Quote:
Originally Posted by peterux
Progress Report and a remarkable discovery....
The next job was to hoist the central body tub off the rolling chassis on to a trolley that I built from surplus timber and some old supermarket wheels that I've used before during my Marlin Sportster build.
Which got me back to the rolling chassis stage where i was in January 2013 
[It has faired reasonably well in my damp unheated lockup garage but there is some surface rust on unpainted parts. It is also covered in spiders 'poo' which is surprisingly hard to remove.
I next moved on to thinking about the engine mounts so thought I would try the BMW M52 mounts and amazingly discovered they are a near perfect fit  (Now the chassis was built in 1994 and designed for a Ford DOHC engine and the BMW was not built until August 1995 - how weird?)
The sump is pefectly horozontal and the only issues are a slight angular mis-alignment.....
....and I have about 25mm clearance around the top and back of the crossmember which is a little too much as I want to get the engine as low and as far forward as I can get it.
Next job is to check the clearance with the 'real' engine as I've noticed a difference between the 1995 and 1998 sumps.
More updates soon.......
....peter
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That chassis looks even better than the Marlin one. No wonder the kits were so expensive - there must be 100's of hours of work in there....
I wouldn't have thought that the slight angular misplacement would cause any issues. One andvantage of using rubber engine mounts.
I guess that once you mount the "real" engine along with all its ancilliaries the extra weight would cause it to drop a few mm - it might even gain you the few mm that you want to lower it.
Being able to use standard engine mounts is a big benefit!
Cheers, Robin