BritishV8 Forum

Bill ,You brushed on how you made your motor mounts on you page .
Would you mind going into that a bit more?

When I made the motor mounts for the engine I decided to make a mount that would bolt onto the chassis in the same location the original mounts did. I first cut two plates for the block sides from 1/4" steel stock, drilled them to the correct pattern and then bolted them on. Next I selected a rubber motor mount that was both reasonably compact and easily available at the local auto parts store should I ever have to replace one, in my case I chose the mount from a Chevy pickup from the late 60s or early 70s. I positioned that mount in line with the block plates and cut another 1/4" plate that would bolt on to the original mounting bolts and then the Chevy mount would bolt to that. Then I made top plates for the mounts and finally used steel tubing to bridge the gap between the top plates on the mounts and the block plates, just tacking those in place with the MIG then removing the mounts totally for final welding. The black and white photo is of the chassis adaptor plate with the Chevy mount in place and the color shot shows a portion of the steel tube bridging between the block and the motor mount.

Ok, I think I got that. Thank you. I would really like to start working on getting the motor in but as of now I still haven`t got my tranny so I`m kind of at a stand still with that.
I did "beef up " the trunk floor behind the gas tank With a piece of 1/4" x 6'' x 41'' long plate steel. I then took the rear leaf spring mounts off and cut a 4'' wide piece to strengthen everything up there as well (7"long).
The idea of the long strip is to protect the gas tank in case of a rear end collision and just to firm things up a bit and maybe help traction.
I did find that my lower door hinge post is rotted out so I guess I`ll have to do some thinking on how to get to that taken care of.

Mike, there's a pretty good photo section on the repair of a midget lower door post area on the Eclectic Motorworks web site. http://www.eclecticmotorworks.com/bmidget02.html  and  http://www.eclecticmotorworks.com/bmidget03.html It doesn't show the actual hinge area replaced, but at least you can get an idea of how to open the panels to gain access then weld in the repair section for the hinge and finish up with the outer skin as they did.  It's not a difficult repair but I'd suggest building a jig if possible to locate the hinge so when you cut away the old area you can accurately position the new metal before welding.

Bill, Do you think I can make up motor mounts and get the motor "fitted" in the car without the tranny and bell housing?I just would like to get something done while I have the time.(though I don`t have the trans and bell housing yet)
Also how long are 1/4" the plates you made that are bolted on the car?

Mike, I really don't think you could do the front mounts without the transmission in place. The angle that the engine sets at is so important and without the trans in place you would have a hard time determining the height in the rear so getting the front height right would be almost impossible. I'm afraid you really should wait until you have the entire package together before making mounts. The length of the front mount plates would really depend on exactly where you finally set the engine for crank pully clearance and what type of rubber mount you use.
I'm not sure how much experience you have with engine swaps, but the drive line angles are so important because you need to make sure the installed angle of the engine and transmission match the angle of the pinion flange on the rear axle in order for the drive shaft to be properly "phased" and prevent undue vibration. Checking the rear axle angle is something that you can do and should do now. All you need is a magnetic angle gauge which you can place on the pinion flange. You will probaby find that the pinion is angled upwards around 3 to 5 degrees from horizontal.  Write that down somewhere, when you get the new rear axle built up you'll have to match that angle at the pinion before you weld on the spring perches. That's the same angle you want to install your engine trans package, I usually measure that from the end of the transmission output shaft if I have room for the gauge there. You may want to postion the new engine at a slightly differnent angle, that's ok as long as it matches the rear pinion angle, so don't finish weld the rear spring perches until you get the engine permanently mounted and can verify the angles.

Got my trans yesterday.Going to drill the bell housing today and maybe try and get the motor sitting in the engine compartment.Wish me luck!

Hears a pitcher after cutting things away for the trans.I cut over to the other brace that runs length ways.
I should have plenty of room now but I still feel funny about messing with that support.

Mike, you either need to use a flash or get some more light on the car when you take photos. My old eyes aren't that good anymore. It appears that you have it right as far as I can tell.  You're right, there's no need to cut into the main frame members on either side of the trans, only trim out the center of the crossmember where the trans mount is and that's only to move it back 2". When you get the trans bolted to the engine and set in place you'll begin to see where there are extra bits on the trans case that can be trimmed off to increase clearance on the sides and keep the tunnel as narrow as possible for more leg room. Where the speedo comes out I made a bit of a metal "bubble" to cover that and made that panel removable so that I could get into the cable connection for maintenance and to hook it up.

Sorry about that Bill.Hears another pitcher of that.
Also hears what I came up with for the tranny mount.I started with a solid piece of aluminum bar stock. Drilled it and cut the "wedge" out on my band saw.The stock was just a tad small so I made a type of angled washer to fill things in.I think I may head down to the local steel mart a buy a piece wide enough and do it over so its right though

Mike, looks good. If you add a section of 2" square tubing just behind the original crossmember you will have plenty of strength in that area. Run it as wide as the ends of the main frame rails and weld it to the existing crossmember and the floor pan and it'll be fine. I can still jack my car up using the original jack points in the ends of the crossmember without any flex. Hang the rear mount from the new crossmember and things fit fine.

Thanks Bill,
  I picked up my 2" tubing today as well as the bell housing,Bolted everything together and stared to do a mock up of the engine in the car.Wow not a lot of room is there? The tranny slave cylinder bracket hits on the one side and the starter is hitting the other. I know you said you had to do a bit of pounding with the hammer on the starter side But would you mind repeating to me what you had to do to the other side to make everything work.
Ive  been looking at the thread on this whole slave cylinder thing and it gets a bit confusing.This guys got a new style camaro bell housing going into a mgb.That guys got a s-10 bell housing going into ...
I have an old style camaro bell housing.that is bolted  on a 2.8 out of a 85 S-10  and that is bolted on a T-5 that is also from a camaro.The whole thing is going into a Midget.(I know you know all this bill just thought I`d let everyone know) I just want to know how to get the job done for my situation.What type of slave cylinder,How to mount it ,ect

Still having a great time doing this project. I have a 70 mustang that I spent almost 10 years restoring that was a real labor of love as well.But as I tell my wife "Its good therapy"
Thanks again for all the help.I would be lost without it !

Mike, there's not much room for the clutch on a Midget installation. The S10 housing mounts the slave cylinder to the rear which would really be in serious clearance issue with the trans tunnel. You need to either use an HTOB (see Brian for that) or do as I did and modify your clutch release fork and mount a slave cylinder basically in the area of the left side starter ear on the bell housing. It's all described in the information on my car in the photo section. http://www.britishv8.org/MG/BillYoung.htm
I really didn't get a good photo of those parts when I was building the car, this is about the best I have, the slave cylinder isn't shown, just the mounting bracket. The bracket and slave are from a Spifire or 1500 series Midget.

That was a great help bill. Had a time cutting that 3/8 thick plate for the bell housing but we got it done.
Do you think any other slave cylinder would work.It  would just be nice to be able to go to a parts store and find one.Around where I live finding anything for an mg is quite a task.
I was wondering if I could take a stock cylinder from the camaro bell housing and just move it to where I would put the one from a 1500? Or maybe theirs another type that has the same type of mount that would work?
That HTOB looks like the way to go but it cost a little more than I can afford right now.If I new weather or not I could find one at the scrap yard that would work I mite go that way.I wonder If anything would "interchange"

Mike, I chose the 1500 Midget cylinder because I knew it would mount easily and also match up with the volume of the clutch master cylinder. The bracket might be a bit more difficult to find, but the slave cylinder itself is available from most of the MG sources such as VB, Moss, or others. I bought my last one from the Little British Car Company as they had the best price. As for the bracket, someone around has a late model Midget that's being parted out and can get you one. Check with guys on any of the MG Forums such as the MG Experience or British Car Forum. You might also contact Tony Barnhill ( the Autoist) http://www.theautoist.com/  He is both a Moss and VB reseller where you can save some bucks but also has a supply of used bits as well so might have the bracket. You could also use the slave off of a Triumph TR6 as I think Bill Spohn did on his car, but again a bracket will have to be fabricated. The original Camaro slave cylinder uses a strange type of tube fitting and I'm not sure how to adapt it to the MG system. I think that someone makes a conversion fitting for that, but I can't remember who right now.
Did you say 3/8" plate? That's heavy duty for sure, I used 3/16" plate and it worked fine. It's still a bit to cut out with the torch and then finish grind but it didn't take long.

Just found a  cylinder,mount and line on e-bay for 40.00 plus 10.00 for shipping.
I called the guy up and its on the way. What luck!
Yes it was 3/16. I used a porta-band as much as I could,Die grinder and whatever I had that would cut or grind.
I had the bell housing blasted today and cut away the stock mount on that..
I welded in the support today Hope I did a good enough  job  as I`m not much of a welder.
I may just set the motor and tranny in tomorrow so I c`an get some mounts made up.

Bill Is this about where the transmission should be sitting?
It makes things really tight up front by the steering rack/pulleys.
Hear are a couple of photos.
Where should I be on the height as far as the tranny goes?

That's about right Mike. Mine was a little further forward as I modified the lower pulley to a single V belt and it just barely clears the steering rack, just enough clearance to slip a 3/8" V belt through. At the rear it's looking pretty good, but I think I did notch the crossmember piece a bit to clear the transmission so I could get the tail shaft a bit lower. You can add the plate for the rear mount directly to the rear of the new crossmember and make a cut out in the pan for access to the bolts and you're in business.
When you start forming the sheet metal to cover the transmission  for extra clearance you'll want to take your saw and trim off the mounting tabs on the side of the main case. Don't forget to weld in some end caps on the crossmember pieces to keep water out to prevent corrosion and to add a bit of strength as well. At this point the rest is going to be pretty much up to your design as it does differ slightly from my car so my actual designs aren't going to be a straight swap, but the basics are still the same. Remember to leave yourself some access holes in the tranny tunnel to check the fluid levels etc. as well as to reach some bolts if necessary for maintenance. Easy to make small sheet metal covers for those and screw them on to retain the strength in that area.
As far as setting the angle, that needs to be taken into consideration along with the pinion angle to make sure the U joints run in phase and you don't get any bad vibrations. There was a post on that subject just a few days ago on the forum I think.

Again many thanks bill.Yes I think I will try and bring everything down a bit if I can.I also may try to notch that support.If I can get about an inch more it would make a few more things (like the motor mounts) easier to deal with.
Just a note, for my pulley I took the stock one from the 2.8 and drilled out the spot welds and with a bit of careful tapping and prying I was able to separate the two pieces.If you look close at the pulley you can see where they can be taken apart.
Lastly do you think it would be wise to cut away some of the side compartment on the starter side for access?

Mike, you should be able to tap the edge of the foot well in about a half inch with a big hammer to clear the starter, I didn't have to cut anything there, but if you want to make a bit more clearance then go for it and cut a bit away. You might have to as your engine seems to be fitting a bit farther back than mine. I did the lower crank pully a bit differently, wound up using a single pulley from some old T Bird I found in the salvage yard and drilled to fit. I think the water pump pulley on my car came from a Fiero as it was a bit closer fitting than the Camaro one. I just mixed and matched to get the engine as far forward as I could to keep from cutting into the heater support any more than I had to while still having clearance for the steering rack. Not the easiest way to go I guess, but it worked out ok and I still have the heater and battery in the stock locations. Every swap winds up with some things different from others, just do what you have to do in order that things fit and work for you.
One note, make sure you install a good new starter before you install the engine. I know from experience that once the engine is in place you can't remove the starter mounting bolts so a bad starter either means an engine pull or rebuilding the starter with the nose housing still on the engine. That's doable, I've done it three times now, but I should have installed a new one from the start.

Bill when you cut your tunnel did you go back past the E-brake handle?I have the transmission sitting about where I think it should be Just seems a bit high.The u-joint is really close to the tunnel.
Think I got the mount figured out though, I`m just going to weld a plate on the floor and the back side of the new support and run the transmission mount bolt right threw the floor.

No, I didn't have to go back that far. I did cut an access hole in the top of the tunnel so I could get to the front U-joint and secured it with about a dozen sheet metal screws. The ashtray now mounts directly on the top of that panel so you can get an idea of it's position in the photos. The clearance is tight with the larger Chevy u-joint, but remember it really won't move around much if the motor mounts are in good condition. You actually removed a lot more of the original tunnel than I did, I left about a 2" section from the floor up all around and built up from there,

Made my motor mounts over the last couple days.I used transmission mounts from a 76 chevy pickup.I think they should work fine.