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Coolant lines, Clutch line, Accelerator cable

Now that the engine was removed I had a long list of items to complete around the car, with a lot of re-work and fixes...

I wanted to avoid having a long rubber coolant hose behind the engine (that connects the cabin heater core outlet and water pump suction pipe) as the hose needs a few bends in the route and potential for the hose rubbing on things was high. To solve this, I made a single hard line and a short rubber adapter on either end. I previously mocked up a tube location for the upper part of the adapter to confirm the inlet position & angle, when the engine was still in the Mini :

To maintain the tube end position and angle in a fixed position while I made the hard line, I made a temporary brace with a short piece of rod that inserted into the end of the mockup tube.

Using this brace the hard line was made with a few bends in a 16mm steel tube and welded to a bracket that bolts to the inlet manifold. It joins to the water pump inlet via a universal 16mm 90deg elbow rubber coolant hose.

I also formed a bead on both ends and welded on a tab 20mm in from either end so I know that I've pushed enough hose onto the tube when fitting the hoses.

The route of the lower radiator hose was very close to rubbing on a bolt boss on the gearbox so I simply cut off the boss to gain some clearance.

While I was heat cycle testing the engine in the Mini, I had always left the radiator cap off and forgot to test the system with the cap on to test for any coolant leaks with the system pressurised. To simulate this I blocked off all coolant ports and made a plastic plug for one of the radiator hoses, with an air line fitting screwed into the plug.

I adjusted my workshop air system to 20psi, connected an air hose to the engine and sprayed soap/water mixture around all the coolant fittings to look for any bubbles.

I found a single leak in one of the turbo coolant feed hoses, which had likely hardened due to it's age and proximity to the turbo and radiator. 

The turbo coolant hoses were the only hoses on the entire engine I had not yet replaced so I cleaned up the surface rust that was on the outlets and sourced some new 10mm coolant hose elbows to replace these two pieces.

The 90deg bend in the clutch slave cylinder line made it tricky to get the radiator in/out without the bottom radiator outlet getting hung up on the line, so I remade it and now it tucks in much tighter against the gearbox. 

Old clutch line :

New clutch line :

I have upgraded the Toyota OEM wastegate actuator to a HKS adjustable actuator to run some higher boost pressures, but I still had to adjust the actuator rod length / spring preload. For an initial setting, I adjusted the actuator so the wastegate starts to open at 9psi (factory actuator was 4-5psi). It's not until the Mini is on the road will I know the actual maximum boost pressure so I may have to make some adjustments then.

The hole for the accelerator cable that I made in the bulkhead a long time ago was a hack just to get the cable route correct, but now wanted to make a better seal over the steel lip in that part of the bulkhead.

I made a new mount for the mounting bracket and TIG welded it in place

Accelerator cable fitted :

The mounting studs in the subframe towers pass through the bulkhead and are normally secured with washers/nuts, however I wanted to make it a little neater by making some simple cover plates. I'm unsure if this will prevent any lateral movement of the studs, so it's probably just an aesthetic addition.


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