NJ's Basingstoke Build (UK)

[NJ.]

Thanks Sparkyman, if they're the Mk2 I think they'll fit. I've sent you a PM.

Thanks George, I've added a crank seal and RTV to the list...

[NJ.]

Jun 29, 2016 0:21:29 GMT Trenon said:

Did you blast your brake rotors? Is that a good idea? I've never seen anyone do that before.

Trenon, I cleaned the discs in the electrolysis tank then painted. As you say I don't think blasting is a good idea, it would probably turn your discs into sandpaper for your pads...

So I've been continuing to strip the engine down for cleaning.

First job was to remove the crankshaft pulley and cog. The pulley came off easily however getting the cog off was a pain.
The woodruff key came out but the cog had seized onto the shaft...

Dad was over again and whilst trying to loosen it off, I thought we were making progress as there was movement. However turned out to be the whole crankshaft moving which got me panicking (remember I've no idea if the engine is sound having only driven it 30 mins or so on 3/4 cylinders).

Googling got me to looking up thrust bearings and I reached the site below which made matters worse when it mentioned .3mm max play which didn't seem like much.
 
www.miata.net/solo/99miatathrustbearingfailure.html

Anyways, got a DTI on the cog and turns out I have 0.16mm play which seems to be in spec so thats a relief.



Soaked the cog overnight and then hit it hard in the morning with a hammer + wood and it eventually clocked round against the shaft and came off.
With the cog finally removed, I then degreased the engine using the items below from left to right.




I originally intended to paint the engine block + sump black and the head silver, but the black sump was already overpowering and painting the whole block would make finding oil leaks a nightmare. So I decided to free-style a mix of the two colours that I'm pretty pleased with - it's a sort of metallic cast iron.




So, as I mentioned I'm going to replace the crank + cam seals but does anyone know if this thing below has a seal in it - seems very oily round it?
I think it's the redundant CAS sensor port that the Mk2 doesn't use...? I guess it doesn't use the same CAS seal?

[gwnwar]

Yes there is an O ring in there get a new one they dry out and break.. While you have the engine on the stand turn it cam cover down you might have some water in the plug wells.. Remember to cut a piece of a water or soda plastic bottle to wrap around/between the crank seal surface and the seal so you don't kick the seal surface.. Same for the cam seals.. nice work so far..

[NJ.]

Been making good progress on the car, got the engine work pretty much finished and started to put the car back together in prep for picking up the frame on Monday.

There's nothing others haven't done, but here are some photos...


State of the cam cover before shot blasting.... I removed the baffles before blasting.


So cool to be able to borrow this....


After a top coat of white hammerite, I carefully masked then cut out the letters with a knife.
Can you spot the mistake?


More obvious here.


Lol, another mistake here... sharing for your amusement


This is pretty much where I'm up to now. I have also got the exhaust on and started running the main loom on the PPF.

I'm picking up the frame Monday and keen to crack on with it once collected.
I assume the next steps are to cut the floor and run the brake + fuel lines.

So, I'll be ordering some pipe clips/mounts for the tunnel along with rivnuts and a blade for the Ali.

Is there anything else, any tools or extra bits I should order?
Any tips for what to work on first once the frame arrives?

Thanks All.

[miket]

Looking good - sounds like you've got the next steps in hand ... lazy-tong rivet tool (or better) recommended for floor, pipe cutter, bender, flaring tool, connectors?? ... guess it depends what you already have.

[sparkyman403]

Hi nick as I said when you came over I've got an air powered riveter if you need one for the floor , also got 6/8/10 MM pipe bender you can borrow msg me if you want to borrow them
John

[gwnwar]

So you had to pull the flywheel and clutch off again to put on the engine plate..Did you put some RTV sealant on corners (6) of the cam towers to help seal the cover gasket.. Set/check crank angle sensor 0.020>0.059 gap check all 4 tits. check for paint on sensor and tits.. Did you put a bit of RTV over baffle bolts to sothey won't back out or at least lock tight on threads..
Cam cover look good..

[Fin]

Aug 4, 2016 5:26:19 GMT sparkyman403 said:

Hi nick as I said when you came over I've got an air powered riveter if you need one for the floor , also got 6/8/10 MM pipe bender you can borrow msg me if you want to borrow them
John

Hi. Is a such a heavy duty sounding riveter needed? Naively, I was thinking you used the old hand-squeeze pop riveters? That said, the Complete Kit Car mag's Exocet build recommended a Rivnut from Memfast, but not cheap!

[timbo]

When you have the frame upside-down and are putting in the fuel/brake lines, you may want to think about how you are going to run the electrics to the rear. If you want them hidden there is enough room down the transmission tunnel, but you may want to put the rivnuts in for the P-clips (every 300mm) before you join the frame back to the PPF (no room for drilling afterwards). I put my fuel/brake lines on the O/S and electrics on the N/S.
Hope this helps.
Tim
PS Echo above re at least a lazy tong rivetter for the floor.
And a standard rivnut tool will be fine.

[NJ.]

Aug 4, 2016 5:26:19 GMT sparkyman403 said:

Hi nick as I said when you came over I've got an air powered riveter if you need one for the floor , also got 6/8/10 MM pipe bender you can borrow msg me if you want to borrow them
John

Thanks for the offer John, I may take you up on the offer for the riveter but not planning on fitting the floor until after coating of the frame.

George, you're correct - forgot the bloody metal washer thing.  Luckily the blue loctite hadn't set so the flywheel came off fairly easily.  It crazy how much quicker it goes doing something for the second time round. Also, I covered all your points except the 'tit' thing on the crank fully so will check that next.  Hoping the sensor hasn't moved though as I didn't take it off!

Good point Timbo on the loom - I assume thats the one for the rear lights and fuel etc?  Guess I need to consider this and dig it out of storage...


So we picked up the frame Monday.  Was a good 8 hr round trip but everything went smoothly. I hired a LWB van and the parts fit in nicely. 
Once unloaded back home the frame was parked on its side for the night.




On Tuesday I took the day off work and once again Dad popped over to lend a hand with the floor and the first fit of the frame. Managed to get the floor cut out and all the rivet holes pre drilled.  I left the cross brace holes until the seats arrived as per the advice on hole clashes with the seat bolts.
We also managed to trial fit the frame with all 8 bolts lining up.



I need to fit the brake and fuel lines next and because I'm lazy and cant be dealing with carrying the frame in and out, we decided to make life easier and rigged up a couple of pulleys and hoisted the frame to the ceiling.  Stuart mentioned it only weighs about 75kg so hardly any load for the garage joists.... (hopefully nothing falls down over the next few days)
As always, and before anyone mentions it ;D safety first - there are four additional ties in case the pulley wheels fail (they're rated at 180kg's each but I guess you never know with the cheapeo amazon stuff...) 


I think it looks pretty cool and makes me think of Mad Max - although I'm sure the neighbours/gf just think I'm mental

So I should be able to get under to weld/make brackets and sort out the lines over the weekend.
I've ordered some 5/16 8mm kunifer lines for the fuel.
Looking at the P clip options it seems theres loads from the fancy rubber ones to the twin/tripple slot machined alloy blocks etc.
However, the cheapest and largest qty I could find are available from an unlikely source - Maplins!

5mm - www.maplin.co.uk/p/cable-p-clip-48mm-100-pack-sj32k
8mm - www.maplin.co.uk/p/cable-p-clip-79mm-100-pack-sj34m

So I'm going to give them a try. Only down side for some is they are white but they will go with my frame colour.

Also, I just wanted to check the deal with the fuel lines. My car had three 5/16 lines + the 3/16 brake.
Two are for the feed and return  - the left two connectors on pic below
The third connects to the bottom of the charcoal canister at the engine and I think the middle pipe below?
Does this need blanking?  What does it do? 

[miket]

Like the hoist system - more ingenuity in confined spaces.

You mention 'all 8 bolts lining up' - does the new chassis do away with the rear 4 (of 8) front bolts or is there more to do on the alignment & bolts?

Your '3rd line' vents fumes to the charcoal canister. I tried to get to the bottom of what best to do and concluded that blanking it off at the tank and removing the rest was favourite. You could of course be environmentally friendly and keep the whole canister system intact.

I've also seen one-way valves put on this tank fume outlet. From my reading it seemed that the vent at the tank has a rollover valve such that it shouldn't leak if, er, overturned - but I've not ever tried to prove it!

It'd be handy if some people who've passed IVA already could chip in with their solutions to this tank venting outlet.

[NJ.]

Sorry miket， I meant 12. There are 4 main bolts on the front and rear subframe and then as you say， there are an additional 4 on the front subframe near the footwell. On my kit they all lined up which was good.

Sounds like I'm good to just blank off the vent then. Not sure what to do with the charcoal canister but hopefully someone's covered it in a build somewhere... Got some searching to do.

[miket]

If you're going to blank off at the tank then you can delete/remove the rest of the canister, its pipes and wires. The tube that the other end of one of the pipes goes to will also need blanking off.

[NJ.]

Today I've been working on the fuel and brake lines.  It seems to have taken forever, but I've never run brake lines etc before so I guess its to be expected.

I've seen loads of options for running the fuel/brakes and I decided to make up some brackets to weld to the frame.  They are tacked in place for now and I will finish welding them up when the frame is off the hoist.




I may add another couple of clips near the top of the fuel lines to support it as it leaves the frame.  

The larger 8mm P-Clips were perfect from maplins but the smaller 5mm were slightly too big in case anyone was thinking of buying them.  Bit weird as the small ones have 3/16ths stamped on them so they should fit...
Haven't decided what to do yet with the clips, I might just run a strip of black tape around the pipe at the area its clipped - or use some heat shrink to thicken the diameter slightly.

I also decided to replace the rear brake link from the distributor block.  The original was fine, but I've flipped the block 180 to prevent it fouling the frame and so new lines needed making.



I've also bought some fuel hose to link the rear end of the lines at the tank.  I assume the hose is attached via a pipe clip onto the hard line with a single flare?  Does this joint need supporting with a bracket?  

[miket]

Can't remember what flare I used, but 'yes' to support all pipe/hose joins.
Watch out for space at the real pinch point at the rear of the tunnel where the ppf-girder bends to rhs - little space and a lot going thru there once wiring goes in too.
For me there was very little gap between tank and its cover at the front (where your fuel lines go vertical at rear of car). From my experience I'd recommend routing the lines out to the side and then up.
Pipes look very tidy.