4th March
Just 6 months since I collected the kit and it’s coming on.
With a borrowed tracking gauge I set the front track and the ride height tonight. There’s supposed to be someone in the car, but I didn’t think that this would have much effect on the front as the seat is so far back. With the tyres sitting on a rubber mat, they didn’t want to move at all so it meant rolling the car back and forth quite a lot so that they could get their true position. Need to think now, how to set the camber.
The car now moves a lot easier without the squeaking that it used to do.
5th March
Just to record that the SVA forms went in the post today with a £150 cheque and a request for a May test date.
I also have an idea regarding the camber check. The quarter to half degree negative equates to 2.2 to 4.4mm over the 500mm diameter of the tyre at its maximum width; that is where a spirit level would rest. So with a spirit level on the bottom of the wheel, I would need a 2.2 to 4.4mm gap at the top of the wheel.
6th March
A satisfying day! I find the long days are more satisfying than the odd hours I achieve in an evening.
Following a thread on the WSCC forum about an SVA pass (at Nottingham) where one of the items requiring attention was the wiring to the rear lights, I jacked up the back end and put binding around the wiring.
Whilst the back was up in the air and the wheels were off, I riveted in the funny shaped pieces of aluminium, to which there is no reference in the manual at all (!) between the chassis and the body.
I randomly chose rivet positions only to find that the top one was almost exactly over another rivet! By slightly extending the hole in the closure piece, I could drill out the old rivet and combine them. Of course, I now had to do the same on the other side but by design rather than chance!
This job done, I turned to the main objective of the day that was to get the roll bar, boot box and seat belt mounts in place. I had previously found that the boot box was resting on the fuel filler pipe. As a attempt to get it to fit better, I slackened off the Jubilee clip around the fuel tank to rubber hose connection and persuaded the tank to go backwards a bit. To my surprise, this worked and the boot box sat much better in the body.
After another trial fit of the roll bar, I decided the hole on the RH side of the boot box needed a slight modification – with the dremel-alike. I also opened out the holes slightly in the chassis that the M12 bolts went through into the roll bar. These few modifications made it all go together much better.
To mark the holes for the seat belt mountings, I made a little jig from some scraps of wood, and pilot drilled through.
These holes needed opening out to clear the collars of the seat belt bolts. For the first hole I used a spade type drill, but for the others I used a hole-saw, which worked better, though my careful marking proved to be a bit out!
With all holes done, I finally bolted it all together.
With that all done, I though I ought to seal the scuttle to the body, a job I had overlooked previously. So I put masking tape alongside all joints before Jan helped me lift the scuttle off again.
With sealant on, it was lowered back on and tightened up. The excess sealant now went over the masking tape. I ran a finger down the joint and then removed the masking tape and left it to dry.
So as to decide which seat belt mountings to use, I put the seats back in but with a bolt on the front mount so the set did not tip back.
Cool!!
7th March
With the back end finished, I turned to the front. The objective was to fit the plastic panel over the pedal assembly. Without any help from the manual, I decided to rivet it to the chassis and bolt it to the scuttle. This involved more masking tape, measurements and a pencil to mark it all up.
Whether I am right or wrong I have sealed this bit with sealant.
I could then finish the water pipes to the heater. I found I was now a Jubilee clip missing for the hose onto the thermostat housing – rather than wait for the factory, I thought I would go and get one.
8th March
A straightforward job of getting the header tank onto the scuttle and trim the hoses up a bit to look neater.
This looks remarkably like the photo I took of the demonstrator car on the day we ordered our car, except there are no wheel arches yet!
13th March
What I thought would be a difficult job was straightforward went well, what I thought would be easy was a struggle!
To fit the exhaust meant a big hole in the body. Fortunately, as Westfield supplied all the bits they also supplied a diagram for the hole. Lots of measuring before using a 45 mm hole saw to make the outside corners. With that done a hacksaw blade joined them up. The first try of the manifold was fine. If anything the hole is a little far back but it’s fine. Quite pleasing really. I used a file and then wet n’dry to smooth off the cut edges.
To finish off the manifold, I remembered to remove the tape over the exhaust ports before bolting up the dozen nuts to clamp it.
The rest of the exhaust was fairly straightforward. The pilot hole drilled through from the inside before the interior panels were riveted in needed opening up to allow the spacer, bracket and 10mm bolt to be fitted. To this was bolted the rubber mount and rest of the bracket. The rest of the exhaust was then bolted up, the tailpipe added and the shroud attached with big jubilee clips to the silencer. Job done!
The picture also shows the winker repeaters that were a bit of a struggle to fit, these, and for them to remain in place. The RH side refused to stay in place so I put a couple of blobs of sealant on it and some tape to hold it in place until tomorrow. I’m not convinced the LH side one will stay in yet.
Not too far to go now.
17th March
The manual says that the front winker pods are handed, but the ones I have are identical. This meant that the LH side went together fine but the RH side needed some “adjustment” so that the drain slot on the winker was at the bottom. In doing this I managed to drill my finger! It remains to wire up the two units.
21st March
Of the 3 planned jobs, one was completed, the wiring in of the winkers. This meant cutting off the bullet connectors on the wires from the light units and replacing them with a 2-pin connector to match the ones on the loom. I needed some help to actually connect them together as my arms were about a foot too short.
I had wanted to fit the grill but single-handed this proved impossible so gave up on that and turned to fitting the cycle wings to the front wheels. In the end I gave up on this too as I just could not get them symmetrical at all, the support brackets having different dimensions. All in all, not too satisfactory an evening.
22nd March
Had a call from Nottingham test centre today and booked SVA for 9th May at 0830!
With Jan’s help we finished off the outstanding jobs from last night. Firstly I attacked the cycle wing brackets to get them nearer the same with some careful bending. When I put the wings back on they were much better; it was worth leaving them last night. I plan to glue them to the brackets but also to put a bolt through the inner edge as security. They are now loosely fitted and need the wheel off to complete fitting.
We tried fitting the grill with the nosecone in place but gave up and took it off. This gave an opportunity to re-route the headlamp wiring so that it was not in danger of being trapped by the coil springs.
With the nose off it was relatively straightforward to fit the grill. It’s held in place by small Tyraps – 2 at the top and 2 at the bottom. They are not too obvious at all.
24th March
I put a meter between the battery positive lead and earth to see what resistance there was. It was about 250 ohms, so I dobbed the positive lead to the battery terminal and had a little spark. After a bit of investigation I found the hazard warning lights were switched on. With these off, I had nearly 400 ohms and no spark when the lead was dobbed on to the terminal. With it held on firmly, I could get the hazards to flash but nothing on the ignition circuit seemed to work, but with all the wires still needing connecting this may not be a surprise. Oh! And the engine turned over too!!
25th March
Time to start the dashboard. First thing was to set the DIP switches on the speedo and tacho. The latter was straightforward with a choice relating to the number of cylinders, the speedo was a bit more complex needing the number of pulses per unit distance setting. A recent thread on the WSCC forum was of use and a hindrance too as I had several values, but in the end I settled on 5455, with the nearest available setting of 5464. This was derived from a wheel centre to floor measurement of 281 mm, a rolling circumference of 1.77m and the 6 pulses/rev seen by the sensor.
When I offered the dash to the car, I realised that with the contoured dash the speedo, tacho and 2 of the warning lights fouled the return on the scuttle and needed cutting out. I chain drilled with a 2mm drill and filed it smooth.
I then remembered that I needed to seal the gap between the winscreen and the scuttle. At the RH side, this was easy but towards the LH side the gap was larger owing to making the screen equal height relative to the side irons. This meant a few passes were needed. The last tube of sealant is nearly empty now!
The dash is said to be attached with nine 5mm bolts but it was not obvious where to put them. I then realised that the trim roll around the top edge covered them all so precise positioning was not essential. I eventually put 8 in and with the dash off bent the lugs down on the chassis hoop so that the lower edge can be fixed to them later.
Assembling the dash was reasonably easy but discovered that I had two washer switches and no wiper switch! The factory was closed today – Good Friday – so a bit stuck there.
Spot the missing switch! Now I may be able to cope with this, say by leaving the connector poking through the hole, but I have another little problem in that the connector for the wiper motor is at the RH side of the dash and the motor is on the left. This means that either I need to cut off the connector from the loom and make up an extension or a extension cable is available. I shall try the factory tomorrow (Saturday).
With Jan’s help we got the tunnel carpet, handbrake and gear lever gaiters out and puzzled what to do with them. We started with a slot for the handbrake and a hole for the gearlever but still wondered how to attach the gaiters. Jan did a search through our WF picture gallery and suggested using some chrome trim plates. After a search through the Europa catalogue, we came up with a couple of possibilities.
Time for bed now!
26th March
We fitted the carpet to the rear of the cockpit after putting in the various grommets over the suspension bolt access holes and some duct tape over the unused inertia seat belt slots. The Velcro grip seems stronger than the self-adhesive backing. We also Velcro’d the rear finishing strip over the top edge of this carpet.
We had a bit more thinking about the gaiters and decided to remove the WF supplied surround to the handbrake and to glue on the rubber cover to the tunnel cover plate. I also trimmed off the excess rubber from the gearlever surround (the bit outside the existing ring holding it in place). This meant that with the selected trim plates from Europa, these could be screwed through the carpet.
As it was Saturday and Europa closed at 1pm, we drove over there to buy the plates – very shiny! We placed them over their respective controls and decided where they should go and used masking tape to mark the position. We then took the carpet off again to open out the holes to be just a bit smaller than the inside of the trim plates.
Jan then tried to sew the gaiters to the carpet but the sewing machine would have none of it, as it wouldn’t feed through. So she tacked each gaiter in a few places, hoping the trim plates would then hold them in place. We put the carpet back to check things and finished off trimming round various bits of chassis, seat belt mountings and the cables at the front end of the tunnel. Re-fitted it and screwed the rings on.
Smart eh?
Whilst Jan finished Velcro-ing the tunnel carpet, I got on with putting holes in the floor carpets for the seat bolts to go through and ended up putting the seats back in to get the final effect!
During this entire carpet thing, I did a few other jobs. I fed the washer pipe through to the washer bottle – bit of a struggle this. I ended up jacking the car up to get in from underneath as I had fed it all though one of the grommets in the transmission tunnel. I hope it is sufficiently far away from heat sources. It would have been helpful if the manual told you to thread this through before the engine was fitted.
Whilst the car was in the air, I took the front wheels off and glued the wings to the support brackets with Tigerseal. Oh, and I had painted the screw heads yesterday in the nearest aerosol blue I could find in Halfords.
Finally, I rewired the three connections to the 2” gauges, fuel, water, and oil as the WF loom has terminations for VDO instruments not the Smiths ones I have.
I put about 4 litres of petrol in the tank and about the same of water in the header tank – before it started pouring out of the radiator overflow!! So the nosecone will have to come off again to seal that up.
27th March
Easter Sunday – the original outline plan was to complete by Easter and it’s not really that far off. In fact, I suppose the plan was to be on the road by Easter, but Easter’s very early this year and my knee problems in November put me behind schedule. If it wasn’t for other things happening in April, maybe I could have got it on the road for Stoneleigh, but never mind.
With the couple of bits missing there’s not a huge amount left to do. I fitted the seat belts and, with Jan’s help, finally got the windscreen fillet in place and put the wipers on. The struggle to fit it eased considerably when we released the LH side screen iron. There was some sealant showing round one of the wiper drives, so with renewed confidence we took it all off again to remove it!
We then removed the nosecone so that I could seal off the radiator overflow port. A search on the WSCC forum revealed a trick; tap M5 and put a short screw in sealed with thread sealant. This is what I have done.
Put more water in and hope for the best. Still worried why the fuel pump won’t run.
28th March
I had an idea about the inertia switch maybe not latched in, so I set about removing the boot box, which meant taking off the seat belts that have only just got on! Without removing the roll bar, the boot box will only lift so far, inevitably not far enough. So jacked the car up and fiddled from underneath. It seemed fine, and even with the WF supplied shorting link in (retained fortunately) still nothing. It seems as though both contacts of the pump are to ground, which is daft. All very frustrating. In the end I gave up and put everything back together. As the sun was shining I rolled it out onto the drive for some photos.
As the weather was nice I decided to have a go at the dash installation, so with Jan’s help we fitted all the connectors having crimped some spade terminals to the instrument lights.
Incredibly, it all worked apart from the dip beam. I had to make another cut out in the scuttle flange for a warning light I had missed.
If only it would start!!!!!
29th March
Having been on the phone to Mark Walker today, I came home at lunchtime to take a couple of photos of the 12-pin connector and plenum chamber. Both were apparently OK.
I now had a checklist of items, pin connections, the immobiliser jumper, the engine loom relays and the pressure relief on the injector rail. All either fine or no problem.
Got the headlights working properly though by rearranging the wires on the toggle switch. So, a minor success.
I decided to come inside and work out the fuel pump wiring. Graham at work had pointed out all the random numbers on the loom plan were actually wire numbers. With this, I could trace the wiring route from the 4-pin connector to the engine loom, through the fuse, immobiliser, inertia switch, pump and then to ground. With this I could carefully check out each part. By this means I tracked down a break between the fuse and the immobiliser connector. This is good and bad news. Good in that I have tracked down a problem and bad in that to remove the fuse block is, how can I put it politely, a bit difficult. The nuts on the underside are just above the gearbox with next to no clearance. I managed to remove both leads to the fuse from underneath the block – heaven knows how I’ll ever get them back – connected the fuse across them as:-
Now, when I switched on the ignition, the pump runs!! Hurray!! By cycling it on and off several times, I could bleed air from the injector rail until petrol spurted out.
An extra turn to the key and.....................it spluttered into life!!! Briefly. With a bit of persuasion on the throttle it would just about idle. Just a problem now that the ignition warning light stays on, this may be something to do with the alternator wiring, I wasn’t altogether confident about this when I did it. Another call to Mark tomorrow.
30th March
Today Westfield sent me a new wiper switch and a wiper motor extension cable that was still not long enough! I cut it and inserted about another 30cm using caravan 12N wire, matching up colours approximately. The wiper switch went in before breakfast and the wiper motor cable re-made this evening.
I tried to re-connect the connectors to the fuse holder but couldn’t. So I raised the front end of the car and found that one of the nuts was accessible with a long extension. Hoping that with one screw removed I could then make the connection proved a vain hope. So with some difficulty, I got the second one off. When I replaced the spade connectors my error became apparent in that the male spade on the fuse holder had probably gone down the side of the female connector but retained by the shroud of the latter. Having got it properly sorted, the problem of replacing the screws and nuts was tackled. In the event this was not too bad but no way could I get the washers under the nuts. At every stage in this I checked that the pump connection was still OK.
On seeking advice about the ignition warning light, Mark Walker had suggested that the earth connection between the case of the alternator and ground might be faulty. This proved not to be so. Another call required.
Final job tonight was to screw the dash to the scuttle. Some of the screws were a little awkward, but Blu-Tac on the end of a finger to hold the nut proved quite successful. In one position though, I could not get a spanner on to the nut so I used a plain nut rather than a Nyloc one and fignger pressure to get it as tight as I could.
31st March
Between us, Jan & I sorted the warning light problem. Having removed the drive belt and swung the alternator out, I could just not remember how I had tightened the connections up. Mark had said that the alternator wiring used the two nearest connections to the engine – I wish he had said this when I was struggling to get them on in the first place – and mine weren’t. In the end I removed the alternator entirely, moved the wire, put it all back and bingo! Sorted!
I could just not resist the urge to drive it up and down the drive. At least 1st, reverse and the brakes work!
So 229 hours of work in nearly 7 months and I have a car that moves. A few bits remain to do and I have booked it in for a pre-SVA and suspension set-up with Paul at Play’s Kool on April 14th. Rob Navin has offered me loan of his trailer too.