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PostPosted: April 6, 2015, 10:02 am 
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Location: Mount Airy, NC
No progress to report again last week. Home repair projects won out again. I did take my Locost out to the gas station to fill the tank since I'd drained it this winter to work on the fuel system. While pumping gas a guy walked over and asked "Who makes these?" "Me" I said and kept on pumping. I could see his mind trying to process that answer then he asked "How?" "Oh, I built it out of pieces from this car and that." Then I pointed to some of the parts and told him which car they came from.
The drive was fun at first but it got cold fast so I went home. Getting wimpy in my old age. :ack:

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PostPosted: April 6, 2015, 10:25 am 
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We are Slotus!
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a guy walked over and asked "Who makes these?" "Me" I said and kept on pumping.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

When somebody looks at the Slotus and asks "What kind of car is that?" I usually say, "There's just not a simple answer to that question. How much time have you got to listen?"

:cheers:
JD

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PostPosted: April 21, 2015, 12:43 pm 
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Location: Mount Airy, NC
I spent the last week plus at my daughter's house visiting and fixing things. My grandson (9 years old) loves to see his grandfather show up with a station wagon full of tools. He helps me fix things and we usually build something for him.

The project car will take a back seat to the outdoor projects now that the weather has decided to not be winter at last. Also I have two other project cars that need to be driven. The Mini came to work today and the Locost will get out tonight if I have time after I finish mowing.

The new car takes up valuable floor space so I disassembled it so I could store part of it in the attic.
Attachment:
IMG_0604.JPG

I've left the rear section of the buck out so I can continue with that. It needs solid pieces on the sides where the fenders will attach to the body shell and it needs a solid frame around the trunk opening. I'll have to use hardwood for those since I will be doing some hammering there to form the sheet metal. I also intend on using the buck to practice with the English wheel. Who knows, maybe some of the practice pieces will be good enough to use.


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PostPosted: May 7, 2015, 9:31 am 
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Location: Mount Airy, NC
No progress on my build, the home owner duties still take all of my spare time now. Too Busy's F500 adventure got me thinking about my old Formula Vee. It's funny what can be found out there on the interweb. I was looking for pictures or stories about McNamara cars (my vee was one) and found this:

http://formulavee50th.blogspot.com/2011 ... as-my.html

I always had this nagging worry that the guy I sold my vee to had gone off and rendered himself dead with the fool thing. It had this nasty habit of suddenly going off course backwards. I put most of the blame on my driving skills and gave up all hope of ever being some kind of pro driver. It wasn't until years later when I went kart racing with my 16 year old son that I realized that I wasn't that bad.

So thank you Mr Witt for confirming that my vee really was evil and my driving wasn't THAT bad.

Attachment:
Nelson Ledges Vee.jpg


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PostPosted: June 2, 2015, 1:11 pm 
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No, I haven't forgotten this build log but other things continue to take up my time. Not all of them are non-automotive though. I never liked the steel fuel tank that I built to get through the enhanced inspection.
Attachment:
IMG_0297.JPG

In addition to getting me through inspection it also leaves some room for a trunk. The down side is that it fits tightly between the rear skin and the frame so the least hit to the back of the car will split some seams. Also the steel is rusting on the inside. I'd read a number of things about tank sealers peeling off and plugging the fuel system so I left it bare.

In the beginning, I had a JAZ plastic tank mounted above the diff. Now I am going back to it.
Attachment:
IMG_0627.JPG

It doesn't look it from the picture but there is about 3 inches between the tank and the rear skin. I also think the tank will take some abuse before splitting. This time I added the Mazda level sender, I didn't have one the first time around with the plastic tank. It took a bit of modification to the float arm to work with the shallow tank but I think it is sorted now. I no longer have the filler outside but the sharp bend in the filler hose had made it impossible to refuel on anything but slow drizzle without tripping the nozzle. The big port on top of the plastic tank will be easier to fill. The big port also means that I can clean the inside of the tank if necessary, something I can't do with the steel tank.

While all of this was going on I decided to simplify the fuel pump/fuel filter set up.
Attachment:
Fuel System.jpg

The push on/AN-6 adapters on the stock Mazda fuel filter are hard to keep from weeping. Also there is a handful of fittings to get from the pump to the filter. I ordered a filter from JEGS that will screw on to the pump inlet without all of the current mess. Now I'll have a filter before the pump and it can be disassembled and cleaned instead of thrown out. I hope it comes today so I can finish reassembling the fuel system and maybe go for a drive.


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PostPosted: June 2, 2015, 3:42 pm 
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Joined: January 10, 2008, 4:47 pm
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I see this happened to the next owner of your Formula Vee: :shock:
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As I
nudged the gearbox into third gear I was astonished as I watched my left
front wheel shoot off the car and head into the trees at the exit to turn
one. I had just gotten on the gas and somewhere good sense had taken over
and kept my foot off the brake as I moved slowly from the racing line into
the grass on the outside. I will never forget the look on my father's face
when I came into the pits with the front wheel and spindle in the cockpit.

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PostPosted: June 2, 2015, 4:45 pm 
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Now that I'd believe. Where'd you find that gem, my former crew (all one of him) would get a kick out of it.

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PostPosted: June 3, 2015, 10:14 am 
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Thanks for getting me to look further, I found his other story that I somehow missed on that page. It was contact with another car not the Vee's evil nature that did it!

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PostPosted: June 4, 2015, 9:40 am 
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Location: Boise, Idaho
Hey Run87k,

In the recent pics of your fuel system, the underslung mounting of the diff housing is shown. Of concern is the lack of a capturing washer on the bottom side of the mounts. A. Moore posted his experience with the lack of such. His use of the car may be harsher than yours, but it's relatively easy make his recommended changes before a failure.
Just what you needed, more things on the TDL. :ack:


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PostPosted: June 4, 2015, 9:48 am 
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Thanks for the heads up, its now on the list. The fuel filter came yesterday so the fuel system got put back together. It weeps in the connection between the filter and the pump right where I simplified the system to eliminate the extra fittings. I am so off AN fittings. I should have never gotten fancy and just used tube and hoses.

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PostPosted: June 5, 2015, 8:14 am 
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Joined: August 12, 2012, 6:38 pm
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Location: worcester county, Massachsetts
Run87k wrote:
I should have never gotten fancy and just used tube and hoses.


I've had really good success with just such, but double-clamped at the inlet and outlet of the B-3 fuel pump and the one inter-pipe connection between the fuel pipe in the driveshaft tunnel and the fuel pipe that transitions from the driveshaft tunnel to the firewall.

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https://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=19012
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PostPosted: June 11, 2015, 11:27 am 
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HOORAY!!! MY MINI BLEW ITS HEAD GASKET!!!!!

Well that seems like a silly thing to celebrate. Of course there is a story behind it. I have three cars in various states of being broken. Fortunately my wife’s Honda is brand new so no problem there but I am getting close to having nothing to drive. Years past that would not be a serious problem, I could just run wherever I needed to go but not anymore. First the Locost has yet to run longer than 45 minutes without the fuel pump quitting. Normally it stops closer to 15 minutes which makes it a bad choice for going anyplace other than the grocery store one mile away.

My daily driver is a 2005 Volvo wagon with 118,000 miles on it. It has been totally reliable for the past 6 years that I have owned it, needing nothing other than tires, brake pads and oil changes. It threw a couple of OBD codes recently and has been a bit funny at idle. Searching the Volvo forums resulted in a laundry list of parts to change in order to fix it. Tonight I’ll pick up an O2 sensor, fuel filter and set of plugs. The plugs aren’t on the list but I’m pretty sure that they have never been changed so it’s about time. I’ve watched the Youtube videos on how to replace these parts and it looks like a long, frustrating job. The fuel filter is supposed to take over an hour. I can do the one on my Mini in less than a minute if I don’t mind a little spilled gas. By the time I get those new parts on the car it might still have the same codes so I can move on to replacing the MAF, fuel pump and fuel pressure sender.

Last week the Mini developed a nasty miss. I came on suddenly and the car barely runs. Last night I decided that the other two were too painful to look at so I’d diagnose the Mini instead. Things looked fine with the ignition and carb so I dug out the compression gauge. Cylinder 1, 30 psi. Cylinder2, 30 psi, Cylinder 3, 180 psi. Cylinder4, 170 psi.

The head gasket between 1 and 2 had blown. In an hour I had the coolant drained, everything off the head and the head unbolted. Here it is just before I went underneath to unclamp the header so I could get the head off.
Attachment:
IMG_0639.JPG


Not only had I found the problem and pulled the head, I even had a gasket set in the attic!
Attachment:
IMG_0640.JPG


Tonight, after getting home with the Volvo parts, I will put the new gaskets on and have the Mini back on the road. I might have a total of 3 hours into it, including time spent finding the compression tester and searching the attic for the gasket set. Yes, the old Mini is less reliable than the new computer controlled, electronic stuff but at least it is easily fixed.


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PostPosted: June 11, 2015, 2:38 pm 
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Interesting thing about the Brit engines. Once I put a decent fuel pump and electronic spark on my MGA, MGB, and numerous Sprites, not once did any of them fail to start.

I once blew a freeze plug on the MGB about a mile and a half from home. It got so hot that it wouldn't turn off when I turned off the switch, so I popped the bonnet and suffocated it by covering the air cleaner inlets.
You could hear the cast iron going tick tick tick for the next 3 or 4 hours as it cooled.

The next day I replaced the freeze plug, changed the oil, fired it up and ran perfectly. Compression checks showed no change from before the little mishap.

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http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17496

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PostPosted: June 15, 2015, 11:45 am 
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Well I found another thing that will delay the new car.

Saturday my wife was helping with a yard sale so I had the day to do whatever I wanted so at 6 am I drove out to the Rail Trail to run. This used to be my favorite place to run back when I could actually run. It is a converted railroad bed that passes through woods and farm land. It’s been a couple of years since I was able to do a long run there so it was fun just to go back. I got in 4 miles without walking which is the furthest I’ve gone in two years.

Full of happy thoughts, I drove home and finished connecting the header to the pipe on the Mini. That finished the head gasket change so I got to drive the Mini around the neighborhood. Problem solved. More happy thoughts.

For the past year I’ve been looking for a pair of seats for the Mini. The seats that are in it are original and look it.
Attachment:
IMG_0642.JPG


Not only are they beat but I hate sitting at stop lights in seats that only come up to the middle of my back. Drivers here are inattentive and getting rear ended is not unusual. In the past 30 years I’ve been hit twice and my wife has been hit three times. I want a bit more protection than the Mini seats offer. I’ve been looking for tan seats that would match the interior but haven’t been having any luck. Well the interior isn’t all that great anyway.
Attachment:
IMG_0643.JPG
Attachment:
IMG_0644.JPG


Since I was all charged up and had some time I decided another trip to the junk yard was in order. After an hour of opening doors and looking though windows, no tan seats again. Last year I found a BMW 3 series with just the right color leather seats but the driver’s side had two big rips. I’d been thinking about changing the interior out completely so why not change the color too? I found a Nissan 200sx that had only been in the yard a week plus no windows had been broken so the interior was in good shape. A little wrenching and $57 later I was the new owner of this:
Attachment:
IMG_0641.JPG


The front seats will get taken apart so I can weld the attachment points of the Mini seats on. The back seats will get disassembled along with the Mini back seats and the two mashed together. The rear cards will get cut down to Mini size and swapped out. The door cards will take some serious thought. There is a couple of months work there.

I was starving on the way home and found a fire company having a chicken BBQ. Now I had lunch too. All this before noon! Got home, mowed the lawn, watched Indycar qualifying then Le Mans. It doesn’t get much better than that! Well, Bill Gates could give me a Ferrari Daytona…


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PostPosted: June 15, 2015, 11:57 am 
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Run87k wrote:
... It weeps in the connection between the filter and the pump right where I simplified the system to eliminate the extra fittings. I am so off AN fittings. I should have never gotten fancy and just used tube and hoses.

I've had the exact opposite experience, that everything that isn't AN tends to leak first.

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