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! 

Gunk from the Black Lagoon

A lot of rugby watching and a week long bout of botchelism (well,  some lurgy that kept me on the toilet) meant little progress until today.

The wheels arrived and look darn fine IMO:

Obviously had to put one on to see what it looked like:

Finally bought a load of Jubilee clips for the LP fuel pipes and connected all the rear pipes up,  with some natty supporting structures:

And finally,  with great fanfare and trepidation,  out came the Gunk and on went the tank (can't be bothered waiting for the fuel sender) :

While I had the stuff out,  on went the footwell and swirl pot panels:

Good progress today (well,  3 hours) - great fun :-)

Ugly Duckling Lake

To explain the title of this post; a swan looks very serene but underneath,  it's paddling like mad. I seem to be doing the paddling but not making anything like the same progress :-(.  Like an ugly duckling,  in fact. OK,  tenuous....

Like I mentioned before,  I'm running out of parts so I've been trying to get stuff. First of,  I want to fit the petrol tank but I need the fuel sender,  assuming it will be easier to install with the tank off. But fuel senders tend to be specific to the fuel gauge you plan to use and I want a fuel gauge as part of a set. GBS do a reasonable set for £400 or so but I'm not overly keen on them and everyone will have them. However,  everything else is just too expensive. I have found a nice set from VDO but they're only available in the US (VDO are now American-owned). I've mailed a couple of places asking how much for delivery here (they offer international delivery according to their website) but no response - so much for American service!  My brother lives in the US so I may ask him to get them for me - hopefully,  he can package them so I don't have to pay import duty,  as well.

After many days of research I have managed to order wheels and tyres. Again,  I wasn't overly keen on what GBS offer (also very common on Zero's) so I've found some others which I prefer and work out almost £200 cheaper. Not a huge choice because of the 15mm offset needed but enough.  Should arrive in a week or so - I'll put a pic up then,  so be patient!

All I've actually built since last time is the mounting plate for the swirl pot. I didn't get the GBS pot or their plate,  so I had to make my own,  which took longer than expected but it's done now:

I wish I'd got a smaller swirl pot now (this is 1.5 litres) as I'd have more space to play with - to make sure the top pipe doesn't touch the steering column,  I've had to leave the pot sticking about 5mm over the far chassis rail - I really hope I don't live to regret that when the engine and gearbox have to go in.

I've got the fuel pipes to complete the LP circuit but (JNIT again) I need some Jubilee clips to attach them and I can't do final attachment until the tank is on,  which needs the fuel sender,  gauges etc,  etc. It's a logistical nightmare - I really wish I had more space to have bought the entire kit in one go.

I'm also close to the point when I have to break out the infamous black gunk and fix some panels and the tank - scary stuff.