Engine Fit

At long last - the day came to install the engine and gearbox to the rolling chassis.
I booked the services of my mate Mark Edwards who fortunately had a Draper Engine crane he bought when building a Westfield a few years ago.

I wasn't quite sure of the full weight of the engine/gearbox combination, however a fair bit of it is alloy - cylinder heads, inlet manifold, water pump etc so that reduced it a bit. I also removed the starter motor (for weight) and distributor (to avoid damage).

I bought a lifting plate off e-bay which turned out to be just the job. The idea is you remove the carburetor and fix this plate over the inlet manifold using the carb studs. Added bonus of sealing the manifold so nothing drops in to cause damage later. I admit to being a bit worried about all that engine weight hanging from the 4 carb studs into an alloy casting - but turned out to be no problem.
The crane we had was rated at 1000kg, dropping to 250kg at full extent. We actually managed to lift the engine at the 250kg setting which was just as well due to the reach required.

 The gearbox end does drop a fair bit on lifting but was easy to manually level while we maneuvered the lump around.












We found it easier to roll the chassis up to the crane to position everything and we took a few breathers to take stock of progress. We hit a problem with the alignment of the front mounting brackets. Basically when the engine brackets were out of line with the chassis brackets by around 1cm, which meant that the rubber bobbins were really distorted. After much pondering we decided that the only practical solution was to remove one of the engine brackets and re-drill the holes to suit the chassis.
So all done and bolted down at the front, ensuring that the gearlever was central to the chassis.

Drivers side bracket - all in line

Slightly out of line passenger side

My mate Mark Edwards

With the engine finally down on the front mounts we used a ratchet strap to hold the gearbox tail in position while we worked out how to fit the gearbox mounting bracket. This is a bit of a fiddle as you have to raise the car sufficiently to mark,  drill and tap the chassis from below. I used 4 x M10 Setscrews to fix the bracket and I don't think its going anywhere!

Having the crane around was quite handy for raising the rear of the car while working on the gearbox bracket - with suitable axle stands deployed of course! 

So major milestone achieved - Engine in!

I took the opportunity to fit the starter motor and rotated the solenoid to be below the motor as recommended in a number of threads on the forum. This seems to solve problems with heat soak causing starting problems.

Now to crack on with the build!

Brakes

What with weddings and holidays the summer has been a bit of a write off so progress has slowed somewhat.

I decided it would be a good plan to test fit the body and make up the brake pipes to the servo. My logic was to bleed and pressurize the brake system so I could confirm all was well with the servo and my brake pipes before having the engine in the way. This also meant I could fix the brake pipes to the master cylinder without any additional joints.

So with a bit of help the body was dropped on the chassis. As the fuel tank was now installed I had to cut a hole in the boot floor to clear the tank filler.

The next task was to fit the Rover 45 brake servo I got from e-bay. - this is a very tight fit and I hope never has to come out!

Brake Servo and Clutch Master Cylinders

Followed by the AK pedal box which is a tad awkward to fit just because of where it is.
I also fitted the clutch master cylinder and fixed to the clutch pedal with a 5/16 clevis pin. The threaded rod needed to be trimmed in order to line up the clutch and brake pedals.

















 I then fitted the brake pipes to the master cylinder using my hand held flaring tool and some 3/8 UNF male pipe fittings.

I drilled and taped holes in the inner wings to eventually fix p-clips to secure the brake lines after final body fix.

My bleeding assistant!

So finally it was time to bleed the brakes, and good news  - only one leaking fitting that just needed a nip up. In truth the biggest problem was that I'd fitted the front calipers upside down so the bleed nipples were at the bottom - very hard to get the air out! 10 minutes later with these corrected, and with help from my assistant on the pedal - all done.

Really pleased with the result - very solid pedal and no leaks. The draper flaring tool must have worked well!