1946 Morris 8 Series E - off to storage

Well, what was meant to be a quick job finishing off the changeover switch on the lathe turned into a bit of an effort.

Eventually i got it all put together and working.






The wiring diagrams on the web are pants, and i had to go back to scratch to work it out for myself. It works, which is the main thing.

the whole reason for doing this was to make it easier to screw cut. Something i've never attempted. But having set the lathe up I thought i'd have a bash.

very blurry pics






But it turned out it was fairly straightforward in the end, after i worked out what it meant by which gear goes where.



Probably not the worlds best cut thread but seemed an OK fit to me.

It made me smile, even if no-one else noticed it.

Friction mainly. From spindle thread to chuck.

It takes quite an effort to start to wind the chuck off once its seated.

I've no intention of cutting in reverse so there's never a load in the unwind direction to initiate the movement and I can't see the chuck self spinning on start.

Standard ml7 setup.

Because you cannot disengage the feed when thread cutting,and wind the carriage back to the start of your thread,without losing your position. Hence leaving the feed engaged and reversing the motor. You never cut in both directions as the backlash in the lead screw mullers your thread..If you want to cut left hand threads,you can still cut them with normal rotation,just start chuck side and thread towards the tailstock...😊

Well try it,but I think you will find it doesn't work. Some of the top class toolroom lathes,had an indicator on them that you could disengage the leadscrew. You then had an indicator to watch when you re engaged.. Most lathes don't have this feature....

To me its all about locking timing of rotation of the chuck to the carriage location relative to a lead screw position. If you disengage the linkage between these two points you have to have some method of re-establishing the timing point accurately or it will have the tool out of position.

The ml7 lathe has a thread indicator dial that engages on the lead screw independently of the clasp nut, so you can run it in forward, undo the clasp, move the carriage, and then re-engage the clasp at the right time. This however looked fraught with danger of me c0cking it up if i wasnt paying attention, hence the motor reversing.

I could have made a manual winding handle (and i might still for other reasons) but on a long thread its a lot of effort to wind it back. Why do it manually when electricity can do it for me....

I had another play at cutting threads today and was interested to know how strong they were compared to a manufactured nut.

So turned this up and machined a couple of flats on it





Then fitted it in the vice like thus



and applied a torque wrench thus



I upped the torque 1nm a time until this happened



Thread were fine and a nut still ran up them nicely.



The fracture initiated on the wasted section after the threaded portion where there was a very light witness mark from the thread cutting. I got to 28NM which wasnt bad for the size of thread I cut and mild steel. I was just more interested to see if i'd strip the threads first, indicating i hadnt cut something correctly.

So i then moved onto mounting the pedal box.

I looked at it and though "this will be a nightmare". It is.

Make a better trial / temporary mount





And through the application of different offcuts and clamps located into the car



I then spent about an hour adjusting it back and forth trying to get a position i liked.

I had to relieve the transmission tunnel cover slightly



so will need to patch that back up in the future once i'm happy on the position.



I've also managed to move it left, so the trim i need to do on the back of the pedal box housing no longer is in line with the reinforcing rib on the pedal box.

I then spent a while looking at the master cylinders to find out why the brake pedal was pushing so far forward in the returned position. The push rods on the master cylinders are about 20mm too long for the pedal to be in the right position (it pushes much further out than the throttle pedal with the throttle stop wound right in), so need trimmed to size. I incorrectly thought that buying a complete kit from OBP then everything would be bolt together. It isn't and as its generic master cylinders they'll need trimmed. Would be nice if some instruction came with the kit and mentioned this...

Anyway a job for another day as Mrs_Misfit and Baby_misfit returned home.

I need a tensioner for the chain. I could find something on ebay and be done with it, but i'm not convinced most of the standard bike type ones will work, plus i'm a cheapskate.

So a little application of CAD gives an over the top design...





Tension is adjusted by winding the red piece in and out (will be a nut welded to some threaded rod).

Probably over the top, but, well, never mind.

I tweaked the bead roller drive a bit more today.



added some fixings



and extended the tensioner mount



which got it all running nicely. I think i might fit a vertical stiffener under the drive, but will see.

Anyway, back to the morris.

Where was I. Oh yeah, pedal box



this shows the issue with the push rods. With the clevises screwed in full depth there is still a fair distance from the centre of the clevis to the threaded balance rod.





about 15mm



So take out the master cylinders and a bit of trimmage later



Perfecto, plus have some adjustment in both directions now to get the pedal where i want it.

give things a little adjust, and trim the push rod on the clutch and



pedals line up without any load.

balance bar now sits right as well



pedals back into the car



much better



clears nicely on full throttle



and brakes beyond maximum travel



To push it back any further and raise any more, i need to notch out a piece of structure



start cleaning back



mark out



and the other side



and trim



checking how this improves clearance



all good. Now fill the hole

cut a piece out of a large diam piece of tube I have



trim



fettle and tack into place



pedal box re-inserted. The notch let it move back by about 20mm and up by about 35mm



nicely clears, plus where the mount needs to go also lines up with the front bulkhead structure



I need to take it out, finish welding, clean it all up and re-paint it. But that can wait for another day.

I think the next session will be about mounting the pedal box, but also allowing it to drop out so I can get the column out if I need to.