Here Be Dragons

 The SKCC Rogue Runners Wales 2020 trip started at stupid-O'clock (4.30 am) at Newlands Corner - and ended in horrible failure for me, a day early - but more of that later.

Day 1 - Surrey to Llangollen

Once again, we met in the pitch-black of Newlands corner and set off at 5am - the 2 Elises of Graham and Roger (1 more was late and Steve would catch us up later), the Quantum Extreme of Rob, Duncan's Caterham, Tony's Quantum and me. Our target was breakfast at Newport, to meet the final member of the group, Linda and her Tiger.

This year, the route was less M4 and more A roads, which was much better but slower and we got to breakfast around 8.30am. The weather was glorious and would remain so for the rest of the trip - incredibly lucky.

I took very few photos and the only video I thought I had taken didn't, so apologies for that (but you may be sick and tired of my videos by now).

After the breakfast farce of us sitting 1 table apart and waving across the room at each other (then standing inches apart in the same space for coffee and toast), we set off north, towards the evening hotel at Llangollen. We were prepared to alter our route if we were somehow forced to avoid the 2 Wales counties supposedly locked down (I was excitingly looking forward to driving through a police roadblock like a scene from Smokey and the Bandit) but there didn't seem to be anything on our route, although we were avoiding the large A-roads.

The route was an improvement on last year, with quieter roads although traffic was a bit heavier as well. I must remember to buy food at one of the petrol stops next time - I was expecting a nice cafe stop for lunch but everyone seemed happy to skip it!

The drive was wonderful - sun shining, lovely roads, great views - it all flew by too quickly (literally). We even, at one of our stops in a layby, saved a sheep that had got stuck in a wire fence! Annoyingly, my hot-starting issues continued, so every fuel stop was a battery-sapping cranking before Zedster fired up.

Sat-nav issues were, as always on these trips, numerous. I was the only person not to have a TomTom, so mine kept choosing a slightly different route to everyone else. Normally, I stayed in the middle of the pack and just followed others but this didn't always work and at some point I lost everyone and so spent the last hour or so on my own. I cannot remember how I lost them but it wasn't the end of the world - gave me a chance to just concentrate on driving and my route was brilliant - Zedster was flying. Even the last few miles into Llangollen wasn't as bad as last year and I was second to arrive at the hotel (after Tony, who had also got lost at some point). We need to recruit navigators!

The Hand hotel in Llangollen was right in the centre of town and it had virtually the only car parking space in the centre. The hotel did not reserve guests spaces, so getting us all parked was tricky but we finally managed to squeeze us all in. I went for a wander to buy some tourist tat for my family:

A few beers and then a nice meal in the hotel restaurant capped a superb day.

Day 2 - circular North Wales route

After a hearty full English, we set off on a new route devised by Duncan and it was a corker - starting up the famous Horseshoe Pass to some lake (sorry, I'm never good with names), it was an amazing sweeping road, although it is a notorious biker racetrack, so now has average speed cameras along it. However, averaging 60mph is pretty difficult on those roads, so it didn't bother me (although I await a brown envelope in the post in the coming weeks!). At the lake, my sat-nav seemed to miss the coffee stop at the lake (very annoyed about that!), I think because I was just enjoying the road too much and not looking at the screen. Tony and Rob did the same thing and so the 3 of us decided to just carry on and meet up with the others later:

Shortly after the above pic was taken, on a single-lane road with no passing places, a huge tractor appeared around the bend. We had to reverse 200m or so before he managed to squeeze on a kerb and let us past. We took turns to lead and managed to keep together as far as Llandudno, where we stopped for a coffee and a chip butty for me (why does no-one else eat lunch?!). With amazing timing, we set off for the toll road round the Great Orme just as the others pulled up behind us.

The rest of the day was a blur - Conwy Castle, Llanberis Pass (I'm told), great roads, lovely scenery, all bathed in sunshine. Predictably, I missed a turning, with Rob following me while the others went off. I should have just turned around but I HATE turning round and Rob and I spent the last hour alone, occasionally hearing the others over the radio. Later on, I lost Rob as well - I'm like a reverse people-magnet! Annoyingly, I missed the stop at the Ffestiniog (sp?) railway but the drive was just awesome and I pulled up back at the Hand, the first back, with Rob arriving soon after.

That evening, after a couple of beers, half of us de-camped to a local Indian for an enjoyable meal.

Day 3 - Llangollen to Llandrindod Wells

Today went very pear-shaped for me. It started ok, with the group splitting up and half (the ones who got ready sooner) leaving first - I left in the second group. We had a great hour or so, on a lovely road towards Bala.

Around this time, I heard an ominous clunk from my gearshift. I mentioned it on the radio and we agreed to have a look at it at the next stop. Ten minutes later, just after a hairpin bend, my gear lever went loose and there was a clank noise as something dropped in the tunnel. I rolled to a halt in a layby and took the tunnel top of, expecting to see a bolt having vibrated loose. Sadly, it was MUCH worse than that:

That is the top pole of the GBS quickshift which had completely snapped. Game over. Without welding equipment, none of us could think of a fix, so I called my breakdown company and the others left to carry on. 

Now, I'll have to admit, the ensuing chaos was mostly my own fault and I'll write it here to remind myself - feel free to skip this long paragraph. It starts with the fact that my first MOT was due on August 1st. I thought I was entitled to the 3 month MOT extension because of Covid but, no, that ran out on July 31st!!! So my MOT was due August 1st, which I discovered a week before and I couldn't get a test done before that date, so it eventually got done on August 8th or so. Unfortunately, this meant my direct debit for my road tax failed on August 1st because the DVLA system said my car had no MOT, so I had no road tax. Now, my breakdown cover is through ADAC, the German version of the AA. They have an arrangement with the AA but when they called the AA, they said they weren't allowed to come try fix the car because it was, strictly, not legally allowed on the road. All they would do was tow it to a 'storage area' until I paid the road tax. I then discovered that my ADAC cover would only allow £300 towards recovery home - AA wanted £800 to do that! So even if I got the AA to come out, all they would do was take it to a garage (this was Sunday, none would be open) and I'd have to hang around while someone tried to fix my car, for some exorbitant rate. I just wanted to get the car home where I could do the fix myself. I used an online emergency tow service and got some bloke who would recover me for £400 but he would take 3-4 hours to get to me (he was in Manchester). ADAC agreed to pay £300 of that, so I asked the guy to come get me and settled down to wait.

By this time, it was 2pm and I'd already been sat by the side of the road for 3 hours. Bored, I started rummaging through my tool kit to see if there was anything I could do as a bodge to get me moving. Thinking it was like a broken leg, I looked for a splint and bandages - Allen keys and gaffer tape, maybe? After a few tries, I had this:

And, amazingly, it seemed to work, although I had to use 2 hands to change gear - one to push the rose joint in and stop the bodge from pulling off, the other to move the lever. Just then, a guy from the RHOCAR forum returned my message and invited me to stay at his place overnight and he could fix the part on the next day. Only problem, he was 70 miles away in Tamworth. I cancelled the recovery guy and went for it...

I set off and I managed the first 15 miles in 4th gear but the traffic started getting heavier and roundabouts are a killer when you don't want to change gear. Also, gaffer tape doesn't like heat and the heat from the engine was melting the glue. Suffice to say, I had to stop 3 more times to re-do my bodge job (I ended up using half the roll of tape), although my last version was much better and felt like it would last longer:

Luckily, most of the last 40 miles were on the motorway, so I could stay in 5th and I got to Rich at 7pm. And, in a way, it was the luckiest part of my day...

Day 4 - Tamworth to Surrey

Anyone reading this from the RHOCAR club may know Rich - he is a legend. Thirty years at JLR means he knows his stuff, has a garage (the neatest I have ever seen) filled with 'stuff' and what he doesn't know about engineering 'aint worth knowing. His garage contains his immaculate, V8-powered Zero, a mini-caravan he built himself from an old trailer and an awesome hard-top for the Zero, complete with interior light and roof vents. He's the guy who made the doors on Zedster. For him, welding up my gear shift literally took him 30 minutes - I've never seen anything like it. It took me 10 minutes to get my dash off and another 10 minutes to get the quickshift unscrewed. Rich looked at it for about 30 seconds and then started drilling, grinding, welding and painting:

I was actually very useful - I moved Rich's coffee mug so it was always close to him as he scurried round. Essential, I think...not that Rich stopped for long enough to drink it. If it had been left to me, Zedster would have been off the road for months.

Moral of the story: if you have to break down, make sure you're near Tamworth.

With Zedster back together by 11am, I considered trying to re-join the others but I would just end up driving to get to the overnight stop, missing all the days route and great roads. So I set a vague route for home, skipping all the major towns and main roads.

I actually had a great drive back - there are some surprisingly nice roads just a few miles from the edge of Birmingham and the Cotswold villages are very scenic. Strangely, Zedster's hot-starting was much improved over the day and the extra weight in the quickshift means the gear lever vibrates less - result!

Overrall, it had been a fun trip, even though I only did half of it. The weather was ridiculous (I look like I've spent a week on a sunbed), the company was great and even breaking down was a useful learning experience.

Sorry this post was so long - for more detail from others on the trip, check out this SKCC post.

Clouds are forming....

The rattle I mentioned last time doesn't seem to be the tensioner - I took it off and it seems pretty quiet, unless it is only slightly on the way out and rattles when under tension? Very worrying...next step is to run the engine (briefly) with the belt off, so I can rule out the tensioner, water pump, driveshaft and alternator as the source.

A minor job was to try cut-down on the irritating buzz from the gearstick. Above 50mph or so, it vibrates with a high-pitched wail which I normally prevent by just resting a finger against it. It's nothing new (thankfully) but it would be nice to stop it happening. My genius idea was to hack an old mouse mat apart and fit it under the gearstick surround, with a vague H-shape in it, the idea being that the rubbery material would do what my finger does, stopping the rattle.

This was what it looked like (excuse the weird shape of my gearstick surround - I had to 'fettle' it when I first made it to allow 1st gear to be selected):

 


It is an improvement but still rattles at motorway speeds - ah well. This is a common issue with the GBS quick shift and a possible fix others have done is to replace the rod-end for a better quality item. Personally, I can't see that is the problem but the part only costs £16 so worth a shot at some point in the near future.


I've also got a new throttle cable to consider fitting (and it's at least good to have a spare), again in the future.

Had a great drive out today with the SKCC - weather lovely although the 6am start was painful for me. We had a lot of rain the night before, so there were a lot of damp roads and a couple of rear-end slides pulling out of shaded junctions - quite fun, actually:

The route included some very bumpy roads and I really thumped the bottom of Zedster a few times - sounded horrendous but hopefully no long-term damage. I looked at my seat bolts a few weeks ago and they're worn down to the nut now!

Still hoping to do my Alps trip (now July 20th), providing France cancels it's quarantine policy.

Order is restored

So once again, as soon as I take the insulation tape off the wiring on the ignition plug, a wire drops out! No wonder my starting was flaky.

Amazing the difference a new soldering iron has - didn't take too long to solder a couple of wires up and one of them almost looks acceptable. Heat shrink and lots of insulation tape made what feels like a more secure connection.

And what a difference! Two cold starts have been almost instantaneous and my alternator seems to be generating slightly more charge? Is that really all down to a better electrical connection? I'll give it a few more runs before I can say it is all fixed.

Finally found a stretch of road for a 0-60 timed run - 7.28 secs. Not very impressive considering 750kg (with me) and 150 bhp gives a power-weight ratio of 200bhp/ton, same as the current Impreza or a C-class AMG Mercedes, which have 0-60 times of 5s. I think that is probably down to my Ford gearbox - I have to do 2 gear changes to get to 60 (might be able to do it with 1?) and the trusty old MT75 isn't a patch on a flappy paddle job in new cars. In theory, I have the GBS 'quickshift' but 'quick' is relative 😉

Next fix? While playing with the Emerald software, I noticed that pressing the throttle to its maximum only shows up as 75% as far as the ECU is concerned, so it looks like I could do with adjusting the cable.

The Beast Awakens

One of the best days of my build so far...

The plan today was to get the wheels on,  roll the car out,  clear out the dump that is my garage and try get the engine tuned to run better. 

Firstly,  tidied up some tunnel wiring:

I had to cut-out a small piece of the dash support piece on the side where the Carling switches are,  to enable the dash to be fitted in place:

Only 3 holes line up with the rivnuts on the dash support -  I will need to fettle the others at some later point. 

With that done,  out came the wheels for the first time and simply bolted on. The next step was getting the car down off the axle jacks, which was trickier than I expected; the rear wasn't too bad as my jack could go up enough to lift the car,  removed the rear stands and lowered the car to the floor. The front was more difficult as my jack wouldn't extend up high enough to get under the front chassis rail - I had to use an extra piece of wood and,  after removing the front stands,  then I lowered the car too quickly,  trapping the jack underneath! Luckily,  a neighbour came to the rescue with his own jack,  which I used to recover mine. 

So,  the car was on its wheels for the first time! Damn,  it's low... 

Now to get out my garage which has a 2 inch lip down... my son in the driving seat to work the brakes,  my neighbour pushing from behind and me at the front checking nothing grounded. I used a couple of wood pieces as ramps and slowly,  she rolled out to meet the world - and looked amazing:

Absolutely love those wheels!

My garage looked a state:

... but a bit of work and tidiness was restored:

The one bit of bad news was that I couldn't get my ECU to talk to my laptop - I recently had to overwrite Windows with Ubuntu (because of a virus) and it doesn't seem to recognise the USB port. Not sure how to fix that... 

I left the engine running for long enough for the fan to come on,  which is great to know that works and my thermostat seems to work as all the coolant pipes got hot (and didn't start leaking). Brake lines all still leak-free as well,  all my electrics seemed to still be working and all the gauges do something - wonderful!

Even the handbrake works well without any adjustment (although I should maybe do some to make it come on with less travel). 

Even the wife,  dad and dog got involved:

But best of all (after a weekend of great things) was DRIVING MY car!! OK,  2 metres forward and several back but IT MOVES! Like a real car! 

Spent a while having to adjust the clutch cable (and still needs fine-tuning) but all gears were easy to select and power goes to the wheels. 

Which is lucky because I had hoped to reverse the car back into the garage,  which I was able to do,  with some wheel spin,  lots of fumes and wonderful noise. 

I am a very,  very happy chappy. 

There are some issues to be addressed; the horn didn't work and the wheel alignment needs work and I may have done the rear suspension bolts up too tight all those months ago; there is no give in the rear at all,  even with my weight on it. 

But it has been a weekend of great import and I am,  as the kids say,  stoked! 

Puppy love - not.

The puppy is supposed to be for my wife really but blimey,  it's hard work. Wife is knackered cleaning up after it all day so I'm not allowed to 'waste'  time in the garage when I get home - I have to look after Eddie and give her a break. Very PC but damn frustrating when I've got so much to do... 

Finally sneaked some time in this evening and first,  filled the gearbox with oil. 

I then cut off the original reversing switch plug and made up a new connector to the loom:

I did try to test the switch still worked using a multimeter but as I haven't got the clutch correctly adjusted,  I couldn't get the gearbox into reverse to do the test - I'll have to hope it's OK. 

After clarification from GBS about where the oil pressure sensor goes,  I removed the bung in the engine but the sensor is the wrong size to fit in. The sensor came with my Smiths gauges,  so shouldn't it fit? Back to GBS.... 

I then loosely fitted the plenum and fuel rail - looks much more engine-like now:

I think I've decided to not put any stalks on the steering column - I've got some Sierra stalks but no plugs or wires and I can't find anywhere to get them either. I also quite like the idea of lots of switches on the dash - I'm not really into minimalism,  I prefer lots of buttons. 

So,  I've spent a long time building up a shopping cart of warning lights,  plugs and rocker switches for lights, hazards, indicators etc. I just need to sort out which bits I need for the cooling system and I'll order them all. 

Looking online,  there are several different layouts for cooling systems and I've put a few posts on  forums to try work out the best. Below is a nice simple example I hope I can duplicate:

The hangover

After the excitement of the weekend,  I went into the garage tonight to check that I hadn't done anything stupid - and it wasn't too bad.

I'd forgotten to tighten the bolts inside the engine mounts,  the end where the rubber bushes fit in. I also hadn't tightened the main bellhousing bolts but I also realised there was a spare hole at the 9 o'clock position on the bellhousing,  which is great - I feel much happier with an extra bolt at this junction. Knowing my luck,  I'll have to remove it for some future item but I can't see what at the moment.

I also realised that I could simply turn round the propshaft bolts with the small shank as the holes in the propshaft aren't threaded,  so the shanked end fits in there fine. But,  would you believe it,  the nuts I ordered (from the same damn company!) seem to be a different pitch size - they won't screw on. However,  I couldn't get the bolts out because the gearbox was still in gear and I couldn't turn the propshaft to allow room for the bolts to be removed.

So,  I connected up the clutch cable just enough to get the gearbox into neutral - yup,  I sat in my car,  depressed the clutch pedal and moved the gear lever into neutral! I'll admit to just sitting there for a few minutes,  dreaming of a country road on a summers day...

One other issue - the reverse switch on the side of the gearbox is going to be a bit tricky to get to - I should have got it ready before installing the gearbox. Ah well...

So many things to be done now... starter motor and alternator first,  I think.

Milestone 2 - Engine in

Busy day today...

I had planned to bolt the gearbox to the engine and then install but I couldn't get the gearbox into gear,  which I needed to do to make sure I could rotate the shaft and help it slot into the engine. So,  I fitted the quickshift:

But this meant I wouldn't be able to get the engine and gearbox in in one go. Yes,  I could take the quickshift off again but I don't like too many things off and on.   Not a big issue but meant the gearbox had to go in first.  With the help of a chum (thanks Dave) it was easier than I expected,  although we did have to take it out to hacksaw off a couple of pieces off the bell housing.  They weren't really in the way but just looked to be too close to the tunnel panels and it was only a 10 minute job.

Dowels in,  shaft greased,  it was time for the big moment - the engine.

I moved one axle stand to be in the middle of the car and removed the other one,  to allow the engine crane to fit under the car,  with its legs straddling the axle stand. My garage has a one inch drop down to a sloping,  gravel driveway -  not ideal for a stand and why I never planned or needed to get the car onto its wheels and push it out the garage. With the stand and engine halfway out of the garage,  we pushed it sideways and swung the engine over the bay:

Then pushed forward and slowly lowered. To get the mounts in, Dave pulled the engine up on one side so the other mount could drop below the top chassis bar,  then engine lowered and pushed across allowing the other mount to squeeze through (hope that makes sense?).

Crane pushed forward a few more inches,  engine e lowered level with the gearbox and then an inch or 2 forward so the gearbox shaft was vaguely in the clutch. A slight rotation of the propshaft and kerching - the engine and gearbox slotted together like star-crossed lovers (to paraphrase Shakespeare). Lots of whooping and high-fives ensued - naively,  I thought the hardest bit was done.

No,  the hard bit was just starting - trying to get the dowels in! We spent ages raising the engine,  lowering the engine,  twisting the engine, bashing bits with a rubber mallet - we couldn't get the dowels to go in. With the MT75 gearbox,  there are only 2 bolts between the engine and bellhousing (GBS have confirmed this is right) and they are at the top of the bellhousing only. So even as we tightened these bolts,  it didn't want to push the dowels in -  very annoying.

Eventually,  we decided to use a G-clamp to squeeze the dowel in - success! (great idea Dave).

Now I haven't mentioned the other problem we did have - none of my bolts were right! I had decided on bolt length by putting a screwdriver in the holes,  measuring the depth and thus deciding on bolt length. However,  it seems that none of these holes actually have a thread going the length of the hole so the bolts were a few mm too long.  I had to cut down the gearbox bolts before I could fit them properly and I still haven't done the gearbox mount bolt which has the same issue. And the bolts I ordered for the propshaft link weren't fully threaded (they were in the picture online) - they had a small,  5mm shank but that was enough  to prevent them fitting properly. So they need replacing as well! Seriously,  bolts have caused the most problems in this build so far...

Amazingly,  drilling the holes and bolting in the mounts was very simple. I'd earlier marked the centre of the cross-member on the chassis and I lined this up with the flywheel bolt and simply lowered the engine onto the plates where the mounts were to go. I specifically didn't drill pilot holes because whenever I do that,  the drill always wanders a tiny bit and the final hole is then a mm or 2 out,  which I didn't want with the mounts. So,  using the weight of the engine to keep everything still,  I just drilled through the mount holes - simples!

Cleared the swarf,  popped the bolts in (supplied by GBS so they were the right thing),  torqued up and Bob's a close relative.

The engine. Is. In!!

A physically and mentally demanding day but,  God,  it feels frigging AWESOME!

Many thanks to Dave (and Paul who turned up only 5 hours late but did find the mount bolts after I'd spent 20 minutes frantically searching for them).

Metal Gear Solid

In an early post,  I encountered the hardest metal I'd ever personally come across,  the inner tube for the pedals. Well,  today I came across something even tougher - the dirt shield I bought to try block off some of the gaps around the bell housing.

I ordered the dirt shield without talking to the company,  which was a mistake. They had 2 on their website,  one for the type 9 gearbox and one for an RS200. I assumed the latter would fit my MT75 (I don't know why) but nope:

So I decided to cut it up and use separate pieces and this is where I discovered the amazing hardness of whatever its made out of! My trusty hacksaw was getting through it but at an almost invisible pace,  I destroyed the blade of a coping saw and finally had to resort to my jigsaw. It was quicker but the noise was unbelievable.

Anyway,  I've got 3 pieces to use when I come to joining the engine up. Below is an example of one of the gaps I want to block up:

I also sawed off some more of the bell housing around the starter motor as others have found they needed to do this.

Hopefully get the engine in at the weekend...

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...  😟

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.