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Hawke Owners Club | |
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Update On The Road August 2004 hi, I'm in the long middle of building my Hawke +2 V8 and attach some photo's of the current stage. Being six foot I have now elongated the doors and door openings. doors have been reinforced with alloy box section with 52mm cut from each side of the body mostly under the rear wheel arch to enable me to move the door shut back. this should give me additional ease of exit and improve the side visibility with the hood up!. I realise that the standard hood will now not fit but it does seem to work. has this mod been done before or is there some obvious problem that I haven't yet seen? the kit was purchased from tiger, goodness, almost 16 months ago and seems destined for the road in the new year I have heard rumours that SVA will include side impact protection soon, have you heard anything? Engine is a P6 rover 3.5lt mated through an adaptor to a sierra gearbox and had been running in a sierra estate for 2 years before I purchased the sierra, seemed ideal donor car and I got another 2lt sierra hatch thrown in for free! I've fitted uprated oil pump, new bearings, new cam, oil seals, etc. and will have MGB v8 rad and exhaust headers. the clutch is sierra 2.8 plate and cover and cable operated, a mk4 escort provided the longer clutch cable. Chassis has been hot dipped galvanised any comments or tips would be appreciated Stephen Moore steveandpatm@ntlworld.com |
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Time to update my Hawke build. I've attached a couple of photos not much movement to date from my last post. I had trouble with fitting the bonnets but during my visit to the motor show I visited the Morgan stand, absolutely brilliant and the guy on the stand was most helpful (I did not admit to building a Hawke). It was their bonnet fit that gave me the encouragement to continue, basically if that was the best they could achieve after 30 odd years then what had I got to lose?. As usual I have deviated from the SVA spring fastener and gone for the concealed quarter turn type fastener see photo, the holes will be covered with a polished lift up cover which I have got but haven't fitted yet.The fit seems acceptable after the Morgan. The lengthened doors are back on and handles fitted although the latch part (striker plate) supplied by tiger seem too wide for the door shut ,any comments?. I have just finished cutting and MIG welding two/three 2.0L sierra exhausts into two pipe runs retaining the front expansion box on each and positioning the main boxes under the drivers and passenger seats tucking them well up into the chassis. The pipes seem to naturally run towards the centre tunnel avoiding the rear suspension arms and i've then turned them outwards to provide connections for twin s/steel exhausts some 600mm apart. I am now cutting and welding the stainless steel MGB manifolds to suit as the drop on them is too excessive. I'm concerned about ground clearance and will weld some skids on the exhaust boxes soon. I've spoken to a few V8 owners and they use altered MGB V8 manifolds and under chassis exhaust systems so lets hope it's OK. I hope systems that can quieten 2.0L fords can each cope with a bank of 1800cc. Any comments I wonder regarding the need for a balance pipe between the two exhausts? |
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Despite my promises to spray it myself, the Hawke body shell has returned from the paint sprayer and it now is resplendent in its black livery. The lengthened doors look particularly good. As the photo shows, the back wings were cut into 50mm strips and remoulded to remove the tuck-under of the vertical edges, this took me quite some time and wasn’t quite as easy as I had envisaged, but I am pleased with the end result. I have filled and glassed the top of the nose cone to remove the backward fall towards the bonnet. My thanks to David in Folkstone; the front grill has been copied from his photo’s, to be removable to allow access to the electric radiator fan. A roll bar has been bent up to 50mm diameter 3mm walled marine quality stainless steel and I have tack welded the brackets to pick up a raking strut to new rear chassis brackets. Welding is a problem to the galvanised chassis, but unfortunately Tiger omitted all brake line brackets and high level seat belt fittings, something I did not spot in those early days!! It is intended to pick high level seat belt mounts in the roll bar. Note, these should be 7/16 UNF threads. Brake pipes and fuel lines laid, the copper fuel line supplied by Tiger was only about 6mm but the inlet on the petrol pump (and outlets on the fuel tank) were about 10mm, so I have increased the pipe size to prevent any problems with fuel starvation for the V8 engine and so the body is now ready to refit to the chassis. Instruments have been purchased from E.T.B including 100mm speedo and rev counter and it is intended to fit these centrally in the dash rather than behind the steering wheel where the 50mm gauges will go. Whilst trial fitting the windscreen I managed to slightly crack the glass which was disappointing to say the least, Tiger would not post a replacement, for obvious reasons, so I opted to locally source a laminated screen here in Norwich but the windscreen company insisted it should be 6mm not the original 4mm thick laminated. I duly had it cut to size but the ‘E’ mark was engraved in the glass surface and not printed on the plastic interlayer as original. Fortunately as the Norwich SVA is very friendly, I was able to have the new screen inspected before fitting, but it was decreed not to be acceptable. The relevant SVA inspection manual was proffered to confirm, the windscreen company were not pleased, after all, they fit these screens to all sorts of vehicles every day, but the dreaded SVA is not easily placated. The very nice SVA man did say however, that the 13mm long crack that I had in the original screen was not enough to fail it and he suggested that I fit the original screen, at least for the SVA test. Pods for the front and rear lights have been fashioned from 80mm diameter stainless tube and polished. This matches the chrome on the selected Cobra type lights. Door hinges have been cut from heavy duty brass type butts and are now being nickel plated (they don’t do chrome at my local platers). The last 21/2 years work seems to have now been slow but good preparation for the reassembly. Just electrics and upholstery to do now HA HA! Photo’s show the Hawke in various stages of build. |
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Well – as they say – another Hawke hits the road!! A bit later than planned! Trying to get an MOT on the Hawke prior to the SVA test was difficult. The local MOT tester had contacted Swansea DVLA who advised he should not MOT a car without a logbook contrary to the local SVA advice that a pre SVA MOT was a good idea. It now seems simple, keep the old log book and number plates until the car is formally re-registered. But try as I might, this advice did not seem to be on the ‘web’. So it failed the MOT on a few things ie loose track rod end nut (silly me) and of course – no number plates. That was the Friday, (I don’t have a hood yet) and it seemed only to stop raining that week for my MOT test. Monday 29th June came and much to my relief – blue sky and sun – couldn’t believe my luck. A quick drive to the SVA test centre at Norwich, a mere two miles away, and we were there, not forgetting to fill up with lead replacement petrol at Asda on the way. I arrived at 7.35a.m., centre doesn’t open until 8 but I was pleased to have completed the cars longest drive to date With a warm welcome from the SVA test centre staff both Les and Dennis (the inspectors) started going over the car and they were complimentary about both design and build. “At least you could go for a long drive in this, not like some of the others that come in here” one said! I think the extra 2” on the doors helped with their access into the car. Emissions test was, after showing them some documents, agreed only as a visual test as the engine manufacture date is 1972. That was pleasing to see. The electronic speedo (from ETB) was calibrated on the rolling road. I’d had trouble earlier with the sensor when I attached the magnets to a half shaft, but talking to ETB they advised the propshaft was a better location as it spins faster. My speedo and rev counter are 100mm diameter and mounted centrally on the dash, so the tester was sure to check the needle indicated speed when viewed from the drivers seat due to parallax. My bumpers are a departure from the norm, after a design by Steve Owen (Sec of Hawke Owners Club) bent from 8mm x 75mm stainless steel These needed min 3mm radius to all edges and to be turned in at the ends, I was complimented on their compliance. It was a 2 hour odd ordeal but at the end of it, I heard those magic words, it’s passed, I’ll just do the paperwork. I’m sure the sun shone just that bit brighter and the clouds in my head cleared. Well, straight up to the local DVLA with speed I went clutching SVA cert in hand with receipts for original Sierra certificate for scrap, certificate for insurance, certificate for this and that, but “what no MOT” I hear cry. The nice lady at the local DVLA says “If you don’t want to MOT it then I’ll just return all the paperwork to you!!” So back to MOT station “still no number plates, it will fail” come the cry. So on goes it’s future number plates Pat, my wife bought for my birthday. “Ok, we can test it now – and it passes. Back to the local DVLA and all seems in order except the local DVLA inspector needs to see Hawke, but only at the DVLA office – is it going to rain? Heavy rain and dark clouds but at the appointed hour the rain stays off and the car is duly inspected and approved, tax certificate is issued within 10 minutes. My Hawke is now fully certificated and taxed and legally on the road – at last. Those 3½ years building the Hawke now seem a distant memory. On the road the V8 seems to provide ample power and the exhaust note is pleasant. Only running issue is that of an oil leak from the fuel pump and valley gaskets but this has been almost solved with rerouting the breather tube to atmosphere rather than back into the closed circuit breather system, having spoken to the local v8 specialist RPI, they diagnosed excessive crankcase pressure over the phone and a quick bit of plumbing sorted it, unfortunately oil still leaks from the mechanical pump pivot so it looks like an electric petrol pump is needed. I now have a Facet electric fuel pump and regulator to fit when time permits. Hope to see you all at the next meeting. Extending my doors means a bespoke hood and frame and I am lucky enough to have found a hood specialist locally. So off to build new glazed door frames, so the hood can be measured and manufactured. Just got to work out how to build them now! Must go now the dual carriageway bypass is beckoning as the sun is actually shining! Regards Steve |
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