June 2005

Post Curborough track day repairs Part 2

I have now recrified the other faults mentioned previously.

Engine mounts

The engine mounts did need replacement as it kept trying to come out of the engine bay when on full throttle, so something had to be done.

I started off by deciding the best way to replace these would be to put the front of the car up on ramps and then use my engine crane to hold the engine whilst I replaced the mounts. It would then be an easy job to lower the engine back into the car. Well that was the theory...

Putting the car on ramps was fairly easy, however I then found that the engine crane legs are wider than the gap between the ramps so one of the legs had to go through the base of the ramp, this severly limited manuouvering room. The other big problem was that the engine doesn't have any lifting brackets - a fact which I will rectify the next time I am browsing round a scrappy. Because of this the only way to lift the engine was to use an exhaust header and the inlet manifold with suitable chains. Once this had all been sorted it was fairly easy to lift the engine and remove the old misshapen mounts, replacing them with the new ones. For reference the part numbers are Quinton Hazell PB670 for the exhaust and PB672 for the inlet side (I need a taller mount to allow the carbs to not smash themselves into the chassis rail.

Once the new rubber mounts were fitted onto the tiger metal engine legs the fun really started with a large engine deciding that it didn't want to be in the correct position and was a lot happier sitting at an angle. An hour of struggling later and I finally got one side to drop into the hole in the chassis, once that had been done it was easy to fit the second side and tighten the engine up.

The pictures below show the job being done.

Fuel Filters

As mentioned previously the first filter between the tank and the pump was rather clogged, this you can see from the pictures below (I think you might be able to work out which is the new filter). Changine it was very easy as I had run the fuel tank almost dry first. In fact I ran it so dry that the fuel pump wouldn't prime without having to put some more fuel in!

Seriously though, the car might develop more power as it is no longer trying to suck fuel through the muck in the old filter. I think for the cost (£1.50) it would be better to change this filter every year as a regular service item.