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Two bits of steel strip for the second central body bracket were measured and cut.
While the pedal box was out, a start was made on attaching some spacers to the bit of the brake pedal that presses against the switch, as a comfortable position to have the brake pedal in for me is too far back for the switch to work (around 15mm away), so some bits of thick alloy strip were cut and will be bolted to the brake switch plate part of the pedal.
13/8/2001
While I was at work, my dad and brother did some more rubbing down of
the front and sides of the bodywork, and more of the bubbles/holes
were filled in, well over 100 on the flat bit between the lights
alone!
The spacers for the brake pedal were drilled and attached, and the lower holes in the centre body brackets were drilled.
14/8/2001
After having a look yesterday, an ordered clutch pedal quadrant
arrived today which was the only one that would fit, which is from a
Fiesta (if anyone is interested, the details are - High Tech Parts
number PCQ02, 'Clutch quadrant kit Fiesta 1989 on. all models'). The
groove is about 5mm shallower, which should make quite a bit of
difference to the amount of cable pulled through, and its black
instead of yellow for some reason. This was fitted after the back of
the pedal had been ground down around 5mm (enough to make a
difference, but not enough to reduce the strength of the pedal), and
the pedal box was put back in the car. Some trial pushing of it when
in gear with the pedal pressed showed that it seemed to be working
fine. The real test will be trying it when the engine is running..
More rubbing and filling of the front and sides of the bodywork, the Volvo header tank was cleaned out by filling it with pebbles and shaking it, a thin bit of steel was used to make a deflector which will protect the speedo sensor and cable from any stones that get thrown up (I've no idea if it would ever happen, but it was my brother's idea and he made it all so I won't complain).
When I got back from work, the top holes were drilled for the centre body bracket, the central hole in the body, and the holes in the two steel strips. The bars were also bent to shape in the same was as the ones for the left centre bracket, which took quite a while to get right.
15/8/2001
More rubbing and filling of the front and sides of the bodywork, some
thick alloy washers were made for the top bolt holes in the pedal box,
as the penny washers I had previously used had been bent out of shape
a bit, the reverse stop bolt was fitted and adjusted, though its
probably going to be best to smooth the end of it off so that it
doesn't start eating away at the bottom of the remote lever.
A start was also made on working out the position for the seats and how to mount them. As the two chassis rails the seat are supposed to attach to are a few inches too narrow for the Cobra seats to fit onto, the current decision is to get some steel strip which will be bolted to the chassis through the two rails, and then the ends will be attached to the seats. As I don't want huge bolts/nuts sticking out under the car, then strips will have to be attached to the chassis first so that only the bolt head shows underneath, and then the seat will be attached to the bars, meaning that holes will have to be cut in the alloy floor so that there is access to fit the seat mount bolts. These holes will then have to have some alloy plates stuck/rivetted over them, but I might be tempted to leave them off initially for SVA so that the inspector can see how the seats have been attaached.
16/8/2001
The ends of the central support brackets were trimmed, as I had
originally made them just slightly longer than necessary.
Instead of just using the single hole where the bracket is bolted to the body, I'm going to use a thin bit of steel plate either side of the GRP with 3 holes in to spread the load a bit. The pilot holes in the body for the central support plates were drilled, and two plates were cut to shape.
18/8/2001
Bought some countersunk bolts to hold the filler caps on, and some
dome headed bolts to attach the seats mounting bars with, so that the
bits that will be sticking out under the floor won't easily catch on
anything.
Cut out two more steel plates for the centre body mounts, drilled the centre holes for them, and cut out a load of bits of car inner tube to go between the GRP and the steel plates.
I just happened to notice that the silencer looked a little bit higher than normal, which was due to all four of the rubber mounts splitting themselves in half. It seems that the glue holding the rubber part onto the metal part isn't as strong as the tension in the exhaust system (which shouldn't be there in the first place if the exhaust had been made the right shape), and they have all popped off. I had got a replacement from Sue for the single one that had split when they were tightened down, but there is no point in getting another load of them as the same thing will just happen after a while. So, as the silencer is so far away from the engine, I think just using solid metal mountings will be the best thing to do, because as there is no mounting point along the side of the car apart from sort of resting on one of the outriggers, there should be enough play in that section to take up any engine movement. Yet another thing to add to the large list of problems with the exhaust..
As the rubber mounts are fairly big, I needed some thick lumps of metal to use as spacers, and the old Sierra donor inlet manifold was the best source for this. A start was made on chopping out the four mounting hole sections of the manifold, which aren't quite big enough, but already have holes in them which saves extra drilling.
20/8/2001
The two extra holes in each centre body mount plate were marked and
drilled, and then the pilot holes in the body were enlarged to
8mm. The extra holes were also cut in the bits of rubber.
Had another go at sorting out the throttle pedal so that it can be made the right shape for me. The flat pedal section was cut off so that it can be welded onto the other side, the lower end was trimmed to shorten it as its currently too long, and a bit of steel was dug out to stick onto the flat at the top so that the cable can be attached to the side. Hopefully we will be able to get this welded up tomorrow. Its a while since it was last looked at, but it seems like the pedal will be fine on the normal pivot and it won't need to be moved back, though the pedal definitely has to be turned round. The main thing is to make sure that the idle position is closer to me than the brake pedal so that its easy to be able to move my foot across and get the brake pedal, as emergency braking is more likely than emergency accelleration..
All four bits of the inlet manifold were chopped out.
21/8/2001
My brother rounded off the corners of the four steel plates, which
should stop any extra stress on the bodywork at the corners which
might happen if they had been left square. He also cleaned up the
silencer spacers a bit.
He ground off The rough bits left on the throttle pedal from last night, and it was taken round to the friendly welder's so that he can put it together the way I want it done. Apparently should be done before the weekend. Some steel strip was also bought for the seat mounts.
We then started to fit the rhs filler neck, as this will have to be fitted for the next time that the engine is run. Four pilot holes were marked and drilled in the neck, the marks were transferred to the body and backing plate, and then the holes were drilled and enlarged to 8mm. A countersunk bit was used on the top of the filler neck so that the bolt head will fit under the filler cap. Some extra reshaping of the backing plate was also necessary so that it was a close fit to the filler neck, due to the size of the weld around the neck.
Something I had noticed when the holes were being cut in the body for the filler necks was that the filler caps were far too tight a fit in the neck, so that they couldn't actually be locked in. The problem is that the neck has a fairly sharp step in the edge that the plastic rotating bit of the cap is supposed to slide up and over, and all that happens is that it bites into the plastic and you can't turn the lock. A little bit of very awkward filing on the inside of the filler neck to round off the corner, and the lock can be turned. Its still very tight, so will have to be filed off a bit more, but at least it will actually go in now. The same will have to be done to the filler neck for the other side as well. Some bits of rubber were also cut to go between the backing plate and the bodywork, as the top side looks flat enough for the filler neck to sit on it, but the underside is far too lumpy to do that.
Congratulations to Andy McMinn who passed his SVA yesterday. He originally thought that I would have finished before him, but with the number of problems, delays and the extra work needed on the Storm its taken much longer than I had expected. If I was building a Cat or Six (ie. a relatively well designed kit where everything almost goes together straight away and you don't end up having to modify/make hundreds of bits/brackets/etc.), I'm confident that I would have finished it months ago..
22/8/2001
The remains of the exhaust rubbers were removed from the chassis and
silencer, but as it seems best to put some sort of isolation on the
silencer we decided to drill holes through the centre of the rubbers,
and then stack these up with the bits of manifold so that there will
be a bit of movement allowed. I don't know if it will make any
difference, but the current alloy spacers aren't big enough anyway, so
something else was needed to get the correct height.
The steel strip for the seat mounts was cut up into sections of the right length.
The filler neck bolt holes in the bodywork were filed out to fit, and the filler neck was test fitted. Seems like its going to be alright, though one of the bolts is fairly close to the exhaust so will have to have the end trimmed to make it a bit safer.
We then started a trial fitting of some exhaust wrap around the section that goes up and over the rear wheel, as that is where it gets closest to the chassis and bodywork, not to mention the petrol tank and filler neck. Its amazing how much is used to do a short bit of exhaust - 3 metres of 2" wrap using a 1" overlap only managed to do about 40-50cm of exhaust, though that did include a corner where more than normal gets used to ensure that the outside of the corner still gets plenty of overlap. As I only plan to do the rear section, the header near the alternator, and a section near the clutch cable I don't need a huge amount of wrap, but the 6.5 metres that I bought at Stoneleigh (I thought I had 7m, but one bit in a sealed bag that said 2m was actually only 1.5m) might not end up being enough to do even that.
25/8/2001
Went round to a scrapyard in the morning. The main thing was for some
door latches from a Fiat Uno, but we also ended up picking up a boot
latch from a Carlton, a rear view mirror from an early 90s Toyota
Corolla as it mounts to the headlining above the windscreen instead of
being stuck on, and some Volvo knobs off rotary switches, as the
heater and headlight switches I currently have only have one so I
wanted a matching pair.
On the way back we picked up the throttle pedal which had been welded back together.
With the plan being to run the engine and hopefully drive the car some time over the weekend, we made a start on all of the little jobs needed to be able to drive the car.
Fitted the main bit of exhaust wrap properly, after stitching together the 3m and 2m lengths. It was held on with a jubilee clip either side of the wheel, and a bit of twisted wire in the middle over the join.
A quick trial fit of the throttle pedal showed that it was a much better fit than the original, so the hole was drilled in the top plate for the cable, which was fitted to the carbs and secured to the pedal with an M8 bolt that has been drilled near the head. The operation isn't particularly smooth, but once the cable and pedal pivot have been oiled/greased, it should improve things.
The copper fuel line to balance the two tanks was fitted to the rear chassis rail behind the silencer, and connected to the rubber hose going to the fuel pump. When both tanks are fitted, this will connect to the two lower pipes on the tanks, but for now this will allow the pump to get fuel from the rhs tank.
The top takeoff pipe on the rhs fuel tank is not used, so has to be blanked off. This is done using a short bit of rubber fuel hose which has an M8 bolt fitted to the end with a jubilee clip over it. It would probably be better if it was welded instead, but its a bit less hassle to do this. Putting the rubber hose onto the tank wasn't the easiest thing to do - its exactly the right size for the copper fuel line I have, but its just a bit too tight a fit on the tank connections. Even with a little bit of oil on its a right struggle..
The silencer was bolted down using the alloy spacers and the bits of rubber chopped from the split exhaust rubbers, and the alternator and belt were refitted yet again.
A little bit more filing was done on the gear linkage, as it started to go sticky again and was hard to change forward, mainly from 4th to 3rd. The end of the reverse stop bolt was ground down to make it smoother, and the thread was removed from the side that will sit on the block on the end of the remote lever which will hopefully help to reduce any wear on those parts.
26/8/2001
The sections of fuel hose for the rhs tank were cut, the lower pipe to
the balance bar, and the filler hose and breather pipe. The tank was
then fitted, the filler neck was put in place, and all of the hoses
were attached. This now means that petrol can be supplied to the pummp
using the tank instead of a petrol can resting on the back of the
chassis.
Its very difficult to tell, but we tried to get the front wheels to have very slight or just zero toe in. The problem is that the bodywork gets in the way, and the shape of the bodywork makes it look like the wheels are always toed out due to it getting wider towards the back wheels. It seemed like we weren't able to get the wheels lined up properly without cutting some off the steering rack, so a couple of threads were lopped off the right side. The left side didn't need any, but this was probably just due to not having the steering rack central to begin with. Quite a bit different to the recommended 5 threads off each side according to the Six build manual, as I am assuming that the front is the same width as a Six. The track rod ends were then bolted in place for the first time
The camber bolts were set to the middle position for now, as without having the ride height set correctly there is no point in trying to set it accurately. The only reason we changed it was that one side was full positive and the other was full negative, just to check clearances etc. Once I've got a C-spanner for the shocks and got the ride height set the camber can be adjusted to very slight negative.
While the front wheels were off to adjust everything, my brother noticed that the rhs steering rack rubber was touching the alloy panel in the front when the rack was turned all the way to the left. We had originally cut large enough holes in these panels to ensure they didn't touch the rack, but it seems like something has settled. The strange thing is that the rhs rubber also touches the vertical chassis rail behind it, but doesn't on the lhs. This either means that the chassis is different on each side, the rack isn't attached straight (using the pre-drilled holes in the chassi), or something else isn't quite lined up. I ended up putting the right side wheel back on before cutting any of the panel out, but I remembered before putting the left wheel on so that hole was extended a bit just to make sure, though it didn't seem to be touching anything.
All of the bits of wiring that aren't attached yet were cable tied to any convenient chassis rail, and the header tank (which is still at the front of the engine bay) was tied to a clamp and the headlight hole. Once the centre body brackets have been sorted out the replacement Volvo header tank that I've had for ages will be attacahed to the bulkhead, but there is no point in doing that until I can fit the heater as well, so that I only have to drain the cooling system once.
Various other minor things were tidied up, but it looked ready to start the engine and try driving it tomorrow..
27/8/2001
First, the battery (which had been on charge for most of yesterday)
was fitted and connected up. There were no sparks when the leads were
connected, which is always good. Then, the fan override switch was
tested to make sure that the fan was working. It was fine, and worked
as expected with the ignition off.
The tank was then filled with petrol, putting a small amount in first and checking for leaks everywhere. It all seemed fine, so about half of the can was put in.
The engine was turned over a couple of times with a spanner on the crank pulley bolt to start the oil moving, then it was turned over on the starter with the fuel pump fuse removed and the central dizzy lead removed and grounded to the engine, which gave a decent spark showing that that was still working.
We then refitted the fuel pump fuse, turned the power on and allowed the fuel to reach the carbs. Checked for leaks again, pressed the throttle a few times to add a bit of fuel, then started it up. It turned over 3 or 4 times, then suddenly roared into life, settling down into what seemed a very smooth idle. As the exhaust paste hadn't properly cured last time when the engine didn't want to start, I wanted to redo it all but only if I knew the engine was going to start this time. So, it was switched off and left to cool down so that I could go round all of the joins and put new paste on, chipping the old stuff off where it hadn't already fallen off by itself. While the engine was cooling down, I emptied the rest of the petrol into the tank and went round to the petrol station to refill it, as the rate it got through petrol last time means it will probably need more than one can this time. Somehow I managed to get over 6 litres in a 5 litre can..
Once the paste was applied, the engine was started again (it caught almost immediately this time), and left to idle for a while so that the exhaust paste could start to cure properly. The first problem that was spotted was that fuel was getting past the number one spark plug, which hadn't been done up tight enough. A quick tighten up of all the spark plugs and it was running again. My brother then noticed that there was petrol dripping out of the front carb breather hole on the trumpet side. This meant that there was far too much fuel getting into the carb, either due to the float level being too high, or fuel being forced past the carb valve, even though the pressure regulator is set at its lowest setting.
So, the fuel was mopped up, the car pushed back into the garage, and the float levels were adjusted on both the carbs. A photocopied sheet that I'd got with the service kit said that there should be 15mm between the end of the float and the casing gasket when the spring on the valve is just being pressed, but obviously that is too high for some reason, so they were set a bit lower than that just to see what would happen.
After being pushed outside again, it started straight away, and was run up to temperature with no more fuel leaks, though we kept an eye on the carbs, anything else that could leak, and the sections of the exhaust that run close to bits of the body/chassis and fuel tank, but the exhaust wrap seemed to be doing its job very well. There was also a lot less smoke from the exhaust, suggesting that part of the reason it was running rich was due to the float levels being too high in the first place. It ran out of fuel once, so had to be topped up from the full can. Once it reached about 94 degrees the fan switched on and the temperature soon dropped to high 80s before the fan stopped, so it showed that that works. The system probably needs to be bled properly, but that can be done when the system is drained and the heater and new header tank fitted.
As it all seemed to be working fine, we decided to try driving it. First, the brakes were tested by pushing it down the drive and then stopping it only with the pedal, which seemed to work fine. It was then pushed backwards off the drive, started up, and driven very carefully back up the drive in first. No weird noises, no rattles from the gearbox/propshaft/diff - it all seemed to be fine. There was no creeping when it was in gear with the clutch pressed in either, so thankfully the new clutch quadrant must be allowing the clutch to fully disengage. So, it was put into reverse and backed off the drive. The only problem now was that the gear remote had gone stiff again, probably something to do with the heat from the engine, exhaust or the sun (as it was a bright day for a change), which meant that it didn't want to change gear very easily. So, the remote was removed and it was driven on and off the drive a couple of times, with my brother having a go.
Well, it has taken over 15 months of work and about 3 cans of petrol, but it has finally moved under its own power! Definitely good to know it can do that, but the next thing will be to have more of a drive round the estate to check that other gears work and what its like at a slightly higher speed and with the clutch fully released, as it might start making noises that won't show up when its crawling along. That will have to wait until the gear remote is working again, as first gear is very difficult to find without the reverse stop. The bottom of the collector was leaking a lot (as I wasn't able to put any more paste onto it), so that can be done before then as well.
28/8/2001
The gear linkage was filed down a bit more to make it a better fit. I
don't want too much taken off, but if it decides to seize up once the
tunnel is on it won't be very easy to get access to it, so if anything
it will just have to be slightly slack.
Removed all of the current lower side body brackets so that they can be painted and permanently fixed to the chassis. The throttle pedal and carb return spring bracket were also removed to be painted.
29/8/2001
My brother got all of the brackets and throttle pedal painted, and
picked up some more dome headed bolts and washers that will be
needed.
30/8/2001
The edge of the new driver's door was rubbed down by my brother, using
the sandpaper I got with it. It seems that the moulds weren't lined up
properly when they made it though, so there is going to be a step
along the top of the door. Maybe I should have just kept the original
small door..
Total hours this month -
55.5
Total build hours -
747.5
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