August 1999

August 1999

or the last few weeks nothing much has moved on the car because I'm waiting for items to arrive. Now it seems everything has arrived at once!

13th August

The Malory distributor and the MSD electronic ignition arrived by courier today. They were left off the original delivery with the engine as they weren't available.

14th August

I visited John at Crendon to collect the exhaust system, which he had just finished making. The seats I should get later next week all being well.

16th August

I ordered some more items today, namely the exhaust gaskets plus some spark plug lead separators. I'd just read an article about the risk of having a induced charge created in an adjacent plug lead if the leads are not separated. The charge can cause a weak spark and possible combustion in a cylinder when you don't want it. I also ordered the steering wheel and boss from Moto-Lita.

20th August

I ordered the prop shaft today from a company in Luton - it will be ready by Thursday next week.

21st August

Fitted the clutch master cylinder and the copper line to the remote hydraulic mechanism that operated the clutch. Also fitted the exhaust headers. Had to cut down the 16 Allen cap bolts as they were too long so this operation took most of the afternoon.

22nd August

Collected the seats from Crendon today. The seats have been modified by Crendon to pass the SVA regulations. The seat squab in the previous seats was too high and there was insufficient distance between the top of the squab and the upper seat belt anchorage point. The new squabs are physically lower but they don't compress as much as the old seats which were used in John's demonstrator. When I trial fitted the seats and sat in them I end up looking over the top of the windscreen to drive the car! The old seats in the demonstrator I was looking through the windscreen because even though the seats were higher they were much softer and compressed more. I'd already spoken to John about this and he agreed to loan me the seats until I passed the SVA, then I could buy the other type of seats from another supplier.

29th August

Spent all of today working on the the car. I managed to complete the fitting of the petrol tank, I was waiting for a tube to be sweated on my filler cap before I could finish the fitting of the cap. The bolts and screws that held the flange down were very difficult to fit in the tight space. I ended up greasing the washers and bolts so they would stick to the underside of the flange. The grease stopped the washers and nuts from falling off while I adjusted my grip. Jill was promoted to screwdriver person as it was a two man job to tighten them up.

I also started to fit the passenger seat and seat belt anchorage points on the chassis floor. These were due to be finished today but even though I spent some 9 hours on the car I didn't get done all that I had planned to do.

30th August

Finished fitting the seats and seatbelts today. My earlier concern about the height of the seats is still a problem however once they were positioned correctly and bolted down it was better than when I trial fitted them. I still think they are too high and I'm compensating my seating position to look properly through the windscreen. I'll have to check with John at Credon as I didn't have this problem in his demonstrator when I sat as a passenger or drove it.

I noticed today that the bracket on the steering column is rubbing the exhaust manifold. I loosened the steering rack and swivel the rack hoping to change the angle of the steering column enough to get sufficient clearance but it was still not enough. I will have to think about this one. The bracket forms part of the collapsible section of the column so I don't want to change anything that will affect the operation of the column.

31st August

Sorted out the problem with the bracket on the steering column fouling the exhaust manifold. The steering column has an outer and inner tube. The inner tube has a flat section that lines up with a hole in the outer sleeve. The bracket then fits around the outer tube and clamps against the flat part of the inner tube. I extended the hole in the outer tube to enable the bracket to be fixed further up the tube and away from the exhaust system.