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groovylee

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Posts posted by groovylee

  1. well, the Edinburgh trial went well, in so much as i made it home under my own steam :-D

    unfortunately, after 39 hours awake, i succumbed to a bit of man flu, so i have been off work for the past two days.

    daytime tv was getting on my tits, so i decided to go and tinker with a bit of wiring. so far i have managed to fit 4 little rocker switches - one for a reversing light, a fog light, the compressor, and the USB socket thing.  one currently spare, but im sure i'll think of something to connect to it.

    i'll sort the final compressor wiring etc when i feel a bit better.

    I also managed to fit a shelf above the engine, where i hope to build a bracket for the trolley jack.

     

    pics to come later

  2. forgot to add - new brake calipers arrived yesterday - standard mini ones for now, just so i can crack on until i sort out the bleed nipples on the 4 pot metro units. i am waiting on the hoses, and i ordered a new brake flaring tool, as i wasn't totally happy with the double flares on the current one.  this new one looks much better, so fingers crossed.

    ive also got a load of new crimp bullets coming, so i can crack on with the front light wiring.

    after that, it is a case of wiring in a reversing light, fog light, the compressor, and a USB socket for phone charging and a mini usb maplight i have.

    then finally it will be sorting out the timing and mixture, then i should be in a position to road test it! fingers still firmly crossed for the beginning of november.

    nothing much happening this weekend, as i am doing the edinburgh trial in the Rickman. hopefully i wont break anything on that, or i will have even more blockers....

     

    Lee

  3. the intention is to get it running on this setup, get the first event out of the way, and then get it over to a custom exhaust place and ask them to make up a nice quiet stainless jobby for it. hopefully it wont cost too much, but i think it'll be worth it in the long run, as i can see this one not lasting forever......

     

  4. only just getting around to updating this from the weekend....

    made a start on making a suitably shit(e) exhaust for this.  now bear in mind im doing this with a stick welder, so it was never going to be pretty....

    first up. ah. that wont work.

    image.thumb.png.a29b42e144ecf0bf1e05a748c5d698bf.png

    time for a bit of dodgy cut and shut.

    image.thumb.png.56f472120ac853fb00b4f96893f48f27.png

    and then a bit more

    image.png.400d41ba15d6268ae45447f7b3e44aec.png

    couple more clampy bits

    image.thumb.png.1338ff425a926c5f8336549762fa4c5c.png

    and a suitably shite exhaust hanger. this is only temporary...

    image.thumb.png.7dc233bfcfde5b68f91ae75a2f14dcfe.png

  5. 15 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

    This thing is fantastic.  Starting to look far less shed built now it's more complete.  The colour is absolutely perfect for it too.

    That will be so much fun, especially with the A series soundtrack without any sound deadening.  

    If you're ever in the Milton Keynes area I'd love to see it in the metal.

    im only down in shefford, so once it is up and running, i'd be more than happy to come and have a play around a few roundabouts 😁

  6. started to mock up the rear mudguards:

    IMG_20220926_180635982.thumb.jpg.48a2bac61e4817a21aaaec9846ae2f0a.jpg

    then got busy with some metal bits and ended up with this:

    IMG_20220926_180657128.thumb.jpg.2b41717748d7744348e0b091f0077e8d.jpg

    then yesterday i finalised (for now) both side brackets, and got the mudguards mounted up, along with rear lights fitted:

    IMG_20220930_151342881.thumb.jpg.8abbc577cb826671363e50c7e4ccadf4.jpg

    happy with that. spent the rest of the day wiring up all of the lights, so i now have working indicators, rear lights and brake lights. the way that the gear linkage is set up means that there cant be a reversing light switch in the usual sense, so i need to wire one to a manual switch on the dash, as well as a rear fog light. at the end of the day i picked yup an exhaust that i hoped would fit, but it wasn't to be, so i will mostly be cutting and welding exhaust today, as well as hopefully manufacturing an engine cover / shelf on the back. i'll try to take more pics today :-)

     

    Lee

     

     

  7. Tonight I'm mostly pissed off. Managed to enter the trial with lily in November, so the pressure is on to finish. Full of beans, I got home and set to fitting the calipers back on and plumbing them in. New brake lines made up, new flexis. All going well. Then I went to bleed the front calipers. Snap goes the bleed nipples. 😭🤬 All three of the damn things on one caliper.  And two on the other caliper are tight as you like. So they'll likely snap too.

    I've managed to drill one out, but it was a right git. I've ordered the correct M7 tap set to hopefully clean up the threads. Fingers crossed..... I may be tempted to just run standard mini calipers in the short term while I try to sort these out....

  8. nothing much to report today - had a busy weekend of rugby and work, so no real time to get anything done. 

    i do, however, think i have the required parts to make some heavy duty rear cycle wing brackets. i think they'll mount on the rear steering arm bracket bolts, so i've ordered some 1/2" longer ones to account for the bracket.

    with a bit of luck, i'll just need to weld the three parts together, at the required angles, and then paint them, and i'll be good to go!  something tells me it isn't going to be that simple, but hey, it's a starting point :-)

     

    Lee

  9. it still needs a little fettling, but its almost there. ive ordered a slightly shorter wiper blade to hopefully stop it hitting the bottom of the screen, and i need to stop it hitting the drivers side, but ultimately, its about right. i think i also need to whip out the motor and lube the bits up in there, and clean the connections, as it is a bugger to get to. so better to do it now before i finally (hopefully) button the 'bonnet' down for the last time.

    i found the issue with the lights - the switch was full of gunk. i gave it a good scrub out, dried it off, cleaned the contacts with the trusty fibreglass pencil, and then popped some silicone lube in there. works like a charm now.

    did the same with the wiper switch and the washer switch, and theyre smooth as silk again.

    i found no evidence of hazard warning lights being fitted, so i'll need to get the wiring together for that. shouldn't be too troublesome. i found a ford switch that almost fit in the mk3 mini sized holes, so i filed the hole out a bit and now that is neatly installed ready.

    working today till late, so no chance of getting on it today. will hopefully have a little tinkering time tomorrow evening after the wifes first rugby match. brave woman that!

    next big jobs will be the rear mudguards, which im amassing bits for, and he exhaust, which is going to be messy, ugly, and far too involved. but im sure it'll work in the end..... WCPGW?

  10. 1 hour ago, Mally said:

    I do that with the nuts M10/unf. long male/short male. I had them in separate boxes in the same drawer, but they are mostly mixed up now and I have to check each one every time.

    Sometimes on your sort of thing they can be metric one end of a pipe and unf at the other, which is not ideal.

    yeah, i think thats what i have here, the end to the car is UNF, and the end to the caliper looks like it might be M10x1.0. i have some brake line fittings for the ranger which i believe are metric, so i'll try them on the end of the hose and see if they fit. if they do, then i know ive got to order them.

     

  11. last night i didnt have much time due to working late and rugby training. but i did have time to make up some new hard lines for the front brakes. went to fit them and found that the nuts i ordered to secure the flexis were the wrong thread :-( oh well, back to ebay...

    the front lights turned up, so i slapped them on loosely for a bit of a test. the main beam works, but the dips dont. could be wiring, could be the switch needing cleanining. more investigation required tonight.

    more pics if i get time later.

    Lee

  12. So, tonight's efforts involved fitting the new oil pressure relief valve, swapping the wrong sided driveshaft to the other side (who knew they were different lengths? 🤦) Refitting the rear hubs, reconnecting up the handbrake, fitting the rear bump stops, putting the rear coilovers back on, putting the radiator on, fitting the fanbelt, and then putting the plugs and leads back on. 

    The new rear lights and front indicators have arrived, as have the front brake hoses, so there's plenty more to be done next. 

  13. On 20/09/2022 at 13:23, Eavb said:

    They normally prime pretty easily. Spark plugs out, put in gear, remove banjo bolt from external oil pipe to engine block and squirt some oil in block while pushing the car backwards. I've not had one fail to prime yet (unless someone's forgotten to put the O ring between the block and gearbox or cocked up the oil pump gasket)

    Did this tonight (well, no wheels on the back, so turned it over with the crank pulley). Turned it over on the key, and voila! Oil light out, oil at the rockers. So very happy right now 😃

  14. well the weekend came and went! brakes and boot stuff sorted on the ranger, so attention turned to the mosquito. a few of the ball joints were too tight for me to undo, so ordered the correct 1.5 socket. while we waited for that, we decided to set the static timing on the engine. cue much searching for the dissy cap and rotor arm... once we found that, we whipped the plugs out and turned the engine over to find no1 TDC. except the engine wouldn't turn over. uh oh. eventually traced to a slightly too long engine mount bolt on the bell housing. once we'd undone that a bit, the engine turned over ok, and we set the static timing. once we'd done that we checked and adjusted the valve clearances which went ok.
    next up, we decided to go through the wiring to connect everything up. there were a few head scratching moments where the colours didn't match to one drawing, so we muddled through and got there in the end.
    just for fun, I connected up the battery and tentatively turned on the ignition switch. position one. nothing. position two - we have dash lighting! the headlight switch turned that on and off ok. the heater came on, so that was duly switched off. the fuel pump started, so we disconnected that. the horn worked, the main beam indicator light worked, the fuel gauge goes to full deflection when shorted out, and the temp gauge does the same. so far, so good!

    finally, I thought I'd spin it over to see the oil pressure light go out. except it didn't. ah.
    took out the pressure switch, gave it a brief spin, no oil. removed the pressure relief valve, and it was jammed in, so managed to get that out, gave it a brief spin over. no oil.

    I've ordered a replacement, and when that arrives I'll try priming the pump. if that doesn't work, it'll be engine out and oil pump replacement. fingers crossed!

  15. 10 hours ago, Matty said:

    Yer gonna run out of things to do at this rate 😄

    not likely! the list is very very long, and I've only got till the beginning of November...

    highlights include:

    rebuilding the brakes, including new master cylinders

    replacing the clutch master cylinder

    getting the fuel system to work

    getting the cooling system to work

    installing the engine, setting the timing, hoping the carb is still set up right and making it run

    design, fabricate, and install an exhaust

    fitting the rear cycle wings.

    all on top of a full time job, on a project that is just about to go full steam ahead.

     

    fun lol

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