[legendlives]

maybe combine the top rad' mount into a sort of strut brace/hoop thingamebob to go between the shock mount area each side. if you get my drift? neil.

Problem is that the strut-bracy thing (which I'm making at the moment) will be a lot lower than the mounts. There are, however, a couple of likely candidate studs sticking out of the heads on both sides which will probably do it.

 

[blackpopracing]

Have a look through my build thread, I mounted mine on bars from the frame horns.

 

[mygasser]

Problem is that the strut-bracy thing (which I'm making at the moment) will be a lot lower than the mounts. There are, however, a couple of likely candidate studs sticking out of the heads on both sides which will probably do it.

I can't remember, is the motor solid mounted? If so that'll be the the way to go mate. best to use some kind of rubber/poly mount one or both ends so the vibes don't crack the rad' though. Neil.

 

[legendlives]

Here we go!
Top rad brace is bolted to the front, upper front cover bolt on either side.
Brace is 1/2" alloy tube with turned spuds at the engine end and 2mm aluminium at the rad end. Rubber bushes are the same as the lower ones.

As it may be necessary to remove the rad at some time, the RH bracket is bolt-on.

Both sides have these welded returns that go under the tubes for reinforcement. For some reason the god of welding deserted me last night so these aren't pretty, but they are stuck!

The top hoses will go over the top of the lateral tube and hide it a bit. Next is modding the rad for the hoses and cap.

 

[ivanhoew]

nicely done LL..the engine is solid mounted ?

 

[legendlives]

nicely done LL..the engine is solid mounted ?

Oh yes. Big-old motorplate bolted to the cage and a couple of nice struts where the engine mounts used to be, but if you'd been taking notice you'd have known that.... :grr:

 

[legendlives]

Big old motorplate:

Engine mounts:

 

[legendlives]

It all went swimmingly at Reaper Towers this weekend with lots ticked off the 'to do' list.
I spent a day on the links. No, not the golf course. I haven't played golf since that incident with the bloody windmill.....

So I made these link bars. Ends are threaded LH and RH to make adjustment easier.
Long bars are the rear axle trailing arm links, short bars are the front diff support links (mandatory here in NZ):

Rosejoints came to me as a gift. Apparently they had been supplied wrongly. Either way I was happy to accept.
They are 5/8 unf threads (LH & RH) with a 12mm bore in the ball:

With the help of these brackets (made from 3mm steel plate) and some spacers turned from 6061:

They attach to the front of the hub lower pivot and shock absorber like so:

Inner mount brackets need to be made, but they will weld to the cross-tube at the top of the photo.

Front diff link bars bolt to the front pivot link plate (made in a previous exciting episode):

And will link up to the top of the chassis, thanks to these little mount brackets which will be welded in place:

And whilst I was getting all excited with tubes, rosejoints and brackets I made this front chassis brace:

All to be welded at a later date....

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

Oh no!. Due to the fact that I'm going to have to wire it up at some stage in the (hopefully not too distant) future, I put a cheeky bid in at a local auction house and got all of this (and more stuff including woven nylon wiring sleeve in 4 different sizes) for a HUGE $30!
So I spent a bit of time setting up a wiring station using a workbench that I don't really use any more:

There was more, but nothing really photo-worthy.

 

[legendlives]

Carrying on with the suspension and linky theme:
For those of you unfamiliar with the Jaguar IRS, there is a long threaded bar that goes through the lower suspension arm and (usually) has a shock absorber hung on each end.
I'm only using one shock on each side, but I do need a pick-up point for my rear anti-roll bar link. Eureka moment!
I turned down one end of each bar to take the ARB rosejoints, then turned up some spacers to suit the ARB rosejoint and OD of the lower arm tube.

One more job off the list!

 

[ivanhoew]

<HANGING HEAD IN SHAME > icon

 

[legendlives]

Plunging back into the archives, you may remember a dual-carb hat that was made from an old fire extinguisher.
Well it's about time more work was done to it I reckon.
First off, a method of holding it down that didn't look too naff.
Came up with a through-bolt idea using a turned tube and a threaded boss:

The threaded boss fits inside the tube like so:

And there's a recess in the top of the 'tube' to take an allen bolt

This was then welded top & bottom and smoothed off.

Whilst I had the electric glue gun out, I added a couple of tubes to the inlets to drop down towards the turbos

Which is one reason why the rad top supports are such a funky shape

Underbonnet clearance is still not a problem

 

[legendlives]

Old grille surround vs new grille surround.
The flange on the new one will mount to studs bonded in the front end so all you will see externally is the round section.
Ultimately there will be an insert of some sort.
Sorry for the crap photos. The reflections make the new surround look bent. It isn't!

 

[legendlives]

Having bought a nice, shiny and unusually new radiator, there was only one thing left to do - CUT IT UP!
Starting at the bottom, the original layout looked like this:

And now it looks like this:

Far nicer, bigger. more lefty.
You may also notice small strips welded to the side edges of the rad, these are to take brackets that hold the small puller fan:

At the top, I was going to convert the water neck to a filler neck, but as I have mahoosive clearance in the middle I plumped for capping the neck and making a new filler.
Before:

After:

Again there are strips on the side of the front of the rad, these are to mount the big pusher fan:

Now to wrap it all back up and fit it to the car again....

 

[ivanhoew]

most spanky !

 

[legendlives]

Up at the top of the page is the latest development of the pressure hat. Now to hold the bugger down!
I came up with this little fabrication:

Which bolts across two of the carb studs:

missing all of the linkages and stuff.
The hat is then held down with a big central allen bolt:

Another job jobbed as they say.

 

[legendlives]

Now that I have a nice shiny new rad all mounted with fans & stuff, I thought I'd better sort an expansion/recovery bottle for the coolant.
I was gifted this bottle from a well-know soft drinks system:

I was going to return it to the manufacturer, but before I could it slipped into a lathe and all of the relevant details were lost

The thin tube next to it is the internal spill tube> this will allow the bottle to fill almost to the top before any coolant is lost.

The components: Bottle, Spill tube, Internally threaded top boss, -4AN rad tube fitting.

Finished bottle all welded together.
Coolant from the rad enters the lower side -4 fitting, and as the engine cools it's drawn back to the rad. If there is excess coolant this will be expelled down the spill tube and via a flexible -6 hose to the pavement.

Just got to weld a couple of mount tabs and it's done. It will mount to the side of the rad up by the top fan.

 

[mylesdw]

Very neat. I like it that both the hoses are down at the bottom.

 

[legendlives]

Add a cap and a pair of mount tabs and we're all done!

Made from 100% recycled components!

 

[legendlives]

Time for the throttle linkage - woohoo!
Having given myself the problem of trying to make everything work with the carbs back-to-back and the linkages next to each other which looks very tidy (as they are largely hidden) but means the movement necessary is opposite - one carb needs pushing open and the other pulling open.
I started by making a fidget spinner. Components are the kite-shaped bell-crank, a small bearing I found in a box in the garage and a turned bearing boss:

Then weld the boss to the kite and press in the bearing:

Fidget spinner finished! (until I modify it in the next sequence of photos).

Next step: Bracketry.
I welded this lump of alloy onto the side of the manifold:

Then drilled it, tapped it, and bolted on this bracket (here's one I made earlier....

The bracket has a threaded boss at the outer end that the fidget spinner bolts to.

Then, just as a safety precaution made this washery-doobrie under the bolt just in case the bearing ever fails (!)

Then made a couple of rose-jointed links.

Which were then bent to suit and bolted in. Now you see how the system works:

Idle:

3/4 throttle:

Full throttle:

I'll adjust it better so that the movement of the cable end is more linear as the throttle cable will come in from the back and run along the manifold.

 

[legendlives]

Throttle cable? Nah, rummaged around in my rosejoint stash and came up with this:

Now it all works as it should. Press the throttle and magic happens.....