Bonnet

Getting the bonnet on is a big step, one that signifies how close to the finish I am. I ran adhesive strip down both sides of the engine bay to cushion the bonnet, but I have not put tape on the scuttle or nose cone lips yet, as this needs to be thinner. The front left corner is not fitting well yet, and will need a little bending to get it to secure properly. It is also flaring a little at the back on the sides of the scuttle, but I believe this is a normal Birkin thing. I put the rubber trim that it came with back on across the front lip, but will probably remove it as the black line across the orange looks naff.

Nose Cone

When I put the nose cone on last time I scratched the hell out of the sides by fitting it the wrong way! So I was very wary of fitting it the final time. I taped up all the areas that could get scratched and mounted it from the bottom up. It went on somewhat easier than last time..... 4 bolts later and it was on and done up tight, with no more scratches! It may need to come off to tighten the indicators after I drill the holes in the sides.

Headlights with power

I connected up and tested the wiring for the headlights last night, and sorted out low/high beam and the parking lights. No parkers! Who the hell sells headlights without the parking light globes? Now I will need to pull the shells apart and then remove the globe holders to get the right globes. 


Either way they worked so thats another thing crossed off the list. I just need to route and secure the wiring correctly now, then once the car is back on the ground I can align them to their final position and tighten them up.

Headlights

I read another build diary at the start of my build that said the headlights were hard to fit, and that it was far easier with the struts removed. Well that blog was right. It is nearly impossible to route the cables through the mounts and it is impossible to route the cable on the inside of the strut mount, with the strut in place. So I dropped out the top strut bolts, and was able to get my fingers up inside the mount to finger tighten the nuts. The light mounts had to be machined down on a lathe by 15mm in order to expose enough thread. So for now they are finger tight and I can finish off the wiring. But I will need to remove the entire strut on both sides in order to properly tighten the mounts, and to finish off the alignment.

Seats

Are in. Will probably need to remove them to fit my road legal harnesses (if they arrive before rego!)

Scuttle Fitout

With the scuttle mounted, I am able to finish off all the under the bonnet jobs. There are a number of things that get mounted directly onto the scuttle under the bonnet line.

The brake and clutch reservoirs are bolted directly onto the scuttle and the low fluid warning light cables are fed up through the bracket and onto the switches.

Finishing the scuttle also means getting all of the electrical connections finished. The fuse rail is now secured in the fusebox with a rivnut and a set screw in the passengers footwell. The fusebox lid has been modified to fit around the bottom of the throttle body and is screwed onto the bulkhead.

On the far side away from the scuttle is the washer bottle. Its line runs from the pump through a small hole in the bottom of the steering column bush. The wiring feeds through a grommet in the scuttle below the tank and then up inside the bracket to connect to the pump. On the passengers side is a 1 litre expansion tank, which is mounted as the highest point in the cooling system. It has feed lines from the block and main cooling pipes, and returns to the thermostat. All of the cooling lines run down behind the block. Its all now tidy enough to fit the bonnet (once the nose cone goes on!).

Scuttle

After the engine, the scuttle was the thing I was most looking forward to getting fitted. It signifies the end of a lot of work. It means all of the dash and wiring is completed and tested, and that the interior is completed. It is also the second largest piece of metal fitted to the car after the bonnet so its a big step.

Firstly the scuttle has a lot of different components and hardware fitted before its mounted. This includes the wiper motor drive arms, the wiper spindles, the washer nozzle, the washer hose, the washer bottle and the battery isolation switch. All this work is done on the bench (complete with Steve's foot which has not put in an appearance for a while). You will notice the manual in use, however as per usual it was put away soon after this shot and we winged it.

This shot shows the  top of the scuttle with the wiper spindles exposed and the washer nozzle. The wiper mounts are polished metal, which will need to become black to fit in with everything else. As I will be mounting a Shift-I tacho light system on top of the scuttle (under the padding), I have wired some connectors into the existing tacho connector so that I can easily wire in the Shift-I later with the scuttle fitted. We also fitted rubber strips on the top of the body side where the scuttle sits.

From there is was just a matter of sitting the scuttle in place (about 4 times), lining up all the mounting holes, and then fixing the mounting brackets under the scuttle. The battery isolation switch fouled the bulkhead, so we removed some of the aluminum and smoothed out the bottom of the switch. We also drilled a small hole in the bottom of the steering column shim to allow the washer hose through to the washer bottle and pump.

This photo shows the washer bottle and battery isolation switch mounted. Next will be the reservoirs, expansion tank, the Shift-I and the dash padding.

Oh, and I changed the wiper mounts to black too, which looks much better!

Trying to Finish - Part 3

Over the last couple of nights I got a few small jobs done and a few bigger ones (more interesting!). I managed to check all the front upright torque settings and fit the final R pins. This finishes all the front suspension and steering components.


I got the seat belts back from Hemco with new right angle lower mounts. Many thanks to Andrew and Kerry for personally taking them down to Hemco to have them modified for me, along with theirs. I was then able to refit these into the cockpit. I took the opportunity make large rectangular load distribution plates to fit with the nuts, under the floor.


I got the pedal box mount relined with foam tape and finished mounting it in its final position, with the fabricated throttle mount installed. I also was able to route the throttle cable in preparation for fitting the pedal box cover.


The best part though was being able to mount the front mudguards. I gave them a few coats of stone and chip guard rubberised paint underneath to protect them. I then added the mount brackets and was able to mount them on the car. Looks cools!!!

Trying to Finish - Part 2

A couple of other little steps finished today pushing me closer to completion:

• Reassembled the front indicators and tested the indicator wiring.
• Used front indicators to confirm Hazard relay works OK.
• Rerouted water line connections for bleed line and EGR valve, and connected up new water lines from these back to expansion tank.
• Configured main water lines from thermostat back to the expansion tank 
• Machined up mounts for reversing lights.

I now need to wire in the side repeater indicators, so I can fit the scuttle, which will allow me to mount all the tanks and reservoirs, the windscreen and the wipers.

Once I fit the last R pin to the front uprights, I will also put the front mudguards in and then the nose cone.

Interior - Part 3

The carbon fibre centre panel is a tricky piece to fit. It holds an auxiliary power port and the wiper washer button. It would normally hold the heater controls, but I have chosen not to fit a heater. I have also chosen to use this panel to mount the original Focus cluster on, which I will explain later in this post. First task was to enlarge the holes to hold the switches and ports. This was done with a stepper bit and a sanding wheel in the Dremel. 


With that done, I turned to the mounting bracket for the original Focus. This is an idea borrowed from a fellow Birkin builder Maurice. The mount is a right angle aluminum bracket, bolted to the top of the carbon fibre panel. From here, two stainless steel bolts go through the front of the bracket, and secure the Focus cluster through the bottom.

An aluminum bracket is passed through the top of the Focus cluster, and it runs down the front and back of the cluster, and is clipped under the bottom. Then a wide piece of aluminum is fitted over the back of this bracket and secured to the bolts from the front. This makes the mount very solid and the cluster is held tightly in place. The circle on the left at the back is the warning chime speaker, which has been "modified" to lower the volume of the warning chimes. Because the front of the cluster has all the original LED warning lights, I have covered this with rubber, which is secured by the middle aluminum bracket and the two cable ties. The rubber sheeting also acts as a damper against vibration. The LEDs need to be covered otherwise I will get unwanted light from under the dash, and it will also bleed through gaps in the dash switches at night.

With the Focus cluster mounted, the next step was to mount the carbon fibre panel in the car with the cluster on top. Here is where I have stolen another idea from another fellow Birkin builder Andrew. I riveted two 90 degree brackets on the frame, and put rivnuts in those to receive screws through the carbon fibre panel. I used a trick Andrew posted on his build diary to line these two up so I could drill the holes through the carbon fibre. This worked a treat and very soon I had the panel secure in place, and the Focus cluster wired. This step has taken a long while to do and has been fairly fiddly, but I am pretty happy with the result. Its tidy and looks professional, not that you can see it from the cockpit!

Final position from above. I will probably reroute the cables back into the tunnel and bring them up through the carbon fibre panel into the cluster.

This what it looks like from the cockpit and behind. I will paint the bolt heads black.

This is what it looks like from the passenger foot well, before the scuttle goes on.

Interior - Part 2

After I loosened it (someone used Loctite initially!), Steve was able to remove the gear knob so that gear shift shroud could be fitted onto the tunnel. The gear knob was refitted, sans Loctite :) This now just leaves the carbon fibre centre panel to fit over the gap above the tunnel. You can see where the tunnel is bowed a little downwards, so I have riveted in a black strip of 3mm aluminum to hold the front of the tunnel straight.

I was also able to fit the interior side panels which need to go in before the scuttle is fitted, as the scuttle has right angle brackets under the dash that secure it and hold the side panels in simultaneously.

Interior - Part 1

As I am starting to wrap up, I am able to finish a few things off. In order to get the scuttle on, I need the Focus cluster mounted, which needs the carbon fibre panel mounted, which needs the transmission tunnel mounted!

Since I got all the transmission tunnel carpets in over the weekend, Monday night I was able to fit the transmission tunnel, and the handbrake boot....gear lever shroud will need to wait as I can't get the shift lever knob to budge ;)

The transmission tunnel was surprisingly easy....and I was ably assisted by my oldest son (who was going to help me build the car......).

With the tunnel in, I was also able to fit the rear bulkhead lining, but only using the top mounts. I have yet to drill and secure the panel at the bottom. This only leaves the seat belts to go back in, the seats, the main carpets and the carbon fibre centre panel to finish off the interior. 

Trying to Finish - Part 1

Happy New Year! I thought I had better update the diary as there has been some progress since the drive, although I have been limited to night time building and wet weekends only as a new pool and Christmas were priorities.


I have managed to prioritize my To Do list and I now know what needs to be done and in what order to get to engineering and rego. Also as an early Christmas present the NSW RTA was merged with the Maritime agency, to create the Roads and Maritime Service (RMS) dept. They subsequently released a new certification scheme called the VSCCS the week before Christmas. This makes it somewhat more predictable to engineer and register an ICV now in NSW. This is not a short cut, as you still need to build a quality car to the current ADRs, but it makes the certification process more consistent. All good!


So what has been done since I drove it back in early December? Lots of deconstruction in order to finish things off. A quick summary of tasks completed, then some photos:

• Completely rerouted the engine looms and ECU loom to hide the wiring, and rerouted the fuel lines and evaporative lines. This has made the engine very tidy (photo below). Many thanks to Steve for his help with this.
• Modified the throttle mount angle and notched the pedal box frame for the drive by wire connector. The drive also proved the that I had moved the pedal box to far forward, so its now back where it started. Pedals are all now finished. Once the cable is secure the pedal box cover will go on.
• Removed the cooling expansion tank, and rerouted all the cooling lines to face backwards in preparation for the mounting of the expansion tank on the scuttle.
• Fitted all the interior carpets.
• Had the seatbelt lower mounting plates modified to be compliant with ADRs.
• Successfully tested all of the dash switches and wiring (so the scuttle can go on)
• Fitted all of the wiring penetrations with grommets, and checked all the wiring cable ties.
• R pinned all the front ball joints.
• Tested the reversing switch and lights.

I have also purchased all the lights and started preparing them for mounting, either by fabricating mounts, wiring up adapters or painting brackets.

A couple of photos of the progress.

Engine wiring tidied up and fuel lines rerouted.

Seat belt mounting plate that had to be replaced with a 90 degree pivot mount that has the forces in a direct line with the bracket. Hemco are replacing these this week.

This is the headlight mounts before the first modification.

This is the headlight mounts after the holes were machined larger to take the light stalks. I still need to machine down the height of the adapter so I can get some thread to bite underneath.

These are the front indicators and mounting stalks as I received them, all chromed up.

This is what they look like after 3 coats of satin black! I have decided no chrome on this car, so every chrome part is being either painted or etch primed and painted satin black.

This is the rear license plate light (painted black), fitted, wired and working. I suspect the fuel filler may have to be painted black as well :)

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?!?!?!?!?!?