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Olympic phase 1 WFV 812

 
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keith hamer
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Joined: 28 Jan 2006
Posts: 312
Location: Ellesmere Port

PostPosted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 9:53 am    Post subject: Olympic phase 1 WFV 812 Reply with quote

The recomissioning of my Olympic phase 1 WFV 812 has now started to gain a little momentum so I thought it may be time to write something about it on the forum.

As some of you may be aware I restored this car some 35 years ago and used it as everyday transport until 2000 when a minor gearbox problem and pressure of customer work laid it up for some time in the back of my workshop.

During the original restoration the front sub frame was replaced, at the time no replacements were available so I went along the route of fitting a Vauxhall Magnum/Vive front sub frame complete with suspension, brakes etc. The car has run with this set up ever since and has proved very successful. The other major thing I did during this initial restoration is to cut a rear hatch the same as the phase 2 which made the car into an extremely usable one.

Now the recomissioning has made some progress in the form of a new engine and gearbox set up. Originally I had used a very breathed on 1380cc 'A' series engine and 4 speed gearbox, which whilst realy good fun was very peaky and took some driving to keep on cam. I have now decided to fit a 'B' series engine and gearbox, which hopefully will be a little easier to cruse with, and to this end I have built a late 5 bearing MGB engine for the car. More on that later.

The work to date has revolved around getting this engine to fit the Vauxhall set up and making the necessary mountings for the engine and gearbox. These items are now finished and have been test fitted with the engine and gearbox in the car. Having done the 'mock up' the engine/gearbox have been removed and I have started preparing the engine bay for painting in body colour. At the same time I have made up the heater box, ducts, etc. to demist the windscreen and give some cabin heating, the cabin heating I have never really found essential.

As I get on I intend to post a little about the car including some pictures, you never know it may prove to be of interest and perhaps even inspire other restorations.
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keith hamer
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Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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Location: Ellesmere Port

PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 9:58 am    Post subject: WFV 812 Reply with quote

Last weekend I finally managed to get the engine bay on my phase 1 painted, but before we could finish off the preparation of said engine bay it was necessary to remove the engine and gearbox from the car.

As discussed earlier the car was fitted with a Vauxhall front suspension set in the 1980's, this has made the removal and subsequent re fitting of the engine/gearbox much easier than the standard phase 1, as can be seen from the picture below.



With the engine out I was able to prepare the bay to a reasonable standard to accept a couple of coats of 2K Ford signal yellow paint, the rest of the car will get a freshen up once we have it running properly on its new engine setup.



The pictures clearly show the work done on the original restoration which enabled me to use the Vauxhall sub frame and running gear. All the inner panel work at the front of the bay has been added to allow for this conversion. The right hand picture shows the new heater box which feeds the screen vents and passenger compartment with fresh hot air, the ducting from the blower motor fitted in the nose of the car is yet to be fitted.

The left hand picture shows the hole in the drivers foot well top which takes the modified Mini peddle assembly which Stan Hanks kindly made for me in the early 1980's. This modified peddle box uses girling horizontal master cylinders of 0.625" for the clutch and 0.7" for the brakes, the peddle ratio was also altered to give the brakes a nice feel without having to resort to a brake servo.
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Alec Gatherer
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Joined: 06 Jun 2009
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Location: Manchester

PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2016 11:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good stuff Keith, thanks for posting.
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David Copper
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Joined: 01 Jan 1970
Posts: 20
Location: Colchester

PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 2:57 pm    Post subject: Re: WFV 812 Reply with quote

Looking great Keith. I should start taking some pictures too now that the weather is picking up and the restoration is progressing.
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keith hamer
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Location: Ellesmere Port

PostPosted: Sun Apr 10, 2016 7:06 pm    Post subject: door hinges Reply with quote

Spent a couple of weeks (part time) working on re furbishing the drivers door hinge boxes, prior to refitting the hinges to the doors and making new top hat hinge pins, as a bit of an experiment I have made the new hinge top hats from phosphor bronze, with a little luck they will be strong enough for the job and won't suffer from the perennial problem associated with steel pins in aluminium hinges.
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Alan Smith
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Joined: 10 Jan 2016
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Location: Littleborough, Lancashire

PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 8:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very interesting and informative Keith.
Many thanks for posting this; I could read this sort of stuff all day.
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keith hamer
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Location: Ellesmere Port

PostPosted: Fri Apr 22, 2016 9:01 am    Post subject: Doors Reply with quote

Had a couple of hours working on the car recently. The doors are now hung in place properly and I have been sorting out the windows.

This car was originally re-built with wind up window but since it has been languishing at the bottom of the workshop the door window regulators have gone walkabout, quite possibly ended up being donated to one of our restorations at some time. This meant that I have no regulators for my car, the solution was staring me in the face every day in the form of Fiat Cinquecento ones. Although they needed some modification they have proved to be 'just the thing'.

I am now looking at the possibility of fitting the windows without frames, I guess time will tell whether this is possible but it looks promising.



Whilst working on another restoration I discovered that Suzuki Swift steering column u/j's have the same spline as the old Riley rack many phase 1's use, and they have a nice bit of collapsible steering column to boot. Anyone looking to replace the Renault bottom bit of the Olympic column could do worse than look at this as an alternative.
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keith hamer
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 8:53 am    Post subject: Frameless Reply with quote

Over the weekend (between customer visits) I managed to finish off the frameless door window set up on my old phase 1.



It's looking like it may work, certainly the signs are good that it will. I quite like the look of the finished window, and feel that it makes the profile of the car look lighter in some way.

I have already been asked if I am going to do a 'how to' article for this modification. I will have a look into it but realistically I have lots to do already and have to make the choice whether to work on the car or write about it. Watch this space.
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Barrie Jones
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Joined: 06 Jun 2009
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PostPosted: Wed May 04, 2016 10:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for your continuing efforts on the club's behalf Keith, looks to be a really interesting restoration, I'm sure we'll all be looking forward to the next instalment - your time permitting obviously.
Best of luck with it.
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keith hamer
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 10:04 am    Post subject: Engine Reply with quote

The car has now had a quick blow over to refresh the paintwork which was starting to show some signs of age, however the bulk of the paintwork, damage excepted was still quite good.

We have had the engine running and are now at the final stages of re commissioning the car.

One of the biggest issues involved the fuel pressure needed to run the Jenvey throttle bodies on the set up we have. The fuel pressure needed to be about 45psi with a return to the tank. As we are running 2 fuel tanks I decided to fit a small 3rd tank to give me a feed for the high pressure injection pump, the two main tanks are connected via a separate fuel pump, one for each tank to keep it full. This has two advantages as it mitigates any fuel surge and also separates the two tanks so that if the car is parked on a slope the fuel doesn't drain from one tank to the other, then out onto the road.



At the front we have just about finished all the necessary fabrication to recommission the Shorrock supercharger which is tucked away under the front of the car and driven via a big toothed belt.




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Dave-M
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Joined: 20 Jan 2006
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Location: Yorkshire, England

PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 2:09 pm    Post subject: WFV 812 Reply with quote

Keith, any pictures of the supercharger installation that you can share?

Regards, Dave
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keith hamer
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:09 am    Post subject: Supercharger Reply with quote

The supercharger itself is tucked away underneath all the pipework, the only picture I have showing it was taken when we were sorting out the mountings.



The photo shows the supercharger mounting being done. The supercharger is mounted on the front cross member and is driven by a 2" Teflon drive belt off the front of the crank. Currently it is driven 1:1 until we have programmed the ECU for this installation, once we are happy with the set up I intend to overdrive the supercharger so that its maximum RPM fall within the range of the MGB engine. I am using a 2.8:1 differential which means the car is geared to 155MPH at 6,000RPM in top, so at motorway speeds the engine will be revving at approximately 3,000RPM.
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Dave-M
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 17, 2020 6:35 pm    Post subject: Olympic Reply with quote

Hi Keith, Sorry to drag up an old post but at the time I was very interested, How did this all turn out, Was it as good as it looked.
Regards, Dave
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keith hamer
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 18, 2020 10:04 am    Post subject: Olympic injection Reply with quote

After a number of minor set backs we have been driving the car to shake down all the rebuilt parts, basically a total restoration, and I am very pleased with the result.

The biggest problem is associated with the twin Jenvey throttle bodied injection set up. Because the venerable old 'B' series has Siamesed inlet ports the timing of the injection is the biggest problem. The big issue with any siamesed ports is the problem of port robbing which causes an imbalance in the mixture from one cylinder to another, Minis and MG's have the same issue. To overcome this we have fitted massive injectors so that we can inject enough fuel for the relevant cylinder in as short a time as possible, we are currently mapping the ECU to provide the correct amount of fuel (injected in micro seconds) at the correct degree of crank rotation for each individual cylinder, which is proving very tricky indeed.

We are running the car with the laptop connected to get data on the various settings we are using in the map. Once we have enough data we can start to analyse it to come up with the best map for our purposes. The car is running better and better with each run, and with the very long diff ratio 2.8 : 1 it is a really nice easy drive when everything in the MAP is correct.

There is quite a long way to go before we achieve everything I set our to get but it is all going in the right direction
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Dave-M
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 02, 2021 8:13 pm    Post subject: supercharger Reply with quote

Hello Keith, Happy new year to you and yours.

Interesting to see your efforts are coming to the result you want, it will be quite a remarkable machine when finished.

Regards & stay safe, Dave
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