Engine and Transmission Tech

Perry, COOL! Lots of pictures for others to follow.

Tonight was the first proper trial fit.

I wasnt far off with my guesstimate about where the shaft would end up as per the previous pictures.

I had both shafts trimmed back to extend the area where the bearings will press on. I used a spare bearing and took the O/D down by 1.1mm on the belt sander so it was a slip fit in the casing. Then took about 4thou out of the bore of the bearing so it was a slide fit onto the shaft with just light pressure required to push it on by hand.

Then I fitted the bearing and brake back plate onto the axle case and slid the shaft in until it hit the stop up against the bearing.

It looks pretty darn good I must say :)

At least 5/8th" clearance for the back of the wheel studs, but I just need to trim a chamfer onto the back of the wheel flange to clear the bottom brake spring. Cant really see it in the pics but there is about 10thou clearance. I'm just worried about the spring vibrating and touching the flange. I fitted the brake assembly with temp bolts and nuts. When the brakes etc are fitted and the bearings pushed on I will have to fit the bearing retainer plate bolts from the rear and use a modified spanner to hold the nuts while I do it all up.

And you can see the shaft will need to be trimmed to size when the final fit is done. I cant do this until I have the spool back from the machine shop though. The splines in the spool are not central, so I'll need to measure and mark the outside of the spool to show where the splines are and then strike two marks onto the diff case so I can fit the shafts without the spool and mark the pints where I need to cut. This will be done on the loose fit bearings. When the shafts are cut (long on drivers side and short on passenger side for my UK car) I can then assemble the brakes etc and press the bearings into place on the shafts in my mates hydraulic press.


So far so good I think ??









Brake drums are now being re drilled for the 5 x 4.5" pcd and I hope to have those in a few days. The only issue at the moment is the width of the bearings. They are 1.2mm thinner than the MGB bearings so I nedd some shims. Luckily, the shims for the diff are just about the right size for the job. And I had one at 1.5mm thick and fitted that inside the beraing retainer cap for the tril fit this evening :)

I'll get my chap at the machine shop to trim two spare shims down to 1.2 mm on the surface grinder this week.

More to follow when I can get some time off work

Regards
Perry



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/2014 04:40PM by perrymgbv8.

Re drilled drums fit perfectly :)

I should have the spool back on Friday this week :)

I've decided to use cap head bolts so I dont have to take so much metal out of the spool flange for hex head bolts and a socket. Not sure what the old bolts are regarding strength. I assume 8.8 or similar. The cap head allen bolts are 12.9 rated so should be ok?

I'm still waiting for my wheel studs, but a friend dropped round a set of used studs from his Ford axle in his MG Magnette tonight so I can drop them in loose for lining up the drums on the drive flanges so I can drill and tap for drum retaining screws :)

This weekend I will be fitting the spool and crown wheel / ring gear so I can do the checks to make sure the gear mesh is still as it should be. If all the machine work is correct the sshould mesh within a few thou of where they were originally. It wont be long before I have to take the cutting wheel to the shafts to make them the right length. Having looked inside the spool I can see that it was splined all the way through, and then the splines have been trimmed back to give a lenght of splining in the spool which sits with even splining either side of the spool flange. I guess this is done so each shaft (despite being odd lengths) has the same amount of spline contact at the same point from the area central to where the power is transferred into the spool ??

As you can see in the last picture, the axle case has been sandblasted and powder coated to tidy it up a little.

Moved on a bit today!

Got the spool dialled in on the mill and drilled the new bolt circle. As the existing holes are where they are it was always going to have some holes close to each other. But I'm happy with the result so far. I still have to counter bore so 6 of the bolt heads will sit low down at the same level as the existing bolt surfaces. But the two bolts in the thicker section will stay as they are. The bolts are 12.9 strength cap heads and will be fine for the job. I wonder if I could buy a spool that is not pre drilled? This would be great for me.

I sat back in the sun today while my Son in Law and my mate Mike got to checking gear mesh. After 2 hours and lots of measuring we concluded that I need to move the crown wheel away from the pinion by 10 thou. I made a mistake when surface grinding the side shims DOH!!

To save the aggro of re grinding shims it will be easier to take the spool back to the machine shop and have 10 thou taken off the spool face :)
I think it looks quite nice in Silver Sparkle powder coat.

So I'm another step closer to getting the axle back in now !

Perry, I know you are not done but, the thick part of the spool should be spot faced to have a flat surface under the allen head. The ones that intrude on the holes should have a countersunk hole and spacer under the heads.

Thanks Jim!

Thats on the menu for this week. I'll drop the spool back to the machine shop after work tomorrow and hopefully he will get it done in a couple of days.
I have also decided to drop the idea of making shims to go inside the shaft bearing retainer caps to make up the difference in thickness between the Ford bearings and the MG bearings. I'm just going to trim 1.25mm off the mating faces of the bearing retainers so they will bolt up with no shims inside.

I'm going to use ARP washers under the allen bolts I think. I have spares on the shelf from old ARP head stud kits that I only used 20 bolts from. So I sohuld have at least 16 spare washers in the stock somewhere?

Wheel studs should be at the shop on Wed so by Thursday I may be able to start getting the brake ends fitted and the bearings pressed into place.

I'm in no rush at the moment. I still have 6 weeks in hand too make sure all this prototype kit goes together as best it can so I can be ready for testing in early June.

I have learnt so much in the last 2 months while I have been playing with the rear end, and its been a lot of fun for me to be honest. I cant believe how calm I am about having missed so much racing since the 19th Jan when I broke it again. Normally I would be getting quite twitchy, but as the end result should be a sub 9.5 pass after shakedowns I'm happy to wait. An dif that goes ok I'm going to start looking at adding some power and then start aiming for the 9.4's :)

Regards to all from a lovely warm and sunny UK today 67 degrees and no wind.. Hell, I even cut the grass today.....

Perry

Perry, When you get ready to bolt up the Allen's for the last time, you should use blue Locktite on the threads and torque in back and forth pattern in 3 stages.

Perry,

Your determination and unyielding drive to complete this project is an inspiration.
I particularly enjoy your problem solving and "oh that won't work, we'll just do this instead" attitude.
I can hardly wait to see it run.
Well done.

Cheers
Fred

Thanks Guys!!

A little more progress today. We trimmed another 10 thou off the spool face and got it pretty darn flat. I blued the face of the ring gear and spun it on the spool to see good contact marks all over :)

We bored and paired the washers on the lathe from EN40 steel stock so I now have nice hard washers !!

We re milled the bolt holes as well. But now my bolts are too short Ha Ha!!

No problem as I can call my nut and bolt guy in the morning and he will post me some 3/8 unf 12.9 grade bolts in 3/4" length to replace the 1" I have now.

I have mounted the spool and ring gear on the table and with a dial gauge all I can find is 1 thou of error all around the mating face. And the ring gear has been checked with a feeler gauge all round to make sure there is no gap evident with the bolts just nipped up gently in sequence. So I think I'm going in the right direction ?

Its holiday weekend coming up so on Friday I will clean everything with carb cleaner and make sure all the surfaces and holes are clean and dry. I will then bolt the items together as per Jims comments with loctite and ensure I reach the final setting of 65 ft/lbs in sequence. On Saturday I will drop the spool in and start checking mesh on the gears so I can figure out the final figure I need for the spool bearing shims.

I have had the 1.25mm ground off the bearing retainer caps so they are now ready to install when I have re ground the wheel bearings.

I hope to have a call from Webster Racing tomorrow to say my wheel studs are in the UK as well.

And if all goes ok this weekend I may be ready for final marking and cutting the drive shafts to length? But I do also need to tidy the garden and take lots of junk to the rubbish tip as promised to my long suffering wife.

I can now see a small glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel now. And I'm looking forward to shakedown runs by the end of May :) I am hoping to get back out and drop straight back into mid 9's on the 1/4 for shakedowns in the near future. And then I will be gunning for a sub 9.5 pass as my starting point on the way to that elusive 8 with the MGB.

In the meantime I have to crew for my friends Methanol slingshot on 26th as well as another friend who is rolling out his Ford Capri avec 598ci big block !!! Should be a hoot.

"...my friends Methanol slingshot"

Would that be the front engine Digger in one of the pics? Any action video of it? Looks like a fun ride!

Hi Carl

Yes, thats it in the picture :)

I have some vids I'll dig out soon. We havent made a full clean pass in it yet as we are still learning how to drive the thing. The best run was a sloppy launch on the transbrake at 1800 rpm which put the front wheels in the air. He then backed off and tickled the pedal to get it running straight. But each time he hit the power the rears just ballooned and let go. He pedalled it 4-5 times and backed off each time. It still ran a low 10 though.

I'm sure when we have it dialled in and working ok it will run high 7's with no issues. The next 6 or 7 months should see the car running ok, and I will be driving it again for some shakedown passes. The methanol engine has been a long and interesting learning process for the last 2 years. I thought my carb system was basic. But the mechanical injection setup on the Slingshot makes my fuel system look positively cutting edge :) So many pipes and by pass valves !!!

My wheel studs and nuts have now arrived from Summit. When I opened the box I thought they hade made a mistake as there were 4 bags of nuts, with 4 nuts in each bag?? Then I remembered that I now have 5 nuts per wheel. I then thought how odd it was that there are only 4 nuts per bag. The wheel studs come in packs of 5 but the nuts in packs of 4?

I'm not sure how expensive these items are in the USA. But the 10 studs and 12 nuts were delivered today for the sum of $147.96 inc of all taxes etc.


I'll be back in the Slingshots garage tomorrow for more trial fitting of my spool....

Dagnabbit!!!

The wheel studs where wrong GRR!!!

So Friday was not going well. I rang several Drag Race buddies and by Saturday 10am we had found a new set of studs just 70 miles from my house. By Saturday afternoon the studs were fitted :)
So the weekends work was now back on track.
I ground the wheel bearings down to fit the axle case and continued with the trial fitting.
I found another problem with the wheel bearing retainer caps. After trial fitting I found they need 10 thou trimming off the mating faces to ensure correct clamping off the wheel bearings.

I'm happy though, because tomorrow I will drop the caps through the letterbox at the machine shop with a note to say I need the done TODAY.... As soon as I collect the bearing caps I will go a my friends workshop and press the bearings onto the shafts.

So on Wednesday I will have the last parts I need to assemble the axle to hopefully have it ready to run next weekend?

The last job for final fitting will be to double check my measurements and attack the drive shafts with a cutter to trim them to the correct length :)

Tomorrow (Monday) I will be collecting my Ebay Slot Mags which are 5 x 4.5" pcd. The back space on these rims is 3.5" and my old ones are 4" so they will fit just fine I hope.

Today was the last leg of the job I think. Shafts cut to length. The final fit was as expected with 4mm of space between the shaft ends in the spool.

I'm so close now. When the bearing caps are milled down by 10 thou I'm ready to fit the brakes and bearing caps so I can press the bearings on. Then bolt it all together one night this week. My new problem is the wheels. I collected them today, but one of them has some damage in the stud holes. They were used on a fuel altered and obviously one of them had wheel nuts come loose to the point that the holes are now slightly ovel with thread marks inside. I'm taking the wheel to the machine shop tomorrow to see if my friend can over bore the holes and make some top hat liners in ally to slip in. Then I can weld them in place. Or make them from stainless steel to a tight fit so I can bond them in with epoxy or my favourite JB weld. Or maybe even re bore the holes and thread them, and have the liners threaded so they can be screwed in with loctite. I have a lot of options on repairing the holes. Because of the damage I got the seller to let me have them for next to nothing, so I have money in the budget for repairs now. Check out the cuts on the shafts ? I may be old, but damn I'm good with a disk cutter :) I put the chamfer back on with a scurfing disk.











Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2014 04:03PM by perrymgbv8.

The rear axle is now fitted :)

Perry, Stealth look! Looks a lot like the stock rear axle. I like the steelie rims also.

Hi Jim
Apart from the missing handbrake cable and brackets the exterior of the axle is as stock :)

Its just the wheel studs that tell a tale eh ;)

My Grand Daughter likes the steel smoothies !

Did some shakedown runs today and the axle conversion seems to work ok ??

Long story short!
Several test runs on boost only gave me a string of 10.8's.

Turned the gas back on with real gentle launch setting and long build time got me back in the 9's with no drama. I have added 3 degree's of ign timing as the engine has run safely retarded for nearly a year now.

The result is slower 60 foot times of 1.5's instead of my usual 1.3's. But the added timing makes the engine pick up and rev better. Even with the 1.5 60 foot times I ran just a tenth slower with a 9.7 on my quickest run, BUT I ran faster with 141mph as opposed to my old 137-138mph 9.6 second passes.

I will drain the axle and open it up this week to check it out. If it looks ok I can get the car ready for next weekend which is two days of RWYB when i will think about adding more power for the launch ??

Pic shows less air with the gentle launch, and the vid of the slower 9 shows just how soft the launches were today, even with the better MPH !!
Sorry!! the vid is a silent slo mo. But the launch shows good info. The rest is slow and boring.



[www.youtube.com]

I drained the diff oil and saw nothing in it. I took the back cover off and scooped out what oil was left laying inside on my finger. I found some microscopic shiny particles on my finger. This does not worry me to be honest :) The moving parts are all 39 years old and I have upset them from their old resting place, so I guess they need to settle back into the new resting place now?

The wear marks on the ring gear are all central on the teeth which I'm happy with.

The slop between ring and pinion can be felt when I try to rotate the propshaft back and forth, but it cant really be seen. I can just feel a little something when I wiggle the propshaft. ?

I have to say that I'm a litte concerned with the amount of slop between the drive shafts and spool when I try to turn the wheels. But my mate with the Slingshot says this is the amount of play he has on his new setup so I should not worry ??

The diff now has new oil and is ready for next weekend. After 3 months of no racing I now have two whole days of track time coming up. And I am hoping to come home with a 9.59 second ticket on Sunday :)

Perry, Sounds like you eliminated a weak link with the rear axle swap! Good luck and keep us posted.