374 replies to this topic

[Mini Manannán]

Looking good Joe.

[Mini Manannán]

Looking good Joe. I hope it's not going to be "a few years" until you get it on the road!

[Mini Manannán]

Looking good Joe. I hope it's not going to be "a few years" until you get it on the road!

[johnR]

That is one lovely looking engine! Nice work on the everlasting project. JohnR

[Joe250]

One of the few issues that were created by mounting the engine 1/2" lower in the subframe was a misalignment between the mounting locations for the top engine steady. The brace bolts to the side of the engine block on one side and a bracket welded to the firewall on the other. There is no ability to connect these two in stock form unless they lie on the same plane. After a bit of thinking and sketching I came up with the design below:

The plate will bolt to the side of the engine block, exactly where the engine steady normally goes. The engine steady now slides onto the two threaded sections.


Because the plate must lie flat against the side of the block, the threaded sections are pinned in, locking them in place.
 

Not a great photo but you can see the mount and engine steady in place.
 

Here it has been bolted in at both ends. It works.
 

I also welded on an AN bung onto the clutch case breather. This makes installing and removing the breather line infinitely easier.
 

My earlier measurements of the clearance between the exhaust headers and firewall led me to install some heat shielding. The lower is DEI's Heat Screen with adhesive backing. The upper section is their Reflect-A-GOLD tape. There is a good chance I will be removing the latter and replacing it with Heat Screen but I want to try this first.

You will also notice in this photo that I removed the old brake line light switch, since I already found a better mounting location in the back seat. I've also cut the fuel lines to length and re-installed them.
 

Although I had earlier decided to mount the shifter box inside the cabin, I gave it some more thought and decided against it. Although some additonal room in the exhaust tunnel would be nice, it wasn't absolutely necessary. Besides, you know what a stickler I am for keeping things stock.

Speaking of that, I installed the stock shifter and found that with the seats so far back in my car, I was unable to reach the shifter in most gears. The throws are pretty long too. Even if I lengthened the stock shifter and bent it rearwards enough to reach, the thows would be even longer. My solution to the long reach to the shifter turned out to be even easier than I planned. Instead of modifying the stock lever, I simply ordered a new KAD (yes, KAD again! No, they don't sponsor me. I wish.) short shifter. And not the regular one but the longest one they make, which is actually for the Moke. Test fitting it revealed that it was more than sufficient, as-is. The longer length put the shift knob much closer but the shorter throws also assisted. And God bless KAD - the thing is a cinch to install. Finally something easy!
 

The shifter box does move around a bit with use. To prevent it from banging into the chassis, I enlarged the hole a bit more.
 

Here it is with the shift boot and retainer plate installed. I'm happy.
 

Here you can see the Radium Engineering breather catch can. It has a drain at the bottom for the captured oil. You can also unscrew the bottom half and dump it out that way as well. There's even a tiny dipstick to check the oil level!
 

I'm happy with the fuel line routing. The grey line running across the front of the engine is the supply line, bringing fuel to the fuel rail.
 

The fuel pressure is controlled by the regulator, which I attached directly to the opposite end of the rail. This seemed the cleanest solution - the pressure gauge is easy to see, the breather to atmosphere line points directly down, minimizing water/dirt ingress, an additional fuel line is avoided, the excess fuel exits the regulator and is already headed directly backwards where it needs to go. Best of all, the bonnet closes! Barely. I will have to keep an eye on this area as excessive rocking of the engine during driving could tap the pressure gauge into the underside of the bonnet.
 

Here you can see the fuel lines and dry-break fittings. One is run with the female side down and the other is opposite. That way I won't hook them up wrong.
 

Just a shot of the front-end. I have already test-fit the starter motor with no issues. I will re-install it right before it is time to start the engine.

Edited by Joe250, 12 November 2016 - 06:09 PM.

[Joe250]

Can anyone confirm for sure which ring gear type this is - pre-engaged or ineria?

 

[mad mk1]

Any updates joe? It's been a wile

[minimans]

Hi Joe, Just found this thread, Great job and fantastic looking car! At the start you had the car in a friends barn? was That the great S.M place? (No name since you didn't)  I've had a few cars done by him in the past! I'm up at Sonoma raceway if you fancy a chat anytime............Paul

 

Edit. Just got to the bit where you say you've moved down south but your welcome to visit anytime you get back up here!

Edited by minimans, 30 June 2017 - 11:26 PM.

[mad mk1]

Come on joe where is the updates man! ,

[Joe250]

Ok. You asked for it.

 

I sorted out my issue with the starter motor. The engine started up, and after a few hiccups, it ran nicely. I drove the car around my neighborhood several times at relatively low speeds (<40mph). This uncovered some fluid leaks and electrical issues, which are now resolved. However, the car badly needs a 4-wheel alignment and a bracket fabricated which will keep the throttle cable out of harms way. Due to the fact that my car is left-hand drive and to avoid getting anywhere near the exhaust headers, I routed the throttle cable past the cam gears. At rest, they were nowhere near each other. In motion though, they got into a bit of a scrap. Fortunately I caught them in time.

 

In the meantime several important things have occurred. The first is that summer arrived. I don't like working in the garage when it is 100F+ outside. But that really didn't matter as my work kept me from even considering it. Things have always been busy and I like staying busy, but then it got insanely busy. And then busier. And then even busier with no end in sight. It got so busy that it made me stop and face up to the fact that I was not in the right industry. I worked in the car industry before and that is where my passion lies. It took a lot of soul-searching but I decided to quit my job after 17 years with the same company.

 

I am now looking for a job with a sports car manufacturer, either here in the States or abroad. That search is my full-time job at the moment. Once that is taken care of, the weather should be much more pleasant and work can resume on the Mini. She is close, so hopefully more updates soon. In the meantime, if anyone has a good contact at Aston Martin or McLaren, do PM me!

[Joe250]

Which is worse - people who start ambitious car projects and don't finish them or people who start threads and don't regularly update them? I was kept quite busy over the last year or so trying to get back into the auto industry and, when that went nowhere, start my own company. In the end, things are better than they were before and I have not regretted the career change for a single moment. With that sorted, it is finally time to get back to the subject of Mini's!

Recently a good friend of mine completed the restoration of his '65 Mini. The result is fantastic:



Turn the ignition key for a millisecond and the engine is started and idling perfectly. Closing the doors requires only a bit of effort and sounds so solid (I find that so impressive as my car's doors must be slammed and then sounds like a tin can). Steve is the one who inspired me to get a Mini in the first place, so it seems wrong to have him running around town all alone. My project has dragged on for almost 11 years. Time to finish it!

During my brief test drives in 2017, I ran into several issues. Here is how I resolved each one of them:

At one point I pulled off the road to check something and when I turned the ignition back on, the fuel pump built up pressure and suddenly my windshield was coated in fuel. Turns out the bracket that holds the fuel rail in place, and in turn holds the injectors down tightly between the rail and throttle bodies, was not really holding the injectors down tightly enough. A few minutes with a file and the injector's sealing o-rings are now tightly seated. No more leaks.

I experienced a number of strange electrical issues. This should come as a surprise to no one as I designed and built the harness myself. Turns out you cannot wire relay coil triggers in series. Seems so obvious now but it took me a while to notice my error. An afternoon of correcting things and suddenly all the weirdness went away.

I spoke earlier about the throttle cable coming into contact with the exposed cam pulley. I also had a concern that the whole engine coolant outlet to t-stat housing to radiator was at risk of getting too close to the cam pulley as well. And finally, I installed a coolant temp gauge sender right near the t-stat housing and it needed to be electrically grounded in order to work. I found a way to resolve all three issues at once with one bracket. It is bolted to the engine and pushes the cooling parts away from the cam pulley and grounds the sensor at the same time.

I resolved an issue where the fuel pressure gauge on my regulator wasn't working by realizing I had plumbed the thing incorrectly. The instructions that came with the FPR made it very easy to understand. I sketched the layout correctly. Not really sure what I was thinking when I actually hooked it all up. Anyways, it is sorted now.

The throttle bodies needed to be synced. I ran through that process about four times in total before I had a good understanding of the best sequence to follow. And some of those adjustments are really hard to get to, especially with the risk of burning your hand on the hot engine. Ordering a set of extra long allen wrenches was a smart move. I just should have done it earlier. End result is the engine starts easier and idles better.

I had reason to believe the car was running very rich (black soot shooting out of an exhaust leak, mushy/soft throttle response, backfiring after revving the engine, wet + black spark plugs), so I installed a nice AEM wideband O2 sensor controller and a Bosch 4.9 sensor. With closed loop mode turned on in SC's tuning software, things improved rapidly. I will be taking the car to a local dyno shop soon to get things 100%, but already the improvement has been dramatic.

So with all of that sorted, I took the car for a quick test drive last week. I stopped for fuel but when pulling back onto the road, the car made a horrible grinding sound, shuddered and failed to move forward or backwards. I had to get a quick tow home. I assumed I installed the driveshafts + cv's + pot joints incorrectly, so pulled them and reinstalled them carefully. I took the car out again the next day and the same thing happened when trying to turn uphill into our driveway. Hmmmm.

I put the car in the air. Pulled the front springs and reinstalled the front dampers. I placed a hydraulic jack under one hub. I laid down under the car, pulled the inner pot joint rubber boots out of the way, and then watched the pot joint as I ran the suspension through its travel. The right-hand side looked good, but the left-hand side did not. The balls of the cv were barely protruding from the cage at full droop. As the suspension went into compression, the drive shaft pulled the cv almost completely out of the inner pot joint housing.

So this explains my problem. Both times my left front suspension was very compressed by driving down the slight ramp at the gas station at an angle and then hitting the road or by hitting the ramp of our driveway at an angle. The inner cv had pulled the caged balls out far enough that they were spinning around against the outer face of the cv, making a horrific racket, and loss of drive to one side of a Quaife ATB means you lose drive to both.

Turns out the inner cv only has about 15-17mm of travel inside the pot joint. Remember an earlier post where I talked about dropping the engine 1/2" in the front subframe? When you combine that change with some negative camber up front (which pulls the wheels+hub+driveshafts outwards), and slightly lower ride height than stock (making it more likely that the front suspension will find itself higher up in its total arc of travel, you end up with driveshafts that don't drive.

I took all kinds of measurements and tried my best to calculate how much longer I need the left-hand driveshaft to be to keep the cv as close to the middle of its short range as possible. I decided on running -1.0 degrees of front camber, set the suspension accordingly, and ran my tests using that setting. End result is I think I need 17mm more length. I am having a right-hand shaft shortened to the "correct" length now and hope to have the car ready for testing in another week or two. More about that then.

Once the driveshaft issue is sorted, its off for a professional alignment, and then the dyno tuners. There are plenty more details to sort out but at least the car will be driveable at that point. I'll then have the rest of the year to wrap up the interior, exterior, and other detail work.

Edited by Joe250, 16 May 2019 - 01:18 AM.

[DeadSquare]

I dropped the car off at the rollcage fabricators last week. Beyond just the standard cage, I'm having them tie into the suspension mounting points front and rear. This should aid handling and feel. And of course, it's also a safety measure. Lots of pics when I get the car back in a couple weeks.

Now on to the parts that have shown up:















I pressed the bearings into the hubs - not a big deal, but something I'd actually never done before. Next time I think I'll use a press!



KAD makes some nice stuff! MiniSport too - that's their alloy swivel hub and drive flange.





And what problems have I run into? I found 4 things that didn't fit:
1. MiniSport alloy drive flanges - the holes for the brake rotor retainer bolts were too small! I drilled them out a bit and all is fine.
2. Revolution 10x5 wheels - the holes for the lug nuts were too small as well, but only on 1 of the 4 wheels. Strange. I have carefully drilled them out slightly also.
3. Mintex front brake pads won't seat in the front calipers completely as they conflict with the supplied caliper spacer bushes. No biggie though - just 5 seconds on the grinder and they slid in.
4. The Pro-Tech coilovers are made to mount to a 3/8" spindle on the rear swinging arms, but I spec'd these KAD units with 1/2" spindles for added strength. I thought I could just pick up larger ID bushes but I've had a difficult time locating some on the Net. Also, my email directly to Pro-Tech has gone unanswered so I think I'll just try to bore these out to the correct size.

So just a few minor setbacks, nothing huge. Of course the project has a long way to go yet...

 

How does the handbrake work ?

[Joe250]

With the standard handbrake lever and handbrake cables hooked up to the KAD rear calipers. It holds the car just fine so far.

[jonny f]

Nice to see an update :)

[Joe250]

Nice to see an update :)

 

Thanks Jonny! My apologies that it took so long. Life has a funny way of messing with my plans. The good news is that I should have the modified driveshaft in my grubby hands by this weekend. More updates next week, hopefully with some photos this time. Working out some bugs with my website.