Importing a Car from the US

[Oneball]

Roof panels and doors now striped, one more bodged repair to fix.



Hopefully as people are starting to go back to work the balancing shop will be open soon, so damper and pulley cleaned and painted



Compression rings checked for gap



And filed to spec



Oil rings checked too



Piston and rod cleaned



And assembled




Only 7 more to go, 4 cylinder engines new have some advantages!

 

[lifes2short]

nice work so far, is this a keeper for you

 

[Oneball]

nice work so far, is this a keeper for you

Probably. My current race car I’ve had for 25 years and isn’t going anywhere so I seem to keep hold of them.

 

[lifes2short]

My current race car I’ve had for 25 years

what's the race car

 

[Oneball]

 

[lifes2short]

oh yes I think remember it from previous posts I think, I've got a memory like a sieve, mk1 or 2 cooper s ?

 

[Oneball]

Mk1 real Cooper but not an S.

Over the years it’s been 1340cc, 998cc, 1014cc and now 1293cc

Started out as blue



Gets used circuit racing mainly and the odd hillclimb



And occasionally gets stuffed.

 

[lifes2short]

very nice, always had a soft sport for the early classic coopers, wish I still had mine

 

[Oishi]

Oneball, I don't mean to be a pest, I am enjoying your rebuild very much, what kind of dampers are you going with? As you may know, there are two types of rear half-shafts, small or big block. Go with the BB ones if you can. I know she'll be sweet when you are done.

 

[Oneball]

You’re not being a pest Oishi, it’s good to have your opinion.

I’ve got some custom half shafts made from chrome moly to the BB size.

Dampers wise. My best mate is a chassis engineer, worked on the Vantage and DB9 now runs his own company. He’s sourcing me a set of rebuildable Bilstein mono tubes.

We can run an adjustable twin tube or non adjustable mono tube. So as I’ve got the resource to tune a mono tube that’s what we’re going with.

 

[Oneball]

Got the new synchro hubs for the box this week, so ready to start rebuilding



Mainshaft assembled with 2nd gear and 1/2 synchro assembly.



1st gear, midplate and reverse gear added



3rd gear and 3/4 synchro assembly



GM don’t seem to have heard of caged bearings



All 112 needles and six spacers installed.




And stopped again for lack of parts. The oil thrower for the front bearing is fractured and a new one wasn’t included in the bearing/gasket kit I’ve got so need to order from the US.

I’m not used to these boxes so don’t as yet know which bits to look out for being worn.

 

[lifes2short]

that's so frustrating when rebuilding something and then grinds to a halt due to lack of parts and/or missing parts

 

[Oneball]

that's so frustrating when rebuilding something and then grinds to a halt due to lack of parts and/or missing parts

I know but like the bits you got for yours when I ordered the new synchro bits from the States last week they were here in 4 days

 

[lifes2short]

I know but like the bits you got for yours when I ordered the new synchro bits from the States last week they were here in 4 days

yup, bloomin amazing delivery times from EU and States, American poly bush got to me in 5 days from order

 

[Oneball]

yup, bloomin amazing delivery times from EU and States, American poly bush got to me in 5 days from order

And then you order something from Redruth and it takes a week and a half.

 

[Oishi]

Or brake lines from Italy, and it takes 2 months

 

[Oneball]

Or brake lines from Italy, and it takes 2 months

Everything takes two months from Italy, unless you’ve got tits.

 

[lifes2short]

Or brake lines from Italy, and it takes 2 months

blimey that is a long time, is that normal??

 

[lifes2short]

Everything takes two months from Italy, unless you’ve got tits.

you need to play the game with the Italians, I send them random pictures of busty ladies when ordering, works a treat

 

[Oneball]

So first proper cock up today, well actually a while back. When I put the drain plug in the gearbox I ordered a 1/2” NPT tap but notIced today they’d sent me a 1/2” BSP one. Should have checked before using it. So the hole in the box isn’t tapered and has a different thread profile to the plug.



Yep it leaks. Fortunately it’s not assembled yet but got to work out what to do.

So diff cleaned and ready to go back together.



New clutch packs stacked



And in place with first spider gear



Second spider gear in place and spring pack in





Was about to get the dial gauge out to measure the lash in the spider gears but there’s so much with the original sized shims that I know it’s not right. So disassembly time again.

Good trick if playing with springs is to put a cloth over them so they don’t hit you in the face.



And apart again



Cider time.