After the momentous engine start I'm working my way towards Single Vehicle Approval (SVA). Not much to do but a lot of fiddly bits now.

Had to move the steering rack in order to miss the fuel pump! I have replaced most of the bolts on the suspension, the ones not long enough to pass SVA.

Fog light is working, fuel gauge is working, one seat is in, speedo sensor is in but needs wiring up.
One seat, carpets, seat belts, bonnet, doors, exhausts and wheels to be fitted.

Oh! and I fixed the leaking fuel tank - I hope anyway.

Having got the engine to turn over yesterday it was only a matter of time today until I got around to putting the plugs in and leads on. As I wanted Thomas to be there when I started it for the first time I spent some time replacing some bolts that weren't long enough. So when Thomas arrived at about 15:30 I was more than ready to turn her over.

As you can see from the video below, it started quite easily! Well after a bit of subtle video editing of course. Initially nothing happened and we were scratching our heads thinking of who to ask next when I thought - Oh! no I'd have to check all the wiring again!! So starting with the two connectors right on top of the engine that I should have connected together months ago we tried again. The result as they say is history.

Wow!

It is now ready to try to get it fired up!!

As for the failures. The front indicator was a loose connection but inside a waterproof connector, the rear nearside indicator was a loose connection inside a standard 2 way connector but the rear offside indicator was a broken cable, don't know where but I put in a complete new cable from the dash wiring loom to the rear indicator and it now works.

The starter motor was fine, however the ignition switch was broken, this little round thing was all that was stopping it turning over.

And as fate would have it no one, human, video camera or web cam saw it turn over for the first time - except me of course.

I'll be videoing the attempted start and will post clips if they are not too embarrassing.

Interim.

After a water leak and fuel leak, the Dax was ready for a battery connect this morning. There were no cracks, fizzles or bangs, but unfortunately not everything is working.

I have heater fan, wiper motors, washer pump, side lights (front and rear), dipped and main beam. Ignition and oil light are on, three of the six indicators work, front offside and rears are not working. Speedo and tacho self adjust or twitch, fuel gauge shows empty with 20l in.
And last but not least the starter is not working.

The live battery cable was only pushed on - in case I had to remove it quickly, so it may need to be put on properly - after lunch.

Oh! I didn't check the horn.

Instruments are now in and wired up, steering wheel is in place and the column is straight. Lower steering arm needs to be cut to length and fitted. Coolant is full, washer bottle is full ;-)

Just need some oil, petrol and a battery. Oh! and put the horn on properly.

The repair didn't work so off it has gone to a specialist (Bryan Radiators - Tunbridge Wells) it has been fixed and refitted and we now have 15l of coolant staying in!!

Next is a little adjustment to the steering column, adjust the timing and connect the battery.

The we'll see if it turns over.

Unfortunately whilst starting to fill the car with fuel oil and water we heard a 'drip' 'drip' on the floor. The bottom hose jubilee clip had been overtightened and squashed the pipe creating a bad leak. The whole system has been drained, radiator removed and a repair attempted, we'll see in the morning if it has worked.

The wiring however is complete and ready to be tested as soon as the dash and steering column have been put in place properly.

Disaster Strikes!

More later, still drying up.

Only a couple more connections to make!! LoL.

A quiet day a today, a visit from a friendly Cobra Replica Club member to cast his eye over things, one or two possible issues with nuts - the nyloc type and how many threads need to show!! We have a solution for that I think.

Then a neighbour brought his E-Type round for a quick look, lovely car.

Then back to the garage to continue fitting the throttle cable. This turned out to be worse than the heater, upside down in the drivers footwell drilling up into the engine bay where a drill was never meant to go. Eventually managed a hole the right size for the throttle cable end to go through. Unfortunately whilst fiddling in the almost inaccessible location of the new hole, I managed to cut my middle finger on a some sharp metal. Quick plaster and I carried on - but so did the blood! Was forced to give up for the day and let the finger heal.

I'll probably have to wash the blood away in the morning. Never mind I've almost got a working throttle ;-)

It's looking good for an engine start this coming weekend.

I had to remove the offside exhaust manifolds to get to the lower steering components, but, I have nearly got a steering column now. The lower bar needs cutting to length and a slot cutting for the UJ bolts. The holding plate needs to be fitted around the hole in the bulkhead and the top brackets need to be tightened up making sure the steering wheel is in the right place.

Then the massive task of connecting the wiring loom up to the instruments and switches.

Throttle cable, choke cable, seats and carpets and...... there must be something else!

OK, it might not be so obvious from this but I can finally see where the hole in the footwell goes that the steering column will fit through. The bottom of the steering column is that shiny bar going from the black joint by the large blue pipe over the shiny bowl thing, past the black rubber pipe and off into the distance under the bright pipe. ;-)


I spent most of yesterday and today drilling four 3.5mm holes to fit two brackets to take the heat shield. This proved nigh on impossible as I couldn't get enough force on the right angled drill adapter to penetrate the stainless steel cladding.

It's all done now, onto the steering column and seats.

Started fitting the exhausts and you can tell now why some people put a Ford 2.0l engine in these, there's very little room left for things like exhausts, spark plugs and leads with a V8.

This is all nearside stuff as the offside exhaust is fitted near a heat shield for the brake servo and that makes the side vent tricky to fit, we'll see how that goes tomorrow - maybe ;-)

Nuff said!

WARNING

There appears to be a nasty little prank going around MSN Live at the moment. If you get a message from an MSN contact that contains just links be very careful. Clicking on the link takes you to an MSN like login page where, if you enter your details it hijacks your MSN account.

The link is to a suprimage.info page.

If you inadvertantly do login on that page, goto your MSN account and change your password. You may get told after that that you have attempted to login too many times with a bad password as this thing seems to keep logging into your account. The password change should at least stop them getting in.

Andi.

The exhausts have arrived ! ;-) Hmm, no wonder they cost as much as they did. Just have to fit them now which involves some careful cutting of the body - gulp! And fingers crossed that they don't touch anything.

65" that will increase the weight a bit :-)

BTW I don't suppose anyone has seen a bag of nuts bots and washers for my seats? Oh well.

Getting some creature comforts installed now, although these are only temporarily fitted so that everything can be connecetd and the engine started. Still got all those wires to connect ! And the steering column.



The engine is practically finished with nearly all the pipes connected. The brake servo pipe needs an adapter to connect it and the bottom hose needs a clip to keep it in place.

A check of all the nuts, bolts and hose clips wouldn't go amiss either.


It will then need a refill of the oil and water and some petrol.

Had to cut quite a bit more off today to fit the glove box!

I had to hack away quite a bit of the fibreglass to get the instruments in but they are in now. Just got to cut some more around the rear of the glove box opening to get the glove box to fit from behind. There are some switches to go in and then everything has to be wired up.

After that we take it all out to fit the transmission tunnels.

At least now we know where the steering column should go !

Holes cut for the instruments etc - nearly in the right place LoL.

Most of the plumbing is now in place. Just need a couple of adapters for the heater hose and then connect the pipes to the expansion tank. Once that's done we can fill up with water and see where it leaks ;-)

It is also ready for fuel and oil to be added so I'll be popping down the petrol station with a can later. Then a check for leaks again, but probably with the fire extinguisher on hand - just in case - BTW Tony Y, you're barred from this bit.

Whilst waiting for the final plumbing bits to arrive, I've started on the dashboard. It is just taped in place at the moment so I can cut away some of the body to fit the larger instruments, glove box and steering column.

I'm not sure about that gear knob, looks good on show, especially with it's eyes lit up.

Grr! plumbing, I hate it, no pictures at the moment as it's a mess ;-(

More silicone now on order.

Andi.

Lots of little bits been going the last few days. Most of which can't be seen! Fuel vent pipe is now fitted through the body, bonnet strut mountings have been attached to the chassis, earth straps have been securely attached to the chassis.

What has taken such a long time is working out which hose goes where, what size it should be, how it is routed around the engine bay, where all the senders go for the instruments, which senders to use and the worst bit is what thread size has been used.

One example is the vacuum advance pipe. A 5mm pipe that goes between the distributor and the carburettor (small blue pipe on the left in the above picture), just replace the old one you'd think - oh no! there's two vacuum advance outlets (or are they inlets if it's sucking!). Hours later we arrive at the right web site, the right picture and all it does is label one "Timed Spark Source" whilst the other isn't labelled at all. I've used the other, and why? because the pipe now looks like it goes where other peoples vacuum pipes go.