Little by little...

Another report on a succession of little jobs!!! Work has been keeping me out of the country recently (!) so there have been no big sessions of work done, rather an hour here and there! I have now been able to determine what 'most' of the loom does! Once this was done, I looked at how it would fit in the car. My plan is to start the car with the entire loom in place and then carefully thin it out - experience from building an off-road buggy tells me that is the way to do it! I decided that the main relay/junction box could be installed on the left hand side of the engine bay. This allows part of the loom to go forward through the bulkhead to connect to the instruments and switches, and the engine loom to connect up easily. I will have to add in some extensions to the lighting, but that should be about it! I then looked were to mount the ECU and decided that it would sit nicely on the top of the chassis bar that mounts the left side of the engine, the added bonus being that it will be fairly easy to waterproof this! I added a small bulkhead along this mount to fix the ECU to, and also will mount the expansion tank on the other side. I have also cut short sections of aluminium tube to extend the cooling pipes, thus avoiding too many alterations to the cooling circuit. Finally, I have mounted the cooling fan onto the back of the radiator. Most of this work is not very photogenic, particularly as I had to leave in a hurry to go abroad again and didn't have time to tidy my workspace............
Back home in a couple of weeks so hopefully some photos will follow...!

Slowly coming together!

A combined report of the results of a couple of days off work. Well, weeks actually but that translated into a couple of days of garage time! First up was the handbrake. An Audi cable was sourced from fleabay which, after a little modification, fitted the VAG calipers a treat. In order to make the most of the space between the seats, I decided to mount the handbrake lever to the right of the driver. It was only after deciding this that I noticed exactly the same set up on the Ariel Atom! An MGF handbrake lever is being used. The final part is a short cable of indeterminate origin for the caliper on the drivers side. The balance bar caused a few headaches but in the end one was put together using 2 Rover balance bars. A picture paints a thousand words and will follow soon!. I then made some short tubes to guide the cables through the rear bulkhead using some unused poly bushes from the front suspension!

Next was the thorny issue of the brake/clutch fluid reservoir. This had already been mounted once but the pipes fouled on the steering column so it had to come off! After a lot of head scratching, I found another reservoir in my box of bits, probably from the original Rover. This has been combined with hoses from a Fiat Punto which clip neatly into the Mini master cylinder and can be adapted to fit the clutch cylinder.

Then came the radiator fan mount. This got partially finished with only the bottom mount being made, and this is not yet welded on. I then got diverted by the wiring loom as the position of items like the fuse box will have a bearing on other items in the engine compartment. BIG thanks here have to go to the www.madinventions.co.uk website. This charts the build of a Sylva Mojo powered by the same engine as I am using. On this site was a photo of the engine wiring loom with all of the items labelled. An absolute life saver as many of the masking tape labels that I applied when stripping the fiesta have gone crispy and fallen off! The result was that after an hour or so, all items on the engine loom were plugged in. That just left the car loom. This had very few labels left and so it was a case of laying it out and imagining where in the car each wire was. I then had to think what components were in those locations before referring to the appropriate diagram in the haynes manual. After a morning of solid octupuss wrestling, I now have 75% of the loom labelled.

The final step was a visit to a local scrappy. I knew that I was missing the inlet manifold when I got the car and also needed a new radiator fan (the terminal tree impact had cracked the old one!) and a few extra hoses. Much to my delight, after an hour of rummaging, East Road Salvage in Sleaford provided everything I needed!

Photos of all of this progress will follow shortly.....

Bodywork!!

So, after a long break, there has been some progress this week. A new cutting disc meant that several months of work related frustration could be taken out on various innocent pieces of steel! First up was the rear bulkhead which was trimmed to fit - a laborious process! It now fits neatly but will not be welded in place until all the connections that need to go through it are finalised. Next up was the former VW engine cover. Various pieces of it needed trimming so some excess aggression sorted them out! I next cut a strip of steel and formed it to fit around the inside of the cover. This was tack welded onto the VW piece - a fun job due to the extreme thinness of the production car steel! Finally, a curved sheet was cut to fit inside and bent to shape with more muscle power and using the front wheel as a template! The end result, which clearly needs trimming and finishing, looks about right! Today I cut a number of small aluminium panels to trial them as infill for the various gaps along the nose. These will eventually be bolted in position with some nice looking Hex bolts I hope. Here are a few photos so you can see what I've been up to!

Small update

Just a quick update to let anyone who reads this know that I am still here! Another trip 'abroad' and a new puppy have limited progress recently but with today being a wet, miserable sunday, I managed an hour or so of work, mainly cutting out the rear bulkhead. It needs little trimming to fit, but typically I now need a new large cutting disk to finish it off!!! More soon I hope!

Passenger Bulkhead

Progress has been continuing at a slow but steady rate of late. An amount of thinking time was necessary in order to work out exactly the best way to attach the passenger footwell bulkhead. The problem was that it had to be removable to allow the fuel tank to be removed should the need arise. At stoneleigh I saw the stand from Memfast and realised that rivnuts would be the answer, however, it seemed an expensive way of doing it if I had to buy a rivnut insertion tool. A trawl of the internet led me to develop my own do it yourself solution involving a nut, 2 bolts and a washer, along with 3 spanners! One of the nuts was drilled through to remove the thread. First, the 'good' nut was threaded onto the bolt, then the washer, then the drilled through nut. finally the rivnut was threaded onto the bolt and inserted into the hole. A flat ring spanner was fitted to the drilled through nut and I clamed this in place to stop the rivnut rotating in its hole. Then, holding the bolt still with one spanner, I tightened the nut against the washer which pulled the bolt and rivnut tight and fastened it in position - 3 or 4 turns was more than enough. The end result was a neat, solid bolted bulkhead. To finish off, I put the fuel tank in postion at the front of the car. This leaves the fuel filter and the master cylinder reservoir to mount before the front is finished......ish!

Bulkhead

The last month has seen lots of small steps towards completion of the front bulkhead. As usual, I started with a cardboard template - the bulkhead has to allow the steering column, clutch and brake master cylinder through it. I had a small panic when reading the latest IVA rules which stated that the fuel tank should be separated from the passenger compartment by a bulkhead which should not have any holes in it. This is difficult as there must be some sort of hole to allow the fuel pipes out! I phoned VOSA and spoke to a very helpful expert who said that what the rule wanted was to ensure that the fuel had a path of escape that would not cause it to flow into the cabin. Sorted!!! Anyway, the cardboard template wasn't a good as usual as the first attempt at making it out of steel wasn't very good! The bulkhead had to have a recess to allow the clutch pedal full travel, whilst also leaving room for brake and clutch pipes behind it. I went through lots of variations before I settled on the final, and simplest design. The recess for the clutch was made by cutting a piece of 50x50 box (and hitting it with a hammer) and welding it onto the sheet. The sheet was then trimmed to fit, re-trimmed, trimmed a bit more until it finally slotted in nicely. To finish off, I gave it a quick coat of weld-through primer so that it will stay in good condition! Next, I have to make a removable bulkhead for the passenger side that will allow removal of the fuel tank should it be necessary.

More fuel tank progress

Over the last week, the fuel tank has moved on further. First I made 2 further holes in the top of the tank; one for the filler and one for the vent/roll over valve. The latter was taken from the Fiesta tank whilst the filler came from the Rover. It bolts in from the inside and had a nice gasket to make a good seal. Then I moved onto the sides. Without access to a sheet folder any more, I had to bend these by hand, using the same angle iron again. The results weren't great at first but a little 'adjustment' with a hammer produced a much more acceptable fit. There were still odd places where the gap was a little bigger than ideal. Today I took the big step of welding them in. Overall it went quite well. I had a few problems with the wire feed from the welder - at times it was none too smooth. Quite frustrating as otherwise, the welding went well! I inspected some joints for pin holes and ground the welds back to check them - the results seem good enough! I need to get a new gasket for the pump and the vent valve and then I'll be able to test the joints with a foot pump and some soapy water!!!!!