Well I said I would.............

289, FIA & Daytona topics
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Roger King
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Roger King »

Bear in mind that if the engine is a new build, and has a flat-tappet cam, you will need to run it for at least 20 mins at around 2000 rpm to break-in the cam. This is ESSENTIAL. You might want to think about that without an exhaust system!

Can't help much regarding the headers - I used Gerry's originally, then went to Sanderson ceramic-coated mild steel. There are a zillion different styles of Mustang headers, so can't give you much advice on whatever it is you have... but I'm surprised they fit around the chassis tubes and clear the starter and engine mount. I could only find the Sandersons that would fit. Ooops - credit where it's due - Karl found the Sandersons.
They're very good value - why are you re-inventing the wheel? Don't tell me - you have some tubing lying around that your wife hasn't yet marked down as 'suspicious', and you're building the world's most amazing wooden jig for a full set of manifolds. Am I right, or am I right?

Looking forward to hearing your start-up...

...from Cambridge...

edit- I'm still trying to work this out. Do you mean the engine is not in the car, and you're jury-rigging (oops, sorry, that's the day job, isn't it?) an exhaust just to run it? Anyhoo, the heads are symmetrical so if there's nothing in the way the headers should fit on either side.
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Cotton Mouth
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Cotton Mouth »

My powers of explanation are weak. The engine has been run on a dyno but the reason for starting it is that I have now wired it up and want to make sure it's correctly connected before the exhaust builders test the sound levels. The headers will not go between the engine and the chassis so I was going to fit them upside down (swap sides) and take them over the top of the dash as rigged up in the photographs.

PS My wife views everything as suspicious.
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Roger King
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Roger King »

Cotton Mouth wrote:... My wife views everything as suspicious.
Look deep into your heart - can you really blame her?

As for the exhausts going on over the dash, well... is it the new off-road variant?

I've never tried fitting a manifold upside-down, so can't really help - do they look like they fit? If so, try it.
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Migge
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Migge »

Like TVRs??
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Special customized BRA289
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Cotton Mouth
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Cotton Mouth »

Small jobs this time. I wanted the striker plate to sit flush with the rear boot lip. Whilst the carpenter was putting in the new bathroom floor I borrowed his router with a 2mm fluted bit and, after drawing round the striker plate, freehanded the outline using the stiker plate to set the depth +0.8mm. It sounds a lot more difficult than it was as the router was very easy to position and any mistakes can be filled later. I then put a smear of filler into the recess and pressed in the stiker plate after spraying it in release wax.

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The striker plate was then removed the holes drilled and bolts passed through. The final bolts will be counter sunk slots. The bolts are slightly proud at the moment as they are not done up and the holes in the GRP are not quite large enough to allow the countersunk part of the bolt to locate - well actually the holes aren't quite central - I was rushing.

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The next job was a bonnet stay as I'm getting tired of working in the engine bay with the roof supported on my head. I made up the parts for an aluminium bracket, had them welded and powder coated.

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The bracket bolts both to the top of the foot well and the engine bulkhead. The pivot is a go cart track rod end which I ground out the back of the ball and the cup to allow a greater range of movement

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The finished item. The rod is 8mm stainless rod tapped with the end bonded into the track rod end with Loctite. The bend is to follow the contour on the inside of the engine bay

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These are not finished, but I wanted some solid arms for the throttle linkage. These were made up of brass bar that was drilled M4 and then shaped to the contour of the original. A boss was turned up and silver soldered to the bar and the ends then linished to get rid of the excess solder. If you solder like this a neat tip that I was told was that if you use a marking punch on one of the surfaces in three of four areas the gap is just right to get the solder in by capillary action. These arms run on 10mm stainless shafts so the throttle pedal also required a collar bonded in with the ubiquitous loctite.
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As you can see the arms have been tapped for an M4 grub screw. I also turned up some collars so that I can have springs on the shafts and the collars will retain theses whilst the arms retain the other side. Now I need to get them satin chromed. Does anyone know the name of a good chroming firm - Yorkshire for preference but if not anywhere - thanks in advance.

Finally, I fitted a small bracket to the front of the diff housing. I decided that it was probably a good idea not to have the handbrake cables coming into contact with the prop shaft.

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The garage floor is a bit of a state - from 6 foot up it normally looks quite good.
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Migge
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Migge »

Arms for the linkage looks good, I have the same parts in ss, just waiting for welding, but that can take a little longer :-(

Keep up the great work and keep us posted.

Cheers
Migge
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Cotton Mouth
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Cotton Mouth »

Thank you for the kind comments. Next on my list of tasks were heat shields. I templated the drivers side inner foot well in thick lining paper and cut out three pieces of 2mm aluminium sheet. These were then welded. If you try this, try to get joins edge to edge as these require about a third of the heat required for butt joints. In panels as large as this you get distortion and this approach minimises the heat used and the subsequent distortion. This is why there is a weld along the curved section but not along the straight, which is welded at intervals on the back. The passenger side foot piece is far easier and 2mm half hard plate is quite easy to bend by clamping the workpiece with a board on top to the kitchen table - the wife was out.

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I then had some 4mm aluminium washers with 2mm central holes laser cut - not terribly expensive - and then drilled and taped the centre of the disks M4.

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I had thought to weld these disks to the back of the heat shield but the advice from the welder was that this would cause "blisters" to show on the visable surface. I decided to bond the disks into place using Repaplast, which is a twin pack adhesive . This is a polyurethane based version of something like Araldite so has a little bit of give and is usually used in car body repair shops to bond car bumpers back together again. If you are going to use this adhesive, buy the Repaplast cleaner - great for getting anything of anything - and don't make a cup of tea after you have mixed it - the working life is about 90 seconds. Also like araldite if you wait until it is half hard it is very easy to clean up with a sharp chisel.

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The other product is a high build chip preventer and sound deadening spray from the same company. The best bit about this is that after spraying the wheel arches with it covers all those shards of glass fibre that stick into your fingers.

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To locate the panels I used some short pieces of screwed rod with sharpened ends to place marks onto masking tape and the inner foot wells drilled 4.5mm

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These will be fitted just before the body goes back on which hopefully will be in a couple of weeks.
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Cotton Mouth
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Cotton Mouth »

As a fair few are at the Classic Le Mans - as I'm posting this it is pretty obvious that I am not one of them - I thought that I would update a bit of progress. I was not one of those who read the small print of Gerry's brochure carefully enough and ordered the body with black footwells. The problem is getting that slight wet look of gel coat glass fibre. I made an off hand remark to the guys at Innotec who said that they had a construction primer and clear topcoat that are used by the caravan trade to repair glass fibre. Cans were obtained - take the recommendation as to amount by Innotec, more than I thought but spot on, and after rubbing down with W&D 400 several cans of each were sprayed.

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Classic advice is to spray thin coats which work well with the white construction primer. With the clear top coat this gives a slightly grainy feel and a slightly thicker coat is needed but there is a very fine line between getting a gloss finish and runs. However, the flash off time is tens of minutes so it doesn't take too long to correct one's errors.

I am not keen in drilling holes in body work for things like side repeaters. I mocked up an aluminium carrier to fit in-between the louvres of the side vents - I think this is somewhere on the website. I then acquired some IVA compliant side indicators and cut a wedge out of the plastic stalk so that the lens was in line with the outside of the body whilst the stalk followed the lines of the louvres. The gap was then closed with Araldite epoxy - not pretty but out of sight

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These were then mounted using the same screws that locate the louvres and fitted into the body.

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I had also had a go at templating the front inner wings for aluminium. I have found that the most accurate results are obtained using medium weight lining paper in pieces fairly small in comparison to the size of the overall job and the sections joined with masking tape. I made a template for the inner wheel arches and also the return. The Towers boys have now put their templates on their 289 Le Mans build but if you want to try it yourself don't try to go too high into the back of the wheel arch as you can't get the panels in between the underside of the wing and the floor between the wheel arch and the foot well. The panels were cut out of aluminium sheet which I think was just over 1mm thick and bent as usual on the edge of the kitchen table. For panels this size a good lunch of steak and kidney is advisable with seconds of treacle pudding.

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Before moving these into position I recalled RK's dire warnings of "aluminium corrodes as well" - it might be a little prosaic to mention he is now building an all aluminium car - and sprayed the back of the panels with Dinitrol. This is a liquid wax that solidifies after a couple of hours. The panels were then put into position.

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The next problem is the accurate spacing of rivets to secure the panels without marking the fairly delicate surface of the panel. Knicker elastic is the answer gentlemen If you mark out equally spaced marks on the elastic these when stretched will move apart to give wider saving but always with an equal interval. The only point to watch is that where you have a point of contact in the middle of the elastic, you check the tension is the same both sides by lifting it and possibly also measuring the spacing both sides.

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If you have read the above posts you may remember that I made an Aston filler cap. I cut a gasket using a special compass with the pencil end replaced with a razor (both are readily available on ebay and the compass works really well).

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Now if you have read this far perhaps someone can tell me if there is an easy way to punch holes in a rubber gasket without a punch or do I take it to the local cobblers. Regards to you all and I hope that none of you has been flooded with the appalling summer we are having.
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clive
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by clive »

Great to see you are progressing well and you are not the only one who wasn't at Le Mans. A pair of revolving punch pliers is a handy tool for making holes in your gasket. (Also handy for belts, saying you no longer have elastic in your knickers!)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keyw ... u02rfn1o_e
Cheers, Clive.

(If I'm not here I'm in my workshop or on the golf course!)
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Cotton Mouth
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Cotton Mouth »

Please could I have some advice? what pressure radiator caps due the membership use - its a Ford 289 with about 275 BHP/LBS FT? And what temperature do you have for the fans to come on? Many thanks
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