Sows Ear Chassis

[garyeanderson]

continued

The weather turned cold and rainy this morning but before it started I got to look at the head a bit just to see what the thickness of it was. when I pulled it I just looked at the core plug in the deck face and it had been surfaced so I figured it was a bit on the thin side. It had me worried and I just wanted to know if there was anything at all beside the front cover that could be salvaged. My tools suck and I don't have a micrometer that goes to 5 (let alone 3 or 4 inches) so I used a machinists scale and I cant read one anyway but I took about 10 photos of it and got 4 9/16 which is 4.5625 or .0375 under what a stock sprint is. My guess is it will work if I can get away with one more light skim and it will need one. The first picture is as pulled taken just after I brought it home and it still has the head gasket on it, Friday I pulled it off and cleaned the head face with acetone and had a good look (but no photos) and number two under that nasty brown goo has some issues in that the face is etched right around the fire ring. I guess if its really bad I'll have to get it welded as to go much below 4.54 inch thickness is just not what I want to do. It just limits things too much in that its tough to take compression out of it. This also limits how big you can make the Twin Cam. I was not planning on a big engine with this head but the block will need a bore (if I use the one it's been on since I bought it in 1976) my gut tells me a stock bore would be best for this head but maybe I can get JE to do a total flat top without any intruder at all (just valve pockets) and get some compression out of it. I'm just trying to keep compression ratio under 10.5 static. Looking at the exhaust valves I am thinking valves, valve seats, guides and probably tappet sleeves. Its starting to make my wallet bleed and I haven't even got the head a part yet .

[garyeanderson]

I finished disassembling the head today, not sure I like much about it but I really wasn?t expecting anything good so I guess I am not disappointed. Where to start, I think it needs everything, valves, seats, guides, tappet sleeves, welding on the etched area of the fire ring on number 2. All of the intake valves to spark plug holes are cracked. So I guess it will cost a bit of cash to get this ?put right?. Oh the joys of the 46 year old engines! Maybe I should just put it back together, no one will know right? big - big

some deep etching around the rire rinfg area just above the exhaust valve

[garyeanderson]

Lets see, where was I - Tuesday I did a bit more painting. 3 alloy steering columns, 2 lower steering shafts, firewall column hanger, a couple of the directional and high/low beam wire chases for the columns all Gloss Black and a pair of shifter towers that were a dark hunter green (last photo on the previous page). No pictures of the Gloss black stuff though. Yesterday I took the Elan out west to Tiny's (about 135 miles round trip) for lunch and to change some installed front springs, no photos of that but lets just say Chris was hiding on the other side of the shop, I wasn't liking the rig I had made from a MG Magnet clutch slave mount but it did work and I still have 10 fingers and 5 toes . This was a 20 minute quicky made to be used once, I ought to toss the thing but if I ever need it again I can modify it to be a bit safer than it was.

Bill measured the cylinder-head thickness after lunch and got a much better number than I did, 4.62 inch so the consensus was that the head gets a set of guides, surfaced and maybe a set of valves (depending on how much they are) but no seats, or tappet sleeves and gets used on Tingles C production body.

I didn't get the springs on the Koni shocks because I still don't have the lower bushes resolved yet. Maybe next week that will happen.

This morning I got a few things done but not a lot to crow about, The Spax shocks with the springs installed yesterday went on the front of the Sows ear chassis so it's got some progress, still uncertain about the diff housing and I guess I am putting that off for as long as I can. I did resolve the rack mounts that James had problems with on his Elan.
elan-f14/steering-rack-location-lhd-chassis-t25044.html
I didn't like the fact that he had to turn them in and just use the clamping force of the mounts so I used the belt sander to remove about a fat 1/16 of an inch to allow them to mount them against the stock rack locating parts. I think that this is a pretty good solution to how they should go.

So the front of the sows ear chassis is coming along nicely and not a lot else to fit so I guess I need to move on to something else. I'll probably get the front hubs put on next while I figure out the next job...

[rgh0]

I would not be worried about the head thickness or the cracks. I have thinner heads and bigger cracks that have never given me any problems.

Open up the combustion chambers and take a little off the piston compression height or use a thicker head gasket to get the compression ratio you want.

I have used heads with all the cast lettering on the bottom face gone and they still work OK if you know what you have to do to compensate to get the valve position right, the cam timing right and the compression ratio right for a thin head.

The cracks between the inlet valve seat and the spark plug hole rarely if ever give a problem as they are only on the surface and seem to be stable once formed.

Your head look a little strange with the combustion chamber shape around the exhaust valve different from what I have normally seen. I guess they must be an early sand cast head as the combustion chamber looks more like i have seen on die cast heads but the other details say they are sand cast?

cheers
Rohan

[garyeanderson]

Hi Rohan

I am not worried about much other that eating and paying the house taxes, the second event happened yesterday so I am good for another 90 days. The chassis is the cheap part of building an Elan, all said and nearly done this pair will have a bit over a grand into them, There were a lot of parts bought and prepped previously but still the bargain of the restoration.

Once you get into an old Twin Cam or even a MGA engine, the money starts to piss away like an elephant once you get things to the machine shop and start to buy parts. The original short block that this head was bolted on to is going back on the shelf, there are just too many issues to rectify on my budget right now, the engine number does not match so there is little point in fixing them now. I'll get another block off the bench thats just not as thoroughly beat to shit as LP2021. I am thinking of the block that I got with the Ugly flaired Coupe, it needs to be looked at but I think (I was just dreaming the LP2021 would be ok) it's in better shape.
All I have done is feel for a ridge at the top of the block but I have a better feeling about this one, some one spent some time and maybe money doing this lip seal conversion, My guess is that they may have done the rest right too. I am still up in the air about a second Twin Cam for 26/4020.

On the plus side I managed to get the bushes installed in the Koni front shocks yesterday so maybe next week I'll get the springs installed and then the rest of the front end on the two bit whore. These may last till I torque the 1/2 inch bolt up or may last a long time, I just don't know.

May 4th
see the following topic in free parking for details
free-parking-f19/been-bit-the-curse-the-french-with-brit-twist-t25160.html

[garyeanderson]

I think I spent some money today, ordered some parts and they will take a while to get here. Not much that was really needed but caliper pistons for the type 16P calipers were back ordered so they won't ship till next week. Urethane bushes for the diff were also ordered, I had some from Autozone on the back side of the diff and they might as well be rock as they are that stiff. Also got the top front shock bushes in urethane. Valve guides are on the slow boat and I asked about valves but at $23 and $26 each, I decided to wait and see what just valve guides and old valves will do. I went and got a old crashpad to see how bad it was, this was from 36/6292 I think and it was not a whole lot better than the 2 piece crashpad that came out of 26/4020 (some early photos with 11 clamps make it look OK) so I got the heat gun out and decided to see what I could do with it. The first thing I needed to do was to joint the 2 halves but the longer of the two parts was really turned up at the end due to being outside for 25 or so years. I didn't figure there was a lot to loose as I don't have any good ones so the other option was the green paint on the fiberglass that I had been considering. It is still an option but after some heat and a bit of pressure on the floor I was able to take out most of the hook at the end. The next step was to rejoin the two unequal parts. I had a 1/4 dowel that I was using for a dip stick for the fuel tank but broke it by accident a couple weeks ago. it had a dagger sharp point on it so I thought the grain was perfect for what I wanted, I gave it a bit of strain and it snapped again into about a 4 inch piece, one more stress to it and I had two double ended daggers that I shoved into one half of the crashpad, I then I eyeballed the other half of the pad and forced the two halves together. They aligned pretty nicely so I played with the heat gun a bit more and used a bit of 1 x 3 to level the new joined halves. At this point I don't know what I am going to use to fill in the cracks and gaps but if you had seen it before it was about as gross as the rest of the Elan when I bought it. There is some liquid electrical tape that comes in a small can I was thinking of trying, maybe it will work, maybe not we will have to see.

First three pictures were taken 3 years ago, the next 5 were today. there really is a big difference between. Eleven clamps in the first pictures took a lot of sin out of those, the next 5 are just sitting in place.

$8.50 for the electrical goop, looks like good stuff, lots of warnings, known cancer causing and California make me think it will work.

[collins_dan]

Any progress to report?
Dan

[memini55]

Now Dan I am sure he has been busy working hard and has had no time to post to the net.

Seems he has been silent for a fair amount of time of late. I'm sure he will be along shortly.
Kind of getting to the money stuff now which may slow the pace.

Hope all is well with you and with Gary?

Mark

[collins_dan]

I know, I know... He was making such fast progress, I just couldn't resist wanting to see what else he could get done in a day or two. Dan

[twincamman]

I spoke to Don today to inform him of the progress of his old racer ....no doubt he will be in touch

[garyeanderson]

Now Dan I am sure he has been busy working hard and has had no time to post to the net.

Seems he has been silent for a fair amount of time of late. I'm sure he will be along shortly.
Kind of getting to the money stuff now which may slow the pace.

Hope all is well with you and with Gary?

Mark

I have been sick as a daw-hog since last Tuesday, my F250 is still having issues with stalling in traffic and not restarting (but it's now semi reliable and running off of the map), its been raining, I had some other business to take care of

, Beauregard ate my homework, etc, etc. The last update was on May 4th when I put a photo of the Type 16 calipers that were installed on the Sows ear chassis. There is no logical sequence, there is nothing logical about it at all. This topic is using up some loose parts, stealing others from stalled projects where they were never to be of much use to me and just having a good time. I got out yesterday and went up to Tiny's for lunch I got to Chris's early and got the press adjusted to install springs on the re-painted Koni fronts for TBW, Roger showed up at a point where I had to instruct him to take a seat on the other side of the shop, The springs were well compressed and had me quite concerned about 5 plus inches of stored energy being released. anyway I was able to get the locking ring kind of close to where it needed to be and used a hammer to set it home.
copper wire on the one spring telled me this was the long spring (drivers side)

These are going on the Two Bit Whore today and I am hoping that the rain will stop for tomorrow and I can get the chassis out of the living room and outside to install the body on for a test fit and see how far off the Mounting holes in the body of 26/4020 are.

I brought the Head and new guides with me and uncle Carl had a good look at things. Original guides were knocked out with the help of liquid heat (oxi/acetylene) and the bolt holes spot faced flat

and then my job at the wash tank began. I made a good mess and was waring a good amount of kerosene and gunk before I was done but the head is clean.

So much for the update...

Gary

May 10th 3:00 pm

Some more progress but I seem to do 2 steps or more sideways for every step forward. I was going to use a pair of LF14 calipers but they jammed the hubs so I thought about it and tried a pair of SP12 calipers that were handy and they seemed to fit and have the proper clearance. Mixing and matching parts is a hit or miss with Elans and some times it works and well sometimes it's a two step process to match all of the appropriate parts...

[memini55]

Gary,

Glad to hear you are feeling better now. The older one gets the harder it is to get well.
The shocks look good and should work well for the project. Should be a good since of accomplishment
when the chassis is outside and the body drops on! Hope the bobbins are not off too far.

Mark

[cabc26b]

WOW ! I had not checked the thread in awhile, amazing the amount of progress. Between your progress and Mark 's, I'm beginning to think I need to bag the idea that I have any hope of getting a car done in the near future.

George

[memini55]

Hi George,

Didn't Gary tell you, we are racing to get you motivated
You better get started as Gary is really moving along and the body work is started. Doors and bonnet in primer.
They should be painted next week.

Hope you are doing well.
Sorry to hi-jack Gary.

Mark

[garyeanderson]

Everyone thats watching

Progress is a funny thing, many times you work like hell and it looks like nothing is being accomplished. Other times you light a match and the whole place catches fire and you can really see the difference. Building up chassis is only half the story and the co-ordination between having everything in the right place at the proper moment and the fire is hard to control. It takes maybe two or three days to take an Elan and turn a running wreck (I've never started with anything that ran though) into a large pile of parts that can take a solid year to re-assemble busting your ass and spending as much money as you can take away from other things that are needed in life. Time allocation has never been anything I am any good at, working till it's dark from the time you awake is the way things really get done and knowing whats going to get done the following day because you set it up by doing things the previous week or month. In the end its really money that gets things rolling and I am not sure that either of these chassis will get exercised this year or next but they will be a couple of steps closer thats for sure. The weather has a lot to do with what has happened since I got the two chassis dropped down from the shed rafters on February 16th, without the space of outdoors and good weather to do it, its likely that I would still be picking my nose. Getting help from Bill, Carl, Dale, Chris and others has helped as much as other things too, when you can ask someone "what do you think" and get an answer that you value, it is as they say "priceless".
Thank you everyone!

Gary