Posts Tagged ‘classic’

No project too strange

Friday, March 12th, 2010

This is one of those strange requests that instantly gets your attention. We received a contact from the website saying that a chap was fitting a Holbay engine into a commer van but needed an exhaust manifold making up. Sadly the engine arrived on a crate so we haven’t seen the finished project but from the description we’ve had it’ll be quite some creation. He wasn’t too concerned about tuned lengths, just getting everything fitted into the engine bay. It’s always hard without the car as we don’t really know how much space there is to play with but we marked everything out carfully and built it to a pattern so it should do the job nicely.

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Moggy 2000 update

Friday, March 12th, 2010

It might not look like much has happened on the moggy but there’s hours of work happened to get the zetec engine to fit. It’s now been mated to the type 9 gearbox and all of the associated clutch issues dealt with. Engine and gearbox mounts have been made and some more chassis work done to accomodate the final assembly. The radiator just fits into the front panel so now we have lots more fianl dressing of the engine bay and then the endless task of wiring and piping. Next on the build list is the prop and exhaust manifold!

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Moggy 2000

Monday, February 1st, 2010

If you have an old classic and love the character but get tired of the gasping little engine you have 2 options. Modify the engine which may cost a lot to return a little or modfiy the car the take a better engine. I favour plan B as did our customer when he brought in his Morris Minor. Various options were discussed but a Ford Zetec 2.0l from a Mondeo was the power plant of choice.  Rear wheel drive conversions with this engine are well documented and it’s a nice tractable and readily available engine so all we had to do was work out how to make it fit!

There were a few small problems such as the steering rack being in the way and the engine bay not being long enough but as each challenge develops so do the solutions. It’s lovely watching a project like this grow. There’s still a long way to go but here’s a few snaps of the story so far.

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A Mk1 that didn’t need welding!

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Another Mk1 Escort joined us recently and this one had already had all the welding done on it.  The shell certainly seemed solid and it was built to a simple, honest, budget DOES matter standard and I loved it. It’s so nice to see one that hasn’t just had thousands heaped on it and is too valuable to use. This car will see some road rallies and maybe some stage rallies in it’s future. The owner wasn’t happy with the seating position or the seats so we made some subframes to fit some mazda mx5 seats. It also needed an alternator to solve a charging problem and some brackets making up. Nice easy jobs and a great car.

 

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More MK 1 Mods

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Our old friend the solid Mk 1 escort came back for more work. The list was endless although jobs were small. We had to remake the exhaust, make some brackets for the navigators trip computer,  adjust the door hinges, fit a lower temperature thermostat, make pipes and t pieces for a capillary oil guage and lots more litle jobs on top.  Most of these I think the owner could have sorted himself but it’s far too cold for working on cars at the moment and we love working on these cars no matter what size the job. The car went away a little closer to reaching the rally stages.

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Cheap classic

Monday, January 25th, 2010

It’s amazing that a car built in such relatively low numbers and with such striking styling should still be so cheap. The Scimitar was such a departure for Reliant and has carried it’s age well thanks to the fibreglass body. There may be nothing groundbreaking about the mechincals but thanks to some very strong parts being carfully borrowed from other manufacturers they are tough and pretty reliable as classics go. This car was bought for only a few hundred pounds but since then we’ve done some serious work done. Cosmetically it’s had a full respray, new carpets, the seats have been leathered and the headlining replaced to match. On the mechanical side of things it’s  had a rare South African motorcraft 3.4L engine fitted. We’ve added some custom stainless exhaust manifolds and a full stainless system. It took 6 exhaust boxes in total to quieten everything down! It’s had lot’s of other bit’s a bobs like a dose of waxoyl and a full brake strip and reseal. Parts aren’t available for ars this age so everything had a clean up and new seals. In the end the master cylinder was modified to take one from a transit. I’m sure there wll be more improving to be done soon.

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Classic cool

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

June 2009- An early 70’s Porsche 911 came in with starting problems. It had an old KKK mechanical fuel injection system on it so no point plugging the scanner in on this one! Turned out to have a small solenoid that literally dribbled fuel into the inlet manifold as you crank it over. We reconnected a broken wire and away it went. Stone age design and simplicity itself but it works.
Also in was a 60’s Mustang, proper old school american muscle. Just needed waxoyl and a few niggles sorting out. Nothing major but a lovely car and a perfect example at that.

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