3rd January 2021 First trip to the garage this year! I've been doing some reading up on engine dismantling and rebuilding in preparation for taking the engine apart and also thinking about the ECU wiring and general wiring. I have also been looking at the options for gauges when the time comes. I'd applied the top coat of silver to the diff a couple of days ago on a quick trip to the garage so that was already dry. Today's job was painting the last major components (hopefully). The rear hubs and driveshafts were cleaned up with wire wheels again and, after masking up the bits I didn't want to paint, given a coat of black paint. I also gave the engine mount brackets a going over and a coat of silver paint. Next I made a start on dismantling the engine, I removed the timing covers, cam cover, timing gears, water pump and crankshaft pulleys. 5 January 2021 New toy arrived today in the shape of an ultrasonic cleaner to help with cleaning all those fiddly little bits. I did a quick test using a Bilt Hamber degreasing solution (Surfex HD) in the ultrasomic cleaner and a handful of nuts, bolts and brackets. The cleaner worked well at getting rid of the muck and pnce I blew them off with some air and gave them a spray with some WD40 to protect them they were done. It didn't remove any rust but that is to be expected. Whilst I was playing with the cleaner I baked the engine mounts I painted the other day to cure the paint. Time to start a new chapter as collection of the kit has been arranged.
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3rd January 2021
First trip to the garage this year! I've been doing some reading up on engine dismantling and rebuilding in preparation for taking the engine apart and also thinking about the ECU wiring and general wiring. I have also been looking at the options for gauges when the time comes. I'd applied the top coat of silver to the diff a couple of days ago on a quick trip to the garage so that was already dry. Today's job was painting the last major components (hopefully). The rear hubs and driveshafts were cleaned up with wire wheels again and, after masking up the bits I didn't want to paint, given a coat of black paint. I also gave the engine mount brackets a going over and a coat of silver paint. Next I made a start on dismantling the engine, I removed the timing covers, cam cover, timing gears, water pump and crankshaft pulleys. 21 December 2020
Tier 4 lock down happened at the weekend which kind of put paid to my plans for working on the car; what with having to replan Christmas and figure out how to get presents to the rest of the family. I'm a not sure how I can get down to pick up the kit in the New Year if this lock down continues. Spent a couple of hours in the garage after work. I painted one side of the front uprights and brake dust shields with Smoothrite, touched up the spots on the steering rack that had flaked off as well. I removed the engine mount brackets and scrubbed them off in the parts cleaner. Did a bit of general tidying up and checking over the engine. Really need to have a tip run to get rid of old fluids and rubbish, and reorganise things to give me more room I'm having to step over stuff to get around the garage. I want to strip the engine very soon to assess if it is salvageable or not. My Canems ECU and loom is ready so paid that bill, it should be with me this week – early Christmas present! 23 December 2020 My ECU and loom from Canems arrived today, looks great. Also heard from Andy that my kit should be ready for collection around January 9/10. With Tier4 lockdown in my area, I'm not allowed to travel out of my Tier4 area so not sure what I'm going to do. There will be a review of the tier level before the end of the year but I would be surprised if it will be lifted. Might have to arrange for a shipping company to collect it for me, not ideal but without knowing when I would be able to get down I can't see an alternative. 26 December 2020 I was very fortunate and my lovely girlfriend bought me a compressor for the garage so I now have air power. I only have a blower at the moment but I doubt it will stay that way for long. Top of the list is a pop riveter and a air hammer/needle gun. Spent the afternoon in the garage moved the wheels into the shed and tidied things up a bit. I cleaned up the gearbox bellhousing that was black with a mix of grease and clutch dust. Lots of scrubbing with wires brushes, degreaser and cloths got rid of most of it. I removed the clutch release bearing and lever and cleaned them up. Replaced the gear lever bush, changed the oil in the shifter turret and put a new lower seal on the gear lever. Made a start on the outer casing removing the surface corrosion with my drill and wire wheel. 27 December 2020 Finished cleaning up the outside of the gearbox – it's not spotless but it better than it was. Greased and reassembled the clutch release bearing and pivot. Started on the differential with a flap wheel, cleaned out the bush mounts and went over the surface with wire wheels. The nose of the diff had a lot of surface rust so I decided to paint it and hopefully protect it. Put some pro15 metal ready on it to stabilise the surface and then a coat of etch primer. Ordered some more bits that I will need soon, new diff driveshaft seals, copper washers and couch washers. 15 December 2020
Quick call to Andy to check on progress with my kit, looks like the chassis will be ready the week before Christmas, and the body soon after. Hopefully I can get down to Plymouth early in the New Year to collect them. In the meantime better make some progress with the running gear! 16 December 2020 The subframe and control arms are back from the powder coaters. A quick inspection and they are all looking really good. The subframe brace and anti roll bars are not coated, just blasted. The brace needs modifying to fit the new chassis so iI will spray it a matching colour once I've cut it to size. The anti roll bar will be painted black. Will give them a good look over when I can get back in the garage but Christmas preparations are taking up my time. 18 December 2020 Grabbed a couple of hours in the garage, inspected the subframes and control arms for any pinholes or other damage and everything looks great. Moved them all up into my storage area so they don't messy, really need to have a bit of a cleanup soon. Got on with removing the pipes from the the rack with help from my reciprocating saw to cut through the pipes. Then a socket on the nuts and they were off. I applied some degreaser and used a combination of wire brushing and wipes to clean down the rack. Cosmetically it is in pretty shape. There are a couple of spots where the paint has come off which will get touched up when I paint the brake back plates with some brush on black Smoothrite. 14 December 2020
Not much activity over the weekend with Christmas and birthday preparations. Managed to pick up a secondhand mini oven and bake the brake components on Saturday to cure the paint. Monday evening I was back out and rebuilt both rear calipers. It was straightforward after I had watched a couple of good videos on YouTube. YouTube is so useful, I find modern workshop manuals are not very helpful with this kind of thing. All new rubber seals and pistons fitted, liberally coated in .the special grease. Both calipers now move nicely on the slider pins. Very happy how they've turned out and they are much better than the grubby things I removed. 8 December 2020
More research and thought after a post in the Replicar Facebook group prompted me to do some investigation into the braking system. As I am using an aftermarket ECU the ABS control system will be deleted. My original thought was to reuse my master cylinder and simply connect that direct to the brakes. This would mean the master cylinder and servo would still be matched to the calipers so should work effectively. However the ABS master cylinder doesn't include a proportioning valve (this is managed inside the ABS control) so if I followed my plan the rear brakes would lock up before the fronts under heavy braking. I had thought I could simply put in a brake proportioning valve, however the IVA rules don't allow any sort of adjustable proportioning valve and they seem to be the only ones available. Since the mandatory introduction of ABS on production cars not many cars have them fitted anymore so obtaining a second hand one is difficult (at least at a viable price!). So I found a secondhand non ABS servo and master cylinder on ebay with the proportioning valve still attached for less than I could buy a proportioning valve on its own. I just hope its the right bore....alternatively I could revert to my original master cylinder and use the non-ABS proportioning valve. 7 December 2020
Only a short time in the garage as it was freezing out there. Put the top coat of paint on the brake components. Ideally the enamel will need baking so I will find a small table top oven that I can bake them in. While I was waiting for the paint to dry between coats I tried to remove the power steering hard lines from the rack so I could clean it up properly, but predictably the unions would not come apart. The joints on the pinion housing can only be accessed with an open ended spanner but they were so tight I could not get them to shift and even using my brake pipe spanners they started to round off. Ultimately, then they will need to be replaced, in which case I will cut through the pipes and get a socket on the unions to undo them. Ordered a new set of pipes as well. 6 December 2020 Turned a small but significant corner today and started on the road to putting things together! I stripping the other rear brake caliper down to it's component parts. Then I cleaned everything up with degreaser and brushes. I used a bench grinder and wire wheels in my drill to remove the surface corrosion. I put the old bleed nipple and banjo bolt and the bolt that covers the adjustment bolt. Then I masked up the bits I don't want to paint, hung them up using some wire and a bit of fishing line. I put on a couple of coats of etch primer and left them to dry. Top coat will be silver enamel paint once the primer is dried. There's still more cleaning and dismantling to be done, not least of which is the engine. Despite having the spare engine I'm going to take a look at the original engine and see if it is salvageable after I ran it with no oil. It's been a very long time since I rebuilt and engine and really like the idea of having a go at rebuilding another one. The purpose of this project is to learn new things and test my skills so just chucking another engine seems like a bit of a cheat. So add 'rebuild engine' to the list of jobs...... 1 December 2020
I removed the calipers from the rear hubs. The ABS sensor bolts sheared just like the front. Thankfully due to the way they are mounted, I was able to easily remove them with a cold chisel. Separating the calliper from the carrier was ok for one but the other was to seized. Despite plenty of penetrating fluid and lots of levering it didn't want to budge. I need to find a better way to lever the carrier off. 2 December 2020 Dropped the subframes, control arms, anti roll bars, and subframe braces off for blasting and powder coating. I'm not getting the ARB and rear subframe brace powder coated. The ARBs I want to paint at home. The rear brace needs modifying to fit the Replicar chassis, so I will modify it when I get the chassis and paint it myself. Powder coating should be ready in a couple of weeks. I've gone for powder coating to match the chassis (grey). 4 December 2020 Worked some more on the rear brakes this evening, tried levering the carrier off the caliper, but that didn't seem to make any difference. In the end I got the blowtorch out and applied some heat to it. Applying a hammer to it eventually had the desired result. I then cleaned up the carriers with my bench grinder, wire wheel in my drill and a rinse in the part cleaner. I dismantled one of the calipers so I can paint it. Upon inspection a new piston will be required along with new seals. I've ordered a Bigg Red kit for both rear brakes, which includes new pistons. I've used Bigg Red repair kits before and they are well priced and good quality. 30 November 2020
I took advantage of a 10% saving at MX5 Parts to order a new radiator, spigot bearing, brake hoses, fuel filter, gear lever bush and some o'rings. In the garage this evening I cleaned up the other front upright, brake calipers, slide pins and caliper carrier.. The calipers look very new and won't need any other refurbing. The carriers and uprights will get painted. |
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