Time to Tighten Everything Up

Decided today was the day to go through the car from back to front (literally) and torque up all the bolts. I worked methodically from the rear suspension, through the propshaft, gearbox mounts, engine mounts and front suspension, torquing and marking everything (the marks serve two purposes - to make sure that you don't forget anything and as a witness mark so you can see if any of the bolts are coming undone). So now you know why there are little paint marks on bolts on new cars.

I also fitted the speedo sensor, which I had not installed when I was building the front suspension. However, what they had provided was for a RHD car. I need to fit mine on the other side.

RHD version of the bracket

So I had to bend the two tabs through 180 degrees. Not sure I am too comfortable with this as I could see cracks in the bends. Will have to ask Westfield for a LHD bracket (the list is getting longer again - see below).

no, I didn't just reverse the picture!

We will see how it is. The last thing I want is the transducer falling into he wheel at speed.

The powder coat came off so I had to strip and repaint it:



I have no clue how to connect it to the Dash. Add that to the list of questions I have collected for Mark Walker at the factory (he has been out on his hols).

Thanks to one of the other builders, Ian, I now know that I need to load a configuration file into the dash for it to make sense of the signals coming in - fortunately Julie had an old laptop sitting in her office that I thought I could plug into the dash, but, it doesn't have a serial pot, so it is on to Amazon to find a USB to RS232 adapter so I can download the configuration file, once I get it from Westfield (add to the list). I probably should have read the manual first, as I installed the wrong software, so I had to uninstall and reinstall it, so that took a while. It is pretty neat - you can configure the dash how you want it, so no doubt I will have fun with that (things like shift lights, gear indicator rev counter etc.) There are a bunch of custom screens accessible from four buttons on the dash - there is a data logger option also, which will do lap and segment times, which will be really useful at the track.

As everything was tightened up, I thought I might as well see if it could move under its own power. All in the name of seeing if the clutch is bled properly:

Pretty cool, if I say so myself

It actually looks pretty good like that. The seat isn't fixed in (a job for tomorrow - I am a little reluctant to drill the holes in the shell needed to mount the seat to the frame. I also don't have all the fittings - I appear only to have enough for one seat, so that is another item for Westfield).









Ok, maybe I went  little further than just pulling out of the garage. I did go for a little spin around the neighborhood while nobody was watching (as it was 112 degrees, there was no chance of meeting anybody!) You can hear the gearbox hoop bottom out at the top of the driveway (it is quite a steep transition to the road).

What with a brand new clutch and the car weighing next to nothing, it is a little difficult to be smooth (especially as the seat wasn't fixed and I was holding onto the dash with one hand), but it seems everything works - no trail of essential liquids left behind like when I had the maiden run in the Healey!