Badger's Build Thread
 

As some of you may remember, I've already got a build thread of sorts entitled "New build" or something. Considering the length of time I've been working on it I figured a change of name was in order :D In my defence though, I only get to work on it a couple of hours on the odd weekend - I live in Reading, the car is in Bristol!

The story so far:

I bought the car in summer 2013 as an unfinished project - having experienced my share of chassis building in the past I felt no need to go through it again! Also having a lot of the parts (hubs etc.) saved me from having to source them or get a donor.




I then set about strengthening and modifying the chassis to accommodate my choice of engine - the BMW 2.8 liter M52B28 straight six.

I then started sorting the brakes and the steering. And decided to change the engine to a V6 from a Jag... only a minor alteration :D

And that brings me to today; I installed all the freshly painted suspension and braking components, then started to bleed the brakes, only to find the bleed nipples I'd fitted to the front calipers are too short :mad: Stupid mistake but a bit of an annoyance!

So I had a quick look at swapping over the dual mass flywheel on the V6 to one from an ST200, which I had hoped would fit. Short answer to that is "No".

The ring gear is the wrong pitch, it is thinner (needs shorter bolts), and because it is thinner I don't think the clutch splines will engage properly with the transmission and the clutch bearing will not reach the clutch to disengage it. Scrub that idea :(




Also no spigot bearing, the dowels to align with the clutch pressure plate are too small... this represents a large amount of work to get it going, and to be frank I don't think I can afford it!

After some further thought I've come up with the following solutions to fitting the Mondeo Flywheel to the AJ30 engine:

Ring gear wrong: Fit a Mondeo starter (not a direct fit) or replace the ring gear

Thickness: Machine up a spacer

Spigot bearing: Machine up a housing for the spigot bearing

Dowel alignment: Make adapter/leave it (non critical)

Looking at the amount of work involved I think I'll have to write it off for now, I may come back at it when I've got further with the car.

Or I just save up for one of these:
http://ttvracing.com/engine-types/?m...ls#prettyPhoto[iframes]/0/

For now though the dual mass flywheel will be going back on!

To catch up on my build progress slightly (as I find more pictures on my computer):

To mount the gearbox I chocked the gearbox into position and measured the angle between the drive flange and the differential - about 0.5 degrees vertical and bang on horizontal the first try! I then welded a crush tube into a tube cut to fit into the drive tunnel, screwed it onto the bottom of the gearbox and tacked it in place. As there was a screwed in adapter that stuck out from the bottom of the Jag gearbox there was much room for a soft mount - here it is with the tube tacked in and a shim:


To fix this I removed the adapter and cut off the bottom so that it was flush with the bottom of the gearbox. I then cleaned the threads and screwed it back in with a healthy dollop of high strength Loctite. I then cast a Shore 70 polyurethane block and drilled a hole down the middle for the bolt. The bolt passed up through the crush tube, through the poly block and into the gearbox with enough space for a locking nut on top - result!


I have some doubts whether the poly is hard enough, and I wondered whether I should have bonded some metal plates onto the surfaces, however I reckon it is good enough for now.

The car came with a pedal box as designed by Sylvain, which I was very happy with. I've had to modify it for a hydraulic clutch, and I've opted to weld it in situ. With the brake and clutch master cylinders mounted, this is now complete until I get around to accelerator linkages.




I had to tilt the clutch master cylinder slightly to improve clearance with the engine starter motor, which I felt was a bit close for comfort (I'd originally positioned it for the BMW engine which was fine)

And my final bit of verbosity for the evening, I finished off the handbrake mechanism on Saturday evening - though all the cables work, the pistons do not seem to move. I'm hoping this is because I wound them all the way in when I refurbished the calipers and they need to be pushed out by brake fluid for the auto adjust... I hope!

Custom handbrake adjuster bar, a shameful copy of one I saw on Locost Builders. Needs a lick of paint!


Handbrake in position - I originally looked at mounting this further forwards as I find it hard to get hold of it in its current position, but unfortunately it started interfering with other things and had to go back to it's designed position. Ah well!



Finally my slightly kinky clutch pipe - not so sure about this one, I may need to rethink it a bit. There's plenty of clearance between it and the brake pipes behind it (as shown by the foam padding falling down!) but I just keep thinking there is a neater way...