Josephine rebuild

[Keith Clements]

The test drive on Sunday showed up a rubbing on the nearside wheel arch which has been easily solved by cutting away a strip of the new inner wheel arch.
Also sorted yet another electrical issue caused by loose spade connectors.
But then down to the serious stuff. Bill phoned to say he was bringing around my spare front prop which I will need after investigation showed .5mm of run out on the prop. This was reduced to .2mm by moving 180deg on the layrub. A test showed the vibration was reduced but not removed.
I will also see if I can replace that prop with a Constant Velocity joint and U-J as the midship bearing is not required with the O/D. Or I might retain the layrub at the gearbox end to allow faster replacement. I will make sure that an errant prop is somehow restrained if the UJ should fail.

[Keith Clements]

I did a drawing of the midship space and sent it to OD Spares. A prompt reply showed that a unit they can supplywould fit with a slight hump in the wooden floor. I have yet to check if this would cause any issue with the seat mechanism. A suitable support system and connection to the gearbox output and rear prop would need to be designed.

Overdrivemidshjps.png

(5.78 KiB) Not downloaded yet

The rear location of the O/D was chosen for weight distribution when racing and it involved cutting out part of the arch of the floor and battery box. It also required modification of the U/Js to accommodate the large angle they had to go through on full droop.

Yesterday was spent renewing the 100 screws that hold the garage roof on. The 34 year old ones had started to loosen. Anyway got a lot of sun and am now stiff!

[Keith Clements]

Fixed the vibration with the spare front prop. Before fitting, I disconnected the faulty prop at the Layrub and checked the runout. There was a lot.
I decided not to fit the midship bearing or its holder, so now just have a straight prop. Then checked the run out-- it was .05mm so a quarter of what it was.

I had faced off the rear coupling which was not completely flat. this may also be the issue on the old prop.
I also cleaned out the layrub locating recesses which I know are fairly damaged on the old prop which will be investigated later.
Bill and I had extreme difficulty removing the keys, resorting to putting on the milling machine (which was already set up) to cut new keyways which go the length of the output boss.
We tried a screwdriver, a chisel and heat before giving up.
This shows the refacing of the old prop after the worn keys ways were fixed.

then testing for runout.

using the splined end of the rear prop as a connector.



A quick check on the lift through the speed range showed it was better, although the wheels still need balancing.

The road test showed no low speed vibration and only some (what I think is wheel wobble) at 110 -120 kph which goes away at 130 kph.

So a happy bunny.
Now to get to the rest of the list.....
and to add to it the reverse gate which is not working, the clutch microswitch which I will swap back to the one that has done 20 years service and the reverse switch which needs adjusting

[Keith Clements]

I spent most of the day, before Bill Lock came around for me to mill some clutch housings, sorting out some issues with the reversing/fog/brake light system. There was a leaking voltage getting to the brake relay actuator which I fixed with some rewiring and swapping over to the brake switch beneath the pedal rather than the original brake switch on the master cylinder. The fault caused the brake switch relay to latch on when the sidelights were on. I still have to investigate the original rear light connections which may have been contributing to the fault as now I have no sidelights in the original twin filament units only brake lights. This I actually prefer as rather than a change in intensity you get both lamps coming on. I have sidelights in the modern cluster and this modern cluster also flashes the rear fog lamps when braking, so gives the guys behind lots of warning.

The original brake lights and the flashing fog lights also come on when reversing (no audible warning though saying 'this vehicle is reversing', I will just shout at anyone stupid enough).
The rear fogs (without flashing) can be turned on with the fog light switch. yet another reason for the non working side light to stay as in fog you will get a completely different light coming on when braking.

I am also thinking about adding a relay into each front sidelight as when the sidelights are on you only get the addition of the orange LEDs to the intense white ones when indicating.This is not as clear as if the white sidelight is switched off when indicating.

It will be interesting to see in a few years how the autonomous cars cope with deciphering indicating flashers, trafficators and hand signals.

Perhaps some proximity detectors all around the car would detect when something gets too close and would activate a 120 db warning klaxon.

[Keith Clements]

This has developed into quite a saga. Although I was able to find all gears,albeit second sometimes required a couple of goes, the stick was not going into the reverse gate. that is it did not travel the extra 5mm down the shaft when the button was pressed. Chris had painted not only the original shift column but also a spare which had been converted from a Jav by Drummond. It is this that was fitted. So examination of my original which operated properly showed perhaps the spring was not correctly fitted, so I fitted it with the curl over the top rather than bottom. It was also a little loose with too large a radius and had the tendency to fall off , so the radius was reduced to match the neck at the end of the column.

See jowett.net home page, History section for picture of gearbox operation. To see all of this picture you may have to zoom out on your browser (CTRL -)

The shift would still not engage the reverse gate. So after much up and down into and under the car trying to adjust I disconnected both shift rods. Now it would go in but only within a very small window with the stick just above the horizontal. So the bottom of the column was marked where this was with a highlighter so that it could be lined up.

After reconnecting and adjusting the rods many times it still would not reliably move into the gate. So I disconnected the fatter selector rod to discover the reliable operation was very sensitive on the position of the front thinner rod. In fact so sensitive it required the ball joint clamp to be relaxed. Now it may be that having to move the ball joint to the rear of the arm to prevent fouling the radiator might be a contributing cause as the rod angle is slightly different. I do not think this is the way around the joint should be as the SC has its in front and under the radiator.

I had run out of adjustment on the rod so then spent a few hours trying to make a longer one. I do not have a 3/16 BSF die with which to thread some rod, so I drilled out some 5/16 rod and threaded it to 2BA to make a 1 inch long coupling. Then cut the original rod in half and threaded each end and fitted these two ends into the coupling. This extended the rod by 8 mm. Now I could get the reverse gate to reliably engage , or so I thought until I reconnected the other rod and tightened all the lock nuts. So after much more adjustment finally got the gate to work nicely. However I was not happy with the extent of travel into reverse as the reverse switch was not operating. Of course adjusting the fat rod to get enough travel upset the reverse gate.

I took a break and went to Amy's for a BBQ.
The saga will continue ...

The gearbox fitted does not have the slot in the selector shaft with which to set up the midpoint using a 3/32 drill. This makes life more difficult.

[Keith Clements]

One other reason the gear shift would not get into the reverse gate is the new chrome tube that surrounds the gear lever given to me by Bill was 2.4 mm too long. Luckily I found this out early on when I accidentally left it off when testing.

The original allowed the shift into the gate. You may wonder how I was driving it before but somehow I had adjusted so it went into reverse without going into the reverse gate (effectively into first ).

Above shows in reverse gate, below shows in 3rd/4th position.

But I am still not happy with the smoothness and so first checked the dimensions and geometry of the rebuilt column against the original. I think the two arms should be 18 deg apart when in the neutral position.


Also I noticed that the new front arm was 10 mm further forward than the original which may have contributed to the holing of the rad. But since the rad is now moved forward there is no fouling , even with the ball joint moved to the forward (correct) position.

I then discovered there is too much (over 9,5 mm) of play in the up down selector mechanism in the box. So I tested a couple of other boxes on the shelf and they ranged from .8mm to 2mm. So then looked at what could cause this by looking at a dismantled mechanism. Pictures to follow.


This shows the operating shaft in the fully down (reverse) position. The selector bars for 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th are not fitted.

So looks like I will have to take the side of the box off although it is not much bother taking the gearbox out as I can separate the chassis member. This 'rebuilt' box is leaking oil everywhere anyway so that may be the answer and I just put the original back in or build up a new one from all the parts I now have.

I tried to avoid the football watching the F1 then the tennis but relented and watched half an hour. I may watch the final .....but you cannot avoid it on tv, radio or probably even in normal conversation.

[Keith Clements]

Gear shift is driveable and vibration tolerable, so time to enjoy.
Still a bit more adjustment to stop jumping out of third and the clutch switch still sometimes jumps out, so swap over to the previous, already fitted, switch.
Also seem to have a similar problem to that experienced when doing coast to coast in the USA in the Javelin as the oil pressure drops almost to zero when idling after a fast run. It picks up again, even with light throttle to 75 psi when oil is hot, and then settles down to 50 psi at idle. Seems like the relief valve is sticking open.

[Keith Clements]

I took the wheels to a one man tyre business who was very helpful in trying to get the wheels balanced.
The old Jowett wheels are usually difficult to balance , but with high quality tyres I hoped we could get somewhere close. However all but one of the wheels had more than 3 mm run out which means that although statically they are pretty good , dynamically they need a lot of weight on the inside and outside diametrically opposed.
I had four done to within 5 gms and took them back to check for runout along with the spare and spare rim.

I put the spare rim on the front wheel and measured the run out with the dial gauge.

Then checked on the flat bed of the milling machine.

Then tried some pressure in the right place using the press .

Some of the run out is due to the flange having been hit and is not parallel to its opposite flange but most is due to the centre not being level with the flanges. I can remember when I was 18 and doing an apprenticeship course at English Electric in Stafford I had the job to straighten something. The flat bed I had was a piece of steel about 2 feet thick and about 50 metres square. They used it for aligning power station armatures and all manner of huge pieces of kit!

I could also check the run out on the tyred wheels which confirmed the runout was in line with the added weights and that the runout was not due to a wonky tyre as it corresponded with run out on the rim.

It seems that about 1 mm of run out requires 100 gm of weight to correct, pretty much spread between the inside and outside flanges.

So if I can remove the runout on the spare rim and spare wheel with tyre I will see if they balance up with less weight.
I think I managed to get rid of 2mm of run out using the above method but will need to see if i can reduce the run out caused by the non-parallel flanges as well. Not easy with a painted wheel!

[Keith Clements]

A test drive when taking the parcel for the Distributor Doctor showed that vibration has reduced with the balanced wheels. Not surprising since there is over 1kg of balancing weights on them.

But I was not happy with the engine so checked the plugs, (No 1. showing a bit of oil so had a good look with the endoscope but all others seem fine except perhaps No 3 is a bit rich) , checked the compression 167,160, 180,170 so some variation so will check again after some more miles, checked the dwell which had moved considerably from 60 to 82 deg (so points gap set back to get dwell of 58.9 and will check again soon) reset max ignition advance to 22 deg above 1600 rpm this makes advance at TDC when at 700 rpm. Vacuum advance 10 deg. So all good with idle, pick up and power a lot better.

Will do the same check after a more sustained run at high speed --not pootling around the village.

Thinking about fitting the electronic ignition and then the programmable ignition when the points ignition that acts as back-up has settled down.

[Tony Fearn]

"so had a good look with the endoscope"

I went into Accrington Lidl today. They have endsoscopes reduced to about £35.
Tony.

[Keith Clements]

Got mine at the NEC show for £15 but you need a smartphone!

[Tony Fearn]

Got mine at the NEC show for £15 but you need a smartphone!

Perhaps it's all down to the pixies and resolution.
Tony.

[Keith Clements]

Mine is full HD.



Boring...

The throttle stop was such that the carb switched off at low revs. Hence, I hope, the presence of oil globules.
A later test showed the plugs to be a lot cleaner. But I will keep my eye on that cylinder.

[Keith Clements]

A day out in the blistering sunshine.

Drove there down some very narrow lanes and took the M25 on the way back to check vibrations.
I need to balance the new prop as there is an imbalance at 65 in top in overdrive which goes away out of overdrive. So all the vibration from the wheels seems to be gone. There also seems to be some at 50 mph. So back on the test bed with the vibration meter and Terry clips.
Last night I spent some time re-balancing the carbs as the throttle linkage and throttle stops needed some more adjustment. Idle is now better but there does seem to be some misfiring at low revs that needs further investigation.

Whilst sitting chatting to an elderly Lagonda owner (both) , a lady came and asked about Josephine. She said it was the best car in the show. This made my day. Also a three year old seemed very interested, so I lifted him in to sit behind the wheel. His dad had a heck of a job taking him away as he screamed and fought.

The closest I got to football in the last month. For some reason cars started to thin out at 3 pm. Was it because of the tennis or the football?

An admirer (of the car, not me) noticed the inside of the piping which is a plastic rod had expanded, so that will need some trimming.

I also joined the local classic car club who hold events virtually every week. So that should get the Jup seen by more people.

[CyrilWhite]

Is the 60 deg dwell relevant for Javelin with DM2 distributor.
Lot's of interesting info that might lead to improvements on my Javelin .