[legendlives]

Cheatin' The Reaper

I've been a lurker for a while, so I thought it was about time I showed you what was going on here in NZ.

Skip to page 19 where the real build starts!

https://www.rodsnsods.co.uk/forum/garage/cheating-reaper-176602/page19

 

[legendlives]

Start exporting them here at those prices
Nice project

Funny you should say that, My daughter lives in Devon and her husband is a freight agent.......

 

[legendlives]

Back in the 'shop today, and made up the rear chassis members:

These wil sit like this:

with the 4-link brackets mounted directly to the vertical members.

Also threw the Cleveland front damper on the lathe for a clean-up. This will just be clear-lacquered (after the centre hub is painted black) as I like that look!

I now have all but one of the chassis sub-assemblies completed, so very soon the whole lot will be stitched together.

 

[legendlives]

Thanks for the positive comments. It's not the first chassis I've built as I've been building race cars professionally for the past 30+ years.
I promised my wife when my last race car got sold that I wouldn't build another one, but the virus has been multiplying for the past 5 years to a point I couldn't resist it.
TBH it would probably be cheaper to get a new wife!
Big thanks to my boss (Steve), daughters Marie & Eleanor, and son-in-laws Brian & Darren for helping and buying bits for pressies etc.

 

[legendlives]

Nice to see a mk 1 being saved and in such profesional way.
When you say race cars what kind ?

Jeff

I've built circuit-race saloon cars, classic and sports cars.
Drag race doorslammers.
Rally cars.
Been involved in professional restorations and produced one or two concours winning cars.
And a few Hot Rods.
Probably the majority of work I've done has been designing/manufacturing components (both from an engineering standpoint), and bespoke laminate work.
My last personal project was a street-legal Escort that ran 9's in full street trim.

 

[legendlives]

Haven't been able to do much recently as the fab shop has been overwhelmed for work, and as that's what I do for a living it's taken a great deal of my time.
This last week I've plumbed up a drift car and a 60's Mustang, built coolant and dump tanks for a rail dragster, modified an alloy rad for a circuit car, built isolation blocks to bypass an abs system, welded up cylinder heads on a Suzuki 500 twin 2-stroke racer and made hoses for fuel, turbo, brake and clutch systems.

Todays work on the Escort was just fabricating the rear crossmsmber for the cockpit part of the chassis. The hoops were made from 13mm square box bent around a 4" tube.
The 13mm box was a bit corroded, but as my local steel supplier only wanted $15 (£7.50) for a 6 metre length I thought I'd go for it!
First photo shows the fabricated hoops, and the capped off inner ends of the outrigger sections:


Then all welded together. For some reason the camera angle does not make the hoops look parallel (they are!):




The forward hoop will be joined into the trans-tunnel with more of the 13mm box.
I now have all of the chassis components (main rails, outriggers, crossmembers, bulkhead frame and rear chassis kick-ups) ready to assemble into one complete chassis.

 

[legendlives]

Still not much happening in the fabrication department, but I have done some engine stuff.
Engine is a 302 Cleveland - really popular here in NZ - which will be force fed by either turbo or blower.
Heads are 2v 302 (great heads if you want to up the compression of a 351). The valves are huge and don't need any increase in size, but I thought they could do with a polish and a seat job. Seats are now around 2mm wide with back-cut at 30 degrees:

Picked up these great old 'Erson' valve covers for $45 (£23):

They probably won't be chrome when they're fitted, but more of that later.......

Current plan for a carb is this 750VS Holley. I bought 3 (this and 2 600's) for $150, sold the 2 600's for $180, so this carb owes me -$30!

It's definitely too big as a NA carb, but ideal for a blown application. If I go with the blow-through turbo idea I'll convert this to mechanical secondaries.

Apart from big-end bearings and rings I now have all of the engine parts. I bought three engines and a load of Cleveland parts, flogged off what I didn't need and ended up with a mint standard bore block, mint stock crank, new cam, chain & lifters (came in a complete motor I bought for $100!). Nice 2v heads, unmarked rocker gear, good pushrods etc. Should be a really strong motor when it's together.

 

[legendlives]

Blimey.
Thanks for the heads-up guys.
Never built a Cleveland before (done Windsors, FE's, 385's but never a Cleveland).
Shame I've put so much effort into those valves......

 

[legendlives]

Managed to scrape together an hour today, and welded up the main parts of the front chassis frame (from back of floor to front of engine bay):

I still have to finish weld the very front (dropped) member, and add-in the gearbox member and front outriggers which I should be able to get to tomorrow

The rear kick-ups will be welded in after the chassis is welded to the cage.

 

[legendlives]

Not much done over the past few days.
Stuck on the front outriggers:

Capped off the exposed end of the front dropped crossmember:

And bent this up which may (or may not) become the rear of the gearbox tunnel:

The next step really is to get the shell ready to accept the chassis. The car will be moving in the next 2-3 weeks to a proper garage (it's currently under my car port) so I'm not sure whether to start hacking now, or leave it for the cars new home.

 

[legendlives]

are you not building this on a jig ?

Yes, it's been on and off a flat-plate, but I can't leave it on there as the flat-plate is in use virtually all of the time for my company's customers.
Chassis is remarkably straight!

 

[legendlives]

After stripping the carb down at 11:00 pm last night in the kitchen ("Are you coming to bed?".........."In a minute dear.....") I took the carb into work and through my lunch hour turned this:

Into this:

One of the things I've learned over the years of modifying Holleys is to cut the 'list' number out of the cut-off choke horn and fix it somewhere on the carb. This little tab will be screwed on where the choke mechanism came off:

It helps if in the future if you haven't written down the list number anywhere, or for the new owner if you should ever sell it.

More carby mods soon. Pleased to see it already has nitrophyl floats - essential in a blow-through application.

 

[legendlives]

No chance for the beach hop, and as our company has a 'stand' at the hop I've got to man the shop everyday except Sunday
Hopefully I can get it ready for next summer, though it will depend on the finances!

 

[legendlives]

try express panels over here in the uk...... for your bubble arches /doors / and anything else mk1 escort........spencer

Problem is the cost of the shipping. You would not believe how expensive it is to ship from the UK to NZ.

 

[legendlives]

More carb stuff.
I'm in the process of converting the carb to mechanical secondary as VS won't work well with blow-through (turbo) application.
Now I don't know if it's an original idea, and I don't know if it will work, but I fancy the idea of a progressive secondary like the twin-choke Webers.
After a few hours of staring at the linkage, I came up with this:

The 'new' rod now runs from the original (now redundant that the choke has gone) fast-idle linkage to the secondary spindle. The only modification to the original Holley parts is the small retaining tab welded to the secondary slot.

So now, at half-throttle the primaries are open half-way, but the secondaries are closed:

At 3/4 throttle the secondaries are half-open:

And at full throttle, the secondaries are at..... well...... full throttle!

It works very well on the bench. Hopefully it will work well when there's air being blown through it!

On the body front, I've been offered a complete mk1 shell for $300 (about £150) which would give me some of the panels I need, but I haven't been able to see it yet so can't comment on it's usefulness.......

 

[legendlives]

I'd buy that for a dollar!

Just collected the windscreen for the Escort.
This was bought through TradeMe (NZ's answer to EvilBay) for a whole Dollar (that's about 50p!):

I couldn't just give him a dollar, so I handed him a $5, and he then gave me three other windscreens from various 1960's/70's Vauxhalls!

Also went to see the bare Escort shell mentioned above. Rear panels/arches are good enough. Sills are excellent, door pillars are excellent.
Almost a shame to cut it up, but with scrap at the value it is at the moment I'll get my $200 (!) back. Anyone want a Mk1 2-door roof?

Gotta love New Zealand!

 

[legendlives]

Carrying on with the carb mods, I decided that I'd also convert the fuel bowls to dual feed, so pulled out the 'plug' on the secondary:

Turned up this little aluminium doohickey:

Which is pressed and sealed into the bowl (will also be pinned!):

The other thing I did today was take the car to it's new home:

Hopefully now it's in a nice, cosy double garage I can get on with it a bit quicker!

 

[legendlives]

Picked up some wheels for the beast yesterday. 15" split rims, 10" wide rears and narrow (probably too narrow) fronts.
Need a polish but otherwise perfect. $80. Man I love New Zealand!!!!!
Pics soon.

 

[legendlives]

Carb all cleaned and polished.
I know this is all bullshit, but it doesn't hurt if the bits look nice!

I can't really build up the carb until I know which power adder (turbo or blower), so I'll leave the final spec/build until I've bought one!

 

[legendlives]

Any pictures? PLEASE........

557ci with a 14-71 blower and still road legal. Built everything - engine, box, axle, brakes, chassis, some of the body mouldings, wiring and plumbing.:

Willys Coupe. Built chassis, narrowed front and rear axles. Lots of clever stuff. (unfinished)

Anglia. 427ci. Built chassis, cage, engine, gearbox, axle, wiring, plumbing, some of the body panels. Paint:

Engine that was destined for the Willys. 472ci with some really nice bits:

Spent a year in group 'C' and did a load of fabrication work on these two:



Built this up from a standard road car into a class winning race car:

Designed and fabricated all of the body mods on this (compare it with a standard one):

Designed and fabricated all of the structure on this. 427ci with Hewland trans-axle. Won it's very first race:

Built this from literally nothing. Fabricated chassis from scratch. Very light and stiff car that (again) won it's very first race:

Built the european chassis test jigs for the Dodge Viper:

Designed the body mods for these two and moulded most of the panels:

There's loads more from a 40 year career....