2nd May 2003
Unfortunately, that's not the end, there are still some bits which I need to sort out. It's raining quite nicely out, so I decide I won't miss the car for a day or so. So I go for fixing the rivnuts in the scuttle. Yep, this means having to take it all off the car again, and I'd rather not have to do it, but don't really have much choice.
So in the space of a couple of hours this evening, it's bonnet and nosecone off (easiest way to disconnect the battery), dash panel disconnected and removed, the dead rivnuts drilled out and new ones replaced.
I also have to fix up the loom saddles which had come loose on the back of the dash, which I move slightly to make fitting the dash and connecting the wiring up a little easier by giving a bit more slack.

3rd May 2003
Another full day in the garage redoing the dash again (and not taking many pictures again). The bits which I left to set last night have gone well off now, so it's get on with re-building it. While the dash is off again, I decide to have a look at what sort of signals are coming out of the speed sensors. So I jack the rear of the car up in the air, and get the dash into a state where it can be just plugged in for testing (by using a bolt to hold the battery cables together instead of connecting to the master switch). After a short while it's runnable, so I stick the meter into the various wires, and turn the prop at tickover in first. There doesn't seem to be anything at all coming out of the VDO sensor, and I can see the 5v pulses on the bike sensor. I decide to just wire in the bike one and will see what happens on the road.
When driving the car the other day, I found that the centre rear view mirror wasn't quite giving me the right view any more. I think this is because the height and angle of the aeroscreen has changed. So I decide I don't want to take the dash off enough that it's worth making another new centre mirror mount - I say another because I was aware I had made a couple before but a rummage around turned out a small handful of them! The new one is leaving the mirrot sticking up and out a bit more, but the view is much improved through the rear, as it is just that little bit higher up.
Another job I do, whilst Craig is around to help out, is to bleed the clutch. The fluid in the reservoir has turned somewhat murky, implying that a seal or something is breaking down in the fluid. For now I decide to flush it through with Dot4 fluid to see if this helps, and I will have to see how it goes, and I'm not sure what the culprit of the muck is - it seems unlikely to be seals in the cylinders or the reservoir as they should be fluid proof (!), so perhaps the small pipe linking the reservoir to the master cylinder? And how come the fluid is migrating and mixing around anyway...?
As the above picture shows, the rest of the day is spent getting the dash re-attached. I have a mild panic moment when one of the same rivnuts as caused the problem first time, appears to do the same again! At this point I realise that I can get at the back of the rivnut, and so cut a slotted bolt and can wind it in from the rear to clean the thread out. After a bit of fiddling and cursing I finally get it fitted.
The car just needs the nose and bonnet putting back on, and all the swarf removing from the inside, then we are back on the road again. I'm well tired, but the list of things left to sort on the car is coming down now: get speedo working, run-in some more & change oil, sort out a new exhaust mount, and sort out the tonneau. And I've got a week to get it all done in... fingers crossed!

4th May 2003
Didn't actually do any work on the car today, but did spend some time cleaning and tidying it up. So I spend the morning hoovering all the accumulated rubbish from inside the car, then push it out onto the drive and give it a thorough clean up inside and out.
It's a lovely sunny and warm day today, so a quick run out to the supermarket to get provisions for lunch before settling down for the grand prix (and update the website!).
After lunch it seemed rude not to take the car out to enjoy the sunshine, so I pop over to Tims to see how his car is coming along, followed by a blat around some of the local lanes. The car is going really well, though I make a slight mistake of heading around to one of the local popular touristy spots, which I should have realised would be full of traffic. The car gets pretty hot, though the coolant seems to control itself, I see a recurrence of a problem I've noticed before, the steering seems to get quite sticky. Not sure of the cause of this yet, it will require some more investigation.

5th May 2003
Not quite as nice weather today, but another day for a run out in the car to help finish off the running in mileage. Bonce and Greg and some other Lotus people were doing a trackday over at Bedford Autodrome today, so I went for a run out over there for a nose.
The car again behaved totally faultlessly today - no recurrence of the sticky steering problem I had yesteday, but then I've not had the car get really hot today. I found some great lanes to get off the A roads and cut the corner to the track, and the car was just fantastic. The handling is so much better after Terrys suspension job, and I am much more confident in driving the car, and making use of the revs available to me.
It makes all the effort worthwhile when you get a good run out like this, and all the changes I've made to the car over the last couple of months are paying off (except once having to jump out to perform a U-turn!). Unfortunately, I forgot the digital camera... : /

6th May 2003
Time to make some headway with the shortlist of tasks left to do before Ireland next week. First of these is to sort out a new exhaust mount method, after the previous one failed last week, leading me to decide to try a whole different approach.
So I spend some time dismantling the existing mount, and measuring up the requirements for the new one. I've decided to try copying Ed's new mount, which consists of a bent piece of tube from the chassis mount round to the tailpipe to support the can from the underside.
After a struggle with getting the can off the manifold, I decide that I'll use a little less assembly paste next time, as it made it really awkward to get the damn thing off! Eventually it's encouraged off and the old paste cleaned off. I now need to get the bits of tube welded, which Adrian has offered to do for me tomorrow evening - though I've decided against welding a nut directly to the tailpipe, not least because none of my friends are brave enough to tackle the stainless welding, but I want to prove the theory before I do anything that can't be reversed.
The other job to sort out this evening is the measure up the tonneau. I need to get it sent back off to Westfield to get it modified to fit properly around the roll bar and aeroscreen. Hopefully they will be able to get it sorted and back to me by the end of the week, which should just give me time to fit it before Wednesday.

9th May 2003
Whilst the new exhaust mount design is being made up (should get the new one tomorrow), I decide to face up to a job I'd been putting off. I'd be told that I shouldn't be running my shocks inverted (after all), and after checking with Guy at Nitron, he said that they may be ok, but he couldn't guarantee it without re-bleeding them to run as such (at £20 per shock, since they basically would be rebuilt). Not something I can risk or have time and money to do at the moment, so I spend the evening very carefully un-inverting them, and making sure that all the suspension bits go back togther with no changes.
If/when I go for lighter wheels and tyres, then it will probably be worth the £100 to get them rebuilt and bled to run inverted.

10th May 2003
After a morning out and about getting various bits and bobs, the afternoon brings time to do the first oil change. Until now I've been running on some mineral oil for running-in purposes, but as I'm off to Ireland soon, and I've done something like 1200 miles now (speedo not currently working!), I figure it's time to swap the oil, and then a gentle build up of the revs. So I run the engine up for a while to warm the oil through, during which time I get the bonnet and nosecone off, and the car up in the air on the axle stands to give me enough access underneath.
So on with the job, and pulling the plug out of the (dry) sump doesn't do quite what I expected as it must be on the scavenge side only, as I only get a couple of litres out it - what must have been lurking in the engine when it was switched off. The benefit of this is that it means I can empty that bit of oil from the collector, as there will be something like 8 litres coming out, I can't do it all in one hit anyway.
After a bit of puzzling I conclude that the only way I can empty the oil tank is to pull pipe off the feed to the sump. Sure enough this gets it all glugging out, but it seems to fairly easy to control the flow to avoid overflowing. I decide that since this is a change from mineral to synthetic oil, and therefore I want to get as much of it out as possible, I am going to remove the oil cooler and drain that. This is a bit fiddly and adds a heap of extra time to proceedings, but it's soon out and left to drain.
Next problem is getting the filter off, so I have to pop out to buy the rightful tool for job after struggling with it for a while - of course it takes seconds with the right tool! After this it is re-assemble it all, fit new filter, refill with the new oil, crank it over for a while to clear the air out, re-check the oil level, and then start the engine.
The other job I need to do while the oil is out, before I refill it, is to fit the oil temperature sender to the oil tank. This is the main reason for removing it actually as I couldn't quite see how the extract the blanking grub screw from it until I got it onto the bench. From there I fitted the temp sender, using some PTFE to help seal it, though it's not under pressure at this point (other than a few litres of oil stacked on top of it).
Later once the oil system is all reconnected and working without leaks, I can connect up the wiring which I had already prepared for the temp sender. I am reusing the wiring which was in place for the windscreen washer pump, and have already connected this to the gauge on the dash, so it's just a simple job of making the connections to temp sender.

11th May 2003
I recieved the whizzy new exhaust mounts from Adrian yesterday. He has very kindly made me up two, so that I have a spare in case of failure, though they seem very well made so it seems unlikely that this will break (the rubber element will break first I expect). I spend some time looking at fitting it, and it does, but I conclude that I need to make a new strap to wrap around the exhaust can, which I can't get the metal from the stores today as they are not open. So I paint the mounts up and fit the first part - the can will have to wait.
So I turn my attentions to the speedo problem. Having spoken to SteveW, I am sure that the bike speed sensor can be made to work, but time is against me at the moment, so for now I will reinstate the original speed sensor. So I make a new pointy washer and fit it to one of the bolts in the propshaft. Then I mount the sensor, and swap the wires back over in the dash. A quick test run shows the needle moving, I'll need to test it out on the road to see if any fine tuning is required.
With this done, I refit the tunnel top cover panels, and the handbrake gaitor, so the inside of the car is all done and ready now I think.
Since I can't do the exhaust, and the tonneau is somewhere in the midst of the postal system, there isn't much I can do to the car. So I decide that I will take advantage of the time to give the car a polish. First I wash all the bugs and dust off it, then go over it all with a mild T-cut, then go over it all again with the silicone resin polish.
This has left everything looking very shiny, for now, though I am sure it will soon be in a right state again, but at least it has some protection on it now and should make it easier to clean the next lot of muck off.

12th May 2003
Had a bit of a battle with trying to fit the exhaust. It doesn't seem as though it is going to fit in the manner which we had intended - a strap around the can onto the bobbin which is mounted to the chassis via the widgets made up for me. The problem is that it's just so damn difficult (I would almost say impossible) to get the strap around the can and onto the bobbin, with the can fixed in position - which it has to be to seal.
Hmmm, I'll have to have a think about this, but I have to come up with a working solution tomorrow morning, as the rest of the day is scheduled for tonneau fitting and final prep for the Ireland trip!

13th May 2003
Final days fettling before departing on the Ireland tour tomorrow. Still no sign of the modified tonneau from Westfield, so that gives me some time to sort out the exhaust. I seem to have two options here, to refit the original mount, or to fit an extra bit of ali to make this one easier to fit (and possibly have to fix at the roadside!).
So I decide to try the latter, I think it will work, and I can always use the original mount as a backup plan if this one doesn't work out - I'll take all the spare bits with me. I make up a small bracket chopped from a piece of extruded box section I have, which happens to be pretty much the right size, and is nice and strong.
It looks like it's going to work out after a dry fitting, so I take the plunge and fit the can to the manifold using assembly paste and clamp it tightly in position. I've fitted the bracket to the bobbin, and so it's just a matter of fitting the strap around the can, and attaching it to the bracket. Job done, and all seems well, hopefully it will hold up.
Just before I finished the exhaust, I had spotted that the package containing the tonneau had been left under a bush at the front of the house - no idea when they delivered it, but I suspect it has been there since yesterday!
So this is the next job to sort out. However I soon discover that the tonneau hasn't been modified enough. This is a pretty major pain, as it means I will not be able to use it on the Ireland trip (apparently it rains in Ireland...!). Though the cover has been modified to fit the rear struts of the roll bar, since I have the welded in version, there is an extra strut behind the drivers head, which has not been accounted for.
The lack of tonneau gives me plenty of time to potter around and get everything else prepared, but it does present me with the need to get a cover to use whilst away. So I head out on a mission to find one, and after some umming and aahing, I get a cover which is intended to be used as a 'cap' for a larger car. My reasoning is that a full cover for even a small car is likely to be too big, so a cap for a larger car should do the trick.
When I try it on the car it is a pretty good fit. It will never fit totally properly due to shape of the car, but with a a couple of extra straps around the middle it should be more than capable of keeping things dry.
The rest of the afternoon was spent tidying everything up, and making sure the car is ready to go. I decided that it may prove sensible to tape up some of the leaky areas around the scuttle and pedal cover panel - it's bound to rain, and it runs right into the footwells from here. I won't need to get the scuttle off, and if I need to get at the pedals it's simple enough to remove the tape.
With the car all ready, I just have a tidy around the garage, and gather together some tools, spares, and fluids which I will carry with me.
So that's it, me and my little car are off to Ireland for almost a week as of tomorrow. Hopefully it will behave impeccably, and the sun will shine, but I won't be holding my breath on the latter! I'll get some words and pictures in here as soon as I can once I am back. Wish me luck...

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