8th November
After a break of several days letting my twisted knee recover from the last Westfield exertions, time to get going again. In preparation for tomorrow night’s engine-installation party I did a bit of checking of the hoist and slings but also installed the plate that carries the ECU and a couple of relays. I think the factory think that the hinges should lay on the top of the scuttle panel but I chose to make it look neater by attaching them to the chassis, using pop rivets, and to the plate by nuts and bolts. On recommendation from the Mark Walker substitute, I have cut the plate down in width a little to hopefully allow more room for the heater ducts.
9th November
Engine installation party! With help from Graham from work, John from WSCC, Jan and a hoist, we got it in. Not a lot more to say really.
We had to re-sling it a couple of times to get sufficient angle on it. We did try taking the gear lever off but couldn’t quite fathom out how to do it! Using the hoist and a trolley jack underneath, we inched it in. Getting the prop shaft onto the drive flange studs was probably the hardest part. Also, some of the wiring is very close to the thermostat housing.
15th November
Owing to age (mine!) I seem to have acquired a duff knee that has slowed me up a bit concerning the Westy, Doc says I need to see orthopaedic consultant!
After a phone call to Mark Walker and an e-mail from him, I have a much better idea of what I need to do with the engine wiring. I changed the water temperature sensor from the Ford one to that supplied with the instruments and installed the oil pressure sensor by unscrewing a blank plug from the engine block. The existing Ford senor remains in-situ but unused.
The aluminium plate over the transmission tunnel will need another hole to take the engine wiring loom through and it will also need a biggish hole for the gearlever. Rather than do this with wiring loom through it – the one that goes to the instruments – I fed it all back through again, a tedious job.
To end the evening, a simple job – fit the battery!
16th November
With revised information from Mark Walker about the Lambda sensor I set about removing the supplied plug and replacing it with a new Econoseal one. With no instructions on how to go about it, this was a bit of a learning exercise. There are pins that need crimping to the bared wire ends and I managed all that for each of the 4 wires but could I get the plug assembled? Could I heck! After some more trials with spare plugs and pins, I realised my mistake and cut off the pins I had crimped on to start again. Learning curve is a wonderful thing; it went together so easily the second time!
The engine wiring loom has to reach the engine from where the ECU and relays are, above the passenger footwell. The factory suggested route is through another hole in the panel over the gearbox, alongside the existing hole. So I put this in. I also did a first reconnaissance of where to put the hole in the same panel for the gearlever. On the measure-twice-cut-once principle I left this for a further check before I make a big hole.
Looking at the gaiter for the gear lever that has been supplied, I think I may cut it down, as it will be rather thick as supplied.
Photos of the Lambda sensor connection, before and after are below.
20th November
Now that I have the replacement LH rear brake calliper bracket, it was a relatively straightforward job to dismantle the damaged one and fit the new one. The new ones have a slightly thicker casting for the bolt. Whereas with the supplied ones there was room for a nut between the bracket and the disc, on the new ones there is not. No photo as it looks the same as it did before!
21st November
A Sunday build-fest, sort of! I got Jan to check my gearlever hole measurements and transferring them to the panel, remembering that I was marking out the underneath whereas the measurements were made on top. I put the lever into each gear and measured to the inside of the chassis rails. I had previously scored from underneath where these rails went on the tunnel panel. This gave me a rectangular space envelope. I placed the gaiter-clamping ring over the marked out area and the rectangle was quite a bit smaller which was comforting. With the area covered with masking tape and the circle marked out I used the jigsaw with a metal cutting blade in it.
Meanwhile
Jan had fed through all the connectors of the engine loom through a 44mm
grommet – no mean feat this, squeezing 15-way connectors through
a 12 mm rubber hole! We then fed all the main loom connectors and the engine
loom connectors through the plate and I was relieved to find the gearlever
fell nicely through the new hole.
It remains to screw the clamp ring to the panel. I did trim the gaiter down, but at Jan’s suggestion, not the way I had first thought. There was a thick section on the underside – this looked as though it was meant to fit over something on the Ford donor that is not here – and I made a circular cut with Mr Stanley to remove it. This means that there is less thickness to have to clamp through now.
With the engine loom in place inside the tunnel, I lead the respective plugs to their mating sockets, except for the Lambda sensor of course. Though the exhaust manifold is fitted, it will have to come off to fit the body. Ah the body! Just a week away and nowhere near ready. The knee problem has slowed me down, dammit. With the knowledge of where the connectors needed to go, it was straightforward to make the connections, without that knowledge, it wasn’t as obvious as was claimed to be really. That the crank position sensor had heatproof insulation on helped to identify two connectors otherwise the same.
I intended to fix the tunnel panel with M5 screws and, whereas the manual says to fix this panel later on (using self tapping screws) I decided to do it now. There is just enough metal in the chassis rails to take a thread. I want some foam to seal this; I am forming a list for next weekend of bits! There is supposed t be an M8x70 bolt to act as throttle stop, but I can’t find it. I shall also need some more 200mm Tyraps.
Now that the rear brake problem is sorted, I re-instated the handbrake linkage and lever. Always was a bit of a struggle this, especially when I had to do it twice after I noticed that I had trapped a rubber sleeve in the compensator sector the first time.
With handbrake sorted and the ability to engage a gear, I could now torque up the 7 prop shaft bolts/nuts. What fun! Handbrake on, select gear, slide under car, torque up the one bolt you could see, crawl out, release handbrake, de-select gear, rotate shaft a little bit, apply handbrake, select gear, slide under car................................................etc etc 7 times, changing socket and torque wrench for the 3 nuts on the gearbox drive flange. For one of them, I had to remove the Hooke’s joint grease nipple.
Though seemingly minor jobs, the following finished the day – and me –off. The positive and negative battery cables, the starter motor connections, the throttle cable and fuel hoses.
The negative cable has to earth to the chassis through one of the bolts holding the steering rack to it. This meant removing the powder coating to make the earth, first job for the multi-tool and it worked well. The bolt was too short to have enough thread to take the nut when the –ve cable eye was on, there is a rubber bush to compress around the rack (yet to be tightened, awaiting it mating to the column) so I borrowed a longer bolt from the module 5 pack for now. When it’s properly sorted, it will need some corrosion protection on, heavy grease probably. Cables are routed but not linked to battery yet for safety.
The other connections to the starter motor were made at he same time as the +ve battery cable.
I was also to connect the alternator cables, which was vaguely impossible. Need to contact the factory for a clue as to how to do these.
Throttle cable was easily done. I tried a few routes though to get it smoothly from bulkhead to throttle sector plate.
The fuel hoses weren’t too difficult except I reversed the recommended feed and return pipes as it made for a more logical pipe run, they didn’t have to cross over.
The next job is the steering columns but I shall leave that until I feel a bit fresher – all in all good progress today.
22nd November
To get access to the alternator connections, I decide that I needed to swing
it away from the engine, which meant removing the drive belt, which meant
turning the engine over, which meant removing the spark plugs! The nut on
the crankshaft drive pulley was very useful! With the belt off, the alternator
would swing away a little before it fouled on the oil filter, but this gave
me some room. I could not see the markings on the contacts as per the manual,
so I put the fat brown wires on the bigger of the two terminals that had
nuts on, and the brown/yellow on the smaller. This needs checking next weekend
at the factory. I then put everything back together.
I assembled the steering column, which is in three parts altogether, upper,
middle and lower. The upper has been fitted for some while but the other
parts needed to wait until the engine was in. I was a bit worried about
the clearance between the column and the bottom of the inlet manifold.
In fact when the splines on the various universal joints were in their correct places, it was close than this and just about touching. Again, a weekend question.
One positive action tonight was to fit the inertia switch – the thing that cuts off the fuel pump in an accident – to the bracket near the differential. I then started to look at how the fuel pump, fuel filter, tank and plumbing all fitted in and got confused as to how it would all fit.
As we are going to the factory next Saturday to get the body, I made a list of al the bits I needed to look at on the blue demo car, like alternator wiring, steering column clearance and fuel pump position.
27th November
No build time booked today, but thought I would record the body collection and some information gained. I actually met Mark Walker, the man at the other end of the telephone for the last couple of months.
We hired a LWB van that was much newer than the Luton we had for the main collection and it went really well, the 2.5 litre engine having something to do with this probably, and it would easily do an indicated 75 mph.
We were one of two collecting their nice blue bodies today! Home by 11:45 to unload the body into the lounge...
...where it’ll stay for a little while!
I sorted out where the fuel pump goes and took a few photos of the display car in the showroom. I also got a couple of missing bits plus some more Tyraps and foam strip, all in all a worthwhile visit.
28th November
A day of smallish jobs but needed nevertheless. Four screws to clamp the rubber gaiter round the gearlever with 4 self-tapping screws. The throttle stop bolt that I collected yesterday required me to dismantle the accelerator pedal from the chassis.
Rules of Westfield-ing:- The manual is a guide book
- Everything you bolt on will need removing at some point.
For a bit of light relief I riveted the VIN plate on!
Right! Steering column. I decided to put a spacer under the right hand engine mount and to lower the bottom end of the upper steering column a bit. Mark Walker gave me some more spacer plates and I opened up the footwell plate yet again. With 3mm under the engine mount and 3mm extra spacer for the upper column I gained about 4mm clearance between the inlet manifold and the middle column. From a feel around the demo car yesterday this feels about right.
After lunch, I attacked the fuel pump fitting. As there are no Rivnuts for it in the chassis, it really needs through bolting but I haven’t got the right bolts to do this. So, for now, I drilled and tapped the chassis rail. This needed me to make a jig to get the holes in the right place. After I bolted it in place I had to remake the electrical connections as it needed eyelets rather than spade connectors.
Getting the fuel filter bracket on needed the mounting holes opening out a bit but otherwise went on OK onto 2 pre-existing studs.
29th November
Though the fuel tank has been resting in-situ for a while it is now officially
bolted in. The outlet and return unions were put in with PTFE tape to seal
the taper threads. The straps needed a hole putting in each one, funny,
one end had holes in but the other didn’t. Lined each one with foam
tape and bolted them on.
I could now start on the plumbing for the fuel starting with the tank outlet
to pump inlet and then the pump outlet to filter and filter to steel pipe.
After a couple of aborted routes there’s the return to be done another
night.