Like the wiring harness, I'm always surprised when I find something unique like this is available at all, let alone at a somewhat reasonable price. My next treasure quest is for the radiator overflow tank, I figure it was removed in England when it was converted (poorly) to RHD, as it bolts on the bulkhead right where the master cylinders live on a RHD car. It's a really unique animal, I don't hold out a lot of hope that I'll find one. I've already been to Ebay Italy and left messages on several English forums but we'll see...... Edit: Already got nibble from a guy on the English Mini forum that thinks he knows a guy who has several!
Thanks Dave.... Today they delivered the new brake servo from the Alfa Parts supplier in the UK, it looks like a perfect match to the old one. I have an email in to the seller to find out if the fittings are metric or English. 6mm and 1/4" are very similar and close in size.... I also mounted the carbs on the manifold and onto the head...before I could do that I had to trim the gaskets slightly to match the openings in the manifold. Once mounted to the head I could start to plan where and how I was going to run the pipes from the master cylinders over to the other side of the bulkhead where the fittings are for the clutch and brake connections. It's really tight but I'll figure it out. Someone sent me a drawing of how they're supposed to be run, but that's for a stock Inno with the smaller H2 carbs and stock airfilter.
Got the Hardy Spicer joints bolted up - what a PITA - you have to jack the wheel up as far as you can in order to get enough clearance Clarance so you could get the joint over the studs. Then the nuts are special and are tough to get fully tightened. I also got the shifter assembly installed, and it works! It's always more fun to be putting stuff back on than taking it off! On the brake pipes, I think if I take them straight down, then back next to the narrow part of the master cylinder I should have enough room. I thought about taking them upward, but I think it will look better the other way.
Fussing around with the Inno in the shop today, cleaning tools and painting the odd bracket and such. Whilst fiddling about (thank you Tommy) I tried on the Inno grill - method to my madness, I was looking at how and where to locate the oil cooler and its brackets and hoses. I also bent up my first brake pipes and installed the new brake servo. And I fit the headers so I could see how and where to run the speedo cable so it wouldn't get melted and would go thru the grommet in the new bulkhead cover plate. Finally I fit the starter and solenoid, and made a new cable as I found out why the original starter didn't seem to work so well when I found the cable worn thru and shorting whenever the starter was operated. I pulled the carbs off so I could install the headers and bend up and install the brake pipes from the masters to their various fittings, but due to my back being out again I didn't get those done. Tomorrow is the big All British show so I'll be there all day with the green Mini. Way back when, I had planned to be able to take the Inno but I got put back a couple of months with my last back go around.
Dave you do incredible work! If you're not proud you should be! Also I dont know if you saw my post elsewhere but I have a 2002 Sequoia I am getting rid of, I'll take trades for say a Innocenti Mini. It only has 280k, it could be your next project
My back is feeling surprisingly better, so I decided to see about making the brake lines for the master cylinders. I had bought a kit earlier that was supposed to work with the new master (with its metric fittings) and the existing brake distribution fitting on the bulkhead - except - it didn't. The master cylinder end fit fine, a metric 12mm X 1.0 for the bottom hole and supposedly a metric 8mm X 1.0 for the other end. However, the dist fitting had other ideas as it was NOT metric. At least I assumed so as all the other fittings in it were English - 3/8-24. No problem I figure, I'll just run down to the autoparts store and get the right fitting - 3/8-24 is too small, must be a 7/16-24. Except it isn't - as I found out when I got home again. Must be 10mm metric after all I thought, so back down to the parts store and back home again. Nope, not 10mm either. Getting the dist. fitting off the bulkhead so I could take it to the parts store and see if I could find the right fitting was more work than I wanted to do at this point as three of the 5 openings were already filled, so I decided to go the other route and find the original line that was there - knowing that at least the one end would be right. I don't throw way anything when I do one of these, but it still took me all damn evening to find the damn old line. When I did I measured it - 7/16 all right but 20 instead of 24! Augghghghgh! I called it a night, tomorrow I can bend up and fit some lines. With that done I can reinstall the carbs and things should start moving along pretty well - assuming my back doesn't let me down again. BTW, the metric fittings have small notches around the nut. In the last pic, 12mm, 3/8-24 and 7/16-20
So...…..brake lines. They almost broke me! The material I bought off Amazon seems to be copper coated steel, rather than the nice easily bent copper alloy you get from England - my bad for not looking at it more closely, but it's good stuff no matter just tough to bend. Then, if you look at the pics, there were a whole lot of bends in these two pipes, and some of them had to be pretty tight bends at that. I have a nice bending tool, but the radius is larger than I had to have for a couple of these bends, so I had to do them by hand. On top of that, when you have the pipe out in your hands it's very easy to get confused as to which way the bend is supposed to go, and yes I bent a few the wrong way and had to start over again. Lastly, I had to flare the line and put the fitting on before I bent the last part, and I just had to guess at the total length. It took WAY longer than I thought it would, but the two brake pipes are in, all I have left is to do is some final fettling and make the clutch pipe. Still looking at exactly where I'm going to run that one. The other weird thing is, I've been looking for some simple brake line clips - I don't want to use P clips. They go by a number of names - saddle clamps, double line clamps and so on, and I can find them all day in packs of 12 for $25! I need 2, and none of the parts stores carry them, the only place I can find them is England or one of the specialty hot rod parts places like Kuger. This is what I'm talking about...... Dan and I talked about it and I'm going to weld a bung into the header collector so we can use a wide band to set up the carb needles. Next up I need to wire and install the dash, then I can button up the bulkhead, then I can install the carbs. After that it's exhaust and a whole bunch of little this's and that's before I can finally turn the key and take it for a drive. Since I didn't make it to the All British show last weekend, my new goal is to have it on the road for a drive with the Lawrence British car club on the 14th. My next goal if I don't make that is on the road for CMU 60 in S.W.Virginia in early October. We'll see....….
I got the third line made today, from the clutch master to the flex hose coupling on the bulkhead. My neighbor gave me a really old line bending tool and it worked way better than mine for making these tight sharp bends. Wish I had it before to make the others but there's no way I'm going to redo the other two now. I had to make this last one twice anyway, as I guess I didn't take into account the extra material taken by the bends and the first one was an inch too short. Next I have to make some clips to mount them to the bulkhead since I can't find the ones I want anywhere. If you reference the old pic I posted beforeof how they're supposed to be run you can see the clips the factory used, I'm going to make some like those only, for all three lines.
I decided I need to install the carbs before I can install the radiator, as I need the room to come in under the exhaust to install the washers and nuts that hold the intake to the head. To that end I decided to do a trial fit of the bulkhead plate too, to make sure I had enough clearance at the bottom edge of the air filters. Turns out there is just enough, about 1/4 - 3/8" or so, which should be plenty. Overall, I'm pretty pleased, it looks much cleaner than the big old piece of insulation and vinyl that was there. I won't know how well it muffles the sound till I get to drive it, and since I never heard it run in the car - I still won't know - except to compare it to my '89. All the brake and clutch pipes are in and tight. Turns out I had to remove the brake distribution thingy after all as one of the pipes would not start to thread - and of course it was one of the bottom pipes. All I had to do was clean the threads up a bit and it all went together smoothly. It's nice to get a few things checked off the list once and for all - assuming none of them leak when I go to bleed it out.
The clearance shouldn't be a problem, between the engine steady and the long remote shifter housing, it feels like this engine is tied down pretty well. I also have an engine steady that goes under the engine too, haven't decided if I'm going to install it or not. So far the engine hasn't leaked a drop of oil either, so the Permatex gasket sealer seems to have done the job. I have the alternator in so all the engine equipment is in except the radiator, I'll do it today and build a bracket to mount the horns and that should be it for the engine compartment. I still have to round out the exhaust pipes and install the exhaust system and weld in the bung on the head pipe for the o2 sensor, but that won't be here till Monday so that will have to wait. Next I need to wire up the dash and install it, and the switches and heater. I think before I install the dash I'll do a systems test on everything electrical and make sure it all works. Still have to splice the new wires for the rear harness too. Wish that headliner wasn't such a PITA, I would have liked to just use the whole harness. Oh, have to hook up the choke and throttle cables too and figure out a way to mount the coil, it originally hung off a bracket on one of the head bolts, but the oil pipe I put in won't let it go there. Or if I can get the oil cooler mounted and have the hoses made then it will go back where it belongs. Details. Lots and lots of details.
Today I remade the bracket so I could attach the bottom engine steady, it had been modified - poorly - so I decided to weld up the mess and drill a new hole in the correct spot. Once done I gave it a lick of paint and bolted it on the car - fits perfectly now! I don't know if it really needed it between the upper steady and long remote shifter that also acts as an engine steady - but it was there and so was I so...... I may have to pull the carbs off the intake manifold in order to get to the inner two studs/nuts that hold the intake and exhaust center pipe on. I've tried everything I can think of and I just can't get either my hands or a wrench in there. Really didn't want to do that, but like everything else on the build, seems I take two steps forward only to take three back again. Oh well......
I decided the radiator and surround were looking a little scuzzy, so I took the shroud off and took it and the sump guard over to a sand blaster to have them cleaned up. I was going to have them both powder coated, but I've decided to just grab some rattle cans and have at them.....save a little money and I'm sure they'll look fine. I also spent quite a bit of time cleaning the radiator - inside and out. There was oil residue on the fins so first I cleaned it in the solvent tank, then cleaned it again with 409 to get the solvent off. I also ran quite a bit of water thru it as a lot of mud was coming out when I ran water thru it..... Once those jobs were done I started working on the wiring in the dash. I took the heater panel apart to clean it and found another example of fine English craftmanship - don't have a drill to make a hole, just hack at it till it's big enough to fit the switch thru it! I reamed it out with a step drill bit and found a grommet to fill the hole...then cleaned it all up. One of the holes I filled actually is for a warning light for the handbrake-on, so I'll have to dig that back out and refit it. Next up I wired up the four switches in the dash - I spent a lot of time staring at the wiring diagram as these switches are not labelled on the schematic and they weren't making sense - till I figured out that when they did the conversion to RHD they had reversed all the switch positions! Aughhhhhh…… Next I'll install the heater, then wire up the ignition and turn signal switches. Once those are done I can set the dash in place and hook up all the instruments......then it will be time to test everything and make sure it works as it should. By the way.. Chiuso = closed Parabrezza = windscreen Int. vettura = you vehicle