Return of the clown car

So the apocalypse is postponed and we have been allowed to go for drives for a couple of weeks now. Out on a run (the weather has been AMAZING for the last couple of months now), I pulled up at the lights behind a van and noticed in the reflection from the back of the van that my left indicator came on when I braked! My electrical genius strikes again!

Spent time today re-doing the wiring for the high-level brake light by just riveting the negative wire from the unit to the rear body panel. Before, I must have been earthing it through the left indicator somehow, I dunno...

I also replaced the air filter - I was going to splash out on a K&N or Pipercross but when I put a question on a forum asking which was better, the only reply was from a guy who I know builds race cars and said they were no better than the cheap ones you get on eBay. Always happy to save £40, I bought another cheap one (my original was the same), although this one is a bit bigger and has a double cone (?). As suspected, it felt and sounded no different after a short test drive.

I also got some time to look at the accelerator cable. Using the Emerald software, I can never get the throttle position to go beyond 77%. After a bit of re-jigging, it is...no better. But I think the limiting factor is the other end of the cable, at the throttle body. Early in the build, I had to chop some length off the plastic end of the cable and I think I haven't taken enough off, which means the pedal can never pull the body open beyond 77%. It's not critical so I'll get to it one day - in the meantime, the accelerator pedal now sits higher and is much more comfortable to drive.

And I have a new rattle from the engine!! However, I think it is just the bearing on the tensioner pulley - gawd, I hope so, I don't want another 3 month battle with the engine.

Right now, I should be in the Alps, hooning around some hairpin bends but, obviously, our trip had to be postponed (now planned for next year). Very, very hacked off...although there may be a way round this; I was contacted by a German Zero owner who I used to communicate with on the now-defunct GBS owners forum. He wanted to do an Alps trip and asked if I was interested. After some to-ing and fro-ing, we've decided to wait until June 25th or so and see if the lockdown is relaxed enough for us to just go for it. At the moment, you still cannot drive through France and you have to quarantine for 2 weeks after you arrive. However, there is pressure from all sides to lift this and all shops and hotels are opening on June 15th in Europe, so we may be on for a sneaky trip on July 5th, fingers crossed.

High Lights

So, with lots of spare time, a high-level brake light is a long-overdue upgrade; with Zedster being so low it has worried me that some brain-dead driver may not see my brakes.

The first problem is that all the high-level brake lights I could find are made to attach to a flat surface and I want to attach mine to my roll-bar. So, time to roll out my amazing, bracket-making skills. Two pieces cut out of ally sheet and spray-painted black:

 

These will bend round the rollbar and provide a flat surface to attach the brake light too, with a couple of tabs to fit into the feet of the light unit.

Next was the electrics - I had to get the brake signal from one of the rear brake lights. This involved taking off the rear wheel, cutting off the existing wire to the rear light and making up a new link with an extra branch (the blue section in the pic below) for the new light:

To make it neat, I really needed the wire to feed up through the rollbar, so I had to - gulp - drill holes in my so-far pristine rollbar:

One at the foot, another up where the light goes. It took me an hour to feed the wire through and then fish it out at the bottom with a butchered wire coat hanger. A hole in the boot carpet through to the inspection hole in the chassis for the top suspension bolt and I could connect the wire up to my new plug. A quick test of the brake pedal to make sure the connections all worked and the light works and then a couple of p-clips riveted into the rear panel hold the wire out of the way of the suspension.

The brackets were then bent round the rollbar (the paint split in places, so I had to re-do that at the end), the tabs bent over and trial-fitted into the feet of the light unit (difficult to explain - trust me). Firstly, I had to trim the tabs as they were too big and then the cheap light unit fell apart in my hands! Fortunately, it just clips back together - not the greatest quality. With the brackets bent into place, 4 more holes in my rollbar (in for a penny...) and 2 rivets per bracket to hold them in place.

Finally, a couple more layers of spray paint to patch up the peeled sections, a final coat of lacquer and job done:

It's not the greatest piece of work ever (not much of mine is) but it's nice and solid, neat and should do the job.

The End is Here

Jees, amazing the difference a week makes - my last post, I was looking forward to an Alps trip in May but it looks like that will be cancelled now...argghh. For posterity, I am referring to the infamous Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 - we've been told to go into quarantine as of March 23rd, so no fun allowed.

On Sunday, I went out for a short blast to the coast (Keane fans may recognise the reference):

Lovely weather and much less traffic than normal on a sunny Sunday in England made for a great run, although one particular single-lane road took several layers of paint off the bottom of Zedster. Also had a brief 'play' with an older M3 - quite impressed with how easily I kept up with him.

Lucky I went out as it looks like that will be the last fun drive I'm allowed for the next few weeks. Maybe a slim chance my Alps trip will still go ahead but I'm expecting the worst. If I was religious, I might think some omnipotent being didn't want me going...

Ping

Just a quick post to let you know I'm still alive 'cos I know you were worried.

I'm a bit worried about writing this next statement but...

Zedster has been running really well (cue terminal engine failure).

I've commuted to work about 50% of the time and Zedster has been as reliable as a Fiesta; no starting problems, misfires, bits dropping off etc. I'm scared to touch anything in case I break something.

I've got a rear high-level brake light to fit and the throttle cable to adjust so I get 100% travel and that's about it at present.

Really looking forward to this year; Alps trip in May, Wales again in September and hopefully some bits in between.

The Rebuild continues

I'm slowly rebuilding my entire car - every time I do one thing, I end up having to change/fix 2 others.

This time, it was the wipers - one of the springs on the wiper arm broke, so it wasn't pressing on the screen and thus not actually wiping. Nice easy fix, you say? Holy Cow....

So I order a new arm (actually 2, in case the other goes soon) - arrives in less than 24 hours from CBS (impressive). I trot off innocently to the garage, remove the old arm and...er...bugger, the rubber piece has broken:

Back to the laptop and I decide to order metal replacements rather than rubber - these take 2 days to come (I did order on a Sunday, so I can't blame them).

Once more, I wander off to the garage and I'll just plop these metal bits on...er....no, they are a slightly different shape to the rubber versions, so they need filing down. The first one takes a mere hour to get right - it's a small, awkward round shape, difficult to hold in a vice while I file it down.

The second one? Holy Mother of the Great One - I do not understand why this one was so tough but my file didn't even scratch it. They are chromed but I didn't think a chrome finish was that tough? I eventually had to get the Dremel out, hack off a piece, then use a sanding disc and finally I got some purchase with the file.

Unbelievable! A job that I thought would take 10 minutes took me about 3 hours!!

 

I didn't have the time to actually try them out, so I hope I haven't re-aligned them wrong - we shall see.

Car wash

A short video of my commute home tonight in the remnants of Storm Brendon (?) - you'll get a brief glimpse of my new speedo if you look closely:

Nice...

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.