Thursday 8 October 2015

A Slow Cold Winter

Not a lot has happened over the winter period, particularly the last two months.Nothing kills the enthusiasm more that a freezing cold workshop. I did fit a heater in my workshop that works really well when combined with the heating in the house. I have a double garage that adjoins the house so when the house is warm just turn on the garage wall heater and open the door to the house and the temperature goes from 10c to 20c in about an hour which is almost too hot. Another reason that things have been a little slow is maintenance around the house that gets neglected has to be done and weekends are my only time so as they say, work life balance and we won't mention laziness.

I have been waiting for brackets to fit the recovery bottles into the the cooling system. Pace have developed a system where the bottles fit to the front of the engine but unfortunately it won't work with my situation as the throttle body gets in the way. The bottles also sit where the oil separator sits plus I don't like the look of it so I will have to devise another attachment. Maybe have custom built bottles but I do want to finish the cooling system off completely.

The hand brake calipers finally arrived and what a piece of work they are. These billet aluminium calipers just slotted right in and once adjusted, work an absolute treat.

Once the hand brake was working correctly I was able to then torque up the CV joint bolts as prior to that, I couldn't stop the axles from turning.

I also did the final sealing of the petrol tank using just a commercial grade clear sealer for outside applications including aluminium. I just run masking tape around the joints then applied the sealer and removed the tape after about 30 minutes while the sealer was still wet but was forming a skin and this gives a nice clean finish without residue everywhere. I got this little tip from the Mr Sink show on Channel31for sealing bath and shower recesses.

This has also been a time for final tightening of the brake and fuel lines and fitting stronger wider clamps to the fluid reservoirs and master cylinder fillers as the experience of others show that the original Willwood wire type clamps leak. The fuel line into the fuel rail was completed and clamped into place and the clutch bleed line has been anchored into position. Pics on this next time.

Until then,

Cheers

Russell