2nd October 2002
This evening I spent an age removing the silicone sealant from the side of the body where I had attempted to attach the trim. I should have wiped as much of it off as possible at the time, because it was awkward to peel it off where it was thick. The thinner stuff rubs off much easier, but sorting this out takes a good hour or so, which pretty much wipes out the evenings activity.
I also had another look at one of the other technical headaches left, the pulse air valve. I got the silicone pipe which I had ordered, but it was not as flexible as I had hoped, so it's back to fuel pipe. I think it will fit ok in this orientation, and make up a pipe to connect back to the airbox by bonding in a piece of fuel pipe to end of a larger breather. The large size is needed at the elbow on the airbox, and the smaller size at the valve also allows it to double back (since the valve itself is facing the wrong way).

3rd October 2002
Whilst I continue thinking about the tricky things and how to solve them, I decided to have a go at making the grille to fit into the bottom of the nosecone. Before doing this I fitted The front indicator connectors to the loom saddles which I previously bonded to the inside of the nosecone - this has worked really well, and will prevent the wires for the indicators from flapping around at the front.
I then spent some time, cutting, bending, and fitting a piece of grille to the lower aperture of the nosecone. It works out quite well, but might be a little tricky to hold in position while I bond it using the silicone adhesive (same as used on the cycle wings).

5th October 2002
First job is that I need to sort out the trim fitting on the inside edges of the cockpit body. I've tried various sizes and types of U section trim (which I had loaned from William), but it turns out that the only way to get around this problem is to superglue the trim onto the GRP. The obvious downside of this is that the trim won't be easily removed post-SVA, but that's not strictly a bad thing, as I have come round to the idea of keeping the trim there, and it finishes it off quite neatly. The job takes a little while, especially cutting the trim to fit around the front corners, but I'm glad it's sorted, and the end result isn't so bad.
With the trim fitted, I am now clear to get on with ticking some things off the list and fitted some bits which are ready to go straight on. First of these tasks is to fit the seats and harnesses.
Before the seat goes in, it seems sensible to torque up the bits of suspension which are accessed through holes in the ali rear panel. The access holes are then covered with some grommets, though I don't have enough of them but can do the lower ones (the others can be fitted with the seats in).
The next thing is to fit the lap belt parts of the harnesses. This has to done with the seat in the footwell (as the harness must pass through the slot in the seat), but as far forwards as possible to give access to the belt mounts. With the lap belts fitted, the seat can be put into position, and the bolts dropped through the holes which I drilled previously. Then large spreading washers and nylocs are fitted to the underside, and with the help of an extra pair of hands and some dexterity, they bolts are torque tightened.
The final part of the job is to fit the shoulder straps, which pass through the slots in the seats, and clip onto the eyebolts. When doing this one of the plastic trims in the slots falls out, so I use some silicone adhesive and clamp it into position.
The final thing to look at is fixing the side repeaters in position better. They are a little loose at the moment, and the resolution to this is to use silicone sealant to attach them in - which has the added advantage of, erm, sealing them up also. This is quite straight forward, but a bit messy, and a bit fiddly holding the lamp units in position while the sealant sets.

6th October 2002
Spent some time being seemingly unproductive, but it involved experimenting with some SVA preparation type stuff, and thinking about ways to make sure all the sharp edges are sorted out. Following some advice, I am thinking about making a panel which will fit under the scuttle on the drivers side, which will effectively rule out all the area behind the dash from being radius tested. This seems like a good plan, but a mission to find some plastic sheet to do this is quite fruitless.

So I decide to fit the scuttle anyway, there is still reasonable access without the dash in place, and that way I can get on with sorting out the return flanges. Firstly I superglue some rubber trim where the scuttle front return flange is exposed - near the steering column.
After a testing out how to attach it, I have decided to use some neoprene which Greg gave me to cover the side return flanges on the scuttle and main body. This is a point which will be checked for SVA, so the solution needs to be fairly permanent to avoid getting into trouble with the "temporary adornment" rules.
So I decide it's finally time to bolt the scuttle onto the car - hopefully I won't need to remove it again. The scuttle attaches using four bolts which are tightened down into rivnuts in the top chassis rail, and this sandwiches the return flange on the main body also.
With this done, I cut some neoprene to the appropriate size, and use Araldite to stick it to the underside of the top chassis rail. Once this is set I'll fold it over the rail, and stick it onto the top side of the return flange on the scuttle. Sticking it to the underside of the chassis rail means that if I choose to remove it in future, it won't leave a visible mess behind.
A few other small jobs which I worked on.
Tidying up the excess silicone sealant from around the side repeaters on the outside of the scuttle was a right pain, and still isn't done entirely to my satisfaction, but I'll revisit it sometime.
Also I made a small mesh cover to sit on the atmospheric breather on the oil catch tank. Both this and the spare inlet are currently just open, which I wasn't entirely happy with as there is a direct path into the oil tank from here. I also find a plastic cover for the spare inlet.
And finally, again after having tried and failed various attempts during the morning, I use some Araldite on the pulse air valve to attach it to the top cover of the engine. I have put some foam tape on the cover first, which may or may not be genius. It is genius if it sticks and lets me remove everything cleanly later, it is flawed if it means it won't stick! In order to hold the valve in place and press it down onto the engine cover while the glue sets, I shuffle the car and use a handy big piece of wood to provide downward force in the right direction.

7th October 2002
Did some more sticking of stuff this evening. Firstly it looks like the Araldite has taken nicely on the pulse air valve - but we'll just have to see how it survives to heat and movement. Secondly I decide I may as well superglue the rubber u-section trim around the leading edge of the aeroscreen. It's a little loose, and as I have no intention of removing it anyway since it looks much better with it on, I figure I should glue it on to avoid any issues with it.
The main job of the evening was to the finish glueing the neoprene under the scuttle which I started yesterday. The bottom parts have stuck well, so I mix up some Araldite and stick the top parts down. I have avoided glueing where the bolts are so that if/when I need to remove them it will be easier. An array of clamps is required to hold the neoprene in position while the glue sets.
Also I finish off the grille cover on the catch tank by removing the tie wrap and applying bit more adhesive sealant to ensure it has a good grip.

8th October 2002
In a moment of crazy inspiration, I decided that I really should have another go at sorting out the fog light this evening. So I started with a clean sheet, a(nother) new lamp mount, and a new approach of just filing it down very gradually until it is right. Firstly I cut the rear part out of the mount, then filed the mount down a bit, offered it up to the car to see where it needed tweaking, and repeated this procedure for an hour or so. After lots of filing and testing, I had the mount so that it is a flush fit all round and it is nice and vertical for SVA.
The added advantage of getting this done is it means I can get the car to an MOT test at the end of the week (hopefully on Saturday), which will in turn give me a little time to resolve any problems found there before SVA on Tuesday.

9th October 2002
With the pair valve finally bonded, and all the pipework sorted including swapping to normal silicone sealant on the large to small bore pipe joint, I tie wrap all the pipes into position, test fit the bonnet, and this is finally finished. Having said that of course, means it's bound to go wrong once it's been hot and shook around a bit under there, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
Main task of the evening was to finish off the reverse light. With the mount done, I now need to get it fitted, and therefore need to cut the hole in the rear body for the back end of the lamp unit to fit through. This is all fairly straight forward, firstly I carefully measure and mark the position for the holes for the bolts which will pass right through from the lamp. Then, with the mount in position, I can mark where the larger hole has to go. Once this is drilled, filed, and dremelled out to the right size, the lamp is ready to be fitted and connected up.
Unfortunately I find that I completely failed to get any M4 nylocs to allow me to do this, so it will have to wait until I can get some.
I decided to check that the fog light works, so connected up the dash and the battery - it was at this point that the temptation to drive the car around the block became too great to resist. So I stuck a couple of bolts in the dash to hold it in place, put the bonnet on, and fired it up.
Controlling the clutch to pull out of the garage is so much easier with a seat fixed in the correct position, but I still manage to stall it at the end of the drive! Anyway, I ended up doing a few laps of the block just to make sure that all was well of course. I think I managed to use most of the gears and stuck to 4000 rpm but it was still brisk enough just pootling around.
The journey involved one stalling fit, where I stalled my way out onto a roundabout and proceeded to sit there for a while as I stalled a couple more times trying to get it moving again for good measure.
When I got back to the garage, I noticed a couple of problems: the exhaust definitely sounds as though it is leaking from somewhere, but I'm not sure precisely where; and the reverse box had spat a dollop of oil out of the breather on top. Nothing to get too worried about, but I'll have to sort the exhaust before the MOT (booked for Saturday), and keep an eye on the reverse box (it may just be overfilled).

10th October 2002
With the scuttle now fitted, it's time to fix the dash in position. It's quite a tight fit, but it soon all goes on. The lower fixings I have fixed through the small ali extension brackets I made earlier - these are eventually held in place with some nylocs, but it's a bit fiddly and takes a while to get them on.
Then it's on to finishing off the wiring behind the dash. Grovelling around under the dash isn't exactly the most fun I've had, and actually makes me feel quite sick. Firstly I fit and tie wrap the wires to the side repeaters. Hopefully this will be ok for SVA, but the connectors are a little pointy.
Next up I finish tidying the rest of the wiring at the back of the dash, including routing the single wire for the tacho signal fix. This goes along the back of the scuttle and up the dash with the large bundle of wires in the main loom. The other wiring is secured in place and as far out of the way as possible to avoid any SVA issues.

11th October 2002
The main task on the list this evening is the jack the rear of the car into the air and remove the rear wheels, so that I tidy the wiring for the fog and reverse lights on both sides. The fog light connector needs extending to meet where I have mounted the light, so I cut the connector off and solder some extension wires in. Then the connectors are tie wrapped up onto the chassis to hold them, and the wires to the rear light clusters, well clear of the rear wheel.
Next while the wheels are in the air (and I have CRAIG round again to help) I decide to have a look at the speedo. Firstly we enter the pulse value (which I got from Westfield) into the speedo using the front mounted button. Then we start it up and run the wheels. The speedo runs erratically between 20 and 40 mph, which the manual implies means that it could well be too close to the washer on the prop. So we slacken it off and space it out a little more, and try again. It looks a bit more sensible this time, and is certainly stable/consistent.
The connectors I had put on the wires are proving a little stubborn to fit in the tight space directly above the sensor, so I solder some wires onto the tabs on the sensor, and then some blade connectors onto the ends of these. I notice that the washer which was on the underside is thicker than the one previously at the top, so swapping them around should work. And it does.

12th October 2002
I have the car booked in for an MOT at 12pm today, so it's up and on with rushing around to get the car into a suitable state. The exhaust is leaking around where is it clamped to the manifold, so I pop out and buy some assembly paste to seal this joint up. Also I don't have any mirrors on the car, and need to get some M4 nylocs to fit the foglight. I am loaning some Racetech convex mirrors from SteveW to try out with a view to keeping them on the car permanently.
Fortunately, just as I arrive back from collecting these bits William turns up, and is soon roped in to helping prepare the car. In 45 minutes we do the following: remove and refit the exhaust with assembly paste, fit the rear foglight, fit and torque the steering wheel and pad, torque the hubnuts and wheel nuts, fit and roughly adjust the wing mirrors, fit the pedal rubbers.
Will all the jobs done, it's out into the rain to head off into town for the MOT.
It's an entertaining drive, but all goes without too much drama. A few stalling fits along the way, which is a bit frustrating, but it will hopefully improve with practice. As I head into town we encounter traffic, and I notice that the idle speed appears to be steadily increasing as the engine and under-bonnet temperatures get high. The water temp is controlling itself fine with the fan cutting in and out, but there is definitely something wrong with the idle.
When I get to the MOT station, I am greeted almost immediately by the news that the tester won't issue a certificate without me having passed my SVA! This is clearly wrong, since just having an MOT doesn't mean that I can drive it on the road - the lack of registration plates would be quite a giveaway. I persuade him to do the test anyway
So on with the test, and immediately the tester seems keen to find things to fail me on. The first of these is the headlamp alignment, and the fixing bolts being loose. I tried to explain that I'd done this deliberately so that they could be setup on the test equipment, but he's really not having a bar of it. He also finds that the locknuts on the suspension adjustment are not done up tight, again I try to explain that this is deliberate as I was hoping they could look at the alignment for me.
After a while the complete failure list included was added to with: emissions test (not done properly because the last time he had tested a kit car it damaged his probe!), and no number plates!
As far as I am concerned, it's a bit annoying that he seems to be being a bit unhelpful about it, and that I'll have to get a re-test, but it has done the job of a sanity check that the car is in good health and nothing majorly wrong with it.
Back in the garage, and William noticed at the MOT that the fuel tank appears to be pressurising itself, as it is sucking in air when the filler cap is released. This may be having an effect on the idle problem, so the first job is to refit the fuel tank breather pipe to put an easier curve in it.
The rest of the day is spent continuing to fettle the car. A bunch of people from cam7 come round to help out, and fortunately Tim turns up and inspires us to look at sorting out the wheel alignment ourselves.
Firstly we look at setting the front ride height, and adjust it up slightly to be on the safe side, since the manual does not include settings which seem applicable to my car. The ride height is set to around 130mm, which is quite high but I am just trying to achieve a neutral setup until the dampers are bedded in, at which point I will get it setup properly by Terry Nightingale (a Westfield specialist based not far from home).
Once this is done, the others invent a camber gauge by using two small G-clamps on the spirit level, placed against the rim. Some maths from them suggests that we need to break the top ball joints and adjust them to get the camber something like -1 degree each side. After that we look at the toe on the front wheels. This is done by tie wrapped a long straight piece of wood to each fron wheel, then measuring the parallel distance between them at two points along their length. The toe is adjust by winding the track rods in and out of the rack. Simple really (when you know how!).
A few of other small things which I looked at. I filed and glued the centre mirror to the aeroscreen/mirror bracket which I had previously designed and made for this purpose. Hopefully it will stick on there well enough, and should do the job ok for now.
Also, with big help from Guy, some trim has been cut to fit around the edges of the front cycle wings. This is required for SVA, since the plastic (not GRP) wings have quite a sharp edge and not return on them.
Also the pulse air valve gets back in on the act. The foam tape which I had stuck to the engine didn't stick long once it got hot, so I clean the stick mess off, and will have to have another go at fixing this down.

13th October 2002
Time is elapsing now, so the first job of today is to start work on fettling the rear panels which fit where a bootbox would normally. I can't have a standard Westfield bootbox because of the welded in roll bar - the box would normally be sandwiched under the bolt-in roll bar. For now the panels will do the job, though one day I might get around to making up some sort of boot box, since it is just dead space at the rear anyway.
The panels are supplied in three parts, one for each side, which has to be cut around the roll bar and harness eyebolts. Also on the right hand side an extra corner is needed to be cut for the vertical head restraint part of the roll bar.
This job is rather time consuming since it is a case of careful measurement, cutting, and fettling repeatedly until a good neat fit is achieved. Once both sides are done, I am distracted with other jobs, since the central panel should be fairly straight forward to fit.
Whilst I was working on the rear panel fettling, Guy returned for another generous stint on the front cycle wing trims. This time he was working on glueing them in place. To make it so that they can be removed is required without causing cosmetic damage, he has glued them at points around the inside of the trim. This will mean that they won't fall off or be pulled off (for SVA), but should be able to be removed without too much trauma.
We then had a look at applied some trim to the roll bar forward strut mounting brackets. These protrude and would clearly be quite hard in the eveent of an accident, and the SVA tester is likely to frown particularly on the one in the passenger footwell.
We find some trim which will fit quite nicely over the edge of the brackets and will provide the required radius. Superglue does the job of sticking it on, after a while as it takes a bit longer to set on the powder coated steel. Unfortunately this will not be quite so tidy when removed, but the brackets should be able to be quite easily and neatly re-painted with some satin paint.
Later I tackle the one in the passenger footwell, it is a bit fiddlier as I am trying to do three sides of it with one piece of trim - as this will provide a neater radius. Though after some time fitting it, I decide that it's not really doing the job very well and take it all off again - oh well.
With the front anti-roll bar removed to reduce the sharp edges in and around the front suspension for SVA, this has created another problem. The edge of the nosecone which has been cut around where the ARB blocks are is not radiused, and will be accessible by the tester's checking sphere.
So I use some more of Guy's trim which will provide a radius, and allow it to be stuck on the inside so it can be removed later on without risking any visible cosmetic damage. It takes a while for the glue to set, so a good dose of clamps hold the trim in place.
Also while I'm working on the nosecone, I drill the holes through the front return flange which are used hold the main grille in position. It is simply held on with tie wraps which pass through the flange.
Final job of the day was to have a look at the bonnet grilles. I have been spraying them throughout the day with some Plasti-Kote paint - it requires a few thin coats, but has taken to them well. I am hoping to be able to bond the grilles to the bonnet using some silicone adhesive, but they are quite stiff and don't really sit firmly in position on the inverted bonnet.
I have a go at doing the two on the top of the bonnet by running a bead of silicone around the holes and pressing the grilles on. It is not really possible to clamp the grilles in position and they are not held on very well by the 'wet' silicone. I'm not very convinced that this is going to work at all, which could be a real problem as I think the grilles are required for SVA to prevent sharp edges on the holes in the bonnet.

14th October 2002
The final day of fettling before SVA tomorrow. I had to take the day off in order to be able to get everything done... and even with the whole day it's going to be quite close!
First job of the day is to apply some more silicone adhesive to the bonnet grilles which I stuck on yesterday. Although I didn't think they would stick they have, of sorts, so some more goop on them should make sure they are well stuck on there, and it needs to be done as soon as to allow it time to set properly. I also need to sort out the grille in the lower aperture of the nosecone. This one is somewhat trickier, as it is quite difficult to hold the grille in position while the adhesive sets. I solve this problem by stacking lots of wood down against the grille in the nose standing on it's front.
The next job I looked at was to fit the footwell pedal cover panel. I had prepared all of this beforehand, so it was a fairly straightforward job to simply bolt it into postion. Although some of the holes need a little fettling to get it to fit, but the end result is pretty neat.
With a couple of quick jobs done, the next job is to finish fettling and fit the rear cover panels. This job takes a while longer than expected. I did the two side parts of the rear panel yesterday, so today I need to repeat the procedure for the main central rear panel which sits between the two side panels. Again this panel needs slots cutting out of it to fit around the harness eyebolts, and also in this case the inertia seat belt turrets.
Again this takes a while and requires an iterative process of cutting, filing, and trial fitting, until it is right. Once the cut-outs are made the sides of the panel need to be trimmed down to fit the side panels properly.
Once this is done, the panels can be fitted. To do this I used rivnuts inserted into both the return flange on the bodywork and the top chassis rail. This also takes a while, especially drilling the top chassis rail, but again hopefully using rivnuts is the best solution, which will allow flexibility for the future creation of a boot box.
After a time, the rear panels are finally completed - although I didn't have time to touch up cut edges where the powder coating has been removed, I'll have to do that at some point later.
Next it's time to sort out the tunnel cover panels. Again this is a somewhat fiddly task, particularly where I'd left it open under the scuttle - fortunately I did have the foresight to pre-tap the holes in the chassis under here though, so it is a relatively simple, if awkward, task to fit the first panel.
Since the gear lever mechanism stand proud of the tunnel cover panel, I decide it is wise to make some sort of gear gaitor to cover up the gubbins here, other I will face problems with SVA. The neoprene I got from Greg is perfect for this, and soon I have something made up which seems to work just fine, by cutting a small hole in a square piece and taping it to the underside of the panel.
Once the main tunnel panel is on, I then fiddle and curse to fit the handbrake gaitor. This is a pretty ugly but functional item, which is again a requirement for SVA as there are plenty of sharp finger removing bits going on around the handbrake - I will look at doing something prettier for this one day...
Next I have a look at the mirrors. They are slightly dubious for SVA because the edge of the housing is not radiussed at all. So I very carefully cover the glass area with masking tape, and take some time to file a radius to the edges as best possible. The result is not bad, in fact it's hardly noticeable, but I'm not sure whether it will be enough of a radius, though it is a rearward edge rather than forward.
Craig has come round to provide some moral support, so he is soon roped into helping. So I set him off with sorting out the nut covers on the front suspension. Westfield have supplied a selection of these, which are siliconed onto the nuts and bolts on the front suspension which are likely to be accessible by the test sphere. Hopefully we have them all covered, but I am taking a box full of trim and bits to deal with anything we are allowed to sort at the test.
Nearly done now, just need to attach the main grille into the nosecone. This is held in place by some tie wraps which pass through holes drilled in the return flange on the front of the nosecone. This actually works, and most importantly looks, much better than it sounds, and is actually a very effective way of holding the grille firmly in position inside the nose.

The final job to do is to bond the final grille to the front of the bonnet bulge. This will be left overnight to set, and hopefully will be ok in the morning - if not, I'll have to go without and work around it. So I stick the grille on, and again wedge it in place with various bits of wood and clamps.

So that's it... erm, finished! Or at least finished enough to face the SVA test tomorrow...

©2002-2009 David Hackett UDM4