Most liked posts in thread: So, Today This Happened.....

So far so good, no runs drips or errors and nobody left on base......

 

At CoTA today.....crewing for this one, we did not have a good day - first it threw the fan blet on the first lap, we got that fixed and it overheated on the way to the grid for our second event. Found that was due to him not getting it full of water after the first overheating happened, got that sorted and now we're ready for tomorrow.

Except......

The weather is supposed to turn to shit tomorrow, cold, windy and rainy!


Built a race trans for the black one.....







And some footage from the grid, this is directly behind where the F1 cars garage when that circus is here....

CoTA 2022 - YouTube

 

So there was no joy in Mudville, a couple of hours after I finished I found a big green oil stain on the paper towel, the only good news is that it really pinpointed where the leak was coming from. There is an o-ring around the detent spring and carrier for the shift rod inside the trans that mates up with the bottom of the right side cover.



I pulled that cover off, cleaned everything up and popped the o-ring out - it was hard as a rock and flat on both sides! As hard as it is for me to believe that I didn't change that - considering that I cleaned and painted all the covers - it sure looks like that is the case. Either that or I managed to re-use the old one by mistake.



Anywho, another new gasket, some more cheese whiz and a new o-ring from my spares and she's all back together again with another fresh paper towel in place. I will say this about the "Right Stuff", it's a whole lot easier to clean off than regular RTV. If only it wasn't so damn expensive.....$18 for a can of cheese whiz is a bit much.

After 3 hours now it's still dryer than a popcorn fart, so I think that's the final answer.



If I don't see this or any other drips by tomorrow am, she's going back in.

 

Well, 6 hours later and not a drop. If it's still clean in the AM it's going back in the car!

 

CMU event starting in Wytheville, Va. I think the last one I did was there too, in 2018? In 2019 we went to Aspen for MMW....

Classic Minis United, Mini 63 - ReUnited

After this I'm going to visit the kids and grands in Hendersonville, NC. My daughter needs her tractor fixed....

 

I had intended to simply bolt this back in the car, but it was so grotty and stiff feeling that I decided to clean it up before putting it back in. Interestingly, the only place it was rusty was where heavy greasy muck was on it.

So I wound up completely taking it apart, cleaning everything, painting a few bits, re-lubing it and reassembly - took most of the day by the time the paint was dry enough to put it back together. Shifts really light and sweet now tho.....



One more piece of metric madness on this later model "English" car, this bolt attaches the shifter assembly to the brackets under the tunnel - it's 10 mm! (14mm wrench - not 9/16")

 

Got the shifter bolted back in and the exhaust installed. With the bottom end all finished I went back to the top - got almost everything buttoned up there. I didn't bother to hook up the extra switch since the solenoid isn't there anyway, plus the wires were broken. The switch was there to control a solenoid that cuts off the vacuum advance in 4th gear - it's a German Mini only control - I figure it has to do with them running high RPMs on the autobahn......





Poured the coolant back in and it fired up on the first turn of the key!

Still have to bleed the brakes and install a few other bits and bobs, then the bonnet and she's ready to drive. Just in time, too. We're supposed to get rain for the next two days and a high tomorrow of 42*!

The other good news.....not a drop of oil on the floor anywhere!

 

All righty then......took it for a spin around the neighborhood today, seems to run nicely although I didn't push it at all.

Driving down a main street, accelerating up in 2nd gear and *bang* it died......I managed to coast over to a side street, popped the hood. It was clearly electrical as it was instantaneous and I could see gas in the filter. It has done this before and the cure as far as I can tell is just to tighten the push on connectors at the coil. so I messed with those and it fired right up and drove back with no further incident. I gave them all a good squeeze with some flat nose pliers and I'll try again in a bit.

The weather is perfect for a nice afternoon drive but I need to get it aligned first.....I guess when I changed the steering rack boot even tho I counted the turns I must not have gotten it back right. I can't do that till Monday so it will be just short drives around the hood for now.

Progress.

 

Sheesh, I have never had this much trouble keeping oil in a car before!

I came back from my test drive and parked outside the garage and left it idle while I got the lift ready and saw these three spots.....the big puddle is oil, looks like it's coming out of the speedo end cover on the transmission. The middle splatters seem to be coming from either the oil filter itself or the pressure pipe that fits into the top of the filter housing.

The gold colored puddle is brake fluid, but I think that came because I overfilled the master cylinder while I was bleeding the brakes.....so I'm not concerned with it.....the calipers, hoses and master are all dry after my run.




This pic is from when it was idling outside the garage door.



So, drain the oil, drain the coolant and remover the radiator. Then to hold the engine up I went and bought an engine support bar from HF......that way I'm not trying to support it with the engine hoist (then the legs get in the way) or a jack (which would keep me from being able to raise or lower the lift.

Once I get it all supported I can remove the motor mount on that end and get that cover off and reseal it. I have spare gaskets and plenty of cheeze whiz, which seemed to do the trick on the diff covers - once I figured out where the oil was really coming from.

Sure don't understand why these gaskets won't seal up on their own....they are the "better" kind - the thicker ones with a sealant in them......they shouldn't need additional sealer too. I'll have to look and make sure there's no crack in the end cover - I sure didn't see one but then I thought I put a new o-ring on the right side diff cover too - and found out differently.

No idea why I was getting the drips off the oil filter, I can't feel any leakage around the pipe but I had one with a tiny pinhole in it once, maybe it's something like that?

Once I get the speedo cover fixed I'll run it some more and see what happens. It really bugs me that these things didn't leak in the engine stand, but wait till it's in the car and all buttoned up to do it!

It was 75* today and Don and I had planned to go do a 100 mile or so drive in our cars to make sure they are ready for the drive to Va in a few weeks......at least he got to do so in his Pup, which ran flawlessly.

 

OK, no drips this morning, so I finished putting the radiator in and fired it up. I ran it for about 20 minutes till it was fully warmed up and shut it off. That was a few hours ago and again - no leaks. I think it's good now. Finally!



Don't know why the oil filter had oil dripping off of it, I can't find anything loose or leaking and I wiped it off before I ran it today and no leaks now.....I'll drive it again when the roads dry up maybe Friday or Saturday and if I don't find any leaks I think it's good to go at last.

I'll probably retorque the head and reset the valves one more time too, then if I can get a few hundred miles on it before we head of to Va I'll try to tune the carb a little as well.

 

Everything's buttoned up and ready to go.....I re-torqued the head and reset the valve clearances, now all I need to do is have the alignment checked then Don and I want to do some more highway runs to try and build miles before we head off to CMU 63 in Wytheville in a couple of weeks.

So far, no drips of any kind......we'll see what it looks like after the alignment and our first 100 mile run this weekend.

 

Today I went to my usual shop to have the alignment checked, only to find that their Hunter machine was down for the count, and the other machine would not work with these tiny 13" tires since it's mostly used for SUVs and pickemup trucks.

However they did turn me on to a high perfomance shop just around the corner and they said they could do it - next Tuesday. So I set an appointment but in the meantime I may try and check the toe myself as I think that's all that it needs.....and we're leaving one week after that, which doesn't leave me much time to find another shop if they can't.

EXCEPT.......

While we had it up in the air I found yet another damn oil leak! This time it looks like it's coming either from the timing chain cover gasket or the front pulley seal. Either way I'll need to pull the radiator again and see if I can fix it. Since I have all weekend now (Don and I were going to do some highway runs this weekend) I'll see about getting that fixed, plus I need to modify the ramps for my lift as now that I have a center muffler it hits every time I try and go on or off the lift.

It's always some damn thing.

On the good news side, the engine seems to already be freeing up some as it's feeling better each time I drive it.

On the not as good side, I think I prefer the 3-1 diff ratio over the 2:76-1, so if someone has a 3-1 they don't need I'm in the market. I won't change it before this trip and I may not change it at all if it turns out I like it better after we've done the approx. 3K miles of this run that we'll do. I had a 2:76 in Buzz and I liked it just fine in him.....FWIW.

More as it happens.

 

Stouter stuff? I doubt it!

Although they are embossed with a rib down the middle of the flange. I always bang them flat again before I put them on, where the bolt holes are frequently gets bent from over-tightening......and I had done so on this one before I painted it.

 

OK, found the issue - apparently dirty contacts where the starter relay plugs into the receptacle. contact cleaner and she works fine now

 

So far no leaks!

 

The car drove really well on today's test run after the alignment....still some minor things to do, rattles and buzzes to try and see if I can eliminate, but overall it ran well. Temps were only about mid 70's but as usual it ran right in the center of the gauge, and oil pressure only got down to 40psi at idle when I came off the highway after a 60+ mile run, with any revs at all it went to 60 psi immediately.

So, from that perspective it's ready to roll.....just need to do some fine tuning.

No leaks of any kind - oil, water or exhaust!

 

Ready to head out in the AM for the Classic Minis United event in Va in the morning!

 

Took the Racing Green Mini down to my partners Dan's shop near Tulsa for some repairs - when traveling to Blackhawk Farms last year in the race trailer something fell on the fender and dinged it pretty good, plus there were some other bad spots across the front end and chips in the front of the bonnet and front edges of the arches.

Dan's been beavering away on it since last week and today got the color and clear on it - looking pretty spectacular already! He also peeled the cheezy vinyl stripes off the bonnet and painted new ones on for me.

Of course, as I told him, now the rest of the car will be looking pretty dowdy by comparison! Guess I'll have to break out the Simonize.....

 

Went and got it today, 4 hours down, 4 hours back again but worth it to get such great work done, and done right. Paint match is off a little (not unexpected), so later in the year we'll do the rest of the car to match and replace the side stripes too as they're worn and faded.