1 July
Here at last! Phil arrived with his lorry just after nine and he, Sam and I set off for Tiger, getting there just after eleven. We had to wait while someone loaded up their kit into a transit, so we went for a cuppa.
Richard was standing in for Sue and Jim who were on holiday so when the transit pulled away, it was he who handed me the first bit of my car - the windscreen frame. He then proceeded to pull bits of old Sierra out of the back of vans, long grass, cardboard boxes and other mysterious places, and laying them behind the lorry. The chassis and engine were in the workshop and the GRP in the store room with an enormous box of goodies.
Everything got loaded into the van with acres of space to spare. Phil had thoughtfully provided a couple of pallet loaders which made moving the engine and rear suspension around a lot easier. All we were short of was a thermo widget for the radiator (which was out of stock) and the pedal assembly which the scrappies hadn't provided when they supplied the rest of the donor. Photo here. Bought a radiator fan and Sam treated us to a couple of Tiger mugs. Settled the bill and off home (via the Little Chef for a well earned lunch).
Home for four o'clock and unloaded by half past. Everything fits in the garage, but there's no room to move, so the GRP moves out while we work and moves back in when we're done. Also the angle iron table that I'd built to put the chassis on proved extra useful because it provides storage room underneath for the big box of bits. According to Matt, the first thing I had to do was sit in the chassis and go Vroom. So I did.<.JPGbr>
Saturday night was spent ticking off the parts list. I think I'm up one pedal and possibly a bell housing, so I'll return them to Tiger if they are still spare when I've finished. I also read the build manual from cover to cover, panicked, read it again, and panicked again.
The pieces of ally panelling don't seem to match up with the diagram in the manual, nor does the order in which the manual implies you build the thing, seem sensible. So I posted a help message on the newsgroup asking for guidance and a few people replied with useful suggestions.
2 July
Started stripping the front suspension to get at the hubs, disks and callipers. Sadly the bits had spent so long in the breakers yard that the callipers had rusted solid, so I had to hit them VERY hard with a lump hammer just to get them to let go of the disks.
Cleaned everything up and applied Kurust (a Hammerite product that paints on all blue and frothy, then dries in about half an hour to a solid black, rust free and rustproof surface - highly recommended). Took some advice from a mechanic that it wasn't worth skimming the disks when a new set could be had for the same price. Oh well, that was two happy hours wasted. I doubt whether they will be the last.
Spoke to Matt about the ally panels that don't match up with anything in the manual and he suggests (and I think he's right) that they are probably for the front, inside the nose cone. Can't see anything that covers up the pedal assembly at the moment which is what I originally thought they were for. Perhaps there isn't a cover for that.
3 July
Wedding anniversary, so held back on paying too much attention to my new mistress, but by evening the pull of the garage was too great. Sam and I started to take the rear suspension to pieces, but fell at the first hurdle. How the hell do you get the drums off? The Haines manual says remove the spire washers that are on the studs - there aren't any. It also says poke a screwdriver through the hole in the drums to release the handbrake auto adjuster. The drums have been put on ninety degrees out of bonk which means the hole in the drum doesn't line up with the hole on the stud plate, so you can't get in to the adjuster!
I tried hitting the drums with the lump hammer to no effect, so I gave up and turned my attention to construction rather than destruction. Sam was desperate to put something on the car (of course, I wasn't!) so we decided to fit the panel that goes in front of the petrol tank, behind the parcel shelf.
Some silicone bath sealant and fifty one pop rivets later and we're well chuffed. The edges were a bit ragged where the aviation snips had chewed their way round, but that was cured by hitting the edges with a block of wood and then filing them down with a tiny triangular file - the only one I had. It took ages and made a right mess of my left hand, but all in all, we're pleased with the result.
Also applied Waxoil to the insides of all the tubes we could reach and bunged the ends up with the plastic bungs provided in the kit.
4 July
Phoned Tiger to ask how the drums came off and Paul advised me (via Sue) that you had to hit them VERY
hard with a BIG hammer and then they'd move. Got home and tried it and sure enough, they did. Stripped down the rear suspension ready for cleaning up tomorrow.
Pat presented me with an early birthday present (it's not for a month yet) - a Black and Decker Powerfile. Ben had said it made life so much easier, and he was right. I applied it to the still rough edges of last night's panel and it took it down to flush with the tube in no time. It is one hell of a tool and should prove worth it's weight in gold by the time we've done.
Found a couple of tubes unWaxoiled and unbunged. Another job for tomorrow.
5 July
Cleaned up the rear wishbones and Kurusted them. Didn't get much else done. Frustrating! I so want to get on, but the computer business sideline has suddenly got busy with two or three machines that simply won't stay mended.
6 July
Tried to get the slave cylinders off the rear back plates (terminology isn't my string suit). Three out of four bolts came out - the fourth is a cow. It's resisted everything I've thrown at it until the head of the thing is now just a misshapen lump. Went to the brake factors at lunchtime to stock up on new disks and pads etc. I need to take my old callipers in tomorrow as they are 'traded in' for new ones.
7 July
Fetched most of the brake stuff at lunchtime and when I got them home found that the trade in callipers are only the bits with the pistons in. I've handed over the whole calliper, including the slidey bit. I hope they haven't got rid of them by Monday when I can next go and see them. I need to go back for a set of master cylinder rubbers anyway and I'll pick up a hand brake cable at the same time.
8 July
Started Saturday with the intention of making a big difference to the car, but first had to go to Bradford computer market and pick up all the bits to fix the wonky machines and build a couple of new ones.
Saturday afternoon and Matt phoned to see if I would welcome a visit later in the day to check how I was going on. Would I? Of course!
He turned up around six and impressed the hell out of several passers by, by parking the Cat in front of my house. Sam later told me that the local boy racer who has a purple mini done up to look like a Renault 5 (why didn't he buy a Renault 5, if that's what he wanted?) looked very sick as he passed it. No-one was looking at him anymore.
Matt gave me so much vital information, that I almost pressed money on him. Luckily good sense took over and I fed him instead. After talking him to death, we decided to go and rivet a floor panel on. We'd already turned Kitkat on her back earlier in the day (thanks for the muscle, Dad). Matt asked how many drill bits I smashed since I started. None was my proud boast. By the time the floor panel was on I'd killed three and didn't have any left. However, Matt did get to try my fancy new pop-riveter. It's one of those that looks like a cartoon boxing glove doohickey. You know, like a shaving mirror extender. Makes riveting a painless process. Matt also explained about why there are left, right and straight cut aviation snips. I'd completely misunderstood what they were all about - hence bleeding hands.
9 July
Tried my new grinder to lop off the extra bit of metal on the rear suspension that held the Sierra exhaust bracket. That was fun - spraying Sam with sparks . He panicked, thinking I'd set his hair gel alight, until he remembered he wasn't wearing any. Took half an inch off the tube that the big bolt goes through to fasten the suspension to the chassis. Matt had suggested I keep the cut off bit to act as a spacer for the shockers. The manual suggests a dozen washers. We'll see when the time comes.
Finally got that fourth bolt off the back plate by grinding it off. Then decided that the back plates looked so crap that I'd buy some new ones.
Cleaned and Kurusted the drive shafts. One side's longer than the other. I'll have to work out which goes where, or we'll be stuffed when it comes to fitting the wheels.
Cleaned the big suspension yoke and Kurusted it. Finally fitted the second floor panel. I've got half a dozen new 3.2mm drills. They should last me an hour or so. In the end, didn't break one. There's a knack. They break when they burst through the box section and hit the opposite side. So, by listening to the noise the drill makes as it nears the burst though point, I brace myself and minimise the impact. Simple really. Another 106 rivets, making 157 so far.
Had a go at cleaning the diff, but it's not easy, with it being made from cast aluminium. So I decided to let it remain au naturelle.
10 - 11 July
Went and ordered the Cortina steering rack rubbers - twenty two quid! Also asked about replacing the brake back plates, and they turned out to be thirty five quid each, so I decided to attack the old ones with the wire brush, Kurust and Hammerite. In the end they turned out ok.
Flipped the car the right way up and sat and thought long and hard about the best way of adding the rear suspension to the chassis. Everyone I'd asked said they put the whole thing on in one lump, but that sounded heavy. So I decided that if I put the big blue yoke on first - it can only go in one place because of the two mounting holes that are already drilled in the chassis. Once that's on, the diff can go on. Then the wishbones and finally the drive shafts and brake back plates.
And that's what we did And it all went really easily! The photo in the manual shows the diff hanging on by a thread, but mine's lined up almost centrally - a beautiful job.
I'd bought four tins of Hammerite - red, blue, black and silver, and I used them all but the red on the back suspension (not all the paint, all the colours). It might look a bit of a dog's breakfast, but the photo shows the various components clearly and it will all be covered by the GRP when we're legal. I think it looks fun.
12 - 13 July
Picked up the steering rack rubbers, and then went to fetch another five hundred pop rivets, a bag of washers and several Nyloc nuts as I seem to be running out. Especially when I started to fit the rear dampers. As Matt suggested, I tried using the lumps cut off the suspension mounts as spacers for the dampers, but they were a bit uneven and looked a mess, so decided to do as Jim suggests and use loads of washers. The photo shows the fourteen that help fit the bottom end!
By this time, the back end was getting so heavy, Sam could push it up and down with one hand, so we decided to apply a little counterweight to the other end and bunged a wheel on the nose. That evened things up nicely. The angle iron trestle is proving to be a very strong and sturdy addition to the garage. My only concern now is how we will get the car off it when the time comes. That time should be when I can put all four wheels on it, which hopefully won't be too long.
14 July
According to the instruction manual, I am supposed to cut the supplied cable to make a link between the handbrake balance bar and the handbrake. What 'supplied cable'? I found an old bit of the donor handbrake cable and decide to use that. I could loop it round the pin that held the old linkage, but how could I fasten the ends together reliably? I thought and thought and then Pat said 'why not pop rivet them?' She's a genius. I got two small metal plates about the size of large postage stamps and sandwiched the cable between them, then pop riveted them together. Used another two to make it absolutely secure. Looks ugly, but works a treat. I'm not too sure about the loop of cable around the link pin, though, It's too loose and will make the handbrake action sloppy.
I also couldn't find the cable locks that stop the cable pulling through the balance bar, so I used fifteen amp wiring connectors. They seem tight enough.
I was drilling the balance bar with my new, Stoneleigh bought, drill anything, last forever, never break, never dull, leave them in your will drill bits when the tungsten tip melted in the hole, welded itself into the bottom and left the end of the drill looking like a sausage. I'll give the advertisers their due - the stuff is tough. I broke another three drill bits trying to drill it out of the hole. In the end I had to drill another hole to the side of where I wanted it, so now the balance bar doesn't have any balance about it.
I stared at the chassis to work out where the handbrake needed to be mounted and decided that I would have to drill all the way through both sides of the top rail to mount the front bracket to the underside of it. But that would mean an ugly nut on top of the tunnel, poking through my nice carpet. Sam came up with the answer - a bit off his mountain bike rather like a coach bolt, but with a small peg instead of a square at the top.
Matt phoned and asked if I wanted some company on Saturday as he was at a loose end. No problem.
15 July
Before Matt arrived, we set about the pedal assembly. It seemed that wherever we put it, the pedals fouled on something. Then I decided to use the Jim Dudley engineering technique and bung a fistful of washers at the problem, and it was solved. By lowering the top of the pedal assembly, the curve of the brake pedal now misses the steering column mount. This meant we could pull the whole assembly to the right and so stop the clutch pedal fouling the chassis.
Checking the newsgroup postings later, I found someone else who was having exactly the same problem at exactly the same time. I posted my solution. I hope it helped.
Went inside and started to watch the Formula 1 qualifying, taking the brake master cylinder and seals kit with me. Stripped it down and rebuilt it with new bits while sat on the living room carpet. As Sam pointed out, I wouldn't have got away with that if Pat was there, but she was at my nephew's helping with the gardening, so I was in charge.
Matt arrived and we retired to the garage, missing the end of qualifying, but somehow not really minding.
Matt attacked the handbrake, while Sam and I finished fixing the pedal assembly, then we had some lunch. Last week, Sam had wanted a go in Matt's car, but hadn't had the chance. I mentioned this to Matt, who then volunteered to go and fetch some more drills and washers - would Sam like to go with him?
By the time they got back, Sam's smile was nearly splitting his head in half. Apparently Matt believes town planners make roundabouts so you can go round them all at least twice before deciding which exit you want to take. And by going round them, I mean with your foot to the floor and the back end trying to overtake the front.
So I had to have a go (as passenger) and we went to the local car spares to have the owner swap a few ends on the brake lines and cut the lines to size. This guy is a real character. I must write about him some time. Suffice it to say that everything is too much trouble and his sighs of exasperation at the needs of his customers have to be heard to be believed. But he is very cheap! On the way home we detoured a few miles to see how Pat was getting on with the gardening. We didn't mention the brake cylinder.
Once home, we fitted the brake compensator to the strange triangular panel that fits inside the engine bay (for just such a purpose, I guess), used all the Tiger supplied P clips to get the brake line to the back end, and called it a day. And a very productive one at that.
16 July
While I was clearing up I found the 'supplied cable' and the cable locks that had caused me to get inventive during the week. So I took the handbrake off and rebuilt it properly.
Went to the car spares and subjected myself to Ossie's cheerful banter and had to explain that the reason I needed the brake lines adapting was that I was building a kit car and standard parts simply don't fit. He didn't have any P clips, nor any nuts to fasten the flexible brake lines to the mounting brackets, not the little bolts that fasten the brake cylinders to the back plates. He DID have fuel pipes and in-line filters, if I knew the exact diameter of the copper line (which I didn't), so all in all it was a bit of a waste of time. But I did get the last brake line end flared and so I could fit that.
Painted the aluminium panel in front of the petrol tank black - a bit of a sag in the paint, but not to shabby for a first go. The petrol tank is now what has become known as 'dangerous red' as is the go faster pedal.
Fitted the sender to the petrol tank and bent it severely to make sure it could do the full amount of travel to show full to empty - with empty still having a bit of petrol left in the tank. Then used a hearty dollop of silicone sealant to cushion the tank on the chassis.
Ended the day by fitting the second triangular panel on the nearside of the engine bay and tried to work out how the tunnel panels fit - they don't; how the seat back panels fit - neither do they; and how we can fit the small panels at the front end of the tunnel. This is a tricky one, because the driver's side needs fitting to the outside of the chassis to give me room for the clutch pedal, but the panels don't meet at a convenient chassis member. Time to stand back and think. So I updated the web site and went to bed.
17 July
Frustratingly, not much progress tonight. Other things taking priority. But I did manage to fit the nearside rear brake shoes and cylinder. Which meant the new drum could go on. Which meant I had to try a wheel. It looks so FAT! Damn sexy, though!
18 July
Fitted the offside brake shoes and cylinder. Added the last bit of brake line from the flexible hose, round the back of the wishbone and to the slave cylinder.
Having sprayed the metal straps for the petrol tank black, they were ready to fasten it down. Starting under and in front of the tank I bent them up, round, over and back under. Applied loads of clear silicone sealant and pop riveted them underneath at both ends. It looks OK, but I'm disappointed at how tight I've been able to get it - not very. And, of course, half an hour later I thought of a way of making them very tight which I now can't use because I've cut them down. Ah well. It will be fine, I'm sure. And if it ever does become loose, I can always take it apart and do it the proper way. Looks good, though.
19 July
Another slack night. Cut and shaped a few of bits of panelling - the bit in front of the passenger footwell, the piece that attaches to it and starts to extend down the side of the tunnel, and the battery shelf. But I didn't fit any.
I need to remove the front to rear brake line P clips (dammit - and I only got a few to start with!) in order to fit the panel at the side of the pedals. This needs to go on the outside of the tunnel to make room for my feet and the clutch pedal.
20 July
Dad came for tea and brought his working trousers with him. They don't work on their own, of course, he needs to be in them. He, Sam and I set about sorting the footwell panels. Had to remove all the front end of the brake lines to fit the driver's footwell panel. The one right at the front I cut using a cornflake box as a template (in order to get the hole for the steering column in the right place and to fit round a weird bit of chassis).
It all took some doing, but the brake lines are back in place. I've managed to achieve a very nice curve in the panel where it starts on the outside of the tunnel near my feet and then curves inside to meet up with the other panel on the inside of the tunnel. If that didn't make sense see the photo. Pop rivet total now 290 with another 33 drilled out.
When I was drilling out the pop rivets I thought about all the metal ends that finish up inside the tubes and how they will run up and down the tubes forever, rattling and annoying me. So I got a syringe that is used to refill printer ink cartridges and filled it full of Waxoil. Then poked the needle through the old pop rivet holes and gave it a hefty squirt. By my reckoning, the rattly bits will whiz up and down the tube just once, then get stuck in the Waxoil.
Matt had pointed out that, given the noise level of the Cat in full flight, a few rattly bits of metal in the chassis wouldn't be noticed. Ah yes, but what if they were?
We were scheduled to put the fuel line in and layout the wiring loom, but ran out of time. However, despite the lack of progress against plan, Dad was happy with his efforts. We managed to break about half a dozen pop rivet drill bits, though, trying to get into tight corners. By the look of things, the rest of the panelling shouldn't be so awkward.
A couple of nights ago, there was a newsgroup posting from someone called Steven who will be collecting his Cat on 12 August and asking if there was anyone he could visit on the way down from or back to Aberdeen. I'd suggested he might like to photograph a part built Cat and he replied tonight asking where I lived. So I can expect a visit during the afternoon of the glorious twelfth. If Matt comes round, we can give him something else to look at!
21 July
I decided that, as the car was getting heavier and heavier, it was going to be more and more difficult to get it off the trestle and on to axle stands. So I bought two pairs of stands today and enlisted the help of everyone at home to get the beast off the table.
By stacking a couple of wheels with a heavy board on top, I could get the new trolley jack to lift the diff. Then with me holding the front of the chassis (minus the counterweight wheels) in the air, and Pat at the back stopping the whole thing from wobbling from side to side, Sam undid the bolts holding the table together and collapsed it from under the car. Then I lowered the front onto two stands, and then released the jack so the back settled onto two more.
I'd been dreading this - thinking it would be very likely to put my back out. But it went like a dream. Photo.
I'd had an idea about how to make the handbrake pull straighter. Because the handbrake sits on the left of the tunnel it pulls the balance bar to one side, so I took the whole thing apart again (I'm getting good at this now) and removed the pin that the link cable fastens to. Then I replaced it with a large M8 bolt with three Nyloc nuts on - one to fasten the bolt to the handbrake and two to space the link cable at the right place i.e. the middle of the tunnel. Now the pull comes from the middle and the whole thing works much neater. If that didn't make sense, see the drawing. And the photo.
Next Sam and I attached the fuel line to the inside of the tunnel on the passenger side of the car. It needed to be routed around the nearside brake lines, which meant it made some interesting detours. However, I've got P clips every 70mm wherever possible, and we routed it away from anything that might chafe it, which should keep the SVA man happy. Then we connected the copper line to the tank with some rubber fuel hose and Jubilee clips (why don't Tiger put these bits in the kit?).
Finally I cut the panels for behind the seats. These need big cut-outs to avoid the suspension mountings (see photo). This is where the pigs ears are supposed to fit. However, no matter how I try I can't get the pigs ears to fit without them completely covering the seat belt mounting hole.
Just before I came upstairs to write this lot, I laid the tunnel sides in place (these seem to fit much better tonight for some reason). Then flushed with success I put the plywood insides in and clamped the wheel arch panels on just to see how they look. 'Good' is the answer!
22 July
Spent a large part of the day showing people the progress - Matt arrived (not to work on the car this time, but to borrow a modem cable) and then Phil turned up with a friend. I was also still working on one of the rogue computers which eventually got sorted (some brand new memory was faulty).
Then came the fun part - the wiring loom. Pat and I stretched it all out on the lounge carpet so it looked like a Jackson Pollock painting, then with Pat searching through the manual and me picking lumps of wire and calling out the colours, we tried to identify what the various ends of wires were supposed to connect to. After a frustratingly fruitless start we eventually began to make progress, labelling ends as we identified them. Finally we had a bunch of ends with labels, a bunch with plugs and a bunch with simple push connectors on. (The frustrating bit was because we started with the one plug that isn't used!)
The manual described the column switches as 'pre-wired' which to me means they go to plugs. But the plugs didn't seem to fit any of the connectors on the steering column, so I phoned Jim at Tiger. OK, I accept I'm an idiot. The pre-wired column switches are actually dashboard switches and the column switches are not pre-wired to anything other than simple push connectors. Once Jim had pointed out where in the manual the column connector diagrams were, it all made sense. I'm just left with a couple of purple wires and a black/red one at the front of the car, unaccounted for. I'm sure I'll find a use for them later. I think they are for the horn (Neil Wain on the Tiger newsgroup has just sprayed coffee on his keyboard). Alright the hooter then. (More coffee/keyboard interfacing.) Why is there no word for an audible warning device that doesn't have a double meaning?
Making sure we held everything in some sort of order, we laid the loom on the chassis and started to cable tie it in place. Then we cut all the cable ties off and threw them away, so I could cut a circular hole in the battery shelf for the wiring to pass from what will be the outside of the car to the inside. The hole cutter went haywire and I ended up with a hole that doesn't hang on to the grommet, but I can patch that and it's hidden anyway, so I don't really mind too much. I learned though, to fasten the ally panel to a block of wood and drill through both in future.
The end result is that the car is starting to look a right mess - wires and pipes all over, P clips, cable ties etc. And the back end that looked so tidy now looks like a dog's breakfast. Oh well, it will all be covered up eventually.
26 July - 10 August
It's all been very quiet recently while I spent a happy couple of weeks sunning myself in Fuerteventura. But I'm back now and can start to do for real what I've spent the last fourteen days working on in my head.
