Post by MiniHaven on Aug 27, 2009 23:00:38 GMT
:)Hi i have been a bit busy of late , making a rather large duck run for my littlun and missus , welding and painting etc etc in the garage ,i was lucky enough to have had one of those expensive IMM tickets purchased for me for my birthday in the beginning of the month so orf i went in my mates new mini he had purchased for an obscene amount of dosh to the IMM , it is a mini from 1989 completely re built with a non a series power plant forced or more to the point shoe horned into the front where an A' series should be .
upon my arrival to his home near midhurst i was asked if i could help him with some last Minuit fiddling i said yes not knowing what i had let myself in for , i was asked to fit an MPI steering column into the car , it took me about a day to get my act together and sort it , i had to source a copy of a 1990 wiring loom and a late MPI loom and thanks to the INTERNET i achieved this and printed them off , with the aid of wire cutters a soldering iron and some heat shrink i got all done finishing on the morning we had to leave , after which we had to re install the walnut burr dash and the roll cage and stereo , we then found we had a water leak from defective heater matrix so off to the shack again and remove side cover replace matrix and reassemble and fit to car .
we then found that the 1990 steering wheel would not fit so with a very panicky phone around found one loitering in Simon's workshop in the cream leather to match the rest of the interior of the car (bit of a result) so the girls went off with sat nav and retrieved it whilst we continued to tie up the loose ends mechanically .
we eventually set off at four in the afternoon , we arrived after a very noisy and quite hard ride with wheel arches rubbing in the back and torrential rain at the Longbridge event at 1023 pm , so in the dark no advise as to where to pitch our tent we proceeded to put the huge tent up in the rain and dark (was quite proud of our achievement in the morning) and into a dry and warm bed for a well earned nights sleep.
we woke up to lots of German voices intermingled with Irish and Belgium voices and sunshine ,,,we had pitched in the middle of a German mini/caravan club !
A couple of days in Andy Joe (mini-club Jersey) and myself were in a fantastic and euphoric mood decided to book the vaux 16v 2ltr powered mini into the noisiest exhaust comp so orf me and Andy went to the arena , the comp started and we were one of the first to test we achieved in the region of 115db .
as the testing proceeded it became apparent no one was even close to our attempt !! in the end we had won the comp and drove out of the arena , a hundred yards away still climbing the hill on tick over hugging and waving the trophy the engine started a tinkle tinkle noise which in seconds became a donk donk noise upon which i shouted Andy turn it off so he did .
well a couple of days went by and the guestimaters were all having a go at diagnosing the issue we accepted the Leeds mini clubs offer of a couple of tows round the grounds and a trip to the supermarket to get a spruce up in their clean washroom facilities and also no driving meant ability to have a bloody good drink too so we obliged happily , we took a leisurely ride home on the back of the AA truck observing Andy quaking with the thought of his wife learning he had broken the new and expensive toy .
a few weeks later the car has arrived here in frizz towers and i had my very first vauxhall sharp learning curve !!
we had been primed by several individuals of various companies and private vaux owners that the issue would un doubt ably be a worn shell big end shot a shell .
prepared with the prospect of removing the sump and looking at the bottom end and the prospect of plant removal to do a rebuild i started draining fluids and got it up on stands , i decided just for curiosity sake to find out which xe engine it was pre 93 or after 93 i took the timing cover off to see the layout of the timing belt .
With absolute amazement i saw a chewed up spring in the bottom of the belt drive trian , it was the tensioner spring which should of been on the two posts taking up the belt slack !! it had fallen off and gone round the enclosure in between the timing belt and drive pulleys and got chewed up , it also looked as if it was a bodge job as the spring looked like a weak old throttle type spring instead of something one would associate with the tensioner pulley
here is where the right spring should have been lurking !
and this is some of the free play offered by lack of tensioning the rest is left flapping between the other cogs in the train.
upon this discovery i telephoned Andy to give him the good news ,,,yes good news as he wouldn't have to completely rebuild the engine bottom end just the top end or so i thought at the time , he agreed to let me take off the head to see how bad the damage may have been as this type of engine is known as an 'interference engine' meaning if you loose the timing belt things get ugly in there where valves meet pistons heading in the same direction !!
the grim reality was not so nice to look at ...........
number 2 piston crown ,,,,,,missing lumps !
number 2 cylinder head aperture acquired some extra bits !!
a small video was collated for the guys at Leeds mini club as they asked about a progress report and pictures of the lowdown on the problem .
www.youtube.com/user/g7puw#play/all/uploads-all/0/2pY87VP_uJ8
and heres a bit of the trip up to brummy .
www.youtube.com/user/g7puw#play/all/uploads-all/2/39QmE6UTWS4
thats it for tonight i will add as we progress through the project to this post .
upon my arrival to his home near midhurst i was asked if i could help him with some last Minuit fiddling i said yes not knowing what i had let myself in for , i was asked to fit an MPI steering column into the car , it took me about a day to get my act together and sort it , i had to source a copy of a 1990 wiring loom and a late MPI loom and thanks to the INTERNET i achieved this and printed them off , with the aid of wire cutters a soldering iron and some heat shrink i got all done finishing on the morning we had to leave , after which we had to re install the walnut burr dash and the roll cage and stereo , we then found we had a water leak from defective heater matrix so off to the shack again and remove side cover replace matrix and reassemble and fit to car .
we then found that the 1990 steering wheel would not fit so with a very panicky phone around found one loitering in Simon's workshop in the cream leather to match the rest of the interior of the car (bit of a result) so the girls went off with sat nav and retrieved it whilst we continued to tie up the loose ends mechanically .
we eventually set off at four in the afternoon , we arrived after a very noisy and quite hard ride with wheel arches rubbing in the back and torrential rain at the Longbridge event at 1023 pm , so in the dark no advise as to where to pitch our tent we proceeded to put the huge tent up in the rain and dark (was quite proud of our achievement in the morning) and into a dry and warm bed for a well earned nights sleep.
we woke up to lots of German voices intermingled with Irish and Belgium voices and sunshine ,,,we had pitched in the middle of a German mini/caravan club !
A couple of days in Andy Joe (mini-club Jersey) and myself were in a fantastic and euphoric mood decided to book the vaux 16v 2ltr powered mini into the noisiest exhaust comp so orf me and Andy went to the arena , the comp started and we were one of the first to test we achieved in the region of 115db .
as the testing proceeded it became apparent no one was even close to our attempt !! in the end we had won the comp and drove out of the arena , a hundred yards away still climbing the hill on tick over hugging and waving the trophy the engine started a tinkle tinkle noise which in seconds became a donk donk noise upon which i shouted Andy turn it off so he did .
well a couple of days went by and the guestimaters were all having a go at diagnosing the issue we accepted the Leeds mini clubs offer of a couple of tows round the grounds and a trip to the supermarket to get a spruce up in their clean washroom facilities and also no driving meant ability to have a bloody good drink too so we obliged happily , we took a leisurely ride home on the back of the AA truck observing Andy quaking with the thought of his wife learning he had broken the new and expensive toy .
a few weeks later the car has arrived here in frizz towers and i had my very first vauxhall sharp learning curve !!
we had been primed by several individuals of various companies and private vaux owners that the issue would un doubt ably be a worn shell big end shot a shell .
prepared with the prospect of removing the sump and looking at the bottom end and the prospect of plant removal to do a rebuild i started draining fluids and got it up on stands , i decided just for curiosity sake to find out which xe engine it was pre 93 or after 93 i took the timing cover off to see the layout of the timing belt .
With absolute amazement i saw a chewed up spring in the bottom of the belt drive trian , it was the tensioner spring which should of been on the two posts taking up the belt slack !! it had fallen off and gone round the enclosure in between the timing belt and drive pulleys and got chewed up , it also looked as if it was a bodge job as the spring looked like a weak old throttle type spring instead of something one would associate with the tensioner pulley
here is where the right spring should have been lurking !
and this is some of the free play offered by lack of tensioning the rest is left flapping between the other cogs in the train.
upon this discovery i telephoned Andy to give him the good news ,,,yes good news as he wouldn't have to completely rebuild the engine bottom end just the top end or so i thought at the time , he agreed to let me take off the head to see how bad the damage may have been as this type of engine is known as an 'interference engine' meaning if you loose the timing belt things get ugly in there where valves meet pistons heading in the same direction !!
the grim reality was not so nice to look at ...........
number 2 piston crown ,,,,,,missing lumps !
number 2 cylinder head aperture acquired some extra bits !!
a small video was collated for the guys at Leeds mini club as they asked about a progress report and pictures of the lowdown on the problem .
www.youtube.com/user/g7puw#play/all/uploads-all/0/2pY87VP_uJ8
and heres a bit of the trip up to brummy .
www.youtube.com/user/g7puw#play/all/uploads-all/2/39QmE6UTWS4
thats it for tonight i will add as we progress through the project to this post .
