Lights and breaks

The LED units arrived so I set about fitting them - not complicated but fiddly and time-consuming.

The units are all-in-one; low beam, high beam, indicator and DRL and look pretty cool. The DRL needed a live ignition feed which I don't have at the front of the car, so I had to take the dash off and re-wire one of my gauges to add a wire on a live feed and then route that through the car along the existing loom to the front.

Removing the existing headlamp unit out of the bowl, I had to do a fair bit of re-wiring as I needed the indicator signal feed to go into the bowl and the new unit. The hardest part was removing the loom tape off the old wiring - that stuff is tough! But otherwise, it was very simple - the new unit fits neatly into the headlamp bowl with all the plugs and the little DC converter (?) the LEDs need. A final step was to change the indicator relay for a LED version, to keep the correct flash rate for the LEDs.

This is just the DRLs on:

When the indicator is on, that DRL flashes orange instead of solid white - very cool and bright. The low and high beam look pretty bright in the garage but not driven at night yet to tell how good they are.

The day after fitting these, I went on an early morning run with the SKCC forum guys, meeting up at Pease Pottage (services on the M23):

We then had a great 70-odd mile cross-country route which was a good blast UNTIL 10 minutes from the end. At the suggestion of someone on the French trip I did last month, I brought some RainX for the windscreen, to help keep the screen clear in light rain without wipers. Now, I don't know if I put the stuff on wrong but, at certain temperatures (around zero maybe), the stuff turns opaque and it kept doing it on this run. It was very scary - one minute all fine and then seconds later my screen is totally obscured! It was during one of these blackouts, while I was frantically wiping the screen, that I missed a turning and lost the others. I turned round a few miles further up the road and set off in pursuit of the others. And then, just before Ditchling, PING and my throttle goes loose. I managed to coast to a reasonably safe stretch of road, bonnet and pedal box off and confirmed that the throttle cable has snapped at the pedal (and you thought I'd spelt the title of this post wrong, hey?).

But a pretty place to breakdown:

With hindsight, it was a bad bit of design; the cable looped back over a straight edge so it was rubbing on every movement of the throttle - I'm surprised it lasted 4k miles. I couldn't work out how to rig it to get home, so I called the AA. After an hour, they guy turned up and took 30 seconds to jury-rig it enough to get me home- I have much too learn!

I'm too much of a tightwad to pay GBS £30 for a new cable and it had snapped just a few inches from the end, so after a bit of research, I found a nice hunk of metal normally used for wire balconies. A bit or re-jigging of my pedal box and voila:

 

So, with my recent disasters fixed, I'm back to a list of other upgrades/fixes:

1. Get rid of the ugly nosecone indicators. I was thinking of replacing them with slim bike indicators but I've also got another idea - I'll keep it a surprise, in case it turns out to be rubbish.

2. There is a (hopefully) minor issue with my engine idle; from cold, it's fine but just before the lambda sensor kicks in, the engine 'hunts' - revs drop to about 750 rpm and just before it stalls, the ECU seems to realise the problem and revs up to 1200 rpm. This is only happening since I re-did the timing - does the ECU need some twiddling?
UPDATE: this seems to have cured itself - maybe a bit of dirt in an injector?

3. Windscreen washer - no power to the motor so another dodgy wiring issue.

4. Door armrests.

The pressure tells

I decided it was time to sort out my oil pressure gauge -it has never worked. I emailed Smiths and they sent me some details of how to test the gauge and sender - turns out they're both fine, so the problem was my wiring.

Rather than trying to fix my existing loom (which would have been a nightmare), i just cheated and ran a new wire from the sensor directly to the gauge, pretty much on the same route the loom took anyway. Fiddly and hard to route but i finally have a working oil pressure gauge and hopefully, i won't get worn big end bearings again.

Also spent some time tightening the fan belt (squeals a bit when cold) and raising the rear nearside suspension - it seemed to have settled a bit and I kept grounding the seat bolts on that side.

I've had a couple of occasions recently, on gloomy country roads,  where oncoming traffic has had a problem seeing me, so i think it's time for DRLs. Also, if i sit in traffic with my headlights on, i can almost see the battery voltage dropping, so LEDs are a good idea. I've ordered some all-in-one units which seem a bit cheap (£65), so i hope they're ok.

Very fast circles

So Zedster's first foray off road - a glorified car park at North Weald airfield in Essex. This was a handling day with the SKCC and it was a blast.

The day started off horribly grey and misty and 14 other members turned up:

The day was basically split in 2; the morning was spent practising a high speed turn, trying to get round as quick as possible without spinning. The afternoon was negotiating a coned-out circuit which had all types of hazards; chicane, the same high speed turn we had been on all morning, a twisty section and hairpin.

It might sound a bit basic but it was awesome fun - just being able to hammer round corners with no risk of hitting anything or anyone was very liberating. Hearing Zedster's tyres squealing and controlling oversteer was brilliant.

Here's some video of the day:

I learnt quite a few things:

1. I'm too much of a wimp with the revs - the instructor told me to rev higher but I just can't...having built Zedster, it feels like whipping my pet dog to run faster!

2. Despite always thinking Zedster is fast, one guy turned up in a 20-year old BMW 325 (admittedly highly tuned) and went faster than me round the circuit as well as round the high speed turn! Even allowing for the extra work he had done to his car, I sort of assumed a lightweight Seven would still be better round a twisty circuit, even with an only average driver like myself at the wheel.

3. My tyres are not great on the limit - the instructor said I'd have got 5mph faster round the bend if I had better tyres.

I must try a proper track day some time...

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).

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....

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!

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.