The car has today, moved forwards and backwards under it’s own steam. Given that I’ve pretty much completely replaced the engine, transmission, clutch & brakes you can imagine the was a pretty big moment. 
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An added advantage was that at no stage did it sound like a milkfloat and the engagement mechanism will not need adjusting in anyway as a result of other changes to the car. People have been DSQ’d for forgetting to adjust or failing to engage reverse when asked by the scrutineers.
First up I fitted the new drive chain, and then removed again once I realised I’d wrapped it around a chassis member! D’Oh! The second time around it was fine though and my new style tension blocks seems to work very well too. however looking at this picture I guess I could easily take 6″ out of the wheel base of the car or move the engine back by that amount..
So after a quick check of water, oil and fluid levels and a brief repair of a weepy hose that hadn’t been tightened properly during the engine refit last week we were off. 20ft up the drive and 20ft back again. 20ft up the drive and 20ft back again. Repeat until grin is firmly established
Two or three things followed the test.
- The clutch is nicely progressive with lots of feel.
- The brake master pedal is a bit slow to return to it’s proper position and feels like it needs a clean and lube.
- The car seems reluctant to move. Getting out and pushing reveals a lot of rolling resistance.
- The exhaust will need extending and re bracketing. When you pull the diff rearwards to tension the chain the offside CV joint boot fouls on the exhaust.
- Engagement of forward and reverse is a bit stiff and could probably do with a lever to control it rather than the current T bar.
Of these the rolling resistance was of most concern . Was the diff a bit stiff or was it new brakes binding? I removed the pads and retested and she moved nice and easily so it was the brakes. However this did set me thinking about the Diff and how I needed to change the oil. So I emptied it out and it had a pretty nasty metallic sheen with a fair few particles of aluminium in it. Plus the magnetic sump plug had a nice furry coat of steel particles. I mentioned this to Graham at Nova and offered to strip the Diff down and inspect it. I’m not sure that I’ve got time for this before Brands and I don’t want to miss another meeting. So a flushout with petrol and new oil will have to do until then. On reflection the steel fillings are probably from the dog teeth which engage reverse or forwards and inexpert handling could easily have had the grinding a bit.
Still something to worry about a bit later.
However, armed with a rush of enthusiasm I’ve set about the long list of odds and sods jobs that weren’t on the critical path to movement but which must be done before we are going to the track. These included.
- A whole bunch of wiring and electrical work, tiding and binding up looms, running a 12v feed to the DL1 for Palm dash’s laptimer, fitting 6.7R resisters (actually 10x67R in parallel) to defeat the HESD linear solenoid.
- Removing the Lambda sensor dial and cabling as Tony Law forgot to fit a mounting boss for it,
- Running a control line to the bodywork connector so I can have an high mounted oil pressure warning light in my line of sight.
- Tidying up on side of the car to such and extent that I can actually fit the side pod.
The last job of the day was to commence fitting the external injectors and inlet pipes to the airbox. This is a bit more difficult than it looks as the floor of the airbox must sit nicely on the engine, and the top must of course line up with the bodywork. Still I’d done most of the preparatory work previously and pretty much all that was left was to glue and rivet it all in place.
Work on the airbox also included replacing a perfectly good and previously MSA approved rain light with a new one which must now be FIA instead of MSA approved. Out goes a £7 quid unit and in comes a new unit that should have cost upwards of 40 except I got it off ebay. Bah! this just seems to be a way of adding more cost.
Still a pretty successful day all round and I seem to be running out of excuses not to be at Brands Hatch on the 19/20 of May