E30 Zone

Brain teaser what scotish car tried & tested BMW engines HB

didnt know that the scots built a car. how,s this for a laugh my other half has just retrieved my car alarm remote from the bloody washing machine

Wasn't there a motor manufacturer over Dumbarton way - Alexander I think. Can't think of any other, other than the Hillman Imp

rootes

It was the hillman IMP BUILT IN LINWOOD i picked up several engines from the factory turned out to be the 700cc engines they were out off BMWs small coupe;s great wee cars iam showing my age now

You been drinking?

The Imp was a fine vehicle with a great engine (Coventry Climax FWA, a smaller version of the Lotus Elite 1220 unit). Much was said about how badly they were made but in my experience they were better made than Ford and BMC stuff of the period. Late ones were crap after Chrysler took over Rootes though, hardly fault of the Linwood workers. The Imp suffered from not being a Mini which beat the Imp to the market place by 4 years. By the time the Imp arrived the Mini was very firmly entrenched with basic, Cooper, Cooper S, van, Estate etc etc.
Linwood also built Avengers and Sunbeams in the late seventies.

Hi Rosco P dont drink iv been round the block afew times worked on 4 IMPS for racing at ingliston &knockhill the engines were boxer motors as fitted to BMW bikes adapted to imp gearboxes the problem with the boxermoter in the back of the imp was cooling Regards HB

HB wrote:Hi Rosco P dont drink iv been round the block afew times worked on 4 IMPS for racing at ingliston &knockhill the engines were boxer motors as fitted to BMW bikes adapted to imp gearboxes the problem with the boxermoter in the back of the imp was cooling Regards HB

Nonsense. From the very outset Rootes used the CC four cylinder engine. The engine in the BMW 700 appeared in 1959, long after Rootes were using the CC motor in the 'Slug' prototypes.
There would have been no problem keeping the BMW engine cool in the back of an Imp either.

OK i am talking mid 60s on the cooling side off things why then did the IMP with rear radiator have so many cooling and head gasket problems we had to run with front mounted radiators rootes did try bmw boxer motors on our racing imp we even had the cyl/head modify to fit wills rings to stop blowing h/ gaskets HB

Sorry, can I have that in English please? Or at least use some grammar and the odd full stop? Thanks.

The problem with the Imp - as you no doubt already know - was that leaves gathered on the radiator stone guard. Given proper maintenance and yearly anti freeze changes they were fine but Joe Public tried to treat an all alloy engine like a Minor 1000 which is why they went wrong. I never had any cooling issues with my Imp - a 1965 (but '66D plated) 998 Rallye.
Front mounted rads were a waste of time on road cars. To think of Rosemary Smith rallying 998 Imps with rear mounted rads and no problems - ah well.........
I dn't believe the BMW boxer thing for a minute. Why would anyone replace a Coventry Climax unit with a shed of a boxer bike engine?

http://www.imps4ever.info/racing/rallies/rosemary.html

Hi andyboy i served my aprenticeship in a garage Callenders they were agents for jaguar aston martin and then bmw i did not say they never used the s.o.c engine at some time in the production they tried the boxer eng i did pick up 4 engines from linwood and i can tell you it was tried in a car .for the leaves i think that was british rails problem as you know the wire mesh grill on the radiator housing was very fine and road muck blocked the airflow thus O/H the other problem was the cylinder head was to be re torqued at the first service but it was to much bother for the mechanics we only used front radiators for racing i have owend 4 imps 1rallycross imp and used andy chessman for competion parts well andy i would not come up with story about the boxer engine .i must thank you for your comments regards HB