| 25th May 2002 |
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Had another early start to get the van back to the hire company before 9am. Then went over
to Mackays to obtain a rivet gun as I will be needing this pretty much from the word go. Spent a good two hours assembling the new workbench – this was quite fiddly and tricky with only two hands, but the result is pretty good, it’s really sturdy and it’s not attached to the wall or anything yet. The next couple of hours were spent resisting the temptation to dive in and start work on the car. I organised all the nuts and bolts into the compartmentalised drawers which I bought, which will make life so much easier than rummaging through bags. Also I decided it would be sensible to get some bubble wrap on the roll bar to protect it from damage during the build – I don’t need any access to it, and really don’t want it to get scratched. Finally it was time to start work on the car! |
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The job I am going to tackle first is the pedals. This should be a fairly straight-forward first
task, as it is mostly just finding bits and bolting them together. I’d already identified some of
the parts I needed when I was sorting through all the boxes, so I opened the build manual
and got started. |
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The first fiddly bit is drilling the hole for the throttle cable. With the brake master cylinder
already fitted there is no easy access to do this from either inside or outside the footwell, so I
end up having to go at a slight angle and hope it goes through ok. It mostly does, and is soon
sorted out with a file. Next problem is that the braided hose fitting for the clutch master cylinder is fouling against the pre-installed brake pipe. I’ll need to bend this pipe to allow the master cylinder to fit. Then I attempt to fit the small aluminium bracket for the clutch fluid reservoir. This is my first go at riveting, and it went disastrously wrong. The rivet popped, and was holding in the bracket, but I was holding the bracket in my hand rather than it being held in the chassis! At this point, before I get really annoyed, I give up for the day. |
| 26th May 2002 | ||
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An appeal for help on cam7, led to Tim coming round to show me how the rivetting is done.
Although the penny had dropped last night that the problem is that the hole in the chassis is
bigger than the hole in the bracket, so a 4mm rivet is too small. We drill the stuck rivet out of
the bracket, and fit it using 5mm rivets and it goes on fine. Tim showed me what I need to do
with the brake pipe bending, so I should be ok there. I return to the job after taking time out to watch the F1. I get the pipe bent by taking the clutch master cylinder bracket off again, and using the biggest socket I can find (taped to protect the pipe) and giving it a gentle whack in the right direction with the hammer. Also trim the spacer down on the brake light switch to pull that in a little closer to the panel and away from the clutch cylinder. Job done. A steady stream of people coming round to look at the car, slows progress for the rest of the afternoon, but I manage to find some of the bits I couldn’t yesterday and get the rest of the cylinder end of the clutch pedal mechanism fitted. Though I am definitely missing some bolts and nuts at the pedal end, so cannot attach those yet. |
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Decide to spend a short while preparing for the next job, the chassis loom. Using the diagram
and details in the manual I decide to make my life easier in the future by labelling all the plug
ends of the loom so I know what is what without keep referring to the wiring diagram. At least I’ve made some progress today, and would have the pedals done if it weren’t for missing bits. |
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| Later when I sorting through the digital pictures I have taken over the last few days, I realise I have made a mistake on the car. I have fitted the aluminium bracket for the clutch fluid reservoir into some pre-drilled holes in the chassis, without realising that these holes are for part of the gear change mechanism. Poo. Hopefully I’ll be able to remove the rivets cleanly without damaging the captive nuts which I have realised are behind the holes I have used. Oh well, lesson learnt hopefully – I’ll use the reference pictures more closely in future. |
| 27th May 2002 | ||
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Contact Gavin at Westfield to sort out the bits which I am missing, so hopefully they will be
with me tomorrow and I can complete the installation of the pedals. Sorted out the bracket which I had mounted in the wrong place – which flukily came out cleanly at the price of breaking a drill bit. Fortunately there are not captive nuts behind the holes, as I had thought, just a tube/sleeve. In fact, it was quite lucky that the rivets had taken at all, as the sleeve goes almost, but crucially not quite, all the way through the chassis member. The bracket is now mounted in the correct place, so once I get the missing bits, I can finish the pedals off fully. |
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| 28th May 2002 | ||
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No sign of the missing nuts and bolts in the post from Westfield, or the engine installation
manual which I forgot to ask for when I was up there. So I spend some time finishing off labelling the chassis loom, and start the installation by mounting the fuse boxes onto the top bulkhead panel. Upon further inspection it appears that it will make much more sense to fit the four required loom saddles onto the chassis in the area below the fuse boxes, before I put the wiring through and mount the boxes. So I climb under the car and sit on the wheels with my upper body poking through the hole below the engine compartment, which gives me better access to the front end of the tunnel than I can get from any other angle (with the car being quite high up at the moment). I fit the loom saddles, remembering to give a good squirt of Waxoyl into the holes I drill, and a dab of Hammerite around where I’ve drilled (the drill drifted on one of them by not centre punching enough, and scratched the powder coating). |
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Had a bit of a fiddle getting all the plugs back into the fuse boxes once I’d passed them
through the chassis panel, and the suggested nuts for fixing them seem marginal but they are
fairly well fixed. Then just attach the loom to the saddles, fit the grommets, pass the it down the tunnel, and tidy it up at the front and rear for later fitting (the engine must go in first at the front). |
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| 30th May 2002 | ||
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Continued working on fitting the chassis loom. Next part of this job is to attach loom saddles
and fix the loom down the tunnel, out and around the spaceframe at the rear of the car. I started by fitting the two saddles next to the reverse gearbox mounts, which involved lying under the car drilling upwards (safety glasses definitely required here!). Next I fitted the saddles down the tunnel. Unfortunately, I can’t get access to attach the loom to the underside of the upper tunnel chassis rail as I would ideally like, so they are having to go on the side. Hopefully they will be out of the way enough of the prop, gearshift, and handbrake mounts. |
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Once this is done the loom comes out into the rear spaceframe area in the diff carrier. It is then routed around to the drivers side, along the side of the carrier (leaving the speedo sensor wires dangling here) and out on the side strut for the offside rear lights. The loom then doubles back on itself, and will be attached along the rear of the diff carrier, and along the nearside strut for the nearside rear lights. Various wires for fuel pump, gauge, interia switch, etc are left to dangle along the route. |
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| 31st May 2002 | ||
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Finished fitting the rear of the chassis loom. This involved routing the loom along the rear of
the rearmost tubes of the diff carrier, and out along the nearside side strut to leave the final
connectors on the loom for the nearside rear lights. This task was pretty straight forward, just attaching a few loom saddles to the chassis tubes, and attaching the cables to these, leaving the connectors for the fuel system to dangle along the way. They will be tidied once the fuelling is all fitted. |
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As I stood and admired my handy work, and took some pictures, I suddenly realised that the wiring along the rear of the diff carrier may foul the fuel tank, which sits on the rear of the chassis. Closer reading of the manual reveals that Westfield suggest fitting this part of the loom along the _inside_ of the rear diff carrier tubes, rather the outside as I have done. The only problem with this route is that my chassis has some triangulating plates welded in which mean that I cannot use their recommended fixing points (the opposite side of the tube to where I have fitted them). I think it will be best to move them away from the fuel tank though - arse, another bit done wrong. |
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| ©2002-2009 David Hackett |
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