The Bradley GT-I: Unexpected Problems

So, when I last left off with the Bradley, remember how I said I only needed to fix the carb and get a vacuum advance distributor? Well I fixed both of those and found my next problem. The aluminum/magnesium alloy that the crankcase is made out of is extremely soft, and because of this the cylinders were loosening themselves and leaking all my compression and gasoline all over the road. So I was pretty much back at square-one. Took the entire engine out... again. And this time I stripped it down to the crankshaft. (Which looks to be in fantastic condition by the way.) 

So how does one keep a soft case from letting go of the cylinders? (Techically it's letting go of the heads since the cylinders are more like the meat and cheese in this mechanical sandwich, but whatever.) Case-savers. These cool little steel inserts that you stick into the block so you have steel on steel contact for the threads instead of steel on aluminum/magnesium al-yeah whatever. That stuff. They're about $30 including shipping. So that on top of another gasket set, (Paper gaskets tend to tear with removal and installation whether they're new or not.) as well as a few nitty-gritty stuff will leave us short some cash. Nothing too bad, but blegh. I just can't wait to actually have everything fixed on this car. 

Anyway I'm sure you're all quite bored with the preamble; so onward to the photos! 

I bought a pair of broken 205T distributors and out of the three I had I was able to make one serviceable unit. I love that orange distributor cap.

I dunno what was going on here... Have a photo of the half disassembled engine.

This is what had broken on the carburetor. It's a little pin that limits the throttle-plates range of movement. They're known to just fall out. I had some brass wire laying around that fit, so I'm using that until it falls out, then I'll invest the whopping thirty cents for a steel one glued in place. In the meantime, this works.

The crankcase came apart with much work for me. (My back! My baaack!) But inside it looks pretty clean.

Closer view of the inside. Ever wonders what the inside of your air-cooled VW's crankcase looks like? Well now you know.

Aaand the outside. This thing needs some googly eyes at the moment.

Crankshaft. Work of beauty this is. Looks nearly new. Except for the oil finger prints.

Aand here's one of the two pile of parts for the engine. Everything is coated generously in motor oil (Except the aluminum.) to keep it from rusting in this humidity. But I still worry.

Anyway, yeah. There's the Bradley thus far. Next post I'll have the case-savers in and put the whole thing back together. I'll also paint the engine shroud sometime between then and now. Until next time. Peace out!

Day 4: Retirement

Well, day four was exciting, sad and happy all in one. I got a buyer for some essential engine parts so I cranked the girl up and took her for one last ride to say goodbye for now. A good hour or so was spent zooming around on our local streets here taking some of my family members for one last ride in the old family car before I put her out of commission for an unknown amount of time. Now, there is something worth stating here. With the removal of the intake, (Excluding the MAF I had to temporarily put it back on to start the car.) exhaust and all that weight the MPV already acts like a sports sedan, and pulled 0-60 in a little under seven seconds with the overdrive on of course. It was a lot of fun to put the car through her paces one last time.
But then I had to move on and remove the distributor rendering the car undriveable for obvious reasons. Pretty straight forward and easy, but this marks a turning point, I'm actually doing this, I don't have the money yet, but hopefully something with come through and I can get started in earnest. Whether I sell enough parts to fund this or I get a part-time job I don't know but I certainly hope for either, but with the removal of a key part of the engine this signifies no going back to the old JEV6 now. The family car has been laid to rest and a workhorse for our family shall never be the same again...
Now the real adventure starts, turning a minivan/SUV crossover into a SCCA worthy race car.


Drove down the road to a gravel parking lot to get some final pictures of her before I retire the old JEV6.

The stickers shall be coming off when I repaint her.

Drove back home and popped the hood to get to work.
The distributor all hooked up like it's supposed to be.

After you pull the spark plug wires and remove the connectors from the distributor this is the only bolt holding it down. This is mostly a reference picture so we can get a good idea of where to set the distributor to get started with ignition timing. (Hopefully I won't be doing this again on this engine, but you never know.)

Removed. Noooo! There's a hole in my engine now! Plugged it with a red mechanics rag.

Also pulled the fan, fan shroud, and fan clutch off. Whee. Makes the engine compartment start to look really empty.

 Here's the fan clutch. This is not an original clutch, the original is in a box somewhere on one of my workbenches needing to be fixed.

Distributor after it was pulled off. Nothing special really, it's the original and it's in really good condition, my buyer is getting a steal of a price for it because I'm so desperate for the money. Anyway I'll get the gunk cleaned off of it and packed away in a box for shipping later.

And that's it for day four. Didn't do much aside from those joyrides. Heh, Imma miss being able to drive this girl up and down the driveway occasionally.

Day 2: The Sound of Potential

Day two has come and gone. I didn't get much done today, put some trim back on the car after giving it a good scrub down. Pulled the exhaust out from under it and drove it around in it's un-muffled state for about ten minutes with an ear-to-ear grin on my face. Oh yeah, also threw some new fuses in and checked all the electronics, they all seem to work fine.

This JEV6 is a noisy booger! I mean, I thought the two massive mufflers were overkill, but now I know why they added them onto the van. It was so much fun to rumble around on our property with the floors shaking to the bass rumble of the engine, honestly though, a straight pipe system may be too loud for the finished product. I'd still like to be able to hear the radio while I'm drivin' around yah know?

The roof. It was sooooo dirty to begin with. Much cleaner now.

The hood where it now sits in my shop. I should have take a before and after photo of the underside. It was like black to begin with. Now the underside has the best paint on the car.

The second catalytic converter, and first muffler out from under the MPV. The first cat is still up in there just to keep the exhaust gases under the vehicle in case I have to move it around some.

Second muffler.

That's about it. I recorded a video showing just how loud this van is without a muffler. It doesn't do it justice, trust me, my ears hurt afterwards. Anyway, more to come soon!

Day 1: Starting the Teardown

Alright, right off the bat Imma say this. I'm not labeling this as literal days, these are just the days I work on the vehicles. Also, if you see any parts coming off the car you want; please contact me, we can probably work something out.

Okay first day! Today I just did a bunch of simple stuff, pulled the hood and some trim off. Got most of the exhaust unbolted and dropped down. Pulled part of the intake off... and that's about it, gonna wait for some fuses before I do much of anything else so I can check to make sure she still runs. (I shorted the battery out a few days ago in a freak accident, blew the main fuses. Hopefully didn't damage the electronics though.)


With the hood and grill removed. Pulled the hood off for ease of access, same for the grill.

You can see the exhaust laying on the floor here, I had to cut the bolts holding with a Dremel tool because they were rusted solid. No damage to the exhaust system itself though. Getting it out from under the car should be fun without any form of lift. I'm really beginning to wish I had a lift and it's only the first day.

You can see where I pulled the intake scoop off the filter here.

Not terrible much done today, but hey! It's progress, you gotta start somewhere.

The MPV, a VG30DETT swap car.

Alright, today marks the first day of my massive undertaking of turning my old '97 Mazda MPV into a race-ready machine. How many of you remember the days of your childhood being shuttled around in your parents minivan? For me it was a comforting thing, we've had this van for almost as long as I can remember and I love it to death. This is also the first driver I've ever owned, (I don't say my first car because I've had a truck since I was fourteen and I still haven't driven it on the road.) so there's a lot of bonding I've done with this car. The old JE engine has given me a lot of pleasure on the road and she's gotten me out of sticky situations more than once. (Think semi-truck sandwich.) But unfortunately, sometime in the past few years we took it to an express lube somewhere and they overfilled the girl. Most of the seals and gaskets on the engine are now gone. She runs, but it got to the point where I was adding more oil than gas every week, so it was time for something to go. Now me, being an avid car enthusiast and mechanic-in-training, I enjoy going fast and I enjoy working on vehicles, so I've decided to do something crazy and off-the-wall. I'm going to put a VG30DETT into the MPV. I've only ever seen this done once before, and it was in fact done right by a  certain D. Swensonhimer.

Now, this won't be the same as what Swensonhimer has done, (Obviously I don't want to copy him, that's just wrong.) namely because my MPV is a little newer. (More electronics to deal with. Whoopee.) But I'm going a little farther than he went. This car isn't going to be a sleeper, eventually I plan to compete in the SCCA Solo racing events with this vehicle, so a new suspension system is a must, as well as a rollcage. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This will not be completed in just a few months, this project may take me years, mainly because of funding. I'm parting out the engine and transmission in hopes to get enough money to buy a used 300ZX Fairlady Z32, and then going from there, hopefully parting out what's left of the 300ZX for more funding. But we'll see.Whatever the case, it may take me years, but this car will be finished someday.

This is where she's sat for the past few months. I needed to get her moved somewhere out of the elements, I do plan to repaint as soon as the engine is out, as there are some rust spots and such that bother me.

The original JE V6 by Mazda. A wonderful little engine, this one has 280,000 miles on it and still ran strong until that jiffy lube killed her.

After moving her down into my workshop. It's a tight fit at the moment, but hopefully we'll get some stuff moved out of there soon. She looks so much happier out of the weather.