October 11, 2003
Day 20 - finish RWPB, gearbox oil, wiring
Finished the rear wheel protection bar this morning which wasn't too bad. Car is now back down on it's wheels. Finished off the plumbing and filled the cooling system with Comma Coldstrea - about 4.5 litres (no heater remember).
I also fitted the heater blanking panel whilst I was at it. Decided to use the heater fixing holes (which means drilling some additional holes in the panel) rather than the rivet method (which means drilling lots of additional holes in the bulkhead. It's sealed with silicon.
Started filling the gearbox with oil using the same technique as I used for the diff - so another long drawn out process. The gearbox oil is a bit thinner so it all moved along a bit faster. I had to raise the rear of the car so I had enough room to get underneath it and remove the sump plug (the exhaust on the LHS and lowered floor on the RHS makes access difficult with all four wheels on the ground). Whilst waiting for the oil to fill I finished the wiring and tidied it up ready for the first start. The ECU ground lead isn't mentioned in the guide proper, but the wiring diagram says it should be affixed to the engine lifting eye bolt. On my car, the bolt was too big so I connected it directly to the battery negative terminal.
Still waiting for the oil so I started on the interior. I put in the two knee panels but found that on both sides the third hole from the front of the car wasn't drilled into the chassis for some reason. I couldn't work out why and started drilling (dangerous!) with a small drill but managed to break the drill by pushing too hard. Decided to leave this for the time being and did the rest of the screws and riveted the side trim panels in place with the plastic piping. I also had to fit the fuel filler neck as this wasn't available when my chassis was built.
Still waiting for the gearbox oil to fill. 1 litre in and started on the second litre bottle. A couple of funnels full later I noticed a massive oil slick all over the magazine I'd put under there to catch the drips and soaking through the cardboard that I had on the floor. A stressed 5 minutes ensued, trying to get rid of the oil as quickly as possible and stop any more flowing down. I then realised that because the back of the car was up in the air I was probably limiting the amount of oil that I could get in the car. Doh! (again).
Called it a day, but spent a long 9 hours today, 71.5 hours total.
Posted by charles at October 11, 2003 7:21 PM