Small Progress

 

The car is stripped & the radiator is with Ashby Welding of Church Crookham to repair, while the front has been empty I've done a few jobs making wire routing more sensible & today I've mended the bonnet latch.

Yes, the bonnet.

I had to mend the boot latch a couple of weeks ago after it separated completely & on Sunday I noticed the ugly block of wood (wood!) the latch was screwed into had split - see the black line where the screw is? 

It turned out that what appeared to be a block of wood, was in fact two blocks of wood held together with only one screw. 

So I removed the screwed on bit & briefly considered going HotRod (the car version of "going commando"), but it would need a central supercharger for the full effect so decided to be sensible about it, found some scrap aluminium sheet & made something with the same geometry as the split wooden block, but made from nice folded metal - with a couple of lightening holes obviously.

It actually closes much nicer than before, resting on the stops & then just going "click" as the latch engages with a gentle push.

Not A Good Day At The Office

 It started badly, to get a total mileage for the Sunday morning run I'd made my address the start & end points of the route, this meant that on Sunday morning no matter what I did the satnav just kept taking back to my house by the shortest route. I ignored it & set off in vaguely the right direction & after about 1/2 hour it sorted itself out.

But all was not well. I'd topped up the coolant the evening before & as I drove along the gauge was reading around 100 rather than it's usual 80-90. I thought I must've got an air lock in the pipe while the system was open for filling (there's no header tank), I thought it would clear, but when I met the others on the A24 it still hadn't. But there were no obvious bad signs when I opened the bonnet & it started easily enough, but soon climbed back to 100 deg. I was now worried & after 15 mins or so having lost the others anyway, I set the satnav for home. At this stage the gauge was around 110 & as I crossed the Hog's Back (it's a road), I switched the engine off to coast down the long hill. Again it re-started, but was now smelling of hot things, so in Flexford I pulled over & switched it off, I opened the bonnet & saw water on the chassis, I walked round the front & there was water pooled in the radiator intake & running down the road.

Bu99er.

But hey - I'm in Green Flag, I called them - "this car's 20 years old sir, we only attend if the car's less than 16 years old". "So you won't come out then?" I asked. "well the terms of the policy state........". "So are you going to help me or not?" I asked slightly louder. "The thing is sir the car ....." CAN YOU JUST GIVE ME A YES OR NO ANSWER, AM I GETTING ANY HELP OR NOT?"

I still didn't get a yes or a no, so I hung up.

I called my brother (who was still in bed at the time) & he kindly came & towed the stricken Stylus back after putting 5 litres of water it & watching it all run out again.

In the afternoon I set about finding the problem & it didn't take long. Another of the very expensive parts the car didn't need - the fabricated aluminium radiator had for some reason been mounted on 2 1/2" long spacers, this put the front face of the rad inside the nose. To make it fit, someone had pulled the front valence down, bolted on the rad & let the valence spring back against the aluminium. The main constituent in glassfibre is very abrasive - that's why they make glasspaper from it & the body lip had worn a groove in the rad right through to the water, when I topped it up there must've been mere microns holding the pressure back.

So I'm expecting the engine to be shagged having been run air-cooled for some time (sigh), but I can't find out how bad it is until I can put it back together - & therein lies today's tale.

As I've said, when the car was first built it was supercharged so someone had machined two Zetec crank pulleys to fit together so one could drive the supercharger, the new pulley drove the alternator & it's pulley had been extended. Ideally I wanted to lose the electric water pump, but I had no pulley for the one blocking the hole in the engine & I was loathe to spend money on Silvertop parts because if the engine is scrap that would limit me to finding another Silvertop. So, sensible pants on & keep the electric pump. But it was "mounted" by hanging it from a chassis rail by two tyraps. I could mount it better, but I needed the space currently occupied by the second pulley. Fortunately it came off the engine easily enough & separated nicely as well, the same could not be said for the extended pulley on the alternator, I had to saw it off to get to the nut, then grind the nut off & the stump of the pulley still wouldn't budge, but going at it with a blow-torch set fire to the gunge that had been used to hold it in place, so it's now off. Whether the alternator will ever work again is a thing for another day.

Also on the removals list was a large tubular bracket growing out of the rad mount, up over the top of the rad & down again - presumably holding a charge cooler. It got sawn off & I thought the long "stick brackets" holding the radiator looked a bit iffy, so I triangulated the base to stiffen it a little.

In fact all the removable bits of chassis were taken off, cleaned & painted & put back on & the rad is now with "Ashby Welding" in Church Crookham who I've used before & have always been spectacularly good, so hopefully they can mend it.

When it goes back together it will be better than it was & lighter to the tune of another 3Kg - I've now take 15kg off the car - getting on for 1/4 of my weight!

Let's hope it still works when it's re-assembled.

Out & About!

 I have TWO kit cars on the road!

This morning I taxed the Stylus thinking I'd drive it round the local area for a test run then looked out of the window to see this.

To be fair they hadn't (quite) blocked my drive & as I was waiting on a delivery from Woolies I wasn't too concerned - but I did get so bored that I cleaned the cooker.

Just after lunch I decided to take the car down to Tescos & fill it up so the man at the end of the road directing traffic got very confused as I moved the Cactus to the end of the drive, then back under the window, then appeared with another car & took that to the end of the drive only to go back next to the Cactus, then re-appeared with a blue car, took that to the end of the drive, got out & walked off. So, new fleet picture.

I did take the car to Tescos & I did fill it up, but just before I arrived it started running really rough. I limped it into the filling station, filled it & limped round to the car park. poking at the coil pack connector made it better / worse & when I got home I found that the centre terminal was kind of loose in the connector, I put it on rather more carefully & it was fine after that.

But on the upside, there were no rattles from the dash, everything worked - except that the right hand indicator warning light flashes with the left hand indicators - DOH! A job for another day.

One other issue is the engine turning only very slowly when it's warm - yes, JUST like the Quantum! but if it's left for three minutes (I timed it) it's fine. Weirdness. The car creaks over every little lump in the road & I think it's the poly-bushes, so there's one thing for my winter work list. I parked up in a heath car park & took some pretty pictures for posterity then drove home. Then drove out again to go visit Hammy the closest SKCC member, but he wasn't in & wasn't answering his phone. so then I drove home again.

And I had to take this one ..........

........... to go with this one

Impressions:-

It's quite "harsh" but I don't think it's the suspension, I think it's the rubber-band tyres transmitting every lump up through the chassis.

It's quite loud at W.O.T. It's as quiet as a mouse at tick-over, but screams like a banshee above 4k - this is a good thing.

It is SO good to be back in a Jeremy Phillips designed car again, it just feels like home, lets see if I can keep this one on the black stuff.

Stoneleigh 2021

The Southern Kit Car Club put on a decent effort for the National Kit Car Show - much delayed & re-arranged which may explain the lack of an awful lot of suppliers. The two main shops I wanted to buy from were not there & the usual three halls had shrunk to one sparsely occupied hall. The club stands were better attended but numbers were still very much down on previous years. Some clubs like the Royale owners' club were here in numbers I'd never seen the like of, others like the Rickman owners may as well not have bothered, with two Rancher campers present.

Anyway, we had a nice drive up, had a look round, drank beer, ate burgers, talked bollocks & had a lousy night's sleep.

In garage news I had printed the upper steering column shroud & it fitted quite nicely, then immediately started the lower one going, I wondered if there would be enough filament to finish it, but in the event that wasn't the problem & it finally finished printing only ten minuted before I had to set off the following day!

I arrived at Newlands Corner with a few minutes to spare & chatted with the chaps, then we headed off. we were quite late leaving this year which meant the traffic was worse than usual, but when we did break free of 30 limits, viscious speed humps, festival traffic etc we found ourselves stuck behind cement lorries & combine harvesters. All very frustrating. but in the end we arrived & while driving round looking for our pitch I was waved onto the Quantum Owners Club stand (busy) & had to politely wave a refusal.

So I couldn't buy a lot of the things I thought would be easy, but I did get a piece of ribbed floor mat to replace the driver's side one which was plainly cut the wrong way up as the ribs aligned the wrong way, & a rear view mirror as there wasn't one.

On arrival home - the Quantum having performed pretty much faultlessly (except for a few ground scrapes & a minor exhaust leak at a joint) achieved around 45mpg, I cut the mat (correctly) & drilled the dash top for the mirror (hanging if from the screen surround in the normal way puts it in the way of seeing out), then made up a plate with two riv-nuts & glued & riveted it on, so I now have a nice shiny mirror. I then fitted the column shroud & I'm about ready to tax the car for some test miles.

Almost Forgot

 This PM I cleaned & polished the Quantum as I'm going to the Kit Car show at Stoneleigh tomorrow & someone might want to buy it. So it's all shiny & white & the grubby fingerprints have gone.

Incidentally I filled it with petrol earlier on & my spreadsheet is telling me it did 50.4MPG which seems remarkably economical for what is now a reasonably quick car.

I'll see what it says after the Stoneleigh trip.

Even Almost Finisheder

 

Hooray & hoorah the primary clocks arrived as promised from ETB - unfortunately they billed my credit card one day too early for it to be held over to next month's bill, but what-ever.

They slotted straight in & connected to the existing wiring (which is one of the reasons I went for ETB clocks) & all I had to do was plug in the old speedo, get the calibration figure off it & put it in the new one, the tacho came pre-set & it all seems to work & the milometer starts at zero, so all the miles on it will be miles I've done.

Yesterday I set about drawing up a steering column shroud & printing it. This was a bit of a strain as it involved "surfacing" on the C.A.D. system, which is all a bit "airey fairy" & not very geometrical. I printed a first fit (in "prototype pink" - it said it was RED when I ordered it) which kind of fitted, then tweaked the design & printed it properly, then (as I generally do) I decided I could do it better & re-designed it & printed it again. The bottom half is on the printer as I type, but the top half fits so it should all be good. the pic below was "hot off the press" the front edge was the face on the build table, I've trimmed it all & cleaned it up now.

Tidying Up

 One thing I did to the Fury that I liked out of all proportion to the effort involved was to move the coil pack down below the throttle bodies & run the HT leads up between the TBs, which kind of made it look more old school - as if there was a distributor down there.

On the Fury it was done purely to make the engine look older than it was, but the Stylus had a problem. For some reason it has been fitted with a water rail - it doesn't need one,there's plenty of room for the Ford thermostat housing but it's there, with the business end under a none-to-pretty home made coil pack bracket (1/2kg). this is a problem because I need to run a hose from the water rail to the heater & the coil pack bracket is in the way.

So, re-cycling is a good thing & the 5mm plate from the footwell that used to mount the ECU got cut down, re-shaped & now mounts the coil pack. On the Fury I had HT leads made to fit, but when I was struggling to get the Quantum to run nicely I'd bought an HT lead set, so using leads 3 & 4 from both sets I had what I needed. Also in the "good luck" column was the coil pack trigger wire being long enough to reach in its' new position. In fact I tidied all the legs of the engine bay loom while I was there, so they don't dangle quite so much.

But removing the coil pack bracket gave me another problem. I'd already moved the Fuel Pressure Regulator once because it was mounted at the top of a leggy bracket welded to the coil pack bracket & I'd cut off the leggy bit & re-mounted the FPR. the other day I searched around the back of the engine in vain to find somewhere to put it, but every place I tried something got in the way of the input, the output, the vacuum line or the gauge was facing downwards. I was looking again today to no avail, when I was "struck by the bleedin' obvious" - the fuel rail is just a pipe - it doesn't care which way the fuel flows though it, so after cutting the rigid pipes down a little to make the hose runs smoother, I made a bracket from another off cut of the ECU plate & mounted the FPR at the front & re-routed all the hoses to suit.

I tidied the tools away, checked all the hoses were connected & tight, turned the key, the Low Pressure pump filled the swirl pot, I switched on the High pressure pump & the fuel rail filled, I pushed the starter & it fired & ran - badly. I switched it off & felt the exhausts, 1 & 4 were cold, 2 & 3 were warm - coil pack - it's a wasted spark system so 1 & 4 fire together as do 2 & 3. I unplugged the connector, plugged it in again, turned the key, pushed the starter - perfect idle.

One last job, make up a bracket to stop a couple of HT leads getting wrapped around the throttle linkage & that was it for the day - sort of.

As I have all three cars mobile I've swapped the kits round & took some photos of the Stylus with the DRLs on & off. Tomorrow I'll spend a little time on the Quantum.

DRLs - now you see them.

Now you don't.