Shakedown - Part 1

I have made this post Part 1, because I reckon there is going to be a few more like it. I managed to reassemble the car after reconnecting the speedo wire so I could do the calibration. The other thing I needed to fix was the leak from bottom radiator hose. I popped the nose cone off to get to the hose clamp, and found it was not tight. I had put all the front hoses in long before I put coolant in, and never checked the tightness. Quick check of all the hoses around it and I found a similar story....oh well!


With these two problems fixed, I was able to take the car out to do the speedo calibration and just generally enjoy a drive. I organised to meet Steve and Dave, fellow clubman drivers at Steve's place which is happily about 20km away. On the  way out I did the 1km autocalibration test and found it needed 3580 pulses. With that done I had a functioning speedo.


The car went well but the trip exposed a few more problems:

• The thermostat appears to be stuck closed....so the car ran very hot!!!
• The muffler mount bent then broke
• One of the headlights stopped working.

All in all a good run. We got to take some photos and it was nice to have the car out somewhere other than my front yard, especially around other Clubbies. Not major problems to fix, and I expect I will uncover more problems on subsequent runs. Best part was coming home in convoy with two other Clubbies around me!

Troubleshooting the Speedo

I only have 3 weeks until the engineering inspection is done on the car so I need to wrap up some loose ends. One of those is the lack of speed on the speedo. I tried to calibrate it both manually and automatically on my last 2 runs but it refuses to detect a pulse. 

The speedo uses what I thought was a Hall Effect sensor, but now know is an Inductive sensor on the diff housing. The inductive pole (magnets) portion is mounted in a bracket close to the end of the CV joint bolts, and it is supposed to measure each time a bolt passes it as a pulse. You then work out how many pulses you need per kilometre and you are set.

I assumed the problem was the air gap between the sensor and the bolts, as I had not paid a lot of attention to setting the gap in my haste to finish the car (will do it later!). The gap is supposed to be between 0.3mm and 0.8mm (hard to measure I know). The problem now is to get to the sensor to reset it I needed to do a bit of dismantling once the car was up on stands. So off came:

• Right rear wheel
• Scuttle mount plates
• Bottom scuttle screws
• Interior side panels
• Seat headrests
• Roll cage 
• Boot liner

Everything is interconnected hence the amount of unrelated stuff that needed to come out. I exposed the sensor, repositioned it down to a very small gap, fired up the speedo and spun the wheels to check the pulse. Nothing!

So now I pulled the sensor out and checked the resistance of the inductive component when pulsed and it is working, so now I needed to test the wiring. I reached under the scuttle and disconnected the speedo connector. With the multi meter I belled out each of the wires from the sensor to the speedo. The blue/yellow wire is showing not connected?!?!. Bugger! Remembering the rear harness connects to the body loom in the fuse box, I figured I should check the connections in there as well. So more bits came out:

• Bonnet
• Pod air filter
• Fuse box lid
• Fuse rail mount

This exposed the rear harness connector and look what I found ------>. 

The wire join for the speedo sensor had come apart and out of the connector!

Easy enough fix. Rebind the wires, add a new terminal and reinsert it into the connector. Before I rejoined each step I belled out the connection to the sensor and the speedo to make sure it was OK, and then did the same end to end connection test. Once I had the end to end connections working, I put the sensor back on and tested it again with the speedo fired up. This time I got a pulse count on the speedo! 

Then it was just a matter of positioning the sensor, final testing and then putting everything back together!

Unregistered Vehicle Permit

A UVP let's you drive the car on the road "legally" while it's still unregistered. It requires an authorized safety inspection (pink slip) and a trip to the RTA. 


The Birkin passed it's safety inspection and the nice lady at the RTA issued me with my UVP which is now proudly stuck on the windscreen. 


The only catch is it can only be driven on nominated trips for specific purposes....but at least I can now officially move it around on the road from place to place to finish off the engineering and rego process without having to use a trailer...........................................like this!

Suspension Setup

I have given Redback Motorsports a rap before, but I am going to do it again. I dropped the Birkin off on Saturday to have Greg give it a once over and also to properly setup the suspension, steering and brake balance. Over a few days he setup all of my wheel cambers, wheel toe-in, ride height, spring preload and damper rates to suit a first time Clubman driver. He also checked my brake bias setup, adjusted my steering rack and wheel position, and sorted out a few issues on the sway bars. He also rang my engineer to discuss specific tests that would be carried out on the car come engineering time, and then made sure that my car was configured accordingly. 


Greg engineers some of the quickest and best sorted race Clubmans in Australia. He has a wealth of knowledge and best of all he is a great guy to just drop in and have a chat and a cuppa with. I am lucky to have access to such a skilled engineer so close to home, and I feel privileged to have his expertise applied to my car.


The car now feels properly secure on the road, and it turns in much more predictably and consistently than it did last week. It is also riding much nicer over broken pavement and changes in surface. 


If you live in or near Sydney, and you want your Clubman sorted... properly sorted ........ take it to Greg at Redback Motorsport!

First real drive...on the road!

Today the Birkin was booked in for it's blue slip safety inspection and a tune up. Its permitted to drive the car unregistered directly to and from the place of inspection....so drive it I did.


Unfortunately the guy who was to do the inspection was sick so I opted to bring the car home and postpone.


It worked out well as I found a few little problems on the drive.

• Speedo is not working (Hall Effect sensor problem)
• Leak in the lower front radiator pipe
• Assorted rattles from the exhaust and the left headlight lense.

But it was still my first proper drive and it was fun none the less. The car feels good on the road and it really zips along in any gear. Over an hour later I am still grinning like an idiot ;)