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Post by buildityourself on Jan 13, 2022 20:28:51 GMT
Good to see the daily updates. My build is blocked with welder dealing with covid :-(
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Post by perthwa on Jan 15, 2022 10:58:48 GMT
Bonnet now fixed. Looks crooked but it is an illusion... Will also trim the length of these as well. Clears all important bits. Next? Engine won't start... has fuel... power to the central wire of the coil pack... Spark plug was not sparking. How can I test if PATS is the culprit? or if ECU not sending spark instructions? That is my homework. P.s It was working, started to splutter a bit...
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Post by perthwa on Jan 17, 2022 11:43:50 GMT
Another random task, the Battery Isolator. Purchased a 100 Amp Isolator with a key. Decided that I could put it near the ignition key...and also where the PATS will be. This is the off position and vertical is therefore ON. Need to grommet the hole and or cover the cable with protective sheath. and clean up the ends so that we do not get a short circuit. I also need to connect the other ends of these two cables to the battery leads... and yes I know that they are both 'live' and should both be RED in colour BUT it is what it is from the stuff I had in the cupboard... I will wrap the black end at the battery in RED tape so that I never make a mistake. more Photos to come tomorrow. Next!!. Engine starting diagnosis and seat covers.. REVISIT! I changed the cables to slightly smaller diameter, made a grommet, modified the battery box and decided on what direction etc to cable the cutoff. I have left power to the hazard lights, the head and parking lights and the interior lights. The ignition and the starter motor are on the cutoff switch. New cables, both red and sleeved for protection. And, yes, I am aware that I had not tightened the bolts up in this snap. Here it is with a grommet and the two cables in place. Covered the terminals with conduit and taped them in place for safety. Here is the battery scenario roughly in place. Isolator return provides power to starter motor and to the ignition side of the fuse box. Then I made it all join nicely and safe. Then cleaned up a bit and replaced the battery cover. A few more wires to clean up and we're getting close. I did notice that fuel pump primes and starter motor solenoid engages when the key is turned on but the isolator is off. I will probably look at where the power feed for these two are coming from... not my doing... Getting cleaner. fuse box back in place: Isolator wiring back into Battery box through a grommet.
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Post by perthwa on Jan 29, 2022 13:19:43 GMT
still doing some seat covers. Too hot!!!. Getting closer.
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Post by perthwa on Feb 20, 2022 9:40:00 GMT
moved some vehicles around and now the Rocket is in the shed. As is a 20 year old Air conditioner from my son's latest project. Has been a slow month with far too many days at 35 - 37 degrees. I had some inspiration to shift the Sonic Project out of the shed and put the Rocket in there. A legacy of my son's latest Caravan renovation was the air con.. Caravan separated from Chassis. Sonic now in Carport... 40 plus degrees. Rocket now in shed with Locost. Does mean also that we can now use the Timber saw that was shoved at the back of the shed. Plenty of room.... and cooler temps... Just for the record, it hasn't been a complete lack of work; I did permanently wire in the charging connector for the battery charger because once the battery cover is bolted on, it was a pain to remove all four bolts just to charge the battery. In case you think I was overstating the "hottness" here is the January and February temps for Perth, Western Australia.
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Post by perthwa on Apr 13, 2022 7:06:59 GMT
Back in the shed. Has been a quiet period but not totally without work. We did remove the caravan subframe, wire wheel it completely, primed and top coated it. The stripped and rebuilt the rear axles, wheel bearings and brakes. Back to the Rocket. Have been trying desperately to make these look a bit nicer and a bit more comfortable. Getting close. Added a charcoal Canister to absorb fuel vapours. Then had to move it when I sat the engine cover back in place as the red bolt was directly in the way. Called out to the Sports Car builders club, I am the secretary, and said I was having problems with a couple of jobs. One mate appeared and we spent half a day getting the engine going.. We checked starter; inconclusive, so I removed it, cleaned it and re-installed it. No change. Pulled it again and hot wired it on the floor. All worked. Re-installed and not working. Pulled solenoid and checked that, aka, cleaned it and replaced. Then checked battery, it was a bit low; added jumper leads and a second battery and Broom Broom. Turns out that the Fan issue that I had previously fixed had probably drawn 30 odd amps as the fuse had blown and that drain was probably enough to make the battery less than functional. Even though I had installed a trickle charger, it was not going to fix a shite battery. As engine was now going, we noticed that the idle was dodgy... would run nice for a minute or so, then splutter a bit, then add 30 degrees of timing, then stall. If you added a bit of accelerator before the stall it would do the same thing for another minute and then rinse and repeat the behaviour... I have about 5 wiring harness clips that do not have a home. Here is one of those. So I spent many hours looking through a Ford Focus Manual looking for the correct diagram to suit the pin and wire colours. I discovered: The oil pressure switch is not connected (don't panic... it does have a dash mounted oil pressure gauge) . The Steering pressure switch is not connected. An air conditioning switch is hanging free. and a few more. Just checking which of these may be crucial for ECU to not run properly. In one of the harnesses where two of these connectors were not connected, there were also the Catalytic converter plugs.. I decided to check them at the same time. Looked fine, except for the small print that said POST and PRE.... They had been reversed by the original builder... I changed these and started the engine... VOILA!.. perfect idle... Hours spent and frustration... Added a bolt for the engine earthing strap. cleaned up some other wiring harnesses. Just have to buy some more black electrical tape to make it less obvious than the red bits visible above. Decided to add some side panels. The paint is a single coat of rattle can silver, so please go easy on that aspect... I will re-coat. Had to make 28 Rivnut Brackets. And add 50 odd rivets to put them in place. Spent 3 days making brackets, trimming panels, fitting brackets, and drilling and bolting on the panels. Not 100% happy but every thing was recycled and I was in a hurry... It does make me think that DOT might just be a bitt happier, plus the fact that driving in a wind tunnel has not overly impressed me in some of my mates clubbies. I mentioned that I added a trickle charge adapter to the battery. I also had to remove the battery box to add the fixtures for the front side panel brackets. Looks like a dog's breakfast but it includes the cables going off to the isolator which then return to the battery box and then off to the rest of the car. You can still see the jumper leads that we needed to get it started. So, What is left. Seats and a bit of soft padding for a couple of sharp edges in the cabin area... Then a movement permit and a few hundred miles of testing. Then DOTT and the engineer...or vice versa...
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Post by perthwa on Apr 13, 2022 11:42:14 GMT
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Post by perthwa on Apr 14, 2022 10:39:30 GMT
just another day Made a DOT approved interior. Added 1/4 inch rubber foam to the dash bar and the two gussets in the cabin area. Then covered them in a vinyl similar colour to the frame. Needs a bit of clean up on the edges; possibly adding some trim later to cover up the edges. On the driver's side did the same, but I decided that a nice AL plate might make it look nicer. Ugly hole at top is for old PATS key. Here it is as finished...
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Post by perthwa on Apr 16, 2022 10:53:30 GMT
1 seat done and bolted in. and a top view Passenger seat almost finished. Just needs a strip of 'Sew on' VELCRO down the back and we are good to bolt that in as well. Getting a quote for a battery that will fit inside my already constructed battery box... I will go around and check a few bolts and nuts to make sure that all is tight. Might be a week before I can venture out on a permit... More to come.
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Post by perthwa on Apr 20, 2022 12:38:38 GMT
Got a movement permit and hit the road. - well sort of.. Finished second seat. Installed and harnessed Then needed to make a VIN number plate. Tight I know... Yes I know I could have got it stamped or laser engraved etc ... BUT I made this and I welded it in. DOT compliant. Then I painted a few things Silver to cover up some bits of wear. I also made up 8 rubber rings to cover the internal exposed rivnuts that intrude into the cabin area.these were just cut out using a holesaw and then I drilled the centre hole the size of the rivnut. Then I contact glued the rubber rings over the nuts. These are about 30mm across and about 3mm taller than the rivnut. I will find a photo later. Then I got the permit. Allows you to service and or engineer an unregistered vehicle. So I drove sort of towards one of my targets and then home again. was fine, then went out again, little bit further. Then it started getting hot! The nice red coolant went black and there was black stuff in the lines before that I thought that I had already flushed out. So I re-flushed the exhaust, bought some new coolant and took it for a drive. The wiring that I have passing over the gear housing end of the rocker cover and then down the fire wall and into the fuel tank area behind the driver's seat was getting very hot... I found some recycled Heat shielding from my Focus and added a second layer of shielding - STILL very hot. Brain wave. Shift the wiring. Why is the computer behind the seat? I will try to re-locate it into the rear section of the engine bay. It looks like there is heaps of room BUT Not really. So tomorrow morning I shift the ECU. That will allow more space for more shielding for the two fuel lines. Should be some room in here somewhere? This is how it was routed when I purchased the car. I will look at options... The little guard box I made might be an issue. About the drive. Went well. shifts nicely. Accelerates pleasingly... brakes nicely but I do need to do a heat cycle on the Wilwoods. Glad I added the side pods; wind is not an issue. There is some heat from the radiator making its way into the cabin area. The only issues, other than hot wiring and the hot engine ,was the live feed to all of the gauges just cutting out. All of the gauges just stop displaying. Turn the key off and they all work again. Looking into that. Forgot about the broken catch on the rear cover. Ebay SHITE! The horn doesn't work even though I relocated the relay and thought I had fixed that. Apart from that... I have a smile a mile wide.. Will go and get it weighed tomorrow.. Need to pick up a new battery . Forgot about the wheel nut cover I plastic fixed. not symmetrical any more BUT i doubt anyone looking at a random wheel could spot the variation. Also re routed the rear number plate light wiring inside the engine cover. could have spent a lot more time smoothing it but was not going to happen just now.
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Post by perthwa on Apr 21, 2022 6:07:37 GMT
Just got weighed. Not sure how that compares to the rest of the MEV world... I did have 8 L of water and 2 L of coolant onboard. so take off 10 kg. More importantly, I did 52 km traveling to the weigh bridge and back. Engine sat on 80 odd degrees on the way out and consistently on 90 on the way home. mostly at 80 - 100 km with about 15 km at surface road speeds. Here is the rubber buttons I made to protect me from Rivnut Intrusion... Here is the modified wire harness in location. I did make up a flat bracket that folds up to keep the wire and fuel lines captive. I then rolled the other end down over the Pulley idler. This will then allow the cables to stay away from the rotating bits. This is a top view down in the right hand corner showing the cables etc running down the fire wall which is covered in shielding. The blurry black cable is the OBD2 wire which I attached to the folding bonnet section. The silver wrapping is a tube I made for the Accelerator cable as it still lives a bit too close to the exhaust housing. A view from a bit further back. You can see that there are technically 4 layers protecting the accelerator cable and 3 protecting the harness and fuel lines. Here is the cable running along the side. Much cooler. Not ideal to have the exposed cable but I have the scope to cover it up with a bit of Aluminium. The 3mm Plate and the 1mm AL box unit fix to the engine mount and yes the cable should be located in the channel BUT I spent good money on my permit and do not really want to spend all day fixing things when I should be out driving... And here it is from the alternators perspective.
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Post by perthwa on Apr 21, 2022 12:21:29 GMT
never a dull moment. Decided to replace this front bonnet grill and the front air intake grill with this Aluminium grill. See if it increases air flow. Will see how it performs tomorrow as the same temperature is expected. I also added it to the intake on the engine cover the other day but did not post. I also wound up the springs a bit trying to make sure I am well over the 100mm DOT clearance. And did a sort of wheel alignment. Discovered that my Builder's club has a set of gear to do wheel alignments. Might travel the 100km round trip to pick up the gear... or maybe not!. Might be cheaper to go to the local tyre shop!
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Post by buildityourself on Apr 21, 2022 17:35:47 GMT
This is how it was routed when I purchased the car. Why not flip or rotate the ECU so the main loom goes over the chassis rail rather than forcing under? Might free up extra length to help move away from the engine parts.
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Post by perthwa on Apr 22, 2022 2:52:36 GMT
Good point; there is plenty of cable and I have the ECU sitting on the floor if you see the earlier photo. Issue is cutting the body panel to allow it to go over the bar. The current location gives more than 15 cm between the cable and the exhaust. I will keep an eye on the wires and the harnesses. Hopefully as we are going into the cooler months this will be ok for a while.
Have now driven over 150 km and seems to be much better. Heat on harness is now acceptable.
Just booked an engineering scrutiny for 2 May. Also need a 5 gas test before then.
It is all happening.
Just trying to bed in the Wilwoods. Have just got stage of 'chirping' fronts, so I am about to bias a bit towards the rears, especially as I have a couple of hundred extra kilograms over that axle.
4 hours left on permit... finish this coffee and test.
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Post by perthwa on Apr 22, 2022 6:44:11 GMT
Has been a good 48 hours. Ignore the cycling heading, but I added 124 km plus more today. A reasonable shakedown. Probably almost 250 km over the two days. The map below also includes 45 minute chat to my engineer. Booked a gas test - then checked the weather... then cancelled the gas test. We have had three days of rain in 4 months and now it is going to rain 5 days in a row AND I just realised that I own an OPEN top car.. DOH! Booked the engineering May 2. Have not checked the weather for that day yet... He said that gas test results can come later so we are going ahead... What issues am I working on? 1. The SAAS gauges just stop working after about 20 minutes and then about every 5 minutes. Turn car ignition off and the re-start, I have been doing it whilst driving and simply letting clutch out to re-start, and they all work again. So! I am thinking some sought of Temperature sensitive cut off? I will try to make the constant 12 volt supply come straight from the battery via a fuse. If that doesn't work, I will look at what else is attached to the ignition 12 volt supply connections and try and clean that up a bit.
2. The outflow air from the radiator comes directly into the cabin under the bonnet... Will be nice in winter but not sure I want to drive around all year with the heater running all of the time.
3. The centre console gets hot after a half hour or so... I will add some heat proof insulation material to the tunnel. This will help wires and also make the Aluminium console a bit cooler.
Forgot about the broken catch on the rear cover. _ UPDATE- a mate also bought 4 of them... He gave me one last night so that is fixed as I installed that this morning...
4. Another mate said DOT hates loose harnesses, so I will add some more ties and brackets to hold them all together.
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