Some of the missing parts turned up, so there are a few new jobs for this evening!
On my own tonight, arrived at the garage about 5pm. A few drips of oil under the sump and on the garage floor tell me we've got an oil leak somewhere around the dry sump. Absolute bugger...i'll spend some more time on that when i get the chance. I hope I don't have to drain all the oil again, thats a right pain.
I spent absolutely ages with the newly arrived dashboard wiring loom trying to work it out - literally an hour with the manual and i've identified 90%... still a few connectors I can't figure! I need to make a decision of where to mount my 'engine start' button and my new self-cancelling indicator switch from Westfield.... I feel its a big decision drilling holes in the dash, so I don't want to rush that one. I still don't have the dashboard's relationship with the paddle-shift fully figured, so i'll wait a while before cutting anything up!
With my new instructions for fitting the wide-track front anti-roll bar, I set to work. Immediately I came across the biggest problem in the project yet - the bar is supposed to go straight through where the dry-sump oil tank is! I checked to see if there is anywhere obvious to move it to, but there really isn't - it can't move nearer to the engine, and it can't move to the right because of the steering column. Now I'm totally stuck! Email to Westfield I think.... no doubt he's getting sick of me!
I decided to move on and fit is the battery & tray. Mark at Westfield sent me a picture of it, but I didn't fancy his proposed location at the front of the car - its getting manic down there already, so I chose to fit it to the side of the engine instead, and then mount the oil breather above it. I bolted it down, covered it in foam tape, then clamped the battery on top. Very solid, and looks good.
Next I decided to fit the oil breather catch tank that turned up today. Its a very nice polished alloy one with three connector nipples. The top two connect beautifully onto the top of the gearbox and the top of the sump tank. The third is situated at the bottom and is presumably designed to drain the tank if it fills - I stuck a hose on this and gave blew into it as hard as I could. Air then rushed back at me, proving that (to some extent) its sealed. This is a problem because it is supposed to be a breather tank! To solve this I drilled a small hole in the top of the tank. Hopefully that's correct....! Finally, i left a couple of inches of hose on the lower tank, shoved a bolt up the end and jubilee clipped it closed.
I then ran an earth strap from the battery up to one of the bolts on the breather tank and down to the -ve terminal of the battery. I also connected in the negative of the main loom. All the positives are left disconnected until we're ready to fire it up a little later.
Seeing as the shocks have turned up I thought I'd fit the rears - so i fitted the springs to the shocks and mounted them to the chassis and the wishbones. These are so stiff that if I attempt to compress by hand, i end up picking up the whole car! The rear-end is looking really good now, ready for the wheel to be put on and the geometry set up, but i think i'll get the front up to speed first. Oh... and not forgetting the rear calipers which still aren't here!!
Well, that's all for a while, I'm off to Madrid until monday. Hopefully by then the ECU and flying loom for the engine will have turned up... i'm itching to get the engine running!
Todays Build: 1 person, 3.5 hours. Total build time so far: 41 hours, 61 man-hours.
