Well, yeah, the weather has absolutely sucked. I took last Thursday off, borrowed a welder (?!?! – WTF CHRIS CAN’T WELD) and stitched in a new piece of steel on the bottom of the stamped engine cross member. Froze my bag off doing it, too. I also made a pair of attachment points for a tow bar. It’s all ugly wugly, but I got good penetration – and it’s too damned cold to go out and snap a picture of it – which saves me the embarrassment of displaying my lack of welding chops.
Later, I stopped by at Midwest Fabrication - Bobby Bleed's shop - and dropped of my front fenders to have the inside lip rolled back so the front tires won't rub when it's slammed. They are mid project - a very cool '32 coupe that is completely scattered across the shop. Jeff was still doing a bit of tin work of a virtual refabrication of the body from the waist down, and it looks fantastic. Bob's going to do the lead work, and they intend to have a running showpiece ready for the World of Wheels show on Feb 21st. I told 'em to go for it, and I'll pick up the fenders in March.
They also had a customer's Military spec Range Rover in for floorboards, so they're going to be busy for a while.
https://www.facebook.com/MidwestFabricationFordboy has been slaving over the flowbench of late – he’s testing a bunch of BMC 5 ports – some sort of ritual which falls between the disciplines of the flagellants and the disconcertion of flatulence. I’m sure the nuns at “Our Mother of Perpetual Guilt” would be pleased - I’ll take a slide rule over a ruler any day.
I have been on a parts buying binge of late –
The header is an E-bay item by Maniflow. It’s British, very expensive new, and calculations are that it should be the best performing of my ever increasing bundle of serpents hanging from nails on the walls of my garage. Nice bit of ceramic coating, and a bung for a temp sensor – maybe an oxygen sensor, although I don’t know what temps they’re capable of withstanding.
Just above the header is a set of titanium valve retainers. We didn’t have any issues with valvetrain last year, but lightening these pieces will give an added degree of peace of mind. And I like the fact that they are new and shiny.
Since the day I put this thing together, the clutch master cylinder has had a slow leak in it. The clutch still worked okay, but the fluid eventually made a mess of the paint on the inside of the engine compartment, so I ordered up a new one.
To the right of that is a crank trigger simulator for the Electromotive ignition system. The engine spends so little time actually in the car that in order to become more familiar with the recording provisions of the software, I picked this up to practice working on ignition setup and data recording.
Kiwi Steve made a note in my log book that he wasn’t particularly fond of my choice of harnesses. They prefer to see sprung retainers in the adjusters. Pegasus came through for me on that, along with the AeroCatch latches. And a quick heads-up on these things. THE REAL ONES ARE NOT CHEAP. The ones you see on E-bay for $33-$50 a set are NO WHERE NEAR AS TOUGH AS THE REAL ONES. I certainly wouldn’t trust my hood to the copy-cat pieces – these are the real deal.
I also replaced the rear wheel bearings, and discovered that one of the hubs was really badly worn. The bearing was sliding in and out about 3/32” on the outer bearing race. It’s supposed to be a press fit. Fortunately, extra Midget parts are not in short supply here at the Pommy Pygmy Playhouse. New studs were in order – I opted for extra long Mini Cooper pieces, which will let me space the rear wheels closer to the wheelwells.
So it hasn’t been a completely wasted January - just waiting for it to get warm enough to spend some serious time in the garage.
Topic: Milwaukee Midget (Read 3576711 times)