As a consequence of talking to someone at the Dax open day a while ago, I decided to get hold of an oil temperature gauge in addition to all the rest of the instruments. I reckon that if I get the smaller of the two sensors that Greengauges sell I should be able to tap the oil drain plug for the sensor. So, I ordered one from the website and it arrived in double quick time. Unfortunately, when it arrived they had sent me the wrong sensor (5/8" UNF rather than 1/8 NPTF) which is too big to fit. Sigh....
A long weekend in which I was going to do all sorts of stuff but never managed it somehow. However, I did manage a few scrappy bits and pieces.
The first thing was to make up the driver's side version of the passenger side
exhaust mounting/seat support. This took quite a while and looks pretty much the same as the other one. I won't
bother attaching these mountings as yet. Later on, when fitting the exhaust, I will bolt straight through the seat
bottom and another plate on the other side. That should be sufficient.
The next job was self-inflicted really, as I could have
got Dax to do it for me. However, in the spirit of making life difficult, which is pretty much what I'm trying
to do, I cut and shut the thermostat mounting that I bought from Real Steel so that the outlet pipe points horizontally,
rather than up in the air, and so that there was a bleed pipe to allow air to get out upwards. After all the cutting
and welding I sprayed it with the inevitable Hammerite again.
I've ordered all the pipework, in expensive silicone blue, from Europa. Unfortunately, they've got just about none of it in stock yet. Hasn't stopped them debiting my credit card though...
Then it was back to the bodywork. I ground some surplus meat off the engine mountings, which were protuding slightly into the side panel and then set about making the side panel fit. First of all, I modified the holes at the front of the panel that the suspension arms poke through. Apparently, these holes are still set up for the Cortina derived suspension that Dax used to use. The modern chassis used Sierra suspension which has resulting in changing the wishbone positions. However, a short session with masking tape and Dremel opened up the holes sufficiently.
After that I get back to the major problem of fitting the sides.
As Gary at Dax had suggested, I cut a slot along the top of the side panel and this gave a little bit more clearance
that meant I could just about get the side on. It's still a bit of a struggle and I may try and do a bit more to
it though. One problem is that due to the shape of the panels, there is an appreciable gap between the return on
the top of the side panel and the top rail of the chassis. I think I will have to put some spacers in here to enable
the scuttle to fit properly, at some future point.
Luckily, the stainless kick strip that goes along the side of the car appears to cover a multitude of sins.
I spent a while this evening musing about a couple of current problems. One
is this issue with the bodywork sides discussed before. The problem is, I can't work out why this is happening.
The gap mentioned above is clearly not a good idea as it will not be possible to sit the scuttle down cleanly.
The problem is, I can't work out what is stopping the side dropping down properly. If I felt confident about it
I would just cut off a large chunk of the rounded return on the top of the side (the round bit at the left of the
photo above) but that seems awfully drastic.
I've also decided that I need to work out where the scuttle is going to go. The only realiable way to do this that I can see is to clamp the nose cone in position and work backwards from that. According to William, the scuttle is actually too wide anyway, and the body sides will need spacing out somewhat anyway, although how that fits with the rounded tops is anybody's guess.
In between times, I've been looking at where to fit the remote oil filter. The problem
is this is rather large beast and the pipes that connect it to the oil pump are impressively sized as well. There's
quite a lot of space on the left hand side of the engine, but the pipes would have to go right across the front
of the engine, rather close to the crank pulley and so on. What's more, I think I would have to get some slightly
longer pipes.
The alternative is on the right, but it would be tricky avoiding the alternator there.
Anyway, while doing this I've removed the radiator again, which also helps with fitting the bodywork sides. Another problem with the oil filter is that all this gubbins rather gets in the way of the airflow out the back of the radiator. It all makes the ducted radiator on the Westfield seem extraordinarily elegant.
in case you've got to this frame directly and can't get out, go here.