Steering rack fitment issues

steering rack has been modified by shortening the rods by 25mm as per the build manual, i had the run of the mill issues when coming to fit the rack where the mounting faces on the chassis are not wide enough for the rack, (why they don't sort this at the factory i will never know), so reading a few forums it has been stated that as long as the main large clamp lines up and bolts down the other smaller clamp will need some of the rubber mount bush cutting away to allow it to sit down.
pictures will be added later

Engine finished

during fitting the all the fluid lines to the chassis, the engine was also finished off, and is now awaiting the use of an engine hoist to get it into its new home,

fuel lines

once all the brake lines had been fitted, the job then turned to running of the fuel lines, this can be fairly tight to do, as on one side you need to run 2 fuel lines, and the brake line that goes from the master cylider to the back t- piece.
so after a little thinking and planning i went to make my first 90 degree bend in the pipe, and stupidly place the pipe in the wrong side of the benders, resulting in a pinched line, (DOH!) instead of buying another length of pipe from westfield, i managed to get my hands on some plastic coated aluminium pipe, which in my opinion looks so much better than the stuff that westfield supplies.

on the drivers side of the chassis you need to run 2 fuel lines, the picture above shows how i have loacted the pipes and tried to keep them well spaced and away from touching the chassis,

once all panels had been fitted and i was happy it was time to run the brake lines, these proved to be fairly stright forward, with the help of a set of hand benders, i have tried to keep all radius nice and neat, and kept as close to the chassis rails as possible to aid fitting of the retaining clips.

the chassis arrived, and soon set work on getting the panels fitted and rivited, most of thses went on with out to much of a problem, ok there was the normal miss fits of the seat belt harness mounts on the transmission tunnel, verious panels needed trimming to stop nasty over lap with the chassis rails, nothing a pair of snips can't sort out. a good bead of silicone was placed behind every panel to stop water ingression, before being rivited up (by hand) and then all corners and exterior panels had more silicone added to keep feet dry.

gearbox was removed and cleaned as it had also got covered in oil from the engine, once this had been done, a new rear oil seal was fitted on the drive shaft output as this had a small leak, a new thrust bearing was also fitted whilst it was out, and a new gear stick gaitor seal will also be fitted and fresh oil once every thing is back in place in the chassis. plus a new slave cylider on the clutch.

engine story continued

after reading a few other build blogs, it was noted that there was clearence issues with the sump, so whilst the engine was out i took about shortening it, approx 17mm was removed internally from the sump which overall takes about 25mm off the external measurement, the oil pick up was shortend and brazed back on, the base of the sump was machined flat, before a 3mm plate of aluminium welded into place, a dash fitting was then added to act as the sump drain,

The engine story

as mentioned earlier when the engine was removed from the MX it was rather poorly, for reasons unknowing to me (but i fear some cheap nasty oil might be invloved) 2 of the cyliders were burining oil very heavily, both on start up (vavle stem seal) but also under acceleration (oil scraper ring)

so the engine was removed from the MX with the plans of re-building it, (until a visit to the westfield factory changed that)

so with the engine out a full strip and re-build was carried out.

Parts that have been replaced:-

valve stem seals
piston rings
big end shells
water pump
cam belt / tensioners
all gaskets

also whilst the engine was stripped, a full clean up and de-coke was carried out, as well as a full clean up and a new lick of paint on the exterior, a previous oil leak had left a fantastic mess of oil and grit over the engine.

now some may ask why not just go and buy another engine?

well it would still leave me with an MX that i would need to have an engine put back in and repaired, so the descision was made to keep the engine and fully rebuild it.

well on first stripping off the head i was very pleased to discover that the block and bores were in an almost brand new condition, with no ridge at the top of the bore and a lot of the original honeing marks still there, is appears that the engine has not had a hard life.
there would also be a risk of not knowing the history of any other engine that i would buy, so in the long run i feel better knowing the full history of the engine i have, just to have peace of mind when going to track days, and the nurburgring.


to replace the valve stem seals, the head needed to be completely stripped, so all the valves were removed, de-coked, and re ground into the head, making sure every thing was done properly before rebuilding every thing.

Parts already completed

Build has currently been going for just over one month already, a lot of parts have been already been fitted, these include;-

All ally panels have been fitted and sealed with silicone
Brake lines have all been run and secured
fuel lines have also been fitted and secured
bushes have been fitted to suspension wishbones,
master cylinders have been fitted
steering rack fitted.
rear wiring loom trimmed, fitted and tapped up,

pictures to follow for all of the above stages,

so far have only come across one issue, (altho i fear there are more to come) westfield had 'forgotten' to weld on the bracket to which the brake light pressure switch mounts too, not a massive issue as a M6 riv-nut comes to hand, and is then bolted to that.
the location of the switch now mounted of the riv-nut i feel gives a better position from which you are able to run the brake pipes from.

before the build could commence, the engine that was taken from the doner car needed some serious attention.

The main reason for deciding to buy a westfield MX kit, was that the engine from the MX had become very poorly, a leaky valve stem seal on one cylider and a broken oil scraper ring on another, had lead to the engine being removed from the MX to enable a full rebuild, so whilst it was taken out, it had been decided that the engine would not return to car it was taken from, instead it would be re-incarnated into a westfield,

a lot of time and money has been spent on the engine so far, i will cover what has been done to the engine in another section.