7 March 2022
Spent the afternoon having a tidy up in the garage, things have been piling up around the garage and there were tools everywhere. Spent a good few hours sorting things out, moving a few things into the shed out of the way. Move the car out of the garage and then back in on my lift ready to start work on it. I feel like I have a lot more room around the car again. 13 March 2022 Got a few hours this afternoon so got the car up in the air and removed the catalyst and centre pipe. I cleaned up the flange faces and got the replacement centre pipe I bought a while back and cleaned that up too. I put a bung in the rear O2 sensor boss as I don't need that with my ECU. I remounted the cat section with a new gasket and the centre section with a new seal. I tried fitting the back box, it's a tight fit in the space and runs quite close to the rear outrigger. The tail pipe will need cutting so I can rotate it down a bit, and I suspect a bit of hammering will be needed to create a bit of clearance. 21 March 2022 Decorating in the house has been getting in the way of car stuff. I went up to the NEC Restoration show and bought some supplies but no bits for the kit. I got out to the garage for a few hours today. I have pulled the wheels off as I noticed a leak of fluid from the rear nearside brake caliper. After some investigation it appears to be coming from the piston so I stripped it down I can't see anything specifically wrong but there seems to be corrosion in the channels that hold the seal is place so I suspect they are not sealing properly. Tried to clean them up but I gave up and ordered a pair off ebay which I will fit. Don't want to take any chances with the brakes. Spent some time thinking about the fuel tank filler position and also tried out some boot/bonnet edge trim samples I picked up from the show. Had another think about the exhaust rear box and decided that the centre pipe needs to be shortened to move the box closer to the subframe and away from the rear outrigger. If I cut the flanged joing off then I think the end of the back box pipe will slide over the end of the centre pipe, so a couple of slits and a clamp should sort that out. Due to the angle of the pipework, the back box will move slightly to the offside but I don't think it will be a problem. I think I need to drop the centre pipe down a bit to see where I need to make the cut and see where the back box will end up is the next step. I've ordered some clamp on exhaust hangers that I can use to make the back box mounting for the offside. 2 April 2022 A week away on holiday so not much progress. However having had a break I was keen to get back in the garage and had a fews hours after getting home. The replacement calipers had arrived so I swapped those over. I need to buy some more brake fluid so I can bleed everything again. My exhaust hangers had also arrived so I set about fitting the back box. I cut the flange off the back box and then put it back in against the centre pipe and marked where to cut off the flange. Then I took the centre pipe out and cut the end off. Refitting everything and I was pleased with the initial fitting, the back box wasn't rubbing against the rear outrigger anymore and the clamp on hanger was supporting it nicely. The end of the back box fitted nicely over the centre pipe, but there wasn't much overlap. However the box was sitting too low to get the rear support bars on. I cut the tailpipe off, it was fouling the rear body and I don't want to cut the bodywork for it until I have completed getting the box in place. I also cut off one of the hangers that was fouling the rear outrigger. With these out of the way I could get the box in with the rear supports in place but the clamp on hanger was too low, not a huge problem I just had to extend the thread on the hanger so I could screw it further in. My tap and die set came to the rescue, although it was a pretty tough session of threading as the bar is made from stainless. However, finally I got it done and I'm now pretty happy with the position of the back box. I will need to add another support to the other side of the box which I plan to do by adding a support on the pipe. I might change the joint between the centre pipe and the back box to a short flex section.
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AuthorThis is my first kit car although I've messed about with cars all my life. Archives
November 2023
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