Wiring

 Right, time to start this one with a digression. Remember that comment about finding right angle trim? Turns out we have some left over from our bathroom refit, a right angle aluminium trim that will work perfectly. So that's that.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand, wiring. Now that I know what I'm using (or more importantly not using) I had another go at the wiring loom. I wanted to separate out lighting and engine, as well as bin audio wires, excessive earths, that sort of thing. After a full weekend I managed to trim it down by about half, as well as have separate wires ready for the lights. I've also ordered some connectors for the individual lights so I can remove the wiring from the body.

However I did find some wires that couldn't be traced or identified, so this will be a list of all the wires along with comments and (hopefully) an identifier. So straight on with the photos;

white blue comes from the headlight connector

red green to stop fuse for horn and brakes

red white to headlight switch

green black and green white are indicators left/right. These wires are for the telltale on the dash

back of flasher relay, same green white right and green black left

Rear loom indicators, again green white right, green black left

These two connectors are door connectors, speaker and window winder. Both removed.

red black for side lights going to the dashboard loom

red black for side lights going to fuse box

white yellow going to a power feed, but not connected so not sure what it's powering

Shopping list

 Time to get this written down, I've taken so many notes and contradicted myself so many times, if I get a master list down then I can remember what I need to get. Hopefully this will all be from car builder solutions so one big order and avoid postage costs!

1. Japanese battery terminals. BTERS, £9.60.
2. 16mm link water pipe for heater matrix. HTHO15 £6.00 per metre (1 metre)
3. 16mm T joint for connecting to expansion tank. TEE15. £4.20
4. 32mm water pipe from rad to engine x 2. HOS32A £15.60 per metre (2 metres)
5. 32mm 90 degree bend. HSH9032 £4.50.
6. 32mm joiner SJ7 £6.60.
7. 8mm pipe from overflow to expansion tank return. RPVC8BK. £2.40 per metre (2 metres)
8. Air filter. SSFIL2 £14.40.
9. Breather filter for cam cover. BFIL15 £10.80.
10. Reverse light REVL3 £9.60.
11. Fog light FL3F £16.80.
12. Reducer for the air intake. SJ3 £4.80.
13. Two 9 pin connectors for front and back. RPMUL9 £4.80 each (2 needed). 
14. Chrome wing mirrors M23F £29.40. (A bit expensive but a decent match for real ones)
15. Rear reflectors. RR29 £2.40.

The '32mm with 8mm T piece for overflow tap. TEE328 £24.00. ' has been replaced by an Ebay part for £15.50, it's got an angled T piece and just under a tenner cheaper so can't go wrong really. They haven't got an equivalent 16mm T joint, but I doubt I could find cheaper than the above anyway.

Lights appear to be cheaper on Ebay too, a set of Landrover Defender lights (four indicator, two side and two stop/tail) are £31.80, rather than £50 from CBS. They're now on their way. 

For air intake, I have a Tee silicone hose; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203279942439. 70mm both ends to go into the throttle body and AFM, with a 25mm tap. I need to get down from 25mm to 18mm. There is a reducer for 16/19 through to 25/22 which should do the job (added to the shopping list). 

The hoses are quite common on Ebay but none are cheaper than here. Fog and reverse lights could probably be found but the IVA marks are important so I don't want to mess around with possible IVA failures. Several hundred pounds for a retest, vs a few pounds saving for an 'Ebay special'. 

Now for jubilee clips. For the air filter I'll use a banding kit off Ebay, £4.50. For the others I need;

• 6 22mm clamps for the heater matrix and T piece.
• 6 39mm clamps for the radiator pipes (including the joiner). 
• 2 13.5mm clamps for the overflow pipe. 
• 27mm and 31mm for the idle air bypass.

Turns out that screwfix have a box of 60 hose clips that will cover all the options above, as well as the air filter requirements so that banding kit may not actually get used!! 

I also need two multipin connectors. Assuming one single ground for them all, on the front there are;

• BLK ground.
• RED-WHT and RED-BLK to both headlights.
• GRN-BLK for right indicator
• GRN-WHT for left indicator
•  RED-BLK to both sidelights. 

That's six pins total. Side indicators will loop off the main indicators so don't need a separate connector. 

On the rear, again assuming one ground;

• BLK ground. 
• RED-BLK to both tail lights and licence plate light.
• RED-GRN Reverse light
• ??? for fog light (fog lights aren't OEM, so while I know there is a wire, I don't know the colour)
• GRN for stop lights
• GRN-BLK for right indicator
• GRN-WHT for left indicator

So seven pins at the back. Looks like I'm back to my original choice of nine pin lockable from CBS. That gives me the option of running the headlights on different wires, just in case they're a bit much for the wiring. 

I still need edge trim for along the doors and transmission tunnel. 

Fuel, exhaust and more gas pedal

 I had a remarkably productive weekend with lots of box ticking done. First the fuel lines, they have been separated on the engine end and the flexi lines added;

They'll get a couple of clamps added per line, and there's at least 3 inches of copper inside the rubber pipe so it's not going anywhere. I didn't do the rear as the space is a bit tight back there, and I also wanted to plumb in the fuel pump and filter at the same time. 

Next, the exhaust;

Yes, that is the catalytic convertor that I've painted, and yes I know I'm not under any illusion that even VHT paint will survive Cat temperatures, but at least it's protected for now. And it looks great on the car;

It's probably a bit disappointing that the whole thing will be inside the body, as I think it looks really tidy. 

Now on to the main event, the gas pedal. I posted a few days back that the gas pedal hinge and the steering column were not happy, and that I needed to redo the pedal to get it to work. After a fair few hours of cutting, measuring and welding, I finally have a working pedal in the right place;

This also resolved the cable mounting itself, so I have an L shaped bracket bolted to two places on the chassis, that provides a hinge for the gas pedal and a suitable socket for the cable. It's all spring loaded and sits really well, as you can see I've also pushed the gas pedal over to the right. This gives a bit more clearance for the most important pedal, the brakes. I did also tweak the clutch pedal home position as the gas pedal doesn't have as much travel. The brake pedal is slightly ahead of the gas pedal, so if panic sets in the first pedal to be pressed is the brake!

After all that, it was a simple case of cutting and reshaping the firewall;

I added a side panel so it's all boxed in from inside and still isolating the engine from the occupants. I'll need to glue or rivet that small panel to finish it off, but this is as far as I need to go for this.

All of that work was to prepare me for mounting these three;

The coolant bottle needs to be teed into the heater matrix loop, with the overflow back to the radiator. The ECU just needs to be mounted on a flat surface, I've made up some tabs so it can just be riveted in place. The battery then needs to be secure, so some sort of metal strap or other fixing.

Ah yes, the battery... So I went for a cheap battery because I have no other electrics to supply, and wanted to keep things small. That has created two issues. First, the battery on an MX5 is kept in the boot, so the power connectors are about 8 feet too long!! That's a good thing though, shorter cables mean better starting. I remember that from my wife's Mini. The second issue is that the battery terminals on the MX5 were from a bigger battery, so they don't actually work on this one. I need to order new battery terminals. That's also a good thing though, rather than having to re-terminate the existing connectors I can start from new with everything. 

So it looks like I'm going shopping for my next job. I need;

• Lights front and back with suitable multipin connectors so the bodywork can be removed. 
• Water pipe for the cooling circuit.
• Air pipe for the intake. 

Once those are in place I can add the wiring loom, and maybe even start the car! 

Clutch pipe and gas pedal

 First of the new jobs, the clutch pipe. This would be a fairly simple job, but it turned out a bit more awkward than I thought. First issue was the Wilwood master cylinder is based on a DIN connector, but everything else on the car is SAE. Fortunately I had accidentally bought some DIN brake pipe nuts, but I didn't have a DIN flaring tool.

A quick google suggests that since kunifer is softer than steel, if an SAE flare is tightened down on to a DIN fitting, it will make a sufficient seal. While I wouldn't have done that on the brake lines, the clutch line is at far less pressure so I gave it a go. As it turns out, yes it does work, so now I have a clutch line;

By the way, the loop is based on the original MX5 fitting, and I believe it's to allow the engine to move without affecting the pipe too much. It also makes fitting the pipe a lot easier, as both ends are slightly flexible. Had I used the exact length I think it would have been so much harder to fit. 

Now on to more frustrating times. Well, not frustrating, as I did expect at least a few occasions. Basically everything I've built has been done as a single item, then taken back off the car. At some point, all these single items have to live together. The first conflict I expected was actually the steering rack and the starter motor bracket, apparently that is a very common one but I managed to avoid that one due to me putting an angle into the steering column. It does pass very close to the chassis tube but 'close' isn't 'touching'.

What it does touch is the gas pedal bracket. I had preserved the hinge on the gas pedal to work the same as it did in the MX5, unfortunately when I put the steering column and the gas pedal on to the car they want to occupy the same space. Since I can't do anything more with the steering column, it means I have to modify the gas pedal. 

However this is one of those 'two birds one stone' occasions. The gas pedal cable requires a bracket to pull against, and I'd not budgeted for that anywhere. So as I move the pedal I can also incorporate a bracket. It's got to be tough though, it's got the force of my foot and the force of the throttle springs acting against it. I'm thinking a length of 19mm tube with a suitable end is required, and possibly even triangulated against something.

Back to the pedal though. The original is cranked to the right, so moving the pedal away from the steering column puts the pedal into the side of the footwell. What I need to do is create a left cranked version. This picture shows the crank as well as my solution;

The cut metal is actually perpendicular to the hinge, but the pedal is at least a couple of inches off the surface. What I'll do here is weld the upper part of the plate to the original (thereby preserving the cable hook), then cut off the lower part of the original (below the hinge). I'll then transplant the pedal on to the new plate, and that should give me the clearance I need to move the hinge over. The plate is a similar thickness to the other two pedals which get much more force so I'm not expecting any issues.

Then the plan will be to create the hinge for the pedal, at the bottom of the bracket where the cable will attach. The top just needs to be a hole, and the tension of the cable on the pedal will keep it in place. I'll use a nut and bolt as a back stop to limit the travel when the pedal is released. 

And there I was thinking the gas pedal had been the easiest one to deal with. I still need to figure out what to do with the scuttle though, all this was driven by the need to put a hole through the scuttle for things to work properly. The gap for the steering column is fairly clear to see but it's only when I added the gas pedal that I realised things no longer work.

To do list February 2024

 Hopefully this will be a lot more items ticked off this time, but lets see what to be done;

• Tube capping. There's not as many as there were but there will be at least some. Along the same lines I remember seeing some welds that need tidying up or redoing, then I'll go back over it with primer.
• Handbrake. Now the panels are finished I can get this done, it will still need some ironwork but hopefully not much. 
• Pedals. The clutch needs to be plumbed in, with the engine it's pretty straightforward to create the line. I did check the clutch arm though, for some reason mine is clear but I do know other MX5 builds there's been problems. And staying with the pedals, they still need their limit stops.
• Seat belts. All done, fully tested and ready to be bolted in once the panels are rivetted in.
• Radiator. Radiator and fan mount in place and ready to go. It now needs the coolant bottle fitted, then the handful of pipes to plumb it all together. In terms of pipes I think it will be;
• Radiator (32mm) to water pump at the front of the engine (31mm).
• Other radiator end (32mm) to the far end of the engine coolant loop (31mm).
• Heater matrix loop (17.5mm) with a T piece off to the coolant tank (16mm). 
• Overflow feed (8mm) to 'somewhere'. Really it should go to the highest point to allow air out. I suspect it's going to need to come off the top of the front hose. I can see a fair few 32mm/8mm tee pieces on Ebay though so I'll grab one of them.
• Roll cage. All done.
• Exhaust. Mostly done. The brackets need a final weld, and I need to weld on the 90 degree end piece so it exits out the side of the body.
• Propshaft resize. I'm going to get this sent off and machined down, the prices were very similar but I'd have preferred to be able to take it myself rather than post it somewhere. 
• Fuel tank mounting brackets. Done.
• Fuel lines. Done. Er, actually, not quite. The hard lines are done but I still need to mount the fuel pump and filler, then connect them up with the flexi hoses. Then the same at the engine end. 
• Scuttle panel. Done.
• Windscreen. Not doing.
• Brake pipes. Done.
• Wiring loom. Hmm, next big job?
• Engine ECU. I think this will mount on the scuttle, although the MK HSR has it mounted on one of the chassis tubes. It'll depend on the wiring.
• Battery mount. Yes I can do this now.
• Dashboard. I need the body in place for this. 
• Engine servicing. This will be almost a pleasant job after all the work I've done so far!
• Bolting up. I need to audit my fixings, I think I'm short of a few long bolts which I'll need to order. 

So the next jobs will be battery mount, coolant bottle mount and clutch pipe. I also need to order coolant pipes and the lighting set that I found a while back. 

Interior finished

 I managed to get the last couple of panels done this weekend, so now the entire interior is made of aluminium. 

I'm really happy with how it's come out, it just needs some angle trim on the sharpest edges to finish it off. Once it's all rivetted and glued in place, and the backing sheets have been removed, I'll be left with an all aluminium interior which will look amazing. Of course, it's going to be red hot after a few hours in the sun, but I'll deal with that if we ever see that much sun in the UK again!!

I do need to check my rivet stock though. I'm 99% sure I don't have enough of the original rivets to do all these panels, and I'm fairly sure some of the overlapped panels are going to need longer rivets. I think I also need some more rivnuts for removable panels, as well as the domed head screws to use with the rivnuts. Still, I have a hardware audit planned in the near future so I'll see how many rivets/rivnuts/screws I'm short of.

This was a big block of work and I'm glad it's finished. It also means that I can finalise the fibreglass bodywork, as well as mounting the battery and the coolant bottle in the engine bay. 

Fuel lines

 I've just realised I didn't post about the fuel lines! I hinted at what approach I was going to take, IE flexi lines to the back of the engine bay, then hard lines the length of the car, back to flexi near the fuel tank.

Here's the hard lines, starting at the engine bay;

I need to cut the ends shorter and spread them apart to allow the flexi hose to attach. From here they go down the side of the transmission tunnel;

Now they're at the bottom they are clear of everything;

They are mostly accessible from underneath, although I might redo the bolts from the other direction. I think some of them have the bolt trying to come through a panel!!

Once they're at the back, they're back up to get close to the tank;

Again the tails are only lightly in position here, they need to be split up to allow the flexi hose clamps to be mounted. I might even bend them vertically so I'm not interfering with the rear brake line which is also right there. 

They're fixed at maybe four points, but they are not budging at all. It does make me wonder whether they brake pipes need sturdier fixings as they move about far more than the fuel pipes do. I think I was going to use some adhesive sponge wrap on the brake pipe fixings so they don't slide about as much. 

HSR example

 While I was writing the previous post, I noticed a few things on the HSR pictures I have. First off;

This has several interesting points I'd not noticed before. First was the retaining strap for the bonnet, I plan on copying that although it's a bit worrying where it is as I'd have thought it would droop on the exhaust.

Second is the bodywork. In this case it's right up against the engine, which means it's not got the platform that I've had to build. It must have the battery above the passenger feet but inside the car instead of inside the engine bay. Having said that, the way I fitted my body the front panel actually sits dead centre rather than lining up with either front or rear, so I would have had to cut it either way. 

Then finally the exhaust is shown entering the bodywork, which is how I'm doing it. I can't see an exit point on any of the pictures though, I wonder if it's just pointing straight down. That would certainly make emissions and sound deadening easy to do, but I was kind of looking forward to a side exit exhaust. 

Next pic;

First off, I've just checked the MOT on this car and it expired in 2018. I hope it's being kept roadworthy, it would be a shame for it to disappear into history as yet another forgotten memory.

Anyway, away from sentimentality, the rear light set up is interesting. First, the two small ones aren't lights at all, they're just reflectors. That makes a lot of sense to me as I was really struggling to find anything that would fit in that opening. 

The indicators, stop and tail lights all make sense, they're standard fittings with two filament bulbs for stop/tail. But then I've realised the reverse and fog light aren't where I was going to put them, they're just mounted on the back end. That makes it so much simpler, as I can use standard square ones with the required markings. The rear number plate light is a nice touch.

Round the front is pretty simple, the bowls for the headlights are what I need to source from this years kit car show if I can't find them from elsewhere first. The front wheel arches have a couple of side repeaters, then the front side and indicator lights are as expected. 

Then finally this is a bit further up on the boot, showing the hinges and fuel cap. Nothing spectacular here although I do like the T hinges. I was going to find something chrome but a longer hinge, this way it keeps things a bit more compact. The filler is a clear IVA compliant one, nothing special there. It did also remind me that I need some rear view mirrors! 

Oh, and this car doesn't have a roll bar. So my back edge will be very different. Here there's just a black edge trim, but I need something a bit more roll bar friendly. 

Body panels

 Well, after the much needed tidy up before Christmas, things seemed to get very quiet. I guess that's what Christmas does to you!

The main parts done recently were the two side panels. These were infill panels where the seven chassis doesn't reach the Healey body. It was a fairly standard thing, basically copying this profile;

A gentle curve at the bottom, coming up to the plastic tub. But as with most things I couldn't follow it exactly. You see, the rear portion of the tub had two angles parts that line up with the metalwork, except that they didn't line up with mine so I cut them off. Which means the metalwork has to come further up the side, essentially to the occupants shoulders.

Therefore the gentle curve at the bottom tapers to the corner, then it's a flat section for the rest of it. And as pictures make more sense than words;

They will be glued to the metal frame at the top, and form the rigid support for the body. I might add some screws along the top edge, I've not decided yet. 

Here's a better picture of how the sides look;

This is with the seats in position and most of the panels in place. It's really looking like a place to be now, rather than just an open mass of tubes.

One more panel now, the bulkhead/firewall. Not a difficult one here, just a need to bend a fairly long sheet of metal in two;

With this rivetted in place there is now no path from the engine bay to the cockpit. OK, that's a small lie, I still have two gaps to fill in;

Basically a small curved section, round a right angle and up to the bulkhead. Small pieces, easily created and fixed, and they will preserve the curve. The same design can be seen in the first photo, but it's well hidden under the dash. The only danger I have here is the mating edge to the curve, if I don't get it right I have two aluminium panels perpetually doing a 'nails on a chalkboard' thing as they move against each other. 

So that's it for the build, but not quite for the posting. I've seen a few things on the HSR pictures that are interesting...

A brief distraction...

 Following today's video on Tools N Track, it's really given me some food for thought on my working environment. Over the weekend I spent 3 hours fitting the gearbox rubber mount. That was 2 hours 45 minutes of finding the damn thing, then 15 minutes of drilling to fit it!! If that seems ridiculous, well that is how bad it is in there at the moment. I'm getting fed up of tripping over stuff, not being able to move the welder to where it needs to go, even being able to get to the gas and electric meters to take this quarters readings was a mission.

So I'm putting the car deliberately on hold, and tidying up the garage instead. I really should have done this when I dropped the engine in, as that 'should' have given me a lot more space. Of course, it didn't and things still can't move about.

I need to make a list of the stuff that needs to be sorted. Just off the top of my head I can think of;

• The thousands of tins of paint that are littered everywhere. And probably a fair few chemicals, cleaners, greases, that sort of thing. 
• The coats that are hanging up at the back that are basically useless now (the adults and children of the household have gotten too big to wear them anyway!).
• Sort out the racking to see if there are any unused gaps.
• Sort out the half a dozen boxes of old computer stuff that is most likely useless (for example, I needed a replacement laptop PSU, and while I did have one, it promptly blew the fuse as soon as it was plugged in!)
• Be absolutely brutal with the stuff I need to keep. I've now got to the point in the build where I know what I can use and what can be disposed of. Hopefully that means the couple of boxes of spare parts can be reduced. 
• Have a general clear out of everything that was 'just put in the garage'. 

I think I'll take a few photos before and after, as I suspect this particular job may feel like a complete waste of time if I don't see any visible benefit. 

Wish me luck!

Fuel lines and change of plan

 Today's job was fuelling, which should have been a basic job by all accounts. OK, getting the fuel lines connected to the engine was a bit of a challenge, but I managed to get the old pipe removed and the new pipes on there.

I then started feeding the pipe down the transmission tunnel, and that's where it got a bit 'challenging'. The first thing was that the pipes are thick, and it's difficult to feed them through. Second was that the brake pipe needs to be there. That makes it even more challenging.

But the biggest issue was one where I basically get the engine permanently stuck because I can't disconnect the fuel! I thought I was being clever by keeping the minimum number of connections, but it does mean that if I wanted to remove the engine I'd have to remove the fuel lines from the fuel rail, and it's not an easy job.

So change of plan. I'm going to go for rigid lines down the transmission tunnel. I'll use the fuel hose from the engine to the copper line, just in front of the bulkhead. Then solid down the centre, and back to rubber hoses to get to the tank, filter and pump. 

I now have some copper fuel line and some clamps on their way, once they arrive I'll finish the fuel. Tomorrow will be back to the body. 

3 week gap

 And just like that, another big (ish) gap. This one is a bit more understandable though. The lack of work should have been good for working on the car, but obviously it's bad from a finance point of view. The weather also got a bit grim, and while I don't need sunny weather, the minus sign at the beginning is usually a bit of a challenge!!

Anyhow, the next job is to finish off the panels between the aluminium chassis and the fibreglass body. It's mainly a bit awkward because I don't actually have the metal, so trying to figure out how much I need was going to be the first challenge!

Then I finally figured it out, I need a paper template. So, first part is the bulkhead;

 This is a fairly easy one, a sheet of aluminium that is roughly 1000mm wide, 310mm tall and 250mm on the horizontal. So 560mm with a fold.

The sides are a bit more complex as it needs to be a smooth transition from horizontal to vertical. The first part was to make a wooden template for the front so I can form the pattern round it. That comes to a point at roughly elbow position, then it's flat to the back. As ever, a picture is better than a description;

The paper is unfortunately deforming on this shape so I do suspect this isn't going to be easy when it comes to making it out of aluminium. But at least if I can get the edges top and bottom sorted, and make the curve at the bottom, the rest can be pulled tight. These panels work out to be 1000mm wide, with the maximum height following the curve being 400mm. Oh, and I need two of them. 

This does make it obvious that there is a gap. It's not overly visible as it's directly under the body, but I think it would be sensible to fill it in;

As it'll follow the same edge as the side panel, it's also 400mm maximum height. I think I'll maintain the right angle though, so it's 320 wide between the two vertical bars and 110 for the sticking out part.

There's also a strip along the back behind the seats, I'm not sure this will be aluminium as it could do with being a bit more sturdy and there's no support there at the moment, but just in case it needs to be 1200mm wide and 110mm high.

The next big section is the boot lining. Nothing difficult, basically a big box. It's maximum 850 wide, 500 high and 400 deep. It also tapers towards the back so that should be easier too. I'm going to make it as a separate component that then just bolts in place. That way I can maintain access to the fuel tank and diff. 

Lastly is the two sides of the radiator. These will be 'half cones' to fill the gaps in the front grille. Going back to an older picture;

The radiator is 380 wide, and since the weather is horrific the measurements off the above picture gives me 255mm either side. The hole is 290mm at maximum height gap. But it needs to be 'bowl shaped', so I might give this one a miss with the sheet and come up with some other way of doing it.

Panels come in 1m x 1m, or 1m x 2m. Now, I got a quote from forward metals 10 years ago and it's basically half the price of the metal store. But given the amount of metal I need the postage from metal store would be free, whereas I'd have to drive to forward metals. I'll get an updated price and see which one is the cheapest. I used 1.5mm for most of the panels, and it's basically unbendable. So the choices are either 0.9 or 1.2, and I'm tempted to go for the thinnest. 

Edit: Turns out Forward Metals actually have their prices on the website, and they're not far off being half price of the metal store. So even with the half hour drive it still works out cheaper! I'll do a quick check to make sure they can fit in the car, then go get some later on.