G46 No.6 Blackbird

[SteveD]

Unfortunately, what I mean by a bit rough was the original build, the body is bodged on with lumps of wood and 2 part foam, internal panelling is cheap ply and the engine was a complete nightmare.
The car looked great from the outside and drove quite well although skinny tyres on 4" wide TR4 rims made for lots of sliding around.
I am going to replace all the panelling and the front bulkhead with aluminum sheet. I am fitting a balance bar pedal box to get twin circuit brakes.
The car should be back on the road in the Spring, should have around 200 or so horses so will be an exciting drive!

I have also found an easy way to gain twin circuit brakes on early cars if you can do without a servo. Much safer than single and makes the handbrake easier to get through an MOT!

SteveD

[Charman.tech]

Originally Posted by SteveD

Unfortunately, what I mean by a bit rough was the original build, the body is bodged on with lumps of wood and 2 part foam, internal panelling is cheap ply and the engine was a complete nightmare.
The car looked great from the outside and drove quite well although skinny tyres on 4" wide TR4 rims made for lots of sliding around.
I am going to replace all the panelling and the front bulkhead with aluminum sheet. I am fitting a balance bar pedal box to get twin circuit brakes.
The car should be back on the road in the Spring, should have around 200 or so horses so will be an exciting drive!

I have also found an easy way to gain twin circuit brakes on early cars if you can do without a servo. Much safer than single and makes the handbrake easier to get through an MOT!

SteveD

Steve

Good to see WCA's G46 getting a new lease of life our car has been put on hold whilst building first a barn conversion for my family home and now the conversion of an old barn as my garage / office etc. Hope to have mine back in the garage for the new year and looking forward to progressing it. As HM said if we can be of any assistance please ask.

[Mister Towed]

Hi Steve, welcome to the forum. Nice to hear about another Sammio model being restored and upgraded and it would be really nice to see some pictures as you go along.

Shame it's a bit rough at the moment. Mind you, during its time in WCA's hands it quite possibly fell off the roof of a conservatory, somersaulted down an Alpine black run, fell off a motorcycle at speed and accidentally cut one of its own wheels off with an angle grinder.

On a more positive note, if it's anything like its first owner it's probably held together with enough titanium rods to pay for the restoration if you weigh them in at the local scrappie.

[SteveD]

Mine is registered as a Sammio/Ribble G46.
I will post some more pictures as the rebuild progresses.
SteveD

[Mister Towed]

Would love to hear about your easy way to switch to dual circuit brakes - balance bar pedal box by any chance?



I'll definitely include dual circuit brakes on future projects as the handbrake on my Spyder is the only weak point for the MOT and is always marginal. With dual circuit brakes it only needs to pull half the negative 'G' for a pass so would breeze it.

Dual circuit servos are available btw, but they're fairly expensive -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Compact-Du...UAAOSw5IJWb9Xr

[SteveD]

Balance bar pedal box is the ultimate but very difficult to retro fit in most cars.
The picture you have is one floor mounted, Burton,s do a bulkhead mounted one with hanging pedals which I am using in my car.
However, look at E-Bay number 282234925508, this fits straight onto the standard Scimitar pedal box, change the pushrod for the existing one and a little bit of re-piping to do.
As to servos, I have had two of the remote type fail on me, luckily at slow speeds, so I dislike them and run all my cars without them. If you can cope with a slightly higher pedal pressure, I find the Scimitar brakes to be better without a servo and the MOT tester has no problems with the setup.
SteveD

[HouseMartin]

Originally Posted by SteveD

Balance bar pedal box is the ultimate but very difficult to retro fit in most cars.
The picture you have is one floor mounted, Burton,s do a bulkhead mounted one with hanging pedals which I am using in my car.
However, look at E-Bay number 282234925508, this fits straight onto the standard Scimitar pedal box, change the pushrod for the existing one and a little bit of re-piping to do.
As to servos, I have had two of the remote type fail on me, luckily at slow speeds, so I dislike them and run all my cars without them. If you can cope with a slightly higher pedal pressure, I find the Scimitar brakes to be better without a servo and the MOT tester has no problems with the setup.
SteveD

SteveD, great link.
I had looked at fitting a balance bar with dual 0.70 master cylinders as the early scimitar had no brake bias for the rear.
But I had not come across this combined solution before.
Have you any idea what the diameter of the morgan master cylinder?
I too have no servo fitted and find the brakes more than powerful enough to lock the front wheels in anger on a dry day.
I did struggled to get the required 25% from the handbrake on the MOT.
So ended up extending the arm onto the handbrake lever at the rear hubs and now the handbrake applies more force than the rear service brake!

I have been trying to keep away from using wood in the interior and instead sticking with fiberglass panels like the original scimitar.
The interior really makes the car, especially to the driver, so will be outsourcing the upholstery to a local craftsman.

The white G46 had a nicely finished interior.



HM

[peterux]

Originally Posted by SteveD

As to servos, I have had two of the remote type fail on me, luckily at slow speeds, so I dislike them and run all my cars without them.
SteveD

Hi SteveD,
can you please elaborate about your remote servo failures?
I am building my car with an Iruna dual circuit remote servo (linked above in post #149) so I'm interested in your failures.
Was it this type of servo??
thanks, Peter

[SteveD]

Hi Peter
The first failure was on an Alfa Romeo GTV (1969) when the seals failed and all the brake fluid was sucked into the engine, hey presto - no brakes!
The second time the servo started to hang on, the car would stop but the brakes didn't release immediately culminating in an embarrasing struggle to get going at a set of traffic lights.
More modern servos incorporated into the master cylinder / pedal box asssemblies are more reliable but I still prefer my brakes without assistance.
I find I can easily lock all the wheels on my Scimitars in the dry and they sail through MOTs.
What car are you building?
SteveD

[peterux]

Originally Posted by SteveD

Hi Peter
The first failure was on an Alfa Romeo GTV (1969) when the seals failed and all the brake fluid was sucked into the engine, hey presto - no brakes!
The second time the servo started to hang on, the car would stop but the brakes didn't release immediately culminating in an embarrasing struggle to get going at a set of traffic lights.
More modern servos incorporated into the master cylinder / pedal box asssemblies are more reliable but I still prefer my brakes without assistance.
I find I can easily lock all the wheels on my Scimitars in the dry and they sail through MOTs.
What car are you building?
SteveD

Thanks for the feedback. I'm building a rather unconventional Royale Sabre.
So if I understand you correctly, the servos were Alfa Romeo parts?
...peter

[SteveD]

Slight mistake in my previous post, the pedal box I have with hanging pedals is from Demon Tweaks not Burtons.
The Morgan cylinder is either .7 or .75 so should be good for our needs. I will probably also fit an adjustable restrictor in the rear line (Demon Tweaks again) in case the cars lock rear wheels.
The white car certainly has a nicely finished interior but I plan to go for a much more basic 50's racer style.
I have an SE5 and a SE4 coupe for everyday use, neither of them have servos so the Morgan cylinder is headed for one of them, probably the coupe as I am doing some other jobs on this car at the moment.
SteveD

[davecymru]

Nice! Going the "skippy" route and thoroughly enjoying from what i can see?

One thing that never comes across in photos is exactly how big and intimidating the g46 is on the road.

Shame there arent more on the road.

[HouseMartin]

Originally Posted by davecymru

Nice! Going the "skippy" route and thoroughly enjoying from what i can see?

One thing that never comes across in photos is exactly how big and intimidating the g46 is on the road.

Shame there arent more on the road.

Dave,
Is the "skippy" route hopping about on little jobs?
Yes I am enjoying the challenges and dreaming of something finished in shiny black paint.

Here a 13 second clip, because everything else that was filmed is in wobblevision!
I am hoping the youtube private video security will let you view it.

https://youtu.be/lWR5tIozzZ0

Paul, the usual reaction is "What is it?" with locals referring to it as the batmobile.

Cheers
HM

[Mister Towed]

I believe Gary J referred to it as 'The Whale' during development, partly due to its size and partly due to him struggling with the project in the same way that Ahab struggled with Moby The Great White.

[HouseMartin]

Another year and still no paint job.
However, I have put a few miles on during the summer.

Even managed to run out of petrol on the A1 going to the petrol station.
As I had to leave it at the road side while I walked with my empty petrol can.
It was not long before I got a lift from a curious petrol head who wanted to know about my 'jag'.
Fortunately they also had some jump leads as the battery went flat turning the V6 to fill the filter and carb.
It was a relief to hear it fire up and make to the the pumps.
Electric fuel pump now on order!

Fettling has involved:
Greasing rear wheel bearings which where noisy or right hand bends.
Re-tightening gearbox mounts to remove some vibration.
Replacing the master cyclinder and adjusting the brake pedal height/brake
light switch.
Raising the steering wheel to give easier access.
Fitting nice shiny exhaust ends


Modifying the dash switches so I now have:
Overdrive and wiper switches by the steering wheel.
headlightlights and heater fan by the passenger.



Oh yes, I removed the engine in the winter



Rebuilt it with new skimmed heads



new piston rings/honed bores and all lower bearings



So I know there will be no problem down there to worry about.

I am still messing around with an MX5 soft top to mount in the roll bar hoops.
I have reshaped the header rail to match the curve of the 356 screen and extended the door bars so I now have a frame.



But it is work in progress to get it to fold tidily.
Anyway that's all for now.

Maybe a paint job before next September..

HM

[Paul L]

House Martin – Good to see you are getting some miles in the car.

It also looks like you are continuing to update / improve the car as you go along too.

Without wishing to rush you into paint, have you got a particular colour in mind?

Good luck, Paul.

[HouseMartin]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Without wishing to rush you into paint, have you got a particular colour in mind?
Good luck, Paul.

Paul,
As the first G46 by Gary in paint was red,
The second by Micky was blue
The third painted G46 was then white.
That's the union jack covered.

I thought I would like British Racing Green



The clean look of Black was a good colour for such a large car






But with that porsche 550 windscreen i know silver will look great so i considered some barbecue additions






Maybe even a 2 tone



But it wont be reliant yellow, orange or highland purple!

HM

[Paul L]

House Martin - Apologies for the late reply, but I think your car would look good in any of those colours.

[Mister Towed]

Nice to hear that you're still using your Blackbird.

It might just be me, but I can't see any pictures attached, which is a shame.

[oxford1360]

Originally Posted by Mister Towed

It might just be me, but I can't see any pictures attached, which is a shame.

Not just you.