Steering Wheel Fitted and More Miles

Fitted the steering wheel this morning:

Ho - Hum time for a few test miles! - Indicators cancel perfectly - I can now spend all my paranoia on watching the gauges!!

Time to load up the first passengers today. First of all was my Mother in Law who brought along Ray's ashes. This was very emotional moment for me as I had never really come to terms with the fact that Ray would not be here to see the finished article. I think he enjoyed getting the first ride!

Fiddled with the carb a bit more and managed to cure a slight off-idle stumble. I still have one issue at the minute in that it's not happy going slow!! It is not happy doing 30 in 4th, it likes to be in 3rd. Below 1500 rpm with the throttle just cracked open it's a little lumpy. Out on the road it's fine - it will pick up from idle with just a little bit of throttle with no stumble. I'm not sure if it is just a function of the cam or if its timing or carb related?

Anyways I only encounter it when having to cruise past speed camera's..... maybe I'll just avoid them instead.

Started to increase corner exit speeds today and It still seems pretty sure footed. It is quite a revelation driving a car with such direct controls - the feedback is far greater than any mass produced euro box and gives you much more confidence on knowing exactly what is going on with things. However, always at the back of mind is the fact that 400+ BHP in a light rear wheel drive car is a potential recipe for disaster!

The First Driving Experience

So there we are, after 955 days it finally hits the road. Managed the heady total of 34 miles today!

First thoughts?

• If I don't watch out I'm gonna loose my licence!
• Even keeping to 3000rpm during running in your speed picks up much quicker than expected.
• It gets to 100 (on private roads) before you realise it would be possible to.
• The power delivery is unlike anything I've experienced before - no waiting for the revs to build up..... it just goes.
• It goes round corners, boy does it go round corners (better than my tin top and that has sports suspension and traction aids) - can't see why you would need to fit a anti-roll bar - very little body roll if any.
• I thought the steering was heavy to start with but no - it's a nice weighted feeling when turning in that you don't get in your everyday car.
• New pads and discs on non servo brakes require a bigger gap to be left before you get used to them.
• It's just downright brutal! - no better way to contribute to global warming.
• Bear in mind the above and the fact that it is not run in and hasn't had the carb set up properly yet!
• I'm left feeling slightly shaky in good way and have lost the ability to construct proper sentences and can only do bullet points!

I hope the sun shines tomorrow .........................................

On the Road at Last!!!

Today these arrived in the post: This enabled me to go and get these:These plates will only be temporary until I get my V5 at which point I'm going to change the registration. So I needed a temporary means of putting them on (as the final front plate will be a stick on affair on the nose). Cut up and bent some aluminium strip, a few rivets and some chassis foam and made these:These are a snug fit thus:With some stick on pads the front plate was fixed:The rear plate was simply stuck on with sticky pads direct onto the boot. Next job was to get the vacuum gauge out and set the mixture screws on the carb to lean best idle... which is more or less the maximum vacuum for a given idle speed. The maximum vacuum was around 15"Hg and the screws didn't seem to have a massive effect on vacuum unless they were way in / way out. I ended up with 1.5 turns out and had to reset the idle down around 200 rpm.

The next job was to fit the mota-lita wheel having got a replacement boss from GD. Problem.... I needed to know where "straight ahead" was on the Vauxhall Wheel as I had sort of thrown it on just before SVA. Solution... quick drive armed with a piece of masking tape to stick on the steering wheel rim.

.........

34 miles later I came back!..... got a bit carried away!

The main issue with fitting the boss is to make the indicators self cancel (out of the 34 miles I had probably left them on for 20 niles! - too excited to notice)

On the Vauxhall column there is a small white peg that protrudes when the indicators are armed:Here's a close up:You need to drill 2 holes in the back of the boss and insert 2 pins to flick the peg and cancel the indicators. After lots of careful measuring I ended up this:The pins are 6mm stainless steel and are an interference fit into holes drilled into the boss. I also Araldited them in just in case. I'll put the wheel on tomorrow when the Araldite has gone off.

Vacuum Gauges

Found some really useful info on the use of Vacuum Gauges - not only for tuning but how to diagnose all manner of engine ailments - seems to be a much under-rated piece of kit. Click here to learn more.

Things Still to do......

1) Fit the Mota-Lita Steering Wheel - Waiting on a replacement boss from GD.

2) Work out how to make the indicators self cancel (need new boss first) - think I've sussed it.

3) Fit Engine Bay Louvres and Rear Arch Stoneguards (waiting for GD to get some stock).

4) Work out how to temporarily fit the front number plate. Once I get my V5 the reg will be changed and I'll go for a stick-on plate on the bonnet. But the V5 will be a few weeks after I get my first age-related reg and I'll want to drive it whilst I'm waiting to change the plates.

5) Make a start on setting the carb up properly - Vacuum Gauge ordered - Instructions to be read!

First Mods

Right then, time to change some things. Wind wings, sun visors and headrests fitted:

Fog light swapped back and reflectors removed:

Suspension dropped 25mm for now (left some room for it to settle so we'll see how we get on) and spinners fitted - tyre pressures set to 23psi all round

Steering wheel nearly fitted:

The Mota-Lita boss hasn't had the taper machined correctly so it will not go on to the shaft properly. Another one on its way up from GD next week.

After a little hiccup with my insurance cover note it has gone off with the MAC to the DVLA. So now we wait for an age related registration to turn up in the post sometime.

What's Next?...... and the Blog???

Whilst waiting for the DVLA there's plenty of bits to take off and replace and the suspension to sort out.

But what about the Blog???? well after nearly 1000 days and over 30,000 visits it seems wrong to just let it end here?

These cars are never finished... there is always something to do. Then there is the opportunity to share the experiences of driving the damn thing after all this time.

You will note that I have changed the title to "Driving" from "Building"..... as long as people keep looking.... I'll keep posting!

Look out for the first set of mods coming up this weekend..... no time like the present!

SVA Passed!!!

Woke up to find no rain.... a good start. Short but enjoyable drive there. Surprisingly the car drove true (straight line with hands off the wheel) with no tracking faults. Just goes to show what can be achieved with a laser level, some bits of wood and metal and a calculator!

Here's a picture of the "Daft Hat Squad" just before we got told off for taking photo's - a good start to the test: And in under three hours it was all over.

The Tester, Dave, was a top bloke and Warren and I laughed and joked with him throughout the entire test.

There were only three issues:

1) The emissions were way off - but a quick twiddle of the mixture screws and it was sorted.

2) One of the bolts on the lower steering UJ was just grazing the stainless steel bottom hose link pipe - something I never spotted. I was allowed to tie this back on the proviso I fixed it when I got home and everything had cooled down.

3) Just scraped the noise test at 100.8 dB - and that's with underslungs and a balance box!

Drove home the longer way..... in the spring sunshine...... I now know what these cars are all about!

I didn't even get to eat my packed lunch..... back in the house before 12!

And after 2 1/2 years here is what it was all for:

Weather Update

Looking OK for the morning........ might get wet on the way home though....... hopefully I won't be giving a $h1t by then!

35 Hours to go.......

...... and Heavy Rain forecast for Wednesday Morning........ Bugger!

At least I only live 5 miles from the test centre :)

More or less ready for SVA

Last post I was talking about lockstops. The front tyres are 245/40/18's and as such they foul the inner wings on full lock. The problem is made worse by having to raise the car to get the front indicators up to the required height. This means that the suspension is in droop relative to the chassis (by winding up the bottom spring pans), with the movement of the wishbones these moves the wheels even closer to the inner wings!!

So I need to fit lockstops to the steering rack. First job was to unto the ties and pull the boots back:

Here you can see the rack shaft and the stock nylon lock stop. Any additional stops need to be fitted on the outside of the nylon stop so that they don't get ingested into the rack internals.

Here we see plan A on the left and plan B on the right:

Plan A was a split 2mm thick aluminium washer. The idea being to bend it open, fit on the rack and bend it back. however...... I have very little room to get my arms in due to the Accusump being in the way. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't bend them closed again!

So plan B was to use some 1.6mm thick polycarbonate. The beauty of this plan is that they simply be "snapped" onto the rack due to thier felxibility:

So process was them simple - insert a polycarbonate spacer - check for wheel rub - if so add another. Easy and only took a few minutes, once the spacers had been made (I even made some spares for the SVA just in case!). You can see the spacers here on the outside of the white nylon spacer:

The boots were pulled back over and new ties added to fix them.

This of course necessitated driving around outside the house to thoroughly test the performance of full lock - importantly the steering was making an effort to self centre at relatively slow speeds.

And that was that really...... time for some more photo's:

Put a couple of clips on the throttle cable to tidy it up, calibrated the speedo, polished a few things, sat and stared at various things for a while, and in no time at all it was dusk so I set out some markings on my garage door and set the headlamp aim up as per the Wipac instructions.

This only left two jobs on the to do list, bedding in the brakes and setting the emissions..... I will attempt the first on the way to SVA and the second at the SVA test - should only require a twiddle of the idle jets on the carb.

I assume over the next few days I might find the odd tweak or two to keep me busy...........

Wheels on... Wheels off... Wheels on... Yawn!

Spent a few hours taking the wheels off, winding up spring pans, putting wheels back on, measuring, taking wheels off, adjusting spring pans etc.. etc..

One thing I noticed was that the handbrake cable rested against the spring pan of one of the rear shocks..... I split some grommets, fixed them over the cable and secured each of them with a cable tie round the circumference to "nip" them onto the cable. This will keep the cable away from the spring and the grommets are too big to allow the cable to fall into the spring. Should be OK for SVA:

After a couple of hours of setting spring lengths, driving it a bit to settle the springs and re-checking I ended up with the front indicators at the correct height (350mm) from the floor.Oh well..... after all the waiting I suppose it's time for the money shots:

It is sitting quite high at the moment but will be lowered after SVA, also there are no spinners on either. I did fit one to see what it looked like but forgot to take a photo.

I had quite a few interruptions today from interested neighbours... funny how the sun brings them out!.... where were they through all those long winter nights freezing in the garage??

Now for the bad news...... the tyres foul the inner wings on full lock..... so that means fitting lock stops to the rack.

More on that tommorrow.... I've just wasted an hour or so with Plan A, but Plan B looks like a goer.

They're Here......

Let the games begin........

......... I got the cobra up on axle stands, took the old jag wheels off, took some measurements, wound up the spring seats, put the new wheels on, dropped the car back on the floor....... bugger ..... rear to high and front too low. (No photo's 'till it's done.... no spoiling the surprise). Too late to do anymore tonight.... So I fixed my knob on instead!

Day off tomorrow.... so hopefully all will be sorted by the end of the day.

Wheels and Tyres