Lets Finish Olis Mini Guys! We Owe It To Him

[grant_hundley]

sorry to hear that

hope it all gets sorted soon though

[Simon]

What actually happened? Oli ordered a engine a while ago right? After he passed they finished it and it ended up being completely the wrong engine? What's their argument here?

[basher]

What actually happened? Oli ordered a engine a while ago right? After he passed they finished it and it ended up being completely the wrong engine? What's their argument here?

They pissed around for about a year and half i think with excuses why it wasnt ready and when it finally arrived it wasnt road worthy or to the spec, i think thats right im sure someone noes more though.

Edited October 10, 2008 by basher

[MadManMike]

Hi Everyone,

Further to my post yesterday, I have today received a letter from Salisbury Court stating that Simon Morson of Morspeed has now put an application forward to Leicester County Court for judgement to be set asside!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will now be expected to attend a hearing in Leicester.

This means that the whole matter is once again delayed and the nightmare continues.

Carol

That is unbelievable - they messed up, they cough up, surely?

Have you thought about writing to a magazine or something about this? Get Morspeed as much negative coverage as possible, if this is how they treat their customers - it would be bad enough if it were just a normal customer, but given the circumstances it's even more heartless.

Can you counter claim or anything to get compensation?

I know you probably just want to get it all over and done with but I'd get whatever I could out of them.

Scammers

[Broomer]

What actually happened? Oli ordered a engine a while ago right? After he passed they finished it and it ended up being completely the wrong engine? What's their argument here?

Im disgusted at More speed it is truly shocking.

There is a detailed report on TMF describing the many problems with the engine and its atchual specification compared to what Oli requested.

[Muel]

Link please? I'd like to read that.

[Skoze]

Just echoing what everyone else has said, but that's terrible!

Fingers crossed it'll all get sorted soon! Can't believe they've done this.

Will be awesome when it's finally done though

Mikes idea of writing to one of the mags sounds pretty good - providing you'd be happy with it of course.

Good luck

[Broomer]

I hope Nick doesnt mind me posting this.

Whilst what you say does make sense, in this situation, we feel it is appropriate to discuss details of the case in the forum, in light of the substantial donations made to this project by many forum members.

People will be wanting to know why there is an apparent lack of progress with the car, and it is only right that they should know what's happened.

The engine supplied by morspeed looked to be the correct one we had been waiting for, although considering it had apparently been ready for 9 months, we were surprised to find the block was warm and still smelt strongly of engine paint.

No exhaust manifold was given to us at Morspeed, we were told it was ready and waiting for us at Maniflow in Salisbury, I called maniflow myself there and then, to be told it had been ordered 15 minutes before we arrived, and was due to be made in the next week.

The engine had the 16v BMW head and throttle bodies, and all the associated bits of cam timing gear, and without further inspection it was impossible to further assess the specification.

Once back at the workshop, the engine was partially dismantled. This was done with an independent witness present. Film and photos were taken of the whole procedure.

It was then that the differences in specification were found.

EDIT: It's just been confirmed that the crank is infact NOT EN40B at all. It's a South African 1071 made from EN16 instead.

This engine was collected from Morspeed by myself and Oli's Family, and the ordered spec was actually discussed by myself and Simon, which he confirmed was as ordered.

As well as these obvious differences, a report was done by a local Mini centre, highlighting a total of 32 faults with the assembly of the engine, some very serious.

External examination:

1. Clutch cover cracked where clutch plunger/clevis pin fits into casing.

2. 3 of the exhaust manifold studs have damaged threads, ranging from flattened to missing thread on its outer end.

3. Balancer pipe on injector unit split.

4. No lock washers on any of the flywheel housing bolts.

5. Clutch cover bolts too short and loose.

6. Flywheel housing has NO facility for engine breather AT ALL with the engine only having 1 breather point, which is insufficient for use.

7. Top 3 Flywheel bolts too short for application (should be at least 10mm into casing, as to fit flush with block casting) and where only 4-5 mm long.

8. Front gearbox bolts FAR too short for application barely being long enough to thread into block.

9. Bolt missing from back of gearbox casing.

10. Incorrect size flat washers fitted to spark plug cover (cover implies washers should not be fitted at all)

11. 1 cam cover bolt loose (further inspection showed that threads in cam carrier completely missing) another cam cover bolt loose (Further inspection showed thread in cam carrier severely damaged and showing vivid signs of being cross threaded) on testing the threads of the other cam cover bolts we found that 2 of the Allen bolts had severely damaged heads, which meant that we were unable to undo them as it is impossible to turn without further destruction being caused.

Further examination upon partial strip down (bell housing and box off)

1. On removal of the loose clutch cover we discovered that the clutch pressure plate was a ‘National Standard remanufactured’ clutch this type of “Recon” clutch is totally inadequate for it’s intended use, the clutch pressure plate bolted on but with NO lock washers.

2. Clutch spring plates bolted to flywheel had NO lock tabs fitted, as flywheel had been lightened spacer washers should have been fitted, but instead nuts had been used as spacers (being made of ‘SOFT’ metal these could crack or brake up as nuts are not intended to be loaded under this way)

3. On removal of clutch pressure plate, it became apparent that a VERY early flywheel had been fitted (This type of flywheel has a central ‘bolted’ spigot and for a high revving engine would both allow the distinct probability of severe vibration, and as the bolts can come undone would render any ‘Balancing’ work a wasted job.

4. Flywheel was also fairly heavily lightened for a part that would be at least 25 years old.

5. The main central flywheel bolt was lock-tabbed, but was found to be BARELY tightened, when it should have been torqued up to 150 pounds foot.

6. With the flywheel removed the clutch plate was found to be f the same quality as the pressure plate (remanufactured) and again completely inadequate for the engines projected power output.

7. With flywheel removed Tail of crank shows signs of SEVERE wear and scoring making correct tightening and balancing of crank/flywheel assembly very hard or near impossible.

8. The motor was now drained of oil with barely a cup full of oil (about 250 millilitres) coming out (motor should be filled with 5 litres 5,000 millilitres), we inspected the wooded crate to see if oil had leaked there, but found only very very minor signs of oil loss, though the oil is new, clean and unused.

9. All the flywheel housing bolts lock tabs where missing and bolts and only flat washers where used (completely inadequate)

10. Engine has standard oil pump fitted and is totally inadequate for an engine with its projected power output.

11. With gearbox removed from engine gearbox was found to be of ‘Standard’ helical type as fitted standard to any Mini engine/gearbox unit.

12. Gearbox 3rd/4th gear synchro hub showed very apparent signs of rust infection, implying the gearbox had been left to the elements.

13. Competition central oil pick up pipe was fitted, but the stabiliser plate appeared to have been broken off, allowing the distinct possibility of stress fracture at it’s point of bolting to gearbox (would cause catastrophic engine failure).

14. Gearbox 3rd motion shaft bearing retaining plate bolted on with again NO lock tabs.

15. Final drive crown wheel bolted on to differential casing again bolted on with NO Lock tabs.

16. Final drive ratio incorrect being 3.44 to 1 ratio.

17. Connecting rods appear to be Standard 1275 GT type with the standard ‘Big end caps’ having only slight rudimentary modification work carried out.

18. 4 Bolt central main cap removed (showing again signs of rust contamination) main bearing ‘Shell’ appears to be “new” though “Thrust washers” appear to be old and both are of a low quality budget brand. Main bearing ‘Shell’ drops out of main cap implying faulty machining (possibly allowing main shell to spin under load)

19. Pistons appeared to be new from below and as we did not want to remove head we removed spark plugs (old) and the pistons where inspected through sparkplug holes and ARE new and un-run.

20. Cylinder head has a severe amount of carbon build-up in the exhaust ports, showing a large amount of use, with 3 of the exhaust crimp rings being severely damaged.

21. ALL gasket faces have had excessive amounts of gasket sealer used, this has both fallen into the inner workings of the engine, but with so much used, this implies inadequate quality of gasket faces, also such excessive use can cause false torque settings of those gasketed joints.

I would like to point out that all of the above is entirely factual and based on our findings so far.

Should anyone wish to dispute the validity of our reports they were done by an established Mini Centre of over 25 years, and we are happy for anyone to view all of the relevant documents.

Having waited almost a year for Oli's engine to arrive, can you imagine our dismay when we found it was wildly different from that which Oli wanted.

I am sure you can all make up your own minds on the matter, but if anyone would like a closer look, the engine, along with all the associated documents will be on display at Castle Combe on the 27th of September.

We thank you all for your continued support, and hope to be able to update this thread with good news in the near future!

Regards

Nick

[Skoze]

Thanks for sharing that, didn't realise what a mess it really was!

How could they possible make such a hash of it?

[SCOTTY___]

Sorry to hear about all this, ive been off this forum for some time, and to read all this is seriously saddening.

Carol.. you must the the ultimate woman. I cannot even begin to think about what this must be doing to you and i hope the guys egt what they deserve, and you your refund.

R.I.P Oli - He lives on in Everybody!

<3

[craigjames]

reading the last page, my emotions went from one of joy to sadness. its pretty scandalous of simon to go to these lengths, when clearly he knows he's in the wrong. i sincerely hope this is sorted soon carol. this mini is a fitting tribute to an awesome guy, i hope its sorted soon

[tipsy Jock]

I just can't believe he was happy to let the engine go like that, does he have no pride in his work? or care about his reputation? Good luck to you I say, i'm sure by the time this is over Morspeed with have a fraction of the business it used to.

looking forward to more updates

[Trials Punk]

The Finish Olis Mini Thread on TMF

Read this from Page 2 onwards, from this you will get some idea of what has been going on. The person who seems to be posting on behalf of morspeed seems to be a part time employee, who got stuck in the middle, then sided with simon (as he is his boss), then took it to a slightly more personal/un-professional way.

Said employee has stopped posting on the topic of late (guessing Simon told him to shut up) but has now begun PMing me due to my reference on TMF about the (part time employee).

Morspeed has put up a POP UP appology on its website Appology, which is annoying as if you have a pop up blocker it tends not to be displayed. Proves an interesting read............

I'm unsure of how long this pop up has been listed on this site.

Hope things are resolved soon.

[MadManMike]

I'd never buy from them. Not just because of Oli's situation, but because they have 3 intro pages and their website is awful.

It would seem that the whole business is half-hearted.

[Trials Punk]

If you want another example of how poor they site used to be, they even used to have an "adult page" of naked ladies for your enjoyment!!! Unusual way of going about things.

[JT!]

I really hope the money gets returned and then you can get all this sorted. What i read on that other forum was absolutely nuts!