November 2007

The clamp for the lower and upper steering column arrived, so that was fitted as shown. The fitment comprises of two nuts and bolts, and a grub screw locked in place with a nut. The top part of the column must be secured in place such that the steering wheel boss does not foul any part of the dashboard.

6th November 2007

Good news today. The new prop shaft arrived, and it is around 5cm shorter than the one that was orignally supplied.

As can be seen here, the part number on the two prop shafts are the same, but the top one in the second picture is the one that I actually require and is about 5cm shorter than the one that was originally supplied.

.

10th November 2007

Now that the correct prop shaft was available, it meant that it should now be possible to have a proper attempt at fitting the diff!

I needed to get a grease gun, as the prop shaft has to be fully filled with grease. There is a grease nipple at each end of the prop, so these were filled with grease. This shows a picture of the prop shaft fitted to the gear box, with the grease nipple in view.

The actual fitting of the diff, even with the right parts, is probably the hardest part of the build so far. In fact, at the end of the day this hasn't been fully fitted, partly due to a couple of missing washers and partly to do with a lack of time.

The build manual mentions that the process should be to:

Most of the morning and early afternoon were spent trying to get this to work, but with the top bolt in place attempting to fit the lower bolts was extremely tight - in fact it was so tight that only one of the lower bolts would go though to the diff and screw into its thread. This was even with 'tapping' the bolts with the trusty rubber mallet.

In the afternoon, this idea was abandoned and the lower bolts were fitted first. It is very important that the differential is in the middle of the car (accurate to within 2mm), and different sized spacers are used to pad out any space between the differential and the chassis mountings. It is also important not to force too many spacers in as this could cause problems with the bushes and cause rattles etc. On my car:

After a fair bit of messing around with different thickness spacers, I was happy that the diff was within the 2mm tollerances specified in the build manual. The two lower bolts are in, but the long upper bolt is not fully fitted yet (one half is) due to missing spacer washers, which I have now ordered.

So, all in all, the day started very slowly and was quite frustrating, but by the end of the day the diff was almost in place, which I'm very happy about!

This shows a side view of the diff more or less fitted. The red cap will be removed later to fit the drive shafts.

The picture shows that the upper bolt is purposefully not fully fitted, due to missing washers. It also shows one of the lower bolts in place. It is difficult to get a picture of the spacer washers but I ended up using 7 thin washers in total - 2 'very' thin and 5 'moderately' thin (not very scientific!)

The hole that can be seen in the bottom of the diff is the 'measured machined part' that I mentioned above. It is this area of the diff that is used to ensure that the diff is correctly fitted centrally on the chassis mountings.

I've ordered some more spacer washers so if they come the diff should be in place and the prop shaft fitted to the diff within an hour or I'd hope.

Excel spreadsheet is showing 70 hours now, but I have wasted a lot of time on 2 or 3 aborted attempts at getting the diff in!

19th November 2007

Recently had a bit of time away from the car, but had a couple hours free after work. Managed to finish the installtion of the differential by finishing off the top bolt, and torqing the bottom bolts and top bolt up. I am happy that the diff is central in the car and well within the 2mm tolerance.

Also read a little bit ahead and after fitting the propshaft to the diff, the next stages involve fitting the handbrake cable (which will then allow for the interior to be fitted) and fitting the rear suspension.

24th November 2007

Had two or three things that needed compelting today, which for one reaon or another have been left.

The 4 cap head bolts to fit the propshaft to the diff arrived, so completed that task. This shows a (not very good!) picture of that.

This picture shows the handbrake and handbrake cable fitted. This has been delayed slightly as I was waiting for the handbrake clevis to arrive.

It also shows the handbrake fitted along with the pulley attached to the clevis. The clevis-handbrake and clevis-pulley fittings are attached using split pins.

This picture shows the pulley and how the handbrake cable loops around the pulley. What isn't clear on these pictures is that the cable itself is routed through a bracket on the chassis and around the diff, out towards where the cable will attach to the brakes.

Other than that, I've been putting off filling the gearbox with oil, but finally today was the day it had to be done. It had to be done today, as one of the next things to do in the coming weeks is to fit the interior trim. I didn't want the interior trim in before the oil is in because the oil is obviously messy and it absolutely stinks!

It is quite a messy and very fiddly job. The gearbox filler plug is in the gearbox already, and done up finger tight. It is very cramped between the gearbox and passenger footwell, meaning access to the filler plug is tricky when the gearbox is in the car.

I bought some cheap funnels from the supermarket and a length of hose to fill the gearbox. The manual says it should take 'aproximately 2L'. Mine took around 1 1/4L, but was already partly full.

Getting the filler plug off was tricky enough, but getting it back on again was trickier still. In the end, I cut a piece off a 10mm alan key, but this was still too wide to get it to engage with the filler plug. The best way to get the plug in was to cut a small (around 1.5cm) piece of alan key, and use a ratchet spanner to tighten the plug. This picture shows the cut alan key, and the piece that was eventually used to tighten the plug with a ratchet spanner. A thin piece of plastic was used to wedge the alan key piece in to the ratchet spanner to stop it falling out. Very pleased that the gearbox is filled with oil! Doesn't sound much, but I was worrying a bit about how this would be done, so is something else ticked off.

Took some time to lay out the de dion tube, brake calipers, drive shafts and other pieces ready to start tackling the fitting of the rear axle, suspension, brakes and hoses. Upon initally looking at the parts, it appears that everything is present in the kit. If it is, that will be a first for this build!

It's quite a long process fitting all this, but I think that once this is in place I will begin to feel that I have broken the back of the build.