Engine almost finished! Not the bloody body though!

Me and the family will spend the evening before in Brighton and skip the run! I already have passes and tickets etc. Its my first year of not being the organiser so I am interested to see how the cope without me (probably better I imagine) - But I will be on the LSMOC stand..

Hi

Made some progress since my last update - the car is now rocking some chrome, it has an exhaust, radiator etc etc and it runs (however its booked into Slark on 12th May for a full rolling road tune-up)



..



Plan for this week:

1. Frabricate new exhaust bracket so it clears the antiroll bar
2. Finish wiring guages and indicators etc
3. Wire heated screen relays
4. Fit fuel filter and pressure regulator
5. Plumb in the heater
6. Buy and fit tyres
7. Fit headlights
8. Finish fitting waist line trim
9. Fit grill
10. Wire rev counter
11. Find rubber bungs
12. Adjust wheels do the trims fit
13. Fit new steering wheel, carpets, door cards, dash cards and seats . seatbelts
14. Collect radio from updating place and fit
15. MOT
16. Take back to painters to fix chips caused by me!
17. Fit washer bottle & jets

+ 101 other things I forgot!

Wow what a car, thats an excellent example of care and craftmanship.

I may have done a little intercourse wee lol

looking good - makes me weep every time i look at old Rusty......

OK,

I thought I should bring you all up to speed with my resto!

I got the car 95% finished (just the heater to go in, and some wires for the heated screens, a few bits of trim etc) so took it off for the MOT and it passed! (the tester just mentioned that the rear brakes were a little weak, however that could be becuase I upgraded to disks and have not managed to find a cooper brake compensator bias thing for disc type brakes, just using standard one).

So far so good! Car was booked in to go back to the painter to fix a couple of chips that occured during the rebuild, and then off to slark for the rolling road, ready for the L2B this weekend!

Here comes the bad news! It is noisey as hell!!!! Sounds dreadful, due to the gearbox being shagged! When I got the car I only ever drove it in first gear, on and off the trailer, in and out of the garage whilst the repair work was going on, and it started and ran fine, no smoke or issues only done 35k miles. So we never touched the gearbox, and that was a big mistake!!!

So another 200 in gearbox parts now sits on my garage floor, just waiting for me to find time to remove the engine, overall the box and put it all back together again! Its only 2 days work, but its 2 days I just dont have at the moment. I may try to find another box to overall so its a simple swap, but in the meatime it looks like another few weeks before my Hornet will see the road and I will have to do the L2B in my Mini -bugger!!!

Sorry to hear of your troubles and sympathise with you.
This is exactly why I did not clean my Elf's engine and bay up when I restored it.
I too have found the gearbox noisy probably syncro and bearings worn? When I get the chance I will have the body off then I will be same position as yourself (except I won't know what I'm doing )
Your Hornet looks really good, You must be proud of it. Well done so far

All the service parts for a gearbox come to about £250 (without my discount) and thats just the bearings, baskets, layshaft, baulk rings etc. The two big bearings come to £100 just for those when you include vat etc.

Still should be nice and smooth when sorted!

I will also use this as an oppertunity to check the big ends, and I decided to scrap the second-hand 731 cam I had in and go for a billet SW5 from swifttune.

'Appen check your diff bearings also Dyno!!!!!!

Yep they are on the list too! Hopefully they should be ok.

what an amazing project....

love it!

very well done!

Beautiful Car !! very nicely done.

Very nice work!

Such problems just happen. On my Riley I have lost oil pressure after getting the engine first time hot. A small debris has got under the oil pump gasket on the assembly and when the oil thined, it started to such in air . Engine out-dissmantle-fix-assemble-engine in-repaint engine bay chips...

Well, there has been some progress - engine came out on Friday, all new bearings in the gearbox, new shell bearings, new oil pumps, change of cam to an SW5, slightly lighter flywheel and sorted the cam timing - oh and while the engine was out I replaced the speedo (odometer of the old one was stuck at 2 miles), also stuck some soundproofing on the bulkhead, got the chrome trim to go over the arches and...... test drove for 6 miles! Gearbox felt brilliant, and lots more power than before (timing looks to have been out on previous set-up). Still 101 small jobs to finish, but at least I am back to where I was a month ago!

And who did the other things instead of You (ie eating, sleeping etc)?

Hi All,

I have not been around, however in my absence my Dad did a little more work, so the bonnet release now works, the heater is fitting, heated screens wired up, and dash panels fitted (although the dash panels from Newtons are not the best fit! Pain to get in and even then there is a 1/2 inch gap between the panels and the speedo cluster (may have to make some of my own up).

A full day should see it all finished and ready to go back to the painter to fix the couple of chips caused on the rebuild!

Ad

I am pleased to say that we managed to tie up most of the loose ends on Friday! Now the care is ready to go back to the painter to fix a few imprefections and chips (caused by me during rebuild). Then it will just need a bloody good clean and detail, and off to the rolling road.

Stunning car!



Jase

GORGEOUS!

Perfect work!!!

Very nice colour!

now that is clean - well done

STUNNING

Thanks chaps, as you would expect it looks better from a distance, and if I was being critical (as I know all of us are) there are some things that I am not happy with, or would have liked to be better. However, I figured best to get it back on the road, and then I can tinker and get it perfect over the winter.

First proper outing will be at the White Horse country and classic car show, and then probably the next big one in September - forget which.

I'm not sure if this counts as a top tip or a warning! However, if you order mats from newton commercial they WILL come with little winged mini logos (you might be able to asked them to not put them on, however I dont know as I didnt asked them, as I didnt know they would come with them on).

Anyway, I managed to peel the mini logos off the mats, but it did leave a nasty mark behind! Sooo, I bought two Wolseley cloth badges from the Wolseley register, and then stuck over the rough carpet where the winged logos had been and it works a treat!

Am I being anal now..... Yes i know!

Well, I finally re collected the car from its second visit to the painter. Last few jobs finished - new track rod end (3rd new one due to faulty ones) radio installed, bonnet badge wired up, greased, stopped one wheel trim popping off, put new floats and tops on the carbs (old ones were sticking), re-fitted rear side trim, new rubber on the wiper wheels, petrol cap not sealing.

Then I drove it from Leeds to Oxford, and it didnt miss a beat, 70 all the way with no issues at all!! (although I wish I hadnt replaced the steering column bushes, steering doesnt easily reset itself, but i think it will once they get a little bit of wear. Oh! and the rev counter only illuminates with side-light and not main beam for some fecking reason!

Booked into Slark on Thursday for a good rolling road set-up with the carbs, then a weekend of cleaning and it should be ready for some shows! Defo entering concours at Stanford in September.

xx

Shan't bother entering concours at Stanford now! lol

(Actually I wasn't going to anyway because the Hornet that belongs to the guy from British Mini Club always wins - for some reason......