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Soooo - this is not the update you are looking for. In fact, I did nothing to the engine worth mentioning. But... I bought wheels.   Thought they are blöödy fücking brilliant looking blobs of cast aluminium so I bought them. Cheers, Jan |
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The Doctor
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 3,449
Club RR Member Number: 48
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You can't beat a set of Kleeblatts  Especially if they have dish! My set with no dish doesn't look half as good as these! |
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Know what's even better? They are not Ronals and they are 6x10"s |
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The Doctor
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 3,449
Club RR Member Number: 48
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Ha, and there is me, sitting here being sure they where kleeblatts... ;D
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The difference is almost insignificant, but these are Remotec 6x10s. I'ven been runing this Mini Wheels Website for some years now, so I'ven been constantly on the lookout for unknown, to me, wheels. Current count is somewhere around 500. But in all the years, I've only ever seen 2 or 3 sets of Remotecs advertised, but never before had I come across 6" ones. I had to have them. They blend right into my little collection of "dishy" Mini wheels Momos:  PEG Mistrals:  And the Remos:  |
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The difference is almost insignificant, but these are Remotec 6x10s. I'ven been runing this Mini Wheels Website for some years now, so I'ven been constantly on the lookout for unknown, to me, wheels. A very useful website, recently helped me ID some wheels I've had in the loft for about 20 years. BWA 6x10"s  |
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Mar 11, 2017 13:52:53 GMT
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Today I finally continued with the engine build... I fully dismantled the engine, pulled the pistons & crank. Pistons & bores look excellent, no work needed here. Which is what I wanted from this engine.  I then pulled all the plugs and gave the block a good clean inside & out, cleaned all the oil gallerys and mating surfaces.   And then after some more cleaning, brushing off rust and some more cleaning & de-greasing, I gave it some coats of satin black enamel paint. Which can now cure for at least 7 days. Then re-assembly begins. Got new core & oil plugs. I briefly though about painting it maroon or dark blue - but... Black is just fine. Makes all oil leaks less obvious.   Cheers, Jan |
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Mar 18, 2017 17:41:55 GMT
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Today I cleaned the oil ways again. And then knocked in the core plugs and the brass oil gallery plugs.  I used a slight smear of sealant. Then gave the bores a quick re-hone and re-installed the pistons, after cleaning them. I didn't bother to scrape off all the carbon on the top, though. And the skirts were allready pretty clean.  New main & big end bearings, put in a solid crank.  Torqued it all up, the crank assembly rotates smoothly without binding points. Side-float is in tolerance as well. all looking good. Also put in a set of fresh lifters and put in the MG camshaft I used in the previous engine.  And then... Came the part of cleaning the back plate & timing cover. Which has seen a lot of sealant and was badly painted. Gave it a re-paint with enamel spray paint and left it to dry. Rst of the day was spent trying to find all the parts of the engine I put away many years ago...  That's all for this weeks Mini engine build update. I'm currently looking into buying a modified cylinder head. But I'm not yet certain if I go down this route, or stay with my tried & tested engine build. Cheers, Jan |
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Mar 19, 2017 17:36:49 GMT
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Today I dug out all the gearbox parts... I'm missing a lot of stuff, like the sleeve 1st gear rides on. Sigh. I'm also not sure which are the new bearings I fitted when I rebuild the engine. So... I'm probably going to just re-rebuild it with all new bearings. What the heck, it's all not expensive. What I do have however, is a set of pre-A+ gears in good condition, with healthy dog teeth.  With which I'm finally going to build that hybrid-gearbox the very last 1275GTs were fitted with. Large A+-type mainshaft, large layshaft and A gears with Cooper S gear ratio. It needs a special 1st motion & laygear for that. The laygear is the last ever NOS. I bought it many years ago, now it's finally time to put it to use.  I've also bought a job lot of many gearbox parts, due to be collected next week. Once I have gone through that pile, I will decide what parts I need to buy. Next was installation of oil pump, back plate and timing gear. It took a lot of time, since I had to file the smashed woodruff key in the crank to fit the gear... At some point it went on smoothly (needs to to install the chain) and all was good. Went to put on the chain tensioner and - ah well... That's the part I didn't order apparently. I could re-use the old tensioner, but why? I'm in no hurry. It has to wait until I know what parts to order for the gearbox. So instead I checked the end-float of the camshaft - all within specification. Torqued down the nut and called it a day.  Well, almost. i gave the HIF44 a quick check. All clean inside, no gunk or corrosion. Looks like there was no alco-fuel inside. I was a bit affraid it'd be ruined after the long storage. I'll replace all rubber seals though.  Next comes an old picture, this was "as found" at the scrapyard (many, many years back they had Rover Coopers). Needless to say I was not very impressed with the factory fit.  This was of course port matched. Don't know if there was a performance difference, I never ran the carb like this... It's now a bit of a special carb, since it runs without any dashpot damper! A friend of mine tuned the carb & 64D distributor to work better, which it certainly does now! Throttle response is down right aggressive without dashpot damper. And then I went - again - looking for all those fücking parts... Like a spare Rover Cooper air filter housing I'd like to experiment with. I'm sure I had it in my very hands not too long ago... And where's that barstuart of a flywheel gone? Hmpf. Cheers, Jan |
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craig1010cc
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,998
Club RR Member Number: 35
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Mar 20, 2017 10:44:49 GMT
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Great to see progress on the wee beasty, and I am very jealous of your hoard of wheels  I'm currently putting together a 1275 for mine, and I'm intrigued by the carb mods your planning. Have you any more details of it and what are the advantages/disadvantages to it. |
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Mar 20, 2017 19:17:46 GMT
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Hi! I ran the old engine with this mod for a long time. Advantage is a far better throttle response/faster pickup. The engine feels nippier and "lighter". Disadvantage is that economy suffers. Des Hammill goes on about it in detail in his book "SU Carburettor High-Performance Manual" (ISBN 978-1845840730). He does a better job of explaining it than I could. It's an interesting read either way, it helped me understand SU carburettors a lot better. This modification doesn't seem to always work, though. On my 998 I never got the result I got with the 1275. Pre-war SUs apparently didn't even have the oil damper... Just don't listen to the people telling you "it's not possible, you'll ruin your engine". And re: wheel whoarding; this wee collection is the result of almost 15 years of looking for wheels  Cheers, Jan |
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craig1010cc
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,998
Club RR Member Number: 35
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Mar 20, 2017 21:16:26 GMT
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I shall have to look that one up then 😀
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Mar 25, 2017 17:07:46 GMT
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I've also bought a job lot of many gearbox parts, due to be collected next week. Once I have gone through that pile, I will decide what parts I need to buy. About that... Well, I started early this morning - destination Bavaria. The A8 is a terribly busy bit of Autobahn, since it takes almost all traffic going from west to east in the south. If that makes sense. But since I started early, traffic was OK. It was the first time I took this route without any traffic jam. Amazing.  So against my plan, I arrived almost an hour early... But the guy was allready there. We exchnaged words, money and gearbox parts. To describe it briefly. Gobsmacked from what had just happened, I left the place and headed south. Since I had more time than anticipated, I thought I take a detour via Lake Constance, it's been a long time since I was las there. Still looks the same. Seemingly endless water, glaring in the sun, with the fog blending the water into the sky. and only a faint silhouette of the opposite shore.  On the parking spot I parked next to another W124 wagon. When I came back from the lake, an old lady was just taking a seat in it "ah, I see - you care about it! Have a nice day!".  The way back lead me through the Black Forrest. Every other driver I met on the road was seemingly deeply relaxed, no tailgaiting, no overtaking - a perfect, sunny and warm driving day. And I had to take it slowly, due to my fragile freight. Which also weighed a ton (maybe literally). Well, so - the guy I bought those parts from rebuilt Mini gearboxes for BMW in Munich, when they bought Rover. But increasing parts prices and decreasing payment lead him to quit the gearbox rebuilding business. The parts I bought are what remained from this business. Apparently he had thoughts about just crushing all the stuff. He seemed very, very happy to have found some good hands to give all the stuff to. He refused to take more money for all this, it felt like stealing. I'm still stunned about this purchase. I'm not telling you the price I payed. It's less than what's in the box of brand new genuine parts.   I can honestly and without a doubt claim that I have a life-time supply of Mini gearboxes.... Including a straight cut ST gear set. It was WAY more parts than the ad had suggested. In fact I thought I was about to buy a box of new parts and a couple of bits and 2-3 gearbox cases. Guess my surprise. Cheers, Jan |
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Mar 25, 2017 20:39:37 GMT
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Wow! What a haul! I hope you go into detail when you build one up I need a guide for when I do one.😀
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Mar 27, 2017 18:48:54 GMT
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Wow! What a haul! I hope you go into detail when you build one up I need a guide for when I do one.😀 Thanks! I can do that, yes. It's not the first gearbox I've succesfully re-built, so I think I'm qualified enough to do a little writeup. It's no rocket science but there are some little things to watch out. Like - never put it in a car without testing i learned this the hard way - gearbox out again after no single kilometer on it...  basically - if it shifts smooth and all gears turn easily and you can smoothly rotate the shaft against the gears - chances are very high it'll work fine. And of course there are a few clearances to check and maybe adjust. and maybe you need different shims. And this is where a huge pile of gearbox parts comes in handy. Rebuild kits are relatively cheap - but if you need a new main shaft or gears, it can get expensive. And this is where a huge pile of gearbox parts comes in handy. So yeah, I think it's interesting enough. I'll do a little write up. Hoping my grammar is up to it Cheers, Jan |
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Found a little issues with the cylinder head on sunday... I cc'd the chambers, and got to about 20cc with a rough measurement using a syringe. I need to re-calculate the CR, since the last engine was a low-compression 53BHP unit. I had the head skimmed to rais compression to 9.8:1. Since I'm now using a 64BHP high-compression engine as a base, I probably going to run into compression issues.  I will probably have to enlarge the chambers a bit. Which is not that bad, since it's THE opportunity to de-shroud the intake valves a bit. However, there is another issue I noticed during the process...  One of the brass plugs has moved deeper into the head. This must have happened during opperation, since the had had been skimmed (as mentioned), and not just a little. Also appears to have cracked. Soo - since the head gasket runs across it, this needs replacing. There's a water jacket behind it. Maybe that's the excuse I needed to completely rebuild the head, with maybe a little porting & re-shaping of the chambers. Needs to come apart anyway... I've ordered a burette for some more better cc'ing. That's all for now. Cheers, Jan |
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,659 
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Fantastic haul of parts. Are you in the Freiburg Region? As düdo is also in the Black Forest maybe we should try to organize a mini regional meet/drive at some point this summer. disclaimer: I say this with the possibility the Sierra is not ready and also with the presumption I can go anywhere after June once bambino number 2 arrives. |
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Last Edit: Apr 5, 2017 11:05:38 GMT by thebaron
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Especially if they have dish!
basically - if it shifts smooth and all gears turn easily and you can smoothly rotate the shaft against the gears - chances are very high it'll work fine. And of course there are a few clearances to check and maybe adjust. and maybe you need different shims. And this is where a huge pile of gearbox parts comes in handy.
