Starter, Alternator & Padding

Some minor preparation before the engine goes in; parts which might be harder to get to once its inside the chassis:

Starter

What I thought was a simple 3x bolt in part needed a little room made on the sump & the starter casing to get the top bolt head in:

All set - save the bottom bolt which I can't access yet:

Alternator brackets

I cribbed David's 'fitting the alternator' page for instruction, it looks like the kit changed slightly in terms of bolt types etc, but clearly shows the intention behind the brackets. All bolts into blind holes have thread lock as well as being torqued & most have shake proof washers.

I didn't install the alternator itself or top bracket yet - they use the same bolt position as the engine lifting shackle, it should be easy enough to fix once the engine is in place and the shackle removed.

Update - October 14 - I should have cleaned off the powder coat on at least one of these brackets to ensure the alternator body has a good earth.

Padding

Some heating pipe foam padding temporarily installed in the engine bay to try and avoid any accidental chips/scratches on the powder coat. Ready to drop the engine in:

I've seen another blog using card/cereal packet sides to protect the engine mount plates (instead of masking tape as I have in this picture) - presumably because its easier to remove/slide out . i.e. both protect the plates while the engine is being lowered in, but then they need removing to bolt everything up - with the engine in situ.

Before installing the engine brackets I must check:

1. Loom is the right side of the gearbox
2. Space for the alternator against the offside chassis tube

Mount the gearbox to the engine

Offered up the gearbox, packed up level with some scraps & all slid into place and just needed gentle tightening on the bolts to pull it home, 7 bolts in total + thread lock, carefully checking the depth of each tapped hole before tightening (someplace I saw a blog where someone tightened bolts and pushed out the casting inside the engine)

Offered up:

Fully torqued (save 2x bottom bolts):

I can't get to the bottom two bolts with it sitting on the deck - the bell housing is preventing a socket getting hold so will wait until later before installing them.

Bell housing and gearbox prep

I received the replacement clutch release bearing from GBS so all set now with parts to prep the gearbox & ultimately join to the engine.

Type 9 gearbox requires part of the starter motor bulge on the bell housing removed to clear a chassis member. I'm taking a chance - working from reference to other peoples builds and some rough measurements to decide where to cut. I'm not going to install/mark/remove the gearbox - this might come back to bite me later :)

I thought the bell-housing might be ally, but by the time I had finished the dust was plainly magnetic so looks like a steel cast iron housing. I cut through with the Dremel and the abrasive cutting discs - of which I managed to get through 6-7, especially when the cut got deep its easy to put accidental side pressure on the cutting discs and shatter them.

I emerged from this job looking like I had been mining for coal - black steel dust everywhere - eye and breathing protection a must! (See later posts, I should also have taken some off the lower start motor mounting point to clear the chassis tube sufficiently)

I painted over the cut edge with black hammerite, played a little with the original & quick shift levers to find all the gears, then went on to install the clutch release lever and bearing:

2x gearbox mounting collars go at 3 & 9 o-clock on the housing, they needed a little grinding to get an interference fit then pushed into the holes on the engine with a little help from a rubber mallet:

(To the right of the picture below you can see the window I smashed with a flying Dremel tool when opening up the spare wheel panel holes)

Minor snag - the gearbox mounting kit is 1x M10 bolt short - I think it must drive whomever packs the bolts crazy counting them & they just miss one here & there.

I need to think about plan the next steps - once I mount the gearbox to engine it becomes very difficult to move which means probably doing this just before install in the chassis.

Plan:

1. Chassis back onto its wheels
2. Chassis into the drive
3. Mount gearbox to the engine
4. Fit gearbox/engine (in the drive to give vertical room to work)

Rear panel - on !

Third time install for the rear panel is now permanent.

I had to do a little work to adjust the spare wheel holes & re-drill the rivet points on the underside, I also spent some time trying to think of reasons not to install the panel - but I can't think of anything I have forgotten.

Rear loom

As planned I attached the panel to the roll bar stays at the top then could move the panel enough to get my hand between it and the fuel tank to install the loom. I installed the reversing & fog lamp cables + grommets as they pass through the panel. I have the standard GBS loom with plugs on the end of all cables & they just fit through the panel holes one at a time & just through the grommet:

Note, later I decided to use rivnuts for attaching the reversing and fog lamps (instead of the placeholder bolts/nuts in these pictures) and would have fitted them before mounting the panel ideally.

Bond & Rivet

Then bond and rivet, working from the centre to either side along the top shroud:

Double/treble checked the wiring was not pinched before completing the riveting, with the top/bottom & sides riveted the whole rear panel is rock solid: (a little Showroom Shine takes off the fingerprints. (Only buy it when its on offer 2 for 1 though :)

(Still haven't turned that suspension bolt around)

Remains only to fit the internal boot floor panels - after the wiring is completed & tested.

Fuel Filler pipe & cap

The fuel filler pipe is trimmed to fit and jubilee clips between the tank and fuel filler cap. I have the cap with a green insert (built in breather). The fiddle with this job is getting room to tighten the 6x 7mm nuts on the back of the filler - my socket wouldn't get in there but found a spanner the right size in my toolbox:

Quite a few steps to get the rear panel installed & a significant milestone which makes the car look more like a car - rewarding & enjoyable.

Rear panel - two steps forward...

The rear panel has been on twice & I was planning maybe one more off-on, if I had to, to get the wiring into place;

Hokey-cokey

1. First fit - to offer up the panel with shroud and drill rivet holes
2. Second fit - came off to clean up the rivet holes and glue the trim to the shroud
3. ...

I was making ready to start permanently riveting the rear panel, spare carrier fitted, drilled the holes ready for the fuel filler & cut the filler hose to size, started to route the rear loom - there wasn't quite enough room to get my hand in to thread the fog/reversing light cables through the panel holes;

Plan - remove the bottom clecos holding the panel and temporarily rotate it a little to give me some room to get the wires in.

When I removed the bottom clecos the panel slid home - tight against the bottom chassis rail - ie. about 5-10mm towards the front of the car - the position it should have been in all along! I had used the bottom edge/underside of the panel as a datum when originally marking out & it turns out this datum edge is slightly too long :)

You can see the panel sitting slightly off the chassis tube through the hole highlighted in this picture:

Options

I could leave it as was - which would mean drilling a couple more bolt holes on the spare carrier & might also cause problems with the defuser later.

  -or-

I could re-fit the panel, cutting a little from the bottom edge and have to re-drill the underside 12 rivet holes & some of the side rivet holes. On the plus side - the back of the panel will sit tight against the rear chassis rail & I know there will be no problem later with the diffuser. The panel needs to come off move anyway to allow threading of the rear lights wiring. <- This

Adjustments

The edges marked red were cut back around 5mm along their length, this lets the panel sit slightly more forward against the underside chassis tubes & the back corner sit tight on the back chassis rail:

Lessons

Don't use the bottom edge of the rear panel as a datum, use the pre-drilled holes where it attaches to the roll bar braces & adjust so the back corner sits tight on the bottom rear chassis tube.

I'm aiming for this to be the last time it comes off!

Spare wheel carrier - panel holes

A round file does the job - slowly but surely, opening up the pilot hole to align with the chassis tubes behind:

I was a little more confident on the hole size & position for the offside & drilled a few more holes to speed things up:

Fitted - a little tight for the moment (needs my rubber mallet to remove it) and I pushed it too far in when trying the wheel in place, but good progress:

(I still need to drill through underneath for the locking bolts)

Rear panel - trim, re-assembly & spare wheel holes

Finishing off the shroud drilling, ensuring the outside edge is lined up flush with the chassis tube, checking the tadpole trim will sit over the panel on the outside, and over the carpet on the inside:

Trim bonded on

Then dismantled,  I cut all the 'tadpole' trim & glued in place with a thin bead of bond. I cleaned the stainless with white spirit first to remove the greasy finger marks, and white spirit to hand on a rag incase any bond got on the facing side of the trim:

Flipped the right way up for the bond to go off, i.e. the arms bending the way they will on the car:

Re-assembly

I gave the bond a couple of hours to go off then drilled back through the rivet holes opening up holes in the trim underneath.

I drilled the pilot holes for the spare wheel carrier using the red marks made earlier then re assembled, with enough clecos to ensure the bottom edge is in the right place. Those ripples on the top trimmed edge go away when all the clecos/rivets are in place:

Open out the spare carrier holes - attempt

The plan was to use a Dremel router bit to open up those two pilot holes. I tried it first on an off-cut of stainless and it seemed to work well. Tried it on the back panel holes - the router bit caught/jamed  in the hole, came lose and flew off across the garage at incredible speed!

I was wearing eye protection & anyway didn't go in my direction but did result in smashing a spare double glazed door panel stored in the garage:

I took a step back and thought of options - more pilot holes? hacksaw blade? The best one seems to be manual with files opening out the holes to the right shape - 10 minutes with my modelling needle files got this far, I'll pickup some slightly larger ones and continue down this slow (but decidedly less dangerous) route.

Idle Air Control (IAC) Valve - 2

IACV First part continued...

The marked up billet:

I Drilled out and the 4x holes on Dad's drill press & then cut out the remaining shape with a hacksaw. The most time consuming step was attaching the grille - I managed to break off one drill bit in its hole,  then my shortened screws had to be handled gently to tap the holes:

Cut a couple of gaskets;

Finished and ready to install on the plenum, The plenum will need 3x holes, one for air inlet and 2x for the bolts either side to hold everything in place. The IACV should then allow air from outside the plenum - through the grille/filter - through the valve and through the single hole into the inlet manifold.

There is a flat area on the plenum just behind the butterfly valve to mount it - I'm going to wait until the engine is in before going further though to make sure I don't mount the IACV in the way of some other component.

I may run a wire through the sponge cut a longer piece of sponge and sandwich under the grille to ensure it cannot be pulled into the valve due to manifold vacuum.

All in all took a couple of hours work - but pretty much came out as planned.

Update - This valve and mount have worked fine for 4 years, however re-reading my design.

The valve holes are 16mm diameter ~ 201mm area, whereas the inlet on the 10mm mount is only 180mm area. If I were to re-do this, or may even revisit it, the air intake slot in the mount should be ~22mm wide all the way to the back of the hole to provide an unrestricted air volume.

Rear panel - remove and start trim fitting

Now the rear panel is drilled, I removed it to

1. Drill the pilot holes for the rear wheel carrier (red paint markers in evidence)
2. Clean up all the swarf around the holes
3. Remove the shroud & fit/glue on the trim

Trial fitting of the first length & how I am intending to do the join between the two types - to be glued in place in due course

The carpets were trimmed down flush with the chassis tube, shroud ends cut to length (note the trim thickness adds 2-3mm to the shroud arm length required), trim measured up & the shroud marked at 10cm intervals ready for drilling:

I decided to cut the shroud arms rather than bend along the horizontal chassis tubes. I have seen the later done on other builds - trying something different.

Quite a slow job, but it looks pretty decent so pleased with the result so far.

Rear panel - finish fit

Finishing off the offside rear panel; the dowel is holding the roll bar diagonal in the correct position ensuring everything is level. I spent a lot of time ensuring those tabs on the corner did not overlap and butted edge to edge to give a smooth curve before locking in place with the rivet holes.

Rubber grommet & masking tape on the drill in an attempt to avoid scratching the external finishes when drilling the rivet holes:

Underside - taking care not to drill into the fuel tank, there are more rivets holes than clecos here 3x either side on each of the straight and diagonal chassis tubes (perhaps I should have fitted the rear panel before glueing it in place?) (+ must turn that nearside bottom suspension bolt around)

Finally the rear quarters where the panel locates on the side chassis rails:

The only remaining holes are for the spare wheel carrier - I marked their position from the inside with a dab of paint. I'm intending to drill the initial holes through from the inside - re mount the panel then open them up carefully with the dremel. (Again - this might have been a little easier if I hadn't fitted the fuel tank already)

Normandy

No progress for the last week or so, I was on holiday in Normandy for 10 days. It does mean I have the best part of this week off work to play with the car though!

There was very little sign of Seven's except what looked like a blue Caterham in Saint-Valery sur Somme on the way back, and only the odd Renault 4 van or 2CV in terms of other classics.

Assuming the Zero will clear the Eurotunnel carriage boarding ramps northern France is a stunning area to drive/tour; 80mph limits on motorways/dual carriageways & 60mph through the country roads with very little traffic even in the height of summer.

Completion parts order preparation

The only progress was starting to think about the final Kitspares orders for completion:

• Seats
• Seat runners - might go CBS duel side locking
• Windscreen wiper kit
• Stainless instrument surround
• 'Zero' grille badge
• Lambda blanking plug
• Rear view Mirror - might go CBS
• Wing mirrors
• Boot cover
• Gear & handbrake covers
• Bonnet locating pins ? - or aero catches?
• CAT
• Silencer

• Windscreen kit*
• Diffuser*

* Required after IVA

Yellow = Ordered 31/8/12

Green = Received 15/9/12

Clutch release bearing

The replacement clutch release bearing has arrived from GBS - so all good to go modifying the gearbox bell housing and getting ready to install the engine.

Idle Air Control (IAC) Valve

Should I try and fit the IAC (Inlet Air Control) Valve?

Richard at GBS said I should keep it - but theres no place on the modified manifold or plenum to install it. Some how it needs a feed of external air in one side to bypass the throttle on the other. Its not particularly essential; just the difference between manually adjusting the intake butterfly stop & ECU control of air at idle via calibrated table lookup.

My Design 1

Something like this might do the trick to mount the IAC against the plenum and allow an inlet of atmosphere. It would need some sort of filter on the intake. The plenum would only need a single hole for the air coming in, and a couple of tapped holes for mounting the valve to this block and to the plenum.

One hole straight through from valve to plenum, one coming out of the side for air intake. It could easily be square rather than mimicking the mounting bezel on the IAC itself.
Asked GBS for a quote to build this

My Design 2

Simpler version focusing on the functionality required and considering the tools I have available:

Bought some 50mm aluminium bar from Ebay to try this myself Only 10mm high, the biggest challenge will be the 16mm hole - perhaps a better job for Dad's lathe or a coping saw than any drill?

Marked up ready for drilling & cutting: (I need a lend of Dad's drill press to drill these holes completely vertically)

Mounting should only need 3 holes in the plenum, i.e. flush to a flat side & if I mount it near the intake I should be able to reach inside to push the bolts through & avoid having to tap them.

Continued here: IACV Part 2

GBS Design

GBS are also producing a prototype design along different lines, fuel hoses to connect to the plenum outlet and mount the IAC separately; i.e. cut the hose, the IACV on the bracket, one end of the hose to the plenum outlet and the other to an air filter.

Still in two minds whether to use the GBS bracket or my own..