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Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Fri May 29, 2020 7:07 pm
by kevin s
Decided to post mortem the coil.
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The fault was pretty obvious
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Looks like a vibration related failure to me, I have always thought the coil mounted to the generator / alternator was asking for trouble, obviously modern coils aren't up to it, so I will mount the new one somewhere on the inner wing ( and carry a spare).

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Sat May 30, 2020 10:58 am
by geoberni
Near as damn it Identical to the fault I had....
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=69837&p=637860#p636467

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Sat May 30, 2020 9:43 pm
by kevin s
So today the replacement 1ohm coil arrived, looks suspisciously like the failed one but I thought I'd give it a go mounted upright on the body, decided to put it down low next to the distributor on the inner wing . Made a bracket with studs so it's easy ti change, the bracket used one of the rebound stop bolts and a second hole I had to drill.
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Also unwrapped the loom and re-routed the coil wires to the new coil position.

Spare coil is also in the boot.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 11:07 pm
by pfn865
VAE is looking good, will you be keeping the original engine / gearbox or will they be scrapped..

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2020 7:40 pm
by kevin s
The original gearbox is in the car, 1st sounds like a bag of spanners but it all works fine, I probavly will resurect the mazda 5 speed one day with the minor flywheel, clutch and starter position, this will fit.

The 948 engine is in the back of my lock-up if any one wants it, never had it running but bores looked fine, it would need another cylinder head or valve and guide in the original.

Kevin.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2020 10:54 am
by kevin s
Originally this was bought for my son as an 11th birthday present, off and on he has been involved in the restoration but It's now crunch time, he passed his driving test a week ago and is now keen for us to insure it I was pleasantly surprised at the quote (£669), so hopefully in a few days he will be out and about in it. (he is driving my company car at the moment)

In other news basically there is not much it seems to just keep working. I have flatted and polished the roof which looks much better but is now a bit thin in places so will need some work with the airbrush, I have also started having a look at a Mx5 gearbox again, picked up another box for £25 yesterday, this time the plan is to keep the minor starter position with this it I believe it should fit with about 15mm clearance each side, only sticking point may be the clutch disc, A 1.6 Mx5 disc is 200mm dia and the 1098 185mm from memory there was a fair bit of room around the outside of the minor disc on the pressure plate though so It may fit, really need an old 1098 pressure plate to have a play with any one got a scrap one lying around?

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:36 pm
by kevin s
The minor is now insured for my son and he is driving it.
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He's Getting used to novelties like a choke, manual steering, and having to look rather than use parking sensors but seems to be enjoying it, he's even just bought a denso roof rack for it.

5 speed mx5 box conversion is progressing slowly currently waiting for the post office to get their act together and deliver some bolts then I can carrry out a trial build.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 7:46 pm
by kevin s
Andrew spent today on his minor,

He waxed the arches and underside.
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Then made a liner for the front arch out or correx.

Finally greased all the nipples and tightened up the axle U bolts, the joint seems to have relaxed, the nuts hadn't turned (they are all paintmarked) otherwise everything seemed fine, we might also be looking at putting thicker oil in the rear dampers, it seems quite bouncy.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 4:29 pm
by kevin s
Andrew's taken to the minor like a duck to water. He's very keen on woodwork and one of the things he wants to make is a cedar stripwood canoe, hence yesterday he went and got this.
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At the back it is about 3 feet wide and it's green wood. Idon't think he realised just how heavy it was we could barely lift it off (they put it on with a tele handler).

The yard was also a mile or 2 down an unmade road, a good test for the correx arch liners which seem to be working well.

No damage to thevroof or gutters though and to be honest I would rather it was being used and picked up the odd bit of damage than sat in the garage being polished.

Only thing I have noticed from outside is the timing chain rattles which you can't really notice from the drivers seat. Looking at the appauling attempt at a tensioner on the 1098 I imagne this much virtualy be standard though!

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 4:37 pm
by philthehill
Whip the timing cover off remove the single row timing chain/gears and fit a duplex set up (and 'A' Plus tensioner if considered). Can be done in a day if you get all the parts and tools ready. No more rattles and longer chain life.
The two rubber ring tensioner set up was never any good even when new.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 6:31 pm
by kevin s
Yes I think that will be the longer term plan, we'll give it a few more miles to decide what else may need work and go from there. This is the £100 secondhand engine I fitted to get it ready in time for his prom which appart from the timing chain and a bit of oil leaking from the rear of the crank seems to be pretty good but it has only done about 1000 miles.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2020 8:12 pm
by kevin s
Andrew's been spending his student loan on the minor (not much else he can do with it I suppose), he's bought LED headlamps, they have an outer ring which is the sidelight and indicator.
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This is with the indicator on, the sidelight /DLR goes off when the inficator flashes like a modern car, they are not as bright as they look in the camera, pretty much the same intensity as our new fiesta.

Main beam gives a fantastic light,
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Obviously they don't look original but for the safety improvement well worth it and only simple job to swap them out if required.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2021 10:48 pm
by kevin s
Andrew has been using the minor regularly, only minor hicup was it needed a jumpstart during the really cold spell (battery was an old one off my Lotus so probably past it's best) and the indicator switch became loose on the column.

He is also investing in some improvements, firstly the rear suspension, it's way too soft the rear feels loose and crashes through to the bump stops so we have bought a pair of traveller springs, plan is to take the bottom leaf out, if it rides too high we may fit a lowering block, we are also going to ditch the rubber spring pads which has always made a vast improvement on the escorts I modified in the past, fit some fork oil in the dampers and poly bushes, hopefully this will improve things and is totally reversible if we don't like it.

Other thing he has bought is a badly cracked banjo steering wheel, his plan is to make a wooden rim for it, woodwork is is main hobby so I expect this to turn out very well.

He also has a small business making canvas bags, which is doing rather well so recently he bought a proper industrial sewing machine, his plan is to use this to make new seat covers for the seats starting with the rear seat which already has a hole in it. One thing we are not sure about is the seat base the springs seem quite weak we thought about putting sponge between the coils but am not sure how long that will last.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 10:21 am
by Admin
I have the same lights on the Traveller. Used to have the indicators wired as well - you can see the hazard lights on in the pic -
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but ended up cutting the feed to that because the LED in the indicator flashed at a different speed to the bulb in the sidelight, so if I was sat indicating at a set of lights for a minute or so you to to the point where the headlight rim would flash orange and the sidelight not, and then the sidelight indicator flashing orange while the headlight rim was white!
Just have the halos as white sidelights now
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Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 6:25 pm
by kevin s
I hadn't noticed that efffect but I'll take a closer look now, it has so.e fancy electronic flasher unit to so I guess that may have some effect.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2021 8:10 pm
by kevin s
While the engine is out awaiting the return of the machined parts we had a go at trial fitting the mx5 gearbox today.

Spare engine and box bolted together using the latest iteration of adaptor plate with the starter in the standard minor position.
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Lifted it up into the car, it fitted , clearance both sides
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Its going to need about 15mm trimmed off the transmission tunnel to clear the shifter mounting plate.
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It also hits the bolt in trans tunnel in several places, I will eventually cut the top out of this and weld a new one in

The modified gearstick position isn't far out either agdin I'll get it perfectly central when we modify the tunnel.
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Had to cut a fair chunk out to clear the steering rack, plan is to make a steel cover to bolt in and restore some strength.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2021 8:37 pm
by kevin s
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So things left to do are:

-Make cover for cut out in gearbox around steering rack
-Make cover fof starter bendi cut out
-drill starter mounting holes and remaining gearbox to backplate holes.
-Make mounting for concentric slave cylinder
-make gearbox mounting (standard x member moved about 9" rearwards)
- get a propshaft made.
- Modify gearbox tunnel.

Sounds a lot but really only a series of simple tasks.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2021 9:32 pm
by Admin
Excuse the dumb question, but what's the advantage of using the Mazda box over the easier to fit (as there's a kit for it) Ford box? Unless you're using the six speed version anyway

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2021 8:22 pm
by kevin s
They are stronger , better gearshift better ratios and dirt cheap (the 2 I have bought were £25 each and looked like new inside), it's also easier to move the gearstick into the correct position.
A lot of people are even using them instead of type 9's in escorts.

Main Downside is the integral bell housing (not such a big problem when you have a seperate steel plate backplate on the engine which can be easily laser cut) and the clutch, there isn't a standard mazda plate small enough to use the minor cover so it's either squeezing the 1.6 mazda one in like I have or a custom plate for around £150.

Obviously like the type 9 it needs a new propshaft (plenty of people can make these) a gearbox mount (simple bent piece of thick steel and move the original crossmembet backwards) and the transmission cover modifying which is a simple welding job.

Re: 2 door VAE 306H

Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2021 10:47 pm
by kevin s
As I have mentioned in the mechanical section the engine had a number of problems, it was getting difficult to start, the oil pressure was dropping and the timing chain very noisy, so we pulled it out and found a load of problems,
-low oil because the plastic dipstick tube was broken and the oil was low.
-loads of bits of rubber everywhere from a failed timing wheel
-Head gasket leaking block and head need a skim
-one odd low compression piston

-So plan is re-bore and skim block
-Skim head by 1.5mm and unleaded seats / stainless valves, mild port and combustion chamber work
-New kent fast road cam / followers.
-Duplex timing chain.
-Use a good spare crank and new bearings.
-damped crank pulley
-canister oil filter.

Eventually it will also get twin SU's (which we already have) and an lcb exhaust system, hope is it will make around 60hp, we are currently waiting for the machining to be done.

Another new part for the engine instal arrived today, we also have an electric fan for it.
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