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.

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

Rear, lower wishbone issue ?

A few weeks ago I tried to fit the rear, lower wishbone to the hub carrier, and found that both long bolts for each side would not fit through ? On closer examination they where bent ? and when rolled on a flat surface they looked like banana's ! GBS swapped these straight away and returned home to fit them. Then I found a second rather frustrating problem... the bolt went through both ends of the wishbone, brill, then tried it through the hub carrier, no problems, but when together the bolt was getting struck going into either end of the wishbone ? this was the case for both sides ?  I could only think that the tube in the hub carrier was a little off and was making the bolt go off centre, only "a Nat's bollock off" ( Mansfield slang for a very small amount ? ) but its enough to stop the bolt. So as I said this was a few weeks ago, in fact just before Christmas, and I have been putting it off until today. Well it was about 1:30am last night I woke up with the way to do it ( Massive light bulb above my head !! ... and never got back to sleep. )

So the bolt was just catching the crush tubes no matter which way I put the bolt through ? So I removed the last crush tube from the wishbone, this allowed the bolt to now pass through the bushes, then reinserted the crush tube over the bolt.... Simples ! why oh why did this take 6 weeks to figure out ? Alex my son says its my age ? In my defence I hadn't given it much time as until I got all the bits to finish off the rear mechanics it wasn't an issue.

As you can see from the photo, the crush tube is just sticking out from the bushes on the right, it will be fully in place once the nut is fully tightened.

Still all the nuts and bolts are not tightened up fully, until the drive shafts are fitted and everything is in its proper place, then I'll go round with the torque wrench and paint pen, that "just in case" scenario if parts have to come off for any reason.
Still waiting for the calliper brackets and the brake callipers for the rear, so this is as far I can go until this parts are back in stock.

More work on the scuttle

Last night I removed the scuttle and sprayed primer inside ready for the satin black finish. This Morning all dried, then sprayed the satin black. Refitted to the car this afternoon and is looking smart, although this will not be visible when the dash is fitter, it looks finished off.

M6 Rivnuts also inserted along the dash bracket ready for the dash.

The Diff has arrived !

Got the call I've been finally waiting for ! My diff, drive shafts, and gearbox have all been delivered to the GBS factory after been reconditioned. So picked them up last Wednesday.

Sunday afternoon, time to fit the diff ! simple procedure fitting 2 long bolts with washers, spaces, and nuts, then a further 2 bolts and washers to the front of the diff, what could be simpler ???

First thing, check that the bolts will fit through all the holes, (been there before not checking !). Good they all fit !. Now lifting the diff, its a heavy little thing and to make things easy its a 2 man job, so got Alex to give me a hand. Soon figured out if we where going to do this we would need a 3rd man ! A quick scratch of the head and the workmate came out, placed under the rear end of the car and a trolley jack with the diff nicely balanced on top !

Procedure is to get the lower bolt, spacers, and washers in first, again easier as a 2 man team. Problem no.1... spacers to long ! only by 1.5mm, but still impossible to get in, probably due to the extra thick powder coating on the frame. Don't want to take the powder coating off the frame so a little work on the bench grinder soon had the spacers to the correct size, just tight enough to slip in between the frame and the diff on either side.

Next step is to get the top long bolt, spacers, and washers in, once again the spacers are 1.5mm to long... another trip to the bench grinder.

Now for the 2 bolts at the front of the diff, this part was frustrating ? Holes in the frame about 0.5mm out ! So to try and get these bolts in we did notice there was slight movement in the top bolt on the diff, so we disassembled the top bolt we just put in and tried the front bolts again, this time they seemed to fit, but very tight. Problem No.2 !

The only thing I could think of was that the threads in the diff where either dirty or damaged ? So the whole diff came out, M12 tap in hand and re tapped the thread, not sure if it was damaged or dirty but it did the trick, after the bolts went in easily.

OK, so new procedure for me getting the diff in is...

1. Lower bolt, spacers, washers
2. Front bolts and washers
3. Top bolt, spacers, washers.
4. Well earned cuppa !

As you can see from the photo, the front bolts have not been fully tightened, need some stud lock on these which I purchased a few weeks ago... and can I find it.. NO ? So somewhere in the garage or house there is a bottle of stud lock waiting for these bolts, I will find it, cos at £5 a bottle its expense stuff, "Sods Law" says if I buy another bottle I'll find it on my return from the shop !

Time for a little clear up of the tools, they all seemed to have escaped the tool box in the past 2 weeks and is looking untidy again. last job of the day, got 4 bolts to connect the diff to the prop shaft, once again not tightened up, just waiting to find the stud lock !

 

 

 

 

OK round up of time taken so far...

 

Scuttle part 2... 3hrs

Scuttle part 3... 1 hr

Diff fitting...    4 hrs

Searching for Stud Lock... 1hr (Found it !)

 

So Total time now 38 hours

 

11 weeks since kit started.

 



Scuttle part 3

The last bit of the fabrication of the scuttle this morning, after countersinking all the holes on the scuttle it is time to rivet the dash bracket to the scuttle, and use the black bond as extra as I will be grinding back the backs of the rivets to make fitting of the trim a bit neater.

View of the scuttle and dash bracket, now riveted and bonded.

Got to leave the bond cure over night, then will trim back all edges, mask up ready for spraying the inside in satin black.

More work coming the afternoon...  Time for a spot of lunch !

Scuttle part 2

The cold weather continues, and the snow has arrived. A weekend away with a swimming competition for Ben, and a stay with family has made working on the Zero once again a slow pace. However work on the scuttle is progressing, wrapping up in warm clothes after an hour or so in the garage is plenty for both myself and Alex. Apologises for some of the photos, the lens on the camera was suffering condensation from the sudden change in temperature that some pictures look a bit misty.

After looking at some blogs and some tips from GBS, there are a few different ways of finishing the scuttle/firewall/dash bracket. The route I'm taking is to bond the fire wall to the scuttle, secure with rivets, then when cured, remove the rivets and the tabs to leave a clean line to the front. On the dash bracket to drill close to the edge along the edge of the scuttle, then countersink the holes, and use stainless flush rivets along the edge along with a bead of black bond. After the bond has cured will grind off some of the backside of the rivets so that the IVA trim will fit without kinking and looking scruffy ? ... well that's my intention ?

All holes drilled, and Alex adding the temporary rivets, making sure everything is lined up before the bond comes out to play. (see earlier blogs on how sticky this stuff really is !)

Now the scuttle is bonded to the firewall, once the bond has cured, the riveted tabs will be cut off and trimmed back flush.

View of the dash bracket with some of the riveting done. After the bond curing, the inside of the scuttle will be sprayed black to go with the colour scheme of the finished car.

Cold fingers now so back inside the house for some food.... and a cuppa !

Fuel Sender, Scuttle, and firewall

A quite weekend, or so I thought ? Christmas decorations finally came down on Saturday morning, my 2 boys did that while I surfed the Internet for blogs on how to tackle the scuttle and firewall assembly, got slightly distracted and ended up on E-bay and purchased some carbon fibre wrap ! a bit ahead of time me thinks ?
Right, time to get back to the research on the firewall and scuttle, distracted again ! this time just a few little jobs round the house and a bit of clearing up after the decorations have gone back up in the loft for another year. Its getting dark ?? 4:15pm where has Saturday gone ?

OK, found out a method for the firewall, etc assembly, think I'll save that for a full day next week sometime ? Just enough time to go to Halfords for some flange sealant, after seeing a couple of blogs, the next job will be fitting the fuel sender.


Sunday Morning, (Well 11:30 !!) and time to tackle the fuel sender. Using masking tape I marked out the holes to be drilled for the sender. Too stop swarf from falling into the tank while drilling the fixing holes I used a good blob of gaffa tape stuck to a stick which I placed just inside the tank.

 

 

All holes drilled, sealant ( Locktite 5922 gasket paste ) around both sides of the rubber seal, and 6 self tapers later, fuel sender fixed in place.

Please note... DO NOT use the panel bonding sealant ! if you ever try to remove the fuel sender you could cause damage to the fuel tank and cost you ££££'s to fix.

It all went very quickly ! I had allowed myself an hour to do it before dinner and was well within the time, so I decided to start some prep work on the scuttle, bending the tabs back on the dash support, using a couple of grips these tabs have to be bent in the direction of the rear of the car, where as the firewall tabs are folded forward to the front of the car.

Just 1 hour on the build this weekend, feel a bit lazy with it at the moment. Is it post Christmas blue's, the cough and cold I've picked up, or is just the fact that I want to finish parts of the build but have not got all the parts required ?

Monday Morning... Shower went BANG ! so spent most of the day sorting out a new shower and fixing it, so no work on the Zero :-(. Planned to spend time on it today ?

So now its Tuesday, must get stuck in.

Back to the scuttle and firewall, my plan is to temporary fix the two together, and bond the front end. Then trim of the tabs, seen a few of these and they look tidy without the need for rivets, seen some like this as well and I'm not too keen on this look. Riveting the back of the scuttle to the dash bracket seems to be the norm, but riveting close to the edge as a length of trim will cover the rivets anyway for the IVA test.
I have opted for the stainless steel instead of the alloy, and boy is it a hand full to bend, would be much easier with an extra pair of hands, remember I only have 1 good arm ! As you can see from the photos I have managed to bend the scuttle over the fire wall and secured it with temporary rivets. I also marked out the positions for the rivnuts on each side for the scuttle, drilled and fixed in place.

Bolted the sides of the scuttle with some M6 button head bolts with washers.

 

 

And the view from the other side...

 

 



Total build time now... 25 hours up too the fuel sender

Total time including part build of the firewall/scuttle...  29 hours