148 replies to this topic

[DUF2]

A month or so ago, when I turned the car around I noticed the car seemed a bit harsh with the engine running. I asked a friend who has a ‘66 Mini how harsh his car was, he told me it wasn’t 

So  I have had a bit more look around as I was applying the underbody protection. I have found that the exhaust pipe is touching the tunnel where it transitions from coming down vertically from the manifold to horizontal as it runs towards the rear of the car.

I need to adjust the bracket on the diff housing, manouvre the exhaust pipe downwards and adjust the tunnel to make clearance between the pipe and the tunnel.
I have the car lifted as high as I can on axle stands, but I still don’t have sufficient working room, I shall have to use the trolley jack to get sufficient working space.

 

 

update, I have “adjusted” the exhaust as best as I can, but it is still VERY close to the tunnel. Could this be because I have a Mk1 floor pan with a round tunnel, but  the exhaust is I believe a Metro down pipe mated to a Mini exhaust system?

Edited by DUF2, 26 October 2022 - 11:05 AM.

[GraemeC]

Don't work off the jack Gordon - find some concrete blocks or bits of sleeper to put under your axle stands and gain more height that way.

Or find someone with a trailer or car transporter and part the front end of the Elf on the ramps!

[DUF2]

Adjusted the exhaust a bit, but it still must be touching somewhere.

Then took the car out to get a picture or two.

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Little and Large!

 

The EV6 is my daily driver.

 

So I had a little bit of a run, a couple of mile to a friends house, the car has a misfire, it runs OK in the garage, but under load it misfires, coughs and splutters.

Got it home and in the drive, turned it off for a while so I could tidy the area in the garage a bit. When I went to start it up, it fired up, but stalled as soon as I tried to move backwards, it refused to re start. Just like it had run out of fuel. I went and bought 10L of fuel, it still did not start up again, so I ended up pushing it back into the garage. I have ordered some new plugs and a replacement fuel pump to so if that makes it run.

[DUF2]

Just a bit of an update. The vent/overflow on the HIF44 carb had a short piece of hose on it. To prevent any dust etc being drawn into the float bowl, I fitted a small fuel filter in the pipe. When I checked the car over to see how difficult it would be to change the fuel pump, I spotted that the end of the filter had moved and become close to the manifold. The plastic had softened with the heat and the pipe has sealed itself! This caused a vacuum in the float chamber and prevented fuel getting into the needle jet. I removed the filter and the engine started up ok. I couldn’t run the engine for long as the car was reversed into the garage and exhaust fumes woul get into the house.

I have since extended the pipe on the outlet of the filter and fastened the pipe away from the manifold. I have replaced the spark plugs but have not yet replaced the fuel pump, as I don’t think the pump was causing the problem.

I went out for a short run in the car with my son today. The car spluttered a bit when cold and running on the choke, but as the engine warmed up, it ran a bit better, on full throttle it seemed fine, but on partial throttle it was just not quite right.

I think I shall have to seek out the services of a local A Series specialist.

Edited by DUF2, 08 October 2022 - 07:07 PM.

[DUF2]

Took Duffy up to see the A Series expert, he tells me the carb has been played with by a previous owner.

the piston is a slack fit in the chamber and won’t lift properly, also the vacuum is too high and there is a problem with the bridge and the jet has bee lowered to compensate.

He suggested getting a replacement carb, so I have one coming via eBay, should be here next week. In the meantime, he has disconnected  the vac advance pipe to stop it over advancing the ignition. It is running better now but obviously still not how it should be.

I have washed the car before putting it back in the garage, this is the first time I have ever washed Duffy!

Edited by DUF2, 19 October 2022 - 02:21 PM.

[Retro_10s]

Interesting diagnosis! Would be interested to see what's wrong with the bridge of the carb as it's a cast part of the main body. Not entirely uncommon to find a mismatched piston/dashpot, certainly I've seen people swapping them over - not a good idea.

Hope the new carb sorts your problems ☺

Edited by Retro_10s, 22 October 2022 - 01:29 PM.

[DUF2]

The indicator switch on Duffy was a bit of a nuisance for me with it being on the “wrong” side of the column. Most cars come with the indicator switch on the left of the column. I remember this really annoying me whenI was driving a Datsun pick up truck in South Africa, every time I wanted to indicate I was looking for the switch on the left, when it was on the right of the column.

I thought about re locating the switch and thought about turning the column inner & outer through 180 degrees. The first problem was the pinch bolt at the bottom of the column, this would only go in one way, so I was unable to turn the column through 180 degrees, this meant the self cancelling bolt was still on the right of the column.

The outer column was easy enough to turn placing the switch at my preferred location, the problem was the switch did not have any self cancelling. This was also a bit of an annoyance, as the flasher unit can’t be heard! The insulation on the bulkhead makes the flasher sound almost inaudible!

So I looked at the column and decided to redrill this and fix a new bolt.

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I did think this may be hard to do, but the column was quite soft, so drilled and tapped quite easily.

I then refitted the column shrouds in their now reversed position, but as they are virtually mirror images, the top and the bottom look the same.

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So that is the  indicator switch working and self cancelling AND in my preferred location.

I now need to push on and fit the trim panels to the drivers door.

I am still awaiting my “new” carb arriving.

 

 

[DUF2]

Had Duffy up to Andy Aird’s place. He has replaced the carburettor and worked his magic on the car.

It is now running MUCH better. It is quite sprightly for a 57 year old car!

I still need to replace the speedo cable to see if I can stop the needle from jumping about. If that does not cure the issue I will probably have to swap the speedo head, it reads slow anyway.

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Still got lots of small jobs to do, but I suspect I will forever have jobs to do on this classic car.

[DUF2]

Just a bit of an update. There was a wee bit of slog in the offside front wheel bearing so I decided to change the bearings.

 

First problem, I did not have a 34mm socket for the hub nut, Amazon soon had one to me. Next thing was the bottom ball joint rubber had a split in it so I thought I’d best change the joint. I then discovered I did not have a 46mm socket for the joint, don’t forget Duffy has Metro hubs. Amazon to the rescue with the socket. 
 

I had been dosing the joint with Plus Gas, I did expect the joint to come out of the hub quite easily with the rattle gun on the socket, but I was wrong, it was ‘kin tight. I tried a bit of heat from my blow lamp but the joint still would not move. I do not have a 1/2” breaker bar, normally I use my torque wrench on tight bolts. The joint was so tight I had visions of snapping the torque wrench! I then took a hammer and chisel to the joint to see if that would break it free, but it still would not undo the joint!  279B1445-B061-493E-A16E-018E22AB897B.jpeg   68.87K   0 downloads

 

Next was a pair of 18” Stillsons with a 3ft jack handle to give more leverage. It still would not move!

I then decided to use more heat, so I held the gas blow torch on the hub for around 10 minutes, the plastic in the joint melted as did the remaining grease in the joint, the lock washer was starting to glow red, Stillsons and a long lever, this time the joint came free!!

The upper joint came free without the heat, this joint had been OK but as I had 2 joints in my box, I decided to change this also. I cleaned up the hub and fitted the replacement ball joints with loctite on the threads, then I remembered why I had 2 unused joints. The tapers are different on 84> joints! So I ordered the pre 84 joints. These duly arrived and have been fitted to the hubs, just the new bearings to go in now. I did not have anything to drive the new bearings home so I ground down the outside of one of the old bearing races, so it was a loose fit in the hub! This would allow me to install the bearings into hub.

 

Whilst I was awaiting bits arriving, I decided the check the rear brakes as the handbrake is very poor, the main thing was the positioning of the rear brake shoes & springs. I had renewed the wheel cylinders, shoes & drums a while ago, refitting all the bits the same was as they had come off.  Yes you guessed it, one of the shoes was inverted, so this error was corrected, the brake shoes, retaining springs and drums being refitted and the brakes readjusted. I need to check the nearside brake (I can only get to one side at a time in my garage) then a road test to check the rear brakes work as they should.

Another thing I need to do is change the speedo cable, I know this will be awkward as the access to the nut at the gearbox end is not too good.

 

I know the speedo is far from accurate, Duffy has the original speedo with 1376 tpm, this is not compatible with the Metro engine & gearbox and the 165/60R12 tyres. After a bit of research I found that a speedo with 1248tpm would be better, I searched for a one on eBay, finding one at £38, I could see the odometer had been reset so asked the seller to confirm it worked as it should. He replied saying he was unable to test the unit.

 

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I offered him £20 on the basis it may not work.  When  it arrived I connected my new cable and used my battery operated drill to spin the speedo, however the unit is stuck/seized. I have had a quick look at it and it appears to be the odometer shaft & gear that is not turning. So that is a job over the winter to disassemble to free off the speedo.

 

 

 

 

Edited by DUF2, 18 November 2022 - 04:07 PM.

[DUF2]

Sorry for the big gap between my last post!

I have not yet changed the speedo cable, I was intending to do it over the winter but it was too cold in the garage! I had a look at this and realised I would be unable to get to the end of the speedo cable where it connects to the gearbox, without removing the radiator. I decided to remove the inner cable, clean, lubricate & refit the cable, hopefully this will resolve the fluctuating needle. 

To be honest I have not done much with the car, I have fitted the sill mouldings, I gave up on the chrome ones and decided to go with the rubber ones. I discovered I could get cream coloured trims, so I bought 1M to try it, the colour is almost a perfect match to the old English white the car is painted in.

I made up the trim with a section of black for the front arch, joined to a section of cream for the sill and a further section of black for the rear arch. I cut the rubbers nice and square and superglued the 2 different colours together. I used black Tiger seal to affix the runner trim to the fibre glass wheel arch, clear silicon on the sill section the Tiger seal on the other arch.  In my opinion I think it looks quite good, the joint between the 2 colours, lines up with the joint between the black FG arch and the white sill.

 

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I took the car to a show at the beginning of May, then spent five weeks touring Scotland in the Motorhome.

I am still unhappy with the handbrake, it is very poor, I realised something was amis as all the parts are new, linings, drum, wheel cylinders, cables etc. the only thing that is original are the quadrants, these were free so I though no need to change these. Further research led me to realise the quadrants ( fitted by a previous owner!) have been fitted the wrong way round and they are coming in contact with the mounting for the suspension turret ball joint!

 

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I have swapped the quadrants round so they are mounted correctly. I then adjusted up the brakes as advised on forums, so they were just dragging a wee bit, took the car out to get some fuel, for a trip out the following day. When I got back from the filling station (2 miles) the drums were so hot, the paint was starting to burn! I cancelled my trip out the next day. A couple of days later, I went to check the rear brakes, expecting to have to back off the adjustment one click, the wheels were now rotating freely. The handbrake is still not as good as it could be, perhaps the new Mintex linings are still not bedded in sufficiently.

 

I am still not happy with the way the engine is running, it is fine on full throttle but on light throttle it is not as smooth as it should be. I’d love to have AC Dodd tune the car, but he lives 300 miles away from me! AC checks the timing also the advance curve of the distributor, he then checks the carburation and fits the correct needle even adjusting the taper if necessary. I may send my dizzy down to him to check and adjust the advance curve. As I say I would love him to tune the car, hopefully he will venture North soon and I can join a group of Mini owners getting their cars tuned by him. 

 

I changed to oil and filter and have now fitted the sump guard. This was another easy job that was not so easy. I set up the mountings a while ago using Riv Nuts in a few places, so it would make life easier to remove in the future. There are 6 mountings across the front, the outer two using nuts & bolts, the rear “legs have 2 fixings each, 2 nuts & bolts & 2 Riv Nuts. The tool I have for the Rivnuts is not the best and on these larger bolts, I thought I had “set” them properly, but they were spinning when I tried to fit the bolts. I then had to make up a bolt with spacers to allow me to “set” the Riv nuts, this I did and the guard is now fitted.

 

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The boss in the centre is for the brake cable attachment, when I tow Duffy behind my MoHo.

 

Edited by DUF2, 31 July 2023 - 11:31 AM.

[DUF2]

Here are a couple of pics of Duffy at a recent Car Barn show.

 

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The handbrake is still 5hite! I suspect there is a problem with the cables. I did buy new ones when I first got the car, but have no record of where I bought them so have doubts on their quality.

I am away in my MoHo whilst I write this, when I get home I intend to disconnect the cables from the drums and check they get a proper “pull” and there is nothing in the cable mechanism which is causing the problem.

[sonscar]

I find that wear in the spreader bit that pushes the shoes apart badly affects the handbrake,particularly the pivot wearing.Steve..

[pdaykin]

Maybe worth checking that you have the correct cables and quadrants as they vary between wet and dry cars

[DUF2]

Pdaykin, that is something I hadn’t occurred to me!

Now which cables do I need lol! The  car was originally hydrolastic, but someone converted it to dry many years ago, the quadrants look very much like they are dry. I suspect I may have the wrong cables, what is the difference and how do I identify which cable is which?  
The handbrake lever goes solid around about 2 clicks there is no “stretch” felt in the system, also the adjustment nuts are a long way down the threads so I am guessing I have the wrong cables.

[DUF2]

Oops

Edited by DUF2, 15 August 2023 - 10:09 AM.