Monty the Rwd R1 engined tarmac eating Minus by Alburglar

4 minute(s) of a 160 minute read

Just ordered the new plastic type clutch master cylinder GMC1008 as it looks like it will clear!

12-30-2011

As usual with me, it's a massive doh!
I had another master cylinder tucked away, so I dug it out today to see if it came with a pushrod. The difference is quite obvious, the one I had fettled with must have been from a late rover metro and is much larger than the other one which is a lot better fit and must be from an austin metro:

The austin one is a much closer fit and just needed the bolt holes widened:

It would fit in the standard mini master cylinder/engine steady bracket, if you shave a little bit off the casting on one lug, but I wanted to remake the bracket with an extra place to fix my earth straps:

It fits with the mini brake m/c turned backwards and used as the clutch m/c. The standard mini push rod still fits but it will need another spacer inside the tube, as before, I will sort that once my new gaskets arrive.

1-1-2012

It is the gripper diff that makes reversing very difficult. When you turn it locks up. A normal battery is only ok for an open diff or a torque biase type of LSD.

My cousin has a small Motorsport firm in Folkestone. He builds engines for Connaught most of the week and does his own work building race cars a couple of days a week. He is going to set mine up once it's mot'd. If you want I'll pm you his number.
If not, I can highly recommend gerald dale in Hastings. - google him he is a genius on the rollers too. If not bill Richards (ashford) has a laser setup, but he may not be keen on doing a bike engine minis seeing as he is a mini engine guru.
Let me know how you get on.

1-7-2012

I bled my brakes up today with the metro master cylinder fitted up and encountered some problems, because I had connected it up the wrong way. the brake pedal was rock hard but would only travel half way. The rear callipers were locked solid and the fronts were not biting.
It turns out the metro brake m/c is not actually as simple as being an equally split system (despite them being the same bore). It is a primary and secondary system. On a metro the primary system (the bottom outlet) provides fluid to all four corners. The secondary (top outlet) only provides extra fluid to the front callipers. - Which is why metro callipers have two connections! - I had the rears connected to the primary system and the fronts to the secondary, which caused my issues.

You also have to bleed both bottom pairs of pistons of each calliper at the same time, which I haven't done successfully yet.

I have swapped them over, for the time being, I will bleed them and see how they perform. If the secondary system does not cope well for the rears, I will have to connect them all via a four way (as I did when I had the mini m/c) and then the secondary can feed the second connector on the front metro callipers, as it should.

1-27-2013

Hi folks, I've been busy wih boring excuses (insert: having a baby/ doing up my house/ getting married excuses) but will be cracking on again soon.

Chopper, it was a long time ago now but I do remember him saying he built it, so that's interesting.
Progress to follow soon....