Having
failed on one part of the cooling system, I started installing the radiator assembly inside the nose cose. I've
decided that unlike what I thought before, it will be possible to tighten up the hoses with the radiator inside
the nose so I can do this without waiting for the top hose from Westfield.
The manual is very unclear (actually, it says nothing at all) about the fixing of the radiator ducting to the nose cone but having looked into it I've decided to just bolt it through from the top with some of the rather nice little M5 stainless steel set screws that Westfield supply. (At the last count I have 42 of them left, heaven knows what they are for!) Hence the top of the nose cone now looks like this. To stop the ducting flapping about I also bolted the two together at the bottom.
I
despatched Anthea to get a couple of things for me today. (Well, one of us ought to be working!) One of them was
to get a nut to hold the ECU's air temperature sensor in a hole drilled in the air filter backplate. Rather astonishingly
MacKay's admitted to not stocking what's needed for this and directed us to a specialist supplier of nuts and bolts
elsewhere in Cambridge. I'll have to try and get something soon, although it's not urgent.
I've been thinking more and more about the SVA and registration, especially as Duncan Hurst (see the links page) has got his Dax registered and tested now. He's going to let me have a look at his SVA manual which will save me having to buy one.
August 29th
The
things I asked for from Westfield have arrived, including the top hose. We also ordered some "kick strips"
which are pads that go on the side of the car to make a slightly better armrest and protect the top of the bodywork.
I can't quite see how to attach them, perhaps I'll use some of the magic polyurethane adhesive that is about now.
Having got the top hose from Westfield, we got stuck back into the cooling system. The pipework on the Zetec seems to be a complete nightmare. For example, why on earth the thermostat housing needs four separate pipes is beyond me.
The first problem is getting the hose onto the water pump. This particular hose is dramatically stretched to make it go around the, rather large, pump inlet and needs a bit of assistance, of the brute force variety, to make it fit.
The next problem is the bottom hose, more correctly the pipe that connects into it. There seem to be two ways to route this. One way is to make the pipe go inside the spaceframe. This doesn't look too successful as the amount of room between the radiator ducting and the sides of the upside-down trapezium that is the front of the chassis is almost non-existent. The only way to get the pipe in position is really to place it much too high, where it becomes top hose number 2. In order to provide a bit more room for the pipework, I cut the flanges off the chassis that are intended for mounting the non-ducted radiator. However it didn't make enough of a difference, so...
The
second route is "outside" the spaceframe where is can go between the front nearside wishbones, albeit
clamped to the chassis. In this position it is possible to make it quite neat, although it could really do with
a couple of brackets to clamp the pipe to the chassis. However, It feels a bit wrong putting something through
the wishbones, although there are already other things there, such as the brake pipes. What's more, for the suspension
to actually contact the pipe the wheel would have to be about 2 feet above the top of its deflection and the spring
would have to have a negative length. So, in a fit of rationality, I decide this was where it would have to go.
In this photo, taken from "inside" the chassis, you can see the bottom hose/pipe going between the top and bottom wishbones. Here the pipe is held in with tie-wraps, but I will make up some brackets. The tie-wraps would do but seem rather naff.
I'm still very unhappy about this, although I can't really see why. I did wonder about using a long piece of vulcoflex to replace the complete bottom hose/pipe assembly, but that seems a bit OTT.
I discovered what the problem with the air horn compressor is, in that the top hose/pipe bashes into the top of it. However, it doesn't look too hard to move about to somewhere rather more sensible. For some reason, the Zetec engine is located quite a long way towards the rear of the Westfield chassis. This means that there is a lot of space at the front of the engine, so there must be somewhere that I can find to put a little compressor.
Duncan (see above) brought his Dax round today. It really is a lovely car, and makes a very nice noise. It's very quick but the complete absence of weather protection at the moment makes the wind a real pain. It did occur to me that wearing a full face helmet would fix all this, but it seems a bit extreme.
August 31st
Fitted the header tank to the front of the scuttle. Unfortunately, this entailed taking the carefully fitted ECU off again. Still, it proves that it's possible. I connected up a bit more of the pipework, which now seems to be going well, although the pipe lengths quoted in the manual seem wildly off, unless I'm doing something spectacularly silly. However, as it's obvious that they have changed the metal pipes somewhat (they're a different shape) then perhaps this isn't surprising.
Everything ground to a halt when I realised that the newly supplied top hose didn't come with the hose clips I needed. I can't be bothered to phone Westfield about that, I'll try and get to Halfords tomorrow lunchtime.
in case you've got to this frame directly and can't get out, go here.