Sows Ear Chassis

[Chancer]

Every time I look at the unread posts if I see this thread my spirits rise, if I see that its Gary who has posted then I know I am in for a good read, keep it up please!!!

[CBUEB1771]

Gary,
I hope everything stays above water over the next few days.
Russ

[garyeanderson]

Gary,
I hope everything stays above water over the next few days.
Russ

Hi Russ

So do I. I hate this shit, Been thinking of going to see my friend John with the 40 x 60 barn and asking him if I can put the S2 that runs in it for the next week. The other Green S2 is still up on jack stands so it should be alright (I hope). 1991 no name would have had about 6 inches but there was 30 inches of marsh grass that damned up that corner of the house so none of the water came around. There was carpeting in the back where Tingles Elan and the Coupe are and it was wet with salt water so thats the height of the storm surge minus a bit for the 1 foot wave action that was out in the marsh that day.

I have been waiting 21 years for another storm and this on may be it. I'll just have to wait and see. I boarded up the rotten window as I would like to keep it dry from above, I can't do much about the shit that comes up from below. More as things develop over the next couple days.

Thanks Gary

2:15pm

I took my Elan over to John's and its now 50 feet above sea level. The others in the garage have been raised on average another foot. All that left to do is wait and see

Gary

[CBUEB1771]

Gary,
Looks like you have done about all you can do. Let me know if you need some garage space. I have to fly to DC on Sunday so my daily driver will in the Logan Airport garage. Yeah, I know, fly to DC this Sunday? I must be brain dead.

[memini55]

Gary,

I will keep the fingers crossed and wish you the best, mother nature can be hard at times.
Keep us all posted in hopes you stay dry.

Good thing you have lots of wood blocks!

Mark

[garyeanderson]

This picture is taken at 8:50 am with the wind blowing at a steady 20mph, it's been blowing like that all night. Not a lot of blow but it's about 3 hours before high tide and it looks like one of the lower high tides that occurs between a new moon and full moon.

An hour and 25 minutes later this picture is like a good full moon or new moon high tide.

By 10:45 am the wind has picked up to a steady 30mph and the barrier beach has been breached.

About 20 minutes before high tide, it's clear at this point that this tide cycle won't be any problem for me.

Noon high tide

Because this is an Elan topic I got this photo yesterday and it shows the underside of Tingle's Elan pretty nicely

One more tide at midnight and this storm will be all but over for me, I hope that others get away as easily as I did/will.

Google has some other images of Pegotti Beach, many are after the "no name" storm in 1991
http://www.google.com/search?q=peggotty ... CAcQ_AUoAQ

Gary

Tuesday October 30th 09:25 am

I went out this morning to have a look around. I could see the electric poles from my house had a list to them so I went to the beach for a closer look. The poles are along the old road bed, the road was moved 2 years ago to the other side of the houses but the electric remained in the old road bed location including the street lamps. This spot is the object of several of yesterdays pictures. If you didn't have some background of this picture you may think the storm was worse here than it was. I consider myself lucky and hope that those closer to the center of low pressure were able to get though it as well as I did. Before the lights went out I read the hurricane atmospheric pressure was lower than the 1938 storm which was the lowest at 946 millibars, yesterday was (at 2pm) 940, here in Scituate about 250 miles away my barometer was reading 975 millibars and I saw a couple of peak gusts of 50mph, this is not something that I get all worked up over but it does rattle the house a bit. one more picture and I think this foot note will be done.

3:30pm

I went to get my S2 out of John's barn and while I was there I picked up the vacuum pump that we had discussed a month ago. He got it from his step father and has no real use for it so I took it home to test out the head lamp pods. They lfted and closes just as they should. Still some issue to sort as they only stayed up for a couple minutes after the pump was shut off, I assume that it's either the one=way valve or possibly the vacuum switch (but it could be the vacuum tank too) I didn't spend a lot of time looking at the problem as it started to rain and I just put the S2 back in the garage.
Gary



October 31st 11:55 am

I changed my plans this morning and figured I would look at the leaky vacuum system some more. I disconnected the vacuum pump from the T on the front cross member and connected it directly to the inlet of the vacuum switch on the dashboard and the phone rang, I talked with Bill and he suggested clamping off the vacuum tubing with a pair of vice grips. When we were nearly done talking I looked over and saw the the lamp pods had drooped, when I got off the phone I clamped the same inlet tube to the vacuum switch after I had plugged in the vacuum pump and pulled up the pods again and shut it off. I left it for 20 minutes and the pods were still up when I returned. My old junk vacuum Tee/valve was suspected so I found a new replacement valve. A trip to the hardware store down the street netted me 3 Tee's of various diameters for $5.50, one would likely work. So after a few minutes I had the one the fit the best installed. Plugged in the vacuum pump again and this time it held the pods up for about 5 minutes, maybe a bit longer. Anyhow I think thats pretty good and the headlamps will not droop with full throttle applications that the sows ear is likely to see. My guess is the cross member has a small leak after sandblasting, shit happens

[CBUEB1771]

Gary,
Glad to see you made it through the worst. We had a lot of trees down further inland but nothing like the horror show in New York and New Jersey. The compounding issue was that there was also a very big high pressure dome, something like 1180 millibar, up near Iceland so there was no shortage of energy differential push wind and water our way.
Russ

[twincamman]

Some trees and hydro poles Down and some heavy rain .....nothing close to what you have ..Ed

[garyeanderson]

I had bought a pair of .7 inch master-cylinder repair kits back in April. I had been waiting for a rainy day or something to use them, I was out of things that were cheap or easy to think of to do. Rather than do nothing, I pulled out 4 single masters, one .75 inch from a power-brake equipped SE, one .625 from an early S2 with the 1 5/8 diameter front piston calipers equipped Elan, and 2 .7 inch masters. One of the .7 inch masters was not real good and took some honing to get it to look fairly good down the bore, not sure about it still. To cover my ass I robbed one off of the Cortina GT that is out in the driveway. Kind of a pain to get to with all of the crap stored in it but after 15 minutes I had it out. It was pretty ugly and the piston was stuck at the bottom of the bore. I cleaned it up the exterior with a can of Gunk, kerosene, scotch brite, and washed it in water. I was working in the kitchen so I turned on the gas stove and rested the master in the flame for 30 seconds to a minute, took it out side and with a block of wood as an anvil and the master as a hammer I hit the block with the bore facing downward, I rapped it a half a dozen times. It was pretty well stuck so I got the push-rod and placed that in the bore and rapped on it a couple times with a hammer. It moved so went back to the block of wood and rapped the master like a hammer again. Still stuck so back in the kitchen and lit the stove again and left it for another 30 seconds and flipped it over and cooked the other side for another minute, It was hot but not so hot that I could not hold it and carry it with my bare hand. I repeated the rapping on the block of wood, I aimed at the knot and this time it returned it its normal resting position. I used the push rod again and dipped master in the kerosene and gunk for some lube and worked the piston in and out for a bit and then knocked it out on the block. The bore was in better shape so this will get the new parts from the master that received the most honing. Tingles Elan will get one of these, the green Elan needs a 5/8 bore master so I'll get a kit for that master, maybe even buy a new one as its one of those jobs that I really only want to do once. With the windscreen out its just one of those jobs thats a pain it the ass, with the screen in, well I don't use those word except in the garage. This is probably the first post without photos in this topic and not sure what good it is, I guess the point is that most of them can be salvaged but I still prefer a new master as I always build these cars with single masters and new has always been better than rebuilt in my mind for this application for peace of mind.

Gary

p.s. You knew it wouldn't last, I mean the no photos part. The sun came up and it looked like a good one. In five minutes it turned from a questionable one into something pretty nice.

12:15 pm

This project cost nothing and needed to be done, I have put off cutting the bonnet catch openings for quites some time, about 9 years I guess. I went an looked at one of the old junk ones and made a template of the one good opening and transfered it to the green bonnet with a black Sharpie, Not very sharp but even my blind eye could make it out. Installed the cutter in the wiz and made a couple of parallel cuts to see how it easy it was to control. It seemed pretty good so I continued with the rest of the opening. Did the other the same way and left them on the small size as it really hard to cut the hole smaller. I tried the bonnet in place but I didn't have the springs in the front so I got out some packing tape and put two pieces along the back edge. I pulled out the catches and the bonnet caught on one side but not the other. Pulled it back off and enlarged the side that didn't catch and tried it again. This time it went in and one side caught (the one that did earlier) but when I went to release it it was stuck. took about 10 minutes of futzing around to get the bonnet off but I didn't screw it up. I cut the openings both a bit larger and finally got it to close and open without to much difficulty. Need to get the front springs on it some time and maybe a bit more fine tuning. I have another to do on the while Coupe, that one has been waiting for probably 15 to 18 years - what me hurry

Monday November 26 05:00am

Not a lot getting done as of late, a few things. I spent a couple hundred on things and those jobs were done in a short time. I made a punch list for the Sow's ear and its less than a page, mostly things to buy but I did include a few jobs that needed to be done just for grins. Tingles blue type 26 had some things done too but I am still trying to decide on an engine. I have it narrowed down to 4, twin cam 1680, twin cam 1580, pre-crossflow or a crossflow. I think they will all cost me about the the same money but the headers and intake for either the pre-crossflow or crossflow will cost me more than building up a short block for either twin cam. I have a twin cam head thats ready to drop on so I am leaning in that direction. I have a 2737 crank on the counter that looks like it may polish up, there are a couple of other factors that seem to be bothering me (mostly money) but I hope to get on with this soon.

[collins_dan]

Any updates ?
Dan

[garyeanderson]

Hi Dave

Not a lot to say of late, I added a couple photos 2 days ago in my previous post. Its about 40 degrees in the garage at the moment so I am not doing a lot out there but today I did go out to install the oil/water gauge in the dash and managed to rig up the oil line to the gauge though I didn't have the correct parts. It ought to work well enough and I did test out the water temp gauge half of it, I got 180 degrees with some water that I boiled in the kitchen and brought out in a mason jar, It may be reading on the low side but it reads and like all things, thats probably close enough for me. The gauge is from an MG Midget (I think) and the temp end is a male end so I need to swap out the fitting in the head for a moss motors (part number 11K2846)

Link to LEN past post
elan-f14/smith-instruments-t15674.html

The gauges you picture are the wrong ones for the Elan with the male thread on the bulb end, for the Elan you need the ones with the Female threaded end (3/8" BSP Female). For the ones you show in the second and third photo, there is an adapter available from the 1275 A-Series MG Midget (part number 11K2846). Moss Motors caries it.

http://www.teglerizer.com/triumphstuff/ ... lgauge.htm

I have yet to put in an order as I don't see this Elan moving for a while and maybe by spring I'll need something else from Moss.

Thursday 29 November 2:30 pm

Sun was out so the door was open out in the garage, maybe 45 degrees so not too bad to play around with the wiring, I jumped the battery from 26/4697 and turned the key on, no ignition lamp so just to see I bumped the switch to start and the starter kicked in, thats a plus I thought. when I returned the key to the run position the ignition lamp lit on the tach, another plus. Thats about all that worked though, not a lot that is really hooked up. I got out the wiring diagram to see what I could get working so I started with the lights, I checked for voltage on the switch and I had 12 volts on the blue/brown feed (I should hope so, comes straight from the voltage regulator). Just to make sure the tail lamps were working I just found 12 volts and connected the red and looked at the lamps and I had 3 out of 4 lit, well thats good I thought and started to take the lens off of the L551 that was not lit, I had rigged this lamp with a dual filament out of another lamp so thats where I went first after I had checked the ground, and that I had 12 volts and a good bulb. after a bit of futzing with it I finally got it to light. so that was 4 paring lamps across the rear. NOw it was time to look at the switch, I swapped with another and still had the same issues. So I ohmed out the switch and the in for the plus 12 volts is on 1, looking at the diagram, 4 was the parking lams and I never got continuity between it 1 and 4, 6 and 8 seemed ok so I checked my other switch and had the same issue, popped the switch apart and cleaned the contacts and reassembled and I was now getting continuity between 1 and 4 so Re-installed the switch and reconnected the wires and all was good. 4 lamps lit across the rear in the middle and down position, Total time was a couple of hours, It's time to put the steering column in and hook of some more wires I guess. glad I have all winter to mess with all of these cast off parts .

Left side is with the flash on right is without, lights off top, lights on bottom.

I did a bit more after I wrote the above yesterday afternoon. I haven't got brake fluid in the master yet and won't put any in till the Elan is ready to move and runs, still not sure if I will use a dot5 or not so in order to test the brake lights, I just jumped the wires at the hydraulic pressure switch, nothing. So pulled the wiring diagram and the feed comes straight from the fuse box, I checked the voltage and had it from the ignition and nothing on the other side fuse box - so I checked the fuse and that was good. A bit of scotch bright on the fuse box contacts and the brake lights came on. I then grounded the fan for the heater and flipped the switch and that worked too, turned on the wipers and they came to life (kind of slow but they worked and parked on the right). The dash lamp switch lit op one lamp on the oil/water gauge so I need to check the other bulbs. Not a lot else left other than the interior dash lamp and thats missing the festoon bulb. Looks like I need to put the column in to do any more, I think I was waiting on that because if the dash needed to come out, I didn't want to have to pull that too. With as much of the electrics tested and working and the masters installed I guess there is no reason to wait much longer...

November 30th 9:40 am
So I didn't.
I'll get back later and hook up the bullet connectors and test out.

Sunday December 2nd 7:00am
So to continue on here, I got the column stalks for both head lamps and indicators plugged in and re attached the battery. Still about 40 degrees in the garage and I am working at a molasses pace. I turn on the key and nothing, so I turn on the lights and still have tail lamps (a good sign), I check the voltage at the fuse box and its at 0v so I wiggle the ignition key and I get an intermittent 12v. I go and find a replacement and swap that out and I am back to where I was a day ago. I check the indicators and the right one works - nice I think to my self, The left seems to have an issue and I open the boot and notice that I had pulled of the ground on the L539 when I was messing with the L551 lamp, easy fix and both indicators are now working. On to the headlights, I have power coming off the switch to the relay and the relay is grounded but no lights so I guess I know where this is heading today. I need another relay and should be good, that is unless those Lucas headlamps go from dim to flicker and then off .

[garyeanderson]

The molasses warmed up and flowed a bit, 55 yesterday and about the same today.
I am running out of excuses and the sun was out yesterday so I did very little and enjoyed just kicking back but I did find an old fan or two, one was the single steel blade and though it is the correct one it needed to be sandblasted and painted and I just wasn't up for that this time of year. I looked some more and found a later Ford white 8 plastic blade fan so I cleaned that up and found some 3/4 x 1/4 unc bolts and installed it. In the same pile of stuff was a fan belt so that went on too. Tightened up the generator bolts and called it a day. I went over to the parts annex and saw the windscreen gasket and filler strip so I grabbed that and started on that project this morning. I cleaned it up a bit and it looked ok. About 8 this morning I pulled out the only type 26 windscreen I had, not a great one but only one small defect so I put it in, the gasket is just to old and hard, I tried to put the filler strip in and the gasket started to break out so I quit. I found the 10 bolts the secure the screen frame to the body and decided it was better to put it on now while things were warm enough to do with just a sweatshirt on. My guess is I am going to replace the gasket but the wind screen is not going to fall out so I can do that later. The bolts are all just finger tight but once I get the headlamps working all of the loose nuts and bolts will get snugged up tight.

December 6th 05:30pm

On my way to lunch yesterday I picked up a couple of cheap no name relays to use for the head lamps. I only needed one but for $3 each, I got a couple extra. I also got the main loom grommet for the firewall to use in the blue Elan so I had a few things to do this morning.
The grommet went on first thing this morning and I fed the harness though the firewall and put the grommet where it belonged. Since that was done I managed to hook up the rear harness to the front harness and started to look at a few things. Then I read the directions (I looked at the picture in the S1 workshop manual) and noticed I had run the 4 gauge line for the battery though the wrong hole in the fire wall so that came back out and I re-ran that. It was time to look at he green Elan and install the new relay, I had to jump the hot wire to coil that energizes the relay and after I hooked everything up I turned on the lights and had main beams and dip beams too. I still need to find a horn, the horn push, and the pencil contact. After that, I think thats just about everything working, I didn't try the fuel gauge yet but I have a dip stick for that.

Gary

[RotoFlexible]

Gary, where do you get cheap no-name relays for $3? I assume these are the standard 5-blade items? I need one for a non-critical function (heater blower) and my local part store was looking for $19 or something like that.

[garyeanderson]

Hi Andy

The relays I got at You Do IT in Needham, I messed up and grabbed the wrong ones I was looking at the 20 amp 12 V and picked up 40amp 12 V. I don't think it will be a problem. $2.90 plus tax...

I decided I'd get around to doing the front hub swap on tingles body today, I have the GT6 stub axles on it and I had already put on the Plus2 rear knock-on hubs on. I have been kind of busy with other stuff but I had new Timkin bearings for the front knock-ons but never installed them. I did that early this morning and swapped the GT6 rotors from the bolt on to knock on and then put the cones in and the felt dust seal and slapped them in place. I had to use the manual again to look up which side the green and red went on. Then I had the fun of inserting the cotter pins in the stub axles. I put the calipers back on and on the left side I had some interference between the pegs on the backside of the hubs so I got the grinder out and relieved them a bit to clear the caliper. The right side was ok so I will have to touch up the paint on the studs. I pulled out 6 inch JapMagna wheels and tried them they are 175/550 x 13 Dunlops mounted on the wheels and they interfere with the body at the lower front. I am hoping that a smaller diameter tire will clear when I get a couple hundred more lbs when I install the engine and gearbox, I did move some ballast into the front to see if it would help and it did some but the right side has a long way to go before it has clearance.

[memini55]

Gary,
On our race car running much wider fronts I had to cut a whole bunch of firberglass to get clearence. Maybe 3/4"
forward at the bottom which I then tappered up the opening about 6". We still touch everyonce and a while but not much.

Looks good and you continue in a forward path!

Mark