gearbox to replace the bad one and use the flat knobs.
3) have Rob send both of the longer gearboxes and use the pointy knobs which David sent.
4) attempt to retrofit the dash to illuminated knobs.
Does anyone have a preference? Does anyone want to fix it?
Switching topics, I do feel the time is near for a change in leadership. We do not need to become stagnant from having one guy run the show for too long. I will be more than happy to continue in an advisory manner and help with the car, possibly even in a different position. But where my skill set was very good for building the car, I feel it may be very bad for running the promotion. I do not want to subject the members to strife and disharmony that could result from my inept attempts to do so when others have those skills that I lack. Therefore I will call for officer elections at the annual meet in May at the BritishV8 meet in Texas and the members can make their wishes known at that time. Be thinking about who will fill each office, as all will be included in the election. And of course at that time we should give due consideration to the president-elect's opinions in regard to the other offices. Everyone be thinking also personally, about whether you could serve in those positions. It is not difficult and does bring some measure of prestige with it.
JB
That sounds reasonable Jim, we should have a quarum of the original members present there to make an election possible or at least draft a slate of candidates for the members to vote on on-line. If we do elect new officers will we have to amend our paperwork with the state to reflect that change?
Only to update the contact person for the organization with the KY sec. of state.
JB
Jim & crew, Unless someone is sure the backlit style will work with the knobs we have, I'll clean up and send the mechanisms and knobs that are like the ones on Jim's '71. That way we'll have a matched set so we know they'll work & we won't need to modify the harness to add the dash lights to the knobs.
Rob, we don't need the knobs as David already sent a pair each of the flat ones and the pointy ones.
JB
Jim and clan, I only mentioned this to protect those involved. Unfortunately, it's a sue-happy society we live in.I am NOT an attorney, and don't intend to sound like one. Cheers, roverman.
With most states and NFP organizations, an annual filing form is required that lists the officers, address, purpose of the organization, etc.
There is a nominal filing fee (Illinois is $10).
Be careful in changing addresses....heftier fees may be charged.
We may want to think about naming Blackwood Labs as the permanent address (if this is OK with jimbo).
The Ohio form should be self-explanatory (if it even exists).
That's OK Art, someone has to think about that stuff. I used to be an attorney but didn't like it so now I just make stuff. Much more satisfying. But it's sort of like being a member of an outlaw biker gang or a drug cartel, they usually don't let you just quit. My older brother who quit the bikers was an inspiration to me though, as well as being one of the smartest people I've ever known. Wouldn't know it from some of the company he used to keep but he is.
But the important thing I guess is that at least it isn't completely unfamiliar territory. There is risk inherent in anything we do but I've done most everything I know to do that would make it safer for us all. And actually, having some turnover in the officer corps helps to separate us from the corporate entity so that's a step in the right direction, one that has been coming for a long time, and one that we really need in order to survive as a bona-fide Charity. Personally I think we should have elections every year or two but that's not my decision to make. I can however call for an election and it's time, so I'm doing that. Between then and now I'm going to try to come up with a good agreement for the participants in the rotation that does enough to protect us without being overly restrictive to the participants. It's a fine balancing act but I was pretty good at that sort of thing in the past so we'll see how it turns out. Much will depend on feedback I get from the members as to the actual terms.
Change of subject: The speedometer calibration. The instructions that have been posted do not apply. This speedo does not have any sort of resettable odometer. I would hope that there is in fact a procedure for calibrating it and that someone can find it. If it means shorting one of the terminals we can reach it well enough to do that.
I went for a short drive today and everything was just fine. The air ride leaks down something like maybe a pound a day and pumps back up quickly so that is very manageable. I did notice earlier a noise around the front of the engine that I suspect is coming from the alternator (used) so we may have to replace that and it could stand to do a better job. I think there is a slightly larger one that would be an easy upgrade and we should probably do that as we have a significant electrical load. I'm also not satisfied with the performance of the radiator fan thermostat as it seems pretty erratic. Maybe relocating the sensor bulb could help. It's something we should look at. Otherwise I think it's really quite good. I reclined the seat and moved it closer to the pedals on the way back from Charleston and that made it feel much more familiar.
JB
That's right Rick. I've been filing the annual reports, I think it cost $10 and then went up to $15. It's important to get it in on time as they can and will (and did) kill the registration if it's late and it's far cheaper and easier to create a new entity than to revive the old one. We can keep the address, that's a no brainer certainly, and I can probably remain the contact person for the state if it's easier that way. (They just need to know who to notify in case a suit starts trouble.)
Which reminds me... The insurance policy is in the pocket behind the passengers seat (thank you Rick, great idea), anyone can look at it to see what the policy terms are.
JB
JIm, I forgot where we have the thermostat mounted on the Roadmaster. I've used a GM sensor switch mounted in one cylinder head port on my V6 for years and it's been very reliable and doesn't seem to drift. It controls a relay along with a signal from the computer, so either can switch the fan on, so far only the switch has turned the fan on except when "coding" the computer. I run a 212 degree unit, but they are available in aftermarket form from around 185 degrees up. I'm sure there's a port in the intake manifold where we could mount one.
Jim and I have talked about being replaced as officers and we agree it is time.
I took the job as Treas. because I thought no one else would and we needed to get started.
I have not done the greatest job of it, but do have a set of books. I never received all the receipts and so they will not balance.
I had a CPA look at them and she was satisfied they were ok.
I will step down this year also.
I will bring the records with me to Texas for whoever takes over.
Working with a bank 500 miles away is challenge so I would suggest that whoever take the job moves the funds to a closer bank.
It has been a fun build and I really enjoyed it, but am ready to move on to something else.
Steve
Steve and Jim, I understand completely and want to thank you both for your service to the group.. It won't be easy to find men that will fill your shoes. Steve you are far too modest about your term, you'e done a great job with the funds ad also in coordinating some great T shirts which have for me become collectors items showing the progression of the car over the past years. I only hope that I can fulfill the task of scheduling the tour stops in as good a fashion as you and Jim have done your jobs. See you in Texas as we'll work it out for sure.
We've been asked to appear at the W.Va International Auto show the end of this month:
http://www.motortrendautoshows.com/charwv/custompage.jsp/Videos
JB
Many Thanks to both JIM & STEVE for their time and effort to guide the project to this point. Their tireless effort and work have paid off and we are beginning to see the efforts rewarded. THANKS again, Jim and Steve
Re West Virginal Car Show. That sounds great, lots of great publicity for our cause at a show like that, probably more than at most of the hot rod shows. Thanks for taking the time to take the car over for that Jim and Dan.
The organizers of the WV International Car Show, an annual event hosted mostly by the new car dealers/manufacturers, asked one of our local club members if we could provide 5 cars to display for the weekend show. After checking with Jim, I offered up the Roadmaster.
Cars displayed from WVBCC will include a TR6, an E type coupe, a B and a Jag XJS convertible. Some of those guys are having signs made up with details about their car and the WVBCC logo. It might be good idea if someone could get a similar sign for our car. Maybe BritishV8.org should be displayed on the sign?
Wish I had a bit more time before the show. I've been working on the idea of a small brochure that we could hand out to interested people at shows etc with a color cover and centerfold of the car and inside a description of the car, the organization, and ads from many of the businesses that supported the project with donations. I'm just beginning to gather the information but would still need to approach the potential advertisers for a donation to help offset printing costs considering we would eventually have quite a few printed and it will be expesive even with cutting the color pages to 8. I got a good sample of such a brochure from a business group in Wichita this past weekend. It lists all the car shows and activities for the year in the Wichita area and has ads for all the supporting businesses as well. Really nicely done and a good pocket size that you can carry in your car to keep track of anything that is happing all summer long. My goal was to have something before the Power Tour if I could.
I agree that a sign of some type would be nice and if we had it done professionally and in some very sturdy material we could keep it in the car to be displayed at other shows and events. Might be enough money in the treasury to consider having somethin made, what say the rest of you guys, should we spring for a nice sign for the car?
From my perspective the history of the Roadmaster is as important as the car itself.
A sign would serve to further the original intent of the car, which I believe was largely to educate the public about what is possible.
Without the sign it's just another cool car at a car show.
So I say that a sign is pretty much mandatory.
Anyway that's my two bits.
Cheers
Fred
I'm working on the layout for the trunk display which is going to be an engraved plaque with the sponsors and contributors. I will have to make a rather arbitrary determination of who is which so if you have a preference please say so. (Bill? Service Garage?) A local trophy merchant should be able to produce it, I will be checking with him this week. So far of course I don't know the cost. I would like to include email and phone numbers for the sponsors, possibly locality, and the type of contribution but of course that will add a good bit of space so the individual contributors may be limited to names. I'm about halfway done with the data and should finish tomorrow, and I'm hoping the vendor can help with the layout. I'd like to get that done in time for the WV show.
I think the brochure is a great idea. The information on the window cards and the trunk plaque is very limited and cannot convey even a small part of the story like that can. But the three can work very well together to give a fuller picture, as long as we try to avoid duplication.
I will also be talking to a local shirt producer about a more upscale shirt to commemorate the completion of the build, probably sometime this week. I'll pass the info along as soon as I have it. These are going to be available on a pre-paid basis as a one time order, and it may be possible to have them individualized. I'll let you guys know.
JB
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It can easily cost $200 to $300 for an engraved plaque as you describe.....but I like the idea....we need some way of ensuring it stays with the car (easily misplaced).
Great idea about the flyers. Easily reproduced on an as-needed basis.
Large promotional signage on an easel for shows.
Enbroidered Roadmaster shirts....can be dress shirts, polos, and/or T's (etc).
Jim, either my name or Service Garage, It really doesn't make any difference. Service Garage really isn't a true business, just what I call my shop in honor of my Grandfather who I was named after, but I'd be quite pleased and honored either way. I'm only glad that I was able to be a part of the project and help along the way. One of the more rewarding things I've done in my life.
Garage.jpg
Perhaps we should consider creating a scrapbook that includes an overview of the organization, pictures of BADASS I and BADASS II, the build process of BADASS II, and a section for contributor profiles. This could stay with the car and would be easily updated/corrected, etc. Contributor profiles could then be as complete (or abridged) as needed.
The profile section of the car itself could be broken down into secions highlighting the engine drivetrain, the suspension, paint and bodywork, interior, etc.
Section One: The British-American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society and its goals
Section Two: The Roadmaster
Part 1 - The Drivetrain
Part 2 - The Suspension
Part 3 - You get the idea of where I'm going with this.....
Section Three: The Roadmaster Contributors
Blackwood Labs - profile and picture
Mantell Motorsport - profile and picture
Pieces of Eight - profile and picture
You get the idea of where I'm going with this.......
A less expensive plaque could then be produced for the Roadmaster....and displayed/mounted in the rear deck.
In any case, we still need a professional-looking poster/easel for show display.
Watcha think?
I have collected all the photos of the project that have been posted here on the forum since the beginning including some that I took at some of the V8 meets. I can get them on a CD and send it to whomever wants to do the scrapbook. Might save them some time.
I think that's a good idea, and probably most of the information that would be needed could be mined directly from this thread. I know I've made every effort to be factual in reporting on the progress, as I think others have. So there is a tremendous amount of good information and rarely is a newcomer going to be real eager to jump in and read it all just because of the sheer volume. Still, if you don't mind looking for it, it's here.
JB
Bill, the difference is, if a contributor your name will be listed. If a sponsor your phone number and/or email or website address will be included. Which way do you want to go?
I still have a name or two to add. Anyone who suspects they might have been overlooked needs to let me know.
JB
Just list me as a contributor then Jim. Thanks.
OK, I think I have the rest, except for Max's unknown helpers. I'll include them if anyone knows their names.
Eddie Cole drove the car this afternoon, just around the block but he had a grin as big as it gets.
Mike Maloney! You really need to get down here while the car is around.
JB
Andy & Zarrel from Max's B-Stingers race team worked on the Roadmaster the 2 weekends I went over to Durham.
All, Jim:
Sorry for delay in response(s). Been away for holidays.
Okay, so...
a) heater controls. Knobs are VERY difficult to find! If you have a correct pair that aren't stripped out, use those. The illumination is NOT worth it for the huge hassle to do it right (my $.02), so just get a pair of the earlier knobs (either would be fine, I think) and get the gearboxes to match. I thought both gearboxes were working-- I guess we didn't notice if they were matched to each other! (Took the best two of the pile, etc... :/ ). Obviously, as you saw, the only knob we could come up with that worked was the late MGB.... You *can* get the little springs for the gearboxes (Vicky Brit), btw, if that seems to be a problem.
b) "helper names" sent to Jim. I don't think anyone will be offended if left off... their contributions were minor compared to the time invested by others.
c) Signage/brochures-- Definitely!!! We thought about that while it was here, but never made it happen. (Jim sent info, but I just never made it happen. So, that buck got passed....). Perhaps a simple velcro or hook/grommet system so the signs easily go in window, but also easily remove for transit? I do think this is worth spending money on.
d) Officers. I'm not sure if I'd change out officers so much as just shift the leadership role to Bill Young at this point? Jim will always be associated with the BADASS (as will Steve, in my eyes) so in some ways trying to change them out might add some confusion? HOWEVER-- everyone is entitled to also *reduce* their involvement, if they wish, so certainly we can't *make* them stay... ("Or can we?!?" <evil grin> )
e) Travelling equipment. We (Carl, Tim, Steve...) talked about this: equipping the car with a Log Book (for notes, service, items to keep an eye on, etc.) as well as a travelling tool kit. The former so that one driver can pass on the necessary information to the next, etc. ("Found that noise <so and so> mentioned!") The latter so that not everyone has to keep worrying about what tools they may need, etc. The "tool kit" would also be all the necessary fluids specific/desired for the car. There would also be a spec sheet in the logbook. Everything from tire pressures, front suspension pressure, expected running oil pressure, blah blah blah....
f) Fundraising. Now that the car is up and running, should we reconsider the "Finished Edition" T-Shirt? We talked about this in Tennessee. "I Drove It!" or some such on a shirt that would cost more. It could maybe go to joyriders (more on this as the legality/logistics are worked out) or to the contributors who would pay for the shirt to help spread the word of the car, etc. (Prices to be figured out accordingly.)
This is just spitballing.... but we always seem to be in need of money, and some reliable way to generate some would be a big benefit, I think.
All fer now....... M
How about a pin on button for our drivers and passengers? We can get 300 buttons made with the Roadmaster logo and a phrase like "I've been G'd" for less than $200. Would be a nice thing to be able to give people to remember the experience of riding in the car. I'd spring for the first issue myself it you guys want to do something like that. Wouldn't generate any money though, I like Max's T shirt idea for that. Heck you guys already know I'm a sucker for commemoritive T shirts anyway so I'd buy a couple out of habit.
I just ordered a pair of Walker stainless band clamps from Summit for the header to exhaust pipe slip joints and will order new header gaskets on Monday and this should fix the exhaust leaks once we change those out. TIP: Put anti-seize on the header side of the gasket so it will release and stick to the head next time the header is removed. If we'd known that trick we would have saved the first set.
It's possible that a slight tweak of the heater control may fix it. We have the knobs now.If Rob sends gearboxes we can replace the bad one, or both and use the other knobs. (we have both early styles) Either way will work. All the other suggestions are very good (except for me continuing as President ;-p)
I laminated the window cards and used clear packing tape to stick them in the rear windows but something more easily removed would be better.
We have oil leaks. TIP: Dye is available for use in engine oil. Use an ultraviolet light to find the source. Might be worth doing, no idea what it and the light costs.
We will have $100-$105 left in the treasury after the gaskets are ordered. Probably not enough to pay for the trunk plaque.
JB
should be able to get the dye and the light and special glasses for less than $30. I have the light and glasses for use with AC systems. Works well there. I could pick up some dye and bring it with me for the winter party.
Steve
I have used the oil dye in the past. It worked with a black light. No special glasses needed.
Get me a price on the plaque and I'll see if I can afford to pay for it next month. Got to start paying a bit of attention to the bills, but not hurting so should be able to put up the cash. I really think we need the plaque more than buttons or such.
Boxed up the heater control mechanisms today. Will go out in tomorrow's mail.
Interesting doings to report. First, I'm working on trying to print out some vinyl graphics for the window cards. I got some clear/printable self stick vinyl sheets from Office Depot, have figured out how to get the printer to mirror the page, and now if I could just get the darned thing to print in white I'd have it. Oh yeah, I guess white isn't an inkjet color. Duh! Maybe yellow or some pastel color... lessee, the car is red.... pink maybe??? (Is silver an inkjet color? Guess not.)
Anyway, if I can get that to work I was thinking the local sign shop should be able to make a big one to fit the rear window for the sponsors and contributors and it'd be way cheaper than a plaque, visible with the hatch closed, out of the way, and wouldn't interfere with vision.
Terry Kesselring was HIGHLY impressed with the car. He's the owner of Antique Auto Shop, and the guy I was talking to originally about painting the car. We went for a drive and he really liked it a lot. He wants to take some good photos and spread them around. Sounds good to me. Tommy over at our tubing supplier also drove it and I've given a couple more rides also. It makes a really good impression everywhere it goes. I'm going to try to stop by every place locally that has helped us out. I think they deserve that much. So what I'm doing is letting us start putting tick marks in the column for getting to drive or ride in the car for everyone who helped us. We need to make sure we cover every name on that list if it is possible to do so. Now there may be a couple here and there who we can't cover cause we don't know where they live or that sort of thing (Australia may be a little difficult for instance) but where possible it should be done. I intend to take care of those in the greater Cincinnati area. Most of the rest we can do at Palestine, and some at Bowling Green.
Jim
Also, yesterday I drove on some interesting roads. For one thing, for the first time I got the car a little sideways coming out of a very tight right hand downhill hairpin under moderate throttle ... well, it was moderate for this car which is to say moderate to heavy throttle normally. It was very controllable as far as I could tell but I only had it sideways for a short time and recovery was quick and not very eventful. Pretty typical MG stuff I'd say, so no real handling surprises there. No over-correction problems, it just pretty much straightened out and went. Slipped the inside tire and all that, nothing radical.
The other road was along the Ohio river where the roadway had slipped down and instead of going to a lot of trouble the road crews have for quite a few years now, simply paved over it. As you can imagine this makes for a lot of irregularities in the road, with different parts of it going in all different directions, and it is forever changing. It's a challenge for any suspension. It's not so much rough as it is up, down and sideways. The section is probably between 1/2 and 1 mile long 2 lane, and if you try to keep up any speed on it, the road tosses the car about rather wildly. I made pretty good time through there, only having a bit of trouble with one particularly nasty section that first tries to toss you off the side of the road and then into oncoming traffic while attempting to get you airborne at the front. I managed to keep in my lane while traveling at a good clip and the ride was not uncomfortable other than a slight pucker factor. I'm certain the oncoming driver was concerned, but the car handled it well. While the front suspension was at it's limits, the rear simply followed along without complaint, the big payoff for that massive 8" of suspension travel back there. Nothing grounded and I noticed no sudden jarring contact with bump stops. So far there have been no big surprises, for which I am grateful.
Jim
Jim, did the heater controls get there yet? Check the box; when you open it. In addition to the two controls, there should be a small zip-lock bag in there too. The little knob retaining spring & pin on one of them was a little loose so I put those parts in the bag but now I have a nagging feeling like I forgot to put the zip lock in the box. If it's not there, let me know & I'll find it in the shop & send it tomorrow.
It got here yesterday Rob, thanks. That should do the trick. I think these are the longer shafts, which should let us use the pointy knobs with the Racoon Factor shiny button on the end. No ziplock but we can use the spring and pin from the old one that slips.
The header gaskets came in too and the stainless band clamps are here so it should be no problem eliminating the exhaust leaks. The rear hatch does not seem to seal correctly. Water gets in and possibly exhaust as well. Some of you GT guys will need to address that. Larry Shimp, can you think of what the problem might be there?
Scott Costanza is planning to get here tomorrow about 9 or 10, weather permitting, and our main objective is to balance the driveshaft. If that goes quickly maybe we can fix the exhaust leak. We'll have the rear wheels off anyway, might as well pull the fronts at the same time. The heater controls are a little lower priority but we'll see. If anyone else shows we might get more done too. At this rate it may not be long before we are down to things like the speedo calibration and other fairly minor issues.
The big air pump came in but so far I'm not very thrilled with it. More testing required. But, pump up of the air ride isn't required very often and only takes a few seconds so it isn't a priority right now. Bleed off is at the level where a leak is extremely slow and therefore hard to find. I'd be tempted to say it's as good as it gets EXCEPT that the short plumbing on my car (3 fittings and a gauge, no bleed or fill) has held 115 lbs for 2 weeks now with no bleed off. That tells me it is possible. Just have to find the source of that last leak. The bleed valve maybe.
Looks like we'll be sending the car south at the end of the winter gathering so that it can be at the Blount County LBC meet in May. Details are in flux as to how that will be done but I'm confident we can work it out.
Jim
The local print shop is working up some ideas for the window graphics, I should know more in a few days.
Some progress on the commemorative shirts too. These will be a quality golf type shirt, red with black embroidered flames on the sleeves. The plan is to do silkscreen patches and sew them on. I will have the patches and a sample shirt at the winter gathering and the patches will be available separately. The shirts and patches will be at cost, a one time order, and prepaid only. I will front the money for the patches so we will have them to look at in Feb. They will be based on a fresh photo of the car.
JB
QuoteLooks like we'll be sending the car south at the end of the winter gathering so that it can be at the Blount County LBC meet in May. Details are in flux as to how that will be done but I'm confident we can work it out.
Jim,
I talked to Jim Watson yesterday. It's about 4 hours from here to your house, so coming up to get the car and bringing it down here would be a one-day trip. We could get it in time to enter it in the Street Rod show in Knoxville May 4-6, the weekend before our British Car Gathering May 11-13. It'll need to get from here to Texas for the following weekend, May 20-21. I'm not sure I'll be able to make the Texas meet, but if I do, I'll be driving my car so we'll still need a driver for the TN-TX leg. Jim is still undecided about the Texas meet.
Sounds good Dan. I've talked to Carl and a plan is afoot to send the car south at the conclusion of the winter gathering. The general idea is for Carl to find his way to S.Charleston and ride in with Dan, then take the car back to Johnson City and keep it there for a bit. Then possibly Steve DeGroat could run up and get it and keep it for awhile, with you guys taking it from Steve's place to yours in time to drive it a bit and take it to the meets there. Then we (Dan B, myself and my older son Dave) will be coming down +1, hopefully in convoy, and will have a driver for the car. We can switch off with other drivers the rest of the way down.
On the return leg we only need to extend the convoy up to the Wayland area to be able to get it to Detroit for the Power Tour. I know I said I'd get the car there, but that was in the absence of someone else being able to do it, and others who have helped with the car need to get to play with it. All we need is someone from that area who is also coming down +1. Steve and Marcia come to mind, or Ted and Judy, or Richard and Lorna, even Dave VanWyck and his wife or others. That leaves getting it over to Detroit, and driving it on the first leg across the peninsula, maybe Mike would like to do that.
Anyway that's the outline. Everyone has to agree to do their part for it to work but that doesn't seem like such a formidable obstacle.
Jim
Good news everyone.
The exhaust leaks are gone and the heater controls are fixed. The RH one could use a new cable and it is kinda stiff, but since you generally just put it to "Defrost" and leave it anyway it should be fine. It turns out that the short shaft knobs are kinds susceptible to stripping out. The long shaft ones are much stronger and those are the ones we were able to install, thanks to Rob and David.
Scott Costanza and Mike Maloney came over today and in no time we had the wheels off the car, the full exhaust system on the floor and the old heater control out. Then Scott took command of making the heater controls right while Mike and I replaced gaskets and fitted up those fancy stainless exhaust band clamps. But just so you don't think it was all fun-n-games, before we started Scott and I took a test drive out Hathaway Rd, and after we were done Mike and I did the same. It was a fairly long test drive, and hopefully those guys will be able to post their impressions. I dunno, I couldn't get them to stop grinning.
So there is more good news too. The car is a bit quieter also. And I really like those Walker band clamps. They worked great.
Jim
Jim,
It was a lot of fun, you and Edith are very hospitable...thank you!
First, pictures of the car really don't do it justice. You have to see it in the flesh to really appreciate the work that was done on it.
As far as driving impressions, the first thing that comes to mind is torque....there is a ton of it! Having so much torque available makes the car very easy to drive if you aren't in a hurry and just want to get from point A to B. It just happily rumbles along in any gear you feel like using. You can feel the difference in the ride with the independent rear suspension too. It's much smoother when compared to the stock suspension. I think it's going to be an excellent road car. It feels like you could spend a whole day on the open highway and be as comfortable as one can get in a B.
One thing we didn't do yesterday was go anywhere near full throttle...once familiar with the car it would be really fun to explore what 500 hp in a B would be like. :) I think we're going to hear some great stories as the car is driven more.
I'm still smiling!
Thanks for the opportunity to experience the Roadmaster Jim!
-- Scott
Jim, I mean where else can a guy go on a Saturday and enjoy a day of working on possibly the coolest mgb gt on the planet, having Edith as the perfect host, and to top it off enjoying your excellent vegetable/beef stew to complete the day! It honestly does not get any better than that!
I'm glad I was able to get that much anticipated "seat time" in the BA gt---it was a great experience--yes, the torque was unbelievable, and the power surely put us back in the seat, but my very FIRST impression when driving the car was the harmony of how everything worked in concert-- from the clutch action, the precise shifting and how the power went to the road. This was all testimony to the amount of thought and planning that went into the project!
Scott, enjoyed seeing and working with you and hopefully we can get together soon at Morettis for some pasta--incidentally, on the second run in the BA, we were able to do the full throttle thing a couple of times--this is an experinence not to be missed! It's one of those moments where you don't know whether to do a 'yee-hah"or crap your pants--soooo--I did both:-)
Jim, again thanks to you and Edith for making it a great day--btw--I had forgotten that I have some MG buddies from Cleveland (Jeff Fields and company) coming to my house tomorrow (Monday) for some wrenching and lieing so I may have to cancel out on removing the driveshaft that day--any day after Monday is fine, and I can take the ds back up to Dayton Clutch and Joint for balancing--please let me know--as I say any day other than Monday is good--
Mr. Maloney, how are we going to explain to Mr. Mike that we need another seat cover ?
Bill, I guess Mr. Mike M. will have to talk to the other Mr. Mike---you know, this is the part where I basically throw myself on the mercy of the court! :-)
perhaps this is a case of "EARNED CURB SERVICE"? squish? :) LOL!
Friday Mike Moloney came over and brought the driveshaft with him. It had been refurbished and balanced by Dayton Clutch and U-joint with new joints, a polishing job on the yoke, shortened 1/2" and rewelded and then balanced. Mike paid the charges on it, which I think ran about $130 which seemed reasonable to us. We painted it and while we waited for it to dry we applied the vinyl graphics to the windows. Bill Young is covering the cost of those, which was about $121. It came out looking quite good. I don't have any photos of it but Mike took some pictures with his phone and will probably post something soon. I also received a check from Jim Watson for $150 on T-shirt sales and that will bring us up to slightly over $250 in the account. Then we installed the drive-shaft and a short test drive indicated that the vibration issue was resolved.
We loaded the car on the trailer before Mike headed home braving the freezing rain on the way. Since we were headed due east and the storm was too, we skirted the edge of it all the way and had decent driving weather with just a little drizzle in spots. Got to Milton about 8:30, unloaded the trailer and parked the GT in the garage. Saturday morning after the WVBCC breakfast I briefed Dan on care and handling of the car and completed the turnover. He will be getting it to the WV Int'l auto show Wednesday and should be giving us some good feedback.
Jim
Made it home with no trouble Friday--Jim, glad you were able to outrun the precipitation on your trip to WV--here are the pictures of the vinyl graphics that Jim installed on Friday--I think they turned out really good, especially the way they aligned with the body stripes!
RoadMasterWindowTransfers1.jpg
RoadMasterWindowTransfers2.jpg
RoadMasterWindowTransfers3.jpg
RoadMasterWindowTransfers4.jpg
Should we start a new thread on "Driving the MGB Roadmaster" or just post impressions, etc. on here? I drove it to South Charleston this morning, to get ready for the big auto show. This show is patterned after the big Detroit show, and showcases all the new models and concept cars. In the past, they had a car corral or something of that sort with local hot rods and classic American cars. This year, due to a connection with one of the members of the WV British Car Club, they invited us to provide a few examples from our club members. That is how the Roadmaster got into the show, and it will be viewed by a lot of people who would not normally go to one of our typical venues, so that is pretty cool.
The first chance I had to drive the car finished was just a little spin when Jim had it up for our Christmas party, and it was late, dark and rainy. Well, this morning it was dark and rainy too. I am looking forward to driving it in the daylight and dry weather! Even with the wet pavement, it sticks to the road. I won't break the rear tires unless you want it to. Those tires and the IRS do a great job.
GT stands for Grand Touring, and that is what you can do with this car. It feels like a drive to Palestine will be no big deal for whoever draws that straw.
Thank you Dan. I think just posting here is appropriate because this thread is a sticky, and any other thread we start will drift down the list. We are all looking forward to your impressions and to hear about how things go at the show.
For all intents and purposes the build is finished, so this thread, in following the progress of the car as it always has, will doubtless morph into an account of its travels. Which is as it should be.
Jim
Drove it 30 miles west on I-64 to the farm in Milton last night. I had a new Hemi Charger driving up my tailpipe for a while, moved over and let him pass (i was doing about 80 according to GPS) and he got in front and slowed to wait on me. I punched it a little bit to let him know he didn't have a chance, then fell back in behind. Then another bright set of headlights appeared on my bumper. I eased the speed up a little (90) to get over in the slow lane and as soon as I did an unmarked police car blew by me. Glad he was in a hurry to get somewhere!
No events on the drive back to Charleston. There is a lot of cabin noise, i.e. air leaks, fuel pump. The speedo and tach are screwy. I haven't figured out the radip yet (haven't really tried to). I found out with the warm weather it starts pretty easily. I didn't even choke it at all yesterday evening. As soon as it is running the choke needs to go in!
If it took 100 hp. to go 100 mph., then it would take 800 hp.to go 200 mph.(without changing body height). That would truly be BadAssed. Good Luck, roverman.
The sound of that big block opening up must be awesome. That alone would cause most pretenders to back off. Can't wait to get another chance behind the wheel now that it's done. It was absolutely amazing in Indy and it wasn't close to being finished then.
I had a little issue with the trunk latch yesterday evening. Apparently this is a common occurrence on MGBs. Jim said he made a better part for his roadster. Perhaps a new product for MGBs from Blackwood Labs?
Main thing that part needs is a "double-D" punch to make the hole. Which I don't have. The punch is easy, the die, not so much. But it is true that it is a part we all need. Might be easier to laser cut it. Gary?
I'm just guessing that the cop was trying to track your speed the old fashioned way, since rapid speed changes confuse radar. Good thing you weren't at a steady speed for more than a second and a half, he'd of had you.
Bill, I put your check in the bank today. I also deposited a check from Jim Watson as a partial payment for the T-shirts he's sold so far. I think he still has a half dozen or so left if anyone wants one. Steve can verify it if he likes but we should have right at $250.
I'd like to find out what the cost is for the tires Terry put on the car but I keep forgetting to write down what they are. Maybe I can do that at the gathering if I can remember.
As far as the commemorative shirts go, it's up to Dan now to get us a usable photo for the patch. No pressure though...
And now,.... drum roll please,... how did the first day of the show (the load-in) go?
Jim
I got there yesterday morning about 10:30. We got the british cars craned into the civic center at about 8:30 PM, so there was a lot of waiting and watching the crane guys work. There are 51 cars around the hallway outside the main arena, which is where you walk in and go down stairs to sit nearer to the floor. We are right across from a concession stand, near the main entry so we should get a good bit of traffic. Why can't you use Mark's picture for the patch? I thought it would look pretty cool.
Well it certainly has attitude. Could you post a downsized version here for comment? Then if the guys like it I'll need a good high res copy of it to take to the print shop.
Jim
Sure, but first:
roadmasteroncrane1.jpg
Another shot:
roadmasteroncrane2.jpg
roadmasterinciviccenter.jpg
Roadmasterfront-2.jpg
Dan, for best display I think we'd probably want the hatch down and the hood up. That will also help save the battery.
Guys, let me know what you think of that last photo for a patch.
Jim
I just joined the National Street Rod Association. As soon as I get my membership number, I'll register the Roadmaster for the May 4-6 Nationals here in Knoxville. And my car too. Anyone else want to bring their Hot Rodded MG here as well? We could park as a group.
Now it does have the hatch down and the hood up. We only had the hatch open to get the towels to dry it off. Richard Reese's 4 cyl. B is now parked facing it, with its hood open as well, so you can see the difference.
Cool! That ought to make a real interesting contrast.
Jim
Need to let those front air bags down, some. The front end is too high.
Cool front end pic!
We did that too. I only raised it up to make the drive onto the crane ramp easier.
Has anyone though about starting a scrapbook of sorts on the life of Roadmaster?
Seeing it on the crane just made me think a little on the interesting journey that this car is starting on.
Not to mention the one that it just finished. (the build)
Most of our cars will never see what this one is going to experience.
I'm not very good at this sort of thing but I'd be willing to give it a try if there is an interest. Or if someone else wants to give it a go.
I'm thinking of letting it run for the year and then do up a few books to go with the car or for who ever wants one.
PM me and I'll give you my email address to send pics and ideas to.
Cheers
Fred
I think it would be great to have a scrapbook that starts with BADASS I and continues to BADASS II (the current car)...it could also serve as a logbook for the car now that it is on the road.
We could keep it in the car; present it at shows and events, etc.
Enthusiasts and John Q Public always enjoy thumbing through these books.
I would pay good money to have a copy.
Jim
I have most of the photos of the various incarnations published over the years and some I took myself from Port Washington through Townsend last year. It would be pretty easy to down load those to a CD and send to you if you wanted to incorporate those.
How about a Digital Photo Alblum for shows ? Need donations ? This is starting to look like the reward of those who gave so much. Enjoy, roverman.
Anybody know how to post a pic from an iPhone?
I don't know anything posting from an iPhone. Can you e-mail the pics? If that's easier, send them here and I'll upload them.
I've had a similar problem trying to post pics from my WebOS phone & tablet. The forum software seems to assume there's a PC file system when "browsing" for the pictures. Happens to me on several boards.
I emailed a few pictures to my self from this weekend:
roadmaster.jpg
photo-1.jpg
photo-2.jpg
Roadmaster Flies Again!!!!!!!
photo-3.jpg
photo-4.jpg
photo-5.jpg
Dan, thanks again for helping this happen. Great exposure for our project. I know that you put in more than a few hours to get the car ready and then in and out of the arena.
The director of the WV Motorsports Council told me the Roadmaster was the meanest car at the show. I think he meant of all the local classic cars (Chevys, Firebirds, Mustangs,etc.) because there was a $700,000 Ferrari on the main floor, along with a Maserati, a bunch of Porches, Audis, Jag, Aston, etc.
Sounds like an awesome show to kick off the MG Roadmaster U. S. Tour. Great job, Dan!
That crane picture is scary, though.
Nice Job, Dan!
RE: scrapbook. Good idea. For car show displays, etc., can we get one of those electronic things that do a constantly repeating digital sideshow? (Like Roverman suggested). Load it up with 200 images of the build, etc. (Maybe there's ones that can run on rechargeable batteries or such...)
The more the car can "speak for itself", the easier the life of its current "host" will be! (Otherwise, we all have to brush up on being Spokesperson!)
Where to next?
M
Next the car comes back to Florence for the winter gathering on the 25th (unless Dan has another appearance for it planned) so I'm guessing it will be here late on the 24th. It will be here for the weekend and then go with Carl down to Johnson City, then to Lugoff with Steve, then to Townsend for the Blount County meet and whatever else Dan M. has planned (the big Hot Rod run has been mentioned I think) and from there to Palestine. After that Bill Young is in charge of the schedule.
I think Carl and Steve have plans for day or weekend trips within their driving range Max, so I'm sure you can get one or the other of them to bring it up your way.
Jim
No more big plans for it here, slow season for car shows. Our local british car club meets Saturday the 18th, so maybe a riding/driving session there.
As you may be able to see from this pic I took with my phone, the speedo is reading at about 40 mph at 70 on the GPS. The tach also bounces around, then settles down. Fuel guage is typical MG, after it gets to a half a tank, start looking for gas.
70mph.jpg
Other observations at highway speed-- quite a bit of wind noise. Passenger door seems to be leaking. Also, when slowing you can hear some gear whine. Radio needs an antenna. I have probably run about 15 gallons of gas through it in around 200 miles.
I would also like to commend Max and his crew for the GREAT JOB on the interior, particularly the headliner. There was no better looking car at the WV International Car show!
Thanks, Dan. We're sorry you couldn't join us (but you'd have gotten the floor! :-) )
RE: Palestine. JIM-- can we make sure the Roadmaster gets pencilled in for a chunk of the Dyno time? We really need it dialed in before it goes bouncing around the country. $.02
To that end, can we send out an "all-call" for QuadraJet jets and needles and tubes and whatever else it has? Fibre said he just put in "the biggest I had".
Can you open up the carb and see where it's currently jetted at? If Dan has been getting ~ 14mpg we can't be too far off. (I mean, what did we THINK it was going to get cruising-- 16?)
We have plenty of power on tap-- I suggest tuning for economy (which, interestingly, is not that far off from power peak! :-) ) So, rather than 12.5 to 1, tune for 14 to 1. Also will be better in the hotter weather. (Though, if it's already pretty HOT in Palestine in May, go the other way--- tune closer to 12.5, so we'll be richer for the cooler weather....)
$.02
M
Max,
I hope when I have the car next, I can bring it up for you to see and maybe even get some dyno time.
Steve
Now don't be scarin the natives all of you that get to drive this car! I remember what you all told me about driving one of these cars too fast when I asked for some of those there I was stories......They now seem to be slipping out. I want to hear more.
lol!
It is rich. I hardly have to choke it to get it started when it is cold. It does seem to be running in nicely though.
Give these guys a call on recommendations on the Quadrajet: http://www.cliffshighperformance.com/
Steve:
Okay, when are we thinking?
I've ordered in a copy of Cliff's QuadraJet book (Thx, Jim Nichols!), but we'd still need to know what range so as to get a tuning kit.
JIM: have you written down your current timing settings, jet settings, etc.? I'd want to double check what I find versus what you have (Read: your timing gun vs. Mine) and also to have a record of where we were compared to where we end up on the dyno.
I'm expecting that top dyno numbers will NOT end up being driveable settings! (That whole idle timing issue, blah blah....) So, necessary to know what options in case we have to go back to a known setting that "worked".
Hopefully that's not the case, but best to be prepared. :-)
Cheers,
M
Max,
Don't know dates yet. Hopefully will find out something at the winter party. I have to get the car from Carl. Then take it to you and play with it.
steve
I have now added a gallon of coolant to the car. Also, the battery is weak. I did not drive it any over the weekend due to the cold and snow so when the weather was pretty yesterday it required a little help to start. I used my booster/charger. I have also added 2 quarts of oil during the time I have had it. Total miles driven are probably in the 300 range.
It's got a little pinhole in the surge tank, we should probably fix that, and it would be pretty easy to do that while it is here. How full did you go with it? 1/2 to 2/3 up in the tank is adequate, it needs to have a little air space. If the tank was down to 1/4 or 1/3 you could easily add a gallon.
I noticed that about the battery myself. We should probably put a new one in it.
Guess the oil usage hasn't really improved. We'll just have to keep an eye on that.
Jim
We had nice weather for the WVBCC meting this morning, and everyone who wanted to got to drive or ride in the Roadmaster. I mentioned the opportunity to donate, but nobody gave me any money. If I had T-shirts I could have sold a few.
Everyone was quite impressed! I also had an inquiry as to where you can get the headlights. Fred, could you post that information? I tried to find it in the thread, but I don't think it is there.
To give everybody an idea of the kind of acceleration this car has, yesterday evening I was rolling along at about 70 when a semi truck decided to pass the one in front of him going up a hill. So I slowed to about 60 behind him as he took the entire long grade on I-64 to pass the truck that was going probably 59. After he cleared the pass and pulled over, I dropped to 4th gear and punched it. As I passed the cab I glanced at the GPS which read 101. So it went from 60 to 100 in like 80 feet!! (well, a little more since we were moving but seriously!!!)
Great weather yesterday here, by the way.
BadAss is Passin ! This might be a proper sign for the pass side window ? Will it out-run radar/lol. Have safe fun, roverman.
So, you're all up at Jim's Winter Gathering! So....Post some pics!
Some thoughts in response to Blackwood(s) posts:
a) Oil consumption. If it ain't showing up on the floor, it's going out the tailpipe. We've had a couple instances of "unacceptable" oil consumption in new motors, and both times it was improperly installed compression rings! (Upside down, for instance.) I'm not saying tear the motor apart, but perhaps a dry and wet compression test for comparison?
a-2) If we are RICH, as Dan suggests, then this will affect the motors' ability to seal the rings (washing the oil down the sides). Perhaps time for a sniff of the oil and oil change to see how thin and fouled we are getting? 2 qts in 300 miles is pretty severe. One quart in 1000 is industry maximum, and most people complain about that! (Think of it-- that would be adding 3 qts during one 3000 mile oil change!)
b) The battery. Are we sure it's not those twin fans running on post-ignition? They are a hell of a draw (13A running). I would put a Smartcharger on the battery and see if it gets happy again. Then I'd consider putting a second sensing unit on the fans to stagger when they come on and go off. (Maybe one at 195F, etc.)
$.02
Have fun!
M
Too fine of hone for cast iron rings have trouble seating also. Find a long down hill grade and use engine compression to slow down. Might help to seat the rings.
I do hope someone errored on the slightly more expensive side and selected "moly" rings ? Blowby gage ? Good Luck, roverman.
After a good inspection of the car this Saturday it appears that the oil consumption is mainly leaking from the rear main seal area when the engine is running and being blown under the car and onto the road, Not much is actually dripping off when the car is idle it seems. The battery checked out at an 89% charge but I went ahead and put in a new one just in case and brought the old one home with me to check in my car. It's probaby running a little rich as the tail pipes are both a bit sooty, but it doesn't seem to be too bad and runs pretty good. Idles clean without and odor of being rich at that point.
We don't think it's burning much oil as there is almost no sign of blowby at the outlet of the PCV tube into the air cleaner.
Bill, Sometimes the back of intake leaks down and looks like the rear seal leaking also. On the small V6 I had a bad O ring on the distributor leaking.
Yeah, many years ago, I got a great deal on a S10 that was thought to have a rear main leaking. I was tickled to find it only was the distributor o-ring. Didn't have one so I used the old fashioned flat gasket.
Of course, the Buick distributor isn't in the back.
Bill, as its an MGB we should look upon the spray oil under the car from the rear seal as a positive not a negative.
I drove it back to WV yesterday afternoon. Beautiful afternoon for a drive too. Since the speedo it not calibrated, I can only guess at the gas mileage, but running it pretty easy most of the way it may have gotten as good as 18 mpg. But it is still getting about 100 miles per quart of oil. We put two in to fill it at Jim's before I left and I had to put two more in to fill it when I got gas in WV.
Carl and I found the calibration procedure for the speedo, but we are missing a piece required to do it. A small plug apparently connects to the speedo under the mounting bar. Attached to that plug are two wires with a calibration button connecting them. Does anybody have SW guages and the required part? It is not needed after the speedo is calibrated by driving a measured mile. It would be handy to know how fast you are actually going......
Hi all...just wanted to express my thanks for Jim Blackwoods hospitality this past weekend at the winter meeting.. Edith and Jim prepared some great soup and stew, and lots of other goodies to eat. I hope I have not missed anyone, but here is a list of those who attended:
Bill Young, Carl Floyd, Steve Degroat, Dan Blackwood, Kelly Stevenson, Dann Wade, Mike Maloney and of course Jim. Here are some cell phone pics of those in attendance. Sorry Kelly, you had just left when I arrived Saturday morning. Hope you are feeling better--but all was not lost, as Bill Young provided the curb service :-)
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More pics of winter meeting 2012
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Could be the rear of the intake, but the distributor o-ring is not going to be the problem on a Buick, as the distributor is up front. What I noticed was that there was oil inside the bell housing but not on the outside except at the very bottom edges. Could we be over filling the pan? Anyone check the calibration of the dipstick when we build the engine? Didn't think of that while I was there this weekend. Not a common thing to have to do, but since I usually modify the dipsticks on my cars and add oil coolers and accusump systems it's something that I do every time I change the oil system.
Bill, I know the Buick distributor is in front. Just mentioned the S-10 distributor because I thought it was the rear seal or intake in that case.
Personally, I don't think the bottom of the car is wet enough for all that oil to be running out. Wanna see what that looks like, crawl under mine. :)
1 Qt every 100 miles? Ouch!
You actually can hook up a pressure gauge (like a low pressure fuel gauge) to a PCV system to gauge how much blowby pressure is registering. (Don't laugh-- I've seen 7 psi!) I'm not experienced enough to tell you what readings would mean, but I should think <1 would be good news. (There is always a little blowby past the rings, that's how they seat. But tight motors only read 2% leakdown, so right there you can't read more than 2psi on the pressure gauge, and that's assume it all went out the gauge! Covers, seals, and sheer crankcase volume reduce the ability to hold pressure in the crankcase.)
Thanks for the pics, Mike! Must've been cold... cuz there was too much to do on the car for you all to be standing around with your hands in your pockets otherwise! :-)
Jim: what all did you get done? (READ: did we get an antennae hooked up, finally? :-) )
Cheers,
M
Max, there wasn't room for too many to work on it at a time and besides this was't supposed to be a Roadmaster work weekend, just sort of turned into one. We only addressed the problems that Dan had noticed with the suspension leaking down and a coolant leak. The front bag inspection was because Steve had one of his bags rub through and knew that we should check the Roadmaster for similar problems. Normal procedure for the testing period on a new product. Good idea about checking crankcase pressure, we could be forcing the oil out similar to what we found on Phillips RV8 race car. It was a bit chilly in the shop, around the low 50s down on the lower level, but quite comfortable up on top the office. That's where we all eventually settled for the last of the beer that day.
I hope we can get the oil useage figured out before the Power Tour, no one will want to follow us if we're spewing out oil like the Exxon Valdize.
Bill/Steve/Jim:
Is Bill now officially in charge?
How are we doing for Money?
Was there any "passing of the hat" at the Gathering?
Either way, is it worth doing an 'all call" to all us lurkers on the List here to generate the last bit of funds to get the car finished?
[I'm sure we'd do the same in Palestine, but wondering if we should wait that long?]
I happily throw in the first $20 and challenge everyone else here to do the same!
Where am I sending the cheque? :-)
Max
I'm good for $20.
No Max, I'm not in charge of anything except trying to facilitate the movement of the car to all the people who were part of the effort. There wasn't a passing of the hat this weekend. Don't know what the treasury balance is,. Steve can tell us that, but we didn't spend any money this weekend, I ponied up the cash for the battery and other parts myself. As I told Jim some weeks back, I wasn't able to give much support in the first few years, but now am a little better off with more disposable income so I'm glad to pitch in when needed. At this point it appears that the car is basically finished and the only expense we should have is just fuel and oil, althoug the later might get expensive if we can't find the cause of it's high consumption. Carl and Dan did figure out the cause of the speedometer being off and are working on getting the correct wiring to set it up. Still no antenna that I know of. At this point I'd say send any contributions to Steve DeGroat until we have a meeting in Palestine and elect a new treasurer.
Thanks to you and Rick, all donations will definitely go to the car and it's maintenance needs.
No antenna, but I did get a patch cord to hook an auxiliary device into that port. I was able use my new iPhone to access SiriusXM for the drive to and from Florence. Carl, you might want to bring an iPod or something. The CD player works well too.
No response from the list on the SW Speedo calibration plug/wires?
Stewart Warner is sending me the calibration button via UPS
Good work Dan. It may be rather difficult to get the bracket out of the way enough to install it. Worst case though the dashboard isn't really all that hard to unbolt.
Jim
Glad you found one. I looked all over the internet...no luck.
MG Roadmaster is alive & well in East Tennessee! Made the trip from South Charleston WV without incident. Didn't even run out of gas, even though I drove it for 10 miles with the fuel gauge on E. Took 13.2 gallons to fill it up. Only averaged 15.5 mpg cruising between 55 & 75mph. I'll check it again in the morning, but it looks like it is down a smidge over one quart for 225 miles. Hopefully, oil consumption is improving.
Carl and Mitchell picking the car up in West Virginia on Saturday 3-3-2012
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That is indeed good news, the mileage is reasonable for that engine and might improve a bit as the engine breakes in better and the oil consumption is really good news. We'll know more when Carl gets through with it. The next few months are going to be a blast for you guys I'm sure and we're also getting great PR for the project. Thanks to all who have volunteered their time to make this all happen.
We wondered if they came to your house. That's a good looking boy Carl's got there, isn't he?
Jim
He was quite impressed with the car too!
QuoteThat's a good looking boy Carl's got there, isn't he?
Yep, tho' he needs to grow the trademark Floyd 'stache.
Gets his looks from his momma...drives like his daddy. ;)
QuoteWe'll know more when Carl gets through with it.
Doubtful. I'm just trying not to break it. The car's got a busy schedule.
>Gets his looks from his momma...drives like his daddy. ;)
Pretty good combination I'd say. Probably better than the other way around anyway ;)
It ain't all THAT delicate. Have fun.
Jim
Guess I'll break the news and save Carl the trouble. Our first component broke today. Nothing major, no injuries and only minimal damage, the worst of which may have been to Carl's psyche. Anyway, the allthread holding the air cleaner broke. This should not come as a surprise, we had been really cranking that big nut down tight in order to keep things from moving around and the weight of that big casting got the best of it and broke it off right under the nut at the carb air horn. I think Carl should be able to get the end out without too much trouble as it was just finger tight before the nut was tightened. We talked about using either stainless or grade 8 allthread to replace it, and maybe finding some way to put a hairpin in the top of the post that keeps the air cleaner from turning for a safety. That would mean an access hole of some sort but I'm thinking it would be a good idea.
The big nut is gone of course. Maybe I can make another one from memory.
Jim
Jim you might consider finding a stud that would fit instead of all thread, even grade 8. I never thought about it before but one of my racing buddies described all thread as just a stack of stress points linked together and wouldn't consider using even grade 8 on any part of a race car. (I was going to bolt down the ballest weights with it) If we can't find a 1/4" stud then we could use a grade 8 bolt with the right length shank and cut the head off and thread the top part as needed.
+1 Few things are as cheesy as allthread. How about an Allen head bolt from the top?
Does the Roadmaster carry its own tool box? Seems like it should have one, because even very simple issues like this one require tools to remedy. I'll volunteer the first tool... an American made four-way (blade/Phillips) screwdriver with a British Racing Green handle.
Curtis, you really don't want to use a bolt for an air cleaner, too much wear on the threads in the carb body, better to use some sort of stud and a nut on top and leave the threads in the carb stationary. In addition that air cleaner needs a fairly large nut on top to give it a finished look, I'm sure the original fastener was a rather large Buick emblem of some sort. The nut that Jim machined for it was so neat, octagonal in shape, just the perfect touch. A shame it was lost.
Allthread is what, about grade 3 I think? Then there is the fact that it broke below the nut locking it to the air horn, which basically means the leverage from the air cleaner wobbling around is what broke it. This sort of failure is not unheard of. I do seem to remember having seen a sort of stud with an enlarged hex portion on the plain shank above the threads, and such a stud would be ideal but we don't have one, and the lengths of the ends would be fairly critical. I have a thought, if Carl gets the end out and can measure that for me I think I might be able to turn down a spare ARP head stud and cut some flats to tighten it. Then I'd just need the measurement to the air cleaner for the top part. Doing that I could even enlarge the shank a little where it goes through the air horn before it hits the threads. That would really make it a lot stronger. Then probably go for 5/16" on the top section.
Jim
Hey Jim,
"all thread" or "ready rod" as we Canucks call it comes in various grades up to grade 8.
They also offer connecting nuts that are aprox an inch long and through threaded internally.
A 1/4 to 5/16 adapter nut might solve the problem rather easily.
The ARP head bolt idea is probably the ideal fix but the ready rod fix can be done "in the field".
What about some sort of strap or strut down to the manifold to take some of the stress off of the stud?
Okay, pay up!
I had Carl would be the first one to break it! :-) (jk)
JIm: Was there a locknut at the top of the carb to hold the stud in? (Or no room?) This at least would mean the shank will snap one nuts height above the carb next time! :-)
There are some hi-tech inserts these days (*Time-Sert* comes to mind) that you could install IN the carb body to keep it from getting wallowed out.
Then I'm with Bill-- Grade 8 and lop the head off.
I was snapping double-ended studs on my rear sway bar with regularity-- each time I'd drill it out, install a cut Grd 8 bolt instead. Knock wood-- no problems, two years running. (All four ends now Grd 8, though the shank I've tapped into is still the original material.)
RE: Tool Kit. We looked into that while it was here, but didn't get the car finished enough to outfit it for the road. The plan was a travelling tool kit in a case (there is a decent Automotive one at Lowes of all places--- $70). Then a Dr's bag for the "specialty" tools, and then a webbing/pouch thing to hold the specific chemicals that the car needs. Also a small try of assorted hardware, maybe.
This way the touring drivers wouldn't have to worry about transporting their own tools (Cell phone would suffice!) and the kit would slowly evolve over time into whatever was necessary.
We also were going to start a "Log Book" with comments, events, etc. Looks like we have an entry! (Though, technically, all of Dan's driving should have been in there, too-- the events it went to, the mileage, the oil consumption, etc. You never know when an off-hand observation-- "I hear a little rattling under the hood"-- by one driver will lead to FACT by another: 'Okay, found that rattle-- the air cleaner nut must have been loose, 'cuz now it's GONE!"
(You get the idea.... Basically, you don't want to have to read through <this> whole Forum to find comments and build notes on the car. It needs to be WITH THE CAR for he who is currently driving it! :-) )
$.02
M
[qoute]There are some hi-tech inserts these days (*Time-Sert* comes to mind) that you could install IN the carb body to keep it from getting wallowed out. [/quote]
Too late. It's already wallowed out.
I removed what's left of the stud last night. I was surprised how much it would wiggle while still all the way down in the carb. I unscrewed about 1/2" of threads, then the last 1 1/2" of all thread pulled straight up & out without the need to turn it.
BTW, I didn't break it, it broke itself! I have been exceptionally careful with the tranny so I wouldn't be the one to break it.
Carl, I need dimensions. You say 1-1/2" inserted then 1/2" of threads, is this accurate enough for me to make the replacement that way? Do you have dial calipers? What is the diameter of the hole in the top of the air horn? For instance, will a 9/32" drill bit go in 1-1/2" deep? If so I can make a stepped stud with a hex that will not break. Then I need the distance from the air horn to the nut seat on the air cleaner and I think I can manage the rest. I have a piece I can make a new nut from. The sooner I have accurate dimensions the sooner I can make the new parts.
Jim
Re: Lowe's tools. Kobalt tools are made by Snap-On
I'll try to get those measurements Sunday.
Busy trying to fix the fuel leak today. We 'bout had a melt down. Y'all said it was running way too rich, but I smelled raw gas. Fuel was spurting out of the top of the fuel pressure regulator towards the header turndown. Has the fuel pressure been tested?
Tools....great idea. Maybe we should start with a spare tire, a jack, & a lug wrench. Or, at least, a can of fix-a-flat. ;)
Carl,
The part for the speedo came yesterday evening, UPS ground. I will mail it to you at Imperial Drive, OK?
That's fine. Surely US Mail in a padded envelope would be cheaper than UPS.
Carl, et al:
The Time Sert starts with an oversize drill that you tap for an oversize, threaded OD that itself holds the correct ID. So as long as the hole isn't wallowed out more than this drill size, it would still work. :-)
RE: fuel pressure. I don't ever remember getting far enough to check, but maybe Tim remembers differently? I did vacuum and timing checks, but that was it.
RE: Kobalt tools and Snap-On. I find that VERY hard to believe, Dan! Given Snap-On's reputation and pricing, IF they made it-- they'd put their name on it! (And charge 5x more!) Now, it might be same base company or supplier that Snap-On uses for it's "other" tools (Blue Point, etc.)
A set of Kobalt sockets is around $25. That same Snap-On set would be $198. I find it hard to reconcile that gap! :-) (That being said, I think Kobalt stuff is fine for a "hopefully-limited-usage", bang around the trunk, tool kit.)
Cheers! Hitting 79 degrees here on Wednesday! Hopefully Carl gets the same nice driving weather...
M
I highly doubt we need to do anything to repair the carb. The air horn is not a threaded part. The threads are in the body below it, and a half inch of thread engagement for a quarter inch bolt is about right for zinc. The allthread broke off BELOW the jam nut, meaning that a combination of too much tensile force and rocking the jam nut against the air horn overstressed and work fatigued it and the cracks that developed at the thread root eventually propagated far enough to let it snap off. To me the curious thing is that the big nut didn't stay attached to the air cleaner body but I guess the jam nut was small enough to go through the hole with the threaded rod. Even if it had for awhile, as the point sticking up the farthest it would have been the most scarred up by the road so we'd still be at the very least trying to clean it up. But between Dan and Carl I'm getting lots of good practice making 8 sided nuts ;-)
I'm with Bill though, I think we need to get a proper fastener back on it. running around with a bolt in the thing is a good way to wallow out the threads for real.
Jim
My store manager read through this Roadmaster thread and was truly impressed with the car as it exists today, considering what we started with in 2008.
He's a Corvette enthusiast from years ago.
OK brother Racoons, here we go again. New stud and Big Nut for the air cleaner. A little different this time but hopefully it'll work OK.
Jim
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The stud is made from heat treated 4140 alloy and the shank is .020" oversized. Should be plenty stout.
Amazing!
I would have loved to watch you make that.
Nice work, Jim.
May I make a suggestion? Run a nut up on the threaded portion that goes into the carb. After the shaft is threaded into the carb body, run the nut down tight against the carb. That way, if it should ever break again, most likely it will break above the nut, making it easier to back out the stub.
BTDT.
We tried that and it broke below the nut. This stud is designed so that the shoulder tightens down on top of the air horn (where the jam nut would normally be) and the oversized (.270") shank above the threads will be a close fit, making the assembly much stronger than the allthread we used before. I don't think this one will break. The heat treated chrome moly is very strong. We are also looking at alternate ways to secure the air cleaner and take some of the stress off the stud.
btw, any of you guys notice anything unusual about that stud?
Jim
Quote...any of you guys notice anything unusual about that stud?
Probably a cannabalized part from a BBB. (camshaft maybe?)
That would be a rather lumpy cam. :)
Looks great, Jim...you are and extremely talented individual.
Thanks guys. But if you look closely at the stud, there's something you're missing. Clue? Top photo should give it away.
Jim
Distributor shaft?
Ha!
Okay, this is where I usually draw the line. I'm cannibalizing parts from my 'was running' MG. Need a source for fuel pressure regulator diaphragm and spring.
We have $253.73 in the BADASS account.
Just to let everyone know.
Steve
Quoteany of you guys notice anything unusual about that stud?
Must have something to do with the hexagonal section that's smaller than the major diameter, eh?
Yes indeed. We have a winner! The "hex" is exactly what is different.
Jim
Hey, wait a minute! - since when did a "Hex' section have 8 sides .....(or are my eyes deceiving me)
Good eyes Graham, it is indeed an octaginal shape on the shaft.
Sent a check to Steve deGroat today to bump up the coffers a bit.
Octagonal? Just because octagons are really cool and go with the whole MG theme? I'm still missing something. Did you cut/grind that section, or was it a feature of some part that you re-worked?
It was made from materials I bought for the Jag IRS conversion. I had bought a 20 ft length of 5/8" 4140 HT and it wasn't available in TGP (turned, ground and polished) but I bought it anyway. When it came in it was a little egg shaped from the heat treatment so I couldn't use it and had to buy drill rod instead. So there was a fair amount of it left over and I've been occasionally using it for other things. It's very strong and tough, but a little hard to machine, although carbide tools help a lot. Since this is probably the same alloy that ARP uses to make studs it seemed like a good choice.
Several features make it much stronger. The allthread broke immediately below the jam nut Here the "jam nut" is a part of the stud itself and there is a smooth radius transitioning to the shank, which not only is unthreaded in the critical area, but is 10% oversized on the diameter, necking down just above the threads, which are buried well below the region of stress. The shoulder is a full 5/8" diameter, giving a 43% wider seating area than the hex jam nut for more stability side to side, which is the primary axis of vibration, and the shoulder is substantial enough to resist any deformation or flex, giving stability to the whole. This stud also clamps the carb top (air horn) to the carb body. Above the shoulder is a 7/16" octagon which fits either the open or box end of a 7/16" combination wrench, a rather neat feature as it withstands 33% more wrench torque from the box end than a hex nut. Above the octagon the stud for the Big Nut is 5/16" for added strength and stability, and uses a 24 pitch thread, consistent with MG practice and more easily tightened and loosened. The nut itself has a shank which matches the hole in the air cleaner, plus an o-ring on the shoulder to prevent loosening. The flats are cut concave with a 3" radius (6" cutter) providing a natural feel and good grip. Try it out at the BritishV8 meet, you'll see what I mean.
Jim
79% more BS in that post too. (BS = Blackwood Stuff)
Stephen
were do we send donations? to Jim?
Donations would typically go to Steve as the treasurer, but if you want to send them to me, the bank is just a few blocks away so it isn't any inconvenience to get them deposited.
Jim
Steve/Jim/Rick, et al:
Sent my checque to Jim.
Cuz... well... his address is right there. <----
:-)
M
Has Carl still got the car? Maybe he's too busy driving it to post....
Too busy coaching baseball & trying to rescue my data from my crashed computer (borrowed wife's laptop to post) so I can get my taxes finished.
Roadmaster is collecting dust in my garage while I find time to piddle with it. Jim's shiney new air cleaner parts are installed. Had to tweak the carb stud a smidge on my dad's drill press to achieve that Blackwood custom fit. I think the carb will fly off first, now. Also, installed a new spring & diaphram in the fuel pressure regulator. It no longer quirts gas towards the exhaust manifold. :) Haven't tackled the dash/speedo calibration, yet.
I guess I won't have time to do any more tweaking. Will be handing it off to Steve DeGroat Thursday evening.
Despite losing a freeze (core) plug last night, Max will sleep better knowing that the MG Roadmaster has been safely handed off to Steve Degroat today in rainy Asheville, NC.
How does THAT make me sleep better?!? :-) Besides, I already won my bet. :-) (At it's current rate, it's going to "break" something for probably the first half dozen people who get the car! I lucked out that Carl was early in the cue. :-) We're still in shakedown mode.... gonna be awhile of sorting before the car is trouble-free. $.02)
Any clue on the freeze plug? When did it occur? (Hammering hard down the highway or light cruising?) Was it weeping beforehand?
I mention only because a detonating ("pinging") engine is known to blow out freeze plugs.... (in a 4-cylinder B, usually the inaccessible one in the back!) WE see this all the time at the racetrack-- someone with just too much timing on the ragged edge.
I would presume Dale installed those freeze plugs? That makes me even more suspicious of WHY... :-/
Cheers,
M
Popped the plug Wednesday night. Wasn't hammering it hard, but I was leanin' on it a bit. ;) No pinging. My understanding from Steve is that that plug had been replaced since the rebuild due to cold storage in Illinois.
I've repaired the inaccessable one on my Dad's 63B. It was actually much easier than I thought it would be.
Update:
We now have a Spare tire and jack. The wheel will not fit the front, so if you have a front flat you get to change the rear tire first and then put the rear tire on the front. Spare is a 185/65/15. Started life as a donut spare for a chevy but the tire was rotted.
The air cleaner is now fixed and back on. Looks really good. It cost just what Carl donated.
I cannot install a steel freeze plug so it will have to live with the rubber one.
Steve
Another update:
Replaced the carb with a 750 Quadrojet with a big block calibration. It seems to run better and doesn't smell like unburned gas.
Hopefully mileage will be up.
The secondaries do not open all the way. Carl said it felt down on power and he was right. The new rod that holds the air cleaner in place stops the flappers from opening all the way. Maybe just 1/3 of the way.
I will try to get a new mpg check on it in the next few days.
Steve
Steve, would it be possible to spread the arms of the metering rod hanger enough that it will slip past the air cleaner rod? But then I guess that would make the rods hit somewhere else. Other than that all I can think to do would be to find a lathe and cut down the diameter a bit.
Such are the hazards of making parts remotely.
But regardless, I'm glad it's running better. The Buick guys say the big block likes the 850 QJ to really run the way it should, even with a stock cam.
Jim
Hey Jim,
What about filing or milling a couple of flats on the air cleaner rod?
Bending the rod hanger probably will result in the rods binding in the main body.
Qjets only came in 750 and 800 cfm sizes. Several methods were used to achieve the different flow ratings. They were further derated as required by secondary throttle opening angles and air flap stops. Fine tuning the secondary and air flap openings will get you up to the 800 cfm range. Removing the outer booster ring in the primarys will get another 50 cfm out of it, but at the expense of poorer fuel mileage.
At the power level that the roadmaster is at, the 750 is a good choice if set up well.
Cheers
Fred
I don't claim to know anything about that Fred. The guys on V8Buick, especially the BB guys, claim there is an 850 QJ that was used on the stock big block Buicks and that this is the one to use. They have the numbers and the specs, I do not. They are very insistent. I doubt you could convince them otherwise but if you like you're more than welcome to try. With all the millions of QJ's GM built, who knows what's really out there? I was just passing the info along and I have no dog in this hunt. I think if you're going to run a carb it makes sense to use the one that is the best possible match for the engine, these are the guys that presumably know what that is, they are at the top of their game, and I'd expect them to know. But personally, I greatly prefer EFI.
I do not believe cutting flats is the answer for the stud, as their orientation is dependent entirely on tightening torque and with a zinc body, crush can change the location. If Steve wants to send it back I can turn the boss down some though, to get clearance, if he can't find a local guy with a lathe of some sort. It's a simple 5 minute job or even less. I bet I could do it in 1 minute. Almost seems a shame to pay postage and risk loss just for that.
Jim
Jim,
I will get it turned down. Will that weaken it any?
I would hate to loose the air cleaner again.
Steve
Sorry Jim, I wasn't questioning your knowledge at all.
You were just passing along the info.
Some of these "experts" drive me crazy.
The facts are that there were no 850 quadrajets.
The only one that claims to be is the Edelbrock copy and it's air flow data is sketchy.
I won't try to convince these guy's otherwise, it would just hurt my brain.
Like you I much prefer EFI, even though I've been a custom carb builder since 1976.
Cheers
Fred
Steve, if you turn it down to the same size as the corners on a 1/4" hex nut (about a 1/2" dia I think) it will be fine.
Jim
The guys on V8Buick, especially the BB guys, claim there is an 850 QJ that was used on the stock big block Buicks and that this is the one to use. They have the numbers and the specs, I do not.
Ah, I think you're confusled, Jim.
The Quadrajet was available in nominal ratings of 750cfm ( 71 and earlier ) or 800cfm ( later ). Actual flow capability tends to be ~20-30 cfm below factory ratings in OEM configuration.
I don't ever remember anybody talking about an "850" Quadrajet.
http://www.teambuick.com/reference/library/75_chassis/files/6-e.pdf
The space between the hanger forks is 0.500" exactly.
The boss on the air horn is 0.425'' on its guide surface.
so the stud would need to be 0.425" or less.
The hanger only protrudes 0.100" @ max lift so even a couple of AN washers would get the job done.
Could be...
Why not just grind a flat spot on it?
'cause it might not tighten down the same next time.
Jim
I turned the rod down and now the flappers will open all the way.
steve
Steve/Jim/Carl:
Just to clarify, the secondaries not opening fully was a problem with the OLD carb that also carried over to the NEW carb-- yes?
M
No.
Max,
When the new rod holding the air cleaner on was installed the flappers would only open part way. Both carbs are Rochesters and there for the same. It is now fixed.
Latest MPG was 14.5 in all in town driving. This carb seems to help.
Steve
Are we running Premium in the Roadmaster, or will it run on 89?
It's 8:1 compression at best so it should run fine on anything.
Jim
Also, factor in the big cam probably has a fair amount of overlap and we are running aluminum heads.
I put Shell regular in it, 87 octane. I did not detect any ping. Also, added Valvoline VR1 20W/50 motor oil.
Bill, your extendable 1/2" drive ratchet showed up this week. I guess it was on backorder.
Regular gasoline will save us some expense! Good news!
I ran regular in it when I had it and it ran fine.
Among the Spurious there has been a little concern about Dan and I not being able to make the BritishV8 meet in Palestine next month and I just want to reassure everyone that we will be with you in spirit if not physically, and that we both look forward to the prospect of a cook-out at Mantell Motorsports this fall should that come about. I wrote a rather lengthy response to the Spurious and felt it would not be inappropriate to publish it here in a public forum, so for your consideration then, the text follows with some slight revisions:
As much as I appreciate the sensibilities expressed in this (email) message, as a matter of principle I think it is incumbent upon me to protest in some manner. All I did was provide some guidance and do a little work. I don't really see where that is so much different from anyone else who put time, effort and money into making this happen
It just happened that I was in a position to do what I could to help. And I opened my big mouth and stuck my foot in it. I know good and well that every one of you are more than capable of doing the same thing. Now as much as I'd enjoy hanging out with everyone for a few days, it won't be that long before we're gathering up in Sydney for a cook out and I'm sure to be there. As for kicking off the Roadmaster's world tour, I think we've done that already and I know none of you are any more set on a formal ceremony than I am, so I don't really see where my and Dan's presence or absence in TX is going to make that much difference.
Guys, we pretty much take what we can from life and do the best we can with what we get. If we can benefit our friends with that, then few things can be more worthwhile and personally satisfying. But our resources are limited so we sometimes have to make choices that limit our future options in some way. It doesn't make us a hardship case, it just means we looked at it and decided to go this way rather than that. By definition that means we accept the outcome. Now when we started BADASS, none of us really expected to spend five years building a car. None of us really expected to end up with something of this quality, and none of us really expected to do anything more than prove that it could be done. We have exceeded everyone's expectations by such a wide margin, that there is simply no way any of us could avoid being very proud of what we've done. And it was an honor and a privilege to be at the helm during that time. But like everyone else my resources are limited and I had to make choices. There are any number of ways I could have done things differently, but I made the choices that I felt were the best for everyone involved, and now some of those choices are bearing fruit. In this I am perfectly willing to accept that fruit in whatever form it takes, as I made these choices knowingly. There is good fruit and bad. The car is now on tour and is going to greatly increase our credibility in the automotive world. It may not elevate us to the level of Club Shelby, but to those who are willing to look, it will daze and amaze for what it is. Nobody is going to believe that this car is as good as it is until they get in and drive it, but word will get around. Just think for a minute about what we have created. A big block MGB that rides better than stock, handles as good and potentially better, has all of the legroom of the original, has every bit as much performance potential as a Shelby Cobra, but is a comfortable car to drive! And all of this in a 1969 car! Fellas. we have honestly and truly created what the ultimate MGB could have become back in the day, and this is a car that could have gone head-to-head with any racing machine of that period, and won.
For my part I am very thrilled to have had a hand in it, and am more than happy with my contribution, I am ecstatic. And let me tell you, that more than offsets the downside of missing a get together. It more than offsets turning the organization over to a new President. It more than offsets missing out on the Power Tour, and it more than offsets not being present at the Mitty. I am a patient man. I can wait for September or when we meet again. And when we do it will be all the sweeter for having seen how others have risen to the occasion to continue the good work that we have started. Five years ago nobody could have foreseen where we would be today, and three years down the road, none of us know where we will be then. I had a little insight on where we might be, based on the people who volunteered to help, and I have a little insight for the future that I'll be happy to share, but understand it can't pretend to be accurate.
My prediction is that this car will catch the imagination of a new generation of car enthusiasts that did not even know the car (MGB) existed. Provided we get a little credible press coverage, word will eventually filter through the automotive world of an ultra-performance retro machine that is everything we have come to expect in our conversion cars, yet can take on any of the big boys on their own turf. An inexpensive little machine that is comfortable and driver friendly but can romp on any production car out there. I predict that MGB sale prices will go up as a result, so maybe you might want to go ahead and grab that pristine example you've been eying, and that the value of your conversion will increase. I think it will draw new blood into our sport, helping to insure that MG and LBCs in general continue to have a place and not be lost to the dust bins of history. And I think that it will help restore the prestige of this once proud Marque in a world that has all but forgotten it.
For the most part Life is an evolutionary sport. These past five years have evolved in a singularly satisfying way for me, and I very much look forward to the next five. I'll be honest, it was fun taking a leadership role. I wouldn't mind doing it again sometime. But it is somewhat draining in many ways, and it is best that that particular burden of leadership be shared. And, as I mentioned earlier, we are at the limits of my own personal ability to lead into the future simply because I do not have the skills that are now needed. Because others do, it is now your responsibility to find the person best suited to take up the mantle of leadership for the coming year or whatever period you deem most suitable. Bill has stepped up to organize the rotation schedule and to my mind he is a very good candidate for leadership and so I endorse him as the man I would choose, but the choice is yours rather than mine and I would not presume to tell you what to decide. I'm very confident in the abilities and integrity of all of the members and know that a good choice will be made. And don't worry, you won't have to go forward without me. I will be there, it is just as much an honor to be counted among the rank and file of this fine group of individuals as to stand before them. We will all see each other again soon.
Jim
As a side note, the Roadmaster will be appearing at the Mitty the last weekend of this month, alongside the Grassroots Motorsports tent. Curtis will be there, and if there is any way possible for you to make it, you should definitely go by. I do not know what possibilities are available or what Curtis has planned, but if there is a chance of taking the car out for a lap around the course you should definitely take advantage of that.
Jim
The only problem I have with all this Jim, is not being able to meet you and Dan in person at Palestine Tx. Both of you have helped me with my own build more than you know, with support. It is harder to meet some of you eastern people in this group for us westerners (distance). I do understand your decisions on this matter. For that being said "Thank You" to the both of you.
Sometime down the near future would be awesome to meet up would be very nice!
Calvin & Brenda
Same. Gonna miss seeing you guys.
Right back at you guys. I would really love to see Rob's car finally, and especially to meet Calvin and see that car, being a TR guy myself. But there will be other years, other events, etc. Thanks for the kind words!
I've been a little slow getting to the bank, but contributions from Max, Rick, and Todd McCreary have now been deposited, adding a bit to the bank account.
Jim
Roadmaster left here today at about 12:30. It broke down last night on the way out of town and we brought it back to fix it. The starter fell out. One starter ear broke and the other bolt broke off. Got it all fixed taday and Curtis left. Hope her will have no more trouble.
Steve
Steve, did you use the old starter for a core? If not, hold on to it and we'll see if we can get a new nose for it. The unit itself is somewhat better than average quality, better gears and whatnot, and we can probably come up with a replacement nose, doesn't have to be new. That would give us a spare.
Jim
I'll post a full report on a new thread when I have time to do it with more care and thought... but I've got a two minutes and I've finally found free wifi here so I thought I'd give you an update.
RoadMaster is FANTASTIC!
The drive from South Carolina to Road Atlanta was a breeze. The car is running great. It stops traffic, and it's impossible to stop for gas without someone striking up a conversation.
Today Classic Motorsports did a pretty long photo shoot at about 9:30am. I let their reporter drive it (of course) to a spot with a nice forested background that he had scoped out in advance. It was a nice, damp, overcast morning, which is of course what you want for that kind of photography. Perfect! Passer-bys stopped to say how much they love the car. The reporter was obviously impressed by the car, and even called me back at about 3pm to arrange for more photos and a second interview. This time, we drove the car down to Jerry Richards' (MGB GT V8 racecar) paddock, where we removed a rear wheel and then a front wheel so the reporter could get photos of the suspension.
Between those two sessions, the RoadMaster was parked along the pedestrian-only vendor row! One of the vendors there had seen the car and we had struck up a conversation. He said he be delighted to have the car in front of his business. I listened in on conversations, and was impressed by how very positive everyone was. I talked to a few people, and one of them commented that he could tell a ton of passion had been well invested in this project. I couldn't sum things up better than that.
Gotta run now...
Curtis, Cool report for a cool car!
Thanks for the update! I've been wondering all day how it was going.
That's just fantastic Curtis. One thing I forgot to mention about the rear suspension, is that it was designed to allow a whopping 8 inches of wheel travel, one of the things that makes it ride nice. Sounds like you're having a good time there. Enjoy!
Jim
Excellent!
Mission accomplished!
The Roadmaster (and Curtis) arrived in my driveway about an hour ago, both safe and sound. Curtis still has a grin on his face.
More good news!
That was indeed a great weekend for the project. Great to get some enthusiastic press. Glad Curtis had a good time with the car. Any ideas yet on how we're going to get the car to Palestine next month since Jim and Dan can't make it? Lookiing for a volunteer in that part of the country guys.
Money report: BADASS has $375.57.
This is after the new starter and oil line Curtis and I installed.
Steve
The Roadmaster made a hit at the NSRA Nationals south today. That's Jim Watson on the far right. Jim drove the car to the show, and will be taking it to Texas for the V8 meet. Both it and my car drew a large crowd all day long.
BADASS-NSRA.jpg
That's fantastic news Dan! I hope you can make it too. Sounds to me like a real good recipe for a road trip if you and Jim can come down together.
I've been doing some analysis on the Roadmaster's suspension and thanks to the MG purists (see, they are useful for something after all) and to the guys on the irsforum, I have now determined that essentially, the roll axis inclination of the Roadmaster is maybe half what it is in the typical MGB. The purists explained to me that the front roll center is at ground level. The rear roll center is either at the axle centerline, or I suspect more accurately located at the intersection of a line from the front spring hanger mount to the rear shackle mount, where that line intersects the vertical plane of the axle. Without exact numbers that should be around 8 to 12 inches above the ground. We could calculate the angle easily enough using the car's wheelbase if we nailed down that number.
One of the IRSforum guys did a quick diagram of his Mustang conversion and came up with a roll center about 5 inches above the ground. I'm not sure how much he narrowed the Jag IRS but we only narrowed ours 5-1/4 inches so they should be pretty comparable. So the practical result is that by fitting the Jag IRS to the car we reduced the roll axis inclination to maybe half of what it was before and got the rear roll center closer to what the front is. I still haven't got it clear in my head exactly what the end result of this is yet. My impression is that it is a good thing, but I'm still struggling a little bit with why. It seems that the conventional wisdom is that it allows more weight transfer to the outside tire in a corner but I'm still not real clear on why this is a good thing.
But this is just a footnote. The BIG news is Jim Watson bringing the car to Palesteen. For those of you who do not remember, Jim has been helping the build efforts by selling Roadmaster T-shirts in the Townsend area and is an enthusiastic supporter.
Jim
Bob Bolles at Circle Track magazine has been gonzo about roll center for years. If you want to look at that more in depth you should check through his articles.
also, I think this month's Circle Track has a new shock / bump stop arrangement which is supposed to have significantly more consistent spring rate in the bump stop than traditional BBSS suspension setups. you might find that interesting.
http://www.circletrack.com/techarticles/front_roll_center_location_chassis_measurements/index.html
Maybe we can get Larry Shimp, to weigh-in on this ? I musta bin sleepin in my suspension design class, back in the day. VW bug used upper/lower trailing arms, in the front,(roll center at ground zero), to dynamically transfer weight at the front, to get some traction. How do you get a SLA front suspension to have the roll center at ground level ? And what about the CG acting upon the RC ? I haven't seen such a design,(sleeping) ? I was never good in geometry either/lol. roverman.
I'm finally home for a few days... and a moment ago I had occasion to actually look at the program from The Mitty. The official program was given out - free - to everyone who attended. It's a neat magazine-size, full-color deal. Guess what! Roadmaster appears on page 34. It's part of a photo essay titled "Famous Machines: The Mitty Again Attracts a Stacked Paddock". Here's a scan:
Mitty2012Program.jpg
QuoteBig-Block MGB GT
V6-powered MGBs? That's childs play. How about one powered by a 455-cubic-inch Buick V8? The genesis of this one took place in a Terre Haute bar in 2005, and the project was a group effort. The car is collectively owned by the British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society, a team that goes by the appropriate acronym: B.A.D.A.S.S.
I knew that was coming.
Tim Studdard and crew was impressed with the Roadmaster....hence it being given some "preferential" treatment and priviledges during the Mitty.
That's great!!
"The genesis of this one took place in a Terre Haute bar in 2005"
Seven years ago huh? My how time flies. How did we get from there to here on January 31st, 2007?
http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?120633-Engine-size-amp-weight&highlight=mgb+big+block
Then here where I stuck my foot in my mouth:
http://www.mgexperience.net/phorum/read.php?40,538455,538455#msg-538455
and here:
http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?126109-Big-Block-MGB
Not to be critical, and any press is good press, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't at that bar in '05. Not that my memory is the best mind you. I guess I should get used to it, I know I'm far too particular about the details. It's just that... I'd like to know who to thank for the idea.
Jim
I don't think I've ever been in a bar with Jim, prefered to just sit around the breakfast table in Rick's house to consume our beverages. And I was sort of there at the beginning as well, one of the first people to encourage Jim to venture forth on the project. Anyway, good article for the project.
Made an electrical upgrade today. The 30 amp fuse for the electrical fans blew twice last weekend, so Jim Watson and I added another relay circuit so we could split the two fans into two seperate 20 amp circuits. Should have no more problem with blown fuses. If one blows, the other will still work.
We also rerouted the electrical choke lead to make it a bit neater and to elminate the fuse tap.
I will be redrawing the electrical diagrams to reflect the actual installation, so I need to know what, if any, changes were made to the wiring from what was shown in the AAW manual. For instance, there are two in-line fuses under the hood that seem to lead to a small "black box" in the same area - what's that for and where does it connect? I assume the MSD boxes are wired per the MSD instructions, but I need to know the details, such as where power was taken from, etc.
Dan, I think maybe there is a wiring diagram in the pocket behind the passenger's seat, and I think I updated it with the ignition circuitry, not sure if the other stuff is in there or not. Max may have to help out on this.
Jim
Yep, there was plenty of encouraging going on (throw some more gas on the fire), especially over on the Buick V8 website. I like to think I helped a wee bit to kick Jim off the fence he was tettering on. ;)
Jim Blackwood Posted: April 06, 2007 11:05AM
It'll work, I swear to God! I just was eyeballing and measuring a 430 Buick engine and comparing it to my 215 install, and there is room! ........ *SOMEBODY* seriously needs to do this one. In fact I'd do it myself if I had a suitable car for it.
Carl Floyd Posted: April 06, 2007 11:02PM
I think you have a great idea, Jim. I would love to see this concept car happen.
To get the ball rolling, I have a spare T-5 to donate for this project.
Hey all:
Good news, all around! Glad Curtis had fun, and GREAT news that Jim Watson is going to the V8 meet AND bringing the Roadmaster to boot! Cool beans...
RE: Dan's (Masters) questions: those are the wiring bits for the HDI headlights (I presume-- rumour has it Jim moved them, so maybe I'm wrong here?). IF they have RED wires to inline 20A modern fuses, yes those are them. Because of them, Dan, only ONE of the U/W and U/R wires is used for the headlights as a system. (Others are cut back, taped off, up in the passenger area-- they could be spliced and put back into service for "normal" lights in the future if need be.)
There is also the compressor wired in, but that was moved too, I think. (There is the ONLY brown wire in the car-- or there was-- feeding power to it, and the dash switch is ground-switched. I think wire code is R/W and black/green(?) for the ground. Might be black/purple? Pretty sure Jim moved it to the back of the car, so codes are a moot point, likely.)
Tim Duhamel tried to keep track of the changes, but truthfully there weren't many. We didn't use any of the master power wires or remote... so those are bundled up extra in the passenger area. We did make a seperate dash harness with 3 plastic plugs so that the dash could be removed with limited unwiring.. It had some form of logic to it-- all the indicator bulb wires shared a plug, for instance...
Otherwise, it's as per diagram. :-) (3 of us did the damn thing in one weekend. No time to get fancy! :) )
RE: "a bar in Terra Haute in 2005". Uhm.... I think you can maybe blame that one on ME, Jim! While the car was here, *someone* (honestly, forget WHO...) asked a little about the car. I was NOT at Terre Haute, but knew the project had gotten off the ground there, so that was my "whimsical" way of explaining to the questioner how such a project comes about.... (At the time, seemed a simple enough explanation to appease him. I didn't think I was going to be QUOTED!)
So, yeah.... maybe My Bad on that one. The wording there is just eerily familiar! (Actually, I think I'd said it was a 'bar bet". :-p )
Cheers,
M
So,... what you're saying Max, if I read it right, is that like most great ideas it occurred almost simultaneously to many people in many places? The time was just ripe for it. And while that is doubtlessly true, yet it still remains that WE took the initiative and made it happen, "Just because we could." And in doing so we imprinted it with our own unique style.
Jim
It's just occurred to me what "MGB" is an acronym for. So blindingly obvious ...
Took the Roadmaster to the British Car Gathering in Townsend today. Got lots of interest. That's Carl Floyds car in the background.
Noted an interesting electrical glitch today: when the hazard switch is on, with the key off, the gauges come on and pulse with the blinkers - that should be fun to track down! Hope I can find time to trace the cause before it leaves here next weekend. If not, I'll get it when it gets back.
gathering.jpg
For a while now I've been trying to define an adequate description of the Road Master.
Seeing it beside Dans car brings to mind visions of a predator or a hunter. The car just seems so full. As if there is no room for anything else that won't facilitate a kill.
Dan's car is well thought out and elegant. The Road Master just wants to eat something and spit it out whole.
Two great cars that represent our hobby very well.
Cheers
Fred
They do make a gorgeous pair, don't they? Wouldn't it be great if we could get both of them together with Terry's GT for a photo op? Now that would be a picture worthy of any magazine spread.
Jim
There ya go Jim. Buick 215 example right behind the Buick 455 on the same show field. Yer welcome. ;)
QuoteThink about it, the MGB-V8 started with the smallest Buick V8 engine ever made. It just won't be complete until it has been done with the largest Buick V8 engine, now will it?
Absolutely! It makes a great comparison. Personally, I think Buick and MG should have teamed up to bring these cars to America. It would have made a tremendous difference for both of them.
Jim
I agree. Who needs/wants a Jensen Interceptor when you can have a MG Roadmaster?!
Did you get my PM, Jim?
Unfortunately, the Intercepter weighed approx double that of the Jensen Healey, although it "did" hold the world record of zero to 100 mph., for a while. I would truly like to see a mid-engine LBC-roadster. Maybe Fred with his soon to be 32 valve Loturover V8 ? Cheers, roverman.
I mentioned a suggestion to Jim about Roadmaster business cards the other week, and I thought perhaps I should reiterate with a few more details... In a nutshell, the idea is to have something tangible that can be handed out to enthusiasts who see Roadmaster at shows and events.
It's gotten very cost-effective to print color/photographic two-side business cards. $99 (shipping included) buys 2500 double-sided color cards.
Ref: http://www.colorprintingcentral.com/business-card-printing.html
Color photo of Roadmaster on one side. A brief statement, a few key specifications, and a web address on the other side, possibly leaving a little blank space where a note could be handwritten...
I'd be happy to do the graphic design and arrange the printing if someone else is interested in picking up the printing cost.
Further suggestions? Perhaps we should discuss it in Texas?
I think we should do it even if BADASS has to pick up the tab. In fact, as one of my final acts as Pres, I'll go ahead and authorize it. If someone wants to donate the cost, so much the better.
Jim
If we don't have anyone in the printing business I can probably get a discount through SnapFish. Will check while at the meet.
Brenda and I have found vistaprint.com to have resonable pricing for business cards, magnets etc. The shipping is fast, it keeps your file on the design you produce, can do both sides of a business card, use your own photos, glossy, what ever you want.
http://www.vistaprint.com/vp/ns/default.aspx?GP=5%2f20%2f2012+6%3a51%3a20+AM&GPS=2449458084&GNF=1&GPLSID=
Looks like a good time for my outgoing report as Founding President of BADASS. For those who didn't make it for one reason or another, you have our sympathies. You missed a really good meet. On Tuesday we got a little behind on the schedule and between the Autocross and the Dyno, I didn't get back to the meeting room in time to preside over the annual meeting. Neither did Carl, our VP, but luckily Steve DeGroat, our Treasurer was prepared to step in. Since I was not there I cannot report on the first part of the meeting except to say that we elected new officers and our Founding officers' resignations were accepted. Bill Young is now President of B.A.D.A.S.S., N LLC. Rob Ficalora is VP, and Bill Davidson is our new Treasurer. I do not know if they elected a Secretary. I have full confidence in these gents and complete faith in their ability to take us through the next cycle. (BTW, was a term length set? If not, that is something we might want to consider.) We also approved a motion to make all committees "standing" committees which will survive elections, meaning that if you are on a committee or the chair of one, your only recourse is to continue to serve, or resign. Or I guess a chair could call for an election. At any rate the point is that our committee members do not have to worry about their work being interrupted by the election cycle.
Immediately upon election Bill took the gavel (symbolically speaking) and conducted the meeting, maybe someone can fill in some more of the details.
Now back to the car, at the autocross it was driven by me, Matthew, Dan, and I'm not sure who else, but we thrashed it pretty soundly, (There are video clips.) finding that it does indeed suffer from a fair amount of body roll particularly in the rear, but that its handling is pretty neutral. Dan and Carl seemed to think it plows a bit (What car wouldn't on that gravel surface?) but my experience was that it went exactly where I pointed it at all times, if it was possible for any car to get through the gravel to the pavement to do it. Conclusion? Anti-roll bars would be helpful, but would probably have to be fitted at both ends to retain the handling balance as well as to reduce the roll tendency at the rear. Other than that the car exhibited extremely good control-ability, quite well beyond what we expected to see when the limits were exceeded, and recovery was often possible well after control should have been lost. So on the whole it is a pretty safe car. Carl thought I almost got one wheel off the ground at one point, but the car never felt unsafe at any time.
Now as for the dyno runs, it might be tempting to feel disappointed with the numbers, but when you consider our original goals there isn't any excuse for that, and in fact there is ample reason for satisfaction with a job well done. I'd be the first to admit that we allowed ourselves to get excited about possible theoretical results with numbers around 500/500 flying around, well, who would be able to resist that? But the reality is that those kind of results were never a part of our plan. Proving the car could be done in the first place was the goal, and numbers closer to a stock engine have always been more realistic. The only reason this engine might do better was because of some aftermarket parts, and we never had the budget to properly match those parts, but had to take what we were given or could buy dirt cheap. The results were entirely predictable, but we were too excited and blinded by big number fever to try to do that. So what were these predictable results? At the end of the session we had 275 rear wheel horsepower and 340 torque. Certainly not the power kings of the meet, but not far off the factory stock 350 flywheel horsepower. (Factory torque was 510 and that drop off can be attributed to our parts selection.) The real bright spot was the fact that our tune going in was only 12 hp and 0 torque below final, meaning we were within a couple degrees of optimal on the timing. Also on our last few pulls our air/fuel ratio was at 13.5, about as close as you could hope to get to ideal. So the jetting on the carb is also right on the money.
It has been suggested that a stock cam would be a good idea. I am entirely in agreement with that sentiment and the only reason we don't have one in the engine is because we didn't have the money to buy one when we assembled it. Regardless, the engine runs just fine, the car is a joy to drive as many who drove it during the meet will attest, and we can always change it out later so there is no hurry.
Our arrangements have been finalized to participate in the Power Tour and we can expect a lot of good publicity from that effort. Another wonderful development is that PJ Lenihan is going to join us and provide an extremely good service in occasionally being able to help us transport the car from place to place. So overall the future looks very bright.
Jim
The position of Secretary was eliminated....but Jim, you may be able to confirm that we can do this and stay compliant with the guidelines of the N-LLC requirements. (Illinois requires 3 officers("president", "secretary", and "treasurer", along with 3 additional directors...I'm not sure what Ohio/Kentucky requires). If we need to name a secretary to be compliant, so be it.
Bill Young, Rob Ficalora, and Bill Davidson are well qualified to keep BADASS coffers in the black and the car out in the public's eye.
I don't think we're required to have a secretary, might have to do some digging to find out.
Anyway, Jim Watson brought the car up today. he reports that it runs smoother and starts easier after the dyno tune. We put it in the Lab and after a short visit he headed for home.
I'm planning to change the oil and look at a few things before heading north for the power tour. Already replaced the lighter socket so your GPS will have power. The fuel pump may need some attention. I want to get a timing spec too for future tune ups. Have to call Mike Moore to coordinate the trip. More later.
Jim
What pump/pressure are we currently running and what are the symptoms experienced???
It is really noisy.
And it sometimes leaks for no known reason. Don't have a clue as to flow and pressure.
Jim
-I've got the car on the lift and the oil drained. Bought some Castrol 20w50 and will add a bottle of ZDDP.
-Also adjusted the rear shocks up 5 turns. After setting it back down I'll see if that brings it up to where it needs to be.
-The fuel pump leaks from the cover plate and/or bolts when it is running. Some disassembly required.
-The rear hubs appear to have about the right level of oil.
-Steve DeGroat will be pleased to hear I have found the mysterious rubbing on the right side. At full compression the u-joint yoke hits the side of the exhaust pipe. Hoping for an easy fix.
-The fan relay is not right and it is not the heat. I switched the car on for about 30 seconds to reposition it for the lift. The fan came on and stayed on until I pulled the relay. No clue why. We may just have to pull the relay every time we park it.
I talked to Mike Moor and left a voice mail for Mike Maloney. Looks like we're set.
Back to work.
Jim
The fuel pump cover gasket is bad. It is rubber and I can't get another one in time so I'm going to slap in one of these generic pumps I have on the recycled parts shelf and hope for the best. Don't know if it'll meet the demands of this motor, but it's the best I can do on short notice unless someone has a better idea.
Jim
Think we'll be OK on the pump, but I can put an identical spare in the boot, I think. Got gas, the car runs very smooth. Air cleaner is a pain and needs work. Oil pressure is VERY good. 20w50 summer, 10w40 winter I think.
Need more turns on the springs, probably 5 more. Yes it sagged that much. 300 lb hypercoils, you be the judge. Could have used some help. Should be leaving tomorrow mid-afternoon.
Jim
Quote: The fan came on and stayed on until I pulled the relay. No clue why. We may just have to pull the relay every time we park it.
Try another relay. I had one where the trigger pin slid up some. So when it made contact it was on the lead instead of the contact. Net, after a few months of triggering it finally fused in the triggered position. Fried my passenger door solenoid. Only way I knew was when I saw smoke coming off the relay - luckily I was there when it happened.
Thanks. Installed another relay. One pin was pushed in some. Test it tomorrow. Adjusted springs again, should be good.Need to reattach map pocket and make a new hood pin then tweak the air cleaner some. The car is pretty much ready. Oh, guess I should check the timing too. Hope I don't run out of time.
Jim
Ps: those may be 350 or possibly even 375 lb springs. Pretty sure they aren't 300.
You might try this spring rate calculator (or I'll do the calcs while I have the car after the PowerTour). http://www.hypercoils.com/spring-rate-calculator/
I came to the conclusion my springs were too soft during BV8. Used that calculator & separately called QA1. The two came up with the same spring rate recommendation so I'm guessing the calculator is a pretty good guide.. Hardest part is estimating sprung vs. un-sprung weight - unless the parts were weighed before installing the IRS.
Biggest thing is wheel and tire weight. I am pretty sure the component weights are in this thread and/or the 340 thread including those but it will take some searching.
Jim
Not a bad relay.
Started the car this morning to move it. Didn't even get warm enough to come off the fast idle. Only moved it 30 ft.
Radiator fan came on and stayed on until I pulled the relay. Switching relays does not help.
There was a delay before it turned on. The other fan did not run.
I guess we'll just have to run on one fan.
Jim
Jim,
Did you try adjusting the temp switch? Try adjusting it down to see if the other fan works. Maybe the other fan has blown a fuse and the temp switch is set too low. Both fans are triggered by the same wire from the temp switch.
When Jim and I wired in the new relay, we tested the circuit and it worked fine. It's hard to imagine any way the wiring could have changed in the meantime.
Dan, we replaced the cigar lighter fuse and then the fan started behaving itself. I 'm not sure why that makes sense but it seems to work.
Jim
Just a few quick notes on the Hot Rod Power Tour, more later from my laptop. Mike and I had great success the first day as did Rick and Pete today. We hope to get some good press as Mike Finnegan from Hot Rod took photos of the car yesterday and got contact info for a follow up. There are also rumors of TV coverage at some point but maybe Rick has some info on that. Apparently he has had an offer for a set of tires as well. Also some speculation about some newspaper coverage is in the wind..
Now none of these things has actually produced any real publicity yet, but they certainly are fantastic prospects and for that we should be thankful. As we continue along this pathway perhaps a healthy and friendly competitionwill develop between us to see who can find the latest publicity or promotion. We have certainly gotten the ball rolling in a very good way.
The car is performing well and is getting decent mileage, though still going through some oil so we must watch that very closely. It is now a proven crowd pleaser. We could easily spend all of our time just answering questions about it.
It has been a big crowd. Our registration number is over 2000 and Mike's number for his car was over 6000 so it is easy to get lost in the crowd. But folks are talking about the MG with the 455 Buick, and as the tour goes on we will become more well known. Our drivers are doing a fine job of representing us to the public andthe media and we have every prospect of reaching our publicity goals. I can't think of a single thing we could have done that could have given us this much good coverage. Kudos to our President, Bill Young for making this happen! There can be no doubt that we elected the right man for the job.
Jim
We did not find Mike Finnegan yesteday, but will look for him today.
Pete had interaction with a reporter from England who is sending information across the pond for several publications, including "Octane" magazine.
My TV crew from the local CBS affiliate did not find the Roadmaster, but there was coverage regarding the tour broadcast. We'll see what happens in Saint Louis.
It is important that we all remember that we are Good Will Ambassadors for the Roadmaster and conduct ourselves as such whenever driving the Roadmaster or interacting with the public (or our peers). This includes road rage, etc.
Well said Pete and Jim. We will do all in our power to represent the organization well and have a great time doing it as well. Bringing the camera and laptop so should have some photos from this afternoon in Madison as well as on the road to Stillwater in the next couple of days.
Link to the Hot Rod Power Tour thread.
http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?2,31861
On the oil consumption, we have speculated that it could be caused by the pcv and this seems likely as there is no baffle and the valve plugs directly into the intake lifter valley cover. Most likely there is a fair bit of oil being slung around in that area so we should try to rig a stand pipe and oil separator there and plug the pcv valve into the top of it. Something along the lines of a small can stuffed with steel wool should work.
We have seen at least two instances lately where proper venting has drastically reduced oil consumption and the symptoms point to a pcv problem. I followed the car for several hundred miles. Only twice did I ever see a blue puff and it alternated from one pipe and then from the other. It also never smelled like oil when following. There did not seem to be any evidence of an oil film on Mike's car either, and much of the time I Followed pretty close.
Jim
It left very little oil on my garage floor compared to my own MG.
I had about five spots, one inch in diameter each, on the driveway under the car on Tuesday morning after having parked it on Monday evening.
About the same experience during the past couple of days for Bill Davidson and myself. Noticed a few puffs of smoke on shifts, but overall no blue smoke on the road and no oil spots on Bill's car after following the Roadmaster for nearly 500 miles. Who knows where the oil is going since our oil consumption was still about a quart every 150 miles.
At this point I think we have to say we are burning it. The real question is why. Rings, lntake valve seals, or PCV. The engine was properly assembled so the PCV is the most likely cause. I think we need to try an oil separator in the PCV line.
Jim
Mr. Gasket,Proform and Transdapt make universal breather look seperators for PCV Valves. Here's a couple of pics:
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27855ca4e9abcd02d6fcc8b010d70320.jpg
I posted the good news in the Power Tour thread; thought I'd share the "after party" info here... Took my younger son to church this morning to show off the car some to his friends there -- Jr. High kids were leaving on a beach week trip... Stopped for gas on the way home & when I restarted the car, the starter broke off again. Ear broke off the starter & the long bolt sheared off so I'll have to get the remains out. Was going to tie the wires together, tape them up, and push start to get it home, but seems like when the starter broke off & fell it took out one of the air bag lines with it -- which let all the air out. We heard the hissing & the frame around the radiator being only about 3/4" to 1" off the ground confirmed it. Compressor pumping doesn't bring it up any & I hear some air -- can't see anything with the car that low. So, I decided the ride of shame was a better option.
I'll get it up on some jack stands this evening & will work on getting the bolt out, starter fixed & reinstalled & air bag line fixed during the week. Jim - I'll PM you -- hoping you have some of the hose & connectors left over for the air bags.
Apparently I missed it somewhere earlier in this thread, but sounds like we need to figure out how to adjust the ignition control box retartd the timing during start up. I'll see what I can do to get a manual from MSD. Otherwise we're going to go through starters at way too fast a clip!
I think there is a manual for the timing controller in the map pocket behind the seat. I will send a bundle of tubing and the extra can stay with the car. Guess it'll be Monday before it goes out though. Steve D used a tubing kit for air shocks from Advance, if you need it quicker.
Jim
Since the engine only has 6 degrees advance, I don't htink further retarding is going to help.
That started just does not fit the bell housing at all. Maybe it needs a strap on the other end of the starter to the block.
Right now all the torque to start the engine taken by the bolts. Or we need a different starter.
Steve
I deeply regret that I didn't take some snapshots of that starter installation when I had a chance, because they'd be so helpful now. As I recall, this starter has a nose just like any other but there's no corresponding hole in the block or bellhousing for it to mate with. (Sad, lonely starter nose...) I'm wondering if a piece of billet couldn't be machined to support the nose. Could a billet nose-support be TIG welded to the bellhousing?
Before I order parts, what are the chances a mini starter designed for the motor will fit? They all seem to look like this one
What do you guys who've been under the car think?
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Well, the original starter that we got from Newport Start-n-Charge was a mini starter specifically built for Buick big and small block engines and the cases of broken starter noses on those all resulted from kickback while cranking to start. Our engine still occasionally kicks back when starting. So, until we fix that we will be buying starters frome time to time. But the timing computer should let us do that, and a strap should help.
As for what starter to buy, I think what is available is what we had and what Steve bought. I don't see any point in putting a $300 starter on it. If we don't deal with the root cause it will just snap the bolts off that one too. That's my opinion.
Jim
Jim, I haven't been under the car yet, but I'm hearing two different things... One is the backfire on warm restarts. The second is apparently at least the starter that was last on the car wasn't designed for a big block Buick. While I'm not planning to spend $300, I can get one similar to the one pictured for the same price as CarQuest sells the one that was on it. But if it doesn't it's wasted time. That's why I was asking. Either was I still plan to figure out how to use the MSD box to address the timing during start up. I just cant make progress on that till I have a starter.
I can't speak to what starter Steve and Curtis put on the car. I do think it was a generic GM mini and I'm not sure there really is any distinction between big block and small block. If it was the part number the V8Buick guys gave us it is one that is nearly as popular as Jamie's starter that we started out with and probably somewhere around $50 or so less. Just guessing. Jamie's starters are considered by Buick enthusiasts to be about the best you can get, and Jamie said he would send us a new nose, but by then it was a core. If we were going to something different from the generic (which worked just fine until it broke) that is pretty much your choice but I would certainly try to put a substantial strap on the loose end in either case.
Jim
The part number that was on it last is CarQuest 6470S which cross references to '95 & newer chevy, Pontiac, and Buick 350's. What was the PN the BuickV8 guys recommended?
I don't recall, but it would have been the same P/N for the BBB (455) as for the SBB (350). The same starter bolts up exactly the same way on both blocks.
Jim
What would GM do?
This engine was used for years in cars sold to the general public..without failures.....we've not done that much to the engine that would precipitate all of these starter failures.
Do we have a clearance problem along the frame rail where a stock starter would not work?
Have we changed the bellhousing?
How does our application differ from stock?
I think all it really needs is the rear strap. The leverage between there, the bolts, and the gear is about 6:1 so a small strap will make the gear very rigid. That will prevent the gear from rocking the starter on the mounting bolts and that in turn will prevent bolt stretch and fracture of the nose casting. The key is to make the strap rigid in compression, as that will be the direction of force as the gears push apart from each other, with the bolts acting as a pivot.
Jim
Rick,
The stack starter will not fit. That's why use a mini starter. This starter is not made for the BB. I think we need to try a real BB mini starter.
Steve
I was doing an online search and found this....which is something COMPLETELY different. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O32TUQgCyxs
*deep breath*
Now to stir the pot a little.... :-/
I understand that "Rob has it, Rob broke it, Rob fixes it".
BUT... it's a known existing problem that has happened before. And Rob can either win the argument that it was fixed poorly before, OR more likely that it's just poorly engineered and was destined to break. (Anyone who has read Carrol Smith's hardware book will back this up-- proper engineering DOESN'T break hardware!)
So... this seems a "safe" (and relatively inexpensive?) example to use.
JUST 'cuz "Rob" has the car, why should he have to pay for what was an Inevitable repair?
Or, are we falling back on the Russian Roulette idea that this was part of the risk he took in accepting the car in the first place-- that the car was destined to break, he was just the unfortunate who had it happen?
(This implies SOMEONE was going to have to pay for a new starter-- Yet Again!-- it just happened to be Rob.)
BILL (New Pres Extraordinaire): I reiterate that this project needs to come up with a working means of supporting itself and then a MAINTENANCE budget. (Or, in this case, a Re-Engineering budget!) I have yet to read of a "repair" that seems the blame of the operator-- more of them still seem to be teething issues, and the operators have been kind enough to pay to fix them.
But, the randomness of the occurrences seems to indicate that one person has to pay for a stripped thread while others are coughing up for starters!
I'm concerned that at some point something major will break-- or if not major, prohibitively expensive-- and the operator will rightly be able to say: "Hey, this wasn't Me".
And THEN how does it get fixed? Otherwise, are we relying on the Racer's Contract which states, very simply, that everytime someone gets into a racecar they have AGREED TO BUY IT FOR "x" dollars?
Maybe a solution, then, is to set up what the financial liability of the Roadmaster is? "Any operator will be expect to fix the car with repairs upto "x"dollars."
[If you make it too much, no one will want to drive the car!]
Then after that, Major repairs would be handled by the group at a work session, etc. Carl has long expressed his concern over the tranny and that is another good example of something that is potentially abused by previous users... and then breaks on the *next* one!
(And that isn't a "cheap" repair!)
$.02
M
I don't think that's stiring the pot Max - it's good discussion that we need to have along with a few other topics like cataloging parts & better documenting the mission of the group.. I hope prez extraordinaire Bill will agree.
That said, I don't mind paying for the starter this time. Cash has been tight around our house so I haven't donated to the Roadmaster (or to Curtis to help keep this site operating) in quite a while & I've felt like I needed to correct that for some time. Now, if the tranny went out, I wouldn't be shelling out to rebuild it and would need a group work weekend to get help or the car would be laid up for a looooong while simply due to time availability.
I got my garage cleaned up enough to get the car in last night & will be looking at it today. If it looks like fabricating a strap or brace will fix it I'm game for that. I also read on a few Buick boards that there are several mini starters and there was one that supposedly has a good bit more torque that several people said fixed their hot start backfires... No PN though - it was being sold by site members & the posts were all several years old (like 2006). I tried contacting two of the sellers but haven't heard back yet. I'm currently hoping the combination of getting the highest torque starter (in the same series/price range as what was on it) + adding a brace + using the MSD box to regard timing during start up will be a good answer. There are gear reduction mini starters designed for the 455 but they run about $250 & would have to be ordered by my local parts shops - paid in advance & non-refundable if it doesn't fit so I'm not going that route. But, if the above doesn't look like a good answer I will check Summit & Jegs to see if they'll allow returns if it doesn't fit.
On another note related to developing an operating budget, a friend of mine from work just took a new job as CIO at AutoZone. I sent him a mail last night to see if they have any sort of marketing or advertising programs that we might be able to take advantage of. A few sponsors like that would go a long way I'd think. I also think that if[/u] the plan is to sell the car and donate the proceeds to charity as was discussed some time back, getting sponsors will be easier than if it appears we're just doing this for ourselves. Another topic for this year's administration to at least begin to put some structure to...
I don't think anyone has implied or expressed that Rob is financially responsible for the repair/replacement of the starter.
It didn't break because of his misuse/abuse of the Roadmaster.
I agree....we need to come up with funds for maintenence....and insurance....for the Roadmaster.
FWIW - YOMV
Rick:
I didn't imply at all-- I just out and out assumed! :-)
M
Off topic... but Max, you and Emily certainly were missed in Palestine. Hope to see you next year!
Curtis:
Yes, thx. We felt the absence, believe Me. We are already scouting out the trip to Nebraska, though, so hopefully this was a one-time deal! :-)
M
When the starter broke when Curtis ( and I) had the car, I never even thought about buying the starter. Roadmaster paid for it. I guess it helped that I was Treas. at the time. Rob should NOT have to buy the starter in my opinion
It is a problem with the car that needs to be worked out.
Steve
Quick update - car is up on jack stands. Found where the air line got cut. Cut out the piece; just need to pick up some connectors to splice in a replacement piece -- assuming it can be spliced. Anyone know if there's a way to put a valve in that wouldn't let air out unless the button is pushed? With how low the front end goes when it looses air the box section under the radiator is only about 3/4" above the ground & the tires hardly turn at all before they rub pretty hard. Seems like it'd be safer if we had a valve that'd hold the air unless it was energized -- if such a thing exists.
On the starter, the long bolt was broken off about 5/8" below the block surface. It came out without too much difficulty but since my wife came out to the garage to see when I'd be done -- while I was on my back working on it w/the front of the car up on jack stands -- I did use the opportunity to comment on how much faster these things would be if we had a lift -- she just gave me that look only women know how to do but I'll keep watering that seed ;).
Haven't ordered a replacement starter yet. Trying to reach a guy named Jamie on the V8Buick board - seems like everyone raves about the one he sells -- several people commenting it has enough eough torque to resolve hot start backfires & price seems about the same as CarQuest for the one we had.
Also read up on the MSD timing control box. It has 3 adjustments -- initial advance, RPM, & slope.
Initial Timing: This adjusts the timing setting where the engine idles. This amount can be adjusted 20° from where the mechanical timing is set. To adjust the initial timing, turn the control pot counterclockwise. It will retard the timing up to 20° from the mechanical timing.
RPM: This is the rpm point in which the advance will begin. To set this, accelerate the engine to the rpm point that you want the
advance to start. Turn the RPM control pot counterclockwise until the timing begins to change.
Slope: This is the point where the timing advances to the mechanical timing again. To set this, rev the engine up to the rpm point that the timing should be completely in at. Turn the Slope control pot counterclockwise until the timing begins to change.
Based on that, it's not intuitive how we can use it to retard timing during cranking. But, in a document I found on Jegs web site, there's this extra note that I didn't see in the instructions for the box that were in the car... it simply reads "When 12 volts is present on the Violet wire, the timing will be retarded 20° during cranking." Not sure if our box has that wire or not, but will check. With 5* advance currently, that would mean 15* after TDC during cranking.
Hey that title, "Prez Extraordinaire Bill" sounds pretty good for the old lumberjack!
Prez Extraordinair Billl does agree, we have enough money in the treasury according to our new Chancellor of the Exchequer Bill Davidson for a starter. This is exactly the type of routing maintenance item that the group woiuld pay for. Now if someone dropts the clutch and blows the transmission that's another matter, abuse the car and you should pay. But normal wear and tear items such as this will be provided. We have $575 in the account at this time so Rob let Bill Davidson or myself know what the bill is and we'll reimburse you or even send you a check up front if you want.
Jamie McClinton, Neuport Start-N-Charge. Look on the vendor list on the back window, his number should be there. He will very likely give us some sort of a discount. You can mention my name if you like.
It would be good form to tell him that his name is on the car.
Jim
To all our Roadmaster group. We overlooked passing the hat at this year's meet in Texas, but we need to ask for some more donations. We need to build up some reserve funds for repairs such as the starter and also to pay our insurance bill when it comes due. I'd also hope that we could help PJ defray his costs a bit when he picks up the car in Texas and drives it back to Ohio next month. I'm going to kick in $100 for my part, but we'll take anything you folks can give of course. We currently have around $575 in the account, would like to see that doubled by mid July if possible.
This will be an on going project even after the initial build, we'll need maintenance and we have already identified a few problems we'd like to work on over the winter. Hope we can get the oil usage under control as well as some tuning issues to aid in upping the gas mileage. You can contact our esteemed treasurer Bill Davidson on where to send your money.
On the plus side, Rick has secured the promise of a new set of tires when we need those from his contacts in Illinois so that major expense is taken care of.
I sold three of the T-shirts to WV British Car Club members at our meeting on Saturday. I passed the remaining shirts and the $60 I collected back to Jim so he could send it on to Bill. There are a few shirts left, mostly Large and I think one Medium.
Perhaps Mike Maloney can sell them when the car is in Grand Rapids, MI for the UML Summer Party?
Talked with Jamie - $180 including shipping (incl. minor discount of $5) for the starter. Starter we had on it, which cross references to a Buick & Chevy 350 is $181 (incl. tax) from CarQuest so Jamie's is competitive & seems to be what the V8Buick guys like. I checked a few on-line sources to see if I could get just a replacement nose cone - no luck there. Plenty of normal wear parts, but none of the castings. So, unless someone has a better idea, I'm going to order from Jamie later today. Hopefully the MSD box will let me set it up to retartd the timing during start up & we'll have this hot start & related starter problem behind us. Oh, I'm also going to fabricate a brace for the back end of the starter too.
How's this for timing... I just got a reply to one of my requests from a couple of days ago... $24.40ea for replacement nose cones for the CarQuest 6407S. For records, the nose cone is Delco 51-1103 and now that I know the PN it appears to be readily available from multiple sources for about the same price.
Sounds like that's the way to go -- maybe even get two of them so we'll have a spare. Thoughts?
Sounds outstanding Rob. The new nose cone and a brace should solve our problems in that area. Send Bill D the final bill and he'll send you a check.
Superficially, that sounds reasonable. But are we stepping it by trying to do the right thing? Steve D or Curtis bought the last starter. Same circumstances but a big time crunch. Does that mean we need to reimburse Steve?
I'm just asking because the question is bound to come up. I most certainly don't want to hurt any feelings in the process.
Jim
Jim - Steve posted a few days ago (pg92) that the starter he/Curtis got was paid for out of Roadmaster funds so I think we're ok there. Steve, let us know if I misinterpreted your note.
I was searching the Buick board for info about our oil consumption. Seems it is fairly common to install a windage tray in the lifter valley to keep hot oil off the intake, as there is a lot of oil being slung around in that area. Since the pcv valve is installed in a grommet in the floor of the intake it is directly exposed to that oil spray with no oil separator of any type. I think this is the problem. As engine load increases oil is sucked into the intake along with the blowby. An external separator that drains back into the intake should cure the problem. If not, perhaps we should install a windage tray under the intake.
Jim
Jim/Rob:
How "wet" is the angled tube from the PCV to the carb? For that level of oil consumption through the PCV valve, it would need to be dripping.
Have we done a compression test?
Or a leakdown test?
Or a vacuum test, now that it has been dyno tuned/timed?
I'm not saying the separator or the windage tray are bad ideas. They sound like good ideas--- not too expensive and certainly can't hurt!
But we need more tests and information of other 'basic" engine conditions, and I'm frankly skeptical that we can consume THAT amount of oil by just sucking up the oily mist. Not to mention you'd think we'd have a constant blue tinge IF that was how the oil was "disappearing".
There were rumours of drips on the ground. Where/what are these from? And are they more active when under pressure, do they only drip when the car is running, or do they drip if it sits as well..?
$.02
M
I'll look @ the PCV. Seems like a lot of oil for that but, there's also a fair amount of oil coming from the rear seal -- plenty splattered under the car & when the starter came off it left a nice little puddle under the car. I'm thinking it's probably a combination of the two. Does anyone know if it has a rope seal? If so, there is some stuff that can be added to the oil that is supposed to swell rope seals to help them seal better.
RE: compression check - that'll have to wait till I have the starter fixed.
Update - PCV does have a fair amount of oil on/in it. Hard to say how much it's sucking up -- what do you think of the idea of making a catch can for between the PCV & where it feeds back in -- that way we can see how much oil it accounts for. Since it'd just be temporary, maybe a jar or can with some soldered fittings to maintain the vacuum?
re: "There were rumours of drips on the ground. Where/what are these from? And are they more active when under pressure, do they only drip when the car is running, or do they drip if it sits as well..? "
No rumour....but it was really nothing major....about four or five spots the size of a quarter on my driveway...after the car was left sitting parked overnight.
Found under right bank of engine.
there was more than that on my dad's driveway - probably the same number of spots but a few were more like 4" diameter. Car was parked there twice - once over night & once for a few hours after driving back from Arlington (about 45 mins)
At a quart to 150 miles anyone following would surely have signs of oil on their car, and so far none. But we do know it leaks. We just don't know how much. It does have a neoprene rear (and front) seal. Application is 460 Ford. But it is possible to have leakage around the rear main cap, between it and the block. Still, it doesn't seem to be enough to account for the oil loss.
And there have been two occasions now where it has drawn in a mighty slug of oil on start up, coughing and sputtering and blowing out a huge blue cloud before it cleared. The only way I know of for that to happen is from oil that has settled in the pcv line. Anything else and it would do it all the time.
As for how much oil it can suck up the pcv line, ask Carl. I think he has the record and we'd have to double ours to even compete. Proper pcv venting cured his though and at TX he reported less than a quart on the trip down. I think it is worth a try. One of those in the photos above might work. Or just a can stuffed with scrubber pads with a nipple on the bottom to plug into the grommet, and a grommet on the top for the pcv valve. Something like a campbells soup can maybe. With a soldering gun it should be possible to whip something up in about 15 minutes.
Jim
Nose cones ordered.
Raodmaster did pay for the starter Curtis and I installed.
Steve
Rob, be sure to write that Part Number and source of the nose cones in the spiral book.
I have not looked at the engine so this may be an unusable suggestion, but i'll put it out there. Can you temporarily plug the factory pcv hole and install the pcv in the valve cover where there should be less oil flying around?
Not really with the valve covers we have. It might be possible to come off the fuel pump block off plate though.
Jim
What about the oil fill cap? Maybe make a new cap that includes the pcv valve?
Update time...
Air shocks are fixed & I encased the line in some hose I had to help protect it. It's holding @ 70 lbs; I'll set it back to 80 when it's on the ground (didn't want to over fill them and wasn't sure if the pressure goes up when there's weight on them).
Whoever said the melted section of air hose might be a bad motor ground was right. The battery ground runs to the tranny casing and stopped there. So it probably was grounding through the oil pressure hose (that's what was running by it vs. the clutch line). I've added a 4 GA ground tied in on the same bolt securing the cable at the tyranny and will bolt the other end on a starter bolt. Had planned to use a ground strap, but didn't have one after all. Anyway, I'm hoping having a better ground might also clear up the teach; we'll see.
Starter is disassembled waiting for the cone. Had to send the first batch back - my fault, I must have dyslexia; I transposed two numbers in the starter PN. they're swapping them out for me; should have the right ones sometime next week.
Now the bad news. The timing control box we have does not have the start retard function. I called MSD when I couldn't find the purple wire and when I described the box the tech said we have an older model that doesn't have it. They do sell a stand alone start retard box (appropriately called a starter saver). It goes for $100 from them - might be able to get it a little cheaper thru summit or jegs. Let me know if you guys want me to get one. I'm donating the stuff I've done so far so that'd be the only item I'd need reimbursed.
No thoughts on whether we should invest in a start retard box? Seems to me it'd pay for itself in 2 starters. There's a newer timing control box like the one we have but with the start retard I'm watching. Has a few days left.
Rob, I think it would be a good idea. But it isn't for me to say. I'm pretty sure that if you wanted to buy and install it nobody would complain, but will BADASS pay for it? Might want to ask Bill on that one.
Jim
Rob, I still don't quite understand why we would need a start retard box on that engine. With the comperession ratio we're running and the cam we shouldn't have to advance the initial timng all that far past stock I'd think. That is if the vacuum advance is hooked up and working correctly. There's no need for you to pay for the starter parts though, we have enough in the treasury for that. I don't want to waste our meager funds, but if there is agreement from most of the guys that we should have this feature then we should do it. We'll find the money necessary. Hope you can get it running fine pretty soon and enjoy the car some. Only have a couple of more weeks before we need to consider getting it on the way back east to Ohio.
Bill, even with the timing optimized on the dyno, which I think puts static at around 6 degrees or so, it kicks back. I think the stock setting is 8 degrees soit must be due to the cam. Retarding static any more will hurt mileage though so the question is this:
Will the strap Rob added to the other end of the starter be enough to keep from breaking it again?
If not, the retarder should help.
Jim
Would one of these spark delay valves work? Stop the vacuum advance from pulling while cranking.
http://www.autozone.com/autozone/parts/Spark-Delay-Valve/_/N-9gt8l
That is an interesting idea Jim N. Would be worth a try and very inexpensive to boot. Might just do the job. If now we wouldn't be out much.
How much vacuum do you have when cranking? If it isn't over 12-15 inches that isn't going to do much. But it wouldn'tcost much to try.
Jim
I don't think there's enough centrifical force or vacuum for the distributor to be adding any advance during cranking. I think it's going to take an electronic retard to do the trick but, I'll get one of them and see what happens. I'm just worried the starter will break again & while we now have a spare nose cone, depending on where/when it next breaks, it could be a real pain. My vote is to watch ebay for a start retard box or a newer timing control that has the function & resell our box to recoup a little of the money.
I'm working on getting the Roadmaster published into a 2013 calendar.
I need some high resolution jpgs to submit with some that I've taken on my own.
No people should be in the pictures.
Minimum resolution 2272 x 1704 with a resolution of 3300 x 2550 preferred.
Shots should be 3/4 front; 3/4 rear, interior, engine bay, overhead view, etc.
Curtis...what do you have from Atlanta?
Please send your jpgs to: mowog1@aol.com
Thanks in advance!
Dusk_1.jpg
I have the starter put back together & made a bracket for the back of it. Painted it last night & will be stalling it this evening. I can take the car to a local neighborhood with a lake & some nice scenery to take some pics if someone doesn't already have what you need. I hesitate driving it too much until we sort out the hot start backfire, though. I don't have a trailer so if it breaks I have to have it towed.
With all of the oil consumption, I must wonder how much carbon is in the combustion chambers ? Is the advance returning to basic every time,( not sticking) ? Good Luck, roverman.
Starter is reinstalled with a pretty stout bracket...
PicsArt_1341888125831.jpg
PicsArt_1341888264987.jpg
Did notice a spot on the oil pressure line that may be damaged from when the starter came off. There's a hole in the braided steel a bit smaller than 1/4". Looks like there was a zip tie there that got torn off. Can't tell if the hose itself is ruptured or not but will check it when I start it tomorrow - needed to do some stuff with my kids & wife this evening.
Looks good, Rob.
Very nice bracket. Good work on that Rob. Very good chance that will cure the breakage problem.
Jim
I suggest making the spare nosecone very comfortable when it gets stowed away in the tool/parts kit, that bracket is going to do the trick, we had issues with the nosecones breaking on all the ones that had the two bolts side by side and not staggered. Nice Job!
I was talking with an MSD technician today... he mentioned that the grey/black wires @ the two pin connector on the timing controller should be shorted together if we're not using a high RPM retard module (which we're not). When I ask what would happen if they're just left open he said the effect would be random misfiring at random RPM's. Ours are open but I've not noticed any misfiring. Have any of you who've driven the car noticed any? Unless others have noticed some missing, I'm going to leave it as is.
On a second point, aside from thinking we had a start retard with the MSD timing box, why are we using it [or conversely, why do we have a distributor that doesn't have the mechanical advance locked out)?
From reading the manual & the web (it's MSD model 8981 for anyone who wants to read up on it), it's designed to be used with a locked out distributor -- e.g., it's supposed to replace the function of the springs/weights. From the manual "The MSD Programmable Timing Computer uses electronics instead of the conventional weights, springs, and stops to deliver the perfect ignition curve." Instead of the centrifical advance, the MSD box has 3 adjustments ---
a) Initial timing
b) RPM
c) Slope
The way it's designed to work is this:
1. You set the distributor to the max total timing you want [mechanical timing] (remember, it's supposed to be locked out so baring anything else, this is the timing that the engine would see).
2. The Initial timing then retards the timing off of that. Up to 30 degrees. So if the distributor/mechanical was set at 34* & the initial timing knob was fully counter clockwise, initial timing would be 4* (34-30=4). If the knob were fully clockwise, initial timing would be 34* (34-0=34).
3. You then adjust the RPM knob to set the RPM at which you want the timing to start coming back in - let's say 1000 RPM. (it's adjustable from 1000 to 3000).
4. And lastly, you adjust the rate [Slope] the timing comes back with full counter clockwise being 1/2* per 1000 RPM & full clockwise being 20* per 1000 RPM
I don't know where the knobs are set right now, but the combination of those + the mechanical + the vacuum advance could be doing some interesting things.
Pulled over from the events thread...
QuotePosted by: crashbash
Date: July 11, 2012 03:53PM
Is'nt this thing still under warrenty? Not sure what universe the dealership is in ha
Is this starter thing such an issue because of the big motor/little starter? Are there simular problem with other BOP/Rover engines? I don't remember reading much about this being a problem.
I've been doing a lot of reading on it in the last month or so. Backfires with broken starters seem to be a fairly common scenario with BBB's with any sort of upgraded cam. The buick boards have lots of folks with the problem & several selling upgraded starters (higher torque &/or rotational speed I assume). And, MSD sells a device called a starter saver that's also often referenced as a solution. The problem, IMO, is that the starter has the two bolts in line & there's precious little metal around the short bolt. The casting just can't hold up to the backlash it gets on a backfire. One thing that might help would be to build up the metal around the short bolt hole with weld, but I can't weld aluminum with my MIG. We'll see if my bracket helps. I hope so, but have my doubts -- there's just a lot of torque when it backfires.
That's partially why i was asking about why we're using the 8981 timing computer... my thought was if we don't need it, we might want to consider selling it in favor of buying a starter saver (start retard box).
Car's on the road again.
And radio is working too. I didn't do anything to fix it so there must be a loose wire or ground that made contact again while was messing with the air line T that's behind the radio. I'll see if I can find it to fix permanently.
Rob:
I think I speak for all of us-- good work! It sounds like you've been enjoying some of the "fix it" process, anyway. :-) Above and beyond, indeed!
I think Jim said full timing on the dyno ended up at 30* mech. The vac can throws 20* and (I would presume...) is still hooked up manifold. (Jim's preference.)
Thus, IF the engine can draw enough vac for the can (10"?) it will also pull vac on top of those 6* static.
I would think, then, that some sort of start retard will be necessary in our current set up.
RE: programmable MSD. I never looked into this unit-- we had it running (barely) on just the 'normal' set up. But, I would agree-- IF the weights are still fully independent, sort of defeats the purpose? The computer would constantly be losing it's zero....
This brings up the next question: on the dyno, was the timing changed WITH THE BOX or with the distributor? (Our programmable 123TUNE in the racecar is changed with a computer-- distributor is zeroed and then LEFT ALONE. All timing points: idle, vac, redline, etc. are all just programmed in.)
Alas, we never had the Roadmaster running enough (no brakes, no alternator...) to be able to give much for information on what it did "pre-MSD". I don't remember any backfires (Carl? Steve?). Steve drove it around the most before the MSD was installed. I'd be curious if he had any of the hot start backfires... If not, then I think Rob is DEFINITELY onto something re: the weights not locked down!
We had this problem both before and after the dyno, so what timing tweaks were done (sounds like -6*) still didn't fix the issue.
$.02
M
The Roadmaster backfired on me twice during my stint with it on the Power Tour in June.
Both times after the car was already warmed up.
The timing changes at the dyno were done at the distributor. At least that's where I saw folks make the adjustments. I didn't see anyone adjust the timing box.
Rob,
Great job on the starter bracket!
The only backfire I witnessed was at Jim's back in Feb. We discovered it blew a block off plug off the carb causing a very rough idle due to a vacuum leak. The timing box was on the car.
My understanding from the bit I read on this timing box was that is that we actually had the unit disabled. If the trim pots are fully clockwise, they are disabled (factory setting). Maybe we should just remove it. I do think that the start retard would be a very good idea, though.
MSD Programmable Timing Computer PN 8981
http://www.jegs.com/InstallationInstructions/100/121/121-8981.pdf
It's backfired on most of us. Only seems to happaen when it's warm.
There are two revisions of the 8981. Most of them have a start retard. The very early ones don't (at least that's what I've been told). I've also been told it's more likely someone cut the regard wire and that could be - there's a plastic protector designed to hold the wires where they exit the box & it was falling off so the wires have been pulled on at some point. I'm going to have a closer look later this week.
If I'm reading the manual right, there is no way to wire it in & have it disabled. With all three knobs turned down to their min settings, we'd be getting 10* of retard from wherever mechanical is set, then it'd start adding 1/2* for every 1000 RPM (+ whatever the distributor and vacation add).
This is what I saw:
Timing Curve Adjustment Controls
There are three adjustable potentiometers on the side of the Programmable Timing Computer.
They are adjusted by loosening the lock nut and then turning the pot with a flat blade
screwdriver. All of the knobs are set at the full clockwise position at the factory, which means
that they are Off and there is no timing curve.
Had a thought... car seems to be starting easier even when hot. Hasn't backfired at all. Thinking that without an engine ground maybe the starter wasn't seeing the full voltage so wasn't spinning as fast &/or with as much torque - contributing to the backfires.
Makes no sense Rob. There was a heavy cable from the battery to the transmission tailshaft, about as good of a ground as you can get. The aluminum and cast iron of the transmission case and the block may not be as good of conductors as copper but they more than make up for that in sheer mass, or in the cross section of the conductor. You would have to have a copper cable nearly an inch in diameter to equal it.
Honestly I don't think that has anything to do with it. There have been periods before when the car never backfired.
Have you been able to try anything with the PCV flame trap/oil separator?
Jim
Haven't messed with the flame trap/oil separator. Bought a baffled gromet. It fit the hole, but not the PCV. Will check out some traps this weekend. A good test will be when PJ drives it north.
On the ground, logic would agree but if that's the case, why was the braided stainless oil pressure line getting so hot?
Clan, oil line should be at oil temp,(pretty hot). Has anyone verified that distributor is "always" returning to static timing for starting phase ? If distributor is is sticking intermittently, this could cause the random back-fires. Good Luck, roverman.
July 3rd we got a report of a package car fire, the investigation led to the hydraulic line to the hydroboost from the gearbox creatng chassis ground due to service previously performed had left the ground srap off. I have also seen similar things happen on airboats. A simple voltage drop test while cranking it over can help find the culprit.
I think the ground cable might be double ought and was a new 6v cable from autozone. At any rate it is serious overkill for any 12v car. And I believe it was bolted through the transmission tailshaft counterweight attachment boss with about a 2-1/2" long 3/8" diameter stainless bolt and probably has stainless washers, lockwashers, and maybe even a nylock stainless nut. Nobody has had any reason to mess with that since it left here and I verified the connection personally so I'm pretty sure the ground is adequate. But additional grounds for safety and redundancy are rarely a bad idea. Just let's not go overboard with it and neglect other things that are needed worse.
Only time will tell if the engine will sneeze again but I'm betting it will. Possibly Art is on to something. Maybe we should lock the advance mechanism and use the box to set mechanical advance. Otoh, Jeff Schlemmer built the distributor so I would hope that it is right. Odd things can happen though.
Jim
The roadmaster.didn't have an engine ground but I added one. I ran it from the starter to the spot where the battery ground was terminated on the granny so should be a good ground. And, I've noticed the tach isn't bouncing around. At least not around town. Haveent had it on the highway since getting it going again.
:) can't have too many gounds, but only the ones that count are the soild connections. With the tach bouncing, appears something was not grounded adequately. SAFETY FASTER!
That is sort of redundant Rob, but it won't hurt anything. Aluminum is the next best conductor to copper and of course the entire transmission and bellhousing is aluminum, so saying the engine didn't have a ground is not really correct since it is rather solidly bolted to the bellhousing, which is solidly bolted to the tranny case, then the extension housing, the ground cable, and then the battery. So in fact there is a very solid and substantial ground all the way to the starter using the most massive and effective conductors in the entire car. What you did is sort of equivalent to running a small signal wire alongside a massive buss bar. Doesn't hurt anything but completely unnecessary. So I would be very surprised if any change could be traced to that addition. The starter bracket otoh, now that was a very nice piece of work, and to my mind at least, absolutely essential.
Jim
I'm with Jim. That ground cable was MASSIVE-- it's hard to believe there would have been any engine ground issues.
That being said, Rob is there and experiencing and seeing what he has. 1st hand knowledge beats us out in the bleachers. :-)
If problems persist, the ground/voltage drop test is probably a good idea. (Eh, stranger things have happened, right? For instance, is there a gasket between bellhousing and tranny body that-- despite hardware-- is blocking the flow of ground? Hard to imagine, but...) There is a reason they put ground cables RIGHT to the starter bolts!
RE: distributor. Pardon my ignorance, and this is probably a question that only Jim can answer, but IF the dang thing started and ran (-ish) here, why was this control box necessary? If it isn't giving the start retard, uhm... what IS it doing? Given the number of people that have and are going to drive this car, I would vote for a K.I.S.S approach. (That's "keep it simple, stupid!") The less black boxes, timing adjustments, knobs to fiddle...etc., the better! (READ: people will try *anything* to get a car started! How would you ever know if the setting was returned correctly?)
I would assume pretty much ANYONE getting behind the wheel of this thing would know what to do with pts and condenser! And it's an easy spare to carry.
Already we've heard two or three different versions/interpretations of the INSTRUCTIONS for this control box! That's not good.... No way for one person to help diagnose with the other, etc.
My vote: if it's note providing a specific, necessary utility to the car, then I'd remove it.
(I now realize why it's there-- it's probably the rev limiter, isn't it? :-) )
Cheers,
M
Yep, rev limiter. But with a 6000 rpm chip. :-( Could be 4800 considering the dyno curve.
Jim
QuoteFor instance, is there a gasket between bellhousing and tranny body that-- despite hardware-- is blocking the flow of ground? [/qoute]
Max......I'm laughing my ass off! A bellhousing to tranny gasket? Is there really such a thing for a manual trans?
When the laughting subsides, good point Max.Perhaps you meant between the tailhousing and main case, as we ALL know, has one ? As I recall, JB stated, the ground was hooked to the Tail Housing ? This build is quite similar to a standard 455 bbb. Why then should it need a starter brace, when so many thousands don't ? Other than a rev. limiter, why not a re-curved HEI , that we KNOW is not sticking on partial advance ? Good Luck, roverman.
Even with a gasket or O-ring there are at least 4 bolts holding the tailshaft on. I could MAYBE see one of them becoming insulated, but certainly not all of them.
And what about the millions of cars that just use a ground strap to the body? Is that a good ground? Iron and steel are rather poor conductors compared to aluminum or copper. Didn't MG originally ground the battery to the battery box? How much current density do you think can be handled by a circular patch of sheet metal just slightly larger than the attaching bolt, which was probably 5/16" iirc? Way less than a large aluminum casting I'll guarantee, and then going every which way through spot welds, rust, and a steel body tub to finally arrive at another ground strap, even if it does go directly to a starter bolt, is a considerably higher resistance path than a heavy copper cable directly to the tailshaft. But don't take my word for it, ask Dan Masters.
As for that brace, the OEM fat body starter had a nice big footprint on it's cast iron nosecone to spread the impact loads. The gear reduction starters have a smaller footprint in cast aluminum. Doesn't take a lot of thought to see how that might be a little more prone to failure under impact loading. The end brace gives a tenfold increase in the ability to resist those impact loads, and you can calculate that directly from the half-length of the footprint divided into the distance from the mounting bolts to the starter bracket.
So now is it possible for an open or a high resistance path to develop? Sure. All we need to confirm that is to look at all the homes burned down by aluminum wiring installed during that misdirected heyday back around the 50's or 60's. So a resistance check is probably a good idea. But I don't think the car has been in service long enough or under harsh enough conditions to cause galvanic corrosion on such a massive scale as would be required to raise the resistance to a measurable degree. Still, not a bad idea to confirm it and it doesn't take much to do a measurement. If it was causing a problem. Which I don't believe it is. Especially with Rob's jumper wire.
Jim
You already have a ground run to the tail shaft.
Is there any particular reason you didn't just ground to one of the starter bolts? It only amounts to another ~2' of heavy gauge cable. Depending on routing, you might even have enough slack to stretch it right now.
"Best" grounding practice would be to ground the neg terminal of the battery to the frame or roll cage with a secondary 2 gauge cable run direct from the neg terminal to the starter. Although that comes into play more in high compression engines that are also prone to high temp operating conditions.
Yes I suppose it would. I guess that is why we did it the way we did. Perhaps we should install a frame and roll cage.
Jim
I should apologize I guess, I got alittle miffed with all this concern about what should never have been an issue in the first place, while we ignored the crankcase venting issue almost entirely. To me that is a much more important concern. The wiring works. And even if it didn't Rob's fix would cure it. But the crankcase venting is almost certainly the source of the high oil consumption, and a remedy needs to be tried before winter.
There have been suggestions to partially tear down the engine and if we did that it would have to be during the cold months. But I hope nobody is expecting me to be involved in that unless we have first proven that the engine isn't sucking the oil down the carburator, because until we do we are just as likely to still have the problem afterwards and it would be a lot of wasted effort for nothing. If someone else wants to do that, fine. Just don't expect me to do it.
I have extensively researched engine ventilation, written articles on the topic, cured real world oil consumption problems by using proper ventilation tecniques, AND traced BBB oil consumption problems directly to inadequate separation of oil from vapors coming from the lifter valley through the pcv plumbing. Well guess what, we have inadequate plumbing. So I found two flame arresters/oil separators on ebay for under twenty bucks that should have plugged right into the grommet and the hose and which should have cured the problem once and for all. But here we are getting ready for another long trip with plans afoot to buy a quart of oil every 150 miles. My math may not be that good but I think the separator is the cheaper option.
Jim
I agree Jim, we do need to address the oil consumption issue and the oil seperator would be an inexpensive solution to try. We have 9 days to get it installed before PJ picks up the car, is that doable? Rob? I'll buy the part we need if someone will just point me in the right direction.
I'm happy to install it. Haven't had time to get one but if you find one, have it shipped to me & I'll install it.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ONE-FORD-OIL-CRANKCASE-SEPARATOR-ASSEMBLY-PART-E6ZZ-6A785-A-NOS-FREE-SHIPPING-/251109627240?pt=Vintage_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3a774cd568&vxp=mtr
This unit is made for a much smaller engine so flow capacity may be less than desired. However I think it should fit.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MAGNUM-PCV-ENHANCER-OIL-SEPARATOR-Positive-Crankcase-Ventilation-Filter-HHO-/160704646989?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item256abe4f4d&vxp=mtr
This unit is a universal fit durability of the housing may be questioned.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/120805477947?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649
Flame trap for Rover V8. Probably a good choice.
There are others and suppliers like Summit, Jegs, etc will carry them as well. Search: flame trap, oil trap, oil separator and flame arrester.
The critical features are a single inlet and a single outlet, in sizes compatible with the manifold grommet and the pcv plumbing to the carb. The pcv valve will need to be retained. It should be oriented vertically if possible.
Jim
I should apologize I guess
Eh, sometimes I'm a little short for certain rides and a little bit slow for certain races.
Just a general sort of thing.
I get a little testy sometimes when it'd be better to just let it go. But I'm still learning at least.
Jim
Uh oh. Look Ma no air bags!
http://www.mgexperience.net/phorum/read.php?40,2142452
Thanks for the tag, Carl.
Yeah, what's up wid Dat?!? We've had line and valve issues-- now bags? :-(
Any thoughts as to why? Jim? Steve? Rob (who had it last and longest)?
IT's not like it's being constantly inflated and deflated....
M
I've been in touch with PJ and it is still too early to know for sure but there is a pretty good chance the air bag was not centered properly on the top spring centering cup up in the crossmember. My fault as likely as not. The last time I had it apart I do remember not feeling fully confident that the cup had centered. No doubt I should have acted on that.
The way it works is that the crossmember has a centering cup that the top of the spring fits around. The airbag has a 2-1/2" freeze plug that is drilled and bolted open end up to the top of the bag. That cup then slips easily into the spring centering cup and centers the top of the airbag. However the freeze plugs come in different heights and that may be one of the shorter ones. Regardless, if the two cups do not nest, the one will sit on the lip of the other and the airbag will shift ( probably outwards) at the top. This would let the bag rub against the crossmember under the bump stop.
I'll look at mine on monday to see if that matches the wear pattern on the photo PJ took.
Steve had some wear on one of his but his crossmember had been bent in a past collision. We subsequently took a bfh to it in order to get clearance but there should not be a problem with an undamaged crossmember.
Jim
Just talked with PJ. Repair is complete. He's going to grab some lunch and hit the road. David, if you're out there, thanks again for handling receipt of the Fed-Ex and courrier service! You saved the day!
Shoppe in Carthage...
Airbaginstall-Carthage_TX.jpg
David from Shreveport (must be a little shy)
DavidfromShreveport.jpg
Jim, from what I could see, not being centered is the likely cause. Both bags , are now centered. We did an inspetion of the drivers side and would have replaced both if there was any sign of rubbing on that side. There is none. Both side looked good after the repair. It did take two trips to the NAPA store to get the air supply line fitted, but no leaks now. Held 85 psi for 310 miles and 7 hours.
Just a few little observations for future drivers:
1) need a GPS with speedometer feature or speedometer app for your smart phone until the Stewart Warner speedometer is calibrated. Indicated 40 mph on the dash is about 70 mph. I drove 310 miles today the odometer shows 151.
2) since the odometer is off and the gas gauge is wonky care must be take to refuel within 150 miles of last fill-up, will need a quart of 20W-30 Casterol every 150 miles
3) There is some shake between 62 mph and 68 mph possible wheel balance??
4) Headlights aimed too low can only see about 3 car lengths, I ran with high beams tonight and that did not seem to bother any other drivers, but still not good.
5) Tach is eratic at 70 mph it varies between 2000 & 3000 rpms.
PJ
PJ...be sure to write all of this down in the Roadmaster Logbook. See you in a few hours!
One thing you can do is add pressure to the air bags at night to aim the lights higher. Steve felt that worked rather well.
Steve has also identified a potential rub spot, Rick it would be great if you and Pete could take a look. There is a thin plate the factory welded on the bottom of the crossmember which ends at about the middle of the spring cavity. Steve found one of these corners was a little too close for comfort and I think this matches the wear pattern in PJ'S photo. The remedy is to grind the edge back for clearance then blend and smooth it. If there is any sighn of contact after you get the car that should hopefully take care of it.
Jim
I'll take a look on tuesday.
When I ran out of gas today on I-57 N Roadmaster was absolutely empty. I hit the gas tank with my knuckles and it sounded dead empty. There is a see thru fuel filter before the carb and it too was empty. And I was only able to put 9.1 gallons in the tank. That's why Iran out. I thought I had at least 2 gallons left. Oh well no problem. It was after that while in stop and go construction traffic ,45 miles up the road, that it was not getting gas to the carb again. But this time I new there was gas in the tank. At that time the car was too hot to be disconnecting fuel lines plus it was not a safe place. Picture narrow lanes cones, barrels, concrete walls hardly enough room to get out of the way of the 18 wheelers.
Roadmaster Now has a new fuel pump. I had to use crimp connectors so next time the car is on a lift it would be good to check them and maybe replace with soldered connections and heat shrink. Didn't have that available in the Hardees parking lot.
From now on I will get gas every 100 miles just to be safe.
PJ
Roadmaster won't start this am. It's getting plenty of gas today there is no spark. Talked to Max.. Used test light from positive side of coil with ignition on, nothing,nada, zilch.
Called rick he is arranging for a trailer. I'm chilling at the Comfort Suites, Mt Vernon, IL.
Gerald if you have some time around 1:00pm + or - we may need a little help loading roadmaster on the trailer.
Any luck getting it fired up?
Pretty sure Rick went and got it - towed it the last bit of the trip. Not sure if it was speculation or confirmed but thinking was MSD ignition box died.
There is no power going to the positive post of the coil.
I've not had time to dealve into this.
Mike Moor said he may have a spare MSD6 box I could use to test.
The air suspension is also dropping withing 4 to 6 hours. Thought I had that one isolated, but no.
Again, all it takes is time.
It ran fine for me with the stock ignition system. That is what it had when I drove it to Jim's.
Do we really need an MSD box?
Steve
Not really. We wanted a rev limiter but the way the power drops off over 4800 I'm no longer concerned about it. As far as I'm concerned you can hook the Pertronics igniter up to the coil and forget that other stuff. That would get rid of the annoying buzzing too.
Jim
Pressure in the suspension dropped from 90psi to 10psi while the car was stored the past 9 days.
I like the idea of bypassing the MSD.
If you need some help getting RM fixed, I will arrange a time to come out and help.
Progress?
What's happening? We're almost out of September now, if that car doesn't get running soon it's going to need to go into storage for the winter.
There sure aren't going to be a whole lot more show dates for the car to attend up north.
Rick has it. There are a couple of minor maintenance issues that need to be looked at, I don't think he's had a chance yet to do anything on it, and there hasn't been anyone local who could do it. I'm not sure what Bill is doing but I think he is distracted with moving maybe so he hasn't been on here much. AFAIK the only thing scheduled is the Buick GS Nationals at Bowling Green, KY next month but it doesn't look very much like we are going to make that at this point. So realistically maybe the car has found it's den for the cold months.
I just renewed the registration and sent the sticker to Rick. Not sure when the insurance comes due.
Jim
I would LOVE to have someone pick the Roadmaster up....I need the space back in my barn....as was mentioned....winter is approaching and I need to get an MGB out of my garage and back into the barn so that my truck can be cozy in the garage.
Roadmaster:
The insurance should come due mid-November 2012. Anticipate a premium of several hundred dollars.
This car has been a paperweight since August 13th when I rented a trailer to pick it (and P.J.) up in Mount Vernon, IL (about 3 hours south of me.) I got a Speed Camera ticket mailed to me two weeks later. I had to get an attorney to represent me (it also came with a mandatory court appearance....68mph in a 55mph speed zone...I was in the buffer zone of a construction zone but had not reached any construction.....nor any workers. Typical revenue builder for the State of Illinois.
The air bag suspension is leaking; I suspect the new bag on the passenger side. The car will drop overnight to the point where it would not be possible to drive. I have to use my compressor to build pressure back up. In my opinion, the onboard compressor is not up to the task. Jim, you say this is a minor maintenance issue...but I've never dealt with air suspensions, nor do I find anything in the car to assist n learning about the (how and where the lines were run, how they are connected, etc.. The last thing I want to do is dismantle the front suspension and have the car totally disabled to the point that I cannot move it from Point A to Point B in the barn.
There is no power going to the (+) side of the coil. The car sat outside overnight in Mount Vernon in a hell of a rainstorm...something HAD to have gotten wet and zzzzapped when P.J. attempted to start it up the next morning.
Electrics are not a strong point of mine, but I would think that the problem has to lie in either the distributor or the MSD box. Summit has a 6AL box on sale for $175....but my ticket is going to ba a minimum of $375 plus court fees plus my attorney fees. My fun money is pretty well extinguished for the time being....and...how do we KNOW that the MSD box is faulty....I hate to spend the money replacing parts on a wild goose chase.....dizzy...control box....what about the advance control box?
Soccer season is coming to an end so Pete may be able to donate some time within the next few weeks.
I'm beginning to think that we possibly went just a little too high-tech before all of the bugs were worked out of the car. Thankfully, it made the complete Power Tour without too much problem.
All in all, I'm not very happy. I had intended on taking the car up to the University Motors Summer Party to "wow" the purists, as well as up to the All British Car Show near Chicago in September (which draws 500 to 800 cars on an annual basis). We also missed the Saint Louis All British Show in September. Mr.Kirkman was upset that the car was not roadworthy for him to pick up last week as he had some Cars & Coffees in Indianapolis to attend as well as a couple of street rod events lined up.
End of rant.
Someone, maybe Steve D suggested we remove all that MSD stuff and I agreed. (Maybe that was in the other rm thread). Just hook the pertronix up to the coil and see if that doesn't work. The dyno showed we don't need to worry about a rev limiter.
I also posted a proceedure to leak check the air system, almost guaranteed it's the fittings on the new bag. That much of a leak shouldn't be hard to find. Dunking is the best method.
There are better compressors on ebay for around $75-$150 that should do a lot better job but that one works ok as long as the air doesn't leak out. I bought one to use on my car but have not had a chance to try it out yet. But I can get more info if needed.
We could always stick a set of springs back in it.
Jim
Gentlemen, I apologize for being remiss in my duties as President the past couple of months. I was not keeping up on the latest situations and working to resolve these issues. I have been very busy with my move to Wichita and other things such as the Chump Car race, not an excuse, but just things that have occupied my mind and diverted my attention from the Roadmaster problems. Please send me an e-mail directly to bkyoung@kc.rr.com describing the various problems and if anyone has room and time to either store the car or work on it. My new shop in Wichita won't be ready until mid November at least, so I can't take it until then.
We have had some issue with the bank, requiring signatures and a copy of the minutes of the meeting where myself and Bill Davidson were elected, that is being handled and then Bill can write some checks to cover your expenses incurred with the car. Please let us know what and how much those were.
I am so sorry that the car couldn't make it to those people who wanted to drive and show it this fall, we'll certainly figure out how to get it to you next year.
On the plus side, I'm in Omaha this week making arrangements for next years British V8 meet and that is going well. Meet with the management at the race track later this morning and then with the hotel manager this afternoon to tie in the final two big pieces. Well worth our trip up from KC this week.
Again, my apologies for not keeping up lately, I'll try to to a lot better now that I have some of the load off my mind.
Bill
I was tempted to put coil springs backin the front....have the spring pans been altered to the point where coils will no longer work without replacement of same?
No problem Rick, they will go right in. I would suggest using the stiffest and tallest springs you can find though if you do. The lines can be just slid back up out of the way if you want. We tried all the springs I had and it still sat a smidgen low but that was GT springs and competition springs which were shorter. Maybe you can find some spring spacers somewhere. A half inch might do it.
Bill I think we all understand. But do we get to hear about the chump car?
Jim
Maybe you can find some spring spacers somewhere. A half inch might do it.
Put in adjustable spring buckets and you can have any ride height you want with any set of springs you want to use.
There are also adjustable shims and fixed thickness rubber spacers. Here's a quick google result:
http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Race-Spring-Mount-Perch-Spacer.html
Of course I'll tell you guys about my Chump Car experience. Had a blast driving a modified British sports car, a Midget with a Ford Focus twin cam four and a T5. Once we got a front sway bar on the car on Sunday morning then it started to perform really well, before it wallowed so much that all the tires were rubbing on the fenders in the turns. On Sunday it was basically flat and neutral handling, if not a little tail happy. All seven of the drivers spun it at least once during the two days, I managed two spins, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, but no damage done except to my ego. If any of you ever dreamed of driving a race car this is definiitely the way to go. There's a guy in Lawrence Kansas (Clancy Schmidt, who did much of the construction on Phil Leonards RV8) that has built several cars and then rents out seats in them for $700 a race. You have to have your own safety gear, suit, helmet, and such, but he takes care of everything else, tires, entry fee, you name it. You can get 6 or 7 guys together and put a car on the track pretty cheaply, especially if someone in the group can weld in a roll cage.
One more item checked off my bucket list and something I will probably do again next season it was so much fun.
Some of you might remember one of my co drivers, Robert Maupins from Indy a few years back. Also Bill Davidson, Phil Leonard, and Don Bonar showed up on Saturday to cheer us on. Photo of the car in the pits and of some of the team, entered as Team Fright. ( Ford Sprite)
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I'm digging them A/R Vector wheels on the Spridget! Looks like fun!
Bill, have you had a chance to check with Terry to see if he wants the car for the winter to put in his showroom? We really ought to do that considering he did so much to help move things along. So far as I know nobody has been in touch with him. I don't know if he even knows the car is finished.
Jim
No, haven't contacted Terry about that. I really need to know the current state of the car in more detail before we consider a move, will we have to trailer it? That makes a huge difference. Still not clear on the status of the front suspension or ignition systems and why the car had to be trailered to Rick's place.
Bill, you have a PM.
Hello all. No word yet on anyone willing to host the Roadmaster for the winter. We received a bill for the insurance for next year and it is being paid, but that leaves us with about $50 in the account, so we need to come up with some way to raise some funds to repair the car and get it ready for next year. Anyone have any ideas? Of course contributions are always welcome, just send them to Bill Davidson.
My shop will be ready in a couple of weeks, but with my move I won't be able to pick the car up from Rick until at least January or so. I have to get my current house cleaned up and ready to sell and on the market this fall. I am more than willing to house the car over the winter and fix the current problems if I can, just can't go and pick it up right now.
I don't have a distribution list set up for the group on my e-mail site so I would appreciate it if someone wants to copy this and put it out on e-mail.
Bill Young
Hey Bill/All:
We seem to have the following issues:
1) Car needs to be rescued from Rick's, and as soon as possible.
2) Car needs funds to be repaired (more on this below)
3) Car needs PERMANENT source of funds to be maintained.
4) Car isn't reliable enough to go from user to user.
1) I don't have any current ideas. Like Bill, I don't foresee any space availability or time until next year, and even that is subject to change. (Have My Own cars I've been ignoring/avoiding.) Also, there would likely be 5-7 people closer to Rick on the cars' way to (here). We need to find those resources and use them, perhaps?
1-a) ONE IDEA: Rick: what is the monthly cost of a local storage place where the car could be hidden? Given currrent towing costs, etc., for a few months at least this *might* be a cheaper option...
2) Undoing the complicated ignition set up and reverting to the Pertronix should hopefully be easy, and zero cost. Rubber Bumper roadster coil springs would be a good choice IF we wanted to remove the air bag system. (Frankly, I thought that was a trick item, but it has been very problematic....) I think it's quite possible coil springs would just be a temporary swap for the car to move around and get back on the road, and then the air system could be improved to Beta 2.4 and reinstalled. :-) I could probably come up with a used set of springs in a pinch, or someone else might just have some lying around in their parts?
3) We've done amazingly well on the donations front, but the car needs to have a permanent and steady/reliable amount of income so that repairs can be met and other items can be budgeted. (Been there, done this with the B-Stingers Race Team).
Some spitballing ideas:
3a) Rent a Roadmaster. He who drives it-- pays. And NOT for repairs, but for usage-- You have it for a week, say, give $100 to the kitty. (Time earned/parts donated would/should be considered to bank against this, but I think you get what I'm getting at.) This way, the car is always getting SOMETHING so as to keep itself afloat. That amount of money is NOT a lot, considering its novelty. (I'm sure PJ would have *loved* to have only had to pay $100 for His time with Roadmaster! Frickin bargain.. :-/ ) PROS: always generating income. CONS: without that immediate financial responsibility, will some people be more 'abusive" to the car? ("Like YOU were always nice to YOUR rental cars?" ;-) )
3b) Regular fundraisers. The T-shirts and other regalia come to mind here. This is income, but very slow and not always a great margin. (Given the time it takes to conduct ONE t-shirt sale, in terms of contact, payment, shipment/delivery, etc., the people involved might as well just forget the shirt and donate their time or equivalent earnings to the project!)
3b-2) A money earning event! The Raceteam do two of these a year (one is rustproofing in the late fall/the other is Detailing in the Spring). The 8 of us on the team slave away two to 3 days a year, but this generates about $3K per annum to be our racing budget. This saved our ass-- our early years were of the "donation" variety, but you just couldn't count on that and frankly-- it was only ~ $500/ year. MAKING OUR OWN MONEY MADE US INDEPENDENT.
The Roadmaster will always be a "dependent", however, so perhaps just a wealthy sponsor/benefactor will suffice? I had some ideas in the past of "special event" regalia (like those photographers on The Dragon, etc.). 'I Drove It!" T-shirts (that would sell for more money, but be unique, blah blah...) But still, these ideas rely on novelty and people spending spare cash on "trinkets". They are NOT solid $$$ earners for a long term....
SO.....
3c) "Roadmaster Regulars". A set group of people who would drive the car. (This is like the raceteam idea.) You would pay a form of dues to be apart of the Regulars and this specific set of people become the maintainers and users of the vehicle. This takes the car OUT of the public forum, but gives it a better chance of surviving. (A group of 10 people would pay, say, $300 each per year? And they would schedule maintenance and work sessions for the car, where it would go, etc.) Perhaps they each take it for just one month a year, with a two month downtime at someone's shop where the maintenance and repairs are carried out? Perhaps, also, it does NOT have to be the same 10 people each year (spots could be swapped for someone new, etc.) Likely, however, you WOULD have to have a 'core' group that become synonymous with the car and would maintain stability and regular maintenance on the car.
Lastly,
4) In a "car by committee" situation, this is tough. It's fantastic when each person involved puts their little "mark" on the car, but these often become conflicting. (Perfect example: the ignition. Very simple Pertronix/coil/distributor when it was here-- now has control box, rev limiter... and problems. :-()
4-a) The car needs to have a "build sheet". I would maybe make this Job One this off-season, even before bothering to repair it. Otherwise, each user is lost... (The "Regulars" limits the users and thus this problem, but the car was not intended to be "selectively used". So, IF it's going to have lots of drivers-- well, Dumb It Down and Keep It Simple, Stupid. I know these sound like catch-phrases, but they are true-- we have "guest drivers" in the racecar and the LESS things they have to worry about, the better!) Car has to be INTUITIVE to use, and then be backed up by straightforward documentation when it isn't!
4-b) The car needs to be Shaken Down more thoroughly. I blame myself AND Jim for this one. I let it go before I was happy with it (time constraint on it's residence, basically) and then this got everyone excited about next year and the car was pushed along and released with barely more than a FEW HUNDRED (non-dynoed!) test miles on it. (Steve DeGroat's miles, pretty much). This is just asking for trouble and we got it-- car is basically marooned at Rick's because he has no use for it going into Winter time and he wasn't the one that broke it.
The broken starters, air suspension problems, etc., are all ENGINEERING issues because they were repeated. (Carrol Smith: "A properly engineered part... does not break!") And many of our Drivers/Users are NOT Fabricators, Engineers, or mechanics. So it is poor procedure on OUR part-- those of Us who know better-- to have released the car to General Usage. (This is NOT a dig at any person, so please don't be offended. Anyone can feel out of place with a "strange car", and not feel comfortable fixing/working on it, novices Or master mechanics.... And not having any "user's manual" totally compounds the issue.)
Okay, enough cheap advice. :-/
Cheers to all, otherwise
Max
Also, a current mailing address for contributions would be fantastic. Right now it's a pain in the butt trying to find out where anything is supposed to be sent. Jim has his address in his profile but he's technically supposed to be out of the loop on that now.
I would suggest Jim editing the address of the current treasurer / contribution point ( this being public is pretty much a requirement, sorry if the treasurer has privacy concerns ) into the first post in the thread. Given that we're almost to 100 pages in this thread, it should also be in one of the top posts on each page.
Donations to the Roadmaster Project can be made to:
Bill Davidson, Treasurer
7208 W 54th Terrace
Overland Park, KS 66202
913 677-0884
Bill74mgb@yahoo.com
Checks should be made out to:
British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society
or
BADASS
Do you know how to do that Todd? Seems it may be a little over my pay grade, er, I mean, I'm sorta technologically challenged in that area and probably don't have the necessary permissions even if I knew what I was doing.
Bill Young should be the one to address this. The contact information for Bill Davidson our treasurer does not seem to be easy to find. We would get more contributions I think if that information was prominent but there seems to be a disconnect.
Max made a lot of good points. Rather than try to justify any of my past actions as Boss I want to thank everyone for putting up with me. It couldn't have been easy sometimes. What we have achieved is an epic story and I would like to see us go forward with it obviously. Everyone has a different leadership style, we just need a few small adjustments.
It may seem at times like I've created a void but I couldn't help it. It's just the way I roll. I did all I could to make this thing happen and anyone would have to admit that I carried the load and led strongly from the front for a very long time. But there was never any reason to think it could be permenant. At some point you have to slack off on your pace, let someone else lead, and possibly even drop to the rear of the pack. There is no shame in this, it is in fact what leadership should be. So that is where I am right now, probably somewhere mid-pack. You guys are going to have to pick up the pace though, because we aren't getting the job done.
Jim
I could get the car in Mid November and bring it down here. It could stay here for the winter, maybe Max could help do something with it. It would cost me about $400 in gas to get it here.
I would have to drive to Rick's, fix the Ign and drive it back. I think I could talk Tom Caine into going with me to drive one car or the other.
Any thoughts?
Steve
We don't have that kind of cash in the account at present. We are strapped.
Additionally, we should be trying to get the car towards the West Coast.
Max also suggested a storage unit....which would be a minimum of $79/month....plus...I have no way of getting the car there.
Max made some very good observations and suggestions in his most recent post.
There is an assumption being made here that the car will go unrepaired while being stored here in Illinois....which is not true.
As schedules allow, Pete and I will make the necessary repairs/changes to the ignition and possibly replace the air bag suspension with GT coil springs.
But until that happens, it will maintain its status as a doorstop.
Do you know how to do that Todd? Seems it may be a little over my pay grade, er, I mean, I'm sorta technologically challenged in that area and probably don't have the necessary permissions even if I knew what I was doing.
It can be dependent on how the forum software is set up as to whether or not you still have access. Certain forums default to locking posts/making them no longer editable after a given amount of time.
Jim, yours is the first post in the thread and I should think that current treasurer info should be in that post. *IF* this forum is configured to *never* lock posts then you should have access to an edit button when you view the first page of the thread.
If you can't find the edit button, any further edits to that post will have to involve a moderator or sysadmin.
The same thing would apply to whomever has the post at the top of the most recent page. In this case, that's me and I can still see the "Edit Post" option at the bottom of my message:
Options: • Reply via PM • Report This Message • Edit Post
Get me the treasurer info and I will tag it into my post at the top of this page.
Donations to the Roadmaster Project can be made to:
Bill Davidson, Treasurer
7208 W 54th Terrace
Overland Park, KS 66202
913 677-0884
Bill74mgb@yahoo.com
Checks should be made out to:
British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society
or
BADASS
I was not meaning to imply that Roadmaster should pay for my gas nor that it would not be repaired there.
I can come get it, if that is what the group wants done.
It probably should go west.
Steve
Max made excellent points. If Rick and Pete are going to rework the ignition and possibly the front airbags/springs, it seems to me, "#3 Car needs PREMANENT source of funds to be maintained" is the most important objective. And, IMO, to do that we have to ask ourselves whether we can reasonably expect to self fund or whether we need 3rd party support. Barring a very generous benefactor or two from the group, I'm personally of the opinion that we need 3rd party support. Now, you might not agree with me, but for the sake of developing the idea, bear with me... If we do go down that path, we have to ask what would cause "uninterested" individuals or organizations to agree to provide funds. There has to be something in it for them. We only have one asset interesting to individuals and that's the Road master itself. For businesses I can think of two draws. One would be showcasing their product(s) and the second would be associating their name with a charitable cause as most bigger companies set funds aside for that.
Now, I'm skeptical that we can sufficiently showcase products to get sponsorship that way - simply too small of a market and # of showings are simply too limited. That leaves the car itself as the asset.
My belief, then, is that if we want 3rd party funds we have to be prepared to use that asset. Consider something like setting a timeline for when we will auction the car and donate proceeds to a charity*. We then solicit support/sponsorship from a couple of companies. I know the CIO at AutoZone as an example and could see if they have funds set aside for marketing in a charitable context. We could then use the charity plan to try and market our story to some magazines or Speed/Velocity channel TV shows (I also have a connection who would share the story with Jesse James as an example). With publicity would come a bigger auction price. We would then want to ensure we had a professional looking way to collect email addresses of folks at shows who express interest - with the promise that we'll notify them as the auction gets close. That would help us ensure there is a lot of buzz during the auction itself. A web site or page set up to let people sign up to stay informed would help too - Curtis Road master page could be used for that.
There could be several variations of this sort of idea - I'm interested in what folks think of the general idea recognizing that the details would likely evolve as we put something like this sort of program in motion.
Respectfully submitted,
Rob Ficalora
VP, BADASS (hey, you guys voted me into the job while I was out getting gas; maybe there's justice in the world after all) ;)
*We could decide (and make clear up front) whether we would donate 100% of the proceeds and effectively dissolve at that point or maybe donate a portion (maybe 1/2 or something like that) and use the rest for BADASS 2.
The budget required for Badass-2 would be substantial. No major contributor to Badass will be able to make that kind of contribution the second time around so if we are going to entertain this idea we need to approach it as if we are fully funding a new build. If we manage to get National coverage and attention at an auction there might be some possibility at that point af some sponsorship for the second car but that should be put into place before we are locked into an auction if possible.
I never bothered to keep track of the hours on this car so I can't make an accurate estimate of build cost. I think Terry estimated the paint and finish body work at about fourteen grand. Terry once told me he had well over a hundred grand in his GT. I have no idea what Dan has in his or anybody else for that matter.
So the portion donated to charity would need to be negotiated, perhaps as part of the sponsorship agreement with an eye towards funding Badass-2. I would guess that we would need somewhere between 50 and 75 thousand to duplicate the effort and should probably lean towards the higher number. If we could get half of that from a sponsor and get enough publicity about the auction to get the other half there while still generating enough surplus to make a sizeable charitable donation then it only remains to determine the charity añd line up the sponsor(s).
I don't see a problem with this approach. It satisfies the requirement that we provide for the beneficiaries of BADASS which is itself a charity.
Jim
QuoteDonations to the Roadmaster Project can be made to:
Bill Davidson, Treasurer
7208 W 54th Terrace
Overland Park, KS 66202
(913) 677-0884
Bill74mgb (at) yahoo (dot) com
Checks should be made out to:
"British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society" or "BADASS"
I've just amended the very first message in the thread with this information.
I know the CIO at AutoZone as an example and could see if they have funds set aside for marketing in a charitable context. We could then use the charity plan to try and market our story to some magazines or Speed/Velocity channel TV shows (I also have a connection who would share the story with Jesse James as an example).
Two thoughts on marketing:
1 - The MG Road Master is powered by a Buick 455 topped with a highly distinctive oem Buick air cleaner.
2 - It's a British car. The only remaining 'British' manufacturer is Jag / Rover.
Would there be any possibility of cross-promoting with Buick at some of these Brit car shows? "Fast with Class" and all that?
Jag / Rover market share is so small ( and not directly relevant to the MG anyway ) that I doubt you can get much enthusiasm from one of their dealers.
Also, auction? You'd prefer not to do a raffle? It seems to me that most of the charity car promotion things I see are of the raffle variety.
If the Road Master were actually gotten up and running and did a full tour of car shows next summer, I wonder how many raffle tickets could be sold.
Also, a raffle offers a lower expense way for a company to donate funds. Prospective corp donors could buy blocks of tickets and then give tickets away to customers or high performing employees. I would suggest coupling this with a company party held in conjunction with a Brit car show at which the Road Master was making an appearance.
Could also be fun for the Hot Rod tour next year.
This all presupposes, of course, that the Road Master will be fairly reliable ... *facepalm*
Since Roadmaster has a Cobra Kit Car front suspension, don't they make various springs for it?
I would think the kit car people would have a choice of springs for the car, from track to street and including big block cars.
Steve
(I'm sure PJ would have *loved* to have only had to pay $100 for His time with Roadmaster! Frickin bargain.. :-/ ) It only cost me about a dollar or two a mile.
A local club here just cleared $15 K for a TR6 auction. 300 tickets at $50 ea all sold over a six month time period in NC.
A publicity committee might be able to get us more exposure, I'm not a writer but with some help would be willing to try to "sell" the right story to the magazines or potential corporate sponsors. Good ideas there Mr. VP
From the lack of responses to my offer to pick up the car, I assume it is a bad idea and therefore with draw the offer.
Steve
Todd, I don't think it is time to be sticking a label on the car. Not just yet. We've barely had any sort of shakedown and it is rare for even the most basic conversion to avoid any teething problems. What issues we have had with the car have been curable defects that almost entirely stem from the ultra low budget nature of the build and the limited manpower to get it done. If you would like to assist in that effort I am sure that there are one or two of those small defects that you could easily cure and this would undoubtedly make the car more reliable.
Jim
Steve, et al:
It's an idea, and probably a good one. I think we're just moving slow on the current "impasse"-- an out of place, inoperative car! Please leave the option open? :-)
I'll play Devil's Advocate on Rob's charity idea-- okay, so we sell the car. Jim is right that we couldn't repeat the car for anything close to what we'd auction the car for (Seriously, even WITH a big hoopla-- $30k?)
And then-- we have to look ourselves in the mirror and figure this problem out AGAIN-- only this time wiser, but also (admittedly) with likely less enthusiasm!
(We certainly can't sucker... er... "persuade"... JIm into leading the next one! He's just NOT that dumb! :-) )
I think the problem exists, whatever, whichever, and whereever we have this "group" car. This one is actually "done"...
As the Devils Advocate, I always fall back on... BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW. :-)
Let's figure this one out. This is first major setback (sort of..). Likely won't be last. This group has FAR too many resources of knowledge and savvy to be stuck on a simple problem of insolvency... :)
Cheers all,
M
So guys, the Road Master has hit a few bumps in the road. So what? I for one don't think that it's time to abandon ship.
Some creativity is required. The pay for use idea is plausible. Who gets to drive something like that for free?
The story of the car needs to be written and advertised. Perhaps some one will twig on the idea of something being built cross continent and become interested in the whole saga?
Is there something outside of our automotive focus that is feasible?
The car is viewed as an asset, which it is. But I think it's value in a monetary vein pales in comparison to it's value as a sign post of cooperation and mutual respect.
Once sold it's gone and the story ends.
A group of people who will likely never meet one another in person, constructed a vehicle over the internet!
How cool is that?
But how many people outside of BV8 know what went on?
The Road Master needs to be a solid reliable vehicle in order to continue. In that regard I would be happy to take over the reins and complete the vision. I have dry heated storage for the winter and the resources to deliver a finished product.The only hitch is that I'm on the west coast of Canada. Can anyone get the car here? If even that is the wish of the group.
As last note, to the people who actually, physically had anything to do with the car.
My complete admiration and respect.
Cheers
Fred
While we are kicking around ideas....
The car is pretty much finished, it's just broken and needs fixed. Finishing the car was the initial mission of the organization, so now the mission needs to be redefined, in keeping with the BADASS, LLC mission, promoting the sport, educating the public, etc. From here on out, what is the mission?
The car could be used to "drive away cancer" like Grace, or some other worthy mission that would take it around the country. My opinion is that something like that would be much better than just pay for use, but it would also be dependent on donations.
This car is an enigma. It is not a traditional hot rod because it uses a sports car and not Chevy or Ford. It is not a traditional sports car because it is spurious. Quite a good representation of this group! Not mainstream by any stretch.
People outside of this group will not be inclined to provide support to this car as it stands. If we decided to use it for a mission, such as Grace was, people would donate to the cause. The car does attract attention. When I had it at the WV International Auto Show, we had pretty good crowd around it most of the time. If it had a pink ribbon on it or a red cross or whatever, we probably could generate some income. Operational expenses could be taken from the donations with the rest going on to that charity. We could use a slogan like "they said we couldn't build it, but we did, now they say we can't beat cancer..."
It seems I've been misunderstood by at least a few people. Let me clarify a couple of points:
1. I never suggested that the current difficulty is too big for us or that we should abandon the car. In fact when I said "Consider something like setting a timeline" I was thinking in terms of about 3yrs. I believe it will take us that long to accomplish several things but most importantly sorting it out & then gaining the public visibility that was always a core objective in addition to ensuring those that contributed to it get a chance to enjoy it.
2. The suggestion of planning to auction the car at some defined point wasn't the only option, just one I thought was a good one & I'm trying to get concrete ideas that we can ultimately agree on & then act on. The main idea behind it was that tying it to some form of charity is, IMO, the best option we have for securing reasonable & recurring funding as well as mass media visibility to the cool thing the group did. Dan's suggestion could also be made to work. To make it work I think it would require some form of monitary support to whatever the chosen cause is. But, bottom line is if you don't like that idea, propose your own tangible idea along with suggesting how it could be implemented. Remember "Vision without Execution is Hallucination."
Getting the car to Fred sounds like it could help on multiple fronts - one could be expediting getting getting it sorted & the 2nd would be getting it closer to some of the left coast folks who made significant donations.
There seems to be a new development in the works. Steve D suggested that the car should be in the southern states during the winter which makes sense as that will keep it in circulation and allow more testing and shakedown. Bill seems agreeable to the idea so if it is OK with Rick and Pete, Steve and Tom Caine have volunteered to run up to Sydney, get the car driveable and head back with it. They plan to stop by here on the way and we will see if we can equip it with the 3" diameter air bags and see how that works out since I have a set here. We can also look at the crankcase breather to see if we can't equip it with an oil separator of some sort.
Now this could potentially delay getting the car out west a bit, and I think there is much merit in taking Fred up on his offer to sort the car out as well. So I suspect the question should be, do we have a viable means of getting the car to Fred? And even if we do wouldn't it make sense to put that off until the great white north thaws out a bit?
What do you guys think? Good idea? Anyone else want to step up to campaign the car about the south over the winter?
Jim
FYI....Tom Caine and Steve deGroat are planning on picking up the Roadmaster November 15/16.
Thanks to Steve we're moving ahead with the repairs on the car and he will see that it gets some attention at some shows etc over the winter months. We need to start looking ahead to next spring and getting a schedule together for the car, still plenty of folks who donated to the project that haven't had a turn with it.
The bank account is basically empty, not enough left to offset the monthly checking fee, but I am going to donate another hundred bucks to keep us afloat for a while. We need some donations for future expenses like the next tag fees etc. I know that it's a bad time of year to ask for donations with the holidays comming up, but even a few bucks will help if everyone can chip in.
Tom and Steve should be here in Illinois late this afternoon (11/15).
Hope Tom and Steve don't cause you as much grief as my near arrival a few months ago:
1) panic phone calls and emails and text messages
2) rent a trailer
3) get a speeding ticket
4) spend most of a day rescuing Roadmaster and jockey
5) trip to Hooters just to use wifi
6) next early am take PJ to airport
Seriously, hope all goes well with the suspension and ignition.
RoadmasterRickatHooters.jpg
Steve and Tom got here about 2pm CST.
Roadmaster has been diagnosed and repairs made to electrical system.
Coil was bad.....replaced with spare coil I had here in the barn...car now runs. I gave them a spare coil as well.
MSD and spark advance have been reconnected and work fine.
Air suspension obviously still has faults....the crew is looking at replacing the current bags with smaller bags when they get to Jim's tomorrow.
We'll take the car out tomorrow morning for a fuel run and shakedown run...then the boys will be Cincinatti (OK...Kentucky) bound (timing their departure to miss any Indy rush-hour traffic).
All is well....fingers crossed.
Where are the pictures?
Didn't take any pics (sorry).
The Roadmaster should now be in Indy on its way to Kentucky for an overnight at Jim's shoppe before continuing east.
They were going to replace the air bags currently installed with smaller diameter bags to see if this will cure the failure rate experienced. If not, GT coil springs will be re-installed.
The barn seems a little empty without the Roadmaster in one of the bays....
Steve can give more details later, but we punted on the airbags and installed a set of performance springs (.550" wire, and shorter springs) along with 1" spring spacers. The ride height is just about right we think. It will not ride as nice but no worries. Test drive in the morning.
Steve has been experimenting with the pcv and it looks like progress in an inverted sideways sort of way. By painting the underside with oil we have determined that oil has indeed been getting sucked down the carb and it is fixable. By the time they get home results will be in.
Other than that it seems to be business as usual, half the gages are working right and the gas mileage is pretty decent plus the general public loves it. So all in all not bad. I told Steve he is not leaving tomorrow before I get to drive the car.
Jim
I believe I found the barrel to the driver's door lock in the driveway of the house.
Please check.
Good news. And who needs gauges anyway. Just stop every 90 minutes and add two qts oil and 8-10 gals of gas and you are on your way again. I pushed it to two hours once driving at 70+ mph and ran out of gas. I'm sure I'm the only one here who has ever done that foolish thing.
Looks like you've got great weather for driving today. Best wishes for a safe and pleasant ride to SC. Maybe I can come down to help with something this winter.
455cuMGB:GT.jpg
Yep, the lock is missing. Can you send it to Steve please?
Hopefully the oil consumption will be down to more normal levels.
For the trip here the boys yanked out the pcv valve and let it lay on the intake and plugged a new one in the hole to plug it. Oil usage was down but instead of burning it through the carb they washed the bottom of the car with it where it came out the new pcv valve and ran down the back of the engine. Not hard to imagine what manifold vacuum was doing to that system. We plugged a breather in the pcv grommet in the manifold and routed the pcv valve to the breather on the valve cover. As you will recall, it had a hose nipple already. If that doesn't stop it I suppose we can run a hose from the manifold to the air cleaner or plug it and use a breather in place of the oil filler on the other valve cover, or even hose that to the air cleaner. Whatever we end up with, this one should be fixed. Steve will let us know.
We took a drive down Hathaway Rd. and it looks like the new springs are going to do just fine. Ride height is just right as far as we could tell and the spring rate seemed good too. Good ride for touring, at some point someone may want to put slightly heavier oil in the shocks but I only felt it hit the bump stops once on the test run so in normal driving it will be fine.
The coil problem was from vibration. A hole was worn in the bottom corner of the can, it could have happened to any coil. Just too bad it had to fail just when and where it did.
The guys are headed for the barn. They left around ten and should have no issues on the way.
Now what we do have as potential future items needing our attention:
The tranny(T-5) does not like to downshift into 3rd. It will if you properly double clutch. You T-5 guys need to noodle on that some.
The axle is a little noisy. Someone needs to find us a good Jag IRS center housing. Not real picky about the ratio.
The gages need upgraded. I don't think any one of us would have fought this problem for so long on our own car.
Gas spills out in the twisties. That nice fancy gas cap just doesn't seem to seal very well. Plus it is very hard to open and close.
That's about it for now I think. It really is a very nice car and I am glad it is headed to where it can be driven and shown off during the winter. I really sort of wish I had been able to go get it myself.
Jim
Tom and I got home about 5:30.
No problems and burned NO oil.
We got about 16 to 17 mpg and ran between 70 and 80 most of the time. Our average speed on the last tank was 74.5 mph.
Steering shakes above 70 but settles down some at 84.
I will try to adjust headlight as they are very low.
A relay has hung up (?) and the cooling fan stays on.
It was great seeing Rick and Jean and they do a wonderful job of hosting.
Good to see Jim, Edith and Mathew and the hospitality there was out standing also.
The springs work fine and I think it has flattened out the cornering some.
Tom followed me through the gorge and said it doesn't lean very mush.
I will be taking it to cruise in in the area and trying to fix some problems.
Gas stops can take a while as people really like the car.
Steve
Sounds like good progress. The fan was not sticking on when I had it so that is new. Not sure how the adjustible thermostat works, maybe check to see if the shut off temp got bumped up maybe.
Mike and I had that relay problem on the power tour. I think we put in a new relay. They may make one with a higher amperage.
That is really GREAT news about the oil consumption! Who would have thought after all this time and trouble it would be that simple to fix? A big thank-you from all of us to everyone who helped sort that particularly troubling problem out!
Jim
Steve,
I am Glad you made it home safe early and b efore it got too dark. I think more than 2nd gear would over run the headlights. Do let me know if you want some help with Roadmaster. I'm not too far away in Winston-Salem and I could take it to Max if he wanted to show it off. There are several groups near us here that might like to see the car: NASCAR shops, Forsyth Community College , 6 or 7 British Clubs will meet once a month. in NC over the winter. I'd be glad to drive down your way to help
PJ Lenihan
pjlenihan@me.com
mobile 336.462.1147
BTW...I donated two coils...the replacement coil and a spare coil to keep in the boot. Hopefully, we will never need the spare again.
Such good news, thanks guys for all your help. That includes Rick for storing the car and rescuing PJ this summer and Jim for the use of his shop as well. It's always been a team effort and still is. PJ stepped up with a nice donation to the treasury so along with mine we aren't broke, but still could always use some money in reserve for licensing etc.
The cooling fan is supposed to run after the engine is shut off if the temperature is high. Try disconnecting the black/green wire at the temperature switch and see if that doesn't shut the fan off. Then touch the B/G wire to ground and the fans should come on; remove it and they should go back off. If so, the relays are good.
More on the coil.
I t appears to be rubbing on the engine mount. I will move it up slighlty.
If you turn the ign switch to the run position without starting the car there is no 12 volts at the pos coil.( PJ didn't stand a chance of fixing it)
The pos appears when you crank the engine. I guess on the the MSD boxes is doing that.
I will try to adjust the headlights and move the coil a little tomorrow.
Steve
"(PJ didn't stand a chance of fixing it)"
You are absolutely right!! At least I had enough sense to call Max when I was stumped. Then Rick came to the rescue What a guy.
BTW the fuel pump wiring needs attention, it is a side of the road quick fix using crimp on connections.
How much oil did you add? I added 5 or six quarts in a little over 900 miles back in Aug.
RoadmasterLittleRockAR.jpg
I don't recall if it was above here or in the email thread, but I recall seeing that with the PCV replaced with a breather, they didn't need to add any oil on the leg from Jim's to where it is now.
PJ,
I meant you didn't stand a chance with the ign because we didn't know that there would be no 12 volts when in the run position without the engine cranking. Max did not know either.
We added no oil from Jim's to here (520 miles). That problem is fixed.
I will check the fuel pump wiring when it is on the lift.
I also hope to get the wheel balance checked as it has a lot steering wheel shake at speed.
Steve
QuoteWe added no oil from Jim's to here (520 miles). That problem is fixed.
Awesome!
I think that some of the steering wheel shake is wear in the steering rack. My dad had a shake in the steering on his '63 B that we couldn't get rid of until he bought a new rack & pinion unit.
I was thinking the shake was in the column. I have a spare column or two and at least one steering rack that I think came from a CB car. If any of that would be helpful - even for parts, let me know.
Some steering shake can be eliminated by tightening up the rack ends (spherical ends of the tie rods) - not a difficult process but can be a little awkward if done in situ.
One of the tests I use for a loose tie rod ball end condition is to thump the outside of tire with your fist (directly in line with the outer tie rod end) and if there is an audible clunk, then the rack end needs tightening.
Update:
Ran until the gas gauge read about 1/4. That is when sitting still. Put 10.2 gal in. Gauge really is fairly accurate. If the needle would just stay still you could read it while moving. It had 155.7 mile on that tank.
Cig lighter circuit blew at Jim's. I have been using my jumper battery to run the GPS. I put a circuit breaker in it today. It will reset when is shorts again.
May have fixed the gas sloshing out. It did not lose any after filling today, but I didn't push it hard.
Next is the shimmy and shake. Will try rebalancing the tires. Then look at the rack.
Trans: Must double clutch to get from 4 to 3 now. Not hard, but sometimes a not convenient
Steve.
Update:
Adjusted the clutch up from the floor a little. No joy on the 4/3 shift.
Greased the car while in the air.
A little play in the rack.
Will try the wheel balance on Tuesday.
Steve
Busy guy, getting a lot done. Let's all raise a glass in a toast to Steve.
Here! Here!! For he's a jolly good fella!!!
Great going, Steve! I take it you are enjoying retirement? ;)
Not sure what the deal is on the gas gauge. It worked fine way back when I had it. I ran the car down to the fumes (10 miles with it on E) driving home from WV. The gauge worked smoothly all the way to E. When I finally found a gas station, I put more gas in than I thought it should hold (13.2 gallons). A reputable Shell station in case anyone is thinking gas pump issue.
Carl,
I agree about the gas gauge. I have put 12.2 gal in when I had it before.
Will run it down and see. Plan to carry extra gas with at the time.
Steve
The dashboard gage has no damping. So when the float moves it does too. There is a lot of slosh in the tank. Imagine a cork floating in a five gallon bucket half full sitting in the passenger's seat. That is what you are seeing. The only way to fix it is to damp the movement of the gage (by filling it with mineral oil...doubt we can do this), damp the sender (by increasing resistance at the pivot...impractical and unreliable), or by damping the signal electrically. We tried this last solution and it did help some. It is documented in this thread. It was removed during troubleshooting of potentially related electrical issues and never reinstalled. If there is a large can capacitor with a twisted wire pair in the spares, that is the kit.
Jim
My experience with the gauge during my short time behind the wheel (Muskegon, MI to Champaign, IL during the Power Tour) was that the gauge was NOT reliable at all.
I saw no smooth movement towards the "E"...a 3/4 tank indication meant that I had about 1/2 tank...I started looking for a gas station when the needle hit 1/4, knowing that the end was near.
The voltmeter, the oil psi, and air suspension psi gauge were the only gauges that I trusted.
The speedo, the tach, odometer, and the fuel gauge were all FUBAR.
I used my GPS for my speed indicator and odometer.
I pretty much agree. The speedo was reading 2/3 scale, and the tach was totally unusable except to show the engine was running. Maybe we should just stick a stock fuel gage back in it until we can come up with something better, and since the speedo sender used the cable hole, just find a stock T5 driven gear, plug that in and hook it up to a stock speedometer head.
A stock tach can be modified to read 8 cylinders I think. For the other gages maybe we can find something that matches reasonably close eventually.
Jim
Speedo should be easy to calibrate - I fould a place that deals (or dealt) with Stuart Warner gauges here in Houston when I had the car. They didn't have a spare key but offerred to let me borrow one. Unfortunately I got caught up messing with the starter & didn't get that taken care of. I'd think coming up with someone with a key near where the car is wouldn't be too difficult -- although may not be the highest priority either.
I think we have the calibration switch. I will look for it and then pull the dash and install it.
steve
Update:
Wheel balance: Left front was way out of balance and right front was a little out. Corrected both.
Rear were spot on. One center cap broke up when we removed it, I will try to glue it back together.
The front end shake is much reduced, not gone but reduced. Now you can really feel the drive line shake. I starts about 75 and is really bad at 85. Should I try raising or lowing the rear of the car? This is not in my area of knowledge.
Gas gauge: I ran the car till the gauge was bouncing of E and put in 11.5 gal. It does move too much, but is fairly accurate.
Next is the speedo.
Steve
Drive line as in pinion angle being off? If so the goal is parallel but on different planes. So if transmission angles down @ n° the diff should also. If the trans tail and diff flange are at the same height then offset would need to be left/right. Not sure how this was planned for when setting the driveline so don't know if you can shim the diff mount to adjust angle or if there's some other way.
Hey all:
First off, Big Thanks to Steve for tackling the tasks! And great Job by everyone involved with the PCV fix! Indeed, a collective sigh of relief. :-)
Some random thoughts, otherwise...
a) RE: coil. Are we now carrying a spare relay (Dan Masters?)? I'm wondering if the death of the coil might have fried the points on the ignition relay and it'll soon be on it's way out as well... :-/
b) Vibration. Steering rack? Driveshaft? Did we ever get that Toe Out condition in the rear fixed?
c) Rear Diff. Unless someone else wants to beat me to this, I probably should volunteer to come up with this (seeing as how The Circus has numerous parts Jags lying about.) Dan/Jim: what year ranges of Jag will provide an appropriate donor? (And is the V-12 an option? MUCH lower ratio!)
d) I agree those gauges have outworn their welcome. Time is also worth money and we've spent Hundreds of dollars in man-hours by now fucking with them. (pardon my American Swear).
e) Thinking ahead: Bill-- do we try to de-cam the motor when it comes out for the inevitable tranny swap?
M
Max,
Vibration now seems to be mostly from the drive line. I will look at the drive shaft angles, but what about the drive axles?
We narrowed the rear end, could the drive axles be the problem?
The engine does not have to come out for a trans swap. the present trans will last for years, just double clutch the 4/3 shift or plan around it.
Someone please tell me if we are going to replace the gauges soon. If I pull the dash to fix the speedo and then the gauges get replaced soon you will be on the receiving end of my wrath. I hate working with dashes.
Steve
Steve,
I did not find the speedometer, fuel gauge or tach problems to be much more than nuisance items on the to be fixed list. A GPS devise and or a smart phone worked well for me. I trust my gps for accurate speed, I do not trust most speedometers even in new cars they are often off enough to get a ticket.
Now the vibration was disconcerting and in my opinion a much higher priority. Once near the TX/ AR state line I pulled over to tighten the fancy nut on the "star wars" air breather, it was nearly off and ready to smash the windscreen before skipping down the side of the interstate at 70 mph./ Also carbonated beverages must be opened with great care after being transported in this fine machine.
If you decide to shuttle Roadmaster to FC in Durham, and need any help like a ride home, just let me know.
If the diff comes out the axles should be balanced. It could help. (But don't forget to loctite the hub splines on reassembly. They could be difficult to disassemble. Balance should be OK, the shafts turn at 1/3-1/4 driveshaft speed.) We do not know the gear ratio so Steve, if you put it back on your lift could you mark the driveshaft and tires and see about what we have? We will not turn down any diff in good working order Max. But it would not hurt to know what we are starting from. The engine doesn't care much, but that could move the vibration out of the cruising range possibly.
What was the issue with the cam? Is it still an issue? Seemed to me the mileage was up and it was running well. We don't need more power.
I believe the engine and pinion angles are both at 3 degrees but it would not hurt to check. The driveshaft is balanced I believe, at least Mike Malonious paid for it and the shop is a reputable one. There should be some offset, I think the pinion is probably higher than the tailshaft. But zero offset should not cause vibration. Stock lower brackets are available I think with different angles for the pinion if we have to change that. With everything settling in there could be some changes.
Good job Steve, on the wheel vibration btw.
I found a neat capacitive fuel gage used on experimental planes:
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/eppages/skysportfuelsys.php
Surprisingly affordable, though not inexpensive. May not be something we want here tho.
So Max, would Flying Circus like to have the car back up there now that it runs and is driveable? I have no doubt Bill would go along with that.
Jim
Max,
I think I added a couple of spare relays to the tool kit when the car was here, but I'm not sure.
If the "ignition" relay fails, none of the "key-on" circuits will work. If they are working, the relay is good.
I sent you a package of Jag IRS info a few minutes ago. That should help you find replacement differential internals if needed.
Dan
Jim,
When I had the diff open before, I checked the tooth count. It is a 3.54. I think it should have a 2.88, but I don't have one, so whatever we can get.
I don't think it will fail soon. It could be loud for years.
Should I pull the dash or forget it?
PJ, thanks for the offer. I may take you up on it. Let's see what Max wants to do. We could put in a new diff at Max's or here.
Steve
I don't hear anybody donating good working gages Steve. I guess it is your call.
Jim
Hey Guys:
I remember Steve saying he counted a 3.54 (even though rumour was it was a 3.7...). I also agree that a 2.88 would be better, but according to the info Dan sent me I'm only going to find a "recommended" one in an 89-95 HE XJS. (Dunno if we got one of those out in the Field of Screams...) Failing that, at least the 3.31 would be a mild improvement...
I'll print out the info pages and pick Toby's brain sometime during Lunch. :)
AS for the car coming HERE--- ooh, no. WE are absolutely slammed to the fences and there is no room for even one more vehicle, let alone one that would distract from work hours. I wouldn't dare broach that subject at the moment... :-(
I would suggest the car "winters" at Steve's and points further south (and get the driveshaft checked for balance, measure the installed angles, check the u-joints, check the halfshafts, etc. to find this vibration!)
IF THE VIBRATION (driveshaft!) has been really bad-- THIS can be ruining the outer pinion bearing and making the axle noisy! (Though, was it noisy from the get-go?). I would be loathe to go through all the effort of doing a diff swap just to put it into a bad situation...
Perhaps springtime (that's March 1st down here for all you Northerners... nyah nyah!) we can see about sneaking it up for a weekend worksession like before. (Maybe get the newest AARP member-- Floyd!-- to come over. ;-) )
Also, it would be great to figure out HOW to calibrate the speedo-- but IF our goal is to drop the ratio, then we'd still have to calibrate it yet again!
RE: Gauges. Did anyone notice if the tach reading got WORSE with the MSD? You can't run a Lucas tach with an MSD. I wonder if we need to look at a set of Stacks or something.... (RAcetech?) I like the look of the SW-- but the suckers don't work!
Cheers,
M
I will NEVER join that liberal organization, AARP!
As for the rear gears, Yes, there were always noisy. They howled, roared, & whined all the way home from Charleston, WV.
I agree with double checking the driveshaft/u-joints. I remember Jim B having a go at a home rebalance. Maybe his remedy departed the driveshaft?
Well, no, we were going to do that when Mike volunteered to take the driveshaft to Dayton Clutch and U-joint Service so we had them shorten it 1/2" or so and balance it. Doesn't hurt to check it when it is out but it should be right.
Perhaps running it on the lift (with wheels both off and on) will reveal the vibrating component.
Did the tach get worse with the MSD? Maybe, but it has never worked right. Personally I doubt it ever will and I feel the same way about the fuel gage. Personally I think it's time to punt those SW gages over the wall. But we need something to replace them with.
331 gears will work fine. 288's will too. Or anything between.
I really can hardly believe we are at the point of NVH reduction on this project. What that means is that the build is a complete success and now we are fine tuning it. Well done! It is finally becoming the car that everyone will want to drive and that has been a long time in coming. Eventually we will figure out how to lighten the pedal pressure and otherwise "tame the beast" to the point that there is really nothing left to do but show it off and I think we are most of the way there.
You guys are Good.
Jim
Had the car on the lift. I had forgotten to grease the rear end, many fittings. While lining up the left half shaft fitting I heard it clicking.
The inner joint had rust streaks coming from it. I greased everything. The suspect joint would not take grease to my satisfaction ( only seeps from one cap) .
Went to Car Quest, they have the joints. Now:
1. Replace just the one joint.
2. Replace both on that shaft.
3. Replace all 4 in both shafts.
4. Wait to do any of them until we get a new diff and do it all at once.
The joints from CQ are Spicer and cost me under $20 apiece.
The car is still very driveable, it just shakes at high speed.
Steve
Okay, maybe it's not the driveshaft. What about a worn tailshaft bushing?
Noise, vibration, harshness - yeah, I had to look it up. The glass fitting properly against the seals would go a looong way towards helping the noise. Of course, the wind noise also helps drown out the rear gear noise. ;)
Don't recall any harshness. One down, only two to go!
I mentioned way back when I had the car in March that I feel that the Stars Wars air cleaner is subjected to too much wind force at Interstate speeds. It needs to be braced or swapped for something else during Interstate trips. We don't want to see that thing imbedded in the windshield of the car that is following us!
Steve,
You posted that while I was slowly pecking away. I like option #4 provided that the car doesn't wind up being handed of to someone without the skill/facilities to do the job before we locate another diff.
Probably all four should be replaced, however I'd just do the one side unless the diff is being replaced as the other side will need to be unbolted eventually anyway.
So Max, you still there? It sounds like the sooner Steve can get a diff from you the better, provided that that was your offer.
And I wouldn't put it off Steve.You will recall that is part of the upper suspension link.
Jim
I will touch base with Max.
Steve
I'm here!
I will not be producing a diff in the next week, so don't wait on Me.
Personally, because of the future diff work and because I do u-joints as LITTLE as possible (all that broaching/interference fit just renders the flanges useless over time), I would vote for change the ONE that is bad and see if that improves it (vibration-wise).
I never heard back-- was the Toe Out issue ever resolved in the rear? I thought maybe someone cut the trailing arm and rethreaded, but not sure.... That would n't cause a vibration, but would make it squirrely and speed and cause tire "cupping"-- which THEN might be causing roadnoise/vibration.
$.02
M
PS: I'll try to get a "Diff" ball rolling, but busy time here. We close for a week at xmas and try to get as many cars out the door as possible. Extracurriculars have to take a back seat... :-p
Max,
the toe problem was taken care of.
I will plan to replace the one joint and then see what happens.
should be next week when I get to it.
Steve
Steve, you may change your mind.
The axle spline where it goes through the hub has been loctited in place. It is a spline about 2-3" long and you are not likely to get it apart with just a BFH.
This is in accordance with Jaguar tech bulletins which require the loctite to prevent stub shafts from shearing off. I do not think you can change the u-joint without removing the stub shaft from the upright.
The good news is, at about 300 degrees F. the loctite softens to the point where it offers little resistance and the spline and hub is a slip fit. The synthetic lube in the hub will easily tolerate that temperature I believe so the trick is to position a small heater to warm the upright slowly and evenly until the hub will slip off the spline. That may take half the day so schedule accordingly.
This is why I say you may change your mind about doing them both while you have it apart.
Jim
Jim,
thanx for the infor.
I was just planning to change the inner joint now and wait for the new diff to do the rest.
Steve
Maybe you can drop the inner end and change the joint without pulling the shaft.
Jim
Update:
Talked with Toby-- I'll take the spec sheets from Dan into the shop and we'll see what we have for parts cars that might provide a suitable donor differential. No guarantees, but I think the odds are good. :-)
However, I think the 2.88 is a longshot-- we only have one XJS parts car, and it's a 6 cyl. :-(
M
Guys,
In regards to the half shaft u-joints, as you can well imagine, some are better than others. I did quite a bit of research on them, both on the Jag-lovers web site and different drive shaft shops and this is what I came up with. Driveshaft Specialist of Texas seemed to be very knowledgable about their business and they highly recommended the Spicer #5-1410x for this application. It's a cold forged, solid cross, non-greasable u-joint, virtually indestructable. Shop around, good prices are available.
http://www.driveshaftspecialist.com/
(http://i488.photobucket.com/albums/rr246/dynobeast/spi-5-1410x.jpg)
Ken,
I can get those u-joints for about $22.
If that is what the group wants to use.
I prefer a greaseable joint.
Steve
I prefer Spicer.
Whatever you want to do is fine by me.
Jim
Carl,
Both joints are by Spicer.
Steve
Steve:
I would go with those. Sealed is better, I think, due to the proximity of brake rotors. (read: no flinging of grease!)
$.02
Update: Toby is checking our parts cars. He thinks we DO have a 2.88 (Series III Jag XJ6), so there is hope there yet!
M
I will go with the sealed joint.
Will wait toe see about the dff from Max.
Steve
So far as the sticky transmission/4th gear goes, this is a TINY car with a big block. You have metric assloads worth of torque and you're not pushing anything with it.
Skip shift directly from 3 to 5th, the 455 should have no problem pulling the car out of the hole. I've driven everything from compact cars to half ton pickups to 70k pound dump trucks to OTR, 18 gear big rigs placarded for being overweight. They're all perfectly fine with skip shifting just so long as you don't bog the rpm down and lug the motor. And I really can't imagine you guys bogging this thing from a dead stop, much less when it's already rolling.
It's really unnecessary to use EVERY gear unless you're climbing a steep hill or trying to get a big load rolling. Or racing.
If you're having problems with the car being really jerky to throttle response in 1st gear you can usually smooth something like that out by starting from a dead stop in 2nd. The taller rear diff you guys are looking for would also be helpful in that respect.
Todd, you hit that nail squarely on the head. With the 455 in that car, you can start out in 5th if you want to. I did it when it was here last winter.
A picture of the Roadmaster has been published on page 18 of the February 2013 issue of Hot Rod Magazine.
It reads: "Jim Blackwood/Longmont, Colorado - The sickos British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society (BADASS) stuffed a Buick 455 into this MGB and called it the MGBGT V8"
They were close.
Any positive publicity is good publicity!!!!!
HotRodMagazine2-2013Pg18_resize.jpg
Bill Davidson has sent out the latest update for our BADASS bank account. Thanks to everyone who donated and got us back in the black so to speak. Present balance after paying the insurance is $696.75
viewer1.jpg
Bill & Bill:
Small item, BUT-- any chance you can get that account in a Credit Union and lose less on the service charge each month?
I just went through the same thing with MY bank last year-- Emily (a teacher) got me over to the Credit Union. Saves $7/mo on the service charges!
(Every little bit helps, etc. :-) )
$.02
M
Isn't the British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society a non-profit organization? As such, won't some banks waive the service charge?
holy crap, service charges are eating you ALIVE.
Small item, BUT-- any chance you can get that account in a Credit Union and lose less on the service charge each month?
getting into many credit unions is now redonkulously easy in the US. while a CU charter requires a 'limited possible membership pool' ( which in olden days was usually limited to the employees/families of company X or being a fireman or teacher or some such ), they've figured out that they can define their charter as "living or working in X county" and still be considered as legally having a 'limited population' from which they can draw.
practically speaking, this means that almost everyone is going to have a local CU for which they can qualify for membership simply by residing in their house or driving down the road and going to work.
when i was in Tx, Austin Telco CU permitted me to join simply by making a $5 donation to a specific national charity that they were affiliated with. i forget which charity that is and i no longer have the account so it's not really important.
the uninformed might think that a CU limits them in access options. actually, another possible BIG benefit of a credit union account is what is known as a "Credit Union Service Center".
http://www.cuservicecenter.com/
i have accounts with three different credit unions. i can travel *anywhere in the country*, find a "service center" equipped CU and have access to all of my funds from all three of my accounts through a 4th party credit union. given that there are almost 5000 service centers nationwide now, i'm rarely far from one. here's a list of service centers in HI, there's "only" 73 access options on the islands:
http://www.cuservicecenter.com/ServiceCenters.aspx?state=HI
i was probably worst off in Sebastian, Fla. in order to get to a service center i had to drive to Fort Pierce which was about an hour away.
credit unions also usually offer no-fee ATM transactions to foreign CU accounts.
RE: Differential.
Toby and I have a plan to get the (presumed) 2.88 diff scrounged on or before January 26th (weather permitting.) It is in a Series III XJ6 sedan that is buried 4 cars deep in the yard, so we have to do some parting out/throwing out to get access to it. (After which time, it, too, will likely get junked.)
THIS WILL BE THE ATTEMPT. If this fails to produce a good axle-- well, sorry, I tried. (I've phenagled my boss into helping me with this on HIS time and dime-- I can't ask much more than that!).
When I have axle out of parts car I will clean and assess and report. At that time, depending on where the Roadmaster is and whether I can get a crew assembled to do the swap, we'll work out whether the car needs to come HERE, the diff needs to be sent <there>, or whatever. If the diff is unuseable as is, we can then discuss if it's worth bothering to have IT rebuilt (so as to get the lower ratio.) REM: current axle is 3.54. The 2.88 would drop a 3000 rpm cruise down to 2440. :-)
Tentatively, then, we're looking at some weekend likely in February IF (big "IF") the car was to come Here for the diff swap.
I've queried the "Events List" as well to learn when the car is scheduled to appear, and thus to work out when it might be available to have this work done without disrupting those scheduled events.
More as it occurs. :-/
Max
Max,
I can come help If you want.
We can do the swap here if that is better, or bring the car to you.
I will wait to do the u-joint until the diff is decided.
Now, assuming that you get a diff, should we do all four u-joints when we do the swap?
Steve
Steve:
With the advancing age (of the car, but maybe Me, too?) I do U-joints only as necessary. Needless pressing in and out just loses the interference fit.
NOW... if access is difficult in the Roadmaster and this IS THE TIME-- and the existing joints all look pretty old-- yeah, I can see doing all even if they still feel good. But I don't go for the "always swap both" idea that some tout. I think that just wears out the hard parts prematurely. :-p
M
UPDATE:
"Weather is NOT permitting"- freezing rain at the moment, and tomorrow's event has been postponed until NEXT Weekend. WE have moved a couple of the junk cars, so it shouldn't be too tough to get at the actual donor car.
M
We all appreciate your efforts Max. Try to persevere, we're not going anywhere.
Jim
Got it!
Toby and I towed 4 cars out of the way, dragged (literally!) the Jag into the shop and then had the back end out and stripped in a few hours.
It IS a 2.88 (as the tag says-- I didn't go nuts and count teeth... yet.) It felt good, turned smooth, had lots of (thick, but...) oil in it. It has been cleaned and rinsed and resoaked in some fresh oil to coat the bearings.
It will need new seals and gasket, but that seems minor. (Front seal was leaking-- I wouldn't trust the output shafts seals.)
So.... I'll contact "My Crew" and see if we can make this diff swap happen in the next month. :-)
Cheers,
Max
Okay, so Report:
a) The diff swap is done. It IS a 2.88 (Steve counted gears). It now features new seals & new output bearings (both inner and outer). Outer pinion bearing looked okay, so we chose to trust those.
b) While the rear subframe is removable pretty easily (except for some idiots who put the wiring Under and Through the subframe (that would be US :-p)) it was NOT easily disassembled! The long pins, bolts, rod ends, and other items were rusted up!! In fact, we never got out the passenger side long pin-- we just removed the diff from the other side and left that side together. Also, we left the rod ends in place, having no ability to get new ones on the weekend.
c) We cleaned and de-rusted (parts tumbler) all the bolts and anti-seized them before they went back together. The radius arm was nearly impossible to reattach and we had to use TWO ratcheting towstraps to get it to line up.
d) We did end up doing all four u-joints on the half-shafts. Many of the cups either wouldn't take grease or were pushing out rust, so as it was such a pain in the ass to get it this far apart we figured we better deal with them now.
e) All that aside, the above IS a "custom" item and I'm willing to accept a certain Difficulty Factor when dealing with it. MY biggest complaint on the weekend is the Brake Master Cylinder! WHY CAN'T THIS BE BLED LIKE A "normal" unit? Those in Townshend last time will remember the difficulties. Steve finally got brakes having it pressure bled. Well, despite only disconnecting the REARS, we, too, had NO BRAKES (to the Floor!) and had to rig up a pressure bleeding system so as to get some brakes back in the car. I found this not only stupid and hard to explain, but also ridiculous for a car that needs to be passed from one user to another. I'm open to explanations of why this BMC behaves this way and what can we do to change it?
f) We also tackled a few other simple items (this is all in the Logbook-- 4 pages!), including Carl's suggestion of overfilling the T5 as it normally would have been tilted in a Camaro and thus holding more fluid. (So, it now has about 2.7 Qts of ATF rather than just the 2 it "level" fills to.)
g) There are still some items that we didn't get to because they were "niggling" but not that imperative. (At one point all four of us were on the axle. But when we started, Steve handled the Diff, Tim tackled the loose steering column (Yay, Fixed!), and Carl made an attempt to get the drivs door to fit better. In the end, the two that stick out that one notices are the interior lights not working and the poor fit of the window glass. (Door fitment has a LOT to do with this.)
h) We DID fix the door lock so that the car can be secured. We also safety tethered the fan shroud so that it can't get knocked out and drag on the ground again (!), put a protective sleeve over the front brake hose where it was chafing against the a-arms, tack welded the loose front coil spring locators, and reattached the map pocket. (Neat location! I like that idea. :-) )
Last comments on the Rear Subframe Assy: The old rebound strap location had stess cracked (it's the upper rear mount for the subframe). We had to weld that up. We also noted that the hole locators on the main brackets, that bolt in the OE shock location, were only the washers thickness as well. We welded up those holes to provide more support behind the washers. Also, there were casting defects in the hub carrier (I think Pass side) that meant the a-frame bottomed out on THEM rather than the poly bushes! The result was-->once the shock was removed, the carrier was still locked in place (rather than flopping free)! We are curious to see what this does for the handling.
PIcs to follow in other posts. I will start driving the car today to get my own feel for it before Toby and I go to the BMTA on Thursday.
Oh, last note (also in logbook): car was serviced. Kingpins, diff, tranny, engine oil and filter. Checked coolant (great!) and obviously we ended up flushing the brake fluid. Did NOT do clutch. (We were into serious 11th hour stuff with those f-ing brakes!). Also lubed hub carriers. Did NOT check front wheel bearing grease. :-( (Plum forgot.)
Cheers,
Max
diffout.JPG
Sometimes you just gotta....
RedWrench.JPG
Radius arm is now nearly impossible to reattach since the toe was corrected. (It was easier when the car was first assembled-- it was 5deg toe OUT! (Steve info here).)
radiusarm.JPG
Last one for now... overfilling the tranny (Carl's suggestion).
trannyfill.JPG
What the hay, two More. :-)
Going back together:
teamwork.JPG
The stress cracked rear subframe mount....
cracked.jpg
Thanks to Max and the crew for all this work, the car should be much better now. Anyone want to take it from here for some of the early spring events? It needs to find a home for a while as Max doesn't have the facilities to store it long term. I'm sure that most of you are not thinking about car shows now and are looking at a white world outside as we are here in Kansas, but spring is not far away. Our first local event isn't on the calendar until April 20, just before the winter meet. Send me an e-mail if you want the car for a while, mgmidgetbill@gmail.com
Good job guys! Max, I'll have to get with you or one of the other guys first chance we get to get a better understanding of the issues you discovered with the IRS. Obviously the attachment points are the most serious but don't sound too severe. Probably not quite enough give in the rear mounts isolators, that sounds like a redesign somewhere down the road might be a good idea. I'm not sure what you meant about the porosity in the carrier/bushings but am curious for more details. I know what you mean about the wiring, maybe a wiring channel in the top crossmember would be a good idea.
Incidentally, I am in the market for a spare Jag IRS assembly in good condition, good brakes and Power-Lok preferred, if you happen to run across something at a great price.
The brake M/C was selected by Bill Guzman. It seems to work OK once it is bled but I agree, what a pain it is. Entirely too resistant to bleeding, and it does seem excessively large and heavy. It's possible there is something wrong in the internal clearances. I like the stock single cylinders very well as they can gravity bleed overnight, but they require a balance bar. There is no reason we couldn't use something else if someone has a good suggestion. The car is fitted with the late pedal box, but I believe we still have an early one we could use if we need to.
Can't wait to hear what you guys thought of the car with the new rear gears.
Jim
Jim:
(Quick response. Home fer lunch).
a) There was just a little ovalling of the front spring mount (drivs) and then the break at the rear pass mount upper. So maybe just a little misalignment? I think the rebound mounts just need some better side bracketry and possibly thicker metal? The whole subframe, however, is fairly easy to remove so we were impressed by that. :-) If you do another one, maybe doing some final welding when you are actually on a frame machine? The radius arm issue was a near panic getting it reconnected. :-(
b) One of the other Techs thought the BMC pushrod might be adjusted too much and this is prohibiting the reservoir from drawing back in. (However, in a TR6, this would make the brakes slowly lock on!) I'm curious if the PDWA is still working correctly (they often get gummed up when old. We rebuild frequently.) That might be worth looking into.
c) The carrier housing was just some "nubs" of aluminum that stuck out past the bushings. So, the bolts would clamp down onto them (shiny marks). We ground them away and now it flops around smoothly (until the coil over is installed.)
d) So far, axle seems quiet. I'll do a highway stint tomorrow. I'm more worried about the pinging and running on, but Steve says this will go away with some Hi-Test. I'll fill up tomorrow. I'm hoping (fingers crossed) for maybe 20 mpg cruising with the new ratio, but Carl thought it might now rev too low, off the power band (I never saw dyno graph to know..) and thus the motor won't be that happy. I'll see how it feels tomorrow at speed.
Cheers,
M
I see, thanks Max.
The trouble with that forward (diagonal) link arm, whatever it's proper name is somehow I can never remember. Anyway it could be affecting the mounting points when it is bound up that tightly to bring in the alignment. Don't know why it was out that far to begin with, but as we know MGB bodies aren't exactly straight so maybe it's necessary to account for that by offsetting the soft mounting points a little. I'll know a little more when I get my RD aligned. I'm sure we could compensate for that but it would mean a lot of new mounting pieces. If I need them for mine I'll make extras for the RM. Also, curiously enough, the binding of the upright's lower pivot would have increased the loading on the mounting points on that side and may have caused the other problems or at least contributed to it. It's good that you guys had it out so we could see how the body was handling the torque loading. Not too bad, everything considered.
The next version of this is going to get one piece LCA assemblies welded up out of aluminum and the long pivot rods will be a thing of the past. Instead they will have a pivotable, adjustable front and rear attachment, and an as yet undetermined intermediate point, possibly a cam follower. (necessary to control pinion rise using LCA counter-torque) They will very likely get a new hub and bearing carrier assembly as well. I think with the right parts and the right wheels there is a very good chance that I can get the whole package inside the stock bodywork and still have the long wheel travel.
How is the acceleration with those gears?
Jim
Excellent work, Max.
Driving report:
Well, the highway stint was disappointing-- Vibration is atrocious! Thought a wheel was going to fly off.. I think others have made comments about this but I didn't think it was this bad. I found the car undriveable at ~70 mph. (However, down around 60, it seems fine!)
WELL.... pretty sure we know what this is! (Steve found it.)
The LUGNUTS we are using are shanked @ .680". But the WHEELS (Jag wheels) are .700! Thus, we slop around the hubs!
We ran the car on the lift and found the wheel NOT concentric with the hub. (We'd also noticed the fronts seemed "out of round", but we thought that was tire not wheel mount).
I've scrounged some Jag lugs and installed them on the rear-- PERFECT!
The bitch is going to be getting the FRONTS! From research done today,they don't make a 7/16-20 lugnut with anything bigger than a .687" shank.
(JIM:-- what is that hub? Is there a way to get the 1/2-20 lugs up front?)
So, my first attempt tomorrow will be to do a thread insert in the old Jag lugnuts to downsize them from the 1/2-20 to the 7/16-20. (With SAME thread pitch, this shouldn't be too much of a cluster F...)
Anyway, that's tomorrow as it just didn't seem driveable to the BMTA as it was. Hopefully this cures it (and if so, i'll make a spare lugnut or two to keep with the spare.)
The "shutdown" issue has gone away with the Premium gas. However, I'm still not happy with the overall tune. Twice it fell on it's nose when given the beans and there is noticeable hesitation at mid-throttle. (This seems transitional between Primary and Secondary?) It was Rainy today, though, so we might still be ingesting too much moisture for smooth running? I'll see how it does on a "nice" day. :-)
RE: overall driveability. I like it! The rear end feels very compliant, it doesn't seem to "push" (someone else's complaint. Perhaps this went away with freeing up the binding in the right rear suspension?). The gear ratio seems fine-- very tractable and versatile. Found myself doing city driving in 2nd gear, but could shift up to 3rd and still pull fine. The acceleration is strong, but maybe not blistering? (SEe above "stumble" issue.) It still puts you in the back of the seats.
Given the stiffness of the steering, it's not a great autocrossing car. And, with how it was used last year (Power Tour), I think a "Grand Tourer" is a good goal for it.
I'm hoping to be able to report gas mileage of 20mpg with the new axle. (Which IS quiet, BTW!) We'll see after the Conference.
Cheers,
M
(JIM:-- what is that hub? Is there a way to get the 1/2-20 lugs up front?)
you can drill the hub, by hand if necessary.
a mill machine would be best to be certain that you were maintaining concentricity.
Max,
The hubs are late '60s Chevelle or Camaro. I believe, around '69, whatever was the first years they had disc brakes. I'm positive the holes for the studs are going to be somewhere in the range of 5/8" down to around .575" so it will be possible to find studs in a 1/2" - 20 size that will fit the existing holes, at which point the stock Jag lug nuts will fit. The studs also attach the rotors to the back of the hub so the shank will be about 3/4" long with the knurl towards the threads. I think this is going to be a pretty common stud, and because Ford, Mopar, International Harvester and many others used 1/2" those should be the ones that will work. You can bang them out one at a time and pull the new ones in with an impact wrench if you get the right size. Variations in the knurl is not an issue, and a few thousandths difference in the shank size and step for the rotor can usually be tolerated.
Now that the gearing is taller any shortcoming in the tune is going to be more apparent. With the oil consumption cured we can now take steps to dial it in correctly, and anything that you do which results in the car running better will certainly be an improvement.
But mostly, I'm just thrilled that you like it.
Jim
From page 6 of this very long MG Roadmaster thread:
QuoteThe brake rotors are 11" diameter 1968 Camaro. I have notes that also show that these may be the same as: 1968 to 1972 Nova. 1969-1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass and F85. A GM parts supplier should be able to make sense of it. I knew a guy at NAPA that gave me some of this info. I also noted that I found that these rotor-hubs were available from from a performance supplier as a two piece hub-rotor combination. I did not keep part numbers, as I saw something (Fast Cars) in the future, although I did'nt know of Ted at the time. The two piece combo would be ideal for anyone wanting to do this mod today, as the hubs require some machining.
There are no places to read the specs about the Butler brakes. The inner and outer bearings on the Camaro have the same inner diameter dimension as the MGB stub axle/bearings. So the Camaro bearings would fit right on to the MGB. However the the distance between the inside and outside of the Camaro bearing as installed in the rotor are about roughly *3/16" wider then the MGB. (* will find out and confirm this exact dimension.) Butler's cure was to machine the rotor hub inner bearing recess deeper by the roughly *3/16". to align the plane for proper bearing/seal fit.
The rotors on mine (yours) are different. I did not machine the inner recess of the Camaro hub. I worked a couple of doors down from Berry Bearing (now known as Motion Industries) and found a bearing set that was thinner. However, I ended up having to machine the outer bearing recess roughly 1/8" deeper so that the castelled nut would be deep enough for the cotter pin to fit the hole in the axle. Thinking about this now it may have been easier to change the outer bearing to a thinner one too and eliminate the machining. I don't know why I did'nt take this approach. It may be worth looking into now, as there are so many bearing combinations available from bearing suppliers.
The caliper/bracket is not a modification I would consider doing today even though the caliper is still available for about $75.00 from NAPA. Have other MGB guys created brackets to fit multi-piston calipers to the Bee? The bracket for the caliper was modified by Butler Racing. Caliper and bracket were 1974 Dodge Dart 400.
The correct studs should be fairly easy to find, Max.
--->The correct studs should be fairly easy to find, Max.
O-kay... So, why didn't we? The car has smaller studs front then rear. I assumed (first mistake!) this must have been from some PITA factor... ?
There IS one stripped stud in the LF already. (Found this trying to take the wheel off. Must have been from airbag issues....) So, we'll have to do this at some point.
Alas, I have little time to make this right before the Conference TOMORROW. IF the lugnuts don't go well, this will force my hand... :-/ (I already had to overnight the thread inserts as it was. :-( )
Thanks for the info on Hubs. I'll take a look tonight, see about making a plan for the future.
FYI, new Jag lugnuts are $6/each, so another $60 to get nice ones when we swap lugs.
Why didn't we?...
Mainly a manpower shortage. There are any number of things on the car that could have been done to make it better and were not for that reason or because of a money shortage, both of which were constant problems. In the end I felt we struck a pretty good balance on what we got done and how quickly we did it but we missed the mark on perfection by a pretty wide margin, and the whole project set work back on my car by about two years because of time I spent on it working here alone. I'm not making excuses or complaining, that's just the way it was. It was quicker and cheaper to go to the local tire discounters and buy lug nuts than it was to change out the studs, and at the time we were in a crunch, maybe for Townsend. Almost like what you are dealing with now except that we didn't fully appreciate the misfit issue. If we had, I would have fixed it. I'm not sure we even considered changing the studs in fact, but I had already bought out the local store and hadn't found another source for studs so it might not have mattered anyway. That's the only thing I see as a possible issue, parts stores have stopped stocking wheel studs.
Jim
VIBRATION IS GONE! :-)
Took the car from a (presumed) 60 mph all the way up to what must have been 90 mph (zooming past traffic..) and there was no steering wheel shake!
The inserts (installed with red loctite so as not to get stuck on the stud!) were a doggle-- all I had to do was lightly countersink the top for the flange of the insert. (Otherwise, they threaded right in by themselves! Thus just wouldn't lock in place unless I get the flange tight.) Took me about 30 minutes to put inserts in 11 lugnuts (one spare, rem.) and then to swap them onto the front of the car. Took it for the lunch run and it was fine in that regard.
HOWEVER... ooh, it still pings. (Nice day, here, too. Sunny. 60F.) And it stumbles on the transition and does NOT like the Full WOT all at once. Once cleared out it pulls great, but it's an inglorious moment. (Engine really shakes). Also, the violent shut-down was back and it made restarting a little difficult.
Car is a comfortable cruiser, though, and for tomorrow that should suffice. :-)
Jimmy Browne came by (REM: British V8 2009) and gave the outside a wash and wax and mild detail. (He spent two hours on it.) It looks good for the drive tomorrow. Just needed a little luv... :-)
I'll report next (hopefully) on some improved gas mileage. Then we need to see a) who wants it next and b) how much we should worry about this tuning issue. It's a driveable car, but not as much of a "pleasurable" car as I think we would all like? Just my opinion here..
But the Vibration is gone. Yay! :)
M
PS: Splurged and got the Moss replacement mirror for the pasenger side-- what crap! Gooseneck is bent so poorly all you see is the wheel arch! (Won't adjust up). This is going back. I really like having a pass side mirror. Anyone else missed this? I can easily put on a later style (flat) mirror on the pass side (much cheaper, too!) but it won't match the OE on the drivs side. I was hoping this would be a nice, barely noticeable addition, but I'm not paying $100 (yep!) for a piece that looks great but doesn't WORK!
Inserted lugnuts are top/OE Jag is bottom (one extra of each in back with Spare)
lugnuts.JPG
JBduzRM.JPG
I'm interested in hearing a report of comments from the BMTA boys.
No steering wheel shake? Man! I want to drive that car again! Way to go MAX! You da MAN! WOOHOO!!
Jim
:-)
Now... last minute problem. Brake Fluid leak.
WE suspected, because STeve showed up with nearly NO fluid in the rear of the reservoir (which, BTW, is the FRONT brakes!). Well, we had some clear fluid leaks on the floor in the clutch slave/below the BMC sort of area.
CMC was nice and full. BUT... rear of master was low again! (Like, halfway already and we'd just bled it Sunday morning!)
I found a drip on the lower line from the PDWA and was able to tighten that fitting almost 1/2 turn. We stomped on the pedal (still rock hard!) and did not immediately see any drips.
However, we'll be travelling with a bottle of Dot 4... :-)
Cheers,
M
What year/style mirror do we need? I can put out an ABP to my two British car clubs.
I thought the correct lugnuts would do the trick.
Donations to the Roadmaster Project can be made to:
Bill Davidson, Treasurer
7208 W 54th Terrace
Overland Park, KS 66202
913 677-0884
Bill74mgb@yahoo.com
Checks should be made out to:
British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society
or
BADASS
Wondering about your trip from Durham, NC to Richmond, VA. . . .
Here is an unsolicited email I think everyone can enjoy:
My name is Greg Porter, and I live in Durham, NC. I was at southpoint mall today and saw the Roadmaster project parked outside. I just wanted to say that this car made my day. I have been a fan of the MGB-GT since I first saw one, and seeing a V8 swapped MG is truly awesome. My friend and I looked over the car for a good 10 minutes in awe of its greatness. Thanks again for building an awesome car
Greg Porter
Oh... yeah. I'm back. :-)
Okay, about the Mall: Emily wants to know if any of the other Wives have driven the Roadmaster? Cuz.. she did. :-) (I was passenger.) Did prolly 30 miles down to the mall and back. (Her first car was a Nova. Then a Chevelle. She likes Big American Iron.)
Yeah, we parked in a conspicous spot-- out in the middle of the lot! Easy to see....
RE: Trip. Some highlights here (as long as I'm responding) and then seperate posts with different topics. (Actually, look under the Conference thread, cuz some of them are more appropriate there, maybe?)
a) Vibration is GONE. Two hours up to Petersburg-- 60 to 75 mph, no problems. :-)
b) First gas stint: didn't do well keeping track of mileage around town, so added an estimate to the trip driving. It came up at only 15 mpg. HOWEVER--- set a trip meter on the GPS (I'm learning...) on the drive back and got 17 mpg! So, it is better.
b-2) If I had to hypothesize about why it's not MUCH better, I would hazard a guess (that I could maybe prove with a Plug cut-out Test) that the primaries are rich and the secondaries are lean! This would explain the stumbling/pinging issues in the high end and the lack of much fuel economy improvement. (The revs being much lower, we are now definitely in the primaries while cruising! (And, might have been before, too, I don't know...)
c) Gauges. (This ties into the BMTA). Talked with Peter Bayer (Nisonger Instrument) re: the Stewart Warners. A synopsis:
1) Fuel Gauge. "Check the grounds. They need a good ground AT the Sender (dunno, will check) and AT the Gauge!"
2) Re: Speedo. "Is it stable?" "yes, just wrong". "Sounds like someone didn't do the math right and needs to recalibrate." (NOTE: new axle, we needed to do this anyway!!). I found the speedo read nearly half what it should. REad 40 when the GPS said 80, but would also read 37 when I was doing 70. Also, the odometer seemed to come up at very nearly half-mileage (just not perfect.) So, we should do that calibration again.
3) Tachometer. I explained it's behavior to Peter and while it was VERY stable on the drive back (and I'll work out the speed/rev calculations in another post so that we can see what's going on) his conclusion was: "Sounds like a bad tach". :-)
More later. Car was fine-- never grabbed a tool. A few noises, small coolant leak somewhere (green globule). Car was much loved and liked, and got a special parking spot @ Moss Motors for the day. :-)
At this point, my biggest worry for the enjoyment of the car is that the lack of good tune makes you unconfident in getting on the gas, accelerating hard, or... showing off. :-)
M
PS: CARL: passenger side mirror needs to be gooseneck, long base style, with CENTER attachment mirror. An exact match would be NOS or used, only. They haven't made that style of mirror in years, and the new goosenecks are bent too sharply, and don't work for tall drivers (like many of us are!)
Glad it was an uneventful drive up & back!
I still maintain we should pass the hat & spring for a brand new carb.
I thought the carb was good on the dyno in Texas.
Has anything changed?
If you replace the carb, can I have mine back?
Steve
Max Did you have any close calls on fuel? I failed to make 150 miles one time.
RoadmasterMGB:GT.jpg
PJ:
First fill was 10.2 gals. 2nd was 8.7. We heeded your warning. :-)
RE: carb. It was "good" on the dyno (I wasn't there-- can't say for sure) because you pull to WOT. Thus, as long as the OVERALL mixture is good, it doesn't care. So, very easy for the primaries to be rich and the secondarys lean-- but open up both and the overall mixture is good enough, etc.
Also, there could be a "change" in the tune, somehow, but what I'm experiencing seems to be a lot of what Steve D. reported in his experiences.
I have a book on Rochesters. The carb has to come out to check for Idle Air bypass (on the base) and a few other things before you do any performance tuning.
The question is: do you bother to tune to this camshaft or wait for a milder one?
My current thinking is lets just tune to THIS cam so that everyone can enjoy the car this year. But I would strongly suggest marking what the current adjustments ARE (as the car is driveable, just not fully enjoyable) before we going messing everything up! :)
$.02
Last point in regards our Mission to get the youth involved: Emily took the Roadmaster to her high school today! Be curious what comments THAT garnered! :)
M
Allright Emily!! It's great that somebody did that. Bet the kids crawl over it all day. It's great to see the car out doing what it was intended to do.
Did Steve change the carb before or after The V8 meet last year? Regardless, I'm glad somebody who is more sensitive to the nuances of carb tuning is looking at it (Max). I drove it a lot at the meet and was certainly less sensitive to misbehavior, but that's probably reasonable since I wanted to see it do good.
You guys keep it up and you're going to make a very fine vehicle out of this old sow's ear.
And to think when all this started all we wanted to do was prove the 455 engine swap was possible.
Jim
I changed the carb before the V8 meet.
Steve
PROBLEM:
Battery was flat at the end of the day and Emily had to call me to jump start. Soon as car was hooked up-- fan started running!
Not the adjustable sender-- it did nothing. So, what's up? Car was dead cold. It was 4:30 pm and she'd last driven it at 8 am at the latest.
I found a breaker/fuse looking thing lying on the passenger floor, marked 15A (two-prong, metal casing.) The RH (pass/upper) fan was the only one spinning-- this breaker-thingy looks like it fell out of the LH circuit. I removed the RH (20A) fuse and the fan stopped. I installed it in both the LH and back in the RH sockets and the fan did NOT start up again.
DAN Masters: is this a shorted relay? Other thoughts?
I'm never in favor of ancillaries running without the ignition key on, and this is a perfect example-- in kept running, somehow, until the battery was flat. :-(
Have we seen this before? And why is this metal-casing "fuse" in the socket rather than just a "normal" 20A?
M
Next Post:
GEARING and Tachometer readings.
With a known speed via GPS (70 mph) and a known gear ratio (4th gear is 1 to 1 and the diff is 2.88), and the known tire size (245/45 x 17 rear) I can report the following:
I was getting a tach reading of ~2800 in 4th gear doing 70 mph. In actuality, I was doing 2638.
I was getting a tach reading of ~ 1780 in 5th gear. BUT... I don't know what 5th gear is in this T5. Is it .62? In which case, at 70 mph we are only lugging 1636. However, if it is a .73 5th gear, then we are doing 1925 @ 70mph whilst in 5th gear.
I guess my answer here is-- WHEN the tach is reading steady, it does NOT seem to be that far off! (A couple hundred, maybe.) It's just that it goes wonky..
Peter Bayer (Nisonger INstrument) also mentioned that the Lucas tachs don't like Pertronix. I did not get a chance to ask about the SW-- as the tach was never that steady on the drive up, I gave him a very bad impression of it! It was far steadier on the drive home (how else could I have gotten the above readings? :-) )
M
Thanks for the write-up(s), Max!
I run a Pertronix with a stock (V8 mod) tach. Works okay.
Overdrive 5th is .63. Sounds like the tach is reading right where we want it.....a bit higher than actual. ;)
Thx, Carl. Sounds like our 5th gear, 70 mph cruising is then an actual tach reading of 1662. :-)
So..... TOP SPEED:
Using the same above formula and the peak HP point of 4800 rpm, the Roadmaster is now capable of:
4800 x 25.68 x .002975 / .63 x 2.88 = 202 mph. :-p
(before it was only 164!)
I seriously doubt the car could actually achieve those speeds-- it only has 273 hp @ 4800 and the wind resistance and rolling inertia increase dramatically, esp. above speeds of 150 mph. (REM: Bugatti Veyron. The first ~300 hp get it to 150. It needs the other 700 hp to get to 253mph!)
HOWEVER--- given a long enough straight, I would think Roadmaster could hit 140. If anyone had the balls to TRY... :-)
M
Fan Relay? I thought Dan M had that fixed.
Jim
QuoteFan Relay? I thought Dan M had that fixed.
I thought so too. What did we do to it in Texas?
The metal thing is a circuit breaker. I don't know who put it there instead of a fuse or why.
I'm stumped. The only thing that will operate the relays is a grounding of one or more of the black/green wires from the relays to the temperature switch, or for the switch itself to operate. Possibly one of the B/G wires has pinched against the body somewhere and is grounding? Pull the B/G wires from the switch and touch them to ground - the relays should come on and off as the B/G wires are grounded and ungrounded.
I suppose it's possible for the relay to short, but if it did, it would have stayed on when you pulled the fuse and replaced it. Possibly the fan current is too high for the relays, and arcing during opening and closing could pit the contacts and make them stick occasionally. If so, we're screwed! These relays are rated at either 30 or 40 amps. Surely each fan (they are relayed and fused individually) is not drawing more than 30 amps. If contact pitting/sticking is a problem, I guess we could put suppressors on each one. I don't think that's the case, because no one else is having problems like this with the powerblock and electric fans, and we've sold hundreds of them. The first two cars I wired with the powerblock kits and electric fans have been on the road 12 years now, with no problems.
For troubleshooting, remember that the Driver's side fan relay is on the fender well under the hood, and the passenger's side is on the power block. Fuses for both are on the power block. Someone suggested that maybe engine bay heat is the culprit, but it's the driver's side relay that's under the hood, and it was the passenger's side fan that was running (maybe both of them would have been if the circuit breaker for the driver's side hadn't fallen out of the fuse block.
You got me! I'm pretty sure it's not a design problem or an installation problem, as it would show up all the time if it were. As far as I know, it has worked fine most of the time, with this time and the time in Texas being the problems we've had. If it happens again, before doing anything else pull the B/G wires from the switch and see what happens. If the fans go off, it's the switch; if not, it's somewhere else.
Max, could you cut the offending relay open and see if the points are badly pitted? I don't think we have done that yet and it seems that would be the best way to know for sure. This seems to have been a problem that we've had off and on pretty much from the beginning, not just in Texas but also on the Power Tour. Maybe that suppressor is a good idea. Is it possible that the inrush current is much higher and causing the points to burn and stick?
Jim
Dan/JIm:
2 years ago when we had the car and were getting it started (and I reported some overheating issues) it was because both fans were on the same relay AND fuse and this 20A fuse was blowing (likely on start up of the fans.)
I did a current draw check and found the fans wanted 26A when they were triggered! I called Carrick, got approval, and put in a 30A fuse. I believe this was also a problem (?) and then last I heard Dan had added in the separate relay and moved it to the fender area, and separated the fans on the fuse block.
IS THIS still that original relay? In which case, if it had to deal with the firing of BOTH fans at one time in it's life, then we should probably change it and open up the one that was there and check for the pitting issue.
When we jump started the RM yesterday I readjusted the fan switch for a slightly higher temp (190F). The fans were running-- they went off. Thus, IF the switch is having a problem, it, too, is tempermental. I have 3 times moved that switch and only this time when the fans were still running on a cold car did it NOT obey the rheostat. (I wish that I'd stuck that circuit breaker back in and then seen if BOTH fans ran. That might have given us a better clue. At the time, I didn't even know it had fallen out of the socket.)
I would presume, given that it's NOT the right fuse that Dan set up, that it had blown sometime during the power tour or texas. Does anyone know about this and what were the reasons for it?
I'm driving the car Thursday to show to Rob Edwards (who had helped do the wiring and is listed on the hatch glass.) We'll have an hour lunch-- I'll see if the fan still runs when I get back, etc.
Thx for the info, Dan.
M
Max, the relays had been changed out. Not the original relay. Don't know about the rest. Mike Moor and I put the sensor bulb inside the radiator hose to reduce hysteresis. The switch has always seemed to work correctly after that as far as I can tell. We have at various times resorted to pulling the one relay when parking the car. For whatever reason that one has a problem but the other one doesn't. Are both circuits identical?
Jim
Here is the wiring diagram for the fans. They are nearly identical.
roadmasterfandiagram.jpg
Thx, Dan.
I'm presuming the "X" indicates the "old" wire to the 2nd fan? Or is it indicative of a 5-th prong? (Or both?)
If the points were "sticking", we'd transfer power, regardless of whether it was triggered. When I pull the fuse, removing the power, does that "unstick" the relay and thus why it didn't come ON again? One would think, if we had a problem with the sensor grounded, then it WOULD just come on again, but it didn't!
I'm going to proceed with this logic and pull the relay out of the powerblock and give it a look-see...
M
The only other cause I can come up with is if somehow there is a leakage current somewhere that is not quite enough to turn on the relay but is sometimes enough to hold it engaged. This might happen with a pinched wire on the ground side. But I don't really buy that theory.
Jim
Jim and Max,
Every answer I come up with falls short too.
Max,
The X indicates a wire that is not used. The LG/R wire is wired into the panel to operate a "fan on" indicator lamp, which we didn't use. It comes from the "fifth" pin of the relay. I don't know what was done with that wire - cut off, looped up for future use?
Here is the way it was wired before Jim and I added the extra relay. As you can see, two fans put quite a load on the relay and the fuse.
roadmasterfanoriginalwiring.jpg
Curious, I don't recall, was the fan staying on before the rewire? Guess it must have been. But after the rewire it was the new relay circuit that was sticking, right? Could be a clue there somewhere.
Jim
Jim,
Before we added the extra fuse/relay, the fans were blowing 30A fuses - not good! I don't know if the fans were staying on or not - I think they blew a fuse instead so we wouldn't have known if they would have stayed on . If I read Max's post correctly, it was the RH fan that was on, which is wired to the original circuit. It may have been that the LH fan would have been on too if the breaker hadn't fallen out.
I've looked at both the original and the modified diagrams, and I can't think of any miswiring that would cause the problems we're experiencing. Any errors I can think of would either cause the fans not to run at all or to run all the time, not stick on randomly. Having said that, I have been known to screw up on occasion in some rather "creative" ways.
The only way we'll resolve this is with some "hands on" trouble shooting. I've exhausted my meager mental capacity to troubleshoot from a distance.
Time for an injection!
Smokekit2.jpg
We have relays that stick on the hydroboost pumps at work all the time, a simple flick will set the contacts free, also when pulling them from the weatherproof socket under the hood will release them, these are Bosch units and the hydraulic pump in no way draws what the fans will. Monthly we might walk by a truck with it just buzzing away. Might suggest hooking it to a switched powe source on the accy side so the can runn with ignition coil etc. is off.
Please excuse the bad text, phone is acting up.
Jim, Dan, John:
Thx for all replies. You all seem to understand what I've reported. :-)
I do believe it's up to me now to pull that relay, replace it, and pop open the old one and just see what's going on. (Pitting, maybe?)
DanM: if we wanted to use John's idea of making one of the wires Ignition dependent, how do I do that on that circuitboard? It's all wired so nicely, I'd hate to screw with it! :-) Any thoughts on a way to divert the power feed (for either the fan OR the relay) so that the igniton would have to be on?
Just to muddle things further: I was wondering If we could just wire in a second sender unit for the other fan and then put it back on the 30 A fuse? The first fan would trigger at 185F (say) and then the second one at 195F. Without them both trying to spin up at the same time, I should think the one 30A could run that circuit. The worry, though, is that maybe one fan never gets used...?
Spitballing.
M
NEXT TOPIC: the Hit List
The following are the list of areas that I feel need attention on the Roadmaster. They are listed in a priority that reflects (to me, at least) the affect on the level of enjoyment of the car, the safety, and then just the fact that they "aren't right". There is also some maintenance stuff I didn't get to.. :-(
Roadmaster, Mar 5, 2013
TUNE ROCHESTER
Fan wiring
Recalibrate speedo
Tach wiring
Fuel gauge wiring
Aim headlights (up)
Coolant leak on manifold
Steering slop
Needs antenna
Add passenger side mirror
Heater temp
Interior lts inop
Wipers "squawk"
suspension creaks and groans
seatbelts difficult to release (PJ)
Other things to do/record:
Leakdown & compression test
Front wheel bearings-- check grease
Gold or Petronix coil
JIM/BILL: before the Driving Season starts, how much of this do you want to tackle? I've already had My Fun with the car and don't want to deny others of their chance to get dirty. :-)
If the car is headed to either Florida or California, it really needs to be fully tuned. And then it would also be nice to have some working gauges. But, those two things being fixed, the car is probably no worse than anything the rest of us are driving. :-)
Let me know your thoughts. It's getting limited usage in my hands--don't like the uncertainty with nailing the pedal, and I have no idea when I'd ever find time to work on it again. [Racing season is starting up. :( ]
M
I put a two stage switch (Volvo) on Edith's 3.8L TR-7 and it works great. Finding a switch with the right threads will be the trick but they are out there. (1/2" NPT I believe). There is an unused (wrong) sensor on the intake manifold. In fact I believe there are two bungs so it would be possible to install two separate switches.
Wiring it to run only with the ignition on will eliminate the problem with running the battery down and the car does not run hot at all so heat soak should not be a problem. (If the fan is running as you walk away there is a problem)
The relay on the fender was the one we were having to pull on the powertour.
Has anybody looked at how the original application is wired? (2002 Camaro I believe) What relay was used there?
http://www.autopartsnetwork.com/catalog/2002/Chevrolet/Camaro/Electrical-c-_Lighting_and_Body/Engine_Cooling_Fan_Motor_Relay/Four_Seasons/36009.html?filter=make:Chevrolet_model:Camaro_part%20name:Engine+Cooling+Fan+Motor+Relay_brand:Four+Seasons_sku:36009_&fpi=9k2D2k9PsxMGIc6NwiYyHM2wstsBhFwt4gj2rg3Ph0M=
Carb: Can anybody start working on the TBI angle? Seems to me if we had a TBI on the car the tuning would suddenly get a whole lot easier and we do not seem to have one single Quadrajet expert in our midst who can make this thing run right. Either that, or maybe we should send the car up to live with Richard Moor for a couple months or more if he could fiddle with it some. Just suggestions, I seem to be more tolerant of bad engine behavior than most. And it really hasn't toured the northern loop yet.
Gages: Isn't it about time we bite the bullet and install a new set of gages?
The weather should break soon. Do we know where the car is going next, or how it is getting there? I think we should route it up towards the Detroit/Chicago area. We have a heavy concentration of contributors up there and the car could spend the entire summer up in that area without any trouble at all.
I would suggest that we could shuttle it to Florence for the Maxton Mile get together at the end of April and then on up to the northern loop, perhaps to Richard if he is willing to try tuning it. Or, maybe we could find a way to get it to Richard first? It really doesn't have to be here for Maxton, and I heard there were plan to take it out to Omaha? Maybe it should go north and make the rounds up there between now and Omaha.
Jim
Another problem!
LOST BRAKES on the drive into work today. (Here I was thinking I might get to look into the coolant leak after work. :-/ )
Steve showed up here in February with a *nearly* empty rear reservoir (which is front brakes.) We had to pressure bleed after doing the rear diff work. Thus, at that time (300 miles and 3 weeks ago) the reservoir was full. We tightened some fittings, thought maybe we'd found a slow weep....
Well, front reservoir is at level, but rear is EMPTY today. So, we're leaking somewhere that we still haven't found yet. :-(
<sigh>
M
I seem to remember the caliper hose on the passenger's side didn't look exactly right for some reason. Nothing I could identify but you might want to look at it.
Jim
Max, et al,
Changing over to ignition dependent is not very hard, just physically getting to the powerblock wiring to make the changes may be hard. A couple of wires on the powerblock will need to be cut and splices made. Need to be very careful not to cut the wrong wire, because that would be a bear to fix.
Here's the diagram. The relays will still get power from an always hot wire but will be controlled by an ignition keyed power. Of course, if the relays stick you still have a problem. Changing the circuit so that the relays are only powered by ignition keyed power source will be a bit of a problem, as the main power relay does not have the capacity to handle the extra fan loads (we'd be back to the problem of having one relay handle the 30 amp fan loads, plus the existing loads).
I think we need to find out what the problem really is before we make changes.
roadmasterfanignitiondependent.jpg
Dan:
I've ordered in another Bosch relay of the part # you specified and will swap that out and then look at the old one.
RE: Carb. Thought occured to me: did the car have transitional issues always, or has this developed? And in which case, is it maybe related to the (3?) times the car ran out of gasoline? I'm wondering if we sucked up some crap into the secondary circuit... :-/
Honest opinions here: how driveable was it on the Power Tour? I mean, full usage of the pedal, no hesitation, no pinging, no surging, no shaking? These are things it is capable of doing NOW.
Thx. Trying to find one more day to dedicate to fixing these things, but it's tough. I spent two entire weekends either on the car or with the car (BMTA) and the rest of my life has fallen behind. :-(
Cheers
M
Max,
I had a fuel pump failure shortly after running out of gas last Aug., I then only drove it one block to a hotel, after that it was trailered to Ricks. Prior to the out of gas experience RM was running well did not have any of these problems: "full usage of the pedal, no hesitation, no pinging, no surging, no shaking". Hope this helps.
I also had no fan issues.
PJ
QuoteHOWEVER--- given a long enough straight, I would think Roadmaster could hit 140. If anyone had the balls to TRY... :-)
Felt stable to me. I'd hold it to the floor for a mile. Just takes a lead foot & a touch o' insanity. ;)
Has anyone looked at the specs on the original application relay?
Jim
All, esp. DanM and Jim:
Swapped the relay today. It was a 30A "tyco electronics" and I replaced it with the Bosch # specified by DanM.
I opened up the relay-- gorgeous. I set it on a test bench and it worked perfectly-- no sticking, trying all combinations of removing power, removing ground, checking continuity, etc.
So.... Dan? Is there any way the 2nd relay that you added in is somehow backfeeding, or shorting, or something?
I, too, would rather NOT change the wiring until we are sure what the problem is. I'd have bet money on the sticking relay, but having opened it up I just don't see it. (I must have clicked it 50 times-- perfect.) Even manually clicked it to feel for any chance of "sticking" and it's fine. Looks brand new inside.
RE: brakes. I have a rebuild kit for the PDWA and will do that as a matter of course. (I'm doubting it was ever done before?) In the process of removing that I'll be able to look at the lines/fittings. There are some old lines/rusty fittings and I'm wondering if we have a cracked line. (There are drips on BOTH the "down" lines, though it's the rear reservoir (for the front brakes) that goes empty.). Thankfully, just topping up the fluid in the reservoir brought the brakes back (~ish) so I didn't have to pressure bleed. (Don't want to have to deal with THAT hassle again until everything has been checked.)
RE: carb. I'm tempted to think it's possibly crap sucked up from the running dry "events". I've given it 4 tanks of premium at this point and have not experienced any of the pinging or the violent shutdown issues since then. (Or, certainly not as much as it did at first, which was always.) I'm not sure WHY this is, but when in doubt I'd like to blame the timing. :-)
More at some point...
M
Max, on that relay the next thing would be to measure the current in the control circuit. It shouldn't be much, on the order of a couple hundred milliamps maybe so you could insert any cheap ($3 HF) meter into the control leg going to the thermostat switch. You could also unplug the relay and measure the voltage across the winding terminals, maybe leave that in place during a drive to see what it does. The other fan should handle the cooling needs. Anything other than full voltage or rated current indicates a problem and can be tracked down, possibly to a misplaced wire or a specific combination of things turned on. At any rate we are closer than we were. The clean contacts are a very good sign, meaning it isn't a overcurrent issue. We now know we have isolated it to the control circuit and there is a cause. Just a matter of tracking it down.
Brakes. PDWA? I got nothing. Poor Dumb Wretched Article?
Carb, I suspect you could be on to something, what does Steve have to say about it?
Jim
Max,
Which relay did you open, the one on the fender or the one on the powerblock?
QuoteSo.... Dan? Is there any way the 2nd relay that you added in is somehow backfeeding, or shorting, or something?
It's certainly possible, but if I actually wired it the way I intended, I don't see how. maybe someone else can look at the diagram (top of page 106 of this thread) and see if they can see a way. If it were wired wrong, it would stay on all the time, not just occasionally. How often does it happen? Intermittant problems can be extremely hard to track down. You may have to physically trace out the wiring to see if there is a wiring problem - pinched wire, miswired, etc.
Try removing the LH relay and pulling the purple wire as shown below and see if it still does it.
roadmasterfanRHrelayisolated.jpg
Power Discs With Assist?
Pressure Differential Warning Actuator
http://www.vtr.org/maintain/pdwa.shtml
I'm sure Max is right. I doubt its ever been touched.
Wow. I'd never have figured that one out.
Jim
Me either. ;)
It's called a "Pressure Differential Warning Actuator" because it actuates a warning when the differential pressure between the front and the rear brake lines gets too high. On an MGB it's called a "brake failure switch."
I believe mine is called a 5/8" NSF Bolt. Nary a problem : ). hope I can feel a failure approaching?
I believe it is entirely missing on my car. At least I won't have to rebuild it.
Jim
Don't have one on my V8, either.
DanM:
I replaced the one in the PowerBlock.
I don't have the PDWA in either the racecar (made no difference, btw) and my road car (Ted's front Willwoods.)
The rebuild kits are cheap and so because that's how the lines are made, I'll just rebuild it and stick it back. (The hard part of replacing it is coming up with a 7/16-20 3-way union to put the front lines into!) The rear is easy-- the OE union from under the floor, scrounged from a parts car, works perfect. :-)
M
UPDATE:
Worked on the RM for a bit yesterday. To Wit:
a) replaced the PDWA, which was leaking out the switch (from the Front side). Couldn't rebuild the one in there-- it's the type they DON'T make the seals for! So, replaced it with one from a later car which was rebuildable. Ended up vacuumi bleeding the brakes. (Pressure bleeder wouldn't seal, dumped fluid all over the floor). Pedal is firm, but I wouldn't call brakes stellar, merely 'good'.
b) Aimed the headlights UP some. (Note: in this car, with those headlights, it actually meant on one of them to let the bottom OUT because the top couldn't screw in anymore.) Haven't driven it in darkness since, but I agreed with PJ that they were MUCH too close on the road.
c) Tried to shim the rack further (still some back/forth slop in the steering wheel). No good-- locks up the rack. I'm wondering if our remaining slop is actually in the collapsible column?
d) Cleaned and reoiled the air filter.
e) checked fuel gauge wiring (both sender and gauge are grounded). Checked sender itself (I was low on fuel anyway... :-) ) and found it old, worn and rusty (but the float still did!). Alas we didn't have one in stock, but I'd recommend a swap to a new one and see if that stabilizes the gauge.
f) put thread sealant on the front-most manifold bolt (pass side) which was leaking coolant. Not sure if it *should* be into the water jacket, but it is!
It was a beautiful day here, yesterday. Would have loved to go for a cruise but the carb/tune still isn't good enough to fully enjoy the car. Short bursts it's okay, but it shakes under the heavy foot.... :-(
One Build Note: Working on this car by yourself, well... sucks. I've usually worked on it as a "team/crew" activity, and (other than Jim) probably everyone else did, too? However, we SCREWED ourselves royally by doing this because we have TOO MANY situations where there are 'bolt-throughs" (cuz someone held a wrench underneath/inside, etc.) and you can't get those by yourself!!
Perfect example: brake master and pedal box. Two studs (NOT welded) hold the master. (It looks like maybe they WERE welded, but they ain't now!). Then four bolts and nuts hold the plate that THOSE bolts are in! In all cases we need capture nuts/studs, but if just ONE had been done, I could have handled the other. With neither done, I was unable to undo any of this and just had to "wing it" back together. (Super Glue a wonderful thing...)
(And, usual excuse: at the time-- No Brakes and struggling Yet Again to bleed tham-- I was not eager to Undo the whole pedal box assembly so as to make this more Loner User Friendly. So, sorry-- I just passed the buck. :-p )
Anyway, the conclusion is: Capture Nuts are our Friends! Let's install them more frequently in the future. :-)
$.02
Cheers,
M
ADDENDUM:
Fan ran yesterday on drive home. (Rem: "beautiful day?" :-) ). It shut itself off. (This is now new relay on powerblock.) I'm not saying it's fixed (I have no reason to believe it is!) but if it doesn't "stick" on, we can't really chase down the problem... :-/
M
Thank you, Max.
MaggieinRoadmaster.jpg
This is a picture of one of my daughters enjoying the car at the WVBCC Christmas party last year.
Thanks Max and give me a shout if you need a helper.
Which is faster?
roadmasterjet.jpg
It seems like Max had a question about possible play in the steering column.
Yes, this is a possibility. I have recently read some good advice on column rebuilding and there is one thing we may not have done when we worked on the column, and that is the step of heating the slip joint and pumping hot melt glue into the holes. I can't say for certain that we did not do it, but I can't say for sure that we did either. So if there is play in the column it's a pretty safe bet that is the cause.
Jim
I think play that involves the slip joint will be only in the in/out movement.
steve
Maybe we could sweet-talk Gerry Masterman of Louisiana to rebuild the column for us?!
Good timing....this was posted on the MGE this morning:
http://www.mgexp.com/phorum/read.php?1,2324633
Pretty sure I have a spare column or two. If Gerry would do the rebuild, I'd send them to him so he could rebuild & send the rebuilt one to wherever the car is so it'd be a quick swap out & car wouldn't be down. Would need to confirm that mine use the same splines but pretty sure both are '72-74 chrome bumper columns. Will double check them this weekend -- they might not even need a rebuild for that matter.
I'll contact Gerry to see if he would be interested in assisting with the Roadmaster.
Of course, none of this will help a worn rack.
Gents:
Let me confirm where the wear is. There are only two shims left in the rack-- both .010's. There might be a little to gain there by taking out a few thou, but taking out just one of the tens locks up the rack, so it's pretty close to correct. The simple check is turning the wheel while watching the column to see if the movement correlates (before/after the steering knuckle.) Given all the vibration we were suffering, it's also possible the steering u-joint is going bad!
Also, pretty sure the column is the OE 1969. And I believe this matters based on how steering lock, switches, and cowling attach...? Not to mention steering wheel. (I'm not sure they are different. But something in the back of my mind thinks there are things that are year specific...)
I'd rather get the car running better. The column is a minor annoyance (constant driving corrections) but doesn't limit the enjoyment of the car like the lack of positive throttle response. :-pj
More later...
M
I guess everyone has read this.
http://www.mgexp.com/article/easy-mgb-steering-column-repair.html
We now have a "new" steering column....all we need is to get the old unit sent to gerry masterman.
************************************************************************************************************************
Rick, sure send it to me and I'll be more than happy to fix it up for your club.
What kind of time frame are you looking at? I just told a local machine shop to make be 200 sets of bushings so it may be a week or two before they complete the order and I have yet to order the other hardware that goes in the kits. I'm thinking maybe 3-4 weeks turnaround from today. Is that OK? Gerry
-----Original Message-----
From: Mowog1 <Mowog1@aol.com>
To: gmasterman <gmasterman@aol.com>
Sent: Fri, Mar 29, 2013 4:14 pm
Subject: MGB column bushings
Gerry, our club car the 1968 MGB/GT V8 conversion (aka The Roadmaster) is in need of a rebushing of its steering column.
Would you like to help us out here? (We are a Not-For-Profit organization)
Would you consider donating a set of bushings....and possibly refurbishing the column for us?
We could send the column to you for rebushing....or if you want to simply donate a set of bushing, one of our members could then re-bush the column.
Your name would of course, then join those who have donated (cash, product, labour, etc) previously to this educational project.
Thank you for your consideration!
rick
Oh Max...
hehehe
Well, last time *I* came up with an idea, I ended up doing a Diff Swap with my Crew!
I think we'll let Ingram handle the steering column chore... :-) (I will, however, come up with my best analysis of where the remaining slop actually resides.) Also, I'm a strong believer in rebuilding a spare and then swapping when possible. Rebuilding the OE just means 'down time" on the car, and anything "volunteer" is rarely subject to time constraints. :-p
$.02
M
Max...Rob Ficalora was going to send Gerry a spare (68-76) column to be rebuilt...we can then install the one Gerry sends and keep the old column for a spare if needed.
Rick:
I have an OE Leyland/BMC book at the shop. We should verify it is the same Leyland number before swapping. (I think the ignition lock is what doesn't swap...? Definitely the '69 BMC lock assembly is different than the '70 Leyland! Whether the column is also different to match is the issue.)
No use rebuilding something that just causes more problems!
$.02
M
(later that day)---> slop IS in the steering column. :-( I will check OE part numbers on Monday.
It IS two different part numbers for steering columns! (Actually, four total-- 2 C/B, one that crosses over (70-76) and then the later R/B column).
The break that concerns us is 68-69 are the same, then 70-76 are different. :-(
So, IF you want to do this column rebuild, I would strongly recommend sending a '68 or '69 column to Mr. Masterman. Otherwise, we're fixing one problem to only create others... :-p (Ignition switch, cowling attachment, etc?)
$.02
M
Does anyone have a 1968-69 steering column that they would like to donate to the Roadmaster???
Thanks in advance.
I have a rebuildable 68-69 MGB column headed to Gerry courtesy of Glen Towery.
Should go into the post soon.
RE: Fans.
I think the fans were staying on today, but not sure. (They were still going 5 minutes after I shut off the car.) It's possible they needed too-- car was still showing up around 190F. But as I had to walk away from the car, I tried something.
a) I pulled the rear fuse (for the RH fan, I think.). The relay clicked, the fan(s) went off. I put the fuse back in, the fan(s) went back on. (I don't know if one or both were running-- I just know the sound ceased then returned.)
b) I then pulled the fuse for the LH fan-- I heard a *click* right there at the motherboard (where the RH relay would be!) and the fans went off! (The LH relay is suppose to be the one in the engine bay!)
However, was this coincidence? Because when I put the fuse back in-- the fans stayed off.
So, don't know if this gives DanM any ideas of other possible issues, and I'm sorry it's not conclusive data. But we are getting near the "hot" season, so we at least need to be aware of the fan issue.
Car had a difficult "hot start" today as well (big shake/kickback when starting) and ran poorly under anything but mild throttle. (Obvious pinging trying to enter the highway.)
I'm busy with Race Team activities for the next few weekends, so don't think I'll have any time for the Roadmaster until May. I'm happy for someone else to take over the car....
M
Max,
That gives me a clue, but still not the definitive answer. it does tell me that the problem is not the temp switch, nor is it the RH relay circuit. If everything was ok, both fans should have been on, and when you pulled the RH fuse, the RH fan should have quit and the LH fan should have stayed on. When you pulled the LH fuse, the opposite should have happened. This tells me the problem is in the LH relay somewhere. I still don't think it's a miswiring, as it would happen all the time if that were the case. Did we ever replace the LH relay?
Try this the next time you have a few minutes to spare: Pull the connector with the black/green wire off the temp switch and connect it to ground. Both fans should come on. Remove it from ground and both fans should shut off. If they don't, pull the LH relay (in the engine bay) and see what happens. If they go off, then the relay is bad.
I think.
Dan: Got it, and understood. Will try at some point.
OTHER NEWS:
Was driving the car today by default (oil cooler line blew on the 4-banger. Waiting for new one.) Nice day, thought I'd have some fun. I punch it for the FIRST time in ages-- and blow the exhaust pipe off the passenger header!
BRRRAAAWRRHHH!!! (Loud). I drop it into 5th and trundle slowly back to the shop (2 miles away).
[Always something with this car... :-/ ]
Fixed that, and then tried a small adjustment to the Quadrajet-- lightened the "flapper" for the secondary. (This on the advice of a local machinist who called himself a Q-Jet guru. He seemed to know the carb inside and out...) Anyway, preliminary report is the car feels "crisper".
He says Q-jets hate big cams and also hate manifold vacuum. (I'm quoting Him, don't jump on Me.) I can't do much about the cam, but I can mark the timing settings we're at and see if the behavior is better with the ported vacuum. Also, he can't believe we haven't drilled the throttle plate (what Carl and I talked about) to get enough air flow at idle.... (I think this is where the man vacuum is helping us....)
Anyway... :-/
M
next time just call Rick he'll be right over with his trailer
re: next time just call Rick he'll be right over with his trailer
...........and his attorney. :)
BTW...the steering column has been refurbished and is ready for shipment....please contact me as to where it should go!
Donations to the Roadmaster Project can be made to:
Bill Davidson, Treasurer
7208 W 54th Terrace
Overland Park, KS 66202
913 677-0884
Bill74mgb@yahoo.com
Checks should be made out to:
British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society
or
BADASS
I've sent Max an e-mail asking if it's OK to send the finished steering column to him to store in the Roadmaster.
I would think we could get this repair finished before the end of spring....but if the column still needs to be swapped when my turn for the car comes up in August, I'll be happy to address the issue.
Max...have you received the column from Gerry? Thx rick
Rick:
Yes! Checked it out-- looks great. Haven't compared it to the current one, but...
M
Thx!
OK.....can anyone get the Roadmaster from North Carolina to Kentucky, Ohio, or Indiana?
Steve DeGroat suggested that Dan and I might drive the car to Omaha from here. We'd also have to drive it back here of course unless we both had a ride back. And if someone could get the car to Charleston, W.Va. he could drive it here. Afterwards maybe one of the northerners could come down and get it so it could make that loop. Just throwing ideas out there, Matthew bought Steve's SBC/XJ6 so we do have a ride.
Jim
I'm based in north east / north central Indiana.
If you want to rent a uhaul trailer or the like, I can probably arrange to deliver a trailer into NC and then uhaul the Roadmaster back to Indiana. You'd need to let me know what specific start and end points you want though.
Charleston is on the way back to Indiana from NC so that would also be a delivery option.
For clarification, I have a 2013 1 ton dually Ford that I'm using to deliver travel trailers and 5th wheels. I'm hauling through Horizon Transport although I would do this on the side.
The last time I rented a trailer to haul the Roadmaster, I paid the State of Illinois and my attorney a combined $1100. That was on top of trailer rental and gas for my truck.
The purpose and enjoyment of the Roadmaster is to drive it...unless it's broken.
If Jim and Dan want to drive the Roadmaster to Omaha and then back to my house, I could get them to Florence the day after we arrive in Saint Joseph.
I could then get the car over to Dave Kirkman so he could have some seat time; I would like to take it up to Michigan for the UML Summer Party in August.....and I am also hosting the national MGC meet in Indianapolis in July (a couple of requests for an appearance of the roadmaster has already been received.
Let's get this car back out on the road!
Yes, lets. It's a scant 250 miles between Max and Dan. How hard can that be? I just went 4 times that far in the last two days. And by now the Roadmaster should be quite a pleasure to drive.
Jim
Rick, I sure wish we could have done something to make the memory of that speeding ticket less painful. Most of us have been there at one time or another. These days I rely heavily on cruise control and it's changed my life for the better.
I'll be happy to try to help out. I didn't offer earlier cause I've been in the middle of a home remodeling project and the transmission for my BGT but both projects are getting close to the end.
RoadmasterMGB:GT.jpg
SPEEDING TICKET! Wow let's hear about this one. Ruf row let me guess 160mph!!!!!! Ninja beat you though. I know, I know we are all responsible drivers............so no preachin
PJ, you are a Scholar & Gentlemen. See you in St. Joe?
THREAD:
PJ, Dan & Jim, and I are trying to work out the details to get the RM on it's way North and West. Stay tuned!
M
Actually it's really close to 300 miles between Max & Dan. I'm an hour & a half from Wytheville if I can help. Maybe, Mitch (my son) & I can fill in in the middle. Depending on Piper's Little League schedule, of course.
I consider it a real treat to drive the BADASS MGB/GT, and am hoping to be on the road early next week. I had a blast last Aug driving most of the way from TX to IL.
My plan is to drive RM to Dan or Jim then fly home.
Carl, (and anyone else who is interested),
Perhaps we can rendezvous somewhere along the way to the pre V8 at St. Joe, Mo. (like Louisville) and have chinese firedrills along the way west.
All:
PJ has the Roadmaster and is hitting the Uwharrie show tomorrow, then taking it up to DanB early next week. ("On it's Way to Omaha!")
I'm interested to hear his feedback, as he drove it "before"-- different axle, different lug nuts, but supposedly (according to Carl), better overall response.
I've just had the idea that perhaps the "pinging" issues showed up with the disconnection of the ignition retard (starting module), which I believe occurred last Fall after the layover @ Ricks?
So, he might notice this difference in driving and that *might* be a clue as to what is going on. We'll see... :)
M
Max the car is much smoother now than it was last August.
Far less vibration and a lot lower sounding RPM at freeway speeds. The tachometer wasn't working so I don't know for sure. I'll try to find out more about the pinging when I'm on a quieter road than the interstate I couldn't hear anything but tractor-trailers other cars. So I'll report back in after tomorrow's driving. She/He. Cleaned up nicely.
Still something wonky causing a cough or hesitation when you step on the gas hard to pass But it cruises real smooth.
Tomorrow I see what happens on some back roads, elevation changes, and some twisties. Today was all motorway/ interstate.
QuoteI'm interested to hear his feedback, as he drove it "before"-- different axle, different lug nuts, but supposedly (according to Carl), better overall response.
Not sure how I figure in to this equation. I've not driven the car in over a a year.
Donations to the Roadmaster Project can be made to:
Bill Davidson, Treasurer
7208 W 54th Terrace
Overland Park, KS 66202
913 677-0884
Bill74mgb@yahoo.com
Checks should be made out to:
British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society
or
BADASS
Had a great day Saturday 5-4-13 and RM performed very well. I failed to reset my Garmin so I don't now my miles driven. About an hour each way to the car show and only used about 6 gals of high test gas.
And here are a few other observations.
Each front fender(wing) has been damage from a stone thrown by the front wheel, looks like it's been center punched from below, and the leading edge of the bonnet is showing more stress cracks than I remember from last summer. One other item I want to check soon is the exhaust, it may be leaking again on the right side header. But I don't want to sound too negative, the overwhelming comment by people who see the car is how good it looks, adjectives like stunning, fantastic, beautiful, wonderful, and remarks like how did you do it & I can't believe you got that motor in there.
The car drives well and I can feel the difference from all the work has been done since last year. Yesterday I drove about an hour each way on back roads to a picnic and car show. It was as good a drive as one could have! RM certainly was appreciated by the enthusiasts at the Higgins Farm British car meet, most had never heard about the project. I sure enjoyed myself.
It doesn't need high test, PJ.
I don't think any work was done to ign at Rick's except the coil.
If it ping, use high test
Steve
The high test solves the violent shut-down issues, and the "pinging" was reduced. I ran it exclusively on Premium.
$.02
M
Must need a tune up. Compression should be just under 8:1
Jim
Is it possible the vacum advance mechanism is sticking, and causing the violent shutdowns ? roverman.
Is the spark control box still connected? Or did that go away with the MSD? I think timing has a LOT to do with the pinging, the starting, the shut-down, etc. (I'm biased, though-- don't like manifold vacuum.)
I'm most curious, though, if any of this was there BEFORE we had the coil failure (Rick/PJ's last tenure with the car)? It was so bad at times, for Me, that I wondered how it was driven all last summer.... (unless the Power Tour was a 60mph parade?)
$.02
M
I had no issues with shut down. It did backfire on start-up ultimately causing the cast part of the starter housing to break; that's why I added the bracket to reinforce it. Haven't heard folks talk about backfire on start any more, is it still doing that? Does sound like something has changed. Anyone nearby have or have access to an old Sun scope to be able to see what it's doing?
The timing has everything to do with all off it. It did not act this way last year. Something in the timing has changed.
No violent shutdowns, no backfire. Jack guessed carb & or timing might be a little off but IMHO it is running better now than when I drove it last Aug. Not perfect but but it pulls a steep 5 mile grade with no problem in 5th. I notice a little hesitation on hard acceleration. Max, I just remembered that the
fuel pump was replaced the evening before the heavy thunderstorm and the coil failure.
Rob:
I had some hard "hot" starts that seemed "Unpleasant", shall we say? :-) One of them I remembered thinking "So... that's how Rob broke a starter!"
I didn't get around to either checking the timing or scoping it. PJ said he could take the car and it was gone before the next weekend. (Besides, I'd had it long enough. It needed to be on it's way to Omaha...)
The car is still a work in progress, alas. But it's getting there-- certainly much nicer to cruise in with the vibration and gear noise gone. :)
I think getting Dan and Jim to drive it will be a big help-- they can see where it's changed from initial runs and hopefully make a few improvements on their way to V9 2013. :-)
M
I had the car "hard start/buck" on me at least once during the Power Tour.
The ONLY thing replaced here in St.Joseph last fall was the coil. Nothing else was disturbed.
Where can I get one of those V9's, Max?
Is the distributor locked or are the weights still active? Sounds like a dab of dielectri grease on the pads and pivots might help if hanging up.
I took it for a short drive last night. Heard a funny noise, then the starter started grinding while it was running. I went to turn the key off and it was stuck in the "Start" position. Switching it back to the running location stopped the noise but now the starter is broken.
Last year when we were having all the starter issues, where did the most recent starter come from? Does it have a warranty?
I.sent Dan the info. Last summer I didn't replace the starter. I only replaced the cast aluminium nose cone. I bought 2 so we'd have a spare. Sounds like the good news is the bracket I made is still saving the nose cones from breaking on start-up backfires... doesn't help Dan though.
Dan, I think Tue starter itself is less than a year old. There should be a receipt from Carquest where I tuning Bill and Curtis got it.
the "extra nose cone" is next to the spare tire.
Sorry you are having trouble
I called Carquest in Huntington. They said it should have a lifetime warranty but they don't have one in stock. It should be here tomorrow.
Dan:
I'm trying to swear less, so.... "Cripes!"
Random thoughts (just sharing, not nagging):
a)check flywheel teeth when starter is out
b) have you verified it's KEY sticking (in tumbler) or Ignition SWITCH issue, or something electrical?
b-2) I bring this up because we have that replacement Column to be installed, and so any issues with the ignition lock assembly might best be addressed on the NEW column, rather than screwing around with that old one. $.02
Sorry to hear. Make sure to note in logbook (and write part # for starter, j. i. c.?)
cheers, M
Could have been the contacts in the solenoid stuck closed as well from the hot starts kicking the amperage up softening the copper.
Dan said the key stuck in the on position and he drove it without noticing that. Little doubt that with the engine driving the starter, failure is imminent, such things as shredded reduction gears and thrown windings come to mind. It would have been turning about 10-20 times normal operating speed. And it could have broken the nose cone again as well. Maybe Dan can give us a post-mortum on the starter.
But we don't need this to recur. Whether cleaning/lubricating the switch/lock assembly or replacement is required we need to make certain this particular problem goes away.
Jim
Dan,
I think I must have dodged a bullet and it hit you.
Hope it is a simple repair, let us know.
PJ
Gotta love those lifetime warranties! Midas has been furnishing my dad mufflers for his MGB since the 60s & J.C. Penny's (warranty now handled by Firestone) has been doing the same with batteries since the 70s.
Carquest replaced it, no questions asked, no receipt. I couldn't get the bolt into Rob's brace though. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon I can get it on a lift and have better access.
What do we need to do to the RH exhaust/header to keep it from coming apart?
I understand you made yet another roadside repair last week.
I think I can modify the connector some, maybe put a screw or two in it. Right now it has an Arizona Tea can wedged in there to hold it.
Exhaust header? I gave both downpipes a tach weld! I'd be VERY surprised if it just "dropped off" again!
M
Apparently it did. Two things going on there I guess. One is the stainless band clamp is thin material so while a spot weld might work a tack weld will probably just tear away. Secondly and maybe the biggest thing, I think the downpipe is against the bottom of the body (castle rail?) so engine movement, even though slight will tend to pull it apart. We may have to take that into account. Dan said he was going to either slice the spacer on the band clamp or remove it to get heavier clamping force. One way or another we'll get this sorted out.
Jim
Be careful if you remove or make the spacer smaller. I have a similar problem on mine where the right side gets pulled loose over time & did something similar. The stainless doesn't give so if you tighten it too much, you'll collapse the header & exhaust pipe & have an even bigger leak (DAMHIKT). If you do that, harbor freight sells a cheap little pipe expander that works well with a body hammer to get the pipe back in shape. The best answer is to get a V-clamp for it.
V clamps would be much better. Kind of a pain to install though I expect.
Jim
I drove the car around the "block" last night (about a 3 mile loop including the hospital road) and I was pretty impressed with the improvements. The car drives straight and true, is quiet, and seems pretty responsive. I think mainly what Max was complaining about is a huge bog when you mat the throttle, and it does do that. I don't see it as a serious problem, since it has really good power as long as you open the throttle a little slower. This was a really common problem with big four barrel carb engines and is often linked to an inadequate accelerator pump shot. It resulted in the development of the Holley double pumper and even the high capacity 50cc pumps. These were found helpful for engines with a lot of cam overlap, which we may have. Regardless we do have and have always had a serious bog with this engine. We can either live with it, (the car is quite driveable in spite of it) or try to fix it. I rather doubt the carb we have has the capacity to cover up the bog so Carl's recommendation that we put a "real" carb on it has some merit. A Holley double pumper should do the trick and if it does not the big pumps surely will.
I didn't have the chance to look at anything else, but it was a nice drive last night.
Rob, Dan was unable to get the bolt in your starter brace. Do you have any recommendations about that?
Jim
What size double pumper would work best?....650?....750?....850?
Here's a 750 on ebay that might go reasonably....
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HOLLEY-750-CFM-DOUBLE-PUMPER-CARBURETOR-LIST-8156-/271211601697?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3f25789f21&vxp=mtr#ht_118wt_997
The roadmaster is still running a quadrajet I think.
If that's the case and it pulls ok at full throttle once it gets settled, then probably you just need to set up the air door spring.
The air door is used as an alternative for the accelerator pump on the secondaries and also controls the metering rod lift. The carb should have a vacuum brake on the air door. Most "tuners" throw them away and that's a huge mistake. As far as the air door spring, it is likely too loose. Tighten it up a full turn at a time until the hesitation is gone. Then back it off 1/2 a turn at a time until the transition gets lazy. crank it back up 1/2 a turn and you are going to be very close to perfect.
When set up properly the quadrajet is very hard to improve on. It has massive airflow, 750 cfm for the small ones and 850 for the bigger units. Excellent fuel atomization and small primaries for good throttle response and superior mileage. And a central fuel bowl that is cooled by all for throttle bores.
It's main short coming is a small fuel reserve which makes sizing of the inlet needle and seat critical. Which makes all the drag racers grab a Holley because you can tune them with a hammer.
The inlet jet is likely the cause of your shut down/ start up problems. Pop the carb top and make sure that the inlet valve has a solid body. The "high performance" aftermarket ones have scalopes cut out on the sides to increase fuel flow because they don't use the relived inlet needles. The problem is that the inlet valve mounts to the fuel bowl floor. When you shut the car down and the fuel level drops, the valve opens and the bowel drains back into the tank through the cutouts in the valve. When you restart the car it's severely lean and backfires or bucks the starter. The stock high top needle/seat assys. don't do this. Most guys think that the carb is leaking through the main jet wells but I have never seen one actually do that.The other issues have to do with the float and the fuel bowel stuffing block. The float needs to be new or brass. The older "foam" floats can't deal with todays fuels and make carb tuning impossible. The stuffing block must be installed. Without it the carb randomly spills fuel into the throttle bores and makes the engine want to run on during shut down.
Hope that helps some.
Cheers
Fred
I won't have much of a chance to look at it before Omaha, I'm headed back home today. And I doubt Dan will get the chance either. Fred is there any chance you will be at Omaha? It'd be great to meet you in person and maybe we could take a look at the carb there.
Jim
I would love to meet up at an event or two.
Omaha won't work as I'll be in Portugal from the 6th until the 28th. The lovely Lynne is doing another chef school over there now.
Hopefully I can catch up to her before she realizes her dream of a Latin lover!
I'm certain that we'll all run into one another along the way.
Cheers
Fred
OK, well I did verify that it is a quadrajet. I'm positive Steve DeGroat bought a rebuilt one from CarQuest and installed it. So I'm guessing that it should have come with the stock float valve but otherwise I can't make any guesses. Maybe we could tighten up the spring on the flapper valve.
Jim
Re the chipping of the fibreglass fenders.
I've got a buddies Freeman RA in the shop today. It's got the inside of the fenders lined with astro turf.
He glued it in place and sprayed it black. It looks cool, noise dampens and stopped the rock chipping in it's tracks.
Pretty clever solution I thought.
Cheers
Fred
We should have Rhino-linered the 'glass fender wells. We could do the auto store spray bomb version.
Jim:
RE: Carb. I actually "lightened" the spring on the flapper valve and this helped the response! (However, it increased the pinging.) Smoothed the transition noticeably. The "Q-Jet Guru" here (Joey @ HRT Performance) made this suggestion. He also agreed with Fred re: size of fuel bowls. The car is stronger once it gets going full throttle, but I would NOT say it was smooth! Still feels like it's struggling/surging, to Me.
I know you love manifold vacuum, but I'd like to try tuning it with ported: less chance of the pinging and probably a smoother overall response. (And,it's how the distributor is curved.) What I'm sure will be the problem, however, is we'll have idling problems losing all that massive idle timing and we might then get into carb problems not having enough bypass idle air to keep it running (without getting into the progression/main circuit). I think we have a decent "compromise" setting at the moment so that the car could run and get shaken down. Something that pings this much, however, just isn't right. (Esp., as everyone likes to point out, it's a "low" compression motor. I never got around to doing a compression check to actually Prove this... Anyone else?)
It can't run with that pinging forever. And we need to decide what IS it's next purpose in life-- if it's just going to cruise the countryside, we should focus on reliability and gas mileage. IF we want to be able to have some FUN with it and take it on The Track, etc., then we need to make it a much crisper revving motor (as well as lighten up the steering effort!)
I would NOT "buy" another carb! Any carb will need to be set up properly for it's working environment. We will NOT find an "off the shelf" carb that will work! (Might be one that doesn't ping as much-- okay-- but then it probably would have worse gas mileage, etc.) It is NOT an off-the shelf car or motor.
I'd rather spend some funds doing a full-range of tuning (timing sets, carb sets and changes) then just trying carbs hilly nilly... The "hard starts" are just another symptom that basic things aren't quite right. (though I like Fred's idea of checking the needle valve and float construction.)
I think we should tune the car to a) get rid of the pinging b) get rid of the hard starts and c) improve gas mileage where we can. Hopefully, after those issues are resolved, we'll also have a better responding car as well that will be more fun to drive. It certainly will last longer and should be more reliable as well.
$.02
M
Didn't ping when I had it in March '12. That was with the original carb, though.
Carl, et al:
Yeah, I read through the logbook and there wasn't much recorded re: pinging. Since that time, however, I believe PJ changed a fuel pump. And we also changed carb. (Was it a 750 before and is now the 850?)
It has also been dynoed since then, and they made some changes (timing, I believe, is what was reported). I does seem, however, from what Steve reported and I experienced, that the pinging might be a "new" thing. (Wasn't there a spark retard box during the Power Tour that was ultimately disconnected?)
Fishing for clues....
M
I haven't really noticed pinging.... I drove it Saturday to our club picnic, but just cruising really.
Carb is a 750 from summit.
No electronics has been disconnected. If there was a retard box, there still is.
I did not notice ping while I had it. If it runs on when shutting down, it has a clutch, kill it.
High test will take care of most of that.
If it ping, retard the timing some.
steve
It didn't ping when I had it and that was after both the synopsis timing changes and the power tour. I did run it on premium gas - 93 octane around here but also up to 10% ethanol. Timing box is a timing control box - designed to manage timing with distributor advance locked out. I still don't understand why we have it and a distributor with advance. If pinging is new and isn't gas related (octane, pump, etc.) maybe the knobs on the timing box got inadvertently adjusted. It's mounted in the cabin above the passenger foot well.
"I believe PJ changed a fuel pump." said Max,
Yes new fuel pump was installed Aug. 2012 . . . and that was shortly after running out of gas, about ten miles after gassing up the fuel pump failed maybe a bit of grit from the bottom, I think we also changed the fuel filter if I remember correctly. . .
then came final breakdown, of the TX to IL trip resulting in Riki's expensive speeding ticket..
I didn't hear the "pinging" thought I must be going tone deaf or possibly had the volume too high while listening to the road trip playlist on the iPhone connected to the RM sound system. yeah baby let those tunes rip
I think the stumble is the biggest issue with how the engine is running now, and you can avoid that if you don't hammer the gas pedal. Funny watching the tachometer spin round and round, back and forth, etc. like a compass on a cartoon. Maybe Bill G. can fix that in Omaha.
The Roadmaster is now residing in my garage in Saint Joseph IL
I will be checking with Parkland College regarding paint for the new bonnet that was donated by Dave Craddock of Preform Resources.
WIll attempt to get paint codes from Terry Schuelte.
Back from the car show in Savoy (IL). Sunny & hot at first....then the skies openned up and produced about 2-1/2" of rain in a two hour time frame. The car gathered a LOT of interest and comments....all positive.
There were at least three Buicks with 455's...and the Roadmaster got their attention almost immediately.
Here's a few photos from today......
6-22-2013_1.jpg
6-22-2013_2.jpg
6-22-2013_4.jpg
6-22-2013_5.jpg
did you post about this show anywhere previously?
I did not know about this show until Friday evening.
I was able to make it because Savoy is 15 minutes from Saint Joseph.
I found out about a show in SW Michigan yesterday as well...that had I known about it, would have been there today as the MGB/GT was the featured car. Other plans had already been made by that time.
Roadmaster "demister/defroster".....is this connected?!
Max...the fan cycled properly yesterday.
I think one of the controls might be stripped.
Take the knob off and try turning it with needle nose .
Defrost did not work for me when I drove it to Max's for the rearend change
Worked other times.
Steve
Thanks.
I'm also going to source a "new" turn signal/dimmer stalk.
I'm sure glad to see you're having fun this time around Rick! (Now just keep a close eye on that radar detector ;-) Personally, I think we should be thinking about installing A/C and cruise control. It would make the car SO much better.
Have you looked at the new steering column yet?
Jim
It's out of the box...that's a start.
Made the template for the new bonnet and will send it off to Preform Resources tomorrow.
I've advised that the opening needs to be about 1/4" wider on the sides.
BonnetTemplate_1.jpg
BonnetTemplate_2.jpg
Rick, when I gave Dave the dimensions I recommended that the passenger's side be made 1/2" wider and the rest looked OK to me. It rubs a little on the left. You have the car, you make the call.
Jim
A 1/2" increase is fine by me as well...but should be done on both sides to make it look right.
Depends on the perspective. Looks right looking at a symmetrical empty hole or looks right with the same amount of gap all the way around the air cleaner protruding thru the hole in the hood?
QuoteDepends on the perspective. Looks right looking at a symmetrical empty hole or looks right with the same amount of gap all the way around the air cleaner protruding thru the hole in the hood?
The latter, by far, IMHO.
There is also the width of the stripe along that opening to consider.
Jim
Increasing the opening by 1/2" on each side will leave a 1" silver stripe on the passenger side and a 1-1/2" silver stripe on the driver side. The green tape represents the additional 1/2" opening.
BatwingOpeningone-halfinch_1.jpg
BatwingOpeningone-halfinch_2.jpg
BatwingOpeningone-halfinch_3.jpg
Last weekend I took a friend's 7 year-old son for a short ride in the Roadmaster.
He commented to his dad upon our return: "That car is dynomite!"
He is mildly autistic.
His dad then took the car out with his 4 year old daughter.
Dad had the same emotion regarding the Roadmaster.
(His daughter could not see out the side window nor over the dash.....but I understand that she enjoyed the sense of speed she was feeling.)
I took the car to Champaign this morning. It drew a crowd.
So glad you are able to get RM out and seen as well as the kids getting the seat of the pants feeling.
I made a laminated windscreen promotional flyer for the Roadmaster last night.
RoadmasterWindscreenPromotionalFlyer.jpg
Contact me if you would like to have a jpg of this document.
I made two of them to keep with the car. Please let me know if you would like to see any changes (keep it simple!).
The Roadmaster is currently in Indianapolis....I brought her (him?) to the MGC national meet.
Fuel gauge is FUBAR....started going whacky on me about 30 miles into the journey....guage went from 3/4 to 1/2 to 1/4 to 5/8 to 1/2....so I stopped in Crawfordsville to fill up,
Took 10.85 gallons.....
My recommendation....count on the gauge being at least 1/4 of a tank LESS than the gauge shows.
It has been that way for a while. Ask PJ!
All, Rick:
First off, I'm also very glad Rick is getting to enjoy the car! And thanks for getting it 'oot and aboot".
a) Only change I'd add to your Flyer is something along the lines of "currently touring the states".
b) As long as we're spending some money, should we consider having the tach and fuel gauge rebuilt by Nisonger Instruments? Just suck it up, get it done, etc. I think that might be cheaper than looking for another complete set. (It'll still likely be $300 unless someone can "convince" Peter to help out! :-) ) I do think I'd change the fuel sender first before this-- one last try, etc. (I checked it when it was here and it is... uh.... "not new". :-p )
$.02
M
Roadmaster to be shown at MGC in Indy? Can't find any details of meeting on-line - where/when (I live in Columbus, IN)?
Don....we are at the Clarion Waterfront just off the intersection of I-465 and I-74 on the west side.
Most of the information has been posted on the MG Experience MGC Forum.
The guys are out on self-guided tours of Parke County, IN today.
We'll be at the Union Jack Pub in Speedway tonight.
Tomorrow morning about 10:30am we will be a Ray Skillman collector cars in Greenwood, IN
Tech sessions tomorrow afternoon at the hotel.
Saturday morning is car display/show at the indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum from 9am to noon....then to downtown Speedway for lunch and a tour/indycar experience at the Dallara Indycar Chassis factory.
Saturday evening is banquet, awards, and auction at the hotel.
Come on out!
I'll look at some different gauge sets and get some prices.
I personally do not like the calibration of the Stuart-Warner gauges, especially the speedometer.
I'll take a look at Speedhut and Autometer.
Well...the tradition continues.
I've not been able to get under the car yet....
...but my guess is one of the universals on the differential is FUBAR.
Indybreakdown.jpg
OK...it is NOT a universal.
Take a look at the coil-over.
IndyBreakdownCoilover_1.jpg
What could cause that? How does the one on the other side look?
Broke the shock? Hope the axle is okay!
<sigh>
Guzman has explained the coil over ("spring too short"-- it was cranked up the adjustment quite a bit, as you can see in the pic!)
But I'm more curious about the Steering Wheel! How the Hell does THAT happen?!? Cheap chinese crap meets vibrating steering wheel and operator who clenches?!
<sigh>
M
Max....that steering wheel has wobbled from day one. I remember it doing that on the Power Tour. I believe it broke at the outer rim...then the flex caused the stress fractures at the hub,
We've had a lot of folks in the driver's seat, many who use the sterring wheel to push themselves out of the car. (Same as the fatal error some commit by pulling themselves out of a tourer by grasping an pulling on the windscreen!)
Carl....I agree...but we won't know much until later when we can get under the car and take a better look. Hopefully, the "shiny bits" are just that...."shinty bits".
Lloyd Faust has given some good advise...."Ricki...remove the shock on the other side and take the spring off of it. Then reinstall the shock and move the suspension up and down by hand....make sure it doesn't bind in any position."
Obla-di, obla da.....
IndyBreakdown-steeringwheel.jpg
IndyBreakdownCoilover_1.jpg
That's pretty ugly. Glad it didn't cause any sort of mishap. I believe those are 8" springs and probably around 300 or 350 rate. Perhaps a 10" or even 12" would be better, someone else will have to advise on that. I'm no expert on coil-over units. Be sure to have a good look at the top mount though. It doesn't look like that was the failure point from the photo but the bolt is in single shear so check it out if you don't mind.
I also noticed the wheel didn't feel real solid in Omaha. Never expected it to break though. The car seems to be getting a pretty good thrashing which really, is a good thing. We are learning things from it that we would not otherwise know. Now I do not recall where we got the wheel, if it was VB or ebay or where. -- OK I went back and looked. Page 73 about 1/2 to 2/3 down. Bill Young bought a new wheel for us, I think he got it from Moss Motors. It was installed in early December 2011. Anybody else think that could be a warranty issue?
Jim
The Roadmaster is now safely stored in Indianapolis at Dave Kirkman's house.
Post-mortem of the failure will have to wait a bit. Still cannot see the upper portion of the rear member/coil over assembly.
In addition to this failure and the steering wheel failure....the barrel to the driver's door lock fell out of the assemby (and is safe inside the console) and the cigar lighter works sporadically at best. (My GPS would power down quite frequently.
Obla-di, obla-da.
Received a new sending unit for the fuel tank of the Roadmaster today, courtesy of Curtis Jacobsen. THANK YOU!!! Maybe this will correct the reading of the fuel gauge and eliminate the close calls/near misses/actual incidents of running out of fuel.
I'll take it over to indianapolis to add to the Roadmaster parts-to-be-installed/repaired.
I wonder if we should make the effort to get the Roadmaster back down to Jim's to evaluate/repair the rear suspension as it was he who made the original design and is most familiar with it?!
I also learned that the Roadmaster has a fly-away hand brake....it's very frustrating to attempt to release the hand brake in a conventional manner when one of these prawls are installed. Please advise all drivers/caretakers of the Roadmaster of this installation when handing over the keys. (I had never driven a car with a fly-away hand brake...it was very frustrating until I learned what was going on......)
Sorry about the brake Rick, I thought by now everyone knew about it. Could indeed be frustrating, but could be handy for some on uphill starts I suppose. Not that you'd have that issue...
Re: rear suspension, maybe first we need to know what we are dealing with. If it's just a broken coil-over that should be easily replaced and the car is back in service. I am no authority on coil-over units so if it is thought that something needs changed there such as longer springs as Bill G has advised, I would recommend conferring with Ted Lathrop as he knows more about them than anyone else I am familiar with and if we need longer springs he can get them from his regular supplier. If he agrees with Bill then I'd say that would be something we should do.
There was no binding in the suspension as built and installed and aside from the guys shortening the adjustment of the forward strut to bring in the alignment there still should be none. But I suppose we could look at that. I don't see how that could break the shock though. I think replacing the shock first so the car can be driven ought to be the first step. Then if you or Dave wants to drive it over we can take a look.
Hey guys, a thought just occurred to me. The eye of that shock is threaded and screws on to the shock rod, right? So what happens if the rod screws back out of the eye? If that happens doesn't it do just what this one did? I wonder if maybe they forgot to put the locktite in the threads before it went together. If that happened then it could be that all we need to do is thread the pieces back together (with a generous application of locktite of course) and reinstall the shock.
I'm not saying it will be just that easy, but certainly it seems like a possibility. Just think. you could be the hero that finds the easy fix! ;-)
Jim
To be honest, Jim, that was my first thought.
But I could not see under the car enough to see what was going on with the top of the unit.
It's going to be a couple of weeks before I can get over to Indianapolis to see what's going on.
Great minds think alike? Just that some of us are a little slower ;-)
Jim
Quotethread the pieces back together (with a generous application of locktite of course)
Jam nut, perhaps?
Guys:
That IS a very short spring, there is lots of adjustment to bring the base down. Maybe lighter weight 12" springs would be best?
I don't think the rod screwed out of the eyelet-- wouldn't the spring have shot out? The fact that it's all there but "bent" makes me think the shock rod bent rather than disassembled.
$.02
M
Max, if memory serves I believe those are 350 lb springs and the rate is about right. Could be a little stiffer maybe but lighter would probably not be a good thing. Longer springs would have less of a progressive rate I would expect, in essence almost the same thing as a lower rate. So going to a 10 or 12" spring (depending on how much adjustment there is now) I'd be inclined to go up another 25 lbs on the rate. I don't think it'd hurt the ride noticeably.
But again, I have very little experience with coil-overs and I'm anything but an authority on them. The good thing is that the springs are not particularly expensive.
Jim
Jim B, 350lb is 350lb rate tested, regardless of length. If you have the same diameter wire and cut 4" off a 12" spring you would be correct. Less coils for the same diameter wire is stiffer. My guess is the 12" spring rated at 350 will have either thicker wire or stiffer spring to develop the same rating. I agree that will be about right for the rear. 450-500lb would be about right for front coilovers depending on engine weight or preferred stiffer handling(and distance of shock to the wheel). I have a theory that the spring being too short when the wheel is in droop and when it came down hard broke the shaft. I recall you said the Roadmaster had 6" of travel, you need approximately a 12" spring. If 5" travel a 10"spring. The Mustang II Front suspension uses a real short shock and at best has 3 1/2" total travel so a 7"spring would be ideal. MGB common rear tube shock conversion has 5" travel so with same mounting distances would use a 10" spring. An inch one way or other probably won't matter.
This is very helpful information. Thank you!
Thanks Jim. The shocks are at a 2:1 ratio with wheel travel, which is 8" so shock travel is 4" and spring length is 8". I think that falls inside those guidelines, so I'm not sure we are any closer to figuring out why it failed. Could we be at coil bind? I have no idea.
What I meant above is that the progressive rate on a shorter spring will be higher than it is with a longer version of the same spring. In other words, with any spring pressure will increase as the spring compresses. You can take two springs that start off at the same pressure, one short and one long, and as you compress them the shorter one will get stiffer faster. So the same spring only made longer would need to be made with thicker wire in order to avoid bottoming out the shock. Maybe that means the rate is the same. I guess if you are going from tested compression and pressure figures it would, and if that is how coil-over springs are rated the 350 lb/in springs in a longer one should be fine. But 25 lbs stiffer wouldn't do any harm either. If coil bind is the issue than longer springs should cure it. I have moved my car back over to the lift bay so I'll raise it back up and take some measurements to see if coil bind could be a problem.
Jim
Jim B and Rick, If you jacked up the spring too much to increase road height you could be at coil bind. I have experience with Pro street parallel 4 bar set ups and long travel off road buggies.Another problem may be initial shock setup length. Normally I have setup my shock length to be slightly higher than mid point travel at road height desired. For example if you had 6" travel I would set the shock length at the 3 1/2" level at desired road height. Hope the info helps.
Most of the wheel travel is in the downward direction from ride height so the shock would definitely be compressed beyond the midpoint normally. I'd say the travel is probably somewhere between the center and around 3" up and 5" down so at the shock, between 2 : 2 and 1.5 : 2.5 depending on the ride height. That should be OK, right?
I took some measurements on mine and got .7" between the coils, 8 spaces, .444" wire. That should give 5.6" of travel but again, depending on the ride height adjustment. My car sits kinda high right now but the RMs could have been adjusted up further. Over an inch and a half further I sort of doubt but I can't say for sure. It's had a lot more miles on it.
It also has rubber bump stops fitted inside the top of the springs which means there should have been no sudden banging at the end of travel.
Jim
Could just be a faulty shock or top bracket broke. I've used Chassis Engineering or Morrison rear set ups that used a standard shock(usually Gabriel adjustable) and QA1 coil overs. What brand are those?
These are QA1.
The top bracket is a 3/4" tube welded through a 2 x 3 x 1/4" rectangular tube, sticking out a couple inches on each side. A long 1/2" stainless bolt runs through the tube and the shock's spherical rod end, mounting the shock in single shear across the full 1/2" shank diameter with the threads and the nut out on the opposite end of the bolt I believe. I know it isn't ideal and double shear would have been stronger but so far we don't know where the failure happened.
Jim
IF you look at the photos, the spring is adjusted VERY high up the shock.
IF there is coil bind, or even a slight chance of such, then all it would have taken is ONE instance of bind (Hard bump/ curb? etc) to have bound the spring and started a Bend in the shock!
And then it's just a matter of time before it bends more and more until... THAT.
I was thinking (perhaps incorrectly?) that the 12" spring *lighter* would then be cranked in more (to 11"? there is about 3" on the shock we could lower the spring to) to set the actual ride height, thus getting it up to the working rate of our (currently) shorter spring. whilst still having longer travel, less coil bind, less force on the shock rod, etc.
Did the Roadmaster get Corner Weighted at Omaha? And what spring rate would those suggest?
M
scales.jpg
The coil-overs have 10" springs on them. At most the springs on the RM are adjusted up less than 1" above mine, which are adjusted up about 3/8" to 1/2" above free length. So with 5.7" of free space between the coils (from actual measurement of my springs) and a maximum of 4" of shock travel the coils would never come close to touching.
I think I can claim categorically now that coil bind was not the cause of failure. But even so, perhaps a 12" spring wouldn't be a bad idea. There is room for it after all, so if you guys want to go to 12's I have no objection. I'm not sure what the advantages would be.
Dave is looking at what it'll take for him to remove the shock. The spring could be preloaded by as much as an inch so he has to proceed with caution.
Jim
Looks to me as thought there ***might*** be enough room to decompress the spring on the lower end to relieve the pressure ***if*** the coil wrench will fit in the tight space available.
Watcha think?
IndyBreakdown-Coilover.jpg
With the rear jacked up there may not be much tension left on the spring.
Need to a pic with the car on a lift or jackstands with the suspension at full droop.
Steve
I suggested to Dave that with the car on jackstands he might put a little pressure on the lower end with his floor jack and safely remove the lower bolt. Spring pressure then should be no more than 350 lbs at the most, I would think. I agree Rick, that the big nut could be backed off as well.
Jim
Rick:
Hope these help? Rear suspension in "full droop".
M
IMG_1045.jpg
IMG_1046.jpg
Addendum:
Maybe it's just me and I'm looking for smoke, but I took the hi-resolution digital image of the second picture and ZOOMED in on the shock-- and it looks like it might already have been bending the rod! A straight line between the bolts shows the rod has a slight swag in the diff direction.
Could just be the camera angle, surely. But...?
M
Here's the damage. Apparently some brake line damage as well.
Shockandspring.jpg
The failure appears to be from metal fatigue progressing from the root of the threads. Note the crack propagation towards the center from both sides prior to complete failure by tensile stress on the remaining intact area. This indicates that the rod was flexing and induced the metal fatigue. So the obvious question is, why would the rod flex? Provided the rod and the rod ends are on center it should not. The fact that it obviously did indicates that perhaps the rod end was machined slightly off center, meaning this indicates a manufacturing defect. I would suggest contacting QA1 for a replacement under warranty. (Implied or required by statute if not actual, being a manufacturing defect it should be replaced) The springs should not be binding but longer replacements are probably a good idea The bent one should be replaced of course and I think they are about $50 a set.
Can anyone come up with any other reason the shock could have failed in this manner? Careful measuring of the rod end would determine if it was machined incorrectly. Note the angle of the failure line in relation to the rod end's orientation. This should correspond to the offset, and this should be confirmed before replacement with a similar part if possible. If the mode of failure cannot be confirmed the next step would be to look for a coil-over with a larger diameter shock rod.
Jim
Guys ,I have an extra steering wheel with the 6 bolt hub. It looks just like the one that broke. I'll throw it in the trunk this weekend for the Dayton show if anyone can get it to Dave's. If not, I'll mail it next week. Capt'n
Mike....are you coming to Twists? If so, just bring it up to Michigan.
Rick, Yes, coming to Twisty's. Have reservations at Barney's playland! Abby has to valve cover race. I'll leave the wheel in the trunk. Mike
Cool!
I think things are getting a little clearer on the shock failure. Apparently the units we have are a racing part and a street part is available from the same manufacturer as well as others. The following is guesswork on my part but it seems that the race shocks are made lighter than the street units in order to save weight where the street units are built for durability. So where our units have a 1/2" shock rod the street unit has a 5/8" rod which gives 50% more cross sectional area and makes for a much, much stiffer rod. With the 5/8" rod the rate of flex on the rod would drop to infinitesimal levels, well below the threshold required to cause metal fatigue. In our case, the rod flexed very slightly over an extended period, causing cracks to propagate from the thread roots of the shock rod. Eliminate flex, eliminate the cracks.
Put simply, the coil-over unit failed because it was too light for the application. But who knew?
QA1 made our shocks. Jim Nichols says they make a street shock (silver body) that has a 5/8" diameter shock rod. I suggest we buy those and put them on the car.
I suggest we go to the 12" springs as well and up the spring rate by 25 lbs to slightly stiffen the rear end as it can use it.
I suggest we get adjuster nuts that will accept a wrench so we aren't buggering up the nuts with pliers and pipe wrenches.
I suggest we include a bump stop in the unit like the one we have now, I think it is the shortest one available for these.
The good shock can be measured for length both compressed and extended.
The rate is printed on the spring coils.
Probably the part number in on the shocks.
We do not have to use QA1, or the original supplier.
If I can do anything more to help figure this out please let me know.
Jim
Jim, I replied on the other board and Jim Stabe provided a picture of the silver QA1 Promo-Star. They come with the spanner nuts. The article I attached may be helpful too.
As I recall, QA1 says not to use their shocks for rebound travel limiting,(use a strap/etc). Anyone verify this with instructions ? Good Luck, roverman.
It's interesting that the cross weight ( RF to LR ) and right side weight are exactly the same.
Are these weights with or without driver weight? In a car this small, that makes a big difference in left side and forward weight bias. And, of course, it would put cross through the roof if you're adding ~200lbs to the left side seat.
Annoying that the scale didn't break out individual wheel weights.
That weight was without the driver. It was also the first car we weighed, so Jim & I were figuring out the scale and failed to get the other readings.
I think maybe we did get the other weights later didn't we Dan? Maybe my memory is faulty but I thought we put the car back on the scale but didn't bother to empty out the trunk the last time around. The weights are tabulated on this site somewhere.
Regardless, when considering the engine in this car I think it's safe to say that the results are nothing short of amazing. The long preconcieved notion that the car would be hopelessly nose heavy was definitively put to rest. Much of this result can be laid at the feet of the ballast added by the Jag IRS, but also is due to the light weight of the BBB engine.
Too, we see the same kind of numbers with most of the cars just lower in overall weight. Considering we made no conscious effort to keep the weight down the overall weight comes as no surprise, a few hundred pounds heavier than a similarly equipped unmodified car. For exact numbers see the weight tabulations posted on this site:
http://www.britishv8.org/Articles/BV82013-WeighInResults.htm
http://www.britishv8.org/articles/2007-autocrossresults.htm
http://www.britishv8.org/articles/2008-autocrossresults.htm
The other thing we saw is that adding the driver typically adds near equal weight to the front and rear and some to the passenger's side as well, so it would be mistaken to see this as loading another 200 lbs to the left front tire as that is not what happens by any means. And too, as a proportion of overall weight it is clear that the Roadmaster would fare better in this regard than a light weight conversion such as for instance, Curtis' car, and I would challenge anybody to demonstrate that his car handles turns better in one direction than in the other.
Jim
--->so it would be mistaken to see this as loading another 200 lbs to the left front tire as that is not what happens by any means.
Indeed. In the racecar, our 240lb driver would add about the following:
LF 85
RF 15
LR 130
RR 10
Granted, a lightened roadster (only 1900 w/o driver), but it certainly doesn't go all to the LF...
M
I don't think you can count the Roadmaster's weight as taken at BritishV8 2008 in Winsconsin. That was with the "Swiss cheese" green bodyshell.....that was for all practical purposes a rolling chassis at the time.
Very true Rick. No glass (heavy stuff that) no interior, etc, etc, etc. It is interesting to see where the added weight went and how much was there with only the rolling chassis and drivetrain (stock MGB axle).
Jim
It was also the first car we weighed, so Jim & I were figuring out the scale and failed to get the other readings.
Yeah, I assume you just push the 'Wheel Weights' button to toggle the display between individual corner weights and the analytic screen you're showing in your pic.
Jim
The other thing we saw is that adding the driver typically adds near equal weight to the front and rear and some to the passenger's side as well, so it would be mistaken to see this as loading another 200 lbs to the left front tire as that is not what happens by any means.
madmax
Indeed. In the racecar, our 240lb driver would add about the following:
LF 85
RF 15
LR 130
RR 10
Remember, I said the *cross weight* would go through the roof? Your example demonstrates that ... maybe I exaggerated a little bit, max. It would provide a 1.7% bump ( 50 / 3019 ) to the cross weight number and make the car tighter in left hand turns. Think of it this way; cross is an indication of how firmly the LR is planted in the turn, *when turning left*. If you add weight to the LR the rear grips better ( tighter or understeer ). If you take weight away from the LR ( and consequently add it to the LF ) then it doesn't grip so good ( looser or oversteer ) in relation to the front end.
Regardless, I wouldn't worry too much about it unless you're going to set the car up for a track day. And in that case, the car needs to be scaled in the 'as raced' condition. That is, stripped of accessories as much as feasible but with a driver and helmet and a full ( or however much you want to race with ) fuel tank.
For now, I'd just keep the car as balanced as possible for the street. But you shouldn't really be near the limits on the street anywho so it probably doesn't really matter ... except for curiousity.
Donations to the Roadmaster Project can be made to:
Bill Davidson, Treasurer
7208 W 54th Terrace
Overland Park, KS 66202
913 677-0884
Bill74mgb@yahoo.com
Checks should be made out to:
British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society
or
BADASS
Yes, and we need donations to get the car back on the road and keep it there. Currently we need to replace the coil-over suspension units on the rear, at a cost of around $500. Auto insurance renewal will be coming up soon as well and we'll need some money for that.
Remember that this project generates a good bit of visibility and good will for our sport while we pursue our stated goal of investing in the future of our young people by encouraging them to take wrench in hand and build their own car. Your small contribution added to those of others can make the difference between having the car out on the road where it can be seen or sitting idle. And also remember that you too can drive the car.
Jim Blackwood, former BADASS President.
OK guys, we need some help here. Jim S. and Jim N. and maybe Fred and others, we are trying to come up with a part number so we can order the coil-over units. Here are our requirements:
-Street coil-over units with 5/8" diameter shock rod (shaft)
-1/2" diameter mount, both ends
-urethane bushing mounts, both ends
-adjusting nut which accepts a wrench (we also need the part number for the wrench so we can get that too)
-400mm (15-3/4") extended length eye center to eye center
-265mm (10-7/16") compressed length
-23mm (7/8') tall bump stop or rubber snubber on shaft inside spring
-internal travel limit stop (extend)
-spring length, 12"
-spring rate, 375 lbs/in
The length requirements can vary a little but the OAL should not be made any longer.
I confirmed the spring rate, it is etched on the end of the spring. Damping is pretty light. It's no wonder we broke one of these, the neck at the end of the threads on the shock rod is only .390" diameter.
Using urethane mounts may mean we have to bump the floor up a tiny bit to fit them in, if that part is larger than the heim joint ends but this can be done if necessary.
So, guys, can you check your resources and find something that matches these requirements?
Jim
Last call, yes or no, QA-1 not designed to limit rebound travel ? I suspect this may have caused the problem ? Cheers, roverman.
Would it be a good idea to add an external rebound stop? Perhaps "Strapping Lad (https://sites.google.com/site/strappingladshop/mgb-axle-straps)" type straps could be mounted behind the lower control arms, where some Jag IRSs have a second pair of shock absorbers.
Road Master is running (2) coilovers on rear, instead of (4) ? Is this a proven conversion ? Will the lower a-arms long endure, additional torsional loads, of 1 shock per side ? Good Luck, roverman.
unfortunately you are right Art, unless it gets converted to a four link like the Satchell link design which would be difficult at this
point.
Dave
No, not a problem. The torque loads on the LCA are at least one order of magnitude greater than the suspension loads.
Jim
ERA Cobra's use single shock each side about the same angle. They are usually 350lb springs compared to the stock Jag 200lb dual springs.
I don't see a problem with a single coilover per side either.
Any tangential load that shock will impart on the LCA will easily be handled by the forked mount at the diffy.
Which is designed to handle much higher loads than the shock could ever impart due to its need to "twist" the diffy as the suspension moves..
The Jag design is really very clever and poorly understood by most.
The toe and camber changes as the suspension moves are very carefully calculated and are only now being utilized by other manufactures.
A 4 link design doesn't really apply to this type of suspension and would destroy the "rear steer" that is built into the design.
Cheers
Fred
Jim B, A guy on the Locost site says the stock XJ6 has 175lb rate springs and stock compressed length 9",extended length 13". XKE had around 200lb rate springs
That seems to fit Jim N, double that brackets the spring rate we are using exactly.
I haven't heard back from QA1. I hope they are taking the request seriously and it hasn't gotten lost. But at this point I'd probably just buy another shock and the 12" springs and put the car back together, send the old shock back to QA1 for rebuild, and put it in the boot as a spare.
Jim
Good morning Jim,
The small body shocks are only available with the ½" piston rod. To get a larger diameter rod you would need to get a large body shock like the Alumamatic shocks which use a 2 1/2" ID spring and not the 1 7/8" springs. Part number ALN4855P has a compressed length of 10 1/8" and extended length of 14 ¼" and come with poly bushings. The part number for the spring is 10-375 for silver power coat or 10CS375 for chrome. Let me know if you need anything else.
Have a good day,
Damien Brase
Technical Sales and Support
..............................
QA1 Precision Products, Inc.
A: 21730 Hanover Ave, Lakeville, MN 55044
D: 952.985.6433 | P: 952.985.5675
F: 952.985.5679 | W: www.qa1.net
Those appear to be our choices at this point.
The distances from shock to outer pivot and shock to inner pivot are as follows:
Driver's side, 6-1/4:11 ratio is 1.76
Passenger's side, 6-1/14:12-1/4 ratio is 1.96
So with the extended length being 14-1/4 instead of 15-3/4 we lose 1-1/2" of shock extension and 2.64" or 2.94" of droop. Considering we have 8" of droop now we can probably live with this. The shorter compressed length means that we will either have to have a taller bump stop (external in addition to the internal one), stiffer shock settings or stiffer springs to keep the tires from hitting the inner wheelwells, or a combination of the three. We can try just the stiffer settings initially and if that isn't enough stiffen the springs and/or add the external bump stop inside the spring.
To fit the larger diameter spring we will need a spacer at the top of the shock (1/8 to 1/4") and a longer top shock bolt. I used stainless so we would not have future problems with corrosion making the bolt impossible to remove (and requiring removal of the entire suspension). The tab for the brake line will also have to be bent or relocated.
If nobody can come up with a better option, then these are your two choices. You need to decide.
Bill Davidson is the treasurer. He can pay for them. Somebody needs to order them. Probably somebody close to Dave K.
Jim
OK, since nobody has done anything about this, I've gone back to QA1 with a request for a racing shock with the same length dimensions as the QA1 #28020931 8252 that is on the car now, but with a larger body and rod. If they can do that I'm thinking that might be a better solution since the ALN4855P will probably need an external compression bump stop anyway. (It is 5/16" shorter in compression.) All we'd be giving up is the extension bump stop and the cushion mounts (maybe). Nobody has admitted jumping the car so I can't see the extension stops being much of a concern. I'll let y'all know what they say.
Jim
Dave K sent me the broken coil over and I've inspected it and talked with him on the phone.
I just got off the phone with Damian at QA1. They do not have a 5/8" rod shock that comes any closer to matching the shock we are using. If anyone knows another coil-over maker that does we should look at it.
In the meantime, I reviewed all of the parameters with Damian including suspension travel, shock travel, ride height, shock ratio, shock angle, angular misalignment, remaining travel at ride height, spring rate, spring length, location of adjuster nut on the shock barrel, appearance of the fracture, orientation of the fracture, appearance of metal fatigue/tensile failure and a few other factors, including over extension. Am I wrong in thinking that the car has never been jumped? If it has we really ought to know about it and no repercussions to anyone who jumped it, you have my word on that. Personally, I think with the rear suspension travel we have the car would have to be seriously launched before the rear wheels came off the ground and if anyone did that they would know it, if only because the front would come down very hard. I don't see how you could miss it.
Damien did not feel that the spring length contributed to the failure. He said using a 10" spring on that shock at that spring rate and with that loading should not cause any problems. I will be sending him some photos so they can look at it and see if they can come up with any other ideas as to why it might have broken.
Honestly, the overall wear patterns seem to indicate to me that the car was driven for some time with the shock broken. But on the Omaha trip we had no indication of any problem.
So here is what we are going to do, unless somebody is dead set against it and offers an acceptable alternative. I have left a voice mail for Ted and will get in touch with him and see if he will order us another shock and spring assembly just like the one that failed. I have contacted Bill Davidson about paying Ted directly. I will see if the new unit can be drop shipped directly to Dave K. He will reinstall the new unit and we will get the car back on the road.
Then we will look into rebuilding the old unit to carry as a spare. If we feel it is warranted we might at that time consider buying a set of longer springs and/or adjusting the damping. However any adjustment requires the shock to be disassembled at least partially, which requires a pin spanner and I've mislaid mine and the pins are probably too big anyway, so a new tool will be required to do that. IIRC they are only adjustable in rebound anyway and that doesn't do anything for us. So if we go to a longer spring we will also increase the spring rate.
Jim
Pardon my ignorance.....but just what is "jumping" and how would one do this to the Roadmaster. Wheel hop???
re: Honestly, the overall wear patterns seem to indicate to me that the car was driven for some time with the shock broken. But on the Omaha trip we had no indication of any problem.
I don't agree with your theory. I think it was a catastrophic failure. The car was under my guard from the time you dropped it off in St.Joseph until the time that it left the trailer to be parked on Dave's driveway.
I drove it to town twice...and drove it to Indianapolis. You know my driving habits....I respect my vehicles, especially the Roadmaster.
Had the shock been broken while I was driving it at any point in time during my guard, I would have noticed a change in handling. I would have also noticed a change in its stance.
FWIW - YOMV.
Rick, I suppose "THE JUMPING" would be incidents similar to events in the movie "Bullitt' where Steve McQueen's Mustang and the Black Dodge Charger became air bore on the jumps in San Fran. This is just a thought I had . I have probably been incorrect before, but it was a trivial thing. :) PS, don't suppose Vin Diesel had a chance to drive the Roadmaster?
I was thinking Dukes of Hazzard. :) The General Lee spent more time in the air than any other car I know of.
I seriously doubt the Roadmaster has been impersonating the General. It broke. Let's put another one on like Jim suggested & see how it lasts.
I agree Rick, we had no indication anything was amiss.
But there is a rather large flat spot on top of the top spherical rod end. And that really makes no sense to me at all. But it had to get there somehow. A clue perhaps?
Jim
I know why the shock broke.
That flat spot was indeed the clue we've been looking for. The answer is that the main mount cushion compressed in excess of the 1/4" clearance that there was above the top of the shock and allowed the shock to contact the floor of the car above the battery box. This contact eventually wore a flat spot on the shock end nearly .100" deep and 5/8" in diameter. That flat spot then created a side load on the shock rod whenever the suspension compressed, and that side load eventually caused a crack to propagate into the shock rod and caused the failure. I will need to look at the other side to see if there is a similar wear pattern, and look at the mounts to determine the proper remedy. Most likely simply harder mount cushions.
What is surprising to me is that we weren't noticing an increase in differential and road noise. But it's an easy fix at least.
Jim
Can anybody get us a discount on a QA1 shock and a Hyperco spring?
The shock is on order and will get to Dave next week in two shipments. Cost will depend on shipping charges but will not be less than $250.
Jim
Hey Jim:
Good job investigating the problem! And thanks for perseverance and getting it handled.
FWIW, I think once the shock cushion problem is solved we shouldn't have to carry a spare. (I mean, who carrys a spare shock?!)
WE continue to improve the engineering of the car and get it sorted, it'll get there.
Remember: the Wright brothers crashed a LOT of planes! Unique problems required unique solutions.... :-)
M
Thanks Max. As it turns out we won't have a spare anyway. I got the old shock apart but it was too buggered to have any chance of putting it back together again, and in fact I had to cut the end off it to get it disassembled enough to get the old rod out. Not enough undamaged parts left to be worth trying to put back together. As for the valving being adjustable, not so much. I suppose if you had a race tuning kit (not cheap) and were inclined to completely disassemble and knew what valve parts to combine in order to get what results, then yes, it is tunable. But certainly not by simply turning an adjuster or stacking some parts.
This has been a not so great experience for me and I still don't know how it turns out for us all. Lane Automotive charged me $72.48 for the spring and snubber but I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop on the shock. Their invoice shows an extended price of 0 instead of the $160.99 that would be expected. Then at the bottom it has this line:
*** FOR REFERENCE ONLY - Final Total May Include Additional Fees and Adjustments ***
I'm just not sure what is going on there. It almost looks like a warranty claim but I don't think so. I expected to see another invoice when the shock shipped. Maybe they are just slow with their billing. In the end I worry that I'll have to eat the cost of this thing as my accounting is not so good as some.
I also will be going over today to renew the tags. That will be about $25.
Dave should have everything he needs now to put it back together as I shipped him back all the original small parts. I think he is trying to make a meet this weekend.
Soon after that the car needs to come back here so I can go over the rear suspension and make sure we don't have this problem again.
Jim
Dave got the invoice for the shock. There was no shipping charge shown for the spring and snubber but about $12 on the shock. So our total was right at $245.
Registration renewal was $24.99
Jim
Jim,
Thanks for taking care of all that.
see you in Townsend.
Steve
What is the status of Roadmaster?
Steve
I was wondering about Roadmaster yesterday, just hadn't gotten around to asking.
Oh, it's probably sitting in Dave K's back yard. After that problem with the master cylinder I think he had an issue with the fuel pump. I guess some guys just have all the luck, eh? I haven't heard from him in a couple weeks, maybe you guys should give him a call and see how he's doing?
Jim
Rumor has it that the Roadmaster is now back in it's Old Kentucky Home.
Actually it's sitting in my garage waiting out the snowstorm. Steve D and I went up to Dave's house yesterday while the weather was nice and the roads were clear and after ignoring the GPS and spiraling in on it, we arrived only 8 minutes after Dave had to leave to go to Terra-Haute. But he was magnanimous about it, taking the time to show us his project GT and making sure we were all set to go. He had the engine warmed up already and Steve jumped right in the driver's seat while I wasn't looking, so shortly we rolled out. We were a little concerned about the heater but had a good and uneventful trip home, and I stopped at the halfway point in the hopes that we could switch rides and Steve could get warm, but he just said, "Why'd you stop?" so we rolled on in.
But it's gotten me kinda concerned. All evening yesterday Steve complained about being cold and I feel so bad about it that I think we need to do something right away about the heater fan so the car won't be so cold. I'm just thinking about our other members who might have to drive the car in the cold or poor weather and I'm afraid we could be endangering their health. You guys aren't getting any younger and you don't recover from things like that as quick as you used to and there could be complications that could be serious and even life threatening, all because we didn't replace the blower fan with something better. I really feel like we need to do something about that.
Jim
I concur. Winter is coming on, we sure don't want anyone to catch pneumonia! :)
NoWhining_1.jpg
Hey, I'm just thinking about the rest of you. I know how delicate some of you are, and want to make sure everything is just right.
Running the blower motor backwards didn't help any btw. There's a whisper of a gentle breeze wafting out of the heater but that's about it.
Jim
Anyone want to send one of those magnets that go over the cowl vent so the cabin air can be recirculated? That might help.
QuoteI know how delicate some of you are...
When I was younger, one of my favorite things to do was backwoods camping in the Smokies in the dead of winter. Now that I'm nearly grown, I can't take cold weather. I'll be miserable from now until May. I now know why old folks go to Florida for the winter. If I weren't so poor, I'd do it too.
I
#%@# hate being cold!
Jim, perhaps you can cut a pattern that covers the cowl vent from a sheet of magnetized material. sometimes you can choose a matching color. Hobby store or other supply place. Even an old magnetized sign will work.
wool socks, long johns, ski clothing, who needs a stinkin heater. . . .Last Spring I drove several hundred miles in temps of 30-40 degrees F no problem but I'm only 65 years young, not as old as some of you guys.
I volunteer to drive RM to the deep south for the winter then no heater needed, Key West would be nice this time of year. Anyone in Palm tree land have a spare garage space????
RM needs AirCon more than a proper heater. much more driving is done in the summer than in the winter. . . Oh how I remember driving RM from Houston, TX to IL in 98F. I was half naked and soaking wet for two days, drinking 2 gals of Gatorade per day and sweating it all out; didn't have to pee one time.
I tried night driving but the headlights were pointing too far down and I couldn't see 20 feet ahead. But it was fun, I'm ready for another 1000+ mile road trip!!
All I want for Christmas is gas money!
HigginsfarmBritcarmeetRoadmaster.jpg
RoadmasterLittleRockAR.jpg
MoregasforRoadmaster.jpg
I drove the Roadmaster a little today just to get a feel for it again, and I can tell that we are going to have to do something about the ignition system. Before I went out I retarded the timing enough to reduce kickback on starting a bit. Not eliminated yet but less of a problem as it was so bad I'm sure we'd soon be buying another starter. So it's still there but better. Didn't put a timing light on it, just dialed it back a few degrees and tried it, said good enough, adjusted the idle screw, fast idle and automatic choke up a bit and went out.
Oh and I stuck the hood strut back on, slipped some strap down the channel and bolted to that. I think it'll stay until we get the new hood from Dave Craddock. He says all he needs is the paint codes.
Anyway, the power seems like it might be be off a little bit with the timing retarded but it's really hard to tell because any time the car develops much G force the engine cuts out. Seems to me like an electrical problem and at this point I'm all for removing all that MSD crap and going back to a straight coil and distributor setup. I don't see where that stuff ever helped us at all. Then dial back the static advance until the car will start without breaking starter noses. Then if it won't run right do something to get some more advance. I saw where somebody is selling a MegaJolt ignition system in the classifieds, maybe that would be a good answer, at least then it would be adjustable. I know how to tune that, so if you guys want to buy it and send it here we can install it on some work weekend and finally quit messing around with the ignition.
Jim
Have to agree with PJ on the A/C. It'd be a tremendous improvement. How could we do it?
Well, Dan B has 2 or 3 Sanden compressors that might be usable and is willing to donate one.
Carl mentioned an evaporator unit that he might donate if we want it, dealer option type.
Steve D left a combo A/C and Heater matrix here that might fit that evaporator unit if it isn't already a combo.
I'd be willing to make up a set of mounting brackets for the compressor.
Which might leave little more than the condenser, drier and hoses to complete the parts list. We'd have to install it of course and spend a little money on making up the hoses.I'd have to look to see if we have a double pulley on the crank and water pump.
Something to think about anyway. In the meantime, my roadster is camped out on the lift and I'm trying to get some wiring finished up there so I can start the engine. I hope to get around to looking at the subframe bushings eventually but my car has to come off the lift first and that isn't happening until either it moves under it's own steam or I have help pushing.
Jim
Here's a thought, let's all give RM a Christmas present. Nothing that would break anyones bank you know something like $20,or $50 each. Then we could attend to the needs and with a little luck have some spare change left over.
That'd be a good idea. Bill Davidson told me there's about $125 in the bank account. Not enough to buy the megajolt that Randy Kassad is selling in the classifieds:
http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?11,42759
We've spent a lot more than that on broken starter noses, and will spend even more unless we do something about it. This would be the correct fix and very likely would allow us to squeeze a little more gas mileage out of the car at the same time.
For my Christmas contribution, you guys buy this and get it here and I'll install and tune it.
Jim
Will we also need the trigger wheel, the cord module and the coil pack. What is different about tbe RM engine from the 455 of 1970.
They didn't break starters. I hate to add enpence and complication to RM
steve
Steve, it can trigger off the distributor's points and run the stock coil back through the distributor. What it adds is a timing map. As you know, the distributor's mechanical and vacuum curves are not well suited to this engine's requirements, as retarding initial timing enough to eliminate kickback means not enough advance when running and the engine runs hot, while mileage and power go away. Nobody was able to make the MSD timing box work and nobody knows enough about the stock distributor to fix it. If we leave it like it is, we can pick one but only one of the following:
1) good mileage, good power, broken starters every now and then without warning resulting in expense and unexpected repairs
2) bad mileage, poor power and response, overheating, easier starting and no broken starters
I'm just giving you guys another option
Jim
OK guys, good news. A certain donor, who I assure you is unlikely to remain anonymous for too long, has purchased the unit from Randy for the RM. So me and my big mouth, guess who gets to install it and tune it now?
This will be a big improvement over what we have now and I think some of you are going to be surprised at what we'll be able to do with it. We'll keep the distributor and coil, lock the advance plate, and use a timing map to control the ignition and the setting will let us retard the spark while cranking so broken starters will be a thing of the past. We'll also be able to map the timing while driving the car (or on the dyno) to get the most out of it. I'm not going to predict we'll improve on the 17mpg we've been getting out of the car lately but it is certainly a possibility.
Jim
I need details for making a donation:
who to make the check pay ale to
where to mail
Ale? Did someone say ale? Ale for one & ale for all! :) :)
Sounds better now. Hope you have fun installing it. Can we get a good map without a dyno?
Steve
Shouldn't be a problem.
Donations:
http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?2,166,page=116
Good for what ales you, Carl
Tell Bill PayPal would be helpful.
Bill,
be on the lookout for my donation finally got around to sending it toady.
Merry Christmas RM
PJ
MoregasforRoadmaster.jpg
Good looking project. I have a question about the Jaguar IRS and you appear to be far more technically knowledgeable than I am. I am concerned that the wheels will be allowed to drop enough that the U-joints will bind and something might break. What would you use to make sure the rear wheels only drop as much as the U-joints can take as an angle? I hope this made some sense.
Not that I plan on jumping the car into the air where this could happen, but I just want to make sure the car is safe.
Not a problem Henry. The shocks we chose limit the downward motion. Now, these are a racing spec coil-over and do not have an internal bump stop so if frequent full extension of the rear suspension is anticipated (as in jumping the car) an external limiting strap or a shock with internal bump stops should be used. The latter has the unfortunate side effect of limiting suspension travel however, are not available in the same length and would have to be positioned differently, and are larger in diameter and therefore more difficult to package. We did use an external bump stop for compression travel. There are compromises with the design as in any other, but with the long travel, being able to keep the wheels on the ground has not been one of them, nor has the ride.
In further news, we will have a work weekend scheduled at Blackwood Labs within the next few weeks. There are three projects here that may be involved in that work weekend depending on who shows up to work on what. The Roadmaster is one of those three and there are several tasks that need attention such as fixing the door lock, adjusting the side windows, etc and Randy is getting us a Molex connector so maybe we can install the MegaSpark module as well. The IRS subframe cushions need inspection and possible replacement also. The other two are the Chump car and Dan's TR-7 conversion. Anyone who wants to is free to stop by. I'll post more info as it becomes available.
Jim
I have taken the car out driving around a bit a couple of times now. It still kicks back and isn't real happy starting in the cold. And with the timing retarded a bit it feels like we've lost the edge on the power curve... it's no longer so comfortable with that 2.88 in 5th gear as it was before. We should be able to remedy both of those problems once the MegaJolt goes in, and should be getting the connector for it before too long. I haven''t had the car on the lift yet... Need to check the rear crossmember bushings and shim them up so we don't have to worry about breaking another shock. But, my RD is on the lift. I probably won't move it until I have some help as the posi makes it harder to maneuver. Those are some other things we can do together which would make for a fun weekend, not too strenuous, pretty easy, more or less clean work with good results.
Jim
Hey Jim, all:
(Been awhile since I've caught up on RM. Holidays, etc. :-) )
Went back and reread some of the 2011 posts when we just got the car on the road.
IF we ended up set up for manifold vacuum-- why have we been breaking starters?
Since I last timed the car it had an MSD added, a spark control box, it killed a coil, it's been to the dyno... and now it's killed it's 3rd starter!
It's nice that we have this MegaSpark unit (I guess), but you'll have to go back to the dyno to get it right! (We run a programmable 123Tune in the racecar. It is AWESOME, but I wont' lie that it was every bit of $300 dyno time to work out all the timing points!)
I can't help but think we should stop throwing extra parts (that aren't fully understood by all possible users!) onto the car and Keep It Simple, etc. We could have recurved that current distributor to do what you want. (Or Schlemmer could have). It just needs more mechanical timing. Open the gap, stiffen the springs (low compression).
In fact, as a Back Up, I'd be happy to do that. Grab a junk distributor and lock that down for the MegaSpark. Send me the good one...
$.02
M
PS: Emily says when I spend time reading this thread I'm "RoadMasterbating". I thought that was hilarious... :-)
Careful Max, I think this is supposed to be a family friendly forum ;-) but I think it's funny too.
To each his own I guess, somebody had to do something about this kickback problem and it's been well over a year and nothing had been done. Three starters in less than 2 years is completely unacceptable. So I ventured to drag the group kicking and screaming into the present. Or near-present since MegaJolt (That's the correct name btw) has been around nearly a decade and a half now. So it's actually become "old technology" and as old codgers we are now free to embrace it at last.
As for the dyno, well if you *have* a dyno, and the money, you might as well... but lots of tuning can be done with neither. I expect we'll quickly get it as close or closer than it was after Texas without it.
And this *is* an effort to simplify things. Get rid of the advance/retard box that NOBODY knows anything about, maybe get rid of the MSD box as well, still have to see about that part. Get rid of the mechanical advance and the vacuum diaphraghm. Less parts to wear, tear, and break, and *way* easier to adjust.
And really Max your offer to help is appreciated by all but you're a little late. Do try to keep up if you can. Now if you had a good solution for the wimpy stock heater fan that was a bolt-in replacement without cutting the heater box that would be a good place to apply your efforts. I don't know why, the fan runs fine and in the right direction and on the bench a similar heater box blows plenty of air and there isn't any blockage of the heater core fins, but we get barely a wisp of air out of the vents. There simply has to be a stronger motor with a wider squirrel cage that will fit the opening. We just haven't found it yet.
Jim
JIm:
uhm... you've flipped OPEN the vents, right? :-) (Manual control!)
For awhile there was a Grainger fan that was a near match to the MGB one in diameter, shaft size, etc., and it was only $25. (Whereas a Moss one is like $70). That might be an option.
The earlier, taller motors will work and seem a little stronger. (Something '62-'67, I think.) IF you want to scrounge amongst the ranks....
I don't remember anything about the heater (I think it was IN already?) but if it isn't sealed inside the box then it doesn't "heat" very well.
(It's NOT a great system, either way. :-( )
M
Steve and I worked on the car some over the weekend. The issue with the coil-overs is now resolved and we should not have to worry about breaking another one. The idea of spacing the subframe down was not feasible because of the 6 point mounting so we simply cut about a 1-1/2" hole in the sheet metal above each upper mount and drove in a heavy PVC plug with a domed center which gives the necessary clearance. It's not a perfect fix, but it should serve the need.
IMG_0005.JPG
While on the lift we noticed that the bottom of the tank was badly bulged in and seeing only one fairly small scratch decided it must have been due to suction. So we blew the tank back out and drilled a hole in the misfit cap. Since Dan or I (probably me) was responsible for losing the cap when we turned the car over to Rick after Omaha on our last fill-up it sounds like I need to buy a new cap. But if someone took a notion to donate one I'd certainly be grateful. It is the type (OEM) that engages the inside of the filler neck, but we could change out neck and cap both if matching ones were available.
We moved on to the ignition. I told Paul when he bought the MegaJolt that I'd install it. And I will. I didn't know at the time that it would not work with the stock distributor and Pertronix module, but required an EDIS ignition system but I try to keep my word if at all possible. So Steve and I removed the crank pulley and put it on the small bench top mill, where I drilled and milled the 36-1 tooth pattern needed for the crank trigger, and then we made a mount for the pick-up that bolts to the unused mechanical fuel pump location.
IMG_0004.JPG
IMG_0002.JPG
Then we mounted the EDIS coils and module using extra parts that I had on the shelf
IMG_0001.JPG
And somewhere along the line made a trip to the pick-n-pull for connectors and stopped by the hardware store for some stainless fasteners and standoffs. Steve bought a new set of coil wires to work with the EDIS coil packs and we got everything done except the wiring connections before we'd had enough.
I'm not sure how long it'll take me to finish up the wiring. If my car's any indication... well let's not go there. But I won't be able to help get it to Colorado and other points West so you guys might want to be thinking about how you are going to get that done. I'll let you know as soon as it is running again.
So some might ask, WHY? The best reason I can give is that we could not find a happy balance between the timing needs for starting, idle, midrange and WOT using what we had. I don't know why that was, we certainly tried. And broke starters. Again, and again, and again. Well, no more. Early BBB engines ran just fine with distributors but ours never did. Perhaps the cam, perhaps something else. At any rate the EDIS system is very good and will run the engine even without the timing signal from the MegaJolt. No timing advance, but it'll run. And with a .050" spark gap recommended, which can't hurt. The MegaJolt enables any setting for advance on start, at idle, and anywhere else, based on vacuum and engine speed. So we can easily create an optimized advance map using a laptop. That should allow us to get the best mileage we can as well as the best power, while being able to start easily with no kick-back. It's a bit of trouble to get there, but it's the best way I know to solve those problems.
Jim
Once again Jim, you, Steve and everyone else has gone way over and above the call of duty.
And it's very much appreciated.
If the car ever gets out this way, or if I trek east sometime I would love to work on it as well.
And p.s. the chump car trans is nearly done if you still need it.
Cheers
Fred
Thanks Fred. Sorry to say I'd forgotten, and such a generous offer too. I'll see what Carl thinks.
I'm hoping to do the wiring this next weekend. I have a paper cut on my left middle finger that is hampering me a bit but maybe I can work around it. I'd like to see the car back out on tour as soon as possible. Who wants it next? Aside from minor annoyances like window adjustments it's done. (oh and gages of course)
Jim
The Roadmaster was promised to Bill Davidson (Kansas City) last summer before it broke down.
It really needs to begin its journey west.
I agree, it has already done one Hot Rod Power Tour. It was quite an undertaking with a sizeable team to pull it off. Efforts to move it along its journey westward would be best.
Seems to make sense, and they've been waiting patiently. Odds are the car will get as much or more of the kind of publicity we are looking for by going west too. I'm not sure the power tour did all that much to get the car in front of the new drivers other than the ones who showed up at the events. That little photo that was mis-captioned probably didn't do much for us. Our efforts may pay off better in a new approach, and it seems to me it's worth the effort to try.
Jim
as posted above, should RM go to KS for the service for Bill Young then be passed off, subject to schedule considerations I volunteer to shuttle RM from current location to KS
I'll let you know later today how the wiring is going, and if I've had the chance to fire it up and do any tuning. When is the service?
Jim
Bill's service is scheduled to be sometime in April. Jenny has yet to name a date.
It would be fitting to have the car there.
I think so too.
I got about half the EDIS wiring done today, tidying up some grounds while I'm doing it, also eliminated a bullet splice in the fan wiring. I think I have two of the correct connectors for the fans so If I can lay my hands on those I'll install them and make those connections more reliable. If someone can find a 2 stage temp switch and connector that has a pipe thread I could install that too and properly finish off the fan control system.
We still need that gas cap. C'mon guys, Steve and I should not be the only ones spending money on this car, especially since we've done most of the work.
I had scheduled tomorrow to work on my car, which has been neglected lately. but I'll probably try to get most of the EDIS wiring done too.
Jim
It's currently sporting a Mercedes gas cap....or at least it was.
Advance Auto Parts has one that should fit.
Item Description
x Remove
Stant Steel Gas Cap
Part No: 10623
Warranty: 1 YR REPLACEMENT IF DEFECTIVE
Quantity:
Check Vehicle Fit
I now have the EDIS fully installed and wires run inside to the MegaJolt/E which is where the old MSD stuff was installed. No wires hooked up there yet, it needs at least 4 wires. If everything is right, the engine should start and run as it is now but without any advance or timing control. The MJ will take care of that part and it will be pretty easy to do this last plug. Power, ground, PIP and SAW. Plus another for the tach output.
Here's a link to the MJ install manual:
http://www.autosportlabs.net/MJLJ_V4_vehicle_installation_guide
If you look at that you will see it has some additional capabilities, if anyone wants to add to it. Pretty simple from the looks of it. Has an input for temp for instance and four outputs. I'd expect it'd be possible to run the fan relays with it if someone wanted to. It'll run a shift light. Not sure what else, but I'm just going to get it running.
Here's the Operation Guide:
http://www.autosportlabs.net/MJLJ_V4_Operation_Guide
I haven't looked at it yet.
Gas cap: Hey, whatever you guys want to do. It can be a "Beater" and I'll go along with it. I'm just another member like everyone else.
Jim
Thanks, Jim for all your work on RM.
RE new Roadmaster hood,,,,,Guys I still need the color codes for the paint, I called someone at Terry shultes place but got no return call.
Dave
313-720-9381 cell(anytime) 313-533-2457 shop
BTW; I can drop ship it to anyone.
I can track down a gas cap if one is still needed. Let me know.
Brad
All:
Our thanks again to Jim for taking on the repairs-- he is carrying too much of the burden, as has (too) often been the case.
I'm going to lay down a little criticism, however, so please accept it as constructive in hopes it will lead to some long term results.
1) I agree the car is overdue for getting out to the West Coast, but I don't think the car is ready. We have not done a thorough job of "sorting" the car and it still seems quite capable of breaking-- something major, even-- so I don't think there is much confidence in its doing 3K miles out to California at the moment. Not without sitting in a driveway for two months. (This is its history-- it can't be denied.)
2) While I whole heartedly agree that "something needed to be done" (re: breaking starters), I'm not in favor of the MegaJolt. I realize this is after the fact, but my objection is purely financial: it feels like tossing good money after bad. RAther than have the distributor curved correctly (for Jim's preferred manifold vacuum) we are now bolting stuff onto the wrong distributor so that it will act like the right one. And adding complexity, to boot.
2-a) Similarly, to TRULY get the programmable system to work, the car needs to go back to the dyno. This is more money. It will ultimately end up working as best as can be, but only if this time and expense is put into it. Otherwise, it's just one more "patch job", and no different than the spark control box (which obviously didn't work). I certainly would NOT leave it programmable for others! That's just something for people to suspect and screw with. It needs to be properly programmed and... like any good timing job... left alone!
3) Which brings us to the current timing: it wasn't working, so WHY? Did anyone actually write down where the curve was (after dynoing)? Except for the static (cranking) setting, which was obviously still wrong (ahem: broken starters!) the rest of the timing presumably gave the best power and, as Jim notes, the economy was pretty good. These settings should be marked and programmed into the MJ, if only as a starting point for driveability.
3-a) I curved that distributor when it was here, and it is a vacuum advance distributor. That is how it's curved. For better idle, it was set up for manifold vacuum. (Jim and others want this, and the big cam seems to require it.) But, wherever that timing ended up, it obviously wasn't correct because we kept breaking starters. I can only assume that when they advanced the timing on the dyno to get a good power curve, they would have given it WAY too much static timing in the process. (Because it has the short mechanical curve of a ported vac distributor, rather than the long mech curve of a manifold one.) Add in some timing being pulled by the manifold during (esp. hot) cranking and you have a shit-ton of static advance. (The car does NOT pull extra timing under cranking if ported vacuum, btw.) This is why starters are breaking: distributor is incorrectly set up for the job at hand.
4) WE are down to the details in the car-- the sorting, shaking down, etc., and fixing of the final minutiae. It's a painstaking process, but it needs to be done. WE all put up with idiosyncrasies in our own cars, but a car for public usage needs to be nearly boring in its operation. Until it is well sorted and reliable, it doesn't seem to be very desired. (PJ and the WEst Coast guys the exception. :) )
4a) This sorting process-- my take, here-- would likely take a good 6 weeks, with changes needing to be done every weekend to keep up with the car. Also, it would likely need a good $1000 in the kitty to be able to deal with any and all issues that come up. (Dyno time, for one. Maybe some carb parts as well, depending on what is found with the mixture after the timing is perfected.) And we definitely need to fix the gauges, once and for all.
That is MY take on the situation. I take nothing away from Jim-- the existence of the car itself is a tribute to his genius. But it's time to "up the expectations" once again: the car can no longer "just go" to fulfill its mission. It needs to be crisp (it's not-- carb?), user friendly (ahem-- gauges!), and reliable. (oh, insert anything here: starters, exhaust, blah blah) to truly achieve its Greatness.
So... do we suck it up and finally get the car RIGHT-- or keep sending it down the road like some Circus Freak? Curious, but never quite desirable...
My opinion only. :-)
M
Well stated, Max. Thank you.
I owe you guys an update. The EDIS system is installed and appears to work flawlessly. I started the car yesterday for the first time with the new ignition and it fired right up without even a hint of any kickback. This is without the advance signal so it is in "Limp Home" mode. I put a timing light on it and it was showing 18 degrees of advance as it was idling. The MegaJolt is also now wired but has not been tested yet as I have to download the software to my tuning laptop first, but it does power up correctly. As for the rest I'll know more later, can't really say exactly when at this point but I'd think sooner than later.
Brad, if you'll send that gas cap to me as soon as you can I'll get it on the car.
On the gages, I just figured after it gets to LA maybe someone more familiar with them can get them working. They sure won't keep it from getting there.
Max is right of course there are a number of minor issues like the door glass and key lock. I replaced the shifter knob but the steering column is still in the back. Once it's ready for test drives I'll stop by the local automotive paint store and see if they can take a reading on the paint to get some color codes. That may be as close as we are going to get. You guys can take care of the rest.
Anyway, assuming the MJ works correctly we can set the advance for cranking independently of idle advance, dial in the idle for smoothest and best operation with a smooth transition off idle, bring in enough RPM based advance to get good power on acceleration, and then bring up the MAP based advance for cruising. It shouldn't be that difficult. If anyone wants to use a dyno to do that they are more than welcome. This system is WAY more flexible than the old distributor and it's pretty easy to advance or retard the timing a little out on the road in spots on the timing map where it needs it.
I even hooked up a coolant temp sensor while I was at it. There is a provision for changing the timing based on engine temperature if we want to use it, but more importantly it can be used to turn on the radiator fan relays and should be better than the existing switch that has too much hysteresis (either does not come on early enough or stays on long after the car is parked). As it stands that requires only re-routing a couple of wires inside the car, but I want to see that the ouput indicators in the software come on first.
Finally, maybe someone real familiar with clutch systems could be thinking about how to lighten the pedal pressure a bit.
Are we starting to get picky? Yeah, maybe. But after all, it *IS* such a NICE car.
Jim
JIm/Bill:
I was recently asked in a private message, so can we post here again where and to whom Donations to the Roadmaster are sent? Thx.
M
Donations to the Roadmaster Project can be made to:
Bill Davidson, Treasurer
7208 W 54th Terrace
Overland Park, KS 66202
913 677-0884
Bill74mgb@yahoo.com
Checks should be made out to:
British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society
or
BADASS
Is there a Paypal account, too?
Brad
You did what to the shifter knob??????
Um... replaced it? Trust me, you'll like this one better... and it was free. My local AutoZone manager showed me a box of stuff and said to take whatever I wanted so I grabbed a couple of knobs.
I'm surprised none of you guys told me the EDIS was not supposed to give 18* advance unplugged. Anyway when Steve and I made the trigger wheel I was working from memory and I "remembered" 6 teeth from TDC. Guess it's really supposed to be 5, so after TIG welding up the gap, dressing it down and removing the one next to it I now get 8*, only 2 from what it should be. Starts even easier now. (Evidently EDIS gives 0* advance while cranking.)
Unlike MegaSquirt it seems MegaJolt only allows a max of +-5* of trigger offset so this really needs to be close as installed.
I won't be able to do anything more with it for the next 3 weeks but maybe I can do some tuning tomorrow. It looks like the map settings are influencing the timing and the controller does have a rudimentary map already in place. It's wrong of course but at least it's there. But maybe I'll have time to fire it up, get it off fast idle and set the idle advance part of the map. That'll be a good start. Then some time later on I can work on the rest of the map.
Jim
Good day today. I pretty much got the GUI figured out and tweaked the timing map to be similar to what I've seen in the past for 215's and other V8 engines. It seems to work pretty good overall and the car drives a little better than it did before. The upper end could use some work still and we'll have to see what we can do on the cruise for economy but at least the tools are there. It seems to like about 30* at idle and with the EDIS basically running no advance below 400 rpm (cranking) it starts very well indeed. I predict we've replaced our last starter. YAY!
I'm going to drive it around town tomorrow running errands, and if I'm happy with the temp functions I'll connect it to the radiator fans.
I will say though that I don't much care for this MegaJolt overall as compared to the MegaSquirt. The software is clunky, crash prone, and difficult. They did things like requiring a Ctrl+ arrow to increase or decrease advance and I've not found it capable of changing advance without first updating the controller so what you see on your map is NOT what the controller is doing until you update. In other words they have made it more or less impossible to tune on the fly. Probably for liability reasons, but with MS and a solid laptop mount you can drive one handed while resting your other on the laptop and give a little tap hear, a little tap there on two keys your fingers are resting on.
OTOH once it's set you're done.
I will copy the program and the tune file on a diskette and put it in the binder with the tuning and install instructions so any time someone wants to tweak something all that's needed is a laptop with a serial port.
Jim
Sounds good Jim. Be sure to report onthe around town use.
Steve
Jim do you plan to drive it any distance? Thank you for your steady work.
Im thinking of driving something down to Key West in 3 weeks, probably my bgt V6, but I could make it the Roadmaster if anyone
down there wanted it briefly. I think it is important to have the car at Bill youngs service in May on the 17th.
I've not heard much from others wanting to host the car, it is time to get the requests in!
Here is the report:
Drove a loop that includes about every imaginable type of road today and the car performed impeccably. It starts easily, is easy to drive and well mannered beyond all expectations. The only limits I found were when G forces sloshed the fuel in the carb. There is probably room for improvement but it's plenty good enough and as far as I can tell, better than the distributor in every way. And because the coil-overs are no longer banging against the floor the car was noticeably quieter as well.
After I got back I hooked up the fans to the MJ and got that to work. Only thing is, it makes the LED indicator light stay on all the time. I may see if I can measure the current running through there if I have the chance, but it's clearly less than 1/3 amp because that'd be enough to fire the fan relays. Typical LED current is about 20 mA so if that's all it draws it won't matter. Oddly enough if either of the fan circuits don't have power, when the key is turned off the other fan runs so it is sort of a handy tell-tale in a way. I sent them an email asking about that. Still needs another test drive but I'll see to that soon enough.
I have the console out at the moment but hope to have it back together this week sometime, and then I'm done with repairs. Here's the short list of things I know of that you guys still need to get done:
Door lock: The cylinder is in the console, I think it needs some sort of circlip
Window adjustments, both doors
Steering column: In a box in the back
Gages: I think there is a pigtail of some sort in the console
Don't run it out of gas. It doesn't re-prime very well.
Otherwise, I think it's good to go.
Jim
I second that one about running out of gas. ... .... and I speak from experience
Sounds like you had a nice drive today Jim
I'm willing to bet that the circlip for the lock cylinder is lying on the bottom of the door.
The barrel that currently resides in the console is part number 101 in this diagram.
However, I've never seen this assembly separate "in situ" before....usually if you take the retaining clip off, the lock assembly can be pulled out of the door as a single assembly.
MGBdoorlockassembly.jpg
The pigtail thing is for calibrating the speedo. I got SW to send it to me when I had the car. I think there is some issue with the plug...either it is not the right one or the speedo is mounted in such a position as to make it impossible to plug it in.
The speedo is not calibratable. Jim Watson and I took the dash out to plug in the pigtail, but there is no place on the speedo to plug it into.
Rick/Jim,
Isn't what's missing in the lock assembly just a short pin (solid)? I thought that is what kept 101 inside 102 (103 is what keeps 102+ in the door). I believe there is a suitable roll pin that can be used instead. Would very much like to keep using that cylinder, because the car has a very rare matched set of locks! Very cool and very convenient. :-)
Nice progress, Jim. Thx!
M
I have found a premium exhaust gasket for the Stage 2 SE heads used on the Roadmaster. These are made by SCE and are an embossed copper gasket which has a raised sealing bead.
As many are aware good sealing of the exhaust ports is a persistent issue we deal with and the Roadmaster is no exception. Currently it has an annoying "tick" when cold though it does still go away once the engine is well warmed up. We really should fix this before the car goes out to Omaha because if left unresolved the exhaust gasses will eventually eat into the head and create a permanent problem. I have it on good authority that the SCE gasket is the best solution that exists.
The SCE part number is 4171. The link is:
http://scegaskets.com/product/sce-gaskets-part-number-4171/?add-to-cart=42427
The price is $44.59
One of you fine gentlemen needs to order these gaskets and have them shipped to me immediately at:
Blackwood Labs
9406 Gunpowder Rd
Florence, KY 41042
I will install them if they get here before the 14th.
Jim
Also available from Jegs:
http://www.jegs.com/i/SCE+Gaskets/829/4171/10002/-1
Jim
Nobody?
If you don't know me by now, I might as well tell you, I'm not going to beg.
Bill Davidson says there's about $50 in the treasury.
It costs us over $100 a year just to have the checking account. It costs us $15 a year to file our annual reports. So we have to raise $120 or more just to break even. The question has been asked, "Do we need a checking account?" and the next question is, do we need a business license? Based on recent participation my answer to both these questions would be, "No." But that is for the membership to decide. Those who still want to be involved should make definite plans to decide these issues at the upcoming BritishV8 meet, but just as importantly to elect new officers. Because I have the form for the annual report sitting on my desk I will send it in this year, but if no action is taken at the meet I will assume the answer was negative and allow it to lapse next year.
Now, about those gaskets. I cannot in good conscience allow something as cheap as a set of gaskets to ruin this car by destroying one of the heads. So I am going to order the gaskets and submit the invoice to Bill Davidson. I think you guys should pay me the filing fee to submit the annual report as well. If anyone has a problem with that, speak your mind.
This means BADASS will be in the red to the tune of something like $40. What you guys choose to do about that is up to you, but if nothing is done the checking account will have to go. They don't allow you to run a negative balance.
If you have any inclination to contribute to the good that this car is doing by appearing around the country and the good will that it is creating, of course now is the time to send a donation to Bill Davidson.
As for the officers, since the car is headed west, might I suggest that some of the western members could be suitable candidates for office? You guys will have to decide, and I won't be there this year to help.
I sincerely hope somebody steps up and does what needs to be done.
Jim
I'm already in to the Roadmaster for close to $2500 if not more. Several others are in similar shape. It's time for some new faces to step up to the plate.
As I've stated before....perhaps it is time to auction this puppy off and donate the proceeds to charity as was originally planned. I believe that might be harder to do if we allow the NFP status to expire.
Just sayin'.
Seconded.
Exactly. I have $100K in the car and Terry Schulte has $14K. Others have made significant contributions as well. Those of us who have borne the brunt of the expense so far are tapped out.
And not to make light of our lesser contributors, most of you have done what you could. So maybe Rick is right about selling it. You guys do what you think is best, and I wish you well, but once the car leaves here I am done.
Jim
I will mail a check today, here is a wild a** idea. . . .
What if a small number of new members were invited to join BADASS and the initiation fee were say $500.00 do you think that would help solve this financial crisis?
There may be a few like minded enthusiasts out there who would pay to play.
Car rental companies charge a bundle to rent a super car for a day of joy riding.
Do you think you could pull that off, PJ?
the worst that could happen is that we try to entice some new members and we fail.
I think it would be an appropriate topic for discussion at the next meeting in July.
We could be selective, but you guys let me in so darn near anybody is ok!
There have been other ideas like sponsorship but it seems that the voluntary "pass the hat"
fund raising method may have run it's course.
And it seems to me that some members don't even want the car for a week or two of personal use.
There is no waiting list to host the car. So sell it or raise enough money to keep it in circulation a little longer. I personally would like to take RM to some more events. And there may be 10 others out there who are willing to make a contribution in order to host the car. If no one steps up to the plate at least we tried.
What say yee speak up these are just my thoughts what do the rest of you think?
As I will not be able to make the meet this year, I am going to send $120 to Bill as my small contribution to this great project.
I was thinking that it would be great to have the RoadMaster at the NAMGBR annual gathering which next year will be in Niagara Falls, Ontario. If we still own it and it's any where near the East Coast, I'm sure it would be a hit at this gathering.
Hope to see everyone next year at Indy.
Richard Woodley
Jim is obviously getting frustrated, but I'm not sure by which: the fact that he still has the car, or that there is no money to support it? Both, likely.
Grab a drink-- this might be a long one. :-/
Any "volunteer" situation only survives if the participants feel they get something out of it. When you start adding in financial contribution, that becomes even more crucial.
"Charity" (donations) don't work without some reward. For instance, on the race team, we initially tried to get people to "donate" money to help the cause. AS the years (2-3) went by and the car didn't materialize, this faded away. When the car did materialize, however, it thus needed to support itself.
For the last 10 years (of 11 total that I've been involved with the B-Stingers) the team does TWO fundraisers a year-- this gives the necessary funds to have a (mild) racing season. And we found that you got more business selling the SERVICE to the customer, rather than the CAUSE.
(Read: don't tell them We need the money to go racing/ Tell them THEY need to rustproof their car, etc.)
So, how do we translate this to the Roadmaster? What is a "supporter" going to get out of it and what will make them stick with it?
Not to pick on Jim-- burnout is very common, and Jim's priorities have changed, which is understandable-- but at the moment his frustration is some of the worst advertising for the car. When even the originator of the project is fed up, it's kind of hard to find the value in the product. :-/
The loss of Bill, one of the true champions of the car, was a big blow.
And if people are quoting their money invested, then this indicates that the reward was NOT sufficient. Otherwise, the attitude would be: "oh, I don't care-- it's been a ton of fun", etc. (See any of PJ's posts, for instance. :) )
Now for the tough part of this post.
I'd like to call "BullShit".
This whole "for the Younger Generation" approach is NOT working. And we ourselves are horrible ambassadors.
Who brought their son to work on the Roadmaster? I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I don't know anyone who did. (And this applies to the WHOLE collector car industry. We are all older, and the younger generation is not stepping up in equal numbers to take over our old cars....)
Emily teaches the 'high schoolers" of Today. These kids have fantastically different cares then we did!
a) they don't care about sexual orientation, race, or many of the diehard prejudices that we had to weed through.
b) they don't care about cars-- it's just an appliance to them. They do NOT rush to get their license! (There are more 30-year olds WITHOUT cars then apparently at any time since 1960...)
c) They are well aware that petroleum is an unsustainable resource. The Roadmaster, to Them, is a Dinosaur, and would be viewed as wasteful.
d) You'd get more interest making the car electric, diesel, or wind powered. :-p
That's the Younger generation. Our generation, on the other hand, loves the car. :-)
So, IF this (BADASS) is to continue, can we change the Mission Statement to reflect ACTUALITY rather than a misguided notion that young kids will follow in our footsteps? They not only won't, but it'll probably be illegal in a few years for them to even do so. :-(
I'm happy to see the Roadmaster continue, but the car has yet to even emerge from it's teething period.
As we're confessing our contributions, I kick in at the meets, but have contributed mainly with my time. (130+ hours). And I actually believe IF the car was made more reliable, that the sustaining itself would be easier to achieve. WE are currently faced with having to "pay the interest" on something that isn't going anywhere-- money is the SHORT-term problem. It would be greatly reduced when the car is LONG-term viable: then our generation would want to drive it, contribute to it, and keep it around.
Fess up: most of us are sitting here going "I'd take it, but I don't want it to break on me...." Neh?
Some moons ago I once again volunteered to help sort the car, but not until October when I'll have some free time. (But by all means, send it out West if it can make it!)
Even then, I'm volunteering to WORK on it, not just get it for a joy ride. My reward is the fact that if I can (one more time?) con my crew into helping Me (Steve, Carl, Tim)-- we all have a lot of fun. :-) The car, in many ways, is secondary to that fact.
$.02
Max
I have to agree with Max.
I worked on the car for the enjoyment of it and to meet interesting and talented people. I would be happy to work with the team on the car again and feel lucky to be invited to do so.
I will host the car again if no one else wants it. I have a garage it can sit in and I will drive it some. Car shows are really of little interest to me any more so I can't promise much that way.
If someone hosts the car and it breaks I do not feel they should shoulder the entire cost of fixing it unless they broke it. It just breaks down because it has not been de-bugged. That would take quite some time and lots of miles.
I will help any way that I can.
Jim may be right that it time to sell, but what does that cost. Big auctions are expensive and I am afraid many will be upset at what will be the sale price. The car is really not that desirable to the usual car collector. Drive in hot or cold whether and you will understand. Everything can be fixed, but by whom and at what cost?
Just my thoughts.
Steve
Good discussion. Max may be right on the assessment of the youth. There still are kids that are "car nuts" but not the majority. In the case of my family, my youngest daughter loves the V6-TR7 and is willing to learn and work on it some, but is so busy with other activities that the time is just not there. It is a lower priority. I see that with some of the kids of members of our local club. They like the cars but they have soccer, swimming, baseball, softball, music, etc. But they do have interest and the kids at the Career Center love this kind of thing, so they may not be a total lost cause.
I agree with Steve and Max about the camaraderie and the fun of working on the car. That is most definitely the best part. It is fun to drive too.
What if....we got with Moss and let them use it to Drive Away Cancer?
Dan,
I do not know about Moss and Drive Away Cancer. What is that?
Steve
Here is an article from last year: http://www.mossmotoring.com/drive-away-cancer/
Here is their website: http://www.drivingawaycancer.org
The first year they were in the old Healey, last year they used a Miata too and I think they have a Spitfire now.
East vs West, It's sad but seemingly not too much BV8 action, here in the west. How far west, did Roadmaster actually get ? Perhaps a list of western folks, who are willing/able, to get involved with this ? There are TONS of shows and events, in the west, just not too much BV8 stuff. Onward, roverman.
Roadmaster data from my Kansas City Trip on 5/16:
- I got between 18mpg and 20mpg on each fill-up...timed at 100 mile to 120 mile intervals.
- Oil pressure ran a constant 35psi at speed.
- Very little, if any, oil consumption during the drive.
- Water temperature stayed about 195*, even in rush-hour traffic experienced in KC.
- Car continues to turn heads, including those of State Troopers.
- There is a shimmy in the wheel at 75mph....not apparent at 65mph.
Gassing up in Missouri last Friday....
RoadmasterinMissouri.jpg
I talked with John Nikis again today, he plans to email info about RM joining drive away cancer
I'll post asap
I believe I'm sort of expected to make a report so here's the latest:
B.A.D.A.S.S. Treasurer Bill Davidson, acting as interim President pro-tem called an emergency meeting which, given that there was a quorum of members present at the event was both timely and proper.
The first order of business was to elect new officers. After due discussion, Pete Mantell was elected President and assumed control of the meeting. No VP was elected. Bill will continue as Treasurer and Graham as Secretary where they will continue their duties in their customary manner.
Because there has been no support for the program to send the car westward the advisability of trailering it to Colorado was brought into question. (If Bill takes it he will not be able to drive it for personal reasons, meaning he will not be able to drive his V6 conversion either.) Because we have no member ready and able to accept custody of the car, the risk is just too high that Bill will then have to trailer it back to Kansas City and the burden of that two way trip is more than we could justify asking him to take on.
Compounding the difficulty is the fact that we also have no member stepping forward to take custody of the car at any point westward of Colorado. Because of this, and because interest in the car began to wane just about at the point when we painted it and has continued to do so ever since, we agreed unanimously that the time has come to offer it for sale.
A motion was made, seconded, discussed at length, amended, and passed with the following provisions. The car is now available for sale to any qualified purchaser, as-is, where-is. The price, which takes into account the uniqueness of the car, the many custom elements, the current condition, and other considerations including its provenance and the unique manner in which it was built, is $35,000 This is estimated to be less than 1/4 of the cost to build including parts, materials, cash donations and time invested but is hoped to result in a ready sale as well a pretty good investment opportunity. (Other cars such as the Berlin GT having sold for much higher amounts.)
Upon sale the proceeds will be placed in a Municipal Trust Fund and the interest from that fund will be disbursed annually to provide support for the annual BritishV8 meet and the BritishV8 Newsletter, in proportions of 75 and 25% respectively. Won't be a great deal of money but it will be dependable and perpetual.
In the meantime the car can continue to appear at events, and if it has not sold by the onset of cold weather Pete has agreed to store it for the winter (unless we send it south). The door has not completely closed on any chance of a western tour, but without a unified plan of support it is not likely to happen, particularly as there are quite a number of events in the east where it can appear, including the GS Nationals at Bowling Green, whose participants helped build the car by providing the engine and other components.
In closing I would like to say that it has been a privilege and a pleasure to have been involved with the people who brought this project to fruition. What started as a joke, morphed into a plan just to prove this conversion could be done, and ultimately resulted in an historical example of LBC car conversion art has in the process brought us all closer together as a family, as it was intended to do. For that I want to thank you all.
Jim Blackwood, former "BADASS Boss"
Note:
PJ is now the Transportation Secretary and as before, Rick is Chairman of Ways and Means.
Bill Davidson has done more work on the Roadmaster that needs to be documented here.
Yes. As he told me, he tightened up the bushings in the steering column with a technique involving hammer and dolly. The rebuilt column needs to be returned to Gerry Masterman as it does not fit. He installed the door lock and may have adjusted the windows. He replaced the clutch master cylinder with one having a smaller bore, greatly improving the clutch action. Am I forgetting anything?
Jim
Was the slave cylinder left as is? The alternator was replaced in French Lick. A part # would be good.
That distributor cap with no plug wires blew some minds at MG2014 in French Lick. Someone was overheard to say it was trailered in since there were no wires going to the cap!
Would have been fun to run it through John Twist's tune-up tech session. ;)
Some attendees were observant of no plug wires, but noticed the coil packs. These were the more progressive MG bunch.
Bill cut off the top of the distributor to make it a cleaner install.
I've not seen the car yet, but will go down to Pete's and take a picture.
I've also not yet driven the car with the new clutch slave installed.
I thought about taking the car up to Michigan to the UML Summer Party, but opted for reliability and creature comforts that the 300ZX provided.
I'll retrieve the rebuilt steering column and return it to Gerry.
Bill listed the part number in the log book for future reference. It would be nice to have an Excel file with all of this data in one place.
I will think about driving the car down to St.Louis in September for the All-British show.
QuoteI thought about taking the car up to Michigan to the UML Summer Party, but opted for reliability and creature comforts that the 300ZX provided.
After my Kamikaze run to Colorado Springs & back in the heat, that smacks of a very non-Spurious, wimpy (another w-word comes to mind) way to travel to a LBC Party. :)
I remember what Ian had to say about trailers...
Okay, just kiddin'!
I picked up the Roadmaster today and will take it to a local show in Savoy, IL on Saturday.
Then it goes back to Pete.
The tach is in not working.
The license tag goes outdated the end of September. I have contacted Jim Blackwood regarding same.
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Very good!
I do have the registration card, along with 3 others to take care of this month, but since the sticker will have to be mailed out I'll try to get that done in the next few days. (Things have been quite busy here of late.) Rick, could you send me a jpg of the insurance card please? I'll need that.
Jim
Coming at you in a few minutes.
I took the Roadmaster to the Orchard Days Fesitval Car Show in Savoy, IL today.
Small show of about 60 cars.
Great day...the rain held off until I got home!
The Roadmaster drew a crowd all day. I answered a lot of questions, and allowed a lot of smaller children to sit behind the wheel.
The car placed 2nd in class - Best Import Pre-1990.
It was a small class.
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Glad to see RM out on the road again.
Curtis and I were talking about RM while dining on NC BBQ Friday night in Kernersvillle, NC.
Registration has been renewed, so it's in the computer at least. I should be able to get the sticker and new registration card mailed out tomorrow.
Jim
Ref: <a href="http://www.britishv8.org/MG/Roadmaster.htm">Roadmaster in the BritishV8 Photo Gallery</a>
Today I wrote a new introductory paragraph for the top of the Photo Gallery page, and shifted the old intro to the bottom of the article. In the new intro, I gave Pete's name and contact info. I also moved the list of project participants lower on the page... It's all still there, but I figured someone interested in buying Roadmaster might want to get to the features and specifications list - and to the photos - a bit quicker. I think the article is a bit dated though. I guess I should add a note about the new ignition system, eh? I think it's a big selling point! What else? (Please p.m. me the specific details.) Nice photos of upgrades would be good. All the significant improvements could be grouped together in one section. Let me know what you think.
License tag sticker received and installed on car.
Insurance policy paid up, but I need to receive the Proof of Insurance card to keep in the car. (The current one expires in about a month.)
We have moved the BADASS (Roadmaster) checking account to the Marine Bank in Champaign, IL.
There are no fees involved with this account. It is set up as a NFP LLC Business account.
Pete Mantell and my name is on the account.
It has a current balance of $325.xx.
We will obviously need to boost this amount somewhat before insurance, license tags, or any repairs are needed.
The car is currently residing in my garage.
If you would like to make a donation....
1) Check payable to BADASS and mailed to: Rick Ingram - P.O.Box 746 - St.Joseph, IL 61873
2) PayPal payment to: mowog1@aol.com (PLEASE specify BADASS donation so I can keep this separate from my Pieces of Eight account)
Thank you!
I'm bumping this post....we could REALLY use some cash donations to the Roadmaster's operational fund.
We will be having some annual expenses (license, NFP filing, insurance) coming due.
If you would like to make a donation....
1) Check payable to BADASS and mailed to: Rick Ingram - P.O.Box 746 - St.Joseph, IL 61873
2) PayPal payment to: mowog1@aol.com (PLEASE specify BADASS donation so I can keep this separate from my Pieces of Eight account)
Thank you for your consideration!
Thank you, Dan Masters!
Thank you, Mark Weitzman!!!
Thank you, Calvin Grannis!
Took the Roadmaster out for a short drive today after its hibernation of 6 months.
She started right up....and put grins on the faces of three out of town enthusiasts who were visiting Mantell Motorsport. They all got rides/drives.....and REALLY like it.
This car is for sale......
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I just finished installing a gas strut kit on the rear deck of the Roadmaster.
A single strut works fine and allows for the use of a larger spare tire.
(I only installed one strut on the Roadmaster.)
A dual strut kit is available for those who REALLY want it.
Pieces of Eight!
GTdecklidkit_1.jpg
GTdecklidkit_2.jpg
GTdecklidkit_3.jpg
Note to self.
Fuel gauge is not accurate.
Oops.
Yeah, we should fix that. Is there any reason we couldn't go back to stock gages? I mean, if it's the tach, a stock one will work by just hooking it to one of the coil packs. We'd need a round oil pressure gage to match of course, but I sort of favor the old dual gage, oil pressure and water temp, and that would leave us with an extra slot I think. Can't have too many gages... long as they work. Was the sender ever changed out?
Jim
Fuel sending unit. That is what I was wondering. the fuel gauge worked perfect for the month I had it. Drove it home from Charleston, West By God Virginia. The gauge read F to E as I drove it from full to fumes. Pumped in well over 12 gallons when I made it to Kinsport.
Yeah, but Carl, if you'll recall it had a big ole band-aid on it in the form of a huge capacitor in parallel with the sender to take the surges out of it. Dan M and Jim W removed that when they were working on the fan wiring and who knows where it went? It's never been the same since, and I never felt like it worked completely right even then.
I probably have some OEM gages I can donate, though maybe not the full set. I can look though if anyone thinks this is a good idea.
Jim
The sender needs to be matched to the gauge for resistance in order for the gauge to read correctly. Not overly hard.
It would be REALLY nice to have a tach.
I use my GPS as a speedometer.
On a positive note (pun intended), the voltmeter works as does the water temperature gauge.
Larry Norton, MG enthusiast out of Atlanta, drove the car on Wednesday. He really enjoyed it. He commented on the hard steering and the whine from the differential. Said the brake pedal was fine.
And now for a dissenting opinion. ;)
Personally, I have no need for a tach in the Roadmaster. With the torque on tap, there is no need to wind it tight enough to even look at a tach. Just me, though.
Gas gauge, yes! This running out of gas is getting ridiculous.
I think all the gages should be made to work. It almost seems ridiculous that we've had this problem for so long. It seems to me that the sender was changed. If it has not been, then there is a replacement still in the boot. But I think it may be a stock sender, and I doubt that would be much of an improvement. We may have changed that out the last time the car was here. Curtis donated the replacement.
Those gages may be just fine, I don't know. Nobody has ever been able to get them to work. But if we can put in a set of stock gages the gas would work at least. That is probably the most important one. A stock tach should work wired to one coil pack. And isn't it possible to hook up a regular speedometer cable to the T5? Is that the way yours is Carl? The rest are simple by comparison and can be picked up for at most $30 each just about anywhere. Ammeter, voltmeter, water temp, oil pressure, whatever. Black face, white numbers, and chrome bezel is just about the most common combination there is. Browse ebay. Pick 3. Buy a speedo cable. A weekend's effort and done.
Jim
I think I have some spare 2" gauges from a TR4A, black face white numbers. Oil Pressure (mechanical), ammeter, probably fuel and water temp,
My T-5 has a 90 degree box with speedo correction gears (still not correct) and cable to the stock speedometer. The electronic VSS in the Roadmaster T-5 is interchangeable with my mechanical speedo drive. The two units are interchangeable in Camaro T-5s.
I have tach, speedo, fuel and temp, circa '71 mainly, with the rounded bezel, a few pieces with the angled bezel, also a rectangular oil gage and sender, not that we'd want that. They should be cleaned up but there should be enough of them to get a working set, with Dan's oil pressure gage though I'm not sure the bezels will all match.
I think that leaves the volt/ammeter. Where is that in the Roadmaster? We also have the spot where the air pressure gage is for the removed air suspension if we want to use it, maybe it could go there? I've forgotten if that's in the console or in an add-on mount.
I'm not sure if it's even possible to over-rev that big block before the power falls off a cliff. Probably the least in need of a tach of any car in the fleet.
I'd be happy to box up the lot of these gages and send them out, use 'em or lose 'em sort of a deal, they're just sitting in a box taking up space.
Jim
From Hap Waldrop
QuoteAlso screw VDO, go with Autometer Sport Comp, or Pro Comp, it's well worth the extra money, VDO and Stewart Warner are not what they used to be.
The Roadmaster will be going to Indianapolis this week (July 15-18) for BritishV8 2015.
PJ Lenihan will take over as its caretaker...the car will be going to North Carolina and will be campaigned on the East Coast.
I've noticed telltale signs of a rear differential leak on the garage floor.
I put the car up on the lift and check the level of lube in the diff. It required about five ounces to top it off. There is a whine in the differential...I used 85w140 Hypoid which seemed to quiet it somewhat.
While the car was in the air, I greased the jerks on the rear suspension.
The oil has not been changed on the car this year....but still looks clean and really does not have that many miles on it since the last change.
As for funding....we currently have about $720 in the checking account at a local Champaign (IL) bank. We changed banks due to monthly fees being charge by the previous bank. We are NOT being charged fees at the current bank, nor are we receiving interest on the account.
We will be "passing the hat" at BritishV8 2015 to bump the account somewhat. We will have insurance and licensing fees coming due which will eat about half of the account...should something catastrophic happen to the car, we would not be able to reimburse those who bankroll the repairs at this time.
Related....kudos to those of you who stepped up to the plate with donations this year to the Roadmaster. It is much appreciated....and as the British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society is a Not-For-Profit, LLC...your donations are tax deductable.
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I'm at a car show on the golf course at Hilton head South Carolina. Modified British cars were invited
PJ, you making us drool!. thanks for your efforts. See you in May at Townsend
the oil and filter where changed, rear tires to be replaced soon. I completed a few cleaning tasks Clay bar, polish, wax, carpet cleaned, seat covers cleaned and moisturized, glass cleaned.
I continue to show the car at many local events including a slide show presentation last week at a all European car club named Corsa Rosa.
I continue to encourage young kids to sit in the car. I've picked up a few Moss Motors Challenge points during the just right Fall weather these last few weeks. And RM was on display in Hilton Head.
Carl plans to drive over from TN to help me attend to a few issues: leaking heater valve, heater blower fan, interior lights, possible exhaust system rattle, water leaks into passenger footwells & spare tire area, gauges, etc.
RmPriusinNC.jpg
Jim Watson and I have agreed to take the Roadmaster to the Street Rod show in Knoxville May 6, the V8 meet May 8-11, the local British/European car show May 13-14, and then to MG 2016 in June. We'll pick it up in NC, and hand it off in Louisville for the next leg.
We'll probably pick it up in late March or early April and tend to some of the needed maintainence.
If that's agreeable to every one.
Two rear tires were installed today
Fusion UMP SPT 99W XL BW
FSPT245 45 17 BWXL
Should be good for a few more long road trips
All fluids were good, one small engine oil leak at the former site of the distributor.
RMtires-1.jpg
RMtires-4.jpg
rmtires.jpg
Next RM work party tentatively 2-8-2016 in Jonesville, NC
all interested petrol heads invited to assist
primary task to do:
pull the dash and fix a few things like gauges,
controls for heat/demist,
map light,
radio antenna,
change the steering shaft for one with electric power steering,
plan for future A/C,
remove cooling system surge tank for mods by Jim Blackwood
Lexington style BBQ provided
wear appropriate garage attire
start at 10 am finish no later than 7:00 pm
Ya'll come
PJ Lenihan
aka Lawnvett
aka: Roadmeister director of transportation BADASS
Let me know if you can come, I want to have enough food
I may tNOT o be able to reply btw JAN. 21-FEB2, 2016 as I will be in CUBA
wifi and cellular not readily available for USA phones.
Leave a message I'll get caught up when I return
I'll be there. Going back to Flying Circus that weekend.
Have fun in Havana!
Cuba was great
my photos are not organized yet, but some are on Facebook
we are having a RM work party Monday Feb. 8, 2016 at 10;am
134 Bluff st
Jonesville, NC
ya'll come we will pull the dash and try to get some gauges working and defrost etc
looks like we've got a couple volunteers to attend the Roadmaster work day Monday 2-8-16; we will pick up where we left off last month fixing the little bits such as demister, fuel gauge etc.
I'm buying lunch so ya'll come, the bonus is to see Ken's excellent car collection.
IMG_0440.jpg
After a 3 week slumber while I was visiting Cuba, Roadmaster fired right up yesterday and attended a Triumph Club car club meeting last night.
We spent 3 nights in Santa Clara, Cuba last week it was not a hectic or crowed like Santa Clara, CA.
PS Just got the word that Alen Hendrix, Hendrix wire wheels Greensboro, NC is in ICU with internal bleeding after his Jeep was T-boned by a a speeding ner-do-well on Tuesday night.
Not gonna work out for me this time, PJ. Sorry. I was looking forward to hearing about your Cuba trip.
If you want to put a 31" antenna behind the dash it will help with local strong stations. I would it slide in some clear tubing so it won't touch any metal & zip tie it loosely behind the dash crossbar.
Another option for the antenna is to mount it on the A-post as shown in this thread on the MGE forum. I had mine mounted there before I took it up to Ted, and it worked very well yet wasn't obtrusive. I didn't mention this before because I didn't have a picture of it. I think they are still available.
http://www.mgexp.com/phorum/read.php?1,3187990
I like that. Where were those available?
I gave Jim the chrome chinese Sanden I had used on my TR7 for almost one summer, until the engine blew. So, that is one step towards AC for the car. Have you sent him the surge tank yet?
have not sent surge tank yet, I plan to remove it monday 2-8-2016 at the work party we're having in Jonesville, NC.
I plan to drive RM without a surge tank or maybe do a temporary tank. any comments??
I also hope to fix the fan for demisting/defrosting
along with a few other bits like gauges
RoadmasterLittleRockAR.jpg
Next RM work party tentatively 2-8-2016 in Jonesville, NC
all interested petrol heads invited to assist
primary task to do:
pull the dash and fix a few things like gauges,
controls for heat/demist,
map light,
radio antenna,
change the steering shaft for one with electric power steering,
plan for future A/C,
remove cooling system surge tank for mods by Jim Blackwood
Lexington style BBQ provided
wear appropriate garage attire
start at 10 am finish no later than 7:00 pm
The cooling system overflow/surge tank was successfully removed, surprisingly it was a greater challenge than anticipated. Just a guess but, we think it may have been installed without the bonnet in place. So no other tasks were completed.
RM is now in storage in Jonesville, NC. all but one the hoses that once were connected to the tank are plugged. a one quart overflow tank is zipped tied in but it's not a recovery tank it's just an empty bottle to catch overflow.
I do not plan to drive RM until we sort out a tank to insure cooling as good as prior to the removal of the custom made tank made by Jim Blackwood
I'm puzzled about why the 5/8 hose was connected to the water pump also not educated enough to know why the heater core was plumbed into the surge/overflow tank, but what else is new, I'm a helper not a mechanic, my education is in history not engineering.
Thanks PJ, do you have my address?
The reason the surge tank is connected to the water pump inlet (using the heater return spigot) is to provide a drain to the tank and place it at or near inlet pressure, making it a low pressure point in the sealed system.
This allows vent lines from various other locations to flow towards the tank. Note, pressure differential across the pump frequently can and does exceed the value of a system pressure cap, bringing up a host of issues I'll not address right now, but the point is, there is a pressure drop across the radiator and another across the thermostat. This means the inlet side of the radiator is at higher pressure than the surge tank and any air in the system will automatically flow from bleeds placed at the system high points to the tank and constantly remove any air from the system. This is very helpful for efficient cooling, and where as here the radiator is mounted low it is quite essential.
Without the drain it would be difficult to design a comparable self bleeding system.
Plumbing the heater return into the tank is just a matter of convenience. Hose sizes and fitting locations made it the easy choice, as again, the tank is a low pressure location and promotes circulation of the coolant, with the supply side connected to the high pressure side behind the thermostat.
There are design considerations that vary between downflow and crossflow radiators, with the downflow design generally being the simpler one.
Oh, and I didn't make the tank. Gary did, using dimensions I supplied to him. I thought it turned out rather well considering.
Jim
how apt a work day march 21 for RM in jonesville, NC?
Dale from Motion machine drove RM yesterday, I'll resize photos soon and post. Im on a 3 day road trip getting points for the Moss motoring Challenge 2016.
Its the final year for this year long scavenger hunt, I may be in your area sometime this year.
If anyone wants a couch surfer, pm me I hope to visit all 48 staes this year taking selfies.
britbits2.jpg
Quotehow apt a work day march 21 for RM in Jonesville, NC?
I think we can make that work.
It is getting tough to juggle the Roadmaster, 2 different ChumpCars in different directions, actually make race in the TR6 (I was sick & did not make the treck to VIR), Jim & Melinda Watson's Springtime in the Smokies, our 20th annual British V8 Meet.......and oh yeah, I need to work on my car, too! ;)
The Roadmaster is now in Tennessee....
Here's Jim Watson, probably at a cruise-in near Knoxville.
JimWatsonwithRoadmasterinKnoxville.jpg
great photo, RM looks mean from that angle
How's she running?
The Roadmaster was delivered to Blackwood Labs at 2:00 today.
Took it for a ride around the block and noted a couple things needing attention. I ordered a new heater valve (TR-6 valve, $30) and will try to build a new surge tank before Louisville. Otherwise I was impressed with how nicely it drove.
I'm tracking down the stock gages I sent out for the car and will continue to look into that problem.
The car needs a 3rd gear synchro, if anybody has one in good shape from a T5 we could use it, or possibly install a new one if someone could recommend a good source. Unless I'm mistaken, changing that will require the countershaft to be dropped down and the mainshaft removed, any pointers on the proceedure are appreciated.
It looks to me like it may be possible to adjust some or most of the play out of the steering rack. The one from Jim W. turned out to be not MGB. So, I will do that adjustment and report back. I've talked to Mikey about EPS.
I'll also have a look at how the A/C compressor might be mounted.
Jim
I would like to coordinate its arrival in Louisville with you in order to obtain parking, etc.
We need TWO sets of keys.
No problem Rick, when do you plan to get there?
Jim
I'm arriving on Saturday, June 11th.
I can bring the car down Saturday, just let me know when and where and I'll meet you.
Jim
Almost have the Roadmaster ready for the Louisville meet. I made a new surge tank and it's installed. Re-routed the drain so it can function as it should. I'd be happy to explain the details in person if anyone is interested.
IMG_0004.JPG
I also installed the new fuel pump that was bought for the car. Honestly guys, I don't know if this made any sense. That's at least the 3rd pump of that type that has been on the car. This engine has the ability to instantaneously suck down fuel like almost no other one in the fleet. If we are having a starvation issue maybe we should bite the bullet and install a *new* high flow pump of a type suitable for the use.
I installed a TR6 heater valve on Jim Watson's recommendation, then found it needs the GT6 valve which works opposite of the TR6 one. (They look almost identical) One of those is on order and may get here tomorrow or the next day. If so I will install it. Anyone want to buy a new TR6 valve? (Hasn't had fluid in it yet)
I also installed the new replacement steering column we've been carrying around for a year, after checking the rack shims and universal (both good). The play is gone, part was in the column's slip joint and part was at the steering wheel hub. All gone now. Charles and Mikey are working together on an EPS unit using the old column, which is good because it fits better than the replacement.
The heater knobs have mismatched gearboxes, one old style and one new. Sorry, it's all we had to put in at the time. So for now, I've installed a new knob on the left so the heater valve can be adjusted. We need an old style gearbox to fix this problem.
Haven't had time to do anything about the gages yet but the good news is that I have a full set including the voltage regulator. The tach can be run off one coil pack and the speedo can be run off a cable. I see no real problems there, it just needs to be done.
Jim
The metal fuel line to the carb body needs a brace. It was leaking fuel at the carb due to vibrating loose.
While I had it on the rack I test fitted two A/C compressors, or rather tried to. A Sanden and a GM A4 "pancake" compressor. Neither one would fit in the low spot on the driver's side between the frame and the block. That spot is definitely a non starter.
That leaves the location in front of the driver's side head, and above the oil pump drive where the distributor used to be, basically two variations of the same place. The A4 should fit here. The Sanden might but it'll be very tricky, and hood clearance gets into the picture. (Incidentally I do not have a known good A4, just a questionable take-off.)
This location will require a complete re-routing of the upper radiator hose, including re-welding of the thermostat neck and extension, but this can be done. However, nothing will happen here until after Louisville.
Jim
OK, I've done everything I will be able to do before the show. As it now stands, the car is in very good shape and comfortable to drive. The steering is a little stiff from the solid bushings in the column but hey, no play. The new EPS will fix that.
It still has a lean bog on acceleration, the pump can't keep up. 3rd synchro is unchanged.
But hey, temp holds steady at 190 with no problems, and best of all it now has a full compliment of functioning gages!
Stock Fuel, Tach, Speedo, and Temp. Curved bezel style. White faced Oil pressure and Voltmeter in the center. Doesn't look bad really, at least it is symetric.
I think the fuel gage will be accurate but still have to check it out. At about 3/4 I put in 4.4 gallons.
The tach seems reasonably close. Shows about 1700rpm at 70mph in 5th. That was a trick btw, I wired the supply from one (EDIS) coil pack through the tach, tried both polarities and picked the one that gave the lower reading, then used a screwdriver to adjust the calibration pot for the lowest reading. Didn''t have a dwell tach to compare it to but at least it is usable and best of all, no mods to the 4 cylinder tach. We could run Dan's spreadsheet to see how close we are, the rear tire size is 245/45-17.
The speedo reads 10% low, so 70 mph @ 77. With a 19 tooth gear installed, a 17 should bring it to within 1 mph. That was also a trick. Hey Guys! I found how to use a stock speedo cable with a T5!! All you need is the nut off a GM speedo cable. File the inner cable end down so it fits in the GM drive gear, then cut the threads off the big nut on the MG cable leaving a washer. Sand down the outside of the washer to fit in the GM nut (a belt sander works nice, letting the washer spin on the cable to get an even perimeter) and then bolt it up! Presto!
The temp gage is wired to the wrong sender but it is usable until we can install the correct one. I didn't have an identifiable MGB sender to use. At 190 the needle is a bit south of the "N". I made a mark with a sharpie. With the right sender it will read like any MGB.
So you may ask, why didn't we use stock gages originally? Mainly because we didn't know how to make the speedo and tach work right. We did not have EDIS at that point so we couldn't use the single coil pack trick, and we did not have a mechanical drive for the speedo. Thanks to Steve DeGroat for that btw, I pulled the drive out of the 4 speed he brought up for the Chump Car and it works great. (Also Steve, the tool kit you donated for the RM is now back in it's spot behind the driver's seat.)
And that's about it.
Rick, I will call you a bit later to coordinate.
Jim
Wow Jim you've gotten a lot done!
Yeah, I sorta went to work on it.
I ran Dan's spreadsheet. Assuming a 2.88 axle ratio and a .63 OD, 77 actual mph (70 indicated) should be about 1800-1850 rpm, which seems to indicate there is enough adjustment in the calibration pot to get the tach centered on the actual engine speed. But hey, at this point an error of maybe 150 rpm max at that speed is a great result. I'll certainly take it.
I also remembered, I didn't have a firewall grommet for the speedo cable... well actually I did, I took the one out of the Chump Car and set it on the dashboard of the RM. Then when I went to use it I couldn't find it. It still may show up but that's one thing more we need.
Also I wasn't able to get one of the retainers on the speedo. The one to the inside naturally. My hands are just too big I guess. The speedo looks cocked a little because of it but there's not much I can do about it.
Also the windshield washer bottle leaks. It looks like there might have been a repair job on a crack in the bottom of it that failed. Don't know if I have anything that would work any better, we should probably get a new bottle. (The round type)
Jim
Here's a shot of the dashboard:
IMG_0022.JPG
Not much luck so far finding a voltmeter with a black face, white needle, rounded chrome bezel and flat glass. Haven't looked at oil pressure gages.
Installed the 17 tooth speedo gear, the needle wobbles a bit now and it reads a smidge low but that's about as good as we are going to do with those 2.88 gears. It's a couple mph low at 50 I think.
Tightened up the throttle spring just a bit, it was light anyway. Maybe that'll eliminate the need to blip the throttle to get the idle to drop.
Fuel pump: I found this Bosch 44 knock off which seems to be pretty common. Costs $30. For that price I just went ahead and ordered it. Hopefully it will not overpower our Holley inline regulator.
QuoteI ran Dan's spreadsheet. Assuming a 2.88 axle ratio and a .63 OD......
Jim,
What are the gearbox ratios in the Roadmaster? 1st through 3rd.
Carl might know. I think it is a V8 unit.
Jim
That was my spare, so it is the same as the one in my B.
1991 Camaro V8. 1st=2.95 2nd=1.94 3rd= 1.34 5=0.63
Corrected the year: Both T-5s are supposed to be '91 models. That is what i posted in older threads. I confused the years with my my two 1989 Rover 3.9 engines.
Dennis Gage liked the Roadmaster.....as did the guys from Hagerty Insurance.
DennisGagewithRoadmaster.jpg
That's great!
So I've been taking the car to some of the local shows and feeling out a few people whenever they want to know the asking price of the car. So far, $30K has been seen as too little, so I decided to see if I could find out what wasn't. Yesterday's experiment was for me to name a price and ask for an honest reaction so I asked, "What would you say to $45K?" The response was, "If I had it right now and you'd take $35K I'd go right to the bank for the money." That was before he knew that the car had a history and said that would make a difference for him. This from a guy who occasionally buys/sells. If we could get that kind of money out of the car I don't think any of us would be unhappy with selling it. 45 may be a fair ask.
In the meantime, I have purchased most of the parts to upgrade the fuel delivery system. Some parts have yet to arrive and I think I need to go buy one more fitting. I'm keeping receipts. That is the 1st priority at the moment, followed by the steering upgrade Mike is working on, which is also a safety issue since the U-joint currently is not properly secured. I really cannot turn the car over or let anyone drive it until that is fixed. I can take the risk myself, and I don't feel it's likely to come loose, but... well you never know. The heater controls are finally fixed, though they are a little stiffer to turn than I'd like, the dash lights don't work, the speedo is not properly secured, I haven't had the chance to do more than just look at the A/C compressor mount, and of course the diff is noisy. That's everything I can think of at the moment. If things would quiet down a bit around here I was thinking about loading the megaspark software on my laptop and using it to calibrate the tachometer but that is a pretty low priority. All the gages work well though the speedo wobbles a bit and we will probably have to replace the inner cable to fix that. My fault I suppose, I had filed the end down to fit the 22 tooth gear that came out of the B/W 4 speed (it was rock steady then) and when I got the 19 tooth gear it was loose and the needle wobbled. Oh, also one of the headlight buckets fell off and I just stuck it back on, so I need to pull that back off and make sure it is right. Just the fact that I'm identifying these smaller details though says much about where we are with the car.
The second weekend in September is the GS Nationals in Bowling Green. We may finally be positioned to make an appearance there provided the fuel system and steering are sorted out by then. The central feature of the meet is the drag strip and we will be expected to make at least one run down the strip if we are to have any credibility with this crowd. If you will recall, they are the people who were largely responsible for our being able to get the engine for the car in the first place, Dave Enneking donating the initial 400 BBB and Allan Mandeen providing the '71 455 (which is the lightest BBB btw), as well as things like flywheel, bellhousing, intake, cam, etc. It has long been on our to-do list to show up at this meet but up to now the car hasn't been ready.
Next Saturday is the Dayton British car show and I plan to be there with this car. Matt is also going, with his SBC/Jag. We look forward to seeing several of you there.
Jim
I hope you are having fun Jim, it's your turn.
It's getting better. Yesterday at the Dayton car show Mike Moor handed me a ready-to-install Electric Power Steering conversion for the Roadmaster. He and I are both convinced that this will completely transfom the character of the car.
So, a bit more work for me to do but it'll be worth it. I'm beginning to wonder if another Roadmaster weekend might not be in order though, as the job list is increasing. As it now stands:
-Install the EPS
-Install the fuel supply system upgrade including return line
-Fabricate compressor mounts
-Troubleshoot dash lights and install rheostat
-Calibrate tachometer
And then a more long term issue, fix the noisy rear end.
But the drive up and back was enjoyable, about 70 miles each way and mild weather. The car performed flawlessly if you discount a couple of minor things to be addressed by the list above. As usual it drew a crowd all day. I even did a video interview for a show to be broadcast on a local TV station.
Jim
let me know if you schedule a work on RM date, I'll try to be there
Thanks PJ, it means a lot. I'll have to get back to you though on plans, as scheduling might be a bit tricky.
Jim
Yesterday I took the car to the 98th annual Four Corners Party of the American Legion's National Convention, held in Cincinnati this year, a rather well attended event as you might imagine. I parked it right next to the doors in a spot of shade opposite the food vendors and parked myself in a folding chair nearby in the draft of A/C coming outside and was there for questions and such. We got lots of attention as practically everyone who came and went stopped to admire the car, take pictures and/or ask questions. Regrettably there were not a lot of young people, our target audience, but there were a few.
Because Rick's "For Sale" sign remains in the back visible through the hatch, I got quite a few inquiries as to how much we wanted for it, and that became an interesting thing. I would say $45K and invariably the person asking would say something like, "That's very reasonable, I would have expected 50 or 55." We may still be asking too little for the car, but if we hope to get that sort of a price I expect we will have to fix the noise from the rear, whether it is from gears or tires or both.
The car continues to improve. On the drive home I noticed some trailing throttle understeer when briskly changing lanes and lifting off the gas, and this means we can and should go ahead with the installation of a front sway bar to induce a little understeer and counteract that. It wasn't bad, not to the extent of causing the tires to slip, but also does not instill confidence. The MGB tends towards a little trailing throttle understeer anyway, which can be put to good use in very tight hairpins such as on an autocross course, but I think we have a little more than what is commonly there. It is probably more noticeable now due to the vastly improved light steering from the EPS, and possibly aggravated some by the Fusion tires on the rear. (I should probably check the tire pressures) I do have a few swaybars to choose from, it will require just a little fabrication for mounts, but I don't think we have the downlinks that we need, so if anyone has a spare set of CB downlinks they can donate please send them along.
Speaking of the EPS: What a pleasure it is to drive the car on the freeway! It was really the first time I'd been able to take it out for any distance at all and I've got to say the experience is vastly improved. Every bit of control is still there but there is now just a wee bit of isolation from road shock and it is enough to make all the difference in the world. The feel is very much like that of virtually any new car that you might choose to drive in terms of noise, vibration and harshness (NVH). The small steering wheel is just fine in terms of steering force with the control knob turned almost all the way down, though it does lend a bit of quickness to the steering that some may like and some may not. Incidentally, the control pot that comes with the Bruno unit appears to be a typical pot with dead zones at the end and as such gives erratic results when it is turned to the stop. A pot with no dead zones at the ends would be better, or in this case perhaps a fixed resistor instead.
Kudos to all who have helped develop the EPS and especially to Mike Moor who donated the unit complete and ready to install. This is most definitely a ground breaking improvement to the MGB and something that will improve every car it is installed in, even a completely stock 1800cc MGB.
I have plans afoot to go drive Corinth road (that's the, "little Dragon", right?) Which will let me evaluate the new steering in the twisties. Hope to do that this week if possible, and if I get the new fuel pump installed in time, take it to the Buick GS Nationals on my birthday weekend. After that I'll have a look at the A/C compressor mount.
I want to apologize for not scheduling a Roadmaster weekend so those of you who wanted to could come and help. Scheduling has been a problem and other things have taken priority as I'm sure all of you very well understand. Meanwhile I've taken care of a few small issues as I've been able to. I'm afraid the situation will remain unchanged until after Townsend. By then if matters have progressed as expected about all that will be left to do is work on the A/C system and the noise at the rear. Maybe improve the seat belts. If we are able to address those concerns in a satisfactory manner, we may at that time want to reconsider our decision to sell, as the car will then be a completely modernized and thoroughly enjoyable ride, almost the pride of the fleet you might say, and I'd really be surprised at anyone who wouldn't enjoy taking custody of it, even if just for a short drive. (And this comment coming from a convertible guy too!)
Jim
Trailing throttle oversteer also know as lift-off oversteer? I experienced that in my MGB at Grattan Raceway. I immediately got back on the gas.
You wrote this:
QuoteOn the drive home I noticed some trailing throttle understeer when briskly changing lanes and lifting off the gas, and this means we can and should go ahead with the installation of a front sway bar to induce a little understeer and counteract that. It wasn't bad, not to the extent of causing the tires to slip, but also does not instill confidence. The MGB tends towards a little trailing throttle understeer anyway, which can be put to good use in very tight hairpins such as on an autocross course, but I think we have a little more than what is commonly there.
I believe you meant this:
On the drive home I noticed some trailing throttle
oversteer when briskly changing lanes and lifting off the gas, and this means we can and should go ahead with the installation of a front sway bar to induce a little understeer and counteract that. It wasn't bad, not to the extent of causing the tires to slip, but also does not instill confidence. The MGB tends towards a little trailing throttle
oversteer anyway, which can be put to good use in very tight hairpins such as on an autocross course, but I think we have a little more than what is commonly there.
You are correct. Where's the spellchecker when you really need it?
Jim
Fuel system upgrade: The pickup tube had popped out of the bracket that holds the end down which resulted in leaving an unusable 2-3 gallons in the tank. Fortunately that is now the return line so it doesn't matter any more. I've plumbed in and hooked up the new filter and pump, but the regulator has to be replaced too as it is the wrong type for the new pump and I'm working on that now. With a return line it has to have a bypass regulator rather than the deadhead regulator that it had. So I've got a new one out there to put on it, just have to switch around some fittings and a bracket, and put a lighter spring in it for carb useage.
As it stands, we have a 1/2" line from the tank to the pump, then the 3/8" line that Carl installed to the regulator, then a 3/8" hose to the carb. The return is 5/16" and my concerns that this might restrict the flow and raise the pressure at the regulator were unfounded. (I've tested that) The carb will get full flow, with anything over the regulated pressure returning to the tank. With a bit of luck I hope to finish that today and test to see if the bog has gone away.
The gas gage now reads correctly, but the needle doesn't go down far enough towards E. I wouldn't run it below 1/8 of a tank.
Jim
OK then, status report on the fuel system:
First, I was mistaken about the 5/16" return line not increasing line pressure, I had the wrong gage on the thing. It does. About 8psi in fact. So I got that wrong, oh well. Set to the minimum there is a very slow drip into the throttle bores. The easiest correction will be to plumb the deadhead regulator back in as a second stage and since I had broken the old one and ordered a replacement I will do that when it comes in. That will allow the bypass regulator to take the pressure off the pump for long pump life, and the deadhead regulator to hold accurate pressure to the carb. Should be a superior arrangement, 2 stage regulators are commonplace, and flow won't be restricted. I should be able to set the first stage to about 15 psi.
So I took it up to the gas station. There's still a slight bog when the secondaries are opened, I think with that Rochester you can tighten up the spring on the secondary flaps and get rid of that maybe, at least that's what I've heard. Aside from that it seemed to work like it should. There was no evidence of fuel starvation that I could tell and I wound it up pretty good several times to check. Lots of power. Pardon me for abusing the tires but I can let y'all know that it is capable of breaking both loose at the same time and laying a pretty even double stripe 3/4 of the way up my driveway and more than that if I hadn't let off. I think it'll be OK at higher speeds but there's only so much I could do between here and the gas station.
So sorry about the mistake, and breaking the regulator, or if I didn't do it right. I suppose y'all could dock my pay...
Now who is willing to pay for the parts? I have spent $344.98 on parts for repairs to the car while it has been here, not just on the fuel system but also fixing things like the heater valve, gages, and so on. I've done all the labor for these repairs, I don't think it's quite right to also expect me to pay for the parts.
Jim
I watched a youtube video and adjusted the secondary air flap spring 1/4 turn tighter. It had been hanging up a little. That made a definite improvement and power delivery is now smooth and consistent. Took it out on the freeway and up to a hundred or so it continues to pull strongly. (Didn't go much over that I don't think, but the speedo needle was bouncing a little.) Under some conditions there can be a very slight hitch in acceleration but you're quickly past it and I only noticed it once or twice. Normally not even there.
I began to drive the car a little more aggressively. It likes it. Very good around turns and tight corners. The car has definitely become much more fun to drive.
I think it could benefit from a front swaybar, and if someone will send a pair of CB down links I will mount something up, probably a stock 5/8" bar. It'll require modified mounts but shouldn't be difficult. I'd say that's all we really still need to do to it.
You guys need to drive this car. I know you will like it.
Jim
Done with the fuel system. Fuel pressure set at 7psi, rock solid far as I can tell. It likes 8 psi better, but dribbles a bit at that pressure and 7 is recommended so that's where it is. Maybe slightly more tension on the secondaries flapper spring might make it just a little smoother, probably worth trying. I have the bypass regulator set to about 8psi and the deadhead (Holley) regulator set to 7. That's because when I first plumbed it the Holley wasn't regulating but was leaking past the valve. Had dirt, teflon or something on the seat and a blast of air cleared it. It's possible running a higher intermediate pressure could benefit top end performance, we should watch for pressure drop if we ever put it on the dyno again.
It's great to have good smooth reliable power though. Does a great job through tight corners and works well in transitions. Starts easier too.
Jim
I went ahead and mounted a 5/8" swaybar. Had to space it down 1-1/2" and forward 3/8". Don't have any downlinks to go with it though.
Jim
IMG_0001.JPG
IMG_0002.JPG
IMG_0003.JPG
I wonder if Jim Watson might have an extra set?
Good idea Carl. I sent him an email and he's got them, so I installed the pair for my roadster and will replace them with those. Shouldn't need them before the Townsend meet.
That made a definite and positive difference. The trailing throttle oversteer is gone, (still possible to induce but no longer waiting to sneak up on you) along with the slightly uncertain feel that was there. Took a drive down Hathaway Rd and back. Yep, vastly improved. Y'all are gonna like this.
I then began playing with the EPS adjustment knob. Much more usable now, over pretty much the full range.
Jim
How long have I been pounding the table about a sway bar? ;)
The GS Nationals was THE perfect venue for the MG Roadmaster. Although it is a heavily drag racing oriented event. How is it this was the first time? BTW, you know what they say, "Didn't happen without pics." Surely Matt or Edith can run a phone camera. I knew you would be swamped in conversation.
Glad it was well received. Figured it would be.
Well, you were right of course but still, I think the swaybar is the last thing to tune in the suspension other than tire pressures, and the EPS did considerably affect the handling feel if not the ultimate grip limits. The car is now very fast, and very safe. Takes a lot to make it slide. We should explore the limits and also see what the wet grip looks like with those Fuzions on the rear, their wet traction ratings weren't as high as the Continentals and that could make it tail happy in the wet.
If we make it to the GS Nationals again, I would hope we'll have somewhat more attendance and maybe an amateur photographer in the crowd. Agreed we should have gotten there sooner, but on the plus side, at least the car was complete enough it could have made a pass down the strip if weather conditions would have allowed. By next year I should have my car tested to the point where I can take it there. Perhaps we could consider making this one of our annually attended events? I did see a couple of Mustangs there and if we invade with a fleet of BOPR conversions I doubt the Ford converted cars would generate much objection. At the very worst they could hang out with the Mustangs, which were sort of off to the side.
Next on the list is mounting the A/C compressor, which will require relocating the top radiator hose and possibly the driver's side coil pack. Also incidentally, we have an MG OEM brake booster to hand, I wonder if that could be adapted to Bill Guzman's big master cylinder? I'll try to get the compressor mounted before Townsend.
Jim
I had a '68 Chevelle SS & have owned a '68 Camaro for35 years, I don't hang out with Mustangs. ;)
Wet grip should be quite scary with that wide of a foot print. Much less force per square inch.
Jim,
sounds like the progress you're making is increasing your driving pleasure, and that's a very good thing.
PJ
PJ, I've just been trying to get a few things dialed in, in time for everyone to try it out at Townsend in a couple weeks. You know how it is once you get everything just the way it should be in a car like this. Remove all the little irritations and leave the pleasure. That's what I've been shooting for. And I think I've gotten most of the major ones out of the way now, at least for local trips. (The noise and the seat belts still will irritate on any long drive but maybe in time we can do something about that. I guess we'll need to talk about it. I sealed up the brake booster this morning and will test drive it tomorrow but I expect that to be fixed. A few other fairly minor things also which cascaded from the brake and swaybar work, so I think it's in proper shape to drive to WV next weekend for the WVBCC Seneca Park picnic and the Milton Pumpkin Festival parade. (No immediate plans to drive it in the parade but who knows?) I know, I know. Take pictures. Never was good at selfies though. I'll have to go grab my camera.
I've probably been working on it more than I've been driving it, but that's only because I already know how good it can be once we are done with working on it and I want to get to that point. And the sooner the better.
I don't expect to do anything else to it between now and Townsend, the next thing is the A/C compressor and that means draining coolant, rerouting the upper radiator hose, modding the thermostat neck, and such and I want time to do that right when I do since everything is going to be so tight. I'll need time to think about what I'm doing. Hmm... That's assuming I'm driving it back from Townsend I guess.
Jim
You should drive drive drive
I look forward to seeing everyone..
Dangerous when wet.
I went driving in the rain today and we have a problem here. The car is dangerous, and not just a little. I think maybe we made a mistake with those Fuzion tires on the rear.
I first noticed a problem turning right on red when I got excessive wheelspin. Didn't get concerned but decided it'd be a good idea to check the traction limits. It's a good thing I did too because that's the least of our concerns.
There's not a lot of grip under acceleration. But, it takes a fairly heavy foot to spin the tires. That by itself wouldn't tell you the danger. Next I found a safe spot and tried the brakes. On a wet road, the back brakes ALWAYS lock up well in advance of the front brakes and cause the car to go sideways. This happens while the front tires still have very good grip so you can see what the result of this is going to be. A very, very dangerous imbalance. Next I took it into the corners and on one tight hairpin where I was going 15-20mph the rear broke loose in dramatic fashion, causing a complete 180 degree spin.
Now you guys know me. I was fully expecting to cause some tire slippage, and expected to counter steer, back off, and reign it in. It's not like I was moving that fast. But it was such a rapid and radical breakaway that it was too far gone before I could do anything at all. And then there I was sitting in the curve at a dead stop facing the wrong way. That's not right.
The problem is not just that the rear tires are slippery when wet. It's also that the front tires have quite good grip in the wet. You combine those two and this is what you get. A dangerous car.
Please understand I'm not placing blame (except on the tires). We didn't know. But now we do. The ratings and reviews for both tires are posted now and they support this analysis.
I recommend we put a new set of Continentals on that match the fronts before somebody wrecks this thing and gets hurt.
Jim
Jim,
Could the evil handling have anything to do with the sway bar? When Hap drove it he said if we did anything to the suspension he would recommend a rear bar.
Before buying tires maybe the bar should be disconnected and the driven in the rain again.
If that has no effect, what is the condition of the front tires. If they are old maybe we can balance the car by replacing them since the rears are new.
Could you try your tires on the back for comparison.
Just thinking.
Steve
Well, he said the front tires were sticking. it's not the front sway bar. If anything it needs more front bar to correct oversteer. A rear bar would make it worse. Could be the tire compound. Could be the fat footprint & not much weight on the rear tires. My truck is just as bad in the wet.
Take the corners easy in the wet. Put 100-200 pounds in the back & see if that helps.
In the dry it holds the road well. I haven't had it to the traction limits lately because they are high, but I suppose I could use the church lot for a skidpad. Anyway I think the problem is that the Fuzions lose a lot more grip in the rain whereas the Continentals are still very grippy when wet. I looked up the traction ratings for both tires, and the feedback reports and this is confirmed there. The Continentals are rated high for wet grip and praised in the comments. The Fuzions are rated low for wet grip and castigated harshly. Both tires are a lot more even in the dry. This makes for a dangerous combination. Nothing we could possibly do with swaybars could have even a ghost of a chance of fixing this. If we get wet grip it'll totally screw up the dry handling, probably make it plow ridiculously. (And the swaybar I mounted is the stock 5/8" bar. Hardly enough to cause this problem.)
It's a tire imbalance, pure and simple. The fix is to put the same tire on both ends. If the Continentals are too expensive, put Fuzions on the front and then don't let anyone drive it in the rain. It'd be a lot safer than it is now, at least then when you lost grip both ends would slide and there would be some chance to recover from it. As it is now, at the first sign of loss of grip the car swaps ends.
But I'll try to do that skidpad thing today to confirm. It had Continentals all around when Hap drove it. It handled well then, wet or dry. In fact it was really surprising how good it was in the wet. That's gone. It's pretty clear to me the Fuzion tires are the reason.
Jim
EDIT: Just ran that test. The car is still very reasonably balanced in the dry. A hint of understeer at the limits. It would take some effort and a heavy throttle to spin it out. So dry, still just fine. Wet, donut monster.
Somebody please give me the authority to fix this!
I really do not like doing mismatched tire sets, as I said via email discussion last November.
QuoteNon-matching tires is generally not recommended. Especially if the tread pattern, speed rating, tire hardness, sidewall stiffness, manufacturer, etc, are not the same or very close. It can lead to unpredictable handling & uneven tread wear. Of course, in our case, we can't rotate them anyway.
Yes, you were right. I don't know if we didn't have the tire ratings then or just didn't look at them but it doesn't matter the results are the same. For reference:
Continentals: Dry rating: 8.8, Wet rating: 8.8
Fuzions: Dry rating: 6.5, Wet rating: 4.3
I think this explains the problem.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Continental&tireModel=ExtremeContact+DWS&sidewall=Blackwall&partnum=35WR7ECDWS&tab=Specs
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Fuzion&tireModel=UHP+Sport+A%2FS&sidewall=Blackwall&partnum=445WR7UHPSASXL&tab=Specs
Jim
ake the corners easy in the wet. Put 100-200 pounds in the back & see if that helps.
Carl might have something here
I usually drove with luggage, extra oil, anti freeze,water,tools, a battery jump starter the old heavy style.
sometimes a passenger..
How about tire pressure???????
PJ
I'll write up a report for the meet and the B.A.D.A.S.S. business meeting. Probably leave out some things, insert personal comments that are inappropriate, get things wrong and stuff like that but anyone can feel free to make corrections.
The car made it down there fine, though the clutch slave is going out and the speedo cable failed. Both should be fairly easy fixes as it's an external slave (pull type though) and Jim Watson donated a couple of serviceable used cables, one shorter and one longer but we'll see what we can do with them. I calculated 18.5 mpg on the first tank, after that the odo was unreliable. It went through several ounces of clutch fluid but made it home just fine, occasionally burping fluid out of the slave for no apparent reason, usually at inappropriate times. Jim also gave me some swaybar parts to replace the parts off my car I had installed on the Roadmaster for this trip.
I forget who all drove the car, checking out the new steering and brakes but I heard a lot of positive comments and no negative ones so I'd say that was a win. Even Carl liked the power steering. The brakes are very unobtrusive and you'd only notice anything different if you'd recently driven it without the booster. But it's vastly improved when holding the car still on an incline. It means we had to go to a single strut to hold the hood open which is less than ideal, but I was able to adjust it so it closes OK (slightly less than perfect but acceptable) and doesn't have hood-droop when open.
Carl brought and donated a complete dealer installed late MGB airconditioning system that had been pulled because the car didn't have enough power. We will be able to use much of that to install A/C in the car. Thank you Carl! I am donating a known good GM pancake type compressor, Charles Long is looking to see if he has a better condenser, and PJ said he'd donate $100 towards the hoses and such that will be needed.
Also, it rained Saturday morning so Carl was able to do a short test drive in the wet before the business meeting. If I understood him correctly, I believe he said the car was a bit tail happy but he can elaborate on that if he wishes. PJ and I drove it on the Dragon later in the day in the company of Mike Moor, Rick Ingram, Carl Floyd, Robert and Dreama Milks and confirmed that the rear tires are a bit less grippy than the fronts on dry pavement, but not tail happy like it is in the rain. More on that in a bit, on to the business meeting.
We convened above the Tally-Ho office with Rick presiding. Roberts was nodded to if not strictly followed and we had most of those members present at the meet in attendance. I'll mess up the order of discussion so I'm just going to strive for completeness. Again feel free to correct as these will become the minutes of the meeting. We had vacancies among the officers, there not being a Secretary elected and the VP having stepped down. It was decided to combine these two offices and a volunteer solicited for nomination. No one stepping forward I offered to do it with the understanding that my skills as Secretary are lacking. That was deemed acceptable so until Lewisburg I will act as VP/Secretary and we can elect officers then, provided an election is called.
The Treasurer's report showed we had a bill for insurance of about $500 due next month, outstanding receipts of about $400 ($408.19 actual current) and an unknown situation in regards to any proceeds that might or might not be forthcoming from the last V8 meet, so we shouldn't be expecting anything. That report was quickly followed up by discussion about the tires, the upshot of which was that the Continentals on the front, though still grippy and with good tread, are now 7 years old while the rears are 9 months old. Following much discussion of both that and the future plans for the car itself it was decided by motion and vote to replace the front tires with new ones that match the rear tires, thereby correcting the tail happy handling issue and extending the life of the tires at the minimum cost. We recognized that overall grip will decline both in dry and wet conditions but the handling will be balanced and therefore safer overall. Our cost will be around $200 total though Jim Watson is checking on lower pricing before we do it. It was suggested that if we end up keeping the car we can discuss better tires at that time. Voting on this decision was near unanimous with some abstaining.
On the issue of the future of the car, much discussion occurred as you might expect, all of it respectful. Basically though we are in a situation where it seems we need competent legal counsel to determine what of our options are viable. As Rick has connections with the Louisville British car club which has recently been dealing with a similar issue he feels he can get us some free advice from that quarter and our goal is to have enough information to be in a position to discuss a decision in Lewisburg. Carl's comment that we have kicked the can a bit further down the road is apt, but at least we will be better informed. At this time it appears that our decision at French Lick to sell the car and fund this site and the annual BritishV8 meet may have been ill advised for legal reasons but hopefully we will have some clarification before long. One suggestion was that we simply give the car to a suitable charity but I don't know if that is advisable either. One problem with this scheme is the naming of a charity. I'd think an organization that is pursuing a way of screening for colon cancer without poking a tube up your backside would be something everyone could get behind but... Oops inappropriate personal comment, nevermind. Of course, if we have adequate enthusiasm, participation and support, we can continue to campaign the car with the original goals of encouraging creativity in the younger generations and interest in LBC conversions which we can continue to do for as long as we have the needed participation. If this meeting was an indication that should be feasible for the immediate future but regardless we should have a plan in place for when it no longer is.
We had a motion passed that other than maintenance and upkeep we not do any more modification of the car that would be charged against the treasury without Board approval (I think it was the Board) which reminds me, when discussing the officers we agreed to set up a board of some sort and get our mailing list in order. I think everyone present wanted on the mailing list, which formerly included about 8 or 9 of the most active members. It was decided that I would get Rick a copy of the membership spreadsheet, as updated as I could make it with the notes I have, and everyone on that list would be given the option to either receive group emails or to opt out if they wish to be inactive or not involved.
So back to the mods, this basically means the A/C is to be funded by earmarked individual donations unless we get far enough along that the Board can approve finishing it up at some point. Luckily most everything else is pretty much done except the axle gears which we forgot to discuss. But we really don't have enough money to fix it either right now anyway so for the time being it will have to proceed on the same basis if it proceeds at all, even though it could be rightfully said that it is a maintenance item. I have a few parts that could go towards that (in particular a new housing), but we'll need a posi, a set of gears, and new bearings and seals so it's unlikely to be fixed before Lewisburg. If anyone wants to contribute to that particular issue you can contact me or Rick about it. I would recommend a Power-Lok differential and either 3.08 or 3.23 gears rather than the 2.88 gears presently in the car but that is something we should discuss and much hinges on parts availability, cost, used vs new, etc.
It was agreed that a formal meeting of B.A.D.A.S.S. would be held at the Lewisburg 2017 BritishV8 meet, time, date and place to be set later and the meeting was adjourned.
Please submit any corrections, additions or revisions to the minutes hereafter. A few days to do so would be reasonable, after which the minutes will stand as written.
Jim
Secretary: B.A.D.A.S.S.
Thanks Jim,
You've got most of it here and since you took no shorthand and didn't have a digital audio recording device, I'm impressed with you recall.
One addition, I did volunteer to continue to serve as Director of transportation for RM.
respectively submitted.
PJ Lenihan
aka Roadmeister
So noted. Any other additions, corrections or amendments to the minutes?
Jim
Minutes stand approved.
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Status update on the car:
New issues:
-Clutch slave needs new seals. I believe this was a Tilton slave. Donated by Mantell Motorsports while the car was in their custody. It is a "Pull" cylinder. Currently the car can be driven but requires frequent fluid refills, has reduced actuating range, and occasionally pukes fluid. We need replacement seals.
-Shifter needs a new bushing. It has been getting loose and recently popped out. Luckily I was able to wobble it around and get it back in place. We need a new bushing.
-Vibration in the driveline. I suspect a halfshaft universal may be going out, it has been getting progressively worse.
Known issues:
-Noise in differential. Getting worse, still driveable. There has been some discussion about fixing this, so far nothing official.
-Left front shock. Bushings and seals are shot. Fluid runs out freely. We need a serviceable OEM replacement. Used is acceptable if it doesn't leak.
-New speedo cable. Parts from Jim Watson are not an exact fit but could be made to work.
-A/C install. Long term project, not covered under routine maintenance and repair.
-Front tire replacement: Waiting on a report from Jim Watson, he wanted to do a price check first. Not particularly urgent.
We have a few guys coming up to the Lab the weekend of the 5th for a LBC work weekend and may do some maintenance to the RM then if we have the time and manpower. Others are welcome to stop by. For the time being the car is limited to local trips.
Jim
The u joints were replaced when the diff was changed. Seems to be short lived.
Anybody can make a bad part.
Steve
Also needs the spring replaced for the carb flapper valve.
Jim
We did a little maintenance to the car on Thursday. Replaced the speedo cable, rebuilt the clutch slave cylinder, and pulled the shifter to replace the shifter bushing. A local Mr. Transmission should have a new bushing today, that one had failed. One of the clamps for the speedo isn't tight yet, it's almost impossible to get at the inner thumbscrew. I'll give it another try but it may take someone with smaller hands to do that. We didn't test the speedo cable yet due to the shifter.
The clutch slave turned out to be a remarkably easy fix. It was a Wilwood pull cylinder and as expected the rod seal had failed. The hardest part of the job was bolting it back in and bleeding it, and we ended up using a small pump sprayer and a stopper to pressure bleed it from the top. The bleed hose has been relocated to the bottom because with the new fuel pressure regulator it no longer reaches an accessible spot on top.
The slave itself had a rear cap that screwed off rather easily, exposing a return spring and the butt end of the piston, all of which was bone dry. The piston had an o-ring seal. We pulled that out and used a pick to remove the o-ring shaft seal from the other end of the housing. Closest thing I had on hand was an injector o-ring which was smaller but much fatter so we tried that and the rod went in without very much fuss. So we buttoned it up and reassembled. Seems to work fine and has plenty of pedal so it looks like we are good. Soon as the shifter bushing comes in I'll finish that up and give it a test drive but I think we're good to go.
Unfortunately that comes a day late to take it to the local import car show that Matt found out about. We went over yesterday to watch, while Matt took his SBC/Jag and entered. Quite a turnout, they had a very entertaining Limbo competition and Matt pulled a 2nd place in the exhaust competition. Seemed like a fun crowd, if we get a chance to take the RM to one of those we'll definitely do it. That is the place where the youngsters hang out, and that is what we built this car do do. The RM isn't going to win the Limbo (Miatas always win and with the hardtop it is too tall) but it would have walked away smiling with the exhaust win.
Jim
What was the winning Limbo height?
It was a Miata three way tie actually. One had the suspension lowered to the point that the wheels looked funny, one had about a dozen guys riding on it, and there was a hard top that if they had removed the top they would have won. I didn't ask what the measurement was but maybe Matt would know.
Jim
Currently the car is operational and I've run some errands with it. Very nice to drive. However, there are still some issues:
-The left front shock needs replaced. It will not hold oil for more than a couple days.
-Rear axle noise continues to get worse.
-I'm still waiting on Jim Watson before having the front tires replaced.
I haven't started on the A/C compressor mount yet. The lift has been tied up with other cars, but I hope to get something done next week. I also have to have another look at the speedometer cable as it still isn't working. Possibly not engaging the transmission gear.
We should consider building a replacement for the rear 3rd member. I have an almost new housing we can use. We would need a differential (Power-Lok preferred, about $300) a ring and pinion (Recommend Spicer gears, suggest a 3.08 or possibly 3.31 ratio, about another $300) and bearings, probably another $150 to $200. So we will need about $800 if I set up the 3rd member and we swap it out here. It will have to be done some time and it would be better if we take our time setting up the gears and have it ready before the car becomes undriveable. We may have a year or two but probably not much more depending on how much it is driven. We will undoubtedly have to ask for donations to cover the costs.
As VP/secretary I'm asking for comments about the front shock and the axle. It's not my place to make decisions about what we are going to do, but these strike me as maintenance issues and things that need to be resolved.
Jim
Update on the driveline. Matt and I put the car on the lift and spun it up in 5th gear to look for vibrations and the good news is that there is no indication of any issues with the u-joints. The bad news is that the problem seems to be internal to the differential, as power delivery to the wheels was jerky and uneven. I held the driver's side wheel by hand to spin up the other wheel and could feel a sort of cogging effect, which I could also see on the other side when I allowed it to spin freely. My conclusion is that it would not be a good idea to make any long trips until this is fixed. I can think of three possibilities. A broken cross shaft, damaged spiders, or possibly the suspension was drooping far enough to bind one of the universal joints, but that still does not account for the vibration in right hand turns. I can continue to drive it locally until the problem gets worse and we can make a more positive diagnosis.
We also looked more closely at the speedo drive and concluded that the internal gear is not large enough to give adequate engagement to the driven gear. Perhaps the 2.88 gears have put us beyond the capacity of our drive gear and the tailshaft will have to come off to change it, IF a suitable set of gears are even available. They might not be. However, if we pull the tranny tailshaft to swap gears we might as well replace the 3rd gear synchro at the same time.
I have set up searches on ebay for a power lok posi and a 3.31 Spicer gear set, will advise if I find any good deals.
If Rick agrees that we should purchase a new shock I will follow up on that.
Jim
The new shock is installed and the core dropped off at UPS for return. Everything went smoothly and without a hitch. Just as fast and easy as swapping a tube shock. Performance is just as expected.
Also, I had installed the correct spring on the carb's secondary air flapper (required removing the carb) and set it to it's max recommended tension which is 1 full turn. That seems to be working excellently as well, the car will rather easily break the rear tires loose from a roll in 1st gear. Definitely getting the secondaries open.
The air filter is crushed on the sides and won't allow the air cleaner to sit straight. It is a little oversized, so at some point we should research and obtain the correct air filter, to see if that will correct the problem. Application should be '67 Riviera and GS.
It will be necessary to pull the tailshaft and change to a larger diameter speedo drive gear. That job will be coming up before too long.
Jim
A few of us decided that we were going to fit the Roadmaster with A/C. This is somewhat outside the remit of the overall will of the organization but permissible as a separately funded upgrade. So we are doing it.
Carl donated a complete dealer installed MGB A/C system:
IMG_0004.JPG
I donated a compressor and have just completed installing it:
IMG_0001.JPG
IMG_0002.JPG
Expenses to-date not including the compressor or dealer kit are $200, including: compressor fitting, fan belt, radiator hose, and materials to complete the upper radiator hose connection. I put up the money for that but since neither Edith or I currently have jobs that's the best I can do.
To complete the install we will need hoses, lines, bulkhead fittings, drier, and probably a condenser. I know some have expressed an interest in contributing to the cost of installing an A/C system, and the hardest part is now complete. If you do wish to contribute please specify that it is for the A/C as otherwise it will go into the general fund.
Jim
The A/C compressor install is now complete. The hood closes and there is clearance. The coil pack and edis module are relocated and wires re-routed. Upper radiator hose is re-routed. Both v-belts are the same part number, eliminating any need to carry a spare.
IMG_0001.JPG
IMG_0002.JPG
Jim
Sweet!
Jim will this vent supply part be useful, It's supposed to be OEM from a dealer install to a new MGB, I'll donate it and send you a check.
IMG_5748.jpg
IMG_5749.jpg
just a reminder of my offer some months ago, I can drive RM one way to CA. If the A/C is fully functional that is. It'll be toasty in the SW desert!
I plan to drive to San Deigo leaving June 15th, 2017 to meet up with a group in Savannah, GA Mike Cook is part of that group and I'm expecting a few more modified MGs. Dick Lunney, Bob Lewis and I are organizing this adventure, and ya'll are most welcome to attend.
So here's an opportunity to to show RM on the west coast. I'll cover all the driving costs (we may need an emergency fund, just in case of a unscheduled repair) , as i'm already planning to drive my V6 MGBGT to the convention.
What say you? Anyone on the west coast want to host RM???????????
The car's been undergoing some maintenance. New synchros for 2nd and 3rd gear should arrive this week. I've had searches running on ebay for several months now watching for a deal on a PowerLok posi and a R&P set but so far no luck.
The speedo drive has been complicated by the rear axle ratio. No combination of available driving and driven gear for the T5 will make the MG speedo head read correctly. Closest I can come is 10% low and that is with a 9 tooth driving gear. 19T is the smallest driven gear available. (The 17T gear I found turned out to be for a different transmission, TH350 I think, and it is smaller and quickly wore out.)
Since the gears are noisy, I propose that we build another 3rd member to put in the car before sending it west, and that we use a 3.08 or 3.23 ratio so that we can make the speedo read correctly. However, we do not have the money in the treasury to do this. It will take probably about $800 and after paying for the synchros we probably only have about $700 left with no reserve.
I would not embark on a trans-continental trip with a car having the noisy gears of this one, so I think we will need to raise money first.
Jim
Understand, the need for reliability, however, there is also the question of: Do any of our west coast RM associates want to host the car?
Let's give them a little time to speak up, but if there is no demand, I'd say the RM will likely stay put.
Road test results:
The new synchros work as expected and the transmission now works as it should. Downshifting to 3rd is no different now from any other gear. It's a good thing I tore the T5 down though because the 2nd gear sychro was just about gone, it would have soon been giving us trouble. Aside from that, the tranny looked very very good inside. No significant signs of any wear or abuse that I could see. With shipping I think we spent about $120 doing this.
The speedo now works and is accurate. For how long I can't say though, as the cable is a loose fit in the speedo head shimmed with heat shrink and the driven gear is from a TH350 and is a bit small in diameter. But for now it's good. The problem is that we have the the largest gear inside that there is (9 tooth 1.8" dia.) and the smallest driven gear for the T5 is a 19 tooth, which gives us a 10% error (reading slow). The gear in there now is 17T but has a smaller diameter and may not hold up long term.
The gear noise in the rear end is bad. I drove it for a mile on the freeway today and was glad there was an exit. I'd prefer not to put any more freeway miles on it before we fix that. That could mean local events and trailering until we have a chance to take up a collection. We need about $800 to do it right.
I recommend we install a PowerLok and 3.23 or 3.08 gears. That will ease the speedo problem as well. We should get started on this right away, as building the 3rd member will take some time.
Jim
Jim,
" We should get started on this right away," Do you have a suggestion? How to raise $$ now? email campaign?
PJ
The steering committee has concluded that the best approach at this time is to do the following in order:
Fix the speedo problem by installing a 1000 rev/mile unit donated by Graham Creswick, which will allow us to use about a 23 tooth gear on the cable, making the axle ratio problem essentially a non-issue.
Forgo the use of a posi for reasons of cost and driveability.
Inspect the spare Jag IRS I have here to see if the gears are in good nick, and if so, install that center section to address the gear whine issue. (It is unlikely I will want to use a 2.88 gear set in the future, but if I do it is the most common Jag ratio) I have no immediate plans for that unit.
That will hopefully get us out of the current pickle at a minimum of cost.
Also, PJ and others have suggested annual dues of $20 to help offset yearly costs. I support the idea and have suggested he propose a motion to that effect.
Jim
Speedo is working again. Reads 1-2 mph slow at 70. Good enough. Has a slight wobble. We might be able to fix that if someone has a GM 90° drive adapter to fit the T5 which they want to donate. Otherwise, good as-is.
Jim
We have the IRS out on the bench. Should get the hogshead swapped out this afternoon.
Jim
Job done.
The car is back together and the test drive reveals that all is well. The howl from the rear end is gone and the handling is essentially neutral, brakes work well.
If you listen very carefully at speeds below 45mph you can just barely detect a very slight whine on coast but it is dead quiet when on the gas. We did absolutely nothing to the diff other than opening it, inspecting, and refilling with synthetic gear oil. Dan says there is an additive that Ford recommended for their Explorers which had issues with gear noise. If someone can get that we will add it.
Curtis, please contact me Re: driving RM to 2017BritishV8 and your schedule.
Jim
Unfortunate news, it looks like work will prevent Curtis from making the annual BritishV8 meet this year.
For us this means we do not have a driver to bring the Roadmaster to the meet. I would do it, but it looks very much like my car will be back on the road in time for the meet. Hard to believe but apparently it's been down for 9 years, and I guess that makes it 10 years since I've had it at a meet. If there is any chance of driving it to Lewisburg, you know what my first choice is going to be. The driveshaft should be back Tuesday and then there is insurance, testing and tuning.
Dan suggested Carl could drive it but that would be a huge detour from what is now a pretty short trip.
I offered it to Matthew and he countered by saying that maybe he could trailer it behind his Jag. He has no experience with trailers and I'm not really comfortable with that option. I'll probably exercise my veto power on that one.
So I just wanted to let you all know that is where we stand. Maybe someone else will have an idea or two. If there was more time I could shuttle it to Milton at least, but it's too late for that now. Luckily almost everyone has seen the car recently, and while only a few have driven it in its latest condition, I can assure you that a drive in the Roadmaster is best described as, "Effortless". Were we to finish the airconditioning install and add a cruise control I firmly believe it would become the very definition of a true GT sports car. It is now so very close.
But personally, I prefer a roadster. If for some reason I can't get there with mine (there is still a question about clutch travel) I can drive it, but I'm really, really hoping that doesn't happen. More news in a couple of days anyway.
Jim
Well, unless someone else particularly wants to drive the Roadmaster I'll be bringing it to Lewisburg. Sorry for all the confusion but that's just the way things have shaken out. There have been a cascade of issues with putting a T5 in my car and the schedule is now too tight to allow for any shakedown before the trip. When I was younger I would have disregarded the problem, but today, not so much. See you all in Lewisburg.
Jim
I'm glad it will be there.
I'd like an opportunity to drive it on one of the outings.
I will be arriving in a civilian car, as my V6 is still on jack stands and I do not have time to get it road worthy in time for our event.
See you guys soon.
We'll have to make sure that happens PJ.
Jim
There was a thread somewhere that Charles mentioned a condensed that he has. I can't seem to find it so I'm posting here. The dimensions of the condenser that we have is: 14 x 15 x 1-1/4" and it is a double pass.
There is room for up to a 26 x 16" condenser.
Jim
Here?
http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?8,56578,57021
Nope. He posted a photo of it and I replied that I'd get sizes.
Jim
Paste this into Google Images & see if you recognize the pic.
condenser site:forum.britishv8.org
Nope, didn't see it.
So, I'm trying to post a report for the B.A.D.A.S.S. meeting that we had in Lewisburg and I'll be as complete as I can remember but bear in mind I had other things going on so feel free to post corrections and amendments.
We met in the hospitality room, Rick presiding. Attendance was good but I do not have the numbers. I also did not take notes, sorry. Might want to elect a Secretary next meeting. I'm sure we could find someone who would do a competent job.
Anyway, we passed the hat and collected money. Seven hundred or so I think? Also collected enough to finish the A/C install I would think. I have that in an envelope and can count it again tomorrow, I think it's something like $275. We discussed establishing dues and tabled PJ's motion until Townsend to give everyone a chance to consider it.
I'm sure there was a good bit more of interest, I just can't seem to think of it at the moment.
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Thanks to Max, we discovered that the 455 is starving for air. Dyno results were abysmal but when we went for a drive with the air cleaner off it was like we doubled the power. So I have modified the air cleaner housing to allow more air in, and made a new air cleaner base to properly support the housing so we do not collapse the new air filter.
We also discovered that there is an issue with the timing advance signal coming from the MegaJolt and Max and I did some work on that but there is more to do.
Graham has found what looks to be a good candidate for a replacement brake master cylinder, more on that as it develops. New spark plug wires will be installed, one headlight ballast has come loose and needs reattached, and then we can get back on installing the A/C.
That's sort of the way things stand for now. The idea with the brakes is to get more room for spark plug access. It looks like we can do that by installing a smaller (physically) unit and using a smaller bore so we don't need the booster, both of which will help.
Jim
Here's the newly modified air cleaner:
IMG_0004.JPG
To prevent damage to the new element, a new base was made up out of 2 skillets and a saucepan. It is keyed to the carb and supports the housing:
IMG_0011.JPG
The housing was modified to allow more airflow and fitted with a new element which more properly fits on the ID. It was marked inside with two filter numbers, either of which should work with these parts:
IMG_0010.JPG
The old knob was modified to allow the increased height and a silicone rubber cushion was fitted:
IMG_0012.JPG
The test drive indicates it breathes a good bit better than before. However, should we do another Dyno pull, it should be done with the filter on, then off to check for restriction.
Jim
I was thinking most of the restriction was that old ratty air filter. Did the hot rodders go to this extreme in 1967 for this air cleaner?
I don't know, but it does run better. The air filter fits better. And the filter is taller so more surface area I think.
I've just finished relocating the power distribution module and the MegaJolt controller to the side of the footwell. Should be out of the way of the evaporator and a bit more accessible.
Jim
power, Power, POWER!!!
I believe the issues we were having with the timing advance are now resolved so finally, we are starting to see the kind of power out of the mighty 455 that we all expected.
I know it's been a little of a disappointment for many of us ever since the dyno session in Texas where we first discovered the somewhat lackluster horsepower curve. Not that driving the car was anything short of impressive with all that torque, but just not what we expected to see. So it's very good to be able to say that now with adequate delivery of fuel, air, and advance it looks like the power is finally there.
Personally I'll be surprised if it dynos 500hp, I'll be expecting to see something closer to 400, maybe even a bit less. But it's certainly running the best it ever has, and it's like it has twice the power it had at Lewisburg.
Something of interest to anyone who uses or considers using the MegaJolt ignition controller, it has a separate, "Are you really, Really sure you want to use this tune?" icon button next to the upload to controller button, and if you don't click that one it reverts. Took awhile to sort that one out since we had a corrupted tuning file as the installed tune and all sorts of weirdnesses were happening. It was driveable but far from optimized. The map could still be improved but it is way better than it was, and I would expect to see an improvement in economy as well. Unfortunately I think the calibration of the odometer is off (even though the speedometer is correct oddly enough) so we will continue to have to use corrections.
So the stage is now set for further work on the air conditioning.
Schedule-wise, I hope to have my car off the lift in a few days, the next month looks sort of busy, but after that maybe we can get the crew together and knock it out.
Jim
Great news on Roadmaster., Jim, think we can view your personal car at Townsend in Oct?
I'm expecting that Kelly. Take you for a ride?
In fact I hope the last part comes in today, so with just a bit of luck I may be driving it up to the Dayton show. I'll be taking the MG-Roadmaster to the Cincinnati show this Sunday since I don't have insurance yet and it'll be local trips only for awhile yet. But soon we'll be needing someone else to help get the Roadmaster to the shows.
Jim
Friend and I plan to attend the Dayton show also. drive up on Thru. attend the W-P Museum on Fri. and the show on Sat. Just a few miles north of your place :-)
good news Jim, those ponies were hiding in there and yo found them.
I don't know that it really makes much difference in the way you drive the car though. It's just more reserve. The torque was already there and the power at lower speeds really didn't change that much. It's only when you mat it that it really makes a difference.
I drove it up to Harbin Park yesterday and it got a lot of attention at the meet, but they stuck the modifieds out in the hay field as far as they could get from the MGs, clear over on the opposite side of the German cars. and for a British car meet there were a lot of those. If I go back next year I swear I'm gonna park right smack in the middle of the MGBs with my roadster. That just ain't right. Eddie Cole and I were there, and a new guy with a V6 conversion, along with very nice V8 AH 3000 reproduction. Then they stuck a few unusual V engine type cars over there with us. I'd say we really weren't wanted, or else they just really had no idea at all of what to do with us. Well, that's why I'm a member of the WVBCC instead. Those guys know how to appreciate a good car. This meet declined sharply when they lost the drag strip as their location and the demographic swerved well away from performance and towards concours. One attendee told me he was about 60 years old and figured he lowered the average age by joining that club. Judging by the number of T types present he could be right. But it was a nice enough show if you like that sort of thing. Bill Michaels and another member of the WVBCC were in attendance, over in the Triumph section and there was a large turnout of Jags and German minis. Even a handfull of DeLoreans. But as for a BritishV8 presence, we declined very significantly from last year.
Happily we did have a fair number of youngsters who were excited to see the car, and that is why we built it. So in spite of being pushed off in the coffin corner we did manage to fulfill our function in being there, and I'd call that a win.
Jim
Jim,
thanks for showing the RM.
It's always good when young people can see the car
Time for another update. As predicted I made it to the Dayton show with my Roadster, but Carl was good enough to come by here and jump in the MG-Roadmaster and drive it up to Dayton, leaving Ol' Red to languish in the company of my rag-tag fleet while we were out having fun. Dan also came in with his Lexus 1UZ 4.0L DOHC powered TR7 and the next morning we were off for the beginnings of a fine weekend.
We got a fairly early start, and for a Saturday morning the cruise through Cincinnati bridge construction up I-75 wasn't too bad as traffic at least kept moving and once across the river we made decent time. After that the rest of the 70 mile trip was a doddle, taking the I-675 Dayton bypass then Rt 35W for 1 exit before heading north again for a couple of blocks and turning left into the park. Well, that's how it WOULD have been if I hadn't passed the exit and got us a little lost. But it was all good and a fun drive. We made a little noise coming into the park and from that point on our cars were a center of attention, and perhaps the biggest draw in the meet. We went down to the end of our row (Modifieds), parked in the SHADE, and opened our hoods. The people were clustered around even before we came to a stop.
Our row was already crowded. All told there were over 20 modified cars at the meet, and we may have done a little recruiting. Don't be surprised if we pick up a member or two. Anyway, the Dayton show is fairly large at over 250 cars and our section has been the largest one for the last 2 years not including this one, which explains why we had the shade trees. Good chance that'll be the case next year as well and I can't stress enough how much better that makes it for all of us. So much better than being out in the sun. Now by contrast to the Cincinnati meet where we were stuck out in the hayfield at the furthest extent of the area being used, here we were right up front and center, right in the middle of the festivities.
Our cars served us well making the drive up and back with aplomb. As always we each noticed one or two minor things that could be improved but with the Roadmaster those are becoming less and less and Carl did say that he enjoyed the drive. I think he was impressed that everything worked as it should, and I think I remember him saying at one point that he though we should keep this car around for awhile. What were his criticisms? 1) the car has more body lean than Ol' Red. (which has a much larger sway bar). 2) the driver's side sits a little low (adjustable). 3) the tires made noise going around the on ramp. (uh... hello, not sticky tires?)
About those tires BTW, this is a good spot to post an additional caution. They are NOT rain tires. If you have to drive on water, even a slightly damp road, do not expect even average performance. I went around a local and fairly average interstate curve in a drizzle and at just 80 mph was sliding sideways. At least it was balanced. You can drive it in water, but slow down. The difference from dry traction is profound.
So we had a great time at the meet, and it was so much fun we were still there jawboning while they were handing out their little gegaws. Which was a mistake because they made me come up front and a guy kept trying to stick a microphone in my mouth. Didn't hardly know what to think of that one. I DID get to check an item off my bucket list though, (Sit in a genuine original GT40! YEAH! ) So eventually we went to O'Charlies with the gang and then headed back to Florence.
The drive back was much more rapid than we expected and we managed to hit a lull and blasted through the construction area with no impediments and were back here in little more than an hour, whereupon I attempted to upload a slightly leaner tune to my car and somehow managed to corrupt the file in the controller. So, instead of heading back to W.Va. in my car with Dan the next day of course I drove the Roadmaster. Carl of course, headed to Tennessee.
I think Dan and I set a personal record for the Florence to Milton commute. Because so far at least, the Roadmaster can still out accelerate the mighty 1UZ-TR7 I followed Dan's lead, and lead he did. These cars remove the guesswork from passing, and on the AA highway passing is what it's all about. It's fair to say that we only slowed down momentarily approaching the back markers. I don't know how fast this car has been driven, and I'm not sure I want to know. But I can attest that it is stable at 120, at which point the engine is humming along at 2500 rpm quite happily. The return trip was a good bit more sedate but even so gave one of the best trip times I've personally seen on that drive. By contrast, my roadster is at 2500 rpm at 75 mph and is comfortable there. At that speed the Roadmaster is turning about 1700-1800 rpm, and it too feels comfortable. I wouldn't even begin to hazard a guess as to which one could achieve the highest top speed, but I'm inclined to think it would be the Roadmaster, whereas the roadster would likely post a faster quarter.
So that's it for the driving report. On the upgrades, we took preliminary measurements for the lines and hoses, took notes of fitting types, and did some test fitting and the next step is for me to fit the condenser, take final measurements, and order parts. I'll get to that as soon as it's convenient to do it.
Also on the drive I noticed some pedal creep in the brakes. I think Carl mentioned that too. So we may need a new master cylinder.
I'll adjust the LR ride height next time it's on the lift.
We do have a heavier sway bar. It's big, 7/8 or 1". But we can try that one if y'all want to. No sticky tires tho.
Jim
QuoteDan also came in with his Lexus 1UZ 3.5L DOHC powered TR7
Minor correction for Dan's sake. I believe that it is a 4.0L V8 from a SC400 & though it is DOHC per bank, I prefer to call it a Quad Cam engine. :)
Yep. That's what is says on the spark plug cover...four cam 32
Picky, picky. It's still a DOHC engine with DOHC heads. But have it your way, Quad Cam it is. As for the displacement, I was only going by what Dan told me, could be a 4L for all I know.
Jim
I never said 3.5. The 400 in SC400 is for 4 liter.
Huh. Imagine that. I was wondering why it ran so strong.
Jim
Back to the Roadmaster.
I have driven it very few miles since it lived with me for a month back in March of 2012. It was still teething & very early into the shakedown.
I am very happy to report that the 155 mile round trip to the Dayton British car show from Blackwood Labs was the most fun I have had driving the Roadmaster. It has come a long way in the last 5 1/2 years. A very easy, comfortable driver & highway cruiser. Gonna be awesome with A/C. It was a hoot to follow Jim's MG up the highway watching all the reactions of others on the road. The three of us (Dan's TR7/8) caused quite a stir!
Never thought I would say this, but I could see owning a GT V8.
I think that means you're getting older Carl ;).
We finally made it to the Fall Gathering in Townsend. It was great to see old friends again and meet some new friends. Two highlights for me were driving the Tail of the Dragon (although it was in a Nissan Altima rental) both ways and a chance to take the Roadmaster for a spin.
Driving the Roadmaster is a totally different experience than driving my MGB Roadster with a 3.5L Rover engine. I had expected it to be a handful.........not so! Once I got used to the heavy clutch it was a blast to drive, a very docile machine, easy to drive and goes where you point it in the corners. I was surprised given the fact that it had a big block Buick up front.. The roll-on power is phenomenal; only two gears needed....forward and reverse. :-).
I did have time to find a twisty road, not too hard in this part of the world, and was able to get an appreciation for how well this unusual combination works. I think that it would make a great touring car. I wish that I had more time to go further.
Phill it's a hoot to drive the RM, I've been fortunate enough to get to drive that fine v8 quite a few miles..
Hey who's driving RM to Dayton? If you need a driver I'll volunteer.
MG-Roadmaster work weekend progress report:
Thursday and Friday Steve and Dan arrived to work on the car. Carl couldn't come because of something about a crown, and PJ had some sort of a scheduling conflict. Our objectives were to R&R the starter and plumb the A/C refrigerant lines and on those tasks we were successful. As of now the A/C system has been drawn down to 27 inches of mercury and appears to be holding, and the starter is back to normal. We disassembled the old starter and it looks fine except for the bendix being bound up. I plan to go by the local starter-generator shop and see if they can match up a replaccement, and if so do the reassembly and stash it in the boot as a spare. Along the way we found a few other issues.
It looks like we may have lost continuity in the fuel gage circuit, probably just had a wire get knocked off the back of the gage but we'll need to fix that. The bigger issue was that the engine was hydrolocked and then blew white smoke. Yes, I know what you all are thinking, "Holy Smoke!" but I don't think it qualified. We may have caught it in time though. So Steve and Dan spent a good bit of their available time re-torquing the heads and as it turned out, the studs on the offending bank were noticeably less tight than we would have liked. Which as it turned out, we really liked. They also changed out the oil and filter, which Steve brought with him.
On start up, we had no white smoke. Yeah! But after warming up a bit the smoke came back and we were considerably less heartened. After sleeping on it, Dan and I decided to give the car a proper warm-up, and lo and behold, the smoke went away. Yeah! So the thought was that probably there was coolant puddled in the muffler and it took awhile to burn it out. I will be driving the car some this next week and checking it for any more symptoms. I reservedly call it done at this point but that isn't yet final. They ran a compression test on the affected bank and came back with normal numbers. Looking in the surge tank we observed a few small bubbles but since the coolant had been drained, an additional heater core added, and the heat control valve has not been opened that is inconclusive.
We ordered a pair of the fancy NGK spark plugs to match the others since there were a couple of strays, those come in Thursday. And we applied anti-sieze to the spark plug threads, definitely a needed thing.
As for the A/C, the system is now fully installed and plumbed. It contains both cooling and heating elements in the same coil so we had additional heater hoses to run but the good news from that is that not only will it give a boost to winter heat but it will be able to de-ice itself if the need arises. On that note, there is a pair of small drain hoses that will need to be added to prevent the formation of a small lake in the passenger's footwell. We ran hard lines up inside the fenderwells and the plumbing came out rather tidy, thanks to all who assisted with the planning and components. We ended up with some redundancy somehow. I don't know what happened, it wasn't my fault. Nobody reminded us that there was a drier built into the condenser and we ended up with one in the liquid line somehow. I don't know how that happened but I don't see any good reason to change it now.
We still need to add the control wiring and the ductwork, plus the radiator fans need to come on with the compressor and the temp sensor tube needs to be fitted into the evaporator coil and a face plate made to mount the controls. But at least at this point the hard work is done.
We will need to schedule another work weekend sometime between now and the Dayton meet in July. I'm thinking maybe April or May but we'll just have to see what works.
Jim
Kudos to Jim, Dan, & Steve. Looks like y'all got a lot done! Dearly hope that head gasket is okay.
My Dentist say I need a crown, but that was not the issue.
Be very careful torquing coated spark plug into aluminum heads.
BTW, NGK says to install their new plugs dry.
NGK spark plugs feature what is known as trivalent plating. This silver-or-chrome colored finish on the threads is designed to provide corrosion resistance against moisture and chemicals. The coating also acts as a release agent during spark plug removal. NGK spark plugs are installed at the factory dry, without the use of anti-seize. NGK tech support has received a number of tech calls from installers who have over-tightened spark plugs because of the use of anti-seize. Anti-seize compound can act as a lubricant altering torque values up to 20 percent, increasing the risk of spark plug thread breakage.
Yeah and I applaud them for that. But when the plugs have to be wrenched all the way out using a significant bit of muscle, it needs anti-sieze. I'm not trusting a set of 2 thousand dollar heads to some fancy coating. Sometimes reality just doesn't measure up to the hype, sad as that is.
Real nice weather today. I might take it for a drive.
Jim
Drove 25 miles today, mostly freeway. Got back home, no smoke, oil is clear. Didn't check for bubbles but I will in another day or two.
Jim
Hope the plug threads are not too long & protruding into the combustion chamber.
You know, now that I've looked it up, we may be running plugs with too short of a reach. I'll have to look into that. The TA online catalog says the stage 2 SE heads use plugs with a 3/4" reach. These are 1/2" I'm pretty sure. Might be worth some mpg.
Jim
Thanks, Jim. I was wondering how things were progressing.
good work, much accomplished.
sorry I missed the weekend, hopefully I can participate next time
Rick, I took the old bendix to the local starter shop but they couldn't match it up. I don't recall where the last starter came from. I bought the one in it now online for about $65 though, do you think we should get another one of those to carry in the trunk?
Hopefully I'll have the plug situation sorted out today. Apparently the tapered seats crimped the top thread and that's what made them tight to remove. Because of the shorter reach the last few threads might be carboned up and need to be chased. But the heat range looks real good, so I think I can match up an iridium plug with that heat range and we would probably never need to change them again. There is a difference between OEM Buick plugs and those for TA heads, the TA heads use a longer thread. I have no idea how or when these plugs got installed and it doesn't do to try and find out, but we need to be careful about this. We put a lot of money in these heads and don't want to damage them.
Drove another 10 miles yesterday, mostly on surface streets. Exhaust was clear, oil was clear, saw some bubbles in the coolant. I'll add some leak sealant and see if that helps. Tracked the fuel gage failure back to the sender so that'll get changed once I've burned up enough gas. I have new spares I can use. I should be able to deal with all that in advance of the next work weekend. That's when we will tackle the remaining big job, completing the A/C install.
Incidentally, I picked up a Ford cruise module for my car a couple weeks ago from the junkyard for about $25, it'd probably be $30 with the cable. It's a pretty compact all electric unit that would require mounting, wiring, and push buttons wired with resistors for the controls, which I already had in my car. Seems to work correctly but I haven't tested it on the highway yet. Might be something to think about adding. I'm also wandering if we shouldn't try the big swaybar on it, now that it's just a matter of swapping them out.
Jim
I think I might know what happened with the plugs. Since we were running low compression and a cam that is warmer than stock the DCR was probably down some, plus other factors made the 5 heat range plugs a bit cold. I seem to recall maybe we had some early issues with plug fouling and had decided to go one step hotter. So my guess is whoever changed the plugs did that, and not knowing about TA heads just bought plugs for a BBB. Then went the extra mile and got platinum. Pretty logical you would think. Anyway I have a set on the way and they aren't platinum but the Buick guys agree that they are about the best choice.
Couldn't see any bubbling in the surge tank today but the level is down a bit. I'll get some distilled water tomorrow and add a bit of coolant and re-check. So far, so good. Another week or so and I start trying to schedule another work weekend.
Jim
The plugs came in finally. I had to go buy a special small diameter spark plug thread chaser and I have to chase all of the threads because they have a buildup at the bottom and the plugs won't go all the way in.
Thanks Obama.
I'm halfway done. the easy half.
Jim
guess this will fix the spark plug auto removal events ha ha
Or maybe it's a hex on ME. I drive RM and spark plugs like to remove themselves from the head!
sure is LOUD when they pop out while motoring just ask Kelly.
Yeah, I think having the right seat will make that problem go away. Got the rest of the plugs changed and went on a short drive. Seemed fine, I couldn't tell if it ran any better. Gas mileage could go up a little. Need to drive it about 30 more miles then put it on the lift and swap out the fuel tank sender. Easy job once the gas is used up.
Jim
It's always fun using up gain that car, I remember filling it three time in WVA last summer.
Havefun.
HI JIM
HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO ENJOY ANY SPRING DRIVES IN RM
Not really any drives, though I have taken it on a few errands. Ran out a tank of gas and swapped out the fuel tank sender, the old one had the float filled up with gas. New one in there now.
It's running probably the best it ever has. No more work has been done on the A/C. I pulled a vacuum on it last time we worked on it but haven't checked if it's holding yet. Have given some thought to how to make the control panel, that should be simple enough. Dan tells me he won't be free for another work session until after his daughter's wedding the 9th of June. We need to install the wiring and whatever ductwork we are going to do and then charge the system.
It still attracts attention where ever it goes.
Waiting on dry weather now, I suppose we are *finally* done with winter.
Jim
Maybe after this weekend. You be looking at snow Saturday.
Good News everyone!
The MG-Roadmaster now has a working air conditioner system. Steve and I went for about a 1/2hr+ test drive this morning and it blows out a good quantity of nice cold air. After awhile it began to ice up so we cracked the heater valve to de-ice the evaporator and restored operation. It left a large puddle on the floor when we parked it from condensate, it's been very humid here today (85%). It could use one more eyeball vent for the driver's side, right now both tubes just dump on your right leg, but I figure anyone can add that later. We do have an eyeball vent on the passenger's side, which can be directed towards the driver.
Do we have any plans to get it to Dayton?
Jim
Follow-up from the above post.
The Roadmaster made it to Dayton...shout out to our "Mule", PJ Lenihan for driving to Jim's house to pick it up.
I brought the car home with me (PJ caught a ride with one of the Blackwoods to retrieve his car in Florence).
The Roadmaster drove flawlessly throughout the 220 mile trek to Illinois.
The EPS is a definite plus.
The a/c is nice....but I agree with PJ in that we need a little more ducting to the driver's side of the cockpit.
I got about 18 mpg (based on the car's odometer, which I have not verified against a GPS).
Oil pressure, operating temp, and charging system was all good.
There is a bit of a shimmy in the wheel.
I will be campaigning the car at local Cars & Coffee, street rod shows, and will be driving it to East Peoria, IL to a........Fiero National....to let them see where all of their seats are going. If I still have the car in SEeptember, I would consider taking it up to Chicago to the all-Brit show and down to St.Louis to their all-Brit show.
Stay tuned.
6-22-2013.jpg
Rick, also it might be worth taking in the GS Nationals in Bowling Green, KY this fall. It was quite a lot of fun when Matt and I took it down there, and they really did like it:
http://www.gsnationals.com/
I'm not saying take it on the dragstrip, but if you wanted to they'd be fine with it.
Jim
Don't take it down the dragstrip. The timeslip will be embarrassingly slooow for a car that looks like that. NO ONE will be impressed.
Took the Roadmaster to a local Cars & Coffee this morning....low turnout due to intermittent sprinkles....but still a good time.
The Roadmaster drew a crowd most of the morning. Also had several children sit behind the wheel.
Pics?
Look on my FB page. It's a pain in the arse to resize every pic prior to posting here.
I didn't take too many.
I put about 200 miles on the Roadmaster on Saturday.
Took it to Peoria, IL to.........a National Fiero Meet.
Got a lot of looks and answered a lot of questions.
Plan on taking it to Cars & Coffee in Champaign, IL on Saturday morning and to "Motor Muster" at Frasca Field in Urbana, IL later Saturday morning/afternoon.
The car is running well....and getting about 17mpg combined mileage.
I found the missing
a/c eyeball outlet vents and some left over hose, to do a little additional air flow to the drivers face for RM
It's all boxed up and ready to drop off for delivery to Rick
Are there any plans to bring RM yo MG 2019?
I'm unable to help with this as I'll be leading a group from NC along with Dick Lunney.
We'll do another one of our leisurely sightseeing road trips to and from Traverse City MI
Where is MG 2019?
Traverse City, MI
https://mg2019.regfox.com/mg-2019-traverse-city
As we approach cold weather and the year's end the MG-Roadmaster has come home to roost, that is to say it is once more sitting in my shop. Matthew and I went to Rick's and brought it here just before the last warm days and we had it out to the local watering hole for the Sunday get together, where it drew the usual attention.
Aside from a few pretty minor issues the car is as good as it's ever been. It acquired a mouse for awhile but is airing out nicely and I don't expect that to be any sort of an issue. Ran and drove great.
We do have a few maintenance issues. The front lugs and nuts need to be swapped out from 7/16 to 1/2" which I think we may be able to do on the car one at a time. It's been suggested we go over it and check the tightness of all fasteners and I think that is a good idea. Also my last trip to the pick-n-pull I picked up a Ford cruise control and control module for almost no money and think that should go in.
We've talked about having another Roadmaster Weekend. I'm just guessing it'll be sometime in the dead of winter before that can happen but it's definitely a possibility. For those who have never participated these are generally small groups of dedicated friends who gather here to socialize and work on the car, bunking in our downstairs suite which depending on the number may mean a real bed or may mean an inflatabed brought from home, but we've never had to kick anybody out yet. If there's enough interest we'll do it again.
At present we do not know who will get to take custody of the car going into the new year so if you are a past participant in the project and are interested let us know. Your responsibilities are to attract as much good publicity as you can, particularly among the younger folks, keep it in a locked space, and pass it on in as good of condition as you found it. Needless to say this means you don't just turn over the keys to the local demented teenager but accompanied drives are something we've all done so use your best judgement there. Above all else enjoy it. It is a unique experience that will make you a believer in the concept.
Jim
I'm now guessing that the reason the spare needed to be used on the front rather than the rear is due to the wheel studs?
I think it's a Chevy wheel on the spare.
If this is the problem, can we adapt the Chevy wheel to the larger diameter studs on front....if not, remember that we do have a spare Jaguar rim that I accepted as a donation a couple of years ago.
I'm not sold on adding cruise control until all of the "growing pains' have been sorted out, especially the vibration. I've driven the car hundreds of miles at a time (longest run was from St.Joseph, IL up to Traverse City, MI) and did not miss cruise control one iota.
The addition of EPS was a good idea....
Thanks Rick.
I just got back from a trip to Milton WV, round trip about 375-400 miles. No big deal on the cruise but I did grab one from the pick-n-pull. I had a store credit and got the Halloween discount. About $20, no charge to BADASS. The car's got serious legs. It smooths out at about 75 and starts to hit it's stride around 80. By 90 it's doing almost 2000rpm and beginning to wake up. I'm usually more comfortable around the mid 70's because of cops but once we fix that wobble it'll be lots better on secondary roads. One of the best things about cruise is that it helps you avoid tickets by setting a safe speed. Running without it can be more exciting, but mainly because it's also more risky. Just a choice really but having the choice could be a good thing.
Anyway I think the wobble is priority one. Sounds like the spare is second. Then speedo cable, oil change, and regular maintenance, things like that. Should be sometime early next year. There is a pretty good chance I'll be taking it to the WVBCC Christmas party in a couple of weeks.
Jim
Tomorrow I'll head back to WV, pick up Dan and Monday we head to Logoff, SC to Steve's place where we will spend a few days doing some annual maintenance. I've done a couple items in preparation for the trip. Installed the new oil dipstick that Rick purchased, turned out to be fairly simple once I bent the tube enough to get a straight shot at the hole in the block. Then I just drove it in with a wooden mallet until the brazed washer seated against the block. Admittedly that was a long way but when I shoved in the dipstick it read 1-1/2q low. At least now we have the right dipstick. We'll verify the level when we do an oil change. I added oil of course.
The larger task, one that started out fairly simple, was the stud change on the front hubs. That led to pulling the brakes and hubs, then because the studs were just enough oversized to crack the hub, I had to order new hub/rotors, then the outer bearing bores had to be deepened and the inner spacers cut down (.100 on each), then the outer bearings didn't fit (larger diameter) and one of the inners showed pitting, so new bearings and seals and then the dust caps were too large. So back in the lathe for another counterbore to match the MGB dust caps. I also bought a set of lug seat inserts to convert the wheels to tapered seats. Half of those went great, the other half needed locktite. And then after going through my lug nut bin I had to go get two packages to match what I had. Finally got that done and torqued, 1/2" lugs all the way around now. Went for a test drive. Still a little shimmy but it is better than it was. I think if we can find a lug-centric balancer where the wheels are bolted to the machine that may finish the job.
Time to pack.
Jim
Tire time again, we have cords showing on the RR tire. We need to get a new pair to put on the rear. The fronts are pretty fresh.
I'd like to present a suggestion: Since we've gone to cheap tires is there really any valid excuse to continue using staggered tire sizes? We have 215/45-17 on the front and 245s on the rear. I'd like to suggest that we put 215's all around by replacing the 245s with the same thing that is on the front. The effect on the speedometer will be about 3% so negligible and I have the set of gears for correction if needed. This would also let us rotate the tires when and if it could help, and save us some money by only replacing them when they are worn out. For instance the LR tire still has acceptable tread. We could replace only one tire of course, with the existing size and brand.
The rubber compound of the Falken tires isn't great. To be blunt, wet performance sucks.We could consider a comparably priced tire with better rubber since they are going on the rear. Last time we changed brands we had the better tires on the front which really wasn't safe as it made the car tail happy. I'd like to get some input here on possible candidates for replacements, I really feel we can improve on the Falkens.
In other news, I put the car on the lift and repaired the exhaust leak which was at the slip joint on the right side. I'm pretty sure it'll stay put this time, and I got the pipe tucked up a little higher. Overall it is running just fine and doesn't really need anything. I did check if the AC was working and it is not. Someone who is good at finding leaks needs to go over it sometime. I don't see much point in putting more freon in until late spring.
I also have a complete Ford cruise control unit we could install at some point when we do another Roadmaster Weekend. Post Covid.
Jim
Other than staggered looks way cool? ;)
Is the posi not working?
I'm not sure it's really enough to notice.
Far as I know the posi is working fine but I haven't spun a wheel on that car in years so I'm not in a position to say for sure. I know it isn't set up as tight as mine is and they do wear a bit over time but I would expect it to still do the job. And the fact that it doesn't spin easily says it's probably working.
There are two things that can contribute to right side wear. Even with the posi more power will be applied to the right side, which is another reason to rotate the tires. Secondly the alignment may be a slight bit off, causing more inside wear.
Jim
I f we use non-directional tires, we can flip 'em side to side.
OK, how about this question, if it was your car and hadn't had staggered tires on it before would you stagger the tires?
But my question really had to do with the brand chosen. Is there a better choice than Falken for the same money?
Jim
I am on my 3rd set of Falkens. :)
I would think the parameters for tire choice would be different for my crt, though. The Roadmaster really should wear Grand Touring tires. Not necessarily an All-Season. A Grand Touring Summer would be fine. Just stay out of the snow & ice.
Oops. In the 215/45-17, Tire rack shows only one Grand Touring Summer & 27 Grand Touring All-Season.
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireSearchResults.jsp?zip-code=37660&width=215/&ratio=45&diameter=17&rearWidth=215/&rearRatio=55&rearDiameter=17
How wide are those Jag wheels?
Hey guys, I'm running Mickey Thompson Street Comps. On the way home from Wytheville I ran through the worst rainstorm I can ever remember, and these tires were awesome. My car has never been this stable in the rain. Don't know how the price compares to Falken.
Glad you made it thru that, Phil. Wide tires can be very scary in standing water.
OK I made a mistake there, they aren't Falcon they are Fuzion. Totally different tire.
Jim
What size are the back tires 245/40-17 or 245/45-17? And the wheels are 17x?
245/45-17
I think the wheels are about 8" wide.
Apparently we used to have 225 on the front.
QuoteJaguar XK-8 (1997-1999) 17" x 8" aluminum wheels. Continental "Extreme Contact DWS Tuned" tires (225/45 ZR17 front, 245/45 ZR17 rear)."
How about these?
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=BFGoodrich&tireModel=g-Force+COMP-2+A%2FS+PLUS&partnum=145WR7GFC2ASPXL&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes
You are right about the 225s but the fuzions were not available in that size and they rubbed a little. I think it was the headlight buckets they hit. Those were enlarged for the aftermarket headlights.
Those look like really good tires at a pretty reasonable price.
Jim
The Conti DWS tires are good tries and perform well. I have them on my XK8. Front tires have 35K on them now. Probably still 40% left. The DSW.( Dry,Wet, Snow) still shows on the tread. When one disappears, that particular condition is diminished. They are reasonably priced, I use a particular sales guy at Discount Tire
Direct. They match E-Bays best price for me. Free S&H also.
I think that was what was on it to start with, but I'm not certain.
A not-directional tread would probably be best, that way we could rotate the tires. Don't know how good the goodrich tires would be if run backwards, probably still better than the fuzions.
Jim
Pretty sure that the BFGoodrich G-Force Comp-2 A/S is what I picked for my dad's Miata. He wanted to be able to drive it year round & it do well in the rain. He likes them. His last set of whatevers were scary in the rain.
I have run directionals backwards once they were worn down about half way.
Running them backwards in the dry, of course, or in a light rain at moderate speeds will not be an issue. Higher speeds with more water on the road can/will cause hydroplaning.
I have Goodrich G-Force on one end of my car but haven't driven it in the rain yet and haven't really driven it hard either yet. Think I might have Falkens on the other end. I'm not sure they are designed for mileage but as much use as the Roadmaster has been getting lately they may age out first.
Jim
The Continental DWS costs $127.99
The Goodyear G-Force 2A is $113.99
So, a difference of $24. (Tire Rack prices)
The DWS does not appear to be directional but is not perfectly symetrical either.
According to the spider charts the 2A outperforms the DWS in every category. However they are very close in the test results charts, the edge is so slight it could easily be attributed to the tests being run on different days, This is test track data and does not include wear and gas mileage.
The UTQG on the DWS is 560 AA A
on the G-Force it is 400 A A
Kind of a toss up. I think I'd go with the DWS just because of the non-directional tread and being able to rotate the tires. That and the treadwear numbers. But what do you guys think?
JIm
What do you guys think? The Continentals or the G-Force?
Jim
I like the Conti, but it looks directional to me.
Tire Rack sez that the Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06 is not directional and that the g-Force Comp-2 A/S PLUS is directional.
I vote for the Conti.
OK, we got 2 votes for the Conti. Anybody else?
Jim
As previously noted, Conti. They are asymmetrical but not directional as noted on google. Happy Camper!
Conti.
I'm a little late to the party, did all the good looking girls leave?
I'll throw my two bits down on the Conti's.
Hey, great to hear from you Fred!
We put the Conti's on the rear. When we wear out the fronts I suggest we put them on there too.
Jim
We just finished out another Roadmaster Weekend here at Blackwood Labs, and it was a pretty good gathering as we had 9 of us in attendance. Steve D and Dan showed up on Thursday and by Saturday the rest had trickled in. Carl, Mike Moore, Matthew, Rick, Mike Maloney, and Denny. Everyone contributed to the effort and we made a lot of progress.
Aligning the rear axle was the the major item on the agenda but we also had to change the oil and as we discovered on a parts run, re-mount the radiator fan. Luckily it was not seriously damaged in the discovery.
The operation was a success to the satisfaction of all present and we took the axle from a significant toed out condition to a light toe-in. We also set the ride height and put the camber angle to zero, and replaced the delrin bushings in the uprights with timken bearings. I'll test drive it this week after I've had the chance to re-check the lug nut torque.
Rick brought the NOS wheel that was donated and took the worst bent wheel to the tire shop to have the wheel re-mounted and balanced so at this point we have one wheel which we should replace whenever we can find a straight one, and one with a slight bend that we can overlook. We fitted the steel tapered lug nut seats from the bent wheel so that we can use the tapered lug nuts.
Aside from that the car seems to be in good shape, starts easily and runs smoothly. No known issues at this time.
We would like it to appear at the meet in June, and if I have not resolved the tuning issues with my car by then I can certainly drive it if it is still here. Steve D has asked to take it for a couple weeks but we haven't discussed when that will be.
Some of the guys took pictures. If you would be so kind as to share them here it would be appreciated I'm sure. I understand some of them are on facebook and perhaps other social media.
Jim
Would you believe PJ would let a one-armed man drive the Roadmaster at the British V8 meet?
The hitch was, I had to agree to gas it up. Nice trick, PJ.
IMG_2257.jpeg
Can't see the pic John?
Update on the MG-Roadmaster status: After the BritishV8 meet Steve DeGroat and I re-sealed the AC compressor, replaced the condenser, and got the AC system working the best it ever has. (44 degree air at the vent on an 80 degree day) We installed cruise control as well, but the engine developed a noise. Subsequent testing left us all puzzled and befuddled by the symptoms and then the engine would not crank. This week after more diagnostics I have discovered the problem and it looks like we will have to change the head gaskets due to hydrolock. So the car is down until we can schedule another Roadmaster work weekend. This might happen in the middle of September or could be October or later, but at least once that is done we will have good dependable AC and cruise.
Jim
Following the AC repair we developed head gasket issues and the car has sat while re have been sorting out what needs done and how we are to go about it. That is now pretty well settled and scheduled tentatively for next month here at Blackwood Labs.
The engine will come out of the car and go on a stand.
The heads will come off.
The crank will come out.
Pistons and rods will come out.
Crank will go in the lathe and the rear seal journal will be turned and polished to remove the OEM hash marks under the seal. Alternatively we could send it to the shop for that but I don't think it's necessary.
Higher compression pistons will be fitted to the rods.
Reassembly with all new gaskets
Reinstalled in the car.
You may wonder why the gaskets failed. The short answer is because when we went to assemble with the newly acquired aluminum heads we were out of money, as in broke. The engine had not been run with the iron heads and we opted to take a chance on the new head gaskets that had been used when it was assembled with the iron heads. We had a few leakage problems that were band-aided with radiator sealant but after 24K miles the crows came home to roost. So it was no fault of the block or heads and the surfaces should still be good. Lesson learned: Can't do that.
This level of disassembly is an opportunity to upgrade the engine to the pre-smog configuration by installing higher compression pistons.
So last night we began taking up a collection to pay for new pistons and rings. TA Performance has good cast 10:1 pistons with rings on the shelf in the correct oversize for $461 and we are a little past halfway to that goal. Any excess will go into the MG-Roadmaster bank account for future needs. If you would like to contribute you can send money via check or paypal to Rick Ingram at Mowog1@aol.com
Thanks,
Jim
This is a non-profit promoting creativity among our teenagers.
I know I sent some in after this post and suspect some others have as well. What's the latest total Jim?
We'd have to get that from Rick but I do know that the purchase of the pistons and rings are covered. Weight of the pistons may be a little different though and if they are we should probably re-balance the crank. I would expect that to add something like $150 to the cost which I'm sure we can pay but just a few more bucks couldn't hurt. We'll get the total from Rick a week from today. We will weigh the pistons when we do the teardown and I should be able to get the weight spec on the new ones from TA.
Jim
Work party starts today!
I was hoping to be there...
I thought we did very well today getting the engine out and on the stand. No real surprises so far except I was kinda disappointed with the lock washers on the flywheel bolts and think we might just leave those off when it goes back together. We also had a bit of a struggle getting the radiator out so we might massage that area a bit to make things a little easier in the future. We also need to do some work on the dipstick tube and see if maybe we can come up with a better location. But everything has gone pretty smoothly. We'll pull the heads off tomorrow and take some measurements, maybe get the pistons on order.
Jim
Now that the work session is over I'll do my best on an update. Some good news and some bad but overall not exactly what we expected. First off, the bores look pretty good with no wear but #4 had some scuffing at the front of the cylinder and I question just how well the rings had seated due to some uneven looking places. I'm pretty sure those were chromed rings and that may not be the best choice next time. We took measurements and determined that this engine had a static compression ratio of 9.13:1 which is really quite acceptable, and we don't feel that alone would justify a piston swap. The cam is a Crower dual pattern # 52241, it has a valve lift of .514/.525 and duration @.050 of 230/236 with 112 separation. May not be ideal for us but not bad. Probably not off enough from ideal to justify a cam change. The bearings were badly worn, down into the copper with one rod bearing particularly bad but the crank journals were not scored. Cam bearings look just fine. Head gasket leakage was visible in places where the radiator sealant had built up on the block but no visible damage to either block or heads. We suspect small quantities of antifreeze leaking into the crankcase over time caused the bearing wear.
Dan will be delivering the block, heads and piston/rod assy's to the shop later today and I plan to call Dustin to let him know what we want done. After his initial cleaning and inspection we will decide how best to proceed. We will need to buy rod and main bearings and new rings of course. We have $740 in donations received for the piston upgrade.
Now, since those donations were for the specific purpose of buying new pistons, I need to offer to refund that money to anyone who does not want it used for bearings rings, and machine work instead. If you fall into that category please contact me and I'll send your donation back. Otherwise we will use it to refresh the engine. I figure the bearings and rings will eat up over half of it and Dustin's services will easily eat the rest and very likely more besides. So what I'm saying is that anybody else who would like to contribute would be very welcome.
I expect charges for cleaning, inspection, crank grinding, finish hone, and possibly resizing rods, and skimming the heads. The #4 cylinder is going to be a judgement call. The scuff marks are just barely deep enough to catch a fingernail but you can feel them. There are a couple ways we can deal with them. Cheapest and easiest is a finish hone that leaves visible marks. The engine wasn't burning oil and we wouldn't lose any substantial amount of compression so performance wouldn't be affected. Next step is if we could get the same piston .050" over and hone to that size in that cylinder only, which may be a possibility. (The current pistons are .040" over) I think the crank was 10/20 undersized so we'll just have to wait and see whether we can reuse it or not and still get the required clearances. I will know more in about a week.
Jim
That cam should have more compression. IMO, it is two or three sizes too big. A 52238 or 52239 would be much better for our use. On the other hand, if in good shape...
I hope those TA heads do not need to be skimmed. Maybe the block needs a slight decking? A .5-.75 compression bump would be good for the cam we have.
Update. The engine is back together, in the car and has been on a short test drive. We had a few issues along the way, a few more parts needed, and our expenses have run about $125 short of donations which was more than I'd hoped for but at least we are still in the black on this refresh. Machine shop costs including main, rod and cam bearings and rings was a very reasonable $845. Mains alone were about $130. Unplanned expenses included 2 oil & filter changes with Lucas additive, synchromesh oil, antifreeze, alumablast paint, shifter boot, oil sender, dipstick etc. It adds up so in total we spent around $1600, part of which was for gaskets, seals, cam and lifters. I think we did pretty good.
Dan and Steve were here for a couple of days during which we assembled the engine, put it in the car, reinstalled all the major parts and ordered parts. I got to finish it up afterwards, which has taken a few days.
My impression after the first drive is that maybe there's a cylinder or two not firing. Definitely down on power and feels like a miss. Oddly the exhaust ports on the off side are warmer than the ones on the driver's. I'll be looking a little closer at the plug wires since we had those off and maybe that will be the problem. Indications are that the rings seated almost immediately and starting is just like it was before. Main seals are doing fine both front and rear and so far it's all pretty dry underneath. Hopefully it'll stay that way.
Jim
Great news Jim.. Thanks to Dan, Steve and you.
Jim, Dan, & Steve - thanks for getting it this far! Looking forward to hearing what's up with the power levels. Hopefully just bad plug wires or not in the right order.
Jim, Dan, & Steve - thanks for getting it this far! Looking forward to hearing what's up with the power levels. Hopefully just bad plug wires or not in the right order.
It had 1 wire that had pulled out of the boot. I re-crimped the end and it's fine. I've been driving the car for the last couple of days, got probably 25-30 miles on it now.How does it compare to before? Well it's easier to start and easier to drive (not that that was a goal or anything). I no longer give it any gas when I let out the clutch, just make it a 2 step process. Let the clutch out, then give it gas. It is extremely smooth and controllable off idle. Edith could drive this car easily, and she doesn't do stick. As for the power, it's there. I'm not sure if there is as much as before or not, my guess is probably not but we're still in the break-in stage so who knows? I don't think we could tell without a dyno and since we never really got a satisfactory dyno pull out of it before we could only compare it to the Texas dyno pull which was shut down while the power was still going up. But, it does have "enough" power. It'll be fine.
Be interesting to see how it does on gas mileage.
I've had to back off the idle speed screw once already and need to do it again I think. I take that as a good sign. Oil pressure is above the midway mark always. BTW that gage is inaccurate by at least 5psi reading low. We've got about 45psi or more at warm idle and the pressure relief opens about 75. Anyway as long as it's in the upper hemisphere, no worries.
The horn doesn't work, cruise control doesn't work, and the swaybar contacts the tires on a hard turn (like when parking). But for now I'm working on my bus. Then I need to get my car on the lift to adjust the emergency brakes and put the summer tires back on. After all that, the oil in the RM will need changed before the meet, hopefully I can get a couple hundred miles on it by then and while it's on the lift for that I'll look at bending the ends of the swaybar. It now has a 1" bar, 5/8" on rear with adjustable linkage and I did the skidpad thing in the church lot and the handling is very nicely balanced. I doubt I'll have time to troubleshoot the cruise but maybe I can look at the horn.
Jim
Jim, what cam did you go with?
Stock grind from Melling.
Driving this car and mine back-to-back it's clear it needs the Monroe Load Levelers on the rear so I ordered a set from Amazon. $91.99 which leaves $35.13 of the contributed funds. I hope to get those installed before the BV8 meet.
The horn relay clicks so it's probably the horn connection. I'll take a look at that while I have the car on the lift. Currently have 105 miles on the engine refresh and all is well. Backed out the idle screw and now it idles so slow it doesn't even register on the tach. But it seems a comfortable speed. Tweaking the swaybar has now become the priority item. My car comes off the lift today so I'll see what I can do about that.
Jim
Jim, Are you replacing the coilovers or using the Load Leveler's as additional shocks?
Adding them. It means dialing back the springs on the coilovers to get the right ride height, I set it so the wheel flange is zeroed out vertically and then the ride height is adjusted with the axle shims. In this case since we already set that it just means bringing it back to vertical with the spring adjusters. In the end we get a stiffer spring rate and stiffer shocks both of which are good. I will TRY this time to measure the spring rate of the load levelers before I put them on and report back here. Amazon generally delivers within a couple days.
I put the car on the lift today. The swaybar links were too long making the ends of the bar hit the rims. I had a couple of 1/2" stud heim joints on the shelf so went to Menards and got matching pieces and 7/16" grade 8 bolts then came back and made a couple of adapters to match the bolts to the 1/2" heims and bolted it all up. Looks like it'll be OK now. We had some oil leaking out, looks like a valve cover so I inspected the gasket and tightened them down. Slight mismatch on the holes, so I fixed that too. Re-tightened the headers again, didn't get much there which is good. Sprayed everything down to wash off the oil. No leakage from the front or rear seals, transmission, or oil pump but both valve covers were leaking. Hopefully that is fixed now. Think I'll go out and have a look at the horns. The gas I sprayed it with should have dried up by now.
Jim
Curse You Max Fulton!!!!
(Damned, damned. double damned Bullet Connectors!!)
Horn works now.
Jim ;-]
Pretty sure those connectors came with the wiring harness.
It was an AAW wiring harness. Max added the bullets. Tried to tell him they were a bad idea but he just wouldn't listen.
Jim
There are bullet connectors all over most MGBs.
Each bullet connector represents at least 5 and up to 18 failure points. They are exposed to an oxidizer at best and oxidizers plus corrosives if outside the cockpit. If under the bumper like this one was, add road salt and weather. In those conditions it is guaranteed to fail. The only question is how long it takes. Scatter a few of those around the car and your brand new AAW harness is meaningless after the first few years. I won't have them in my car. My electrical problems have plummeted and when they do occur have easily determined causes. I use gas sealed connectors exclusively and have never had one fail. You'll never be able to say that for bullet connectors unless they are brand new. There is a reason they are no longer used in new cars. Because they are BAD! Let oxygen get to your conductors and sooner or later they will no longer carry signals. That's just simple chemistry. But hey, we are all entitled to believe what we want, whether it has any basis in fact or not.
I've been working on the cruise control. This is the Ford system. As it turns out there are at least three distinct variants, distinguishable by the connector on the actuator module. There are two different connector bodies, an older larger rectangular one and a later smaller oval one. Of the rectangular one there are at least 3 variants and you can tell them apart by the holes that are blanked out. I like the one used in my Lincoln Blackwood truck because it's already installed there and in my roadster and I can swap parts to troubleshoot so I installed that one in the RM but the switch module is not illuminated. OTOH the wiring seems a little easier to sort out. It has pins 1, 2 and 8 blanked out. There is also one with 3, 4 and 8 blanked out and the other one has pins 3 and 8 blanked out and as you can see has an extra wire to deal with, also multiple speed signal inputs, all of which may not be necessary.
All the switch modules so far use 4 pins but do not work the same so neither the actuators or the switch modules are interchangeable between systems. So while you can get your parts off different cars you need to be sure the actuator and switch module are compatible by checking the actuator connector. For instance in the older version (90's and early 2000's) the ON switch shorts the switch leads whereas the Focus version (~2008) reduces resistance from about 4500 ohms to 2500 ohms to switch on. I don't know why this was done, but they are not compatible. As the system becomes more complex it gets harder to figure out and less likely to work without all it's original connections into the rest of the system. I know the older system works. I have reason to believe the next one can. Beyond that I'm not willing to say at this time. The oval connector one has 6 wires.
In conjunction with replacing the switch module with the earlier style in the RM and getting that up and running I'm replacing the custom console switch panel in my car with a standard switch module in the ashtray so it is in a more convenient location. My switch panel uses a 60 ohm resistor on a green switched power lead that feeds the ON switch where this feed comes via the horn button clock spring in the Ford module so that's a wrinkle I'm sorting out. That 3rd feed is needed, I just have to be sure it's connected to the right pin. The resistor however may not be needed. That is the resistance of the horn relay coil that the power comes through. More on that later.
Also many of the wheel balance weights have been thrown off. On a pair of my wheels I was successful in restoring balance by replacing the missing weights (identified by the residual 2 sided tape), covering the weights with speed tape and restoring the wheel balance. On the RM it is a bit more difficult as there are residual tapes from multiple balancing operations but I will do what I can with them. Worst case we may need to rebalance the wheels.
Jim
Still no joy on the cruise but I may fix that today. The question of that 50 ohm resistor has come up.
Cleaned the inside of the wheels (a very dirty and thankless job), added weights where it looked like they might have been and taped them. Here's a useful tip: Ever have trouble sticking the weights and the tape to the inside of the wheel after it's been cleaned? Try painting the area you want to stick to with contact cement. Works great. I used the solvent based type, not sure it'd work with the water based.
Having sealed the valve covers better I now see oil being deposited around the oil filler cap. Might need to review the PVC system.
Jim
Cruise: The 60 ohm inline resistor in the "ON" line is not needed. I tested the identical system in my car and it works fine without it. Same actuator, same switch module, same wiring. Problem may be in the speed signal. I think we are taking that off the MegaJolt controller. On my car it came from the GM engine controller. That may need some tweaking.
Jim
Ran the full battery of tests on the cruise, it all looks good but then.... you know, it's funny how it won't work unless the cable is connected to the carb. All good now.
I'm still seeing a little oil deposited on the valve cover but maybe that will go away after the engine is run in a bit, and the oil has been changed as it is a little overfilled.
It just started a lean spit at very light throttle so I'll reset the fuel pressure regulator and see what that does. Definitely fuel related though.
But next I need to mix up some silicone rubber to pour into the ash trays on both cars and finish out the job on the cruise.
Got about 140 miles on the clock.
Jim
"I need to mix up some silicone rubber to pour into the ash trays on both cars "
??
I should be posting some photos later today, time permitting.
The Monroe load levelers came in yesterday, I'm working up a jig to measure the spring rate then those need to go on.
Jim
Are you measuring the springs or the shocks Jim?
I just use my hydraulic press, a digital bath scale with a piece of 3/4 plywood glued onto it, and a tape measure.
I have a shock stud bolted onto the cross bar for the ram and a 2x4 with a hole bored into it screwed to the plywood on the scale.
I use it mostly for measuring gas shocks and air springs. Never thought about load levelers.
Cheers
Fred
Almost exactly my setup Fred. Looks like the spring rate is 60lbs/in which stiffens up the coilovers nicely and the second shock is also very helpful. But far too light to use 4 coilovers plus there would be no height adjustment.
Here are the ash trays
IMG_0001.JPG
IMG_0007.JPG
The load levelers are mounted and I'm set to adjust the height tomorrow, very much like we did the weekend we set the toe-in.
Fuel pressure is at 7.5psi which is right for Rochester Quadrajets. About the limit of what they will take without flooding.
I've tweaked the advance map and will upload that tomorrow to take care of that low speed spit. Wasn't that smooth of a map anyway. I had to pull several degrees out in the sub 1500rpm range. Apparently the stock cam is more efficient at filling the cylinders at those speeds.
That should be pretty much everything. If I get the chance before go time I may put the AC gages on and check the subcool and superheat just to fine tune the charge.
Oh, and maybe I mentioned I replaced the breather on the intake with a tube up into the air cleaner housing, I added a flame trap to the tube. I'll try to get a few more miles on it and then change the oil and filter.
The number for the load levelers is Monroe 58575
Jim
"Fuel pressure is at 7.5psi "
Keep an eye on it. That is on the high side. 6-7psi would be fine.
Jim, How about a pic of the load levelers installed?
We've been running 7.5psi for the last couple of years and it's been fine so I didn't see any need to change it.
Here are a couple of shots of my car, it's identical to the Roadmaster loadleveler setup.
Jim
IMG_0011.JPG
IMG_0012.JPG
Jim, Thanks!
We ran into a small issue, but it means the car won't be making it to Wytheville next week, just a minor little problem with a couple of cam lobes going round. Fortunately the vendor is sending us a new replacement cam and the lifters and gaskets won't be a tremendous expense but there's the small matter of labor time and scheduling to deal with so the car may not be ready for another couple of weeks or so. Disappointing but there it is. Sometimes flat tappet cams just fail and this time we got to play the part of the victim.
The ultimate solution of course is to convert to a roller cam but those don't come cheap and for a big block Buick I think the cost wouldn't be far south of a grand and not likely to be something we would consider. (At least they are available.) But the upside if we did would be the ability to use just about any generic oil in the engine and not worry about wiping out another cam. That *almost* makes it worthwhile, and for many of us is a pretty good argument when building a new engine. I certainly bought into it on my stroker 300.
Anyway, we'll have the car up and running pretty soon and get it back out on tour. Hopefully we won't have any problems with the next one.
Jim
Steve came up last weekend and we did the cam swap on the car and a few other things. Ken Nicks bought a set of Melling lifters to match the cam so that all the parts came from the same manufacturer.
We pulled the pan and then discovered it was a great challenge to get it out of the car and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I had removed the pan with the engine in the car last time. In retrospect I think I have it figured out. The confusing part is that we put the car on the lift to remove the engine for the refresh and Dan asked me where I wanted him to put the driveshaft, Steve and I both remember that clearly. So we thought the transmission must have still been in the car. I think now that we were mistaken about that. I think I had simply shoved the driveshaft back above the differential, and had removed the transmission, bellhousing and flywheel and that was why I was able to get the pan out before we pulled the engine. Maybe If I had read back in these notes I'd have found that. But no matter. We did manage to make extra work for ourselves but as Ken noted, we now know that the engine is nicely cleaned out inside.
As it turned out the cam wasn't bad. Well let me say maybe it isn't bad since nobody has measured it and he is remarkably unreliable about these things. We did find a couple of collapsed lifters and those would have produced the same symptoms. We briefly considered just swapping in the new lifters but any time you replace a lifter you take a chance that it will wipe out the cam lobe so we chose the surer path of replacing all those parts. We treated the cam lobes with some of my ever dwindling supply of unobtanium (concentrated Molybdium Disulfide engine assembly lube) and let that soak in, followed by comp cams white cam lube and then Melling red assembly lube on the lifters, and finally a pint of Lucas flat tappet oil additive in the crankcase, and precharged the oil supply. On startup we held 2K for 15 minutes and then went on a 45 minute road test. There were some minor oil leaks, one at the front of the pan which I think I've taken care of, and the valve covers of course. I'll tackle those tomorrow, it requires draining the coolant down enough to remove the top hose.
We replaced the water pump. It was wobbly and undoubtedly was the source of the noise we had been hearing. Odd that it didn't leak though. We found that we cannot use the water pump for the AC application as it is too long, it has to be the non-AC one. We also noticed the coil wire for plug #1 shorting to ground so we'll need to keep an eye on that. A set of custom plug wires may be in our future eventually and we will need help with that because of the EDIS coils. A set of usable wires seem to be hard to find for some reason. We found a Mr Gasket 710 at O'Reilly's that we could slightly trim and use to plug the front bung hole in the rocker cover so no more wrestling with the PCV cap at the rear when adding oil. And, Steve trashed the dipstick, so I had to make a new one. Again. This is getting to be a habit that I don't very much care for. And I think Steve has maybe earned a new Spurious Name.
Ken also donated a new Edelbrock carb but we used the old Qjet for the break-in as it was a known quantity. Should be able to fit the new one sometime in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to put some miles on the car, looking for any potential issues and maybe by the next Happy Hour we'll be ready to discuss getting it back out on tour. In the meantime I'm going to enjoy driving it and comparing it to my roadster. Both are fun cars to drive but for very different reasons.
Jim
Adjusted the AC charge yesterday and improved the performance.
A few weeks back we made a change over from R134a to R290 refrigerant. For those not in the know, that's propane which is a far superior refrigerant to r134, has larger molecules, and isn't as prone to leaking out of the system.
At any rate it was working well with a minimal charge so I adjusted it upwards to see what improvement I could get and wow! Not what I was expecting at all. With head pressure around 250psi (r134 can run up to 350+) and 20-30 on the suction side I was getting 20 degree air out of the vents with the fan on high and the evaporator thermostat was cutting out the compressor occasionally with it cranked all the way to cold. Superheat/subcool numbers were high, in the 30/60 range indicating the need for even more refrigerant but with those vent temps I just didn't feel like pushing it right then. If it turns out to have an issue with freezing up I'll try another 25psi but I don't think there's any rush.
I may be able to swap out the carb next week.
Jim
Been awhile.
The 750 Edelbrock carb was a nice upgrade from the old Quadrajet. It worked pretty darn good right out of the box. Needs just a slight tweaking.
Max Fulton even managed 23 mpg on the trip back to Florence, KY for the V8 meet in Monticello, IL!
For those of you who haven't yet heard, in September we had a tree fall on the MGB-Roadmaster, damaging the roof and the rear hatch. We have settled with the insurance company and have decided as a group to alter the direction of the non-profit and will be selling the car. It will be sold under a Salvage title and we are asking $8,000 for the car but greatly prefer to sell it to someone who will repair it and remain within the community that built it. This represents a very good opportunity for someone with body-working skills to own an extremely nice GT with historic significance, at a very low cost of entry.
The damage: No glass was broken but the rear hatch no longer seals and is more easily replaced than repaired. We do have access from at least three sources to the needed parts available from Vendors who are interested in seeing the car get repaired and remain within the community so that it can appear at future meets, and can accommodate the new owner accordingly. None of the three have stated their terms but it would be reasonable to suspect they might be quite favorable. We will pass that information along. The roof is rather wrinkly on the driver's side (the tree fell lengthwise) and may or may not be repairable. It might be easier to replace it than to get it smooth again, or it may be repairable as-is. We have the paint codes. I will be posting photos.
The car: As is often the case, we had just finally after a 12 year long process gotten the car completely sorted out. The recently refreshed 455 Buick engine has never run so well and Max hit a high of 24mpg with 21 being the highway average. We had come to the point that the only improvement we could have made to the car might have been to install a better radio. In terms of handling, performance and overall driving it has peaked. It is the epitome of the Grand Touring car in every way and it is just a shame more members didn't get to enjoy it like that. It is equipped with electric power steering, cruise control (Ford), air conditioning, Mr. Mike's Fiero seats, a V8 T-5 in excellent nick, Jaguar IRS with the 2.88 gear ratio which works extremely well with the big block engine. We recently added sequential LED turn signals under the front bumper. In good condition and completely disregarding the history and historical significance of the car this would be at least a $30,000 vehicle and those things only add to the value. Spending $20K repairing the car would therefore be justified but for someone with skills the cost outlay to do so could be as little as a couple grand.
The future of the British American Deviant Sportscar Society (B.A.D.A.S.S.): It's really a bit early for full disclosure due to pending negotiations but rest assured that our non-profit is dedicated to the goal of benefiting the community as a whole, including all enthusiasts of the sport. To that end we have a definite objective in mind and are working towards a long term self sustaining result and upon reaching a commitment between interested parties will make full disclosure to the community at large. We aren't quite to that point yet but should be soon.
We reserve the right to negotiate with any and all persons of interest and make the best decision on behalf of the group in terms of who to sell the car to and under what conditions. Competitive bids will be considered but will not be determinitive. The timeline for closing the deal is indefinite but is not likely to happen until after this year's BritishV8 meet in Long Island. Until that time the car can be seen at my location in Florence, Kentucky. As the official and legally recognized acting Agent of the non-profit it is my responsibility to finalize the sale and conclude negotiations on behalf of the organization, in accordance with the instructions of the officers and members as a whole. So any members who hold an opposing opinion need to make their wishes known. This posting constitutes notice.
Jim
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