Light at the end of the tunnel

 Yep, that light at the end of the tunnel is not the tiny dot way off in the horizon any more, infact teasingly bright. 

The last few days I have..  um, I've done stuff. It's been a bit of a blur and jumping around on other projects and chores.

After a day of doing lots of other life bits I was determined to do even just a tiny thing. I went off to the garage to check rear suspension level. Measured the floor to rear end of sills and .... bang on. Note to self must check the hi low locking nut is done up!

With that done so quickly I looked at the bonnet hinges, I was sure there would be a missing nut. The missing nut or bolt has been such a common theme I thought I should get on and check before I actually needed to be installing them. To my amazement everything was there. The hinge arms paint work had suffered a little but nothing to bad, and I just couldn't be arsed to repaint. I did see I was missing just one plastic washer that would be fitted either side of the hinge arm and between the 2 plates coming out of the bulk head. After a little stare, I really did think they looked just like a plastic take away tub plastic. I found the obligatory saved take away tub that had a broken lid, ripped a chunk off, found the hole punch to make a hole and then drew round the washer.

Spot on thickness, quite pleased with that and thought "it may be late by why not try fitting the arms". The answer should have been, because it's a right pain and takes ages. Aftera while of holding the hinge arm, plastic washers,covered in grease to stick them to the arm. I grab some extra aids, masking tape to hold the bolt in the ring spanner and a small screwdriver to align the washers and hinge arm to the hole in the bulk head plates. There is not much space or visibility doing this job, so it was great to move onto the drivers side and find the windscreen wiper motor made it even harder that side. But at 1 something am I was triumphant.

While I was waiting for the brother inlaw to collect his son, I found a simple job that didn't matter if I couldn't finish. I templated the boot carpet and had just enough time to finish the first cutting in of the carpet. The carpet isn't pretty but for a free upcycled boot carpet it will do as a good guide for the new carpet when I'm feeling flush.

The new indicator (and horn) stalk turned up. I was keen to get on and install that and see if the horn would be brought to life. I removed the wiper stalk from the shared mounting plate, discarded the old indicator stalk ..... and noticed it really wasn't as shinny as the new one. Shock! Of course I did, out came the polishing compound and the stalk was carefully polished to revive it a bit with out polishing off the painted wiper symbols. It has to be said, when doing detailing work a nail brush is a god send for getting at those nooks and crannies.

Saturday.... door fitting day, eek. The new door fitting bolt kit was found and layer out. Door openings masked up to try and save the paint work from woops moments. It went quite smoothly, it may have helped that I'm a carpenter and have fitted many wooden doors. Once on to asses alignment, added shimms and I was happy enough to put the nylon nuts on for a final bolt up. The door catch mounted to the car tricked me. I thought I had run out of adjustment to pull the door in. It turned out I needed to pull that out, to allow the door catch to fully lock and pull the door hard in.

The to do list is really getting small, little bits keep cropping up to double check, lock off etc but far enough for me to ring around mini friendly garages and ask what their lead time is for mot's 

Finding time

 Finding time has started to become hard again. The start of autumn term with the kids at school and helping at a scout group, not forgetting working on my friends cars that helps fund the mini parts. It's fleeting small stints at best.

But of course work is still happening. After many sidetracks I did manage to do basic wheel alignment using the string method right round the car. But that meant the car was getting off the axel stands for good, yay.

 The drivers track rod end locking nut was ... um, locked to the shaft. The mini not being fitted with shafts that have flats made that unnecessarily taxing, stilsons where borrowed from the neighbour as my mole grips had lost the teeth points doing the other side!

 The bonnet catch lever missing the window in the grill and actually coming out under the next rung was addressed. We'll I removed it and bent it, sorted 😎 

With the car on the ground and rolling, she was rolled out of the garage so I could get round it and .... put the front seats. Due to the prep done well over a year ago when the re spray happened, a fairly straight forward job. Also met a local mini nut who walked by while I was blocking the rear alley, always nice to meet up with a local with the same passion.

I thought the part buying was over, so as pay day had been I treated my self to led bulbs for the dash, simple job. Simple my arse,  just a coupe of thou over sized for the hole. With a 50/50 chance of fitting the bulb the right way, I managed to get them all round the wrong way. Then they fell out of the holders and into the dials when I tried removing them to flip them round,so the dials came apart to retreave them! Got there though, and looking good.

Another evening and very late, I wanted to get to the bottom of the horn not working. Thouhht I had a result, only one wire attached, shame the added earth wire didn't make any difference. Out came the multi meter and its looking like the stalk is at fault, yay buying bits again and now waiting again for parts to arrive!

Noisy

 The last few days attention has moved to the exhaust. With a combination of 3 possible different manufacturers I knew it would not be a smooth assembly. Fortunately I help a friend a lot ... he makes exhaust systems, so I have a fair understanding of exhaust systems and the problems/options to get over them. With an unknown long branch manifold, fletcher Y peice and an unknown center/ back box I set about carefully lining things up to see what would need altering. I quickly found out I needed to buy a rear hanger and remembered I needed to buy the front gear box to exhaust clamp. They turned up quite quickly, which was nice.

But before they turned up the steering arm gaiters turned up, I cracked on and fitted them so the front wheels could finally go on and stay on. There was a little trouble with the lock nut not wanting to budge, but the blow torch soon encouraged it to play ball.

Yesterday I got home and was shattered but a lot was going on in the house so I disappeared to the garage, got the tap and dies out to clean up the captive nuts and what seems like the last old money bolts I have left! Led on the floor with my legs dangling out the side door of the garage i used the tap and die fitted the bracket and then pondered some exhaust options. With a little jolt I opened my eyes, I might have nodded off in the relative quite and darkness of being under the car! That was it cup of tea time.

Tonight I was working up at the Y price, fitted the gear box clamp and laid out the center section again to check clearances and alignment. It wasn't looking to bad, I am going to make a short straight joiner piece source another clamp and cut a little off the center section where it curves the wrong way. With a fairly confident plan in hand that will have to wait till work shop time on Saturday that was enough exhaust work.

The last of the bulk head insulation was quickly trimmed up and fitted. 

The gear stick gater was next, the freshly painted clamping ring and freshly washed gater was slid over the stick. At this point the holes in the floor where very hidden by the necessary layers, out came a bradel, poked till it went through the floor and quickly fitted some nice new screws. Of course the gear know had to be fitted, looking good.

The last bit for today was the speedo test. The car is still on axel stands while the exhaust work goes on. The battery was connected, started her up... quite loud with just the manifold. Sat on the floor, pushed the clutch and was pleased I could select a gear and set her off. Result the speedo i swoped over ( so the speedo matched the other 2 dials) a few weeks ago worked, phew.

Now it's enjoy a short mini night and study the to do list. May be buy a well deserved little mini treat 🙂

Chipping away

 The brakes where addressed yesterday. A lovely brake bleeder was borrowed (a canister that holds brake fluid that is screwed onto brake reservoir and you pump to pressurise it).

The rears bleeding surprisingly quickly, moved round to the front ...  and saw a leek. One joint hadn't  quite been nipped up tight enough. With that done I re did the rear and moved onto the front .... to find a blocked bleed nipple. Quickly resolved with a clean up. I did manage to loose count of how many times I knocked over the jar of bled brake fluid! In the end, the battle was won. Just before the day's work was closed, I thought double checking the brake lights would be good.... to find a faulty brake switch.

It had taken ages to connect and route those pipes that now hid the faulty brake switch. It was a new day and after a little fight with the backing nut the switch was off and quickly stripped to find a bad terminal. 

A quick file and it tested just fine and was refitted, a little battle with the main air intake pipe and we where back on track.

a quick glue up of a temporary battery cover, then onto timing.  Checked the water from the slight leak the other day and topped up the dash pot oil . It seemed to be a struggled to advance the timing,  a quick pause revealed the wiring harness was fouling the module on the side of the dizzy. A thankfully quick fix and now reving smoothly. Tick over adjusted and feeling quite good.

A quick tidy of the handbrake, slip a tattoo but functional cover. The gear stick cover has a ring that clamps to the floor, yep that needed sanding and painting. Done now  and reverse wire routed through the floor with a new gromit.

The late night evening stint I squeezed in was tidying up the dash wires and sorting the immobiliser. Looking much better, also not a job that had been listed to keep the work ordered for the final push. So nice to get rid of that job.

Also squeezed in fitting the new wiper arms, well I did need stronger springs. Blimey, yes they are stronger, bit of an ass fitting them but another job I had forgotten about. 

Tiny stints

 With school term starting again, my "spare " time is already starting to reduce. I have been strong and even though I've had only 1/2 hour windows of free time, I have been in the garage.

The choke cable ... fixing nut? Clamps the cable to choke lever on carb. Arrived and was fitted. Indicator relay arrived and did the trick at reviving the indictators back into constantly flashing. The new wiper arm that has a spring with full tension, so the wiper blade should contact the windscreen fully! Has arrived but yet to be fitted.

A nice step forward was being able to start the car with out leaning over and holding the choke. As the heater is fitted now, and I had filled it up, I could let it run for longer than a couple of minutes.

It was nice to stand back and see her running, as ever with a full rebuild I was watching the many joints carefully. One jubilee clip needed a couple of turns to stop a small leak. The idle needed raising, But other than that all was good. I have also had a quick check of the carn needle, result the correct needle for the engine is fitted. Good to know that shouldn't give problems when the tune up happens.

Tonight the passenger hub, disc and calliper was fitted.... yep, we are ready to fill the brakes up with fluid. Oh, I filled and bled the clutch reservoir up last week. A timing light was dropped off tonight. So hoping for some more obvious progress this weekend. Just need to make sure I stay focused and in the garage.

I'll leave with a pic of today's arrival, leather gear stick know:)

Coming together

 A few more hours done and it really is starting to actually look like it's coming together.

Done some more fine tuning of the wiring for dash ancillaries and final testing. The rocker switch for rear heated window was not working so that was stripped and terminals cleaned to get that working. The new hazard relay was a lovely simple swop over and they work now. Wiring for the under dash lights is done and tested, they do need mounting but that should be quick... now I have re stuck a couple of small sections of the bottom dash rail on properly! The clock test didn't go so well, the light works, the clock doesn't. I did find out it came froma 1960,so porsche  :) that willl be coming apart soon. 

With the switches alll tested attention had to move onto the heater. Routing the pipes for this around the steering column and the engine bay has been on my mind for quite some time. This was last week

 With just the screen pipe and heater/water pipe, doesn't look to bad.

Then the air feed pipe needed to go in there as well as another water pipe. After much wrestling and vent pipes popping back off.

I was quite glad I bout a silicon 90 bend, with  out it I am sure a water pipe would have kinked. I was determined to have as much foot space as possible, I do remember it being cramped on the foot space.

Just as I was about to bolt the heater in, I remembered being told by the sparky there was a factory connection for the auto box in the loom. Separated that and quickly added extentions to fit a immobiliser switch. Close to missing that opportunity. With that done the switch panel was finally installed, a quick stare of admiration and on to fitting the last 2 heater mounting screws. 

Tonight ended with the engine bay ends of heater water pipes being trimmed and clamped off, loving the brass 90 I snuck in the engine bay to keep the pipe angles tight.

 cable routes re checked  and we are now ready to add water. The last big test, does the heater matrix and radiator actually hold water under pressure ???

Have to admit the worries got the better of me and a quick compression test on the engine was done. Why I had not done this weeks ago I have no idea. But all is good with 150 -148 accross them all I can rest easy... for now 😉

A short list!

 Yep the list of jobs to do is getting short, nice.

With the engine fitted it was time to start adding some of the cables, speedo first, while I could still rock the engine and get my hand down the back of the engine. Then the copper pipes from brake bias valve to the servo. Quite a bit of time spent staring and pondering the best route. Had to re make one pipe as the chosen route left it falling short by an inch.

The new slightly longer wheel studs arrive, wacked out the old and pressed in the new. Passenger hub  was installed that evening and checked the torque  on any nut I was near. Drivers hub wasn't as ...  I have misplaced the calliper to hub bolts, which still haven't arrived  it they will soon.

The mini specialist came round and went over the engine bay electrics, routed nicely, changed connections he wasn't happy with and left me with a fair list of correct varient parts for me to buy.

With refreshed confidence some refining of the electric take offs for my extras was done, also a feed to the starter motor was made/added to the bay loom.

Then back into the engine bay to install the exhaust manifold, which took a little fettling for it to just slide over the studs. Then fit the carb to the new inlet and fit that... with a little more fettling! Petrol lines installed, battery cable clipped up under the floor pan front to back with some nice new P clips and i had all the metal tabs on the floor pan as well :)

The new tyres turned up, so I shot off to get the brother in law to fit and balance them. Of course one had to be fitted to the car. Still looking ace by the way :)

It was definitely time to check the wiring with power. We'll that didn't go to well.... nothing, like zero. After a little chat, the earth lead inthe boot was removed all components filed up and one of my special grounding washers fitted. Just the job. Interior light came straight on (no doors on yet) so a good start. Drivers side indicators and one side light didn't work. A blown indicator bulb changed and a little wiggle of the side buld to ground it. Quite pleased with that.

The brand new hazard switch only worked if I half rocked it!!! And the flasher relay seems faulty. Indictators flash but slow down until they just stay on, quality. New parts ordered and waiting for the post for that.

Well, with that done.... it had to be prep to start it up. Eeek, nervous. Fuel tank refitted (with the obligatory struggle to get the strap seated right), loosely placed the exhaust together, HT leads fitted to dizzy only. A good cranking to get oil pressure, add fuel to tank and a good crank to get that through. May be a little pause to tighten a fuel jubilee. Another crank,pause to change hands on key and cranked while adding a little choke. Beauty, fired up and stayed running. A little lumpy but happy with that.

The pressure is on though, marmite had been promised as a daily commute for the wife. That would be for the start of September.. almost! Also a friend had quitely pondered who would finish first, project blinky or me. It could be a photo finish