MG Metro Turbo Van
Turbo Mini Forums

ARGH! Memories :(

I think a combination of cheep oil and very high rev's at Avon have done for the bearings.

From the looks of the timing cover and the seal on on the end cap at the timing end, it has had big problems with oil leaks in the past. It had none genuine gaskets in it and lots of orange rubbery stuff sealing it all together. So might have been ran low in the past.

At least it will be done right when we put it back together...

No chance of making the 17th now...

That's a shitter boys.

Was hoping to see the beast in full flight.

Good luck with it ...... you never know, with a fair wind and all that.

Richard.

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

Even though I have swine flue (read as a bad cold) I've been out and done a bit of work on the van.

I've relocated the horn to give clearance for the i/c pipes and got the EDIS module and coil pack fitted.



My rivnut tool was one of the best tools I've bought rescently!

your getting on well mate, i hope you feel better soon.

Best 1/4 mile 13.2 seconds @116 mph
First 5 port miniturbo to make over 200 bhp on a carb?
First 5 port miniturbo to make over 200 bhp on Injection?

http://www.mattwoodsphotography.com

Thanks

The good news is that the engines cam bearings aren't too bad and the second crank I found is good, so it's just a full set of bearings in the bottom end and we can crack on and get the engine built

Seconded on rivnut tools. Makes you wonder how everyone went on before.

In boost we trust

Thirdedid on the rivnuts, awesome tool, used mini originally to fit pop out rear windows nwo i cant stop using it lol.


Like i said on metroOC gna be awesome with the ''kit''

On 9th Oct, 2009 MINIMON said:
Like i said on metroOC gna be awesome with the ''kit''

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

nah, just throw it on. it will add to the character!

haha, whats wrong with it? Just cracked, presumably your spraying it....?

It has a bit of accident damage.

I doubt we will spray it much as it will spoil the look of the van.

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

It's a bit battered and has been repaired a few times. Should suit the van's look.

EDIT: For those that don't know what the fook we're on about, the van will be getting a genuine tickford body kit fitted in due course. It's white and we haven't got any white on it yet....

Edited by apbellamy on 9th Oct, 2009.

We've had a busy weekend.

We started of at John's on Saturday. He finished striping the block and gave it a good degrease and preasure washed it.

I've given the new crank a quick polish as there where some slight marks on the journals.

Then we set about John's mini's future engine and pulled it apart. It has donated a nice set of Metro Turbo pistons and this:



A nice Tran X 4 pin diff. Which means big burn outs are back on the cards

Today I've been busy getting engine bits ready to go back together.

The block is fully degreased, striped, primed and painted a nice shade of red.







That fresh red will add 10 bananas.

I also got a pile of ancilories cleaned up and painted ready to go back on.



Then I took the new old diff back out of the gearbox.

Feels like we're getting somewhere now.

After 2 weeks waiting, the intercooler has finally showed up! It looks a lot bigger in person.



So I got busy and lopped of the bottom rad bracket. It fits like a glove and the aim of the pipes couldn't be any better.



Just mocked up with cable ties at this point, but everything still fits.



The rad fits much closer with one of the extra mounting lugs cut of the i/c



One of the problems with fitting an RS Intercoller is that it gets fowled by the bonnet catch, so you have to remove it. No problems like that here



It came with one of the factory mounting brackets, so I hacked it up and welded it to the body.



It's a nice snug fit, but the rubber bungs allow a litle bit of movement. I also chopped of all the mountings that we aren't using. There's no point carrying all that extra weight around!

I'm going to put brackets on for the original radiator tomorrow, but I think we will look for another rad that will sit along side the i/c. There's just enough clearance for everything, but I would be happier with the rad sat in the recess.

After a long search we found that no readily available factory radiator for a car would fit in the space we had. So we've ended up turning to motorbikes

We've gota used rad from a Kawazaki GPX 750:



It fit's well:



It will be mounted the other way up and flushish with the front of the intercooler. We'll be junking the bikes fan and fitting a bigger kenlowe style fan to the front. Should leave more space in the engine bay.

By my dodgy maths it's actually got slightly more core than the metro rad:

Metro - 2cm * 25cm * 50cm = 2500 cm3
Bike - 3.5cm * 35cm * 21cm = 2572.5 cm3

I don't know if it will be any better or worse than the metro rad, but I guess we'll find out at some point....

The only other problem is finding a fan switch with 2 wires and M10 thread, the one in it only has 1 wire.

in my metro i mounted the intercooler at the front and put the oil cooler underneath and put the rad behind them both.

Edited by ERA ANT on 15th Oct, 2009.

Do it right the first time and make it mint!!!!!!

We haven't got an oil cooler...

From what I've read on here they aren't necesary.

my metty runs quite high oil temp. i fink so anyway. i had heard that to.

Do it right the first time and make it mint!!!!!!

We'll have oil preasure and oil temp gauges, so if it runs hot then we'll have to put one on afterwards. Our budget won't stretch that far at the moment...

Come on guys , you should be working through the night to get this ready.lol

Rick

I'd love to, but the engine is spread across 3 garages and 2 counties....

Got the crank back from balancing.



The crown wheel is fitted to the diff (with the bearings cleaned up) and installed in the gearbox



Then we picked up all the engine parts, including some genuine metro turbo pistons with ARP rod bolts:



and headed over to Benross' workshop.

With Steve's guidance, the oil gallaries where drilled, tapped, cleaned and fitted with grub screws. The bores where cleaned and the lip's removed. The block was thouroughly cleaned, dried and oiled. We put in new crank bearings, fitted the crank, new thrusts and a centre main strap.



Then the pistons went in with new shells and I lapped the flywheel onto the crank tail.



Then the cam followers, cam, timing back plate and duplex timing gear went on. All timed in at 107 degrees.



So the short block is almost ready to go

THanks a lot to Steve for taking the time and patience to teach us. We really appreciate it.

Good work lads, did you get to go out in Steves car?