BUILD ~ MARCH 2003

02/03/2003

Well I am still on the transmission tunnel, with the flanges gone, I have elected to use a few rivnuts into the chassis rails to fix it down.  As this is not a structural element of the car, I will use as few as possible, just wish to ensure a watertight seal.  Also added a rivnut to my new bracket, the series of pictures below should help illustrate how it all works. 

Tunnel fixing bracket, with triangular panel fitted.     Tunnel fitted (front), flush watertight seal with triangular panel.     Tunnel fitted (rear).

 

07/03/2003New R380 Gearbox, clutch release mechanism, slave cylinder, half moon plate and gearshift remote.

Last month I ordered the gearbox from RPI, today it arrived and I couldn't resist unpacking it.  This prompted the need to re-organise the garage to find room until I am ready to fit it.  Did find that the pushrod was not included so another annoying small order to place.  I am away again this weekend, so no progress.

 

10 to 14/03/2003

Been trying to sort out proof of age (pre-92 for best emissions exemptions) on a suitable V8 for V8 Developments to rebuild into a hopefully impressive spec.  Engine 1, the Heritage Centre could not help as post 1989, Land Rover Trace-ability said would try, after three weeks wait, it turned out to be from a 1996 Disco.  Bring on Engine 2, this was from a 1993 Range Rover.  But I was third time lucky, with it apparently being a from a 1990 Range Rover, K494AKG to be exact.  So hopefully the certificate will be here next week and I can finally place the order for my engine.  Only good news about all these delays is that I have had longer to save up the readies.

With the Cheltenham Races being on this week, I actually left work at a sensible time so as to beat the traffic, daylight and all!  So managed to get in the garage and spent an hour experimenting with a way of making the back corners of the tunnel more watertight.

 

16/03/2003

Space? for seats....It is apparent that work I previously did on seat mountings to get them as low as possible, will mean they now foul the tunnel moulding.  The seat positioning is an balance of being inline with the steering wheel (most important IMHO), low as possible, front of seat slightly higher than back (support under legs).  I am having 'fun' with this and they are Dax seats, if you are trying to fit any other make this diagram may help you find one of suitable size, but I would wait until your tunnel is fitted before buying them!

We are planning some minor surgery on the tunnel to help the seats fit, Dad is currently making a mould for the infill.

Ali' fillers for the curve at rear of tunnel, as I cut off the Dax flats, this should help me get a waterproof seal. I hope.Although I sorted the tunnel fixings a few weeks ago, I have still be concerned about the waterproofness at the rear of the tunnel, i.e. the red line in the above diagram.  To better seal this I have spent this afternoon making some 'triangles' to fill in this gap.  They will be fixed in place before the tunnel, then a quantity of silicone sealant will seal them to the tunnel.  

 

 

17 to 21/03/2003

Monday night was spent adding some small ali squares to the back of the rear bulkhead where the tunnel will bolt on, these are purely to spread the load.  I also spent a while contemplating what to do with the handbrake.  The brackets for the standard installation were missed off my chassis and I would like to fit it to the passenger side of the tunnel.  However, looks like they may not be enough room, due to the cable passing very close to the uj of the propshaft.  

Wednesday and I have finally come to the conclusion, Dax are right the most viable location for the handbrake is under the steering wheel.  I phoned Peter Walker today and he will put the missing brackets in the post along with a note of the position to weld them.  Just need to find a mobile welder now.  This evening I fitted the handbrake cable to the rear callipers and decided its route, following the method in Tim's build diary.  Also fitted part of front cable.

Well what an expensive day!  Despite not even making it to the garage I have spent a small fortune.  First was a couple of simple orders such as a electric water pump and filter king regulator/filter from Merlin, was going to get a clutch master cylinder as well but apparently they no longer do the 0.875 (aka 7/8").  Then Burton Power for a steering wheel, gear knob and various clips etc.  This was followed by an enjoyable afternoon off work to visit the Image showroom.  Had an informative chat with Harry (found out later he is the MD), will probably place an order tomorrow that is unless I change my mind again tonight!

Image Showroom     Image Showroom ~ I have chosen 17" RM2, which is in second row from right, second up from bottom.

Proof of Engine Age.When I got home there was a letter from land rover, my proof of age has arrived, all excited at being able to move forward with the engine I immediately phoned V8 Developments and gave them the go ahead.  Even better news was instead of expected 6 to 8 weeks lead time, there is a chance that it will be under a month.

The handbrake lever brackets have also arrived, now just need to find a welder.

Managed to get some new wheel studs from the Ford agent, but only four.  These were dully fitted, just need the other twelve now.

 

22 & 23/03/2003

This weekend I prepared the brackets and chassis ready for a welding.  Then masked up the contact areas on the rear discs and sprayed the rest with a Plastikote High Heat Paint 650°C.  Mainly in an attempt to stop edges etc rusting.  This looked good but even the following day remained powdery to the touch, so as the instructions suggest I tried curing it, Mum was not best pleased to find a set of brake discs in the oven (as opposed to the Sunday lunch).  That done retired to watch the coverage of the Malaysian grand prix.

Masked up the front discs including allowing for the different contact area from the calliper being located further out on the larger discs.

Sorry still nothing interesting to take photos of.

 

24 to 28/03/2003Fitted rear brakes, bremsport turbo groove discs, XR4x4 callipers, greenstuff pads.

Tuesday evening, now that the discs are painted I fitted them on the hub and fitted the rear calliper complete with greenstuff pads.  As hopefully this is the last time I will do this, the carrier bolts were done with thread lock.  Also fitted the flexible brake pipe to calliper.  We then moved on to fitting the rest of the pre-pump fuel pipe, fitting the 3/8" pipe onto the tank was hard work, but eventually got it on far enough to secure it with 2 stainless jubilee clips.  All looked quite good in the end.  Oh and also ordered the Greengauges instruments.

Fuel line added from tank to pre-pump filter. Very tight fitting to tank.

Handbrake cable routing and fitted to dedion tube.Another good day, got the rest of the new wheelstuds so fitted the offside calliper.  Then moved onto finishing the fit of the rear handbrake cables.  Copied Tim's method of using a p-clip as it passes behind the de-dion tube, then going under the tube.  Also the Momo wheel arrived today, so bolted this to the quick release mechanism.

On Thursday Dad arranged for neighbour Nigel to come and weld on the handbrake brackets which Dax forgot.  A crate of beer seemed fair exchange.  When I got home from work I was surprised to find the instruments that I ordered last Tuesday had arrived already, fantastic speed or service and I think the chosen scheme looks great.  Just hope they work well.

My instruments, white background, blue numbers, red pointer, chrome half round bezel (meets SVA radi requirements).

 

29 & 30/03/2003

First job today was to painting.  The handbrake brackets/chassis were the welding was done on Thursday received a few coats of chassis black.  Whilst the front discs got high heat paint, making particular effort to get it into the ventilated part so as to hopefully stop rust.

Speedo sensor fitted to CV joint, sensor with araldite, bracket attached to diff mountings.Then moved onto making a bracket for the reed switch for the speedo sensor.  This was basically a 40mm wide strip of ali' with the edges rolled to give more ridgity.  Then folded through 90º, one edge added to the diff bolt the other hovering over a CV joint.  To position the magnets, I took a strip of paper that would exactly go round the CV joint, measured the length, divided by four and marked these measurements on.  Once taped on to the CV  and centre point punched, only remained to stick the magnets on with araldite, just hope they are in the right place in the morning.

Tunnel services plateNext was a idea stolen from Chris's website.  A ali' plate in the nearside front corner of the tunnel, through which the handbrake cable and rear wiring harness will pass (when I get some grommets).

 

After dinner we fitted the fuel gauge sender.  As mentioned in numerous Dax build diaries this must first be modified.  The Dax supplied sender reads 10ohms full, and 240 empty, whereas Greengauges require 180 full and 10 empty.  To do this I marked on the head of the sender the positions to get the desired readings.  Then carefully bent the arm as the two pictures below show.  The distance from the top edge of the bench to the masking tape and the bottom is the depth of the fuel tank.  Therefore if it has gone to plan the gauge will read empty when there is about 4 litres left in the tank.

Before - 180ohms showing on empty, which would report as full on a greengauges instrument. Bottom of tank is the top edge of the masking tape.     After - now reads 10ohms when about 4litres left in tank. This is a very small tank !!!!!

Sunday the aim was to position and sort the fixings for the scuttle.  There seems to be a bit of debate about the positioning so to be safe we got the nose cone and bonnet out as well.  Very careful measuring determined where to begin the cuts for the pedal box/master cylinders, by first determining the centre line of the car and the centre line of the scuttle.  This was then marked as the picture shows and cut out.

Scuttle, with vertical marks for where to cut round pedal box. I will cut out just the minimum at the moment and decide the height later.

We then put the scuttle in the position specified in 'new' build manual (front of scuttle 25mm forward of the rear edge of the battery shelf).  With it there the nose cone and bonnet were fitted.  There was a gap, but the nose cone needs trimming to fit round front suspension mountings and I am confident that this will move it aft enough to fill the gap.  Besides it is in the position prescribed in the manual.  It did look good having scuttle bonnet and nosecone balanced on the chassis.

Scuttle, bonnet and nose cone - it looks like a car, well almost.

After that the nose cone and bonnet got put away, probably until next year!  We then carefully measured positions for the holes in the leading edge of scuttle and drilled these of the car, repositioned scuttle and transferred the positions.  These were then drilled and fitted with rivnuts.  I am leaving the side edges of the scuttle until the side panels are trial fitted.

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Last Updated 30/03/2003