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.

Week 21 - The Build

 With the engine out again the job is to check and reset the camshaft timing. With the cam cover off and inserting the cam locking tool correctly then using a screwdiver in the spark plug hole for No 1 cylinder it is plain that the timing is 180 degrees out! No wonder it didn't want to start! 

Easy enough to sort out. Just need to lock the crankshaft using a locking tool - just a matter of taking the starter motor off and bolting the tool to the motor mounting bolts. First problem is that my locking tool wont reach the flywheel! Wrong tool. eBay to the rescue so two days later the right tool arrives and the crankshaft locked. Now the bolt holding the crankshaft pulley can be removed. Now the locking tool is removed and the crank can be rotated to TDC and nestles up against the positioning pin in the crankcase. Locking tool back on - belt back on then the lower cam belt cover and the auxillary drive pulley then all I need is the bolt. Google Engineering says that you should use a new bolt everytime as the are done up so tight they stretch as a design feature. It seems you can only get these bolts as part of a cambelt replacement kit which has the belt, tensioner and water pump as well. Found one on eBay that looks about right so I'm waiting for that to arrive now.

All in all a pretty uneventful week! Hopefully get it all back together and in the hull again next week.

Week 20 - The Build

I suppose a project like this was always going to be a bit of a rollercoaster ride. One day its seems all but finished and the next day an unrecognised problem arises that needs to be solved. Everyday is a school day if you don't really know how anything works!

And so it was this past week. The ambition was to connect enough to the engine to get it started. All that went well. Fuel, electronics, 12v supply and earth - even attached the clutch and servo vacuum hoses.

Turn the ignition on and operate the starter. Great - give it a while for the fuel to get through. OK, give it a bit longer. OK, a bit of brake cleaner sprayed into the intake. Fires up! Horray. But without the brake cleaner it wont start at all, not even a splutter. 

 So, I know it ran fine before I changed the cam belt, but could it be an electrical problem or a dodgy connection somewhere? I checked all the plugs and sockets and connections and they seemed fine although I remade a couple of connections to be sure. Still no joy. Checked the fuel supply. The fuel pump is suprisingly powerful as it shot a jet a fuel 15' in the air. The cam timing is looking favourite now and a bit of Google Engineering reveals thet when cylinder 1 is at TDC then the cam lobes should point away from each other. Took the cam cover off and they plainly dont.

Thought I'd see what the OBD thought and it came up with this;

Almost every error in the book came up, but top of the list was a cam position error so that pretty much confirms the cam timing is out.

It's going to be a massive fiddle doing the repair in the hull so the engine, now known as yoyo, is coming out again.

And out it is waiting for next weeks adventure.
 

Week 19 - The Build

So, the next job is to get the engine running. Before I can get the radiator on I need to connect the brake servo vacuum pipe, the fuel pipes, the clutch hose and the heater pipes. I think all the rest can be done from the rear.

A modification to the cooling system is the addition of a loop of pipe mounted below the hull. This connects to the hose to the top of the radiator. I haven't got these bits yet.

A lot of the jobs are almost invisible but here we go with the pictures;

Starting with the fuel system at the tank ...

and at the engine ...

 

The vacuum hose to the brake servo ...

 

The pipe to the clutch release bearing ...

Pipes to the expansion bottle ...

Next week it's the electrical connections!

Week 18 - The Build

Hopefully things will start getting back on track this week. The plan is to get the engine in with drive shafts attached.

Having messed up the drive shafts before it is with some trepidation that I set about doing it right his time. The shafts come prefitted with hopefully waterproof bearings close to the inner end. These insert through openings in the hull that are not large enough to accomodate both ends of the assembled shafts.

This picture shows the parts of the shaft. The inboard end is to the left and you can see the waterproof bearing. Also see the rubber gaiter, the tripod bearing (with the legs protected with masking tape and the circlip to hold it the bearing on the shaft. 

 First job is to inert the shafts through the hull opening and slide the rubber gaiter over the end. 

 

Here is one shaft in position. To the right you can see another gaiter already clipped to the hull. The other end clips to the outer rim of the bearing you can see.

To help ease the sliding of the tripod bearings onto the shaft I first soaked them for a few minutes in boiling water to help expand them. It nevertheless came as a massive suprise to see they slipped on quite easily using only a medium sized hammer.

Here is one done already for squishing in the grease. 

Now its engine back in time!

However you look at it, the engine is a tight fit! With quite a lot of pushing and shoving and effing and jeffing its back in. It position is really dictated by the tie bar at the bottom. In fact, with this bolted in there will be almost no movement possible.

It's then a good idea to bolt up the other two mountings. A good move with the Stbd. side one is to have inserted the bolts through the hull seat and loosly thread the nuts on from below. Putting the nuts on with the engine in position wis very difficult. The port side mounting is very straighforward.

Port side...

Stbd side ....

Next the inner drive shaft cv needs to be slid together. Having got them in I coupled up the suspension leg and bottom arm loosley to stop them sliding out again.

 To finish the week I then clamped the hull gaiter to the shaft bearing. Actually not all that easy as the inside of the gaiter had become covered in grease which had to be removed with paint thinners first.

Really pleased with the weeks work. Feel I passed a bit of a milestone with all the major components now installed. Just need to connect every up now. Just the cooling system, fuel pipes, clutch hydraulic hose, brakes pipes and serv, electronics, battery power, lights, engine management units as well as all the stuff I've already forgotten about.