Took Buzz to the local MINI Club's Sonic night, the temp thing is still inconclusive, it was a fairly cool night and I didn't get much of a run down the highway but the terrible rattle is gone! I also learned a few more things, the new headlights are pretty poorly aimed but on bright they're pretty amazingly bright, the low beams not so much tho. Also my dash lights were out, and it's oh so dark in there without them! Tomorrow I'm meeting a fellow classic owner for breakfast and after we're going to take an 80 mile round trip run to Lawrence - it's supposed to be mid 80's tomorrow, so that should be a good test.
Well, free in that I didn't pay extra for them but there are still plenty of them in there, just not that big nasty one right in my face! Our drive to Lawrence got moved to Sunday, so today I'm going to tackle another rattle fest in the left door - it should be pretty straight forward tho, once I get the door panel off. Oh boy, I get to use my special door panel removing tool!
Today I went after more rattles on Buzz, this time it was the left door. First off, you need a pair of pliers like these to remove door panels and trim - I saw Edd China use them on Wheeler Dealers years ago and found mine at good old Harbor Freight for IIRC about $5! The screws holding the latch handle bracket were just loose - so that was easy to fix.... And the window winder assy was missing two screws completely (that should look familiar to those who watched the Project Binky vid) so I ran up to the Ace to find some 1/4-28 cheese head screws - they didn't have any but some 1/4-28 X 1/2" bolts worked just fine. The screws that held the lock switch bracket were just .....well, not really screwed into anything but the door panel cardboard, so I made up some speed clips to give them purchase on the metal retainer behind the door panel and that took care of that. Lastly, the chrome trim that holds inside window wiper (and ant-rattle fuzz) was bent like a banana, and when I got it off most of the clips were not attached either. I carefully straightened the trim and spread the clips evenly over the length of the trim and viola - it snapped right into place! I'll bet it's as quiet as a new 1980 Mini now, which probably isn't saying much! :lol: Tomorrw it's going to be in the low to mid 80's so Don and I are going to do a 100 mile round trip drive - if it stays around 180-190 I'll call it good. IF (/\ thats a big if :lol: )
Well, no joy in Mudville today......the further we drove yesterday the hotter it ran, it only got to about 205* but to me that's just a lot hotter than it should have done on a nice dry 85* day.....and it gave every indication that the further I went it would just continue to get hotter. The one thing I am going to try today is a smaller water pump pulley, the theory is that since I'm turning much lower revs it may not be getting enough flow - that's fairly easy to do and it will be about 85* again tomorrow so I can take another run and see what if any difference it makes. I'll take another run on Friday - it's only supposed to be abut 60 then so I want to see if the cooler outside temps make any difference - I may have to drive it a lot further tho, maybe to Topeka or Manhattan to get the same results, or prove that it won't heat up. I'm planning to go to Mini 56 in April so I need to know it will be reliable on a long run regardless of ambient temps. Lastly, I'm going to have to pull the motor again - the clutch is slipping. It's my own damn fault, I reused the old clutch cause it looked fine, but now that the engine makes decent HP it will slip under the right loads. :blush2:
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.....
So is the clutch working as well as you expected and are you any closer to resolving the cooling problem ??
I haven't driven Buzz since I got it all back together, I'm still engineering the cooling thing so I didn't want to put coolant back in it and just have to drain it again, but I now have a plan....parts are ordered and on the way and I'll have to make one part. Once I have everything together I'll show you all what I'm doing. In the meantime, I found a deal on some Miata seats and I'm building/modifying the seat tracks to adapt them to Buzz. Monday I'll take one of Buzz' seats and one of the Miata seats up to my local upholstery guy and see what he'd charge me to make the Miata seats match what I have now. If it's too expensive I may just run with the one Miata seat on the driver's side for now. We have the Classic Mini Fun Run (Part 4) coming up Nov 13-16, so I want to get it drivable and ready for that trip first, then I can see about the upolstery. Plus too and also, our 20th anniversary is this weekend, and we're going out of town, so that will put me back a few days too, plus school etc etc etc....
Yeah, not really but it's close enough to get away with it till after the fun run. It's amazing how much more comfortable the Miata seats are compared to the old cheapies in the Mini......and while they look a bit "modern" I think they'll be OK. I have to recover them anyway as the left seat is pretty tired, with some tears and cuts in the leather (natch, as it's the driver's seat) so I may as well see how close he can come to the same style to match the back seat. Cost will be the real determining factor, as always.....so far I'm into these all of $50.
First off Happy Anniversary to you & your wife. Second those Miata seats look pretty good in there. I'm seeing them in more & more LBC's.
I decided I just need some extra cooling to get thru the summer months, so I found this heater core that goes in the back of a big Ford E250 Clubvan to provide heat for the rear seats, it fits the three openings just below the lic plate perfectly so today I built some brackets to attach it. Tomorrow I'll get it bolted in and then work on plumbing it to the cylinder head - I'll have a ball valve mounted in the line for the winter months. It's 21" long, 3" high and 2" deep, if I can't keep it cool with this, something's wrong! I also built a block to take the hot water out of the head - it fits directly below the heater valve on one end of the head, the other end will dump into the top radiator hose right above the thermostat.
I finished plumbing in the auxiliary cooler - just as temps went to 37* today! :roll: I decided to follow the lead of my friends Max Nealon and Mike Guido and plumb the return water from the new core directly into the lower hose, it was easy enough to "Tee" into that line. Since that water bypasses the thermostat I needed a way to shut it off on cool days like today, so I put a ball valve inline on the hot side, which is right out of the back of the head. These pics are of the block I made to tap the water and still allow the heater valve to work normally. I'm not 100% sure the heater valve arm is going t clear the head - I think it will - I put a straight edge across the tops of the fenders and it looks like I have about 1/2" of clearance, but if it hits I can always shorten it a bit. I also had to make those longer studs, I could not find any of the correct thread here in town, but McMaster-Carr had some SS all thread in the right size and thread, so all I had to so was cut some pieces - looks like I made them a little bit long. Oh well. Next job for today, make the rear legs for the Miata seat - I think I've worked out how to make them adjustable but it will take some fettling to get it right.
Tonight I built the rear legs for the Miata seat for Buzz. It may look simple enough but there were a lot of steps to get here. I welded a captive nut inside the tubing, then welded a flat washer on the top of the bolt head so now it should slide OK on the carpet and I can adjust for any difference in the levelness of the floor so the seat will sit square. All I have left to do is weld them to the seat runners. I'll do that in the morning and put the seat in, fill the coolant and take it for a spin. Don's seats on his P'up used a similar arrangement but made no provision for height adjustment and the passenger seat sits a little oddly.
All righty then......I just drove Buzz around the block, the first time since I pulled the engine for the new clutch, built the extra cooling system and built a new seat for him....so far so good! The clutch is definitely stronger (the old one would slip a bit on takeoff or under hard throttle) and the new seat is miles ahead in comfort. Today it's about 60* so the cooling system isn't working too hard to keep up - since I changed so many things it will be interesting to see how it does. I put in the new rad, changed to the smaller water pump pulley, re-jetted and tuned the carb (it was rich, not lean) and have added the extra core in the front. As a test I'm going to run it with only the new rad and water pump pulley first and see what it does.....if the temp climbs I'll open the new core up half way at first, and all the way if needed (it better not need all that cooling on a day as nice as this one!) I should know something after 50 or 100 miles this afternoon. I expect by the time we get back it will be in the low to mid 70's, temps I'm expecting on our run in Arkansas next week.
It will always be Buzz, but I have to say it's significantly better. The worst one was the heater core rattle I fixed recently. It still has something rattling in the rear doors, I imagine when I pull the covers off I'll find things like I did in the passenger door - loose or missing screws, parts installed incorrectly etc. I didn't have any interference between the hood and the heater valve, so I didn't have to modify that arm on the valve. These cars were never quiet, but I think I've made great strides in making it more civilized. I'll know a lot more after our fun run to Arkansas in two weeks - that will combine about a 4 hour highway stretch with lots of hooning about the hills and back roads. Over the winter I plan to drop the rear subframe and rebuild/replace/paint/clean/lube all the associated bits. I'll also drop the fuel tank and have it cleaned out and coated, then see if I can get the gauge to be a bit more accurate. As it is now, when you fill the tank it stays above the "F" for the first 75 miles, then it goes from "F" to "E" in 75 more........:crazy: I have two more "major" projects -- I bought a cruise control kit that I'm going to install (especially since I'm planning to go to North Carolina in the Spring for Mini 56) and I want to build a rear anti-roll bar for him. As it is now, he leans pretty substantially in corners. We'll do our 100 mile or so check ride later this afternoon and I'll report back.