Flatisfaction And Other Tangents.

I believe I've seen a video on instagram of this - have you had glorious success??

Ok, so there has been some radio silence here and those that follow me on the socials will know the usual up and downs still continue. 🙄

To pick up from where I left off, even though I’d given up, I knew at some point I would need a replacement silicone joiner and that would be a couple of days before it arrived which in reality would probably be enough time for me to get over things. 😁
I actually ordered two replacements to be able to replace the pair at the same time.
The reason for this was the joiners had their legs trimmed down a number of times but now everything was in its forever position they have ended up a little on the short side.

Anyway, in this down time I wasn’t idle but did need a break from the cars which led me onto this O/T project.

A few months back I’d been given this Victorian treadle after helping out clearing a deceased neighbours garage/workshop.



It was complete and semi-working but had suffered from poor storage.
Someone had been there before with questionable repairs like a replacement drive belt made from string and hot glue (!) but the originality was glinting through the dirt.



The head scratcher was its original use.
It had a small grinding wheel which fitted perfect, had never been used and had no real abrasive qualities as you can hold your finger to it spinning with no ill effects.
The other side has a soft cleaning brush.
I cannot think of any situation where you’d need the combination of a grinding wheel and a cleaning brush?



Getting the treadle up on the bench revealed how bad the water damage was particularly to the base and foot.



Closer inspection also revealed that the foot hinge section had broken off the leg casting in the very distant past and been repaired with a plate riveted to the bottom of the cast leg.
Also one end of the hinge had been replaced with a screwed in piece.



The foot hinge pin pretty much disintegrated, one side I could tap through but the other side was completely seized and I didn’t fancy banging on an unknown repair.
Removing one side of the corroded hinge pin did give me enough wiggle room to remove the foot.



Removing the foot revealed yet more more repairs.
The hinge pin holes had been brazed up and re-drilled.



And this brass section of the foot that the drive bar attaches to was also suspect but functional.



I had intentions of repainting the foot but realised that it would look out of place against the rest of the original paintwork I decided a good wire brush and a needle file to remove to all the grot inside the ornate casting would keep things more in keeping.
I used beeswax to provide a light protective coating.



Finding the hinge pin holes present in the pedal to be a nice 4mm and the one remaining hinge hole in the frame the same I had a good guide to drill out the up stand with a new hinge pin hole but straight this time!
Here using the drill bit as a temporary hinge pin.



I neatened up the old repair so it wasn’t as visible.
You can really see what a bad design this was as it’s completely unsupported where it needs support the most and unsurprisingly broke directly behind the small corner brace.



The flywheel was easily removed with its driveshaft which showed zero wear.
The flywheel needed nothing more than a quick scrub in the sink.



The cleaning really bringing out the original intricate paintwork.



I had ordered some 4mm ground pins for the foot hinge which arrived but A, they were too short as I’d cocked up the length I needed and B, didn’t fit my pre-drilled holes as the pin was a true 4mm and my twist drill had drilled undersize.



I looked into oversized drills and/or reamers (read expensive) but decided that I could just make a pin to what ever size I wanted. It’s not like the treadle is going back into full time service so didn’t bother with hardening it even though I was very tempted as I haven’t done it in a long time!



Before it went back together I made sure to unblock the oilers.



Everything was reassembled and oiled and working beautifully.



Moving onto the top section I removed the remains of the lid which had broke in two because of water damage.



The knurled retaining nut was undone to remove the grinding wheel and as I went to do the same on the other the nut just fell off.
It wasn’t even remotely correct and, again, had been “fixed” with hot glue!
It did reveal the shaft being left hand thread which complicates making a replacement.



I attempted to take apart the remaining assembly put it didn’t want to come apart easily and I didn’t want to force things so left it be. It was again in mint condition anyway.



The legs had provisions for some form of feet to be attached to their ends.
I managed to find these small rubber feet with a steel insert that are intended for speaker cabinets and the like that were the same diameter.



They came with a 4mm mounting hole but I wanted to fit a 1/4” (6mm) fixing which the legs were already sized for.
No problem I thought, I’ll just drill them out.
That idea was a total fail as it just spun the steel insert in the rubber until it got hot enough to melt the rubber.



Luckily I had spare and admitted defeat with using my chosen hardware and had use an M4 alternate.



Forgive me for I have sinned with crosshead hardware. 😔



Last item to fit was a new drive belt which are corded leather.
This is still readily available as it’s what is used with Singer sewing machines.
The Singers use a standard length belt of 72”, which all the vendors seem to stock. This was a bit short by a few inches to comfortably fit my application but I managed to just squeeze it on.

Good find.
I couldn’t find anything that was remotely close.

My rolling road slot rolled around and then got cancelled at the last second. ☹️

I then had to book another session which of course meant another 2 week wait. ☹️
I’ve always been in the odd situation where the car has been in a drivable state since the first rolling road session way back at the tail end of last year but the car was never really driven as it was always being worked on between bookings.
The cancelled rolling road appointment meant I had an opportunity to actually get some miles on the car to potentially weed out any other gremlins that may be still lurking, make sure the latest round of “improvements” were working as they should and maybe actually get some enjoyment back out of the car!

This period of use happen to fall bang on the Sunday of the NSRA swapmeet and with it being such a great day for the weather it would have been rude not to.
The priority parking at the front gate helps as well.

Here I got papped by Nick Pettit driving in.



A couple of days later I was back to the rollers and the weather was on form for the drive over, which after rolling through the gates the rain stopped, the clouds parted and the sun came out. 🤦‍♂️



To cut a long short the boost was there (sort of), the inlet temps were good and it didn’t get hot.
Running on the new throttle based map which was only half completed from last time we actually got to power runs for the first time.

The car is now fully mapped, fully working and I can thrash it around to my hearts content, but…

It’s slow to boost, not producing any real boost till 4k which when your redline is around 5500 that’s not a lot of time to build any either.

It still doesn’t boost up right. It goes to 5psi and then flatlines at that figure.

It stops making power at 4600 which means it’s missing nearly 1000rpm!

I did end up with the most powerful (just) Flatty I’ve ever had but the whole thing was just “meh” and left me feeling flat.



I drove it home and didn’t go near it for 2 weeks.

Some ideas floated around on the lack of performance,

Turbo. Too big or small?
Throttle body too small?
Injector positioning/inlet manifold not great as I’m already at 75% injector duty cycle on the bigger injectors and fuel distribution looks poor across the individual cylinders.

The problem with all this is it’s a guessing game (for me) to what’s at fault and changing any of these major components is the equivalent of starting again.

Great update, thanks !

From what you describe your turbo may be too big. I'm sure you already posted the details, but coud you please post them again?

I turboed a '67 DS Citroen which works great, and I went for a small turbo. Everybody told me there was no point in going that small. But I paired the turbo max power to the one I was targeting for the car. And I like it ! No lag, boost everywhere I need it in every day use. I'm sure I could make more power with a bigger turbo past 5000 rpm. But I'm never there in real life. And that would come at the cost of turbo lag in the power band I use all the time.

If the intercooler isn’t suspect, then the turbo being too big is probably the next most likely culprit.

Does your wastegate seal/close 100%?

Have you tried disconnecting the actuator to see if your boost rises above wastegatepressure?

Have you checked opening pressure on the wastegate?

A GT3582 might be a bigger turbo but you also have a bigger displacement engine so that would help spool.

It sounds to me that we need a Goldilocks turbo.

I believe so. It’s a decent external GFB that I removed recently as previously covered and didn’t find anything at thought.

Yes, it made no difference to the boost output.

No

Yes, it’s a 4L V8 but it just doesn’t have the breathing capacity of a ‘modern’ equivalent and I think this is where I’m being caught out with turbo sizing.