Nearly Done

Fitted the last oiece of carpet in the boot (after some minor alterations) and re-fitted the lock plate. I finished off with fitting some edge trim around the inner lip of the boot:

Then it was time for a pre-SVA wash, clean and vacuum. I had now't better to do than take some photos:

Excuse the nasty wheels, Vectra steering wheel, no gearknob and dodgy engine bay vents!!

Fingers crossed for GD getting some tyres tomorrow?????

Louvre Blanking Panels

If you end up fitting blanking panels 'cos you don't have the louvres.... then remember to make some holes in the nearside one..... otherwise you won't have an air intake for the heater and the demisters won't work!

Good job I figured this out before the SVA test!

Trying not to think about tyres.......

Still some small jobs to be done:

The SVA test requires that the clutch and brake pedals are non-slip, mine obviously are not:No problem though as I've got some of this stuff:It is like (Very) Coarse sandpaper on a rubberised adhesive backing. That bit has been stuck on my vice for two days and is pretty difficult to get off!! So after one last time in the footwell.... job done:I have yet to fit the engine bay dummy vent louvres... mainly because GD don't have any in stock. If I did nothing then the rebate in the body has a contactable edge which is a borderline fail being just less then the 2.5mm radius required. This was solved with some 0.5mm aluminium plate and some silicone: This converts the edge projection to less than 2.5mm in which case it only needs to be "blunted". Problem solved. I probably could have spent a bit longer making the plates fit "Exactly" but to be honest I couldn't really be bothered!

One thing I haven't yet tested is the fuel gauge. Fortunately the last time I ran the engine it ran out of fuel. So I added five litres - Moved up to below empty: Added another 5 (10 in total) - Moved a bit closer to empty - honest!!:

Added another 5 (15 in total) - Moved above empty:

Added another 5 (20 in total) - Moved above 1/4:

At least it moves I suppose. I'll keep adding 5 litres at a time ('cos I only got a 5 litre fuel can!) and note the gauge positions so that should give a good idea of what's left in the tank - somehow I think E - 1/2 - F might not be that accurate!

In fact it won't be. The gauge is marked for a float arm that drops below centre and moves up an equal amount above centre - you can see this from the non-linear markings - i.e. 1/4 is nearer to E than 1/2 and 3/4 is nearer to F than 1/2.

My sender is top mounted and moves through roughly 70 degrees up to just below the horizontal, and from my experiments when fitting the sender the resistance did not appear to change linearly with the float arm. So it's anybody's guess really!

So far... E = 12 Litres and 1/4 = 18 litres. It's around a 50 litre tank so looks like I might get to F before 50 litres?

Update on Tyres

Tyres are expected at GD Next Monday, which means I should be able to collect the wheels and tyres on Tuesday.....with 8 days to go till SVA..............

Bored..........

Kicking around trying to find things to do....................

......... Cleaned out the wheelarches and fitted the wheelarch covers:

Errrrrr.... and thats it. Need some wheels now to finish the rest of the jobs off:

In the Engine Bay.

Time to finish off the engine bay. I had noticed a slight weep from the rocker cover gaskets a week or so ago and after talking to Jez I came to the conclusion that it was down to poor workmanship on my part!! I could have just nipped them up but I was concerned about the cork not sealing now it had oil past it. New set of Gaskets only cost a fiver so it seemed a no-brainer:This time around I used a smear of Silicone flange gasket to "stick" the gaskets to the covers as they tend to fall off and move around when you are trying to fit the covers.

After doing both Rocker Covers I set about the last remaining task in the engine bay..... cleaning all the dust out of it. Took a few hours and here are some gratuitous engine bay shots - this no doubt will be the cleanest it is ever going to be!!

Fixed the Horn

You may remember that only one of the twin air horns worked. So tonight I removed the horns, dismantled them, fiddled with the bits, but them back together...... and now they both work!

Beats me...... couldn't see anything wrong....... don't know what I did????

Fog Lamp

Here's my nice fog lamp:

No good for SVA though - needs to be 'E' Marked and have a parabolic reflector. It also needs to be horizontal and parallel to the exis of the car. I cannot work this out without the wheels and suspension set correctly?

So here's a cheap adjustable 'E' marked parabolic reflector light mounted on a bracket which helps to cover the sharp edges on the light mount:

In position:

Nice?

Not!

Sharp Edge Paranoia

Time to deal with some more of those pesky sharp edges! First up, back to the grille bars. After a bit more adjustment to the aluminium brackets it was bonded with sikaflex and taped in place:Next up I had noticed that in theory the spacing washers on the Roll Hoop eyebolts could be contactable by the test sphere:The harness plates are exempt as they move around and cannot therefore be contacted as the sphere will just push them away. But what to do about the washers?? Into the box of bits and out with some grommets that were a force fit over the end of the eyebolts:Job done!...... in fact I think it looks neater:Last job for today was to replace the full nuts and spring washers on the steering column clamp with Nylocs.... apparently an SVA favourite this one:My wheels have been at GD for a while now but the tyres have been on back order. The tyres are now in the country and just need to be dispatched to GD to fit to the wheels. Should be ready towards the end of next week....... starting to cut things a bit close now!

More Snagging + Contactable Edges

Few more jobs off the list: Touched up the door hinge brackets where they had got a couple of scratches fitting the escutcheons. Next up was to tackle the Hazard Switch. The SVA regs require that the Hazard Switch is marked with the appropriate symbol. The Hella switch I used comes with a butt ugly huge rubber cover which clips to the body of the switch before you install it:

Didn't fancy this, but there's an easy solution. Take a punch and punch out the centre with the symbol on:

A smear of clear silicone on the back and press it onto the button. Looks much better and still illuminates:

I finished fitting the roll hoop harness eyebolts - I was missing some 7/16 spring washers. You need to add enough normal washers to get the orientation of the eyebolt correct:

One area of concern for contactable edges is inside the front nose. The large opening will allow the SVA Tester's 100mm sphere to contact a multitude of sharp edges on the oil cooler, radiator and fans. To prevent this Warren has kindly lent me the nose bars he used on his DAX:

I added a couple of aluminium brackets thus:

When bent correctly they are a spring fit inside the return on the nose opening:

All I need to do now is bond the plates into place with some Sikaflex. Sikaflex is great for this.... it sticks like the proverbial but can be easily removed afterwards with a sharp knife.

One other area with contactable sharp edges is the centre of the screen top rail and the hook end of the screen stay. Here's what I did - take some of your left over screen wash tube and cut two pieces - one 3 inches long the other 1 inch long. Cut the 1 inch piece along its length so you can open it out. Then cut a 1 inch slot in the 3 inch piece. Push one side of the now open 1 inch piece into the slot in the 3 inch piece and superglue into place. Then ram the hole lot into the slot in the top of the screen with the split 1 inch piece curling over the top of the hook on the screen stay:

It's a good fit and you can't pull it out by hand - you'll need to prise it out with a screwdriver.

Bits & Bobs & FIRST DRIVE!!

Few more odd jobs Today:

Fitted a spring to keep the choke off:Fitted an extra p-clip to the starter cable:Fitted a chassis number plate:Pushed it out into the drive:Then temptation got the better of me:

First and Reverse could be selected easily with no crunching so I assume that means I'm getting a big enough air gap on the clutch. The brakes feel a bit wooden but then they are new pads on new discs and need bedding in. Also it's the first car I've driven with no servo assistance so that's a new feel to get used to. However it was comforting to not that if you pressed hard enough it did come to an abrupt halt (note to self - put harness on before trying that again!). The handbrake seems to be adjusted OK as it is good enough to stall the engine - oops - need to get used to fly off handbrakes!