Wednesday 20 February 2013

Half term help & laser cut stainless steel

Half term school holiday's this week, so Alex in between playing on his Xbox is giving me a hand with the build, mainly lifting large items, and getting into small spaces where my elbow won't bend !

Success after yesterday, the drivers side panel is bonded to the chassis, removed all the clamps and it didn't fall off ! So onto the drivers side transmission tunnel panel. Dry fitted and marked out where to bend the panel to meet the foot well panel installed earlier on in the build, basically both panels have to be bent and pass through the chassis and then riveted together.




Temporary rivets used along the panel in the photo, you can see the bend in the panel meeting the foot well panel and the temporary rivets holding them together.






Alex fresh from his Xbox helping rivet the tunnel in place, while I warm up the bond ready for the passenger side panel to be fixed.




Fine job Alex, all riveted up.

Bond all squeezed out ready for the side panel, much easier to lift with 2 pairs of hands, however forgot how Sharpe laser cut stainless steel is, didn't feel a thing only saw plenty of "Claret" all over the side panel ! blood ousing from my thumb, and would it stop ? NO.




Once again used every clamp available, and ratchet straps to hold the panel in place.




Used some wood to add extra pressure to one of the braces on the chassis, pushing the bond nicely into place.





Time taken today... 3 hours

Total time of build 79 hours

Tuesday 19 February 2013

1st side panel

A lovely day today, sun is out and the garage is not too cold this morning.
Time to get one of the side panels on.

A dry run first, and all seems in order, panel seems to fit first time with no obvious trimming !, Double and triple check before getting the black bond out, I can remember last time, this stuff is seriously sticky and gets everywhere !

A good bead of the stuff is applied to the chassis, got a good 30 Min's working time, so no big rush, Alex is helping me with this part of the build, and I have to say it is easier with 2 pairs of hands.
Panel offered up to the bond, and pressed home, then with every available clamp, we clamped the panel in place. See photos.







Had to use the hoist again, just to lift the chassis of the build tressels so that the underside of the side panel could go under the frame, only by a couple of mm's. Ratchet straps where also used to pull the side panel into position.

Will now leave this a few hours before tackling the other side.

Total time today for 1 panel... 2 hours

Total build time... 76 hours.

Sunday 17 February 2013

Jobs before the side panels

After all the excitement of putting in the engine and gearbox last week got a few small jobs before putting on the side panels while I still have plenty of access around the engine bay.

Since last Monday work on the Zero has been slow, a combination of other jobs, appointments, and unfortunately Simon who helped me with the engine and gearbox has ended up in Hospital rather poorly ?.... wishing him a speedy recovery. And yesterday nearly joined him when early in the morning slipped on the icy decking in the back garden, landing like a dropped sack of spuds on my good arm, my head hitting a solar lamp, sending it into the garden, and unable to get up for a good 10 minutes. So today just 3 little jobs.

1. Move the fuel lines a couple of inch's, just out of the way of the gearbox bell housing, looked a bit too close for comfort. An easy fix, a new tie wrap holder riveted in on the front of the foot well instead of the side.




2. Fix in the horn, just 1 rivnut, and a flanged head bolt.





3. The washer bottle, 2 rivnuts, very straight forward, and a couple of "p" clips for holding the tubing.




4. Clear up the garage, once again got tools, spanners, air line, nuts and bolts everywhere, a good tidy and sweep of the floor and its looking better again. I don't like working in a mess so it seems we have a weekly tidy up at the moment.

Well putting in the rivnuts really hurt the arm, think I've just bruised it ? but that's enough for today, half term holiday next week so my boys are at home... might get some help with putting the side panels on ???

So time today...

Moving fuel lines, horn fix, and washer bottle ... 1 hr.
Tidy up... 2 hrs (will add this time as I think that most people do spend time tidying up.)

Total today... 3 hours.

Running total time...  74 hours.

Monday 11 February 2013

Engine and Gearbox instalation

Yet again the cold weather has returned, snow during the night made for an interesting morning watching a mini bus skating down the street ! Anyway today with a couple of friends, Simon, and Russ we shall hopefully attempt to install the engine and gearbox.

After a cuppa and a bacon cob we headed for the garage, as we only have one hoist, first on the list was to get the car off the high tressels and onto lower axle stands, simple reason was that it was too high for access with the engine swinging from the hoist, while hitting the "up and over" garage door.
With the chassis now safely on axle stands we could now lift the engine onto a workmate table to remove the sump ready for the new lowered sump from "Raceline".
Drained the oil, also removed was the inlet and outlet manifolds, a breather pipe and plate. A blanking plate supplied by GBS replaced the breather plate, finished it off quite nicely.





Easier to have the engine on its side to remove the sump, not swinging around on the hoist. The black tin panel is removed first as the oil pick up pipe inside needs to be removed before the remainder of the sump. Read this from a few other blogs, so passing on the information... it does save time.

The "Raceline" sump is a nice bit of kit, the instructions could have done with a picture or two to help with fitting, but after reading the instructions several times we soon figured it out.


The instructions have torque settings for all the bolts, unfortunately when you have settings of   7,  15,  18 lb ft, and your torque wrench starts at 30 lb ft, this can be a small issue, so we estimated to the best of our ability.

So fitting the new sump went fairly well. And we even smiled while fitting it !



So with the sump now fitted we offered up the gearbox, as the new sump is smaller than the gearbox when fitted it has an area of the bell housing which requires a little trimming with an angle grinder, not a great deal, only about 6 to 7mm which hangs down low, if this is not trimmed in the unfortunate event that you may catch the bell housing while driving it could result in a cracked gearbox ? 10 mins later a flush (ish) fit, did trim it a few mm more than required, but there's plenty of bell housing to go at !

Before the gearbox was bolted to the engine, a few small jobs beforehand...
MT75 clutch arm pin... just tapped into the hole in the back of the bell housing.
Clutch arm and and release bearing. the bearing simply clips into the clutch arm, then slides over the shaft.
Spigot bearing... with a wooden drift, knocked home, without the need to remove the clutch or flywheel.
Two dowels inserted in the bell housing.

OK now to connect the gearbox to the engine...


I have to say... going very well so far ?... I SPOKE TOO SOON !

The starter motor looked like it might be a bit fiddly to fit when the engine is in, so we dicided to fit it first, we weren't wrong ! what a nightmare. 2 of the bolts went in fine, the last one.... what a pig !




As you can see in the photos, could not get a spanner around the nut for love nor money, ended up using a spanner end-on, turning the bolt only a small amount each time, approximately 10-12 for every full turn of the bolt ! Poor Simon was pulling his hair out !

Finally its all bolted up ready for getting into the chassis.

Getting the gearbox/engine unit into the chassis was quite easy, but getting the gearbox into its mount wasn't. We just needed a couple of millimetres one way then a milimetre the other way, pushing the unit one way then the other, still no joy ?
We slackened all the nuts and bolts off from around the gearbox mounting area, still not quite there ?
Lots of "to me" and "to you" and still no joy !!
Decided the way to go was to get the prop shaftbolts in first, as this might pull the gearbox into the mounting. 3 bolts in total, the first 2 went in fine, but you guessed it the last one.... GRRRRR ! I'm surprised Simon's got and hair left ?




Picture above shows the prop shaft bolts part tightned, and the gearbox mounting plate hole just visable below, still requires tightening up, but getting closer.
Well to cut a long story short, Simon finally got the gearbox bolt in, with the help of a trolley jack, Thor's hammer, blood, sweat, but no tears.

Now onto the engine mounts, these have to be put on after the engine is inside the chassis, it just will not fit with them on first. Bit of head scratching but soon figured out which mount went on either side of the engine, they are different, one has some spacers, and the other none, however a couple of washers had to be used along side the spacers as these where a little short. Once fitted to the engine, we lowered the hoist so that the mounts just touched the chassis, I had already marked the centre of the chassis in front on the engine, so we just has to position the centre of the engine to this point, as seen in the photo below.

 
 

Now all central, drilled the chassis through the engine mount plates, and bolted up. x 8 holes, nuts, bolts and washers.



 
 
Alex arrived home from school just in time to help, as we were starting to fade a bit, did a good job by getting the kettle on.
 
 

 

All looking quite happy now ! A JOB WELL DONE !

The next hour or so was spent having a general chat, then Simon remembered one last bolt to tighten, so under the car he went, it was the end bolt in the sump, next to the bell housing.... we heard a little tinkle sound, then the air turned blue ! The 10mm socket head had fallen off the end of the extention arm and had disappeared into the space between the housing and the flywheel !!  ??

Well the next half hour was spent taking off the starter motor, reteving the 10mm socket head from the bottom of the flywheel area with a magnet stick, then bolting back on the starter motor.




And yes, most of the time was spent tightening up that last bolt !

Once again many, many thanks to Simon and Russ for helping me out today getting the engine and gearbox in, this is not a easy one man job.

 Time to fit gearbox and engine 10 hrs x 3 people

Total time of build so far 71 hrs ( I have taken today as 30 hrs as I think this would be the time for 1 person to complete all these jobs )

AMENDMENTS

It was late last night while writing this blog, and while reading through it the next morning I had missed a few items...

We did fill the engine with fresh oil, picked up a cheap, but respectable 5w/30 fully synthetic oil locally on sale for £18.99, bargain as the local car-parts superstore had the same stuff for £34.99.

Smiles on the faces where not ones of joy, but of wind ! which at one point turned into tears ?

After getting the first couple of bolts in the engine to chassis mounts, we then used the hoist to raise the car back onto the tressels to save our backs, as pictured below.





Friday 8 February 2013

Dashboard panel

The cold freezing weather has returned so time in the garage is limited, so back to the fabrication around the scuttle area. Fitting the dash panel requires drilling to match  the rivnuts on the scuttle. The rivnuts are M6, so I am drilling the holes with a 4mm drill bit, then drill out again to 7mm, this will allow a little movement for the dash, using button head bolts, and the heads will cover the holes nicely.



There are 9 holes to drill, drilling from behind with the 4mm drill bit was a lot easier with the scuttle assembly off the car, the size of the drill was the problem. Then drilling back through with a 7mm bit. All drilling was done on a slow speed, and also with care as the GRP panel surface can "brake-out". In the picture the bolts have some large washers, these will be swapped for smaller ones later on, there where the only M6 washers I had.

Using masking tape and the instrument surround I marked out the holes for the clocks, somehow I think this will change slightly once the steering column is fitted, I have seen other blogs where they have had to cut out a section of the dash for the top of the steering column surround ? will wait and see before committing myself to drilling holes and regretting it.

My feet are now cold ! so off the GBS to pick up the clutch arm for the gearbox, hopefully once picked up I'll have all the bits ready to fit the gearbox and engine... a job for next week ... weather permitting, forecast snow and high winds again, and due to the size of the garage I've got to work with the garage door open for this part of the build ? Burrrrrrrr.


An expensive visit to the factory ! got the clutch arm, but they had some throttle bodies in stock delivered from "AT Power" , had to have them... credit card has had a bit of a bashing ? but check out these "BAD BOYS" !



Should give a few more pony's to the engine !


OK, time so far...

From the last blog...
Rear wishbone long bolts... 1 hr
Scuttle primer spraying... 30 mins
Black stain paint + rivnuts... 30 mins

this blog...

Dash fitting... 1 hr

So total time for build... 41 hrs