Cutting & Shutting

 Yesterday I took a brave pill & cut out the upper tube. I supported the car at the front bulkhead & carefully supported the bonnet mounts so the subframe didn't sag.

 

------->  Before

------>  After

 

 

 

This tube wasn't much of a worry because it does little more than stabilise the radiator frame & provide a little crash protection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The welding went OK (mostly) & when it looked proper & hitting it with a hammer resulted in a ring rather than a thud, I stood back & decided I'd pushed my luck far enough for on day.

 

 

 

 

 

But I wasn't finished yet - moving on to things I felt more comfortable with, I cut a hole in the bulkhead for the ECU plug. This was easier than expected - the firewall is about 10mm thick here, two skins with a filler between & the hole needed to be 80mm diameter. I chain-drilled it & dremelled it to size thinking the grommet wouldn't fit over a panel that thick, but on looking at it, it's made for a panel about 8mm, so it fitted beautifuuly - RESULT!

 The ECU will go nicely up behind the glove box & the OBD port - yes, an OBD port! - will probably sit in a hole in the glovebox wall.

A Little Lift

It was always obvious that the engine wasn't coming out the conventional way, the pulleys are hard against the subframe rails, so it would have to come out with the gearbox. That meant it was easier to take the car off the engine / gearbox / front suspension.

I'd already stiffenned a garage roof beam & decided the car weighed 750kg, mostly at the front, so the weight to be left on the floor (engine etc) was about 250ish kg, leaving 500 kg biased towards the back. The hoist has a limit of 250kg, so - easy then.

I removed all the M10 bolts holding the Ford parts to the sub-frame & realised - with not a little disappointment - that there were no crush tubes in the cross member so when the M10 bolts had be tightnned, the tubes had crushed.

The photo is of the worst one & it's not too bad, but when you see the quality of the engineering in the composite parts of the car, I was expecting better than this.

Anyway, I left work early & visited Margnor & bought a selection of shiny things, among them were some beefy square washers to put over the sunken areas & spread the load out to the side walls of the tube.

All of that is way in the future though. I disconnected the front track arms, steering links, brake lines, gear shift & strut top mounts, so the front of the car was just resting on the suspension. 

I'd already put an engine "skate" under the engine & gearbox, so I wrapped a chain round the lower cross tube, hooked that onto the electric hoist & pushed the button.

The car rose, I took it up in small amounts as the higher it got, the more weight is on the back wheels, then when it looked properly scary I was able to wheel the engine skate out from under the
car & roll the car back a little to give me some space to work on the engine.

I've now dropped the car down onto axle stands so I can clean & paint the front subframe, it's not badly rusted but after the new sections are welded in, I shall wire brush it & re-teat it all before the new engine goes in.

The new engine also needs a coat of paint & probably a cam belt, but hopefully it won't be too long before they're getting mated back together.

Then the hard work starts with the engine bay wiring & locating equipment. I think I may be able to re-locate the battery to the boot to free up some space under the bonnet. There's plenty of room in the boot, basically the whole rear half of the car is storage.

Stripping

 Last weekend I girded my loins & set to taking the Quantum apart. As usual the engine started up straight away so I could square it up in the garage - I just hope it's as reliable when all this is over.

I took all the ancillaries off & put some parts through my new parts washer ready for paint. It's pretty obvious the engine isn't going to come off the gearbox because the sub-fame's in the way, so the plan is to lift the car off the engine / gearbox / front suspension.

On the dissapointing side, the gearshift isn't going to be easy to improve. It seems that on the early gearboxes the stick "feel" that sort of guides the gearstick into the gates was done at the gear change, on the later cars that was all done in the gearbox. Unfortunatly I have an early gearbox with no "feel" & a late gear change - with no "feel" which is why the gearstick feels like it's not attached to anything.

 

 

 

 I spent an hour carefully re-shaping the birds nest of brake lines outboard of the brake servo to a/ make them look better & not rub against each other & b/ so I could fit a swirl pot in the space I'd created. Then I decided to put a fuel plate for the pumps & filters under the back seat where there's plenty of space. I'm sure there's something else I can put next to the servo.

Farcester

With foul weather promised for the weekend it looks like the CVH Quantum has travelled it's last - long live the Zetec Quantum!

Things have begun slowly, but they have begun. The two new sub-frame rails have been made & the engine mounting has been modified to fit the engine. I need to get some M10 bolts, but that's a small matter & will pop over to Margnor probably on Friday.

My welding is getting better - helped by the steel being at least 2mm think.

The plan I followed suggested putting a single gusset across the bend in the tube, but if there were to be any flex in the joint, the gusset would be pushing on the flat metal between the corners & would do little to prevent the flexing, so I cut & shaped an off-cut of the 1" box tube so each horizontal web is supported directly, it's not a huge amount stronger, but it is less susceptable to fatigue. It's over-length at the moment, it'll get trimmed to suit when the old one is cut out.

The engine mount is cut, welded, cleaned up & painted ready to get bolted on as soon as I get some bolts.

Last Run Out Of The Year

 Seems a bit early to be saying I've been on the last run I'll go on this year, but there you go - it's been a funny old year.

The alarm went off at 05:30 & I left the house at 6 - with the roof & side windows down. The meet point was somewhere I'd never been, so I was pleased when I saw the cars in a pub car park & turned round & went back.

After the last of our number arrived, we set off. I went last to avoid holding anyone up, but when we came to a tee junction the five ahead of me got out easily - me, not so much, I kept up (ish) & then at the next tee junction again five sevens got out with a clear road, I wasn't going to make it - but the car on the main road slowed to allow me out! I wasn't really in a fast mood & was slowly dropping back, but then caught up at anothe tee junction, only to have the same happen again, five got out, but the traffic on the main road was a queue of about a dozen. This time I had no chance.

But not to worry, I pootled along hapilly & after a while a voice over the radio said "Tony , can you hear me" & a few seconds lated I found the sevens in a lay by.

After the usual "comfort stop" we set off again & after not very long on a small road I caught up with the others stopped & could see someone standing with a horse at the side of the road. I fully expected that our lead car was getting a berrating, but it turned out he was getting thanked. The horsey person in question had been struggling with a "flighty" horse & we'd gone slowly up the road & waited while they got the animal sorted.

Inevitably I dropped behind again, I just wasn't "on it" that morning, but I rolled into the breakfast venue as they were climbing out of the cars at Sumner's Ponds caravan site. All was not well though. They weren't letting people sit inside, you could only order breakfast by downloading an app & there was no phone signal so you had to connect to the WiFi first. We looked at the A4 sheet full of instructions & decided to go to the Chalet.

I knew I had the Chalet in my SatNav so quickly jumped in the car, did up the three point seat belt started the engine & set off thinking I'd at least be first on one of the sectors. I followed the SatNav along some country lanes & then onto an A road, there was a bit of space ahead of me because I was only doing 45 or so. Imagine my delight when the five sevens pulled out of a side turning ahead of me! Last again.

Anyway, there were no mobile phone shenanigans at the Chalet, we sat down indoors, ordered at the till & paid with money. We had our faces covered, we kept a reasonable distance, we licked no strangers - all the sensible stuff & we sat chatting for an hour or so. All very pleasant. As usual there were some interesting things in the car park.

Sparks

Not much has happened to the Quantum for a little while, this is partly because there's not much to do & partly because I've been rather down.

I have been doing some measuring up & I'm pretty sure the inlet manifold that came with the engine won't fit. I have an ebay serch going for the right one, but so fr the only thing that come up is a pair of bare castings - in Italy.

I think I'm going to have to contruct something to take all the parts from the plstic inlet. We'll see what happens, there's time for the right thing to come up yet.

Today I started making up the new elements for the engine cradle. The upper offside tube needs to run straight forwards & turn in, rather than running diagonally. this means it'll clear the cam wheel cover. I wont be cutting out the diagonal one until the engine's out, but I've made up the braced angle so it can be welded in as soon as the old one's out.

There's a car club run tomorrow, so that'll empty the fuel tank & then it can go on SORN from the end of the month

Off She Went With A Trumpetty Trump - Trump, Trump, Trump!

 I never said I wouldn't modify the Quantum.

I never said that.

People all over the world will tell you, tall people, short people, all the people of the world will tell you I never said that.

Now stand by.......

Life hands us some odd co-incidences, the Fury came from Fisher Sports Cars based in Marden in Kent, Some time after I began it, I was searching ebay for an injected Pinto engine along with it's ECU & injection gear for the Rickman & I found one - in Marden in Kent.

Today, I've picked up an 1800 silvertop Zetec from an Escort GTi (the 130bhp job) along with an ECU, wiring loom, injection gear, starter, engine mount & an ST170 exhaust manifold, that I found on Ebay. It was in Marden in Kent. IT'S ONLY A SMALL PLACE! Getting all this stuff from Kent would be coincidence enough!

So yes, the Quantum is getting an upgrade, installed power going up by oh - about 100%-ish. I was impressed by the car in Wales the handling was really very good - not "very good for a front wheel drive car", just very good, but it ran out of puff on long hills & if I was behind a car doing - say - 50 on an A road, I needed it to be clear from here to the horizon to get an overtake in. If it all works this should give it a similar power to weight ratio to the X-Flow Fury about 175bhp/ton which was good. The Zetec Fury with 300bhp/ton was better, but that car was rear wheel drive.

Not a lot has happened yet, I've done some research & the front subframe needs to be cut & changed - it should be easy enough, the engine goes straight on the gearbox, the ECU will have to be fitted & wired in, the fuel system will probably need a swirl pot & the exhaust will need to be fitted, but in engine swap terms it's small beer.

Since I got it home I've rocked the flywheel enough to know the engine's not seized & I've taken the inlet manifold all to bits. This is particularly annoying because I had an unused one from the Fury's crate Zetec in the garage in Guildford & threw it away on the basis that "I will never need that". The injectors have been tested, one was reluctant, but a little WD40 soon had it clicking merrily, the Idle Speed Control Valve has moved under 12v & the manifold moulding is as I write -in the dish washer. I am supposed to be installing my "spare" dish washer in the garage for parts washing, but I haven't got round to it yet.

So yes, here we go again.