Build Day 66

Build time today 7.0 hours - Total build time 185.5 hours.

Man time today 8.5 hours - Total man time 212.5 hours.

Big day today, first engine start.

First to check the coolant system, there is still a leak from the radiator another I need to tweak the temperature sensor a couple of times before correcting it. 

Then onto the oil pressure sensor, this had to be screwed in while lying under the car, very fiddly working in quite a restricted space with little visibility.  There are actually two connectors on the sensor a feed and an earth, only the feed is needed as it earths to the engine block. trouble was lying where I was I could not tell which connector was which, had to find a torch and mirror to see the markings. The sensor has spade connectors the wiring loom a ring connector.  The spade connector was secured with a small nut though and after a little fiddling I managed to get the spade off and the ring on. wound it on till it was secure then as I gave it a last little turn it came loose. Words cannot describe the feeling, annoyance, panic etc. I took the sensor out again trying to work out what to do,  purchase a new one being the most likely out come. looking at the sensor out and in the light I could see that the terminals were small and hollow, they would be very week.there was a small amount of thread remaining and I had the spade I had removed. So out with the soldering iron and I soldered a spade on. Situation saved. Screwed the unit back in, swapped the ring for a spade on the look and it was all connected.

Decided not to start yet as the others were out and thought it should be an occasion that should be witnessed.

So got on with the roll bar. Using the string and a spacers I had rigged up I could mark the centre point with a reasonable amount of confidence, marking the oval was going to be more difficult. I had measured the roll bar tube (38mm or 1.75") and thought I may have an off cut of wast pipe though would be close in size. After a hunt I found some pipe that was a couple of mm smaller. I cut a piece just over the length from the top of the roll bar to the point it would go through the body work. Using the sting I marked the pipe allowing me to cut it at near enough the correct angle to mark the oval hole.
The process I then used was to cut a starter hole with a hole saw and enlarged to the line using my Dremel. I used a piece of the wast pipe to get the hole alignment correct.

Centre point marked

used pipe to mark hole

First hole cut

Once the wast pipe fitted correctly and as it was slightly smaller than the roll bar tube I used a think pen to mark a new cut line and used the Dremel to expand to this new line.  I also realized that the pipe caught the body work edge that the boot inner rests upon so this needed to be cleared also. Time consuming but once the method was worked out not as traumatic as it could have been.

pipe inserted and a slightly larger hole cut

Hole cut

With this done and everyone around on to the engine start up.

Ignition on, wait a moment. give it  a try.. A couple of goes and it fires up, lots of splutters and bangs and I get it running. Not really sure what to expect though.

With the excitement over back to the roll bar, with the body work holes complete it can be fitted, we attached the eyelets to the stays starting with the lock nuts set at 5 turns from the ends at both ends. Close it turned out the 6 was closer. One of the eyelets was very very tight, it needed to be inserted bit at a time screwing in and then out a bit to keep it free. We started with the upper mounts but very quickly realized the bottoms are a two man job and needed to be done  first. So off with the tops again.  The bottoms use 8 washers as spacers, one is square with 4 each side, the other slightly off with 3 and 5, acceptable I think. There was very little space around the bottom fitting point and it was impossible to get the washers in place on the outer side with the stay in place.
The technique that eventually worked was to use a smaller bolt, just longer than the number of washers pushed in from the out side. The stay could then be offered up and just fitted over the end. The real bolt could then be inserted from the inner side and there was enough room to insert the washers. It could then be pushed through the stay and push the other bold out leaving the washers in place.
When we had completed fitting the roll bar and torqued it up I then moved on to the harness mounts and then realized that passenger outer one needed to be done before the roll bar. I would therefore need to remove the roll bar. I would not have to undo the bottom fixings though thankfully.
The harness eyelets need to all finish on the same plane and they did not, one would tighten to the correct point with a bit of leverage the others would not. The factory advice was to use washers, when I tried this I ended up with the fixing points a very different highs and this looked wrong. I also realized that I only need quite thin washers, so decided to make some out of aluminium sheet which did the trick and the mount points all appear to be the same hight.

Now on to the cover for the roll bar mount points. I did not fancy the supplied covers and have decided to make them out of aluminium plate which I will paint black and cover with carbon wrap. I hope they will be smaller and neater, if not I can revert to the standard items.
After some trial and error and lots of filling I managed to get a set that seem to do the job ready for the passenger side.
Hopefully I can get a few hours tomorrow to prepare another.