Inlet Manifold modification

In the engine strip note I referred to the inlet manifold needing to be modified in order to accept the GBS Plenum. You can do this yourself sand take a hacksaw to the plastic and cut away, however unless you know where to cut exactly it could prove a costly error so i err'd on the side of caution and sent the original recently dismantled manifold back to GBS for them to do the job properly with the correct equipment.

As you can see from the attached photo the freshly cut manifold loses all of its injected moulded pipework and you are left with e a nice flat face onto which the plenum will sit.

So this piece can now go back onto the engine, re-fit the injectors which simply push back in, locate onto the engine block and secure with the original fixings. Again ensure the holes are tapped over to stop debris being ingested into the engine.

Seat Belts

Santa provided some nice new seat belts for Christmas, so i grabbed a morning in the garage post festivities to get them fitted.

TRS branded 4 point harness 50mm belts in black which includes all the fittings.

Simple job to get fitted once you work out how the fittings go together where the lap belts fit into the bulkhead panels. You will need to take the seats out to fit the bulk head lap belts first, refit the seats then the shoulder belts can be fixed into position.

It will be a good idea to clean the threads out on the chassis before fitting and also don't over tighten the bulkhead bolts as they could dent the outer panels if tightened in too much

Access Panel - boot floor

I have noted on many builds the need for an access panel in the boot area to get to the differential, fuel pump etc. I cant seem to track down a part at GBS - they supply the boot panels (see earlier post) but the floor panel is solid and needs cutting out.

So, no option but to get the jigsaw out and cut out a hole in the panel and fit a new piece over it secured with x4 rivnuts and bolts.

a nice little fabricating job - sourced some metal sheet off ebay which will provide the new floor, cut that to size, filed and trimmed. 

Added some window insulating tape round the edges to provide a seal and secured into position with the freshly drilled rivnuts/bolts.

looks good (although not the best photos, poor light!)

Gearbox bought

Finally acquired a type 9 gearbox!

been looking for a good used example for a while now and was lucky to place the winning bid, even better it was a local pickup in Woodford not too far from home.

upon picking up the 'box it transpired it had come out of a Caterham which had just been upgraded with a new Quaife gearbox so a good opportunity to talk kitcars and look over the Caterham it had just vacated.

Just need a bellhousing, of which there are plenty a clutch release lever and clutch bearing.

Thrust Bearing & breather plate

In order to convert the engine from front wheel drive to rear wheel drive you need to insert a thrust bearing into the crank end in which the gearbox shaft locates.

In all fairness you don't need to remove the clutch and if you are careful you could insert it carefully with a suitable sized drift and careful knock into position. As I need to change the clutch it was just as easy to take the clutch off and knock into position.

The spigot bearing has a right and wrong way - as you can see from the two pictures the rubber seal needs to face OUTWARDS in order to stop rubbish, dirt etc being ingested into the engine.

so taking a suitable sized piece of dowel or equivalent drift, place the spigot into the crank end and gently tap in with a hammer.

Using the clutch alignment tool, I also took this opportunity to replace the clutch, gently lining up the clutch with the x6 holes and securing back in place.

Nice quick job but an essential job in order to ensure drive to the rear of the vehicle

Breather blanking plate

Another very quick job, three screws and a nice piece of machined "ATR" blanking plate which covers the hole left when the flame trap is removed (not needed). 

  

Engine Part 2 strip down and prep

Seems such a shame to gut the engine of its dignity especially since it has not turned a wheel in anger... But this needs to be done, so out with the socket set and spanners!

first off was the inlet manifold and injectors.

The manifold needs to be "customised" in order to accept the GBS throttle bodies. Now on paper this is a simple task of sawing off the moulded pipework from the manifold thus leaving the inlet manifold face to be refitted back to the engine. However not wishing to mess this up GBS will do this for you so I need to strip the manifold of all its bits and return to GBS for them do the modification.


therefore I also removed from the inlet manifold the IACV  and the IAC valve. If this has been done correctly you will be left with the injector rail, an IACV and IAC valve



Next attention turns to the exhaust manifold off with that!



Not sure there is any use for this in the build so looks surplus to requirements... maybe a future ebay disposal

Finally removed the burn chamber which is covered with a breather blanking plate supplied by GBS

In all cases, exposed holes were covered with masking tape, any debris, screws accidentally dropped through the holes will spell the end

Engine Part 1

Well, I finally bit the bullet and ordered myself a brand new Ford Zetec engine from Kitspares, after much deliberation and shopping around plus hearing rumours that supplies of Zetec were drying up I placed my order and a shinny new engine was duly delivered on a pallet.

To make life a little easier I built a simple dolly on castors to move the engine around the garage floor, this was more useful for gaining some space back as the pallet took up alot of room preventing the wife's mini being parked in the garage!

A few pictures:

Before it can be installed some prep work needs to be carried out namely:

remove the inlet manifold / injectors

remove the exhaust manifold 

remove the fire trap

Fit spigot bearing

Replace filter with short filter

In addition to the above removal / replacement the following will also need fitting:

Alternator kit

Water rail kit

Throttle body (Single body plenum)

Gearbox!

Replacement inlet manifold to accept the GBS throttle body

Battery Power Leads

Battery power leads are another easy quick fit.

GBS plug and play wiring kits are perfect for wiring a car, their battery power lead kit provides all the leads, fixings needed to get juice from the battery to the electrics in the vehicle.

Two holes need to be drilled through the firewall and they in turn are fitted with rubber grommets which the leads pass through.



The negative lead will earth on the chassis frame behind the dashboard panel whilst the positive is fastened to the fuse board panel via a screw terminal.

A further positive lead runs from the fuse board terminal to the starter motor and then from the starter motor to the alternator. A further engine earthing lead will need fitting when the engine is installed.

Remote Brake reservoir kit

Following on from the battery tray installation, attention turns to the brake reservoir which needs fitting to the master cylinder.

Now, in previous builds, the standard donor part for the brake reservoir has been the Sierra brake reservoir which simply pushed onto the master cylinder. The availability of those in the marketplace has virtually dried up, the odd one appears on Ebay but new, reconditioned ones are virtually impossible to find and when one does come available they seem to go for silly money.

GBS have addressed this shortage by developing their remote brake reservoir kit which is essentially a reservoir which fits to a bracket on the firewall and that in turn feeds the master cylinder with fluid through a couple of pipes/fittings - a nice solution:


so to get this fitted you need to:


Rivet the bracket which holds the reservoir onto the firewall

Drill out a couple of holes (+/- 28mm) in the side of the pedal box, apply a couple of rubber grommets and pass the piping through from the reservoir to the master cylinder.

Attach a couple of fittings to the top of the master cylinder which in turn the rubber pipe pushes onto.

Jubilee clip all the pipes to the fittings

Drill a further hole into the firewall to pass the wiring for the brake reservoir through to the rear.
Job done!

Battery Tray

I think I have previously mentioned about focusing attention towards the front of the car.. that said, a nice quick job to pass an hour is to fit the battery tray.

To do this it is best to have the battery to hand in order that you can position the tray correctly in the engine bay. The battery itself is an 063 model which is very common and widely available from many outlets.

I bought online from Tanya Batteries which were an excellent online resource for all things car batteries and offer a wide variety of batteries at varying prices. I went in at the cheaper end of the market acquiring a Powerline branded product. Next day delivery and very well packaged - highly recommended!

Anyway back to the installation of the tray. As mentioned earlier it really is a simple job, position the tray and battery, mark out on the panel it is being fixed to,  drill holes for rivets and rivet in place.

Remember to position the battery strap between the tray and panel before riveting as this is what holds the battery in position.

photos, I think show the installation quite well..

Boot carpets

Relatively quick job once you have worked out which piece goes where!

As you avid readers will be well aware, I purchased the pre-cut carpet set from GBS which I have to say has been a worthwhile investment and saved alot of grief in cutting carpet to size. Yes there is an element of trimming required but Its minimal.

Sequence for gluing in:

Back of seat panel
Left & right shock tower sides
rear Panel piece (goes round sides as well)

My Wife found some exceptional strong carpet spray adhesive on one her craft shopping trips and it was excellent, in hindsight easier than applying with the brush. Spray both the carpet and the panel area the carpet is being stuck to, leave for a minute and put them together. There is little time for maneuvere as it "grabs" quickly so be sure you are happy with the fit and practiced positioning before opening the glue .

Any over-spray on the chassis, carpet can be removed with some turpentine substitute ("Turps")

The hardest piece is the rear panel piece, as you need to centralise it and work centre round either side so it confirms with the shape of the rear panel.

In hindsight I should have applied the rivnuts (which hold the wheel arches on) after the carpet had gone in but it is not a major issue just provides a less flat surface for the carpet to adhere to the glue.

When it has hardened the rear panel needs to have the fuel filler cap holes re drilled through the carpet, so the filler cap can be fixed back into position

Scuttle Dashboard rail

Keeping the momentum moving rear to front with the build, time to refocus attention on the scuttle and look at covering the dashboard rail which holds the dashboard in place.

**NOTE this is easier to do BEFORE you apply the rivnuts into the dashboard rail.

Due to the nature of the home build, tolerances are not as exacting as mass produced a vehicles so there will be a gap in fitment of the dashboard relative to the scuttle profile.

Best way of masking this gap is to cover the dashboard rail with some leatherette type material readily available in fabric shops.

You need to get a template of the dashboard rail, so in hindsight (popular word on the blog!) its best to get the leatherette marked up BEFORE you fit the dashboard rail. Thankfully I was at GBS when I bought the leatherette and they kindly marked the leatherette up for me with their template they use.

Basically for you home builders, draw round the template and add 25mm extra either side of the template, this will provide the shape you need.

Cut the shape out and its then a case of getting the glue gun out and gluing the cut out leatherette into position - having a ready supply of clothes pegs is an essential tool for this. Work out from the centre gluing and positioning as you go.

I did this in two stages I glued the front first and then the next night did the rear of the dashboard rail to allow the glue to harden.

You will be left with alot of overlap to trim which is easily trimmed back using the IVA edge trim as your template - take a sharp Stanley knife blade and trim back the surplus.

 

                 

Rear Boot / storage area

Focus is on moving back to front with the build, rear panel has been successfully vinyl wrapped and permanently fixed into position (no going back on that decision now!)

I have a nice bare area aka "the boot" which needs completing and there is nothing of significance left to do on the rear end which is preventing me from focusing on getting the boot to a finished position.

GBS do the rear boot panel kit (luggage infill panel kit) which comprises:



Differential inspection panel (needs a hole cutting out)
x2 inner closing panels 
x2 rear closing panels

Looking at the panels it is relatively self evident where they fit, the main area of work is in cutting an access hole through the differential inspection panel to create access to the rear diff, brake lines etc (this is required for IVA in the UK as the testers will want to look in this area)

Simple jigsaw job of cutting through the panel, drilling four holes and inserting rivnuts through the holes. You will need a further piece of metal to cover over the hole you have just cut ( I need to get this still!)

Another piece of work which needs doing is to drill a hole in the rear closing panels near the top, to provide access to the retaining nut/bolt for the rear shock absorber. I appreciate it is unlikely there will be a need to remove the shock however I want to build some "future proofing" into the build on the off chance access is required. Again a simple process of using a step drill to drill through the panel to give a big enough hole to accept a socket.

Once all the above is done its a case of put with the polyurethane sealant and fix the panels into position, start with the differential access panel first, followed by the rear closing panels. 

With the rear closing panel remember to route the fuel sender cable through otherwise the sender will not work!

the inner closing panels looking at the GBS instruction suggests the top section of the panel goes under the steel chassis section - this in my opinion is not possible due to the powder coating changing the profile of the gap the panel goes under. Speaking to GBS about this they confirmed the panels can be just glued access the top of the steel and not to worry to much about the top going under the steel chassis, So over the top the went!

Panel in - ready for carpet laying