Week 25 - The Build

 Lots of bits put on last week so two main jobs before the wheels go on and it becomes driveable for the first time. First job is to install the cooling system but before that I need to bleed the hydraulics for the clutch and brakes.

There are three ways to bleed the system; 1) The traditional method of a two man operation - one of the pedal and the other at the other end. I can't do that as I'm only one man! 2) To use pressure to force fluid through the syste. Thats good as I have a kit for doing that;

 The white cap fits on the master cylinder reservoir and the black tube fits only the valve of an inflated tyre. Brilliant - except that while it fits only a Ford Sierra master cylinder it doesn't fit this Ford Fiesta.

3) To suck the fluid through the system using a vacuum pump at each corner. 

and here is the kit for doing that. Perfect.

Disapointing results as all I can suck through is a mixture on 95% air and 5% fluid with the brakes but all fluid on the clutch. Went and checked all the connections which seemed OK - except for the pipes from the master cylinder to the ABS unit. Definitely a leak here and on close examination it looks as if both the nuts are cross threaded. Wow, I thought, that seems a bit casual. Anyway the unit will have to come out for repair or replacement.

 Here it isn't !

and here it is

As I thought the two feed pipe threads are knackered. A replacement is enroute! Going to have to repaint some of the fo'castle as brake fluid is a better paint stripper than paint stripper.

Better news about the cooling system. A modification to the cooling system, apart from the radiator being offset, is the incorporation of a loop of stainless pipe running under the hull. This connects between the engine and the top of the radiator. 

Here is how it will look;

and the radiator

So, next weeks jobs are the same as last weeks!

Week 24 - The Build

 This week its all been about the rear supension and brakes and the cooling system

All that was required on the rear suspension was to attach the track rod ends to the hubs and tighten everything up. The rear callipers are from a Ford Focus that has disc brakes and a handbrake lever. The callipers need an offset piece to set them further out from the hub to accomodate the disc.

Port side...

Stbd. side ...

So, back inside the cooling system needs connecting up. The space between the front of the engine and the rear bulkhead is very restricted. If I were doing this again I'd do more preparation before putting the engine in. The bottom hose was extended by 8" or so with a piece of aluminium tube. This was quite time consuming due to the poor access. 

This is now the view through the rear bulkhead. Lots of the control and services are here and it will all get worse when the radiator goes in as it will fill that hole! 

 The last job of the week was to reinstall the big red Gearbox and belt to the water jet and the bracket for the shaft and clutch to that gearbox from the pto. 

This project is being made from a kit of parts and almost from the start I have been having problems with the supply of kit components. Communication from the vendor is very poor and mainly just a chain of excuses without providing any reasons for not supplying parts ordered 18 months ago and paid for in full six months ago. It's all become very frustrating as I'm still bereft of critical parts for the water drive. Apparently I'm not getting them as I don't need them yet!! If anyone is thinking of a project like this they might want to bear this in mind!

Anyway, here it all is in the engine room complete with the exhaust manifold..

Finally, you might recall the Fiesta donor body shell is being used to make a trackday race car. Here they are together - the gruesome twosome!

Week 23 - The Build

 Things are looking up a bit now the engine runs. The first job is to redo some of the stuff I dismantled in getting investigating why it wouldn't start. 

First among this was to resolder some of the duff joints in the loom extensions. That done they were fed back into their split conduit and into the channel inside the hull. All then reconnected to the engine management unit.

 The two looms are tied together temporarily until everything is installed.

Next is the cooling water and heater pipework. The heater looked most interesting and so I started with that! In the Fiesta the heater is in the dashboard behinf the engine . In Amfey its six foot in front of the engine. Ages ago I connected a pair of aluminium pipes running along the cockpit floor to the heater matrix on the dashboard. Now the other ends need connecting to the engine. Access to the front of the engine is very restricted and a tip for anyone attempting to do the same would be to do some preparation before installing the engine. I've managed to improve on the Ford system which used four hose clips. The heater plumbing now uses sixteen! What could possibly go wrong.

Here is the rear of the cockpit - where the rear seat rests will go.

The square hole is where the radiator and fan will go. Through the hole you can see the fuel pipes, clutch hydraulic hose and the gear selector levers. The round hole gives access to the dipstick and oil filter. Between the two is where one of the heater hoses connects and worse still where the bottom radiator hose sits. This needs extending by eight inches or so to reach the new radiator position.

Next job is the gear selector cables. These are just regular Morse cables connecting to the levers will ball and socket joints. The cable outers are held onto their mounts using seizing wire. The wire supplied looks like MIG welding wire and is too brittle for this purpose. I've got some proper stuff somewhere on the boat that I'll try to remember to bring home next time I'm there.

Anyway, Here you can see it in action..

From the gear lever end...

.... and from the gearbox end ...

Last job of the week was to fit the stbd. engine mount tie bar. 

Next week its finish off the gear cables, extend the bottom radiator hose then fit the rear brakes and think about commisioning the hydraulics.

Week 22 - The Build

 Finished getting the cam timing job done. All I needed was a new bolt to hold the crankshaft pullies on. That arrived the next day so spent a few hours checking I'd got everything lined up then tightened the bolt. By tight, the book says 100Nm then 90 degrees more then 15 degrees after that. That is very tight, in fact about as far as I could tighten it with a long breaker bar on the 18mm socket.

After removing the flywheel locking tool I checked the cam timing againa couple of times and that the engine freely rotated 360 degrees. All good so fitted all the covers, water pump pulley, alternator and stretchy belt. 

Next job is to get the engine back in the hull. After quite a lot of practice over the last few weeks it went in quite easily. Connected up the drive shafts, fuel line, engine earth, and the two electronic plugs and ... 

it still wont start! The OBD reports the camshaft position sensors are open circuit. Hard to believe that both have failed. I'm convinced it's the extension to the wiring loom that I did back in December 2019. On examining the 80 or so electrical connections I saw that some didnt seem that great and others seemed quite poor. I remade all those with solder and heat shrink. Plugged everything back in and ,,,,

it still wont start! The OBD still reports the cam sensors open circuit and so for a tenner each I replaced them with new ones. You can guess what happened next.

Still convinced its my wiring I decide to remove the cables in their conduit from the channel in the hull and remove the split conduit and just check the cables over. Straight away I could see there were a number of cables joined along their length. One of these had come adrift and another looking pooly. Without hesitation I quickly rejoined with solder the one that had come apart. Connected everything back up and ...

 

 

Very pleasing. A significant milestone here. I can now progress with pretty much any other part of the build.

In light of this I shall set about resoldering a lot more connections! A new soldering iron is enroute that should deal with the thicker wires required.