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#3199988
Preface

I bought this car thinking it was already a converted MG-TF. The K20a2 engine swap has been done once to a MG-F and the previous owner of my car broke that F to try and convert his TF (few realize it but Fs are VERY different from TFs) to say he made a dogs dinner of it is an understatement.

This is the only F/TF with a K20a engine in as far as anyone knows, but before I could drive it I had to do a total re-build on a car whose builder considered some things luxuries... like engine mounts, he seemed to think these were an optional extra.... he did include some nice features though, like a wiring loom that catches fire every now and again

oh well keeps you warm!

Before you start reading...

2 things to note:

1. The project has changed directions since the start of the thread. She will no longer be a stripped and caged time attack/track car as originally intended (I have a Skyline for that now). Instead she will be my daily drive while I use the Skyline as my toy.

2. The car was a worse mess than I ever could have feared when I bought it. In the end I'm actually using almost non of the conversion parts that came with the car. I've also replaced all the suspension parts and pretty much anything else on the car that was sub-standard (thats almost all of it then)

So this turned out not to be a "re-Build" but a "Build"

nearly a year since the start of the project she is nearly finished. So if you fancy reading about a Hairdressers rover with delusions of grandure then please grab a cuppa and a pack of biccys and enjoy the mother of project threads!

Thank you for reading.
Adam-MGTF 15th January 2012.[/B]
#3199994
OK guys and Girls, here we go!!!

First of all some background. I bought the car a few weeks ago, it is as far as I know the only MG-TF with a K20 engine in. I wanted to do this conversion to my old car but when my engine blew up and this car came up for sale I decided to see if it could save me some chew on.

Unfortunately it turned out to be a bit of a.... erm 'shed' I think is the polite way of putting it. The conversion may have been a little rushed and requires allot of work. I hope to do a complete and comprehensive re-build over the next 12-? months. No expense spared.

The end result should be a significantly lightened car with massively up-rated suspension, big breaks, a roll cage (safety and to stiffen the tub) etc etc. I hope to end up with a fast road legal track car to put big smiles on my face powered by the best naturally aspirated transverse 4 pot ever made.

So here we go!

First of all a few pics before I started to strip the car. This is 80th Anniversary TF No. 1033 of 1600 now named Bucephalus in honor of my old TF. The name has a meaning if anyone is interested ask me .

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First job was to get the exhaust off (to sell it) its completely the wrong bore for a K20 engine as it's designed for a Rover K series engine (pic on that to follow) so it wont be going back on the car.

To make that easier I decided to remove the rear bumper... I had to do this one way or another. So lets make the project thread to end all project threads start with.....

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A picture of a light, the boot light to be precise... took it out to save running the battery down... it wont be any use to me. Removing those wires should prove fun later.

Next job was to remove the boot carpet lining.

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Easy enough, unfortunately I found a worrying amount of surface rust

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This would prove to be a trend for the day, classic Longbridge rust proofing. :banghead:

Taking the carpet out revealed all the wiring for the K-Pro ECU

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Thats going to be fun to figure out!

Getting the car up in the air was a bit of a nightmare as the suspension has basically collapsed on both sides :drive: so I had to get it up on bricks before i could evan jack it up (this was not a good start!).

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Time to get the bumper off. First job was the rear mud guards

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The screws were universally rounded :facepalm: (This was NOT going well)

However I got them off... on the drivers side one I found this....

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I think it's an ABS sensor wire, my old TF didn't have ABS so I'm not sure what it is but it wasn't attached to anything so any ideas?

Next job was to get the bumper off. This should have been a walk in the park... It turned out to be more of a hop skip and a jump through a minefield.

This is one of the brackets the bottom bolts screw into...

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nearly snapped :crash: and this is the other bottom bracket

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actually snapped :whip:

This was not going well

and that wasn't the worse of it. The top of the bumper has 3 bolts... Left and Right came out no problem... the middle one had all kinds of issues as can be seen here

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The bolt head is welded onto the bracket attached to the bumper... however it was spinning freely when I turned the nut inside the boot.... so 40 minuets into working on my new car.... :clapping: out came the angle grinder! :D I had to hold up the bumper up with my knees and slot the cutting disk in between the car and the bumper to cut the bolt... I think the health and safety directorate would have had a consumption fit if they'd seen that but nm i didn't cut any vital body parts off so its all good!

Next job was the exhaust

As you can see from this picture

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The K20 exhaust is a vastly bigger bore than what a Rover K-series engine needs, as a result this exhaust was almost certainly strangling power. I've also read that when a smaller than recommended bore is put on a car then it can cause oil seal problems (im guessing something to do with back pressure) but I still don't know enough about tuning to be sure on this). Why anyone would go to all the time and expense of doing a conversion and having a custom manifold made and then not have a custom exhaust made to match I don't know, I'm guessing the previous owner was attached to this back box but any can type baffle would have done. I'll be having something suitably sexy sounding added toward the end of the project. :D

The bolts were an absolute nightmare (I'm sensing a trend with this car :facepalm:) as you can see they were in quite a state.

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anyway another session of banging my head against a brick wall over I stopped for a cuppa and noticed the flexipipe was looking a bit... limp

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I poked my head under the car and noticed this.... which worried me

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The flexipipe looks like its slid over the manifold and then clamped on... and not clamped on very well! I could pull it out by hand!

Anyway exhaust off and ready to be put up for sale!

Time to get on with stripping the car. I decided to start with the interior, not as sexy as dropping subframes or engines out the car but I had my reasons.

First of all it's an easy job, sure it's complicated - but easy :)

Second getting the interior out will allow me to get the roll cage measured up and mean that I wont get oil and gunk all over it while working on the car. If I can get it to fit round the roll cage I might re-fit it for long journeys (like the continent or to the ring and back) later but thats way in the future.

First job was to get the door cards off... before

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and after...

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and the other side, note the door jars are off too

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Next job was the T-Bar and the speaker pod, this picture shows the speaker pod removed and me getting ready to remove the seat belts.

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this job actually wasn't too bad, although most of the clips were snapped (this just means it's been removed before :D) typical MGF/TF

next job was to get the drivers seat out, the 80th anniversary seats were no good to me so the previous owner kept them to sell on so I could get the car a bit cheaper... the old MGF seat would not be staying... carbon fiber shineyness in the form of bucket seats to replace it :D

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pointless pic? - yep but it's my thread so :nyah:

next job was to get the sound proofing off the engine bay access hatch, here is me struggling with the seat belt bolts

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so the T bar could be completely removed

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Next job was to remove the rear cubby and arm rest

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next, time to remove the roof

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I decided to do this because the engine bay is a bit of a git to get into with the soft top on. You have to pivot the rear window part of the roof up to the front of the car... It's much easier to take the roof off altogether... However while re-building the car it will need to be outside allot (my garage isn't big enough to be a workshop).

Fortunately my best mate needs to store his hard top for the summer, and a hardtop takes 4 clips to take off instead of 4 bolts. Much easier to remove every time I work on the car :D

Unfortunately removing the roof means the bolts that hold the rear clip brackets on have nothing to bolt into... so I found something to bolt them into... thats a long way of introducing this picture

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think this pic is even more pointless than the seat one? Well I thought it was a good idea, so go fornicate with your mother :p

now where was I? Oh yes! taking the interior out...

Center console was next to go, the car had a silver one which is rare so will be ebay'd rather than me risk it getting scratched in storage.

This picture also shows the Mike Satur designed 6 speed slick-shift. I plan on talking to mike and seeing if he can finish this off for me. It was designed as a prototype which may be why the horizontal gate is nice and tight but the vertical gate has throws which are far too long (especially for 2nd 4th and 6th)

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the Transmission tunnel went in short order... my GF was sat there lamenting the time when I used to drive nice cars instead of pulling them apart

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Time to pull the carpets out, the fuel tank fire wall carpet went first

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then the main carpet... unfortunately as you might be able to see from the first picture I found this little lot

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the good news is it looks worse than it is and seems mostly located on the fuel tank bay access hatch so can be sorted or replaced and....

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there doesn't seem to be to much rust elsewhere

As you can see it had got pretty dam dark by that time so I needed to move all the interior upstairs to my room so I can sneak it into the loft when my mums at work

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And as the rabbit says "That's all folks"

Tomorrows job is to get the dash out and then think about day 3 :)
Last edited by Adam-MGTF on Fri May 11, 2012 2:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
#3200005
Told you! lol

I didn't skimp on the details as especially for MG-TF owners it's a pretty important thread (If i can crack the conversion then it might give a cheap sports car with great handleing a whole new lease of life)

it gets much better as you read on from about update 4 (removing the engine)
#3200017
Lee H 27 wrote:Remember seeing this project and commenting on Two Brutal, another forum I use occasionally. Great project.
yep, it's on there as the company that did my mounts (the only job i have outsourced so far!) do lots of MR2 stuff

the thread is also on

MG-Rover.org (my main MG forum)
Rovertech.net (a quiet forum but great source of rover info you wont get anywhere else)
Banzai Mag forum (It was featured in the mag, letter of the month)
Skylineowners.com (my other toy is a R33 GTS-T)

its also on a type r site but tbh it doesnt get much interest there, i'll be stopping the thread on there in a few weeks once it fires up along with rovertech and maybe Banzai, more than 2 threads is a pain when not many people post in it
#3321344
First Job on day two was to sneak all the interior parts I'm keeping into the loft while my mum was at work!

The transmission tunnel, door cards etc were pretty easy but getting a rear bumper into the loft was a whole other kettle of fish, and pretty funny

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Not something you see every day

anyway on with the car

First problem was it was raining... not good as my garage isn't exactly roomy

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So I decided to start by removing the wing mirrors, easy enough (this statement was a mistake)... couple of screws

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Then all I had to do was undo a clip on the door skin that wanted to remove as much of my skin as possible!

Top one on this pic

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After trying for 10 mins and stabbing myself twice with a screwdriver, I bravely gave up.

I decided to try popping the clip off from the back... this ment removing the speaker (which i didn't need anyway)

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Easy enough, note to self passenger side speaker wires are yellow, drivers orange... more wires for me to trace back through the loom and bin lol

anyway back to that pesky plug

I managed to pull it out the door and this made things a little easier

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Eventually I managed to get the plug apart by jamming a screwdriver in it and prizing it apart

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After that I struggled to pull the wire up through the door so I decided to bag the mirror up so it didn't get scratched and pull more stuff off the door skin so I had better access

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The random pics continue

I had to remove the door handle and take the leaver off (and put it back on) to remove the nasty plastic cover, but once it was off it looked much cleaner

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Once this water proofing was off I could get my arm in the door and feed the wire out the door :) simples

repeat process on other door...

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Plenty of plastic rubbish in a bag

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Now time to move onto the dash!

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This is the first time I had ever removed a dash so my first jump into unknown territory on a TF, just like to say a big thanks to the scarlet fever pages at this point for the guide on removing a dash, it helped allot

First job was to remove the air bag blank, easy enough just a screwdriver to flick the clips out

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Random pice of Styrofoam, MG/Rover once again demonstrating that no expense was spared when building their flagship model

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Removing the air vents involved more screwdriver action

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They actually came out quite easily, although being able to open the doors would have made things much easier for the side vents

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managed anyway

OK easy stuff out the way, now things get tricky, first job was to get the instrument pack out

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This is a fiddly job and starts with removing the instrument cowl. This is a pain as any F/TF owner will tell you as evan with a stubby screwdriver it's a dam nightmare to get square on the screw heads.

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This is where my great little tool (err?) comes in :D I'm a total geek for tools and this is listed in the snap on catalogue as a 'finger ratchet'... epic lol, saves rounding off the screws anyway :)

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Couple more screws under the cowl and....

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It's off :) reveling the plugs for the dash back light dimmer and electric wing mirror controls... these plugs are an absolute nightmare to pull out (without smacking you hand off various sharp and painful surfaces anyway) but I managed!

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Time to get shot of the plastic trim thing that covers the ignition barrel... I'm sure it has a proper name but I can't remember it lol

Few screws underneath

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And pull it apart once again smacking your hand off sharp surfaces

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and off, revealing an instrument pack

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Note if your wanting to take your instrument pack out you don't need to remove this bit but as I'm stripping the whole car I did this first to make things easier...

More finger ratchet action got the instrument pack out

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I was now ready to unplug the pack, however I have a habit of unplugging the battery before I start unplugging stuff behind the dash, always a good rule of thumb as there is allot of airbag/seatbelt pretensioner stuff behind there and you don't want to fire either one of them by accident

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Oh heck someone has nicked my engine! lol... another random photo lol, I included it as it will remind me how many lovely things I can bin under here to save weight

OK, instrument pack unplugged and out, the dash is starting to look pretty bare!

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Check it out, pile of crap I dont need :D

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Time to add to it, had to get the vents out to get to the top bolts that allows dash removal... no fancy tools just a 2p

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The bolts were a bleeding nightmare and there were long and fine threaded... note to self if I want to keep fitting/re-fitting dash when the cage is in then DONT PUT THESE BOLTS BACK IN! there a total *%@#

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so much so it was lucky my bro turned up with a timely beer

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unfortunately im a renowned lightweight (As those at fast show this year will testify)...

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ok I'm bad but I'm not that bad! lol Thats actually me trying to find the pipes that lead to the windscreen de-mister-vents...

Now, you guys into racing... what should I do about these do you think? I read on jonnos B16 VTEC ZR Rally car thread that you can get electric wire heater thingy windows like rear windows so you dont need air vents to de-mist... are these stupidly expensive?

anyway finding these pipes was difficult so I bravely gave up and started undoing nuts, 4 on either side hold the body of the dash in... they dont evan need full removal as the dash just slides out so dash removal/refitting may well be easy in the future

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4 similar nuts allow the heater matrix to drop out the dash for removal, once again this was easy

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2 easy, if finger nail destroying clips finished the heater matrix removal... simples

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This allowed the heater-matrix to drop free and the dash jiggling to begin

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It quickly became obvious I'd need to drop the steering wheel down, couple of bolts meant that was easily done, although with some worrying noises lol

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Now it was time for the 'hunt the things that are still attached' game

Glove box light leads, more stuff to trace back through the wiring loom

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Those pesky pipes I couldn't find

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I quickly realized then that I needed to remove the fuse box cover and more importantly the glove box... few nuts like those holding the dash in and a few screws later and that was that :)

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and then a few jiggles, pulls and allot of shouting later (I considered a hammer and or angle grinder but after a beer I decided that probably wasn't wise) and the dash was on its way out... as you can see the air pipes are held together with masking tape, once again no penny wasted by MG/Rover

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Looking good with the dash removed, lots of random stuff I'm sure weighs allot and I don't need lol

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For a kick off some more horrible dead sheep sound proofing which got tossed

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and by this point the dogs were howling at the moon, I was in night shift mood and it was another day... however there was one more big pice of 'trim' I just had to remove

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The engine access hatch! So just for you little lot I decided to pull it off and reveal...

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V-TEC Yoooooo!

There is a surprising amount of room in there from what I can see, evan though the engine looks like it's at an odd angle to me? I need to see a Civic Type R to see really, maybe get the spirit levels out. The last thing I want is to start damaging a tuned engine due to oil starvation from a poorly mounted lump. But the amount of room is encouraging!

So providing I don't need to drastically re-position the engine then I may have room for my throttle bodies :D That is without cutting into the fuel tank bay and moving the tank under the bonnet (I'll probs do that anyway for better weight distribution).

Looking good so far!

Next post will probably be removing the front bumper and everything I can under the bonnet so I can drop the front subframe

Comments welcome
#3321345
Right! Update! 31 May 2011

Well last week I had 2 days off and as the ZR Tubby was laid up waiting a drive shaft seal I figured why not have a play with the TF! I've been through a bit of a rollercoaster with the MGs after all my woes with the ZR (see project thread) and I was considering selling the lot...

Considered thinking (and a slap from a good mate - Kane-ZR) made me decide I should stop being a girl lol... my only problem will be further demonstrated later in the thread... this is a VERY bad conversion and is dangerous, I'm worried it's going to be un-economical to sort :(, although I have been talking to a man who might help me out ;) details to follow.

Few notes for y'all... as you might have noticed this thread is a bit more than a 'project thread' it's detailing every step of what I do for 3 rasones A: To make putting it back together easier for me B: to help anyone wanting to do the same conversion and C: because im used to reading and sometimes writing 'How-Tos' so it's how i think lol anyway, hope you all like the detail!

Now on with the update! This post pics up where we left off with the interior out and some of the back end of the car stripped ready to drop the engine out. I'd like to say a MASSIVE thank you to TF Guru CJJ at this point, his Engine/Rear Subframe removal guide helped allot here as i could use it to prompt me on what to disconnect/remove. Basically i had to separate everything that was attached to both the shell and the subframe/engine so the two could be removed.

In time honoured tradition I'll start with something pointless!

The expansion tank overflow pipe

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easily removed even though the car started the evening in usual form by removing some skin as the pipe popped off the tank! gotta love tight bays

now that was off i decided to remove the expansion tank completely (not necessary but gets us some room) 2 bolts saw to that

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which let me remove the main coolant pipe from the bottom of the bottle

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with the bottle out the way i figured this was a good time to make as much room as possible, so off came the CDA enclosed cone (will probs be reaplced with mugan or if i can fit them in the bay ITBs)

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Easy done, however removing it revealed something a bit worrying....

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that bottom green pipe is a fuel return line.... its not hooked up to anything! I dont know if the K20a has a return feed but i assume it does? but that explains why the car stank of fuel!!!! anyway... nil desperandum it didnt set on fire even a little bit so on we go...

the Fuel line went next

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i wasn't very impressed by the girly little clip holding it on, i'll have something a bit stronger on there when shes goes back together!

Fuel lines, Tick!

Next, throttle cable, this was quite easy actually, all be it a bit puzzling to find as the engine is backwards and i wondered why i couldnt see it from the back of the car! lol durrhhhh

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hard to get a pic but as you can see it is held in place with a black sqare retaining clip/thingamee bob like a K series cable, and then..

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runs across the inlet manifold and into the cars interior

next job - the remove oil filter jobbie, no idea why its where it is but it makes changing the filter easy i guess

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held in place by 2 crappy bolts through a hole drilled in the boot/engine bay wall that hadn't been painted so was rusting... more wire bush and hammerite mayhem needed!

well thats the easy stuff out the way

now its time for (stiff drinks on standby) the wiring loom... sorry did i say wiring loom? i meant that colossal cluster f*ck masquerading as a loom

I took a long time over this, i wasnt aiming to sort the wiring out today just figure out exactly what i had to disconnect to get the subframe out

here are some 'before' pics

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thats the wad of wiring... a great deal of which is pointless as i discovered

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and thats a pic of the rear of the ECU where the USB for the laptop hook-up plugs into, below where you can see scratches is an earth point

and the next picture shows the main plug-in points on the K-Pro, there are a few 'random box things'. Sadly I can't be more specific. I'm hoping I can find a mechanical sparky who can help me sort all this out! lol if not I'll learn by doing :)

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there is a good example of a box that seems to be there for no reason. Admittedly this could be my lack of electrical knowledge.

one last pic of all the wires in place

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The next few pics show me slowly and systematically removing all the tape and tie wraps from the loom(s) and trying to trace wires back... I didn't try to narrow down what wire did what (thats beyond my knowledge and skills atm) I just tried to figure out which part of the loom the wires went to when they passed through the hole from the boot to the engine bay

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This pic shows a random plug thats not plugged into anything (grr to the excess weight!)

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First Tie wraps, then

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Tape all got chopped away. To begin to reveal...

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A total

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and complete

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Mess!!!

more worryingly as you can see lots of these wires do not connect to anything!

I dont know if this is because they are spare input wires to the ECU for sensors or if it's just because, like that plug in an earlier pic it was easier just to leave the wires in place... I shall try to find out and report back :)

Sadly I can't post pics of what was around 5 hours careful study, where little happened but I managed to figure out a careful sequence to get the wires sorted. I hope to produce a loom a bit more 'factory' when I'm finished which wont require cutting of wires to take the engine out!

anyway when I was done I was left with this

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Holy Generic Deity!!!!

anywhoo all that fed through the hole and meant I "think" most of the loom is free for the drop. If I have missed any they will snag when the car is jacked off the frame and I'll post pics

I continued with the wiring loom type jobbies by removing the Emissions sensor from the flexi pipe... now these normally are a total $H!+ to get out as the heat welds them in place...

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but worryingly this one came out VERY easily... this would lead me to believe the car has run very few miles since its conversion

Nevermind!

that was most of the wires sorted so now to finish the coolant system

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These rubber pipes had to come off the two underfloor coolant pipes. These pipes run the length of the car from the engine bay to the front where the radiator is. They are in pretty good nick but I will be replacing them with stainless steel pipes, the rusty clips will be going as well (even though they came off easily I HATE rust!)

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Bucephalus had a little wee... between my TF peeing coolant, fuel and such all over and my ZR peeing gearbox oil everywhere I really need to house train my cars!

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total mess!

and thats it for today!!! I cracked on again yesterday but the thread will have to wait i need some kip!
#3321346
UPDATE! 1st June (ish)!

Onward we plough then! to a day where things went pretty much according to plan (this was disconcerting)

First job was to disconnect the breaks. The break lines needed to be disconnected from the calliper, this was a easy job which first required the break lines to be crimped with my break line crimpers (well what else would I use them for).

Then the bolts that hold the lines onto the calipers needed to be removed... this beautifully pointless picture shows the line crimped and the spanner on the break line ready to unscrew it

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This even more pointless picture shows the bolt coming out the calliper... little note for me later, the washer goes on-top of the line. Naturally when she goes back together she will have braided break lines from goodridge or hel

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Once the break line was removed it was time for my all time least favorite job on a F or TF, removing the hand break cable retaining pin.

For reasons known only to the addled minds of mowberry pie scoffing MG/Rover engineers the pin goes through the cable and the calliper and then has a securing hair-pin on the far side...

The problem with this is that in a classic and unique tradition known only to british cars the pin then rusts in place in about 35 seconds... to make things worse the calliper heats up allot welding the already rusty pin in place....

So naturally the pins never want to come out!... You know I said things were going well?...

Well to make things worse you can't nock them out with a hammer and punch because the calliper stops you from getting in with a punch grr... if only MG/R had put the pin in the other way!

most people who have ever taken these blasted pins out replace them with a tiny nut and bolt that can be removed with a pair of 8 or 6mm spanners in 10 seconds...

Not the person who put this engine back in though, so after much swearing out came the angle grinder! which cut the head off the pin and heated the metal up so that with a punch and a lump hammer I could get the pin out...

This pic sums up the aftermath ** :)

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lather rinse and repeat on the passenger side calliper :)

Next job was to uncouple the rather rusty clutch slave cylinder feed pipe (what a mouth full)!

This is it

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And this is it disconnected

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lovely eh?

Next jobbie was to remove the ARB, I did this to make accessing the rear sub frame bolts easier... sadly and rather inevitably this happened

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oops, sheered bolt... never mind i think i will be needing a new sub frame anyway

ARB removed

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One of the last jobs left to do was the gear linkages, they look pretty decently manufactured to me, obviously one of the few jobs Mike Satur got to finish on Golden Wheels.

They were also very easy to remove compared to a Rover K series set up. I would love to see pictures of a Civic Type Rs gear linkage set up if anyone can show me some just to compare the two.

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Where they link to the box:

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One disconnected

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Two disconnected

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simple job of two securing bolts and one nut holding it onto the gearboxs selector :)

The last serious job was to disconnect the main positive feed to the starter motor. Easy you would think?

Except I couldn't find the starter motor! and I still can't! I can only assume that either it's internal to the gearbox? Or I just can't see it because it's hidden behind something...

In the end I disconnected the wire which normally attaches to the Rover Starter motor... its not been modified it's just plugged into this rather odd box... here are some pictures, if anyone can shed some light on my mystery (im guessing the boys at type-R-owners.co.uk will be able to help here) please pipe up

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You can see the red wire which is the same wire that connects to the Rover Starter motor and 2 other wires which I have no idea what they do!

It's attached to this plate which is interesting (to someone I'm sure)

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Andddd... This is it disconnected

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As far as I'm aware there is nothing left to disconnect now apart from the 10 bolts that hold the subframe to the shell. Apart from this

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An ABS sensor wire... and on that fantastically pointless note! - Update over, tune in next time viewers for more "Tales of Interest"
















** What the pic doesn't show is what happened when the sparks from the angle grinder set some 'stuff' on fire... I pelted full speed down my drive and into my garage to get my fire extingisher... sadly I had goggles on and headphones and as a result I ran full pelt into a half closed garage door... this was quite uncomfortable
#3321347
UPDATE! 3rd June



Blistering sun and only 10/12 bolts between me and my engine out... what could possibly go wrong?



God where should I start!



First of all thanks to low profile tires and lowering springs the front bumper was too close to the ground to jack the back of the car up to drop the subframe out. Doh!



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So the front bumper had to come off... 4 self tapping screws on top and then the wheel arch liners had to come off. What a pain in the sewage end!



Most of the screws looked like this



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Plastic totally rounded :(



So i had to physically rip the lining off :( never mind



This screw was a fair bit easier thankfully



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This left the fog light plugs and 2 bolts that should have gone through the bumper and into the car but as you can see in this picture these bolts had been replaced with smaller bolts with a nut on the end which was the very devil himself to get too



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Anyway as you can see they should have bolted in here



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lord knows why the right size bolts weren't put in here but never mind. Bumper off



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So that left the 10/12 bolts that hold in the subframe... the rear 6 are normally pretty easy, although these buggers were in VERY tight, I really thought they were all going to sheer



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but luckily with a large breaker bar they came off



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random note for you all this is the first car i've seen with 4 bolts in here, all the other TFs i've worked on have had 3 each side.. anyway



all that stood between me (and you) seeing the K20a sat on a TF rear subframe for the first time now was 4 bolts



which did NOT want to budge, getting pics of these bolts is very very difficult but here is one of the 2 i managed to get out of the passenger side



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the drivers side did not go so well... in spite of been cap head bolts that i assume should not have been in the car long, they were so tight they both rounded almost straight away :(



and after trying a few things i had to give up... 2 bolts are holding up the whole project and until i figure something out thats that :(



oh and to top things off i dropped my pry bar on my boot while packing up and did this :(



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not good! lol



next update should have the engine out peeps so stay tuned!
#3321348
Finally! UPDATE!!!! 27 June 2011

Well today was the big day!

I have been stuck on 2 bolts that just would not come out... apart from being rounded before I stuck a socket anywhere near them they were also (it later turned out) the wrong thread for the captive nut!

Figures with this mess of a car!

Anyway with some help from two people I owe allot to - Bob and Paul Swan*, 2 local mechanics who have helped me massively over the years, these guys know their stuff, don't take short-cuts and have generally kept me right and shared expertise with me for years asking nothing in return! Can't thank em enough! Two of the many great people I've met thanks to cars! anyway, enough bleating on and being all girly the point is... we cracked on!

First of all I had to start the lengthy (and in my own unique way - dangerous) process of dropping the subframe off the ramps needed to access the rounded bolts with a captive tool... at the same time I had to jack up the body of the car without breaking anything attached, to the car, the subframe or my body... err maybe not in that order of priority!


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Oh dear!

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Thankfully it began to drop clear pretty easily... a few things got missed or snagged, a main earth from the engine to the rear bulkhead was one I missed on pics but a few others I got pics of

This fuel pipe was one

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I can only assume this random thing is something to do with fuel return? can anyone help me out here (remember im a nurse not a mechanic! :D)

I had another issue with the hand break cables... on a K series fired TF these sort of lie over the gearbox in 2 clips iirc. On here they were inexplicably snaked through half the coolant hoses!

I tried to point them out in this pic but the screwdriver sort of morphs into the picture... freaky

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So I had to undo some more coolant rails to feed them through, this was annoying but not the end of the world!

This next one shows a coolant pipe I had to move with a sensor in it (I assume this is for the water temp guage beloved of and feared by all MG Drivers?)

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But inexplicably it had been earthed...

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even though the rubber hoses isolate the metal of the pipe... any ideas mechanically knowledgeable people? is it part of the way the sensor works?

It wouldn't be an update without a pointless pic!

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this was ment to show me and paul wrestling with a coolant hose... instead it shows a lovely pic of our manly forearms... isnt that nice? aww

anyway moving on before we get dangerously homo-erotic

The engine began to descend!

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The front coolant pipes had to be undone... thankfully the crappy push-button jobbies MG/R used near the PRThermostat were gone and replaced by jubilee clips (finally something good on the car!) so that was easy

So the tub could be slowly lifted off the subframe!

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now here for some action shots!

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:D I love this bit

My latest project....

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The Monster-Tec!!! Geddit? like Monster-Truck, only - only like its a -Tec! Haha!... only me laughing? ok :(


this meant that!...

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IT was out!

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Freakin' sweet!

Ooooshh!

Mmmmm Vee-Techhawwwahhhhh

and other TV character type phrazes!

as you can see the thing is an absolute mess! the subframe is bent in several places, is rusty as hell and the engine is in serious need of a tidy up!

the rough plan atm is to get this bad boy down to mike satur and ask him to make me a subframe that will sit the engine on safely

then plug it back into the car asap (yes in a bit of a state still)

this will let me shake down the parts that failed and nearly killed me before whipping it off the road again during the winter for a serious re-build with proper wiring and coolant hoses and rust-proofing galore!


Comments very welcome!


* This is the Swan AVO website http://swanavo.com/index.html apart from running their own garage repairing cars (mechanically as well as crash damage) they have restored classic cars and built rally cars... true old school petrol heads!
#3321349
Update! 1st July 2011!... and probably the most important update of the project ;)

last night at 10pm I was feeling a bit... erm 'restless' as you might say... the mrs had a headache so there was only one thing to do!

no you sick fools!

I went out to the garage to tinker! :D



After a good clear-out of the garage the previous day, which had been stocked up with various TF/ZR parts for the past few weeks I had plenty of room to play with the engine as it sat on the subframe

I'd spent the past few nights (much to the new mrs adams pleasure im sure) on various Lotus forums around the world looking up every morsel of info i could get my grubby mits on about K-Series to K20a conversions in S1 and S2 Lotus Elise's... must say thanks to Paul (Karmealeon) for his assistance here!

This plus lots of time sat staring at the subframe 'thinking' (and i use that word loosly) I "Think" I've figured out what caused the car to nearly kill me (more on that later)


First I wanted to get all the gubbins I could easily remove out the way... I soon realized that taking the wiring loom off would be a nightmare so instead it was hoses that had to be taken off!

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This was going to be interesting to say the least! some of these hoses have been bodged together in a monumental way (and I don't mean that as a compliment!)

so lots of very detailed labeling was needed on my part

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I'm not convinced this was a good start! :hiding:

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all very boring

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you get the idea... the trick was to describe where the hoses plugged into the engine, in a way I would understand later when putting it back together... the sticky labels (predictably) weren't sticky enough, but I wrapped them in sticky tape as well so all are legible!

Anyway I managed to get all the hoses off, some were fuel hoses but most were coolent... much more room now :D job 1 - tick

job 2 was to pick apart some of the erm 'catastrophes' lurking around the thing

this in particular mystified me

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EG sensor... seems to have never been plugged into anything, just wrapped in heat proof sheet! :omg:

some of the excellent wiring on the car

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I found a better one than this but I dont seem to have taken a picture so thats to follow

epic clutch line bodge

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and the most epic of fails (potential disaster to engine wise)

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a bottom pully that has often became one with the subframe (I dont want to think what damage this may have allready done by stressing the fixing that holts the pully onto the crank)

the damage its done to a (presumably) new belt was worrying enough!

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nice thick score.... K20a engines retail at around 1-1.5k :facepalm: you have to laugh really don't you




Right... now that I had some space around the engine to have a mooch I sat and thought some more (this required some Guinness... optional but recommended to the budding engine converter)

When I drove the car back from scotland the back end was all over the shop... and the first time I changed gear on tec I was promptly propelled across a duel carrigway (note across... not along, as one would generally prefer on a busy multi-lane road)

I assumed tracking was at fault

... jump in a time machine with me and re-wind to the start of this project

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this is the car sat getting a 4 wheel track and aline done... with the car up in the air the problem soon 'jumped out' at me...

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interesting... now I'm no expert but I do assume that bolts aren't ment to look like that?

naturally without the trailing arm (which is basically a very large pice of metal which holds the wheels where it should be) the wheels were moving all over the shop (oh yeh, the other side has gone too)

the reason the bolts sheered are in my theory 3 fold...

1 is that the engine mounts are basically a dogs dinner

2 one of the mounts is conspicuous...

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by it's absence!

oops!

the thrid and probably most important factor is harder to explain

if you look at these pictures closely

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you can see that because of the thickness of the metal and the large cap head bolts holding the cam-belt side mount support (mouthful or what) to the subframe... (the mount support is the gray metal right side of last pic) that the trailing arm can't 'sit' where it was supposed to

now the obvious answer to me to that little problem is to shave off metal and get it to sit right

this picture shows how it should sit

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if just some of the metal seen in this pic was shaved away

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ahh yes we all think... that makes loads of sence

the person who built this however decided that was too much work

instead a large hollowed out metal spacer was made about an inch long and a longer bolt shoved through the hole (no sniggering)

this upset all the geometry and more importantly caused the bolt to sheer under the stress!

this had a detrimental effect on the drivers underwear at the time!

and once the drivers side one had gone

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the passenger side followed suit (my CK Briefs were beyond hope - nice image for you there)




so that I think that is basically that, mystery 90% solved... I could, mind you be totally wrong (lets face it I probebly am)

as a result I emailed Mike Satur who has been an absolute star! he's very VERY busy atm but took the time to speak to me a few times and replied first thing this morning with an email basically confirming what I thought (I was as suprised as anyone!)

So I plan a 2 pronged attack at the issues

1 figure out how to make the 4th torque tamer mount which is missing (update to follow soon ;) ) which should stop the engine from moving as much as it is and damaging things

and 2 (and much more tricky)

shave off various pieces of metal to give the pulley more clearance, and most importantly allow the trailing arms to be fit in the correct place :)


Thoughts, comments, criticism and such are very welcome (especially from this post) if anyone has other thoughts on how the damage occurred then please shout up! I'm a nurse not an engineer and could have this all wrong
#3321350
UPDATE

Nothing dramatic on this one guys but some great news!... after a visit from Mindy and Ant we all came to the conclusion that a serious expert was needed to sort this mess out!

the electrics i can have a bash at and the coolant system will be a doddle to make right, at least in comparison to the engine mounts that tried hard to kill me!

about a month of digging around lotus forums and talking to people in general had the same name cropping up... i also found a project thread with some of their work on

the company was only 30 mins from my house as well

so the other day i gave Anthony a ring at Woodsport http://www.woodsport.org/joomla/ and was welcomed up that afternoon to a heck of a busy work shop!

half an hour of chatting to Paul and Anthony and i was convinced these guys were the only ones to talk to.

They specialize in putting big engines in small places so this is right up their street! and their work is not done to pay the bills but because they are genuine petrol heads and want to be the best, bar non... ever!

their work speaks for itself and 2 nicer blokes i have never met

they can probably sort my engine mounts out while half asleep, one eye closed and a hand tied behind there backs lol (although i hope they dont :p)

so whats the catch your asking?...here it is

they have a 6 month back log of work (thats how good they are!)

but on the upside as my subframe is out the car they may be able to squeeze me in earlier!

my aim is to have the engine running back in the car on a safe subframe (if they can squeeze me in) by christmas... then have the car back in pieces for a final time after i've validated the conversion properly (as opposed to driving it with kid gloves) so i can make it pretty :D and then just enjoy the car for the spring and summer before a re-spray winter 2012 :)



oh by the way, a lot of people want this engine in their car... nobody has cracked a kit yet and only 2 Fs i know of are actually used on the road with a K20 and NO TFs....

so the question you all want to ask, well the answer is yes. Paul and Anthony are planning on re-producing the mounts to order ;) I wont say anymore and naturally this will be months off, but I know interest is massive and wanted to share this with people as a beacon of hope!
#3321351
UPDATE 28/09/2011


About time or what!!!

This is an update from about a month/6 weeks ago, thanks to internet troubles this is my first chance to upload


Having talked some more with Paul and Anthony at Woodsport I was convinced I had found my guys and could not wait to get my engine in with them!

Sadly they had a 3 month waiting list for work (true testament to their work). Eventually the day dawned when they could get me in and thankfully I had our very own MG Enthusiast Mikeknight on hand with his van to help me get the bits the 20miles to Woodsport, the temple of engine conversions!


First though I had to break the 1.6 K series engine off my donor subframe*

This was easy.

However getting the K20 engine off the bodged subframe was a bit trickyer


so with the help of some MG forum members (and my trusty kid brother) I got started!...

... with the tool of the gods


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a big hammer :smug_git:

draining the oil from the gearbox was needed to pop the diveshafts out........ and you know what that means!!!

Pointless picture time!

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Thats a milk bottle full of oil

not that I want to get too technical on you or anything....

anyway

next step was to unbolt all the suspention ready to pop the shafts out.... this was easy thanks to me being a total Snap-On tool geek!

It turned out I had just the spanner for the job...

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little brother reference or actual spanner? you decide..... :whistle:


anyway moving on, this is where the forum members came in handy... these guys are well known to anyone into MGs (especially Turbo ZRs) up here and two top guys, introducing smithy the younger and smithy the elder!... they actually came round to steal bits off our rally car donor! lol... and graciously stopped to help for an hour or two (or 4)... I can't thank them enough as I couldn't have done this on my own and my bro was off to bed (up for work at 4am), without them the engine wouldn't have got to Woodsport the next day!

however they are a little camera shy!

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I didn't have time to take many pics at this point but here is about 2 and a half grands worth of engine and box on some flimsy rope!

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By this point the wolves were howling at the moon (again! late nights are the way forward for this car!) and it was time for bed!


The next day Mike Knight turned up with his van and did not 1, but 2 runs to Woodsport with me with the engine, 2 subframes and lots of suspension! (this after breaking the donor subframe with me!)

which leads me to show you this...


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a 230ish bhp trolly!!!! V-Tec yO! or what! lol

sadly the engine fell over in the van and cracked the thermostat housing :( but otherwise all was un-eventful




The engine has been sat at woodsport for about a fortnight now and I went to see it today! and so far the work carried out is excellent!!!! I wont bleat on too much about the way these guys work (their heads are big enough already :p)

For the people following this thread in MR2 circles, you already know how good their work is... for the MG guys and honda people I'll let the soon to follow pictures speak for themselves.




Anyway thats that!.... So for now people, sweet dreams and try to wait patiently, for soon, (very soon) you'll have updates live** and un-edited*** straight from the woodsport house of hellish modification! :D

tune in next time.....








*random note, this is the subframe and engine from my first ever MG! my old TF. And the 1.6 engine is destined for our ZR rally car!

**They wont be live - this is a forum

*** I'll edit them so I look better, probably......
#3321352
UPDATE

29/09/2011

OK Guys, from now on the project thread will have updates direct from Paul and Anth at woodsport! so here is the engine being built on a subframe THE RIGHT WAY

read on and enjoy 'tec junkies!



This is where we pick the project up.
We immediately had the whole subframe stripped back to the bare bones and shotblasted right back to the bare metal, and then a temporary layer of primer sprayed on it to stop the tinworm returning while we work on it.
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The subframe was supported on all four corners by jacks, so we could level it off exactly, and the engine hung within it.
We hung the engine on its "original" gearbox mount just to steady it while i worked on the drivers side mount.
A little interlude here, how many of us drive our cars without any torque mounts on the engine? That would be madness surely ( it is madness Paul, and don't call me surely- Mr Neilsen RIP) , but that is exactly why this engine install was trying to kill Adam, the previous "engineer" decided that torque mounts were a luxury item and that one small pivoting bracket (pivoting at both ends i hasten to add) would suffice.... let's just say Chris Woods T shirt fits better, but isn't going to kill him (unless he washes it again).
Joking aside the install was just criminal, no torque mounts, so the engine was allowed to do as it pleased on every gearchange or press of the throttle, which in turn was yanking on the driveshafts like a dimented Oxbridge rower, which in turn caused his trailing arms to break away from the subframe, leaving the wheels not attached to a lot......................... i'll leave you to think about that a bit......... perhaps he wasn't so much an engineer, maybe he just said "OI! Engine.... in 'ere!" , thankyou, i'm here all week, try the fish.
Back to the project, Adam has protected what he can of the shockingly adapted wiring harness with a Tescos bag.... well, every little helps........
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Now onto the start of our fabrication, i removed all of the deathrace2000 mods from the engine and started with a clean slate, made a new mount for the engine block and a new chassis piece, similar stuff to the Lotus Elise build actually...
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Shortly after this was boxed in....
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Pretty robust and over-engine-in-ere'd! (beware, i intend to use this phrase a lot from now on)
Compared to the previous attempt....
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Really?
On the gearbox end i have temporarily suspended the gearbox on it's previous mount (i use the word temporary, i doubt it was ever permanent to be honest)
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The quality of construction is amazing, bits of box section snotted onto thin plate, also an engine mounts second job is to keep the engine away from the chassis it is attached to.... FAIL!

So this is where we are at right now....
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I may or may not add torque mounts, torque mounts are so last season :)

Lots more to come.....
#3321353
and here we go guys have 2 updates in one day! thank you Woosport!




Work continued with this making the gearbox mount, starting with some decent plates on the box itself...

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The plan is then to add these plates on both parts of the bottom plates....

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So that i can add one of our bush rings...

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This will result in a standard looking mount assembly, fit for purpose and aesthetically pleasing... what's the saying? "if it looks right, it is right"

I should add there is not enough of a gap between the chassis rail and mount right now, but there will be by the time it's finished.
#3321354
UPDATE 02 October 2011

more from paul



More Vtec mount making today, the left side mount is taking a lot longer to fabricate, i'm sure it's a lot easier to just weld some box section to some light plate.... oh wait! That's what it had!

Anyway here is the bush ring in place...

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And with the rubber bush pressed in...

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That's as far as i got, apart from making the template that is going to join the mount to the subframe...

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Monday will see it free hanging on both left and right mounts and work can begin on the front and rear torque mounts.

Once the four mounts (2 engine hanger mounts plus the always optional torque mounts :) ) are done there is some subframe notching to do for clearance followed by some reinforcing work, i plan on adding a lot more structural support to this subframe with some gussetts added, and a strut brace as well.

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