Progressing

Earlier in the week I had to pick up a 36mm socket for the hub nuts as the Sadev shafts are still connected up. That night in the garage I cracked out the breaker bar and the 6ft extension for it and went to take them off… and spun the tyres. There’s just not enough weight in the car to get traction. May have to try again once I get the engine and box in.

Managed a good stint on my day off today, even did my first bit of welding on the car. Primarily I am still cleaning and stripping the car. I am going though a lot of degreaser. The Accusump pipework was leaking into the interior as two of the fittings were loose. Both driver and passenger footwells were full of engine oil combined with dirt and grit.

At Gatebil the car had an off into the gravel which had enough force to damage the engine oil cooler, snapping off one of the -AN fittings. A combination of this and catastrophic engine failure put engine oil over most of the bay, on the other side one of the gearbox cooler fittings was loose so there’s gearbox oil fairly well sprayed as well. Then there’s UJ grease on both sides because the gaiters on the shafts were gaffer taped up, but this didn’t stand up to track use. The car really was put together in a rush for Gatebil as evidenced by the lighting loom:

I am not bothered by any of this – I knew what I was getting and the state it was in so it’s just a long road to being properly put back together now.

Here is the breather for the gearbox (i think) and some of the mess before cleaning.

Sequential Oil Cooler and Pump. Now off and needs cleaning up before going into storage.

Engine Oil cooler is not only missing a -AN fitting but is also bent…

Missing fitting,,,

Header tank won’t be needed anymore so it’s out. The rad and header tank will be for sale.

And the outlet hole in the scuttle patched up. Fully welded, ground down, filled and primered now.

In the interior, before I sold the Rallye I made up a template for the standard position of the Satchshift. Sods luck of course it won’t work with the controls in the car. I may shorten both the upper and lower bars rather than move the other stuff and put the leaver exactly where the sequential stick was mounted. Not 100% decided yet. I still want a Sadev in future, but can’t stretch to one for the foreseeable future so anything I do I want to be reversible.

To fit the carbon foot trays, I had to modify the seat mounts. I’ll need the seats as far back as they’ll go, so I won’t need the front halves of the seat mounts on the rail nearest the controls. So chopped them off and the trays will fit. I’ll need to fabricate some little supports to clear the bracing on the front wishbone before I can securely mount them.

The EPAS ECU was gaffer tapped to the back of the dash. I’ll make a mount and hide it away within the cage on some rubber mounts, like so.