wdb's little yellow journey

[wdb]

Dave's doing well! He and his wife did the heavy lifting for the run yesterday. He still had the Birkin as of a couple of years ago, not sure about now.

 

 

In other news, my car has sprung a leak. I went out to the garage this morning and found about a quart of oil on the floor under the car. I hit something in the road yesterday so that could be the cause; I came around a sharp turn and whomp! Never even saw it. I'm lucky to have made it home.

[inchoate]

I ran into Dave at the Radnor show this year.  He still had the Birkin at that time and was threatening to try to get a 7 thing together.

[wdb]

Color me frustrated. I'm ready to put together a dry sump kit and the vendors don't seem to want to talk to me. I contacted 3, one of which is on holiday until March and the other 2 of which don't seem to want my business because they can't be bothered to reply. Suggestions welcome.

 

In the meantime I need to make this confounded engine runnable again because I need to have an easy way to move it hither and thither because I need my lift and other cars in the garage and the garage is only so big and the driveway has a slight downhill slope which makes pushing the confounded thing just a wee tad too difficult which makes me have to get hoists and ropes and whatnot out and strap them hither and thither so I can manipulate the confounded thing on/off the lift and into/outta other bays. 

 

If reading that run-on sentence frustrated you, welcome to my world!

 

I'd settle for a rear sump oil pan for a Kent engine but those seem to be unobtanium as well. Unless I want a monstrous aluminum thing, which I don't. Just a bent piece of steel please, thanks.

Edited January 10 by wdb

[IamScotticus]

[Vinman1]

Wdb,

Been there, done that. I had to put longer and stiffer springs in the front of my car to make it road worthy. The rear sump oil pan for a Crossflow is a 70's Mercury Capri. Motomobile in Germany has a bunch of pans on their website. You could also try Norm at Team Blitz (vintage Capri parts supplier) or the Capri II FB pages. I have a really nice rear hand made sump on mine that I got from a USA Seven member. It came with some parts along with his Seven. I have seen others that were clearly made by the same person or shop, but nobody seems to know who that was. 

Best of luck,

 

Vin

[wdb]

12 hours ago, IamScotticus said:

 

Those oil pans won't fit my engine, although the wheels do look like they'd be a handy addition! 

 

The car rolls very easily. The issue is getting it on the lift. The sloped driveway makes it so that I don't quite have the horsepower to push it up the ramps. I get it up to them and then have to winch it on.

Edited January 11 by wdb

[wdb]

9 hours ago, Vinman1 said:

Wdb,

Been there, done that. I had to put longer and stiffer springs in the front of my car to make it road worthy. The rear sump oil pan for a Crossflow is a 70's Mercury Capri. Motomobile in Germany has a bunch of pans on their website. You could also try Norm at Team Blitz (vintage Capri parts supplier) or the Capri II FB pages. I have a really nice rear hand made sump on mine that I got from a USA Seven member. It came with some parts along with his Seven. I have seen others that were clearly made by the same person or shop, but nobody seems to know who that was. 

Best of luck,

 

Vin

 

Thanks Vin, I'll check out those sources. The current sump on my car is one of those fabricated units. It's made of thick-but-soft mild steel. My current plan is to pull it off and see about getting it fixed. I might use as an excuse to set myself up with a welder in the garage.

 

As for suspension, I do need new shocks and was planning on height adjustable units. That would help with ground clearance. Even so I plan to hang a guard of some kind down there. I'm tired of this.

Edited January 11 by wdb

[slowdude]

On 1/11/2024 at 9:52 AM, wdb said:

 

Thanks Vin, I'll check out those sources. The current sump on my car is one of those fabricated units. It's made of thick-but-soft mild steel. My current plan is to pull it off and see about getting it fixed. I might use as an excuse to set myself up with a welder in the garage.

 

As for suspension, I do need new shocks and was planning on height adjustable units. That would help with ground clearance. Even so I plan to hang a guard of some kind down there. I'm tired of this.

You can also grab anything from a MK2 Cortina. Burton Power may have something as well. Locally, only places that may have are FF Builders (Ivey?) And Dave Bean. There was a dude hoarding MK2 Cortina parts on CL in the SF Bay area, not sure if he's still posting his parts stash.

[Vinman1]

The springs on mine are from QA-1 and are 250 lb/in 1.9" diameter on Spax adjustable shocks. I gained 1.25- to 1.5" from the pan bottom to the ground.

[wdb]

On 1/10/2024 at 9:40 PM, IamScotticus said:

 

Okay, okay...

 

 

[IamScotticus]

We don't get to see this often

[wdb]

Even though the car only has a couple thousand miles on it, it's still a 1995 vehicle and the rubber bits show signs of drying out. I'm preparing to replace the rubber suspension bushings and wanted to pick the community brain here on whether to go with rubber or one of the more exotic-colored alternatives. If the latter, what have folks had good luck with? There have been some polyurethane bushings used in BMWs that have literally crumbled into pieces in a frighteningly short time, so I want to be sure that if I go that way I get proven good parts. Are polyurethane kits even available for imperial solid axle cars from the 1990's? Or maybe I should just get a kit from Beachman and stick to the original material? And so on. Thanks in advance for your input.

 

In the meantime I finally got tired of not having proper storage for my English sockets and wrenches. Up until now I've kept them stored in a box on a shelf, and rolled them out when I'm working on the 7. The problem with that is they take up horizontal space in the garage, which is already a precious resource. So I bit the bullet and found a larger top tool chest that should give me a place to keep them all handy. As such projects often go, the bigger top box also means moving a whole bunch of stuff mounted on the wall next to where it will go, and I even have to move the entire toolbox setup to the left by a couple of inches so that the new box doesn't cover a wall outlet. Not a big deal, except that the toolbox butts up against a workbench and the workbench is bolted in place into the concrete. So the past few days' tasks have been pulling stuff off the walls, filling holes, and fabricating a piece to fill the gap between the toolbox and the workbench. The law of unintended consequences is having a heyday in my garage!

[MV8]

Most of the bushes are bonded rubber (no thrust flanges) with very little compliance and add to compression and rebound damping when torqued at ride height. They are nothing like most oem rubber bushes (which tend to have very thick walled rubber for things to move around) and very hard to beat. I've had poly crumble to dust after so many years where rubber may crack from age but still be usable.

[panamericano]

The only experience I have with poly bushings was that I could not stand the squeaky noise, so I went back to rubber.  That was on a Miata for autoross.

[MV8]

1 hour ago, panamericano said:

The only experience I have with poly bushings was that I could not stand the squeaky noise, so I went back to rubber.  That was on a Miata for autoross.

The poly bushings should include a small tube of clear, thick, tacky gel. It is necessary to fully coat the bushing od and id. Because it is very thick and sticky, the gel does not wash out if driving through puddles. They don't usually need to be recoated for the life of the poly bush.

[wdb]

I finally bought a toolbox big enough to hold my metric tools as well as my English stuff. Picked it up yesterday.  I swear they packed it to go into a war zone. Shipping weight 302 lbs., toolbox weight 199 lbs. That's a lot of protection. Good thing too, because someone bashed the pallet up pretty well but failed to make it through the layers of plastic, particleboard, cardboard, and air that surrounded the thing during shipment.

To my great good fortune it was at the perfect height on the bed of the Taco to slide right over onto the bottom box. Never had to try to lift the beast. The next big challenge is going to be remembering where I put everything...!

 

 

[Vinman1]

Looks like a great set up! Just in time for Spring and prepping for first Blat!

[wdb]

I'm putting together a list of parts for a dry sump and need some technical assistance regarding the design and plumbing. 

- Is there a downside to making up my own lines? If there is a seriously good reason to have them professionally done, I'll go that route. Otherwise I was planning on buying raw materials and making my own.
- Straight fittings vs. angled vs. 90 degree: for example in/out of the filter housing. Are there places where 90's are bad, and places it doesn't matter?
- Fitting colors: is there a standard where one is used for X and another for Y?
- BPT vs. AN: can they mix & match safely? For example is there a problem with putting BPT on the oil pump end, and AN on the filter end?
 

[MV8]

It depends on the lines. Generally not a problem to assemble your own with reusable fittings.

For oil where pressure drop is important, "full flow" elbows should be used. Routing, support, clearance, and stress relief (no lines installed without slack) are all important. AC43.13, chap 8 is a good place to start: https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_43.13-1B_w-chg1.pdf

 

The variety of fittings is huge. You must be more specific. If the hose is the right size for the fitting and the pressure appropriate, it doesn't matter if the fittings on each end are different.

[wdb]

It's been a little while since I've updated this thread. Elsewhere I am discussing the ongoing dry sump conversion, which I hope to have moving forward again very soon. In the meantime this happened.

 

 

 

1967 Lotus Elan S3 SE. It's owned by the same gentleman who previously owned my se7en. Largely original. Comes with 1.5 spare engines and two metric buttloads of other spare stuff. He has owned the car from new(!!!) which helps explain the spares. It was his family's only transportation for a while. He brought his daughters home from the hospital in this car when they were born. Raced it in local hillclimbs. It's literally a family member. Age is catching up to him however and he can no longer care for the car. I feel flattered and very honored that he and his family are entrusting it to my care. I'll do my best.