CAP in hand: Starting to get fiddly now.

April 13th 2016

As you work your way through refurbishing a car you come across bits needing attention, that you store away in the back of your mind until later. Things that need altering to allow you to do something else.

Well I'm starting to catch up on those things now.

Battery Cable

I put the battery cable in a conduit to pass through the cockpit and put the fuel pump wire in as well. However as I plan to get rid of one battery and put an alternator on the car I needed to put a couple of wires in the conduit as a feed and return to the master switch, so that it cuts the ignition when the switch is operated. I did wonder about putting a spare cable in, but couldn't think why I may need it. I crimped new ends on with a great pair terminal pliers I borrowed from a friend. At over £100 it's not the sort of thing you buy for the one use.

Once I'd done this I could fit the floor and seat pans back in.

This is the conduit coming alongside the seat

and then through the front bulkhead

I cleaned up the floor panels and straightened and reinforced the heel rests. It may be they want altering to suit me, but that's a good starting place.

Back Axle Install

I decided to fit the back axle. I wasn't sure about that as it will need to come off again to fit the side panels as the coil shocks go outside the panels. However it made the car mobile again and I wanted to turn it around it the garage so that I could attack the front end.

This is with the passenger seat pan still to be fitted. I left it out so I could do the propshaft nuts up more easily.

I used a body mastic (UPOL Tiger, I think) to bed the floor and seat pans on.

Wow! It's fierce. You don't really need pop-rivets. Still it should help with chassis stiffness.

Now...

The next thing to attend to ......

the next two things to attend to .....

the next three things to attend to ...... are to move the water pump to the driver's side, fit the alternator on the passenger side and replace the alloy plate engine mounts with something a bit more robust.

Because of where the distributor is it will be tricky to fit the alternator on the driver's side and besides that, I think it will be better to have the water pump on that side. Up until now, it has been taking hot water from the head and pumping it into the radiator top hose.

With it moved to the other side it can take cooler water from the bottom hose and pump it into the engine block. That is the way most cooling systems work. This will mean it is operating with cooler water and stands less chance of getting an air lock.

It's not an Imp water pump, but it is a remote one. It has been created by bolting a machined alloy block to the back of a Mini water pump. This is good because new Mini pumps are easily available for about £15.00.

This is the water pump on the right of the picture. The alloy-plate engine mount on the left will need cutting down to make space for the water pump.

Engine Mount Dilemma

However, as usual, when I removed the engine mount I discovered a problem. The studs that the mount are bolted to pass through the timing case cover, but the threads are in the engine block. This means about 2" of the studs are unsupported and years of bashing and crashing have cracked the bosses in the timing case cover.

It isn't a problem as far as the timing case is concerned. All the nuts have to do is clamp it up against the face on the engine block. But I can't carry on yanking them about as they had been when doing service as engine mount locators.

This is not the end of the world as the middle engine mount (rather oddly there is one front engine mount and then one on the other side at the back of the engine block, then one under the gearbox tailshaft) is also an alloy plate on the bell-housing and I have my doubts about the strength of that as well.

Right: New plan.

Ditch the old mounts and build some new ones using the original and "proper" engine mount bosses on the crankcase. I can connect them to new uprights which I'll fit to the chassis frame.

A vertical tube attached to those three tapped holes in the block, and extending down to the bottom of the sump, will give me a good engine mount and a sumpguard mount into the bargain.

So this is the mount. I made it from 16 gauge steel tube (the same as I used for the chassis repairs) which isn't the strongest available, but stronger than the flimsy alloy plates used before. I fixed a new piece into the chassis frame for the engine mounted part to bolt to.

This shot from the rear. I capped the tops of the tubes to avoid mud and water getting trapped. The engine was chocked before removing the old mounts and my hope is it will stay in the same spot when the new mounts take the strain. The leg going downwards is to fit the sumpguard to.

I did the same on the driver's side.

I took the first of these shots before removing the chocks under the sump. The straight edge is just level with the the top of the bolt head at 26.5cms.

This second shot is after removing the chocks, with the engine now supported by the new mounts.

Just the same! It hasn't dropped at all. I took the opportunity to move the engine sideways half a centimetre to avoid contact with a front supsension arm that had been happening.

Water Pump

A previous owner who had put on the Mini water pump had used one with a by-pass hose outlet. This had fugly bit of hose with a bolt stuck in the end to block it off. You can get pumps with the by-pass take-off blocked now, so that will tidy up the installation.

The machined alloy block on the pump has a steel plate on the back with the outlet pipe. It needs chopping and turning, but what's new?

The pulley is wrong and puts the pump too far back in the engine bay, interfering with the HT leads and such. I got a proper A series pulley which has a 2" offset back towards the pump body. This allows me to move the pump forwards, but I'll have to move the radiator as well to clear the front boss of the pump.

Using the original bracket on the chassis that the discarded engine mount had been fitted to I mounted the water pump. It won't have any adjustment and is mounted solidly to the chassis rails. The engine should not move enough to throw the belt. The belt will drive both the pump and the alternator, at the other side of the engine, which will provide the adjustment to tighten the belt..

This is just a initial installation as I will be fitting a new pump to the alloy backing plate. Getting the pulleys lined up takes a bit of doing. Using a straight edge and packing the mounts with washers allows me to get it just about spot on.I deliberately left the brackets needing packing. If you plan to get the brackets in the right spot without packing washers then discover it isn't, you may have to cut the brackets off the chassis frame and start again.

The outlet on the back of the pump had a 90 degree bend in it. It faced the wrong way.

I thought that if I had a straight outlet I could use hose bends to get the path right to connect to the engine. To do this I got my engineer friend to cut the old pipe off and TIG weld a new, stainless bit of pipe on. If I had used steel I would have done it with MIG. But his welding is much better than mine.

Because it is a Mini pump the inlet is facing the wrong way really. I will overcome that with silicone hoses and some copper tube. If the distributor hadn't been there I could have inverted it to make it much simpler.

The new pump, alloy block and backing plate

Assembled

Making a bracket for my new alternator.

eBay came up with a great Denso competition alternator that's only 40 Amps, but very compact. It looks like I'll just have to ditch the electric windows and air-con. But you have to make some sacrifices in this game.

I made a bracket that used 2 timing case studs across the front on the engine to make a pivot for the alternator. The adjuster stay is fixed to the chassis frame. So I hope the new engine mounts hold everything steady!