'80 Clubman Estate - thread closed

[keith]

a thread of occasional postings about my clubman.

Bought this from Darryl in wales, it was in his family from new. He had it on 10's, alloys and disks, remote brake servo on front circuit only and an MG Metro engine, neg camber kit all round, adjustable spax shocks. Inside it has the black seats from the Metro.
There was also some "unusual" wiring mods. Alos, ive never seen a car with so much waxoyl on it, inside and out!
The 10's and disks went to another mini and i put on 8.4" disks and these alloys. I made a better subframe for the seats, replaced the front loom, removed the brake servo and replaced the underlay and black carpet with stuff i got from a local carpet supplier.
I'm happy with the underlay but the carpet is still too dark. Ideally i'm looking for a mid gray slate colour.
I find the suspension very stiff and i'm thinking of fitting a softer rubber donut or coil springs. Not that keen on coil-overs, unless i change the subframe (see below)
other creature comforts include a radio/mp3 player and speakers.
As the only spare that will fit under the load-space floor is a 145-10, that's what the spare i: if have a puncture on the front i'll have to use one of the rear wheels.
The tyres are falken-g's and are quite useless in the wet. They are due for replacement before IMM2010.
I was looking for a clubman to do a 16v/5speed/efi project on but ive come to love that MG motor.
Over the winter it will be getting a custom front radiator & electric fan and a really nice SERCK oil cooler.

[DaveC]

Looking good Keith.

Have you tried going for softer settings on the Spax shocks?

[CLUBMANGT]

Looks very sweet Keith I was never a big fan of the clubman estates but i have very much warmed to them in recent years
guess i must be getting old sorry thats not ment to be any reflection on you Keith

[The Marcos Graveyard]

Looks very good indeed Keith

[INNY1300]

Hello Keith,very nice there is something about clubman estates ,I have own 3 over a 26 year period with minis,i wouldn't mind another one,well done regards jon

[keith]

Looking good Keith.
Have you tried going for softer settings on the Spax shocks?

i'm click one from softest on the front, rear are still mid-point (AFAIR) the shocks are quite squeaky till they warm up!
oh, this is my daily driver: i do a week in this and a week in the round-nose saloon (under cover in the pic) to keep them both dry over the winter. i'm going to extend the garage but till then they are outdoor cars.

[The Marcos Graveyard]

The shocks only control the rebound, the rubber donuts control the stiffness of the ride.

Normally the rears are set softer than the front , to compensate for the weight of the engine.

[92Coop]

gorgeous keith, me likey

[keith]

has anyone found water puddling and collecting under the headlights on the front panel/wing seam? (arrowed) i found *some* filler in there in an effort to prevent a pool forming; i was thinking of putting in a drain hole, about 3/8" to let the area dry out. As you can see, the seam started rusting.

[keith]

always wanted front mounted rad for the clubman...
take on unsuspecting clubby....


add two really nice efficient rads....


and fit!


nice and neat:


grill will fit over this, offset by thickness of screw-head


view from the front:


the header tank will go here:


plumbing and wiring tomorrow. not fitted yet is a really small (mini sized!) fan. yes, i checked it fits!

[The Marcos Graveyard]

Are you using this as a secondary rad or are you going to replace the original ?

[keith]

two rads, one either side of bracing strut. the side rad & fan will go.
calculations thus:

1] effective area of mini rad, the part under the arc of the plastic fan, is about the same as the two new rads.
2] rads will be plumbed "in paralell" - the new rads fed with 19mm hoses, two of which will flow about the same as a 25mm hose (standard in mini)
3] max cooling happens @ max speed , where max heat is generated... heat generated @ idle is minimal.
4] mini cooling specs are probably well over-engineered for standard engines
5] if it dosent work, billy can help me push.

thoughts and comments welcome.

[Billy]

More importantly, will it get me to Germany next month?

Billy

[kerryminigringo]

What ever you do Keith DO NOT let Billy drive,he has a habit of breaking minis these days.I like the idea of the two rads set in behind the grill,what are they off.

[keith]

'94 golf heater matrix.... . pretty much all VAG heaters from about '91 on are identical... the earlier ones, which i tried first, had only 12mm outlet pipes and they set too vertical so presented fitting problems.
I would have preferred inlet and outlet at different ends of the rad, but this is the best i could find. I am concerend about the outlet height may give filling and air-lock issues. for the record, i was aiming to find a rad of 180x250mm
I would like to acknowledge the help and patience of Earl in Southside Motor Spares, West Peir, Dún Laoghaire, (http://www.goldenpages.ie/Car_Parts_&_S ... E_526762_3)who kindly put up with me rooting through the "stock"

[keith]

two rads in:


the towel rail:

[The Marcos Graveyard]

Nice little mod on the air intake too

[skelly]

great work keith,its comin along nicely now.
its alovely estate you got.
be out to see it soon

danny

[92Coop]

great stuff keith. it will keep the electrics nice any dry too

[The Marcos Graveyard]

Keith, would you not be better running these in series rather than parallel ?

[keith]

Keith, would you not be better running these in series rather than parallel ?

would make a deal more simple.
*but*
the rads are only 3/4 inch feed (19mm) and i estimate that a 3/4 inch pipe flows about the same as the 1" pipe used for mini cooling.
so in this case 2x(3/4") = 1"

*also*
greatest heat transfer for a given system happens with the largest differential in temperature: if it was in series, the upstream "hotter" rad would be doing most of the work. - in parallel they both cool as much as they can.

*also*
i want the water to be in there as long as possible, getting cooled... so i want it to flow slow.....

its a working theory... and im sticking to it.. what we need now is some thermo-engineering student to come along and explain it all!

[Billy]

Will all this cooling affect the heating on the passenger side?

[woody]

Looking at the photos I would think the left rad will run hotter as it offers the path of least resistance to the water, reversing one of the copper pipes may sort this. I ran solder joints in the turbo before but changed them as I never trusted them with all the vibrating.

[yellowminiman]

i would tend to agree with woody ,water flows in the line of least resistance and those solder elbows add a half of a meter of extra resistance plumbing thewm in series as tmg sayed would be a better idea in my opinion looks realy well thogh and a brilliant idea

[keith]

haven't fitted the electric fan yet but wanted to see some progress so took it for a short run tonight.... it all seems to work better than i had hoped. near-side rad heats up first but pretty soon both are nice and equally hot, evenly from top to bottom and side to side.
pootling around in traffic shows the need for the fan, but even a short burst down the Clonkeen road, keeping it legal, and the needle drops just to the cool side of middle.
i resisted the temptation of heading for the M50, as i was missing a couple of hose clips!

some things i noticed:
the water in the bottle went nice and brown so i know its mixing with the stuff in the engine!
lots of heat in the engine bay...
alternator gets really hot as its just behind one of the rads. I will have to modify the splash guard to work as a heat baffle!
strangely quiet at speed.. no more fan noise!
slow to fill the system from empty... currently filling through 1/2" hose "teed" to heater return. will put a 3/4" T at bottom hose which is directly under water bottle.
passenger side air intake will need re-positioning
cold air intake for carb is now essential

woody, when you got rid of the solder joints what did you replace them with?

also, i forgot to flux some of the joints is it possible to open them up, clean, flux and re-solder by adding a solder stick?

i'll put the T piece and fan in at the weekend! along with a wheel bearing! *it never stops!*