Lotus Elan, range rover, TR7, Streetka, mx5, minor,

Stripped the bonnet lid, god awfull job, 4 discs, molten paint flying around, 30 something degrees, wearing breathing mask, ear defenders and goggles, needed a beer afterwards.




It's much better than I thought, I was sure I had welded patches in the front corners but obviously not, just need to strip the louvres, tidy up the filler where the hump was lifted, and get it primed while it's still dry.

That is a lot of work.

But as usual, you need to do it right, to get it right.

Well done mate.

some news on the Minor front, since putting oil in the dashpot it has performed perfectly. In the true fashion of most of us now it's working fine my son wants to further modify it!

So lots of boxes have arrived and we now have to fit:

-heated front screen (apart form misting the old one is badly scratched (ESM sent the wrong rubber so can't fit it yet)
-Sports exhaust
-LCB manifold (mini one so needs modifying to fit)
-Alloy wheels (minilite type which neither of us are that keen on but it's about all you can easily get)
-New tyres (need to choose a size, they are 13" x 5.5 wheels so something like 165 or 185/70 gives the right rolling radius)
-Spacers to fit the wheels (strangely they all seem to be around ET20 whereas the minor in std form is ET0 the spacers we have bought are turned from billet so we can turn them down to whatever thickness we want)
-Twin Sus and re-build kits.
-Heavy oil for the lever arm dampers

Still need to find or make some sort of airbox for the carbs and get some suitable wheel nuts too.


Screen wheels and tyres will be done before the winter the rest as and when.

After spending a weekend away experience the future for cars (borrowed Mustang MachE) I'm back to working on the bonnet lid, flatted it all back to get this.




Not too bad, the worst areas were in the original panel which is probably the way it has always been, mostly areas stretched where the louvres are stamped in.

Went over the worst bits with some a thin skim of fine filler.




That will get flatted back and whole lot another couple of coats of epoxy.

As it's on the 4 poster I also had a look at the oil leak from the diff, it's coming from the  cover, some of the bolts seemed a bit loose so I nipped them up and we'll see how it goes, also secured the brake lines across the axle where most of the clips had broken.


On the minor, Andrew said it seemed to be leaking oil, a quick look and it was obvious it was coming from the rocker cover (I don't think  he tightened it enough when he did the valve clearances) while it was off I had another look at the valve guides (it smokes at idle), this is the valve on full lift.


66

From the top of the valve sping cap to the head face is 20mm, measuring our spare head and valve spring cap tells me there is virtully no clearance between the top of the guide and bottom of the spring cap, so the seals must be being plunged into by the spring cap and effectively pumping oil down the guides. I can think of 2 possible solutions:

1. run with no seals the minor didn't have any proper ones originaly, these are A+ ones.

2. Fit ford xflow umbrella seals which move up and fown with the valve and shroud the top of the guide, even if they do get pinched threre is a path for the oil to escape.

Firstly though I will need to make a tool to get the valve caps off in situ.

And finaly this is one of the new wheels for it.

Yes I was thinking of that or compressed air through the plug hole, the tool I plan to make is something to compress the springs, it will probably be a lever that hooks around a old rocker shaft with the rockers removed.

I think we have found out what is going on, both the engine shop that did the exhaust valve seats and myself on the inlets fitted the valve guides to the specified minor height, it turns out the A+ guides which carry the seals (minors only have a O ring on the valve stem) actually are set 2mm lower, so yes ultimately the head will need to be pulled, the guides knocked down a couple of mm (perhaps 3 for good measure!) and the bottoms ground back in the ports. We'll probably do this when we replace the carb and exhaust.

Might still take the seals out in the meantime to see what happens though.

Bonnets back on, 








Flatted it back with 2000 grit then polished it, it looks fine but if you look closely a couple of areas could do with a bit more work perhaps one day I will get round to it. Even splashed out on some new washer jets as the old ones looked a bit manky and one  was missing the correct nut.  Might take it for a spin tomorrow to see what it looks like in daylight.

Not seen them before they look to have potential, that said there's not any sanding marks, the area which needs a bit more work is the area of overspray along the RH edge, I kept well clear of the edges with the polisher and obviously didn't do enough by hand.

No that's the factory joint😀


Fitted the heated screen to the minor today.




Managed to break the old one getting it out but otherwise it went smoothly, bit of a faff getting the chrome trim in but got there in the end, we ran out of time to get the sealer in so that will have to be for another day. Also need to wire it up at some point.