Week 6 - the Build

It's been an interesting week at build headquarters. I left things last week with the copper plumbing pretty much in place but just needing to be clipped down. Pretty straightforward sort of a job I thought. Not so as it turned out. 

The first lesson relearned was about work hardening of copper pipe. Never underestimate this! The brake pipes are 3/16", the clutch 1/4" and the fuel pipe 5/16". I'm sure that the thinner pipe work hardens less easily but the 5/16" pipes only needs a sideways glance to harden and go brittle. The brake and clutch pipes needed to start at the pedal/ABS and end at the right place in the wheel arches and engine room. The fuel pipes run from somewhere in the forepeak to somewhere in the engine room so their exact position is less critical. All the pipes have to pass through both cockpit bulkheads. 

Laying out the brake and clutch pipes was easy peasy but the fuel pipes less so. In fact when it came to tidying and clipping the pipes they became so hard and brittle it became impossible and inevitably they kinked. Grr. So on to Plan B which was to buy more pipe and start again but this time in a way that involved far less manipulation of the pipe. I ran one length at a time through the forepeak straight through to the engine room then curved and clipped it from the stern forwards. So its all clipped down in the cockpit nicely now.

Here are the photos but read on to see how the week developed from here!:

 

So, continuing the week's story, we had quite a lot of rain on Tuesday night and on arrival at HQ on Wednesday we had this;

The gutters had overflowed into the workshop and flooded the place.

The electrical installation wasn't very happy either;

Week 5 - the Build

Hard to believe I'm five weeks into this already. Time flies when you're having fun. The old pandemic isn't helping much as we go into full lockdown again here in Wales. Fortunately I'm still able to work on it but it's not as sociable as it used to be!

Anyway, the last week has been taken over with plumbing! Firstly the brakes but also the fuel lines and the clutch hydraulic line. 

In the Fiesta the fuel tank is at the back and is moving to the forepeak and the engine to the stern. This will need new fuel lines and an extension to the clutch hydraulic pipe. I will also have to reroute the part of the loom that goes to the fuel pump/sender unit.

I've done much of the plumbing but none of the clipping of the pipes to the hull - a job for next week. It all looks a bit of a mess at the moment - a triumph of function over form. We'll be seeing a lot of that before its done!

So here are the photos of the work so far.

Fiesta - stripped bare!

During the last week or so I've been stripping the doner Fiesta of all the last bits I do need and lots of bits I don't. All that's left on it now are the mirror bracket, a box on the windscreen a couple of brake pipes and the headlining. Actually I do want the the bits on the windscreen but don't know how to get them off yet!

The plan for the bodyshell is that it be used to make a motorbike engined track day car! 

Here are some pictures of it stripped down.

Week 4 - the build

 This week its been suspension struts. The two front ones from the Fiesta go on the back of Amfey, but the brake callipers from it stay on the front. Its really been a matter of cleaning and painting the struts ready for installation.

The cleaning process was just a good wire brushing followed by a pressure wash.

Here are the bits before

and after painting and putting on the new springs.

and now installed on Amfey!

I'm waiting for bits for the rear struts so might leave them for a bit.

Week 3 - the Build

This week its been more work on the wiring loom. Stripping out the bits I dont need and revealing the bits I need to extend and move. The fuel tank moves from the back of the Fiesta to the front of Amfey while the radiator fan moves from the front to the back. I'll extend these when the time comes.

The highlight of the week was installing the pedals together with the brake cylinder and ABS control unit. It will be the first boat I've had with traction control and ABS!

I also bolted in the interior fuse box and control unit. Nearly ready for the dashboard! 

Here is the inside of the bonnet/focastle with the brake master cylinder and servo on the left and the ABS control unit on the right

 

And in the cockpit the pedals and secured wiring all looking fine and dandy!

Next week its suspension strut refurbishment.

Week 2 of the build

 This week its been all about the wiring. The Fiesta has basically two looms. One in the engine bay and another in the cabin with an extra bit for the tailgate. The mission has been to extract all of it and lay it out in the hull.

The loom in the front comes out  easily enough and here it is on the workshop floor;

The black box is the main fusebox and the yellow stuff is the extended  ECU and engine loom. Both the yellow bundles were fed into lengths of split conduit.

 The interior loom came out in one bit as well. It was held onto the car with loads of clips and prising them off was a bit of a pfaff. But again, here is a picture of it on the workshop floor;

And this is how it roughly needs to layout in the hull! There is another fusebox and a control unit in amongst that lot as well.

Here are the looms laid out roughly where they need to be. The final routing of the cables will depends on what else goes where!

 

The next jobs with the wiring are to strip out all the airbag stuff, extend the radiator fan cable, extend the fuel tank cable and fix the relay so the radiator fan is always on with the engine running.