Windscreen Fitting & Interior Side Panels ... looking like a car now

Sat 29th May 2010 - Work time = 7.5hrs ... Build Time To Date = 239hrs

Time to fit the windscreen.   Had a trail fitting a couple of weeks ago but was not sure about the gap between the windscreen and the scuttle.  A phone call to Westfield reassured me that it was normal (?).  In the centre of the screen there was about a 10mm gap.  I decided to "fill" this with some foam door sealer ... the self adhesive foam type. I attached one piece to the lower edge of the windscreen and another to the scuttle.  This filled the gap quite well and I sealed it on the outside wih lots of silcone sealer.

One other point to note ... I made a "prop" to the 1007mm dimension as directed in the manual.  However when I trial fitted the side screens they were way off at the rear.  I needed to adjust the windscreen rake quite a bit so that they fitted nicely against the rear whel arches.

Fitting the fibreglass cver strip across the lower part of the windscreen was a bit fiddly too ... required lots of fettling with the dremel.

 

Fitting the interior side panels was fairly easy.  I had some black headed 3mm rivets so used these to fix he panels.  There is a small peice of panelling to fit behind the scuttle.  No instructions as to whether this overlapped on top of the side panel or below.  It looked better below so I opted for that.

Boot fitting ... well more of a cubby hole really

Sat/Sun 15th/16th May 2010 - Work time = 6hrs ... Build Time To Date = 231.5hrs

Fitting the boot lining and boot lid should have been fairly straight forward.  Famous last words.  The boot lining required copious amounts of "dremeling" so that it would fit neaty.   Also the boot lid locks took a long time to fit.  I had to resort to using the blow torch to heat the metal locking lugs so that they would straighten out properly.

I'm pleased with the finished results ... however not sure I'm gonna fit the golf clubs in the boot !!!

Speedo Sensor ... needs to be closer to driveshalf bolts

Sun 9th May 2010 - Work time = 3hrs ... Build Time To Date = 225.5hrs
Concernd that the speedo wasn't registering I took a look at the speedo sensoe.  This is a hall effect sensor picking up a magnetic reading off the driveshaft bots next to the diff.  The gap between the sensor and the bolts seemed 5-6mm ... probably too far for the sensor to pickup.
The mounting for the sensor is welded to the chassis ... I tried to bend it nearer the driveshaft but all this did was move the angle of the sensor away from the bolts.
More head scratching before I came up with a new plan!  I fabricated a new bracket and ounted this to the extra mountings on the chassis (not sure what these are for but they are unused).
With the new bracket in place I could easily adjust the gap ... I left it at about 2mm ... don't want it too close!
Hopefully this will be a better solution and the speedo will now work.

Engine Startup Part 3 ... it works !!!

Sat 8th May 2010 - Work time = 4hrs ... Build Time To Date = 222.5hrs
Big day again today ... with the fuel injectors all reinstalled time to try an engine start.  It start raining as soon as I wheeled the car out of the garage.  Undeterred with a few spots of rain I turned of the key, the starter motor spun the engine over for a few seconds and hen the sound of the engine firing ... on all 4 cylinders!  As I blipped the throttle Sandra and Amy arrived at the garage door cheering.  I think they were cheering with relief ... previously concerned that if it still didn't start then I would not be a happy chappy!
I let the engine run a few minutes so that everything warmed up.  eassuringly there were no obvious leaks anywhere.  With the rain now coming down harder I took a quick opportunity to select first gear and drive the car 5metres down the drive, then reversed it back and repeated.  The clutch and gearbox were working too .... but the speedo didn't appear to be working ... more investigation required.
I pushed the car back in garage and set about fitting the roll bar covers.  These require a lot of adjustment ... they are supplied as blanks with no holes cut.

Three hours later and lots of dremelling I managed to fit them.  A nice fit I think.

New Injector Arrived

Weds 6th May 2010 - Work time = 1.5hrs ... Build Time To Date = 218.5hrs
The replacement injector arrived direct from Weber today.  Fitted to the fuel rail and reinstalled all the injectors, connectors, throttle linkage etc.  Ready for another attempt at startup at the weekend.  Fingers crossed.

I also finished wiring up the cycle wing indicators ... all indicators and lights now working.

Cycle Wings fitted

Sun/Mon 2nd/3rd May 2010 - Work time = 10hrs ... Build Time To Date = 217hrs

One item remaining to complete the front end ... fit the cycle wings.  Again I had decided to deviate from the instructions in the manual which suggests button head bolts through the wings into the brackets.  This means that there are 4 bolt heads visible.  I decided to conceal the fixings using "big head fasteners".  These needed to be bonded to the underside of the cycle wing.  I initially did this using a dab of silicon sealant.  Once set I removed the wing from the bracket and fibre glassed across the fasteners.

With the big heads bonded it was easy enough to fix the cycle wings. 

The side indicators need to be fitted to the edge of the cycle wings as the traditional location does not allow the sufficient viewing angle for the IVA. They are fixed using self adhesive backing with the wiring hidden behind the cycle wing edging.  I fed the wiring through some convoluted tubing ready to connect up to the loom ... unfortunately I need some connectors ... another trip to Halfords!

 

Bonnet finished & Headlamps fitted ... Dashboard removed again!

Sat 1st May 2010 - Work time = 4hrs ... Build Time To Date = 207hrs

First job today as to tidy up the fibre glassing around the bonnet grills.  Whilst the bonnet was off I fitted the front grill.

Once I'd refitted the bonnet and secured the front hinge I set about fitting the bonnet fastenings.  The manual suggests these should be rivetted on but I wasn't happy about the rivet heads showing so I decided to use M4 button headbolts instead.  Then I realised the reason for the suggestion to rivet fix them ... the bottom clasp fixings are "hidden" on the iside by one of the side panels.  Undeterred I decided to drill through the inside panel, enlarge the hole so that I could get to the rear of the bolt to put on the nut.  So what should have been a 15min job took well over an hour!  The end result was worth it though.

Next job fit the headlamps.  The lights com supplied with the connector not fitted so you can feed the cables through the bonnet.  A fair bit of head scratching required to work out where the four wires go in the connector.  Once connected up I tested the lights ... side lights OK, main beam OK but no dipped beam?  More head scratching as I double checked the wiring diagram.  Hmmm perhaps the dip/main beam switch was wired wrongly.  So the dash had to come off again to check the wiring ... by a process of elimation I worked out the switch wiring ... net result all lights working.  With the dash off I fitted the heated screen wiring loom.  I had previously missed this ... not sure what the extra loom was and with nothing mentioned in the manual I'd put in back in the box!  It was only after my call to Westfield for the missing heated screen switch that they explained I needed to fit this.

One issue remained ... how to tighten up the headlamps.  The nut is difficult to access with a normal spanner so I had to "adjust" an old 21mm spark plug spanner I had.  The groove is needed to feed through the wiring.  With this I could turn the nut a quarter turn and then reset it and take another quarter turn.  Slow progress but it worked quite well.