| 1st December 2002 | |||
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Finally got around to having some time to spend on the car. Now time to get this sorted at
last, as it's been dragging on a little too long really - although the weather hasn't really
been at all conducive to driving the car much anyway. Firstly, it's another re-design and remake of a bracket for the centre mirror / aeroscreen. This time it works out ok, by fixing the mirror mount as low as possible, and still keeping a slight return on it, means that the angle and clearances are now all fine. So before too long the centre mirror is fitted - looks good, hope it works well. |
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| Next it's a fairly straight forward job of bolting everything back together properly. So I align the column correctly in the hole in the dash, and tighten the upper column back up. Then I re-attach the dash, and make myself feel ill by lying with my head under the dash to re-sort all the wiring for the tacho, dash loom, etc. | ||
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| Then it's just put the steering wheel on and try it all out for size. I'm quite happy with the result - not sure how long the wheel will stay looking like this, as I'm sure it will hoover up all sorts of muck and soon get dirty. |
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The rest of the afternoon is spent putting all the bodywork back on the car, making sure that
all the wiring is still working and that the engine runs ok, cleaning all the accumulated muck
out of the inside of the car, and finishing tidying up and clearing out the garage shelves. Now I have to hope for some decent weather to get the car out again (oh and get my garage door fixed which I broke yesterday - cos I can't open it at the moment!). |
| 15th December 2002 |
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Haven't really had much chance to use the car much as the weather has been so grim,
but I've been trying to use it a bit where possible. It is up to the first running
in rev limit increase now, at 500 miles, so I will be able to increase the revs a
bit more now. I decided to have a go at fitting the rear wheel arch stoneguards, since when I washed the car it was starting to show early signs on gravel rash. I had mused for a while about how best to attach them. I have used plastic bolts on the rear arches to help them detach cleanly if swiped, but the stone guards overlap the arches onto the main bodywork. So if I use rivets I risk some main bodywork damage if the arch tries to detach, but since the guards need to be under some tension to hold the shape of the arch and body, I don't think I have much choice. The drivers side guard goes on without much trouble (apologies for the lack of detail pictures), using a spread of rivets around the edge of guard. Once this is done I realise that I have been supplied with two offside guards so my plans to fit the passenger side one is scuppered. Oh well, the one I've done looks good... |
| 25th December 2002 |
| Seasons Greetings to everyone. Just a chance to say thanks to everyone who has been reading and following the build via the website. I've received stacks of emails, from something like 70 different people and have tried to reply to you all along the way. The website has had something like 50,000 hits since it started, so some of you must have nothing better to do than watch me working on the car! |
| 31st December 2002 |
| Back from my trip home for the christmas holiday, I decided to take advantage of the unseasonally mild and dry weather, and took the car down to visit Greg in Ipswich. This was the longest trip I've taken the car on since it went to Norwich for it's SVA, at about 70 miles each way, it will help get some running in mileage done. But it was a nice run down the back way - as if the A14 would be any fun - though the traffic was occasionally as annoying as having to stop for petrol twice throughout the day! Anyway, it's up to 650 miles now, and I am well into using the 6000 rev limit which I'm now on. The car is much more driveable using more revs, not only because it gives a more sensible cruise speed, but I'm not having to change gear quite as often. I had topped the oil in the reverse box up, but it soon spewed it all back out again, so I am really going to have to get around to doing something about that. |
| ©2002-2009 David Hackett |
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