May 1999

ots of little time consuming jobs done on the car this month. I'm preparing for the arrival of the engine and gearbox, everything so far is going to plan.

1st May

Earthed all the front lights and side indicators. Run and connected the wiring leads up to the windscreen wiper and washer pump motors. Drilled holes in the bulkhead and run the wires through for the side indicators and washer pump.

9th May

It rained all day yesterday so I was unable to work on the car. A single garage is ok for storing the car, but there is little room to move around and work on the car. I made up for it today and spent all day on the car.

Jill and I fitted the seatbelts in. This was a two man job, or at least one man and one woman job! Because of the SVA (Single Vehicle Approval) regulations, John at Crendon has made up a bracket that makes sure his cars comply with the seat belt anchorage point. The height of the anchorage has to be a certain height from the seat squab. So John has had to raise the seat belt anchorage point about 2 inches above the rear bulkhead. I've taken a few photographs which will soon be on the site. I was in charge of holding this bracket and seatbelts and pushing the bolt through to the boot section. Jill made sure the nut lined up with the bolt. There is not too much clearance on the underside of the fiberglass and Jill was very careful to make sure the bolts did not push their way through the fiberglass.

By the end of the day I'd completely finished the boot area except for the petrol filler cap and connection to the petrol tank. I made earth straps and wired in all the rear lights and I also checked each connection for a good earth. One of the major niggles with kit cars is poor electrics which usually is as a result of a poor earth connection.

I fitted the petrol tank in place and re-fitted the hinge support bar for the boot hinges. Which I then had to take out again some 2 hours later as I discovered it would look neater if I ran the wiring loom over the bar rather than under as I had it at the moment. I toyed with the idea of leaving it, but I knew my conscience would play on me, so I swapped it over. I connected up the electrics to the sender unit and the petrol pump. I fitted the support bracket for boot stay and fixed the stay to the boot lid. Finally, I bolted down the small bracket in the middle of the windscreen with 5mm stainless bolts. This took quite a bit of filing to make sure the bolt heads sat flush as to begin with they were siting at an angle because the hole was drilled at an angle. It would have annoyed the hell out of me while I was driving the car because I'd have kept looking at it and noticing the the bolts did not sit flush. Because there was so little clearance it took ages to do the filing to get the holes parallel and true so the bolt heads would sit flush against the bracket - but it was worth the effort.

14th May

I ordered some grommets to guide the wiring through the inner wings into the engine bay. I also ordered a indicator stalk with combined hazard flash unit on it. I don't like the one supplied with the kit, so I've decided to put my own in.

15th May

Re-fitted the fuel line again today. I'd noticed that I'd stupidly fitted the 'P' clips, which were supporting the fuel line, upside down. The weight of the line was causing the clips to sag a bit I considered that this was only going to get worse and not better, so while it was easy to get to the best idea seemed to replace them and do the job properly. So I drilled out the rivets and re-fixed the clips so the fixing was on the upperside of the fuel line.

I also routed the rest of the wiring loom in the scuttle area and made myself familiar with the remaining wires that needed homes to go to. The indicator stalk and hazard flash unit arrived today. But as I offered it up to the car I realised that it was too big and would stick out too far. I will have to send this back, which thankfully I made sure I could do before I ordered the item. I will have to look around for a chrome stalk with a black plastic end piece that I can fit into the end of the switch that John supplied. I feel a trip to the scrap yard or an auto jumble should sort this little problem out.

16th May

Trial fitted the dashboard today, just to make sure that everything would fit into place once I'd wired up the dashboard. I also needed to this because I want to wire up the dashboard over the next week so I needed to know where the multiplug connectors would need to be sited on the back of the dashboard. There is also a couple of additional lights and a hazard warning switch that needed to be fitted to the dashboard so it was useful to see where to site these.

I think I might have a problem fitting the demister vents in the space that is now left. I will have to have another look at this area to see if the vents and the wiring loom are going to fit or whether they are going to be fighting for the same bit of space.

I need to chase up the delivery date for the engine and gearbox during next week, and make sure that John at Crendon has finished the gearbox mounting bracket. I'm really pleased with the progress on the car, I have a tentitive completion date of the end of July, but we'll see how I get on. I don't know what the wait is on the SVA test at the moment, so I'll have to make enquiries over that too. Because I don't want the car finished and have to wait weeks before I can get it tested - I'll keep you posted on that one. I believe that I have to take the car to a SVA station that has speedometer testing facilities. Which is a bit of a pain, especially as we have a SVA testing centre some 6 miles away, and the one with the speedo testing is in Uxbridge, London I believe.