My Clubman Blog

[toonarf]

Hi All

Nothing for a month then 2 updates in as many days................Just a quick one I managed to pick up a gearbox for the conversion today. it came complete with starter and some other useful bits and bobs.

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It does look a lot better in the flesh the poor lighting is again to blame, maybe time to by some more tubes and starters?

Thanks for looking

David

[Simon]

What an awesome project! Well done David

[toonarf]

Look what Santa brought me


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[ian drew]

Santa's intuition really is quite uncanny....

Ian

[charliecosworth]

Seems like lot of work for 1.3 engine? Why not put 1.6 or 2.0 in? Or have I missed something

[toonarf]

I haven't said what engine is going in yet, all I will say is its non of the above !!!!!

Going to pick the Monstro up tonight then park it up till the weather improves and break it. ( it is as rotten as a core) I will post a picture later

[toonarf]

Charlie I haven’t said what engine is going in it yet, all I will say is its non of the above.


Tonights work was to bring this over from Clitheroe so I can strip it and weigh it in.

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It’s a Maestro MG EFI

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No Wait it’s a Montego EFI

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Or is it Chinese ? Ahhh Sorle

Thanks for looking

[Austin-Rover]

That Monstro was a creation of our very own Steve Worsley some years ago. It had fallen off the radar a long time ago...

[toonarf]

Some parts are going to live on but the shell is destined for a trip over the bridge, it has rot in all the usual places and I know it has stood outside for the past 6 years. Unless someone wants the remains for old times sake .................................

Tucked up for the night




David

[toonarf]

Hi All

I have just realised that it was last year that I last updated this, time flies when you are having fun they tell me??

Anyway back to the plot, the Monstro has given up the parts that I needed for the conversion. For the moment this is basically the fuel injection parts including tank and fuel lines, the drive shafts which are in better condition than the old rally car ones, the exhaust system which was probably not worth the effort of removal and the gear linkage. Unfortunately the fuel tank is full of rust flakes so I may stick with the tank I have and use a swirl pot. Unless of course there is a simple cleaning method known about, I doubt it somehow the rust must have come from somewhere inside and once removed will no doubt continue to do so until its source is exhausted. I am presuming that whatever is rusting is useful , does anyone know what it is that rusts, I imagine it’s the swirl pot.

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A while back I posted a picture of the gearbox which I did a bit tongue in cheek because the box, whilst being a PG1 is in fact out of a Lotus Elise and so would not normally be fitted to a Maestro. It did also come with its engine so my Maestro will be Lotus powered. Yes that’s correct I am fitting an OMGHGFKseries.
Puts tin hat on whilst everyone tells me what an idiot I am.


A picture of the engine in its old home, the yards owner allowed me to remove the head before purchase to make sure the head was not soft. It looked perfect with the claimed 50,000 miles seeming genuine with an original type gasket .


The fact is that 10 years ago the Road Rally regulations allowed any single cam engine to be fitted, a twin cam had to be factory fitted to be allowable. So back then the plan was to build an 8 valve 1800 cc K series to give us similar power to the O series but at lower upfront weight for hopefully more nimble handling. With an eye to the future the plan was that if we fancied a go at stage rallies a 16v head could be fitted, remember even back then K series head changes were not exactly rare events. We had also heard a whisper that transplants for modern twin cam 16valve engines could have been allowed in the near future, hence are plan.

So the grand plan is that in the next few weeks as soon as I have finished converting the flywheel to 36-1 trigger pattern for my Ford Edis and I have sorted an inlet manifold that will accept an SU carb I will be fitting the Lotus engine and gear box. I am doing things this long winded way because I need to keep the car a couple of weeks from running under its own power ( I was going to say steam but maybe not!) when I have the engine installed and running I will then fit the throttle bodies that Santa brought

Thanks for looking

David

[toonarf]

Hi All
So onto my trigger problems and please do not tell me that there is a much simpler answer than I have come up with.

Pictured below is a 1400 flywheel showing the trigger pattern.



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For my Ford Edis installation I need to run a 36-1 trigger with the missing or reference tooth passing the sensor 90 degrees before the engine passes top dead centre. Unfortunately the Rover trigger is 36-1-1-1-1 to give a more accurate crankshaft position monitoring for the MEMS engine management system, all this means that if I do not want to fit a trigger wheel to the crank pulley, which I did not, then I had to in some way to convert the Rover trigger pattern to what I wanted. On the original Rover set up the sensor pickup pin runs in the crank groove and senses when present or not of the edges of the holes machined into the flywheel. The good news is that upon measuring the Rover trigger appears to near enough on the same centres that the Ford system uses but the bad news is that all the missing teeth were in the wrong place so I had 4 pairs of missing edges to recreate and 1 pair to remove. The removal would not be a problem but my putting back tool was returned to me blunt and I have never found a way to sharpen it…….
I found that I could have a bespoke flywheel made so that would be one way out and I may eventually go down this route but before I do that and spend a lot of money on a flywheel I decided to see if I could come up with an alternative. My answer is a cover ring as shown below.


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And with the cover ring aligned



Please note I had it made with no missing teeth I will remove the missing one when I am ready. I simply centre it on the flywheel clamp in place and drill and tap the six securing screws. The grey paint is a cold galvanising paint to keep rust at bay I do not really want the ring lifting. I Will space the original Rover crank sensor out from the engine block to obtain the correct air gap. With megasquirt you can alter the effective trigger position electronically if it is not 100% in the correct position. Just in case I had a few spares laser cut at the same time.



The Edis marked bar is the one that subject to checking again will be removed to give me 36-1
A final question if I may? I am lead to believe that if fitting Maestro / Montego shafts to a PG1 box from a later Rover that the seals needed changing because the shaft ends on the inner CV joints are slightly different. Please see the pictures below because my shafts look and measure the same as the ones out of the Elise gearbox, I have I got something wrong?
The drivers side seal

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The inner 2 joints are Lotus the outer 2 are from the EFI Monstro (H reg) pictures earlier in the thread.

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Thanks for looking

[g200mss #146]

This should be interesting to watch progress. I thought about the 1600 K-series years ago for my first rally car but stuck with the R-series. Went honda instead just recently.

Have you got to the stage of measuring the shafts? Would be nice if they were the correct length.


Oh and I like the F2 kit car sticker on the back of that maestro

[toonarf]

I went for the K because it nearly got one years ago, they are a lot better engine than a lot of people would have you believe especially if you treat the head gasket change as a service item. I also beleive that they will become a classic one day.
The Honda is a good choice, supposedly a copy of the K..........

I measured the stubs today and they are all the same, maybe its the bigger engines that use this box that have the alternative shafts.

The F2 Kit Car was painted back in the day when F2 Kit Cars were seen as the bright new future for those with out a WRC budget. It was a p@@@ take. You can probably imagine peoples reaction to being beaten by a Maestro back in the day.

I would like to see yours in action when you get finished, which looks not far off I love the colour as well. I would be interested in a fibreglass tailgate if you have any made.

David

[g200mss #146]

Yes people let the whole head gasket failure thing cloud their judgement.

Yep, had a chuckle at the sticker. And yeah its great being able to show up faster and more expensive cars in the old maestros!

Shouldnt be too long now with mine. I have done nothing to it for months as been busy with other things mostly.

I want to make some fibreglass tailgates, its jusy finding the time thats the problem!

What are your plans for the car then? Will you do any stage rallies?

Ross

[toonarf]

First plan is to get it running on the megasquirt and set up with the close ratio gearbox. Then its a fun car so I / we are going to try what we fancy not going to worry about classes or what class we end up in if it is fun we may try it again if not move on. I fancy a Hill Climb first but we shall see.
Way back in the day when they were not as expensive I did a few big multi venue forest rallies, not in the Maestro, and they sort of spoilt it for single venue rallies. That was the beauty of Road Rallying you were up against it all night with no service, a good cheap nights entertainment.