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Post by dave1800 on Jan 3, 2018 11:14:52 GMT
Hi Aaron
I've never had any problems with the rear wheel bearings and back in the mid 70s the local BL agent told me they had never changed any. However, I recall that one of the 1800 Rally cars had one seize after being over-tightened and it ripped the whole suspension assembly off the car, so they definitely need looking after!
As you have a spare set used set if no one here can point you in the directions of an alternative it may be worth while (and cheaper?)to measure them and source new ones from a reputable bearing manufacturer.
regards
David
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Post by 1800heap on Jan 4, 2018 4:47:38 GMT
This type of bearing usually has a part number stamped on the side and I have found generally a good bearing suplier will be able to get an equivalent. We have an SKF supplier in town and I haven't yet found a bearing they couldn't match. The exception would be the crab front bearings. They would get the bearings but they won't be matched to an appropriate spacer!
Generally manufacturers do not have custom roller bearings made I have found. BMC was no exception to this rule I suspect. I would try cross referencing the numbers stamped on the side of your spare set if you haven't already. I don't have a set handy otherwise I would have a look.
Nick
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Post by 1800heap on Jan 4, 2018 5:29:27 GMT
I think I found an outer rear which looks like a Timkin L44649. You will need to double check this though Aaron! Couldn't find an inner. I can't remember if the inner is the same as the outer! Like I say the number was stamped on the side.
Nick
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Post by hydrolastic on Jan 19, 2018 0:26:40 GMT
Hello race fans, Back from the world famous Laguna Seca racetrack. Had a terrific race. But we blew it right off the start first lap. Disqualified for excess sound. Everywhere we have been sound is 100 db but even though the V6 sounds awesome its never been anywhere near the loudest cars volume. So it seemed safe. This weekend however the db was reduced from 93 to 90 db. So we had to go into Salinas and get a 27" glasspack. Borrowed a welder and were back on the track in 2 hrs and in last place. 60 cars but we worked our way up to 28th by the end of Sunday. We had a couple of foibles but learning the track including trying to wrap your brain on how to navigate the corkscrew. A turn like you never encounter in street driving so dificult to describe. The guys were "jumping" off it by the end of the weekend. Here is a link from our media guy to get an idea of what its like. This is me driving btw i was doing 2:10s while my crewmates were generaly faster 1:57being the fastest. Aaron
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Post by dave1800 on Jan 20, 2018 1:17:43 GMT
Thanks. What a shame about the 2 hour time loss due to changes in the sound regs. Amazing that you managed to still end up in the top half of the field despite this - well done.
David
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Post by hydrolastic on Jun 14, 2019 3:13:21 GMT
Race Fans, Maxine was out and with several improvements we were able to improve last years time by many seconds at pacific raceways in Kent Washington ( BTW Kent was named after the british city. Its where the Hops for beer is grown) Maxine is getting faster every year and we hope to get to the next race in Shelton WA (the ridge) in this clip we had lost 4th gear so we would rev to 7000 and shift into fifth. flic.kr/p/2gdNE3w
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Post by hydrolastic on Jun 14, 2019 4:09:17 GMT
Hello again, Here is a link to Greg driving from inside the car. Count how many times he shifts to 4th gear but it just grinds horribly pretty funny in a way good thing you can find transmissions for these car all day long for a hundred dollars.
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Post by dave1800 on Jun 14, 2019 19:04:47 GMT
Thanks, love the timing gear!
David
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Post by hydrolastic on Jun 16, 2019 1:10:22 GMT
This race is a two day event and is normally 7 hours each day. With 6 to 8 drivers on our team we normally go an hour it takes about 8 minutes to fuel and change drivers. we have found that we can go about 1:50:00 or almost 2 hrs on a 15 gallon tank so sometimes we skip the fueling and run two drivers on a tank. We have in certain times run a single driver for two hours. Which is the maximum allowed. We found a clock in the car is the best way to keep track of time. Its not original lots of the cars have them but i am amazed its what a lot of people comment on.
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Post by dave1800 on Jun 16, 2019 12:54:42 GMT
Crabs have been described as like the Tardis - small on the outside - but large inside, so I wondered if you had created a time machine .
David
For non UK readers - Tardis - a time machine in the form of an English police phone box from the science fiction series Dr Who. Here We found a clock in the car is the best way to keep track of time. Its not original lots of the cars have them but i am amazed its what a lot of people comment on.
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Post by andrewa on Jun 17, 2019 8:11:20 GMT
Thanks for keeping us up to date with your exploits - love to see these cars being kept going and used in ways they were not remotely ever intended for! When's the next power upgrade???
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Post by hydrolastic on Jun 20, 2019 4:47:30 GMT
Hello Andrew, Somehow it seems i have never talked about the engine in maxine. I originally chose this engine because the track on a mazda6/probe gt is 66 inches close to the austin 1800 of 63 i believe. Here in the US the version of engine is called the KLDE 2.5 liter 60 degree v6and it is a really cool engine with 4 valves per cylinder and DOHC and fuel injected obd1 system. This engine was apparently the first engine built by robots and was tested to a sustained 9000 plus sustained rpm. interesting thing about this engine is when they put it in the mx 6 and probe as the GT they put a set of cams that emphasized the low end off idle and as the rpm went up the power would just fall off at about 5000 rpm i had the car on a dyno (rolling road) and it made 143 hp at 5000. Then around the time we went to laguna i was saying to the team that we would be needing an engine soon as the blue smoke was getting worse. A couple weeks later it showed up and the team surprised me with a new engine but this was the JDM KLZE version of the engine i hooked it up and we ran the first race with it. It had a funny power band and it would come and go but not linear. I realized the engine needed a different ecu. i could not get one from the original car so we went megasguirt. In the 90's when the megasquirt came out there was a lot of development that went into the maps and such and the map provided was specifically for the KLZE. It also got rid of the cone type airflow meter VAF it is supposed to put out about 175 hp but i think with the headers cold air intake and better camshafts it feels like 200. The interesting thing about these cams is they just get more powerful as the rpms climb and it just pulls harder. We have done several races with this engine and since then we have installed a limited slip differential and Gregg and i made a rear sway bar. The new dirreza 3 tires all have contributed to our times lowering from the initial 2:30's @ the ridge to the 2:16 last year. Next month we will be there and i hope our times fall some more. One of the other cars is an actual probe GT and is called the PHO King. "Its their play on words." but they have always been faster than us. Last year the owner of the car came by our pit and talked to us and was saying his car's best time is a 2:06 and that he had his ferrari under 2:00 there. Yes it was as pretentious as it sounded but i am hoping the new engine and suspension mods can at least equal the PHO King. By the way we are continually asked what is the car we are racing?. Last year we had a porsche boxter claim we were blocking him on the course and we got to ask him why he didn't use his power to pass a "1970 Austin 1800"
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Post by andrewa on Jun 20, 2019 7:13:18 GMT
Thanks for that....what a hell of an improvement on the lap times. Sounds like weight loss is the next way forward! You can still get replacement fibreglass panels over here. Love the ****ing bit and holding up a Boxter! Somewhat bizzarely, have been looking at this matthewsmemorylanemotors.com/forsale/1950-oldsmobile-88-club-coupe/just down the road from you (ish) I've always liked them - first muscle car and all that. Slightly put off by the statement that they've traded it around a lot which in my mind always seems to indicate nobody could get it running right or it dissapoints in some other way! Price seems a bit on the strong side as well. Either that or poss the new Renault Alpine! The sway bar (or anti-roll bar for those on this side of the pond) makes a huge difference - whether in spirited everyday driving or if you're really pressing on. Catch you later.Andrew
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Post by hydrolastic on Aug 12, 2019 3:22:17 GMT
Hello again, We entered the lemons race in the landcrab and the 1100 running both cars. The officials are getting wary of us though because they put Maxine the Landcrab in class B with the BMW's and Porsches. We couldn't argue with them and were resigned to last place or maybe a little better if other cars break down. This was not to be the case however. First though the 1100 was in a strange category because you can't or shouldn't put a 1963 mg 1100 in class B with the beemers. But we won class C last year so they let us stay in class C but with a 35 lap penalty. The race started and the 1100 was doing well everybody that drove it were doing 2:18's . Maxine however was a stunner on track and pretty quickly on, the times were dropping. On lap 88 Greg did a 2:09:9 a fraction under 2:10 and our first lap in the single digits. On the second day it became clear the we were climbing up in the standing and were somewhere halfway up in class B the 1100 lost the drop gears and we had to put the spare engine in. This took two hrs and the chance at anything. Maxine however was charging on and my turn was coming up. Got in and was surprised at the handling of Maxine it was kind of spooky and flightly It took a while but i worked out a 2:15. and i did my stint of almost two hours. at the end however i drove off track with severely faded brakes so i came in the bleed them turns out the pads were totally gone and we had to put some good used ones i had just to complete the race were were back out in short order and only lost two spots. We worked back up a few more spots but the teams drivers were going slower and slower with our fastest driver complaining about the handling while doing 2:20's being an endurance race its all about laps so we stayed out and went round and round checkered flag dropped and Maxine was 9th overall in 54 cars and 4th in class B! We did way better than we thought we could. After the race with the car at home i found the eccentric bolt for aligning the right front wheel was completely missing!! Attachments:
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Post by andrewa on Aug 12, 2019 14:23:21 GMT
What a classic - guess the gods of missing eccentric bolts must have been smiling of you. What a tremendous result overall and in class and another staggering improvement in lap times on last years best until the handling started to go off. Do you reckon there's more to come or all down to choice of pilot from here on in? Can't see you shaving another six seconds without major changes - or have you got a plan? Had fun trying to match a few of names on car to photo. Capn Sean has got to be the big guy with his arms folded and "Magic Bus" must be one of the two guys with the fishing hats at the back - or am I completely wrong? Catch you later and more power to you! Cheers Andrew
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