403 replies to this topic

[Asphalt]

Since my parents went to bavaria for week on holidays, I thought the best place to assemble the gearbox was the livingroom

Ha ha i like your thinking lol.

He he - I soooo hope they never find out

[Asphalt]

So, I just thought I write a little bit. But there hasn't been happening much, mainly due to lack of funds and general lazyness

Put in the new instruments:



Looks good. well chuffed. Has a bit of a motorcycle-look but hey...

And then I decided to strip the engine, as I had a look at the oilpump, which I was going to change anyways (cheap as chips and the engine was out so why bother with an old tired pump...). I was a little shocked and prepared for the worst (I had a slithly irratic oilpressure the last hundred odd kilometeres):



So tore the egine appart and liftet it into the cellar (Uh, oh - my back!) to inspect mains and big ends:



They still look almost perfekt (as perfect as you'd expect them after ~90.000km ), crank is absolutely spotless. So no need to change anything.

The oil pressure valve looks better then expectet too. I was quite surprised to see it in such good condition, to be honest



So I put my attention to the diff. Seemingly the weakest part of the gearbox. I had to make a special punch to get the roll pin out, as they didn't drill the hole completely through the diff cage.



Good I decided to rebuild the diff:



New uporated diff pin and bushed planetary gears:



I would have loved to buy a cross pin diff, but as mentioned: no funds... So this must do the job for now. And I'm not aiming for top level performance figures (I'm happy with 70 odd BHP ) so should be OK.

Almost finished.



I'm just waiting for shimms and lock tabs to arrive to finish gearbox and diff.

To kill some time I cleaned various parts and selected the best matching pairs of diff side covers and pot joints and equiped them with new seals.



WHO SPOTS THE ERROR!?
(no, not the wrong set of speedo drive gears, that'll be cheating as they arent visible *D'oh!*)

And I finaly decided to put the Innocenti Cooper head on!



Some oy you may know I'm not a fan of runing an engine without bypass (to say the least ). So I broke off the bypass spout *D'OH!*... That thing was rustetd sollid, nothing worked, so drilled it out, tapped a 5/82 UNF thread and after cleaning and recuting valve seats etc. I'm putting in a 5/8" UNF grub screw.



I hope it seals, if not I'm going to find someone who can do MIG soldering to close the bypass forever...

Not much happening on the gearbox front, 'cause as said I'm waiting for some shims. Haven't ordered yet as I'm not entirely sure what else I'm going to need (like seals, maybe a waterpump etc.). And I like to order only once



Oh, and by the way; I found a spre Inno grille in almost spotles condition for a tenner



And today I spend another few hours to clean the engine's base plate and timing cover... Hope they seal up this time

Cheers,
Jan

Edited by Asphalt, 06 May 2009 - 05:39 PM.

[kcchan]

Lovely stuff.

[Asphalt]

More wear (con rod):



This is what upset me the most. Luckily the crankshaft isn't damaged at all and will do with a little polish. Looks like several pieces of metal got pushed through the bearing at least one time. Al the others are perfectly OK. But I'm going to change all of them now anyways. I toyed with the idea of getting a pair of used conrod bearings - but why risk it. The price for new bearings doesn't matter now, I'm going to pay over 200€ - again - anyways.

Comparison of SPI and Innocenti head:



The channels are not that much bigger, the exhaust ports rarely differ. So I'm going to widen at elast the exhaust ports and smoothen the intakes. I'm hoping to get into the range of 70 odd BHP. And till am undiced wheter to use the MG cam or the SP-VP3...

Just had a ride in a 1275 SPI with Piper 285 which I think is a little 'hotter' than the SP-VP3. Seem to be fine in all conditions with no judder at low revs. Hmmmm...

And whilst waiting for the new parts to arrive, I decided to get rid of the rust on the daily driver.
Unfortunately - they didn't have any red wings at the breakers yard. Would've loved to have a red one...




Ok - it only takes a screw driver & 10mm socket to remove & fit again... But what a bugger! And NO oil anywhere to grease your fingers, all you get is dust and dirt in your face



New wing...

[AndrewJ530]

A 285 in an SPI? How did the ECU cope with that kind of overlap?

[Asphalt]

A 285 in an SPI? How did the ECU cope with that kind of overlap?

Programmable ECU and twin throttle bodys... Well, not a real spi-SPI anymore

http://www.mini-coop..._classic_m.html

[Deathrow]

To kill some time I cleaned various parts and selected the best matching pairs of diff side covers and pot joints and equiped them with new seals.



WHO SPOTS THE ERROR!?
(no, not the wrong set of speedo drive gears, that'll be cheating as they arent visible *D'oh!*)

Hey, when you said you selected best matching parts, do you mean its built from a few gearboxes?

Just so you know, the diff casing and the gearbox should be kept in pairs because of how they were machined at the factory.

Also, as for the error, have you got 2 diff side covers for the same side ?

Looking good sir!

[Asphalt]

Hey, when you said you selected best matching parts, do you mean its built from a few gearboxes?

Just so you know, the diff casing and the gearbox should be kept in pairs because of how they were machined at the factory.

Looking good sir!

Yeah, I know. I tryed to find the best matching pot joints & sidecovers. resp. the pair with the least play This should help extending the live of the O seals by a fair amount without having to fit and ream new bronze bushes. And as I'm going to use a different diff () w/ new bearings I have to shimm it anyways

Also, as for the error, have you got 2 diff side covers for the same side ?

There's no such thing like LH/RH side cover It's a little less obvious...

Cheers,
Jan

[mighty mini jack]

Nice work Jan!

'U're getting on with it good!

[Asphalt]

What do U mean?

You never stop discovering new stuff:

I have several clutch covers here. The following two are both A+ clutch covers, both have the same number: DAM5202. But one has a rubber plug in the starter's dome and removable cover for flywheel based ignition timing... It's from a very early 998 A+ engine. Those were partialy A- and A+ engines, had a verto clutch but with pre-verto ring gear and starter. And, as I discovered (hoho!) a mixed clutch cover.



The next thing is the water pump removed from the engine... I've never seen anything like this before... It has a plastic impeller! All others I've seen had cast impellers. Seemed to work fine; but I've heared some storys from VW owners with mysterious overheating problems which couldn't be solved... 'Till they fond out that theplastic mpellor of the pump separated itself from the shaft and didn't spin over a certain RPM range.

The new pump is something special as well: it can be used with or without a bypass. It's supplied with a brass spout and a grubscrew.

But the best part of it is the machined gasket face! I think that's far supperior to the rounded gasket faces you usualy get with new pumps (at least I've never got others).



Another very usefull replacement part for SPI engines is this:



The SPI's oil pipe is just stuck into the block and sealed with a sealing ring & sleeve nut. I never got it to seal properly, regardless of what I'm doing. This braided hose should help getting it to seal like the old banjo bolts (pre-SPI) did. Wasn't cheap, but I thinks it will be worth the money.

The 'hotest' standard cam: MG Metro. If you compare data, you see that it is very close to the Kent MD266!


RED: MG Metro, RSP Coopers, Metro GTA
BLUE: Kent MD266

Checking height @ lobe: 0.017" | 0.016"
Timing (IN/EX): 16/56 59/29 | 24/56 61/29
Nominal lobe lift (IN/EX): 0.263" / 0.263" | 0.263" / 0.268"
Duration (IN/EX): 252 / 268° | 260 / 270°
Lobe centre angle (IN/EX): 110 / 105 | 106 / 106
Lobe separation angle: 107.5 | 106.0
Lift on overlap: 0.054" | 0.054"



But if you campare prices for a new brandnew cam... The MD266 cam is much cheaper! But from what I've read here, the MD266 is generaly accepted as a good allround daily runner cam which gives decent torque. I got the MG cam in exchange for the old - so it's quasi for free

And adjusted the idler gear today. The old one was still pretty good, but I decided to get a other gear with lower mileage. So good to have a couple of shims, again on a exchange-base. I got a few, take those I need and send them back, together with my old ones. New shims are fu... freakin expensive




Adjusted to 0.15mm, I think that's not too tight and not too much.

The final gear's crown wheel is in a local garage to pull the bearing, as my puller didn't grip and I couldn't get the thing to move, not with my puller, not with a crow bar.

Oh, and I forgott to order cam followers... The old ones were pitted badly and I'm fitting a new cam so needed them anyways... Hope they arrive on tuesday, no local garage had any in stock So the only thing I could do to the engine was fitting new big end bearings.



Cheers,
Jan

Edited by Asphalt, 17 May 2009 - 05:41 PM.

[Asphalt]

Some grinding the last couple of days... First decoked & smoothened channels of the Inno cylinder head.



Took me about 2 hours to have all valve seats in perfect condition. we decided to keep the old valve guides, as the valves didn't have excessive play and a little extra-oil should help preventing them from get stuck.

Then determined the combustion chamber's cc - something between 21 and 22cc - stock; head has not been skimmed previously. I'm going to haveit skimmed 0.7-0.8mm to raise compression to something about 9.75-10:1. Doesn't need to have a scientificly exact number - compression is going to change anyways (carbon build up, wear, etc. - so why have the 5th number behinde the comma!? No need for that...)



And then I made some REAL BHP. My intake manifold is the worst I have ever seen (and others, working for over 20 years with Minis!). So it took me another 2.5h of grinding and filing to make it flow. It still needs another hour of grinding, but that's it so far:

Before:




After:




Isn't it unbelievable...?

And last saturday we trial fitted the Momos over a KAD 7.9" disc brake setup...



0.035" left between caliper and wheel... That's far beyond being save...I'll see if I can find a 7.5" vented disc setup that gives meat least 0.08" clearance.

Cheers,
Jan

[mighty mini jack]

Lovely stuff as usual Jan.

[munnracing]

Just had a read from start to finish such a good read and inspiring thread, youve also got alot of knowledge and good ideas keep it up!

[Asphalt]

Just had a read from start to finish such a good read and inspiring thread, youve also got alot of knowledge and good ideas keep it up!

Many thanks! But I'm not too sure about the knowledge You learn the one or other trickduring the years and I spent many days in a local Mini garage and soaked in everything I saw... But hey, you never stopp learning realy. It's mostly 'learning by doing' - if it doesn't go that way, I try another 'till it's finished. If it fails - start again and reconsider what went possibly wrong - and so on and on...

Today was one of those 'one step back' days...

Removed the bearing race from the crown wheel yesterday - it only moved with red glowing it and using brutal force... Needless to say, the new bearing made it a farce and sled on easily... So finished the differential today.



Then I torqued up the gearbox - only to find out it jammes if I try to revolve the third motion shaft in opponent directions... *ARGH!*

It's probably due to new Rover baulk rings being to tight/wide or whatever else... Long story short: the third motion shaftis too long. I don't have the nerves for solving it today - I'm trying to use more shims for the bearing retainer and if that dosn't work, I try to 'lapp' in the baulk rings (jam input gear and turn third motion shaft with a drill and add oil to reduce wear. And if all this fails to solve the problem - looks like I have to dismantle the gearbox again and replace the 4. gear baulk ring with the old one to give a little more room to the third motion shaft. (hope my description makes sense. Appologies - I'm still learning your language )

Intake manifold is finished too - but I had to modifie the locating rings too, as they were potrauding into the ports... Filed them thinner and ok. This should give a real improvement to airflow. Would've been way easier to source a good manifold - but hey, it's only time & sweat that it cost me that way

Regards,
Jan

Edited by Asphalt, 27 May 2009 - 07:58 PM.

[AndrewJ530]

Appologies - I'm still learning your language )

Your grammar is better than some on here bud, and they are from Britain lol.

Shame about the box though mate.

Edited by AndrewJ530, 27 May 2009 - 08:16 PM.