Thread: Stupid mod's

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

... I got in it to move it and when you turned the wheel to go right, it went left. Frightened hell out of me. I told Jack and he said he should have warned me....

Can also happen in a Land Rover, the steering worm and nut from a Burman box in the 1954 86"/107" will fit the box of an 80" with the only noticable exception being that the inner column is a bit long.

It will give you the same error/symptoms of turning left when you steer right.

Diana

The one that immediately comes to mind is when I was re-building my Mk I escort. Putting the dash back in and it looked really bad, so I gave it a coat of paint to match some of the other white bits on the car, sounds bad, but it looked great. Took it for it's first drive in the sunshine, came back straight away, tore it off and covered it with black, couldn't see a thing for the sunglare.

454 chev into a belmont HQ panelvan with 4 wheel drum brakes, didnt think about stopping it.

Originally Posted by Olive Drab

454 chev into a belmont HQ panelvan with 4 wheel drum brakes, didnt think about stopping it.

3 things you need to remember in that situation
1: predictive driving
2: downshifting
3: power oversteer

This one not a landy P76 4.4 V8 in a cut down VW buggy with 45hp gear box with 31"tyres: It weighed only 400 kgs. eek: It had extreme lateral instability Till the gear box split.

Moss 4 speed gearbox ex a fifties Jaguar behind a modified 5.4 litre GMC engine in an replica of an Allard J2. Service life around 2 weeks. Mind you, that engine spat out just about anything else I tried but the Moss had the shortest life by far.

Originally Posted by Rangier Rover

This one not a landy P76 4.4 V8 in a cut down VW buggy with 45hp gear box with 31"tyres: It weighed only 400 kgs. eek: It had extreme lateral instability Till the gear box split.

Should have put a stock 3.5 in, wouldn't have exceeded the HP rating of the box then

I shoehorned a tickled 1600 Isuzu (gemini) complete with 5spd into a 1L Sierra. I was fun to a point. It would light up 31s on a dry road in 3rd gear and it was an absolute animal on gravel in 4WD.
Trouble was it was such a big heavy lump it made it too nose heavy so I couldn't jump it anymore. I had to stiffen up the front springs so much to support it I also lost a bit of subtleness & flex off road. I had the slip yoke from the GB directly coupled thru one uni to the TC input flange, and fabbed a brace to bolt the TC & GB to one another, yet the TC still had to be moved back about an inch and the custom radiator was set into the radiator support panel (much like comparing a series to a 110). All in all it was very snug. It probably would have been ok in a LWB but I lost interest.
I only persevered with it for a couple of years, then built another 1300.

I learnt from it tho, and now have a bit of a penchant for 'neat' mods and don't leap at anything too radical.