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

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

Post by peterc »

Actually Colin whilst I do undertake a fair amount of research in the high street, I do also prefer to buy in the local town. I like to see what I am buying. I do buy more and more from Amazon only because I can't find it locally.
I did buy Castrol but still had to get it from Amazon as no one around here sells Castrol.
Getting decent advice from somewhere like Halfords is becoming non existent. Surely most people who service their own cars also own older cars. Try looking in the car guides. You won't find a Rover V8 anymore. It's all newer vehicles. This means you don't know which oil filter etc.
Around my area there are very few decent Auto factors and they sell makes of oil that I have never heard of.
I know members have their own preferred suppliers which is why I suggested anyone could chose an equivalent.
In industry it was easy as we had a cross reference chart that would advise the respective products of around 8 main oil suppliers. Different clients insisted on their preferred supplier.
Peter C
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Roger King
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Roger King »

Surely if you joined one of the Rover forums there would be plenty of advice on there? Or TVR? or Morgan?
I'd be looking at good-quality full synthetics. With modern machining and seal quality etc. there should be no need to run 'dino oil', as the yanks call it.
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peterc
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Re: Well I said I would.............

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Roger I had always taken the view that my engine, gearbox and diff are not modern. I used semi synthetic throughout th life of the Cob but was reluctant to go to fully synthetic in case of potential problems.
I think I am now convinced on the going to the synthetic gearbox oil as it will be a bit thinner than the semi synthetic but still better than ATF.
Peter C
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Roger King
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Roger King »

Peter, I'm pretty sure mine are older than yours - the engine is a 1964 casting, as are the crank and rods, and whilst the gearbox and diff are new they are faithful copies of the originals. The difference is that now these components can be machined to modern tolerances, and can be made much 'tighter'. Our understanding of oil film science has changed significantly since these motors were designed, and their requirements are much better understood. If the components themselves are worn, or machined to historical tolerances, that might be a different matter; but in general it is the spec of the oil that matters, whilst taking advantage of technological changes. For example, with regard to spec, both gearbox and diff builder advised me that I had to use a GL4 spec gear oil in both components, not a GL5, because of the metal used for the synchro rings. This does dictate a mineral base. The engine, however, despite its age, has been machined to modern tolerances with some minor oiling mods internally - and therefore despite being solid lifter flat tappet runs on 15W50 full ester synthetic. This has adequate ZDDP and gives vastly superior cold-start protection over any mineral oil. And cold-starting is what my cars tend to do, after long periods of inactivity.
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peterc
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Re: Well I said I would.............

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Roger,
Point taken,
It is certainly very important to get oil flow all around the engine asap from a cold start.
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Cotton Mouth
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Cotton Mouth »

Thank you for all the help.I will hopefully be looking at starting my engine again after its cam break-in and dyno run some 3-4 years ago (Stewie is mentally checking off the years and thinking thoughts of wishful thinking on my part) and I had thought to take out the plugs and spin the engine for 30 seconds or so to prime the oil pump and start oil circulating without large loads. is this necessary or just go for cold start?
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peterc
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Re: Well I said I would.............

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If an engine ( or any equipment ) has been standing unused for many months I would always spin it over off load. Plugs out and coil disconnected.
It's got to be good to know that there is oil all around the system before you fire it up for real.
I would be assuming that after that period of time the amount of oil protection remaining is minimal so you don't want it to run for any amount of time without a layer of oil in all the bearings etc.
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Cotton Mouth
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Cotton Mouth »

Dear All,

Thank you all for the help above. as I am trying to get the dash in the right position I am looking for the most original mirror to mount on the dash (before anyone gets their hopes up that this thread might be drawing to a close it, no such luck) and was wondering what anyone thought?

CM
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Cotton Mouth
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Cotton Mouth »

Hello All,
A new bathroom rather put a crimp in the build schedule, that is probably putting a wish to get into the garage at some point during the weekend a little high, but one job I did manage to finish was the issue of the felt bushes in the MGB steering column. I had a number of MGBs in my youth and always found the arrangement a little odd as the felt compressed and wasn't as tight after a few months. It is probably overkill, but what can you do when the garage is also doubling as the builders yard, but I machined a couple of phosphor bronze bushes to insert into the tube with an ID for each end of the shaft. This is the result that looked a lot better before I started to fit the steering tube.
ImageImage
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Cotton Mouth
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Re: Well I said I would.............

Post by Cotton Mouth »

Electrical wiring

This task has been ongoing for a couple of years and is a saga along the lines of Beowulf with the loom as Grendel's mother. It started with a wish to have a loom that looked similar to an original in that it crossed the bulkhead and was a combination of cloth covered and PVC wiring. Having looked around, I found that Autosparks - whom I cannot speak highly enough of for their patience and knowledge - did an original loom for a 289 right hand drive cobra. Hooray thought I as I merrily ordered the loom. When it arrived, it fitted but there was a major junction block missing that turned out to be the relay for the non pre-engaged starter. What I now had, having already fitted a gear reduction starter with an internal solenoid was £400 of copper scrap and even Autosparks helpful chap said "Not sure how to help you, that was something you might have told us". I then came across a book by Rick Astley, no not the popular music singer, but a fabulous fellow who wrote a book on English automotive electrical systems for the 1940-70s which is a delight to read. It breaks the tasks down into systems and in bite size chunks wiring for a car.

Not being a fan of standard Lucas lighting of glimmer, flicker and off for lights (sorry Roger) I wanted a relay switched electrics as there is a 2-3 volt drop across a typical 1960s switch that markedly affects the electrical performance. Consequently, borrowing from Stewie, I located the relays behind the dash just below the steering shaft on a custom made piece of glass fibre. As the dash bolts to the underside of the steel brace that runs across the car, the glass fibre passes under the steel brace and the loom passes over the top and is then secured in place by two M3 bolts with wing nuts. The glass fibre is secured at the front by a bolt through the bulkhead and at the rear by bolts that are tapped into the steel brace. All of the dash switches are original 1960s items from Ebay.

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The large red relays are the indicator and hazard flashers that allow the use of LED bulbs. The remaining fused relays carry modern automotive fuses of considerably lower rating than the fuse block on the engine bulkhead. The relay without a fuse is the headlamp high beam changeover relay. The engine bulkhead Lucas fuse block is the principal junction block ion the car. The cabling running across the top of the bulkhead is the main headlamp feeds and front indicators together with the horn relay feed switched by the button on the indicator stalk. The left 6RA relay is the ignition switched loads and the right relay is the horn relay. The empty grommets are for water and oil temperature senders and the oil pressure pipe.

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The other end of the loom going to the headlights and side lights can be seen crossing the front cross brace on the chassis. All internal clips in the engine bay are supplied by AH spares.

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The wring loom look s slightly untidy at the moment as when wiring neatness is secondary to ease of adding wires to a wring bundle and so the electrical tape tends to be loose. The power comes into the loom from the battery via a cable capable of handling 40-60 amps. This cable also has the feed from the alternator flowing to the battery through it.The feed comes into the Lucas fuse block on the passenger side and can be seen as the large brown/white cloth cable entering the left relay on the bulkhead. This will all be wrapped in loom tape after the IVA.

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The wiring loom is in three principal parts with the rear loom and the dash being detachable with the junction blocks behind the glove compartment. the loom in the rear of the car is tucked up behind the tank and routed out of sight secured using cable tie bases bonded to the bodywork.

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Every item has a hard-wired earth return and ease connection has been soldered into place and then usually covered with either heat shrink or a specialist connector cover.

The Ignition coil is mounted with the ballast resistor - which is jumped out of circuit when the starter button is pressed delivering the full twelve volts to the coil when cranking - and the wiring to the electronic distributor - Roger, Mea culpa, but I did modify it so it looks old - runs across the back. This part of the loom may need heat shielding but I will wait to see. The mounting point of the ballast resistor and the coil were to avoid vibration and to provide a heat sink. The third 6Ra relay on the inner wheel arch wall is the relay for the fan, which is permanently connected to the live source so that cooling occurs after the engine is turned off.
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The immobiliser will be fitted in the net couple of weeks and the dash with then finally be fitted into place. Was the first use of the loom a fraught experience? Well lets just say that the feed to the main fuse block was attached at battery and fuse block end by masking tape and held in my left hand for ease of removal. When the ignition was switched on the only items that didn't work were the headlamp, which flashed when the indicator switch was used, and the side light, which came on instead of the headlight. This was traced to my inserting the relevant wires into the junction block 180 degrees out, which when you ware wiring upside down and back to front was understandable. The remainder of the smoke stayed in the wires.

If any of you started reading this thinking "I have no idea about electrics", neither did I when I began. Rick Astley's book equips you with enough knowledge so that you can wire almost everything. Cheap it is not - probably two and half times the cost of Gerry's loom. But it is bespoke, does exactly what I want it to do and taught me an awful lot in the process and that for me is most of the reason to build such a car. I hope all of your builds are progressing and as summer is coming, now would be a good time for a push for those of us that need it to get it finished. IVA in May anyone?

CM
Last edited by Cotton Mouth on Mon Mar 13, 2017 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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