I recently carried out a trial run of fitting the engine and box to the Peerless chassis and was a bit disturbed to discover that the engine, with the rubber mounts attached wouldn't line up with plates welded to the chassis crossmember. Although the engine mounts were sitting on the chassis plates, the holes to bolt the mounts to the chassis were about 5mm too high at one side and 7mm too high at the other. This struck me as strange as this is one area of the chassis that didn't need repair having been protected by the well known Peerless anti-corrosion system (aka oil leaks).
Now this might be, in part, due to the fact that I'm not using the original engine but a much later one (TS72***E) or that the rubber mounts are thicker than the originals.
Not a problem, I thought, I'll just grind off the welds on the chassis plates, fabricate new plates and weld them in. All of which I have now done aside from the welding in and therein lies my problem.
The engine and box now sit nicely in the chassis, albeit slightly higher, but the engine is still very slightly canted over to the driver side. That is, the left hand mount (from the driving seat) side sits a bit higher than the right hand side. What makes this even stranger is that the gearbox mount sits perfectly flat on the chassis support, another area that didn't require any repairs. Now a bit of persuasion will get the engine to sit square in the chassis but this results in the right hand gearbox mount rising slightly by probably enough to get a flat washer in.
Before anyone suggests that there is a twist in the chassis, there isn't. It's been checked, checked and checked again with both levels and lasers and it's square.
My question is, am I better to let the engine sit as it appears to want to in the chassis but very slightly canted over to the driver side and with the gearbox sitting flat on it's mount or, the alternative of getting the engine square in the chassis and packing one side of the gearbox mount to compensate? As things stand, it's either one or the other.
Strongly advise that you don't weld anything up permanently until you have checked clearances of the bonnet carbs and radiator!
Whilst it would appear that there's loads of room under the bonnet, this isn't the case and you will be very frustrated when you have to grind it all apart again. You will also find that getting the driveline length right is also critical, as the layrub will mince itself to bits if it's under any load, and engine positioning affects this as well.
Frank's tip....
Use slotted holes and washers at the diff, gearbox and engine mounts and only lock things up tight when you have optimised all the clearances. And then hope the exhaust fits!
Thankfully every mounting point lines up perfectly along the length of the car and the Layrub is a nice snug fit. My only concern is that the engine wants to sit about 10mm higher than the plates on the crossmember would suggest and leaning very slightly to the drivers side. Is that enough to be concerned about?? I would have thought there has to be a bit more than 10mm clearance under the bonnet?
I'll trial fit the (original) rad in place and see how the filler cap compares to the highest part of the engine. That should give me a rough idea if I have enough clearance.
yep, it is very tight in there as I know to my cost. I think I spent to much time tryin to level up/spread the discrepancies/eye line etc with the body on mine. I think my complete front end is sitting 1/2 to low and when I got to fit the bonnet it hit the rad
on the webbing shape inside the bonnet.
I cut this off, re-modeled it to pass between the hinge fixings and bonded it back on.
I also fitted an after market ali rocker cover but had gasket face milled down by 5mm to get clearance..... what a ball ache!
if your are unsure, do a dry run...it could save time
I also remember last time a changed the engine mounts they were a fighter..to high and perhaps a little to far forward, but then with a good leaver they went in
Milling down the rocker cover sounds like a plan if I'm having issues. I've just bought a nice ali one from Revington. I appreciate that it would be a bit of a pita but, as my wife says, every little helps
