Saturday April 3rd 2004

Well after the conclusion of the "The Big Tidy" and having been given firm "promises" by both Pace and Hi-Spec that both the dry sump and clappers will be delivered in the next 10 days,  it's time to crack on with the car again!

So with my tools easily locatable and some extra space in the Garage as the Blue Genesis is still away, I set  off to try and get all the outstanding jobs on the offside of the car sorted out.

First up on the list was replacing the front upright with the new one from Tim Pell.  So here's a shot of the front suspension before the work started.  The upright is mounted using 1\2 inch bolts, which pass through a spherical bearing at the top and bottom of the upright.  The top bolt passes right through to the centre of the upright and is secured by a Nyloc nut.  The lower threaded mounting is secured in the aluminium casting and is retained by a Nyloc. Both ends have conical spacers and I needed to take care not to mix these up.

The pipe work in the background is a trial fitting of the front coolant pipes.

Removal was fairly straightforward even though the top bolt had had all it's corners rounded off, and then the old upright was on the bench.  The picture shows the old upright on the left and the new one on the right with the hub already swapped over.

This picture illustrates one of the main reasons why I wasn't too bothered about having to replace the uprights.  If you double click the pic and look at the lower calliper mounting point on the old upright, you'll see that the brake calliper bolt hole has virtually no material around it.  I'm not sure that I'd want to bet my life on that thin sliver of material.... for the want of a nail etc.

You can also see that the new uprights have radial mountings for the brake callipers which should, if I've measured them correctly fit the Hi-Spec Ultralight 4s (if and when they arrive.)

Transferring the hub over was a very simple operation although the main hub bolt was tighter than a very tight thing.   Good job my workbench weighs about 1\2 a ton or I would have pulled it over trying to shift this bolt.  While the hub was out of the uprights I MIG welded the back of the conversion studs to help ensure that they didn't work loose.  The only other modification required for the upright was to drill out the top mounting hole to 1\2 inch.   Tim's new racers must use an M10 bolt\rose joint assembly as the new upright and steering arm had a 10mm hole in the top.   I was a little concerned about getting the right alignment for this new hole so I mounted the upright in a vice and set it up in the drill press with a 10mm drill in the chuck.  I adjusted the upright until the 10mm drill ran smoothly through the existing hole and then swapped in a 1\2 inch drill and enlarged the hole.

Reassembling the upright to the suspension was a quick operation, and all in all from start to finish the job only took about an 90 mins.  A process that was certainly helped by the fact that I could lay my hand on every tool the moment it was required.   I really must keep this tidyness thing up.  Three jobs are outstanding on this upright

1. The upper rose joint 1\2 inch bolt needs replacing
2. The hub nut needs re tightening when the car is on it's wheels, and I might even consider fitting a lock tab
3. The hub nut requires a sleeve to help ensure it's in the centre of the hub.

These sorts of things are easily forgotten so I've added a To\Do list to the site to help me remember.

The second job on this side of the car was to complete the coolant installation.  This took a fair bit longer, to do as there is much trial fitting and faffing around to be done.  I also had to fabricate and weld a mounting tag on the front subframe to hold a P clip for mounting the aluminium cooling tube that I had previously made.

I had to drill and tap the air bleed reservoir on the top of the tube and mount some P clips on the front chassis with self tapping screws, but after a couple of hours work the installation looks like this.

The coolant tube needs to connect with the a straight run of pipe at the side of the car. I elected to do this with rubber hose as the angles and bends are quite complex.  Unfortunately at this stage my camera batteries went flat so I don't have any pictures.  I'll update the site when I've had a chance to take some snaps of my handiwork.

Sunday April 4th 2004

I spent a fair bit of time today fitting the battery, starter solenoid, FIA switch and wiring.   These were all removed when the old loom was taken out and it was now time to reuse what I could of the old installation, and P clip it all neatly in place.  Pictures will follow.

The other thing that I did was to move the main 30 and 40 amp loom fuses to a much more accessible location.  They were previously located behind the coolant header tank in the engine bay, but are now neatly placed near the FIA switch in the cockpit.  With the fuses in place I have now run the main power feeds from here up to the Digidash and fuse box on the dash.  At last I can turn on the car's systems with the ignition and FIA switches, rather than temporarily jump leading a battery into the car which I had been doing for testing purposes.

Wednesday April 7th 2004

Pace have today finally delivered my dry sump kit,  it consists of a 3 stage pump (2 scavenge & 1 pressure) and a very nicely machined billet sump.   They have also supplied a dry sump tank.   The output from the pressure stage feeds the engine through it's existing oil pick up tube in the sump, so the number of external connections are kept to a minimum.  I'll post some more details when I've had a chance to look at it in detail, and of course  I'll post a full step by step process of actually fitting it.  But for now here are some pictures and it is a shiny shiny thing of beauty :-)

This is the pump, the drive shaft on the left connects with the existing oil pump drive inside the block.  The whole assembly is a bolt on replacement for the the standard oil and water pumps, a result of which is the need to fit and electric water pump.

Also the billet sump is much much narrower than the existing sump on the ZX12R so I'm currently wondering if the engine can be mounted lower in the chassis.

Saturday 10th April 2004

Today I spent most of the day getting the Blue Genesis ready to be sold.  This included hoovering it out, refitting the passenger seat, and replacing the hydraulic brake light switch. I've been having to hit the brakes harder and harder before the warning lights come on so I thought the switch was failing.  As this involves unscrewing it from the brake lines I then had to bleed the rear brakes, all of which took most of the morning. The brake lights work just fine now.

However, I have to say the the Blue Genesis is looking simply stunning and I'm hoping for a quick sale, although I shall be heartbroken to see her sold.  Pictures of her are here

It's also very nice to have both cars in the garage again,  this is a very nice photo which I might have to print off as a reminder of the time that I actually owned two Genesii.

However (back to the racer) I did manage to remove the NS front upright so that I can swap it over for the new one.

Removal was a pretty straight forward process, as I am now quite practiced at it, and using an air ratchet really speeds things up.  However removing the hub from the upright's bearings was a bit more difficult.  The hub had corroded slightly and outer ball race of the bearing was jammed on.  In fact the bearing was torn apart as I drifted the hub out of the upright.  You can just see the curved surface of the ball race at the base of the splined section of the hub.

This was a bit of a problem to remove, but WD40, blowlamp heat and some 'gentle' persuasion with a cold chisel soon ensured it's removal.  As with the OS hub I tack welded the wheel studs in place to prevent them from moving.  I then assembled the hub to the new upright and refitted it to the car.

Now that the old upright was free from the car I could have a good look at the crack which prompted it's replacement.  I had been concerned that it looked perilously close to the circlip groove which retains the hub bearing.  A bit of very gently poking around in the crack with a screw driver illustrated that the choice to replace to uprights was totally vindicated.

The two parts of the casting on either side of the crack simply peeled away and as can be seen from this final pic nearly 50% of the casting had failed and it was at the circlip groove. You can actually see the circlip.

Now as the bearings are pressed into the hub it's unlikely that the wheels would have fallen off my chariot, but even so I wouldn't like to have risked it.

Yet another case of "For the want of a nail"

I've also ordered a new sump gasket from my local Kawasaki dealer which should arrive next Tuesday, so hopefully I can start fitting my nice new dry sump then.  In preparation I've sprayed up the engine mounting frame and brackets.