Hello
Not updated all summer, so i suddenly have a fair amount of stuff to post.
Firstly, I have built up most of the tank bulkhead now, and all that remains is the outer skin of chequer plate on the front.
Here is the bulkhead, fully fabricated and sealed before paint:
Here is the tank being pressure tested for leaks before paint.
Here is the painted bulkhead and tank:
Here it is bolted in before paint:
Also I have been working on the engine to get it finished.
This is the oil cooler i was originally going to use, but it had a leak even after we had tried to repair it.
However, after bumping into a friend with a mk2 escort in town and explaining the troubles of the leaky oil cooler holding back the engine start up, He said he had a spare cooler i could have. A lovely 13 row mocal oil cooler, perfect size for my brackets, but wrong thread size, FOR FREE! Big thankyou to Dave. This gave me an excuse to get brand new hoses made up which would have a better route and a better location for the oil thermostat. It now requires a nice big air intake to get air flowing along past the cooler, and down the back of the engine to the radiator where it will get pushed through by the standard fan and an electric pull fan on the outside for more static conditions.
It now looks like this:
I've also made myself a budget oil catch tank using a camping fuel bottle, with a couple bits of 12mm pipe welded onto some washers that are then glued onto the bottle with araldite.
Here it is mounted on my ultimate engine steady, where the bracket has also been welded on for that too.
You can also see the filter king mounted in that photo, the small mounting assembly i made for the pump and filter proved more hassle than it was worth. The pump is now located with the solenoid down behind the driver, It requires a muck shield at some point:
So with a dummy wiring rig, we set about starting the engine today. Firstly we got oil pressure, and because we have not wired the alternator in, we used our Pug106 to charge the system with jump leads to the solenoid:
Then after the oil pressure warning light went off. We timed the ignition to somewhere near with a strobe, and just turning it over on the starter. Then we checked for a spark, and was successful. Then came our hurdle of the day, The fuel pump worked, but the float in the carb didn't. Fuel leaked everywhere. So we took the carb off and dissmantled the float chamber, checked it worked and it did, so the cut off needle was just sticking (which is understandable for a carb that hasn't been used in a very long time). Reassembled the carb and put it back on. Fuel pump on, and it cut out when pressure was reached, so no leak
Everything hooked up and thumbs up ready to go, so we went for it!
1st start up vid
Success!! It had a really nice throaty growl
Quite a bit of smoke though as it cleared its throat from all the oil we had put in the bores and ports as we built up the engine.
Then thisafternoon, we fabricated a new sheppard's crook linkage as the old one was the wrong shape.
Got some more to do on that though.
Also been sorting out seat mounts recently, so expect to see more from these areas shortly!
Hope that is enough to prove i haven't slacked much at all over the holidays!!
Max