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I just got an email from the guy who got me the shafts and he says 0.618 spline diameter is what I need. I spoke to a rod shop just ow and they have 2 sets left in stock. So I'm off on a 160 mile round trip to get the project moving again :)
TTFN folks :)
Good news on the studs, Pei! Hopefully you can return that first set of Moroso's... On the wheel nuts, I ran into the same thing when I was ordering wheels for the '33 and the Cragar nuts I needed were four to a pack?? I was told they're four to a pack because 1) so many of the little cars only need 4 per wheel, and 2) generally when anyone is ordering nuts they're doing the whole car so they order five packs of four vs four packs of five in the old days. I guess that's right, but it kinda sucks when only doing two as it takes three packs to get the ten needed.
Roger I've had the same issue with the four packs, which really sucks because most cars I have owned had at least 5 lug nuts!
Woo Hoo!!
I'm back on track now :)
I dropped into a friends workshop on the way home and fitted the new studs. I managed to get them in buy using the nuts with washers and some lube between washers and nut to pull them in with the impact gun. They are well and truly in there now!!
I got back a 4 hours ago, but when I arrived home my Grand Daughter was not happy as she is teething, so she has been on the floor playing with Gramps
for the last few hours. And now Gramps is tired. So in the morning its off to the empty garage where the axle is to start more assembly work. OH!! I just won a pair of rims on Ebay. 8.5 x 15 with 5x4.5 pcd and the backspace is acceptable. My backspace is 4" and these are 3.5". And they are the same slot mags that I like.... Winning!!!!
I'll get more pictures of the progress tomorrow.
Nite nite folks
Pel
Getting close now ??
But I found I need to trim another 10 thou off the bearing retainer caps so they will bolt up tight to clamp the wheel bearings.
When this is done I will double check the shaft measurements and cut them to length.
Then the axle can go back together :)
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Good score on the studs! It's getting really close now.
Well its ready to roll folks :)
Had some issues with the new slot mags so I opted for some smoothies to tide me over. My Grand Daughter likes them for sure ;)
I was going to hit the track today but when I got up at 5am it was raining hard. By 5.30am I had got texts from 3 other friends to say they were not going to bother due to the rain. This left me with a big decision to make. Head outside and load the car onto the trailer in hard rain and get everything loaded in the tow truck for a day out, or go back to bed for warm snuggles with my lovely wife ??? When I woke up again at 9am I went downstairs and got to spend the next two hours with my Grand Daughter while we played and then I got to do two more jobs around the house that have been on the list for weeks :) I did get the car on the trailer at 5pm and its ready for me to hit the track and invade a Ford Owners day at the track. Yes I know its an MG, but I have Ford axle parts in there now so thats good enough for me. If anyone wants to challenge me I'll just tell them I'm slowly converting the MG to Ford running gear ;)
Here are some pics !!
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Cute pic of the grand-daughter.. and you got the rear axle together. Wow, you had a good day!!:LOL::LOL:
OH, now clean that work bench!
Yes!
I'm looking forward to putting a couple of miles on the axle tomorrow by driving around the track to make sure it feels and sounds good. Then I would like to hit the track and do some gentle test passes.
I had a great days testing today. I drove it around the pits for a while and then did some gentle test runs. Then did a quick check on the diff and all seemed ok. So nitrous turned off and I went for some harder launches on boost only with small burnouts and the timing advanced by 3 degree's. I ran three 10.8 second passes with 12 psi of boost. So I'm happy that the car will run in the 10's off gas. Then I turned the nos back on but dropped the launch settings to just a 50 shot with the other 125 shot coming in over 1.7 seconds so as not to add too much stress on the launch while bedding in the diff. (usual settings are 100 off the line with the other 75 shot coming in over 0.6 of a second)
The result was really good. Nice sedate launches with virtually no air under the front end. The best time was 9.7 seconds so a little off my PB of 9.6 seconds. But the MPH crept up from the usual 137's to 141.68 and 140.41. The added timing does make the engine want to rev better.
60 foot times off and on gas were all 1.5's which shows I've got it set to launch softer. I normally run 60 foots of 1.3 seconds. This week I will drain the diff and open it up for inspection. If all looks ok I can get ready for next weekend where we have two days of RWYB. Then I can add a little more power for the launch to see if I can get back in the 1.3 60 foot times with the new ign timing setup. I think that may just get me into the 9.5's if I'm lucky??
Picture shows not a lot of air on launch. Slo Mo vid give a bit more info.
Regards to all
Pel
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/b...ps59c3932b.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35k7...iZ--GyG4tfRrjw
Wow Pel pretty darn good already! Will be interesting to see what she does next week.
Shes on the trailer and ready to roll for two days of RWYB this weekend :)
Good Luck! We'll try to be patient waiting for some results... pics.. or better yet.. Video!!
Good luck at the track. You reach a plateau and its hard to advance.
Video with lots of noise please!:) now lets break the 9.5
Oh My goodness!! What a strange weekend ??
I got to the track at 7am yesterday and was in the pits by 8.30am with my friends and their cars. We had a get together over a coffee and then went back to our cars to get them prepped for racing. My usual pre flight checks paid off yet again. During the checks I warmed the engine on the trailer as usual to make sure all was ok. As the Rover V8 warms up I expect to see some vapours coming from the large vents on each rocker cover. This is quite normal for the engine. As the engine reaches 60C I then increase rpms to 4000. Then i let it idle up to 70C and give it some revs up and down. Then I go outside and operate the throttle by hand to observe the engine. As I blipped the throttle I could see the rocker vents doing their usual stuff. But I noticed another plume of vapour rising from the side of one cylinder head?? There were vapours rising from the driver side cylinder head on the vacant bolt hole by cylinder 4 ??
You dont need to be a rocket scientist to realise that the head gasket was leaking. So I decided to pull the head for inspection in the pits. I'm glad that the head gasket was leaking to be honest. Because when I removed the rocker cover I found the exhaust rocker for cylinder 8 had the adjuster nut missing. Long story short... I stripped the engine and fitted a replacement head gasket and did a temporary repair on the rocker adjuster stud. I found another problem with the head bolt torque as well. So i ended up pulling the top off the engine to do gaskets and to re torque the heads.
This was from 10am Saturday until 10pm Saturday night in the pit area. By Sunday 11am I was ready to run with the lashed up rocker adjuster.
I ran two 9.7's and then put the car on the trailer as i was happy that I had got away with bonding a broken rocker adjuster in with super glue. I did not want to stress anything in the engine as the rocker adjuster could have come loose at any time. Both of the 9.7 passes saw the blower belt coming loose at the 1/8th mile so I lost power. I found the source of this problem and fixed it before I went home this evening. So now I have to find some spares fro my Kenne Bell roller rocker gear before next weekend.
Pictures and vids to follow as I get them uploaded.
Perry
Well... that was quite the weekend! Glad those don't happen to often... Also glad to hear you got in a couple passes and back on the trailer and didn't hurt anything! That's always a bonus! :LOL::D:LOL:
Wow Pel glad you were on it and didn't make a run with the missing bolt. Way to keep on top of things, and gives us more to look foward too as well!
Some pictures of my problems. The head gasket leaks were down to loose head nuts?? When I came to undo them it didnt take much effort. Maybe 50 ft/lbs? I wonder if the O rings on the heads had settled in the last few months. The other head nuts took some more torquing. I put the torque wrench on and found that it clicked at 58 ft/lbs when trying to re tighten. So these got pulled back down to 70 ft/lbs in sequence.
I was with some friends as you can see in the pics.
We all run different times, but we all help each other out in the pits and cheer each other on when we race. 50% of the work on my car was done by some of the boys while I was working on problems with the Slingshot ign system and fixing leaks on the cooling system of my friends Ford Capri as he was out for virgin shakedowns this weekend with his brand new 598ci motor setup.
Check out the paintwork on my mate Micks Minivan... All done with rattle cans by a graffiti artist he knows. :)
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I should give you some info on the boys cars I guess.
In the back ground of the Capri picture you can see a tiny blue car. This is JT's kit car with a Honda motorcycle engine fitted running carbs only. high 12's on the strip. Micks Mini with Rover 4.6 engine runs 12.3's so far. The Slingshot ran its first 9's this weekend even with an ECU fault which pulled the rpm limiter on at 3000 rpm for some reason?. The Capri ran low 11's on shakedowns with my friend having trouble getting used to the tyres lighting up each time he pressed the pedal with the 1100hp on tap. The little MG midget runs low 16's with a 25 shot of gas, which upsets my friend Andy as his Camaro is slower at the moment. The MGF is just a stripped out junkyard dog with a 75 shot of gas and it ran 13.3's this weekend.
The track was almost empty all weekend and we were treated to see a top fuel car doing observed runs. Usual tuff, burnout and stage. Then launches, then launch and half pass with chutes and then a 1/8th pass under full power with chutes. And then finally a first full pass to 1000 feet with chutes. The driver had to run 4.7 seconds to qualify and needs to back this up again for her license ?? Yes HER !! The Driver was a Junior Drag champ in the last two years I think. She ran a 4.41 pass. Her 1/8th trap speed was 220mph. And she is just 17 years old !!! She was a pleasure to talk to during the weekend. She has a blog here Gabby McDonald: Gabrielle McDonald from Dublin Ireland
Sorry to hear about the issues but at least you found them! Do you recheck the torque of the head studs any after you initially torque them and make a certain amount of passes? Just curious, and what materials are your gaskets made from? Your friend's van looks awesome! The front engine dragster looks very nice as well! What's the story with the little convertible?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe
Hi!
I normally torque the heads down in 3 stages of 50, 60, and 70 ft/lbs in the garage with 30 mins between each torque down. I use VHT copper gasket adhesive as well. This is the first time I have used O ringed heads though. Never had this issue before without O rings. I used to use normal composite head gaskets. But on the last engine I changed to Cometic multi layer steel gaskets and these were fantastic. But I could not use these with the O ringed heads so I gave them to my Son for his V8 Escort project. He has rebuilt his motor 4 times in the last year and re used the Cometic gaskets with no problems.
So I am now using stock Composite head gaskets again. I guess I need to re check head torque from now on.
Which convertible are you talking about ? The Red one or the Blue one ?
Pel
Pel, if you have O-rings now, retorque them after a heat cycle and they should be alright. On these diesels when we o-ring them, we usually use the OEM gasket and ARP studs. I torque them in 3 stages, and then I fill the cooling system and plug in the block heater over night. Then unplug it and let it completely cool, then recheck the studs. Usually you get a little more on each one. After that it should be fine. We've had good luck doing the heat cycle and rechecking them.
On the question above, I missed the description you gave. Definitely sounds like some cool stuff and that young lady is awesome. I see a lot of young ladys moving out of junior dragsters into super fast drag cars. Pretty dang cool if you ask me!
Thanks for that advice :)
I can re torque before I race next Sunday.
I took off the rockers gear last night and went to the machine shop this afternoon. I explained to my friend that I needed to remove the adjuster stud that I glued in with loctite permanent !!
The trouble is that the stud is so darn hard that I didnt want to try an easy out as I didnt think it would dig in and grip. And if it did, it may just snap off and make things worse. I knew that I could heat the rocker in the oven to soften the loctite, but I had no way of unscrewing it :(
My good friend looked at it and said "so whats the problem" ? I said, "I need to be able to unscrew the stud but there is no way I can grip it" He said, "just use an allen key" I said, "how the hell can I use an allen key to undo a hard steel stud with no allen socket in the end?" He said, "come with me young Jedi" Ha Ha"!!
He then took me to a machine in the corner of his shop and started to mount my rocker in a clamp? He then fitted what looked like an allen key into a chuck? He then pressed several buttons and twiddled several knobs on this strange machine, which looked like a milling machine ??
What happened next had me watching with my jaw dropped. The table under the chuck was submerged in some green oily stuff as the sides rose up from around the table and this green stuff flooded the rocker. Then the chuck moved down on its own and a sound like a geiger counter came from a speaker unit on the wall. Then magic started happening under the oily fluid as I saw tiny lightning bolts and bubbles rising with puffs of smoke coming from the bubbles as they burst on the surface of the fluid?? OK!! So maybe I'm the only person who has never heard of spark etching :)
What a fantastic contraption this machine is. I WANT ONE !!
By the time the kettle had boiled and our tea was ready the machine beeped and the magic fluid drained away. Then Geoff unbolted the rocker and this is what I saw....
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/b...ps470ef9d9.jpg
And this is what I started with !!
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/b...psec1d3023.jpg
Holy Moly!!
Then it was back home to put the rocker in the oven for 20 mins at 220C which allowed me to do this...
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/b...ps746545a7.jpg
HOORAY!!!!
Its 9.20pm here and I'm just back from dropping the rocker through the letter box at the machine shop so Geoff can get busy tomorrow re drilling and tapping to fit a 7/16th unf adjuster from a pro comp chevy rocker. The Kenne Bell adjusters are smaller. My friend with the slingshot has a full spare set of chevy rockers for his engine and he told me to go to his garage and help myself to some spares as he wont need them anytime soon. At least this will get me rolling for the weekend. I have put the word out to my Drag Race buddies and I now have an offer of a used set of KB rockers for very cheap money to put on the shelf. I will only use the pro comp modified rocker for the short term until I can fit a used OEM rocker.
So I can now be out for a grudge race this Sunday :) I wont win, I never will win against this car. But its fun trying as each time I turn up to race this guy every year I surprise him a little more. He runs a Chevy Monza which is his Drag School car and its very quick. We race on an unused runway at an old airfield. The surface is rough concrete and its a given that you always run at least 1 second slower on slicks than you would run on a prepped Drag Strip. Last year I ran a 10.6 @ 130 something to his 10.3 at 153mph. He toys with me to about 1000 feet and then puts the pedal down just before the finish :)
I really enjoy this annual race as does Paul who runs the Drag School.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvrk...iZ--GyG4tfRrjw
Very cool video, reminds me of the drag strip in Ohio Where I flagged many moons ago.
Its a great place to race. No frills, just plain old RWYB :)
Very cool on the sweet machine to cut hex's! And that's a cool race/and track. Thanks for sharing and good luck sir!
"So maybe I'm the only person who has never heard of spark etching?"
Add me to the list Pel, That's so cool!
Aint it just ???Quote:
Originally Posted by stovens
I now have another technique in the memory bank for any other odd problems.... My mate at the machine shop says he has a friend who does only spark erosion / etching for special projects for F1 race teams. This is his year round living making bespoke parts for the F1 cars :)
Google CDM, capacitive discharge machining... it's really amazing what electricity and a piece of wire can do.. look it up on youtube also, you can do it at home!
Hooray!!
I have found an engine builder who had a bucket load of used Kenne Bell roller tip rockers on the shelf. So I can store the repaired rocker and fit an original one. Actually the new rocker is already fitted and the heads re torqued and the car is outside on the trailer ready for a 5.30am start to get to the track in the morning. I just need to stop to fill the fuel can and I'm going racing after the 80 mile drive to get there. Having said that it raining here and the wind speed is horrendous. And my barometer is dropping like a stone. So I may have a long tow to the track only to find we sit in rain all day :(
But thats what we do when racing at this old airfield. They only do 3-4 RWYB days per year so it gets busy. Gates open at 8.30am, but if you are not there by 7.00am latest the queue can be so long that you may not make sign on as the close the book at 200 cars.
Hopin' to hear that you had a good day at the races! Fingers crossed.... 8-)
OH YES!!Quote:
Originally Posted by 34_40
It turned out to be great day despite the strong side wind and early rain which dried off by 11am. First pass was ok but blew the tyres off in all 3 gears while struggling to stay straight. 10.6 seconds :) Second pass I launched at 3/4 pedal for the first 100 feet so i didnt activate the nitrous. When the pedal hit the floor it hooked reasonably well but was wandering quite a bit, 10.4 seconds on that pass :) Then I had an idea to programme in a 1 second delay on the nitrous so I could launch hard on boost only and thenhave the nitrous ramp in as usual once rolling around 45mph. Bad idea !!!
Especially as I dont have my nitrous set to reset the boost ramp when throttle is deactivated. So I hit the gas and spun the tyres right off the line on full boost, then the 1 second delay took me by surprise and spun the tyres harder, so I short shifted to 2nd to see if it would calm down. It didnt, so I backed off the pedal just enough to cut the nitrous and shifted to 3rd. Then when I put my foot in again the tyres let go again and I was wandering quite badly so I pedalled it twice and each time the tyres spun up and I was facing left or right. So I shut it off about 100 feet short of the finish and got myself safe. Quite possibly the most frightening run I have ever done. But the timing ticket was an 11.01 so not too bad at all. Typically on this track your times are 1 second to 1.2 seconds more than running on a prepared Drag Strip. So the numbers are all good from today :)
Then I put the car on the trailer as I would have been wasting tyres, nitrous and engine if I had done any more passes. So I watched others race for the last 2 hours :)
Glad to hear you had some passes at least.. Do you not have any "smaller pills"?? Can you not back down the power level on the nitrous?
Or do you prefer it.. "balls to the wall"!! roflmao..
"" Can you not back down the power level on the nitrous? ""
WHAT !!! This aint like dusting crops boy !! (Star Wars folk will understand) :)
I thought my second pass with the 10.4 and launching half pedal before activating nitrous was good. Hence the idea of adding a 1 second delay on the nitrous hit so I was rolling before it ramped in. I wasnt expecting the launch on boost to hit so hard. I can drop the nitrous down as low as 50hp with my jets. But the nitrous box was at home and I dont like going backwards to suit a poor track so I thought I could do it by reducing the initial hit and bringing the gas in more slowly. It was good fun all the same. Luckily a mate was filming another mate in his AMG and I was next up so I'm on the end of this video. I dropped the tyre pressure by 1psi to see if that might help, but no. Its just an old concrete runway with weeds growing out of the cracks :)
If the tyres had not started to skip I may have got a clean run. By the time I've launched the slapper bars pretty much lock up the rear springs and the car is sitting on the bump stops, so all my suspension is the tyres at that time, and if they let go I get shaken up inside. You can see the shift light go out well before the finish, so it could have been a good run if I hadnt started to dance to the tune of my slicks (as you can hear in the vid) And yes!! Balls to the Wall every time for me if I can ;)
I'm going to leave that nitrous setup as it is for a run on a proper track next Saturday as it will be interesting to see how it goes?
Regards
Pel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEMF...ature=youtu.be
Nice Pel! Sure looks great going down that run way! I bet it'll be great this saturday.
I knew it was a "Loaded" question when I asked it... but.. And Luke Skywalker you ain't!:eek::LOL::LOL::LOL:
I figured anyone who can get that ol' girl so close to a 9 second knows enough to get her to grab a concrete and cold track... :3dSMILE:
But the question was there... and your 1 second delay... well.. that's about what it was good for! roflmao!:LOL::eek::LOL::eek::LOL:
It's all good.. I'm jealous that you're racing.. and I'm watching.. so thanks for sharing the video! :):D
Quote:
Originally Posted by 34_40
Dude!
That reply has made me smile big time.... :)
I aint Luke Skywalker. But I may be Darth Vader because I know what Luke has for his birthday as I have felt his presents ;)
She is on the trailer and ready to rock in the morning. Tanks are full and there are two full bottles of gas in the truck.
I will ask the track photographer to do real time vids of any runs I do in the morning. It will be interesting to see how it runs with that 1 second nitrous delay ??
Peace and love folks
Perry
Perry good luck sir and I wish you great weather too!
Glad I could make you smile! And good luck at the track..