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Monday 31 March 2008




Working from the back forward I've been concentrating on the cabin. With the seat in place I've been able to adjust the height of the steering column properly and get everything inline. The pedals need a little adjusting as the brake is a little to far forward and there's not much room for my big feet!! I'll let the pictures show how far I'm on. With the light nights now I'm going to get it outsdie to get some decent pictures!

Monday 24 March 2008


The little things take the longest, as they say. I agree, give me suspension build ups or engine installs any day. I really don't enjoy the niggly little things.

Spent the last two days sorting the interior and am afraid to say it doesn't look any different! What I've managed over the last two days is getting the gearstick and surround sorted. I looked around for a nice chrome ring to go round the gear stick hole but couldn't find anything that didn't resort to ebay or some week long wait. Raking around in the shed in the garden I came across a square rubber corrugated affair that I think was off an old Montego. My garden shed is were I keep everything else that is not directly involved in the build. Might come in handy I think looking at rubbish and this time its come up trumps! It has ever increasing square folds so I measured one of them 3 from the bottom and trimmed the tunnel cover to suit. It all fits together quite well.

Having had the final attack on the tunnel cover with the dremel it slips on nicely. I was all ready to fasten it down when I remembered the fuel pipe that needed rerouting. Luckily I had a new full length copper pipe, supplied as a return but I didn't use it so out with the old one and in with the new. Sounds dead easy but chopping the heads off rivits and running the new pipe in took forever but its done now so thats another item off the list. While I was on with the fuel pipe I changed the mish mash of jubilee clips and replaced all with nice new shiny pucka Norma fuel clips.

The seats are ready to go in now, once I've secured the side trim panels and tunnel cover that is. All the spacers are made and holes drilled to slip them in soon.

So, thats were we are, loads of prep work, niggly little bits I'm not very keen on. Never mind, its been snowing and its frozen solid now... spring has arrived!

Saturday 22 March 2008



This week seems to have taken a golden leap towards completion. The seats are sitting on their Citreon C3 runners, but still need bolting into the car. I'm looking for some 'free' ali spacers to get them over the diagonal chassis rail.

Ive tidied the engine cooling system up finally linking the bottom hoses with a length of 16mm ali pipe from B&Q. Last night I went round checking all the connections, making sure all the hoses were connected etc. Pouring two 1 litre bottles of antifreeze in one at a time and checking for leaks, a couple of the clips needed a tighten up with a spanner. Filled the system up with water. Filling up via the cap on the water rail till its full to the top leaves the header tank half full. Result!

Got a Mini exhaust bobbin off ebay and discovered the bracket I'd fabricated didn't stick out far enough. DOH! Off it came and 5 minutes later a new was ready :-) A corresponding bracket to bolt onto the rear silencer clamp was also made and some paint applied.

It took a little fettling to get the manifold to fit tightly as previously I've only used a couple of studs to locate it. Most of them came out when I took the Ford cast item off. Anyway, cleaned the studs up after getting the rusting old nuts off and inserted them back in the block with some threadlock. One of the holes on the new manifold needed enlarging but once that was done it was bolted on with a new gasket. The rest of the system was bolted together on the new brackets and feels pretty solid.

With everything ready for a warm up test I resisted the temptation and left it full of water overnight to make sure there was no leaks. Off to the club to see a Rush tribute band and a skin full. I thank you.

Today I checked for leaks and with everything apparently water tight I cleared all the rubbish thats accumulated at the front of the garage. Starting it up, oh, need to get that choke cable connected, I backed it out into the sun. Running well, ticking over nicely, and very quiet! I let it tick over until operating temperature was achieved and a couple of minutes later the fan kicked in. WAHOO!!! Turned it off to find the fan keeps running until the temp has dropped. Get in there! Nice to see the Sierra wiring doing all the right things ;-)


Got the camera out to take some pictures and was about to get the video camera out when the heavens opened, 5 minutes after these pictures there was a covering of snow!

What you can't see here is the engine ticking over nicely.

Tuesday 18 March 2008



Went out again tonight to crack on... but, brrrrrr too cold for me! Nipped back indoors and made a cardboard box 53mm x 132mm to check the rear seatbelt mount. With the box sitting in the chair and a straight line from the upper belt mount there needs to be a 450mm distance from the front of the box. This is required by SVA and is designed so you don't get pulled down in the seat in the event of a frontal shunt. With my seats on 1" blocks I have around 490~500mm so plenty there.
As you can see in the picture's above the bottom seat harness mounts are very tight in the corner of the chassis. Just enough room to get them in and tighten them up.




Top mounts are clip on as well which I'm not to happy about, tightening them up they don't all face forward. Nothing to worry about, just looks a little crap!














The copper pipe you see there is the fuel pipe. Thats coming out and being rerouted as I'm not too happy with how close it is to the handbrake mechanism.

I've took the plunge and secured the back trim with Tiger seal. Thats it, it's not coming off!! again.

Monday 17 March 2008

Too much beer over the weekend so with a rest day Monday I've cracked on a bit.
Seats arrived Friday afternoon so after taking loads of junk, thats been clogging the garage up, off to the tip, then over to the scrappy. Search round for suitable seat runners and came across some nice almost brand new ones off a very sorry Citreon C3, there was a C2 next to it with the same runners but they were a bit rusting and the drivers side was twisted. Picked up some connectors as well for the Astra speed unit and some for Toyota switch gear I have.






Today I've modified the runners, basically cutting off threaded studs and welding a lug to the front for screwing onto my new seats. A hole drilled at the back to suit the fiberglass seats, oh, and not forgetting making them a bit narrower as well. That little lot took all of 4/5 hours!










I've cut the bonnet to suit the exhaust and made a chassis mount for the silencer at the back. Drilled all the holes for the harness eyes in the floor and screwed them in. These are all the little, easy things that seem to take ages to do. Before I realised it I've spent 9 hours in the garage today!

Tuesday 11 March 2008

I've spent the last few days tidying up the wiring under the scuttle. The Acewell is all wired in now apart from the speedo pickup that I'm still deciding where to put it. I've bundled all the wiring together with spiro and convoluted tubes, soldering and shrink covers over the joins.

With the scuttle in place there is a gap between it and the alloy shelf in front so I've attached a piece of ali angle to fill the gap and give the bottom of the scuttle some support. It lost a bit of rigidity when I cut the channel for the steering column.

With the scuttle in place the new alloy header tank was mounted. I sat it up as high on scuttle side as the bonnet would allow, checking carefully to make sure.
I used a piece of tubing I picked up off a Corsa in the scrapyard. It was long enough and had enough bends in it to get all the bottom hose sections out it. The OEM pipe clips are a nice touch as well. That is without going to the expense of a blinging silicone install!
A piece of 16mm pipe from B&Q will complete the connection to the bottom hose at the front of the car.







I couldn't resist a tidy up and sitting in it again. I'm impressed at the height of the scuttle which gives a nice closed in feeling. It feels like your well down behind the shaped top unlike some other 7 type cars I've been in. With the wind deflector on top this should give a good level of protection from the elements.




Picked a spare 1.8 zetec engine up on Sunday from a fellow Locostbuilder. Slowly collecting parts for the turbo conversion.....

Thursday 6 March 2008

I've been working hard on it with little to show for my efforts lately, out in the garage till 10.30 and the like! Basically I'm wiring the Acewell in and generally trying to get all the under scuttle bits and bobs finished off, wrapped up nice and tidy. This is so I can get the scuttle on, drill the holes for the side repeaters, and mount the alloy header tank so I can get some water in the system.

Wired the alternator up tonite and started her up and the voltage on the Acewell went from 9.4V (redtop getting a little flat with no charging) up to 14.4v Result.

Also had a little stab at the the connections up to the header tank. I've used a bit of 6mm microbore copper for the breather and I will paint it black once its all configured correctly.

Pushing on now, I have much enthusiasm for it at the moment. The months are flashing by and I do want it finished soon!!