Friday 25 December 2015

Sitting comfortably?

I got a text saying I was getting a delivery and I assumed it was the small dowels needed for the gearbox,  so told my wife to expect a padded envelope - what turned up were 2 huge boxes containing the seats!

They look great,  I think:



... but they're a tight squeeze.  In fact,  so tight that I'm going to have to remove the plastic handle on the reclining unit and possibly the plastic cover as well. Hopefully,  it will be OK because I really like them.

The consensus is that my concern over the flywheel being lower than the sump isn't a problem. There are no reports of anyone ever having destroyed their engine that way and Tiger suggest making up a simple blanking plate to keep stuff from getting into the bell housing. I could actually buy such a plate from a company called Retro Ford but it's a bit big so I'll probably just make my own.

Very annoyed with myself about the thrust bearing which I put in the wrong way round. If I hadn't been browsing a couple of other blogs,  I might have left it like that and Gawd knows what would have happened when I came to try using the clutch for the first time. Very worried now about what else I could have done wrong...

The only local place I know about that sells 8.8 strength bolts is now shut until Jan 4th although I might try getting them off eBay - see if that's any quicker.

With in-laws here for Christmas,  I may not get much chance to get into the garage,  so Happy Xmas and New Year to whoever is bored enough to be reading my waffle.

Sunday 20 December 2015

Thor's Hammer

Well,  gave the postman a hernia:


I managed to carry it into the garage without putting my back out and first job was to trim some of the bell housing off.  To do this,  I vaguely mated it up to the engine, the idea being to see how much to remove to make the bell housing level with the sump. Unfortunately,  it was then I noticed something rather worrying.

I have bought the sump from Tiger to save some money over the Raceline sump. However,  the Tiger sump must be shallower as I've just realised that the flywheel is lower than the bottom of the sump,  by about 5mm or so:



This means that if I hit a bump,  instead of the sump taking the impact,  the flywheel might! That seems a very bad arrangement to me. I need to check the Tiger forum and see if it is a known issue and what they do about it.  Maybe they all fit sump guards?

Trying not to worry to much yet about my £1200 engine,  I then took a hacksaw to my new £800 gearbox - no stress then!

Before surgery (left) and after:

                            

The next step was the clutch pivot - the old one has to be replaced by a new,  longer one. I guess I should have been warned by the large amount of effort needed to hammer the old one out. Getting the new one in took me an hour,  starting nice and gently with wood and gentle tapping and finally resorting to brute force with my 2.5 lb lump hammer:

                    

The clutch arm itself took seconds:


Update: OK,  who noticed the schoolboy error? Yup,  there's something called a thrust bearing (I think) which I've put on the wrong side of the clutch arm. Could have been messy...  ðŸ˜Ÿ

I considered fitting the quickshift now but I think it will be tricky to get the gearbox in place with it on,  so I'll fit it once the gearbox is in. I'm also not quite clear on how the bolts go into the propshaft - they're a strange size and shape.

I can foresee a bolt problem soon - I haven't got any for connecting the engine to the gearbox,  so I'm going to have to work out what I need.


Wednesday 16 December 2015

Mounting excitement

My gearbox is being delivered on Friday - yeehaa! In celebration,  I added the last items that I can to the engine; the mounts and oil filter:



I cut a channel in the scuttle edge to allow it to fit over the firewall more easily and then used my newly-acquired ratchet strap to check it tightens up OK for when I finally bond it to the firewall -  should be OK.

Looking ahead,  I was considering building my own dash and covering it in vinyl but I'm going off the idea - I'll probably make a dogs dinner of it,  so the GBS fibreglass dash is the way forward.

I'm also starting to worry about the electrics - I have the main GBS loom but I don't want to spend £300+ on the engine loom plus more on the dash loom etc. So I'm hoping to buy flying leads from Emerald (who also do the ECU) and wire it myself. But I have no experience of car wiring and so many people seem to struggle with it. I've emailed Emerald about this - they were really friendly with another mail I sent them so hopefully they'll be able to easily suggest what I need.

And finally,  even more concerned about the Sierra stalks. I bought them off eBay but without any wires or plugs and I can't find any way of buying those separately.

Tough times ahead...

Tuesday 15 December 2015

Capped in the butt

The petrol cap I ordered about a month ago has finally arrived and it is a lovely piece of kit,  especially the keys:


One of the easiest installs I've done so far:

                  


I decided to rivet up the dashboard edge of the scuttle and fit the rivnuts in the dashboard support panel:



I highly recommend this rivnut tool -  only £13 and is so much quicker than the stupid manual tool I bought before:


The other scuttle edge looks like it may need some trimming to get it to fit under the firewall (sorry,  difficult to explain) and I've ordered a ratchet strap which others have used to help with shaping the scuttle over the firewall.

I've been promised my gearbox by the weekend,  so fingers crossed.

Saturday 12 December 2015

Scuttling along

I didn't really want to start on the scuttle as it was an easily-stored flat piece of metal but still no gearbox and not much else to do,  so I got started on it. 

When I picked up my kit,  Richard showed me a good method of bending metal with no need for a former. Sadly,  I ignored his advice on the first end and tried to use the same technique I had used on the rear panel but somehow it didn't work and I ended up with a small kink in the panel -  doh! I used his method on the other end and it worked much better.

Its a difficult piece to do though - I decided the best way was to use the small strip that the dashboard will eventually fix on to as a former.  This strip is fixed in shape and is what the scuttle has to fix to,  so seemed sensible. I bent the scuttle panel as close as I could to the shape of this strip:


The central tab has a notch that matches up with one on the scuttle to show the central point,  which saves a lot of tricky measuring. I drilled a hole in this tab,  put a cleco in and then continued along the rest of the strip,  putting a cleco in every other tab (I don't want too many rivets):


Some gentle hammering removed the kink I had put in earlier and then I rested it in place:



I stopped at this point because I'm not quite sure on the next step - it doesn't seem to be big enough at the firewall end to go all the way round? Need to check other people's blogs... 

Earlier,  I'd tightened the bolts on the propshaft and drilled holes for the battery panel and the pedal box although neither of these are going in permanently yet. 

Thursday 10 December 2015

Head bashing against a (fire) wall

Progress is slow because I'm still waiting for the gearbox to arrive. Until then,  I can't get the engine in and can't start on the myriad of jobs that follow that.

Fitted the drivers side internal side panel (invert picture in last post) and started on the firewall. I just drilled the few holes needed and,  like others,  I've fitted rivnuts rather than rivets so that I can easily remove the scuttle in future,  if necessary:


Lots of purchases recently; seats,  interior carpet set, remote brake fluid reservoir.

Friday 4 December 2015

Nailed it

I've spent about 2 hours scraping panel protector off with my nails,  the only way I've found of doing it without scratching the panels. 

I finally got the small trim delivered that would allow me of finish of the shroud which has been close to poking my eye out a few times. I'm afraid I haven't done a great job of making it look good,  which is annoying considering how visible it is. I don't like the tadpole trim and wish I could have used the small trim on both edges - it looks much neater. The tadpole trim flops about and is very difficult to get neat. 

I also had to spend ages with my Dremel opening out the holes on the rollbar supports. 

Looks OK from a distance but don't get any closer:




Lovely and solid,  though and so much nicer than the GRP of other kit cars. 

While I had opened a new tube of gunk,  I've fitted one of the inside side panels (yes,  more panel protector) and I'll do the other one next time: