I've been slowly but steadily clearing the projects out of the shop..... I finished the second Sprite racecar transmission overhaul and delivered it. That was a long process - waited over 3 months for straightcut gears from England - they claimed to have had them in stock....... but they lied. I have a Mini engine/gearbox being shipped to me for an overhaul from Boston, he claims he's not in a hurry but he's well funded so I probably will just go ahead and build it out and get it back to him. One of the guys I built a race transmission for want me to build him a shortblock for a Sprite street car - but he wants a fairly hot motor for it. My uncle died a while back and I helped my cousin clear out his garage of a lot of old car stuff and shop equipment. most of it is now sold but I still have a few pieces left, I rented a storage place to keep it in and I need to be out by the end of the month, so I've been working on marketing that stuff. Last but not least, I have the Inno back in my shop, it's really close to being done so I need to button it up. Oh, and I'm working on adding an annex to my shop so I'll have a little more room to work!
A 4 wheeled motorcycle, man I've always loved those. What power plant does that one use? An A series or a Kent Ford?
This one has a STRONG 1275 Sprite motor, hence the Sprite gearbox I built for it.....it's really quick, as befitting a car that weighs 900 lbs empty! And boy howdy does it do corners! You can hear the gear noise as he goes up the hill. Still has some tuning to do on the weber carb.
Right now he's just doing auto cross but plans to get his license renewed for SCCA racing this summer if/when they open up regional contests again. No idea what class he'd run in, but it is really quick, so unless they toss him in with some big HP cars he should do well. He's promised I can go along if he goes racing this summer - I usually go to a couple of tracks each summer with other friends, but regionals may be held at different times and different tracks than the main stuff. Won't know anything till this thing passes once and for all.....
Looks like it might be an FP car will run in Vintage small bore maybe mid-bore if he is fast and wants to to run with faster cars. Looks nice!
So, update on the Racing Green Mini......the engine has been smoking a bit on decelleration for a while now, in 2019 in Aspen coming down the mountain it left a huge blue cloud, then never did it again??? But now it's got a loud transmission bearing and a grunchy 2nd gear synchro too, so I decided I needed to do something. A friend sold me the motor out of a 94 SPi, said it ran good and didn't leak so I bought it. Ummmmmm.......when I got it in the engine stand I ran compression - and it was pretty low. He said it hadn't run in 10 years, so I put some Marvel Mystery oil down the bores and left it sit a while, then ran compression again, 3 cylinders had come up considerably so I put some plugs in it and fired it up - sounds really healthy so I decided to put it in the green car and drive it. But first I need to spiff it up a bit - can't have something this grotty in my car! First I gave it a good bath with the pressure washer, then once I dried it off I decided a coat of red paint couldn't hurt......you all know where this is going, don't you? Once I pulled the clutch off I decided to go ahead and replace the main seal, which required removing the rear cover, which was corroded and nasty, so I cleaned it and gave it a coat of silver. The rear cover has the clutch activating stuff in it and all the levers and such were rusted solid, so I had to take that all apart too. I also pulled the front timing cover which was rusty and cleaned it all up and gave it a coat of black and a new front crank seal. The SPi motors use a different thermostat housing too, but fortunately I had the right one in stock, so I changed that out and added a new thermostat, even tho the one in the engine seemed to be fine. The line that runs from the oil pump to the oil filter was also pretty rusty so I took it all apart too, cleaned and painted. so now I'm waiting on the new clutch and a few other bits like a new water pump - the old one wasn't leaking but it's cheap insurance to replace it. In the meantime, I found that the later motors don't have the water temp gauge sender in the head, but rather in the fuel injection intake manifold. So, I went over to Ace and bought the correct tap so I can tap the head for the sender adaptor I need for the car. That's next. I already adjusted the valves and found an old aluminum valve cover, which looked better than the blue steel one that was on it. I'm trying to make a Mini Event in Texas Hill country around San Antonio the end of the month, so I have a lot to do yet! More when I get some parts...... If this engine runs well on the trip I won't do anything more to it, and I'll rebuild the one in the car and sell it.
Just got notice from DHL that my first parts order will deliver Thursday, unfortunately that order is for the 998 automatic, the clutch may not get here till well into next week. Going to make it tight for a Sat departure to Texas.....I need to drive it around some before going to make sure everything is set and working correctly.
DHL says my clutch will be here Monday, - that leaves Tues to drop it in the car, Wed to get it all back together and running, so Thursday and Friday to drive it before I hook up and leave on Sat - cutting it close! Still, either it will work fine or it won't. If it doesn't, maybe I'll rebuild the one that was in it and then swap them back again......we'll see.
Engine is out. The header was pretty much rust-fused to the pipes, so I could not get it off and decided to try and pull it out the top. I was successful, but there's no way the new engine is going back in the same way, so I will have to bust out the acetylene torch and heat the pipes and see if I can get the header off. It will actually be easier with the engine out as I can rotate the header pipes and work them out once I get them glowing cherry red.