Almost ready to start again!

[Porousblock]

Hello to all members old and new,
I used to attend the meetings at the Roebuck in Chorley with John Wood and company back in the 1980's. Work and a move to South Wales put an end to most of my L/C jobs. I retired at the end of 2001 and spent the next 5 years restoring our house. That is almost finished so I now have time to return to my L/C's of which I have 5 - a '66 MkI, 3 67/8 MkII's and a 1969 MkII. I must point out that none of these cars is in one piece but I am working on getting one of the '68 MkII's back together again for March next year (my daughter wants it for her wedding car!)
I have stripped KBV right out so that the under bonnet area can be re-painted. The shell is now at SAS in Sabden which is quite close to where I live. The underbonnet is already down to bare metal but this work always reveals more problems - so it is off to Ex-Pressed Panels for a new upper spring mount and re-inforcing rib. I am rebuilding the twin cam myself - no probs so far but I always seem to get more sealant on the floor than where it should be when I am assembling the sump!! The servo is u/s so that will have to go to J&L in Rochdale for refurbish - I hope that there are no other expensive surprises. I forgot the Webers - does anyone know of a company who 'restores' Webers for a reasonable cost?
I hope to get KBV back to the shows next year so that I can renew aquintances; maybe even stretch to buying Scott Simpson a beer!
I will write again in a month or so and update you on progress.
Porousblock
PS and I will explain where the user name comes from!!

 

[Lee B]

POOR OLD SCOTT, IF ANY ONE BROWSED THIS SITE THEY WOULD THINK HES A RAGING ALCHOLIC.

 

[Porousblock]

Nothing ever goes to plan with L/C's. In my previous article I wrote about preparing a MKII for my daughters wedding; what started off as a small job turned into a full restoration! No way would it be ready in time for the big day! So I reverted to Plan B - use the MkI - which is the car she wanted anyway! I was very hesitant about using this car because it has a full race motor under the bonnet and I did not think that it would like slow running! All running gear was fully rebuilt and the steering modded to give 1.5 deg +ve castor (beware of doing this in your backyard because the tyres soon come into contact with the lip of the front wing!) Eventually we got around to firing up the motor.......after rebuilding the carb accelerator pumps and fuel pump the old girl fired up (hasn't run since 1976!) What a racket - this motor runs on 45's; Piper 8FR2 cams; very big valves and 1650cc - oil pressure ran up to 100psi - hmmm - dangerous! Nevertheless we got it through it's MOT and it actually started on the day of the wedding - see separate article (Gallery) Now those of you who are familiar with hairy twin cams will know that there can be a serious problem of running race cams on the road - the plugs 'wet' and then neat petrol pours from the ram pipes! So starting can be a bit risky! She has set fire to herself once!
Once the wedding was over I changed the oil pump - back to 45psi now - I cannot say that it is an easy car to drive - there is no power below 4000rpm...........but once above that the grumpy burble from the 45's turns into a deafening bark........magic!! Next job is to sort out a few niggles such as the diff which is dripping expensive LSD lube!
Cheers for now, Cliff.
PS I might invest in electronic ignition; that might improve starting!