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. 

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.