FIDDELING AND FETTLING

Wow! I had to come down to earth after Marjorie's big day and get on with all the little jobs that became apparent after a quick run around the block.

But first thanks to Dejavw for his comment and Jacquie hopes that his reference to co-pilot relates to her, rather that five year old Emily. Also thanks to Dave from California and Sean for your good wishes.

First thing that needed attention was the tickover, I couldn't keep the engine running without choke. I ordered a pair of vacuum gauges, removed bonnet and engine cowling, connected the gauges and got the carbs balanced and ticking over at 1000RPM, but the gauges reacted differently as I opened the throttle, so I readjusted the tappets and now the gauges respond pretty much in the same way, hopefully that will stop the right cylinder running much hotter, indicated by the bluing of the header pipe. Engine not quite right yet, maybe the change of silencers and air filters requires the carbs to be re-jetted, a few more runs around the block required to determine.

Other jobs attended to was readjusting the gear linkage as initially I could only get 1st and just about 2nd gear. I moved the leaver back one spline on the shaft from the box and that made a big difference, but getting into 1st and and changing down was now difficult, fortunately every part of the linkage is adjustable so by shortening the final rod, I got it just right and now I can go up and down the box without a problem, for smooth down changes she still needs a blip of throttle,but it always did on the bike.

I have made basic adjustments to the steering; toe in and camber and Marjorie rolls much more freely now. The wheels looked nearly parallel whilst she was on the trestles, but tyre marks on the ground indicated I had far too much toe in. The steering wheel is now out of center and will have to be
adjusted accordingly.

By placing a chromed plastic edging strip around the rear I have tided up the back end, although It will have to come off when the barrel back, along with the other panels, are sent for spraying.

Next job is to find out why the speedo is not working and to glue and rivet the right side bottom panel in place. Plenty more jobs to do yet.

54321 LIFT OFF

At last, the LIFT OFF day for Marjorie Morgan arrived and thankfully it stayed more ore less dry for the 30 plus friends, family and neighbours who turned up to watch the event. Hot dogs and cava was served to keep everybody in a good mood

I was hoping to post the video on the blog, but apparently 100mb is the maximum size and my 10 minutes worth is over 2gb, so we will have to make do with the great photos taken by my chums, but I have managed to post the video onto YouTube, the link follows, for those you haven't got anything better to do.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnCo1_SWxwM&spfreload=10
If the link fails, then search for Launch of Mac's replica Morgan three wheeler.

The lifting off the trestles and lowering with the front wheel onto ramps went very smoothly, allowing room to extract the crane legs, there was some faffing about getting the crane out of the way before the bonnet could be lifted on and fastened. It was decided it would be safer to push Marjorie off the ramps rather than start the engine and with many hands pushing, after I remembered to fit the steering wheel, she slowly rolled off them and they were removed.

It was now crunch time, typical, it had started first prod of the button whilst on the trestles, but at this lower elevation it took several prods and I was beginning to feel rather foolish when at last to a cheer the engine roared to life. I gingerly engaged 1st gear slowly lifted the clutch to ensure that I wasn't in reverse and Marjorie rather reluctantly emerged from the garage. It was only after a couple of forward and reverse runs up and down the parking area, that I realised that I had left the handbrake on, silly me. After that getting Marjorie going was much easier and made even more fun with my 5 year old step granddaughter on board and Jacquie, my wife was also persuaded to climb aboard.

All went very well, until I tried to reverse back into the garage and the back end grounded out. It had been commented that the back end was much lower than the front and on a quick check underneath it was obvious that the rear tyre needed more air, but I will also need to adjust the rear springs to level it up, not a big problem and will soon be fixed.

Finally a few more photos of Marjorie on her big day

SPARE WHEEL

I forgot to mention in my last posting that I visited, with a friend, the London Classic Car Show last week. Interesting, a new show and rather elitist, with mainly very high value cars on display and virtually no stands selling the usual bit and bobs. I was hoping to buy a pair of driving goggles, but no chance.Hopefully if it succeeds it will develop and be more interesting for the hands on owner, not just for the gentleman owner with deep pockets. However there was a beautiful replica blown Bentley, yours for £400K. Fabulous car, fabulous colour, wish it was mine and hopefully my little project might look a little like this, the only real difference is that this one has four wheels!!

Another little job was to fit a switch on the dashboard for the fuel pump, there have been plenty of times when I wanted to check out something which required the ignition to be switched on, but I had to remove the fuse to silence the fuel pump. A simple job and the new switch is mounted just below the fuel gauge and is balanced by the spotlight switch, which is just under the volt meter, the other side of the steering wheel.

The main job however, was to securely attach the spare wheel to the back of the car. I eventually decided to centrally insert a 10mm riv-nut into the rear aluminium panel and screw into it a 160mm bolt, which will pass through the centre of the spare wheel hub. The only problem was that my riv-nut puller kit only went up to 8mm. The following photos show my home made puller, which comprises a 10mm bolt with the nut drilled out to remove the thread so that it revolves freely around the bolt. The bolt with nut over the thread is screwed into the riv-nut, which is inserted into the 12mm hole, one spanner holding the de-threaded nut and another turning the bolt eventually the riv-nut is pulled. An M10 riv-nut is a fairly meaty thing and requires quite a bit of muscle, but eventually it sits tightly in place.

It had been suggested to me that the wheel should tighten back onto rubber door stoppers, HomeBase provided these. I used a bit of scrap screwed into the riv-nut and with a hole at the other big enough for a felt tip pen to protrude a described a circle at slightly over 12in. and marked out where the four holes needed to be.

M5 bolts slipped into the door stoppers perfectly and four M5 countersunk riv-nuts set into the back panel secured then into place.

The wheel now sits snugly back onto the stoppers and eventually the spacer and head of the bolt will be hidden under the hub cap. I might though invest, in the future in a long leather strap, just to give that authentic period look.

A MORGAN CHRISTMAS

You might remember that last Christmas bought me an AA and RAC badges and an eagle for the bonnet. Christmas presents this year were definitely Morgan inspired. Morgan driving gloves, calender and mug from family members and from my wife a wooden gear leaver knob with a Morgan insert and a superb MAC radiator badge, The Midland Automobile Club no less, bought whilst we were at the Goodwood Revival Meeting and better than a personalised number plate.

Other jobs completed was the final electrical connections to the rear lights and the carpeting and fixing in place of the transmission tunnel. When I bought from Arthur the seat back and squabs, he also provided me with enough carpet for the tunnel and a piece cut and trimmed for the passenger footwell. This area now looks like a nice place to be. Before I riveted left side of the tunnel to the chassis. I cut the carpet to size, once riveted I warmed the ali panels with my hot air gun and sprayed both the ali and the carpet with Bostick impact adhesive and after a few minutes pressed them together.

The right hand side of the tunnel is bolted into place, so that it can be removed to access prop and reversing gearbox if necessary; this meant I was able to cut and glue the carpet indoors, well actually I sprayed the glue outside, but was able to press the carpet and ali panels together in the warmth.

I think the Launch Lunch will now be after we return from skiing in early February, but still a few things to do in the meantime.

READY FOR LIFT OFF

Just before Christmas I manage to sneak into the garage and get the cable for the rear pork pie lights P clipped down to the rear of the chassis and out the back, ready to connect to the lights. I also mounted the lights onto the highly polished, aluminium, rear light/numberplate board, but as yet I haven't got around to connecting them up, still that won't take long. However although the front of the board is mirror polished, the back isn't and as much of it is visible, I will have to take it off, at some point and polish the back side.

What had been occupying my mind, was the best way to lift Marjorie of the trestles. I had worked out that with a bit of help I could get my engine crane down the side of the garage so that with a couple of straps I should be able to lift her up, remove the trestles and gently lower her onto her wheels.

In readiness I bought a couple of ratchet adjustable straps from Machine Mart, they are actually for tying down a motorbike onto a trailer, but I was advised that they would be good for the job, each strap rated for 500kg and the car weighing in at less than 450kg they would be fine. On Saturday my mate Colin came round and he was easily persuaded to give me a hand in manoeuvring the crane into place and we discussed various options for dropping Marjorie in stages. The next day I messed about with the crane and repositioned the trestles as far to each end of the car as possible, allowing maximum adjustment of the cranes position to ensure that I got the balance position about right.

I placed clamps onto the bottom rail to stop the straps from slipping closer together, but when the straps met overhead and clipped onto the cranes hook, the front strap passed over the scuttle. I removed the little Brookland Screens and the steering wheel, but I was concerned that damage to the scuttle would occur as the weight of the car was taken.

Another trip to Machine Mart produced a Load Leveller, which is intended for lifting engine/gearboxes in and out of a car, again it was good for 500kg and as the above pictures show it's good for the job. At 730mm in length it straddles the scuttle and fuel tank and with a small adjustment to the length of the front strap the car now lifts cleanly off the trestles. I am sure that the load leveller will come in handy for further engine removals on future projects, as I am afraid to say that the car building/restoration bug has bitten hard. The revised plan is now for a one stage lower to the ground, but with the front wheels onto ramps, which will make it easier to extract the crane legs from under the car. A quick final lift at the front to remove the ramps and we're there, ready to start the engine and drive out of the garage, to the flashing of cameras, popping of champagne, a roll of drums and much applause, must stop dreaming.

GAITERS AND PORK PIES

Firstly I would like to thanks Peter, Carol, Dejavw and Sean for their congrats on my first engine start up, as moments go, they don't get much better, well, related to building a kit car that is.

Call me selfish or self indulgent, but I did find the time to finish connecting up the handbrake. I needed to order a nipple from CBS and whilst I was doing that I thought I might as well add onto the order, leather gaiters for the gear leaver and the handbrake. And whilst I was doing that I also ordered a pair of rear lights from Stafford Vehicle Components.

I didn't have the confidence in my soldering abilities to actually solder on a nipple to the handbrake cable, so I compromised and used a screw clamp nipple. Having tightened down the screw onto the cable as tightly as possible, I splayed out the wire as it exited the nipple and using plenty of flux and good old fashioned non fluxed solder, I applied it using just the flame from my mini gas soldering iron. The solder ran down between the the wire strands back into the nipple. For good measure I applied more solder into the hole opposite where the screw fits. I trimmed back the excess strands, and I now have a belt and braces job and am confident that the nipple will hold fast.

I finished of the job by P clipping the outer cable back to the chassis, ensuring that it would not foul the caliper or the swing arm as the suspension moves up and down.

The leather gaiters fit very nicely, they both need 3mm countersunk bolts to attach them, but I have yet to decide whether I use riv-nuts or regular nuts on the underside. Although more of a faff initially I think riv-nuts will make them easier to fit as now there is as not much movement to the handbrake lever to slide the whole top cap complete with gaiters into place.I do beleive that a nice wooden gear knob will be in my Christmas stocking on the 25th.

The rear lights are a reproduction of a Lucas pattern and were always referred to as Pork Pies, obviously their shape might have something to do with that. They will fullfill all my need as they incorporate indicators and number plate illuminations. I have already connected a length of cable to the loom with a six way connector block and now just have to route the cable to the back of the car in readiness to connect to the lights when fitted.

CONTACT, IGNITION

I was going to title this post, BLEEDING BRAKES, but events have overtaken the blog.

Well the brakes have been bled and the pedal travel is minimal, great! My new, one man brake bleeding tool arrived as well as the 12mm banjo for the back brake. The tool was only partially useful. but this was because almost every joint leaked, so initially I was sucking air rather than brake fluid down the pipes. I then pumped the brake pedal to push the fluid down the pipes and when I started to get a bit of pressure fluid started to spurt out of the T junction to both front brakes, I had to disconnect and move a few pipes and cables so that I could get a 10mm spanner to the T and tighten all three connectors, then it started to leak from from the left calliper, another half turn there and all was tight and leak free.

The back brake was easier with just the one calliper and Alan of Triking had previously advised that I remove the calliper from the wheel and turn it so that the bleed nipple was at the top. Good advise, the air bled out easily and apart from mopping up the spillage the job was done.

I connected the cable to the handbrake leaver, but there is too much slack in the cable, so I will have to cut off the nipple at the calliper end and solder on a barrel one at the correct distance. I also need to buy some P clips so that I can fix the brake cable firmly in place.

Having got as far with the brakes as I could, I removed the bonnet and engine cowling, which allowed me access to the right side carburetter. I think the leak from the carb was because the bottom of the float chamber wasn't fully tightened, certainly I couldn't blow air passed the float needle when I lifted the floats. I put it all back together, refitted the carb to the engine, turned on the ignition and the pump started to make its whirring noise and no petrol leaked out.

I couldn't resist it, although the car is still on trestles, with a fire extinguisher in hand, I pulled out the choke, and pressed the starter button, there was a pop from the left carb and a cough. I pressed the starter button again and with a little pump of the accelerator pedal the engine sprung to life and settled down into a steady tick over, fortunately it seemed quite stable on the trestles.

It was noisy at the back end, in fact one of the fish tails dropped out of the silencer as I hadn't tightened it properly and it will definitely need some stuffing in the silencer boxes. The garage quickly filled with exhaust gas, so I switched of the ignition and waited for the garage to clear. I started it again, first prod of the starter button this time and a quick check of the warning lights and instruments showed me that all was as it should be. The only warning light still glowing was the green neutral one.

Yippee!!!What a result, almost a bit of an anti climax really, as it was so quick and easy, but that made a good change. I have decided to leave Marjorie on the trestles whilst I finish off connecting the hand brake and wiring up the rear lights, but I have still got to ordering them yet and with Christmas fast approaching I don't expect to get much more done until the New Year.

Aplogises for not having taken any photos of the first start up, not sure how that would have worked anyway, but I am sure there will be plenty on launch day, in the meantime I can relax in the knowledge that Marjorie has the power to go and the ability to stop.