Week 28 - The Build

 As winter turns into Spring there is a lot more that can be done than working on the car! I've spent a certain amount of time on my proper boat even going away on it for a few days to avail myself of licensed premises in England while Welsh pubs are still shut.

All the big heavy jobs are now done so its now a matter of doing all the millions of little things that make finish it off.

I've started off by washing the areas in the fo'cstle that were contaminated with brake fluid and repainting them. 

The fuel tank and filler are now back in.

Something that needs to be addressed at some point is to fit and cable up the radiator cooling fan. The radiator is not going to be subjected to any great airflow either ashore or afloat. The fan needs to be arranged so it can be set to continuously on and this can easily be done by taking a feed from the ignition switch to the fan relay. The current plan is to move the relay to the back to avoid long runs of cable taking a high current and trigger this from the ignition. Plan A.1 is to have a switch in the trigger cable so it can be set to 'off'. Plan A.2 is to take a feed from the original relay trigger to override the 'off' switch. Should cover it!

No photos this week but a wiring diagram for the fan 

Week 27 - The Build

 This last couple of weeks has been another interesting time in the project. I earlier showed the tools for bleeding the brakes and the pressure method seems favourite. Problem with my kit is that it doesn't seal satisfactorily on the master cylinder so it ejects fluid over everything. I bought a spare cap for a Fiesta on eBay and adapted this to fit the kit. That leaked badly as well, but not as badly! It was possible to bleed the brakes being careful not to empty the master cylinder reservoir each time. Flushed with success I went on to finish off connecting up the cooling system. That all went well with 7litres of water poured in.

I'm thinking of getting it on wheels and going for a little drive now!!

A number of issued became apparent. 1) the cooling system leaks somewhere up by the heater. 2) the engine is very reluctant to start without the help of squiting something flammable into the air intake (electrical contact cleaner came to hand!) 3) the clutch doesn't operate. 

Of these I think No 3 is the most urgent issue. I'm hoping its the hydraulics and not mechanical. If it is mechanical then we go back to a very low numbered square. I had previously bled the hydraulics using the vacuum method but perhaps there is an air lock. The best method is the pressure at the master cylinder method and I spent many hours trying the effect a good seal for my kit to the reservoir. Every attempt failed but even with it leaking it provided enough pressure to blast the air lock out.

The water leak was fixed by tightening up one of the 27 jubilee clips in the system. I haven't got it up to temperature and under pressure yet so I'm sure there will be more leaks!

I don't understand the engine starting issue. Once running it seems to go fine.

Anyway, flushed with that success here is a little video of the pto shaft stopping and starting as the clutch is operated. 

Week 26 - The Build

 Hard to believe I'm six months into the build and it's Easter already. I was originally thinking it would be finished by now but its not even on its wheels yet!

Anyway, left it last week with cross threaded nuts in the ABS unit. The unit was removed and a replacement ordered. It would seem to be very likely if not absolutely certain that the ECU part is coded to the car and a different one would need to be coded by Ford. The solution to this is to swap the old ECU onto the new pump.

Here is the unit on the bench..

Just need to undo this screw..

and this screw..

and it comes apart like this.. (need to keep it fairly straight until its compoletely off as well)

Behind the pump part in the photo is an electric motor that runs the pump. You dont really need to disturb this!

Next job is to remake the pipes from the master cylinder to the unit..

I used 5/16" 8mm tubing from B&Q and a friends flanging tool. The new ABS unit came with the nuts in place so I used those to replace the cross threaded ones.

and here are the new pipes all ready for installation. Shown here with the old ones with the yellow tape holding them together where they were cut to remove the master cylinder nuts.

Everything is now back on the car and good to go for bleeding the system.