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 ;)

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!

Almost there....

Well after nearly 18 months this is what it looks like now. Only a handful of things to do so that I can get the engineering process started and get it registered. What's left to do?

• Fit rear tail lights onto the mudguards
• Refit the muffler (new one coming)
• Align and tighten headlights
• Recable the pilot indicator (they are crossed over)
• Install two more mirrors (left one is already on)
• Add number plate mounts

:)

High Level Brake Light

Another light fitted! This time it was the high level brake light on the roll bar. It's a Hella strip LED light, screwed into a moulded acrylic mounting block, screwed into the roll bar. The cables run internally down through the roll bar, and in under the boot where they are connected into the loom via a 2 pin removable connector. Light mounting was easy....cable routing was done after the bar was fitted, which was not easy (had to pull the cable through at least 6 times). I chose not to drill the holes and mount the light until the car was back on the ground on its wheels to ensure the mounting was level with the road.

Shift Lights

As a bit of a treat to myself I purchased a Shift-I tach light system. This is an Australian manufactured piece of kit, and it's brilliant. A lot of the Clubman drivers use these for track and race days as they a give visual cue for shifting, right in your line of sight without having to shift your eyes down to the tach. I have programmed mine to indicate the revs where maximum power is generated rather than the redline, as these are quite a bit different on the stock Duratec motor (and there is no point revving 1,500 revs past the point where maximum power is generated). 

I folded up a nice little sheet aluminum mounting bracket (painted black of course), and it is screwed down under the scuttle pad, with the cables routed through the top of the scuttle and down to the tacho. 

Windscreen Wipers

The wipers went on quite a few weeks back, but they didn't work as expected. First problem was that I didn't interpret the manual correctly on how to align the linkage to get them to operate in the right cycle. Second problem was that I stripped one of the nuts getting them back up, meaning I had to cut the nut off, which damaged the mounting spline. Luckily I had a spare linkage, so I dropped the damaged one out and replaced it. To get the cycle right I ended up climbing under the dash in Steve's Birkin, and copied how it was aligned and connected to the motor. We also made up some markers to fit to the spindles to get the cycle right. Once we were comfortable with the sweep of the arm, we bolted the arms into place and fitted the bolt caps. Must remember not to tighten things before I check how they are supposed to work.

Lighting - Front Indicators

The front indicators were a bit of a pain. They required drilling holes into the finished (painted!) nose cone to allow the stalks ti be bolted through the fibreglass. There are two small bulges in the fibreglass that you drill out to fit the nose mounted indicator stalks to. Not a pleasant experience and I remembered the tip to use blunt bits, just after I used perfectly new bits to chip and gouge the paint! I had to take the nose on and off 3 times to modify its position and to run the wiring down from the loom to the stalks. Anyway they are on and they work. Glad that's over! Oh and it also allowed me to fit the grill.

Roll Bar and Boot Lining

I have been desperate to get the boot lining off the garage floor and into the car for nearly 12 months. It is made of fairly thin GRP, and has two protruding strips where it meets the cockpit. Every time the kids went in the garage I was worried that someone would walk into and snap those strips off!

To get the boot in meant finishing all the rear wiring and lighting, checking all the suspension bolts, putting a moisture trap line on the fuel reg, checking all the fuel lines and clamps and then remounting the fuel tank in its proper place. When I went to mount it, I realized I had to lift out the cockpit side panels to get the front edge of the boot lining under the side panels. The side panels had already been bolted in place under the scuttle which meant some disassembly. However I soon had the boot lining in place.

The roll bar sits on top of the boot liner and bolts into the rear body rail and onto a pair of mount plates high on the frame behind the seats. Securing the roll bar uses huge M10 capscrews and requires manipulation of a few chassis cross members to fit it and get the capscrews in. I now need to mount the high level light now and get the wiring run inside the roll bar.

Reversing lights

Still working on wiring lights up. This time it was the reversing lights. I had already routed the rear loom around the fuel tank, so it was just a matter of positioning them and then drilling holes to mount them and route the wiring through. Before that I shifted the fuel tank forward and fitted a big piece of hardwood between the tank and the rear of the car - no sense in drilling the tank. The lights have a rubber base mount which also has a built in wiring grommet that allows centering of the mount. Pretty easy mounting exercise and best off they worked when tested.