Lotus Europa Community
Lotus Europa Forums => Members Cars => Topic started by: BDA on Saturday,June 21, 2014, 04:09:13 PM
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I've read and posted to other guy's posts about getting their cars put together so I guess it's my turn.
It's been a few years now, but I had to replace the ignition and while the car was down, I thought I'd fix a few other things. My engine was built by Dave Bean around 1980. At the time, the Allison unit was the trick (or at least one of them). This is was a light triggered ignition (a light was broken by a disk with slots. When the light was detected through a slot, it fired the plug. Anyway, on the way home from work (in the left lane of the highway, of course), the engine just died. I managed to get drive off an exit and a friend with a trailer dragged the car home for me.
Apparently, the light failed so I got a Pertronix ignition. Anybody with a TC knows changing the distributor is not a simple operation. While the car was on stands, I took the opportunity to re-adjust the rack tie-rods as they were too loose. I think I did a few other things, too. That took forever but when I had finally finished, I took it for a spin around the neighborhood. On the way home, I downshifted into second coming into a turn. The tires chirped, I let out the clutch and tried to think what had just happened... the only gears I had left were third and fourth. When I decided the only thing to do was to take it out, it took forever to take it out and try to figure out what to do. I opened the tranny and found the speedo gears were stripped and shards of plastic were all over the back section of the tranny. I needed someone who knows what they are doing for this.
A call to Richard at Lotus Engineering in England as usual tried to be helpful, but I really couldn't follow him. I found a place in Canada that works on Renault equipment and had my tranny boxed up and ready to send, till I found out how expensive it is to ship it and do customs. About this time, I found a guy who does trannies for Porsches and has some experience with Lotus trannies so I decided to give it to him. When we finally got together I gave him the tranny and he was pretty confident that he could decide its health and put it together successfully. A few months later, I got it back from him.
As usual, with work and the rest of life, it took a long time to get the rear end of the car put together. I just got it put together and put on the floor of the garage and now I still can't get any but third and fourth gears. :headbanger:
Well, the next thing is to make sure that there isn't something wrong with the linkage. If the linkage is good, then I have to decide if I want to give that guy another go at it or just buy another from Richard.
At some point, I have to fit the electronic speedo that I'm using now since I wasn't able to get new speedo gears. As I say, there are no straight lines with this car - everything requires numerous steps and side paths. I am committed to DRIVING my car to LOG 34 (I dragged my car to LOG 18 in Atlanta because it wasn't finished and to a friend's house for LOG 29 in Birmingham - though I did drive it from my friend's house to some of the LOG events) and I'll be damned if I'm going to drag it anywhere again (unless I have to!)
Well, this post is longer than I intended. Thankfully for you, I shortened it! :D
I'll keep you all posted and I hope to see you all in Asheville this September!
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Did the Porsche specialist tell you what he found wrong in the tranny and what he did to fix it? Tearing into transmissions is one of the areas in the Lotus that I try to avoid.
Joji Tokumoto
Fallbrook, Ca
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I try to avoid working with the guts of transmissions too. I did open the case of my 365 (I have an NG3 now) and put it back together successfully and at one point, I considered building a new tranny for my MG Midget race car (but never really started it). That's the extent of what I've done with the insides of a transmission (well, I did change gear sets in the Hewland in my race car, but that certainly doesn't count for anything! ;D)
No, the only thing he saw wrong was the shards of the plastic speedo gears (likely stripped because the cable had seized). He said he cleaned it out, inspected it, put it back together, checked that all the gears were there (he said everything seemed to be pretty smooth), and gave it back to me. I don't expect that he's lying to me and I am sure he's competent at transmissions. Today I'll disconnect the linkage and make sure I can get all the gears at the shift input shaft (and if I can't, I'll hunt him down like a dog -- just kidding ;D). If I can't, he said he'd look at it again. Of course, there is quite a bit of pain associated with taking the tranny out and installing it again! :(
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The linkage is the most probable culprit and easy to check. I know about installing the tranny. Just installed the engine/tranny unit in the TCS a couple of months ago. A bit stressful trying not to rub or scratch anything in the just painted and detailed engine compartment and frame.
Joji Tokumoto
Fallbrook, Ca
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You obviously have an appreciation for what's involved by my setup is a little more complicated. I have a twin link rear suspension with a larger cross member. I also have an oil cooler that is ducted out next to the license plate. The tranny would not come out with the duct I had so I had to modify it so that part of it would come off (unfortunately, the duct is about the ugliest part of the car (I made it :(). The tranny has to come up and out of the car. It can be done by one but it's not a lot of fun.
Minor update: I have a rod end at the end of my linkage that requires high misalignment. The "washers" that provide that are 'hat' shaped. The one on the bottom was turned upside down so it didn't allow all the movement I needed. I now have reverse, first, and second (it looks like I was mistaken about having third and fourth). I disconnected the linkage and directly manipulated the selector shaft by hand and was still not able to get beyond second... I'm hoping the guy who helped me with it can show me that I missed something. I REALLY don't want to pull the tranny out again!
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Yikes, your modifications do complicate the problem. Interested to see how this turns out.
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In order to monkey with the tranny selector shaft, I had to take the oil cooler with part of the duct work out so if I have to yank the tranny out, I'm a LITTLE further down the road. I also took a look at the linkage and there doesn't seem to be anything obviously wrong with it (nothing is broken, bent or loose.
Just another episode in the soap opera that is my Europa! I'll keep you informed with my progress.
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Well, I'm just having more fun than a barrel of monkeys! I went to replace the brake fluid last night. I opened up a bleed valve and pushed the brake pedal but the pedal didn't come back up... Strange... I'd never seen or heard of anything like that. It worried me so I checked around and I've decided that the master cylinder needs to be rebuilt.
In my youth, I've rebuilt several master cylinders and for whatever reason, I was successful only half the time. I called Dave Bean and they have them at $380 + core. Ray at r.d. enterprises only had rebuild kits but he pointed me to some rebuild shops (Apple Hydraulics, Stainless Steel Brake Corp., and White Post Restorations). White Post is in Virginia so it's pretty close to me. They will rebuild my master cylinder for $225 so I'll be sending it to them along with the rear calipers since those were used when I got them (I have four wheel disks).
Anyway, I thought the information about the restoration shops might be useful to someone and I might also provide some entertainment for others who enjoy hearing about other people's problems ;).
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I was at the same decision point on brake master cylinders as you a couple of years ago. When a new seal kit wouldn't get brake pressure back, had to decide between a re-sleeve or replacement of the MC. Not wanting to deal with the frustrations of dealing with a possible bad re-sleeve job, I decided to go with replacement. What DBE offers is probably a refurbished, re-sleeved stock MC, thus the core requirements.
Did a bit of research in the knowledge base to see what other people had done. The predominant swap was to use the F10 MC. Unfortunately the F10 MC is almost impossible to find nowadays anywhere. A bit more searching turned up the MC from the Ford Courier which I used. If I had to do it all over again, I would have gone with the Spitfire MC at least for the S2. For the TCS with working boosters, I would get mine re-sleeved or find an original working Girling.
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You're right about DBE's cylinder. Their's is re-sleeved as you expected. It sounds like they got a company similar to White Post to re-sleeve some cylinders for them. White Post claims the result is better than new and gives a written lifetime warranty.
I was a little surprised that this would be a problem. The cylinder is not original to the car. I bought it new probably twenty years ago and it's been on the car for about fifteen - very little use unfortunately.
I was aware of the F10 swap - but not aware they were also hard to find. One thing I'm not interested in fooling with is a plumbing change so getting mine re-sleeved is an added benefit and the one week turnaround is very reasonable. Also, I still use boosters.
White Post claims to rebuild boosters for any car. I hope it's true and I hope I don't need that too! (I upgraded to the Lockheed replacements so hopefully they have a lot of life left in them.
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I know some guys that have use White Post, no problems. I think they re-sleeve with brass or bronze.......or was it stainless. They have been an advertiser in Hemmings for a very long time.
I think I mentioned this before here...or not.....I use the Pheonix brake system bleeder. You push the brake fluid up from each bleeder. Furthest point away, working your way to the closest bleeder to the MC.
One person operation. Pushes all air out the MC and works every time without fail.
No affiliation.
http://www.brakebleeder.com/
mike
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I believe the guy I talked to said they sleeve it with bronze. Maybe I ought to start looking at Hemmings again!
I have a similar pressure bleeder from Motive (http://www.motiveproducts.com/index.html), but I don't have the proper adapter for the Girling reservoir. Maybe it is good I was using the old fashioned method because I might not have found out about my MC! ;)
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Reading this thread makes me both thankful and scared. I drove today without issues (although someone called the police on me for making too much screeching tire noise in a church parking lot :confused:).
A couple of years ago I removed my boosters and went with the F10 MC because it seemed the simplest way to get the car back on the road (after 20 years in storage). I guess I lucked out because the F10 MC was cheap and easy to find. Maybe I got one of the last ones?
Good luck with your transmission and please post updates.
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Don't be scared!!! The F10 cylinder is a good inexpensive solution.
I sent off my MC and my rear calipers to White Post. The turn around time is supposed to be about a week so I should be getting it back toward the end of next week.
The guy who worked on my tranny came over to my house to see why I wasn't getting all the gears. I demonstrated that I got three gears and turned to go find something while he monkeyed with it. A little while later, he said, "I got a couple more!" In short order, I felt like an idiot because they were all there. We hooked up the linkage and I got them again! He couldn't say what he had done. It might have been that the shafts needed to turn (I thought I had tried that), but whatever it was, I couldn't thank him enough! I thought that while he was there, I would run the motor for him so we listened to it run for a while. I feel 50 lbs lighter!
After the brakes, I have an aluminum radiator and an electric speedo to install. There is always something to do on it but it feels like I'm reaching a plateau!
Life is good! :)
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Congrats on the tranny fix, that must be a load off the mind. You'll be rolling soon. Cheers :beerchug:
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Thanks, Bainford! Feeling like an idiot is a small price to pay.
I spent a bit of time talking with him and was more impressed with him than before. He's getting shafted by the Porsche dealer where he's working and he's considering opening up his own shop. If he does, I'll definitely try to throw some business his way.
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Hi,
Congratulations on the progress- my manager at work has an MG and has had
no end of trouble with his gearbox and 'specialists' so I have witnessed the pain it causes!
I have the 365-34 gearbox and as I haven't driven the car yet
apart from into the garage in first I would like to check I have all gears too! (No brakes at the moment so I can't take it out).
If I take the linkage off the end of the gearbox and manually move it I can
get first neutral and second, that is if moving it forward and back is those gears.
To try 3rd and 4th 5th and reverse, whats the technique- do I pull the 'lever' out
then forward and back, is that 3rd and 4th etc?
Regards, Mark
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It's been a while since I've had a 365 and I don't know that I ever sat down and thought about how the linkage works but I'll give it a shot.
First, moving the shift lever forward and back will move the gear selector shaft in and out (it should be opposite to the direction you move the shift lever). Moving the shift lever left and right should rotate the selector shaft. I believe it should be in the same direction.
Maybe somebody can help me here: there is a cam and detent under a plastic cover that makes it harder to get into reverse and 5th (had always planed to file down the 5th gear detent so it would be easier). It would be helpful to know which cam presses the detent for reverse and which for 5th to provide verification for what I've said above and which end of the pattern you're on.
There may even be some clues in the workshop manual (http://lotus-europa.com/manuals/tcwork/f/tcf.pdf).
Does that help?
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BDA is right on with his explanation. Use my picture of the rear of my 365 for reference. I hope I'm using the correct terminology.
When the tranny is in neutral and you move the selector shaft at the rear side to side about 10 deg, you can see the cam wiggle back and forth between the two ears against the detent.
When 1st gear is selected, the selector shaft is rotated counter clockwise until the bottom (?) detent is contacted, then the selector shaft is pulled out. In shifting to 2nd, maintain slight pressure against the detent and move the selector shaft out.
Selecting 3rd and 4th and is similar except the selector shaft is now against the upper detent of the cam.
In selecting reverse or 5th, the cam and detent have to overcome spring pressure of the ball and spring.
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Thanks for the picture, Joji. It was worth at least 1000 words!
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For those following the saga of getting my Europa on the street (and ready for LOG 34), I have an update.
I got my master cylinder and rear calipers back from White Post. It looks like they did a great job. I did have a little trouble installing the master cylinder. The rubber boot that covers the open end of the cylinder wouldn't fit in the spacer so I just took it out. If I really feel uncomfortable about it, I still have the old one and though it's a little torn, it could be used. Not much to say about installing the calipers. I went to bleed them today. The push rod seems to be rubbing on something (I guess the rubber seal to keep outdoor dirt and grime out of the car. Maybe I didn't really need to rebuilt the M/C after all. The funny (?) thing is I know I didn't have this problem when I built the car. It's a little different now as it makes a rubbing noise where it didn't before I sent the M/C to White Post). I'll have to investigate that further. The front's seemed to bleed fine but the rears wouldn't bleed at all. No matter how much fluid I pumped through them, I still had bubbles coming out of the bleed valve. After I tightened the bleed valves, I didn't have a pedal. Unless somebody else has a better idea, it seems clear to me that the booster for the rear brakes is leaking and needs to be rebuilt. :headbanger: It looks like another package sent to White Post. It probably makes sense to have them both rebuilt at the same time (unless they are cheaper to buy new).
My wife is concerned about the reliability of my car but I don't know why. By the time we go to the LOG, everything will be new (again)!
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The first thought that comes to mind is bench bleeding the MC prior to installing in the car. I hate to say this but you may have to pull the MC out and perform the bench bleeding to get all of the air out of the MC. I believe this what is happening to you. There is still air in the MC that is trapped. It will also give you an opportunity to figure out where the rubbing is coming from by stroking the pushrod by hand on the vise during the bench bleed.
Joji Tokumoto
Fallbrook, Ca
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Thanks for the tip Joji! I didn't need to do that the first time. I'll give it a try tomorrow and see how it goes.
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You can simply bypass the booster and see if that solves your problem.
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If you do decide to pull the MC to do a bench bleed, try one more test prior to re-installing the MC again after ensuring all of the air is out of the MC, plug both ports with bolts and see if you get hard resistance when you push in the primary piston by hand. If you don't get hard resistance, this will tell you that you probably have a bad re-sleeve or seals.s
One thing about having boosters is all the loops and bends the brake lines make in the engine compartment and the additional air that have to be pushed out. The last time I replaced my MC and rebuilt my calipers, I used a homemade power bleeder, It worked OK, but not as convenient as a commercial one.
Joji Tokumoto
Fallbrook, Ca
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If you do decide to pull the MC to do a bench bleed, try one more test prior to re-installing the MC again after ensuring all of the air is out of the MC, plug both ports with bolts and see if you get hard resistance when you push in the primary piston by hand. If you don't get hard resistance, this will tell you that you probably have a bad re-sleeve or seals.s
One thing about having boosters is all the loops and bends the brake lines make in the engine compartment and the additional air that have to be pushed out. The last time I replaced my MC and rebuilt my calipers, I used a homemade power bleeder, It worked OK, but not as convenient as a commercial one.
Joji Tokumoto
Fallbrook, Ca
Thanks for the good advice, Joji!
Part of my confusion is that when I filled and bled the brakes for the first time, I had none of these problems! I guess I was just lucky then. When the rear calipers would not bleed, I figured they needed a rebuild (they were used when I got them so besides being of unknown age, they were ugly). I don't have any reason to think that White Post didn't do a good job - there were no leaks around the calipers, etc. so I suspected the boosters. Your right, of course about the rather circuitous route for the brake lines. I tried to straighten that out as much as I could. I mounted my boosters behind the rear wheels so I don't have the loops the stock setup has. About now, I'm wishing I had just done away with them as things would be much more simple!
I have a pressure bleeder but I've been too cheap to buy the adapter for reservoir. Well, that's not entirely true. They don't list Europa so I'd have to guess that the MG or Triumph adapter would work. It probably would... Again, the first fill and bleed was pretty effortless without such nice tools so why worry about them.
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You can simply bypass the booster and see if that solves your problem.
Good idea JB. If I still have problems after bench bleeding, etc. I'll try that. Thanks!
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Ok. I feel better now. :)
I was finally able to bleed my brakes. I think I was probably my biggest problem. I think what was causing the pedal to stick was that it was rubbing against the steering column. I was all read after I bench bled the M/C but for a long time, I couldn't get any fluid out of the rear calipers. I think what was happening is that the front port on the M/C feeds the rear brakes (it's been so long since I built the car, I wasn't sure which was which). If you don't push the piston all the way down the M/C, the fluid doesn't get pumped out the front port. A guy at White Post told me that after you get the front "primed", you're good to go. To make sure the front would get full travel, I adjusted the clevis on the push rod back from where I had it. It seems to be pretty good now. I'd like a little more pedal but it's probably the same as it was before it went on stands this time.
I guess those are pretty amateurish mistakes - my only defense is that I don't remember having any of those problems when I first filled the brake system, nor do I ever remember having any such problems on any other car I've filled or bled before. But then, now that I'm officially a geezer, I'll take that as an excuse! :)
Next stop is getting my radiator and fan put together. I got one of those Chinese aluminum radiators on ebay and a 2000 CFM fan from Amazon. The fan attachment points on the radiator look like the were set for this fan except that two of the aluminum bolts for the fan are about 1/4" off! I found a radiator shop that also does fabricating so this should be an easy job for them.
After that is installing and hooking up the electronic speedo. That will require a mount for the sensor. Maybe the radiator shop can help there, too.
Well, things are moving a long again...
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In case anybody is interested, I thought I'd post some pictures to show what I've done recently.
I got the radiator in the car but it's not completely hooked up because I'm waiting on the fan switch. I hope it works, my last radiator had a bung for a fan switch but it would never turn the fan on. I think it may have been an issue with the radiator and the switch was just in a cold part of the radiator. In the picture, you can see the Kenlow fan switch I used before and when I'm satisfied the new switch does what I want, I'll take it out. Otherwise, I can still use it. It works by putting the bulb in the radiator hose. My old radiator was custom built and was thinner than the stock radiator. That required a frame made of aluminum channel that I put threaded inserts in to hold the screen in front of the front wheel. Obviously, the new radiator doesn't need that frame so I wasn't sure how I was going to attach the screen. Well, there is a thick 'lip' on the top and bottom of the radiator so I CAREFULLY drilled and tapped holes in that lip and attached the screen that way.
The other picture shows the bracket for the electronic speedo I'm installing. It's stainless steel and I made it by hand (no band saw, shear, or sheet metal brake - just a Dremel tool with cut off wheels to cut it out and I bent it in a vice). Obviously, I had the gussets welded. You can't see it very well, but under the sensor is a CV joint and I've glued magnets on it to help trigger the sensor. I don't work with stainless steel much and I wasn't prepared for how tough it was. I ate up several cutting wheels and burned up a few drill bits and ended up having to get cobalt bits ($$). The nut and screw you see on the right side of the bracket props it against the top of the gear box. I didn't feel it was stiff enough even with the gusset but with the screw, it is very stiff.
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With my new aluminum radiator and fan installed, I've always wondered about the amount of "bounce back" of the air you feel in front of the radiator with the fan with the car idling. The denser the radiator core and the more marginal your cooling system is, the worse the problem becomes.
Just wondering if anyone has fabricated a working front shroud for the radiator in gaining greater cooling efficiency by forcing more out.
Another thought I had was to replace the OEM style pusher fan with a puller fan. Putting it behind the radiator in the wheel well exposes it to road debris and possible tire interference. The other possibility is to move the radiator forward in the front nose area. The only problem there is the very tight interference with the headlight bucket.
Once the car is moving all of this is moot, but in stop and go traffic every little bit may help.
For a bracket made by hand from SS, it looks damn good. I know how tough even thin grade SS is to cut sheet or mesh.
My sender bracket is made from regular steel, a lot easier to work with. The pickup is magnetic, sensing the toothed wheel attached to the CV joint.
Joji Tokumoto
Fallbrook, Ca
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I have to admit that I was unaware of the "bounce back effect". I guess you could construct a duct with a fan that starts behind the grill. The car would get warm in traffic and I just didn't feel comfortable with the cooling capacity. Hopefully this aluminum radiator and the stronger fan (~900 cfm vs 2000 cfm) will keep the engine cool.
Thanks for the kind words about my bracket. It took a long time to make it but it will be fine. My CV joint is different from yours so I only have three places to put magnets. It will be in acceptable range of pulses/mile. I plan on using safety wire to make sure the magnets don't come off.
Your set up looks really nice! Have you tested it out yet? When I bought my speedo, the only GPS speedo I saw was not very similar to the other gauges. Since then, I've seen some that look much closer to stock and I wish I could use one of them. It seems that it should be a lot easier!
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My observation of the bounce back effect is all unscientific, just an observation after I installed my new radiator. It felt as if there was more air being bounced back than going through the core. However, I still believe that the OEM radiator is more than capable of keeping the stock Europa cool in all street conditions provided there is design coolant flow going through the radiator and sufficient air flow across the fins. It may or may not apply under race conditions. You have to admit though that an aluminum radiator looks good up front. As I stated before this bounce back may be a factor only for a marginal cooling system in hot stop and go traffic. If you can't get air through a radiator, it ain't gonna cool.
I can't take credit for the first rate fab job done with the speedo bracket, done by the PO. This was done before GPS speedos came on the market. The speedometer used with the sensor is a Stewart Warner design, looking not even remotely close to a Smiths and ugly as hell. I bought the Speedhut GPS speedometer on sale a while back. I will probably use that instead.
Joji Tokumoto
Fallbrook, Ca
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I think you're right about the stock radiator & fan. I don't think it was at all optimal but serviceable under most conditions. When I lived in New Orleans, I don't remember mine ever getting really hot. I do think I remember some "official" suggestion (I don't remember where I heard this) to rev the motor if it got hot to put more coolant through the radiator so at least among some had some concerns about keeping the engine cool.
The radiator looks so good, it ought to cool really well, too! ;D
I think the GPS speedo is the way to go. I imagine it is a lot easier to set up. I don't know how many satellites it needs to acquire. I hope it's quicker to acquire them than our Garmin. Even if it takes a while, I don't see that as a substantial negative.
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Ok, I got my aluminum radiator plumbed up and got the thermostat wired in. I went to burp the cooling system and it wouldn't turn the fan on (I know the fan works). I fiddled around with it and finally decided to see if the thermostat switch ever closed so I hooked a volt-ohm meter to register resistance and let the car idle. The temp gauge finally got way hotter than I would want (over 120C) and the meter still showed infinite resistance. The radiator was very hot to the touch but unfortunately, I don't have a thermometer to measure it. ????
I took the thermostat out and used a candy thermometer to measure the water in a pan and held the thermostat in the water. It finally registered no resistance at about 180F!!! No I'm really confused!
I had seen this before with my last radiator but I didn't investigate so deeply then. I just assumed that since it was a custom radiator that maybe there was a place that just didn't get as hot for some reason or that the thermostat switch didn't work but this switch works and the radiator gets really hot!
Does anybody have any ideas?
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What's the wiring circuit like ? If you had similar problems before then maybe it's not the new radiator/thermostatic switch, but the car's wiring.
Unfortunately my car is set up with no thermostatic switching, it's just a manual "on/off" thing that I use in heavy traffic so I'm limited help. I guess my first thoughts would be
1. check earth wiring on the fan
2. directly wire the fan to the battery to make sure it works - you've done this already I guess if you know it works ?
3. look for any bullet connectors in the section of the wiring circuit involved. Pull apart/clean.
4. Are you getting power to one side of the thermostat switch ?
5. By-pass the thermostat and see if the fan runs then. I assume the switch is just a circuit break when cool ? If that doesn't work when out of the circuit then it's back to wiring ?
I'm not good on electrics. I'm still at the level where I shake wires and tap things to get them working....
Brian
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Just wondering if anyone has fabricated a working front shroud for the radiator in gaining greater cooling efficiency by forcing more out.
Another thought I had was to replace the OEM style pusher fan with a puller fan. Putting it behind the radiator in the wheel well exposes it to road debris and possible tire interference.
My S2 has a 'duct' fabricated to feed the radiator plenty of air, not completely sealed and in my opinion doesn't need to be.
Built by the previous owner and after correcting two small issues (fan relay incorrectly wired to thermo switch and fan blade mounted backwards) I am now confident to drive in higher temperatures (40C+) without engine overheating. Impressive amount of heat comes out of the wheel well when the fan is running.
I have the radiator fan wired (in what I think was standard practice for Australia) with the 2nd position of the cabin ventilation fan turning the radiator fan 'on'.
This lets me better control engine temperatures for the short sprint and hillclimb events where I might be sitting stationary for a long time before the start.
As to the thermal comfort of anyone in the cabin, well that is another story.....
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What's the wiring circuit like ? If you had similar problems before then maybe it's not the new radiator/thermostatic switch, but the car's wiring.
Unfortunately my car is set up with no thermostatic switching, it's just a manual "on/off" thing that I use in heavy traffic so I'm limited help. I guess my first thoughts would be
1. check earth wiring on the fan
2. directly wire the fan to the battery to make sure it works - you've done this already I guess if you know it works ?
3. look for any bullet connectors in the section of the wiring circuit involved. Pull apart/clean.
4. Are you getting power to one side of the thermostat switch ?
5. By-pass the thermostat and see if the fan runs then. I assume the switch is just a circuit break when cool ? If that doesn't work when out of the circuit then it's back to wiring ?
I'm not good on electrics. I'm still at the level where I shake wires and tap things to get them working....
Brian
Thanks, Brin. This is not a wiring problem. The most simple set up was an ohm meter connected to the leads of the thermostat switch. Resistance was always infinite even with a very hot radiator.
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Get a new thermostatic switch. It sounds like it is only working intermittently. I have the same problem on my VW Golf R32. Sometimes the thermostat just does not click in, and the engine temperature soars. After turning the ignition off and on a few times, the thermostat seems to start working properly.
OR. Why not put in parallel a switch which earths the fan (just as the thermostat does), and put it near the ignition switch, so you can put the fan on at the flick of a switch when the temperature starts climbing.
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"fan blade mounted backwards"
You would not believe how often I come across this, including many later MGB's which had them installed backwards from the factory! A well designed fan blade has a curved cross section forming a "cup" to catch and direct the air. The difference in airflow between the proper and reversed rotation is very, very large.
As posted on the yahoo list:
"Sounds like the switch is fine. I’d have to second that there must be air in the system. Every high spot higher than the radiator must be bled as air will collect there and will not shift. On my alloy rad, they use a drain petcock as an air bleed point. This is not a good idea as the internal opening on standard drain petcock will not be at the very top. I am going to remove mine and fabricate an air bleed using a brass fitting and a valve. The other critical point is at the water pump where the heater hoses attach.
Also remember that alloy transfers heat much more effectively than steel or copper so the rad may feel hotter than it actually is. Get a cheap contact thermometer and calibrate it in boiling water."
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Just wondering if anyone has fabricated a working front shroud for the radiator in gaining greater cooling efficiency by forcing more out.
Another thought I had was to replace the OEM style pusher fan with a puller fan. Putting it behind the radiator in the wheel well exposes it to road debris and possible tire interference.
My S2 has a 'duct' fabricated to feed the radiator plenty of air, not completely sealed and in my opinion doesn't need to be.
Built by the previous owner and after correcting two small issues (fan relay incorrectly wired to thermo switch and fan blade mounted backwards) I am now confident to drive in higher temperatures (40C+) without engine overheating. Impressive amount of heat comes out of the wheel well when the fan is running.
I have the radiator fan wired (in what I think was standard practice for Australia) with the 2nd position of the cabin ventilation fan turning the radiator fan 'on'.
This lets me better control engine temperatures for the short sprint and hillclimb events where I might be sitting stationary for a long time before the start.
As to the thermal comfort of anyone in the cabin, well that is another story.....
It appears that this design requires the elimination of the spare tire. Not an issue for competition but can be for road use. I have a spare front half shell to play around with and come with a design.
Jim, I posted in the Yahoo list this morning about your issue. My Macs aluminum radiator came with a screw in temperature switch for the fan. If I remember correctly, the switch was a single terminal switch and was grounded to the radiator. Since the radiator was electrically isolated to the body, I had to run a separate ground wire for the switch.
I don't know how your switch is set up.
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Thanks for the replies, guys. I'll try to address all the points raised:
4129r: I hope my switch is good - it's brand new. I will be doing some more tests on it today so if I have problems, I'll go back to the Kenlowe thermostat switch I used to use.
jb: "fan running backwards" - that's what I was trying to make sure wouldn't happen - that and make sure the switch did in fact close. A contact thermometer might be a good investment. I'll take a look for one. Infra-red thermometers are not that expensive but it seems silly to spend that money for a single test.
Steven: I really want the fan to come on automatically. I know having a manual switch is not uncommon and maybe at some point I might set up an over-ride to turn the fan on earlier.
I posted my issue to the lotuseuropa yahoo group (if you're not a member of it, you should be) and I got some more good replies. One of the more interesting included some information about the Lotus otter switches:
Europa S1-S2 Otter Switch ... After Sept '68
A036K6026Z 82°/68° C (180° / 154° F)
....................Close / Open
Note that once switched on, the contacts stay closed longer than typical thermo-switches... all the way down to 68° C.
Europa Twin Cam Otter Switch:
A036K6026ZH 84°/74° C (183° / 165° F)
Elite-Eclat, Esprit S1-S2 … Federal & Middle East
A075K6007K 80°/70° C (176° / 158° F)
I tested my switch and it open at above 194F and closes at about 185F. So this is a narrower range than the Lotus switches and it opens at a warmer temp. This person also posted information about the gauge. It appears that I may have been more concerned than I needed to be. I think I would prefer that the fan start at a cooler temp so I might use an adjustable switch.
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Which temperature range of the fan switch you should use depends on which part of the rad the fan switch is located. On most vehicles, the hot coolant enters the top of the radiator and exits out the bottom. On the Europa, the hot coolant enters the bottom of the rad and exits, hopefully cooler, out the top.
If your fan switch is located next to the “cold” outlet (top — S1 & S2 are configured this way) then the switch Tim mentioned is correct — S1 & S2s came with a 82°C stat (180ish°F — you can get a 74°C/160°F stat if you dig). The fan comes on not much more than the thermostat rating and goes off when it is delivering distinctly colder coolant to the engine.
If your fan switch is located next to the hot inlet (bottom — TCs are configured this way) then you need a switch that comes on well above the thermostat rating and goes off above it as well — TC came with a 78°C stat (172ish°F though most are fitted with 160°F now). Otherwise, the only way the fan will switch off is if you manage to cool the coolant to the point it closes the thermostat! Difficult and not a good idea for efficiency’s sake.
The alloy rad I have takes the euro-common standard 22 mm x 1.5 thread. These are available in a wide range of temperature options from VW water cooled aftermarket part’s suppliers. It has the fan switch on the hot side so I will be running a fan switch in the range of 185 - 190ish on and 175 to 180ish off paired with a 160 stat.
YMMV,
John
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Thanks for the analysis, John. Even though I've pretty much decided to go with an adjustable controller, this will help me set it up. From your description, the Sentra switch would be appropriate. I have the 165F thermostat and the open and close temps are both above the thermostat rating. I may put it back in the radiator in case I change my mind. I am concerned about the higher open and close temperatures on the Sentra switch verses the TC otter switch.
I see you're on the lotuseuropa group so you may already know the reason I chose the Sentra switch is it had the correct threads (M16x1.5). There seemed to be so few with those threads.
I ordered an adjustable unit that has a probe that goes into the core. If all else fails, I will go back to the adjustable Kenlowe switch that has the probe in the radiator hose.
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It appears that this design requires the elimination of the spare tire. Not an issue for competition but can be for road use. I have a spare front half shell to play around with and come with a design.
Actually the spare has been relocated and so it is elimination of the rear storage.
I don't load much into the Europa so the remaining storage in the front has been enough for me.
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That reminds me of the old prototype cars that ran international long distance races back in the late '60s. The FIA required the cars to be able to store a suitcase of a certain dimension and a spare tire. The suitcase wasn't a big deal but those tires were starting to get pretty big. They had to store them in the engine compartment - sometimes over the headers! The tracks were much longer than they are now and every once in a while, a driver would have to change a tire. Of course, after all that heat, they weren't good for much but I think they usually got him to the pits (slowly). :)
Obviously, I don't think you have to worry... It just got me to thinking...
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Obviously, I don't think you have to worry... It just got me to thinking...
There is a heat shield under the tyre and the headers are wrapped to reduce radiation, so it is fairly 'cool' under there :)
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I love it when a plan comes together! Last week, I gave up on the Sentra fan switch and got a fan controller from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CN4XZI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). It was pretty easy to set up, it's adjustable, and it worked right away. I adjusted it so the temp gauge stops just before 90 (which is where I remember the Twin Cam that came with it was). I let it idle in the garage for twenty minutes or so. The fan cycled a couple of times and it never overheated!!! :beerchug:
I installed the Speedo and routed two wires from it to the back of the car where the speed sensor is. I was told by a guy at APT that I needed to hook them to the sensor. I found out this morning that I only need to hook one to the sensor and the other sensor wire is to be grounded. I just have to figure out exactly how it will be attached.
I felt that my speed sensor bracket was a little flimsy so I took it to a weld shop and had a gusset welded on it. I'm still concerned given that the gap between the sensor and the magnets that it sees is pretty tight (0.015) so I still need to look at that some more.
While I was fooling with the speedo, I found I couldn't work the passenger window lift but I dislodged a wire from the switch and now that works!
I finally dropped it on the garage floor tonight! :beerchug:
Tomorrow, I'll set the rear camber, hook up the sensor, reattach the steering wheel, install the bonnet, and maybe adjust the passenger door better. I should be driving it before the weekend!
It looks like I'll make it to the LOG after all!
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I just took a look at the fan switch on Amazon and I'm wondering how you rigged up the push in temperature probe for your radiator.
Joji Tokumoto
Fallbrook, Ca
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I was concerned about that, too, but the probe was small enough to slip between the tubes and the gap between the side tank and the start of the fins. It slid snugly without much effort. No leaks (yet :) ). The leads from the probe run to the bundle of wires from the controller and plug in there. There is a wire for an override (normally used for A/C systems but they say it can be used for a manual switch. I didn't hook that up. If I do, I have a switch on the console that I have in case I install driving lights and I might be able to use that, but since it didn't overheat at all while idling in the garage, I doubt that will be necessary. The one thing that might be nice is a graduated adjustment. There is a small screw (that has a small sweep and should not be turned with force as it will break it) under a rubber plug that is used to adjust the temp that it turns the fan on. I just started at a ridiculously low adjustment (near the bottom of the range which starts at 150F) and walked it up till it was where I wanted it. It was very simple.
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It's ALIVE!!!
There are some rough edges to be smoothed (TLC with the carbs) and some things I need to check (like alignment).
The speedo never registered over 15mph, but I'm happy it registered something. Maybe I misread the instructions for programming it.
Lastly, I need new shoes! The souls on the ones I have lack grip and they could be A LITTLE narrower.
Here are some pictures.
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Lastly, I need new shoes....
(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTAwOFgxMzQ0/z/HqIAAOxyBotTbBQO/$_57.JPG)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/42-OFF-MSRP-JIM-CLARK-Casual-Suede-Driving-Shoes-by-Nicolas-Hunziker-/261475347555?pt=US_Men_s_Shoes&var=&hash=item3ce1252c63 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/42-OFF-MSRP-JIM-CLARK-Casual-Suede-Driving-Shoes-by-Nicolas-Hunziker-/261475347555?pt=US_Men_s_Shoes&var=&hash=item3ce1252c63)
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Nice looking bowling shoes...and in Caterham livery
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:coolpic: Congrats on getting it all back together. Man, that sure is one tidy looking Europa, and I love the Cosworth lump. Great stuff. Cheers.
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Thanks for the nice words, Bainford. I still have a list of things I need to straighten out but driving it was a blast and a big relief!
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Outstanding, I too have engine envy...if I had the disposable coin a Weber head would be the next project. Thanks, for the link, showed the image to my wife and asked her opinion. The big "Lebowski" would be proud...gonna get a pair!
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Thanks, Lou! Those shoes seem good but I know they are a tribute to Jim Clark but everybody else would think I stole them from a bowling alley! I may get them anyway!
I just ordered a pair from this place (http://www.shoebuy.com/hunziker-collection-clark/409380/871622). :)
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I had been having trouble getting my electronic speedo to work. Making a mount with hand tools was not working out as they weren't rigid enough. There were conflicting stories about the gap between the targets and the sensor. And on and on...
I talked to Chuck at APT (he's the guy you want when you want technical info there) about how to verify my sensor was working and he told me about a GPS antenna accessory for electronic speedos. It was a little expensive but I was really frustrated with the sensor problems. In two days I received it and this afternoon (after laying two pallets of sod in our front yard) I had it all wired up and ready to test. I checked with Chuck to make sure I wasn't going to burn it up when I turned the ignition on.
It works like a champ! I now have an accurate speedometer for the first time since I took the car apart! The only wrinkle I had was that the instructions that came with the GPS antenna were not very good but the company that makes them has better instructions online.
4380r got a GPS speedo from Speedhut (see here:http://www.lotuseuropa.org/LotusForum/index.php?topic=660.0) and that's a good option, but it didn't make sense for me. I already had an electronic speedo so I didn't want to buy another one if I didn't have to. I was skeptical that I could shoehorn the slightly larger Speedhut speedo into my instrument binnacle and although the Speedhut one that 4380r got is pretty close to a real Smiths speedo, the electronic speedo I had was still a closer match (though still not perfect).
I have an electronics panel in my engine compartment and I was able to mount it pretty neatly in an empty space. It's not the optimum orientation, but the only problem is that it takes a little longer to acquire the three GPS satellites.
If you need a new speedo (maybe your speedo gears went away like mine did) or if you want to use the Smiths electronic speedo, I think this is a great way to hook it up.
Here's a picture of how I have the antenna mounted. It's the white box on the right of the panel.
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That's a very neat wiring set-up. The work you guys are doing on electronic speedo's is going to come in handy for me at some point although I'm not sure the GPS ones are allowed over this side of the pond.
Very neat installation all the same.
Brian
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Thanks for the kind words!
GPS devises aren't allowed in Merry Ole England!! That sounds stupid even for the nanny state gooberments on both sides of the pond. I will say that I found another place to mount the sensor on my NG3 that may have solved a lot of my problems but I was just tired of fooling with it and nobody seemed to be able to give me the accurate story on the sensor. CAI's being in England would definitely help you guys over there though. Being able to fabricate a good mount would certainly help, too!
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GPS speedos appear to be a very grey area over here. Our annual MoT (Ministry of Transport) test used to be a sensible thing which basically made sure the car was roadworthy - stop/steer/not about to fall apart with rust, etc. And things like speedos weren't included because although by law you must have one, it clearly has no bearing on how roadworthy the car is.
But now it is included, along with lots of other stuff which I'd call marginal and the 1970s 20 minute test is now an hour or more. But as all MoTs are conducted on a rolling road brake tester inside buildings, a GPS speedo probably won't register and hence fail the test. There was a question in one of the motoring mags recently about a guy with a Range rover who's speedo had packed in and I think he was using an app on his phone for his speed so he wanted to know if it was legal. As usual our construction & use regulations are vague but the verdict was no.
Silly isn't it ?
(in truth the whole testing thing is crazy. I can get my car tested in the morning, drive home and promptly pull apart - say the brakes. I re-assemble it later, perhaps forget to put the brake pads in but I still have a piece of paper saying the car is roadworthy...... everyone is happy ::) )
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I see hot it works over there! An hour test is ridiculous! There must be a lot of places that have that expensive rolling road dyno to handle all the tests! Driving the car on the road and waiting for it to acquire satellites would drag it out further and expose them to liability in the event of an accident (well, maybe not - they are the government!).
Depending on where you live, your old Europa may not be tested at all. I'm not clear on all the details, but a lot of the testing was related to emissions and was done through the OBD port rather than tailpipe sniffers, etc. Since we don't have one, they pretty much forget about us. I'm pretty sure they check lights, brakes, etc. manually on the rest of the cars but I guess there are so few cars on the road that are pre-OBD they don't worry about even that for our cars. It almost wouldn't matter because the guy performing the test is probably wearing boots and wouldn't be able to drive the car in the first place!
Now in some states, they don't do inspections at all regardless of the age of the vehicle. That makes a lot of sense to me. I think the inspection regime is just another way to tax us as I doubt there are a statistically insignificant number of cars that could not pass the emissions or "safety" tests they perform now. The times I've been caught, there would be a CEL code that was unrelated to emissions or safety but that had to be cleared for 30 days before they could do a good scan.
Before they changed the law, I had to have my Europa inspected and one of the things they checked for was exhaust leaks. My the secondary tubes were slip fit into the exhaust pipe so they leaked there. Well, that failed me! I tried to explain that the "leak" was behind the cabin and in any event, it was only about two feet in front of a BIGGER "leak" - the tailpipe, but to no avail. I had to get some high temp silicone goo and hose clamps to seal the "leak". ::)
Good luck with your replacement speedo should you need one. I'm hearing that the speedo gears in the tranny are expected to fail and they are no longer available. If you have the standard rear suspension, it seems like it would be difficult to find a place for a sensor to sense a target. Maybe you could fabricate something that would be welded to the inner U-joint half. In any case, you will likely have to get pretty creative!
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:) - now the failure because you have an exhaust leak a couple of feet away from the open end of the system does have all the hallmarks of a UK test..... here you can fail for a chip in the windscreen if it's in your line of sight or if the bulb in your speedo isn't working for example.
Actually I misled you on the time. I did a check this morning and it's officially a 45 minute test, but whereas at one time you used to drive in and wait, now they usually tell you to go shopping or for a coffee while it's done. (they have to warm the engine for emissions testing) Not every garage can do tests, they need approved guys with a rolling road/brake tester and the whole set-up must be linked over the internet to the DVLA to automatically record the numbers from brake testing, emissions, etc.
If you guys are interested in what's involved, this is the official description and there are several "MoT testing" forums kicking around which have qualified guys offering advice.
http://www.transportoffice.gov.uk/crt/doitonline/bl/mottestingmanualsandguides/mottestingmanualsandguides.htm (http://www.transportoffice.gov.uk/crt/doitonline/bl/mottestingmanualsandguides/mottestingmanualsandguides.htm)
In truth the whole thing is silly. It was originally introduced because we had pre-war wrecks on the road with holes in the floor, no brakes, etc. So a good idea and no problem with brakes/steering/suspension checks. But last year they changed the law and if your car is pre 1960 it no longer needs a test. Hence the very cars they introduced the test for - rod brakes, lousy suspension, wobbly steering - are now exempt.....
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Realistically, how many miles a year will a pre 1960 car be driven?
I doubt that many MOT testers know all the rules for the pre 1960 cars. Do they allow flippers instead of indicators? No seat belts. Do they allow mechanical dipping (2CV headlights)? Remember the vacuum powered windscreen wipers on the 100E, or was it the E93A?
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Realistically, how many miles a year will a pre 1960 car be driven?
I doubt that many MOT testers know all the rules for the pre 1960 cars. Do they allow flippers instead of indicators? No seat belts. Do they allow mechanical dipping (2CV headlights)? Remember the vacuum powered windscreen wipers on the 100E, or was it the E93A?
I think we're in complete agreement, I can't see a pre '60 car being driven very much at all. Those that are driven at all probably reside with enthusiasts and are in better mechanical condition now that when new.
It's my age I'm afraid, I'm just having a grouchy day and the 2012 MoT test being applied to my 1970's car is one of those buttons..... :)
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I'm in Utah, USA and vehicles with model years 4, 8, and 10 years old require a safety inspection. Over 10 years old and you need safety done every year. Emissions tests are required only for our 3 most populated and polluted counties and then it's every other year for years 2 to 6, and every year after your car is 6 years old......
BUT a group of vintage car enthusiasts lobbied the state legislature a few years ago and successfully passed a bill that allows for vintage car registration which is exempt from all testing! Older collector cars (not available for daily/regularly driven vehicles) can get a special license plate with lower fees and NO testing requirements. :beerchug:
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Just a minor update...
In spite of the fact that I had Nisonger check out all my gauges and I had my alternator rebuilt too, the ammeter has always bounced since I got my car back on the road in '99. I checked the KB (http://lotus-europa2.com/ekb.html - in case your unfamiliar with it) and the general consensus was that it was the voltage regulator. A few years ago, I had my alternator rebuilt again - this time it was over $300 (if I had known he was going to go to that expense and trouble, I would have gotten another alternator!). On the way to the LOG in Asheville, the ammeter bounced unless the headlights were on and then it was pegged on the + side. After seeing it bounce for a while, I pretty much tuned it out.
I converted almost all my lights to LEDs (http://www.lotuseuropa.org/LotusForum/index.php?topic=891.0). Then the other day I was at the Post Office sending some mail (any excuse to drive it!) and it died at the mailbox. I pushed it off to a parking place and started checking connections. Everything looked good but then I noticed the high tension leads on the battery were not secured as well as I thought. I tightened them down, drove home and then cleaned the posts and the clamps and tightened them properly. Since then, I noticed the ammeter has stopped bouncing and it is steady just on the + side of 0. Even turning the headlights doesn't move it that much!
It seems highly unlikely that installing the LEDs made the difference since I would expect any difference they made to be noticeable only while the LED was on. I don't believe that I never had the battery clamps properly tightened but the lose cables do seem like the most likely culprit. Since electrical systems are only one of the things know little about, I expect someone will be able to definitively analyze the real reason my ammeter bounced, but on the other hand, I wonder if it is just a continuation of a progressively happier car. I didn't have any real trouble on the way to Asheville but I noticed some minor issues. I don't remember specifically what they were but I did notice that they were better on the way home! It's almost as if the car gets better the more I drive it! That's my story and I'm sticking to it - till the next time it breaks! ;D
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Well, things were going well for me and my Europa. I drove it whenever it was practical. This Thanksgiving, I drove with headlights (Halogen) for an extended period of time (probably about an hour) for the first time. Everything went well till I was almost home when I noticed that the headlights worked but the dash lights were out (they might have been dim, I don't remember but they are LEDs now so they shouldn't be dim). Monkeying with the switch would get one or the other to work but not both. The headlight switch I have is a replacement I got from Banks because I broke the original one (I'm too embarrassed to say how). I believe this is what Richard sent me (http://www.holden.co.uk/displayproduct.asp?sg=1&pgCode=020&sgName=Electrical&pgName=Switches&agCode=0508&agName=Push-Pull+Switches&pCode=31126). It was a little wonky in that there seemed to be a lot of slop in the action of the switch but always seemed to work in the past. I parked the car in the garage and made a note to check on it later.
A few days later I went to drive the car somewhere and it would not even try to activate the starter solenoid, but it did activate the electronic speedo and IIRC, it did turn on the electrical fuel pump. I checked the voltage at the battery and it was low. Hmmm... I happened to have a spare battery so I put that in and got similar results. I notice that the dash light over the ventilation switches would come on when I pulled the headlight switch so I know that I'm getting juice to the switch. I don't have any blown fuses. I didn't see anything obvious under the dash. The starter still seems to be hooked up. There has been no smell of melting insulation and I didn't see any of the smoke leak out of the wiring. Lately neither the speedo nor the fuel pump responded to the ignition being turned on, but the horn compressor did spin and dash light did come on. I figured that was because of the low voltage condition. At this point, I am suspicious of my headlight switch and I'm ready to blame it for a short that could be draining my battery however I don't see how that would cause it not to activate the solenoid. I'm about ready to take the dash out (partially) to inspect it more completely because I can only be upside down under it for a short time (even with the front wheels jacked up) before I feel sick (maybe I should put a hatch in both foot wells to use as a way to access the wiring behind the dash!) but before I go to all that trouble, I thought I'd see if anybody had any other ideas.
Thanks in advance!
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How are your battery cables? Corroded ends will do exactly wat you are describing, only allow minimal voltage in & out.....
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Thanks Blaster but battery cables are in good shape and tight on the posts. :-\
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Hmmm. Ground to engine or frame maybe?
You didn't feed your Maugui after midnight did you... :o ;D
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Maugui? That's it! I lost my Maugui! ...What's a Maugui? :confused:
I don't THINK I've lost any grounds. Certainly not to the engine. I have a pretty heavy cable from the tranny to the frame one side has a stop nut and the other side is safety wired. The odd thing to me is that it was working fine (except for what seems like a headlight switch problem) one day and now this...
I clearly have to do more poking around with it but it is SO uncomfortable to get my head under the dash and taking it off is such a HUGE pain. Maybe there is something I can do to make it less uncomfortable... If I find something, I'll post it.
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Work through it methodically.
Battery connections first
power feed to ignition switch (through ammeter)
feed to fuse box
fuse box connections (very common source of trouble)
junctions under dash
etc
Just follow the trail that the wiring diagram lays out.
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My first checks with similar problems is to check the voltage at the battery and if it's not 100% then I charge it up and see what happens next. Next step is to see if there's actually a constant current drain so disconnect the earth and route it all through a meter to see what's happening. A modern radio will draw some current but unless you have modern alarms, etc, I can't think of anything else that should.
If the bad news is that you do have a current drain, then all you can do is watch the meter and try one circuit at a time. Maybe something like the courtesy light wiring which are always on ?
(I usually start with the last one that I "fixed" :-[ )
Brian
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Thanks for the tips, Blaster, JB, & Brian. There just isn't any other way to debug electrical problems than probe circuits, is there? I was hoping my situation would ring a bell with someone and "short circuit" the process (to coin a phrase!), but it looks like I'll just have to brute force it. I'll probably start pulling the dash board off sometime after Christmas. :(
Merry Christmas, Everyone!
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Maugui? That's it! I lost my Maugui! ...What's a Maugui? :confused:
This is the handsome little devil of which I speak,
if you feed one after midnight he'll turn into a Gremlin!
(http://i61.tinypic.com/f9mw6w.jpg)
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I was wondering why there was some fur behind my dash! But I was really confused when I thought a saw a furry creature scurrying behind my tool chest! Maybe I need another cat in my garage!
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Are you putting in your new switch in an attempt to kill that gremlin?
(Thought I'd ask back here in your thread), or going the extra mile & adding a relay also?
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The first thing I did was try the switch by itself. So far, no joy, but I'm checking to make sure I hooked it up correctly (actually, I got side tracked and found the letter the engine builder sent about my engine and transcribed the important parts into a document so hopefully, I'll be less likely to lose it!). After that, I may tackle the relay project. The switch is pretty heavy duty so it's designed to take full current (of sealed beams, anyway - however, I have halogens) so I don't think there is a rush but it is definitely the way to go.
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As they say,"a job begun is half done". I'm sure it won't beat you...
As far as being easily side tracked I excel at it,
I'll go to take the trash out and end up declaring war on the moles in my yard with a pitchfork. :confused:
Drives the Mrs. nuts... ;D
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Blaster, you give me far too much credit!
I did find out what my problem was. I think I know why but I'm not sure.
I checked the voltage at the battery and without the cables, it gave me ~12.4v but when I hooked the cables up, I had about 5v. I had changed the battery so I didn't suspect it, but when I put the original battery back in, it cranked up. So something was causing my original battery to go flat. I did notice that I need to adjust the alignment on my alternator belt as it was getting chewed up. Hopefully, I didn't ruin a bearing. I also noticed that my alternator belt was loose. It's starting to look like the belt got loose so the alternator didn't turn enough to charge the battery. The last time I drove the car was for about an hour or so at night so without the alternator, I could have drained the battery.
If someone has an alternative (say one that discounts the possibility of a loose alternator belt), I'd be really like to hear it because I'm not fully convinced that is the whole problem.
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Hmmm, there should be no change in voltage when the cables are hooked up & everything is off, sounds like you have an open circuit somewhere, if you suspect your alternator isn't charging I would try to unhook it and see if you're still getting a voltage drop, the rectifier diodes may be shot. The shade tree mechanic way to test the alternator is to pull the positive post off the battery while it's running, it should stay running if it is charging. An auto parts place will also check it for free. You could also remove one fuse at a time & check for a voltage drop to narrow it down...
This is just stuff coming to mind, not to say you didn't already know...
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That technique is only recommended if you have a generator. Disconnecting the battery while the engine is running can create a voltage spike which will fry your alternator. You need, at the very least, a voltmeter to test an alternator. Hook up the voltmeter across the battery. Start the engine and note the voltage reading at idle and at 3K. Turn everything on: wipers, heater fan, lights, turn signals, etc. Note voltage at idle and at 3K. Shut everything off and then the engine. Modern HO alternator should maintain the voltage between 13.8 and 15.0 volts. Original alternator may see the voltage fall fully loaded at idle but should be normal at 3K.
There's a lot more to test but that requires equipment not usually at hand in a home workshop.
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Thanks guys. I didn't mention that I put in a freshly charged new battery and was able to crank the starter and turn on the headlights. So that would narrow it down to the charging system, I think. I'll check out the alternator as you suggest, John, but first, I'll put the interior back together. I certainly have a knack for making a simple problem into a complex one!
I am glad I got the new headlight switch. This one is much better!
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I'll go and take the trash out and end up declaring war on the moles in my yard with a pitchfork.
At the risk of a temporary hi-jack, that's a subject close to my heart. We've got an army of the little :headbanger: "creatures" doing artistic things on our only patch of grass that might be described as a lawn. Jasper Carrot (a 1970/80s comedian coming from the Birmingham, UK, area) has summed up exactly how I feel.......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fePU5CIHpas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fePU5CIHpas)
Poor quality because it's quite an old sketch, but if you have moles, you'll get it !
Brian
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I get it! We have experience with moles here, too. The only way to get rid of them is to put chewing gum in the holes. They got to eat it and it gets stuck in their stomach and they die! Much better than mothballs and garlic! :)
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Back to cars...
I think I need to adjust the alignment between my alternator and the cam pulley on my car (the setup is just like a twink but I have a BDA instead). The belt was worn quite a bit on one side (the side toward the rear) and there was a lot of shaved belt material on the bell housing. I thought the pulleys were aligned but I guess I was wrong. The problem is that I'm not sure how to align the two pulleys. There is no place on the head where I can easily measure the distance to the belt because the cast surface isn't really flat across that area. In fact, I tried to measure what appeared to be a flat surface and it implied that the alternator pulley needed to be moved further toward the front of the car (that should put more stress on the rear face of the belt, right?). Measuring against the bell housing doesn't seem practical since it is so far away.
Any ideas on how to do this?
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The alignment on mine is horrible, as you can see!
I'm not sure if your setup allows you to do this, but by measuring from the front of the belt to the straight edge on both pulleys mine is out of alignment by a quarter of an inch! :o
I've also developed a pretty good "eyeball" over the years from being a carpenter, you can see the belt from the the water pump to the alternator is straight...
(http://i59.tinypic.com/22j7uu.jpg)
(http://i58.tinypic.com/6dzu5h.jpg)
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I'm not sure you can use a straight edge against the pulleys because they may not be the same width (or distance from the center). In any case, that's difficult for the TC (and my car) because the alternator pulley is almost against the head. Here's a picture of the situation.
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kinda thought yours would be different, looks like the ol' "eyeball", trial & error, & common sense will be your best bet.
Moving the alternator forward, (towards the front of the car) would put more pressure on the rear of the alternator pulley & less on the rear of the cam pulley, (which is actually the front of the cam pulley, looking at it from the back of the car). If I am confusing you with this explanation don't worry because I confused myself just trying to write it. ::)
Personally, I wouldn't worry about getting it absolutely perfect, just as close as you can. A belt is going to wear regardless.
At least yours is a lot closer than what I've got going on!
Maybe someone else will chime in with a trick or two...
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Thanks, blaster! I'll just continue with my trial and error... I used the eyeball method before, but I guess my eyeball is lacking. I certainly didn't think it was that far off. Oh well... Ok now. I'm ready! I'm going in!
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No magic bullets from here I'm afraid, I just used the Mk1 Eyeball to set mine up when I replaced the original with a 17ACR model. I think they will take a bit of misalignment without a problem but I could see the acceptable amount being dependent on the type of belt you're using. Mine is a deep V belt like the original (in fact it's exactly the same belt) but maybe a modern, flatter belt needs better alignment ?
Brian
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Well that's what I ended up doing. I made a slight adjustment that probably didn't make any difference so I'll see it I have better luck this time.
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Well, I thought my electrical problems were because of a dead battery but they've popped up again.
After replacing my old Optima battery with my new conventional battery, the car came back to life. I installed a new alternator belt and made extra sure it was well adjusted and straight. The car ran for a few days with the only real issue being the ammeter bouncing around (which is not new).
The other day, I went to start it and the lights that indicate the car is alive flashed briefly and then nothing. I figured there must be a charging issue so I hooked up my 3 amp charger (while the battery was still hooked up. The next day, I tried to start it and got nothing again. I checked the voltage between the battery posts and it was 14.4V. The voltage between the positive post and a chassis ground or even the bolt on the negative battery clamp where the ground cable is attached was 4.5V. (This is what I saw when I had my Optima battery was in the car and figured that it meant that the battery was dead.) I disconnected the ground from the battery and hooked up my 3 amp charger again and checked it about five hours later and the voltage between the battery posts (the ground cable is still disconnected) is now 15.5V! That sounds really wrong...
Does anybody have any idea what could be going on?
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sounds like nothing wrong with your battery.
i would suspect a poor connection. mabe right at the starter motor, 'cause that is where the hot leg going to ammeter probably comes from(?) probably jumpers off the ammeter to feed key.
although if voltage across the terminals is good, but bad between +term. and chassis(-), that sounds like a bad ground cable or corrosion.
cables and clamps can look good, but not be.
you probably looked already.
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Thanks, rascott! I'll check the connection at the starter. I think my battery connections are good, but I'll check them too.
I thought lead acid batteries only gave 12.5 or 13.5V or something like that...
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Hmm, something sounds wrong there BDA. I recently made a chart up for the workshop with battery voltages vs state of charge and I think from memory it was about 12.7 for 100% on a lead acid battery, but slightly higher (13.1 ?) on the modern low maintenance things. If you measure it within a minute or so of removing the charger then you'll get over 13v on anything but holding the meter across it you'll see it dropping slowly back to 100% charge.
14.4v is full charge rate, 15.5v sounds like the meter is like all us Lotus owners, extremely optimistic ;) At that sort of voltage you'd probably be hearing or seeing bubble formation inside.
I know you've got a very custom Europa, does it still follow the same basic wiring diagram or did your new engine involve lots of modern electrics ?
My Elise had electrical problems and at around 3-4 months old it was randomly draining the battery. I didn't get a week without having to either charge it or get someone to give me a jump start to get home. It cost a fortune in warranty time and replacement parts until finally they found an electrical connection plug which wasn't sealed properly. This had corroded a few terminals which caused a current drain whilst the car was standing. The lesson I learned there was to pull & clean every connector on the circuit if I had similar problems again. If you have modern electrical loom connectors, that's one place I'd look.
The other is for current drain with nothing switched on. I'm not convinced that's the problem but based on my experience it's a box to tick anyway. I'm more suspicious of the flickering ammeter, that sounds like an intermittent short and is going to be a real pain to solve. The starter solenoid would be my first check as well just in case something is bridging the +ve cables when the car's in motion. Does if ever flicker when stationary and just revving the engine apart from the first few seconds of start-up ?
On the earthing, I have a proper belt & braces approach with a lead across both engine mounts to the chassis at either side, the bolt on the battery side of the car also holding the main lead to the cut-off switch and on to the battery. Earth leads are cheap and it balances the car for better handling ;)
Brian
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I chose to use a pretty thick cable to ground the engine to the frame on the passenger side. I figured it would balance the car better! :D
I didn't change the wiring much except to add things like revlimiter, fuel pump relay, etc. Since the BDA is a 1970s engine, there aren't any electronics to it. With my phobia about wires, I think my head would have exploded if I tried to swap with a Toyota or Zetec motor! What I wish I had done is soak all the connectors in vinegar or something before hooking everything up... Maybe my next restoration/rebuild...
I checked the battery voltage when I came down this morning (after reading your post) and it is about 13.5V so the maybe I was getting the high readings because I had just charged the battery.
One of the things that baffled me was that the voltage from the + post to the - post was one value but if I checked it where the ground cable was attached to the battery clamp, I only got 5.5V. When I thought about (actually when I stopped thinking about it and then thought about it again, I was dumbstruck! How stupid I was not not seeing it! There must be something bad about the connection between the ground cable and the battery clamp. I tested the resistance between the two and got no resistance. Oh well...
I stopped thinking about it again and then thought I would just try making damn sure the post and the clamp were clean so I cleaned them even though they looked pretty. I checked the voltage between the + and the - battery clamp - good! Then between the + and the engine - good again! Turned the key and got the fuel pump. That seemed to be the problem as strange as that may be. Then, just now, I tried to start it. I got the fuel pump but the starter wouldn't turn over. I checked the battery voltage (13.45V) and then between + and the ground cable - I watched it drift down from 12 or so down to below 5V. There is obviously more to it than just dirty battery connections.
Sorry for the long post, but I didn't want to miss any details.
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BDA, how new is your cable from the battery positive to the starter? If there is corrosion of the copper strands inside the insulation, that could be causing some high resistance from the battery to the starter connection lug.
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That should be as old as the car so it could be a strong possibility. I'll be jacking the car up to take a look at those connections and the condition of the cable will be part of that. Thanks!
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I checked the battery voltage (13.45V) and then between + and the ground cable - I watched it drift down from 12 or so down to below 5V.
this makes it sound like the problem is still w/that battery grounding, and must be at the clamp!
mabe "shellac" on the post or clamp?
should be able to follow that voltage to the chassis connection..... to block.
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Based on what you are describing, my guess would be something going on with the starter/solenoid.
When, not if you figure this out, (;D) and your slow battery drain is still occurring, you can just put a battery disconnect switch on the battery.
My dad put one on his Corvette that was doing the same thing...
He doesn't drive it that much, so it kind of "fixes" it without fixing it. ::)
That's his philosophy anyway...
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Thanks for the vote of confidence, Blaster!
A battery cutoff was something I considered when I was building my car - actually, IIRC, I was thinking of an ignition cutoff. Anyway, that's not a bad idea to have, but I think I'd like to find out the cause of this problem.
I installed a digital clock where my ash tray was (I was looking for some slick computer gizmo but in the late '90s, there weren't many of to choose from and there was no such thing as a radio with a detachable screen or a GPS!) and setting that thing is a minor PITA every time I disconnect the battery. I would really like not to have to bother with that any more!
I'll probably jack the car up tomorrow and check out some of the suggestions y'all (that's "you all" to most of you and "youse guys" if you're from New Jersey!) have given me. A friend of mine is an electrical engineer for Caterpillar and if I don't figure it out soon, he's offered to take a look at it when he has time. Stay tuned...
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Well, things were going pretty smoothly for me after I got my electrical problem solved. Of course, that just made room for another problem! This time, it's my tranny. I have an NG-3 that I got from Richard at Banks. I've had the same setup as far as mounts and linkage is concerned since I put the car on the road - at least 6000 miles (but unfortunately many years) ago. Richard modifies the end cover to make it a side shifter and I use the rod type shift linkage as opposed to cable shifters. I went for a drive and when I put it in 5th, it hopped out of gear and made a scrapping sound. I tried holding it in gear but it just made the scraping sound so I backed off. This happens at low rpms (2000 - 2500) and low load - no real acceleration or climbing. I have no problem with any of the other gears.
I posted on the yahoo group and a couple of the suggestions were to check that the detent was holding the shift lever in and to check the linkage. At the end of the shift linkage, there is a rod end with misalignment spacers. This is bolted to the selector shaft coming out of the end cover. I found that I had lost one of the misalignment bushings. I made a temporary replacement that should work as well as the original and tested it. It wouldn't stay in 5th at all and still made the scraping sound. I discounted the detent idea because that doesn't seem to explain the scraping sound.
So you know all the gory details, I have a couple of bell housing threads stripped. One where it attaches to the tranny case and one where a bolt goes through a flange on the block into the bell housing. It doesn't leak oil in the front so I don't think the first one is a problem - even though that bolt is on the top - and the bell housing seems solidly mounted to the block and all the bolts are safety wired so I don't think there is any misalignment because of any of those. If you're not familiar with Richard's rear mounts, they are very substantial with very thin rubber isolation bushings so it looks like there is really no independent movement in the tranny.
I realize this is somewhat of a long shot, but does anybody out there have any ideas I can try before taking the tranny out and having somebody who knows what they're doing look at it?
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hmmm.... :-\
This is well out of my comfort zone but as no-one else has chipped in yet, maybe a bump for the topic might get some wisdom on board.
The impression I get is that this little "feature" seems to have formed overnight as it were, not something that's slowly festered and become worse over a period of months. That makes me think "linkage", either external or internal for some reason that I can't really explain or offer a logical reason for. I don't have the same gearbox so I'm a bit lost, but my thoughts would be to get someone to put the car into 5th while I stayed at the back to see exactly what was going on. It might just be that there's a bit of wear or maybe something loose that's not allowing sufficient travel on the external selector arm (or whatever it's called ?).
Before stripping the box out I'd like to see if there was any adjustments I could make to push the arm more in the direction it needs to go and see if that solved the problem. I didn't think these gearboxes were known for 5th gear problems unlike some - for example the Mk1 MR2 we had was known for jumping out of 5th but that took many miles before it became a regular problem and usually started on the overrun IIRC. You could drive for months with a duff gearbox by holding it in, something that's not working with yours and hence me suspecting linkage I suppose.
Brian
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Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Brian. This is something that at least seems to have come up pretty much all of a sudden. I certainly didn't think I had any reason to expect it. There were no noises or other indications that there was anything going wrong that I noticed. There are other reasons to do work on the tranny I'll get to later. I might have said that I was able to get it to stay in 5th if I drove very slowly (maybe 1500 rpm on level ground). When I increased the speed a little, it popped out again.
I think your idea to watch it shift is a good one. The linkage is pretty simple and has been working pretty well (up to now, if that's the problem). There is a linkage from the shift lever that goes to a rectangular/bell crank sort of thing similar to early Europa 4 speeds. From there, there is a link with a rod end at the end that attaches to an arm on a selector shaft. The shaft moves right or left in neutral, turns forward for reverse, 2nd, and 4th, back for 1st, 3rd, and 5th. Getting in reverse is a minor challenge and feels like it might be better to shorten (and thus turn the selector shaft further) the linkage, but it has never actually been a problem so I never bothered. Of course, shortening the linkage would make the travel for 1st, 3rd, and 5th shorter - certainly not what I need. But as I say, in spite of the fact that I've never really had any linkage problems, it is worth fooling with to see if it can effect a cure.
As I say, there are reasons for pulling out the tranny. My speedo gears shredded themselves a while ago (leaving me with only 3rd and 4th) so I gave it to a guy who knows transmissions to fix it in case there was more to it than that. He didn't see anything so he put it back together and gave it back to me and until now, it has performed as expected for about 1400 miles. The end cover is apparently difficult to align and install and his monkeying with it to put it back together introduced a pretty bad leak. I've tried some external sealers with limited success and figured it was worth the hassle of topping up the oil for now. The 2nd gear synchro is a bit balky. Red Line oil helped a lot for a while and then it got worse till I adjusted the clutch cable to declutch earlier. If I do a good job of double clutching in to second it works smoothly (good practice) but at some point, it might be worth replacing that synchro. Then, as I stated, there are some stripped threads in the bell housing that really deserve helicoils.
I've put out feelers on car-part.com (network of salvage yards) for a replacement - actually only for guts since Richard makes some modifications to them for use in Europas - and I've looked around for tranny shops who seem like they might be adventurous (the guy who helped me before doesn't seem to want to go into it again). Hopefully, if it is beyond the outside of the case, I'll be able to get it straightened out.
Anyway, I'll take a look at your suggestions. In the mean time, I welcome any and all comments ans
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Put it in fifth using the shifter and note the linkage position. Disconnect the linkage and put it in fifth manually, different or the same? Moves further engaged? Linkage issue. No difference? Internal issue.
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I saw where John mentioned that 5th gear in a 365 was the first thing to go if the tranny had run too low of oil. Figuring the issue would likely be repeated for on an NG3, I went about trying to find a spare NG3 and replace all the guts or whatever parts I needed to get the thing going again. While I was at it, I might replace all the synchros and seals.
I thought I'd call Richard at Banks to see what he thought and he told me that NG3s will run without oil (for a little while). He had some where the customer didn't put oil in theirs, he drove it for 200 miles and it was seizing up. He unseized or replaced the bearings and it has been running fine ever since!
When I told him of my plans to replace the synchros he said he didn't recommend that because unless you had the serial number for the car, you couldn't determine the correct synchro. Everything might be the same on the old and new one but the face might be a couple of degrees different and it wouldn't shift!
Always an education talking to Richard! I wish I could just hang around his shop and see what goes on there!
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They aren’t going to adjust themselves
In which our hero (maybe I’m somebody’s hero!) adjusts the valves of his engine and hilarity ensues…
The Introduction
I realize that this post will probably not relate to anybody since I am very likely the only one here with a BDA motor but some might find this interesting, instructive, and/or even humorous so I will press on regardless (ok, I stole that from the name of the famous rally).
For those who are not familiar with the BDA motor, it is sort of the next iteration of the Lotus TC motor using the same block (actually, the main and maybe only difference is that the BDA block is taller). Its development in 1968 coincided with the Formula 1 Ford V-8 DFV built for Colin Chapman and in some ways the BDA is half a DFV. The BD stands for Belt Driven and in that way it is not like the DFV which is gear driven. The other way is that the BDA is different is because it was carbureted while the DFV was fuel injected. The BDA is a twin cam, four valve motor and for a street motor of its time, it was pretty advanced. Twin Cam Escorts were having a harder time in rallies and so were phased out as the BDA powered Escort RS1600 went into production in 1970. The RS1600 was very successful in rallies. There are nearly an alphabet’s worth of BD variants differing in displacement, valve sizes, induction (carburetors or fuel injection) and block material (e.g. BDB – BDH, BDJ and on and on. If you’re curious, take a look at this: https://historicmotorsportcentral.com/2014/04/16/the-cosworth-bd-engine/ for more information). These motors were very successful in many racing classes, most interesting to me was SCCA’s Formula B (later called Formula Atlantic) in the mid ‘70s to early ‘80s. The motors used for those cars were generally designated BDD or BDN (though they were often called BDAs) and they produced upwards of 240 bhp at 9500 rpm.
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Part the First – A Quick and Easy Job
Getting back to the subject at hand, I basically have a detuned Formula Atlantic motor. Dave Bean (RIP) built my motor in 1980 from a street BDA head (racing heads had bigger valves) I had acquired. I’ve been trying to learn how to tune the carbs properly and in online conversations, the fact that the valve clearances should be right for an accurate tune came up. My motor has at most 20,000 miles and given the outward appearance and attention to detail, not to mention Dave’s reputation, my valves should be in good shape, but I thought it was useful to at least know what the valve clearances were so I measured them. Well, what I found was a bit disconcerting. All the intake valves were tight. Where the correct clearance was 0.008”, they ranged from 0.006” to 0.003”! Thankfully, the exhaust valves were all good. The correct clearance for them was 0.010” and all were either 0.009” or 0.010”. I have no explanation for the tight intake valves.
It was obvious to me that I needed to adjust my valves whether that helps me in the carb tuning area or not. A bit of description of how this part of the engine goes together might be in order. The head is in three pieces [exploded view of head.jpg]. On the top is the cam cover. Next is the cam carrier. This houses the cams and provides bores in which the cam followers run. The followers are similar to TC followers in that they are a steel “cup” but mine have a post in the middle of the cup [follower.jpg][underside of follower.jpg]. The bottom of the cup (or looked at from another way, the face of the follower) is what the cam rides on. The post inside the cup pushes against the shim that sits on the valve stem. Lastly, is the head itself which has the valves, springs, etc. The valve spring retainers have a built-in “cup” that contains a shim for each valve [spring retainer.jpg]. Those shims [shim.jpg] are what provide the adjustment and are either to be swapped out with the correct thickness shim or the shim is to be ground to the proper size.
The general procedure is to measure the valve lash, take off the cam carrier, measure the shims for each valve, and from that, decide the thickness of the new shims to give the proper clearance. Order them and receive them, put everything back together and drive off into the sunset. How hard can it be? I’ve never worked on a Twin Cam but I thought it could be easier than for a Twin Cam motor because I thought the cam carrier and belt would simplify things. Well, let’s just see how that worked out. This will be good! Consider stopping to pop popcorn here!
To take the cam carrier off the head, you must first take the belt off the cams. For me this means taking off the steering wheel, taking out the seats, and the carpet board on the firewall and opening the door I made in the middle of the firewall for access to the front of the engine. Loosen the adjusting idler and slip the belt off. [cam carrier.jpg] Next, you position magnets on the followers (the best you can since some of the cam lobes will be in the way). I thought the idea was that when you took the cam carrier off, the shims and the followers would all come with it. When I took my cam carrier off, most of the shims stayed in the valve spring retainers but not all. Some of them fell off their follower or dislodged from their spring retainer. In this picture, you can see the head with the shims in the spring retainers [head.jpg] and in this picture, you can see the followers in the cam carrier looking at it from the bottom. [underside of cam carrier with followers.jpg]
Ok! That was fun! Since I didn’t know the thickness of the shims that every valve started with and I might have replaced some of them on the wrong valve, it meant that I had to mark all the shims with their position and thickness, make a note of where I put them, then put everything back together and re-measure the valve clearance to make sure I calculated the proper thickness of the new shims. First I had to at least clean off the bottom of the cam carrier. Then I labeled each shim with which valve I thought it went to and how thick it was and recorded that in my notebook. I also noticed that the face of one of my followers was scarfed up. [scarfed up follower.jpg] The best I could tell is the follower might have gotten stuck in the bore such that it wouldn’t rotate and the edge of the cam dug a feathered pattern toward the edge of the face but that’s just a guess. Regardless what happened, it had to be replaced (are we having fun yet?). I called up Ken Gray at Dave Bean and ordered the shims I needed and a new follower. Well I tried to. The thinnest shim Ken had was way too thick for what I needed. I guess I’ll be sanding or grinding some shims!
Edit: Elsewhere I noted that John Muir had passed but neglected to note that Dave Bean had also.
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Part Deux - New parts and proceeding with the plan
I figured the next valve clearance measurement would be easy. I didn’t have to worry about the position of the cams with respect to anything. Finally, something that should go quickly! Wait a minute, Hoss! The valves and the pistons will at some point interfere with each other if they aren’t in sync. I’m going to have to put the timing belt back on and at least get the cam/crank orientation close. [note: After I put it all back together, I realized I could have put the crankshaft at 90° before or after TDC and all the pistons would be half way up in their cylinders which would give me plenty of room for opening any valves so I could have turned the cams independently of the crank… The things you think of when you don’t need to worry about it anymore!]
I placed the shims where I thought they belonged, lightly greased the followers, as recommended by the manual (I believe this is to ensure good initial lubrication as well as to aid in keeping the follower in the bore of the cam carrier so it doesn’t fall out when putting the cam carrier back on the head). I snugged up the fifteen bolts that hold the cam carrier to the head and then went in the car to put the belt back on. That’s when I realized that with the engine in the car, it is definitely a two man job. From inside the car, it is very difficult to ensure that the timing belt has the proper wrap on all the lower pulleys and impossible to turn the crank when needed. I called my buddy, Dennis T. to help me. He crawled underneath the car to turn the crank when needed and to hold the belt tight against both sides of the crank pulley, and I stayed up top making sure the motor was at TDC for #1 cylinder and the cams were properly aligned and to put the belt on and snug up the idler/adjuster [cam pulleys aligned.jpg].
After measuring a few valves, they seemed to have a wider gap than before. I guess we had to torque the bolts holding the cam carrier to the head (8 – 10 ft-lbs.)! After that we got clearances that were predictably similar to the original clearances. As a matter of fact though, they didn’t measure exactly the same as before (even the valves I was sure had their original shims). The follower is shrouded by the “tube” for the spark plug and a ridge in the casting that helps collect oil around the cam and follower. [cam carrier.jpg] It was peculiar that one feeler gauge would feel loose but the next size up would not go in at all. I took my new measurements as accurate since I felt like I was getting a better feel for it and I had a second set of eyes and hands to back me up. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
A couple of days after I ordered the shims and follower from Dave Bean, I received them! Amazingly quick service and delivery! Thank you Ken! The first thing I noticed is that instead of the flat shims that fit in the valve spring retainer, I got what Ken called lash caps. [lash cap.jpg] They are cups with different thickness “bottoms” that provide the adjustment. They sit on top of the valve stem but unfortunately, the cup is deeper than the distance from the valve keeper to the top of the valve so those didn’t look like what I wanted. Then I took the follower DBE sent me and tried to put it in the bore where the scarfed up follower went and it wouldn’t fit! Hmmm… This freaked me out a little so I decided to order shims and a follower from Burton Power in England. They have a complete line of BDA, TC, and more modern Ford engine parts and go fast racing parts. I figured that Burton being closer to the source, as it were, that their parts might be more accurate. (yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me now either, but I was grasping!) The next day, I ordered some shims and a follower. The shipping cost about what the parts cost but I figured I’d certainly have what I needed. Is a simple valve adjustment starting to sound more complicated and expensive than it should? Yeah, that’s what I thought too!
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The Third Part - Not boring! Or How many Dennises are there?
While I waited for those parts to come, I sanded down the shims I had for my intake valves which were too tight. It wasn’t fun but I think I got them all pretty good. I was also able to swap valve shims around to get the expected gap much closer. Then I talked to Dennis Shaw, my machinist. I should mention that he is a successful race engine builder (he used to build the motors for Team Highball, the Mazda factory IMSA team back in the ‘70s and ‘80s which won the 24 Hours of Daytona four times in a row. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuSvVK6n1V8). He figured he could do something with either the bore or the follower. If he’s going to be machining on the cam carrier, I might as well take the cams out since that would require a proper cleaning job and I didn’t need to pay him for taking the cams out if I could do that myself. Does it sound like adjusting valves has turned into a fur ball yet?
According to the manual, in order to take the cams out of the carrier, you have to take the pulleys off first. I pulled the pulley off the exhaust cam. I saw the keyway in the pulley and the key slot in the cam but I didn’t see a key! In fact, they used a lot of RTV silicon to make sure the oil wouldn’t leak out the front and there was RTV in the key slot in the cam. Now I’m scared! Without some positive way of setting the position of the pulley, I didn’t know how to get the cam timing back where it was! The cam timing spec was specified in terms of the position of full lift – 102° ATDC. Well, with the engine and tranny in the car (and not a convenient way of fixing a degree wheel on the crank, I wasn’t sure I could tell where 102° ATDC was. I thought my only hope was if Dave marked the flywheel for that when he built the motor. That seemed possible but not likely. At this point, I sure as hell didn’t want to take the pulley off the intake cam! I figured I was in enough trouble already! As it turned out, you can take the cams out of the carrier with the pulleys on them. I sure wish I had known that!
In the next day or so, I received the order from Burton Power. I got the shims I wanted so I tried the follower I ordered in the bore and it was too big too! Now, it should be said that oversized followers are available so that if your bore was trashed you could rebore it bigger and use the bigger follower. That’s not what I had. The original bore was 1.200” and the oversized followers are 1.250”. The new ones I had were only several thousandths bigger than 1.200”. I figured that Dennis should be able to enlarge the bore a little for one of my new followers. All this for a valve adjustment?!
I met Dennis a day or so later. I felt confident that he’d be able to do something about the follower and bore and I was hopeful that he’d be able to come up with some way of making sure my cam timing was good. I was a little heartened when talked with him on the phone and he said when he changes the cam timing on motors he builds, he starts with a 4° change since 2° probably wouldn’t make a difference. So if he could help me get in the ballpark, that would be good enough. Maybe using a key would put the cam in that 2° window…
He first worked on the follower bore. After talking about it and measuring things he decided it didn’t make any sense to try to cut a few thousandths from the bore with his mill so he worked on it with a ScotchBrite buffer on an air grinder and a brake cylinder hone on a drill. He got it close and then polished the follower with his crank journal polisher. (A fun fact is that his crank journal polishers are like a big band sander but the abrasive is actually cork!) After a while he got it to feel really nice.
Then, on to degreeing the cams. I told him that at TDC, the cam lobs were essentially 180° opposed to each other. He didn’t believe me. Well, I couldn’t explain it. All I could do was tell him that that’s the way it was and the TC motor was alike in that way. We tried to think of some way of degreeing the cam without taking the tranny off. He noticed that there was a stain (probably caused by the RTV in the key slot of the cam) on the inside of the pulley bore that likely indicated where the key slot on the cam had been. Given the diameter of the bore in the pulley there and the thickness of the stain, we calculated that it was not just a couple of degrees different from using a key but eight or ten degrees different so just putting a key in the cam and mating the pulley to the cam was not going to work. At this point, it was looking like unless Dave marked the cam timing degree (102° ATDC) on the flywheel, I would have to take the tranny out of the car and mark it myself. Marking the flywheel wouldn’t be that difficult (measure the circumference of the flywheel, divide by 360 multiply by 102 and measure that distance from TDC and Bob’s your uncle!) but while I’ve taken the tranny out several times, it is a huge pain! When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s difficult to remember that the initial objective was to drain the swamp! It seemed like there was a new alligator every time I turned around!
While I was trying to figure out my next move, Dennis was looking at my cam and cam carrier. He had suggested there should be some witness marks on the cam and carrier from the build but so far we hadn’t seen them. Then he saw them! There was a scribe mark on the cam that lined up with a scribe mark on inside of the cam carrier. [cam TDC scribe mark.jpg] There are painted marks on the front and back of the pulleys for external reference to TDC and when those scribe marks were lined up on the intake cam (which still had its pulley), that pulley was oriented to TDC (as noted by the paint marks). Also the lobes of the cam were about 180° degrees opposed to each other as I remembered! The mystery was solved! Finally things are starting to work out!
I’m working on documentation for my car and made a note to include a mention of those witness marks in it. When I got home, I looked at what I had already put in my document:
“Cam timing
From front, the yellow lines (on the pulleys) should fall onto the line formed by the cam axes at TDC. From the rear, the yellow lines (on the pulleys) align with the cam box top surface on the outside. Inside, there are scribe lines on rear of #1 cam bearing (top) and corresponding marks on cams. All at TDC.”
That was a quote from the letter Dave Bean sent me with the motor. I guess I could have saved myself a lot of worrying if I had thought to read my own documentation but what fun would that have been? So now, I just need to clean up the cam carrier really well and assemble it on the motor.
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The Fourth – But not of July
After Dennis’ fooling around with the cam carrier, it was important to give it a good cleaning. Since I don’t have a good parts washer (that might be rectified sooner rather than later), I took the cam carrier and cams to my buddy, Dennis T.’s, house and washed it all down really well, bagged it up and brought it home. Dennis was anxious to help me with it (he really had no idea what he was getting involved with but I wasn’t going to tell him!) so the next day, he came over to help me with everything. Before we got started, I retorqued the head. This is something that I would normally do after a thousand or so miles but because the head bolts were under the cam carrier, it was never done. Then I mic’ed all the shims one more time to make double dog sure what shims I had and where they were. [head.jpg]
The plan was to assemble the head, then install the timing belt and the exhaust pulley in preparation for a final check of valve clearances. Since one of the followers was new, it was likely that that valve may need further adjustment. Since the exhaust cam pulley was off, we locked both cams at TDC (from the scribe marks on the cams and cam carrier) with lock pliers (the crank was already at TDC). The idea was to put the exhaust cam pulley on the cam, but loose, then put the belt around all the pulleys, adjusting the exhaust cam pulley so that the TDC marks were relatively accurate and tighten bolt on the pulley to the cam. My main concern was that the two pulleys not only be as close to their TDC position as possible but also that the two cam pulley’s be “in sync” so the cogs in the belt would mesh properly with both pulleys. Conceivably, their marks could line up pretty closely but the cogs in the belt might not mesh properly on both pulleys putting stress on the cogs on the belt (thinking about it after the fact, that is a silly worry but without sufficient experience, paranoia can set in). In the two previous times I fooled with the timing belt, if the belt was wrapped properly on the crank and jackshaft pulleys, there was enough slack to slip the belt on without trouble. Not this time! Seemingly, no matter what we did to ensure there was no slack in the belt, we couldn’t get it over all the pulleys. Finally I took pulley all the way off the exhaust cam, wrapped the belt around all the pulleys and then by tightening the bolt holding the pulley on. That did work and was close enough to be sure there would be no meeting of any valves and pistons and we could measure the valve clearances again. Thankfully, measuring the valve lash happens pretty quickly when you have a friend under the car turning the engine! There were only about seven valves that were off at all. Two of them were off 0.001” and five were off 0.002”. We took the cam carrier off again and the two of us sanded shims to get them the proper thickness. I wouldn’t have bothered with the ones that were only 0.001” off but since they were all exposed anyway, I took care of them. The two of us made pretty quick work of the shim sanding and we went back, put the shims over the proper valves and reassembled the cam carrier to the head. We finally put some gasket goo on the joint between the cam carrier and the head and torqued it down on the head. We made sure the crank, the distributor, and the cams were all at TDC and then went to put the belt on. It was not cooperating again. We finally got it on by moving the exhaust cam a little. I should note that this was all made a bit more difficult because we had to be careful when turning a cam counter clockwise. Because the best way to turn the cam is by the bolt at the pulley and that bolt would loosen if you turned it counter clockwise. Sometimes we had to turn the cam with lock pliers. We spun the engine once and the belt seemed to settle in properly. All our marks were in the right place and the distributor was off only a little but I was going to time the engine anyway so close was good enough. The saying, “close enough for government work” comes to mind.
The next day I couldn’t shake the fear that a pulley might actually being a tiny bit off so that when the engine ran for a bit, it would shred the cogs off the belt (the paranoia of inexperience!). I got under the car, turned crank around one more time again and monitored the pulleys and tested the belt tension one more time. Everything looked good so I continued putting the rest of the motor together. As a mental check it might be useful to remind you in case you forgot that the original objective was just to adjust the valves!
I finally collected all the tools I had out and put the car on the floor of the garage. I cranked it a few times and it didn’t seem to want to start. A couple of times it popped out of the #1 carb. I thought it should at least try to start but I wasn’t concerned because I figured the timing must have moved than I thought when I was monkeying with the belt. I had intentionally left the seats, carpet board, and door to the engine compartment out in case I saw something that needed my attention. The truth is that I wished that I had a second pair of eyes but I was alone. While I cranked the engine, I turned around to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be but the belts looked like they were trying to walk off of the cam pulleys! I rechecked all the belt runs I could see from inside the car and everything looked good. I slackened the belt and pushed it further back on the pulleys and tried it again… The same thing! I slackened the belt again and monkeyed with it some more… The same thing! I took the adjustment idler off again and noticed there was a spacer behind it. I took the spacer off and noticed that there was a relief in the spacer that even though it looked like it should fit on a shoulder on a bearing of the idler, it didn’t. It HAD to fit in there. There was no other reason for those two parts to be made like that. Besides, if they didn’t fit correctly, the adjustment idler would get a little cocked on the spacer and that must be what was causing the belt to walk off the pulleys. In fact, it was probably what was causing the problems putting the belt on before, too! I cleaned both spacer relief and the shoulder on the idler, filed and sanded any rough spots but it was as though they were both the same diameter. I finally chucked a small grinding wheel in my Dremel tool, set it for the slowest speed and opened up the relief in the spacer till it slid in. I put the belt back on and adjusted it and the belt seemed to stay where it belonged! I learned that it was possible for me to pretty much change the belt by myself! I also learned that sometimes turning the motor 360° by hand doesn’t necessarily tell you everything you want to know. And finally I learned that this is a hell of a way to adjust valve clearances!
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The Fifth Chapter – A Compleat Idiot Shouldn’t Rely on the Past
Now I had to statically time the ignition since the ignition was apparently off more than I thought. Dave Bean also included instructions for setting the ignition timing starting setting it statically with a spark plug and then setting it dynamically at 6000 rpm (You TC owners should note that the manual recommends you time your motor statically). Actually, looking at the RS1600 manual, the advance isn’t finished coming in till 6500 rpm! [distributor curve.jpg] It is impossible to put a wrench on the distributor locking bolt with air filters on the carbs and after I took them off, it still wasn’t easy! I guess that’s what happens when you take a pushrod motor and turn it into a twin cam cross flow motor. The distributor that was easily accessible when it was a pushrod motor is now buried under the carbs and I had the added complication of fuel , oil pressure, and dry sump oil plumbing.
An age ago, when I first started wrenching, I learned how to statically time the engine of my VW bug from reading How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot (“Compleat” is not misspelled! Look it up.). The author, John Muir (RIP), explains how to statically time your motor with a test light: With the ignition on, you set the motor a little before TDC on cylinder #1, hook up the test light between a low tension terminal of the coil and ground, back up the distributor (turned it counter clockwise), and slowly turned it clockwise till the light comes on. So that’s what I did. There, it should at least start.
It didn’t. It didn’t even try! As before, it popped a time or two out of the #1 carburetor but that was all. I rechecked everything. I put a long screwdriver in #1 cylinder, I took off the cam cover, all the marks were right. Could it be that my test light was lighting because one of the other plugs were firing and not #1? I pulled out all the spark plugs and grounded a plug in the connector for #4 and retested the timing and the plug sparked! It was 180° off! It turns out that using a spark plug rather than a test light is a better idea.
I took off the carbs to get good access to the distributor and pulled the distributor out and re-aligned it (I had a picture of the orientation of the distributor and the rotor that I took at the beginning of this adventure!). After putting the carbs back on, I was able to get the motor to run after a fashion. The next day, I was able to get it timed dynamically with the help of my buddy, Dennis T. It still needed some work but it will make noise on its own now. The valve adjustment is finally over! My goodness that was a huge ordeal! I’m glad I won’t have to worry about that for a long time!
I took a short drive over to Dennis T.’s house to give him a ride. It sounded like there was at least one very loose valve. Loose is better than tight but I didn’t spend all that time to have it sound worse. Dennis is an MG guy and he wasn’t too worried about the clattering but I just couldn’t get used to it. I was WAY too annoying (which also meant loud) to me! This was REALLY bewildering! I don’t know what could be the problem since I had taken the cam carrier off, measured valve clearances, and reassembled it multiple times before the final assembly so there was nothing new about any of it. It all seemed to go together as it should. We last measured it before we did the final adjustments – when we sanded the shims the 0.001” and 0.002” I described above. We didn’t measure after that because we had just finished measuring and what could change? When I got back I took off the cam carrier to see what was going on.
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Lap Six – Once More With Feeling!
One of the valve spring retainers looked like it had been sprayed with metal flakes and the rim of the opening where the shim goes was chewed up a bit. The only reason for that was that the shim must have gotten dislodged in the retainer and it chewed the “mouth” of the retainer “cup”. [where it all started again.jpg] There was also a little distress on the follower. [possibly damaged follower.jpg] It didn’t look bad but I didn’t know of any way to be sure. I called up Dennis Shaw to see what he thought. The pictures I sent him and my descriptions weren’t enough for him to make an accurate assessment. I REALLY didn’t want to take the head off but in the end, he thought it made sense to make sure that the keepers and the valve were in good shape. Taking the head off would be nothing compared to what I’d have to do if I dropped a valve! (Ok, so adjusting valves could possibly end up in a possible dropped valve?! That sounds so wrong!)
My main concern with taking the head off was the mess involved with draining the water. That actually went well. After that, it was a pretty simple job taking it off. Thank God something in this process was easier than I thought! [headless.jpg]
Since I had gone this far and I had a spare, I thought it made sense to replace the follower that had gotten beat up. The follower was oversized from the stock dimensions by about 0.008” in diameter so the bore would have to be enlarged. Boring out that follower bore really required that the cam carrier be disassembled, and now that I knew about the cam timing scribe marks, I was much more comfortable taking both cams out so there was no worry about metal shavings lodging themselves in the cam carrier. Ok, I was more comfortable than if I had never done it but I really didn’t intend to be so comfortable with it!
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Book Seven – There Is at Least one First Time for Everything!
I took the head, the cam carrier, and the spare follower to Dennis Shaw’s shop. I am super impressed with Dennis. The first thing he did when he looked at my head was ensure that it was flat. I had no reason to expect it not to be but I still held my breath throughout that! Then he took the head over to the spring compressor stand he has. He had a little trouble getting the valve spring retainer off the keepers and spring. That was troubling to him. The valve did not fall freely out the guide but was stuck a little. That was troubling to him too. He chucked the valve in his valve grinding machine at different points on the stem to see if he could determine if it was bent. He thought he detected a very slight bend. He took another valve out. It fell freely. When he compared the two valves, they really weren’t that different. He polished the valve stem a little and honed the valve guide and in a little while he was satisfied the valve fit with the guide was good. He inspected the keepers and how their fit in the groove of the valve felt. There was no perceptible difference between a known good valve and the one that was in question. He lightly ground the end of the valve stem of the valve in question to make sure that the end was flat and perpendicular to the axis of the stem and then lightly lapped the valve.
Next he machined the spring retainer that had gotten chewed up to clean it up – a simple operation – and he reassembled the head. I didn’t need any new parts! Good news and I was ready for some good news!
Then, on to boring the cam carrier for the new follower… This was really interesting! I figured he would chuck the cam carrier in a tilting fixture that had a graduated angle adjustment. Adjust the angle to the proper angle and bore the follower bore to the proper diameter and voilà, we’d be done. Well, not so fast!
After he adjusted the tilting fixture to the “proper” angle, he chucked a dial indicator in his mill and ran the probe up and down the wall of the bore first on the “outside” and “inside” wall (the outside wall is the furthest from vertex of the angle of the carrier and the inside is closest to the vertex). He adjusted the tilt of his fixture and rechecked the walls with the dial indicator till there was minimal variation the length of the bore. The bore turned out not to be completely round or exactly the right angle. Not only was there some wear (I probably put 15,000 miles or a bit more on it but I had no idea how many miles were on it when I got it) and I figure the machining tolerances in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s weren’t that good so Dennis probably got it closer to spec than the factory.
Then he chucked a boring bar in the mill head. This is where he volunteered that he had never done this before! Well, I suppose there’s a first time for everything. As unsettling as that admission was, I felt I was in good hands given all the race engines Dennis had built over many years. There have certainly been a lot of things I’ve done for the first time in this adventure and even though he didn’t have any experience with a BDA, I didn’t know a better person to get me through them.
Dennis continued to be extremely careful and precise. Each pass of the boring bar took off only a couple of thousandths of material and as he got closer to the size he wanted (0.0015” larger in diameter than the follower) he test fit the follower after each pass. Finally the follower almost fit. Then he announced he was going to take a second cut at the same diameter. I thought that maybe the aluminum might have some spring to it but he said there was the flex in the boring bar that would likely open the bore a minute amount (It was about ½” of steel that was about four inches long. It would take a lot to bend that even a little!)! Keep in mind that he was making very small cuts in relatively soft aluminum! He took the cut and the follower fit perfectly!
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Crazy Eights – A Coming Together
With all that taken care of, I went home to put the cam carrier together. During this process, I finally broke down and bought a parts washer so I was able to clean the head, cam carrier, and all the other parts at home before assembling them on the engine.
I got a new head gasket and before I cleaned off the top of the block, I sucked all the oil I could out of the holes for the head bolts. I didn’t want to tighten them up against any hydraulic pressure. I carefully cleaned off the top of the block so junk doesn’t fall into any part of the engine. I positioned that gasket and lowered the head on it as straightly as I could. There were no aligning pins and the head is fixed to the block with bolts so I tried to make sure the gasket was lined up properly by peering down the head bolt holes in the head, putting an aligning punch down some of the bolt holes and twirling it around. Even at all that, some of the head bolts had to be screwed through the gasket. I found out later that using aligning studs were the preferred method! I’ll remember that for next time! :)
When torqueing the head bolts, some of them did not tighten smoothly so I retorqued them all several times. I put the appropriate shims on valves. I estimated the shim for the valve that initiated this latest chapter of this saga. Since Dennis had to work on that valve including grinding the end of stem and there was a new follower for that valve, it was unlikely to take the same shim that I calculated the first time. I felt pretty confident that I was on the home stretch of this project but I still couldn’t help but wonder if this was a light at the end of the tunnel or the light from a train coming at me?
I called my buddy Dennis T. to come to help me with the rest of assembly. When he came over, we tried to think of what had caused that shim to become dislodged. We didn’t come up with any answers but we thought using grease on the followers was enough to hold the followers in the cam carrier. In all the stuff we did the last time we bolted the carrier on the head, I wasn’t sure if we also used magnets but we figured that if we had, they may have contributed to some movement of that shim. We decided we would rely on the grease to hold the followers in the cam carrier. The other thing we were going to is check the valve gaps after the final assembly to make sure that if something did happen, we would find it before we started the motor.
I won’t bore you with our next steps any more than I feel necessary. Dennis and I basically ran through the procedure I described at the beginning of this story (bolting the carrier on, measuring the valve gaps, calculating the required shim thicknesses, inserting the proper shims, reassembly, measure gaps again.). Then we checked the adjustment again after we fitted the cam carrier for the last time with gasket goo. They were all within two thousandths and only a couple was off that far. After static timing the distributor, we fired it up and set the timing dynamically at about 6000 rpm. The motor sounded a noticeably better than I remember it sounding before. Besides sounding better, I found that I was able to balance the carbs a lot closer than before. After all that work, at least there were some tangible benefits!
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Epilogue
The valve adjustment saga is over! It took a lot longer than I expected and I tried to over-estimate the time required. In the middle of this adventure, I checked into how similar modern motors handle valve adjustment. Since the Toyota 4AGE motor took over for the BDA in Formula Atlantic racing, I thought that might be an interesting comparison. It turns out that in the Toyota motor, the shim sits in a pocket on the top of the follower and the cam rides on the shim. All that is required is to compress the valve spring a bit pushing the follower lower, take out the wrong sized shim that is sitting between the cam and the follower and exchange it with the proper sized shim. This seems like an obvious way of doing it but it's really not that obvious. Usually valve tappets or followers actually have a slightly convex surface that the cam rides on. Along with that, the cam is ground with a slight taper. Those two things cause the tappet or follower to rotate reducing the wear on both the tappet or follower and the cam. If the cam rides on a flat shim, that situation is no longer present (unless the shim has both a flat and a convex side which seems highly unlikely) so it would appear that the cam would ride on the same part of the shim continually. It is apparently not a problem but I'm not sure why. Possibly the hardness of the shim and cam is enough to keep wear in line and maybe modern oils contribute to that too. I asked Dennis Shaw about that. He said that the 4AGE's method of valve adjustment was not uncommon for street engines but for racing engines, the BDA method was preferred. He explained that if you floated a valve, the cam could spit the shim out of the pocket of the follower and you'd be in a world of hurt.
It took me months and the help of a friend and a machinist to adjust my valves and I'm trying to figure out just what is so bad about rocker arms!! My BDA is certainly much more race bred than many motors. Its relationship to the DFV is a bit closer than I previously thought and while that has its advantages, it also has its disadvantages (changing valve clearances being primary!). It's tempting to compare it to modern motors, but that's unfair; just as it's unfair to compare the TC to modern motors. I think it's even unfair to compare my motor to the TC, thought that is a more apt comparison. Those motors were designed in the' 60s. That was a long time ago and things have changed a lot since then! For example, my old 2005 Mercedes Benz C230 has a supercharged 1.8 liter four valve DOHC engine. It has about 120,000 miles on it and I've never even thought of adjusting the valves! That's what hydraulic lifters will do for you! But as much of a hassle this has been, I think it's something to embrace. Most of us want to have a bit more familiarity with our cars than the average person. Ok, I may have more familiarity than I had bargained for but for me, it's all part of owning a classic car that is a continual project. I'm retired and there's no other project I'd prefer to work on! Maybe one day I'll be the "Compleat Idiot" John Muir inspired me to be so long ago!
Acknowledgements
EuropaTC and literarymadness for their support and insights for this faux tome
Dennis Shaw for his advice and machining skill
Dennis T. for his advice, support, and touch with the 3/8" torque wrench
Edit: fixed literarymadness's name
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And lots of fun was had by all :-) Glad it ended well.
- Thank you for supporting my maxim that every carb adjust starts with checking the valve clearances first!
- Putting the pistons at 90° and turning the cams is still not a good idea. Yes the valves won't hit a piston but the valves may hit each other. You can only do it if you remove one cam while working on the other. Not practical in a BDA. Works in a TC though. I still prefer the method you followed.
- Don't use magnets to hold things in place. Aside of the troubles you encountered, it can permanently magnetize the part which will then attract filings and increase wear.
- Good point about the larger shims getting spit out at high rpms. Believe me, it happens. They are also heavier and add unwanted valve train weight.
- In the "aw-heck-that's-nothing" category, on an Aston Martin 6, you adjust the valves by trimming the valve end or swapping in a larger follower. That means most valve adjusts require head removal! Many shops now modify them to take Jag shims pretty much like your BDA set-up.
- Finally, if you don't make a mistake, you never learn anything.
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Thanks, JB!
Good point about the valves possibly hitting each other. I hadn’t considered that! I’m even gladder that I decided not to try it!
Magnets are essential when pulling the cam carrier off otherwise the followers are likely to fall out. That would likely be a mess. At least, the RS1600 manual says to use them and I figure that’s the reason. As I found out, that’s the only time magnets should be used. An old racing buddy who owns a few Formula B and Atlantic cars told me he uses a spring contraption he thought Cosworth designed for holding the followers up. I have no idea how it would work. He never sent me a picture of it.
“Finally, if you don’t make a mistake, you never learn anything.”
I totally agree! We rarely examine our successes like we do our failures. I learned a lot throughout this whole adventure!
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:)
time for a :BEER3: ?
Brian
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Indeed! :BEER3:
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Cosworth did make a sort of u shaped finger spring that fit between a pair of followers to hold all 16 in place for assembly and disassembly. 8 were required. I raced a Brabham BT38 with BDD may years ago. The BDA was advanced for its time, but the follower bores were short especially for big cams and were very susceptible to wear and breakage.
Years later I raced a SwiftDB4 with Toyota 4AGE. The Toyota was a lot more reliable and assembly was easier.
Hats off to you for working thru all the BDA issues.
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Thanks, Swift! If you still have that spring tool for followers, I'd love to see a picture of it and maybe where to get them. I hope never to need them but one never knows.
Through my process, I came to the realization that the follower bores was a weak point. Whether by intention or common practice at the time, the BD engines seem to be designed more for performance than longevity. I guess it really is a good thing that replacement standard size followers are actually oversized and that there is also a real oversized follower after that. Do you know if anybody tried lining the bores with steel?
I can well believe the 4AGE was a lot more reliable and simpler!
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Thanks to modern micro sensors, there is an easy way to measure degrees of rotation:
https://scooterlab.uk/product/the-buzzwangle/
There are other versions out there as well. It has a magnetic base so it would hold to the TC crank nut/bolt. Find true TDC using a piston stop and then simply turn until it reads the degrees of rotation you are after. Really, really simple to use.
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That's really cool! I should have thought of that since I used the same electronic level to make a camber/caster gauge.
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As you read this, keep in mind the title of this thread, "Never a Straight Line".
Elsewhere, I recently asked what your favorite shocks were. I had SPAX that I either bought when I first started building my car (middle '80s) or before I put her on the road in '90. I really didn't want to admit it to anyone but my car had never really felt like a Lotus should to me since I built it. It required a lot of attention on the highway and twisty roads were not nearly as fun as they should have been - in fact, they could be harrowing if I pushed it. Also elsewhere, I traced my experimentation with shock adjustment with minor improvement. I finally got a reasonably authoritative word from SPAX about what shocks I had and how many clicks of adjustment I had: they were probably 40 years old and could have either 8 or 16 clicks of adjustment (not very definitive!). It seemed likely that even though there was only about 20,000 miles on those shocks, they might be the cause of problems and at the very least, I felt I needed to know what I had.
After the feedback about shocks, I chose Protech. It wasn't an easy decision and I would guess that AVO would be as good. I ordered them from SJS. When I got them (after $60 of shipping by DHL), they were beautiful!
I started installing springs on them and I noticed that one of the rear shocks was much softer than the other. I emailed SJS and told Steve. He got back to me that I should adjust the softer shock to be like the stiffer one and then reset the knob so that it was now at the same position as the stiffer shock. That didn't really make sense to me because that seemed to imply that there were infinite or at least twice as many adjustment clicks as advertised (13). I tried to quantify the difference between the two shocks by chucking the shock in a vice, extending it, putting a 20 lb weight on the top and timing how long it took to compress. The time difference was very different. I stiffened the softer shock all the way and it was still softer in my test. At this point I decided to call Protech.
They knew about me from Steve. The tech there said to do the same test but for extension. I had similar results and in fact there was a difference with the front shocks too. After a few more tests and calls to Protech, they said to send them in. They would check them out and send me dyno sheets on them when they returned them. I packed them up and took them to a DHL shipper and the bill was almost $300! I don't understand why it was about $60 to send them to me but almost $300 to send them back!? I probably should have stopped there and called Protech about that but I just sent them. I emailed them the tracking number and a request for some help with part of the shipping costs understanding that that really wasn't part of the deal.
After four or five days, I emailed them for an update and again asked if they could help me out with some of the shipping costs. The tech wrote back and apologized saying they had gotten really busy and would be sending my shocks to me the next day. He didn't mention anything about being able to help me with the shipping. I got them a couple of days earlier than DHL estimated. The dyno sheets were interesting. If you research shock dyno sheet, you'll find there are several kinds (here's one description: http://edge.rit.edu/edge/P16221/public/Problem%20Definition%20Documents/Reference%20Documents/guide_to_dyno_graphs.pdf). The sheets they sent me were pretty basic (see attached). There is a sheet for the fronts and the rears and I think the main idea was that the fronts and the rears were very similar. In fact, they are all similar! That was a bit surprising to me. I called them and told them I got the shocks. I thanked them for their service - I have absolutely no complaints about their service - in fact, I thought it was excellent - and I asked a few questions about what was wrong. Apparently, some dirt or something got on the shims during assembly. They were happy with them so I was too. The work and shipping back to me was on them. I thanked them again and he said it was the least they could do. Well, I couldn't disagree with that but at the same time, I didn't feel I had any grounds to complain. After all, I got new shocks with their dyno sheets. How many people get that?
I put the stiffer springs on them (250/130). I thought I'd try them first since they did not require being taken off the old shocks. Then I put them on the car. The rears required a bit of fitting - the upper bushes were a little too wide for the mounting ears on my car so I had to file them about 1/8". The top eye on the shocks were a bit taller and were fouling the bolts that attaches the front of the body to the frame 'T' so I filed the bolts down. I didn't want to file on my beautiful shocks (they really probably too pretty to put under a car)! The rest actually went without a hitch. Normally I get a helper to push the upper pivot pins in but I was able to do that by myself without much effort. I finished checking and tightening everything, put her on the floor and was ready for a test drive tomorrow.
Tomorrow is today and I went for a test drive. WOW!! It was immediately more stable - even at slow speeds you could tell the difference. It was more like the car I remember back when it was new - only with more grip! I went on a twisty road that I had used to test shock settings. I got up to 60 mph through the turns but it was nail-biting. I carved through those turns at 60 with ease. The stability and grip was amazing! I had a new car!!
I realized that for whatever reason, since I had built the car, I had been driving on either shocks that were set too stiff or that were completely worn out. It wasn't that long ago that I learned anything about shock tuning. When I took the springs of my SPAX shocks, I could pretty easily compress and extend them in fairly quick succession. They were certainly done.
So far, I love these Protech shocks! They were REALLY expensive when you consider the shipping. If I had it to do over again, I might decide to buy shocks locally and then deal with the seller if they seemed off but they are all made in the UK and I might have ended up in the same place anyway. A retailer like DBE or r.d. might have exchanged them but they might also have referred me to the supplier.
So my story has a happy ending! I'm so happy, I can even easily look past the cost of shipping my shocks back to England! I think what happened to me could have happened to anybody regardless of who made the shocks. It just had to happen to me! :( I have no reason to expect that it would happen again if I bought another set of Protech shocks.
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Well, this is an old thread that I've used in the past to chronicle some of my adventures in wrenching on my car. I probably could be more religious about using and updating it but...
I had planned to write this post after my latest adventure but things aren't going as smoothly or as quickly as I would have liked so I'll try to remember everything up to this point and then update as events warrant.
The latest adventure is rebuilding my tranny (NG3). I was having trouble getting into 1st gear all of a sudden. The linkage and clutch cable adjustment all seemed to check out. Also, I had no problem with other gears. I called Michel at Alpine-America (https://www.alpine-america.qc.ca/) and he immediately said the 1st gear synchro was the issue. I had been planning on rebuilding the tranny at some point and I had about two and a half months before the LOG in Knoxville which I had already signed up for so with the help of my next door neighbor's son, we pulled the tranny out.
It might be useful to note upfront that I am not taking out shift forks, except for the 5th gear which comes out with the end cover, nor am I opening up the diff.
After getting the tranny on a workbench, I opened it up and everything looked good. There was nothing alarming in the oil when I drained it and there were no chipped teeth (I didn't expect any but I was still glad to see that!). The Secondary shaft is the one that is the most work. I tried to take pictures of everything but I know the truth is that there will always be that view that I didn't take a picture of that I wish I had.
TIP #1: take pictures of everything (including several views of the same picture). Some parts are in groups (synchros, sliding gears, gears, springs, etc.). Try to take a picture of how each individual piece fits with the others. Be careful because some of the synchros have spring loaded rollers (in my case) and they can fly away or at the least get dislodged before you get a chance to take a picture of how they are supposed to go. It happened to me but luckily reading the (crappy) manual and thinking and staring at it for a while, I figured how how it goes back together.
As I took things apart, I grouped each "logical" part of the stack with a zip tie to keep them together and to keep them in their relative orientation. The next thing I did was get some cheap plastic tubs to put each group in after I cleaned them. Each tub had a label with what is in it.
WARNING: When you are cleaning things, you naturally flip them around and after a while, it might not be obvious what the original orientation was anymore (at least if you're a skatterbrained as I am). I don't really have an answer for this but one thing that might have worked is to clean the parts while they were still tie-wrapped together and then promise to clean and dry them one more time just before assembly. While most everything in the stack of stuff on the secondary shaft has only one orientation and most of them are obvious, it's still a worry that I have that I'll put something in upside down and won't find out till it won't shift or worse, won't take power or something (my mind conjures up the worst scenarios - especially for something I've never done before).
TIP #2: I've sort of mentioned this already but label everything. I punched a hole in a piece of paper and threaded a tie-wrap through it and onto the part or group of parts. I kept detent springs, balls, and plugs in a small zip lock bag with a label. (At this point, the irony of my suggesting any organizing techniques to anybody has finally struck me!)
The next step was getting replacement parts. I had already got a set of synchros from Michel at Alpine-America BUT, there are two different sets of synchros for the NG3 and how do you know which set you need? Well by the VIN of the car your tranny came out of!! Of course, there was no way I could know that so when I ordered my synchros a couple of years ago, I sent Michel the suffix number on the tag of my tranny. Now that I am about to really need to worry about them, I called Michel and he said he sent me the more common of the two sets. He also said that the 1 & 2 synchros were the same for all NG3 boxes but the 3, 4, & 5 synchros were the ones that were different. I test fitted my synchros with the hubs and they all seemed to fit well but the new synchros had a few thou smaller gap to the hub (stood a little higher in the hub) and the old synchro gripped a bit better than the new synchros. I tried to measure the height, OD at the top, and OD at the bottom of the synchros and as best I could tell, the new ones matched the dimensions of the old synchros. I asked Michel about this and he said I have the correct synchros and that the new ones will grip better after some use. Getting the right synchros may not be a problem for other boxes (336, 352, 365, etc.).
Next was bearings. The first thing I noted was that most of the bearings didn't have any identification stamped on them. For those you'll need some dimensions: ID of the inner race (i.e. shaft diameter), The OD of the outer race, the width of the bearing (this usually means the total width of the bearing at the widest part). You'll obviously need to know what kind of bearing it is (tapered roller, double tapered roller, ball bearing, double ball bearing, etc.). Then you'll notice that there are two bearings that are roller bearings that don't have inner races. The inner races are machined into the shafts. On my NG3, the outer race has a groove for a positioning ring to position the bearing in the case. The location of that ring can be different from one model to another. The diameter of the "inner race" on the shaft can also be different from one model to another. Hmm... This might be a problem.
Remembering when Certified Lotus rebuilt his tranny (https://www.lotuseuropa.org/LotusForum/index.php?topic=1704.msg21940#msg21940 and https://www.lotuseuropa.org/LotusForum/index.php?topic=1704.msg22243#msg22243) he got his bearings at 123Bearing (https://www.123bearing.com/). I went to their website, which is very good by the way, and found most of the bearings and seals I needed. I did not find any bearings without an inner race. Those are apparently Renault specific. One thing I was disappointed about was that they didn't have "sets" of bearings, for example all the bearings they have for an NG3, or a 352, etc., but that was minor matter. They have a "mail contact" link at the bottom of the home page at least and you should not be afraid to use it. They are very responsive. They also had all the seals I needed. Their shipping is pretty good in spite of the fact that they are in France.
123Bearing is not the only source you should look at. I was referred to Renault16Shop (https://www.renault16shop.com/). They are in Holland and probably more useful for the older boxes. For example, I just did a search for 336 and got lots of hits for those trannies. They also sell some general purpose bearings. For example, the NG3 uses two bearings that are the same except for their shaft diameter. I got the common one at 123Bearing but Renault16Shop had the less common one for a lot less. They even have those Renault specific bearings... but not for an NG3. Several (all?) Renault boxes have very similar general designs and so they used similar bearings without inner races. Unfortunately, Renault16Shop did not have mine but they are more likely to have them for some of the other boxes. They are also VERY responsive. I have emailed them many times about different things and have always gotten a quick substantive reply. If you are looking for NG3 parts, be careful as they do list some transaxle parts for a Fuego but they did not have any NG3 specific parts so they probably have the parts for an NG0, NG1.
While Renault16Shop caters to some of the older Renault cars, I was unable to find a similar company that catered to Fuegos (at least at the level of transaxle parts) in spite of the fact that they are more current and were well received when they were in production.
I've been talking to Michel at Alpine-America and he thinks he can get those bearings. So far I haven't heard if he can.
There is a spring connected to a cross shaft, which has the shift "finger" on it, in the end cover. The spring helps center the shift lever. Somehow, mine got mangled and I cut it up to get my cross shaft out so I need to replace mine. The spring is listed on Lotus Supplies's website. I have called them (always getting voice mail and never replying to my messages) and I've emailed requesting the availability of that spring as well as some other parts so I can order them but have gotten only occasional replies to my emails and none about parts availability. I am beyond disappointed in their response especially after I have bought so much from Richard over the years with no problems at all. I'm hopeful that Michel will be able to supply those parts.
While Michel is much more responsive than Lotus Supplies, he's not as good as he might be either. His French accent is so thick that it is difficult to understand all that he says. I just called him about my bearings and I'm pretty sure he said that it is rare to change the Renault specific bearings I'm interested in.
TIP #3: When emailing Michel at Alpine-America, unless you speak French, include both English and French translations of your note in your email.
So that's pretty much where I am at the moment. I can't start to assemble the box till I either get those Renault specific bearings or give up on getting them.
To be continued. Stay tuned!
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That's quite a saga. Transaxle issues is the one thing that really scares me about Europa ownership. Though my 365 is working well (as well as they do, anyway), I have been considering sending it off to Michel in the next year or two for an internal inspection, etc. Nip any potentially expensive problems in the bud.
Regarding your bearing, inspect it and the inner race (shaft journal) closely with magnification. If it exhibits no significant spalling or pitting, it should be good for service. Roller bearings elements have pretty decent contact area (compared to ball bearings), so if their lubrication has been kept clean, they will likely be in good shape. In the transmission, the loads are largely radial, which also bodes well for long bearing life when in the presence of clean lubrication. Nonetheless, I fully understand the desire to throw new bits at it while it is apart.
Good luck. Watching with interest.
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I didn't talk about all the looking for those Renault bearings in my post! I even tried to get ahold of a Renault dealer in England but they wouldn't answer me, I searched for Fuego specialists online, I joined a Fuego forum that JB recommended hoping someone knowledgeable would reply to my post - nothing. The irony in all of this is that I replaced my 365 with an NG3 because I figured the support for it would be better. I'm starting to think that that was a mistake!
What I also didn't mention is that when I got a $150 price on a double tapered roller bearing that goes on the secondary shaft, I wondered did it really make sense to replace all the bearings on a car that was likely not to get a whole lot of miles on it. Would these bearings be good enough for another 100,000 miles or would I have to try to do this again in 50,000 miles? I asked a buddy who knows about trannies (and engines) about them, his comment was the general rule that if you are questioning it, you should go ahead and replace them. Well, I agreed with that, I also wanted a more informed opinion. With one of the bearings costing $150, I thought I was probably looking at $600 just in bearings! So I went to see him at work (he works for a really great restoration shop (https://roadscholars.com/). He was building a 4-cam type 547 Porsche engine with a roller crank which is a really complex task - he said because the cams are gear driven with no lash, it can take three days to get the cam timing right! He took a look at my bearing and said he would replace it and that it was probably making noise already but I couldn't hear it. That convinced me to change them all. It also turned out that the other bearings were a LOT less than that one so the $600 estimate was way heavy. Here's a 4 cam motor that was on BaT (https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1955-porsche-4-cam-carerra/)
The opposite side of this is that in my experience, manual transmissions generally last a LONG time as long as you don't abuse them and you keep oil in them. Of course, I don't know the history of my gearbox (and I'm tired of cleaning drip pans from the leaks!)
It's not financially feasible for me to replace the primary and secondary shafts (with the races for those Renault specific bearings) so the next best thing is to replace the bearings. The outer races of those bearings are pretty much like the races on all the other bearings. They have a "cloudy" appearance with small (the size of a pencil point) apparent pits scattered in the cloud. They are too small to feel but given what my buddy said about that double tapered roller bearing, I figure it would be worth the effort to replace those bearings too. However, if Michel can't get them, I'll just reuse them (see the opposite side referenced above and that Michel rarely changes them).
UPDATE: I got the bearing I ordered from Renault16Shop! Now I have all the bearings I need except those two Renault specific ones. The bad news is that I had also ordered a roll pin for the shift finger. I had to drill out the one I had to get the cross shaft out and Renault16Shop listed a roll pin for the shift finger on another box. I hope I already mentioned that the cross shaft arrangement is a mod that Richard does to the NG3s he sells. I figured that Renault probably used the same roll pin for all their shift fingers and Richard wouldn't change something like that. Wrong, the roll pin I got is too small. Another thing to look for!
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UPDATE: our own Swift-DB4 found the pinion gear at 123Bearing here: https://www.123bearing.com/bearing-housing/gearbox-bearing/rnu10552-s01-snr
I'm waiting to find out how he found it. 123Bearing has a dimensional search feature and I plugged in 72mm for the OD and 19mm for the width while in their Gearbox section. That brought up a slew of gearbox bearings with those dimensions but none of them were what Swift found so it appears that this bearing falls through some gap in their search engine.
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MINOR UPDATE: I got the bearings pressed on the diff carrier and I installed the outer races of those bearing in the case halves. They came out without any drama and I worried that they wouldn't fit snuggly but they do. My method of getting the outer races into the case halves was pretty simple and very very slow. I lined up the race with the hole in the case as evenly as I could and then tapped the race with the back end of my largest punch occasionally measuring the depth (or actually how much of the race was still proud of the casting) at different points on the race. A few times, the race would get deeper on one side by 0.040 or so and then I tapped it on the other side to even it out again. I was very motivated not to get it the race cocked in the hole and thus possibly damaging the sides of the hole. As it went further in the hole, I didn't need to measure and I could tap a little harder but I never tapped very hard at all. At about 1/2 or 2/3 of the way, I screwed the finned nut in to the depth it was when I took it out. Then I continued tapping till the race bottomed on the finned nut.
I assembled the case with just the diff carrier in it. It would spin easily and there was no discernable side to side play. I was going to set the bearing pre-load but figured I'd just have to do it again so I didn't. I took everything apart and unscrewed the finned nuts 1/2 a turn each figuring that should be a good starting point for adjusting the back lash and bearing pre-load when I finally closed the case up.
Michel said he should have the bearings by the end of last week but I didn't hear from him. I'll call him tomorrow.
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A lot has happened between the last post and this one including building the tranny with the old pinion and primary shaft roller bearings because Michel at Alpine-America did not come through for me. For a couple of reasons, I decided to get a new pinion bearing now that I knew that 123Bearing had them (thanks Swift!!) and I found a guy, Olivier, who said he could get the primary shaft roller bearing. (Swift also gave me a link for the primary shaft roller bearing but by the time I gave up on Michel, that link had died. Olivier came through for me so I took the tranny apart cleaned everything and then this time using all new bearings and seals, I rebuilt it. One thing that might be worth noting is that the primary shaft roller bearing had to be tapped on. Recall, that this bearing is a roller bearing that runs on a race that is machined into the primary shaft. I used a very small brass mallet (about 3/8" diameter face) and once installed, it rotated with a little force but loosened up a bit with turning. I only mention that because I didn't expect that and it is tighter than the bearing that came out. I have no reason to think it is the wrong bearing.
I set the diff carrier bearing preload with an empty box. The spec is between 2 1/4 lbs and 6 3/4 lbs. I got it to about 3 lbs or a little more. then I put the secondary and primary shafts in the case, used Permatex Gear Oil RTV (recommended by a Permatex guy) on the sealing surfaces and torqued everything up. This afternoon, I went to set the backlash on the ring and pinion. I got it between the recommended 0.005" and 0.010". However, with the box in neutral, I couldn't turn the ring gear by hand at all. I backed off finned nuts about six or seven net fins worth (which would have been about 0 preload without the shafts in the box) and I set the back lash again at about 0.007". With the box in gear, I can turn the input (primary) shaft to turn the ring gear. There is steady resistance but it's not hard to turn with my hand. With the box in neutral, the ring gear is still difficult to turn by hand and it must be done with two hands. There is no reason to test the bearing preload now because it would be way off the scale of my spring scale (> 8 lbs). With a dial indicator on the ring gear and prying gently on either side of the diff with a screwdriver, the dial indicator does not register movement.
So what is my next move? Should I back off the diff carrier bearings a bit more so I can turn the ring gear with one hand? Open the box and set the preload again and reassemble it again in hopes that backlash adjustments will make more sense? Or declare victory and put on the bell housing and put the car back together?
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Assuming you got the diff carrier bearing preload right the first time, put it back the way it was. Any diff is hard to turn by the ring gear with new bearings and proper preload.
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I’ll put it back and try turning it with the input shaft and report back.
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Ok, I'm back. I put the finned nuts back where they were when I adjusted the preload (with no shafts in the box) and then I re-adjusted the backlash tightening and loosening the finned nuts to move the outer races of the diff carrier bearings together, each time rotating the input shaft while the box was in gear enough times to rotate the ring gear one or more revolutions. I got the backlash to 0.007" - where I wanted it. I rotated the input shaft to turn the ring gear a couple of more times and rechecked the backlash.
The input shaft can be turned with the box in gear (4th) with one hand with little effort. With the box in neutral, the ring gear can be budged (maybe one tooth) with two hands with great effort - enough to raise the box off the bench.
Does that seem reasonable and usable?
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This kind of stuff is super hard over the phone, so to speak. That said, yes, that sounds ok. In a typical US, live-axle, large-engined car, I would have to pull pretty hard to turn the ring gear over. That’s with it in the car. If it was out of the car, it would probably move about as tried to do so.
If you are still plagued with doubt, take it to foreign trans shop and get their opinion.
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I understand it’s difficult to comment intelligently “over the phone” when it probably really is something you have to feel yourself. Since you concur that turning the ring gear is normally difficult and I was able to turn the input shaft with one hand without issue, I think I’m good. I appreciate your help and comments, JB.