Propped up, shafted and blown twice

This will be the final update from the week of work on the Anglia, so we finished the week by finishing up a couple of bits that had been partly started.

First off, the propshaft. The Nissan propshaft was the perfect length to mate up the gearbox and the standard Anglia rear axle, but it wasn’t supported at it’s centre joint, well, other than by a small piece of electrical wire!

A more permanent solution was required, so a couple of small bits of box section, with a bolt welded in place, and then welded to the inside of the transmission tunnel should do the trick:

Moving into the car, and the steering shaft needed supporting between two of the joints. A simple bracket, and that was done:

I also managed to pick up another rear turbo and manifold, as well as a manual throttle body, which doesn’t have the Traction Control stuff on the side of it. We bolted the turbos into place, and we could now see how the space was being used up quite quickly!

During the making of the pipework for the turbos, we decided to drag the fibreglass flip front out, and put it on the car, to ensure we’d have the required clearance under the bonnet for the myriad of pipework that will be required. So, here’s a couple of photos of it looking somewhat more like a normal Ford Anglia.

Unfortunately the current schedule of visits every 4 weeks means that the next scheduled visit falls on the weekend Christmas, so no work will get done then! So, you’ll have to tune in at the end of January for the next instalment!

Scrapheap Challenge

With one downpipe completed, it’s time to move the turbo back to the other side, and make another.

So, one flange marked and hole enlarged to suit and welded together:

And fitted in place:

Once that was done, we moved efforts onto the brake/clutch, which we’d started a couple of days ago. We had sitting around brake and clutch master cylinders from a Honda Prelude, so began trying to make them fit. However, the brake master cylinder was too big, and we couldn’t get a smooth enough action.

We had to take a trip to the scrapyard to get rid of some old junk, so we did our “Scrapheap Challenge” bit and looked around, and came back with a brake master cylinder from a 2001 Fiat Punto, which wasn’t as long, and, we made up a bracket to hold them in place. Also from the Punto came the reservoir, which is shared between brake and clutch – which means less things to fit into the engine bay on the Anglia!

Have we blown it?

The biggest issue we’ve been worrying about is how we’re going to fit the turbos. They won’t fit in their standard locations. We decided to bite the bullet, and try to come up with a solution.

We took a trip to our local engineering firm again with a rear turbo, and a sheet of steel, and came back with a set of flanges:

One of the flanges bolted to the rear manifold:

A small bit of nice thick pipe (Mitsubishi L200 rear bumper bar):

And one turbo in place:

Now to rinse and repeat for the other side:

Next step is the downpipes, so out with a nice bit of stainless steel rear bumper bar, marked out, cut and welded into place:

Once we’d marked up where the downpipe would fit, we extended the hole in the flange to incorporate the wastegate before welding it all together.

Well… that wasn’t as bad as we expected – only a day to mount two turbos and one exhaust downpipe. So, yes, we have blown it now! 😉

It’s under control

I thought it about time some control was brought to this project!

So, first off, how about some engine control, with the beginning of some of the multitude of wiring? I’m stripping out wiring for any systems that were present on the Galant, and won’t be on the Anglia.

So, that means removing: ABS, ASC, AYC, SRS, TCL and Automatic Gearbox ECU.

After starting with the engine and ECU looms, and re-routing, we’re currently set up as such:

Before going too much further with the wiring under the dash, a small amount of adjustment is required to fit the water manifold to the back of the engine. Firstly we had to trim down the top of the gearbox casing.

And in order to run the coolant hoses to the front, a small amount from the bulkhead.

Next on the agenda is some way of telling the car where to go, so… one Mitsubishi steering column and wheel 🙂

With the ability to steer, I think the ability to move and stop might be the next logical step.

The clutch/brake pedals are an old set of dual controls which were removed from another car, and the accelerator is from the 200SX.

Now that the steering and pedals are done, the bit of floor that had been hacked about to previously fit the Escort steering column was then replaced with a nice fresh bit of steel.