1st February 2003
Decided it's time to start working a bit more on the car again, so started to look at the pulse air injection system. The system injects air from the airbox directly into the exhaust gases as they exit the combustion chamber. This is an emission device since the air ensures the gases continue to burn, and are therefore cleaner. The system only works on overrun, so has no effect to emissions testing at MOT time (three years away). Another advantage is that the plumbing of the system caused me some headache when I was building the car and actually fouls against the inside of the bonnet.
Dan has removed it on his car, and has made me some carbon and aluminium laminate covers to block off the channels down into the exhaust ports. So I set about removing the existing valves and plumbing, as it should be fairly straightforward.

First job is to remove the covers for the reed valves in the top of the engine, then just prise each valve out of the housing, and remove the small grille under each one. Simple.
The plan was to simply take the reed valves and invert them to help with sealing the cover, since it is a direct route to the exhaust ports it sounds somewhat tractor like if not correctly sealed. However, the valves are shaped so that this cannot be done, and also have a stiff metal tab rivetted to the rear to stop the valve over opening.

It's rather cold out in the garage today, so I don't hang around for too long, I only had an hour or so anyway. It doesn't take long to repeat the procedure on the other set of valves, and the top of the engine is already much less cluttered without all that plumbing going on - already the bonnet fits better and easier.
Next step is to tidy up the other bits, so I remove the elbow joint from the side of the airbox, and tape up the hole left. Also the connecting wire for the main valve is threaded back down the loom and secured.

2nd February 2003
A bit more work in the cold today, preparing the carbon/ali covers for the pulse air valves. Since I cannot invert the reed valves, I have decided to try using a bead of silicone on the covers to seal them against the housing. Hopefully this will do the trick since silicone is surprisingly tough stuff.
So I roughen the inside edges of the covers a little to help the silicone bond to the smooth ali, then apply a bead of silicone. I will allow this to set fully before screwing the covers on and seeing if they are blowing at all. If the silicone doesn't work then it is easily removed and I'll have a go with some exhaust paste or some high temp silicone.
Another little job to have a play with is swapping the front indicator lenses for the clear ones I bought ages ago during the build. I haven't tracked down any amber bulbs for them yet, but I keep forgetting to take one with me for comparison when at the motor bits shop.
It's a simple enough straight of the lenses, re-using the existing screws and water seals on the inside of the new clear lenses. A trial fitting makes the front end look a bit smarter.

3rd February 2003
The silicone sealant bead on the new covers has now set fully, so it's out into the very cold garage for a quick trial. I fit the covers in position using the new screws which Dan sent with the covers, but they don't seem to fit quite right.
A quick fire up of the engine confirms that the seal is not good, as the car sounds decidedly tractor like, and to add to the noise melee the covers are clattering up and down on the cam cover. Oh well, back to the drawing board then...

4th February 2003
Time for another attempt. Having spoken to Dan, he suggests that I should attempt to apply the silicon bead first. The technique to use is to apply the silicone bead to the join on the cam cover, then gently apply the cover and pinch it up until the silicone is just squeezed out. Then the covers should be left to set, and then tightened fully.
Unhappy with the fit of the new screws yesterday, I decided it would be best to reuse the original ones, which I cut down to the required length. Then I completed the above procedure, and left it to set.

5th February 2003
A simple test for the covers this evening. I quickly pinch up the bolts on the covers and seal seems to be good by touch, but the real test is yet to come. So I start the engine up and check around the covers. I certainly can't hear it blowing - if it was I would soon know about it cos it's really noisy - and I can't feel anything either. Seems the new technique has worked, so I let the engine warm up a bit and try it with a few more revs without any noticable problem. Just got to hope it holds together now.

8th February 2003
Took the car out for it's final blast before I sideline it for a while to sort out the reverse system. We ended up going over to Geoffs to lend a hand removing the roll cage from a Caterham. Craig had devised a magic route on his new GPS toy, which seemed to work quite well until he ran out of battery power in his laptop, though he managed to take us down some quite wet and mucky single track roads.
On the way back, we called in to see Jim's new car (a new Noble M12 GTO-3, the jammy git). Just as I pulled back into the estate, the odometer ticked over to 1000 miles. So once the car is all back together I can start moving to next running in rev limit.
We've done about 150 miles today, and now I'm really knackered, I think that concentrating alot whilst driving, and the lack of protection, really takes it out of you.

9th February 2003
Before I can do anything else, I need to clean the muck off the car from yesterday, I can't work on it in the garage in this state. However, it's raining, so while I wait for the weather to pass, I can start taking some bits off it. First thing is to remove the passenger seat and harness, and the rear boot cover panels. Doing so reveals the extent of the mess driving the car in winter makes, so I'll have to pressure wash all this off.
After lunch, the rain has stopped, so I pop over to see Jim since he had muttered something about using his pressure washer on the car yesterday. It's a pretty cool toy, and makes removing the worst of the muck from the fiddly bits a cinch.
When I get back I wash the car off properly by hand, and it is looking much cleaner now (apart from the interior), so I leave it to dry off as much as possible then drop it back into the garage.
With the rear suspension all cleaned up, just look at the state of the driveshafts! It hasn't really taken them long to get a coating of surface rust. I will have to do something about this, but not sure what I can use to paint the tripod joints, as they look like they are plated, but then they have rusted pretty easily.
Once the car had dried off, I put it away, and could start dismantling it more now, since it won't move again now until it's all sorted. First job is to remove the drivers seat. Craig calls round and give me a hand, since it requires the arms of Mr Tickle to do it solo.
We also get the car jacked up onto the axle stands.
Next up it's remove the tunnel cover panel, as I obviously need full access to the props. So off with the handbrake gaitor and gear knobs, then the panel can be undone and removed. I have also removed the handgrip from handbrake, since I don't really like the gaitor and the lever looks odd with just the grip. I think I'll have to think of something to provide some sort of grip though.

10th February 2003
I get on with more dismantling this evening. Next it is going to make life easier just to get all the bodywork out of the way, so it's off and away with the bonnet and nosecone first. Then I disconnect the battery, and remove the dash, followed by the scuttle.
This leaves the car looking fairly bare, and gives me easier access to the tunnel side panels in the footwell, which are a bit of a battle, but are soon removed and stored away.
With the bonnet removed, I notice that the pulse air covers which I fitted last week have sort of de-laminated or something - the top layer of the carbon fibre seems to have come away or something. Obviously through the heat they were subjected to over the drive on Saturday. I'll check with Dan what he thinks has happened...
The centre bearing for the new prop arrangement arrived today. It will be mounted where the reverse gearbox is currently mounted, and will cope with a slight angle on the new props, and allows two props to be joined together. Having it now will allow me to check the mounting, and therefore measure accurately for the new props.

11th February 2003
Now I can press on with removing the propshafts and reverse gearbox. This will then leave the route clear to look at mounting the centre bearing, and measuring up for the new props. So I spend some time undoing the propshaft bolts, starting at the front, at the engine output. The bolts are still really tight (fortunately), and a bit fiddly to undo, especially compared to when it was put together as there is much more other things in the way.
After a while I have undone all of the prop bolts except for the ones at the diff input flange. However, I discover a problem in that the props appear to be very firmly stuck to the flanges of the reverse gearbox!

12th February 2003
I get the rest of the prop bolts undone at the diff input flange, and have a go at separating the flanges which are stuck. I have tried hammering a screwdriver between them, which didn't work, and I tried beating the crap out of the the end of the prop which also didn't work. So I give them a good squirt of WD40 to see if that can penetrate and help them separate.
So I give up, and take some pictures...

13th February 2003
They're still stuck... grrr...

14th February 2003
Time for another attempt on the prop flanges. This time, following an appeal for help on cam7, I am equipped with some improved tools for the job. Firstly, a squirt of PlusGas which is a special penetrating lubricant designed for dismantling things like this. Then I have a fairly sharp cold chisel and a small lump hammer. The chisel just fits into the join between the flanges, and few blows with the lump hammer and the flanges part.
I can now remove the shorter front prop through the hole in the floor beneath the reverse gearbox. Then it's time to get the reverse box itself released and out of the way. This is pretty straight forward, just remove the four long studs through the chassis mounts which mount the box, removing the lower front mount from the chassis along the way.
The next slight problem is that I still don't have enough room to manouvre the bigger rear prop out of the tunnel. I will have to remove the gear linkage to provide the necessary clearance, which is a minor thing to do, but I was hoping I wouldn't have to bother, especially since it may be sensible to put it back in for when measuring for the new props and bearing mount to ensure clearance.

Also, once on the bench, I think can see how the flanges got stuck together - the locating rings on the flanges are a snuig fit, so once they were subject to some forces they must have become very snug and got wedged together.

15th February 2003
Another freezing full day in the garage, but most of it was spent helping Greg with his Elise. He got some free upgraded shocks for his car in exchange for some plugging on the website, so I offered my hands and it was easier to use the space and facilities on hand in the garage.
Also during the morning, Derek put in a brief appearance in his new Elise, which is really rather nice indeed.
Whilst Greg was quietly messing with his car, I finished extracting the rear prop from my car, which I managed to do by slackening the handbrake right off and loosening the lever so that it could be swung out of the way. This allowed the prop to be swung enough to pass out of the top of the tunnel.
I had arranged with Rich to call in to help me with measuring up for the new prop, since he was passing after taking his bodywork off to be painted. He soon turned out to be pretty invaluable, not only because the job requires a few pairs of hands, but also because he's already done this on his own car.
We spend some time threading string down the tunnel, attaching it to the centres of the diff and engine flanges, and positioning the centre bearing in the middle. After a while we are fairly happy with where the bearing needs to be mounted, and have done all the required measurements to allow me to order the props. There will be a certain amount of flexibility, around 10mm either way can be compensated by the slider, but it's important to be as accurate as possible now.
The rest of the afternoon is spent helping with Gregs car. The job takes far too long, but that is mainly because we have to keep stopping to take lots of pictures for the feature for his website, since that is part of the deal for the freebie upgrade.

16th February 2003
A visit from the parents today delivered my new dashboard. It is plain uncovered aluminium, and has no holes cut - which means I am designing my own layout, since I will adding some extra bits, and shuffling it around a little from standard.
Not a great deal to do outside, and since it's really cold out again, I decide to do something I can do indoors, so start on dismantling the old dash. I soon remove the loom, and identify and label all the connections on it. I am going to strip out all the unnecessary bits from the loom (windscreen wipers, washers, heater controls, etc.).
After an afternoon spent fettling it, it looks like a right mess, and you have to question whether it will ever work again! But I have extracted the bits which are redundant, and have started working out how to move the hazard warning light switch from one end of the loom to the other (the indicator wiring is a bit of a 'mare!).

19th February 2003
Following some discussion with some people from the BEC list, I decided that I needed to do what I forgot at the weekend, and put the gear linkage back on the car to check the prop clearances. And it's a good job that I did, as I found that with the bearing in the position we had used, the clearance to the bottom of the gear lever mount bracket was a bit too close for comfort.
So after some fiddling around, I re-arranged the bearing so that it was able to sit a bit lower, and hence give better clearance. I will need to re-check the prop measurements before I order them, just to make sure, but I don't think they will have changed.

23rd February 2003
I haven't been making alot of progress with things at the moment, though I have been doing some background working on the dash loom. I have started putting it all back together now, and have (hopefully successfully) moved and re-patched in the hazard warning switch. Just got to sort out the oil pressure gauge, and add in some wiring for the oil temperature gauge, before I bind the chunks of wires back together and test it. Then I will later need to run in some more wires for the extra bits going onto the dash (for the keyless ignition, reverse button, etc.).
Got around to looking a bit more closely at the centre bearing mounting this afternoon. With the help of Craig and some cardboard, we tried a few different things, and made a mock up out of cardboard of the current favourite.
This is simply a U-section of aluminium, which will attach to the left hand top and bottom reverse box mounts. The bearing will then be mounted inside this, with it's legs in a vertical orientation.
This doesn't give the ultimately ideal prop angles, but does give the neatest, easiest, and light mount, and importantly comfortable clearances of the prop on chassis and gear lever mount. There will be some adjustment available by shimming the various mounting points, so I think this will be the best solution providing I can get some suitable extruded aluminium for the job.

28th February 2003
I've been background working on a couple more card templates to refine the design of the centre bearing mount bracket. It will make life a bit sweeter if I can run the bearing perpendicular to the prop. So that means I need a slightly off square U-section bracket which will leave the bearing non-perpendicular to the chassis. Because of this I have decided I will fabricate the bracket myself from 3mm ali sheet.
Also I have completed the first phase on the dash loom, by remaking all the necessary connectors, testing the continuity of the bits I've chopped, and then making good by heat shrinking where I have soldered and binding the loom back together.
I collected some 3mm sheet ali this morning, so time to set about making the bracket. I mark out the outline shape on the ali and then cut it down (as I bought a sheet double the size, just in case!). Then I start to remove the cut-outs around the bearing which will give clearance for the props to move around in the bearing a bit.
I need to work out how I'm going to be able to bend the long bends in an accurate manner...

©2002-2009 David Hackett UDM4