Body - Final Trial Fit

Torrential rain washed out the morning, but the weather picked up in the afternoon. I emptied 4 gallons of water out of the covers on the body before peeling them back and getting the sun on the shell for the first time in several months. With thanks to Leon, Jon, Tom & Rob we got the shell lifted onto the chassis. I've checked and all looks good. I have trial fitted it before but not with the engine, gearbox, heater, fuel pump and other bits fitted, so there was a lot to check. All looks OK, there's a small 'conflict' with the position of the fan's thermostatic switch, but this is easy to solve. Next job is to test the clutch & hydraulic lines before I make the final fit of the body, hopefully next weekend. In the meantime I'm going to have sort out the grass where the shell stood...

Body Shell Fitting

1st Engine Start

Well this was another major milestone. Test fired the engine for the first time this weekend. I did a fare bit of prep. The exhausts went back on, oil levels in the engine & gearbox were checked. Put some coolant in. I rigged up some temporary power for the Fuel Pump, Cooling fan, distributor and of course the starter and solenoid. I didn't bother about a temperature gauge as I was only running it for 5 mins and the thermostatic fan was connected.

Starter Panel

Oil Pressure Sender

I did make up a small panel with a battery shut-off and starter button to make life easier (pictured left). I also rigged up an oil pressure sender. Like many things, this was harder to connect than it should have been. The sender screws into a 1/8 NPT hole at the back of the block below the distributor but there's not enough space around the head to allow it in, so I bought an adapter but had to grind that off to get it to fit, as you can see below. I did consider priming the oil pump, there is some debate whether you need to do this or not. I decided against as I didn't want to upset the timing (priming the oil pump requires removing the distributor). I turned the engine over on the starter with the plugs out, oil pressure came up after a couple of cranks to around 40. We fired up the engine outside (fire extinguisher at hand), and it fired after a few seconds - no hassle. The sound is fantastic and the local petrol heads came to have a look within 60 seconds.I allowed the engine to come up to temp, checking for any leaks etc, and making sure the oil pressure was kept high (you're not supposed to let the engines idle when they've been re-built like this).

Sorry but you'll have to wait for the video to be uploaded due to technical issues - but it will come.

Cooling fan and other bits

Cooling Fan - In the last couple of weeks I've fitted the cooling fan, a 16" curved fan, 2000 cfm (apparently these are quieter than the straight blade - not sure it matters with a V8 running). I've also trial fitted an adjustable thermostat as suggested by AK, I'll have to wait until the body is on again before I settle on a permanent position as I need to know what is accessible.

Exhaust Brackets - Having trial fitted the exhausts and adjusted / located the brackets on the chassis these have now been welded in place - thanks to Stuart for his welding gear and expertise. The brackets are in the process of being painted with POR15.

Heater Fitted - Finally I got round to fitting the heater to the body. The air is drawn into the heater on both sides via ducts into the foot-wells, avoiding the issue of taking air from the engine bay. I've added a stainless steel cover to bring it in line with the rest of the engine bay.

I've also put the engine oil (15/40 mineral - recommended by the engine builder) and gearbox oil (Dexron III). I want to run the engine for a quick trial and confidence test before I fit the body so have started to think about the wiring I'll need, plus an oil pressure gauge and of course the battery.

And one other job that I've come to terms with. I originally fitted 'push-fit' brake pipe clips, I think these look much tidier, but I'm concerned that some are a little loose and move a couple of mm, I don't think they'll come out but I'm not happy and neither will the IVA man! So I've decided to swap them for P-clips, not as tidy but they are secure. That leaves me with an issue; the holes drilled for the push fits are 6mm, I could tap this for an M8 but too big for the P-Clip so I'll have to use rivnuts. I'll take pictures for the next update.

Exhaust & Starting to prep the body

Exhaust Side Pipes- During the week I had a trial fit of the exhausts. Fitting the headers took a little bit of fettling as the holes don't line up perfectly with the holes in the heads. Initially I put some manifold studs in but the holes are too close to the pipes to allow the nuts to turn, so had to put some Allen headed bolts in (I only had black and will need to swap these for some shiny ones). I checked all the clearances around the ancillaries, HT leads etc and all was good. Then I fitted the side pipes, using a jack to support the weight and a rubber mallet to "encourage" the pipes onto the headers. It's a tight fit and takes a while to get it right.I set it up with 85 mm gap between the side pipe and the chassis and with the pipe parallel and level to the chassis I offered up the mounting brackets. You have to bend these brackets to suit the location of the bobbins and this is no mean feat as the brackets are 5 mm steel and are not big so there's not much leverage, I ended up using hydraulic press to get the adjustment. Here's the resulting near-side fitting:

Exhaust Trial Fit

With the brackets G-clamped in place and marked up, the side pipes came off again. I'll need to get the brackets welded onto the chassis and I'm another step closer to fitting the body. Oh, and I also made up some templates from card that I hope to use when cutting the body to accept the pipes.

Some Body Preparation - The sun was shining on Sunday so I took the covers off the body, removed the earwigs that were squatting in there. It's great to be able to work outside, daylight means I don't need my glasses but on the down side wearing only a T-shirt while working on fibre-glass means picking loads of irritating splinters. I tidied up the hole I'd made for the fuel tank pipe and expanded it out a bit. I also cut the hole for the gear lever and trial fitted the heater. As mentioned before, I've had to modify the heater to take the air from inside the car rather than the engine bay. The trial fit went well but the bolts I had were too long, I'll re-fit as soon as I get some decent bolts and post some pictures.

Gear lever & Heater Access

Fuel Tank Access

Power Steering Pump, Cooling & Prop Shaft

Power Steering Pump

Power Steering Pump - Several tasks ticked off the list in the last couple of weeks. Now that the engine was in I could fit the power steering pump. On the face of it a simple task, but as always there was a catch. There are two mounting points, one is an adjustable bracket that bolts to the cylinder head - no problem, the other is a long bolt that passes through the water pump allowing the PS pump to pivot for adjustment. The hole in the water pump has been drilled and tapped with a 3/8" thread and won't take the 10mm bolt supplied with the PS pump. On advice from the factory I drilled out the water pump to accept the 10mm bolt but as the pump sits in front of one of the chassis members I couldn't get a drill square on and had to remove the water pump. There are two pipes supplied that connect the pump to the rack, the fittings on the rack have different threads so they can't be mixed up.

Cooling System

Cooling System - Next job was to complete the plumbing. I started with the header tank, drilling & tapping a couple of holes in the top front chassis member. The radiator is mounted with a couple of brackets supplied by the factory, the only challenge was to find a couple of rubber plugs to fit onto the pegs at the bottom of the radiator. I tried some grommets but they weren't good enough. But by accident I found the rubber bungs, supplied on the pipes for the heater matrix, were perfect - job done. I decided on black silicon hoses, I wanted a neutral color in the engine. I may put steel braid on these later - I'll see how I feel as the build develops. By the way I was looking for a good way to get a near perfect finish when cutting the pipes. I found the best way was to use an O-ring, just tight enough to grip the pipe and then use this as a guide for a sharp knife. This gives a good finish and a square cut. You have to rotate the O-ring 180 deg half way through to avoid the screw.

Prop shaft - The prop shaft arrived PDQ from Bailey Morris, they gave a great service and were very helpful on the phone. This fitted exactly as I had hoped. I had to remove the bung that sits on the output shaft of the gearbox, it's on very tight and you have to be careful not to damage the oil seal that sites outside the shaft.

Prop Shaft Fitted

Engine Installation Time

Cracking weekend, installed the engine & gearbox and really feel like some progress was made. I realise I should have taken some photos of the process but the heat of the moment took over and I forget so you'll just have to see the final result. I've installed engine & gearbox into cars before and this is a fairly straightforward installation, low level and onto an open chassis. But I've not handled an engine this size / weight / value before. I wanted to avoid damaging any of the ancillaries, or scratching the polished chrome,  or crushing any of the brake pipes. I removed all the plugs, brackets etc that stuck out from the engine to avoid any snagging. I reckon the total weight was around 300Kgs, easily in the range of my crane (but not the old bits of rope I used to use) so I bought some pukka lifting slings. I used a 1T sling wrapped around the engine mounts to take most of the weight and a ratchet strap around the gearbox back to the crane - an idea that I took from "Tommy Boy" - this allows easy control of the angle of attack which is quite steep to get the gear lever into the transmission tunnel. I raised the engine clear of the chassis and rolled the chassis underneath, lowering it and letting a trolley jack take the gearbox mount once it was level enough. It helps to slacken of the nuts on the engine mount bobbins to allow a bit of movement. the whole job was trouble free and soon had it down on the mounts and secured with no damage done. I've also fitted the gearbox mount, drilling & tapping the chassis with 4 x M10 bolts, I'm still not sure about which way up the gearbox bracket goes, neither seems ideal, so I'll check with the factory.

Engine Installed

There's a long list of jobs that I'm itching to get on with, cooling system, power steering pump fuel pump and final connection of the clutch pipe before I can set about fitting the body but time is against me this week and I found I'm short of a few minor bits & pieces so the next phase will have to wait for a couple of weeks.

Engine & Gearbox Arrive

Big week this week, the engine & gearbox have finally arrived. I'm really pleased with the work that Jez at CPP has done, I think it looks great. I didn't get a lot of time this weekend, not least because it was Stoneleigh, but I have unwrapped it all and managed to get the engine up on to my trolley. 

Engine!

Hydraulic Clutch Bearing

What did confuse me was the clutch release bearing, I almost contacted the supplier to tell 'em they hadn't included the clutch release arm. Going through the documents I found that they had built the gearbox with a RAM hydraulic clutch release bearing. I've not come across this before and I couldn't see one used in any other installation. A quick look on The Net turned up an installation & set up video from the manufacturer, it was fairly simple to set up. There are two ports on the bearing, with adapters supplied for standard 3/8 fittings. The upper port is for the bleed screw, I felt this would be near impossible to reach once the bell housing was on and engine installed (and I was worried about dropping fluid inside the bell housing when bleeding the system), so I made up a small extension to take the bleed screw outside the bell housing. The advantage this gives me is that I don't have to buy a slave cylinder. If time permits next weekend I'll get the engine / gearbox installed.