First 50 miles

 This morning dried up so I thought I'd take the car out on it's maiden voyage. A quick first few miles and back showed everything looking good, no leaks and no spray of diff oil so that's all sorted. A short wee break and a few more miles, visiting various relatives on the way. Everything seemed to be quite healthy. There were some unusual 'smells' but I can't tell whether they were from the car or from the outside world. After all it's a UK spring and all sorts of stuff happens!!

Once I'd got back and got the feeling back in my legs (heel rest and seat pad to be done very soon!), I had a look under the bonnet and round the car.

Firstly the screens worked well. I no longer have the draught on the top of my legs which was part of the wind chill I had from Bristol. I still get some wind buffeting in my face but it's tolerable to drive without a helmet now. I tried a few different screen angles but it turns out the one I had that 'looked ok' is actually the best one. So that's a huge tick in the box for getting to the kit car show.

Everything under the bonnet held up well despite the additional heat. Well, apart from one bracket. It's PETG but it's right above the exhaust, and it's in tension rather than compression;

 I suspect if it gets any more pliable the coolant pipe will become detached and drop on the exhaust. I need to reprint a new bracket and then encase it in steel, similar to what I did for the fuel pipes. 

Oh, on the subject of fuel pipes, no petrol smell anywhere. That particular demon has been well and truly exorcised.

The main thing that I think needs some work is the rear suspension. I modelled the upper wishbones off a Westfield design where the MX5 upright is next to the damper;

The problem is I then also included a camber adjuster;

I was thinking that the damper and the upright were close enough to not put rotational forces on the bracket. Unfortunately I was wrong, it is basically twisting the bracket on the bushes. It's not enough to unwind the bolt but at some point something is going to get upset. 

I have replaced the washers above with a solid plate as below;

But essentially what I need to do is make the wishbone wide enough to accommodate two bolts. The second bolt will then provide the shear strength to prevent rotation. That then gets me back closer to the Westfield design. The fact that Westfield used the design at all suggests it does work with the right layout. Another Westfield design also puts the damper off from centre;

As a short term fix I could just weld the plates together, but that won't allow me to change the camber and that's on my 'to do' list. I am wondering whether I have enough material to redo them entirely, including enough on the wishbones so I don't have those spacers (but still have the option of camber adjustment). I may have the bush tube but I am 99% certain I don't have enough of the seamless tube. 

Then I'm wondering whether I should change the design so the damper is directly above the upright so forces get transferred in a line rather than rotationally. But then I could make it so the joining plate is horizontal rather than vertical. 

I guess some planning/design is in order.

(The following morning) so I'm having an early morning conversation with Copilot... yeah I know. Copilot is only as good as the questions you ask it. In this case I asked what the friction force was for the plates, and it came back with around 400lbft of torque required to overcome the friction of the steel surfaces. That's on a fully torqued M12 bolt with clean surfaces.

The second question was how much force would be applied if the shock absorber was 1 inch away from the pivot. The response was 80 lbft. Now just looking at the photos I can see it's a little more than 1 inch, but at this point it's just about multiplying the numbers. In theory it would have to be five inches away to apply enough force to overcome the friction. It's not five inches away so I 'should' be in range.

The last question was 'how to improve it', and there were two options. A friction shim or a shear pin. The friction shim is basically some other material to increase friction. Think brake or clutch pad material, that sort of thing. It makes sense but a quick google suggests I can't exactly buy a 'sheet' of this material. 

The shear pin is a much better option for this application. Basically a hardened steel pin through the two suspension pieces and the bracket in the middle. Two 6mm pins would work fine. If I can't find long enough pins to get through all the plates I'll use ones on either side and rely on the welding in the middle. So I need a maximum of 8 pins (2 per hole, 2 holes per side, 2 sides). The standard quoted is DIN 6325, and while Amazon is showing me furniture pins, Ebay has some listed for less than a pound each. I still have a couple of weekends before the show, and apart from taking the rear suspension apart this isn't major surgery. I'd have it done in half a day at most. 

The one thing I want to do today is to get the car lifted up and get the brackets realigned and retorqued, just in case it was something silly like the lack of torque on the nut. I also want to clean off the paint in case that is acting as a lubricant. When I was getting the torque figure it was based on clean steel with flat mounting surfaces. Those surfaces aren't clean or flat, so again this means the pins will work better than just trying to increase the friction. 

I have a registration!

I have to give credit to the DVLA people, they really turned things around quickly. Between paperwork and registration being assigned was 13 days. It would have been quicker if the postal service had delivered an information request on time (6 days for a letter to arrive, how is that good service?!). 

So now I have an age related plate, or at least the email confirming it. I still have to wait for the paperwork to arrive (by post!) before I can go buy my number plates. I was going to get them online but to be honest buying them from a shop is only a couple of quid more expensive. I really can't wait now, screwing the plates on will be the final step in getting it roadworthy.

Of course, I'm sat here now with the beginnings of man-flu, and the prospect of a slightly damp bank holiday weekend, so it's not as if the postal delays are making that much difference. The paperwork didn't arrive today (Friday), and we tend not to get post on a Saturday so it'll be Tuesday at the earliest.

(Later that week) It's now Thursday and I've not had confirmation that the new cheque has arrived with the DVLA, and there's no sign of any paperwork. Seriously, can the postal service get any worse? I wanted to get a few hundred miles driven over multiple weekends before I head to the kit car show, at this rate I'll still be waiting to buy the number plates!!

However it is very reassuring to know that the car now fully exists;

It also shows correctly on askmid as insured. The donor car is also gone, that just returns 'vehicle details could not be found'. So everything online looks good. 

As I mentioned above I was ill over the weekend (it managed to stay with me from when I finished work on Friday until I started work again on Monday. This week has been slowly recovering back to normal, and hopefully I'll be getting some garage stuff done this weekend. One of the first things I need to do is take it for a drive and give it a shakedown. That'll allow me to check the new diff seals, the rear suspension, and the front screens. I also want to start doing some more work around fuel economy which again needs some miles driven.

The same also applies to the foot rest and thigh pad, as well as checking the passenger side footwell temperature. It's right next to the exhaust and I didn't check how hot it gets in the car because of it. 

(Friday update)

Well, thankfully the paperwork arrived today, and a quick detour to the local shop got me two new plates which got fitted after work;

So the car is effectively finished, IE it is a roadworthy car that can be driven. Of course it's not completely finished, I still have a fair few things to do as well as simply driving and enjoying it.

I didn't get to drive it tonight as it was raining, but tomorrow is looking dry. I've got a few hours in the morning to take it for a spin and see how it drives.

Windscreen done

From this;

To this;

Personally I think they've come up really nice, although time will tell whether they do their job. I've not done the bottom seal yet though, I want to test drive and see the effect. It'll also give me a chance to test various angles to see if there is a 'sweet spot' where the wind goes over the top. 

I've also done the rear number plate, this is version 5 (or maybe 6);

This one is just a small support that will disappear behind the plate. The front won't be mounted on anything, I'll just screw it straight to the bodywork. It'll need to be slightly curved on the front but that shouldn't be an issue.

The last job for now is just a small bolt cover in the boot, to cover an exposed bolt thread. It wasn't a major one, I just knew I'd scratch myself on it at some point.

I have also heard back from the DVLA. Unfortunately it's not a V5, it was a request for more paperwork. In my specific case, I'd forgotten to sign the cheque. So I've spent the last two weeks waiting for something to happen, when nothing could happen. Anyway, the signed cheque is now on it's way back so hopefully that will be fine now. They didn't ask for anything else so I'm taking that as a good sign. Maybe now the paperwork has been reviewed once, the cheque can be cashed and I can get my plates. 

Diff and windscreen

First job for the weekend was the diff seals. Autodoc got them delivered Saturday morning so I thought I'd have a go at fitting them. Just take the wheel off, pop the stub shaft and seal off, new one on, job done. Nah, not that simple unfortunately.

Despite my best efforts I just couldn't get the angle to remove the shafts, so in the end I took the diff out. Which needed the boot to come out. Not a big deal for either of them, just a bit time consuming. It was so much easier with the diff out though, the first shaft came out with a sharp thump;

Having it on the floor also meant I could put the diff on it's side to save the oil. The seal was toast which was a good sign;

A whole section in the bottom left was folded in. Even if the folded section had maintained a seal, the creases would have let oil out.

New seals both sides, then a quick top up. I reckon I got about 100ml of oil in before it reached capacity. Given a full diff is only 0.75 that was a decent amount but not so much that the diff was knackered. Well, at least I'm hoping that is the case!

Next job was a bit of painting. The steering column was looking a bit rough, as was some of the interior steel sections. A quick coating of matt black sorted both, hopefully once it's completely dry it'll protect a bit better. 

Then it was on to the windscreen. Starting from last post where I had cardboard cut outs, I printed the hinge and trial fitted the windscreen.

Straightaway I realised that the hinges were too chunky. I liked the idea of chunky hinges but together they were almost the width of the screen.

Then the second issue;

The curve of the car meant the screens were pointing out like ears. It was quite pronounced with the square glass but even with the rounded glass it was going to look weird.

So there was a few things to fix. First was the angle, that wasn't too difficult. A few trials with some spacers showed that if one side went up 3mm and the other side went down 3mm, the 6mm difference would put the screens horizontal. The second fix was just to make the brackets a lot narrower.

I've ended up here;

The screens aren't perfectly horizontal as that would look as out of place as ones parallel to the car. I think this angle is spot on. I'll set the angle at 70 degrees to start with, and have the lowest (inner) edge to be 10mm off the surface. The outer edge will then be 16mm. I'll leave the bottom wiper until the screens are on, just in case I decide they're not needed. I think they will be just to stop wind getting in from underneath. 

Oh, and the initial hinge design used Nyloc nuts to make things tight. That didn't work, it was just too stiff and I even broke one of the initial brackets tightening it. So now I have some TPU washers that should lock things in place. Of course, only a test drive will show whether it's strong enough so that will be a while yet.

In terms of fixing them to the car, as long as I'm not too close to the dashboard then there's nothing underneath to screw into accidentally. So only a few more fixings to go for the screens, basically brackets to screens and brackets to car. 

Next job is the rear number plate holder, version 4. I've took the old one off (with only some trouble removing the old sealant), now I need to print a reduced version. I'm staying with a full sized plate but I want to make sure there is no exposed support. The only exposed printed part will be the number plate light itself. That needs to be done as one piece so I don't have glue lines in it. I'll probably go for a centre piece big enough to fit on the bed, then just a couple of T pieces to provide side support. I'll also do a similar design for the front plate, obviously without the light. 

Random thought

Yeah I know, not exactly a revelation, but noteworthy nonetheless. The fastest car I have ever owned was a Saab 93 Aero. 2 litres of Vauxhall goodness with a bit of magic sprinkled on top, a very nippy car in my opinion. Helped by the fact that it got a bit of a tune up to 250bhp.

The only problem is that it wasn't a light car by any means. With a kerb weight of 1550kg, that gives me 161 bhp/ton. 

Now compare that to the kit car. The donor MX5 only has 113bhp, less than half of the Saab. But then it's kerb weight is 612kg, very much less than half. A quick calculation puts it at 184bhp/ton. So just on paper it's faster than the Saab.

Of course, there's lots of other factors on how cars get from A to B at a decent pace, but at least for power to weight it will be my quickest car so far. 

Just as a further comparison, a family member has a Mark 2 Astra GTE and a Mark 3 Astra GSi. The GSi works out at 135 bhp/ton, and the GTE is 155. 

I wonder what the 200+bhp kit cars feel like, if my lowly 1.6 is going to be a bit of a handful. 

Boot finished and windscreen started

First task, the boot is now finished;

I'll build up a toolkit to live in there, but at least now I have somewhere to put my helmet at the show.

Of course, while I as at the back of the car I remembered I wanted to change the rear reg plate mounting for something a bit tidier/smaller. 

Next job is windscreens. I started off looking at humps and deflectors, but then I got reminded that a wind deflector was only a temporary thing, and that I wanted Brooklands Aeroscreens as the final product. Now I'm done with IVA I can actually have the proper thing.

Now real aeroscreens are £200+ which isn't really an option. There is one option that is cheaper which could work;

Although I wouldn't have this green as it wouldn't match. But to be honest, the whole design can be done with 3D printed brackets and some acrylic. So I've ordered some acrylic, and time for a bit of CAD;

Yep, you guessed it, cardboard aided design. This is the shape of Brooklands curved glass at a decent angle, and it looks pretty much like what I want. I do need to make some brackets, and I can either go for something very Brooklands like;

Or I could go for a more basic option like the first option. 

Either way I do want to fill in the lower gap. It's not a huge gap;

So I reckon just a couple of mm of TPU would do it. To be honest I could probably leave it without issue but just for completeness a bit of trim will finish it off.

I did start with this as a mounting bracket;

The idea would be for some threaded rod to secure the screen to the car, it would allow adjustment of screen angle and (I think) look quite decent on the car. I'll need a bracket for the screen on one side and a tightening screw on the other. On both sides I'll use embedded nuts so I can apply a decent amount of torque to make things tight. 

Saturday progress

I've got a few jobs ticked off;

Boot liner installed and mostly covered in vinyl. I've used TPU supports to carry it on the chassis, as well as rubber strips on the tank to stop any vibrations and knocking noises. I need to trim the sides as a last step, once the adhesive has gone off;

Corner trim removed (I may have mentioned that in a previous post)

Mirror trim removed and tightened, again probably mentioned in a previous post. 

Steering wheel pad removed.

Indicator telltale. I printed a shade but it doesn't quite look right. It's slightly too large and curves round too far. Mark 2 to be designed and printed.

Indicators are back where they should be. I had to buy new lenses because the paint didn't come off, but I'm much happier with how it looks now;

The phone mount is in place but not powered yet. I only have one wire and I'm torn between doing the phone or dashcam first. The phone runs off a battery whereas the dashcam doesn't so it would make sense to wire in the dashcam first. 

And as expected, I've picked up a couple more jobs. Removing the pads inside the car has ripped some of the paint off, so I need to touch things up. I might do the entire inside of the passenger side to get it consistent although it would need to be done with a fairly small paintbrush.

The bigger problem is an oil leak. Or more specifically a diff oil leak. While I was doing the boot I could see oil dripping off the chassis. I could smell diff oil so I got the car up on axle stands and had a look;

It's a bit difficult to see on the photo. I had a nice spray of oil in line with the passenger side diff seal. It looks like reusing the donor ones didn't work. They're not cheap so I had hoped I could reuse them. Turns out I can't so I have had to order some more.

Although I did remind myself that I had an entirely different diff for free, and I've thrown away the case that would have had a pair of seals that might have been reclaimable. Ah well, can't win them all.

So once they arrive from Autodoc, I'll get both sides replaced and the diff refilled. I don't think it would have done any damage as not enough oil could have got out, but I'll see how much is still in there once I strip things down.

 

Completed car photoshoot

The registration application calls for some photos, so I thought I'd add them here too.

Dash clocks

It was an interesting start to the day. I have a notes page on my phone where I am keeping the mileage and fuelling history of my car. The driving on Friday was pretty simple to calculate, the 100 mile distance between Wolverhampton and Bristol was a nice round number.

However the mileage on the speedo looked wrong, so I double checked it;

• Started from Wolverhampton at 177495
• Arrived at Bristol BP station at 177660, filled up with 12.3 litres
• Got home at 177825.

It doesn't take much to notice that there's a little more mileage being reported there. But the speed was being reported pretty much spot on. I was keeping up with lorries for the most part at 60, and overtaking up to 70 with me keeping up with car traffic. I can certainly check it again once it's registered, by using phone GPS.

And then I got my answer off a Facebook post... it's measuring in Kilometres. It's a Eunos import so the speedo would have been measuring KPH originally. Rather than add a gearbox device to change the ratios, the importer has simply replaced the backing of the speedo. After all, the needle still moves correctly, it's only the number it points to that needs to change. The problem is just changing the speedo means the odometer still measures in Km. It just so happens that 330 km is 205 miles. 

It does also mean the engine has only done 110,000 miles rather than 177,000 km, but then that doesn't really make that much difference. The only thing it does mean is when I put the reset clock button back in, I'll be counting Km rather than miles, so I'll have to adjust my range based on that. Given I worked it out to be 200 miles, that works out to be 320km so I'll use 300 as my 'time to find a petrol station' indicator. 

As a future change I might also look at changing it out for a UK version. Given the rev counter is questionable it might be that I'm swapping that out very soon, I could do the speedo at the same time. I'm not going to get a rev counter on it's own, I'll be buying a full dash. They're around £30 which isn't expensive, I'll just use the speedo while I'm there. I might even find myself a white dial set and replace all four, although some of them seem to have an extra few quid added and it's not really worth spending more on them. 

Next work to do

 Now the IVA is over, I can actually turn the car from an IVA-friendly car to a reasonably driveable car. So in no particular order;

1. Install the boot liner so I have a workable boot. I still have to deal with the gap but I'm tempted to add TPU printed strips to act as a buffer. 
2. Remove the corner trim from the places where it really looks wrong. 
3. Actually add more padding in particular places. When driving I found my left leg resting against the transmission tunnel on the edge, so I think a permanent pad would work.
4. Oh yeah, on the subject of pads, remove the extra ones I put in just for IVA.
5. Design and fit a flyscreen or similar. 
6. Remove the edges around the mirrors and tighten them up. I found the middle mirror very 'bouncy' when driving, and I thought that was going to be the most secure. Hopefully removing the cover I can tighten it up a bit. 
7. Remove the steering wheel pad. I'm going to keep the horn button but the pad was just an IVA thing. 
8. Improve the indicator telltale. This was something I spotted when I was driving, the indicators won't always self cancel and I couldn't see whether the lights were on. I spent a fair bit of time with the indicator flashing, not a good thing! I think I'm going to make a shade or similar so the lights don't get affected by sunlight. 
9. Put the indicators back where they should be. I also want to review the fixings, because those self tappers are not going to last. Changing them to proper nuts and bolts seems to have worked much better but I'll have to reprint the bulb holder (again!). 
10. Make a sump protector. Several times I noticed the sump is very much lower than the car so I want to put something in place to protect it. 
11. Sort out the driving seat. My backside is absolutely in agony. I need to increase the padding, and maybe change the angle to give my legs a bit more support.
12. A heel rest, again to make things a bit more comfortable. My left foot felt comfortable against the brake pedal switch cover, but that's not a permanent solution. I think something a bit more sturdy to pivot against will help both feet. 
13. Oh yeah, clutch stop. I need to fit that. I didn't really have any trouble changing gear, apart from a couple of times as my legs were getting tired. But there's definitely no need for the pedal to travel that far, there's no extra 'disengagement' past the first inch or so. 
14. Add dashcam and phone holder. I could have used both of these on the drive, one for the BMW drivers cutting me up (as usual) and for phone navigation. 

That's quite a job list to be honest. None of them are essential (well, the boot liner will be very useful), but it'll certainly keep me in the garage for a few weekends. 

(Edit the next day). This list is getting longer and longer!! I've just remembered I wanted to add the reset button for the speedo. It was going to be impossible to have in place for IVA but now I can put it back in. I'll just need to be extra careful figuring out where the hole needs to go. 

Thinking about it I might also remove the steering limiters, just so it's got more of a turning circle. Having said that it might actually be a bit safer to leave them in place. 

Despite the weather being pretty grim today (Saturday) I did get some jobs done;

1. Boot liner is in and I figure I have a 10mm gap for a TPU spacer. 
2. I've removed the corner trim off the front of the car but it's still on in the interior. I have removed the individual pads, or more specifically they removed themselves! That would have been a frustrating IVA fail if that had happened at the wrong time. 
3. All the mirrors are now frameless. I did put a black backing on the middle mirror as the back was as reflective as the front. At least now I won't be reflecting light into oncoming cars!
4. Indicators are midway through being restored. I need to reprint some brackets, I want to change the mounting method from self tappers to nuts and bolts. It's not difficult but for some reason my printer isn't doing inside tolerances very well.
5. Dashcam is loosely positioned, but needs power and testing before I finish the job. 
6. I did start this whole process with the phone holder but that turned out to be the one job I didn't even get close to sorting! I need masking tape.

Oh, and the rev counter might be a bad earth. Despite my best attempts it might be that I missed one or there's a loose one. I can check that fairly easily. 

IVA Pass!!!

Well, the deed is done, I now have a roadworthy vehicle that is ready to be registered. The testing process has been brilliant from start to finish, mainly due to the Bristol testing station. 

So first thing, vehicle weights. Wow these things have been all over the place. Or more specifically, my brain has been all over the place. It all came from my axle weights being wrong. The gross design weight was pretty much spot on (I said 770, actual was 762 so that was fine). The axle weights were wrong, with the rear actually weighing more than it had measured. 

My flaw in all this is thinking the gross design weight is the same as front axle weight plus rear axle weight. Actually it's not. The axle weights combined should be the same OR HIGHER than the gross weight. It even says it on the pass/fail form if I had actually read it right.

What it meant was that my gross design weight was 770Kg (which is above the actual weight of 762Kg and therefore a pass), the front axle design weight is 400Kg, which is higher than the 328Kg and also a pass, and then finally the rear axle design weight is 500Kg, which is higher than the actual weight of 434Kg. 

Most importantly, I didn't need an extra brake test to get the other 25Kg. I'm still happy that I replaced the discs and pads as they needed to be done, but at least I didn't have to worry about tyre traction again. 

The day started chilly, and I soon realised that my winter coat wasn't actually windproof. I stopped at pretty much every services, partly to check things as I went but also to defrost just a little bit. In any case, it was a clean run to Bristol, taking 2 hours and 15 minutes. That's about half hour longer than Google maps which is about right. I was sat at about 60 all the way. 

The drive itself was good. The car did not like bumps, breezes and many other things that the Superb wouldn't have noticed. It's not due to the car setup, it's merely the weight of the car and it being very agile. Motorways is not it's natural habitat, but then it was never to be a high mileage motorway muncher.

By the time I got to Bristol I was shivering but the car was fine. A quick fill up at the garage showed I'd used 12 litres to do 100 miles. That's 2.6 gallons, or just over 38 miles per gallon. I can live with that. It also gives me a range of just over 200 miles.

I put the car outside the IVA garage and went to use the facilities. By the time I came out the inspector was already measuring up the indicators and number plate, they got ticked off straightaway.

Then it was up on the ramps for the next three, which he was very happy with. Then just the last step. As expected the new weights hadn't been added to the application, however I had printed the email which he accepted. Of course, I also had to declare I was the manufacturer, but that's all it needed.

Ten minutes for a quick brew while he did the paperwork, and I had the certificate in my hand. All done, all passed. Such a relief.

The return journey was a bit more eventful. A lot more traffic for a start, at several points I was stationary with all the holiday traffic returning home. Once again I stopped at a few of the services but every time it was just jam packed so my only break was a brief drive round the car park. It was nice to see people looking but all I wanted to do was straighten my right leg!!

Somewhere along the way the rev counter stopped working. Or more specifically it got stuck at around 3K. A couple of bursts of 70mph got it moving again, then it dropped as my speed went down. So that may be on my 'fix' list quite soon. The speedo worked fine which was my worry due to the cable routing.

There is a whine that I will also need to figure out. When I accelerate or when I'm above 60 I have what seems like a bearing noise. Thinking about it, it could be a gearbox whine so I'm tempted to do a gearbox oil change. Thinking about it the diff and engine got new oil, but not the gearbox. 

Then lastly I did get something bounce under the car and make a horrible banging noise. It could have been anything, but I did have to check that it wasn't something that fell off my own car. It all checked out so I can only assume it was something off the road. 

Anyhow, after 2 hours of very uncomfortable driving I got home, and immediately started working on my 'to do' list to make things more comfortable. 

The last thing to note on here is the emissions tests. Basically everything is listed as 'na' for all the emissions values. So that makes things potentially awkward for registration. I can either go for a Q plate, have it forever branded as a 'car of unknown origin' but able to get away with a smoke test for MOT. Or I can go for an age related plate and have to work off a K plate emissions level. 

I'll get the registration docs over to DVLA on Monday, registered Royal Mail post and then it's a few weeks before the registration comes back. 

Countdown to retest

The bank holiday weekend is over, and I'm three days away from the retest. I brought the car out over the weekend to do last minute checks and to plan my luggage. The plan was for a small bag and a can of fuel, but putting the can in the passenger footwell I wondered whether that was a good idea. As it turned out, no it wasn't. Quite sensibly it's illegal to carry fuel in the cabin, so that idea is out.

I then switched back to the boot, perhaps I could fit the lining before I go. The only problem is that fitting it in it's final position there is a slight gap between the boot and the chassis. I'm not entirely sure why, I thought I got the measurements right. It can be overcome by using some spacers and longer bolts, but then I start wondering about whether I'm risking the IVA pass with any of it. And the simple decision is 'don't do anything that could affect the IVA'. So no boot, and therefore no fuel.

I've got a 26 litre tank and it's currently full, and given the Mazda's fuel economy I've got roughly 150 mile range. Obviously manufacturer fuel economy is never accurate. but then I've lost a quarter of the weight of the original car. With the test centre being 100 miles away I should be able to get there easily. I'd need to fill up before I got to the test centre anyway so I'll fill up at the local garage. 

I've checked all the lights, tyre pressures, fluids etc. I've even put the car the right way round in the garage for a quick getaway on Friday. I can't do anything else now, it is down to the IVA gods whether I have a pass or a fail.

Actually, there is one more thing that I'm dependent on, but it's entirely out of my control. The weather. This week is apparently the warmest of the year so far, which would be great if I was travelling on any of those days. But I'm not, I'm driving on Friday when the heatwave drops off. Watching the met office website I've seen the weather go from heavy storms to cool and dry. Obviously this is more to do with predictions rather than actual weather, hopefully as time goes on they'll realise it's going to be on the drier side. It's starting to get a bit more accurate now, this mornings forecast shows there will be a 30% chance of rain from midday, but nothing earlier than that. 

So that's it for now, I think unless something unthinkable happens the next post on here will be 'IVA passed!!'...

As a small distraction, I 'chromed' the badges. The chrome paint made things a bit more sparkly than I would have wanted but still;

Kinda tacky, kinda cheesy... but they're growing on me. They can't go on before IVA as they have sharp edges, I'll make a decision after the job is done.

I also popped into a local bike store to look at new helmets;

As my wife pointed out it's entirely the wrong shade of green, but then the matt black to the right might also suffice. 

Oh, there is one more thing... my car has a brother! 

Well, it has the beginnings of a brother. This isn't the one that was at all the kit car shows that sparked my original interest, this is a new 'narrow body' kit. And 'kit' is a very loose description, there's no chassis under there! The seller was planning to put it on to a BMW Z3, and have proper working doors. It makes a bit more sense given the hard top, it's not as if he could climb through the windows. 

He has it for sale for 2K, which given I paid half of that for the body. I'm not convinced he's going to sell anytime soon. The ad does say that he has other parts off an actual Healey but they're not in the photos. Is there a grands worth of extras? I'm not convinced. It would be a big project, bigger than mine I think. Part of me hopes that it won't get sold and my car can remain 'one of one'. But then the car builder in me doesn't want to see a car go to waste before it's even completed. I'll keep an eye out in the future for it. 

Badges and clutch stop

 The first task from this weekend was a clutch stop to prevent the pedal from moving too far. The problem is I didn't appreciate how much travel I'd put into the clutch pedal! It's not surprising that the clutch pedal can push it too far. But it meant that to add a physical stop would have had the bolt mounted either on the cylinder itself or where a brake line lives. Although looking at the pictures using the upper mounting bolt may be an option;

I may look at that during the week, it's only just occurred to me. I was looking at drilling a new hole and dismissed the idea.

In any case, what I did do was add a sleeve to the pushrod to limit the travel there. 

This works very effectively and is quite a hard stop on the pedal. However it's effectively pressing against the master cylinder and I'm wary whether that would be considered an issue at the retest.

This is the slave cylinder at rest;

And at full travel with the stop in place;

If I compare that to with it taken out;

It does really help with the movement but it's not strictly needed to get past the test. So it stays off for now.

I can actually see the upper fixing bolt of the MC in a different photo;

Access is tight but I could figure out a decent bolt length pretty easily. I'll keep that as option two.

Given that I have almost nothing to do on the car, I thought I'd look at a bit of decoration. On with the 3D printer;

It was a bit of a faff getting it from text to 3D lettering but I got there in the end. It looks nice on the car as well;

The size looks good and the lettering suits the car, the only issue is the colour. It needs to be metallic at least, if not chrome. I'll see if I can find some chrome (ish) paint and give it a spray. 

This will sit with the boot, dashcam, phone mount and all the other bits and pieces to be added post-IVA.

Lastly, I gave the corner weights a go. It wasn't particularly accurate but when I started I could see the left hand side was 30Kg lighter than the right. That would be enough to throw off braking efforts. A few tweaks to the spring platforms got it to about 5Kg difference. Although I then remeasured the indicator height and they're about 10mm different either side. It probably won't be noticeable but I daren't do any more tweaking with springs. A quick drive down the road showed that both wheels locked up at the same time which is pretty much perfect. I have also dropped the tyre PSI down to 18 so all of that is basically giving the car the best chance for braking efforts. If it doesn't pass with all that then it's major surgery time, either a different master cylinder (and therefore different plumbing) or even worse would be a brake booster which would need some major mechanical changes. 

On the subject of brake booster, I did speak to someone on LCB who used the MX5 brake booster. I was trying to figure out how that would be possible, but then after seeing a pic I realised what was happening;

His car uses a lot more of the pedal box from the MX5, including many parts that I discarded. This way round means the pedals come down from above, and all the mechanical parts work the same way as the MX5. Most importantly this keeps clearance for the brake booster. 

I can't really follow this approach as my fuse box lives where all this would go, but it does explain why he was able to retain the brake booster. 

Still, just driving my car a short distance shows the brakes are effective, so I'm still hopeful an unboosted version will suffice. I now know of at least one car that managed to get on the road without the booster;

This is from another car on LCB which shows the same MC that I'm using. 

Just for reference (and I have a feeling I've already posted it somewhere), I currently have;

134Kg nearside front

194Kg offside front

91Kg nearside rear

96Kg offside rear

For a total braking effort of 515Kg. From a design weight of 770Kg that gives me an efficiency of 66.88%, which is a pass. The new design weight of 400Kg + 500KG (900Kg total) that would only be a 57% efficiency.

To pass I need to get it to 60% efficiency, which is 900Kg/60%, or 540Kg. In other words I need to gain 25Kg of braking force. That really isn't much to be honest, the new discs and pads have an improved surface area which should suffice. In theory because the front wheels locked then the brake effort there is more about traction than brake effort, but with a dry day and reduced tyre pressures I should get more out of them. At the very least both sides should be reasonably even.

Interestingly just looking at the braking efforts again the parking brake gave 272Kg on the rear, whereas the service brake was only 187Kg. That does suggest the mechanical leverage given by the master cylinder is less than the handbrake, given both act on the same brake pads. Again, if I can get a little more on the rear that will also help. 

I need to take my mind off the brakes though, I have done literally everything possible. All the other issues were well defined and have a nice big tick next to them. The only thing I really need to focus on is the drive back to Bristol. More specifically, the weather at the time of the drive! If it's dry then great, if it's sunny then even better. If it looks like rain I'm going to need to do some prep work. 

Oh yeah, and I cleaned the car! Only a quick wipe down with soapy water but it really made it look good.