Nice set of headlights..

Posted on April 3, 2012 by

The halogen headlights with integrated signals showed up today, did a quick test fit and they look like they’ll work. I’ll be honest, not totally in love with the build quality, or the fact the LED circuit board is visible, but they’ll work for now. At the very least, they’ll work as good placeholders for putting the car back together.

The photos show the original headlight on the left and the new one on the right.

In other news, met with my friend Steve at breakfast this morning, ended up talking with him at length regarding the chassis, got sent some really good info (in the form of a rather long PDF file).. got some reading to do!

Posted in 1966 Morgan +4, Upgrades | 3 Comments

Shelving the frame

Posted on April 2, 2012 by

Bit more clean-up around the place today. I rolled the Morgan’s wood frame out from under the shelving and took it off its cart and then proceeded to disassemble the cart. After picking up a piece of lumber, I added another shelf to the top of the parts storage, this time running the two 2x8x8’s sideways so my father and I could place the wood frame up out of the way. Nothing fancy, but it got the area cleared out.

I rolled the Solstice out to the driveway and put it back under the shelving, using the steering shaft and a screwdriver to turn the non-powered steering unit. The car rolls pretty effortlessly, which was a relief considering how kludged together some of the suspension currently is on it.

Posted in 1966 Morgan +4 | Leave a comment

Mystic blue smoke

Posted on April 1, 2012 by

So today was spent digging around online finding potential new switches for the central dash panel, may have found a good source that I’ll be following up on.

In other news, I decided to look into the windshield wiper motor, since that’s going to be one of the ‘original style’ things I’ll be retaining on the MogRod. I pulled the original wiper motor out of the storage bin, cobbled together some wiring to the points, and with my mom’s help, went over to the Bronco’s battery to test it. Well, things went as you would expect with a 50 year old piece of Lucas electrical equipment… It worked for about a split second, sparked, and let loose a large amount of the “mystic blue smoke.” Looks like I’m going to need one of these…

Luckily, I’ve already found a company here in the US that handles rebuilding these things, so I’ll be contacting them to see about pricing.

Also of note, since the cost to replace / repair the small fender mounted “bullet” shaped indicators is a bit high, I decided to get a set of halogen headlights with integrated signals in them. I’m also looking into some Painless Wiring harness sub-assemblies for things like the signals and headlights so I don’t have to worry about sorting out those things.

Posted in 1966 Morgan +4, Restoration | 1 Comment

Hot Rods & Custom Classics

Posted on March 26, 2012 by

Lucked out big time today. The weather’s been sunny most of the past week, and then the skies opened up and it deluged all weekend. However, for a few hours today the sun came out, so I decided “screw it!” and scooted on over to Pleasanton for the Good Guys car show. Gotta say, very glad I went.

I managed to meet up with a few parts vendors and get hands-on with stuff for the MogRod, so now I know which style of gauges I’m going to be getting. Also found some local sources for chroming and other goodies.

Seeing as the weather has thoroughly soaked the grass and scared away a lot of the attendees, there weren’t that many cars on display. The real lookers were, as usual, indoors, so I snapped a few photos of them to share.

The real gem of the day, though, was found when I walked through the parts corral. Chevrolet Performance had a display booth / truck set up with a few vehicles and motors on display. A green ‘hot rod’ caught my eye, and I noticed that the motor seemed pretty small compared to all the LS blocks littered about. I read the plaque and was surprised to find that the ‘repro rod’ was running a turbo’d 2.0L Ecotec block… so of course I snapped up a bunch of reference photos of the intake and such.

Posted in General | 1 Comment

Some simple cleanup

Posted on March 18, 2012 by

Just some more pulling and prodding on the Morgan this time. Tackled the floorboards and the driveshaft, and vacuumed up the piles of debris and rat crap that had accumulated around the that area as well. Nothing too major, just moving along on the original frame.

Looking over the original frame, my father and I determined there wasn’t quite as much damage to it as we supsected, so the idea of someday restoring the actual original Morgan setup was seriously discussed, but that’s for another time. At some point, hopefully soon, we will be taking the front and rear assemblies off the original frame and getting it media blasted and rust inhibiting coating put on to protect it from any further ravages of ‘car cancer’.

The other photos you’ll see are from taking a look at the Solstice up on my two post lift. That was actually done a few days prior, but I only just got the photos off my phone. Of particular interest are the two photos of the left and right side rear frames – take note of just how angled over the left side is where the car was hit.

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

All right, keep on rollin…

Posted on March 12, 2012 by

Plain ‘n simple, after a bit of wrenching and, as you’ll see in the photos below, a bit of kludging, the Solstice is, for the first time since its accident, rolling on four wheels again.

Oh, and the entire garage (and surrounding areas) smells of the curing epoxy sealer.

Posted in Solstice Parts Car | Leave a comment

Got wood?

Posted on March 11, 2012 by

Well, the wood frame came off today. I assembled a frame out of some fresh 2×4’s and 2×8’s and a pair of dollies we had laying about. The cart itself weighed probably three or four times more than the wood frame, so there was no worry of it not being on there good.

After adding a bit more bracing to the front section and across the convertible roof storage area, my father and I lifted the (very light) frame up and over to the cart. A quick push out to the shop lift area and I had it up to a comfortable height on the lift. I ended up using the entire mix of the “Restor-it” epoxy sealer, and the way the frame was soaking it up, I could probably use another mix of the stuff. I’ll let it cure for a day or two and see how it all works out.

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We’ve all got wheeeeeels~

Posted on March 10, 2012 by

The wheels I bought from a Saturn Sky forum member (almost a month ago) showed up today. Big thanks to my uncle Forry for holding on to them for so long and handling them getting shipped out here!

Picked them up from the local Greyhound Express shipping depot, damn good deal on shipping that way, and they only took a few days to go halfways across the country. Turned around and dropped them off at Roman Tires near San Jose Intl Airport, and for only $220 got a set of four tires mounted and balanced. After getting home this evening, I wiped the rims down and gave them a good coating of black Plasti-Dip on the front face to keep it clean and protected.

If I manage to find a can of red Plasti-Dip around this area, I’m going to mock up the idea I had for two-toning the wheels.

Priority for this weekend is to get the wood frame off of the Morgan and get it soaking up that epoxy sealer, if that gets done with time to spare I’ll start tacking getting the wheels on the Solstice chassis.

Posted in Solstice Parts Car, Upgrades | Leave a comment

Zip Zap Mog!

Posted on March 9, 2012 by

Wouldn’t mind one of these!

http://uncrate.com/stuff/morgan-electric-plus-e/

We have no idea if it will ever make it into production, but if you’re a fan of the old school looks of the Morgan Electric Plus E ($TBA), you should certainly hope so. Powered by a 94 hp Zytek engine, the Plus E features a five-speed manual gearbox, a convertible top, a range of 120 miles, a 0-62 mph time of six seconds, and a top speed north of 110 mph.

Posted in General, Other Cars | Leave a comment

12 Bolts

Posted on March 8, 2012 by

Just 12. That’s it. 12.

That’s how many bolts were holding the wood frame to the chassis, and all twelve of them are out now.

The only thing holding the frame to the chassis right now is gravity.

I was a little worried that the rotted sections of the frame would fall apart, but other than getting a facefull of dust when I hammered out the bolts, the frame held together. I’ll be placing a lot more of that support latticework you see around the dash area around the rest of the frame just to shore it up. All being well, we’ll be moving the wood frame off the chassis this weekend so I can start soaking it with that epoxy sealer to try and save what remains.

I mentioned to my father about how many bolts there were, and he made some comment again about ‘kit cars’… I pointed out to him that our ’68 Ford Bronco has fewer bolts holding its entire cabin to the chassis.

Posted in 1966 Morgan +4, Restoration | 2 Comments