59-JS-NS Gold convertible work in progress

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59-JS-NS Gold convertible work in progress

Postby Hans Efde » Fri Jul 29, 2016 9:48 pm

I already did a lot of work since I got this car, step by step improving it. But eventually I ran out of money, SORNed the car and had it under a blanket for almost 2 years. But the Midas virus started itching again and finally with new funding I was ready to get it on the road again.

First I removed the remote KN filter. It was used on my turbo engine but it was too big. It killed the airflow through the carb so every time at a traffic light the engine would die. I put the small KN cone filter on again (still borrowed from my brother), so now there was room at the side of the engine for the oil cooler:
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It's a bit of plumbing with a remote thermostat and temp sensor. I have no idea if it's good or wrong to have the oil cooler higher than the sump. Possibly it will empty itself in the sump or maybe there is an hydraulic lock so all oil stays stationary. During a testrun the oil stayed perfectly at 75degr and good oil pressure.

Next improvement of sump ventilation. This engine has a lot of internal pressure causing oil leaks everywhere. I drilled a hole in the valve cover, in the back plate of the cone filter, installed fittings and hooked it all up. During the testrun I noticed too much blue smoke so probably will fit an oil catch tank in between. It seems to work though, engine almost dry. I noticed the packing sweating of the chain cover, so will remove it in the autumn. I welded the sump ventilation of the cover, which wasn't a good idea. On a Mini racer I saw someone who had installed a fitting on it and ran a tube to the valve cover. Seems like a neat solution so will copy it.
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I was fed up with the 175/50R13 Bridgestones because they are too small. Drove me mad on the highway. I bought Falken 175/60R13 on internet for around 160 euro including transport. Upon arrival I compared them with the Bridgestones. Bigger as the Bridgestone, which was expected but now I noticed that the 175mm of the Bridgestone is actually 190mm. Look how fat they are! During the testrun the Falkens proved to be excellent. Excellent roadholding, precise, quiet and much lighter to steer. No chafing and full lock possible so I am a very happy person. By ordering them on internet and having them installed by a local garage I paid in total 210 euros (50 euros for fitting), what a difference with the quote of 350 euro I got from a local tyre fitter.
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My ARbar clamps were in pieces. Earlier I had the lower part milled in SS, now the upper parts had cracked. So also remade in SS for just 30 euros. Look perfect, and clamp with a lot of force. Earlier I had noticed the original clamps to be shifted due to hard cornering. Tightening them up could prevent them moving but ofcourse then they cracked. Another problem solved. Can't wait for some hard cornering.
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When installing them I noticed a small leak on the radiator, luckily I found a new one on German ebay (in brass!) and installed it without a hitch. Only had to order a locking plate for the fan switch because on my previous rad it was a different design. Arrived just today, phew almost didn't make it for the first trip coming Sunday.

Before the new tyres were fitted it was a good idea to overhaul the rims. They are now 16 years old and suffered from corrosion and damage. Powdercoating would be perfect but at 75euro per wheel to expensive for me. I decided to do it all by myself and paint them with the compressor and paintgun (in the garden). Wheels were cleaned, sanded, holes filled with metal filler, more sanding, primed and painted. Paint is an alkyd resin metal paint. Takes ages to cure (tack free 6 hours, dry 20 hours, cured 1 to 2 weeks!) but it flows beautifully. I had no experience doing this but it looks like a professional job. I had to rework a few chips and other damage after tyre fitting (also painted the weights). I am really chuffed about this. Also painted all mesh, but just used an acryl paint rattle can.
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Seats came out to do the hole strengthening mod as earlier discussed on this forum.
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Last bits as tyres fitting on the wheels and putting them on the car,
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Bled the cooling system (ofcourse it spit out the cooling fluid thanks to a sticking thermostat) and did a testrun. Some erratic lambda readings and spluttering, probably sticky floater needle. A good blast down the lanes solved this, so it's ready for the National Oldtimer Festival at the Zandvoort circuit coming Sunday. Can't wait!
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I love the new look, a bit more bad boy. Also it is less noticable the Midas has tiny 13 inch wheels. Let's see what the crowd thinks of it.
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Re: 59-JS-NS Gold convertible work in progress

Postby Midaspeter » Sat Jul 30, 2016 11:58 am

Looks nice Hans. I will see it tomorrow in real! See you you tomorrow!
Greetz, Peter
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Re: 59-JS-NS Gold convertible work in progress

Postby Hans Efde » Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:18 pm

Today drove the car to Zandvoort and the little Midas did a perfect job covering the 300km round trip. Carburettor and timing needs a bit of tweaking but power and sound was good, all pressures and temps nominal and the car was glued to the road. Fantastic. Next trip end of august to the Mini marcos meeting in Haaksbergen.
In Zandvoort Peter and I drove the Midas. The rest of our parking spot was filled with cars from friends. It seems a journalist was interested and wants to do a write up and professional photoshoot for a British Cars magazine.
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Re: 59-JS-NS Gold convertible work in progress

Postby Jin » Sun Jul 31, 2016 10:48 pm

another great write up there, always nice to read :)
https://easywider.co.uk/ universal flexible wheel arch extensions
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Re: 59-JS-NS Gold convertible work in progress

Postby Hans Efde » Tue Aug 02, 2016 9:40 am

Yesterday I washed the car to remove the dead bugs and make it ready for the next trip. I also did a checkup to see if there had been any problems.

Oil leaks.
Distribution chain cover seal still wet but no noticeable dripping. I had tightened everything up (removed the engine mount to get to all bolts) because in the shed it had a slow drip. Not perfect but improved and probably acceptable.
Distributor shaft leak trail visible so will renew that seal. No big deal, major project for next year is (finally) to get an ECU in and get rid of the coil and distributor. I bought an Emerald K6 years ago and it is still lying on the shelf. This is something I have no experience in, which makes me a bit hesitant.
Coil also leaking. It's an oil filled coil and gets very hot. Kept on working though, but I suppose the internal pressure lets of a bit of oil. To make sure it doesn't keep on leaking I placed it vertical:
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Oil consumption has again been horrific. Oil level went from max to min in 300km, say 200mls. The engine has done now 2800km after the rebuild so won't complain until I've done 5000km with it. I would expect then that the new pistons have run in properly. During driving no blue clouds visible and good power, but I noticed on start a small cloud. Could be valve seals but also maybe my new valve cover suction. I will attempt to make a small oil separator inside, else may have to plug an oil catch tank in between.

Tyre chafing.
Although at first test tyres didn't hit the body and also didn't hear whizzing sounds during my trip, found these marks in the RH wheel wells:
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Not sure if they were there before the new tyres so will put a few specs of paint on and see if the paint is gone after the next trip. No markings on the left side but roundabouts are taken counter clock wise (so maximum lean on the RH suspension) and this is what Midas driving makes fun doesn't it? Also my right hand tyres stick out 5mm more than the left side, so just may be enough for the left tyres to stay clear off the body. Anyway if it doesn't get worse than this I'll leave it, else have to find fatter upstop rubbers to limit uptravel.

Fuel consumption.
Still a bit fierce, but Convertibles are not as aerodynamic as Coupees so it will use more fuel. It did a few sections on the motorway with 130km/h topless and you can feel the wind sucking at the interior (my Midas cap has a lifeline hooked up to my shirt because of it). I think I did about 1:13 l/km which is reasonable although I would like to see 1:15 eventually. I have set up the needle for superlean at speed (just over 14.8 on the lambda gauge) for economy but doesn't pay off yet.
Next trip end of the month at the Euregio meeting to meet more Midasses and Mini Marcosses.

Speedo accuracy.
With the new tyres the speedo indicates 10% under the real (GPS) speed. No serious issue but will remove the speedo drive gears from the gearbox after the last trip of the season and find ones that turn faster like going from 18/6 to 18/5 gears.
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Re: 59-JS-NS Gold convertible work in progress

Postby Hans Efde » Mon Aug 29, 2016 6:42 pm

Had a drive to the Euregio Mini Marcos meeting last sunday. Very hot weather, but I prefer it over rain. Jeroen Booij did a great write up of the event, so saves me time:
http://maximummini.blogspot.nl/2016/08/marcos-euregio-meeting-2016.html
We had a tour through the area to Germany where we visited the Siku/Audi museum. On the way I encountered starting problems. So after the visit to the museum I drove straight home (kept the car running all the time). With a highway speed of 90 to 100km/h the car turned out to be have much better fuel economy. Today at home I found a broken wire of the alarm system causing the starter relais not getting current. The wire broke because a tube of the window heater system had come loose and was hanging on the wires.
Next tour in a month, the REEE drive.
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Re: 59-JS-NS Gold convertible work in progress

Postby Hans Efde » Sun Sep 11, 2016 8:34 pm

Update 11 september
Front suspension bump rubber.
I got new bump rubbers for the front suspension via Ebay. I found large 50x50mm cone shaped rubbers. Perfect! Only the stud needed to be shortened (with a hacksaw, no electric tooling to prevent damage to the rubber) and the M10 nut was a pig to fasten with normal tooling. Hopefully this will cure tyre chafing and decrease body roll. For comparison left the original, middle the Mini Spares PU one (waist of money in my opinion) and right the new one. Less than 7 pound each, so a bargain. Item number 291553245836 if you want to try these. My next event is on 2 October, will then report back how they behave.
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Seat side mounts.
I have racing seats in my Midas and I love these things. Just 6 kg each and they sit fantastic. Only problem were the sparco side mounts I originally bought. They go outwards at the bottom. Good for stability, bad for seat placement. I had placed the seats as close as possible to the tunnel, with the result that the inner mounts would cut into the carpet. They were also very heavy with 3kg per set.
I bought new ones, thinner metal for lightness and a closer fit to the seat since they bend inwards at the bottom. With a few strips of steel I made a new subframe for the sliders.
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Lowest possible sit, less than 1 inch from the floor.

Boot stay.
A long lasting problem I had was to find a mechanism for the boot to stay open. When I purchased the car there were springs on the boot arms. But these caused the boot to bend because of the constant strain. Another problem was there is no upstop. The boot edge hits the fasteners of the softtop on my car and once it blew open and the wind caused damage to the boot edge and arms. I was able to repair it, but need to be careful when opening at high winds (same applies to the bonnet ofcourse).
I did a few measurements and found a small bonnet stay on Ebay that could fit. It looks a bit odd, but since the battery is in the boot I thought that the battery bracket would be a good base (and closest to the end of the stay). I welded a small lug on it and another problem sorted.
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Next priority is to get the rear shocks ready. I damaged one trying to lower them. A machine shop is milling new studs that will be welded to the top of my Spax shocks. Will report in a next update.
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Re: 59-JS-NS Gold convertible work in progress

Postby Hans Efde » Mon Sep 26, 2016 1:19 pm

Update 26 september 2016

The last mods for the last drive of the season coming Sunday 2 October.

Valve train.
My engine has the Mini Spares swaged 1.5 rockers. On a 1300 engine it's impossible to align them properly with the standard rocker shaft springs:
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Although it hasn't caused any problems like excessive wear of component failure, Mini Spares offers a shim and bush kit. I bought and installed it. It has to be said more shims are needed than supplied. If you buy this kit, buy a few extra shims. The result:
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Undertray
I had the front undertray stored for ages, but at last made the effort of installing it. Probably will be more than a nuisance than improve roadholding or fuel consumption.
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I had to take away a bit of material near the exhaust and cut a hole for my towing end. Also did not use the rivnuts supplied by Alistair but used splined and slightly longer ones from Memfast.

Rear shock absorbers
I destroyed the top of my rear spax shock absorbers in an attempt to lower the rear suspension by about 5mm. Therefore I had to have 2 new ones machined and welded to the absorbers. All by very professional people, so a top job. You can see the difference between the new pins and the original:
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Oil catch tank
My engine is still burning too much oil. To prevent oil directly being drawn from the valve cover I plumbed in an oil catch tank. These things cost nothing and hopefully will decrease the oil consumption. If it doesn't work, next year I'll pull the head.
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Did a test drive, fueled up the car and hopefully have a pleasent drive coming sunday:
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On the last trip to Haaksbergen (with lots of country lanes) I managed to get over 1:14 l/km. That's good news compared to the 1:11 I got a trip earlier (but going 120 tot 130km/h on the highway). Hyper miling has proven to have a huge effect on the fuel consumption.
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Re: 59-JS-NS Gold convertible work in progress

Postby max midas » Tue Sep 27, 2016 9:24 pm

hi Hans, are you sure you mean 1.14l/km? That equals 2.6 mpg!
Have you got a hole in the bottom of your tank? :D
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Re: 59-JS-NS Gold convertible work in progress

Postby Hans Efde » Tue Sep 27, 2016 9:45 pm

max midas wrote:hi Hans, are you sure you mean 1.14l/km? That equals 2.6 mpg!
Have you got a hole in the bottom of your tank? :D


No it's 1:14 which means 1 liter to cover 14km. Using a converter program it translates to about 40mpg. Not brilliant for a Midas, but perhaps not too bad for a tuned engine in a convertible. The first drive of the season it was using loads of fuel. I drove it open top home with 120 to 130km/h (very noisy but that low flying effect is wonderful) and got 1:11 which translates to 31mpg. And even then it was running rather lean (above lambda 15). I hope I have the guts to install the injection system next year, then I should get a perfect fuel/air ratio under all circumstances.
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