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I took the 3 easily accessible spark plugs out (the fourth one is party blocked by the alternator bracket) and had a look at them. They were very black and sooty, but I wouldn't have thought that it was enough to stop any sparks from happening. But, I gave them a clean anyway as it could be all that caused the starting proble.
I chopped the short radiator hose joining metal pipe in half, and cleaned the ends up so that they were nice and smooth. I then took the handbrake cable out as it seems like I've ended up putting the outer in the wrong way round, as it was starting to pull through the short bit of pipe just before the balance bar. Unfortunately, the hole I drilled for the metal end of the cable to pass through the chassis plate next to the handbrake is the same size as the outer, so I'll have to either drill a new smaller hole that only the cable will pass through, or make some sort of washer thing that will fit in the hole and just let the cable through.
In the evening, I made a start on cleaning up the front grille, just to get an idea of how much rubbing is needed with wire wool, wet and dry and the rubbing compound to get rid of the scratches. Basically, using the wire wool gets rid of any deep scratches, or the grey bits that are all round the body where the flashlines used to be, then the wet and dry smooths down the wire wool rubbing marks, and then the rubbing compound leaves a shiny finish. It could be a job that would never end, so I'll just have to get a half decent finish on the whole of the bodywork and then go over any bits that need it afterwards.
4/3/2001
I spent the morning measuring up the interior for trim, as I plan to
get some carpet at the Stafford show next weekend. Its going to take
much more carpet than I was expecting...
The front of the car was jacked up and put on axle stands, which is a bit more complicated now than it used to be. Before the body was put on, as the springs are at their lowest setting (I plan on getting some C-spanners at the show as well) the trolley jack wouldn't fit straight under the front of the car (with only around 3 inches of clearance), but would fit in front of the front wheel and behind the front chassis wing. With the body on however, there isn't space in front of the wheel any more as the side of the body is in the way, so I had to use a normal scissor jack to lift it up high enough to be able to fit the trolley jack under, and then it could be put on axle stands. I don't plan on dropping the front end until the springs are wound up to increase the ground clearance, so hopefully won't have to go through this again.
Once lifted up, I had decent access to the front body mounting points, and could file out the last hole where the drill had slipped. Extra layers of rubber were also put on some of the mounts to try and make sure that they wouldn't damage the bodywork and that it was supported properly.
The starter motor was then removed so that the bellhousing blanking plate could be put back on, seen as how the core plug leak seems to have cured itself thankfully.
10/3/2001
My brother came down for the weekend, and we went to Stafford for the
day. Not much to say about it really, apart from that I picked up some
black and dark green carpet and some black vinyl to do the interior
with, and some small rubber trim which will hopefully fit the roll
hoop holes. Also got a pair of 5 3/4 inch headlights with black
surrounds as that is the largest size that will fit (the spaces on the
body are a minimum diameter of 7 inches, and the surround on a 5 3/4
inch light is almost exactly 7 inches), a pair of rear reflectors, and
some rubber sheeting which will be used to isolate the body from the
chassis where it rests on a chassis rail, and to protect the front of
the petrol tanks from anything the wheels kick up.
Jim had brought the recently made dashboard along as well, so I was able to pick that up. Still no news on the winscreen rubber or door hinges though. We looked round everywhere for some shock c-spanners, but didn't manage to find any unfortunatly. We did realise afterwards that we probably should have asked at the Europa van.
We had a chat with Simon who makes all of the chassis for Tiger, and he reckons that using 2nd hand carbs is always going to be dodgy, even properly reconditioned ones, and suggested that the best thing would be to just buy a new pair with the correct jetting which should work properly straight out of the box. I'll try and get the current ones working, as plenty of other people seem to have managed, but if its still going to be nowhere near right then I might just have to go for the expensive option of brand new ones.
11/3/2001
The bellhousing blanking plate was fitted along with the starter
motor, the sump bolts were tightened for the first time since the
engine had been run, and then it was dropped back onto its wheels so
that we could sort out drilling the holes for the passenger side
petrol tank. The rear wheel has to be removed to fit the tank in,
which means the rear of the car has to be put on axle stands, but to
get a decent amount of space to work in its best if the car is out of
the garage, so the front end had to be dropped which I had hoped not
to need to do for a while.
The top hole in the chassis was drilled, and the position of the lower bracket was worked out, but then it decided to rain so it had to be put back into the garage.
17/3/2001
Its a year since I picked up the donor kit from Tiger...
Decided to cut the hole in the body for the exhaust tailpipe. As its a chicken/egg situation, where I can't tell where to put the hole until the tailpipe is fitted, but I can't fit it until there is a hole there, its going to be a case of guessing where it should be and then move it from there so that its in the right place. Its easy to work out where the hole needs to be side to side on the body, but to get an idea of where to start on the vertical I checked where the exhaust was on Jim's car.
After doing plenty of measurement and pondering, I worked out where it might end up and drilled a hole in the centre to start from. It seemed to be about right, so I then drew a hole the same size as the exhaust (2 inches), drilled lots of little holes round it (as I don't have a hole saw, and its not a flat surface so I couldn't use a pipe cutter) and popped the middle out. With a little bit of filing to remove the rough edges, I was able to fit the pipe into the hole and found out that I'd started a bit too low. So, I made the hole a bit taller and was able to fit the pipe into the silencer this time. Some more measuring, drilling and filing later I was left with a fairly round hole that was about 3/4" away from the exhaust all the way round, with the bottom edge in the same place that it was to start with. I'm going to need a cover for the pipe as it doesn't have a rolled edge so wouldn't pass the SVA radius test, which will make it a bit closer to the body, but I didn't want to leave it too close anyway so that there was enough space to keep the heat away from the body.
18/3/2001
I thought I might as well make it a weekend of hole cutting in the
body, so decided to cut the holes for the six rear lights. The
recesses in the body are far from round (even though the blocks used
in the mould are made of wood, so you would expect them to have been
made on a lathe to get them right, but obviously not...), so working
out the centre of them wasn't too easy. I ended up cutting an ally
offcut to the minimum diameter of the holes, marking the centre on it,
and then using that at various angles to mark the centre of the
recess. I then used a double pointed compass thing to mark a line
round the edge of the recess to check whether it was in the centre or
not, and then when it was in the best position the compass was used to
mark a circle the same size as the bit of the light that needs to go
into the hole. I then drilled round the edge of this hole as for the
exhaust hole, and chopped it out. A bit of filing was needed to get
the hole to be the right size and shape, but they didn't take very
long to do.
The main problem was the middle passenger side light. Before the inside of the body was painted, I had noticed that the gel side of that recess wasn't flat like all the others as it stuck out in the middle, and the glass side of the recess was very light compared to all the others, indicating that there was a large bubble in the GRP. I found out just how big a bubble it was when I drilled through it. Basically, there was the layer of gel plus a tiny bit of glass, around 2mm thick, then a gap about 5mm, and then the inside layer of glass which was around 2mm again, and the bubble is the same size as the recess. Most of the other light holes were 5mm thick, though one was 3mm and one was 7mm, just to be consistent. Depending on whether this makes the light stick out past the other two, I might have to chop out the layer of gel and just use the inner layer of glass with a spacer to make it line up.
Once the dust had settled, I checked the float levels on the carbs, which is something that I should have done when I took them to bits, but didn't for some reason. Apparently if they are set wrong this can make it run rich, so I wanted to eliminate that as a source of the problem. Anyway, they were set exactly right according to the instructions I got with the carb service kit, which is 15mm between the end of the float and the inside of the gasket.
I managed to remove the passenger side lower upright bolt and put the new longer one in, but the drivers side one doesn't want to move. I'll have to give it another go the next time the front end is on axle stands so that I can take the wheel off to get better access to it.
An easy thing to finish the day off, I made a thick alloy sheet to go under the battery on its tray, as there would be a lot of the battery exposed to the road and I don't particularly want anything puncturing the battery.
22/3/2001
After sending various emails to Jim about the bad fit of the driver's
door (there is a gap of around 1 inch all the way round it while the
passenger door has less than 1/2 inch gap, which seems to be due to
excessive trimming of the edge of the door), I measured both of the
doors and emailed the measurements to Jim so that he could compare
them to his car.
24/3/2001
After asking about it on the mailing list a while back, I decided to
ditch the Tiger throttle cable bracket, and make my own based on
Nigel West's bracket.
As this attaches to the side of the rear carb rather than the
manifold studs it won't put any pressure on the thackery washers,
which apparently will break.
As I don't have a welder (or easy access to one), I just made all the bits (using various spare bits of steel I had, including a couple of bits I'd chopped off the chassis) and then will take them to the place where I got the alternator bracket extended and hope they can stick them together.
25/3/2001
Finished off the throttle cable bracket. Fitted an inline fuse holder
for the fuel pump, and added some wires to allow an override switch to
be used for the radiator fan (in parallel with the radiator thermal
switch), and a connection for a dash light to show when the fan is on,
which might be useful.
Measured up the space in the windscreen frame to see what size steel tubing will fit, as I want something in there to strenghten it a bit, and if it can be attached to the chassis then that will add to the rigidity of the bodyshell and hopefully stop any scuttle shake. One inch tubing will fit fairly well, but attaching it to the chassis is going to be tricky.
26/3/2001
Finished off the radiator fan wiring, and did some rubbing on the
bonnet to get rid of all the grinding marks and scratches on the top
of it.
27/3/2001
Made a start on wiring in the speedo sensor, which I'm going to try
and fit to the axle just behind the propshaft flange. There are two
raised sections on the casing of the axle, and hopefully it should be
alright do drill through one of them and bolt a bracket to it to hold
the tiny sensor.
Reading the instructions for the sensor, it seems that it needs a switched positive supply connection to one side, and the other goes straight to the back of the speedo. Of course, the only switched supply at that end of the car is the fuel pump, and I'd just got that all taped up at the weekend, so some of it is going to have to be taken apart again to make a new connection.
28/3/2001
Rubbed a bit more of the bonnet down, using wire wool and 800 wet and
dry on the rough bits.
Total hours this month -
38.5
Total build hours -
531.5
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