The stanced '67 Imp Super - SOLID DRIVESHAFTS

[19James]

Hi everyone
Loving the Imp, had a problem with the nearside headlight, it was very dim on dipped beam and completely disfunctional on main beam so I've replaced that.
I also noticed that there was no difference when I stiffened the front left damper, so I took the wheel off yesterday and sure enough I found a big puddle of damper oil on the wishbone.


As you can see it's leaked out of the top oil seal, so I have replaced both front dampers with the Koni adjustable platform dampers that came with the car, I set the platforms at the same height as the Spax ones but when lowered to the ground it sat pretty low. I had to leave it like this as I had work soon after, I think it looked really cool but it was a bit nose down, with my race springs fitted again it would have looked right.



I have raised the front up slightly this morning and it looks right again.
Cheers, James

[19James]

Hi everyone
Went to the Stevenage area centre meet last night as it's the first time we've been in years, good to catch up with people.
Simon Benoy very kindly dug a set of chrome hubcaps out for me, after a good clean up i rested them on a couple of the wheels and i really like it so I will fit them when i've polished them up enough.
I'm in the process of building another L4 875 as this one is using quite a bit of oil. The head is all cleaned up, 4 of the valves are lapped in and fitted, just need to find a couple of hours to fit the rest then shim it up.
Couple of pictures.
Excuse the awful spraying, given the sump a quick spray, then cleaned the block up with a wire bush in the drill and it all looks rather nice now.

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We went to the Woburn classic car show aswell this weekend and my Mum got an awesome rolling shot of my car, love it!


The hubcaps

Cheers, James

[19James]

Hi everyone
Haven't updated this in a long time, some good things and some bad things have unfortunately happened. The engine that had Cords rings fitted was using stupid amounts of oil, I have fitted the engine that came out of a late, gold Imp super that we scrapped earlier this year and it's a brilliant engine, pulls strongly and runs cooler than the other engine too.
Anyway I'll let the pictures tell the story of the past 2 months or so...






After that happened and the car was sprayed and back to normal, I spent the weekend at the Retro show at Santa pod.
It was brilliant fun, I took it up the strip 7 times and took part in the autotest and didn't come last!


There was another very tidy Imp there that had just finished being restored, I tempted the owner to take it up the strip and we managed to go at the same time. It was brilliant fun especially as they're both running L4's.
My best time was a 20.4 @ 64mph, not too bad for an almost 50 year old car.
I have fitted my hubcaps (Cheers Mr Benoy!)




I am now really looking forward to national, can't wait!
I'll try and keep this updated a bit more often seeing as there's a lot of other car threads lately.
Cheers, James

[19James]

Hi everyone
A few things have changed on the Imp in the last 2-3 months, as mentioned it has another L4 875 that seems to be a brilliant little engine, it looks as though it's been rebuilt before as we could still see the honing marks and the fact the pistons came up so high giving high compression.
When I first fitted it i couldn't seem to trace a misfire that was always apparent over 4000RPM, this turned out to be the dizzy which was a bog standard 45D. We ditched that for an Accuspark fast road 45D dizzy as that was what we had at the time and it's brilliant, just wants to keep revving and it starts first time every time.

I've also had trouble with water pumps in the last couple of weeks. The first one fitted was out of the same car the engine came from and it had been sat for a good number of years, I suppose I was quite lucky to get 3 months of driving out of it really, I replaced that for another unknown water pump and that seemed good for a day or two but started leaking quite badly. So last sunday we picked up a recon pump from Ben Boult and following his instruction of running it on plain water for the first day to run the seals in it has been fine, not a drop of water leaking.


Also tidied the engine bay up a bit.

Still far from being tidy but a bit more presentable.
I'm about to go and fill it with antifreeze and take it for a run, I'll report back with running temps.
Cheers, James

[19James]

Cheers guys! It was a bit of a shock I wasn't expecting it at all so thankyou for that, the trials Imp will be getting some more abuse soon.
Done a few little things on the Imp. I was fed up with the back window leaking and vibrating like mad so me and dad cut out a suitable piece of Lexan and fitted that, it's now quite a bit quieter and the weight difference is almost noticeable.

I have also refitted the bucket seat and harness that was in there from when it was being raced in the 80's, I find the seat very comfortable and it holds me in nicely.

Got a few decent pictures aswell the other day.



Cheers, James

[19James]

Hi everyone
Long time without an update.
The Imp has been relentlessly taking me to and from college daily.
Retro rides gathering was brilliant last year, as was national.
I have bought a Vw Lupo to start driving daily in March, Then the Imp will come off the road for a few jobs hopefully ready again for national and retro rides gathering, all depends on insurance.
Here's a couple teasers for you


Cheers, James

[19James]

See you all at national in a week

[19James]

Pretty much ready for national now I think, just got to pack the car. Dad will be in his stiletto, about 180 miles for us so hopefully we'll have no problems.
See you all there!
Cheers, James

[19James]

Hi everyone
A quick thankyou to the organisers for another brilliant national!
Well done to both Andy Jones and Simon Benoy on their race wins at croft, showed the minis the way home
Simon, Chris and Andy did a very good job of sorting Simon's clutch woes.
Both mine and Dad's Imps have no problems really over the weekend, both used some oil but that's to be expected driving at 65 for 400 miles.
Cheers to Dom and Corey for a really good weekend




A few jobs need doing before retro rides gathering in less than two weeks, only minor things, who's going?
Cheers, James

[19James]

Hi everyone
The Imp has had a few additions lately.
First of which was a pair of fiesta brake discs and calipers on the front, this meant fitting a pair of 13x7 Revolutions to give a bit more arch clearance. This also allowed me to reduce the camber a little, I still want to further reduce it though.
The revolutions I refurbed myself, I've had mixed opinions on the mismatched wheel setup but I quite like it.

I also finished a project I've been working on for a couple of months now. When I got the trials imp it came with a pair of weird driveshafts fitted that I thought were of no use to me, I kept them anyway and I'm glad I did.
They've had Hardy spicer Mini shafts welded on just after the UJ, this shaft has a spline to fit Spicer UJ's, of which I managed to source a pair. So all I needed was an adaptor to bolt the Spicer UJ to the Imp's diff output spiders.
After a bit of measuring and thinking I did some drawings, bought 2 bits of alloy billet and set about machining them on work's lathe.
I worked out my hole centres and drilled them through on the mill, the four that hold the UJ having counterbores so the bolt heads sit flush, allowing the spicer to mount flat on the adaptor.
This is what I ended up with.





I've driven it and it's great to drive, no vibrations, no nasty noises and no feeling of anything letting go. This is a massive step forward for me and the car as I won't be replacing driveshaft couplings every month from running the car so low and drifting.
Cheers, James