Sorting out the clutch in Woodstock

We saw Woodstock getting it's gearbox fitted but before the exhaust can be fabricated the engine needs to be mounted into place, which means sorting out the engine mounts and overall position of the engine itself.

First up in this process was to get the clutch sorted. Unlike the Blue and White car which was designed with a Type 9 in mind the rocket gearbox of the 73 4/4 used a rather "Heath Robinson" rod based linkage... hhhmmmm...

I picked up a hydraulic clutch, suitable master cylinder and plumbing and handily from a retro ford supplier a gearbox/clutch ali spacer. I went for the largest as it could easily be machined down to size if needed.

To do the necessary measuring the flywheel and clutch (basket and plates) were fitted to the engine and the relief measured. It's interesting to think that the flywheel and clutch assembly only weighs the same as the original Zetec flywheel let alone with the heavy clutch pack fitted. This package is the same on both engines as it's been a great combination.



Well as luck would have it (I'm not usually this lucky) the spacer was exactly the correct size!!! wow. So the front of the gearbox was stripped down and the new nose fitted along with the hydraulic clutch release. We used a spacer from a later Morgan to mount the hydraulic master cylinder and made some modifications to the bell-housing to tidily rout the lines.


















Mounting the Engine in Woodstock

Mounting the engine had quite a few variables to take in to consideration.

1) The bonnet line is quite low on the xflow models
2) Whilst conceptually in a race car you want weight as low down as possible, we also didn't want to cut the wing like we did on the blue and white car to accommodate the twin 45's
3) The xflow chassis is slightly different to the following cvh in one key way. (the toe board cross-member is different).
4) the engine mounts on a zetec are in a slightly different position than the shorter blocked xflow.

So what to attack first... it's worth a quick discussion on the difference in the chassis. Essentially, on the xflow has a toe board cross-member which is an inch square steel tube running all the way across the chassis.

On the CVH and later, to accommodate a taller engine (and/or deeper gearbox) this cross member is cut away where the gearbox tunnel is. Instead the CVH and later cars have the two inch box tubes in the drivers and passengers footwells bridged by a welded on inverted "U" channel which hangs down underneed.. providing an extra inch or so's extra drop on the front of the gearbox. On reflection - this is not the most elegant fix that could have been made to the chassis design - though it seems to work - it must be tough as its the part of a Morgan which often gets snagged on speed humps being the lowest point on the car.

You can see us test fitting the engine before measuring the engine mountings in the pics below:





In the end we found a height that we thought that would work - as low as possible whilst also allowing the intake to be just over the wing thereby significantly simplifying/tidying the intake design. A couple of well sized wooden blocks and we could do some other measuring to make sure the engine is within the bonnet line.







Yep - we're all within tolerance on all fronts. now for the engine mounts.

We decided to re-use the lower mounts and the standard vibration damping rubbers. This meant we only needed to create uppers. Handily saving a bit of time from when we mounted the Zetec in the Blue and White car, I found a supplier who flow-jet cuts template engine brakets for the Zetec as well as pre-cutting the spacers required for the engine mounting bolts.

I can say these were great... only complication we had was that we needed to use one of the sensor holes which is behind the generously sized bracket face.... well, it was the most satisfying job to measure and drill a +2mm hole exactly in the correct place for the sensor to slot through, evenly spaced with a quality finish... result!

With some cutting and welding new upper engine mounts were fabricated. These enable the re-use of the original lower mounts. Both the uppers and lowers will be powder coated before final fit.





Fitted in situ in Woodstock. You can see the sensor hole in the second photo.





Exhaust for Woodstock

Finally, when we collected the Blue and White car from H&S we dropped off Woodstock for a matching exhaust to be fabricated and fitted.. I picked it back up earlier today and the result once again was fantastic.









What's next?
The blue and white car will be prepared for paint. Woodstock's wings will be replaced, intake fitted and it will be sent off to have a new bonnet made at VSM.