Engine & Transmission Installation

Time to fit the engine and gearbox! After attaching the finished gearbox to the engine, we lifted the front of the car up and slid the engine/gearbox combo underneath (these were on a wheeled trolley). It's then a series of incremental steps of lowering the car and easing the engine back into the bay so the gear box feeds into the transmission tunnel. We removed the lower mid chassis braces to assist in positioning the gearbox, and we also removed some of the cooling system and the idler pulley from the engine to allow it to fit.

You will notice a pair of feet or legs appearing in these shots. These are artistically provided by Steve (Shireman on OzClubbies) who has decided that all shots should have his feet featured in them. This exercise would have been impossible without his assistance as the constant positioning and repositioning of the car and engine needs plenty of carefully applied brute strength. The photo to the left is about halfway through the install with the car being lowered. When I do this again I would be inclined to remove the gearbox support subframe from the chassis as well and attach it later (reverse of how we actually did it).
Once the engine is fully seated in the engine bay, its a case of lining up the engine mounts (previously attached to the engine) with the mount points and then bolt these up. Its amazing that the entire engine is supported by only 4 hex bolts (mounts to block) and two large bolts (mounts to chassis).

After some four hours, about an hour of which was spent laying on the floor trying to located and secure the flexible gearbox mount bolts, the engine was fully installed. From here the pieces that were removed were added, the chassis cross braces were reinstalled and the hose for the clutch was routed across towards the distribution point for all of the hydraulic lines.  Engine and gearbox in!. This was a great step as it really now feels like its a car, and I can see what needs to be done to complete it.  Thanks again to Steve for skinning his knuckles and sliding around on the dirty garage floor underneath the car securing bolts all in the name of getting the car finished!

(One more photo from another angle because it looks so cool now!).


Lessons learnt:
- Remove the gearbox support from the chassis
- Remove the old manifold studs first.
- Have the engine on its trolley as close to mount height as possible.
- PUT OIL IN GEARBOX BEFORE YOU INSTALL!!! (its a pain to do it once fitted)

Instrumentation

I received the remaining switchgear and dash lighting from CBS Online in the UK. This allowed me to go and sort out the final placement and do the fitting. I fitted the steering wheel (tapered spline so its not coming off anytime soon!), and then was able to slide in and see where everything should go. For the additional warning lights I masked up the carbon fibre, did some set out and then drilled pilot holes in increasing sizes until I could get the step drill in. From here I widened these holes out to 14mm diameter, and I also used the step drill to enlarge the existing holes. For the round switch gear I simply used the Dremel to enlarge the holes to get a snug fit, and the rocker switches just snapped into the rectangular holes with no dramas. 

The gauges are the VDO Cockpit Vision family, and they are easily fitted with screw on backings. These came from Airco in Sydney, who are the distributor for VDO. They are well worth a visit and were very helpful and friendly. My loom was already wired for VDO gauges which made it that much easier to choose them. Visibility of the top of the speedo and tacho is an issue, so I have also purchased a Shift-I light cluster for the top of the scuttle to help with watching revs and shift points.

Wheels

The wheels and tyres arrived today from Performance Alloys. They are 15 x 6.5 Speedline Corse Marmoras in Anthracite. They are a lightweight and gorgeous :)

The tyres are Toyo Proxes T1R. I opted for these over full R spec tyres until I learn how the car handles and what it feels like.

And now they are on the car, and its down off the build table and on chassis stands. Hopefully now I can get a lot more done!

Progress so far

I realised going back over this blog that I had not published an overall photo of the progress so far. So here it is. The suspension and steering are finished. The body wiring loom is in and most of the dashboard is fitted out. All of the hydraulic reservoirs and lines are in. The seatbelts are fitted and I have one seat in for testing gauge and warning light positioning. I expect the wheels to arrive tomorrow which will allow me to drop the car off the table and then fit the motor and gearbox which is waiting patiently on the other side of the garage.

Starting the Wiring

While I am still waiting for a few missing parts to turn up, and for the wheels to arrive I am getting as many fiddly little jobs out of the way. Today was the mounting of the wiper motor. Nothing to tricky there. Also got the dash Ground hooked up then cable tied in all the wiper motor cables and plugs so they were secure.


Main job for today was to start stripping back the donor car engine and dash looms to get the wires and connectors I need to merge with my existing body loom. The wiring is all now exposed and all the tape and flex is removed so I can begin the cutting and joining. Just doing some final checks on my wiring diagrams before I start cutting!

Bits and pieces

While I am still waiting for a handbrake pivot (which will unlock a whole range of build activities), I have gotten a lot of little tasks plus some shopping out of the way. I have purchased a set of VDO Cockpit Vision gauges, as my loom was already configured for these. These have been "fitted" more to see what that dash looks like, but will probably come out again before I do the switchgear and warning lights (which all need larger holes to be drilled first). I will finalise the dash loom after all the dash equipment goes in.

As the car will need seatbelts for compliance with the ADRs, I have fitted two inertia reel seat belts and buckles. This would seem like a fairly easy task, but required a fair bit of reconfiguration of the belts and some shuffling of bolts to fit. All in all that task took nearly 2 hours! 

Last thing tackled today was to fit the fuel pump to the tank. The pump was supplied already modified to suit the tank and the VDO gauges by Meridian. I chose this path rather than using the factory Focus pump as this would have required extensive modifications to the tanks, and it had suffered some damage in the donor wreck. I will also have to add an external regulator and filter when I connect the fuel lines up. I made a simple gasket from cork sheet before bolting the collar down on the pump. The tank is now ready to fit once I have the diff fitted (which is all back to the missing handbrake pivot!). I have put all the handbrake cables and the handbrake in while I wait for the pivot to arrive.

Master Cylinders

During the week, the master cylinders, reservoirs and hydraulic lines arrived. My mate Steve (Shireman on OzClubbies) put together the reservoirs and mounted them in their bracket, while I fitted the cylinders above the pedal box. A bit of wrangling with circlips and we had all the cylinders mounted. We then ran the first set of lines down to the distribution plate in the engine bay, and connected up the front and rear brake circuits. the clutch line will be finished once the engine and transmission goes in. The lines to the reservoirs will be connected once the reservoirs are mounted on the scuttle (which is currently off for wiring).