Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Changing Classes and Engine along with it!!!!

I'll drop him a line as I need to sort out both the LSD and getting it put into the housing.

Sorry it's been quiet on the western front. I've been busy in the background though so here's an update with plenty of pictures.

First Job - Dash
A couple of weekends ago we stripped the existing dash out of the car, handily where we had rebuilt most of the car a couple of years ago all the labelling of the wiring harness is still in situ. Saved a bit of a job.



We then stripped down the old dash as we'd added and cleaned up various aspects to make it suitable for racing rather than driving miss daisy.



This could then be used to make a new dash blank, as I mentioned earlier, I looked at a carbon sheet for a dash but its pretty pricy and I'm not sure its easy to work with?? Anyhow an aluminium plate with Carbon effect viynl seemed a better easier and cost effective option. So we used the old dash outline to create a Aluminium dash blank outline. As I am going to use a Race Technology Dash 2 most of the old gauges and dash lights are not going to be needed so we also need to sort out a new layout.. anyhow, first off lets get a blank sorted....



Now to sort the layout, as a race car visibility and proximity is important, from experience, whilst the glove box cover mounted telemetry system was easily mounted and usable it was not really easy to get to from the driver seat whilst strapped in. Something closer would be nice. None of the headlight, indicator, warning light lamps would be needed as they are integrated into the Dash 2 and neither will be the oil temp, oil pressure and voltage gauges. So in the end only the switch gear and the fuel gauge is required.

Handily the Dash 2 is the right shape to be seen by the driver through the steering wheel - none the less, it's outline was traced to ensure location of the display.



Having cut out all the holes required the DL1 telemetry mount needs to be bonded to the blank - the mount needs to hold the DL1 horizontally and in a secure fashion. Given the slight incline of the dash in a Morgan a custom bracket needed to be fabricated. We decided to bond the bracket to the dash as a bolt type attachment would only mess up the front of the dash when the vinyl is on.







Once the bond was dry we took the dash down to a local sign company we use to get it Vinyl wrapped. They do several types of carbon wrap from shiny finish mostly graphic print through to matt finish, thick texturised realistic carbon finish. After some consideration we decided on the matt finish as we have had in the past, mainly on Aero's reflection problems with the turned ali dash plate. The only downside is that this type of vinyl cannot be wrapped around sharp angles which means we have had to trim around the dash blank rather than wrap over the edges. I don't think this is going to be a problem though as all the dash components have facia covers so you'll never be able to see the edge and we have painted the lower edge of the ali plate in black. Any-how, the picture below shows as far as we have progressed on this job.




Replacement fuel tank & Limited Slip Diff

I've made a number of calls this week, chasing down progress of the fuel tank and bracket (Mulfab) and talking to J B Sports Engineering (Billy Bellinger) about getting the 7HA axle refurbished and fitted with an LSD. When I spoke to JB he said there was a choice, refurbished original 7HA plate LSD, Gripper (new style plate type) LSD and Quaife ramp style. All reliable and about the same price. So Quaife unit was the one I went for. So need to strip out the rear Axle to send it off and at the same time strip out the tank and wooden boards that it sits on.

So this week the car started out on all 4 wheels running and mobile, I think this is the last time its going to be like this until its finished.

First job was to strip out the old tank, having drained the tank we disconnected the filler pipe, which was perished (Which was an eye opener given its only 4 years old) followed by disconnecting the fuel gauge sensor and disconnecting the fuel feed and return pipes. As we won't be needing the wooden planks under the fuel tank for the new tank we cut them out and dropped the tank out that way.



You can see the fuel pipes we fitted as part of the race safety prep a couple of years ago sticking up in the middle of the spare wheel tank opening.



You can also see the wheel centralising and lowering blocks just under the near side of the axle.

The new tank will be one of these...



mounted by a direct mount bracket which allows quick access



Having sorted out the tank, next on the list was the back axle. This needed to be stripped out of the car and packaged off to be sent to JB Engineering this week, once this was done the car is unlikely to be back on 4 wheels for a 2-3 weeks!!

First up stripping out the Avo's



Also disconnecting the rear brakes stripping the drums and shoes.

To get the axle out of the car, you have to take the half shafts out. Luckily they came out with only mild persuasion and we could strip them out quickly.



This meant we could easily drop the rear axle out of the car and package it up for JB Engineering.





This left a pile of parts that won't be going near the car again for a while, and in some cases ever again.



This left the little car pretty disabled with no rear end...

That's a lot of work for one day.. so we need to get packed up and get the car mobile for the week. So what we decided to do was to put the car back on the trailer using wood blocks as a cradle for the rear of the car. To get it onto the trailer though we needed to drop the car onto the trailer rather than lift it from underneath. So first up is to get the lift arms out using stands.



We can then "hang" the car from the lift arms. One strop round a wooden plank under the front chassis arms and then two short strops round the roll-bar as its attached to the chassis with some seriously over engineered brackets and bolts. We get a flying car!!





This allowed us to drop the car gently onto the trailer which we slid under the floating car.





That's all for this week.. its all been put away for the week. Mulfab should be sending the tank back next week along with the Anti-tramp bars so I'll post photo's. The Dash still needs finishing so I'll be back on that next week to get that ready for when the engine arrives and the harness can be connected up.

Thanks Cereal......some really fascinating stuff there

+1
and the cost, where you are?

Currently within target... ie. less than the cost of upgrading to either a +4 or +8 racer.

The engine is the interesting part for us, Zetec E engine conversion packages will be offered based on the work we are doing. Standard 2.0 (130-150), Fast Road 2.0 (150-200) and Sprint 2.0 (200-250). Options around brakes etc. will be offered along side.

We are working with an Engine development company to make these off-the-shelf with pre-coded ecu's (designed for us) to control costs. Twin DCOE's or TB's

Thanks for the posting, good to be kept abreast of your progess.

Excellent stuff!
Like the bit about 'flying car'. Look forward to seeing it fly when it's all back together

Yes, it makes a really interesting read Andrew.

Good luck to you and Missprint for the season.