Bodywork and wiring

It's been another busy weekend on the car, but for once there's not much to show for it; the car looks much the same as it did on Friday. Mostly I've been doing bodywork, fettling the nosecone to fit, and drilling the last two panels. Unfortunately I received these two after I'd attached the front suspension, which is a shame, as I need to remove the suspension to get the drill in to the front part of the panel. Hence, it took me an hour tonight to drill one panel. I'm leaving the other one until tomorrow.

After making holes in the nosecone, I was able to attach the headlight bracket. This took an awful lot of measuring, adjusting, marking, offering up, etc, but on the plus side once I'd drilled it, it ended up in exactly the right place to fit the holes I'd made in the nose cone, which was not entirely expected. And with that on, we were able to trial fit the lights, which look great:

Emily attaches what she likes to call "an eye".

The headlights in place.

Wiring progresses slowly; the front loom is basically done, although I haven't yet attached the engine loom. After much hassle trying to fit the engine loom in front of the battery, I eventually chopped off the big plastic box containing all the wires, and rewrapped it in electrical tape. Now it's a quarter of the size, so it fits neatly between engine and battery, giving me a nice tidy engine bay. Hopefully the wires won't melt... I might add some sort of heat shield here.

Wires wrapped and fitted behind the battery.

Figuring out which pin, and attaching connectors to all the wires will probably take a while. On the plus side, the quality of the GKD loom is really good, with all the plugs easy to attach and neatly labeled.

Other miscelanea: the rear panel is off again, so that it can be dropped off for painting. The tank is plumbed in, barring the filler cap which doesn't fit, although it will need to come out again to fit the rear lights. Some further fettling will be required to get the filler to attach properly. And Jason has kindly offered to swap my 328 dash for his spare M3 dash, which means that I'll get an oil temperature guage in the dash. This will be handy for track use.

I've also ordered an air filter, and started looking at steering wheel options. I'll probably go for the same size as the Elise (320mm diameter), but quick-release (for security, and getting in and out). Still looking for a Z3M gearstick (to shorten the gearstick throw).

I've noticed that the ignition barrel is a bit dodgy, and sometimes spins. Apparently this is a common fault, but basically means I might need to replace the barrel, which sounds like a huge pain. I'll leave that as plan B for now, and make sure I know how to hotwire it in case I ever get stuck, unable to start it.

Finally, I've made my mind up about engine bay cooling: there will be no bonnet scoop (I'm aiming for a very traditional looking Seven), but I am going to have small (15mm) vents at the rear of the engine bay to aid airflow:

Not very traditional looking, but I think they'll be reasonably subtle. They could be adjusted to be much bigger, anything from about 0-50mm, but this looks about right to me.

Brakes on at last

We went to pick up the Elise today, and while I was there, Gerald very kindly popped the wheel hub into his 36 ton press (mental note: a press capable of applying 36 tons of pressure looks like a useful thing to have around the garage; it's really a false economy not to have one), and pressed the wheel bearing in fully. Once fully seated, the play is gone, and the hub is now back on the car.

We also ground down the third set of calliper bolts, and this time, mainly through being a lot more careful, and going to the effort of trial fitting each bolt between each grinding, got the bolts to exactly the right length (this is tricky: too long and they touch the brake disc; too short and they don't visibly protrude out of the other side of the hub they bolt into, which I think is an IVA fail - you're supposed to be able to see one or two threads if forum rumours are to be believed).

Looking forward to picking up the rear banjo bolts on Saturday, which will enable me to put fluid into the brake and clutch lines, and actually have two out of three working pedals.

Starting to look like a Seven

After a few false starts, and drilling of holes in the wrong places, I finally got the radiator mounted so that the nosecone clears it properly. Here it is, looking a little more like a car:

Nose cone on... looking distinctly Seven-like.

I've also been doing research into painting methods. The current plan is to buy a compressor, then spray the panels (after wet sanding and primer). This should give a good finish, at the expense of, well, expense. Fortunately I've got a test panel, so I can make (some of) my mistakes on that before attacking the car proper.

Bits off, bits on

A weekend of fairly mixed progress. First stop was trying to sort out the rear brakes. The manual suggested that grinding down the bolts might be required to stop them contacting the brake disc, and indeed it was required, as they were much too long.

After a bit of experimentation, it turns out that the angle grinder is a bit of a blunt instrument for this task (and also gets the bolts properly red hot, which make me wonder if the heat cycle has implications for their future strength), and that the dremel is too feeble. Fortunately, the bench grinder is just right, if a little slow. Still, just four bolts to do. I ground them to the appropriate length, then double-checked the instructions and found I'd be using a spring washer, meaning my newly shortened bolts were too short. I cursed a bit, bought some more bolts, and ground them down again. However, I think they may be slightly too short as they don't visibly protrude, and I think IVA like to see at least one or two threads poking out the other end as evidence that the bolt goes all the way through. Might have to do a third set - fortunately I bought enough spares to do this.

Whilst messing around with attaching rear callipers, I also discovered that the garage I'd got to press in the wheel bearings had damaged one of the wheel bearings (and either not noticed or not told me). Fortunately, I've got a spare, so I will get a (different) garage to swap the wheel bearing over. Given the amount I've spent on servicing the Elise over the last two years, I think there's a good chance the Lotus garage will take pity on me and do it - I'll ask tomorrow when I pick the Elise up after its latest misbehaving.

Excessive play in the wheel bearing.

Next I started on the oil. This was all pretty straightforward, engine oil filter, engine and gearbox oil all changed without any mishap or even any significant spillage, which was unexpected. The pleasant surprise here was that the gearbox oil coming out looked about the same as the stuff going in, suggesting a recent change (consistent with the condition of the fill plugs, which looked recently used). Given that (I believe) BMW don't recommend ever changing the gearbox oil, this suggests that the car might have been looked after quite well. I didn't manage to do the diff as I couldn't locate a 14mm allen key, but Ebay will hopefully resolve that in the next day or two.

Finally, I mounted the battery, and attached the rear panel. The battery was fairly straightforward, although the Halfords "universal" battery clamp needed a spot of modification as the threads were much too short to actually clamp the battery.

Emily helps with a bit of rivetting.

The rear panel latter took a while, as it involved a fair amount of offering up, measuring, cutting, offering up, cursing, cutting some more, offering up again, clamping, drilling, riveting, and finally using a hammer and an angle grinder to make some final adjustments. In spite of all that, the final result looks pretty good, although it's not yet painted.

The rear panel in place, ready to be painted.

I can still see well enough to drive

Another weekend of good progress, only slightly marred by a trip to A&E (foreign readers: that's Accident and Emergency, aka ER). More on that in a bit.

It started well: I bolted in the rollbar, after dithering for a while about whether to upgrade to grade 12.9 bolts. In the end I decided that, although stronger under static load, they are more likely to snap (as opposed to bend) when overloaded, and that 8.8 would be the safer choice. This was straightforward, except for drilling through the steel plate where the roll bar mounted. This munched through several drill bits, and it didn't help that the local hardware store had run out of 8mm bits. (They helpfully put some 7.5mm bits on the 8mm rack, which obviously I didn't notice and so bought several the wrong size).

Next I put the radiator on. I think the brackets had been welded onto the chassis in the wrong place, as they required quite a bit of bending (I decided against using additional brackets in the end, as I didn't want to push the radiator further forwards). Trial fitting the nosecone revealed some contact at the sides, so I followed the Seven tradition of weight-saving by trimming the radiator down at the edges. I'm not sure but I think I may have mounted it 1-2mm too low, as when I fit the nosecone over it, it doesn't quite sit flush at the top of the chassis. A little further fettling may be required here.

The radiator looks very big here, but that's just the angle. It's not really the width of the car.

On Sunday, Emily ventured into the garage to help with fitting the fuel tank. We installed the pump and fuel guage without too much difficulty, and then started trying to fit it in the chassis. This was a fairly tight fit, and the chassis-adjustment tool (hammer) had to be deployed on several occasions. Finally, we got it in.

Fuel tank in. I will probably install some brackets at the sides as there's not much to prevent side-to-side movement at the moment.

Today didn't result in much visible progress, as I first spent an hour doing things (plugging the reverse light switch into the gearbox) that would have taken 10s with the gearbox out, but now requires removing panels that had been riveted in to get the plug onto the sensor. Next I started trying to identify the many wires and hoses coming off the engine. I made more progress here than expected, ending up with only a few unknown connections.

Engine with some additional bits in place.

I notice that it looks like everything will fit under the bonnet, without the need for the bonnet scoop. My hope is that I can avoid using the scoop - I'll talk to Peter about this. I guess it will mean higher engine temperatures, but on the other hand, it will look nicer (in my opinion - I suspect Jason would disagree), and the visibility will be better. I guess I can always try it and see how it goes.

While finishing up, I started wiping down the engine with some degreaser. Unfortunately, I got a drop splash off and hit me right in my eye. The degreaser is fairly nasty stuff (POR-15 Marine Clean) - it's acidic, and the sticker on the bottle says to wipe it off skin immediately to avoid burns. It doesn't mention eyes, presumably because no one would be so careless. This stung a bit, and after rinsing out with water, I noticed some haze and blurring in that eye, so off to A&E we went.

A&E were keen to take down my details, first on a form, and then on a computer, but less keen to actually do anything. It was two hours before anyone actually looked at my eye, and gave me a saline drip to rinse it out. (Hint: don't get acid in your eye, and with luck you won't have to experience this. It's unpleasant). Apparently the cornea is slightly burned (right in the centre, unfortunately), but it should heal and I should completely regain my vision in that eye in a day or two. Fingers crossed.