Rear engine mount

The rear mount will be a lot easier than the fronts. It's basically taking the place of an existing bracket that bolts to the bottom of the gearshift mount. A plate will be made that does the same thing, but instead of mating with metal, it'll go via a Landrover rubber mount that I've bought.

This is the existing bracket in place;

The two bolts at the top will be reused, the one at the bottom will not as it was actually hitting the chassis where it is at the moment.

This picture shows a measurement with the bracket removed;

I'll be working on a 58mm distance between the face of the bolt holes and the chassis bar. The reason I took the bracket off here was not just because it made it easier to measure, but because the bracket forced the engine crooked. The two holes are in fact central to the gearbox.The bolts to the engine appear to be M12, but I don't remember them being very long. 40mm between centres (typical metric Mazda!!), 3mm plate. This is the view from above;

From the bracket, this bolt hole is in line with the other two, and here I'm showing that it's interfering directly with the crossbar.

The rubber mount isn't complex. It's 38mm tall (rubber part), 77mm wide. Each fixed bolt is 20mm long, M10 fixing. That means a 78mm tall mount. If I use 3mm plate in front of the cross member, I have 58mm left of the mount to fit in a 58mm gap. That's a bit of a coincidence.

So time for a bit of designing...

engine mount progress 2

Only a short update as the previous one contained the main information. Here's the engine mounts mostly welded;

I'm not overly happy with the inside welding, but it's strong enough. The outside welding is a bit prettier, probably because it was just an easier angle to work with!!

The dishes are just tacked on for now, my gas gauge is basically reading zero now although there is still gas pressure. I might try it tomorrow, but I also need to contact the Adams gas supplier to get a full bottle.

On to the front engine mount now, time to study the photos I made when I had the engine in place. It should be a fair bit easier to do, just two plates with the landrover mount in between them.

Engine mount progress

Well, I managed to get to a point where I can get some metal cut. I still don't know whether I'll be able to get some welding gas, so there is a good chance I'll get halfway through this job and have to stop again.

At least for now I've got things started on the front engine mounts. I stuck to the design I had put together in Fusion 360, and the 3d print has been extremely useful. Especially as it's exactly 50% of the original, I can actually use it for measurements.

So here are all the bars, plates and fillets cut and mostly shaped;

The two bars are the front have been shaped to fit the engine mount which is a rectangular bowl shape. The two plates are 3mm steel, as are the four fillets.

For measuring I bolted the two engine mounts together (top right). This meant that I could position the weldable part at the right angle for both sides. So far I've been cutting against one side and measuring against the other, and it looks pretty good. The engine mounts will go together like this;

The shaping of the bar ends is a bit clearer here. Then they fit to the mount like this;

The whole plate + bar + fillet goes up about an inch or so, so the build will be much more central to the mount dish. It also allows the engine to sit lower in the chassis. I can't show that here because it's all flat on the workbench.

Oh yeah, the workbench.... new surface, courtesy of some very generous wood donation. It's tougher than the MDF that came on the bench before so should be a nice work surface for a while. Of course, it shows the weakness in the workbench metal, but hey I can't have everything!!

So a bit more profiling for the second pair of bars, a trim of the fillets then weld them all together. Then on to the gearbox mount (which is basically just a plate although I'll do some reinforcement there).

No progress...

Well, this is certainly a strange time. Normally I'd be glad to be suck at home with nothing to do, I could get into the garage and make some mega progress. I'd actually planned to take 2-4 weeks off in a block, while the kids were at school, just to get the car close to finished.

And then the world went to p00... the kids are at home, it's difficult to get out for supplies, and yet I find myself in the odd position of still having to work. I suppose it's good for having an income, but it's the complete opposite conditions for what I need to work on the car.

It's even got to the point where I can't clean up the garage because the refuse sites are closed. So at the moment my car is buried under several weeks of just 'stuff'. And I seem to remember getting close to the end of my welding gas, not that I could get any more anyway!

I also must be one of the only people who thought it would be a good idea to get a new car just before a lockdown. So I have a really nice Skoda Superb sat on my drive that has done maybe 100 miles since I bought it. It's even my first diesel car because I thought I'd be doing decent enough miles to warrant it.

Oh yeah, and no kit car show this year. This all must sound really bad considering what the whole planet is having to deal with at the moment, and I must be grateful for what I have.

Perhaps I'll make another list of the tasks I need to do, and which ones I could actually get on with. That might be a start...

Aluminium edge trimming

As I was cutting the car panels, it did occur to me that my target of beautifully clean corners and edges had the unfortunate side effect of surrounding the occupants with lots of lovely looking aluminium razor blades. Indeed, the state of my hands after cutting the panels just shows how badly I'm going to injure myself just getting in and out of the car! And that's even if it gets past the IVA, which it won't.

So there are a few alternatives. The first is probably the easiest, some right angle plastic trim along the corners. Lots of cars do it, although for some reason I can't find a picture of one when I need one! The main thing with this is that it's applied at the end, so this is basically a fallback strategy. It's not a bad strategy, just not what I'd put as the top priority.

The next option is some edge trim. This is applied to the aluminium then the panel is riveted as normal. There are two problems with this. One, the panels will no longer fit flush, and considering the tolerances I've been working to are pretty tight, I think I'll actually have trouble fitting the panels. The other problem is damage. No matter how careful I am with the car, the trims are going to get scuffed and damaged. If I have some trim that is fragile but riveted in place, it doesn't give me much scope for repair. And that's if I don't damage it on the way in, after all the rivets apply a fair amount of force and the plastic might deform. So this option is off the table.

The 'correct' option for this type of car is vinyl on foam. This would certainly solve any sharp edges, but to be honest I just don't want it. Carpet is similar, I could get it trimmed pretty decently but it's not what I want. I'm going for a 'raw' version of the Healey, very stripped down and ready for the (theoretical) track.

The last option is one that would give the best result but would be the hardest to do. Other cars with aluminium interiors rely on the curved surface of bent panels to provide the rounded edge. For example with the side panels the top of the aluminium is beaten over the top rail. This means that the radius doesn't need to be large in order to get rid of the sharp edge.

Based on this Youtube video;

I was wondering whether the same approach would work. Speaking to the author of the video though, he suggests that the cutter would just 'dig in' to the aluminium, and leave me with a mess. However, he did suggest a scraper approach might be better, so basically the same device but with a vertical blade.

The cutter itself will be a 90 degree, 2mm rounded edge. Using the tool steel I bought, this means I'll need a 4mm hole with a slot leading to it. The slot needs to be wider than the aluminium as I don't want the edges of the steel to touch the surface of the sheet. This will be fixed inside a wooden block similar to the above, with the wooden block having a 2mm slot to hold it in position. Hmm, maybe I should 3d print it...

Engine mounts

The next step was to put together the engine mounts, and all I had was the MX5 mount that I wanted to reuse;

Rather than weld some metal together, I thought some proper design might be good. So out came fusion 360! I replicated the engine mount itself, as well as the chassis bar, then virtually welded some metal together.

I think this will be plenty strong enough, with the bar at the bottom being the chassis, some 3mm plate on top, then welded 25mm bar going to the engine mount. A couple of 3mm fillets to reinforce it, and those mounts will be strong enough to carry an engine.

But for once I thought I could go one step further, and make a real one;

I did figure out that 3D printing doesn't like geometric shapes, but a 50% print made it quite apparent that the strength is there. I don't think I can cut it down, but I also don't think I need to reinforce it anymore. It also shows I can get to the mounting nut, and I can see how to mount the whole thing to the chassis. 

I can start cutting and welding a real one now! :)

Gearbox bush

Just a quick one for now, the gearbox bush. After trying to figure out what words to google in order to find something suitable, I finally managed to find 'Landrover V8 engine mount'. A bog standard round bush with two threads either side for fixing. It'll be working under compression, and I just need a bit of angle iron to fix the mount to the car and the gearbox. Nice and easy... :)

Clearance around the engine

The other side of getting the engine in is to see how much clearance around the engine is available. This is quite critical as I don't want to be fitting pipes and other stuff where the engine goes. Fortunately, it looks like there's plenty of clearance all round;

In fact, the only slight issue will be the clutch master cylinder. It's a bit tight. But then again, so is the Saturn picture example, with the pipe from master to slave being about three inches long! With a bit of lateral thinking I could convert it to a manual clutch very easily... I won't, but I could.

The other main tight point is where the gear shift is;

But even that isn't that tight. The pipes and electrics have to come below the cross bar anyway, then the fixings are vertical so I can put them in any combination and they'll work fine.

I do need to figure out that reverse switch, every picture I look at with it in shows that it's awfully tight.

Well, that is it for this weekend. My back, arms and legs are absolutely worn out so this write up is the only 'car' time I'll be doing today.

Engine mounts

The main reason for getting the engine in is to sort out the engine mounting. I couldn't find much information for reusing the standard mounts, with most using a solid mounting or at the very least the standard landrover rubber mounts.

Of course, I didn't want to do that. The standard mounts look really well engineered, and with a metal case around them that is bolted to the chassis I did think they could be reused very easily.

Once the engine was in place and the sump was 1 inch below the frame, I had this on the passenger side;

And similar on the drivers side;

They were in a good position relative to the frame, so it seemed like I was on to a winner. Next job was to make some cardboard templates for the profile. I only need to get them in relation to the frame, so this is what I came up with;

This is for the drivers side, there seemed to be a slight angle to the mount so I did a front and back one. But then the same task on the passenger side only needed one. They're also very slightly different angles. But I can check that again when they're off the car, as the part that bolts to the engine is meant to be vertical. I've also marked their destination on the frame.

The plan will be to reinforce the frame with some 1 inch RHS, then build up the existing box for it to bolt down to the frame. Similar to this;

But this doesn't reuse the box so I'll have to tweak it. I'm also confused why the middle of the bar appears to be missing as that appears to significantly weaken the frame so I won't be doing that!!

More on that later when I build them up. Now the gearbox mount. The one picture I saw reused the PPF bolts along with a metal plate on to a rubber mount;

This seemed like a reasonable approach, but when I fitted the engine I found an alternative option that would work in a similar way but perhaps be easier to implement. This is the bracket that I'm talking about;

The gap from the bottom of the bracket to the frame is 23mm, with the centre of the bolt hole being 28mm from the front plate (and 20mm from the front of the bottom bar, which considering the two distances should add up to 44 doesn't quite make sense but it's close enough!). If I can make up a bracket to go from the frame, through a rubber bush, to the two bolts, I should be able to get everything in the right place and secure. It'll need to be bolted from below, as both sides will be filled in as soon as the aluminium panels get fitted. I'll double check all that as I may need to use a slotted hole to keep things easy to align. Oh, and the two holes are evenly spaced from each other across the centre line, so without that bracket I should be able to centre the engine a bit better.

So that's three more chunks of work that I can complete which is good.

Next job... engine!!

OK, I did say the next job was brakes, but the stars aligned for probably the last time in the year. A free Saturday, sunny weather forecast, so I finally got to get the engine in.

First thing then. I mentioned a while back that the documents talk about a cross member that needed to be removed, but I couldn't figure out why. Well, now I know!! It took about five minutes of moving to realise the engine was not going to get past that particular lump of metal. It didn't last long with the angle grinder, at least to a point where the engine did fit. I need to tidy the ends up and cap them off, but that's an easy task.

A few photos to start then. This is the engine mid-flight, with the offending bar still in place;

Once that was out the way the engine went into place quite easily;

Unfortunately I forgot to take a wide shot, but then again I was doing this for positioning rather than pictures.

On that subject, there is a fair bit of space available. One comment was that the steering column needed a notch cut out of the inlet manifold support. Not for me though, I think it's because I had moved the steering column to give me the 10 degree angle;

Although I wasn't sure why the steering column was resting against the chassis vertical. It could be because it wasn't bolted tight, but even if it shifts when tightened up I still have a bit of space available. 

The tightest area was the transmission tunnel. With the engine mounted as far back as possible, I had this left;

I'd say maybe half an inch gap on the drivers side, and zero gap on the passenger side. That reverse switch will need protecting or possibly the panel 'adjusting' to compensate. But the gear shift is in a nice place;

It does appear slightly off centre here but that's because of the lower bracket. And on the subject of the lower bracket;

This is the offending part, this is stopping the shift and the prop from being in the centre. But it's also a fantastic place for the front gearbox support. Once that plate has been removed, I have two chunky bolts going into pretapped holes, all just begging for a custom bracket leading to a rubber mount. This is similar to how the Saturn plans describe it, but theirs is a hard bracket and I'm not happy with that.

All in all a really good day. I'm not going to put much else into this post as I need to separate out the information. Time to get on to those then.

Next job... brakes

Time to crack on with the brakes. It's reusing the split system in the original MX5. This is a three outlet design, with the two fronts on individual lines, and the rear on the third. The rear also includes the brake light switch before heading off to a T junction mounted behind the diff. Once there, each side gets an individual feed.

The fronts come out of the master cylinder on to the two lower rails just in front. From there they run along the rails until they get to uprights U1 and U2. Then it's to a bracket that is welded to the top of the upright, and a flexi finishes the route to the caliper.

Rears are similar, although with the brackets I've installed they pipes will actually come up to the top of the tunnel first, then routed back to the T piece which will mount on the back of SB3. Then it's off to either side, again staying above the suspension to arrive at a bracket, then a flexi off to the caliper.

So first job will be to find the master cylinder (wherever I put it!!), fit that and the T piece in place, then weld the remaining brackets in place. Or thinking about it, I'll need to weld a bracket in place for the T piece!

Time to get started and see how far I can get in a day.

Jobs list

I don't like doing these as it makes me realise how much work is still to go, but it's got to be done.

In no particular order;

• Fuel tank mounting bracket. Normally there is a full frame behind the car for the rear panel, in my case the rear panel is all fibreglass. Without the full frame I still need something for the fuel tank, so I'll take part of the frame where it supports the tank. Problem is, this makes the car longer than my garage... I'll have a think what to do here.
• Whilst I remember, the fuel lines will need to be routed. But that will go along with the brake brackets and wiring loom within the transmission tunnel. And I need to buy the fuel line too. And connectors.
• Handbrake mounting. This is going underneath the steering wheel, which does reduce leg room but it also keeps it off the centre tunnel which is what I want. The equivalent plates are CP12 and 13 (P47) so I'll adapt those to fit.
• Brake lines. This is another big block of work consisting of;
• Brake line supports on each corner (P51).
• Finish welding on the tabs all along the inside of the tunnel.
• 3D print pipe brackets (or go for P clips).
• Hard brake pipe fitting.
• Handbrake cables. I need to check what's needed here, particularly as I'm moving the handbrake. From memory there are two cables from each caliper, that come together in a 'balance bar' arrangement that goes to the handbrake. 
• Engine mounts. This needs the engine fitting for position, which in turn needs a full day and some dry weather. Fingers crossed for a warm winter here...
• Pedal box tidying. This is mostly built, but it needs a couple more fixings and needs a bit of loosening up. From memory it only just fits, even the application of paint stops it going on easy. I'll need to get this working better if I have any hope of fitting it with everything else in place.
• Check the steering rack for fit. I have brackets for the rack, I just need to find out if they go on ok. 
• Fuel tank straps. No issues here, just a couple of 1mm steel straps that are folded as required. I'll need the mounting bracket done first though.
• Scuttle panel. This needs the bodywork fitting to see what gap is to be filled.
• Electrics. Erm... yeah. Lots of. Spaghetti. The wiring loom is still in a carrier bag and needs to be laid out and routed. It's not complicated, but it will be fiddly and time consuming. Oh, and I think I'll need to buy some lights! I have some from the donor, but not a full set.
• Seat modifications. As mentioned earlier, the seats don't currently fit so I need to modify the seats. 
• Body fit. Big job here, as with the engine fit it'll be an outside job that could take a day or so. Trial fit the bodywork, make brackets as required, fit the bodywork, rinse and repeat as required.

Oh... that isn't as much stuff as I had expected!!

Interior finished...

Well, that's a huge chunk of work now done. I've spent god knows how many days just on these panels, mainly because this is the primary 'visible' part of the car. Pretty much everything else is going to be covered by the bodywork, this is what I'll see every time I get in the car. 

I didn't really have too many issues with it, I think the main thing I have worries about is the tight fit. I got all the panels down to the closest tolerance I could get, I reckon maybe a tenth of a millimetre in some cases. If there was swarf left on a drill hole, that was enough to misalign the panel!! The problem then comes from the adhesive I'm planning to use alongside the rivets. The adhesive will take up an amount of space, even if it's the tiniest amount it's still going to take up space. I suspect I will need a bit more 'refinement' when it comes to actually putting the panels in place. 

So that's it, that's that job done. Now it's time to take all the panels off and store them somewhere, then figure out what the next job will be. I'd best go get the book and work through my list...

Back after the summer break

Well, now that all the fun and games of summer is done, I can finally get the car back on track. First thing, figure out where I was;

This is all the panels as they are at the moment. It looks like I ended the session with the two outer side panels yet to be cut to shape, and the two inner panels to be trimmed along the top. I'm guessing the trimming on the top was because of the centre panel not being done yet.

And just to see what it might look like, I couldn't resist fitting all the panels temporarily;

I just love this look, it really shows how things are going to come together. Even with the panels not quite adjusted together, I can see the interior and how it'll look. I'm very happy with how it's working, and can't wait to get everything finished here.

It has given me a few things to think about though;

1. The passenger footwell end. No biggie, just a bit of metal to fix in place. Probably welded in steel as that's what the drivers side is. For some reason I keep forgetting it though.

2. There's a slight gap where the back panels meet the floor panels. Again, no biggie, I was going to put sealant around the edge anyway. And it's hidden by the seats.

3. The seat bases don't fit. This is a bit more of a biggie. I knew that they were going to be tight, I didn't appreciate how tight. They basically just don't get anywhere near where they need to go. It looks like I'll have to remove the squab and do some quite severe modification to the base metal. It's quite lucky that I've had to replace the heater elements in my main car, as it's taught me some valuable lessons on how to remove leather and foam!!

So next step is to get the side panels finished off, do the centre panel as removable then trim the other side panels to match. 

Engine and body

Today's tasks were;

Engine trial fit

Bodywork trial fit

Engine first. Well, it was meant to be, turns out someone up there decided rain was more important. I tried a few times, even got the engine in the air and almost into the car. But I didn't think rain was going to do the engine or electrics any good so I abandoned it. At least the garage got a bit of a clean!!

The bodywork was a little more successful, mainly because it's waterproof. I wanted to get it fitted to see how much of a gap there was around the panels. The first thing was that the front had to be trimmed. It was designed to fit a range of chassis shapes, so I expected it to need trimming. A quick centre point marking showed that the current cut out was nowhere near the middle, so a minute or so with the jigsaw took care of that!

Once I was able to drop the body down, it was clear that it needed a bit more trimming to fit. No biggie, it's expected. But again, I got fed up of the rain coming and going, so it went back in the garage.

So for the time being the chassis is on it's side, as the garage is intended for another purpose soon. I have a few 3D printing projects that I want to look at, so the first job is to learn Fusion. 

Current progress and pipe fixing

A short update as I have a spare few minutes. The side panels have been cut in line with the back panel, and folded to allow a 20mm section to be rivetted to the back panel. The sheet metal brake that I cobbled together and initially thought was 'a bit rubbish' has actually worked really well. I think the only issue I had with it was the lack of a sturdy base, but it turns out clamping it to the chassis itself provides more than enough stability to fold the aluminium.

I've ended up with panels that are really nicely folded (I'm amazed how well they came out to be honest!), and will butt up against the back panel nicely. The next job will be to cut the notches out of the bottom for the seat cross members, then drill the rivet holes. The inner panels need a small crease added, the outer panels are straight so no more folding needed.

I think the engine fit on the weekend is out of the window though, the wet weather is (literally) putting a dampener on that task.

The next thought on my mind was pipe fixing. Inside the transmission tunnel I've welded some tabs that are intended to carry all the necessary wires, pipes, etc from the front to the back of the car. The tabs are quite substantial, and are done at quite frequent intervals in order to ensure everything is nice and secure. But while that provides the chassis anchor, I hadn't looked into the final fixing. For wiring this just needs to be some sort of protective shield with a cable tie, pipes need something a bit more substantial that is bolted in place.

There is going to be four pipes in total, two brake and two fuel. They will all be copper/kunifer pipes, hopefully I have enough! The runs from front to back are surprisingly short, maybe a couple of metres for each? The bigger issue is the fixing. The normal approach is for a small nylon bracket that the pipes can clip into, but they are hideously expensive (£20 for 10 the last time I checked!). But I now have a 3D printer, so I could actually print some. I'd have to design them from scratch, and I need to consider that 3D printed parts aren't as strong as nylon parts. But they are effectively free (ish) which is always good in the Locost theme!

The other option is P clips. As above, I had thought they were quite expensive, but someone has sent me this link;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Nylon-Plastic-Clips-Fasteners/dp/B01IHSEO5I/ref=asc_df_B01IHSEO5I/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=256110

Which refers to P clips that are much cheaper. Less than £4 for 50 P clips seems to be a good price. Of course these are only for single pipes, but I was thinking for each fixing I could use a combination of four, laid out as;

qp
db

IE four different directions so the holes line up in the middle. I think it'll need some sort of stand off to keep the clips away from the tab, but that's not difficult.

Some thoughts...

Whilst I've been doing the panels, I have come across a few things that I need to remember for later.

Side panels. The GRP bodywork doesn't come all the way down to the side panels, there is a gap of several inches. In the demo car there was a curved piece of aluminium which I was going to replicate. Problem is, I'm out of aluminium. This isn't a huge problem, I couldn't have used the existing aluminium anyway. Trying to put a nice curve into 2mm aluminium would have been very hard work!! Once I have the measurements I'll order a 1mm sheet which should bend easier. It's only a decorative panel so it's not an issue.

Side panels 2. The bodywork attaches to the car at the rollover bar mounting points, and comes in at the corners where the occupants shoulders would be. From memory, this distance was shorter than the actual metalwork width, so once the panel has been fitted I'll need to trim that back. As with the side panels, this might result in a section that needs to be filled by aluminium.

Engine height. Hopefully this weekend I'll be getting everything out of the garage so that I can trial fit the engine. This will be so I can fabricate the mounts, and figure out how much space is available in the engine bay for everything that has to go in there. The main issue is how high to mount it. The general opinion is to have it as high as possible in relation to the bonnet. Even so, this tends to leave the sump hanging below the chassis, which is a good thing. But I don't have a bonnet, or at least I don't have an easily accessible one that I can use to measure. I am hoping that the trial fit of the rear bodywork will give me a height to work to. From there I can work out where to put the engine.

Front part of the rear bodywork. The main tub of the car is made from one piece, with a built in 'firewall' at the front that fits on to the chassis. As above it seems to be designed for a narrower car, (or deliberately moulded small to cater for most chassis variations) so the opening isn't big enough to fit over the bodywork. I'll need to open it up in order for it to fit over the car.

Engine mounting and 'the extra bar'. The plans have a section of a crossmember that is removed in order to allow the engine to fit. I've yet to figure out why, it seems like an ideal position to reduce some lateral flexing, and engine bay pictures suggest there is clearance between the bar and the engine. At the moment it's still there on my car, but if it gets in the way of the engine it will need to be removed.

Engine mounts. I have the original engine mounts from the MX5, and it makes sense to reuse them. The mounts themselves are an angled design that contain a rubber bush, so I think they'll be perfect for fitting. The Saturn plans actually disagree though, they say that a bush in shear isn't a good plan. I'm not sure why, MX5's have had them in that design forever, as have many other cars! I've asked the font of all knowledge, IE locostbuilders, lets see what they say. I did find a picture of an engine mount;

And a gearbox mount;