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MG TD TF 1500 - Td4834 progress

Hung the right rear wing today. My fender welting was a perfect match to my ivory paint. The welt is not painted. The color is Biscayne Buff and is marine grade material with a very high UV rating and well as abrasion durability. A bit pricey but the was worth every penny in my book I'll try another pic but no garauntee

Tried to get other items ready in advance of the engine coming home. Transmission was set in the car and driveline attached to the pinion but having issues with the transmission mount.

More delays with the engine. After clearancing #3 s push rod wall to flip the roller lifter bar to the backside because the notch in my Arnolt cover interfered with its operation I began the arduous task of trying to cut .100 deep exhaust valve reliefs into the bores for my cam. After 1 1/2 hrs I had only managed a .60 cut on the first hole by using a sticky grinder disk glued to the bottom of the exhaust valve and turned by a drill motor with the Laystall bolted down. Seeing we were going nowhere fast Lawrie and I loaded up the block and head , taking them to a local machine shop. They were promised the following morning and that was three days ago. I could have had them cut myself on Thursday Oh well. Just another cost overrun with delay. Otherwise everything is laid out and ready to begin the assembly. I' had planned having it installed today. Lol. But I'm still pushing for an initial start up of next weekend if I can get it bak by Thursday.

Cheers

Bill Chasser jr
TD4834




W. A. Chasser Jr

Your ivory paint looks absolutely perfect Bill! The piping is a pretty good match too. As I couldn't find a vinyl that matched the paint I used a vinyl paint/dye from a local supplier that was perfectly colour matched to my body colour & it is exactly the same. My piping also seems just a little smaller in diameter than yours. I used the lifters with the bar to the outside & there were no clearance issues with the original breast plate. Good luck with the start up. Cheers
Peter TD 5801
P Hehir

Many prayers for it do be done, with time for you and Dad.


Len Fanelli

Thanks Peter The paint has been a PITA. As I got caught with the paint unfinished back in November. It wasn't until about 3 weeks ago that I could resume. I truly thought I had it all done a few weeks ago. There were a few spots that needed touching up Today I was going to hang both rear wings but realized I hadn't rubbed out the left rocker and rear lower quarter panel. As a matter of fact I had failed to wet sand the area entirely before I had sprayed color and clear on that region. Suffice it to say that the drivers rear wing didn't get mounted and I have another touch up to do. Expecting some sprinkles here the next few days so the humidity level will keep me from painting for a few days. By then I hope to have the engine ready to drop in the chassis. I'm now 60 days behind the schedule I had made up for completion of the car

My piping may be a bit fatter. I looked at Chris's site but couldn't find the sizing . I could have sworn it was there somewhere. It Is not quite 1/2" and the apron was the next size down. I have enough material to make 3 more sets so if I have it wrong I will make corrections on the next set as I'm sure things will be coming back apart as my family dynamics change with dad. I don't have a car nearby to compare it to but it'll do for now. Is the wing material the same thickness as the top of the doors? I know the apron is smaller and I did that as well but it may still be too big.

Thanks Len for your thoughts and kind words. I'm anxious to hear this bad boy run.
W. A. Chasser Jr

Bill,
Love that ivory color- I redid wife's '50 TD in the original ivory my honey fell in love with.

I decided to grind the block like you, rather than deal with interference with a pretty alloy cover. It'll give me more flexibility later on as I'd like to make a custom cover down the road.
So I wandered out to the garage and took a few minutes to grind enough for one lifter set. Image attached.
Now that I've reread your post, I see that isn't the problem you're having.
"the arduous task of trying to cut .100 deep exhaust valve reliefs into the bores for my cam." So you're relieving the top of the block for the exhaust valve. How did you determine you needed more clearance, clay impressions? ...or is this to allow for the extra .1" valve lift? I took a quick measurement on my iron head (that was cut lightly) and should have plenty of clearance as is, but, of course, you're dealing with your Laystall.
Your post will make me take a closer look at this aspect, and I'm really interested on how you came to your decision to cut more off.
JIM

JRN JIM

Hi Jim It has been Lawrie's experience on his modified motors that the blocks require reliefs when the heads have been shaved significantly and/or the use of high lift cams. To determine the amount necessary we mounted the head with the springs off the exhaust valve and a used head gasket in place. measured the stem height, then let the valve drop and rest on the block deck, measured again and subtracted the difference. This gave us the unmodified usable lift. We then double checked or roller rocker ratio a checked the actual lobe lift at the cam and crunched those numbers to give us the true overall lift at the valve. Subtract the valve drop from the actual lift added .020 for good measurer and came up with our number for the relief. This is only a problem with the exhaust valve according to Lawrie. If you lay a head gasket against the block it will become apparent as to why this is.

I was going to shave the entire push rod wall as it wouldn't have taken very long but felt it wasn't a necessary thing to do for anything other than esthetics when the cover was off. For our needs it simply wasn't necessary and if using the tin cover we wouldn't have had to clearance any of it. Len suggests using tinneman nuts to put behind the gasket to help keep it away from the alignment bars. Since we are using the Roadster Gaskets supplied by Tom Lange we don't think that they will chafe since these gaskets shouldn't swell or distort like the cork gaskets.

Cheers

Bill Chasser Jr
TD4834

Also our Arnolt cover has the two open breathers that tend to puke oil from windage so I plan to make screens and baffles to cut down on that potential mess.
W. A. Chasser Jr

The engine build is now effectively a week behind schedule as my block sits in limbo at a machine shop waiting for valve reliefs to be cut in the block.
W. A. Chasser Jr

Bill,
I will explore that block issue in more detail to make sure there will be no bent valves. Having said that, I have to think the limey engineers scalloped the block not for valve clearance but a relief for exhaust gas flow. A simple radius on the edge of the bore would've made more sense to me. The valves in the wedge combustion chamber are not perpendicular to the block surface. For valve clearance, only a slight notch (as cut in piston tops) would suffice. Stock valve lift couldn't make it to the limits of the combustion chamber and never could've hit the block.

"Also our Arnolt cover has the two open breathers that tend to puke oil from windage so I plan to make screens and baffles to cut down on that potential mess."
Our tappet covers have never displayed ugly oil slicks, but I will grind the block so all the followers have more clearance to the cover so an elaborate baffle is an OPTION down the road.
For the valve cover breather, I installed stainless tubing from the coffin valve cover to the 9" dia. supercharger air cleaner and wound up with a tiny, but conspicuous oil drip from the bottom of the air cleaner down onto the firewall. The fabricated valve cover baffle is shown below, which minimized the oily blemish on the firewall. I think there's one long rocker adjuster on that engine a you can see a ding on the one end.

Hang in there.

JRN JIM

Hi Jim Thanks for the pic and your experience in the windage dept. I also have the matching valve cover and I was going to stuff a freeze plug in the vent hole. I don't know how much crankcase ventilation there will be but I had thought of maybe even putting a pair of 90 degree Stellings breathers on the side of the valve cover as well.

Still no block and head from the machine shop. I believe the Blowers WSM mentions the valve reliefs for the block when severely shaving the head to raise the compression. And yes it is a simple radius cut but like you mentioned the valve is canted in relationship to the block. The block must be set at the corresponding angle for the milling operation to take place. At this point I think the machinists is over-thinking the job but I'm not in direct contact with him as this was Lawrie's idea at the time to save time. Funny how that worked out... With our cam profile it requires a .100 on the deep end of the cut to gain our necessary clearance. This of course is not set in stone depending on how much has been shaved or how deep the exhaust valves set in the combustion chamber.

Cheers

Bill Chasser Jr
TD4834
W. A. Chasser Jr

Bill, all you need to machine the cut outs in the block is a tool steel cutter that is fabricated to a shaft (that is sized to the valve guide) at a right angle. This is inserted through the valve guide, bolt down the head and use a drill on the shaft to cut the block recess.
Rod Brayshaw

Rod We were doing it similarly albeit with a stickum sander disc stuck to the valve. I have never in my 54 yrs dealt with so much drama with an engine build Lawrie calls me today saying that he had talked with the machinist. The machinist who works alone in his shop had slipped, fell and laid unconscious on his shop floor for nearly three hours before he came to yesterday. His roll up door was open, traffic flying by and no one noticed. Any way, I won't be getting my work done as he recovers so I went to this shop and picked up my stuff and brought it all back to Sacramento and returned it to Del's Machine to do the reliefs. originally set to get it back on /Thursday but now likely will be Friday as more work came into the shop before I knew what was going to take place. At least it will get done, I hope and will be back up the hill to Lawrie's Friday. I'm not holding my breath any longer as I've been blue in the face for over a week.

Cheers

Bill Chasser jr
TD4834
W. A. Chasser Jr

This thread was discussed between 05/04/2015 and 08/04/2015

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