Le Mans Mini Marcos found

[Pete]

I've heard all sorts of diff ratios. Also 2.49...

Do you mean 2.9 Jeroen?

No, I have heard 2.49, I know it seems odd.

Bloody hell, you'd have to push it out of the pitlane!

[Pete]

I'm suspect you've all read this but for those that haven't here's Billy Dulles' account of the events leading up to the '66 Le Mans race..

http://www.minimarcos.org/sport/lm66bd/index.html

[Jack of all trades]

Well the part about the wheels doesn't really make any sense. The mould Cooper used was what became known as the rosepetal and not the Minilite.
The Deep Sanderson used Minilites similar to the rear wheels on this picture
http://www.minimarcos.org.uk/sport/lm66/mm52.jpeg

While the rear wheels are early Minilites (but not that early as they don't appear to have a groove) what on earth are the front ones.
As the circumference of the center isn't a "disk shape" as on a Minilite but it looks like the nuts are inserted between the spokes.
Even the nuts are different to the Minilite ones on the rear wheels.
Could they be something Marnat sold in his shop of French origin??

I bet that will take some seaching to get these (and on some other shots the car had a full set of these!)

Good luck Jeroen with all the details and the analysing, the devil is in the detail.

Jacco

[Pete]

I was talking to Jeroen about those front wheels this week, they're not something I recognise! Other shots of the car do show it on a full set of early Minilites with the grooves in.

[Rubber Sprung]

Ive got a set of the odd wheels used on the Marcos,they do look like early minilights but they have a small raised lip inboard of the outer rim edge and have two piece balance weights that clap on this flange .I bought them thinking they were early flanged minilights!

[Rubber Sprung]

This is a poor picture of said wheel.

[mk1coopers]

Wanted, info on a set of extreamly rare Minilite style wheels for the Le Mans Marcos.....2 MK1 PC posts later....tick

[Jack of all trades]

As the Deep Sanderson had Minilites as early as 1964 (they have to be at least pre production as the normal production run started in 1966!!) Anything could be possible.
Tech Dell themselves say in their brochure "after two years of design and foundry research", the wheels that Laurence used on the 64 Le Mans entry show in pictures as the ones on the rear of the Marcos with the matt black centers.
The other set appears to be painted white (or maybe silver) and could be any of the "research attempts" before regular production.

That makes finding a set even harder!

The one that Rubber Sprung shows in his picture looks quite near to those and the groove for the weights was a feature the Minilites in 1966 had. There are even examples that have grooves on the out and inside of the wheel for the clamped lead.
Until this pictures I have never seen a Minilite that didn't have the "full disk" center that is still used today, but Rubber Sprung's picture shows that the Le Mans Marcos almost certainly had pre-production wheels fitted.
So Jeroen, with Rubber Sprung's wheels for the rear that would be two down and two to go!!

Remember tough that old Magnesium wheels need proper care and attention to be and stay safe!

[Pete]

If you use the excellent zoom facility here you can see that the Minilites on the practice car look like the one pictured above.

https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/ty952gh0063

I've got a set of the early wheels with the single groove for the weights but don't think I've seen one of these before!

[JC T ONE]

Another 1966 Le Mans car has just been sold.

Its the Alpine Renault from the La Gombe collection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jMJA_3EKAg


Video from the auction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5dAh32X7A0




Jens Christian

[Jeroen Booij]

Another 1966 Le Mans car has just been sold.

Its the Alpine Renault from the La Gombe collection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jMJA_3EKAg

Video from the auction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5dAh32X7A0

Jens Christian

That's funny. I remember a launch trip in the south of France with the Renault Clio V6, it must have been in 2001. We were chasing each other with two cars, when all of a sudden the La Gombe yard turned up around a corner. I'd heard of it, but didn't know we were this close to it. Of course we had a look and saw some great machinery being taken over by plants. The man himself was not there, and all was left open, so we had a good look around. Never knew he had this Alpine though!

[JC T ONE]

Another 1966 Le Mans car has just been sold.

Its the Alpine Renault from the La Gombe collection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jMJA_3EKAg

Video from the auction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5dAh32X7A0

Jens Christian

That's funny. I remember a launch trip in the south of France with the Renault Clio V6, it must have been in 2001. We were chasing each other with two cars, when all of a sudden the La Gombe yard turned up around a corner. I'd heard of it, but didn't know we were this close to it. Of course we had a look and saw some great machinery being taken over by plants. The man himself was not there, and all was left open, so we had a good look around. Never knew he had this Alpine though!

Ohh lucky you - its amazing to see places like this, had the oppertunety myself a few times, but its becoming a rare sight these day,s with the eu and all its rules.


If you look in one of the French youtube video,s can you see that the Le Mans Alpine was tucked away inside a building, and the door had been sealed off using cement & bricks.

The guys from the auction house broke down the wall, to get to the cars inside.

[rich@minispares.com]

I've heard all sorts of diff ratios. Also 2.49...

jeroen

this cannot be correct for the simple reason that a 2.49 ratio physically would not fit into a mini gearbox


the gear centres between the crownwheel and the pinion is 4" (give or take, you can loose a little if the case is line bored, but for this conversation, that doesn't matter!)

this means that the right size gears have to be used to that they 'reach' each other, this is further complicated by the size of the saddle that holds the pinion in, it will only accept a pinion of a certain size - even rover had to get it made bigger to fit the later 3.1 and 2.7 into it, so a pinion for a 2.49 would be huge.

I suppose (worked out on a bit of paper) that you can 'theoretically' do it, but the teeth would hardly mesh, or you could create some sort of bastard toothed straight cut thing that was tooth corrected to work, but I think it would be such a horrid thing (i.e it would be really noisy and probably very weak) - it would also have needed the saddle ground right out to make it fit.

on balance, I just cannot see that it was done

never mind the fact that the clutch would have taken an utter monstering to get the car rolling!

[Jeroen Booij]

I've heard all sorts of diff ratios. Also 2.49...

jeroen

this cannot be correct for the simple reason that a 2.49 ratio physically would not fit into a mini gearbox


the gear centres between the crownwheel and the pinion is 4" (give or take, you can loose a little if the case is line bored, but for this conversation, that doesn't matter!)

this means that the right size gears have to be used to that they 'reach' each other, this is further complicated by the size of the saddle that holds the pinion in, it will only accept a pinion of a certain size - even rover had to get it made bigger to fit the later 3.1 and 2.7 into it, so a pinion for a 2.49 would be huge.

I suppose (worked out on a bit of paper) that you can 'theoretically' do it, but the teeth would hardly mesh, or you could create some sort of bastard toothed straight cut thing that was tooth corrected to work, but I think it would be such a horrid thing (i.e it would be really noisy and probably very weak) - it would also have needed the saddle ground right out to make it fit.

on balance, I just cannot see that it was done

never mind the fact that the clutch would have taken an utter monstering to get the car rolling!

Thanks for that Richy.
I have just spoken to a friend who knows about these sort of things, and I told him that a new world is opening up for me. I have always totally lost myself in the historical part of motoring things, not so much in the technical side. But for now I have to take a plunge in there, too. I must say it's very refreshing!

[Jack of all trades]

If you use the excellent zoom facility here you can see that the Minilites on the practice car look like the one pictured above.

https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/ty952gh0063

I've got a set of the early wheels with the single groove for the weights but don't think I've seen one of these before!

As Derek Power of Tech Del in Chiswick was only 1/2 mile away from Chris Lawrence of Lawrence tune in Acton it was entirely possible that Lawrence got pre-production wheels from there. Power (together with John Ford) started the development of the Minilite wheel in 1962 or 63 as one of his other companies had spare production facilities. The primary idea was to get the weight down (as Power was a nuclear engineer he was very familiar with magnesium) and as much cooling as possible to the brakes (that's why there's as much room as possible between the spokes and it is said that the even "fan" air to the brakes).
If the Deep Sanderson was one of the earliest cars to have had Minilites fitted we do know for the Le Mans test of the 19th of April 1964 it didn't have them fitted as with the actual 24hr race (22-6-1964) it had them.
As for the design changes, the wheels with the groove (these must be the earlies design) have appeared with at least 3 different outer rims. And we all have seen the Works cars with the "solid" outers. The wheels Rubber sprung has came from Graham Robinson and he got them with his prototype Moke and they puzzled me for a long time but now the connection is made via France and the delivery from Lawrence via Dulles to Hrubon.
As i have never seen the wheels "in the flesh" i always wondered if somebody altered the centers "in periode" but with the Le Mans pictures showing the same they will surely be maybe the most original Minilite there ever was (but as the design changed i can imagine the strength of the (original) design wasn't as good as it should be..)

I'll hang up my anorak now as i could go on for hours, somebody should write a book about this.
And this are just the wheels!!

[Pete]

It's an interesting subject! I'll take a look at mine tomorrow. I'll also have a look through some photos, apart from the Deep Sanderson I only really remember seeing the first Minilites on club racers like Harry Ratcliffe's car in 1965. Mabbs also had some in this photo in August '65. As before you can zoom in, I'm sure mine are the same with the groove and kerbing rim..

https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/sx209mf7070

[mini63]

A couple more pictures.
Claude Ballot-Lena and Jean-Louis Marnat entry, 1966

The car looks different though in each picture but the entry list details only one for that year.

[Jack of all trades]

It's an interesting subject! I'll take a look at mine tomorrow. I'll also have a look through some photos, apart from the Deep Sanderson I only really remember seeing the first Minilites on club racers like Harry Ratcliffe's car in 1965. Mabbs also had some in this photo in August '65. As before you can zoom in, I'm sure mine are the same with the groove and kerbing rim..

https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/sx209mf7070

Minilite had started production of Magnesium racing wheels in 1963 and they were first used in racing in February 1964, but that wasn't necessarily in 10" on a mini....
As we are all biased towards BMC products it could well be we've all missed them, as they were on sale in the USA as early as April 1964 surely there must have been races in the UK who got a hold of them between February and April 1964. Lawrence got them in June fitted so might have had them lets say April/ May.
Alloy "sport wheels" only came about in 1971 (and they were "mass produced" in a high pressure die casting production, in 1973 the switched to low pressure casting due to quality problems), so it's safe to say all Minilite wheels used before 1971 were in fact magnesium racing wheels.

The kerbing rim has changed at least 3 times while the groove was still there from a slight curve to the full on rim in the Radcliffe picture.

[rich@minispares.com]

Thanks for that Richy.
I have just spoken to a friend who knows about these sort of things, and I told him that a new world is opening up for me. I have always totally lost myself in the historical part of motoring things, not so much in the technical side. But for now I have to take a plunge in there, too. I must say it's very refreshing!

j

ive just worked this out

on a 165 tyre a 2.49 gives 22.75 mph on a set of 1:1 drops

that's

6000 rpm = 136 mph

6500 rpm = 147 mph

7000 rpm = 159 mph

[Pete]

As we are all biased towards BMC products it could well be we've all missed them, as they were on sale in the USA as early as April 1964 surely there must have been races in the UK who got a hold of them between February and April 1964. Lawrence got them in June fitted so might have had them lets say April/ May.

I can't say I've seen any before '65. (Rosepetals on Minis aplenty yes of course, first seen on the CCC Twini in '63?). I'll see if I can find any.

Back to the Marcos (that 2nd pic is the '67 one Michael) are there any interior shots Jeroen? Usually the hard one to find!