BXProject

new one

Seen a few fail, its not pretty, they seem to have a way of maiming everything they can find on the car.

You bugger, I'd almost made my mind up to get mine modified. Now you've sown the seeds of doubt in my mind...

well i don't know where the 'mod' is going to be. The ones i've seen fail, and usually pogo the car, have failed at the point where the UJ is welded on.

From the gearbox it was UJ/shaft/centre bearing/UJ/shaft/UJ. The front section will be cut off to the centre bearing, and a sliding section welded in to take up the movement of the rear axle (original gearbox the shaft moved in and out of).

The rear UJ was cut off and a new one welded on nearly 100k miles ago, so I'm confident in the fact it CAN be done. And the price includes new UJs & centre bearing so not bad really. Just the spline wear versus cost to weigh up...£180 seems a fair price but I have a holiday to pay for!

I'd get a new one too. When a prop lets go at speed the damage is immense! Seen one come through the floor of a bus, it destroyed EVERYFUCKINGTHING including the seats above..

Well, rightly or wrongly I decided to get mine modified…if anything lets go it'll be the rear half and I'm not going to be sat in the back seat anyway! Wheelspin is going to be the limiting factor in transmitting torque anyway - I could spin the inside wheel with the original engine.

Should have it back tomorrow, which is a pretty good turn round. Guess they don't have too much work on nowadays.

Got it back this morning



All seems correct, and the fact that all the new UJs have grease nipples on them makes me even happier. I'll hopefully fit it tomorrow, with the fuel tank now I've done all the welding around it.

It lives!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zci2YVF--7c

Not too far from being driveable, except I'd rather do a bit more welding before I put the weight back on the wheels. Still need to bleed the hydraulics, but the clutch seems to work OK which is a bit of a relief. I'd converted the original pedal box from cable to hydraulic operation and had no idea whether my combination of parts would work!

Need to play with the carbs a bit, but that's all fun stuff which can wait a while.

mat_the_cat wrote:It lives!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zci2YVF--7c

Youtube wrote:"This video is private.
If the owner of this video has granted you access, please log in."

Should be sorted now - seems like private is the default setting if I upload directly from my phone.

That's it - Sounds great!

It is equally epic and impressive!

I'm not really happy with the exhaust manifold I made for it on the driver's side, as I've made it up with odds and sods of pipe (not having a bender) with two pipes either side of the steering column. This doesn't bode well for the UJ, and is also very close to one of the upper wishbone bushes.

Until now I'd thought my only choices were to get one made up, or pay for one for an MGB V8 at £400 a pair! But after a marathon Google image search I may have found some off the peg ones which suit! For a Rover P5B.



Best of all I've found a guy in Oxford selling a set, and he only wants £30 which seems like a good deal to me. I'm off to Folkstone this weekend, so should hopefully be able to collect them on the way. Fingers crossed they do fit, but even if not eBay should minimise my losses.

If they fit the head you can always fabricate an adapter where the front pipe goes.

They'll definitely fit the head, and I haven't got any rest of the exhaust to worry about yet. In fact if I can use these then it should simplify the rest of the system as it's just bolting up to off the shelf parts rather than one manifold standard and one cobbled together by me! It's just whether there is enough clearance between the block and steering column, that's all. But if these don't fit at least I know that I've tried the most compact cast iron (i.e. cheap!) manifold available.

I'm thinking for the rest of the system, rather than a complete custom exhaust I should look for a Cortina sports exhaust. I think a standard diameter one would strangle the engine, so guessing 2" would be OK without looking too chavvy. If you can get an off the shelf system I'm guessing it'll be a bit cheaper and then I can just knock up something to link to the manifolds. Or take it to the place near Vanny's...

stick a set of side pipes on it

But I want it to look standard, even if it doesn't sound it!

Today's j̶o̶b̶ frustration was to try and fit the front ARB. I thought that with the remote oil filter I'd have enough room, but it still fouls on the crank pulley which will be a little more difficult to relocate. So I settled on welding a patch into the boot floor - then I ran out of gas. Time to call it a day I think, although I've got a mini bottle and regulator somewhere...will try and rig that up tomorrow.

No way on earth that the front ARB will fit, so I'll have to do without for now and maybe fit something in a different location later. Bit of good news is that the new manifolds fit!

Old:


New:


Was a right bastard of a job getting the old manifold out, and was tempted to cut it but I didn't know at that point whether the new one would fit. I obviously didn't plan for ease of maintenance when putting it together previously!

On the old Ford grandads and Vauxhall Victors. the roll bar came out forward first then bent 90 degrees across the front of the engine. Come to think of it, some jags are the same

Yeah, this one does that. Just that it clashes with the crank pulley! With different length drop links and/or moving the bush position I think I might be able to sort it. Failing that I'll make up one in copper pipe (nice and easy to bend) then see about getting one made to that pattern.