Saturday, March 28, 2009

Not alot of blogging going on.

Cause ive been updating on the forum instead.

So car was all fine. Fettling it, the release bearing still making a noise and whatever.

So it had to come apart.

Which is a pain the arse. In no rush I've just done the odd hour here and there.

Decided to bin the expensive Burton Co-Axial Clutch slave cause it was crap and the bearing is not utilised correctly on this application, it needs to be sprung and running in constant mesh on the clutch cover and there is no spring mech on the Burton thing. Also no dust seals, you live and learn.

Making the adaptor plate was pretty easy.
So to fit a Ford Co-Axial Hydraulic slave from a Mondeo I needed to knock up an adaptor plate. It's shown above and below in some early stages of lathing.
This allows me to bolt the new unit (£35) old stock to the existing gearbox nose mounting adaptor.
The adaptor on the rear needed skimming down by 14.5mm. It was 25.35mm thick.

To leave it 10.85mm thick.

The new plate and the old plate (after skimming) plus the compressed new slave = 75.89mm thick.

The old slave and adaptor plate was 77.89mm in fitted condition and in mesh on the clutch fingers.

The old slave was 2mm "out" when static, so I measured the compressed length of the new slave (fully compressed) and made the system 2mm shorter, so giving 2mm of slack before the bearing and hydraulic slave are beached.

2mm to account for any endfloat, flex on the crank and also wear on the clutch plate causing the fingers to move out on the clutch cover.
Compressed below.
Fully open, the unit is sprung to keep the slave in mesh on the clutch fingers.
Old unit below.
Completed adaptors shown below.
Main adaptor plate made from a lump of alloy.
Unit roughly fitted.
Bleed hole with enough room to get an 8mm socket on it and fit a cap.
Test fit, perfect. 2mm of slack and around 16mm of throw left.
Have to check for "over throw" on the hydraulics/master cylinder next as I don't want to pop the piston out. Will use a 5/8" master cylinder this time. I had more then enough throw before and the piston size is the same on the slave. The clutch was heavy and like a switch anyway.

Just need some hydraulic adaptors and slap it back to together then.

Car goes like shit stink.

Some bloke in a new Golf GTi tried to jump me the other day. I was slowing to wait for a car to pull off the road on the left. I slowed to low rpm in 2nd and the car turned off. Some joker in the GTi pulled out after the car had turned off and started to overtake me?

Anyway. I just decked it in 2nd by which time he was almost a car length ahead and had a real jump on me all screaming and geared up, anyway the Beast just oblitered him, it hit 4000rpm, went nuts and sailed back past the GTi like it was standing still or was a 1000cc mini or something. I remember all the shift lights going off and hitting the limiter in 2nd (7300 atm), by which time he was about 40yards behind, by the time I lifted off at 7000 in 3rd he was about 80metres behind :)

It doesn't mind reving anyway, 7300 is pretty conservative I think, it was still wanting to go!

Showed him.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Road Legal.

Bar waiting for the V5 or talking to the DVLA about TAX she's legal. MOT'ed!
Can't knock it! It all works, it drives nicely, nothing I would change immediately after doing the other few small tweaks I mentioned before. Few miles of running in to do, then tune it.

Yet to take it over 3500rpm more than once or 60mph...Drives nicely at low speed, good manners, nice in town/traffic, good easy cruising in 5th at 1500rpm...Did move the throttle downward to about 1/2 throttle in 2nd earlier, needs jetting at the top-end, but it moved pretty sharpish from 3000-4500rpm.
Finished off remaining hardware for the other spitfire this afternoon, I'll have another bash at that one this weekend/later in the week...Should see most of it done with another marathon.