Build Day 31/32

Build time today 4.5 hours - Total build time 88.5 hours.

Man time today 4.5 hours - Total man time 105.0 hours.

Very frustrating weekend.

After a promising start to the weekend with the arrival of the body work and lots of questions answered it started to go wrong quite quickly.

First task now that I had the M8 nylocks was to fasten the top steering column mount and then finish fastening the engine in place. The steering column was straight forward though it is not tight as I am not yet sure where to fasten in place and there is quite a bit of lateral movement/adjustment. Fastening the LH engine mounting bracket was a little fiddly as there was not a lot room but the bolts were soon lightened up to the correct torque settings. now on the the M10 bolts sticking out of the engine mounts. These should be tightened up to 35lbs/ft I could not get a torque wrench at the left hand side so started on the right only for the bolt to sheer before getting any where need the correct setting.
My initial though was blind panic with visions of having to remove the engine... upon closer inspection I realize that if I take the weight of the engine with a jack I should be able to remove the who engine mount if the lower steering rack is removed. I will check with Westfield before proceeding though.

Next I had to remove the dash wiring loom from the hole in the scuttle, it needs to go through the right hand hole in the front part of the transmission tunnel, a job that is time consuming but just requires patients. The left hand hole needs to be sealed so I made plate and secured with rivet nuts. Then on to feeding more of the wires into place.


















To my next problem. To fit the oil pressure sender first a plug has to be removed from behind the air intake system. The plug needs a torque bit to remove and was very tightly fitted. The oil pressure sender is in two parts a brass plug/sleeve that fits the hole in the engine block and the sender itself which fits into the plug/sleeve, after applying ptfe tape I screwed in the plug/sleeve which was tight from the outset then the sender, as the area was difficult to work in I decided to remove the bits and screw the plug/sleeve on to the sender first, I expected the sender to fit fully into the plug/sleeve but it did not fully go in and  was a tight fit from the very beginning. I then proceeded to screw the sender into the engine block, again it was tight from the beginning but was going in bit at a time, then suddenly without warning it became very loose, oh no, not again, another sheered fitting.
Another discussion with Westfield needed.
I thought no I need to carry on so continued to root the cables to the correct place. Trouble again, I had been told the plug on the engine management harness that I could not identify any socket for fits behind the air intake system, when I looked there was a plug that looked about correct so I tried to fit the plug in, this has to be done blind as the socket is tucked away, kept trying but no luck so inspected the ends more closely only to find them incompatible

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The tabs on the plug and socket don't match up, yet another question needed.

I then moved on to fitting the air temp sensor this fits to the inlet manifold, I removed the air filter and the inlet manifold, then found the air temp sensor, only to find there was no brass nut, I could not find one anywhere, another question needed.

Though when asked for assistance they are very very helpful.