Jag 6 Cylinder Project

Another update, yesterday was spent shoving the motor into the chassis.  It just fits, I'll need to add a small filler piece to the stock engine mounts on the block side, but other than that things went smoothly.

Now the fun bit, making a drive shaft.  There's 3 1/8" from center to center on the UJ's.  With the diff being solid mounted and the motor on rubber mounts, I'm hoping I can get away with roughly 1/2" of sliding spline travel.  

But, most of that work will have to wait a week or so, the Elan needs some attention.

In reply to RoddyMac17 :

Did anyone use a short tail housing Moss box? Morgan perhaps? What did John Tojiero use?

An E-type gearbox would be a perfect fit, but I dont have E-type money.  I opted for a T5 as it's a more modern 'box, and is much cheaper to rebuild if needed.  My friend did give me a bunch of Mark 2 gearboxes, but they were way too long, and weren't really complete.  I think there was someone making a short T5 rear housing and mainshaft for the Jag crowd, but from what I recall they were fairly pricey. 

In any case, I'm going to do some research on 1310 weld yokes and see if a shaft is doable.

Awesome work as usual!  Get those wheels on that Europa! 

Care to share any details on your build table?

Time for a small update on the project, progress has been slow, the body buck hasn't moved as quickly as I had hoped.  Initially I had thought about building a wood buck, but that soon turned to a wire frame buck, and now things have sort of come to a standstill.

I did manange to start on the rocker panels, but that didn't go quite as smoothly as intended.  I had hoped that using a rubber band on the upper anvil of the finger pincher (english wheel) would shape the panels without marking them.  Unfortunately, there's lines through both panels (no up close photos).  I think I used too much pressure, luckily the RH panels appears to be not too bad, the LH one will need re-making.  The nice thing about the LH one is I can break it into two panels as the exhaust goes down that side and requires a removable cover.

I'm hoping to do a bunch of work this upcoming weekend as the weather should be nicer which means the other two cars can sit on the driveway while I drag this project back to the middle of the garage.

Other than bodywork, I did get my steering wheel pieces from Send Cut Send:

I'm going to attempt to use a round over bit on the router to smooth the edges.  Hopefully it doesn't tear the top layer of the plywood.

I've also made up the steering rack mounts, which turned out not too bad.  My lathe skills are greatly improving witht this project:

I did have to narrow the rack, and outer housing.  The steering column originally was going to pass through the RH engine mount bracket, but I had modelled the actual rack an inner tie rod ends incorrectly.  I had to take an additional 1 3/4" out of the rack housing to get enough steering travel.  This now means the column will pass between the engine mount and the block.

Other than that, I purchased a new pair of rear calipers, which were insanely cheap ($89 for the pair).  I had intially wanted to rebuild the calipers that came with the rear end, but after struggling to get just one piston out of one side, I left them at the back on the bench to revisist at a later time.  Now, they will be boxed up and put on the shelf for later (?).  

Bolting the calipers in place brought me back to the driveshaft issue.  I had a thought and would like some opinions on if it will work, can I just use a double cardan in place of an actual tube driveshaft?  The center to center on a double cardan is a little bit less than two 1310 weld yokes back to back, which would allow a little bit more movement on the slip yoke.  Any thoughts on whether or not that a recipe for disaster?

Whoa.  This is a wild build.  following along for the ride! 

Is there such a thing as a short tail shaft version of that box? I would try the double Cardan trick myself. Watch for wear on the tail shaft bushing causing gear oil leak. That indicates need for stiffer structure.....

Progress has been fairly slow on this build over the last few weeks, but I have managed to get some smaller bits made up.  First off was making up a dummy dashboard just to see if the firewall shape was pleasing to the eye, and the reason for the dummy part is because I'm a dummy and cut the D shaped holes for the switches backwards.  Because of that, and how time consuming it was to file the holes out, I've opted to get a dash cut by Sendcutsend.  That will hopefully be arriving this week along with a few other items.

Next was fabricating the steering column mounts, I've loosely copied what Lotus used on the 11's and S1 7's, though Lotus had a bent piece of sheet metal for where the bolt passes through.

The upper mount on the chassis will be on the firewall cross tube, and there's some brackets arriving in the SCS order for a second mount above the pedal box area.  The second mount is slotted for the cross bolt to allow some adjustability.

This past weekend, I made up the brake and clutch pedal pads, then added the "clamp" assembly to the clutch pedal:

This is, again, very similar to what Lotus used on the 11's.  I know this isn't a copy of a Lotus, but the 11 was contemporary to the Toj Jag, so I figured why not use something from the same time period.

I also started on shaping the wood for the steering wheel, and creating the rivets to help hold the wood on.  The rivets are way too tedious, it turns out the aluminium bar stock I picked up is .010" over 1/4" and the holes on the steering wheel are about a thou under 1/4".  Also, I didn't have a round over bit for my router, so went to the big box store to get one.I managed to round over the wood, but it's not quite the right radius.  I've ordered another round over bit from Amazon, which will hopefully make things look a bit better (to me at least).

The last things I did on the weekend were make up the brake pipe clips, and the fuel line & brake pipe clips:

These will get plug welded to the chassis, I'm hoping they'll be springy enough to allow the pipes to get pushed into their repective grooves.

Next weekend/week is another week off work for me, I made a deal with dear old dad about "parking" the Toj project following the week off to get the Elan put back together.  Ideally I'd like to have the chassis fully welded and painted by the end of the week, and possibly get the floor attached to it.

It's a super impressive project and it looks fantastic! Any way to use a CV joint for the driveshaft instead of a u joint, then use a longer slip nose to make up the rest of the link and no UJ on the trans end?

MiniDave,

I hadn't thought about using a CV joint, but I did pick up a double cardan joint which appears to make things work.  It will still be a few months before I test it out though.

In other news, I booked the past week off work to get the chassis painted, as I promised dear old dad that I would "park" the Jag project for the fall in order to get the Elan finished.  Most of the week was spent final welding everything.  I ended up cutting the front crossmember off the chassis and realigning it as it was out by about 1/4".  It was really noticable once the steering rack was bolted in.  Unfortunately, there's no pictures of that process. 

I placed another order with Send Cut Send, which arrived just before my week off.  I had them cut a gearbox mount, steering column brackets, and a few other bits that unfortunately didn't get added to the chassis.  The gearbox mount was the first item to get added to the chassis:

Next up was the steering column brackets:

The lower column ends up going through the motor mount bracket.  I managed to get things aligned so that there was no rubbing:

Next thing on the list was the rad/body mount, and plating in the front suspension tubes:

A driveshaft hoop/tunnel extension/seatbelt mount was installed;

And a handbrake mount was fabricobbled:

The lever is ex-Healey Sprite, I'll need to get a new bellcrank cut to keep the cable relatively straight.  I dont think it will be too difficult to draw up and have SCS laser cut one.

This all lead to getting the thing painted, by late Friday afternoon, it looked like this:

That then allowed the floor to be installed on Saturday:

I bought an air powered pop rivet tool a month or so ago, it certainly paid for itself putting the the floor on.  I think it took roughly 20 minutes to pull all the rivets, I can't imaging how long it would have taken if I had used the hand operated pop rivet gun (not to mention how sore my hands would be).

Interspersed with that work, I finished, or rather nearly finished the steering wheel:

It still needs to be sanded slightly and re-coated with clear a few more times.  But I think it looks fairly nice.

Now the short term goal is to get the suspension back on and the motor put back in the chassis to free up some garage space.

The pace you're keeping is making my head spin. Beautiful work, too. 

In reply to RoddyMac17 :

I'm completely blown away by the pace!!! 

AND the level of quality. 

Slow_M,

The pace is mainly due to the amount of laser cut parts and the fact that I've been using PTO to do most of the work (typically a 12 hour day in the garage).  I wish I had more time off that I could allocate towards working on the car, but another trip to the land north of Hadrian's wall means I wont get another week off for car stuff until next year.  I am hoping the Elan reassembly through the fall and winter wont take too long, I would like to get started on more aluminum work, I am very eager to see if I can actually shape some compound curves.

Incredible work, it would be great to see what you do on the elan!!

A week after painting the chassis and installing the floor, I had my helper give me a hand getting the suspension pieces in self etch primer and putting the whole thing back on it's wheels.  First step was lifting the diff into place, unfortunately, it will have to come back out again as we found a small interference with the tunnel:

I think all that's needed is a little bit of die grinder work and a small patch welded on from the cockpit side.

Next up was putting all the suspension back on (for the time being):

The de dion tube still needs some end caps welded on and the shock brackets fully welded, but that will have to wait for a few months.

The front dampers were a little difficult to install as the weight of the empty motor wasn't quite enough to compress them with the springs installed.  It turned out that when I installed the springs, I had the collars wound up a bit too much, relieving the load on the springs allowed them to compress just enough to get the bolts in.  We spent a good half hour on one side trying to get things together, once we figured out the spring collar issue, the other side took all of 5 minutes. The photo above has the front dampers only pinned at the top.

The final step was getting the motor back in, which like the front springs, proved more difficult than it should be.  The front body mount/rad mount added some length to the chassis which meant the enging hoist doesn't reach far enough to put the motor in from the front.  We found this out after getting it part way in (and scratching paint).  In the end, the motor did get installed from the side, but I think I should figure out a better way for putting it in once it's fully assembled.  I may cut a larger opening in the floor and look at lifting the car over the motor (installing the motor like one does with an E-type).

I'm planning on spending two days this upcoming weekend to get the pedal boxes cut and fitted, along with the gearbox tunnel, and possibly the firewall sides and dash supports welded to the chassis.

Wow, nice work!

Fantastic. Amazing headway! Hope it feels as satisfying as it looks from here.

I would seriously consider making the front body bracket a removable component, it isn't just the engine hoist interference that you will be annoyed by in the future. 

I think you can get a T5 from a Mustang that is much shorter. Maybe you could pull the guts out of yours and move them into this new home. Currently on eBay

I'll admit that I'm not a fan of those, because I'll take bronze synchros over "composite" any day. 

Not sure about bolt pattern, input shaft length, pilot diameter etc.

SlowM,

I did some digging on the interwebs and I can't seem to find a definite answer on the length.  One site claims the Mustang overall length is about 1" shorter than the S10 version, another site claims there all the same overall length.  But, the problem with the Mustang housing is the shifter location, it would put the gear lever right under my elbow.  

In other news, it turns out that the double cardan idea won't work, I should have measured it before welding in the tunnel hoop.  It's a bit too large in diameter, I've ordered a 1310 weld yoke so that I can put together a driveshaft that's two yokes back to back.  If that doesn't work, then it's back to the drawing board.

Could you use a giubo? (I usually see it misspelled as guibo)

TurboFource,

I haven't explored that option, but I think it too would be a bit too large for the tunnel.  The weld yoke was just delivered, but I don't think I'll get a chance to mock up the driveshaft for a few months now due to both the Elan and some renovations at my parents house (I use their garage, so it's only fair that I helpout with a few things for them).

Rod

I managed to get 1.5 days in the garage this past weekend, which went fairly well.  I had Send Cut Send cut a few things, which gave me a list of things to tackle  before the project gets pushed aside.  First thing that was installed was dash side supports along with the dashboard:

Next up was fitting the firewall and firewall sides:

The upper side pieces are cut from steel (as per the original car), and have a hinge "box" welded to them.  I haven't fitted the boxes yet, as I want to make sure the sills and everything line up. 

I re-made the LH sill, as the first one was too wavy, and as it turns out too long.  The original car only had the main piece of the sill going from the front wheel arch to the start of the door, the part beyond the door is a removable panel so that there's access to the exhaust.

I think I need to invest in more Clecos...

I also started on the LH side piece for the scuttle, it still needs work, but it at least it proved the concept that I was after:

At the end of Sunday things looked like this:

I'm now regretting telling Dear Old Dad that I would start back on the Elan, but it needs to get done.  The Toj-Jag will hopefully get some attention later in the year.

Looks great Roddy!

Hey wait, the steering wheel is on the wrong side!!!!  

but seriously, amazing work! Can't wait to see the finished product!