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Update 36 - Mega-update

It's been a while since I had time to get a decent update together so this is going to be a bit of a mega update. With two cars on the go we've moved forward on a number of fronts. bodywork, exhausts, engine mounting, gearbox, clutch.... fitting it in between what is a great busy period at the family business. So first up lets see how the bonnets came out on the blue and white car.

Bonnets Finished on the Blue and White car

In the last update they were still being finished off at Vintage Sheet Metal and needed their louvres to be punched. Well for those eagle eyed amongst you, you may have spotted in this months (August's) Miscellany the Blue and White car's bonnets are being used in Vintage Sheet Metal's advert - the new 5 inch louvre cutter being announced.









Next up, to get ready for having the exhaust repaired by Hayward and Scott we removed the bonnet and the N/S wing. This would allow Hayward and Scott free access to where the exhaust exits the inner bay panel.

Exhaust Repair for the Blue and White Car

First off to the exhaust fabricators was the blue and white sprint car. We took along what was left of the damaged original Hayward and Scott exhaust made for us now two years ago.

Luckily H&S made the manifold in two parts so it looked like we may be able to rescue several sections of the exhaust any only replacement sections made to replace them. You can just see in the original strip down photo's when we started some of the crushing the N/S wheel did to the 4-2 section of the primaries.



I dropped the car over to H&S for a week to see what they could do and I'm really pleased with the result. By cutting out the damaged sections most of the exhaust has managed to be saved and H&S have made it look like new.

The measurements of the exhaust primaries both in length and diameter are matched to the cam timing in order to pulse tune a kind of reverse supercharge effect at the following cylinder.











You can see the difference between a performance and race exhaust. This and Woodstock's exhaust will be dispatched for ceramic coating in order to help control the temps seen when we last raced.


Helmets finished

Next up is the result from the helmet painter. We picked up the helmets based on the designs I posted previously. Interestingly, when I went to collect them it turns out that the Williams Morgan drivers helmets were there getting painted as well.

Anyhow, here's some pics to show you the result which I'm really impressed with.

On the blue and white helmet the blues are finely metallic and all the black lines are actually clear lacquer and the black is the carbon showing through.













The cartoon's of Missprint and Harrison came out really well - Piers did a great job.

Missprints helmet came out equally as well - it's hard to imagine that each of these lines and shapes were actually masked off one by one painted and moved to get the layering effect.... lets just say nobody expected it to be this complex to paint.













The Woodstock image is on both sides and his trademark swizzly flying dotted line spirals around the helmet.

Missprint's over the moon with the result and looks forward to be wearing this out on the track.

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.

A great read as ever; a very enjoyable thread.

Good work and a good read, thank you.

Great update, all looks truly fabulous.

Fabulous, very well done and as always very nice to read!

+1

Simply WOW.

Great write up.

+1 well done.