My old work Scudo had an outboard handbrake. Pulling the release button forward after applying allowed it to be put down on the sill without releasing.
Great to see this car again, just discovered this thread via farceache. I had your old rear backrest & the rear loadspace mats as you may recall. We just picked mine up from Yorkshire last weekend as it happens, only mildly modded with a crated factory reconditioned 18V Sherpa mill which has replaced the tired one fitted when l bought the car & a 3.9 MGB diff. Steve Turner did the work & went right through the cars mechanical bits. She drove back to London without a hitch. Front outriggers & a pair of estate sill covers (two jacking points per side) are to be welded in by my brother & a decent exhaust system will replace the cobbled-together dogs dinner currently fitted. You may also remember that l was miffed that you had fitted your rev-counter before l had done the same thing which l thought was my exclusive idea....haha. I bought one of those Riley units after seeing yours though & am hoping to do my own innards swap with the electronic one l was going to fit, fingers crossed. It's really interesting seeing how your car progressed, l was mightily impressed with your workmanship & attention to detail. I'll stick some photos of mine up when l get a few minutes.
This project has now stalled for more than a year, for many reasons. But enough is enough - it has to be re-animated.
One of the reasons for the stall, was, I wasn't happy with the Supercharger installation. It just wasn't making boost. I initially had two possible reasons for that.
My engine was past its best and not up to taking the boost
My design was fundamentally flawed.
Neither of which are an easy/cheap/fun fix.
But it seems there could have been a 3rd reasons - the supercharger has got damaged, and picked up some quite serious damage to the rotors I think that will be enough to stop boost being generated.
Whilst I could buy another supercharger, I'm still not convinced about the quality of the internals of my engine. So I'm going try something different. I pretended the supercharger wasn't there, by hiding it under a pillow case, and turned the carb assembly round 90degrees. Hmmm - that has got potential, and allows me to reuse a lot of what I've already done.
To take the project to the next stage, I fully stripped off all the supercharger specific stuff, labelled and bagged it, and put it in a box for another day. Time to get the car up and running on a single 1 3/4" SU - because I've got one
A B-series manifold to take a single SU, without an integral exhaust manifold, is a surprisingly rare thing. There seemed to exist in Aus at a high price. But even if I imported one, no guarantees it would work with the placement of the carb I needed.
So, make my own. I've got a nice 3D printer, so I was able to draw up and print a prototype. It is printed at an angle to make it stronger. The tree supports are necessary, as it cannot print in mid-air, always has to build on a prior layer. 12 hours later I had this.
Just a little while after that. I was able to bolt it onto the car to check for sizing, clearances and aethestics.
Yep - I like that. Lets continue down this path.
A shorter belt will hopefully allow me to use the existing pulleys. A longer pipe from the Filter King to the carb, and a longer/re-routed throttle pedal should be all the other changes.
Whilst a 3D printed inlet manifold could possibly work on a cross-flow engine, with the right materials. There is no chance with the proximity of the exhaust on mine. I have to go to metal, and start assembling the materials. After the first spending spree - I have this.
When I did the supercharger install johnnybravo was able to laser cut me some extra flanges - for future proofing/welding practice.
Alas I could only find one spare inlet flange.
Hence the piece of 10mm stainless in the picture. Simple but hard work with a holesaw - but I got there.
The carb takes a 42mm tube, and the rest of it is 38mm, so I had to make this adapter, by squishing one end of the larger tube into an oval, and then filleting it. Needs cutting to length, but so far so good.
My design called for two 45 degree bends and two 90's. It was cheaper to get a single 180, and cut it in 1/2. There was no margin for error on this cut, or scope to tidy it up afterwards. Also just marking on tubes can be awkward. So, I printed a cutting/marking jig, and took my time with a hacksaw - which thankfully worked out great.
I now have two things. All of this laid out, ready to cut to size. The offcuts will allow me spare material for welding practice.
The other thing I don't have - is any skill with the TiG welder I bought ages ago. So I'm going to need lots of practice. The first runs are not good. I need to setup the argon gas to purge the air out of the tubes, but I don't have the setup to do that yet. I might just tack it, and see if I can get someone with more skill to weld it up for me - dunno yet.
First step was to attach the flanges. Halfway through this stage I'd run out of both argon gas for the TiG - and talent too. So I reverted to MiG
Bolted the flanges to the head.
Then tacked the rest together in situ
Added the carb flange, and a barb for servo vacuum. On the other side, I also added a BSP boss, in case I need any fittings in the future.
Cleaned up the welds, a tricky process for me, as I didn't want to risk thinning the metal too much. I've not decided on a final finish for this, it isn't good enough to be polished, and I'm not sure if powder-coating will survive the heat of the exhaust. But more importantly I needed to check for pinholes in the welds, as spraying petrol vapour onto the exhaust will be sub-optimal. So I developed this setup that allowed me to pressurise the manifold to 5psi. A big bowl of soapy water found 4 little pinholes which were easily dealt with.
Manifold cleaned until boredom set in hard. The 3D model was worth its weight in gold for this project.
Fitted back on the car, along with a shorter belt, longer fuel hose, and a return to a stock bottom hose. Vacuum for servo blanked off for now.
Very happy with that. I need to add a couple standoffs to the rocker cover, to support the heater hose. But more importantly I need to pluck up courage for a test run.
Outstanding work as allways but just to make a point I think you will either need a heat shield between the inlet and exhaust or wrap the exhaust manifold. A freind of mine made up simular inlet but to take a Weber and had heat trouble.
Outstanding work as allways but just to make a point I think you will either need a heat shield between the inlet and exhaust or wrap the exhaust manifold. A freind of mine made up simular inlet but to take a Weber and had heat trouble.
For sure pid363 I've got heat wrap for the exhaust on the list, when I pull the engine out and detail it.
