FOM The Clubman Estate

[Tupers]

The other 4 mounting tabs are done now so the seat mounting bars can go in soon.





The pedal box also need mounting so I took the air saw to the bulkhead and made some more clearance.











I knocked up a new lower dash rail from some 32MM tube with 3MM spreader plates on each end.





After a lot of measuring and repositioning I've got the pedal box to where it's comfortable. Now I just need to measure everything and figure out the mounts.

 

[The Devils Reject]

Bone question here - why the 3 reservoirs on top of the pedal box?

 

[Robotstar5]

Bone question here - why the 3 reservoirs on top of the pedal box?

2 for brakes (front/rear balance) and the 3rd for the clutch

 

[The Devils Reject]

2 for brakes (front/rear balance) and the 3rd for the clutch

Thanks - my brain has stopped hurting now.

 

[Cris B]

Nice pedal box

 

[Tupers]

I've been making a few bits to mount the pedal box but nothing note worthy yet so until later here's a picture of the estate back on it's wheels.

 

[Tupers]

I'm still yoyoing between mount the pedal and mounting the seats. This evening it was the seats turn.



I had made a set of bars between the inner sill and tunnel but they sat too low so I've gone with two tubes that are the full width of the car and notch around the exhaust tunnel.





I need to tack the mounting tabs onto the other side and straighten everything up but it works.

 

[Cris B]

Sits too low? In a mini?

 

[Tupers]

Sits too low? In a mini?

Yeah I probably shouldn't complain seen I've also lowered it by 4 inches.


I took a little time to bolt my drives seat up just too make sure everything lined up.





Thankfully it all sits very nicely. I'm thinking I might be able to get a decent sized speaker under each seat as well.





Once I was happy with everything I got the other mounting tabs tacked on and then went over the whole lot with some nice wide welds.





I also linishing down to allow the seat sliders to sit flat.





The bars are both back in the car now and ready to be welded in then it's back onto mounting the pedal box.

 

[Tupers]

So the seats bars are tack welded into the car and the seat are mounted. I must say it's very comfortable and luckily there's still plenty of clearance to the rear seats when they folded up.




I've reassembled the gear shifter so that I can figure out the internal gear linkage.


As the shifter will be higher and further back than standard I'm fitting a universal joint at each end of linkage. The shifter side of the linkage is tapped with a 1/2" UNF left hand thread and the engine side has a 1/2" UNF right hard thread to act as a turnbuckle for fine adjustment.


There's not much more to do on the gear linkage yet so I sorted the majority of the pedal box mount instead.


It still needs a few gussets and a bit of tinkering but for the most parts is done.

 

[Tupers]

So I've now pulled the mock up engine out and swapped the empty gearbox case for a full working gearbox to get the remote linkage set-up.



I also got my engine steadies bolted back up and tack welded the crossmember in.





You can just about see the 2nd bush on the inside of the cross member here.





I do like how these steadies sit.





I found a use for the old record tube vice that I picked up for a couple quid recently and tapped the R/H thread onto the other end of my gear selector rod.







And welded a 3/4" nut onto the rod as it will essentially be a turnbuckle.





The selector mechanism has been moved back by around 6" to better suit the new seat position and the linkage is fitted up again. Now I just need to adjust it up and welded the selector mechanism bracket in .

 

[Tupers]

After removing the original seat cross-member and fitting the gear selector internally it became apparent I need to to shuffle the handbrake around.

I decided the simplest option was to copy the original mountings but slightly redesign them to mount the handbrake an inch higher.





It now sits around 10CM further back and is nice and high behind the gear selector.





I also finally got around the finding a drive belt the right length for the engine.





The latching mechanism for the tailgate has been bugging me so I decided to have another try using an original estate latching mechanism and my own rods.





The handle will lay flat on the inside of the tailgate and the rods will push out into the vertical section of the rear door frame. Now I just need to mount it.

 

[Robotstar5]

Are you going to turn the pawl over in the handbrake?, converting it to a flyoff makes handbrake turns easier.

 

[Tupers]

Are you going to turn the pawl over in the handbrake?, converting it to a flyoff makes handbrake turns easier.

Maybe on the next one, I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to slide this.

I made a plate for the latch mech to bolt onto this evening and cut the tailgate frame out to fit it.





It will be flush from the interior side of the tailgate.





And the mech it's self will fit inside the frame.

 

[altair]

Omg outstanding

 

[Tupers]

I got the mech and rods bolted up to the tailgate and it all works quite nicely. I just need to sort of a couple new bushes for the rods.











Locked





Open





I'm having trouble with the brake pipes out of the pedal box at the moment. I'd like to run bango joints but the thread in the MC is tapered and I can't find any bango bolts that will fit.





The headlamps still needed sorting so I abused my bank account and bought a full set of lights with H4 bulbs.





Unlike the Ford ones I was going to use these have proper bowls on them and look much tidier.





After a lot of measuring I came up with the shape of the headlight mounting plates I need to make.









It's gonna be cool!





I also messed about with the camber on the front again, maybe too much?

 

[mylesdw]

I seem to remember you were playing about with different grill choices. Another that would work quite well here is the Vauxhall FD series grill. Not a great picture but you get the idea with the lights you have chosen.

As far as your master cylinder goes I can't see that you will get a tapered banjo bolt. I would have thought that these two sealing methods are not compatible. You would need an adapter from male tapered to female straight

 

[Tupers]

I do like the look of the Vauxhall grills. Wood & Pickett used them in the 70s on their coach built cars but the stock grills are hard to come by.

I spent my lunch brake transfering the card template onto 1MM steel added a few folds and got a pair of headlight backings made.





Both fit very snugly, I just need to pop some holes around the edges for plug welds.





It is looking pretty sweet with all 4 lights mounted.





They sit a little further back than standard 7" lights so I should be able to get a nice sunken look with some deep headlight rims.

 

[Tupers]

It's been far too long since I last did any work on this but it turns out that buying yet another set of wheels was just the jolt I needed to drag it out from the corner of the workshop and start tinkering again.



The wheels in question are a set of 5x10" ATS Classics. I've been on the look out for a set for years but never managed to bag any until now.





It only seemed right to dust the poor estate off and try them on. I've been fairly uncertain about what wheels where going to end up on this but I'm pretty sure these are the ones.













In my regular trawling of ebay I also for this Innocenti steering wheel. It had to come all the way from Italy but it was well worth it and should compliment the muscle car style interior I'm planning.





I also dropped a hefty chunk of my pay packet on this Lucas 608 rear view mirror as fitted to various '60s Jags, Astons and coachbuilt Minis. Totally worth it not to have a plastic one fitted.





I haven't just been buying parts though. After Christmas I realised that the front seat weren't able to slide & tilt forward enough to allow access to the rear seats. Kind of a problem on a estate car although I doubt I'll be letting many people in it.



To remedy this rather fundamental issue I've knocked up this pair of hinged seat brackets.





Their mounting tags will be welded onto the new seat crossmember and hinge the seat forward to allow people to get into the back.









I even got all fancy and fitted a nylon bush to each hinge to make sure they don't lock up.













Just to make sure they're nice and strong I also added a gusset to the front.

 

[Cris B]

Great to see this thread resurrected!