Another SC Jupiter rebuild

[RichardMc]

SC Jupiter FGV888
An introduction and some details of my rather ambitious project to put an SC Jupiter back on the road.

First of all hello to everyone on the forum, I’ve been lurking for a while and finally decided I may as well join in. I am about to embark on a rather ambitious project to put a pile of scaffolding tubes and some bent aluminium (formerly known as an SC Jupiter or MK1a for the purists) back on the road after rather a long period in storage.

I say ‘I’ but actually I mean ‘we’ as chief spanner operator for the project will be my father Geoff McAuley; I’m Richard by the way, his eldest son. Some of you know me, and I know some of you too, but it has been a while as they say. The long hair went missing some time ago, as did the youthful looks and ability to survive only on beer and pro-plus tablets, anyway I digress.

Back to the project. I purchased FGV888 from Malcolm Oliver in 1987 with the intention of building a racing Jupiter, but quickly found other activities to keep me occupied for the next 25 years. A couple of people have shown interest in buying the car over the years but perhaps the scale of the task ahead has been too great. When I got the car it was almost complete, less engine and gearbox, but had been disassembled. By that I do mean disassembled! Everything is there, probably, but if you haven’t spent most of your life crawling round Jowetts it would be a very daunting task. Fortunately for me Geoff doesn’t have a ‘project’ at the moment, well he didn’t have until Monday this week! Between us we can probably source, repair or rebuild all the component parts without too much trouble, I hope.

Once we have the logistics of making space in the garage and getting the chassis out of storage we should get started in August. Can it be done in a year? We will see!

I plan to build the car to be used, I intend to do a few hillclimbs and sprints but I would like to take the opportunity to ‘upgrade’ or ‘modernise’ a few things along the way too. I don’t intend to do anything that couldn’t be undone in the future but think this is a great opportunity to have a little fun along the way.

So here is my plan (Version 1) if funds allow. I would welcome comments or feedback, good or bad.

Poly Bush Suspension, Super Flex look like a good supplier
Ford Type 9 gearbox, so I get overdrive 5th gear
Supercharger, simple setup like the Moss MGB version with suck through single SU using a Mini Cooper S Eaton blower.
Chassis brace / door bars, if I can make this work to brace the front and rear chassis sections
Adjustable Shocks
15” wheels, so I can fit some decent rubber
Swap rear torsion bars to lower the car
Programmable ignition, Ford EDIS and MegaJolt looks like the way to go here
Change to –ve earth, otherwise the ignition won’t work
Re-designed 421 exhaust system, need to modify some cylinder heads to reverse the flow
Oil cooler, Aero screens, Roll Hoop

And finally, the starting point.........

[Tony Fearn]

Hello Richard,

It looks like you and your dad are going to be busy, and we're all going to get another saga to read in installments.

Regards,

Tony.

[Jack]

Hi Richard,

Blimey. Looks like quite a lot of work there, if you get it done in a year I think you'll have done very well.

You will probably find the 15" wheels lower the car a fair bit already, so may not need to go any lower. I certainly wouldn't want to go much lower with Amy's car, and that is on 16" wheels at approximately normal ride height, just for day to day useability.

On an SC bracing from the rear chassis is going to be fairly easy - the chassis rails that come up either side of the fuel tank and battery box are going to be good mounting points, and with a bit of minor modification to the panel behind the seat you could easily run bracing bars - they would however interfere with the opening of doors etc, but if you are building a racing car that may not be an issue. Not quite sure where you would mount the bracing at the front, but it shouldn't be too hard to find somewhere. The roll hoop should be able to come off the chassis at a similar point and go through the parcel shelf without too much fuss - worth remembering various rules about clearances around the drivers head with this, and also modification required to the hood as a result.

I know the Type 9 has been fitted to a Javelin, but you might want to do a lot of measuring before committing to it for the SC - the clearance above the gearbox is fairly minimal before the bulkhead, and a large bellhousing could make life difficult. You certainly don't want to cut any of the bulkhead away, they are not exactly easy to come by. To get an overdrive gear, have you thought about using a standard gearbox and separate overdrive unit? We've got one on the SA and it is great for motorway driving and helps fuel consumption and overall comfort at higher speed, and whilst there is a cost involved in getting one it could save you a lot of engineering to get the Ford box to fit and work properly - plus you would keep the column shift.

It is great to see another project starting, and please keep us updated with progress, photos, and if there is anything we can do to help please shout - the amount of help we got with our car from people from all over the world was a real help when deadlines were looming and everyone was exhausted.

Jack.

[Forumadmin]

There should be enough experience in your team to complete this job and it will be great to have a blow by blow account on JowettTalk.

Be aware of Alan Fishburn's experience with a supercharger that exploded his engine. I think some investigation of what was done by Caudo in Aus on strengthening the block using a steel plate above the sump or using an aly sump from South Africa as I have done on the Taxi would help on stiffening. John Blankley also had ideas of running more bolts across the block from the head bolts might be worth considering. Make sure you use a loose and well run in engine before using the blower.

As far as chassis stiffening and roll cage is concerned, I bolted mine to the flat plate that sits at an 80deg angle at the top of the rear chassis tube and also down to a plate beside the centre body mount. I had a thought of a centre bar that came from the top of the roll bar forwards and down through the top of the scuttle following the line of the centre windscreen bar. I even drilled a hole just above the indicator switch and fed a stiff wire through to check on the line of the tube! This could fix to the cross member between the front suspension. Safer of course would be a front roll cage down the A posts and triangulated with the top of the front suspension. Then link this back to the rear roll bar following the line of the side windows. Obviously look at the blue book to make sure the scrutineers will approve.

Alan Fishburn has also done the gearbox mod with a Granada Scorpio box which just needed a distance plate onto the clutch housing and the swap of the splined bush in the clutch friction plates.

Also look at using a Morris Minor steering box (aka Mike Smailes) that allegedly fits without any change.

Not sure you can find stiffer torsion bars that you might need if you reduce height, but I think there are firms that can heat them to change stiffness. You may find with a lighter racing chassis some work will be needed to get the bounce velocities and corner weights correct. Refer to experience on Rochdale Jup. Obviously use adjustable shocks. What about anti-roll bars and camber angles? Also watch your Panhard rod, steering ball heights and any other geometry, if you start altering the ride height. Have a look at my Soap Box design where I used a massive spread sheet to design the geometry. No doubt some CAD CAM tools are available.

Talking of the Rochdale, getting your seating position lower will help aero dynamics. Also look at putting an aly floor pan the length of the car to improve aero. Look at the R1 to see how holes and gaps were closed up to make it more slippery.

Frank Wooley's experience on the exhaust and anti roll bars should be worth tapping.


Look at progress on http://jowett.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1659 as hubs, alfins and wheels will help the braking and cornering. Perhaps come along to the Midland Section meeting next Wed at Richard Gaine's to discuss.

[RichardMc]

Thanks for all the info, plenty to think about there. I will setup a blog page for the build once we get started so my chums on pistonheads can follow too, but obviously I'll post updates here. Thanks for the tips on fitting a blower, I've got some rough designs done for using the mini Eaton but need to start measuring up the block before I go much further.
I'm thinking of doing a time lapse video too, assuming the car doesn't move from the build site too much I can probably do a point and forget camera rig. That might be quite good fun to watch back later and might get a bit of publicity for the Juipter in general if it goes on YouTube.
Great post on alloy wheels. There are some Jag wire wheels / hubs / knockoff rings in the garage that haven't moved in years, someone might notice if they find a new home though.

[Forumadmin]

Just put a link to JowettTalk blog in Pistonheads. JowettTalk is public to view.
We can also put a webcam link on jowett.org if you can fix it up or how about a Skype link when you are in the workshop to have some virtual mechanics on hand.

[Chris Spencer]

Hi Richard - Welcome to Jowett Talk - I recently aquired a SA Jupiter project which is very much a 'Bitza' with the chassis,panels,bulkhead, rear axle,engine,gearbox along with many other parts all coming from seperate cars / sources - I will list the project in a seperate thread but basicly I am not going to be over precious about the originality of the car due to the nature in which it has been brought together.

I had already embarked on research in several areas which may help you - the gearbox - although type 9 Ford will fit - the Scorpio box over the Serria box leaves the least amount of modifaction - to clear the bulkhead & steering rack you ideally need to lower the front engine mounting brackets by 50mm - this can be acheived by cutting them off the chassis and rebating them back into the chassis tubes - the nuts would have to be welded to the rear of the mounting brackets hence making them captive. A 25mm adaptor plate to the rear of the standard Jowett bellhousing is required, and the changeover of the spline / centre bush on the clutch plate. A remote change link is required and this can be built from scratch although Alan Fishburn stated that the Westfield - off the shelf unit can be extended - in it's current form it too short. Obviously by lowering the power unit you are gaining on lower centers of gravity.

I had also looked at replacing the water pump with two inline electric pumps and effecting cooling via a electric fan / alloy rad - hopefully an improved system but also a lot less weight plus the loss of load on the engine to drive the pump. Thinking about it with the pump gone maybe the rad could be brought forward to a new location hence again lowering the centre of gravity but also getting access to the cooler air before it passes over the engine. Then again with the water pump out of the way this may give you the space required for the supercharger.

Experiance with my V8 Rover dictates that I would have the exhaust manifolds and front sections of the exhaust ceramic coated - this reduces under bonnet heat by well in excess of 30%.

The wheel debate contines but hopefully we will have alternatives within the next 12 months or so - good luck with the rebuild - mine is going to take some time longer - a house move plus other members Jowett restorations are in front of my Jupiter project.

[jowettgeoff]

It'll be interesting to follow this topic, so that I can be reminded from time to time as to what I've let myself in for. At one time, I thought my 40' long garage would be adequate. Beginning to wish I'd had daughters - but then I remembered Amy. Hey-ho
G McA

[Keith Clements]

How can I forget Amy? Perhaps go to NZ

The garage is now 32ft square with add ons to house the 'project d'(chris) bits as well as the cellar housing project b (jack) bits and the conservatory housing project c(peter) bits. Meanwhile the SA is being prepared for its 4500 mile trip to 12 countries. The gearbox casing was replaced yesterday and a replacement gear change has been ordered from Drummond.

[jowettgeoff]

Hope it's not the one he promised me - or I'll sue.

[RichardMc]

The Big Move – August 14th 2012
We collected the chassis today from secure storage and took it down to the garage to start work. Everything looks quite good so far, when I got the car in ’87 I had the chassis shot blasted and painted with the same rust inhibitor they use on industrial RSJ’s. This was quite probably a good decision at the time as the only visible rust is at the bottom of the rear tubes. Time to re-learn my welding skills I think.

The first job will be the chassis repairs and then build all the suspension back up, all the rubbers are shot so everything will have to come off. I need to raid the spares cupboard to see what there is before I start buying bits, by spares cupboard I actually mean fifty years of accumulated odds and ends that could be hiding anywhere, that may take a while!

I took some new pictures and found some old pictures from when I got the car, along with the log book and chassis plate. So progress has been made, just.

[RichardMc]

Some early pictures I found
Before it was stripped down, probably early 80's

Early Photo 87.jpg

On the way to be shot blasted, obviously under Jowett power.

Chassis and OS 87.jpg

Unloading in Leeds in '87 prior to blasting and painting

ShotBlast 87.jpg

[Amy]

Oooh, I've only just spotted this thread. Looks like a cracking project! I trust you're aiming to be driving the SC to Basingstoke next year?

And Geoff, daughters are lovely (aren't they, Dad...). Even better when we know how to fix a Jowett And I'm very tolerant of toolboxes in my living room, carbs on the coffee table, and unknown quantities of rusty Lucas parts in boxes everywhere!

Do keep us up to date, and we'll distract your dad as necessary if you need to, um, 'borrow' a few Jowett bits from his stash to help the SC on its way.

Amy.

[jowettgeoff]

The best of both worlds eh Amy? A daughter with oil in her veins (and fingernails). But what happened to the cute little girl whose answerphone catchphrase was, "Please leave your message after the beep". Sorry thread followers, this has nothing to do with Richard's SC project. Rich (and his brother Andy) are currently rubbing Deep Heat into their backs having between them carrried the chassis several yards. I supervised - most impressively I thought
G McA

[Jack]

The best of both worlds eh Amy? A daughter with oil in her veins (and fingernails). But what happened to the cute little girl whose answerphone catchphrase was, "Please leave your message after the beep". Sorry thread followers, this has nothing to do with Richard's SC project. Rich (and his brother Andy) are currently rubbing Deep Heat into their backs having between them carrried the chassis several yards. I supervised - most impressively I thought
G McA

Geoff, I think you need to get the next generation in training! I can confirm that a Jupiter chassis was carried by Clements Snr and Chris Spencer for several yards only a couple of weeks ago, without much complaint, and I think they have a combined age over 100 I managed to look like I was helping, and get hit in the shin by it as it swung around. I should have taken a more supervisory role.

Jack.