Other Cars (British & British-Inspired)

Meerkat asked for pics of my build so here goes:

My car is a 1962 2 door saloon, originally a 948 cc rocket. I have had this car since 1977, gradually putting it together. First with std driveline, then a 1275 engine from Morris Marina with Toyota T50 5-speed box and finally a Land Rover V8 + 5-speed box. The final conversion took 2 years of spare time, another obstacle was that my garage was 200 miles from my home.






I have updated the suspension, brakes and the exterior since then but it has been running with the V8 for the past 15ish years. Current spec is Rover V8, TR7 LT77 gearbox, narrowed TR7 rear axle with 3.08 gears and Quaife diff. front suspension is derived from Opel Kadett C (Vauxhall Chevette ? to UK people), converted to coilovers, front brakes are Opel Omega 3000 (Carlton) vented 280 mm discs with Brembo 4-pots, rear brakes are 270 solid discs with Volkswagen caliper. Wheels are 15 inch Compomotives.

Best 1/4 ET so far is 13.039 / 107 mph. Top speed very much unknown. And remains that way :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2013 05:11AM by minorv8.

Here are some old pics showing the build. Unlike Meerkat I had the body mostly intact, cut out one chassis leg at a time, fixed new ones on position and then cut out the other. The frame tube size is 80x60 mm, roughly 3,125 x 2,5". Wall thickness is 2 mm, .080", chosen based on the weight of the tube / metre, the weight of the car etc. I estimated that it is strong enough for a 2000 lb car. I then proceeded with various crossmembers, mimicking the original chassis design and allowing room for the driveline.

Once the frame was finalized the driveline was trial fitted, old floor cut away, new trans tunnel and floorboards were welded in...

I can´t even remember how many times the block and gearbox was in and out of the car :-)

Rear of the car got similar treatment, tubes from sill to sill (or rocker if you prefer). In total there is about 60+ ft of tubing welded in so basically it is a unibody with a frame welded in.

Once the welding was done it was time for a suspension. The first version used Triumph Herald/Spitfire components with BMW discs and Opel Calipers. I did not like the slim design of the A arms so the suspension got upgraded a few years later.

It is a bit difficult to build a new suspension under a completed car without a lift or table or anything so I had to improvised. I welded a tube under the chassis legs, welded a steel profile to the said tube. The chassis was set level so I welded the profile to a slight inclined angle. I then bolted the upright to the profile where I wanted the wheel at ride height. The slight inclined angle was set at the desired camber. From there on I fabricated the necessary brackets for A arms. Lower A arm was easy. It is basically level.



Like you see in the pic there is nothing for the upper A arm nor the coil over. I had measured and drawn the parts in Autocad and simply spent a few hours trying different setups so I could find one that gave little change in camber during suspension travel. It was then easy to use the dimensions and start fabricating the bits and pieces.

More welding...







And then do the same on the other side :-)

And the final results with all the crap from thousands of miles:

Brakes then: I had some nice marine grade aluminum around so naturally the caliper adapter had to be "light". Because my access to machine tools is limited one needs to improvise. So the lathe got some action. First a crude mockup to check the dimensions:



Then some machining:

Now the nice block is full of holes so some cutting and shaping and there you have a pair of adapters:





These adapters were machined for Porsche Boxster (986 ?) rear calipers that I first had. All squeezed in a 14" Minator wheels that I had at that time.

Bigger is better so these calipers were replaced with proper front calipers with bigger pistons. I actually did not see any major change in performance but I got the calipers cheaps and had to use them. I painted them black though...

What year and model are the uprights from?

Jukka, Very impressive work. The unit body now looks very rigid. What does this beast weigh ? Enjoy, roverman.

Uprights are from Opel Kadett C which was built circa 1973-1979. Google it and you will find a lot of sister models troughout the world, apparently they shared the same platform. Earlier Kadett B shared same suspension parts with Opel GT.

Art, the car IS very solid and has a very stiff suspension. When these modifications were inspected and the car was registered with the current driveline in weighted 970 kg less driver so with me that would probably make 2200 lbs.

Any interior and engine pics as a completed car?

Here are a couple of pics of the interior:





Ford Capri RS Recaro seats in leather and matching door panels and rear seat covers from Newton Commercial. They kindly agreed to do me a set despite the colour not being a factory Minor colour.

I did not have any good engine photos on my laptop, I have to check the hard drives when I get home from later this week. I will post some when I find them.