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The next thing to do was to gunk up the collector with exhaust paste, as it was blowing so much last time it really has to be sorted out again. Most of the old stuff was scraped off, and the new paste applied.
Then, the battery was connected, the rest of the petrol was put into the tank, and it was turned over a couple of times with the fuel pump and dizzy lead disconnected. No problems there. Everything was put back in, and it refused to catch, or even fire at all. So, out with the plugs which were cleaned up to remove all of the soot that had been left on from Monday. Plugs back in, and it still didn't want to go, but sounded like it was flooded this time as it was firing occasionally. Out with the plugs again, and there was a fair bit of petrol left on the top of the cylinders. This was given a chance to evaporate, and the engine was turned over a few times with the spark disconnected to try and blow some of it out. Then, plugs back in (with the fuel pump fuse removed) and it decided to work. Switched off, plugged the pump back in, and set it running again. It was left to idle until the exhaust paste looked like it was cured enough, then I had a short drive of it around the street.
I basically just ended up reversing it off the drive, turning it round, and then driving it backwards and forwards a few times, getting it into 2nd gear a couple of times, but only for a few seconds before having to brake as the road wasn't quite long enough. No funny noises (apart from some backlash in the diff when chainging direction), but the brakes definitely do need bedding in - I really had to stamp on them and that wasn't going very fast at all.
Reversed it back up onto the drive, asked my brother if he wanted a go, he got in, and it promptly ran out of petrol! Never mind, he'll be able to have a go some other time, as there was no fuel left in the can...
Not quite as big an achievement as driving it for the first time, but it was good to get it done and know that most things seemed alright. Its still running rich, but it seems that adjusting the carb float levels has reduced the amount of smoke coming out of it, and what is still coming out could just be what is left in the exhaust system rather than new smoke. Whatever, something needs to be adjusted some time.
2/9/2001
Trip to the Donington show. Picked up a numberplate light, some wide
door sealing strip, and a battery isolation switch.
8/9/2001
Trimmed the bolts holding the side body brackets to the chassis (as
they were just slightly too long to fit, then attached them with
nylocs.
Drilled holes through the body and chassis under the door through to the top side chassis rail on the driver's side, so that the middle of the body cah be bolted to the chassis, which should help keep the whole thing a bit more rigid. The rear hole was easy enough to drill, but to get the front one as far forward as possible the windscreen frame got in the way a bit so I had to use the drill extension, which made it a bit more awkward. Once some rubber spacers and the bolts were fitted finger tight, it did hold the side of the bodywork much better.
9/9/2001
Drilled under the door on the passenger side, but keeping the rope
around the rear section so that the side was pulled in to the right
location.
The rear of the car was then jacked up and the left rear corner bracket was drilled, shaped to fit, and then drilled again and attached to the body. As the two sides of the bodywork are totally different shapes, and as the rear axle is 1cm more to the left, getting the two sides symmetrical is impossible, so I just put it in a place that basically looks right and fitted it there. With the jack and rope removed the bodywork stayed in almost the right place, so it seems that it has done the job and pulled the side in the 6 inches or so that it needed. The gel has cracked a fair bit around the corner of the door recess and along to the rear wheelarch, so those will need patching and some woven glass matting will be stuck onto the rear of the cracks to add a bit of strength and try to hold it in its new (proper) shape.
Made a start on some alloy p-clips to hold the handbrake cables away from the ground.
11/9/2001
Shaped, drilled and fitted the handbrake cable p-clips.
Jacked up the lhs of the car, and made a start on shaping a bit of steel strip as a bracket for the middle of the bodywork. This side is quite a bit lower than the outrigger compared to the rhs, so I can't just use a flat bit of metal - it has to be shaped to bend down a couple of cm.
12/9/2001
Drilled bolt holes in the bracket, chassis outrigger, and body, and
cut up bits of inner tube to protect the GRP.
13/9/2001
Trimmed the end of the bracket and fitted it. Dropped the side of the
car back down onto its wheels. Made a start on fitting the lhs filler
neck by filing the edge of the alloy backing plate to fit the welding
on the neck, and started to mark out the positions for the holes.
15/9/2001
Now that the left rear of the bodywork is fixed in place, the crack in
front of the wheelarch can be patched up on the inside, to try and
provide a bit of extra strength to hold it in position. The crack
doesn't go all the way through the GRP, but you can see a light stripe
where air has got in between some of the layers so it definitely needs
something doing to it.
The back of the car was jacked up to take the left rear wheel off, which allowed access to the rear of the crack in the bodywork. Cut up some bits of woven matting (at 45 degrees to each other) to fit over the crack, brushed over the area and cleaned it off with some acetone, mixed some resin, and stuck the bits over the crack. I managed to get three bits on and fully wetted out before the resin started to set.
18/9/2001
Put some glass over other cracks that have spread from the corner of
the door recess forwards (which will be hidden when the door is
closed, but still need strengthening), and another piece over the main
crack.
19/9/2001
Put the last couple of bits of matting on the cracks, and drilled and
countersunk two of the holes in the lhs filler neck.
20/9/2001
Cleaned up all the stuff used for the glassing, as its such a messy
thing to do, drilled and countersunk the last 2 holes in the filler
neck, and marked and drilled the holes in the alloy backing plate.
22/9/2001
Marked and drilled the holes in the bodywork for the lhs filler
neck. All 8 of the countersunk bolts were trimmed to length (as the
smallest size I could get was too long and would probably get in the
way of the filler hose and jubilee clip), and a couple of bits of
inner tube were cut to the same size as the backing plate to protect
the bodywork. The edges of the backing plates were filed down a bit so
that there would be no sharp edges pressing against the bodywork.
The lhs rear bodywork bracket was painted, and the bolt was trimmed to fit. The end of the unused lhs outrigger was trimmed slightly, as it was only a couple of mm from the bodywork and would probably end up banging against it if the body moved.
The three drilled bolts for the handbrake cable were trimmed to length, and test fitted. The only problem I could see was that due to the size of the head it might end up getting stuck on the chassis rail the handbrake cable stops are welded onto, so the heads of the bolts were ground on one side to create an angle for them to slide over the chassis rail if they ended up touching. Two of them went on easily enough, but the third cable end was frayed too much so it took a while to get that bolt fitted. One of the old clamps was used to try and stop the cable fraying any more. When everything was tightened up, it felt much better, as at least using bolts this size its possible to get them much tighter.
23/9/2001
The lhs rear body bracket was fitted now that the paint had
dried. Some thick bits of rubber had holes cut in them for the bolts
through the body under the door, as the gap to the chassis there is
fairly large.
One of the brackets for the wiper motor was cut, drilled and shaped. This one attaches to the top of the rhs triangle that supports the body at the back of the bonnet, and goes to the rhs end of the wiper assembly. A second one will go straight down onto the top of the pedal box, and a third one might be needed depending on how well it is supported by the first two.
The plugs for the headlight and heater rotary switches were fitted to the loom, using the additional 3rd blower speed cable I had attached a while ago. While testing the connections, I found that the accessories supply was grounded through around 70 Ohms, but the ignition supply was fine. I didn't have time to investigate much, but will unplug everything and try and narrow down the problem. Hopefully there isn't a connection somewhere there shouldn't be as it could end up being very difficult to track down...
24/9/2001
Turns out the path to ground was just through one of the
relays. Fairly obvious when you think about it, but best to be sure
anyway.
Got most of the 2nd wiper assembly bracket made - drilled one end, bent it to shape, and cut it to length. Now it just needs the other end drilling.
25/9/2001
Finished off the 2nd wiper bracket, tightened everything down to see
how sturdy it ended up, and it seems to be fine. The hole through the
bodywork for the spindle needs opening up a little bit otherwise it
will rub, but I'd left it slightly undersized anyway until I knew how
it was going to end up so could get it exactly the right size. Made a
start on filing out the spindle hole.
26/9/2001
Refitted the wiper assembly after checking the size of the hole in the
body. Also used a couple of thin spacers on the brackets to move the
wiper to the rear of the car slightly, as this should line it up a bit
better with the hole.
Bolted it all back together, and it seemed to be fine. Sat the battery in the car and tested the motor to check clearances on the linkage. The bar on the end of the motor gets a bit close to one of the bolts holding the lhs of the assembly, but the rest of it seems fine.
While the wiper was in, I decided to have a look at how the heater would fit in. Its all going to be a bit of a squeeze under the dash, but the best place for it seems to be sat on top of the tunnel as far forward as possible. This should help keep the routing for the windscreen vents short, but gets in the way of the loom, so its going to require a bit more thought...
27/9/2001
Spent a bit more time trying to work out what to do with the
heater. With the tunnel in place, there is just enough space to fit it
on the top of the alloy panel above the gearbox, and I should be able
to get the loom through the panel at the top left corner. The biggest
problem is going to be holding the heater down, as there isn't
anything sticking out that can be attached to, so its probably going
to end up with some strap going round it attached to the tunnel, with
possibly a bar going from the top of it (the only place where it can
be drilled and bolted) to the large chassis crossbeam that runs the
full width of the car.
Also looked at the header tank - I had thought that that heater pipes might get in the way a bit, but it should be alright if the header tank is as close to the pedal box as possible. The plan is to bolt it to the central body brackets so that it is directly behind the engine, as there isn't space to put it anywhere else at all.
Total hours this month -
35.5
Total build hours -
783
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