March 2003
Saturday 1st
Fitted the passenger seat. This turned out to be quite a fiddly job. The problem is that first you have to fit the mounting brackets to the seat, which screw in from the side. Then you have to position the seat (with mounts) in the cockpit to determine where to drill the holes in the floor to mount the brackets. However with the seat on the brackets, you can't get underneath it to mark the position for the holes. So I made a template out of card and sat the seat on top of that and put it in the cockpit. Then I removed the seat, leaving the template, and drilled the holes. However, I couldn't fit the brackets with the seat mounted as then I couldn't reach the floor mounting setscrews to fit the nuts. So I had to remove the seat from the brackets and fit the brackets first. This was difficult in itself, as I needed 6ft arms to reach both sides of the mounting screws nearest the centre of the car. I fitted the screws up through the floor and used insulating tape to hold them in place whilst I fitted the nuts. Once the brackets were fitted I had to refit the seat to them, but there was now hardly any room between the bracket and the cockpit sides to fit the screws!!
Once fitted, I noticed that the handbrake cable was rubbing the seat gently and also the bottom harness webbing. I spoke to Ian Gray at ST and he said that this should be OK for SVA.
My SVA date has come through! 7th April at Nottingham Test Centre.
Sunday 2nd
Bought a tow (and family) car today! A Mondeo Ghia V6 24V Estate. Excellent load-lugger with a smooth and pokey V6 engine.
Saturday 8th
Fitted the driver's seat and harness. Fitted bonnet 'power bulge' and retaining clips. I used rubber over-centre clips from Car Builder Solutions. These work very well and are SVA compliant.
Sunday 9th
Fitted wing mirrors and (finally!) the front indicators. That's about it! It's finished! Need to tweak a few things for SVA, but we're just about there.
Finished! |
Seats and harnesses |
Cockpit |
View from the driver's seat |
Exhaust and wing mirror |
Rubber bonnet latch from Car Builder Solutions |
Nearside front indicator |
View down the bonnet |
Last week I noticed that one of my driveshaft bolts had sheared, and it seems that the bolts that I have used are the wrong rating. I ordered some standard Sierra bolts from my local Ford dealer and replaced them all today. However, stupidly I didn't remove the Stack speed sensor first and damaged it with the driveshaft, bugger! I will have to order a new one on Monday.
Sunday 16th
Checked the ride height today. I have set the rear at 165mm which means that the rear lights are plenty high enough for SVA (min. 350mm). Since dropping the car onto its wheels, I have noticed that the front cycle wings DO actually touch the headlamps on full lock. This is an SVA failure, so I may have to raise the ride height at the front for SVA too. Hopefully that will be enough to stop them touching. After SVA I will get the suspension set up properly.
Took the car for its first 'drive' today! Well, I drove it out of the garage and around the carpark. Clutch felt excellent and the brakes and handbrake seem to work. Getting excited now!
Out in the sun at last! |
Looks great, doesn't it? :o) |
Look at that profile! |
Superb! |
Front view |
Head on |
Front quarter |
Cockpit |
VERY happy bunny!! |