Saturday 7th November - Work time = 6 hrs ... Build Time To Date = 26 hrs
Time to start installing the pipework ... something I was not looking forward to! I had spent many hours researching this area of the build, checking build photos and studying the manual so I felt well prepared and had the routes well planned ... little did I know!
The plan was to route the fuel pipes along the edge of the floor in the transmission tunnel and the rear brake pipe in between the two fuel lines. So, confident of my plan, I started with the twin fuel pipes. Out with the pipe bender (on loan from Graham) and I quickly formed the "swan neck" bend at the front ... closely followed by the bend back into the transmisson tunnel and then the splay out at the rear ... heh this is pretty easy. Like others I decided to fit the rivets on the pipe clips from the inside/out so that the "bumps" were minimised on the interior. I put some small washers on the outside to spread the rivet better and called upon Henry to add the extra pair of hands to pull the rivets while I held the fixing and washer in place. So far so good.
Now to the brake pipes ... start small me thinks so I start with shortest piece from the master cylinder to the "T" piece with the brake light switch. I formed the various bends around a couple of pieces of 35mm waste pipe and 25mm chrome towel rail I had lying around the garage. With my growing confidence I started on the the front to rear brake pipe. It was a tedious slow process ... temporary fixing the pipe at the front, marking where to bend, taking out the pipe, forming the bend and back in again to work out the next bend. 45 minutes later I had the pipe roughly formed. At this point I had my doh! moment. Whilst the brake pipe would fit very neatly between the fuel lines, there was no room to drill the fixing holes and rivet the "P" clips in place. 15 minutes later having considered various options including drilling out the fuel line rivets and starting again, I decided to route the brake pipe alongside the lower fuel line, fixing it to the braces across the transmission tunnel. The pipe was still against the side of the tunnel and well secured so it seemed the best option. Unfortunately this meant that the bends I had made at the rear were no longer quite as neat as I had originally hoped but there was no way I could re-form them. Here's the finished views ... despite the minor issue I'm quite pleased with the results.
Earlier in the week the missing bits for the brake pedal arrived so I decided to finish that off before starting on the rest of the brake pipes. What should have been a 5 minute job turned out a bit more complicated. Having fitted the missing part and setting the pedal up to align with the clutch pedal it was clear that the push rod was fouling the rear of the brake pedal.
So time to dismantle things again and cut off some of the thread on the push rod. I managed to do this without needing to remove the master cylinder. Here's the how the finished pedals look (without my finger holding up the brake pedal!).
One final job for the day ... I treated myself to an early Christmas pressie and bought a 4 drawer tool chest from Halfrauds ... it was a 1/3 off plus 10% discount for online order so I couldn't resist the bargain. Here it is .. pride of place in the garage!
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