BUILDING A GD 427

So What Happened?.....

2010-08-15T16:33:00.002+01:00

After 955 days in build and 465 days on the road my near 4 year affair with my Gardner Douglas 427 is over.

It was not an easy decision to come to and it took some time to finally decide. Even today as I sit here typing this and looking outside at the sun shining I miss it, I think I'll always miss it.... it really was one hell of a car.

It is more a testament to the years of effort by Andy Burrows in the design of the GD than it is to my own abilities, that a car building virgin managed to produce a car the likes of which neither myself or my friends had ever come close to experiencing before (a few of them probably don't want to ever experience that again!).

It would be a relatively straightforward task to put a large engine in a small(ish) car that went very fast in a straight line. It would perhaps be a little more difficult to produce a car that also went very fast round corners.

The GD consistently out-run and out-cornered everything on four wheels that it came across. It was thus only going to be a matter of time until I would have to part with my driving license. Of course self control is the answer, which is easy unless you have been born without the "discipline" gene! The same reason why I gave up Sports Bikes all those years ago.

My wife loved the car, she thought it was a beautiful masterpiece of automotive engineering......... she was just never that comfortable in it. Whilst for some the exposure to such a raw driving experience, with the associated vibration, noise, wind and blurring scenery would be reason enough to be alive, for others it would confirm all that was good about about our modern euro tin boxes in which we go about our business in relative anaesthesia from the driving experience.

At the outset of the build we had visions of long trips round Europe in the completed car. The unfortunate reality was that fuel costs and passenger comfort would have been a difficult issue to resolve.

I used the car quite a lot to go to work, but this was mainly to amuse myself by taking people out for a ride at lunchtime and scaring them. The rest of the time I would take it out for 1-2 hour blasts on my own.... sometimes scaring myself. We used to have some regional cobra club meets once a month with a decent drive out, but these sadly died a death due to lack of interest. This soon became the norm..... commuting or the odd solitary blast out once a week.

I felt almost if I was insulting the GD by not using it purposefully. I have never been a polisher or a garage exhibitionist. I like to use things, all my sports bikes got ridden through winter..... yup... ruined every single one of them! I just didn't seem to have enough opportunities to use the GD for anything more than a quick blast out now and again. It was in danger of becoming an under utilised garage ornament.

Everybody's circumstances and reasons are different, I had to conclude that my own were not perhaps exactly commensurate with cobra ownership. I now believe that I would be better off with a true GT type of car and such a style of car would be more suited to our aspirations.

As I cannot afford an Aston Martin or in deed a Maserati I may well have to get the tools out once more and begin another project. If only Andy would hurry up and get the GT or MSE into kit production!

I have thoroughly enjoyed the build of the GD and as professional engineer I have been able to thoroughly appreciate the thought and effort that has gone into the production of the GD 427. I have learnt many new skills, including how to cover your dog in expanding foam, how to set fire to things behind your back with a grinder, how to drill holes upside down in impossibly tight spaces.

I have enjoyed the "community" aspects of the project, helping other builders whether they be GD or other and I hope that I can continue to do so.

The blog will remain, not as a memorial but as a testament to what one man can achieve in a normal domestic garage, with a modest assortment tools, some common sense and a bit of patience. I hope in some way it may inspire others to take the plunge and fulfill their dreams.

I would like to thank Andy, Meena, Paul, Craig and Lester at GD firstly for the excellent product initially, and secondly for their never ending support and patience with my "stupid" questions.

I would also like to thank Ian and Jez at British American Engines for the fantastic engine that gave the GD its soul.

Finally, the previous post was entitled "Gone but not Forgotten....". Bizarrely an e-mail popped into my inbox a week or so ago containing this picture:

There's my old Car with Andy Burrows just about to take Andy Roe's Dad out for spin!

Quite a special photograph.

So whilst this particular story has come to end, another one begins........ for those who have not tired of my ramblings have a look here , it will be slow to start with.... I have a 955 day backlog of DIY to address!

Thanks for your interest over the years.

Simon.

Gone.....................but not forgotten.......

2010-07-13T19:11:00.009+01:00

6:30am....... one last time to wake the neighbours up......

More later..............

Stoneleigh 2010

2010-05-03T23:41:00.002+01:00

Well, it was that Stoneleigh time of year again. However, rather than a simple day trip to the show, this was gonna be a three day trip taking in a mates 40th and another mates wedding as well. This explains the fitting of the soft top - so that my wife could travel in perfect warmth and dryness!! This was going to be the longest trip to date - 550 miles.

The hood did the job - just letting in a few dribbles where there is a gap between the hood bows (to allow folding) - easily solved by sticking a bit of rag above the centre of the screen between the bows - appears to be a common problem and fix. It was also surprising how effective the heater became now that the warm air couldn't escape from the cockpit.

Out of the 550 miles about 425 were cruising at 70 (1950 rpm), 75 were various speeds on local roads and 50 were hooning around taking mates for rides. If my calculations are correct then I appear to have got 19.1 mpg overall - better than I expected.

Due to a slight camera issue the only photo's I have are other peoples - so thanks to Andy, Steve & Tommy:

Becasue of the need to get to the wedding I couldn't stay as long as I would have liked, but still I got to meet up with some old friends and meet some new ones and I also had a resonable look around the show - nothing really caught my eye for a new build though!

The car looks a bit low to the ground, but that's due to the soft grass and a bootfull of tools - which wasn't really needed - apart from the fact that one of the bonnet hinge pins/bolts fell out on the way down. Easy enough to get a replacement cap head bolt at Stoneleigh, although I had to drop my the GD stand to ask Andy what size it was! (M10x45 just in case it happens to you)

So, quite a long trip in some pretty poor weather with no real problems to report, In fact my wife quite enjoyed it to my surprise. This possibly has paved the way for some European Touring???

Finishing the Suspension Adustments

2010-04-23T18:16:00.003+01:00

Got home a bit early today so took the Cob down to the local tyre place to put it on the 4 wheel laser alignment machine.

I had suspected the front camber adjustments had resulted in an unbalanced toe-out condition - wondered why it seemed to turn in quick! If you move the upper wishbone fulcrum in (reducing shim) to increase camber, this effectively causes the steering arm to move outwards increasing toe-out.

A quick check showed everything to be within a few minutes of where I wanted it camber wise - it was just the excessive toe out on the front to correct, the rears still being spot on.

I had them set the front to 7 minutes toe-in per side - Andy advised running a little more toe along with the increased camber. I was just about to post up the computer output from the laser aligner only to discover I appear to have goosed my scanner???

A bit of roundabout surfing on the way home revealed a marked improvement - despite pushing it quite hard it still felt solid as a rock due to the anti-roll bar and increased front camber. Also after driving down my favourite bump steer route I could not detect any adverse effects. It would be good to take the car on a track as there is no way on earth you can explore the limits of grip on the public highway!

Right...... time to leave the suspension alone now!

Fitting the Sidescreens - Part 2

2010-04-21T15:19:00.005+01:00

Time to mill down the leading edge of the sidescreens - acheived easilly with the Dremel Router attachement. You need to leave an "island" of lexan where the hinge goes:

The rubber seal needs to then be trimmed to fit round the hinge positions:

Which it does quite nicely:

It was then a simple matter to fit the bottom rubber and fix the sidescreen into position:I was quite pleased that the rubber on the leading edge gave a good seal - even over the step by the screen bow:

Time to peel off the protective film:Repeat for the other side and job done:Went for a test drive - nice and draught free -although it wasn't raining so I couldn't spot any leaks.

However......... it is bloody noisy with the hood up. So much so I think you would need earplugs for anything over 45 minutes!

Hmmmmmm..................

Fitting the Sidescreens - Part 1

2010-04-18T08:52:00.007+01:00

With the hood fitted it was time to tackle the sidescreens. I had got as far as fitting the "blank" drivers side screen:The next step was to pull down the protective coating so I could mark the various features of the hood on the outside of the screen:Then it was out with the trusty jigsaw - to cut Lexan neatly you need a variable speed jigsaw a turn it right down to around 500 strokes per minute and use a special plastics blade - this will give you a nice clean cut with no melting of the edge:And Voila!The next job was to position the catch and cut the hole out. The holes is not round - more like an oval with two straight sides. Time for a new Dremel attachment - a mini router:Job Done. I'll also need this to mill down the leading edge of the sidescreens. I have left a bigger gap between the sidescreen and windscreen frame than normal as I am going to fit a rubber seal. However the smaller rubber seals won't fit the 5mm thick Lexan. I'll need to reduce the thickness of the leading edge down to around 3mm. Then I can fit the leading edge and lower edge rubber seals and it should be job done!

Hood Fitted!

2010-04-15T22:12:00.003+01:00

Being under strict instructions to free up the dining room table it was time to crack on. I finished glueing and trimming the returns and had to come up with a means of sealing the hood against the body???

During the trial fitting of the hood It was clear that the gap between the hood and the body was pretty small and uniform. So I decided to use domestic "p" shaped draught excluder (in a double row). May seem an odd choice but the beauty of it is that it is very soft and compresses very easily (unlike the majority of automotive seals) - it also sticks like you know what to a blanket!

The only problem is that it only comes in brown or white:

The colour is not really an issue as the gap is so small you can't see it.

With the new hood pivot fitted it was time to fit the hood..... sheeeeesh - it needed some pulling to get the hood bows on - and that's not too easy either - need to learn the knack. After breaking a couple of fingers and plenty of effin' & Jeffin it was on:

Pretty pleased with it overall - it was a bit harder to tension and fit the hood bows than I expected but that's probably down to lack of practice . I'm gonna leave it up for a few days now for everything to settle into place.

Now I can get on with the sidescreens.

Not Fitting the Hood - Boat Stuff Instead

2010-04-13T21:07:00.005+01:00

Whilst I'm waiting for a replacement Hood Frame Pivot from GD I took the opportunity to get some stuff done on the boat.

The original marine muffler was shot - it was in fact in several pieces!! So I designed a new one and we had it made up in stainless by a local guy. So this left the simple task of fitting it:

It is more than just a big tube with four smaller tubes coming off it - each outlet is via a water siphon inside the main tube.

The boat has had its GRP polished up and the trailer is being sprayed to match:

Most of the re-upholstery has been done and just needs putting back in the boat. A replacement air cleaner needs to be fitted (I have a spare Edelbrock one which should fit on the Holley carb if I can find some 1/4" studding. There are some bits and pieces of electrics that need tidying:The battery is out and is currently connected to my Optimate - the plan is to put it in the water on Saturday and see if it starts - the boat not the battery! - assuming it all gets put back together in time.

That'll be another day spent not fitting the hood!

Fitting the Hood - Part 6

2010-04-11T18:34:00.004+01:00

Time to see if it fits:

Well the simple answer is it doesn't! - whilst trying to fit the hood bows one of the hoop pivot knuckles snapped! - very peculiar?

So I'll have to get on to GD for a replacement. So I took the hoops out which allowed me to fit up the hood bows with no tension and mark out for driling the holes for the fivets to fix the hood bow catches:

Felling a bit dis-heartend I turned my attention to the sidescreesns. I got two pieces of Lexan polycarbonate off e-Bay for a reaonable price. After a bit of measuring and trimming I fixed the first one into place to see how it looks:

It obviously needs to be trimmed down - but I need the hood fitted to transfer the required shape onto the Lexan. I'm departing a little from the GD method by fitting a rubber seal between the sidescreen and the screen pillar. More on that later.... it might be a faff too far??

Fitting the Hood - Part 5

2010-04-10T15:09:00.010+01:00

The hood has now taken up residence in the dining room ready for glueing the returns and trimming (I forgot to take enough photos, probably due to being high on evo-stick fumes, so I've included a couple from the build manual):

I tackled the rear section first which was relatively straightforward just requiring the hood material to be mitred around the corners:

So this leaves the hood bows at the front to do. Here you need to trim the hood material to clear the fixing lugs on the hood bows like this:

The hood material is bonded to the inner face of the front edge and the underside of the top face. I sprayed both the hood material and the hood bows for a good bond:

The surplus material can be trimmed off once the glue has had a while to cure:

This just leaves the two corners to be returned, glued and trimmed:So time to leave everything to cure a bit more overnight before a trial fit tomorrow to fit the hood bow catches and start to figure out the sidescreens:

Back on The Road

2010-04-06T16:56:00.006+01:00

Having just recieved my new tax disc I decided to take an extra days Easter holiday to get the car back on the road. I had become distracted with fitting the hood and with not a lot of spare time I never finished off the odd jobs that were outstanding.

So with the hood safely tucked up in the spare bedroom awaiting trimming and bonding of the edges I bled the front brakes - and managed to get a little bit more air out of the NSF calliper. I checked the revised suspension settings with the wheels back on. Finished checking all the suspension fasteners, checked / adjusted the front wheel bearings and then it was time to start.

I realised that the engine hadn't been started for 3 and a half months!!! so five pumps on the throttle (after priming the fuel bowls in the carb - I use the "start" position on the Key to provide a fuel pump over-ride for this very reason) pushed the button and it roared back into life with no fuss.

Went for a quick blast and it was like being re-united with an old friend. I then started to feel a bit guilty about the 3 months worth of finger marks and dust so it was time for a wash and vacuum:

If the forecast is OK tomorrow morning then I may well go to work in it and get the tracking checked at lunchtime - the OSF will be toeing out a little I suspect after the camber alterations I made.

Fitting the Hood - Part 4

2010-04-02T16:15:00.010+01:00

Today's the day..... Glue Day!!

I was up early to get the heater on in the Garage - it was 4 degrees this morning. I had left the hood in the bathroom overnight as this is the warmest room of the house. After an hour or so the garage was up to a toasty 20 degrees.

I draped the hood into position and placed an electric fan heater on the transmission tunnel to warm he hood up some more:

The first task was to manoeuvre the hood into position - taking care to ensure it was lined up equally against the marks on the hood bows. This involved a bit of mucking around taping and un-taping the hood to the windscreen and getting a feel for the tension at the back of the hood when pulling it:

Eventually we were ready to start. Following the advice from Paul at GD I sprayed evostick onto the first 6 inches of each GRP moulding. You only need to spray the glue to the GRP - once you let it tack off it gets a very good hold onto the hood lining:

I left the glue for 5 minutes and pulled the hood taught and affixed it to the moulding - lining up the chalk centre-line with the middle of the gap:
A good measure of the correct tension is when the window surround trim is within 5mm of the GRP section at the centre of the car:You can then work the hood material round to each door shut and check everything is symmetrical. In my case it was, give or take a couple of mill, so I sprayed the remainder of the GRP, tensioned and bonded the rest of the hood. For ease as I was working on my own I split each of the remaining sections into 2 more manageable chunks:

The above photo was half way round the one side. The following photo is after all the back section has been glued. You will see a few creases developing on the rear quarters (partly due to the tape on the screen slipping!) - but these will pull out once the final tension is applied to the front. I had some dinner to let the glue go off a bit before tackling the front - doesn't take long as the garage was getting quite warm by now!!

I removed the tape from the front and re-tensioned the hood to get all the creases out - this was easy as the hood was quite soft by now. I taped the hood back down to the screen and marked the taped where it passed over the top edge of the hood bow - this would let me know how far to pull for the correct tension when gluing.

I then removed the tape from one half of the screen and sprayed the evostick on the front face of the hood bow - don't glue the top face as this is not the natural line of the hood:

And then simply repeat for the other side. After which I went mad with the Duck Tape just to take the pressure off the freshly bonded glue joint:

And there we have it:

I am quite pleased with the shape and lines of the hood and the absence of wrinkles! The hood ended up about 5mm off centre over the screen but I didn't think it was worth un-gluing - particulalry not just to end up with it 5mm out the other way!

It also looks quite good from the inside:

After about an hour I loosened the hood bows and let the front part of the hood hang to relieve the stress on all the glued joints. I'm away for the rest of the Easter weekend so this will give the joints plenty of time to cure before I start the process of trimming / tidying the edges. (Since doing this I've now removed the entire hood and put it on the spared bed so the glue can cure without any extreme changes in temerature).Top Tip for fitting the Hood....... do it in the middle of an August heatwave - not when there's frost outside - it'll save you a fortune on your electricity bill!

Fitting the Hood - Part 3

2010-03-29T18:59:00.013+01:00

Not a lot of free time at the moment - hence onto Part 3 already and the hood is nowhere near being fitted!

I managed to paint the inside faces of the GRP moulding the other night so having got some M5 stainless dome nuts I fixed the pivot brackets to the GRP moulding (bedded on a layer of Sikaflex to allow for surface undulations in the GRP): I also got some M8 dome nuts so I finished off the undersides of the moulding fixings:Yet another package to open was some m5 thumbscrews for fixing the GRP moulding to the body: Just the job and small enough to clear the angled flange around the back over the boot yet big enough to get hold of easily with your fingers: So masking tape was applied to the bottom of the moulding and it was bolted into place ready for fitting the hood. The hoops and pivots where also fitted: Next I masked off the top of the windscreen and fitted the front hood bows holding them in place with masking tape around the lower end: I also marked up the sides of the bows in 10mm increments from the bottom edge of the bow - this will help to centralise the hood over the screen: Rapidly approaching the time for glueing!! But first I need to get a few heaters to get the garage nice and warm - if not hot - so the hood will be nice and supple. Problem is the temperature is dropping here and snow is forecast for the next couple of days!

Better get some BIG heaters then!

Planning on Friday being the day for glueing.

Fitting the Hood - Part 2

2010-03-23T12:31:00.008Z

The next step was to trim the GRP Mouldings down to match the edge of the door opening:

I may yet still need to trim the vertical flange back - depends on how the sidescreen closes. The folding hood frames have a pivot and the bottom which is supposed to be bolted to the GRP Moulding:

The fixing is a single M5 countersunk bolt. I didn't think this would be strong enough to stand up to a few years of abuse so I decided to modify things slightly. I found that the pivot would fit snugly inside a wardrobe rail support bracket:

This was positioned on the GRP moulding and two countersunk holes drilled:This puts the pivot about 4-5mm further back than the position recommended by GD because I allowed a bit of edge distance to the outside hole:The final fitting will have shorter stainless bolts finished off with a dome nut. I will also "butter" the underside of the bracket with sikaflex to help take up any slight surface variations. I think I'll also drill the socket and fit a self tapper just to hold the pivot in place (or possibly araldite it into place as there is no need to remove the pivot form the Moulding) although I doubt it will go anywhere due to the tension in the hood. Now it was time to re-fit the mouldings and fit the hood frames:

As you can see they fold up quite neatly. The reason behind fitting the folding hood is the intention to go touring. This way you can carry the hood folded down on the car giving some precious extra boot space. Plus if it looks like rain you can fit the hood before leaving and it will only take a very short time to fit should it start to rain.

Temptation got the better of me so I draped the hood over the frames and screen to see what it would like:

I think it makes the car look more "vintage".

Hmmmmmm........cosy.

The last job for today was to file and sand the mouldings to get rid of any sharp edges and then prime them ready for painting on the inside. I did think of trimming them but decided it was going to be too awkward.

Fitting the Hood - Part 1

2010-03-22T19:08:00.007Z

Went down to GD to pick up my hood bit and pieces on Saturday Morning. But as I had to work Saturday Night / Sunday Morning I never got a chance to start!

The first task is to take the GRP moulding and file the moulding pips down on the bottom - these mark the fixing hole centres. Mark the centres - check for symmetry then drill 6mm holes for the M5 bolts - (leaves a little tolerance). Stick some masking tape to the underside of the moulding (to prevent marking the body) and offer up to body lining it up with the doors and taping into position:

You can then drill through into the body with the 6mm drill. Remove the moulding and open the holes up in the body with a 8mm drill for the fixing inserts. You then end up with 8 nice holes in body!

Put the stainless inserts in (after a bit of a polish) and tighten up. The inserts are a top hat m8 bolt with an m5 tapping down the middle. They are fixed in place with a plain nut, spring washer and body washer:

I'm going to get some acorn nuts to finish them off underneath to prevent any water getting into the boot when the hood is not on.

The next job is to cut the GRP moulding in half and then trim 25mm of each end (same as 50mm out of the middle) with the ends cut back at 45 degrees. This is to allow the hood to fold up for storage.

I then bolted the two mouldings into place temporarily with some M5 bolts (I have ordered some M5 thumbscrews for a proper job) stood back and admired my handiwork.

Next step will be the folding hood hoops tomorrow hopefully.

Uh.Oh...... Another Distraction!

2010-03-09T21:08:00.004Z

Well... my mate Dave has gone and bought hinslef a ski boat - a 1992 Mastercraft. It has an Indmar Ford V8 - looks like it's based on a 351 Cleveland. It needs a bit of TLC but has the potential to be a very nice boat indeed. Engine needs a little work mainly the ancillaries, hoses and wiring plus the exhaust / muffler is shot and needs repiars - but it shouldn't take much to get it in the water and running. Then we can see what else needs doing.

Watch this space................

Nearly didn't Make it Back from the Alps......

2010-03-07T13:16:00.002Z

...... now that's what you call "whiteout".

Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Cleaning the Wheels

2010-02-21T11:43:00.005Z

It is -2 degrees today and I've just spent the morning outside cleaning the wheels and polishing the rims and spinners - what a ball-ache it was with all the nooks and crannies on the Halibrands. Still it was much easier to do with the wheels off the car.

I went for the clear anodised finish on the rims and whilst it may not give the shiniest of shiny finishes it does seem to have protected them and made them easier to clean. The rims were finished off with the polish supplied by image with the wheels - which interestingly looks like, smells like, applies like and buffs off like Auto Glym Super Resin Polish!

I've put the back wheels back on(after making sure I had not forgotten to grease anything) but left the fronts off as I still need to check the front wheel bearings and callipers.

I'm too cold to be bothered to do anything else today!

Sat Nav...... In a Cobra????

2010-02-20T16:15:00.004Z

Over the last few years I have become accustomed to using Sat Nav. And with the desire to travel abroad in the Cob - combined with my Wife's poor navigational skills I had been thinking about how to mount my Sat Nav in the Cobra. I had managed to conclude that the normal windscreen mounting brackets were not going to work and also that the unit needed to mounted low down to cut down on glare with having no roof. I hadn't really come up with a solution until I found a strip of spring steel in my oddments box.

And after a couple of hours here's the end result:

Very neat and discrete and when not in use the arm folds away under the dashboard:

There is a piece of chassis foam stuck to the underside of the arm to prevent the mount securing nut marking the the tunnel leather when it swings back under the dash.

The arm is fixed to the under-dash panel using a nylon washer to create a friction pivot:

The under dash 12v socket is conveniently located for powering the Sat Nav. You can also see a small aluminium bracket that the arm locates into when in the "deployed" position - here's another view:The bracket is just a cut down bit of aluminium box section bolted to the under dash panel. There is also a piece of chassis foam stuck to the top of the arm to space the arm off the bottom of the dash - just gives things a little more stability.

I got a spare powered mount off E-bay and this was simply bolted to a hole drilled in the end of the arm:Job Done.

The wires you keep seeing in the background are the leads from the battery conditioner you'll remember that I included a fly-lead under the dash to make connecting up easier.

More Winter Jobs

2010-02-14T13:48:00.004Z

Tme to crack on with my list of things to do. Worked over and under the entire car checking nuts and other fasteners and lubricating / greasing every thing that needed it. All fluids were present and correct:

Whilst I was under the car I noticed some drips of oil underneath the accusump - not enough to drip onto the floor (which is why I had not noticed before) but enough to need attention:

Bit puzzling as the valve was screwd up F.T. when it was all assembled? - managed to nip it up another quarter turn so that should fettle things. Got a few more odds and sods to do but the main outstanding essential job is to fit the Hood and Sidescreens. These should be ready to collect in a couple of weeks - which will clash with going on holiday.

Adjusting the Rev-Limiter

2010-02-07T14:38:00.004Z

Following discussions with Jez my engine builder, he had informed me that it was OK to turn the Rev-Limiter up to 6000 rpm ( from the 5250 it is set at now). I was a bit worried that this would turn out to be a bit of a pain as I had hidden Mallory Hy-Fire unit away behind the dashboard - admittedly to put it out of the way of engine bay heat and water.

I needn't have worried - took out the three fixing bolts and it drops down as expected:

It was then a simple matter of unplugging the three harnesses and removing the heater vent pipe and Bob's your Uncle!Took the access panel off - twiddled the dial - and put it all back together - the under-dash panel went back as easily as it had come out.

Job Done.

Adjusting Wheel Cambers

2010-02-06T14:25:00.009Z

First things first, a trip to Machine Mart kitted me out with a set of "wobble bars" - socket extensions that will accommodate a +/- 10 degree deviation in line:As you can see below - the 500mm bar is just the job:With the four brake disc retaining nuts removed, 5 minutes of rotating the drive shaft and tapping with a rubber mallet saw the shaft come free allowing the shim pack to be adjusted:With the correct shims fitted new disc retaining nuts were fitted (important not to use the old ones) and tightened to the correct torque. Conveniently you can use the handbrake to prevent the shaft rotating. This becomes a bit of pain when working on the nearside as you keep having to walk round the car to operate the handbrake.

The cambers were measured before and after (at full droop) and the removal of four 20' shims on the offside saw a negative change in camber by 1.05 degrees and the removal of two 20' shims and the addition of a 10' shim on the nearside saw a negative change in camber of 0.35 degrees. This should give me near or damn it -0.5 camber at ride height on both rear wheels.

All in all quite an easy task and nothing to feel daunted by. Next up was adjusting the camber on the front offside wheel. I had calculated that I needed to remove 3/16 of shim - however this was based on the original jag set up. The upper wishbone pick up points are orientated differently on the GD so a little trial and error was required. The original 1/4" shims were removed one at a time by loosening the fixing bolt:The end result was found to be two stainless steel 7/16 washers giving a negative change in camber of 0.8 degree - which give or take 0.05 of a degree should be the same camber as the nearside wheel:

The original 1/4" shim - 250' was replaced with two 7/16" stainless washers at 45' each - so the total reduction in shim was 160' a tad over 4mm and 30' less than the calculated 190'.Quite a productive morning - although I won't be able to check the final settings until the car is back on the ground.... but the indications look good.

If there is a moral to this story then it is not to worry about cambers too much during the build as they are very easily adjusted once the car has been "shaken down" on the road.

Jaguar Suspension Development

2010-02-06T14:07:00.003Z

Before I get round to adjusting the wheel cambers on the car, it is time for a history lesson with some of the background behnd the Jaguar's development of its suspension systems:

From the early 1960s to the present day virtually all serious racing cars have used the classic double wishbone suspension arrangement, or a close variation on the theme. There are many alternatives that have seen widespread use: beam axle, de Dion, swinging arm, trailing arm (even semi-trailing arm), sliding pillar (Morgan, unbelievably in this day and age), McPherson strut (front) and Chapman strut (same thing at rear), but for precise control of wheel movement and low unsprung weight, double wishbones remain the favourite. The beauty of the arrangement is that by careful design of the pivot points and arm lengths the camber of the wheel can be maintained close to the optimum even while the body rolls during cornering. Not only that but the roll centre - a term for the abstract point around which the car rolls when cornering - can be held consistent thereby helping to confer the vehicle with stable handling characteristics. Then there are ways of further refining the handling characteristics by angling the axes of the wishbones in various ways. For instance wheel toe-in and castor angle can be made to vary with body roll to enhance steering feel, or upward suspension deflection can be made to act against the forward weight transfer under braking to oppose front end dip. This is known as anti-dive and a similar arrangement in reverse, known as anti-squat, can be applied at the rear.

Jaguar's legendary Technical Director, William Heynes, knew that independent front suspension was essential for any car that claimed to be advanced and refined, so had adopted double wishbones at the front on the Mk V saloon just after WW2. However the case for independent rear suspension was not so clear cut and even the outstanding D Type had a live axle at the rear, which helps to explain why its greatest successes were nearly always at race tracks with the smoothest surfaces. Obviously this handicap would only become worse so Bob Knight and his team, with one eye on production applications, devised an independent rear suspension for an experimental successor to the D Type known as E2A. Within a year the E Type was launched (1961) with a productionised version of this same independent rear end, incorporating the now familiar rubber mountings as a vibration barrier and trailing arms to provide fore and aft control. It continued with only minor alterations until the last XJ-S left Browns Lane in 1996.

A notable but less well-known member of Bob Knight's team was Derrick White, highly regarded in club racing circles for creating his effective Impala racing car, later moving from Jaguar to be Chief Designer for the Cooper F1 team and then being credited for the Honda/Lola that enabled John Surtees to snatch a lucky win at the 1967 Italian GP. Talent was not a rare commodity at Jaguar in those days. The point of all this, of course, is to show that Jaguar were near the forefront of vehicle design with suspension systems technically superior to those of most other manufacturers of the time. It may not be obvious but Jaguar's well-known independent rear suspension assembly is geometrically very similar to the double wishbone system preferred by race car designers, in the way wheel camber is controlled. This becomes clearer when the pivot points are highlighted as in the accompanying diagram. Particularly notable is that the driveshaft doubles as the top link so that the under-floor space requirement is kept to the minimum.

Preparing to Change the Rear Camber

2010-01-31T16:57:00.005Z

Double checked all yesterdays measurements - OK. Up on axles stands and wheels off. The whole chassis was then levelled by jacking up and inserting thin washers between the chassis and the axle stands and checking with my fancy new digital level.

Next step is to remove the drive shaft nuts in order to change the shims between the drive shafts and the brake discs:

That's the little beggars in the distance! Hmmmm..... I feel a trip to Machine Mart coming to get a long enough socket extension! Should be strightforward after that.

I also need to get some replacement nuts. They are steel locking nuts and as such cannot be re-used. I'll get some ordered tomorrow.

Obessive Compulsive Disorders - 1. Suspension

2010-01-30T14:26:00.014Z

It's been a while but the snow eventually melted, then I was ill for a couple of weeks - so now its time to get back into the garage to start on some of those winter jobs.

First on the list - suspension settings. After Andy test drove the car after the fitting of the anti-roll bar down at GD, he recommended that I tweak the camber settings a little. The first step is to establish the starting point?

Now Santa had very kindly brought me one of these:

Very handy - loads of features and accurate to 0.05 degrees (3 minutes). The next step was to cut to length a piece of steel angle (magnetic base on the level) to fit on the wheel rims: Note the electrical tape on the ends to avoid scratching the rims. It then becomes quite a simple task to measure wheel cambers (after removing the spinners) :Before actually measuring the wheel cambers I checked all the ride heights. The car had not been jacked up since it was last driven into the garage, but still I rolled and "bounced" it back and forth a couple of times to ensure the suspension was settled. I then check the ride heights side to side at the front and rear. These checked out to be only 1mm different at the front and 2mm different at the rear - good enough.

In reality you should carry out suspension angular measurements on a level surface - my garage floor isn't level - but is pretty smooth and flat as evidenced by the uniform ride heights. The alternative is to measure the angle of the floor and adjust the measure angles accordingly. I did this my measuring the angle of a couple of the horizontal chassis rails.

I found that the car sloped down to the offside by 0.25 degrees - probably good enough for the builder of my garage floor! After measuring the wheel cambers I subtracted the floor slope to get the following results:

Hmmm...... 2 Wheels camber the right way at least!.... one doesn't camber at all and the remaining one cambers the wrong way! To be honest these aren't massive deviations. For the Jag Chassis with 18" wheels GD recommend 0.5 degrees negative camber on the rears and 0.75 degrees negative camber on the fronts.

I've got a couple of print-outs from having the tracking adjusted on the four wheel laser aligner down my local tyre place - the problem was that I didn't know which was the last one as they had no dates on - with these measurements I now know which the latest one is as the measurements are pretty close - all within 0.2 of a degree.

Now a lot more thought has gone into the design of the Jaguar Suspension than you may think. A quick look in any XJ6 service manual will reveal the following:

One 20 thou rear camber shim adjusts the camber by 1/4 of a degree.

One 1/16" front camber shim adjusts the front camber by 1/4 of a degree.

Simples!

So this would indicate that I need to do the following:

Front near-side: Measured -0.8 deg, Target -0.75 deg: Leave as is.

Front off-side: Measured 0 deg, Target - 0.75deg: remove 3/16 of shim.

Rear near-side: Measured -0.1 deg, Target -0.5 deg: remove 2x20 thou' add 1x10 thou' shims.

Rear off-side: Measured +0.55 deg, Target -0.5 deg: remove 4 x 20 thou' shims.

Before embarking on this I'll just double check my measurements.

Obviously things have changed since the build?????

Initially the cambers were set at an estimated ride height - the actual ride height has changed a few times since the car has been on the road and with the unequal length wishbones there will be a noticeable camber change with a change in ride height.
The front suspension was set up before the engine and the chassis brace were fitted - I had to jack one engine mount up to get the chassis brace in - and this would have had an effect on the position of the top wishbone pivot.
The original camber gauge I used was a graduated bubble affair - nowhere near as accurate as the one I have now.
The front camber were a little uneven at build and as I only had 1/4" camber spaces I just fitted them and forgot to remember to check it later..... until now.
There is a limit to the accuracy that can be obtained by "reading a bubble" so even when setting the chassis level with a conventional level errors may well have crept in.

So to some extent during the build you are guessing a bit. Only when you have your chosen wheels and tyres and settled on a ride height will you be able to set things exactly.

My only worry now is that in those locations where I need to remove shim I hope there is actually enough shim in there to remove!

Watch this space........

**** STOP PRESS ****

Handy things these blogs..... just looked back through the suspension build up sections - I used 1/4" camber spacers on the front - so the offside just need to be replace with a 1/16" shim (3/16" removed) - I also used 4 x 20 thou' camber shims on the rear so I can remove them all.

Weather!!

2010-01-09T09:32:00.000Z

It has now snowed virtually every day for three weeks and rarley been above freezing - if at all. Yesterday it was -13.

The End of the Driving Season?

2009-12-20T09:06:00.000Z

Today was supposed to be the next Area Group Meet:

Even if I felt like driving in the ice/slush/salt I probably wouldn't get the car out of the garage:

So with the imminent arrival of Christmas it looks like the cob's going to stay wrapped up for a while:

Fame at Last??

2009-11-24T22:58:00.004Z

Maybe not..........You may or may not remember this post? Well that was on the 24th June so I suppose now's the time to come clean.

On 24th June 2009 Rob Hawkins came up for a Photo Shoot - you might have spotted this fact already by looking in the "Driving" Photo Gallery. The article was written and, as is usual with these things, some time elapses before it actually gets into print. To be honest I had forgotten all about it until I got an e-mail from Martin last night. So here it is - Part 1 - 8 pages, Part 2 - another 8 pages to follow next month.

Obviously I cannot reproduce the article(s) on here at this time, but will do when the mags are no longer current. (Thanks to Den Tanner for the above PDF of the front Cover)

So rush out and get your copy now...... and don't forget Part 2 will be available from the 18th December!!

I have to admit though..... colour looks a little odd.... especially when you compare the cover to the original photo:

Which got me thinking...... with a little bit of Photoshopping I put the original photo back in:

Winter Jobs

2009-11-22T11:30:00.000Z

Well it's getting to that time of year. Dark in the evenings, damp or wet most days, salt starting to go down on the roads. Combined with the preparations for Christams the opportunities for a decent drive out are diminishing. So thoughts turn to the list of outstanding jobs that never got completed because I was too busy driving the car or simply too lazy to do them!

After 2500 miles I am pretty happy with the car. Hand on heart there is nothing that I would have done differently and nothing that detracts from my enjoyment of driving the car. The to do list simply comprises of tweaks or niggles - nothing major.

By the time I had sat down with a pen and paper I had drawn up quite a list:

CHANGE FRONT CASTOR ANGLE
After my visit to GD for Andy to set up the suspension I had taken a lot of castor off. Whilst the car still runs true and self centres...... I prefer the steering to be a little heavier than it is now.... but not as heavy as before. Maybe just swap one shim over?

TWEAK FRONT CAMBER ANGLES
The total camber on the fronnt is more or less correct, but there is slightly more one side than the other. This is a function of the fact that the Jaguar Camber shims only come in 1/8 and 1/4 inch thicknesses. So I'm going to need an accurate camber gauge and some bespoke shims.

CHECK BUMPSTEER
Obviously changing the castor and camber will affect the bumpsteer - so this needs to be done again. Before I do this I'm going to make a bump steer gauge so that the whole process becomes much more simple and quicker. I have some ideas already on how to do this so watch this space.

INCREASE REAR NEGATIVE CAMBER
One of the outcomes of Andy's test drive was that the rears would benefit from a tad more negativve camber - they are more or less at zero degrees at the minute. A simple enough job made difficult by the restricted access to diff output shafts.

INCREASE REV-LIMITER TO 6000rpm
Simple Job, just a bugger to get the dash bottom cover back in afterwards...... probably why I had been putting it off? Perhaps I should have made it more accessible? not that you want to be changing it every 5 minutes though.

INDICATOR SELF CANCELLING MECHANISM
Works OK 95% of the time - needs a slight modification to cover the 5% that they cancel too early - nromally when indicating right and approacing a roudabout with a curve to the left on approach. I know what needs to be done - just havn't done it yet!

FIT HOOD
Yup, had to concede defeat at last. The absence of a hood effictively limits you to day trips. I an hoping next year to venture to France for a week or so. Therefore a hood sort of becomes a necessity. Linked with this are the side screens. Not sure if I want to go with the GD ones or do something a little different???

FUEL FILLER PIPE
It still smells a bit...... need to investigte what alternative possibilites there are. The fluroelastomer lined Silicone filler pipes are not necessarilly vapour proof. The fluroelastomer has to be dilluted as in a concentrated form it does not adhere to silicone!!!! Quality control can be a problem. Again not a massive issue but if I am going to have a purge on niggly things then I might as well add it to the list.

FUEL TANK
The standard tank is around 10 gallons. On a long trip being sensible I can get 160 miles before needing to fill up - mainly due to the 0.64 overdriven 5th gear. Whilst hooning around on the last drive out to hartside saw me nearly run out of fuel after 90 miles - a wildly swinging around fuel pressure gauge gives you a good indication that you aint gonna get much further! The problem is compounded by the rural nature of Northumberland where you could end up 40 miles from the nearest petrol station quite easilly. Thinking about the possibilities of either increasing the size of the tank or providing an auxilliary tank. My neighbour has a freind who is good at welding stainless.... might come in handy.

FIRE EXTINGUISHER
Thought about it during the build...... sort of then forgot. Plumbed in or not plumbed in????? need to decide.

BRAKE VENTS / OIL COOLER OPENING
Fancy fitting some stainless woven mesh to finish things off, but leave the rad opeining as it is. Might fit a top baffle plate to the coil cooler as GD now do.

ROLLING ROAD TUNING
Still would like to get this done only there is nowhere close by. But having a hood should mean no problems waiting for a nice day to go further afeild.

Plus quite a few other little odds and sods including some routine maintenance ready for the spring.

New Photo Galleries

2009-11-16T05:42:00.001Z

The old photo galleries have been removed. However, do not despair as they have been replaced by what I hope is a much slicker affair which should make it easier to find things. You will find them just where they used to be - on the right hand side and down a bit.

North East Area Group Meet - October 09

2009-10-18T18:04:00.001+01:00

That time again, weather was not too bad and a good turnout - 5 cobs all 2 up:

In the foreground above is Ian H's recently aquired AK. Next to my car is Jimmy's MkII Sumo - nearly 20 years old and having had a fair bit of development including a 5 litre Rover Engine and bespoke fully adjustable suspension by magnum engineering. Here's some gratuitous photo's of the GD courtesy of Ian C who turned up to have a gander being on the verge of starting his Pilgrim Sumo build:

Ian's camera produces a nice red! Here we are departing from the Manor House Inn:

And here we are on the approach to Langley Castle:

Here's another classic action shot by Tommy - rding shotgun in John's Sumo - on the climb up to Hartside Summit:

When we arrived at the summit we ended up in the clouds - well it is 1904ft above sea level in October:

Thats Geoff's Dax in the foreground, and a particulalry rubbish view of Cumbria in the background.

As you can see below it was a bit dreary, and after a quick bite to eat it started to rain. Discretion being the better part of valour we promptly rany away back down to Alston and the Sunshine.

All in all a good 100 mile run out with pleny of interesting roads. As usual the map of the route is below which you can click on and be taken to the details on google maps.

The ride with the tweaked suspension and anti-roll bar was a marked improvement. I had Dave as a passenger (currently building a GD in Darlingotn) who had the misfortune(?) of a previous ride in the car when I was running it far too stiffly damped at the front. He felt that both the quality of ride and cornering was much improved.

I had also treated the windscreen to a coating of Rain-X both inside and out and am pleased to report that it did make seeing through the screen much easier than before and appeared to increase the effectiveness of the wipers by around 500%!

So, here's hoping for some decent weather in November....... might be pushing our luck this time.

Bump Steer Measurements Again

2009-10-13T17:04:00.007+01:00

Worked on this Last night and all of Today - 14 Hours in Total!! - It's a pain with the body on!

As before - time to break out the mirror, laser and graph paper:

Firstly I removed the spring and damper (and disconnecting the anti-roll bar). I then swapped some shims over on the top balljoint / wishbone to remove a bit of caster - this as you might expect made a mess of the bump steer effect.

To cut a very long story short - I moved the steering rack around in small increments (not easy with the body on and an accusump in the way) - moved the suspension through it's range and plotted the results. I then input these into the laptop to provide a record of the changes and try to figure out the next step:

I ended up with lots of results:

Conscious that Christmas was not that far way I settled on the best I could manage, repeated the exercise for the other side, then checked the first side. Here's an averaged set for both sides - (both sides were with a couple of minutes of each other):Despite my best efforts I could not reduce the effects to any less than this - nor could I achieve the ideal of some toe-in under bump). On my first graph when I first measured the bump steer - when i got confused with minutes and seconds! - I also got confused with toe-in and toe-out! - the slight toe-in under bump was in reality toe-out. All in all then not a good effort as it turns out. Ignoring the extremes of travel (where things tend to get excessive no matter what you do) the bump steer effects are generally less than 5 minutes - less than the 13 I had before!

Having adjusted the caster and rack height I nipped off down the local tyre centre to get the tracking re-set. On the way back I sought out some bumpy bits of road. I still noticed a slight effect on large bumps but it was much reduced from that previously not requiring any steering correction. On generally uneven / bumpy roads the car felt quite settled. Plotting graphs is one thing - it is how it feels when driving that is important. All in all a good improvement over the previous set up. The reduction in caster (2 x 1.0mm shims swapped) has reduced the steering effort a bit without affecting straight line stability.

I am now however - intrigued with the whole concept of steering geometry and bump steer. Over the winter I am going to see if it would be possible to eliminate it completely - probably not notice that much difference on the road - but that's not the point now!

Bumpsteer Revisited

2009-10-11T17:47:00.006+01:00

So.... I have a small bumpsteer issue to resolve. On the 180 mile drive back from GD I paid particular attention to the characteristics that were being exhibited.

When encountering a "bump" the very slight pull on the steering feel wheel seemed to be associated with the extension phase of the damper as opposed to the compression phase. It is not really a significant effect - but you know what it's like once someone points something out to you and you can't help but keep noticing it!

I looked back at the graph I posted when I did the original measurements:

I also measured the "ride height"damper length and found it to be 12 inches. So if you look at the green line and assume a normal damper range of +/- 1 inch you can see I should be expecting a range of around 13 arc seconds change in toe per wheel - Now 13 arc seconds is pretty small - in fact t is 13 /3600's of a degree - so why do I appear to be getting some bumpsteer effect.

I'll tell you why.... 'cos after racking my brains I discovered I had cocked up my calculations - the scale for the green line should read arc minutes not arc seconds!!!

Now I ignored the effect because I thought 13 seconds was negligible - which it is. 13 minutes is not!! especially when you consider that I am running 10 minutes of total toe-in on the front!!

Bugger!

I was kind of led down this path of ignoring the effect as it was small due to the fact that I ran out of adjustment on the steering rack mounts. To get rid of the toe-out bumpsteer effect I needed to raise the rack - but I was at the end of the slotted holes - "it's only 13 seconds so I'll leave it"

Andy had recommended that I reduce the castor angle - this will also have the effect of lowering the front of the steering arm (i.e the same effect as raising the steering rack). So this should give me back the adjustment I had lost.

So the plan will be to "swap" one /some of the castor shims over from the front to the back and then get the mirror and laser out to re-check the bumpsteer effect and take it from there.

To avoid further cock-ups I have drawn out the laser and mirror method of measuring bumpsteer on AutoCad and have confirmed that it is a valid and accurate method.

Changing Castor angle and rack height will of course necessitate re-setting the front toe-in.

All in all a bit of an annoyance - but at least everything makes sense - the theory now matches up with the practical experience.

So if you end up running a lot of castor to get the steering to self centre for SVA/IVA don't be surprised if you can't get the adjustment to elliminate all the bumpsteer. You'll have to change it afterwards.

Trip to GD for Suspension Tweaks

2009-10-08T20:25:00.009+01:00

The time had come to return to the GD Mothership and have the ant-roll bar fitted and the suspension tweaked. It was dark and 2 degrees C when I left at 7am! 120 miles later it was time for a coffee and some fried slices of pig in a bun to warm up:The journey was reasonably uneventful ending up at GD in the warm winter sunshine: After a bit of a chat with Andy we set to work fitting the anti-roll bar:It is a bit of a Chinese Puzzle fitting the anti-roll bar with the body on and necessitated removing the alternator to get it in. My advice would be to fit it before the body goes on. I originally didn't think I would need one - but once you get used to the levels of grip available you can't help but corner that bit faster and you'll soon find yourself needing one. And here's the man himself Andy Burrows hard at it:You can see the anti-roll bar in the following photo - it's the black bar running just aft of the chassis top brace:

It is held in place by two clamp blocks - one each side - which allow the bar to rotate but hold it in position as shown below - this also shows the retaining ring which butts against the inside of each block to fix the bar transversely:The anti-roll bar is connected to the lower shock mount by a rose jointed drop link:I knew I should have painted the track rod ends!! The lower end of the drop link is connected to the lower shock mounting bolt by a threaded extension:The extension piece is of a much larger diameter to provide a large bearing area onto the shock mounting bracket to accommodate the leverage forces. At the top the drop link is bolted directly to the arm of the anti-roll bar:At the moment the outer hole is being used. If the inner hole is used then this will increase the effective stiffness of the anti-roll bar by around 15%. You will need to grind away the return on the inner wing to provide clearance for the connecting bolt - you can just make this out in the photo.

After everything was put back together it was time for a test drive. After some rudimentary checks of wheel cambers Andy set the dampers to mid range and off we went. It was quite strange sitting on the "wrong" side of my car whilst someone else drove it.

What happened next can only really be described as astonishing. Andy drove the car much faster than I ever had (and probably ever will) although it never felt out of control. After a brief stop to twiddle with the dampers following slight front o/s lock up we continued at an increased pace. I am ashamed to admit that on more than one occasion I felt my right leg twitching for the "ghost" brake pedal on my side of the car!!

It certainly was an eye opener to see how fast a skilled driver could drive the car relying on the feedback he gained from the car. It was also comforting to be shown what the limits of your car are as it then gives you a yardstick to measure how close you are to (or far away from!!) them with your own driving.

The verdict upon our return was that it was now probably "95% there". Having had a quick blast myself I had noticed an improvement, particularly with respect to roll. Andy did say that I probably wouldn't notice a marked improvement as it wasn't "a million miles out" to start with.

Andy left me with a small list of things to do when I got back:

Increase tyre pressures to 23 psi front and 22 psi rear - I had reduced the tyre pressures as a result of having overdamped the car - the overdamping was due to trying to control roll by damping as I did not have an anti-roll bar fitted.
Check the bumpsteer as there was slight effect noticeable - You will remember from previous posts that I could not eliminate all the bumpsteer as I had run out of adjustment on the steering rack mounts.
Reduce the Castor angle - this will reduce steering effort and will drop the height of the front of the steering arm - this should bring the steering rack back into the range of adjustment to eliminate all the bump steer. I had deliberately set a high castor angle to ensure self centering at SVA which can be a problem with new (stiff) steering components.
Slightly increase the negative camber of the rear wheels to improve corner entry - a bit of a faff to do this one but Andy reckoned it wasn't desperate and would make a nice "winter job". I had set the rear cambers as per the build manual - but the final setting depends upon actual ride height/damping plus the feedback Andy got from driving the car.

All in all a good day and a fantastic experience having the man behind the car actually drive the one you've built. I was also quite pleased to hear that I had "screwed it together properly".

The drive back highlighted a car with a different character - It felt more compliant than before. It is interesting to note how drastically I had overdamped it. Originally I had the rear dampers on 9 clicks - they were now on 8 and I had the front dampers on 7 they were now on 4!! The car felt much more planted and less skittish - as you might expect from reducing the front damping. I also noticed the slight bumpsteer effect which I hadn't really noticed before - probably as I had artificially limited the front suspension travel by running too much damping.

So a few jobs to do. They will have to wait to next week as I'm away this weekend.

Oh...... and my new rocker cover gaskets did the job!

New Rocker Cover Gaskets

2009-10-06T21:28:00.007+01:00

Hats off to Real Steel.... New Gaskets turned up today - Guaranteed not to leak, blow out or suck in:

So, out with the old ones:

Hmmmmm.... doesn't look good - Looks like it has slipped over the edge of the head and then got crushed when tightening (possibly even over tightening?). Interesting how the entire cork gasket is impregnated with oil.

The new ones are rubber bonded onto a steel frame - so they keep their shape and fit where they are supposed to with no slipping out:

Piece of cake to fit compared to the cork variety - no flopping about etc. I'm feeling confident so fingers crossed.

Just need a few more routine checks and we are ready for the journey back to the mothership.

Return to the Mothership

2009-10-05T19:54:00.004+01:00

New (proper) gaskets ordered and I'm booked in at GD on Thursday for an anti-roll bar and suspension tweaks.

Thursday looks good for a 400 mile round trip:

Just hope me gaskets turn up before Wednesday night!

Another Day Another Suspension Tweak

2009-10-03T14:07:00.004+01:00

Here we go again.........

At the last meet I found my recent suspension tweaks had resulted in a marginal deterioration. So I retraced my steps and then made some more tweaks with a few more short test drives along the same stretch of twisty road.

I am now at:

Front Dampers - 7 out of 12 clicks

Rear Dampers - 9 out of 12 clicks

Front Tyre Pressures - 21 psi

Rear Tyre Pressures - 20 psi

End result? an improvement over where it was before I had made it temporarily worse. Feels reasonably planted now.

There was however a little downside..... spotted a drop of oil on the floor! Turns out to be nothing more than the rocker gasket (again!).

After I changed them last time - looks like it was slightly displaced beyond the front of the head and has been pinched and ultimately broken.

Oh well - I'll get it right one day! It is a little tricky as the cork gaskets are smaller than the outer rim on the rocker covers so you sort of have to guess where they go - they also fall off / slide out of position if you don't silicone them to the covers.

North East Area Group Meet - September 09

2009-09-21T19:10:00.006+01:00

Another month and time for another Area Group Meet. Unfortunately all the regular die-hards had other commitments. Fortunately two new proud owners turned up. We had Chris with his Cheetah 427 and Mike with his Southern Roadcraft: Chris unfortunately had a prior commitment and couldn't make the drive out. So that left myself and Mike to take advantage of the lovely summers day. The route I had planned was a figure 8 with the lunch stop at Rothbury taking in some nice driving roads - Click on the map for more details:
And here we both are at the lunch stop at Beggars Rig - after all the crappy weather recently it was nice to eat lunch sat in the sun:

Beggars Rig overlooks the River Coquet towards Simonside - time for another photo opportunity - this has turned out to be one of my favourite photos of the cob so far:

Having fiddled with my suspension and tyres pressures again... the end result unfortunately was not as good as I had previously. The time to go down and see Andy at GD is rapidly approaching I think!

A good day of 100+ miles of driving in the sunshine on country roads with beautiful scenery - exactly what Cobra ownership is all about.

Shame about the odd tractor.......... but they were quickly dispatched!

First Scrape! and other stuff

2009-09-13T08:17:00.005+01:00

It's not as bad as it sounds...... caught the bottom of the oil cooler scoop on a road hump on the way into a friends estate - no real damage other than some scrape marks underneath out of sight.

On a similar vein - I had the front wheels off this weekend to get them balanced again (long story) and noticed that there was an area of underseal underneath each arch that had been rubbed off by the tyres. So as a consequence of this, and the scrape, I've raised the front ride height slightly. I may revise this after fitting the front anti-roll bar. I've tentatively arranged with Andy to go down to GD end of September and get them to fit the anti-roll bar there and then and get Andy to finish tweaking the suspension.

Going back to the wheel balancing issue - I was getting a slight tremor at 75ish that you could drive through and would be gone by 90. Nothing too drastic but it was starting to annoy me - particularly as I had been and had them balanced on two previous occasions but it had never quite solved the problem. So this time I carefully checked wheel rim and tyre run out (both in line and laterally) and also checked the wheel bearings. Everything checked out within acceptable limits so it was off to a different tyre place that didn't employ "yoofs"!

I stood over the the guy this time and watched the process - as the wheels are quite wide it was explained that I would need two sets of weights on each wheel to get the dynamic balance right - one set on the back edge of the rim the other set towards the front edge but just behind the wheel face so they are not visible. So 10 minutes and 25 quid later job done. It turned out to be a marked improvement and has cured the issue.

It was also time for another clean and polish after spending 4 hours driving in the rain at the last monthly meet. This time I had a change of heart and instead of using Auto Gylm products I used One Grand Omega Glaze followed by One Grand Blitz Wax (Carnauba). In all the whole process took about 8 hours but I was quite pleased with the results:

Finally, after a discussion with my Engine Builder, Jez, we have concluded that I can turn up my rev-limiter from a conservative 5200rpm to 6000rpm - this will give me an approximate increase of 15% in road speed for each gear. This will come in handy as the thing accelarates so quickly I was not spending much time in the lower gears! I just need to psyche myself up for another upside down in the footwell episode first - perhaps in hindsight I should have put the Mallory Hy-Fire unit somewhere more accessible? where though I'm not sure.

Update and August Meet

2009-08-19T18:21:00.004+01:00

Well, that's a month gone by. And to be honest it was a month of not driving. This was mainly due to allowing my partially severed finger to heal!

The next thing I knew it was the third Sunday of the Month and time for our North East Area Group Meet. This time I had selected a route that covered most of the Historic Lead Mining Areas of the North East. The route is shown below, click on the image for more details:

Having been promised a decent forecast by the Met office, on Sunday the weather turned out to be poor. As a result only myself and John with his sumo turned out. We then proceeded to get wet for a few hours! In hindsight visiting the highest market town in England (Alston) when the weather was bad was probably not a good idea. However, I did discover that you could open the boot, sit inside and eat your sandwiches in relatively dry comfort!

Here is the only photo of the day taken in Alston, we only stopped 'cos I was desperate for the toilet!

Have a close look at the Estate Agents sign..... somewhat appropriate.... even if it was a fluke. The route was definitely a good one, but was spoilt by the weather.

My finger troubles have also kept me out of the garage. I still have some more work to do on fine tuning the suspension. I know GD will do it for free, but at the moment I still want to try and get to grips with it myself, thereby getting a better understanding of "cause and effect" and ultimately (hopefully) reaching a better understanding of how my car handles.

At the moment I'm thinking of adding an anti-roll bar to the front. I omitted this in the build as the consensus was that it would not be needed for mainly road driving. However the more I get used to the car the more I seem to chuck it around - my only way of controlling body roll at the moment is by increasing the effect of the dampers, but this in itself has some drawbacks to overall ride quality. The levels of grip available on tight corners have been resulting in some contact between the tyres and front arches. I also think that the front springs have settled a bit more and need to be adjusted.

Hopefully I can fit in some tinkering time in the garage in the not too distant future.

Watch this space.........

North East Area Group Meet (July 09)

2009-07-19T20:28:00.008+01:00

After a couple of days of torrential rain with some associated flooding we got 5 cobs together and we chased the sun round all day! Went for a drive up to Keilder reservoir and back through Otterburn and Stamfordham. Click on the map to see the details: It was a cracking day out:In the last photo you'll notice my left index finger is bandaged up - had an accident at work on Wednesday - sliced it down to the bone, severed some nerves and damaged a tendon and had to have it stitched back on. 160 miles later....... it's now bloody agony and gone a lovely shade of black - still - too good a day to miss.

Thanks to Tommy for Navigation and Photography duties.

A Miscellany of Distractions

2009-07-17T20:09:00.005+01:00

It's been a while since I've posted any updates........ kind of been distracted by other things.

Got s few more miles in, been to another hot-rod meet at the Gateshead Metro Centre - forgot my camera which was a shame as there were 5 cobs there this time!

Now that the build has finished I've still felt the need to tinker. Fixed the mother-in-laws lawn mower (and her TV!) and found a junked treadmill motor on eBay for a few quid..... so with some plastic drainage pipe cut up and shaped for blades I made one of these using other bits and pieces in my garage:

Produces 18v in not much wind and was up to 30v (with no load) in the video. The idea is to charge marine batteries (identified a free source for some) and to then power my garage through a voltage inverter. Just need to acquire a 10foot scaffold pole as a mast now.

Most of my spare time at the minute has been taken up with helping my neighbour plan a somewhat extreme project.......... The plan is to build a twin engined 32 foot offshore powerboat along these lines:

The budget is limited so the plan will be to build the hull in ply (Dave is good with wood) and then overlay it inside and out with fibreglass. Motive power is planned to come from two Lexus V8's liberated from a couple of MOT failure LS400's which we will marinise and "chip" to give us 650-700 BHP. So far I've been getting to grips with some 3D hull design software - still got a way to go with this before it gets the chance to pass the feasibility test!!

Back to Cobras, this Sunday is the next North East Area Group Meet, I've planned a drive out to Keilder Reservoir so here's hoping for a) some not too wet weather and b) some other cobs to turn up.

I'll attempt to remember my camera this time!

What's going on?

2009-06-24T20:28:00.003+01:00

You'll have noticed that the pictures in the blog title have changed......... one day it will become clear what was going on.

North East Area Group Meet (June 09)

2009-06-21T22:12:00.008+01:00

Well today was the Inaugural Monthly Meet for the Cobra Club North East Area Group. I got there first and began to wonder if I was going to be on my own......However, I was shortly joined by Bob with his AK and Howard with his Unique Autocraft Python.......... and if that wasn't good enough...... then Geoff arrived in his Dax......So there we are.... the largest number of Cobra Replicas in one place in the North East to Date!

The weather was superb, sat outside in the blazing sun eating our Sunday Roasts. As this was the first meet I hadn't organised anything in the way of drive outs as I wasn't sure on turn out. Next Month I'll get a trip out organised.

Interestingly, of the four cars, one was 12 years old, another 15 and the third 20. Two were automatic, 3 had underslungs, 3 had chevy power with the fourth being rover powered.

So that's just over 1000 miles up now..... time to start thinking about rolling road tuning and returning to the mothership for final suspension tweaks. I've tried my best, but it still gets slightly interesting once you are over the ton.... on private roads obviously.

Hot Rod Meet

2009-06-10T22:39:00.000+01:00

Had our first North East Group Meet tonight, went along to the Hot Rod and Muscle Car Meet at the Gateshead Metro Centre. Two Cobs plus Tommy (soon to start building) turned up. Quite a few interesting cars there plus plenty of interest in the Cobras:

It all got a bit wet after an hour and I had to leave as the interior was getting soaked!..... dried out OK though.

Update

2009-06-05T20:43:00.010+01:00

Been taking advantage of the decent weather recently - nearly up to 900 miles now! It was almost becoming my daily driver at the beginning of the week:

I've carried on tweaking tyre pressures and damper settings and feel that I am getting somewhere close. The more I get used to it the brisker I am driving it and it still feels quite sorted. It is only when you let the lunatic loose in you does it feel like it still needs a little fettling. I will be going back to GD at some point for Andy to finish off setting it up.

Last weekend I had a shock.... spotted a small oil leak on the drive!!!! Turned out it was the NPT fitting on the underside of the Accusump. Nipped it up and it seemed OK, this has however set me back a bit in the paranoia stakes.

I've been on a few trips but keep forgetting to take my camera.... something I promise to rectify.

I also changed the metering rods in the carb to make it one step richer on the cruise circuit (4%). This made a reasonable improvement to the below 1500rpm running. Dead easy to do, air cleaner off undo the screw in each of the covers, pull out the pistons and rods, change the rods and put it all back together:

Here's the Edelbrock Video.... shows you exactly how easy it is:

Plenty of people keep mistaking the gel coat finish for paint:

Had a dabble with Photoshop, and now I have a new desktop background:

Looks like rain the weekend..... maybe I should get round to fitting the stoneguards??

Bonnet Handles Finished

2009-05-28T21:51:00.003+01:00

A couple of minutes work with the Dremel saw the necessary adjustments made to the openings in the bonnet and it was then a simple task to fit the handles and bolt them into place:

Unfortunately, the Dremel work created a load of dust (as usual) so another wash and vacuum was required:

Weather looks good tomorrow...... so off to work again in it I should think.

Bonnet Handles

2009-05-27T18:49:00.006+01:00

Time for a slight change. The existing bonnet locks are fit for purpose (SVA) but have started to annoy me. For one there is no obvious visual indication that the bonnet is locked, plus when you have unlocked the bonnet you have to heave on the front of the air scoop to lift the bonnet.

So I decided to change to the more conventional type of handle. Problem is.... they are a bit long and have no fixing for the latch (they are supposed to be used with a cam):

No problem though. Using the existing lock as a guide I cut down the shafts then drilled and tapped the ends for the M5 fixing bolt:The latch can then be fixed using a couple of 3/8 washers to space the latch off the shoulder of the shaft:Tomorrows job will be to modify the holes in the bonnet to accommodate the handle base plates.

More Miles, Getting Wet & Joining the "ACC" Club

2009-05-26T17:55:00.005+01:00

The other night we decided to go to Seahouses for a fish supper. Nice 100 mile round trip up and back down the Northumberland Coastal Route. It was a nice evening when we set off..... but about 10 miles short of Seahouses the heavens opened. Even trying to keep some speed up didn't help and we got soaked. Luckily I managed to find a covered petrol station forecourt in Seahouses and took some shelter 'till it passed.

I must admit it looked at little daft driving an open topped car in the rain with the wipers on yet having to wipe the inside of the screen also!!

On the way back it became overcast and a bit colder... my Wife had nearly frozen to death by the time we got home! The heater is OK until you are going faster than 30mph.... then all the heat just gets sucked out of the cockpit!

Time to think about investing in a hood me-thinks.

I've ditched the age related registration I got after SVA and changed to a 1963 "ACC" plate. After much deliberation I opted for a "stick on" plate for the front.... it is about as neat as you can get in my opinion.

On the whole I think it looks a lot better:

I still need to fit the stoneguards on the rear arches..... haven't found myself bothered to jack the car up and remove the rear wheels yet!

Going to Work

2009-05-12T18:18:00.001+01:00

Had a couple of nice days up here so it seemed rude not to take the Cob to work:

Much to my amusement I managed to set a few car alarms off on both days!! The new shape Renault Clio's are my favourite - they seem over sensitive as I can set them off with a slight blip of the throttle at twenty paces!

Not really the car to use if you are trying to sneak in late though!

UK Cobra Club - North East Area Group

2009-05-10T18:01:00.000+01:00

Now that the car is (nearly) finished (for the moment) I put my self forward as the Area Rep for the North East / North Yorkshire Area Group of the UK Cobra Club. There a enough Cobs hiding up here in the North East / North Yorkshire to have a viable monthly meet so it's time to get them to come out of the woodwork.

We need a venue for a regular monthly meet and after some research I decided on The Manor House Inn , the meet being on the third Sunday of the Month starting in June.

It is on the A68 just by Derwent Reservoir and can be found here.

This gave me a good excuse for a drive out to check it out and get the agreement of the landlord. I had a bit of a drive round Derwent Reservoir when I was there and ended up doing 112 miles - the longest trip to date - with no problems. When I filled up upon returning it would appear that I had done just over 15mpg... but then I was taking it steady!

Engine Bay Louvres - 2

2009-05-07T21:20:00.003+01:00

That's the other one done then:

Next job is to fit the stoneguards - hopefully this weekend - no driving as rain is forecast:

Engine Bay Louvres - 1

2009-05-06T20:19:00.005+01:00

Fitted one of the engine bay louvres tonight. This was done using four M3x30 button head allen bolts self tapped into 2.5mm dia holes. The Louvre was spaced off the back of the rebate by passing the bolts through some small diameter aluminium tubing (again painted matt black). I'm quite pleased with the end result:Looks quite convincing...... could almost be the engine bay behind the vents.... not just a matt black painted rebate! You have to remember that on the GD you can't really have "proper" vents as these would provide an opening into the footwell compartments.... which would be OK if you guarantee you would never drive in the wet.

The good old days!!!

2009-05-04T16:43:00.006+01:00

Having picked up my engine bay louvres and stoneguards at Stoneliegh I once again had some jobs to do on the car..... just like the good old days! You'll remember that I fitted blanking plates for the SVA test and crudely bodged them into place with silicone adhesive. I ripped the plates off to be confronted by the remaining silicone:It was at this point that I remembered what a bugger silicone can be to get off anything - not to mention GRP. However off I went to my local Screwfix Direct (3 miles away) and in exchange for less than three pounds got a little pot of this:Tried it out on an off cut of GRP - no reaction. Applied it to the remaining silicone - waited 20 minutes - applied some more - waited 20 minutes and yup..... No Nonsense..... Just scraped it all of with an old credit card. No silicone and no scratching or marks to the GRP. A quick roughing up with some wet and dry it was ready to paint matt black:Here's the finished article ready for the Louvre.... when I've got me hands on some M3x30 allen head bolts that is:Simply repeat for the other side.

Oil Change

2009-05-02T16:39:00.002+01:00

475 Miles was close enough to 500 so I changed the oil to Valvoline VR-1 20W50. Took a bit longer than expected (abut 4 hours longer!) as the filter crushed when I put the pliers on.... oops!. Next time I'll do it on a car lift down my local garage..... I've had enough of grubbing round on the floor under the car!

Having collected the old oil I poured it out into a large tray and had a good look at it for anything untoward..... not sure what I was looking for but could find nothing out of the ordinary!

Checking the Carb Settings

2009-05-01T16:00:00.005+01:00

I found a place about 25 miles away in County Durham that had a rolling road and were happy to work on a chevy : http://www.macdonald-racing.com/. A proper old school place that had a pre-war Lagonda outside the workshop with some other older stuff inside undergoing restoration - Wish I hadn't forgotten my camera!

They wired the cob up and set about adjusting the idle mixture - turns out I hadn't quite got it right despite my best efforts. With that done the rolling road was brought into play and the cruising mixtures were checked at 1000,2000 and 3000 rpm together with gentle acceleration (too early for WOT max power runs). It got quite interesting because as the resistance of the rollers went up - more gas was needed and when the secondaries opened the wheels would spin!! So one chap had to sit in the boot! Again - wish I hadn't forgotten my camera!

The consensus at the end of the day was that it was running just slightly rich across the rev range (up to 3000) but that was no bad thing for running in. The main thing for my peace of mind was that it was not running lean or over rich.

They finished off with running it up to 3500 rpm which showed 285BHP at the wheels so it is probably on target for 450 at max rpm.

All in all it took 45 minutes and cost me 35 quid - money well spent as on the way home driveability just off the throttle was improved. I was surprised how much of a difference could be gained from small adjustments of the mixture screws on the idle circuit.

They finished off by telling me not to bring it back for WOT and max power tuning as their dyno was only rated up to 400 BHP!

Nonetheless.... and handy little outfit to have on your doorstep.

By the time I was back home that was now 475 miles on the clock..... then it started raining! So hopefully a few more miles on Saturday morning then I can change the oil and start to increase the revs.

Ohh...... and on the way home one of the bonnet hinge pins fell out!!! Good job I had some gaffer tape in the boot. I have now replaced it and checked the other one is tight. Remember to check things that are not on the SVA/IVA inspectors list!

Something odd with the brakes!

2009-04-28T18:21:00.000+01:00

Over the last couple of days I had noticed that I was beginning to get a "slack" bit on the brake pedal before they began to bite. If the brakes were re-applied within 30 seconds the pedal was OK. If you drove for a bit longer the "slack" came back.

Reminded me of when I managed to warp the discs on an old Astra..... but I have been careful with these so it seemed a bit odd??

I decided to check the disc runout.... offside OK... but then I noticed there was a slight amount of slack in the nearside wheel bearing.... not enough to detect at the steering wheel but possibly enough to knock the pads away from the disc.

Tightened it up... quick test drive all OK. Ordered a new bearing and fitted it just to be on safe side. Especially a it had been one of the last things I re-checked before SVA.

Strange...... but sorted.

I assume the pads are still bedding in as they are producing copious amounts of brake dust.

Alignment Check and Joy Ride

2009-04-26T17:29:00.005+01:00

Took the Cob down to my local tyre place who have a couple of those swanky John Bean Laser Visual Alignment set ups to check the suspension geometry.

Cambers and Castors were as they should be and the rear toe in was nearly spot on at 3 minutes & 4 minutes N/S and offside respectively. The front toe in for some reason measured 20 minutes total - a tad too much so this was reduced to 3 minutes per side (GD recommended 0-10 minutes total). At the same time the steering wheel was centred - it was half a spline out and was starting to annoy me.

The Wheelbases on each side were checked as were the diagonals and the resultant line of thrust was only 1 minute out. I would have posted a copy of the printout but it blew out of the car on the way home!!

On Sunday I had a visit from Tommy who lives not too far away and is just embarking on a build himself. He came to have a look at the GD and obviously to go for a ride:

By the way... the oil stains are off my mates 1971 VW beetle - the cob hasn't blotted it's copybook yet!

And here's some photo's taken my Tommy's missus - been a bit short on photo's recently:

More Miles and some Suspension Tweaks

2009-04-21T19:42:00.004+01:00

Nice day so went to work in the Cob.... caused a bit of a stir. At least I only managed to set one car alarm off! The return journey to and from work is only 24 miles but somehow when I checked the speedo tonight I had done 80 odd. Mainly due to having to scare a few work colleagues at Lunchtime!

I had noted that the rear suspension had settled a bit so I raised the back another 10mm on the springs which gives nearly 20mm at the wheelarch.

Also when exceeding 80mph the front was starting to get a bit "choppy". I sorted this by going up 2 more clicks on the front dampers. This has also had a positive effect on the handling in general.

The other day I received a calibration kit for the carb, so this weekend I'll have a fiddle and see if I can improve the sub 1400rpm running.

Forecast more sun tomorrow so looks like another good excuse to take it to work.

Adjusting the Timing and.... more miles

2009-04-07T19:38:00.003+01:00

Bought a Dial Back Timing light today and used it to tweak the timing. I don't have a vacumm advance on my distributor (only needed for economy and emissions .. ha.ha.) so it was set to 36 degrees of advance all in at 3500rpm, which resulted in 16-17 degrees at tickover.

Had another fiddle with the idle circuit mixture screws and off for some more shake-down miles. Result.... it runs much improved at low rpm will pull from 1200rpm OK now. With the camshaft I have it is never going to be that smooth below 1200 rpm!

So that's 159 miles so far and all seems well - all fluids present and correct (no drips of anything on the garage floor), it gets up to temp OK then cycles between 80 & 90 on the stat. If you drop from 60/70 to 20/30 in traffic then the latent heat in the engine bay will cause the temps to just top 90 but then the fans kick in and its back down to 85 in 2 minutes. No strange rattles or squeaks, nothing dropped off. In fact, at the minute I can't think of anything needing attention - other than maybe another fiddle with idle circuit on the carb - odd whiff of petrol fumes in the exhaust in slow moving traffic now and again.

The paranoia of something going wrong is starting to subside a bit now so I might start to venture a bit farther away from home.... got my AA card and a mobile phone so I'll be OK!

The next milestone is 500 miles, drop the oil, new filter and start to build the revs up.

Steering Wheel Fitted and More Miles

2009-04-05T20:33:00.005+01:00

Fitted the steering wheel this morning:

Ho - Hum time for a few test miles! - Indicators cancel perfectly - I can now spend all my paranoia on watching the gauges!!

Time to load up the first passengers today. First of all was my Mother in Law who brought along Ray's ashes. This was very emotional moment for me as I had never really come to terms with the fact that Ray would not be here to see the finished article. I think he enjoyed getting the first ride!

Fiddled with the carb a bit more and managed to cure a slight off-idle stumble. I still have one issue at the minute in that it's not happy going slow!! It is not happy doing 30 in 4th, it likes to be in 3rd. Below 1500 rpm with the throttle just cracked open it's a little lumpy. Out on the road it's fine - it will pick up from idle with just a little bit of throttle with no stumble. I'm not sure if it is just a function of the cam or if its timing or carb related?

Anyways I only encounter it when having to cruise past speed camera's..... maybe I'll just avoid them instead.

Started to increase corner exit speeds today and It still seems pretty sure footed. It is quite a revelation driving a car with such direct controls - the feedback is far greater than any mass produced euro box and gives you much more confidence on knowing exactly what is going on with things. However, always at the back of mind is the fact that 400+ BHP in a light rear wheel drive car is a potential recipe for disaster!

The First Driving Experience

2009-04-04T18:46:00.003+01:00

So there we are, after 955 days it finally hits the road. Managed the heady total of 34 miles today!

First thoughts?

If I don't watch out I'm gonna loose my licence!
Even keeping to 3000rpm during running in your speed picks up much quicker than expected.
It gets to 100 (on private roads) before you realise it would be possible to.
The power delivery is unlike anything I've experienced before - no waiting for the revs to build up..... it just goes.
It goes round corners, boy does it go round corners (better than my tin top and that has sports suspension and traction aids) - can't see why you would need to fit a anti-roll bar - very little body roll if any.
I thought the steering was heavy to start with but no - it's a nice weighted feeling when turning in that you don't get in your everyday car.
New pads and discs on non servo brakes require a bigger gap to be left before you get used to them.
It's just downright brutal! - no better way to contribute to global warming.
Bear in mind the above and the fact that it is not run in and hasn't had the carb set up properly yet!
I'm left feeling slightly shaky in good way and have lost the ability to construct proper sentences and can only do bullet points!

I hope the sun shines tomorrow .........................................

On the Road at Last!!!

2009-04-04T18:16:00.003+01:00

Today these arrived in the post: This enabled me to go and get these:These plates will only be temporary until I get my V5 at which point I'm going to change the registration. So I needed a temporary means of putting them on (as the final front plate will be a stick on affair on the nose). Cut up and bent some aluminium strip, a few rivets and some chassis foam and made these:These are a snug fit thus:With some stick on pads the front plate was fixed:The rear plate was simply stuck on with sticky pads direct onto the boot. Next job was to get the vacuum gauge out and set the mixture screws on the carb to lean best idle... which is more or less the maximum vacuum for a given idle speed. The maximum vacuum was around 15"Hg and the screws didn't seem to have a massive effect on vacuum unless they were way in / way out. I ended up with 1.5 turns out and had to reset the idle down around 200 rpm.

The next job was to fit the mota-lita wheel having got a replacement boss from GD. Problem.... I needed to know where "straight ahead" was on the Vauxhall Wheel as I had sort of thrown it on just before SVA. Solution... quick drive armed with a piece of masking tape to stick on the steering wheel rim.

.........

34 miles later I came back!..... got a bit carried away!

The main issue with fitting the boss is to make the indicators self cancel (out of the 34 miles I had probably left them on for 20 niles! - too excited to notice)

On the Vauxhall column there is a small white peg that protrudes when the indicators are armed:Here's a close up:You need to drill 2 holes in the back of the boss and insert 2 pins to flick the peg and cancel the indicators. After lots of careful measuring I ended up this:The pins are 6mm stainless steel and are an interference fit into holes drilled into the boss. I also Araldited them in just in case. I'll put the wheel on tomorrow when the Araldite has gone off.

Vacuum Gauges

2009-03-31T17:35:00.003+01:00

Found some really useful info on the use of Vacuum Gauges - not only for tuning but how to diagnose all manner of engine ailments - seems to be a much under-rated piece of kit. Click here to learn more.

Things Still to do......

2009-03-30T21:17:00.002+01:00

1) Fit the Mota-Lita Steering Wheel - Waiting on a replacement boss from GD.

2) Work out how to make the indicators self cancel (need new boss first) - think I've sussed it.

3) Fit Engine Bay Louvres and Rear Arch Stoneguards (waiting for GD to get some stock).

4) Work out how to temporarily fit the front number plate. Once I get my V5 the reg will be changed and I'll go for a stick-on plate on the bonnet. But the V5 will be a few weeks after I get my first age-related reg and I'll want to drive it whilst I'm waiting to change the plates.

5) Make a start on setting the carb up properly - Vacuum Gauge ordered - Instructions to be read!

First Mods

2009-03-28T17:10:00.006Z

Right then, time to change some things. Wind wings, sun visors and headrests fitted:

Fog light swapped back and reflectors removed:

Suspension dropped 25mm for now (left some room for it to settle so we'll see how we get on) and spinners fitted - tyre pressures set to 23psi all round

Steering wheel nearly fitted:

The Mota-Lita boss hasn't had the taper machined correctly so it will not go on to the shaft properly. Another one on its way up from GD next week.

After a little hiccup with my insurance cover note it has gone off with the MAC to the DVLA. So now we wait for an age related registration to turn up in the post sometime.

What's Next?...... and the Blog???

2009-03-26T19:04:00.002Z

Whilst waiting for the DVLA there's plenty of bits to take off and replace and the suspension to sort out.

But what about the Blog???? well after nearly 1000 days and over 30,000 visits it seems wrong to just let it end here?

These cars are never finished... there is always something to do. Then there is the opportunity to share the experiences of driving the damn thing after all this time.

You will note that I have changed the title to "Driving" from "Building"..... as long as people keep looking.... I'll keep posting!

Look out for the first set of mods coming up this weekend..... no time like the present!

SVA Passed!!!

2009-03-25T12:26:00.008Z

Woke up to find no rain.... a good start. Short but enjoyable drive there. Surprisingly the car drove true (straight line with hands off the wheel) with no tracking faults. Just goes to show what can be achieved with a laser level, some bits of wood and metal and a calculator!

Here's a picture of the "Daft Hat Squad" just before we got told off for taking photo's - a good start to the test: And in under three hours it was all over.

The Tester, Dave, was a top bloke and Warren and I laughed and joked with him throughout the entire test.

There were only three issues:

1) The emissions were way off - but a quick twiddle of the mixture screws and it was sorted.

2) One of the bolts on the lower steering UJ was just grazing the stainless steel bottom hose link pipe - something I never spotted. I was allowed to tie this back on the proviso I fixed it when I got home and everything had cooled down.

3) Just scraped the noise test at 100.8 dB - and that's with underslungs and a balance box!

Drove home the longer way..... in the spring sunshine...... I now know what these cars are all about!

I didn't even get to eat my packed lunch..... back in the house before 12!

And after 2 1/2 years here is what it was all for:

Weather Update

2009-03-24T17:47:00.003Z

Looking OK for the morning........ might get wet on the way home though....... hopefully I won't be giving a $h1t by then!

35 Hours to go.......

2009-03-23T20:15:00.002Z

...... and Heavy Rain forecast for Wednesday Morning........ Bugger!

At least I only live 5 miles from the test centre :)

Wheels on... Wheels off... Wheels on... Yawn!

2009-03-20T19:47:00.004Z

Spent a few hours taking the wheels off, winding up spring pans, putting wheels back on, measuring, taking wheels off, adjusting spring pans etc.. etc..

One thing I noticed was that the handbrake cable rested against the spring pan of one of the rear shocks..... I split some grommets, fixed them over the cable and secured each of them with a cable tie round the circumference to "nip" them onto the cable. This will keep the cable away from the spring and the grommets are too big to allow the cable to fall into the spring. Should be OK for SVA:

After a couple of hours of setting spring lengths, driving it a bit to settle the springs and re-checking I ended up with the front indicators at the correct height (350mm) from the floor.Oh well..... after all the waiting I suppose it's time for the money shots:

It is sitting quite high at the moment but will be lowered after SVA, also there are no spinners on either. I did fit one to see what it looked like but forgot to take a photo.

I had quite a few interruptions today from interested neighbours... funny how the sun brings them out!.... where were they through all those long winter nights freezing in the garage??

Now for the bad news...... the tyres foul the inner wings on full lock..... so that means fitting lock stops to the rack.

More on that tommorrow.... I've just wasted an hour or so with Plan A, but Plan B looks like a goer.

They're Here......

2009-03-19T21:42:00.002Z

Let the games begin........

......... I got the cobra up on axle stands, took the old jag wheels off, took some measurements, wound up the spring seats, put the new wheels on, dropped the car back on the floor....... bugger ..... rear to high and front too low. (No photo's 'till it's done.... no spoiling the surprise). Too late to do anymore tonight.... So I fixed my knob on instead!

Day off tomorrow.... so hopefully all will be sorted by the end of the day.

Wheels and Tyres

2009-03-17T16:26:00.003Z

Nearly Done

2009-03-15T16:05:00.008Z

Fitted the last oiece of carpet in the boot (after some minor alterations) and re-fitted the lock plate. I finished off with fitting some edge trim around the inner lip of the boot:

Then it was time for a pre-SVA wash, clean and vacuum. I had now't better to do than take some photos:

Excuse the nasty wheels, Vectra steering wheel, no gearknob and dodgy engine bay vents!!

Fingers crossed for GD getting some tyres tomorrow?????

Louvre Blanking Panels

2009-03-13T16:09:00.002Z

If you end up fitting blanking panels 'cos you don't have the louvres.... then remember to make some holes in the nearside one..... otherwise you won't have an air intake for the heater and the demisters won't work!

Good job I figured this out before the SVA test!

Trying not to think about tyres.......

2009-03-12T15:55:00.013Z

Still some small jobs to be done:

The SVA test requires that the clutch and brake pedals are non-slip, mine obviously are not:No problem though as I've got some of this stuff:It is like (Very) Coarse sandpaper on a rubberised adhesive backing. That bit has been stuck on my vice for two days and is pretty difficult to get off!! So after one last time in the footwell.... job done:I have yet to fit the engine bay dummy vent louvres... mainly because GD don't have any in stock. If I did nothing then the rebate in the body has a contactable edge which is a borderline fail being just less then the 2.5mm radius required. This was solved with some 0.5mm aluminium plate and some silicone: This converts the edge projection to less than 2.5mm in which case it only needs to be "blunted". Problem solved. I probably could have spent a bit longer making the plates fit "Exactly" but to be honest I couldn't really be bothered!

One thing I haven't yet tested is the fuel gauge. Fortunately the last time I ran the engine it ran out of fuel. So I added five litres - Moved up to below empty: Added another 5 (10 in total) - Moved a bit closer to empty - honest!!:

Added another 5 (15 in total) - Moved above empty:

Added another 5 (20 in total) - Moved above 1/4:

At least it moves I suppose. I'll keep adding 5 litres at a time ('cos I only got a 5 litre fuel can!) and note the gauge positions so that should give a good idea of what's left in the tank - somehow I think E - 1/2 - F might not be that accurate!

In fact it won't be. The gauge is marked for a float arm that drops below centre and moves up an equal amount above centre - you can see this from the non-linear markings - i.e. 1/4 is nearer to E than 1/2 and 3/4 is nearer to F than 1/2.

My sender is top mounted and moves through roughly 70 degrees up to just below the horizontal, and from my experiments when fitting the sender the resistance did not appear to change linearly with the float arm. So it's anybody's guess really!

So far... E = 12 Litres and 1/4 = 18 litres. It's around a 50 litre tank so looks like I might get to F before 50 litres?

Update on Tyres

2009-03-12T08:35:00.004Z

Tyres are expected at GD Next Monday, which means I should be able to collect the wheels and tyres on Tuesday.....with 8 days to go till SVA..............

Bored..........

2009-03-10T18:37:00.003Z

Kicking around trying to find things to do....................

......... Cleaned out the wheelarches and fitted the wheelarch covers:

Errrrrr.... and thats it. Need some wheels now to finish the rest of the jobs off:

In the Engine Bay.

2009-03-08T12:14:00.007Z

Time to finish off the engine bay. I had noticed a slight weep from the rocker cover gaskets a week or so ago and after talking to Jez I came to the conclusion that it was down to poor workmanship on my part!! I could have just nipped them up but I was concerned about the cork not sealing now it had oil past it. New set of Gaskets only cost a fiver so it seemed a no-brainer:This time around I used a smear of Silicone flange gasket to "stick" the gaskets to the covers as they tend to fall off and move around when you are trying to fit the covers.

After doing both Rocker Covers I set about the last remaining task in the engine bay..... cleaning all the dust out of it. Took a few hours and here are some gratuitous engine bay shots - this no doubt will be the cleanest it is ever going to be!!

Fixed the Horn

2009-03-06T19:36:00.002Z

You may remember that only one of the twin air horns worked. So tonight I removed the horns, dismantled them, fiddled with the bits, but them back together...... and now they both work!

Beats me...... couldn't see anything wrong....... don't know what I did????

Fog Lamp

2009-03-05T18:24:00.004Z

Here's my nice fog lamp:

No good for SVA though - needs to be 'E' Marked and have a parabolic reflector. It also needs to be horizontal and parallel to the exis of the car. I cannot work this out without the wheels and suspension set correctly?

So here's a cheap adjustable 'E' marked parabolic reflector light mounted on a bracket which helps to cover the sharp edges on the light mount:

In position:

Nice?

Not!

Sharp Edge Paranoia

2009-03-04T19:30:00.007Z

Time to deal with some more of those pesky sharp edges! First up, back to the grille bars. After a bit more adjustment to the aluminium brackets it was bonded with sikaflex and taped in place:Next up I had noticed that in theory the spacing washers on the Roll Hoop eyebolts could be contactable by the test sphere:The harness plates are exempt as they move around and cannot therefore be contacted as the sphere will just push them away. But what to do about the washers?? Into the box of bits and out with some grommets that were a force fit over the end of the eyebolts:Job done!...... in fact I think it looks neater:Last job for today was to replace the full nuts and spring washers on the steering column clamp with Nylocs.... apparently an SVA favourite this one:My wheels have been at GD for a while now but the tyres have been on back order. The tyres are now in the country and just need to be dispatched to GD to fit to the wheels. Should be ready towards the end of next week....... starting to cut things a bit close now!

More Snagging + Contactable Edges

2009-03-03T18:31:00.004Z

Few more jobs off the list: Touched up the door hinge brackets where they had got a couple of scratches fitting the escutcheons. Next up was to tackle the Hazard Switch. The SVA regs require that the Hazard Switch is marked with the appropriate symbol. The Hella switch I used comes with a butt ugly huge rubber cover which clips to the body of the switch before you install it:

Didn't fancy this, but there's an easy solution. Take a punch and punch out the centre with the symbol on:

A smear of clear silicone on the back and press it onto the button. Looks much better and still illuminates:

I finished fitting the roll hoop harness eyebolts - I was missing some 7/16 spring washers. You need to add enough normal washers to get the orientation of the eyebolt correct:

One area of concern for contactable edges is inside the front nose. The large opening will allow the SVA Tester's 100mm sphere to contact a multitude of sharp edges on the oil cooler, radiator and fans. To prevent this Warren has kindly lent me the nose bars he used on his DAX:

I added a couple of aluminium brackets thus:

When bent correctly they are a spring fit inside the return on the nose opening:

All I need to do now is bond the plates into place with some Sikaflex. Sikaflex is great for this.... it sticks like the proverbial but can be easily removed afterwards with a sharp knife.

One other area with contactable sharp edges is the centre of the screen top rail and the hook end of the screen stay. Here's what I did - take some of your left over screen wash tube and cut two pieces - one 3 inches long the other 1 inch long. Cut the 1 inch piece along its length so you can open it out. Then cut a 1 inch slot in the 3 inch piece. Push one side of the now open 1 inch piece into the slot in the 3 inch piece and superglue into place. Then ram the hole lot into the slot in the top of the screen with the split 1 inch piece curling over the top of the hook on the screen stay:

It's a good fit and you can't pull it out by hand - you'll need to prise it out with a screwdriver.

Bits & Bobs & FIRST DRIVE!!

2009-03-01T14:42:00.013Z

Few more odd jobs Today:

Fitted a spring to keep the choke off:Fitted an extra p-clip to the starter cable:Fitted a chassis number plate:Pushed it out into the drive:Then temptation got the better of me:

First and Reverse could be selected easily with no crunching so I assume that means I'm getting a big enough air gap on the clutch. The brakes feel a bit wooden but then they are new pads on new discs and need bedding in. Also it's the first car I've driven with no servo assistance so that's a new feel to get used to. However it was comforting to not that if you pressed hard enough it did come to an abrupt halt (note to self - put harness on before trying that again!). The handbrake seems to be adjusted OK as it is good enough to stall the engine - oops - need to get used to fly off handbrakes!

Hammering the Snagging list!!

2009-02-28T17:42:00.007Z

Right then - time to fit the last of the carpets, the harnesses and the seats. Having drilled the holes for the harness eyebolts in the floor the next job was to drill the holes for the seat runners. There are witness marks on the floor of the body for these holes - I drilled these one at a time checking the next hole lined up before drilling. Eventually all the holes were drilled: The next step was to lay the carpet in place and cut holes with a punch for the various bolts:The harness eyebolts were bolted up first:Now it was time to fit the passenger seat. There are 5mm spacers to fit under the runners at the back and 25mm ones at the front:Access to get all these on the bolts and the bolts through the holes in the floor is a bit limited and a little patience is required.

With the passenger seat in place it was time to turn my attention to the drivers seat, this being complicated by the handbrake taking up nearly too much room!. Whilst cutting the carpet for the bolt holes you will also need to remove the bit of carpet that sits under the handbrake bracket to ensure the handbrake is mounted firmly:Before bolting the handbrake into place I fitted the leather gaiter which is held in place with an escutcheon plate which is fixed after the handbrake is bolted up. Shame it will all be hidden by the seat!With both the seats in I fitted the harnesses and the footwell carpets. And that's the cockpit done - apart from a gearknob and fitting the steering wheel.

End result:Time to consult the list for tomorrow.

A bit more progress

2009-02-27T18:07:00.004Z

Having now got a gearstick it would have been rude not to fit it:

And having done that meant I could fit the escutcheon and gaiter:

The escutcheon fixings are tapped into the transmission tunnel section of the body effectively fixing the leather trim panel in place. All I need now is a knob!

I've also got the harnesses and eye bolts so the next step was to drill the holes in the floor for the eye bolts using the spreader plates as templates:

More mess to clean up!

The plan for tomorrow is to start fitting the seats - I expect this to be a bit of a faff and can't quite face it tonight!

Fuel Filler Revisited

2009-02-26T19:02:00.005Z

Time to revisit the fuel filler. After using TFE hoses between the tank / filter / pump / bulkhead to avoid the smell of petrol guess what?....... my boot smells of petrol! It is more of an aroma than a smell but nonetheless it has started to annoy me.

After several days sniffing / venting / sniffing again it I have narrowed it down to the flexible filler pipe. This is a flouroelastomer lined silicone hose. It is fuel proof but not necessarily impermeable to fuel vapour. The impermeability of the hose is a function of the concentration of the flouroelestomer applied to the inside of the hose and the general method of application and by the sound sof it some variation in impermeability should be expected.

There are some hoses that are more vapour proof but these tend to have a spiral wire reinforcement - this can make it difficult to get a good seal. GD normally fit a vent pipe to the tank. I didn't as I had a Vented Cap. However upon investigation the vent in the Aston filler cap need a fair bit of pressure to open the rubber flap. This is OK for preventing the tank becomming pressurised due to heat or preventing a vacuum as fuel is used up, but it will allow fumes to build up inside the filler hose.

So time to fit the vent like I should have done in the first place! The vent is a simple affair with a 1/8 NPTF fitting tapped into the filler neck:This fitting incorporates a compression fitting to take a length of brake pipe:This runs down the inside of the boot and out through the boot floor via a couple of grommets and some sikaflex:

The filler hose was re-fitted with plenty of blue hylomar and the carpets stuck back down. Only problem now is that the boot smells of evo-stik at the minute... which is remarkably like petrol!!

So time will tell...... fingers crossed.

I've added some more jobs to the snagging list!! nothing major, mainly some SVA compliance checks that I need reminding to do.

Still Snagging

2009-02-22T14:29:00.009Z

Now here's another top tip - don't stick bonnet rubber round virtually the entire opening as I did!. Although it is squashy - the more of it you put on, the less the bonnet will squash it - leaving the shut line proud. You need to do it in three lengths like this:Which funnily enough is the way GD do it!! - Shame it took three hours to get glue from the previous attempt off!

The next faffing about task was to fit the mirrors. First off, the bracket for the mirror fits over one of the screen mounting screws. These screws - whilst countersunk - have a domed top that stands proud of the screen stanchion:So the first job is to remove them and file them down so the bracket will sit flush. Next you will need to cut down some M5 button head bolts to around 6.5-7mm - so that they will not foul the screen frame. Then you need to remove the glass in order to remove the supplied bracket from the ball joint and replace with the GD supplied item. Put the glass back in and fit the whole thing to the stanchion. As the fixing bolts are now quite short I added a couple of drops of thread lock:Did the same for the nearside and now we have a full compliment of mirrors:Next I painted the drivers footwell compartment drain outlet with the Liquid Rubber stuff and re-fitted the wheel. Whilst fitting the wheel I noticed how shiny the body was - even after collecting dust for a couple of months:I need to collect my remaining bits from GD to make much more progress but one last thing I did was to prepare the gear stick gaiter and escutcheon:It is not fixed yet - I just attached the leather to the trim ring to make fixing easier:Simply done with some double sided carpet tape.

More Snagging

2009-02-21T16:33:00.008Z

Some more jobs crossed off the list today:

Fitted the door hinge escutcheons: Adjusted the bonnet and fitted the bonnet rubber:Fixed the hydraulic pressure hoses: Fitted the drivers footwell compartment drain - Here's how its done after forgetting to take photos last time. Take your 10mm 90 deg fitting and file down one end - make cuts in the other end and open out to form a flange - snip off the bottom tabs so it will lie flush with the floor: Mark out the level of the floor and drill a hole:Spread some sikaflex on the tabs and push into place - adding some more on the back when in position:Seal round the front with some more sikaflex:All that remains now is to paint over it with some of the liquid rubber underseal once the sikaflex has gone off.

And finally I fitted the seat runners to the other seat:Nearly there:

Door Cards

2009-02-19T19:55:00.009Z

Time to fit the last of the leather panels - this time the door cards. The door cards are held in place with metal clips which fit into 7mm holes drilled in the inner door skin:Problem is.... how to mark the holes accurately? I worked out a method which I reckoned would work OK.

First job was to offer the panel up unto place (with the door shut) get it lined up and mark where the door handle stub is on the leather (there is already a hole in the panel). Then use a punch to make a hole in the leather for the handle stub.

Next open the door and stick masking tape on the door in the area of the clips. Fit the clip on the top edge nearest the hinge. Use a Jumbo Black Marker to "colour in" the point of the clip. Offer the panel up, press the panel and hey presto - a handy little line to drill a hole in the centre of:Once you've drilled the hole this can become an alignment point by half inserting the clip. I repeated the process for the other two clips along the top edge one at a time. Once the top row is done you can "hang" the panel on these clips and do the remaining four in one go. End result - seven accurately drilled holes in the door:

And seven clips in the door card:The you just offer the panel up, press gently in the area of the clips and they snap into place easily and gives a very secure fixing. Fit the handle and tighten the fixing screw - Job done:The it is just a simple matter to repeat for the other door!You can see there is an area of inner skin showing all around the door card - this is what the door rubber seals on to. The passenger seat is not fixed in place - it is just a handy place to put it out of the way!

So three hours sees only one job off the snagging list!

More Snagging

2009-02-18T20:45:00.005Z

Only had an hour in the garage tonight - long enough to get 4 more jobs crossed off.

First up was to fit the final fixings to the ends of the leather bulkhead panel - quite discreet:

Then I remembered to fit the steering column grommet - bugger wouldn't stay put - so a few drops of superglue to the rescue:

Finished off by tightening all the nuts on the bonnet scoop fixings and sorted out the spare wire that was in theory for an electrical oil temperature gauge but not needed as I am now using a mechanical gauge. I left the wire neatly tied up just in case!

More Leather and Starting Snagging

2009-02-17T19:34:00.008Z

Finished installing the leather panels today. Before inserting the "hidden fixing" blts in the rear panel it is best to cut a slot in them. This means you can "hold" them with a screwdriver whilst tightening the nuts up in the boot:Here's the completed panels with the exception of the gearstick trim ring (and a fixing at each end of the "wings" of the back panel:I should be picking up the wheels and harness and some other bits 'n bobs from GD next week. I need the harness eyebolts before finishing the carpeting and fitting the seats. So in the meantime time to cross some more things off the snagging list:

Fitted the temperature sender grommets (Little awkward devils!!)

Cleaned up and re-fitted the Engine bay cover plate

Fitted the rear view mirror

I've taken some time out to double check what I still need and to order a few missing items!!

Tunnel Leather

2009-02-16T19:26:00.006Z

I've now made a completion / snagging list and to be honest it is a bit daunting. So no time like the present to knock a few more things off the list.

Having got an off cut of stainless steel plate it was time to start fitting the tunnel leather. First job is to get the Dremel out (again!) and cut out for the gearstick:

The tunnel leather will be fixed in three places: 1) Held down at the back by the bulkhead panel. 2) Held down at the middle by the gearstick trim ring. 3)Held down at the front by two stainless brackets under the dash:

Make yourself a little bracket - slit the leather and insert one leg of the bracket under the leather and foam but above the fibreglass panel. Hold the whole lot down and drill the tunnel side and insert a stainless self tapper. Job Done!

However, the dreaded SVA requirements has me worrying if the edge of the bracket constitutes a contactable sharp edge??

*** EDIT ***

For the sake of two small bits of edge trim:

Hopefully that's a re-test fee avoided!

More Carpets and Some Leather

2009-02-15T13:37:00.008Z

Time for the last big piece of carpet - the rear bulkhead. This was carefully lined up and taped into place before sticking down in a number of sections:Whilst waiting for the for the Evo-Stick to dry ready for bonding, I busied myself with investigating how to fit the seat runners. These need two areas of the seat bottom cutting out to accommodate the seat runner mechanisms:Once cut out everything fits a treat (you will need to shorten the operating wire):Just need to do the other seat now. Next up was to trial fit the leather trim panels:

The bulkhead panel is a tight fit and holds down the tunnel panel. However it needed a bit of modification to achieve this. As received the bulkhead panel fitted tight against the carpet and needed a few mm taken off the bottom to accommodate the tunnel panel underneath. This can be easily done by unsticking the leather and carefully removing a few mm off the bottom edge with the Dremel:The bulkhead panel needs two "secret" fixings to fix it to the bulkhead. To do this mark out the carpet with tape in line with the centre of one of the quilts on the panel and on the tape mark the centres of the two fixings before drilling a small hole at each location:Next offer the panel back into place and mark through from the boot:Next take your Dremel (with the depth stop adjustment fitted!) and cut out two keyhole slots to take an M5 button head bolt:To make the bolts easy to get into the bulkhead itself you can open up the holes in the bulkhead to, Say, M8 and use a repair washer on the back. I can't carry on with fixing these two panels as I need some stainless plate to make a couple of brackets and some stainless self tappers and cup washers. We'll come back to these panels in a few days.

Having come to a bit of halt with the leather panels I thought I would trial fit the handbrake:

Wired it up and the operation seems to be OK - need to fit the last piece of floor carpet and gaiter to finish.

Where does the weekend go? just left this afternoon for a tidy up. Once you get the carpet and leather in you can't help but get bits everwhere from drilling etc. So I tend to clean up every other day to keep on top of the mess!

Finishing the Dashboard

2009-02-12T18:46:00.006Z

Time for one last upside down episode in the footwell - fitting the under dash covers and the screen pillar cover plates. All pretty straightforward and makes a nice tidy job:Drivers Side: And Passengers Side:And finally, before I forgot, I coated the battery compartment drain outlet with the Isoflex Liquid Rubber:

Visit from the DVLA

2009-02-10T20:37:00.003Z

A nice Lady from my Local DVLA office turned up today to carry out an inspection. I was fortunate enough to be granted a home visit before SVA for which I was extremely grateful as it saves me a load of grief. So all I need now is to pass the SVA & get my MAC (Ministers Approval Certificate) and then we can crack on with Registration.

Messing about in the Battery Compartment

2009-02-10T19:54:00.011Z

Thought it was about time to fit the battery, but before that I decided to fit a drain to the compartment. Anecdotal evidence from numerous GD'ers reveals that despite their best efforts water can find its way into the compartment. I made up a drain from a 10mm microbore plumbing fitting with a flange on the back - pushed through from the inside and sealed in place with Sikaflex:

I forgot to take photo's of it being made so will correct that when I do the next one. It would appear to be easier to drill a hole straight down through the floor..... but the floor comprises marine ply sandwiched between fibreglass - marine ply is resistant to moisture but probably best not to eh?

Fitting the battery was pretty easy (2mm to spare on width) - connecting up the leads and "Battery Brain" gubbins was a bit of fiddle in the confined space but after a bit of effin' & jeffin' it was done:

A bit untidy perhaps but little scope to rationalise things - it will look loads better with the cover on! You can see one of the lengths of studding from my home made battery clamp - just painting the straps at the moment.

So what about the battery "brain"does it work?

Check this out:

If you remember I included a lead under the dash connected directly to the battery - bypassing the "Brain" - this allows me to charge / condition the battery without having to remove the wheel and access panel (even when the "Brain" has disconnected the battery) - just plug & play:

Time to re-group and consider the list of outstanding jobs.

Dash Fitted!

2009-02-08T16:29:00.007Z

Carried on from yesterday by fitting the water temperature sender and fixing the capillaries to the inner wing. It is important to form a couple of loops in a coil between the engine and the body so that engine movement can be accommodated: With everything in place it was time to power up and fire up to check everything functioned OK before fitting the dash: Everything checked out OK so the dash was carefully teased into place - I then removed all the skin off my knuckles doing up the wingnuts on the back to secure it: You can see how the piping rolls over to form a neat edge. Being on a roll I then fitted the stalks and column shroud that I made many months ago: I'm pretty pleased with the end result - really starting to look like a car now!

Only 44 days to go!

Final Dash Fit - 1

2009-02-07T15:45:00.005Z

After a bit of cleaning up and general double-checking and tidying of things it was time to start the final fit of the dashboard - including fitting the remaining four mechanical gauges:

The oil pressure line was simple to connect up, the fuel pressure line was a bit more of a faff. The line on the gauge side of the isolator needed to be filled with oil. This was done by removing the piston and using the body of the isolator as a funnel. Oil was poured in until it appeared at the gauge end of the line and the gauge was connected up:

Both gauges were then fixed to the dashboard:

Next up was the two mechanical temperature gauges. These were carefully fed through the dashboard:

They were then fed along the engine bay towards the front of the car:

Hmmm ....... that engine needs a bit of a clean and polish!

With the senders roughly in position the dash board was moved a bit closer to its final position:

The Oil temperature sender was fixed in place just leaving the Water temperature sender to do tomorrow:

I also need to come up with a neat way of running the capillary tubes along the inner wing??