Cycle Wings

First thing was sorting the Speedo - Mark at Westfield advised that the button must be pressed and held and then power applied to enter the set up mode (iaw the instructions!) and guess what - it worked set to 3650 pulses and powered down.

The on to the Cycle Wings - I followed Smokey Mow's instructions from the WSCC FAQs forum.  I had bonded the n/s cycle wing on Sunday so jacked up the car and removed the front cycle wing by pushing up on each of the big head bolts to ease them off the bracket that had been covered with tape to stop any unwanted bonding.  Once removed I used a sharp knife to remove any surplus sikaflex from around the big heads
http://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/94381-fitting-front-cycle-wings/



Then on to the fibre glass - followed the instruction on the kit and mixed up 100ml of resin and 3ml of catalyst and bonded 1 layer of normal fibre glass and then a top layer of finishing tissue.  Once everything had cured I ran an M6 die down each thread to clean off the resin.






Final tasks of the morning was to finish off the fitting of the Roll Bar covers and screw together the windscreen mounts and rear view mirrors in preparation for the windscreen's arrival (hopefully by the end of the week!).

Managed to get out to the garage for an hour or so this evening and wired up the front indicators and also fitted the o/s cycle wing repeater and temporarily wired to confirm polarity of the LED and see what it looked like on the car

4.5 hrs today giving a total of 175.5 hrs to date

Torquing up and fault finding

Started the day with paperwork and a call the WF.  With Mark's help I completed the IVA forms and printed/photocopied all the required documents.  Then on to Jason for an update on the 3 outstanding items: Windscreen should be this week, Upper steering column- no forecast but they're close to a solution and the front grill is on order so should be the next couple of weeks.  In the end I applied for the last Monday in August and if I don't have everything by 10 days before I'll ask for a postponement.

Now that the car is on the ground it's was time to torque up the suspension, a straight forward job for Myles and I but not photographic material.  I attempted sorted out IVA covers for the top of the RAC Roll Bar following Rhett's blog but with a minor adjustment the addition of self amalgamating tape.

Happy with the overall look so I then applied the self amalgamating tape to the fuel pump electrical connections.

The advice from Mark at WF was that the ECU has a cold start that gets overidden if you use the accelerator and then once the engine gets to 60 deg C normal control takes over with the ECU using the Lambda sensor to control the mixture.  James and I started the engine but it just wouldn't run without using the accelerator once it got to temperature all was well and the idle was ~900 rpm, oil temperature dropped to ~40 psi and the cooling fan cutting in at ~90 deg C.

On to the Rev Counter and Mark had confirmed that the gauge is driven by the OMEX which he'd never known to fail.  Looking at the back of the guage the problem was straight forward - I'd connected the power the wrong way around - a quick swap over and all was well.  

However, I then went on to try and setup the speedo pulses and ran into a new problem - the speedo wouldn't enter any of the setup modes.  James went through the instructions again and confirmed that there was something wrong.  Nothing we could do for now so time for a couple of photos and then packed up for the evening.  See 31 Jul 2012 or the instructions! for correct setup process

I couldn't resist a final photo of the engine bay - when I filled the cooling system I topped up too below the centre line - must have read something on WSCC - this turned out to be a bit of luck as when the engine is running and heats up the tank fills to the top.

And finally the rear diffuser - needs a polish!



3 hrs for me and 1.5 hrs each for James and Myles - total 171 hrs.

First Engine Start

The day started with checking all of the cooling system hose jubilee clips and then  filling the cooling system with a 50:50 mix of lovely pink cooling fluid and water around about 5 ltrs in all.  After this the oil catcher was plumbed in and the exhaust "cheese grater" shield fitted.

After a break to walk the dogs and pick up 5.5 ltrs of finest unleaded on the way home the fuel tank got it's first contents.  I check around the engine bay revealed no leaks from the mornings fill of the cooling system so all was well.

So now for the engine start - all went well apart from the two David Bailey's entrusted to capture the event failed - don't know why but they did - hence here is a follow on video of James sitting on a cushion and playing with the accelerator.  After a worry about the noise that the engine was making I realised that my hot wiring skills were not great and the starter solenoid wire needed to be disconnected once the engine started.  Oil pressure 80 psi  dropping to 60 psi and water temperature ~90 deg C when the fan cut in - will check these again.  Unfortunately the tacho didn't work, a leak started from the gauge temperature sensor and the idle was all over the place.

surfaced keyed

big-heads sikaflexed

After the engine start we fitted the wheels and lowered the car to the floor.  First task was to fit the n/s cycle wing, James did all the measurements using the o/s as a guide.  Next was checking the suspension set up with the front measured at 160mm and the rear to 170mm with no driver and the front wheels set to vertical/slightly negative camber with James plus extra weights in the drivers seat; these will all be re checked again later as I then realised that I could go any where near the n/s suspension with the cycle wing still bonding.

Then on to the rear diffuser - not a task that I was looking forward to - having previously drilled and counter sunk 3 x holes on the front lower edge I check the fit and all looked well.  After applying the sikaflex to the edge James and I loosely bolted it onto the body and then lifted the rear edge into position.  Lots of duct tape and using the trolley jack to hold the diffuser in place I was happy enough to walk away.

Final task was to fabricate a heat diffuser to be fitted between the exhaust manifold and the starter solenoid/motor.  I'd bought some Vulcan heat shield from Thermal Velocity and copied the design that Paul & Joe Bromley had used on their build.  The fabrication went well but I'll need to loosen the manifold to fit the shield to the chassis - Grand Prix was beckoning to time to finish for the day.

5 hrs for me and 2 hrs for James - total 165 hrs

Oil Catch Tank

I was originally going to fit an oil catch tank as a future upgrade but after a few posts on the WSCC newbie forum that confirmed that a well installed catch tank wasn't an issue for the IVA and that the alternative might be oil leaking on the floor during the test I decided to install one as part of the initial build.  My plan is to use the car for road and track days but not racing so there was not need for a 1 litre MSA approved tank.  Feedback form other Zetec owners suggested that there was benefit from having an "open" system with a filter so after some searching on ebay I ordered this:




I made a bracket from one of the steering rack mounts that were supplied with the kit but I had replaced with aluminium.  I now need to order the hoses to connect to the engine.

Another hour -
total 158 hrs

Edited - a combination of single bracket and direct mounting to the engine resulted in this catch tank breaking off just before my first trip to the Le Mans Classic - replacement is at: http://2js-westfield-build.blogspot.com/2015/07/more-upgraditis-oil-catch-tank-denso.html

Silicone Coolant Hoses

I spent an hour replacing most of the coolant hoses with blue silicone.  16mm - heater, link and blank, 8mm expansion tank link and 32mm hockey stick to engine and radiator  and a 35mm to 32mm 90 deg bend (with 150mm either side of the bend) to the water pump and lower radiator pipe - total cost ~£45.  I didn't replace the lower "kinked" 32mm radiator  hose as WF supplied a silicone one (black but not very visible) silicone hose and it wasn't too visible.






The 8, 16 and 32mm hoses were supplied in 1 metre lengths and I used nearly all the 16mm, about 1/2 the 8mm and 1/4 of the 32mm - hopefully whats left over from the 8mm will be useful for the oil catch tank when I get around to fitting it - wasn't!

I also fitted the Lambda sensor that had been supplied in the Omex kit and ordered heat wrap and stainless steel ty-wraps to provide some protection and help with the IVA requirement - total time 157 hrs.

Exhaust

The exhaust arrived today and I couldn't resist fitting it.  First step was to drill through the side panel from the passenger inside and then Dremmel the hole larger (the Dremmel sanding drum was almost the perfect size) to allow the bolt sleeve to fit through. Once this was done it was just a matter of assembling the exhaust and fitting it to the manifold.  I turned the front joint clamp around after this photo to put the bolt head on the inside.  Having decided to replace the coolant hoses with blue silicone I'm still waiting for some of them to arrive so will have to wait to start the engine........only 1 hr - total 156 hrs

Roll Bar Covers

Lesson of the day - don't be stubborn - when you know you've done something wrong - stop digging!

I started on the other side of the roll bar and immediately ran into the same problem as yesterday with regard the main roll bar preventing movement of the support struts to allow them to be fitted.  But today I loosened the main bar mounts and immediately was able to fit the struts will little further adjustment  - sometimes it's better to walk away!

Once the roll bar and struts were in place it was time to prepare the roll bar mount covers - once again the measure 2x and cut once applied plus cut a little and check also applied.  Ultimately happy with the fit but need to buy extra self tappers that are long enough for the front mounts.




3 hrs - can't believe that this took so long but it's now at the final finish of the car so taking a few extra hours must be worth it - still have to torque everything up though.

total time 155 hrs.

Harness Eye Bolts & RAC Roll Bar

Another package arrived from Westfield containing the 4 point harnesses, headlight rocker switch and extra jubilee clips/washers.

I marked out the positions of the eye bolts looking through the roll bar cut outs to establish the centre line and then measuring 1" from the inner roll bar mount bolt centre and then another 9 3/8".  I then drilled pilot holes and made sure that the markings lined up with the chassis mount by putting a scribe through the pilot hole and looking between the fuel tank and body work.  All okay I drilled out one of the outer mounts with a 20mm wood drill bit as a trial.  All went okay so I drilled out the rest and fitted the eye bolts - one will need a washer to line it up.

Then on to the roll bar - first I fitted the main bar and torqued up the bolts - I later decided this was not the best of ideas as it meant that there was no movement in the main bar to allow the struts to be put in place.  I marked up the hole for the strut taking plenty of time and trying a variety of different methods to make sure I was in the right place.  Once I was happy I drilled through the centre with a 20mm bit and checked again with a string directly between the two mounts. 

 I then opened up the hole with the Dremmel testing, adjusting and slowly cutting to the required size.  Fitting the strut was a pig and I wish I wasn't so stubborn and had unbolted the main bar - perhaps when I do the other side!



Final job of the night was to fit the head light switch.

3 hrs - total now 152 hrs

Testing the Dashboard Electrics

Not much done tonight, I connected up the headlights and tested the Dashboard electrics.  The headlights already had the pins crimped so it was just a case of inserting them into the connector shells supplied with the looms and then protecting the cable with convoluted trunking.  

I positioned the dash loom relays and fuses along side the heater unit on the drivers side and fettled the one dash mounting bolt hole that didn't line up - perhaps I should have cleaned up all the fibre glass dust!

After a quick check to makes sure that all the +12V connectors were insulated, I connected the battery earth cable.  I had temporarily wired up the headlights to a spare heater blower rocker switch and shorted out the ignition connector to allow me to carry out the tests.

First problem was that the indicators where wired back to front with a switch to the left switching the right hand side lights - solution turn the switch around.  Next the back light on the speedo wasn't working - fluke multi-meter confirmed the power was the bulb connector but I then realised that what I thought was a double +12V connector was actually an earth and +12V, the loom had a "spare" earth so I connected it and hey presto fixed, loom now has a "spare" +12V!

Running through the switches the fog light switch only lights up when the fog light is on and it only switches on when the head lights are on - will check but I believe this is correct to the IVA requirements. Also the wiper and washer didn't work but this is possibly because I need to switch the ignition on fully.

1.5 hours working on my own, Myles is away with school and James was Young Leadering - total now 149 hours and not quite sure what I'm doing next.

More Bodywork

More bodywork; first was fitting the bonnet catches - I taped the bonnet down on both sides then marked out the position of the upper and lower catch halves.  Drilled through with 4.1mm drill and then rivetted in place, finally drilled out the 5th hole and rivetted.

Next job was to fit the lower rear body mounting bracket. After a lot of adjustment and packing out of the bodywork to get it as even as possible I drilled, rivnutted and bolted the bracket to the chassis. 

  All was going fine until one of the rivnuts decided to lose grip with the chassis.  Out with the Dremmel to cut off the bolt and then grind out the rivnut.  I quick spray of hammerite and I fitted a new rivnut - making sure it was very well crimped.

Next I rivetted the lower side panel at a 200mm spacing down the chassis - after just missing the chassis on one of the rivets I took more time to ensure that I was certain where the chassis was through the fibre glass before drilling!

Final effort of the day was to fit a cycle wing for a photo of the almost finished front end of the car.

3.5 hours working on my own - total now 147.5 hours.

One step forward 2 steps back!

I'm not sure that I had a plan for today but if I did it didn't survive first contact with the garage.


 First task was to finish the tunnel covers re-rivetting the front cover and rivnutting the handbrake section.  Accessing the front holes required the removal of the lower heater outlets, but it was a straight forward task achieved without any snags.

Next was tidying up the dash wiring and fitting the dash.  The wiring was straight forward and I selected a location for the relays and fuses on the drivers side behind the heater.  I couldn't decide how to mount them because only the heated screen relay timer had the means to screw it in place.  I'm tempted to verco them like the engine loom but will check with WF next week.  After a general tidy up of the loom, ty-wrapping the unused cables to the rest of the loom and routing the headlight switch and ignition wiring to their respective locations, I offered up the dash to the scuttle and screwed it in place - 1 screw didn't align with the scuttle and worst of all the steering column missed the hole in the dash by a significant amount.

After removing the dash it was clear that the column was right over to one side of the available adjustment and was being held there by the scuttle and bulkhead cut outs.  Out with the Dremmel and both were adjusted and, following multiple rebuilds, I now have the full range of adjustment  available when the steering column inner eventually arrives.  The original scuttle cut was about 5mm out but until I get the steering column inner I won't know how much of the adjustment I'll need, luckily this will be cover by the pedal box cover  so it isn't an issue for the final finish of the car.

Dash refitted and the steering column now aligns with the cut out.












Next was filling the gearbox with oil and covering the access hole - luckily Myles joined me and I sent him down the passenger foot well to complete all these tasks as my "fuller figure" struggled to get passed the dash.  I copied the idea of the cut out from numerous other build sites but inI the end I ended up going under the car to get the plug to re-engage so it's perhaps of marginal benefit, for the effort, especially as it will require the carpets to be removed to ever use it.

The final task of the day was to fit the boot lid locks.  After discussions with WF during the week I located the cut out markings that are included in the gel coat during manufacture.  I drilled out the initial holes to 20mm and then filed the 22mm flat sections before filing out the corners to form the shape of the lock mechanism.  Sunday lunch was now calling so I called it a day.

4 hours for me and 1 hour for Myles - total 144 hrs

Roll Bar, Indicators and Gear Lever

A stop start day working on the car and taxiing children (no significant flooding this week) - weather awful again perhaps I'd have been better building a boat!

First task was to drill out the RAC roll bar from underneath the chassis and and then offer up the roll bar and mark out the cut out. Then drilled out the corners and started to cut between the holes with a hacksaw blade - me on one side and Myles on the other - after ~10 mins decided this wasn't going to work so a quick trip to Homebase and bought a Dremmel.

The Dremmel made light work of the cuts and smoothing the edges - a good buy and will no doubt be used many times more before the finish of the build.

Roll Bar in place

The hi-level brake light is made by Hella and supplied (at extra £s) by WF.  I decided to drill 2x 3mm holes to mount the light with self tappers and a further 5mm hole to pass the cable through.  The light has self adhesive pads so you could just stick it on and run the cable down the outside if you are concerned that the 3 holes will compromise the roll bar.  I also drilled an extra hole in the chassis to pass the cable through and used "garden" wire to pull the wire through the cable through the roll bar adding heat shrink to the cable where it passed through the mount as protection.

While I was at the back end of the car I marked, drilled out and fitted the fuel filler cap.  Before I fitted it I played with the cap to make sure it was vertical and marked out the top holes equally spaced around the centre line; once fitted Myles managed to refit the cap at an angle so it's a matter of choice whether you have the screws on or either side of the centre line. Fitting the hose was fiddly and it took a couple of goes to get it in place and clamped up with the jubilee clips. Can't drill out the harness eyebolt mounts as still waiting on the harnesses from WF.

Fitting the front indicators was straight forward but the manual showed some extensions and bolts that hadn't been supplied.  If they do need fitting I'll have to drill out the existing holes so I went ahead anyway.  I then discovered that the spacing between the 3 mounting points of the light unit are not equally spaced after extending one of the holes only to realise that the screws for the lens was then off by 45 deg at one side - refitted and made a cut out in the rubber gasket at the bottom.  Unfortunately I could find the bulbs so the lens are only held on.

I used the Dremmel to cut out the 21mm box spanner for the head light - lots of sparks - but a quick and tidy job.

Note: I actually need a 22mm spanner and other headlamps have needed 23mm so worth measuring before cutting up a good box spanner - If you don't have an old one get a 22mm Lambda socket 

The final job of the day was to fit the gear leaver and tunnel covers.  It took me some working out how to fit the gear lever gaiter. Before I tried to fit it I had assumed that the ring would fit over the gaiter and just be bolted through it but when I fitted the two together the gaiter seemed to clip over the ring.  In the end I rivnutted the panel with M4 rivnuts the used an M4x20mm bolt through the ring and an M5 nut to produce the offset with the bolt then being thread locked.


5 hrs for me and 1 for Myles - total 139 hrs.