| 2nd May 2008 | |||
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MOT Day. Took the car along this morning to the local friendly garage who I've taken it to for the last few years now.
It passed without any problems, save for one out of two bulbs gone in the number plate lamp. More interestingly, also
in the garage was the worlds second oldest Fiat known to be still in existence - it is a 1906 Fiat Targa Florio 8-litre,
and is a lovely beast in great condition for 102 years! I tried to get a picture of my car next to it in the garage, but it seems my camera phone is borked :-( |
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| 5th May 2008 |
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Back in the garage a bit over the weekend. Although I am all legal and dry (tonneau) now, there are still a few little
jobs to sort out on the car before I head off to Scotland in it, in a couple of weeks. Firstly, now the tonneau is fitted, is the look at getting the 'brow dash' with the LED tell tales on it, into a more suitable position that taped to the dash by my left knee. Because the tonneau now fits where it used to, I am aiming to just get it roughly fitted further back under the aeroscreen. As such I measured the gap and then removed the aeroscreen. I then chopped and bashed and battered the poor brow dash until it got down to a size where it will just about fit. This is really a temporary-get-me-going fix, and I'll revisit this for a better solution some other time - I've got some ideas for a few things I want to sort out in the world of dashboards anyway (probably a job for winter). I just need to get the wires for the big LED cluster re-soldered before I can fit it. |
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| Over the last week or so I've been progressing with getting the backing plate finished off for the steering wheel controls. I need to crack on with getting this done so I can get it soldered up this week and tested and ready. To that end, I continued with final fitting/fettling of the three parts together, and also making up method of clamping the curly wire. On the previous design, the wire could be P-clipped around the back of the wheel using the three bolts which attach the wheel to the release coupling. However, now that the wires need to go across the base of the wheel, this isn't going to work, so I made up a little bracket which will clamp the wire just off the bottom of the release coupling. Need to sort out the wiring for this now. |
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Another tidying up job, was to look at the roll cage padding. It is, unfortunately, both ugly and necessary, but the
'proper' stuff I have used is particularly so, and with entry to the car with the half doors on now achieved through
the top, I decided to try an alternative. So I am swapping to using a slightly softer foam, but this is still roll bar
padding (it just _looks_ like pipe lagging, it isn't). It is slightly more forgiving if you do bang your head on it, but
arguably isn't as good in the event of a real accident. Anyway, I spent an age, cutting and shaping this stuff to fit neatly around the half door and rear main hoop. I had to cut away some of the material to allow the door to slot in and out freely, as it's all a fairly tight squeeze in there. I have ordered some more padding to finish the job properly on the overhead bars. |
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Final job I looked at was a bit more fettling required on the half doors. The studs fitted for the tonneau attach onto them, were half loose already, and the use of peel rivets meant there were sharp bits on the inside which I found caught on my arm. So I spent a while carefully removing them (so that I could re-use the stud bases), and re-fitting them with some sealant adhesive and normal closed pop-rivets, which will hopefully prevent them spinning, and not leave sharp bits on the inside. Unfortunately they aren't black, so I'll have to paint them to make them a little less conspicuous. |
| 9th May 2008 |
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I've been background working on a few things the last few days, but this mostly consisted of trying to get the steering
wheel controls finished off, as this was the only outstanding main task. With the help of my colleague at work (he's pretty
good at soldering), we got it all connected up, but then for some fortunate reason I decided to test it before going any
further, only to find that the orange button was faulty. Luckily RS were happy to just send me another one out without any
questions asked, great service, so by the end of today I had managed to refit and connect all the buttons up and fit the
RJ45 plug at the other end. When I got home, I plugged it all in to the Autocom, and pressing the orange button on the wheel activated the push-to-talk on the radio - yay! The other buttons will get sorted out after this tour, and before the next one. |
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This evening I remembered another job that I had meant to do before. Where the wire for the lambda sensor in the exhaust
passes through the bodywork, it had chafed through the protective sheath around the wires, meaning if it could do that, it
was likely to chafe the wires now. So the sensible thing to do was to remove the sensor and wiring, enlarge the hole, fit
a grommet, and put it all back again. Sounds simple, but without making a huge hole in the bodywork, neither the sensor
or plug would pass through, so the wiring has to be cut. To be honest I wasn't all that happy with the way I had wired
it up originally anyway, as it had to be extended from the bike loom, so if a job is worth doing... Unfortunately, due to access, this means getting the car back up in the air at the front end again, so it kinda feels like I'm going backwards with things again. I am certain it is a good thing to do in terms of continued reliability though. The other slight pain, is that I remember I had found the wires impossible to solder, as I think they are stainless steel due to exhaust temperatures (hence originally bodgey wiring). |
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I also finally received my rear anti-roll bar back from the fabricators today (thanks to Derek and Jason for couriering duties). Steve has done a nice looking job of it, as ever, if anyone local needs any fabrication doing, I can thoroughly recommend him. Needs a coat of paint, chuck it back of the car, and see how it goes. |
| 10th May 2008 | ||
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Early start in the garage today, due to insomnia, which is great because you can get loads done, but a bit knackering. Not sure where the time went today, but it went somewhere. Not sure I have much to say, I was mostly concentrating on getting things back together. I did: get some paint on the ARB (and ran out, so lost an hour going out for more); finish cutting the roll cage padding to fit (new bits arrived this week); get the extended lambda sensor wiring partly done (thanks Steve). That was about it for today, as I did some other non-car stuff too, like cutting the lawn. |
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| 11th May 2008 | |
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A few more bits finished off today. First thing was to complete the fitting of the lambda sensor wiring, having loaned
the soldering iron from work to allow me to do the second part of the soldering with it in-situ on the car - as it is
stainless steel wire, you need quite a high tip temperature and some special solder to do this. I also cleaned up the
oil that seems to wick down the cam position sensor wire - I think I just have to live with this, as I can't think how
it can be prevented. I rebuilt and re-fitted the rear anti-roll bar. The painting job isn't that great, it could do with taking a bit more time over it, but it will do for now. The bar seems maybe a fraction tighter in the mounting blocks, but hopefully will not bind and break, as I can wiggle it by hand, I figure it will probably be ok. I also final fitted the aeroscreen back on the car, and tidied up some of the still dangling wiring under the dash. However, when I came to fit the new Autocom power/PTT cable, I found a dodgy connection which I will have to sort out at work tomorrow. I put the car back on the ground, and it is almost ready to go now. |
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| 15th May 2008 |
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Apologies for the delay, I simply didn't have chance to update things before I went off on the tour, so this is done
from my still tired memory. As is usual, if you allow 'plenty' of time to get finished, I will still find a way to use all of that time, and still end up in a rush at the end of it! Anyway, during the week before heading off for the north, I spent some time sorting out the last bits of the Autocom wiring, by fixing the dodgy connection (and fitting) on the Autocom power/PTT cable, and tying up the music and phone cables under the dash. Another evening was spent giving the car a quick clean to make it look at bit more presentable, even though it will end up pretty dirty, it's nice to have a clean start at least. After that, it was just a case of gathering up tools and spares to pack in the boot, and a final quick check over the car, fluids, tyres, etc. |
| ©2002-2009 David Hackett |
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