Most liked posts in thread: MINI Max has a new little brother, Buzz

Took my first real test drive up to school today, the engine runs sweet and has good power - it feels so much stronger than it did before. Now it feels like I remember a Mini should run! I'm really happy with the gearing choice I made - I was second guessing myself after seeing what RPM I'd be turning at what speed, but I'm happy to report that it's a non-issue. On the way back from school we jumped on the highway for a couple miles and it pulled right up to 70 very easily, and I only ran to 4K before I shifted, plus I didn't have it wide open. Plenty of power, plenty of acceleration and the engine's just loafing along at modern car highway speeds - that's exactly what I was after in this whole project. Don was following me and said it didn't smoke or smell rich at all....I think he was surprised how well it ran on the highway too.

Before, the engine just felt like it was dragging itself up to speed, and once it got there it didn't seem to have much torque, it would definitely lose speed on longer uphills - now if I step down on it it immediately pulls on up - even on hills. I also was concerned about driving in town at city speed, but it pulls 4th gear beautifully, even as low as 15-1800 rpm.

Buzz is still living up to his name as there are multitudes of rattles and buzzes still there - the exhaust is hitting in two places, and two of the saddle clamps are less than 1/8th inch away from the body - I'm going to try and find some band-clamps and replace those. There are still dash rattles, the speedo doesn't work - which is a real disappointment since I spent about $200 getting the right gears so it would - it worked before so there's something not hooked up right with the cable - I'll see if I can fix that before we go, but that's why I have a Garmin. Overall, the engine is so smooth that it's nothing like before.

Now to the springs - so far I'm calling them an unqualified success. The ride quality is better than in my modern Mini - definitely not as harsh, and when I cross those bridge expansions that used to break my back and rattle my teeth - it's a non-event! I have the ride height a little high right now as I think they'll settle down a bit over the next 1000 miles or so it's not as solid and planted as some, but I'm OK with that - I'll give up a little handling for a significantly improved ride, especially on a long trip like this.

It runs a little hotter than I'd like to see, but then I don't know the calibration on the gauge, it runs about 1 -2 needle widths above the middle of the gauge - I have no idea what temp that relates to so for now I'm not going to worry about it, but I may go ahead and pull the radiator and re-install the electric cooling fan, just in case. I haven't driven it far enough , long enough or on a hot enough day (today was only about 80*, tho it sure felt hotter than that to me) to know what it's really going to do, so I'll have to investigate a little further. I borrowed Don's infra-red thermometer so maybe I can find out what temp it's really running first.

I wish I had a week to break it in before we head out instead of three days, but I'm feeling a little more confident each day. We tried to do an alignment at school but one machine was completely down and the other wouldn't boot up one of the laser/cameras so we just did it the old fashioned way - with a tape measure. That got it pretty close, but I have a friend who can align it on Monday if I decide to. I'm definitely going to invest in some adjustable lower control arms.

That's today's report

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Buzz Report 9/6/2014

Dateline Kansas City:

Buzz not only started this morning, but ran perfectly all day, including several stop and go trips to Autozone, Johnny's Tavern for lunch and to the fuel station for a fresh fill up.

Conclusion: so far so good!

More as it happens........

 

More Buzz work......

Today I pulled the motor again so I could change the clutch...

Here's what the new clutch disc and pressure plate look like, the phone is there for size comparison.... tiny, aren't they? :shock:



The first thing I had to do was pull my new radiator out again.



I think you can remove the engine by popping the stub axles out of the transmission, then working the engine back and forth to clear them, but I decided to leave the inner joints in so I didn't have to drain the oil and I removed the axles assemblies instead. It may be more work, but I think it makes it a lot easier to re-install the motor. Once the carb and a few ancillaries are out of the way she lifts right out





You need a special puller to get the flywheel off the tapered end of the crankshaft, and you have to pull the flywheel because half of the clutch is behind it, the pressure plate mounts on the outside - strangest clutch I've ever seen and the later models used a normal clutch instead of this design





It's a lot easier to hook up the speedo cable before you lower the engine all the way into the bay....



I got the motor back in and bolted down before I ran out of steam tonight - I think the hardest, most frustrating part was trying to get the nuts on the motor mount bolts - if you ever change your motor mounts, spend a few extra bux and buy the ones with the captive nuts already welded in - saves a huge amount of time and effort!



Tomorrow I'll finish it up and take it for a spin, but I could tell when I was bolting up the pressure plate how much stiffer it was than the old one, I think it will be fine from here on.....

 

And now for something completely different......

Sunday I did about a 125 mile run with the KC MINI Club, it was mid 60's and half of the distance I drove was the round trip highway drive up to Liberty where we met up. I now seem to have the opposite problem as this summer, despite putting a higher temp thermostat in I can't get the engine up to high enough temps!





This summer on an 80* day it would climb over 200* in just a few miles, now only 15* cooler and it wants to run about 165* with a 180* thermostat, when I slow down coming into town it drops even more, tho it comes back a bit again. On a long uphill run at about 70mph after driving about 20 miles on the highway it got up to 180, but then when I eased off the gas on the other side of the hill it dropped back again. On my trip earlier in the week it was in the 70's and it never went over 180*.

The only real change I made was getting the smaller pulley on the pump which spins the pump and fan faster. I'm thinking for this winter I may need to take the engine driven fan off completely - as a test anyway - to see if I can get it up to the thermostat opening temp at least, otherwise I won't get much heat out of the furnace this winter......

And I have GOT to find the remaining rattles and buzzes and fix them! :crazy:

I also cannot seem to get the tires balanced out, I've checked them twice on the school's balancer and they always check perfectly, but I still get a lot of shake and vibration - speed dependent - which helps set off the cacophony of rattles, buzzes and vibrations thruout the car. I may break down and take them up to the shop that balanced my buddy Don's 10's on his P'up, his run smooth as can be.

I'll be teaching steering and suspension next semester so I've been practicing a lot on the new Hunter alignment machine (the one with the frickin lasers! ), Sat we put my buddy Seth's classic on - he's had it aligned three times and he said the car was as squirrelly as can be especially on the highway. And no wonder, the rear tires were both pointing to the right (left toed in, right toed out) and the fronts the opposite. They did have the caster and camber in pretty good shape, but we decided to dial in a bit more caster on the right side to compensate for the very crowned roads we have. Once we got it all dialed in accurately the car drives beautifully, no more squirrelliness, no more chasing the crown of the road, just nice straight cruising. He also said it was harder to steer one direction than the other, adding the caster to the right side fixed that too. Job done!

It was a bit of a challenge to get the machine to work on the Classic, with such a short wheelbase it didn't sit on the moveable rear pads so we had to lift it to make the adjustments in the back, and it just barely cleared the inner rails on the rack!

 

There's probably 50lbs of "Fat Mat" in Buzz now, I think this stuff is OEM.....I found that pushing it back where it belongs stopped the rattle, so I'm just going to duct tape it in place.

In the "while you're in there" category, I noticed this nasty tired old cardboard that used to be the floor of the glovebox, someone had made a replacement out of a cardboard for sale sign, but it wasn't any better, so I made a new one of out shiny new metal. I cut and bent it into shape, and once in place I'll put a few screws in to make sure I haven't introduced a new rattle.



Here's where it goes in the dash, the old one sagged down thru that large opening....



And here it is in situ......



There's an insulated mat that goes on top of this that forms the inside of the glovebox too.

Then it's time to start putting things back together - our club is having a run next weekend to southern Mo and I'm committed to driving Buzz along with several other club members with classics so I need him ready. The guy who owns the 13" wheels said I could use them on this run so I'll get a chance to see what they're like on both highway and city conditions.

 

A few pics from the Westwood Mini & Micro Car show.....

Next to these guys, Buzz feels tiny....



This is a "big" Isetta....



More big cars....including an interloper....



Now some cars that make Buzz feel like the big brother...



Trihawks are rare in this country....this is the nicest one I've seen





A running Crosely pickup - another rarity. Remember when Mteropolitans were considered tiny cars?



The shortened, chopped Honda fits into the luggage compartment of a bus converted to a motor home!



Most people don't know what this is, this is a later 3 cyl version too.



Saving a spot for Don and his P'up...



The show was pretty well attended, but not as many cars were shown as in past years.



Here's a link to the "official" photos.....

2015 Micro Mini Car Annual Show - Tim McCullough

 

I know it's cliché, but I like my lipstick red Mini calipers!

The camera didn't catch the color very well, and I've only got one coat on so far, but I think they'll look cool. Someone already commented on another site that Minis never had silver suspension pieces either but I don't care. I just want clean and painted.

Of course they'll get new hoses and bleeders too....

 

More Buzzwork.....

The block is done and came out great, however the crank won't be done till next week. In the meantime another issue has raised it's ugly head, I can't find rings to fit the 1275GT pistons that are in the car and that I intended to reuse. I may wind up buying pistons/rings after all.

So I decided to tear into the transmission to change out the diff gears and to do a general clean up. It's been strongly suggested that I go to a center pickup for the oil, but to do that I have to remove the layshaft so I can get the old one out. That pretty much means a total teardown of the transmission.....so on to it.

First the side covers come off where the stub axles fit in....



Then knock down some locktabs and wind off a few nuts and out she comes....







In this pic you can see the pick up tube is loose, but the screen it's attached to is under the layshaft and won't come out of there till I take the gears out first.



You can also see the pinion gear for the diff, that will be changed too and the casing around it will need to be modified to clear the larger gear. ...it's not hard, just a little grinding here and there.....yes, now would be a good time to add a limited slip, but there's no way I'll have the budget for that! I won't take the diff apart till the new gears get here in a couple of weeks, till then once cleaned everything goes into giant tubs (think large Tupperware) to keep things corralled and the dirt/dust from getting into them. As this is a rod change trans it's a bit different than the last one I was into, back in the mid-70's!

 

You have it....

The wiper motor wheel turns and the rod attached to it pulls the cable back and forth - the "teeth" on the cable engage a gear wheel in the wheelbox - on the edge if the gear - which turns the wheel back and forth and the wiper arms are attached on the ends of the shaft connected to the wheel. It's a very simple design, and very cheaply made as well. The shafts in the wheelboxes are lubed with grease which gets hard and dry over time and can bind up the shaft making it almost impossible to turn - that's what happened to mine.

Here's a pic of all the pieces cleaned and painted, you can see the "teeth" on the cable. The toothed part is actually just a piece of wire wrapped around the cable at an angle, so it acts like a gear.

 

I think I'm going to be OK with it now, just have to leave it alone and let it cure out....

 

Making slow progress.....

 

Some progress, the transmichigan is back together, new ratio final drive is in, ready to be reunited with the engine - some day!

 

The engine was just sitting on the transmission while I added a few parts and sorted out a few things, so today I pulled it back off so I could install the gaskets and seals and bolt it down once and for all. Before I could do that I had to modify the locating dowels - the holes in the Sprite block were about 40thou smaller that the ones in the old Mini block so I modified the dowel pins to fit the new block.

Once on I installed the timing gears and set the timing....



Next the front cover and pulley.....the timing cover has two different sized bolts in three different lengths, it was a bit of a puzzle figuring out which went where.....



I also finished the port work on the head, but the new cam came with new valve springs and I'm going to go down to the auto parts store and borrow a valve spring compressor and change them out. That will give me a chance to make sure all the grinding dust is out before I reinstall the valves.

I also worked on the suspension.....the new upper control arm bearing kits came in so I pressed the new Torrington bearings in both sides and reinstalled the arms. I made a tool to get the old ones out and had to modify it further to get them out of the other arm that I'd already assembled. Now I can flip the subframe over and install the rest of the parts, and get it ready for the engine once it's finished.



I still have to modify the rear crankcase cover for the breather I'm going to add, and I have other tweaks I've still got to do before I put the clutch end together, but it's coming along, for sure.

More as it happens.

 

More pretty pictures......





Can't torque down the head tho, till the new rocker shaft gets here, hopefully on Sat....

 

Oil made the "old" way..... :biggrin5:

Brad Penn is a brand of oils formulated to let old style flat tappet cams live . Modern oils don't have zinc in them, which acts as a high pressure lubricant between things like cams and tappets. Modern engines have roller tappets, so it's not needed. About the only oils that have ZDDP in them any more are racing oils and stuff like this. It costs about the same as synthetic does at Wally World.

Here, read all about it....

Welcome!

The Brad Penn® Penn Grade 1® High Performance Oils contain the higher level of anti-wear (ZDDP – zinc dialkyldithiophosphate) and enhanced film strength so critical to proper high performance engine protection. The Penn-Grade 1® oils “typical” 1,500 ppm Zinc (Zn) and 1340-1400 ppm Phosphorus (P) content provide the needed anti-wear protection to critical engine parts, such as piston/cylinder walls, roller cams under heavy valve spring pressure and especially those that employ a solid “flat tappet” type system. As important as the chemistry is to the Penn-Grade 1® oils, it is by no means the whole story. The unique base oil cut used to refine the Penn-Grade 1® High Performance Oils maintain a tremendous affinity to metal surfaces. This naturally occurring “metal wetting” characteristic enables the oil to stay put on your highly stressed engines and makes the Penn-Grade 1® High Performance Oil resist slinging for an extended period of time. Also, rest assured in knowing that the Penn-Grade 1® High Performance Oils are 100% Made in the USA.