Episode V - The Flywheel Strikes Back

Last night while endeavouring to mate the gearbox to the motor I sheared off one of the bolts.

The whole evening was plain frustration from start to finish. The night before (Tuesday) we had tightened the friction plate to the flywheel. In the process we managed to get the friction plate off centre so when it came to getting the shaft to go all the way home it just wouldn't.

So eventually I decided to slack the pressure plate off and jiggle (that's a technical term) the friction plate around to centre it. I succeeded in aligning it correctly but then when I torqued the bolts joining the pressure plate to the flywheel one snapped right off. In hindsight I guess it was better then stripping the flywheel thread.

Today I took the flywheel off to an engineering shop and they fixed it while I went looking for new bolts. All sorted and ready to continue.

Right now I feel like I could take on the whole Empire myself.

Oily mess !@#$

In my infinite wisdom I tried to fill the gearbox with oil without checking for any possible hole first. So of course oil started pouring out of the speedo hole.



Last night on Brad's recommendation I blocked it up with a nylon plug, a washer, a circlip and plenty of silicon.

Then the real fun started and we went about putting the engine in. Unfortunately we ran out of time and at 12:30 last night this is as far as we had got.



The gear box is too far forward to get the clutch cover past the bell housing, so we need to take the prop out and temporarily move the gearbox back a tad to get the engine home.



Random Photo of the day. I took it this morning outside my door. I often forget to look at how beautiful the mountains are.

Well I don't know what to say... Its been a while!

So 3 months on and at last I'm back in the garage. Wedding plans are almost complete and Yimmy (my Ford Ka) got a new set of shoes as well as a branch and free flow exhaust.

His old wheels got passed onto the build temporarily.

Meanwhile I have finished fitting the Steering, Diff and all number of shafts. The basic wiring layout is done, thanks to Andre it was more like making to minute noodles then wiring up a car.

For my Dad's Birthday I got him this rather cool looking "Racing" jack its almost completely Aluminium so it weighs very little and has a fast lift action for up to 1.5tons. Needless to say it lifts the car a treat.

Skew Rail Explanation

Quote:

Hi Bodger
what happen to the rail?

Cheers
Murray

The chassis came welded incorrectly. It was out by 6mm at the gusseted end but because there is a knock on effect to the wishbone by the time you try to fit the upright it is more like ±30mm out. I found a way to make it fit by turning the top wishbone upside down but it was still out by 5mm and caused the wheel to have a bad Toe-out.

In the end the only thing to do was cut and re weld it.

Suspended-sion

Last Night I reassembled the rear hubs with new seals and grease. They were taken apart because of a problem with the rear bearings being crushed when tightened up to 200nm+. To fix this we had some spacer washers made so that the pressure was on the splined parts of the hub instead of the bearings, this is how it is designed to work on the sierra.

The reason for this problem was the rear uprights from Locost SA had a larger flange in between the bearing cups then the original sierra part. All new uprights bought from Locost SA do not have this problem anymore.



I then put the rear suspension together and test fitted the shocks for good measure.




I have forgotten up till now that the front uprights need to be modified. The lower ball joint hole does not have the correct taper so it will need to be machined.

There is also still a bit of work to be done on the braking system (flexible hoses), then we can have it on its wheels.