First Drive (sort of)

After getting the throttle in last Sunday, I arrived home from work on Monday (in the rain) and my kids said "Why don't you see if it drives Dad?". Hard to argue with that logic so I donned the Puma Drift Cats (the only shoes for driving a Clubman) and headed out to the garage. After warming her up for a few minutes, we set out on an exploratory trip up the driveway (cameos and stupid commentary courtesy of kids shooting the video).


First drive video

So not very exciting, but it proved a few things. Firstly, the clutch master cylinder positioning is good, and the clutch take up and release points aren't bad, and there is no drag (this means the engine and gearbox stay in). Secondly, the brakes work, just need to release the pivot bearing a little to the get full pedal return. Lastly, because it was nearly dark when I tested it, I was able to test all the dash lighting and switches, and they all work as well. So all in all, a good if not massively exciting test run.


On the second run I gave the throttle a little stab, and was shocked at how hard it wanted to take off.....cannot wait to get it out and running properly!!!!


The car is now back up on chassis stands and I am ripping bits off it in order to get things finalised. Not long now!!!

Throttle Mount

As the Duratec uses a drive by wire throttle linked to the ECU, I needed to mount the throttle pedal body somewhere near the existing pedal box. After seeing what other builders had done, I elected to suspend the throttle pedal body on aluminum plate off the back of the pedal box. This took 2.5 attempts to get a mount I was happy with, as the angle and left/right position of the bracket, and the pedal on the bracket is crucial. To far right and the throttle connector fouls the pedal box and frame. To far left and the brake will hit the throttle (ok for heel and toe I guess!).


I also fabricated up from 3mm angle a pedal cover for the throttle which is bolted through the old plastic throttle lever. All of these pieces are bolted up temporarily until I am happy with the position. In sitting in the car I now find the pedal reach is to far, which is ok as I moved the pedal box one adjustment forward....so I guess I am now moving it back one adjustment.


So with the throttle mounted.....I may be able to drive it now?!?!?!?!?!?

Since the start....

I figured once I had the car started......another few nights in the garage would see it finished! Another wise Birkin owner (lets call him Maurice!) told me I would be surprised how long these simple finishing tasks would take to complete.........

One of the things I did leading up to the start was have a To Do list that had all the preceding tasks prioritised. Post engine start, I had prepared a list of tasks to finish the car (about 80 tasks), but had not done any prioritising. So many a night has been spent in the garage about to start a task, followed by 60 minutes of pondering (Steve call's it procrastinating ;) the preceding tasks and then walking back into the house having done nothing. For example:

• To mount the reservoirs and expansion tank on the scuttle
• Needs the scuttle to be mounted
• Which means all the wiring has to be finished and checked
• Which means all the lights have to be fitted and tested
• Which means the mudguards need to be fitted
• Which means I need to move the exhaust and finalise the wheel alignments

As a result not a lot of progress. I have managed a few small jobs and these are leading to the chance for me to at least drive the car up the driveway for the first time.

I have modified the pedal box to remove the existing cable activated throttle in order to mount the Focus drive by wire throttle. This involved cutting two parts of the original pedal box off that held the throttle pivot and removing some spacers. Those who have this pedal box will recognise where I have cut it and how neat I have been! This also meant switching the brake pedal pad to the left side of the lever to accommodate the larger throttle. I have since fabricated throttle mount prototype 1 which didn't fit well, and am now half way through prototype 2 which should be the winner. This will allow the throttle pedal to be mounted and a potential drive up the driveway.

I have also removed the Fuel Pressure Regulator and reconnected all the fuel lines and run the engine in that configuration.

 As part of the finishing the wiring, I needed to connect the reverse lights to the reverse switch in the Type 9 gearbox. This is what the switch looked like - missing the connector pins!. So I have purchased a new one and fitted it to the gearbox and completed the reversing wiring. 

On top of all that I have been testing wiring into the dash, and have pulled the main loom off the engine and put rubber grommets into all the body holes, cable tied up the wiring to be in spec, and wrapped all of the engine loom wiring in plastic shielding to protect it in the engine bay. 


I have all the lights arriving this week and will make a concerted effort to get the finger out and get more done.

Engine Start Attempt

As it was a long weekend here, I had been planning for a few weeks to try to get the first start attempt organised for this weekend. After finishing the last few things on my To Do list we ran some electrical checks, then dropped her back on to her wheels. From here we pulled all the spark plugs out to lower compression and then cranked the engine over by hand to circulate some oil. We then cranked the engine over with out any fuel, to make sure it cranked. It did! This means most of the electrical system so far is working with no blue smoke coming out.


We then rolled her out the front, and broke out the fire extinguishers. I put 5 litres of fuel in the tank, and we got ready to fire it up. Turning the key got it to crank, but that was it. A glance at the fuel pressure gauge indicated no pressure. So either we had the filter in the wrong way up, the the FPR incorrectly set up, or the pump lines were wrong. We pulled the line off between the pump and the filter, and cranked it again back into the jerry can. Still no fuel?!? The pump was cutting out fairly quickly, so we surmised maybe there was not enough fuel in the tank, so we added 5 more litres and tried it again. Fuel started to splutter out of the hose! We reconnected it back to the filter and clamped it, then tried it again. No start, but this time the FPR went up to 90psi.....which is double what we need. I adjusted the FPR back down to 42psi and locked it off.


Put the key back in and cranked it over......

:)   Very happy!


It starts easily, runs very smoothly and revs nicely. Its fairly quiet with the muffler I have fitted. I need to reorganise the cooling, but it pressurised OK and nothing leaked. Best of all the fuel system worked perfectly (once we had enough fuel in it). Its hard to believe I have managed to pull together a bunch of parts from all over the world and combine them into a single working unit.


This is a major milestone as I can now engage the engineer to start certifying it for rego, and I can also start putting the finishing touches on it such as the windscreen, roll bar and the lights. 


Many thanks again to Steve who assisted with the troubleshooting and shared in the elation of the first start (although no feet in the video as he was shooting it on the phone!)

Electrical System Check

All work this week has led to a potential engine start. Today all that work was completed, so we made the final battery connection (body earth is good because I got the spanner to arc from the positive to the body) and switched on the master switch. This put put power on the old Focus dash cluster, and allowed us to switch the car to ON and see what worked. Expecting to hear potentially nothing, we heard the lovely sound of the fuel pump pressurising and the throttle body position sensor motor humming.


The old dash cluster lit up revealing the original engine mileage.....12,791km. On the downside, there are few errors we need to remove, and these have interesting alarm chimes sounding. Putting the old key near the PATS reader, we were able to make it crank over.........

Pod Air Filter

I didn't get the factory air box and air filter from the donor Focus, so I have fitted a pod filter in the interim to let me start it and get it engineered. Depending on the induction noise I may use it for rego........Looks cool though :)

Fan belt

Fitting the fan belt means I have the alternator 100% fitted, and the idler pulley refitted. The belt is a 5PK1260, which I cut one rib off using a Stanley knife. Being 4 ribs only means I can move it backward or forward for adjustment as the crank pulley and idler pulley are both 6 ribs.

Alternator - Part 2

After trying to fit the alternator I had, I decided it was to big for the space it was supposed to fit. I contacted the wrecker I got it from (New Model Wreckers) and they happily agreed to swap it for whatever I wanted. I went out there and 10 minutes later I had a tiny little Denso alternator from a Diahatsu Cuore. This is half the weight of the previous one and it fits into the right space without having to remove anything. Only problem now is that Eurospeed didn't have any billet mounting brackets in stock, and had no production runs planned for over 2 months. 


If I want to get the car started soon, I would need to fabricate the brackets myself, using 6mm aluminum plate. In the words of Jeremy Clarkson...."How hard can it be?".

This is prototype 1. The new alternator is mounted with the terminals outboard, and with the 10mm straight through bracket at the top. Prototype 1 was designed to bolt up onto the block about halfway up the block. The issue with this attempt was I cracked the 6mm aluminum while bending it, and it was fractionally forward of where it needed to be,

Here is prototype 1 mounted on the block.

Here is the alternator mounted on prototype 1. The issue here was the top mount appeared to be to low. This meant the bottom of the alternator was wedged between the frame and the block. Worse still, the bottom mount on the alternator fouled the bottom mount point on the block. 

Here is prototype 2. This was similar to 1, however I heated the aluminum while I bent it to avoid cracking. The alternator was reversed so the top pivot now was an 8mm threaded hole. The new bracket was drilled so that the pivot point was higher. Problem here was the main terminals now contacted the block, and the alternator body still fouled the frame, with little or no adjustment. Overall the alternator appeared to low.

Here is prototype 3 on the alternator, next to the remnants of prototypes 1 and 2. This new approach came about after a few beers and sitting looking at the problem for about an hour. I decided to see if I could use the original alternator mount as a hanger, rather than bolting the bracket to the block down lower. I put a bolt in this mount and hung the alternator on a cable tie to test. Looked OK. 

Prototype 3 was fabricated using 40mm right angle that is 6mm thick, shaped to suit the mount and the alternator. This is revision A with the alternator mounted. The issue here was that the bracket fouled the alternator bracket and didn't allow any adjustment. The alternator is spaced backwards with one washer.

This is revision B of prototype 3. I cut away the bottom half of the mounting face, and this allowed a larger range of adjustment. Prototype 3 mounts the alternator much higher, and allows lots of space either side of the alternator. This version means the alternator doesn't foul the block or the frame. Underneath here all of the alternator wiring is complete and the bottom mount is a 90 degree tab to locate the bottom mount onto the block. Prototype 3 is the winner! Tomorrow I can fit the fan belt and the idler pulley.

Fuel Pressure Gauge

The Duratec engine has a returnless fuel rail. Because I am not using a Focus fuel pump which has a built in regulator, I had to add the SARD Fuel Pressure Regulator. In order to set the pressure correctly on the system to around 40-42psi, I had to add a temporary fuel pressure gauge on the line to the rail. I have obtained a Speco Meter 100psi mechanical gauge on ebay and an 8mm line adapter. This will be removed once I have the fuel pump running correctly and the engine starts OK.

Exhaust System - Part 1

This is Part 1 because in order to pass rego here, you need to meet stringent emissions levels and various noise tests. So to get past rego I have had the first exhaust fitted which is functional only (not pretty!). It consists of a Commodore VZ catalytic converter, and a very large, heavily baffled muffler, which then continues under the car to a rear exit. It is shielded for rego as well. 

Faking it......

The car needs to head off to a custom exhaust shop this week to get its cat and mufflers fitted for rego. Before it leaves the house I need to sort out insurance. The chosen insurer needs to see a photo biography and description for the car. So I have fitted the nose cone, scuttle, bonnet, boot, roll bar and mudguards in order to show the finished product. They will all come off tomorrow to allow me to finish under the bonnet, but I did sit in it for about 30 minutes today and on the floor next to it just looking at it;)

Its the first time I have been able to see the overall colour scheme and the wheels combined, and I am very happy with the result. One thing I will probably change as time goes by is that as the guards get stone chipped I will carbon wrap them......and maybe the nose cone!

Electrical System

One thing I had been putting off since January was cutting the wiring harness from the Focus and making up the extension harness to pull all the wiring together. Whilst I thought I could do it, the reality is my skills would have got me 80% of the way, and the last 20% would have been expensive and time consuming to fix. I bit the bullet and did what all clever Clubbie builders do in Australia, gave the wiring to Jeff Mills from Precision Auto Electrical in Nowra. Jeff is a fellow Clubman driver (very quick by all accounts!), and in less than 2 weeks he had converted my two donor looms into a thing of beauty. I am still laying the new harness out and will post photos when its done, but here is a photo of the bulkhead and fuse box after connecting Jeff's loom into the body loom and ECU. Very tidy! 

Cooling System - Part 3

I know in previous Cooling system posts I said I was finished....but it had not been filled with water/coolant. Yesterday I filled it with water only, to see if it was water tight. It is!!!! I have to pressurize it, but this is the first time something hasn't leaked. What I found was I needed to reposition the P clips holding the rail a little lower, and I added the the overflow hose from the neck to the expansion tank. Since it hasn't leaked, I have put the radiator cap on. Once it is started and running I will drain the water and replace with coolant, and I have also decided to relocate the expansion tank to the scuttle, which will shorten all the hoses, but it will look better and be a lot easier to access. I will post a photo of the new expansion tank position once moved.

Taking the Birkin outside

With the brakes bled, I felt it was time to try a few things out, so I bolted the wheels  back on and wheeled it out of the garage for the first time into the sunlight! I wanted to try and test a few things out:

• Handbrake - just holds but needs tightening
• Clutch - actuates beautifully allowing the gearbox to be shifted ok
• Steering - pretty straight on initial alignment
• Suspension - moves OK, no leaks, but ride height needs some work
• Brakes - dragging a little but probably just need to knock the caliper pistons back a little. Still needs another bleed.

We did a few runs and turned the car around so the engine is now directly under the lights. I have posted all of the pics from this afternoons outing. One thing today proved, the colour of the car is awesome and the wheels are perfect!

 Wheels on ..... down off the chassis stand

First roll out into daylight...Junior Build Assistant at the wheel...really!

After testing the handbrake, obligatory chunk of wood behind wheel

 Engine sees daylight!

Testing the steering

Top of the driveway...getting looks from everybody who drives buy!

Turned around and waiting to go down the driveway....had its first trip out on the road too

From the garage....wheels look awesome from here... last Birkin photographed here was Little Red

 In the setting sun.......

 Getting ready to run down the driveway into the garage

 Sump clearance on top of the driveway...glad I went Raceline :) Lots of work to do on ride height

 The cockpit .......

 Low down on right side flank

Best side for the wheels!

Back in the garage, head first this time...all tucked up and ready for bed

Brake Bleeding 101

I have been trying to get some feel in the brake pedal for nearly 3 weeks, trying a whole bunch of different techniques. Nothing changed the way the pedal felt. A side conversation with Greg from Redback Motorsport, and he mentioned that sometimes in new cylinders a piston can get stuck at the top of the stroke, especially if they are actuated before they have fluid in them. Solution, drain the reservoir to about half, put the compressed air hose into the reservoir over the cylinder line, and put a tiny squirt of air down each line to reseat the piston.


Of course I used more air than needed and blew fluid everywhere, but net result after a doing this step and a 5 minute bleed around the car was a pretty clean fluid flow and about 85% of the pedal feel I was after. Said it before, Greg is a legend!!!

Boot Cover

A "simple" job that I started in January when I was waiting for parts, got finished today. Riveting 16 press studs to the body for the boot cover. Why so long? Setting out and drilling the holes was relatively easy. When I fitted the first press stud (back in January), it was loose?!?! Second one, also loose?!?! Then I realised my rivet gun die did not fit inside the press stud, so I was not making full contact with the rivet head (2 mm of float). Amazingly simple solution from a fellow builder Andrew, put a small nut over the rivet that fits inside the press stud. Easy when you know how!

Cooling System - Part 2

I needed to source a 32mm OD aluminum pipe to connect the rear hoses to the radiator. I also needed to splice in the aluminum block that holds the water temp sender. I bought a couple of nice stainless steel P clips to connect the pipe to the block, however these needed to be drilled out to fit the bolts. I managed to wreck one while drilling but I was able to fabricate a rubber lined P clip from aluminum in no time to replace it. This is the last bit of the cooling system (save for the missing radiator cap) and I can now fill it and test for any leaks before adding the coolant. Cooling system finished!

Alternator

I sourced a second hand alternator using Parts Locator. Its from a 2005 Diahatsu Sirion (1.3litre). Its larger than expected but will fit the space available. I could have also got one from a Mira or Charade. Most important is the serpentine (ribbed) pulley which matches my belts. Just needs a plug connector which Geoff Mills is adding now. I now need to fabricate two brackets to mount it to the block.