Here we go again

Now that the weather is finally getting out of the minus figures and march rapidly approaching I guessed it was time to get some work done on the car this week.

First job up was a strip down and check up of all the fuel pipes. After a few posts on the forum of people saying to check the condition of the rubber hose. Luckily everything seems to be ok on this front.

Next up was since the car had been put away in November, I had noticed a few small drips of coolant ending up on the floor underneath the radiator, but not on the inlet / outlet side. Meaning that some where I had a small leak. So off this came and I took it to work for a closer inspection.

Once I had it at work it became apparent that the core had developed a small leak at the point in which the water gallery meets up with the header plate. This is probably down to how the rad was hard mounted onto the chassis and the vibration. This was easily sorted with the aid of some aerospace glue the rad was quickly repaired and heading back onto the car. To stop this happening again I have now mounted the rad onto anti vibration mounts. So this should stop it from happening again.

Some time ago the exhaust developed a really loud and annoying rattle / grinding squeak, which at high revs was so loud you could hear it above the exhaust note itself. After getting the exhaust off and peering down into the exhaust it appears the centre perforated section of the exhaust has completely disintegrated and fallen to pieces. So out comes the death wheel and the end of the exhaust was promptly cut off to reveal what damage has been done. On closer inspection it appears to be the result of the section where it joins to the cat getting too hot and becoming brittle and subsequently snapping through the welds. This means now I have to replace all the internals of the exhaust, I am also deciding if I should remove the cat and and have just the silencer. I could also put the overheating of the cat down to the oil contamination that it might have suffered during the engines spell of drinking oil at an alarming rate and the initial over fuelling problems I had when I first installed the engine. Luckily I have some more perforated tube and have some race spec matting to pack the exhaust back out.

Other jobs to complete.

Fit a bolt to act as a clutch stop, this should stop the problem of the clutch slave cylinder leaking / blowing the internal seals.

Trim the carbon dash to remove an annoying squeak that is cause when it vibrates against the GRP of the scuttle.

Replace the poor / cheap / soft aluminium that Westfield supply to make the tunnel cover.