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The radiator fan was tested to check that it actually worked, and that it would turn the opposite way round, as its supposed to be fitted to the rear of a radiator, and being fitted to the front it has to turn the other way round. The loom reverse switch connection was extended, and a second radiator bracket was made.
2/1/2000
The water pully bolts were tightened, and the loom was fitted along
the tunnel with more ally p-clips. As people have had problems with
SVA inspectors saying it can't be tied to fuel lines (though a
straight run of copper piping with no joins shouldn't be dangerous at
all), it was run along the passenger side upper tunnel rail tied to
the brake line, then across under the gear remote bracket, and then
along the driver's side upper tunnel rail away from the fuel line and
handbrake.
6/1/2000
The coil and electronic ignition black box were fitted. The wires to
the handbrake switch were attached to the tunnel, and the gearbox
reverse switch was connected to the rest of the loom.
I had recently noticed that part of the casing of the gearbox was very close to the chassis bracket that holds the gearbox rubber mount. As this is just webbing then I filed some of it away to give a bit more clearance, as when the gearbox is pressed down fairly hard it knocks onto the chassis making a fairly loud banging noise. Hopefully this will reduce the number of times it will hit the chassis, as I don't really want to take too much off the gearbox.
7/1/2000
The loom was fitted coming out of the tunnel and across the left hand
side of the rear, including connecting it to the electric fuel pump. A
start was also made on a replacement for the first radiator
bracket.
13/1/2000
The lower alternator bracket (the top one in a Sierra) was dropped off
at a local bodyshop to be extended, as the high position of the
alternator in the Storm/Six means this needs to be about 2 1/2 inches
longer than normal.
14/1/2000
Ran a bead of sealant along the front 'wing' to stop any water from
the wheels settling along the chassis rail, and when that is dry I'll
be drilling a series of holes along for drainage.
Something I had noticed recently was that the pump levers on the bottoms of the carbs didn't move the same amount - one of them stopped moving before the other one, so would give extra fuel at full throttle. For some reason the pump lever reaches its stop earlier than the other one, so I had to adjust it so that it moved over the whole throttle range. The adjuster nut didn't move it far enough, so I ended up making three tiny alloy washers that allowed it to work, so now both carbs should pump the same amount. Still, I can't complain too much as the carbs were fairly cheap...
Cleaned out the paint from the hole for the distributor and fitted it. Vacuumed out the cylinders to get rid of any dirt that has found its way into them, turning the engine over to open the inlet valves each time. Cleaned all round the inlet ports, and then fitted the inlet manifold and gasket, with plenty of sealant around the hole in the middle for the water outlet. The carbs and Tiger throttle cable bracket were then fitted using thackery washers. As there isn't space to fit a socket on the nuts and a spanner can only get one sixth of a turn at a time, it took quite a while to get the carbs tightened down, leaving around 1mm space in the washers. They are now held on securely, but with just enough movement to hopefully stop the fuel from frothing.
20/1/2000
Picked up the modified alternator bracket, which fits fine though it
is literally just long enough with a couple of mm spare when there is
enough tension on the fanbelt.
Phoned a local powdercoaters to get a quote for doing the roll hoops, and as they are small enough to just stick in with another load (and that there is no rush to get them done), just a few quid for the extra work would be enough to cover it. Apparently it would be 50/60 quid for them to be done specially. The only thing is that they need to be very clean first, which means sandblasting to get rid of the paint currently on them, and the only local place that does that doesn't seem to be open on a weekend, so I'll have to get in touch with them on monday.
Paper templates were made for the instrument binnacle and instruments, as I'll have to decide where they are all going to go.
Drainage holes in the front wing panels were drilled now that the sealant is dry. Both of the alternator brackets were painted along with the steering rack brackets, and a plastic spacer from the old brake servo was reshaped to be used as a support for the throttle cable onto the bracket.
The 11 fuses were worked out using a combination of matching the wire colours to the manual and testing with a multimeter to find out what wires were connected where. I managed it in the end, though the fuse ratings are bound to be wrong as the values in the Sierra manual are different for all the different models, so it'll just be a case of fitting a size that doesn't blow, assuming there are any with too low a rating.
21/1/2000
I scraped most of the paint off the roll hoops, as it came off very
easily and I might as well make them as clean as possible before they
go for sandblasting.
The top balljoints on the front suspension were painted, as I had forgotten to do then when I'd painted the lower balljoints, and with all the damp weather recently they had started to go rusty. I also painted the wheel bearing tensioner bolts, which I have been meaning to do for ages.
The alternator was temporarily fitted, so that clearances etc. could be checked. It looks like it will just be alright, though its currently sitting slightly forward so the fanbelt runs at a small angle, and I had to make some spacers to fit between the alternator and the lower bracket. The main problem is going to be the clearance to the right hand chassis rail, as the corner of the front bit of the alternator casing is right next to the corner of the top chassis rail. It looks like the best thing to do will be to move it backwards, which will increase the chassis rail clearance (as it runs diagonally to the engine), and also allow the fanbelt to run straight. This will mean the top bracket will need shortening, and the other side of it spacing out so that it still gets a decent grip when its all tightened down. The alternator casing could possibly be ground down slightly as well if more space is required, as it looks like there is plenty of spare material there. Also, the fanbels runs very close to the thermostat housing, and there isn't much contact between the belt and the water pump pulley, but apparently it is enough.
There is a decent gap of around one inch between the alternator and the exhaust header pipe, but just to be safe I want something in there to stop the alternator melting. So, I made a start on making an alloy heat shield to go in between them, which will be highly polished on the exhaust side to try and reflect as much of the heat away.
I checked with my next-door neighbour, and she has kindly agreed to let me keep the bodyshell in her garage when I get it next month. As I doubt there will be time to fit it the day I get it, apart from sitting it on top of the chassis I don't have anywhere else to keep it, so having it in another garage should make fitting it a lot easier. I'm taking a weeks holiday that week, so hopefully that should be enough time to get it fitted properly, especially with the help of my parents.
22/1/2000
Received the four rampipes in the post from LeMans, which I had
ordered last week through the East Anglian Tiger Owners Club (EATOC)
as they are able to get a 10% discount. Pipercross fully radiused,
30mm tall in silver. They seem to fit alright, though they do reduce
the clearance to the chassis rail slightly on the frontmost barrel.
I phoned up the local sandblasters, but apparently they only have small facilities, and don't want it to be contaminated with paint, so I'll have to find somewhere else.
Checked with Jim and Sue at Tiger, and I will be picking up the bodyshell on 17th Feb. Jim is letting me borrow his trailer to move it, as the petrol to take the trailer back up will probably be a lot less than the cost of hiring a trailer myself, and we know that the bodyshell will definitely fit onto it.
23/1/2000
The loom connections to the coil, distributor and ignition box were
zip tied and tidied up. The extensions I had put in for the black box
were a little bit too large, but now that everything is fitted there
it would be too awkward to try to shorten them.
24/1/2000
The roll hoops were dropped off at a different local sandblasters, who
apparently have experience of cleaning stuff prior to powdercoating,
so should know what they are doing...
While I was at work, my brother fitted two of the rampipes.
After 4 hours, and two attempts, the front section of the exhaust was finally fitted. First, we tried putting the downpipes into the collector, and then attaching that to the head, with everything gooed up with exhaust paste, as that is the way we had tested it a couple of times when figuring out that it was wrong. But, as we found out, the problem with this is that as the downpipes are such a tight fit in the collector (well, 2 of them are a very tight fit, another one seems alright, and the last one is hardly held in at all and just falls out...), that once its all slotted together its very hard to get the collector on at the right angle, as it has to be in the right place to line up with the rear section that goes over the wheel. Of course, we didn't get it on right to start with, and once attached to the head it was basically impossible to turn the collector round. Even when the whole lot was taken off the head it still wouldn't move, so we had to take it all to bits, clean off the paste that was starting to cure, and start again.
This time we decided to do it differently - loosely attaching the headers to the engine, and then forcing the collector onto them, trying to keep it at the right angle. Amazingly, this seemed to actually work, though the collector might not be on as far as it would go using the first method, as whacking the end of the collector with a big hammer only pushed it so far. But, at this point we had really had enough of it and thought that this would be enough (especially with the rear section pushing on the colletor anyway, which should stop it from moving), and left it at that.
As the paste is supposed to be cured by running the engine for a short while after its been assembled, I ended up using a paint stripping hot air gun to heat everything up. It won't be quite as hot as a running engine, but it should be better than just leaving it to cure by itself.
I really hope I never have to fit that exhaust again, as it was an absolute bugger to do, just because it is really badly made and designed. Looking at the exhausts on other cars, and even on Sixes and Cats, the shape and position of the downpipes going into the collector seem to be really clean and straight, compared to the mess that the Storm exhaust is (one of the downpipes actually bends in the collector!), and I'm sure that would make a huge difference to the huge struggle of fitting it. Considering that Jim had sent the original exhaust back a couple of times to be redone, and then even that didn't fit on my car without a modification and plenty of forcing the bits together, I am far from satisfied with the quality of that particular part of the kit.
Now we just have to get the rear section and silencer mounted, which at least slots together much easier that the front section, not that any of this part lines up particularly well either.
25/1/2000
While I was at work, my brother modified the top alternator bracket to
move the alternator backwards, allowing the fanbelt to run straight,
and the lower alternator bracket to attach directly to the
alternator.
The bolt holes in the tin rocker cover box were flattened down, as they had bent a bit and probably wouldn't give a good seal on the gasket in their current state. The spark plugs were tightened, and the routing of the ignition leads was checked. Connectors were crimped on for the radiator fan, as they are just bare wires in the loom but the fan has spade connectors on it. The radiator was trial fitted, with the large Sierra radiator hoses chopped up to fit. Two of the metal tube extensions that I was given are going to be needed in the large hoses, and the one I have is too small to be chopped in half, so I'll have to try and get another bit tomorrow. A start was made on some new improved radiator brackets made out of 5mm thick alloy.
26/1/2000
At lunchtime I managed to get an extra bit of pipe, and also picked up
a 1kg fire extinguisher, as I want something just in case there are
any flames when the engine is started.
The lower radiator brackets were finished, and we started modifying the upper bracket to fit the round chassis tubes at the top, which aren't the most ideal things to securely attach the bracket to. The bracket was also painted. The metal pipe was fitted to the radiator hoses, and it all went together fairly well. The engine earthing strap was fitted between an engine mount bolt and the plate on the chassis that the engine mount sits on, as its easier to bolt to this than any of the chassis rails. The connections were painted to try and keep them sealed.
27/1/2000
Went to town to pick up the last load of radiator hose. Unfortunately,
there are a couple of lengths I need that are over a metre, and the
local shops will only sell it in pre-packed metre lengths, which are
too short. So, the options are either to join a bunch of these
together to get the correct length, or get a single length that is the
right size. I want to minimise the number of joins in the hoses, as it
just increases the chances of leaks, so I want to get a single
run. One of the 2 local motorfactors managed to find an uncut length
the right size in a corner. It seemed a bit rigid compared to the
other hoses I had, but I thought I'd give it a go...
A spade connector was attached to the oil pressure sender lead, as there is one on the loom for the oil pressure switch connection, but not the oil pressure sender connection for some reason. The propshaft was fitted, after oiling the shiny end of it and the gearbox oil seal. The clutch was checked for full release, and when it was in gear with the clutch fully in, turning the engine over turned the propshaft, but it could be stopped with very little force so it must be that the clutch friction disk is just touching the flywheel. As the clutch pedal doesn't get full travel due to the vertical chassis rail at the end of the footwell, filing a bit off the clutch pedal will increase the travel a bit. With the propshaft fitted, the crankshaft pulley was tightened fully as the rear brakes could be used to stop the engine turning over.
It was around now that we noticed how much the cambelt was moving around on the pulleys. It had started to move off the pulleys, towards the front of the engine. As there doesn't seem to be anything to keep the belt from moving off, its something that we'll have to keep an eye on.
The radiator hoses were fitted, along with the radiator. The uncut length that I had bought this morning was a bit of a problem, as because I currently don't have a heater yet (and I will need one), the small connection on the water pump is connected straight to the inlet manifold. The pump is a much larger diameter than the brass screw in thing I got from Tiger with the manifold, and the pipe was too big to get a decent fit on the manifold. So, a quick look through the bits I got with the Sierra carbs, and there was a vacuum switch thing with conveniently sized inlet and outlet ports on it that would take the large water pump pipe and a spare bit of smaller pipe that would fit on the inlet manifold. A bit messy, but it was good enough to work.
The alternator was fitted, pulled up as tight as possible to get a decent amount of tension on the fanbelt. The pulley bolt on it was also tightened, as its difficult to do this without the fanbelt to try and stop it turning. The battery negative lead and loom earthing points were attached to the chassis, and the resistance between various points were checked to make sure that they had a decent contact.
The top radiator bracket was fitted - it gets a fairly strong hold, but the radiator still moves around a bit so something else will have to be sorted out.
The engine was filled with oil. There have been various discussions about the amount of oil that should go in on the mailing list, but I found that it took all 5 litres of the running in oil I got with the rebuilt engine. Admittedly this was a totally empty engine, and with a new filter, but that was how much I needed to get the correct level on the (unmodified) dipstick. After this, the rocker box was fitted along with the gasket. There was a bit of a leak from near the front where the cover goes up near the cam pulley (after a bit of late topping up), but after tightening the bolts a bit more this seemed to stop.
We then started to fill the radiator with water and antifreeze. Got about half a litre into it and the first leak was spotted, at the small connection on the bottom of the radiator. This is where the newly bought pipe fits on, and it was loose before the jubilee clip was attached, so it seems like its a problem with hose being too hard to compress down onto a smaller diameter pipe. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid this other than to get some more flexible hose that is a better fit. We decided that we would just buy a couple of one metre lengths tomorrow morning and try and get the engine running, rather than leave it until he could get some longer lengths of the correct hose (as one of the motorfactors near my parents is a proper shop where they don't sell alloy wheels or big exhausts, and you can buy just about anything you'd ever need to work on a car).
28/1/2000
Up early in the morning to buy the radiator hose, finding out that the
shop had actually been open an hour before we got there... 2 lengths
of 1 metre hose, but nice and flexible compared to the other stuff we
got yesterday. The hoses were then fitted (though the header tank had
to be moved to the front of the car due to the shorter hoses), and the
system was filled with water. The next leak was then found, from the
bottom of the thermostat housing. I had used the gasket supplied with
the engine, but apparently this wasn't enough on its own, so the water
was drained from the bottom of the radiator until the level was just
below the thermostat, and the housing was removed, instant gasket
sealant was applied, and it was all put back together and refilled.
We then noticed the next leak, which was a few drips from inside the bellhousing at the back of the engine. It wasn't the core plug in the head, didn't seem to be from the head gasket, which only left the core plug which is under the bellhousing. Bugger... As it was such a small leak, with only a drip every few minutes, we decided to leave it and just carry on, as it won't be the easiest thing to fix if it keeps on leaking...
The floor was swept for the first time in ages, the wheels were put back on, and it was taken off the axle stands. Its the same every time its put on its wheels, but it seems really low. The suspension is compressing more each time as more things are attached to the chassis, so it does get a little bit lower each time, but its still very low.
The water temperature and oil pressure gauges were attached to the loom as these are just direct plug in gauges. The rev counter has to be soldered into the loom, and I haven't had time to do that yet, so it will have to be run without this dial.
It was rolled out of the garage onto the drive (luckily it wasn't raining), the rear end was put up on axle stands just to be sure, the battery was connected up, and a petrol can was sat on the back section of the chassis just behind the axle with a bit of fuel pipe going into it. As the fuel tanks aren't attached at the moment, this will have to do as the fuel supply. The key was turned, and the fuel pump sprang into life for the first time. The fuel filter in the engine bay started filling with fuel, and then the first leak was spotted at the join between the hose on the output of the pressure regulator and the start of the copper run along the tunnel to the front of the car. This was tightened, the key was turned again, and it all settled down.
The engine was quickly turned over by hand a little bit to get the oil moving, and then with the coil to distributor lead removed the engine was turned over a few times on the starter. Amazingly it all seemed to work, meaning that the starter, battery, loom connections and various other things were actually working properly. The engine was checked for leaks, and as there didn't seem to be any the HT lead was reconnected and the engine was started properly.
With me on the key and my brother on the carb throttle lever (as the throttle cable hasn't been attached yet), the engine was turned over until it started to fire, and then was left to run on its own without the aid of the starter. It spluttered a bit, and then kept on going surprisingly smoothly as long as throttle was applied - it died as soon as it was left to idle, which was expected as the timing is probably off, the carb idle settings will be miles out, and as the engine is cold it probably wouldn't be able to idle even if it was set up properly anyway.
Keeping a check on the cambelt, it was started a couple of times to check that it kept on working, which it did, and then we left it at that for the day, after checking for any more major leaks, which there didn't seem to be.
As there hadn't been time to attach the rear section of the exhaust and the silencer, it was run with just the downpipes and collector on, but it was relatively quiet, though the revs were always kept low. It looks like its all started to move though, as gaps have appeared in the dried exhaust paste on 3 of the pipes, and there is a slight amount of black around the gaps on the bottom 2 pipes. Hopefully this won't be a problem when the rear section has been attached, as this should stop the collector moving around so much. I'll have to try and get the collector back on in its original position and then put the rest of the system on before the engine is started again.
After it was put away in the garage, I noticed that there was a lot of petrol standing in the carb barrels. Whether this was due to the fuel pressure regulator being set too high, or some other problem I have no idea, but it will be something else to check the next time the engine is started.
31/1/2000
Picked up the roll hoops from the sand blasters. They look much nicer
now, with a textured finish and all of the paint removed. Its very
strange, but they just don't look like the bare metal they started out
being. I'll get them taken to the powdercoaters this saturday, and
hopefully they should be ready before its time to put the bodywork on,
as the holes in the body are only big enough for the top of the hoops
and not the wide 'feet'.
The engine was checked for leaks, after keeping an eye on it over the last couple of days and making sure the floor was clean, it looks like there has only been one drip from the bellhousing. Hopefully this is a sign of it sealing itself or something, as I've been advised not to use any radiator weld stuff on it as it generally gunks up the rest of the engine. Everything else seems fine, but there is always plenty of time for other leaks to appear...
The front of the car was put back up on axle stands, the alternator was removed, and the crank fanbelt pulley was removed, which was much easier than I was expecting after the hassle of removing it at the breakers in the first place. There is definitely no washer thing on the crankshaft, so I'll have to get hold of one of these and put it on before I can start the engine again.
Total hours this month -
73.0
Total build hours -
424.0
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