New Repeaters

The last remaining task from my engineering report was to replace the side indication repeaters. These have to be visible from an approach angle at the rear of the car from 5 to 55 degrees. Because of the height of the rear guards, I have extended these fairly high so they are completely visible from the rear. A quick bit of auto electrical work and these were spliced into the front lighting looms and successfully tested. 

So that's it....all tests passed......all engineering checks complete and all issues fixed.....it's FINISHED.

I now place my self in the hands of my engineer and the NSW RMS and await the final submission of my engineering documents, and the issuance of my VIN and plates (which I have ordered!)

Shakedown - Part 2

In Shakedown - Part 1, I had 3 things to fix after my first real drive.

• Broken headlight globe
• Stuck closed thermostat
• Broken exhaust mount

The headlight was easy to fix. The globe broke due to the vibration in the lens. I removed the whole light, replaced the globe, and then tightened the spring clips in the lens holder. Fixed.

The thermostat was harder. It involved a complete drain of the cooling system, removal of all the hose clamps, nose cone, fan belt and idler pulley. 3 bolts took 3 hours to remove! I tested the new thermostat before fitting, and the same 3 bolts took another 90 minutes to reinstall and torque. It was then just a case of replacing the other parts I had removed. Refilling with coolant took two nights of bleeding the air out of the system until the coolant level stabilised.

I used some fencing wire to hold the muffler on so I could test drive it and check the thermostat. Good news, the temperature stabilised at around 95 and held and the lower radiator pipe was also warm after 15km.

The problem with the muffler was that it had been hard mounted to the chassis (not by me). This meant that there was no isolation from vibration, so something had to give. The chassis mount was welded direct to the muffler body, and this broke after 20km, and it also bent the mount pretty badly. To fix this I got a rubber mount, and Steve the welder fabricated up an S bracket. We bolted the rubber mount onto a thicker chassis mount, and then welded the S bracket to the muffler body. We also took the S bracket a lot further under the muffler body and shaped it around the muffler allowing it to be welded on 3 sides (tripling the amount of welded joint). I then cut an adjuster slot into the chassis mount and bolted it up to the car. The chassis mount acts as a cantilever, and the whole thing is a lot more secure than before, but it also now has a vibration damper. I look forward to another test drive and hopefully it will last a bit longer than 20km.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.