Brackets installed

With all the metal parts in hand I got some small chance to fit it all. Really pleased with all the clearance, only issue I have is there is a bolt under the blower just a little too close to the water pump but a file will sort that out and give me clearance I will be happy with. The cooper water pipe behind the blower is really going to aid the cooling especially with the custom head gasket with different size water ports.

Its nice to see the majority of the engine bolted together and all the parts feel strong. The lower bracket at the bottom is only tacked together at the moment as I ran out of Argon :( but I should get some more this week then I can finish the welding and shape the corners etc to make it look lovely.

Going to loose the red manifold as I really am not sure I like it.

I hope that in the next 2 weeks I will have all the mock parts made up and then I will assemble the whole thing for the final time and I can finish the gearbox off.

Water pump

While collecting some parts I asked if I could just jump on the lathe for a few moments as the standard cooper water pump has a 6pk ribbed pulley. I locked the end of the water pump in the chuck and began to rotate the item at 20rpm and to my surprise the body of the water pump stayed still and did not rotate with the pulley. After a while I decided that I could get away with 80rpm and got the job done in no time. Other machine shops said the pulley had to be off the pump before it could be machined but I can confirm this not to be true especially as the pulley is plastic with a steel insert.

Job done and on the car

I may need to add a grip surface to help the back of the belt but that is not too much of an issue

From prototype to steel

Hot off the CNC machine my brackets for the supercharger and alternator are here. This is the final few parts I need to fully assemble the engine. Quite excited about recieving the parts and think once painted and installed they will look really nice.

I hope to get the parts fitted soon and to the final parts of welding on the outlet flange. Should be good fun

Prototype brackets

Having printed my prototype brackets quite a while ago I finally really had time to get them on the engine.

The past few months have seen me out of action with a very poorly back to the point where the project has been on hold. Thank you for all the support messages and given a month I have a real want to push this project onwards. Some of you may have also noticed that I have another project, this is one for myself and my other half to do together, a lovely example of a late 72 build 73 plate bug... Looking forward to making it into a show winning example one day (2 year project)

Any way just a quick update to show the bracket in place on the engine, they are quite simple brackets and seam quite strong even in the printed abs plastic.

Really pleased with the alternator bracket, it looks excellent. I did not want to tuck the alternator into the space of the sump as I want as much road clearance as possible. I am really pleased with how it fits

 The supercharger sitting snugly on the bracket fully bolted down. Now all I need to do is get the steel item made

 Again another photo of the blower in place, really saddens me to see how much paint I have taken off the blower putting it in and out, oh well nothing a little bit of paint will not fix. When I have the steel item I will be able to triple check the length of nose required for the blower and I can then add the last bits and store the engine ready to go back in.