Right.. I said I would keep you all up to speed (pardon the pun) on how things progress and I figure a blog is best.
Simon you might want to move this to another more general part of the forum but I guess this is as good as any point to start..
So following on from
http://www.talkmorgan.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=11736#Post11736 The situation is that we have 1 x standard 1985 4/4 steel body 1600 CVH 5 speed carb model car.. Over the next 2-3 months this will be turned into a sprint/track car by my family and myself.
Since my last post on this... the car's mostly sat in my garage (well 2 months) whilst we discussed with various helpful morgan personalities what we should do as well as sorting out Christmas Holidays etc.
Since return from holidays (2 weeks ago) we've been sorcing parts from Heart of England Morgans, David Rutherford, Melvyn Rutter and also 5 Toyo T1R's from our tyre supplier.
Last weekend I dropped the 4/4 up at the family business ready to start the preparation work...
By the next weekend we managed to mount a sample tyre on the spare wheel.. only to find out during balancing the wheel was slightly buckled. Nothing drastic but I don't think I'll be using it as a sprinting wheel... (note to self... if I see another, pick one up). The old tyre rubber was severely perrished!!
Anyhow... with the spare weel & tyre fitted we compared the size to the current Michelin's and found it a lot smaller rolling radius... by approx 10%... currently we're not sure what the effect will be however there is not a 155/65/15 in the T1R and other sprinters seem to use the 155/55/15, so I'll guess we'll see how we go.
This week we also managed to remove the front and rear bumpers and bumper irons. We used to supply custom Stainless Steel number plate mounts which we will use to mount the front number plate directly to the chassis, just below the cowel.
Having fitted the remainder of the tyres today the car sits more squat to the ground and the steering is much lighter. (This may change once the camber plates are fitted?)
I also started cleaning up the rear chassis, we knew when we inspected the car on a ramp before purchase the rear chassis had surface rust, so I decided that whilst the rear wheels were off, I'd start cleaning up the chassis.... great things air powered mini orbital sanders when combined with a scraper made short work of the bits I'd decided to do (I can imagine that with only sandpaper and elbow-grease this job would have taken ages!!)...
I didn't finish and I can imagine this job continuing slowly during the whole conversion as and when I get a chance to do it.
This afternoon we drove up to Melvyn Rutters to have a natter, rummage through his parts department and take a look and see how the "pit stop" is progressing (I must say it's really lovely and can imagine it's going to be rather smart to stay at once it's finished..
)
Anyhow.. after 1hr of chatting followed by another of rummaging and hunting throught the parts bins.. we left with most of the parts we were after:
Front damper blades
Saftey Devices Roll Bar
Harness mounting bar
Aero Screen - (seeing as he had one in stock)
High Level Brake Light system (from later model)
Brake reaction bars
Fuel Filler Hose - Old one was perrished
Mota Lita Steering wheel
and a Clutch Cable - for spares
We're waiting for a Scuttle Roll Bar which shold come soon, a spare throttle cable as well as a spare wheel ali cover.
Thanks to Melvyn for his great hospitality.
So.. that's about it for now... we have some before and after pics which I'll try to get up, but I suspect this will be next week.
Next week.. we plan to get upto GPR at silverstone to collect test and pick up some racing seats.... we might even pick up the helmets, boots, racesuits etc...
Bye for now
P.S. when I arrived this morning to work on the 4/4 dad was picking up a +4 from the paintshop round the corner.. with no front or rear wings attached and no bonnet or cowel.. it looks really funny.
)
