Saturday July 17th 2004

Right time is marching on and the racing season is rapidly evaporating away,  If I'm going to get out on the track this year I need to get my Ar$e in gear.

Today I focussed mainly on brakes,  this is the last major system which I've made zero progress with.... so lets get on.

The first job was to run the brake and clutch lines to the rear of the car.  The existing flexible braided -3 hoses that were on the car look fine with no visible signs of damage or fretting, so I decided to re uses these, but I did blow them out with compressed air to make sure no grit or rubbish had got into them.

So these lines were run down the offside of the car and P clipped into place.  This side of the car is now complete, and the bodywork can now be refitted.

With the brake lines fitted it was time to look at the pedals,  I removed  the throttle and clutch pedals from the Ali plate on which they were mounted.  The pedals and (in the case of the clutch) master cylinders were fine and just needed a clean and repaint.   However the same could not be said for the brake pedal and the balance bar.

The balance bar assembly itself felt very gritty when moved and the pedal was showing signs of corrosion as well.  The slide tube in which the bar moves was also showing signs of wear so it was a bit of a no "brainer" to fit my spare set of Wilwood pedals.   I was fortunate to have a set of brand new master cylinders that matched the original Girling bore sizes and so these were fitted too.

 The only problem with these is that the push rods seem a little shorter than those on the Girling MCs so the brake pedal's natural position (with the pushrods inserted a decent way into the clevises) is behind the accelerator.  I think I can adjust this out later though.

Next on to the master cylinder reservoirs. These were positioned directly on the MCs themselves but access was very difficult so I elected to move them up slightly.  It raises the COG a bit, but not in any sort of major way compared to the lump of "Fine English Lard" in the drivers seat!.

They are at a jaunty angle in the picture as I need to get some 7\16th UNF plain nets to secure them in place on the bracket that I fabricated and riveted to the front bulkhead. Actually I think the reservoirs are now higher than necessary and I'm going to turn the bracket around.  

Next on the list was to finish the calliper mounting brackets.  Here you can see a huuge lump of ali that joins the calliper on to the upright.  The offset spacing is now correct and the disk runs correctly in the groove between the green stuff pads.  Both the brackets and the uprights need machining though.   The brackets need to be thinner (21mm) and have a large amount of the extraneous Ali removed to make them lighter (they currently weigh nearly as much as the callipers!).  Then the uprights need to be machined to move the mounting faces on the calliper supports closer to the disk by a about 12mm.  This should then give me a disk circumference-calliper gap of about 1.5 mm.  I'm sure I could loose a lot more weight from the brackets,  but hey these are my brakes  so I'm not taking any chances.   The uprights and callipers will be sent to my local machine shop on Monday.  Hopefully I can have them back by the weekend and then the car will have working brakes.

Also in this picture you can see the front brake lines that I made up from the components I ordered from Think Automotive last week.  Like Tim I also found that I needed to chop the end off the fitting before screwing it into the calliper to avoid it hitting the backs of the pistons.

So here are the completed front brake lines waiting to be fitted.  As I say if I get the callipers and brackets back in time she'll have brakes next weekend.

Tuesday 20th July 2004

Not much time tonight,  but I finally had all the prerequisite bits in place to start installing the rear brakes or at least one of them,  I can't do the other side as one of the disks is away being used as a template to guide the machinists working on the front uprights (the disks are the same at both ends).

So with Hi-Spec's brackets machined with pockets for the mounting nuts, some K nuts from Demon Tweeks, and appropriate spacing washers in place the installation  looks like this. 

I also rerouted and 'P' clipped down the existing braided brake hoses.  They were a bit close to the exhaust,  lastly I inserted a new section of hose to run out to the calliper. 

I'll do the other side at the end of the week when I get the disk back.

Wednesday 21st July 2004

Actually I have fitted the disk and calliper to the other rear wheel (I swapped over the disk to allow me to sort the calliper).  It looks the same as the picture above so I've not added another.  However it was a slightly problematical process. The mounting points are at a very slightly different PCD to those on the  OS calliper so that I had to use a reasonably large soft  faced persuader (hammer) to get the bolts through the mounting holes and into the brackets.   Then it transpired that the offset was different too, so that the disk was about 1.5mm too close the the inboard face of the calliper.  Lastly I found that when I bolted the bracket up tight the inside of the disc groove tightly clamped the circumference of the disk and stopped it moving.  However fortunately these callipers are radial mounts, so a couple of washers between the calliper and the bracket moves it away from the disk edge, and 4 washers between the disk and the hub sorted the offset out, and erm .....a hammer sorted the rest.

With both callipers in place, I was able to finalise and clip in place all the rear brake lines.  When I get the front, uprights, callipers and disks back from the engineering shop I will have to swap the disks around  (the front's are grooved and the rears are not) but with everything already fitted into place this should only be a 10 minutes job. Ha Ha ha hahahahahahah....... Nothing on this car is ever a 10 minute job.

Talking of the front disks, and callipers, I've now been told that I won't get them until next Friday (30th July)  So I've resolved that I want to get all the  other  jobs on the car that are in the way of it actually being driven done by then.  So that when I get the front uprights and disks back I can just bolt them on, bleed the brakes and then drive her around! At least that's the plan!

Saturday 24th July 2004

One of the major systems that has zero progress is the clutch..... so that got my full attention today.  The ZX12 engine is designed for a cable clutch but Tim Pell has  sent me a bracket for converting it to a hydraulic system.  As the car already has both the clutch MC & pedal and the hydraulic lines fitted this seems the sensible way to go.

This is the clutch slave cylinder from an early MG metro,  it has a cup type piston rather an actuator arm which basically allows me to build a con rod out of a length of steel rod with a rounded end. It also has a nice flat mounting flange with a two bolt fitment which make making a bracket for it really easy.  Actually Tim Pell made the bracket for me so that was really really easy :-)

On thing that did cause a problem was the fluid feed port on the lower left hand side of the cylinder.  This port is threaded M12x1.0 which is a standard size for the tube nuts fitted to hardline brakepipes.  However my car is fitted with flexible Aeroquip hose and a -3\M10 banjo union.   Unfortunately you can't get -3\m12 banjo bolts.  Great! :-(  .  so how about a M12x.0 to -3 converter union.  Oh yes you can get these but they are 17.95 plus vat.  Bejeezus the whole cylinder only cost £25 quid.  I'm not paying that!   So I had a bit of a think and then went and bought a couple of brake line M12x1 tube nuts for the princely sum of £1.  I drilled out the centre hole to 9mm and then tapped out one of these to M10x1.  Now a M10 banjo bolt fits nicely and I can use the existing piping.  The wall thickness is fairly thin, but once you get the banjo bolt in place it all firms up and seals nicely.

So on with actually installing the clutch.  First job was to cut down the actuating lever arm and remove the cable attachment.  at this stage I planned to weld the new lever on to the stub of the existing arm, but I eventually decided to remove it entirely by grinding the domed weld off the top of the arm.   This left me a short cylindrical stub onto which the new lever is welded.  Before I removed the arm I carefully noted the orientation of the actuating slot in the clutch shaft relative to the arm.

Next came job number two;  pick up newly modified clutch arm, and burn thumb on the still very hot area that has just been ground down!  Ow Ow OW!.

Damn!

Next I TIG welded the new actuating arm onto the shaft..... and left well alone for half an hour while I went to lick my wounds.

Tim P had supplied me with a new arm and two halves of the clutch mounting bracket which needed to be welded into place when everything was lined up.

Now I could fit the new bracket  to clutch itself.

Here you can see the new actuating arm which I welded on and a mock up of the push rod and spherical bearing I'll be using to connect them to the slave cylinder. 

So now I needed to fit the mounting bracket, this proved to be pretty tough as I needed to align the push rod in two planes, line up slave cylinder and hold the brackets in place so that I could tack weld them  I needed about 6 hands so the end I decided to weld the bracket together, and then adjust it later.  so a bit more TIG welding followed plus I drilled and tapped the holes for the slave cylinder mounting bolts.

As you can see I didn't quite get it all lined up perfectly, but this is easily solved by slotting the uppermost hole to allow the cylinder to be rotated slightly in a clockwise direction.

Similarly the mounting holes in the vertical face of the bracket can be eased slightly to allow the bracket to be adjusted in the Z axis.

So now it was time to bleed the clutch.  I connected up the reservoir to the master cylinder filled it with fluid an then went to the engine bay to bleed it using my compressed air vacuum bleeder.  It seemed to take ages to pull the fluid through,  So I went back to the front to check it only to find a big puddle of fluid in the car coming from a leaky MC joint.  Damn Damn Damn.....I clean it up tighten the joint and try again.  The fluid has dripped through the drain holes in the floor and is quietly stripping the paint off the floor.  :-(

With the mess cleaned up, and the clutch properly bled I try the pedal, it's very very soft, not spongy but very soft, and checking the lever it's only moving about 10mm,  I'm not sure if this enough, and given that the car is only on two wheels at the moment I'm not too keen to fire up the engine and try stuffing it into gear.  However I do check the MC bore size and it is the smallest available .635 inch.   The rule with bore sizes is  smaller the MC bore relative to the slave's size means more pedal travel and softer feel for a given short travel of the actuating arm.  I'll think have  about this overnight.

The last thing I managed to do today is fit a new electrical connector to the dash to allow the front bodywork to be removed and the all electrics to be disconnected with a single plug.

Sunday 24th July 2004

Not much time today as we are going out for my Nephews birthday, but I' have decided to swap the clutch MC for a larger one.  So I spent 45mins or so fitting a .750 bore one.  Unfortunately every Autoparts shop in the area has decided to close on Sundays so I can't get any more fluid to test it. :-(

Monday 25th July 2004

Tonight I had a very productive couple of hours.

Firstly I filled and bled the clutch with new fluid, and tried out the larger MC.  the pedal now has the correct sort of resistance and the actuating arm moves about twice as far.  I have been warned not to push the clutch lever to far for fear of damaging the internals,  but this does seem about right now.  I'll test it when the front uprights and brakes get fitted later on this week.  It also reminds me that I need to fit the 10% stronger clutch springs that I bought months ago.  These hopefully will give me a nice firmish clutch pedal.  I still need to fit some return springs,  some motion stops and adjust the slave cylinder's orientation but I think the clutch is now 90% there.  :-)

Next I made up a little bracket and fitted the rain light that is mandated by the regulations. I did ponder for some time the wisdom of riveting the bracket to the roll bar, I wondered whether the holes would act as stress raisers and promote the bar to buckle in an accident.  But the MSA regs actually mandate a 6mm hole in the underside to allow the tube wall thickness to be checked by the scrutineers so I figured four small 1\8th inch holes weren't going to be an issue.  My soldering iron has blown up so I'm just waiting for a new one before I complete the rain light's cabling.

Next it was onto the last of the wiring at the front of the car.  Where I wrapped, cable tied and P clipped the last of the wiring in place.

Next I fixed a couple of other little wiring jobs that have been hanging around.

I earthed out the fuel tank, and fitted the fuel level sensor connector for the Digidash. I also earthed the dry sump tank.  In both cases the rubber mounts I had used had electrically isolated the senders causing the Digidash to show "Not connected"

While in an electrical frame of mind I bonded the gear indicator LED and circuit board into the display panel that will fit into the Aeroscreen\deflector  just above the steering wheel.

With that done I moved on to the engine bay wiring.  The engine bay looms are the last bits of the wiring to need binding, tidying and clipping into place.  Firstly I extended the crank angle sensor cabling so that I could run it across the rear of the  main bulkhead.  Now it was 9:20 and I was 20 mins over my self imposed curfew and so that was it for tonight.  The blue shiny cable is a heat resistant covering for the CAS cables.

Once indoors I tried to make a big long snagging list of all the things I needed to do to get the car race worthy.  Everything from major jobs like fit front uprights and brakes to minor stuff like label fuses.  In all it totalled over 100 items perhaps I'm not as close to the finish as I thought!

Wednesday July 28th 2004

Today I made a start on the 100+ outstanding items in my to do list.

First up, with the aid of my newly arrived soldering iron from Maplin I completed the wiring for the rain light mounted on the Roll Bar. Ok lets flip  the the switch... bejeezus that's bright.  It's strange the racing regs specify that this must be high up and central to the roll bar, and it is most specifically a high visibility rain light.  But my experience shows that on the public highway when it rains people will invariably put on their fogs lights and all they do is dazzle you due to the rain.  Quite what it's going to be like trying to race and see through an adrenalin misted visor with these things dazzling you through the  the rain god only knows!

Next onto the rear loom connector.  I'm reusing the original loom that is already fitted to the rear engine cover, it mates with a circular connector that is on the NS rear of the chassis.  So I dragged my spare battery up to the smallest bedroom where the bodywork is stored (don't ask) and probed the terminals until I was sure that I knew which was which.  With my trusty diagram in hand I went back down to the garage and made up the connector.  I could then cable tie the loom in place and mount the earth connection for the rear lights.  I can't yet test them as the two halves are currently separated by a flight of stairs so only time will tell if my left indicator will turn on the brake lights.  I haven't fitted a fog light,  but I have fitted the switch gear and cabling just in case the scrutineers insist I fit one.

Next onto the main engine looms,  the work I completed on Monday had given me a good start on sorting out the looms at the top of the engine. So today I completed the extension wiring for the crank angle sensor,  mounted the intake pressure sensor and connected it's cabling.  Lastly I extended the wiring for the intake air temp sensor.  I can't mountthis yet  as I haven't  got a filter and back plate, but TimH picked one up for me from Lydden last weekend so I can do that soon. The loom routing is now sorted and just awaiting binding and heat wrapping.  As you can see some of it is perilously close to the exhaust.

The wiring around the top of the engine passes close by the hole where the fuel filler pipe will run, so while I was P Clipping the wiring into place, I trimmed up the hole and put some anti chafe beading on the cut edges. With this done I can now permanently fit the fuel tank

Next on to the oil pressure warning switches,  I had used standard bike switch which apparently turns on the warning lights at some unfeasibly low pressure so that once the warning light is on the damage is already done. I had previously ordered  an adjustable unit from Think automotive that will allow me to set the warning level in the 20-30PSi range so I fitted it now, it's the small unit on the blue T Piece, the larger unit is the Digidash oil pressure sensor, both run from a small length of High pressure pipe feed from the main oil gallery

The downside is that the oil warning lights will be on when running at hot idle.... But I shouldn't see it at all once the engine is actually spinning.  So I'm swapping a false positive at  idle for much earlier warning of impending failure when actually running at full chat.  These switched drive some warning LEDS, which operate separately to the  oil warning features in the Digidash. 

The Digidash  uses a different sensor and provides for a configurable alarm threshold, and a minimum number of revs below which the alarm is disabled (to prevent false positives at idle).  Why have two systems?  Well if the Digidash fails mid race and I lose all it's warning lights  I can still carry on provided my separate oil LED is off.

Last job of the night was to bond the gear indicator panel into place in the air deflector.

I really must get a filter\bezel to cover the front of the 7 segment LED. Once it's dry I can bond it onto the front bodywork.

There...... that's at least 10 jobs knocked of my to do list. :-) a very productive evening.

Saturday July 31st 2004

Today is the day I get my brake components back from the machine shop, but not until 12:30.

So the first job of the day is to do some chassis panelling in preparation for making a foam seat.   I've been convinced by various people that seats made out of two part expanding foam are a much safer and more comfortable option than seats made from a GRP bucket. Specifically GRP seats have been known to flex, break and crack in accidents.  An RGB racer ended up with four broken ribs like this earlier in the year.  However foam seats need to be located well in the chassis and the EVO doesn't have a transmission tunnel to help locate the foam hence the need to panel the triangular areas between the bracing struts and the firewall.

So I cut and shaped panels for the triangular areas between the middle brace in the centre of the car and also for the corresponding area between the roll bar brace on the outside.  This took ages to do, by the time I'd made templates and so forth it was getting time to go and fetch the callipers & brackets.  I didn't eventually finish this job until about 2:30.  The triangle in the middle is also bonded in place as this will form part of the protective tank that will cover the fuel tank.  When I had finished I had a rather neat bucket so sit the foam seat in.

I've made the panel on the left of the picture quit a bit higher than the firewall, This is because I intend to mount the extinguisher release and electrical cut off on this panel.

The cut outs in both panels are for bringing the harnesses through, and will be fitted with some anti chafe edge trim.

So on to my brakes.  I nipped over to my local machine shop and collected the brackets and front uprights.  They've made a cracking job of the brackets, considering I gave them two pieces of Ali with lines and dimensions on them and no drawings. 

Once the brackets were made they then had to mount my callipers on the brackets and then machine the mounting lugs on the uprights to bring the callipers to the edge of the disk with a suitable 1-1.5mm gap.

it looks like they've done a great job,  last of all they had to machine a second set of disks to fit the hubs, so that these can be used on the back of the car.

First job was to fit the new disks to the rear hubs and retrieve the front disks which I had been using as a guide while I mounted the rear callipers.  (The disks are identical front-back)

Getting the old disk off was easy,  fitting the new ones was less so. The engineering shop had made the disks so they were a good tight fit to the front uprights, however the rear hubs must be marginally different, and while I could get the new disks on I couldn't seat them on the hubs.  Well not without smacking them with a large hammer.... so these can go back on Monday to get the central hole eased a bit.

I'm happy to report that the front disks and callipers fitted perfectly, although lack of disks at the rear means that I can't fill and bleed the brakes just yet..... this will have to wait until Monday.

I also need some longer bolts for the bracket-upright mountings.

 Of course in order to fit the callipers I also had to refit the front uprights and took this opportunity to fit new King Pin bolts, it's very nice It's very nice to see the car back on four wheels. and hopefully she'll actually be drivable soon. 

Next on today's list of jobs, was to make and fit the fuel tank restraining straps.  These are just inch wide bits of ali sheet mounted on the tank with some rubber to prevent chaffing.  With these complete the tank can now be panelled over to meet the regs.

The only other thing I managed to do was to remove the fuel surge tank.  I'd noticed I'd got a slightly weeping union on one of the hoses.  Unfortunately is was leaking through the NPT threads which when I examined them were badly damaged,  numpty that I am I'd obviously damaged them when fitting the brass union.   This will take some repairing tomorrow.