Monday 24 September 2018

A French tickler

A few months ago, someone on the SKCC forum proposed a brief , one night excursion to France. It seemed a perfect opportunity to get the wife out with me and get her more interested in Zedster. Sadly, my recent troubles meant i wasn't sure if I'd be ready in time, so I cancelled my hotel and the babysitters but the Eurotunnel tickets were non- refundable. Then, when I actually managed to get Zedster ready (6pm on the Friday night!), I decided to just go for it. Unfortunately,  this meant my wife couldn't come as we had no babysitters we could get at such late notice.

So, I left home at 5am for the 2 hour slog down the motorway to the Eurotunnel - a nerve-wracking journey trying to listen out for my sump dropping off, or some such disaster.

I arrived first because it only took 1.5 hours (thanks Google! Could have had an extra 30 minutes in bed) before the others arrived; a Caterham, couple of Tigers (or one might have been a Westfield) and a beautiful Morgan:



Sadly, this was to be almost the last dry time of the trip! Our train was delayed 2 hours and the second we drove off the train, the rain started and didn't stop until we arrived back in Folkestone!

But it was a great excuse to test Zedster in horrendous weather - and he did pretty well. One of my wiper arms stopped working an hour into the trip but this was just a loose bolt holding it on to the spindle. The other one was loose as well, so i need to get some thread lock on them for future. Once tightened, they were fine.

My roof was great except that, overnight, a puddle formed in the middle and some of this got through the material and wet my seat. Next time, i might carry some sort of pole with me to make a peak in the roof so that the water doesn't collect.

My doors were also excellent but are just lacking straps on the inside to hold them against the side of the car. Ideally, I need to bend the lower frame but I've tried and can't seem to get it to follow the side panel. Straps will also stop the sides blowing up at speed and letting spray in. The Caterham had armrests bolted into the door which doubled as the straps holding the door in as they hooked over the sill - very clever. I might try doing that...

An interesting discovery is how stable Zedster is at speed. Going past trucks at 70mph in torrential rain and strong winds and he didn't even slightly stray off line. My normal car is all over the place in that scenario - must be the low C of G.

So the trip was very wet but a nice bunch of people,  some great food, a decent hotel and lovely, empty roads.




An enjoyable trip which would have awesome if the weather had been just a bit better. But hopefully the first European trip of many... (if Zedster stays in one piece).

Friday 21 September 2018

Miracles Happen

Well, would you believe it - I've only gone and fixed it!!! I'm a sure-fire, certified, one-in-a-million ENGINEERING GENIUS!

Ok, sorry to go over the top but this was SO far outside my comfort zone as to be in the next continent. Even when I was thinking about my build, I always knew I was NOT going to go inside an engine. I obviously know the basics of how an engine works but bearings, caps, journals, galleries - these were all alien words to me and I had enough to learn.

But now I know so much more...you can tell from my earlier posts how frustrating and depressing it was BUT having done it, I'm on cloud 9 - it's so (and sorry to use a hippy, tree-hugger word here) uplifting to have successfully done something you never dreamed you'd be able to.

When I said I had screwed up the timing process last time, I don't think I had. Embarrassingly, I think I had just not put the HT lead on the plug of cylinder 4 properly, so I was running on 3 cylinders - doh! However, I still re-did it after getting the camshaft sprockets loosened and running fine.

Stretch bolts arrived, torqued up, sump on, oil in and Zedster fired up almost immediately - and the rattle was GONE! Beautiful...quick 10 mile drive to check all ok and I am a properly happy builder. Hopefully, I can spend some time driving now and less in the garage.

Anyway, enough drama - I'm off to France tomorrow at 4.30am in Zedster - talk about cutting it fine! No hotel booked (I had to cancel it because I didn't think I was going to get Zedster ready), so should be exciting (and the weather forecast is bad). Let's see if I get as far as the Eurotunnel....

Sunday 16 September 2018

Bearing up

Gawd, i wish I'd taken the early advice of a forum member who said on day 1 that my problem was big end bearings. At the time, that was the worst possible news for me and I was desperately hoping for a simpler solution. As it is, changing the bearings is far simpler than I'd expected....

I've sort of done all 4 now - this is what they looked like (cylinder 1 on the left, no. 4 on the right):


Weird how cylinder 1 is so bad and the others just have a slight mark down the centre (not sure if that is normal or the start of a problem?).

Anyway, taking them out and replacing took no more than 30 minutes going slowly. The only problem is one that has plagued me since day 1 of my build - bolts! Those cap bolts are stretch bolts which are one use only, so I've had to order new ones from Ford (the only place to get them) - going to take a few days to arrive so I can't rebuild the bottom end until then.

Once they arrive, i can re-do the timing. I'm going to take the cams out, take them to a garage and ask them to use their air wrench to loosen the sprockets. I should be able to do the timing properly then.

Annoyingly, I've had to cancel a weekend trip to France on the 22nd because i can't be sure I'll be done by then. I've got a handling day on Oct 5th which I'm desperate to get to...better be or I'm going to have to do a John Cleese on Zedster!

Tuesday 11 September 2018

It all becomes clear

So, valve clearances....this is the process:

1. Engine at TDC, remove rocker cover.
2. Remove fan belt.
3. Remove crankshaft pulley.
4. Remove 3 timing belt covers.
5. Loosen tensioner and remove timing  belt.
6. Loosen camshaft sprockets.
7. Remove camshaft caps and camshafts.
8. Replace required shims.
9. Rebuild in reverse, using special timing tool to get camshafts in right place.

This is a summary of what the Haynes manual says. What the effing manual DOESN'T say is that for items 3 and 6 you really need an air compressor and gun because the bolts are done up flipping tight. What it also neglects to mention is that Ford only do shims in set thicknesses and did they have the one I needed? Go on, guess the answer....

The problem is made worse by the fact that you don't know what shim size you need until you have taken everything off to get to the existing shims!

So i decided to cheat (you can see where this is going) and I didn't take the crankshaft pulley off, or the camshaft sprockets, relying on the timing tool to work. Needless to say, it didn't and now my timing  is slightly out and Zedster doesn't idle or run smoothly. While the camshafts were out, i didn't see any obvious cause of my rattle.

 



Bugger.

I decided to leave the timing to another day and concentrated on the bottom end. Amazingly, it took just 2 hours to get the sump off and the first big end bearing removed.

And EUREKA!


That's one of my bearings on the right, the one on the left is a new one and what it should look like. That is one knackered big end bearing. Worse, it has scratched the crankshaft:


Next step is to see whether that is something i can just clean up myself or if it needs removing and taking  to an expert. I know what my money is on...

With hindsight,  i wish i had taken the big end caps off when i first took the sump off but i was just too scared. ..the joys of experience.