March 2002
Saturday 16thCollected the chassis from Stuart Taylor Motorsport. Many thanks to James 'Slappy' Hall for driving his trailer up to Nottingham and back (I was unable to hire a van due to my excellent driving 'record', ahem).
Collecting the chassis from Stuart Taylor
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Wishbones, pedal box, hub carriers etc.
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Quick rack, diff, shocks, springs etc.
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Other parts collected were the wishbones, bushes, shocks, springs, re-con Sierra 3.62 LSD, donor drive shafts with Lobro joints, new shortened drive shafts, rear uprights and hubs, pedal box, master cylinders, brake pipes, donor steering column and all the alloy panels.
Chassis on axle stands in the garage
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Sunday 17th
Phoned my local scrappers and asked if they had any Cortina uprights. They had! I said I would be over to pick them up and they said that they were still on the car so I had better bring some tools! It took about two hours to remove the buggers in the pouring rain. They charged me £50 including the calipers.
Donor Cortina uprights and hubs with diff
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Diff with top mounting bracket attached
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Wednesday 20th
Tried pushing a suspension bush into a wishbone. I used lots of copperslip and tried pushing the bush in on the vice using a suitably sized socket as a drift. They are very tight, and I couldn't get one in without it dragging on one side (and damaging the poly bush). I spoke to some people and they said that I needed to put a slight chamfer on the edge of the bushes and the inner steel sleeve. I tried this with a fine file and managed to get one set of bushes in, but with 39 more to do, I decided that this method would take forever. I need to buy a bench grinder...
Suspension bush after failed attempt at insertion
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Diff trial fit. The bracket will be bolted to the chassis through rubber bushes.
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Diff trial fit from above. Holes need to be drilled for the bracket mounting bolts, but I will wait until I can position the driveshafts before deciding on the exact position.
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Diff trial fit from the side.
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Brake fluid reservoir
Ordered a big 'bucket of bolts' from Mr. Fast'ner.
Bucket of bolts
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Thursday 25th
Ordered a bench grinder and angle grinder from Machine Mart.
Sunday 24th
Fitted the pedal box and brake master cylinders. The rods on the master cylinders are too long and have to be cut. First nerve racking moment! What if I cut them too short? After much measuring, I grit my teeth and cut about a 3rd of an inch off each one. After connecting to the balance bar the brake pedal settles into a not-quite-vertical position, angled slightly towards the driver. This seemed about right.
Brake master cylinders. The one on the left in this picture goes to the front brakes.
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Pedal box showing bias bar. The clutch will be cable operated and the throttle pedal will be top mounted.
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Master cylinders
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Pedal box from footwell
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I cut some string to match the length of the brake pipes and used it to prototype the route of the pipes around the chassis. Having looked at my mate's Locoblade, my brake pipes do not seem to be the right length. I'll come back to this problem later.
Brembo discs
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Dismantled my Cortina hubs and removed the bearings. Thoroughly cleaned the hubs and uprights and painted with smooth black Hammerite. When I finished, they looked like new and I was quite pleased! I just need to fit new bearings to the hubs now.
Front hubs with old bearings removed
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Cleaned and painted front upright
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Cleaned and painted front hubs
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Wednesday 27th
My grinders have yet to arrive from Machine Mart. I'm getting a worried now as I could really do with the bench grinder before the Easter weekend so I can fit the rest of the suspension bushes. I call Machine Mart and they say that the order has been despatched by Securicor today and should arrive tomorrow.
Improvised bench grinder!
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