Not much

Posted on August 14, 2012 by

Haven’t touched the MogRod since the getting the EcoTec motor mounts in the mail; between a few remodeling projects, work getting incredibly slow (yet still keeping me busy), and a number of other things, I haven’t really had time to poke around on it.

This isn’t wholly surprising, as where I’m at now with the project would require my full attention since the chassis building is getting ready to begin. I honestly can’t say when things will pick up again, and for a short while there looked to be a possibility that I would have to unload the project as a whole. That, fortunately, has passed, though things could still change in the near future that would potentially put the brakes on the project for months or even years.

It’s a number of things both in and out of my control that could either eat up my time, cause the project to be put into storage, or potentially have me leaving the area for work, but all in all I still think about the car on a regular basis. When I started on this I was really hoping to plug away at it and have the car done within a few years, but life seems to want to drag this out… hopefully this car won’t turn into another Barracuda project, cause that’s not what I wanted at all.

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Mounted

Posted on July 4, 2012 by

The replacement motor mounts for the Ecotec showed up today. Good timing on that, as a mix of holidays and reduced work hours means I can soon attempt to make the motor / transmission stand.

Posted in 1966 Morgan +4, Solstice Parts Car, Upgrades | 1 Comment

Morgan in the Gumball

Posted on June 17, 2012 by

My father pointed out an awesome article to me this morning. The company chief and grandson of the founder Charles Morgan took a brand-new-from-the-factory Morgan 3 Wheeler to the USA and entered it in the Gumball run with his wife as the passenger. He did an amusing write-up on the whole experience which I recommend reading.

http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/one-couple-went-3-500-miles-morgan-3-212630495.html

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Motoring~… and, uh, transmissioning~

Posted on June 11, 2012 by

So despite being on the tail end of a nasty head cold, I took to removing the motor and transmission from the Solstice today.

I started by putting the car up on the lift and removing the drive shaft. This turned into more of a headache than it needed to be. The shop manual only mentioned in small print at the end of the instructions that you needed to remove the front support bolt for the differential and lower it in order to remove the drive shaft. You’d think something like that would be in big bold print at the start of the instructions. Anyways, got that sorted and removed.

After that, I removed the support brace for the transmission and put the car back down on the ground. Then I proceeded to scratch my head for a bit while I tried to figure out how the hell I was going to lift the motor, as I didn’t have any spare metric bolts or nearly enough chain around.

I ended up grabbing some heavy duty rope we’ve had for ages, wrapping it around the motor mount arms, and then securing the ends to the extended ends of the lift arms. Who knew that a shop lift works so well as an engine hoist?! After pulling the motor most of the way out, I realized the transmission was causing it to tilt way back, so I lowered it back down to about level, swung out another lift arm, and tied off the transmission to that. The whole setup lifted out, and rolled the car chassis out of the way. We used a pair of dollies, some rope, and some blocks of wood to support and secure the engine / transmission combo so it could be rollled aside for temporary storage until I can make up a proper cart for it.

Once that was all sorted, the Solstice chassis was rolled back into its spot, the area was cleaned up, and I called it a day. The only ‘casualty’ for the day was one of the motor mount rubber isolators, which ripped in half while having the rope pull against it, so I’m going to have to order up a fresh set.

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Shoulda, woulda, Cuda

Posted on June 5, 2012 by

So this past weekend was a major milestone for one of our other vehicles. For the past ~15 years I’ve been rebuilding a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda convertible from the ground up. This is something I’d started on in high school and have started winding down the list of gremlins.

Well, this past weekend, I finally drove the car to the Mopar Alley Rally at Ohlone College. It’s a once-a-year Mopar-only car show put on by a local club, and I’ve been wanting to take the car to it for years. The past few years have had one issue or another (rear axle breakdown, weather, etc etc etc) keep us from taking the car. This year, we almost didn’t take it because we got out of the house so late. In fact, it was only through the courtesy of the folks in charge that we even got in (didn’t register or compete for a trophy, just showed the car). Ironically, the spot I parked it at was right next to another Barracuda I’d seen being worked on by a local shop. I didn’t get to meet the owner, but I can sort that out later.

The cuda definitely got plenty of attention, especially when I was rolling through the middle of the show to the display area. I think it’s a mix of the exhaust and the color that made it stand out so much.

Posted in 1970 Barracuda, Other Cars | 1 Comment

Here’s your sign…

Posted on May 16, 2012 by

Well, someone just saved me a lot of headache.

Along with those windshield wiper gears I got off of Ebay a week ago, I also found and bought a reproduction “Morgan Sales & Repair Centre” sign from another seller. As with all Ebay purchases, as soon as I won it I immediately paid for it, no need to delay something you’ve waited for… or so I thought. I expected a day or so delay getting it shipped, but by the end of the week I still hadn’t seen it marked as “shipped” or any tracking info, just a generic “you can expect your product within a week” comment that seemed to be put up by Ebay and not the seller. I messaged the seller on Friday… no response the whole weekend.

So I messaged them again on Monday, and again no response. The end of the “expected delivery” period was tomorrow, so I was willing to give them one more day. Well, luckily for the seller and myself the sign showed up today, which is good. I really didn’t want to have to deal with Ebay customer service over this.

The odd thing is, the whole time I was waiting, the seller was getting positive feedback saying “great product, quickly shipped, great communication”, which struck me as odd.

Oh well… anyways, the sign’s here, looks awesome, can’t wait to get it up in the garage.

Oh, yeah, by the way, the sign’s 4′ wide by 1′ tall… no reason to go small!

Posted in 1966 Morgan +4, General | 1 Comment

Hey big spender~

Posted on May 13, 2012 by

Got back from Mexico about a week ago, just been busy getting caught up so I haven’t been able to update this. A lot of replacement / upgrade parts have arrived over the past few weeks, so time to show off what I’ve been buying.

First off, we’ve got intake and exhaust manifold gaskets for the Ecotec, as well as a replacement valves cover gasket. That’ll be used when I go about cleaning up / powdercoating the valves cover. Also, I got the airflow sensor, which I’ll have to fabricate a custom housing for based off the designs on Bowtie6’s intake. All that’s courtesy of GM Parts House.

Next up we’ve got a box of switches, mostly 2 position with a few 3 positions, for the new instrument cluster. That was bought from a random internet vendor.

After that, the big pile of lighting parts from Morgan Spares, We’ve got full headlamp assemblies with new chrome rings. Also we’ve got the new front and rear indicator / brake light housings. I’m still looking into my options for doing halogen headlamps, and I need to start sorting out what I’m going to do as far as LED lighting upgrades.

Following that, a pair of brand new windshield wiper bases that I found on Ebay. Since I pretty much destroyed one of the originals in order to get it apart, this was a needed replacement for sure.

Finally, we’ve got the absolutely superb rebuild / restoration done on the windshield wiper motor done by E. Lawrie Rhoads of British Car Part Restoration. He was good enough to also send along wiring instructions so that I don’t have to worry about this rebuilt wiper motor blowing itself up a second time.

In other news, I stopped by Club Auto Sport / Borelli Motorsports today for their regular “Cars and Coffee” event. Myself and a number of other local Corvette owners from NorCal Vettes pretty much took over the showing area, though there were a number of other really nice cars, including a Ultima GTR and a Noble. I talked with the owner of the place, and he introduced me to his fabricator / race car technician Chris. Seeing as I would like professional and experienced input on designing the custom chassis for the MogRod, having someone like Chris giving me input will be invaluable towards saving me headaches down the road.

Posted in 1966 Morgan +4, Restoration, Solstice Parts Car, Upgrades | Leave a comment

Parts arrive…

Posted on April 19, 2012 by

… as we leave.

Our UPS guy showed up as we were loading up the Avalanche this morning, delivering some medical supplies and a nice big box from Morgan Spares. When I get back from our trip I’ll dig in and post up.

Posted in 1966 Morgan +4, Restoration | Leave a comment

1956 Morgan +4 one-off sports racer

Posted on April 11, 2012 by

Came across this article about a one-off ’56 Morgan +4… gotta say I really dig the body styling.

http://www.forgottenfiberglass.com/?p=17651

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Dazzled by the lights…

Posted on April 5, 2012 by

Just shelled out almost $600 on all-new lighting fixtures for the MogRod. I ordered new front signal, rear signal, brake light, and headlight assemblies for the car from Morgan Spares.

I have some of the original lighting fixtures, but they’re all in a state of disrepair. Getting new fixtures will not only improve the overall appearance of the car, but also allow me to modify the signal and brake fixtures for LED lighting without damaging original parts.

I decided to return the halogen headlights I ordered since I’m not satisfied with the build quality or appearance, and because I can just use the forward signals instead.  I’m still sticking with not putting the fender-mounted  bullet-style signals on for the time being. I need to find a quality set of 7″ round, glass or quart curved-lens, H4 halogen headlamps to use with the car, so the hunt for the best looking, working, and priced set begins!

Posted in 1966 Morgan +4, Upgrades | Leave a comment