Finished

So after 517 days I have gone from this.........


















to this!!!!!

Let me qualify finished. Its ready to undergo testing in order to get through the engineering and registration process. Its driveable and if there was a track day tomorrow, I could now go and drive my own Clubman on the track ;)

From here the next steps are:

• Trip to Redback Motorsport for suspension setup, wheel alignment and general checkup
• Tune up and possible trip onto the dyno
• New muffler 
• IM240 emissions test with the RMS at Botany
• Engineering check, brake test and noise test
• VIN and Registration plates (hopefully!)

I am reliably informed these cars are never truly finished. I will still need to do the tonneau cover, harnesses (for track) and the Autometer Tach Adapter but for now I have nothing else to do in order to get it registered.

A massive thank you to a pair of fellow Birkin drivers. To Steve for all his hard work and assistance on the two person jobs, and for keeping me motivated when the build got difficult and being there for the high 5 moments. Also to Maurice who provided endless hours of advice, design photos and suggestions on specific issues via email. 

Here's a few more photos ;)

Oxygen Sensors

When the original exhaust was fabricated, they forgot to add bosses into the catalytic converter for the oxygen sensors. So I have had the exhaust off and back at the shop having the cat modified. I now have bosses welded in to the cat at the front and the rear for the pre and post oxygen sensors. As the old Focus sensor cables were quite short, I had to splice in an additional 18 inches of new wire (4 wires in each sensor) per sensor.  These now route under the car, up inside the engine bay along the drivers foot well and up behind the engine to the loom. 

Exhaust Modifications

The exhaust I have had a rear exit, however when it was fitted, it was to high where it needed to pass under the guard. My aim is to have a nice side exit exhaust ready for rego, but this one will do now for testing and rego prep. So I could get it to fit with the guard, I cut the pipe where it exited the muffler and ground it back to the original flange. We then cut a piece of the old pipe at angle to use as a temporary tip. Using Steve's new MIG welder and our new found welding skills, we welded the temporary tip into place which now exits just under the guard and in front of the tyre, at about 45 degrees to the car and ground.

Mirrors

The mirrors should have been easy. Two wing mirrors screw into the windscreen frame, one main mirror glues onto the windscreen. The wing mirrors are EMGO motorbike mirrors. All good except I was sent Yamaha mirrors which have a right and left handed thread. The Birkin windscreen only has right hand threads. So I had to replace these with the same mirror, only both with right hand threads. The main mirror, I painted the body black (as always) and used an industrial glue to attached it to the screen.

Seatbelts

The missing piece of the seatbelts was the top mount bolt. This was a 7/16 UNF bolt (supplied new by Greg at Redback Motorsport). With the bolts in hand I was able to mount the top guide and put the covers on. Seatbelts now work!

Tail Lights

The tail lights were the final lights to be fitted. They are LED clusters including the reflectors from LED Technologies.  They required drilling holes into painted fibreglass...my favourite pastime! I checked the ADRs for the all the relevant distances, and then measured up. I masked the guards with tape and did all my set out on the tape. I then made a mounting template out of cardboard that matched the light mounts, and taped it to the guards. Once I was happy with the set out, I drilled both the 5mm mounting holes and 12 mm holes for the cable grommet and cabling.

Earlier in the day I had joined the connector wiring tails to the body loom, and these are routed through body grommets inside the mudguard. I have used table figure 8 brackets on  the mudguard bolts to cable tie up the cables inside the wheel arch. The lights have to be perpendicular to the road surface to meet ADRs, so I have fabricated up some blocks of high density rubber to fit behind the lights on the guard before bolting them into place. These came up OK if I do say so. Naturally the wiring all worked as my auto electrical skills have grown dramatically since undertaking this build.
Lights finished and ticked off the to do list!