Odds and Ends

More work on the weekend, completing little jobs around the place.

For example, putting the ignition switch on. Sure, a ten minute job, but now you can turn a key and imagine it running! OK, that's a little sad.....The idea of relocating the switch is going to have to wait, as ADR apparently requires a lockable steering column, so the existing barrel will remain where it is.

I've also finished (or at least, fitted) the pedal box. Last week it got moved towards the front of the car to give the maximum room possible for the driver, and this week the pedals got connected to the cylinders. Took me a while to figure out that the threads on the pushrods were a completely different width (guage? pattern?) to the threads on the pedals. I spent some time cleaning the threads thinking it was that, but eventually eye-balled it and decided they were completely wrong. That's when the box of bolts Frank put on the car suddenly made sense - they were to replace the pushrods.

That turned out to be a simple task, but again if I didn't have someone to tell me what to do, I'd have spent another few hours beating my head against the wall.

That done, the pedal box now looks correct as compared to everyone elses. The real trick will come once the disks and brakes are on and the lines are bled, so that I can set up the balance bar. The only thing that's worrying me at this stage is that there's not a lot of room for adjustment in the middle cylinder, so if that needs more movement than the current pushrod allows (it's a little short) then I'll have to take it apart again and redo it later - but on a pressurised system.

I've also sorted out the fusebox, which was another exercise in frustration. The new model Birkin's have a shortened fusebox - earlier models had a wide, flat fusebox with lots of access from the top, so you could lay everything out. The new versions have theirs shortened to allow the Duratec engine to fit, but it means that they're deep rather than wide. Add to that the fact that the wiring is pretty damn tight, and it makes it a exercise in frustration trying to manoeuvre everything in there.

So I did what I always do, and cheated. Luckily there's another short fusebox chassis in at the moment, so I had a look at what he did and copied it. Worked a charm. On that note, Blair (the other IRS in the workshop) has been in working hard over the past few weeks, so if I'm not careful my main reference point (i.e. build to copy off) will be gone soon.....

So that's now all in place and covered over - the fibreglass cover is hiding a multitude of sins, but I don't care.

Mind you, seeing how long it takes to get these things finished, and how long the engineering and registration process can be, I'm getting worried for my December deadline. That may prove to be optimistic, unless everything goes really, really smoothly from now on. We'll have to see.