READY FOR LIFT OFF

Just before Christmas I manage to sneak into the garage and get the cable for the rear pork pie lights P clipped down to the rear of the chassis and out the back, ready to connect to the lights. I also mounted the lights onto the highly polished, aluminium, rear light/numberplate board, but as yet I haven't got around to connecting them up, still that won't take long. However although the front of the board is mirror polished, the back isn't and as much of it is visible, I will have to take it off, at some point and polish the back side.

What had been occupying my mind, was the best way to lift Marjorie of the trestles. I had worked out that with a bit of help I could get my engine crane down the side of the garage so that with a couple of straps I should be able to lift her up, remove the trestles and gently lower her onto her wheels.

In readiness I bought a couple of ratchet adjustable straps from Machine Mart, they are actually for tying down a motorbike onto a trailer, but I was advised that they would be good for the job, each strap rated for 500kg and the car weighing in at less than 450kg they would be fine. On Saturday my mate Colin came round and he was easily persuaded to give me a hand in manoeuvring the crane into place and we discussed various options for dropping Marjorie in stages. The next day I messed about with the crane and repositioned the trestles as far to each end of the car as possible, allowing maximum adjustment of the cranes position to ensure that I got the balance position about right.

I placed clamps onto the bottom rail to stop the straps from slipping closer together, but when the straps met overhead and clipped onto the cranes hook, the front strap passed over the scuttle. I removed the little Brookland Screens and the steering wheel, but I was concerned that damage to the scuttle would occur as the weight of the car was taken.

Another trip to Machine Mart produced a Load Leveller, which is intended for lifting engine/gearboxes in and out of a car, again it was good for 500kg and as the above pictures show it's good for the job. At 730mm in length it straddles the scuttle and fuel tank and with a small adjustment to the length of the front strap the car now lifts cleanly off the trestles. I am sure that the load leveller will come in handy for further engine removals on future projects, as I am afraid to say that the car building/restoration bug has bitten hard. The revised plan is now for a one stage lower to the ground, but with the front wheels onto ramps, which will make it easier to extract the crane legs from under the car. A quick final lift at the front to remove the ramps and we're there, ready to start the engine and drive out of the garage, to the flashing of cameras, popping of champagne, a roll of drums and much applause, must stop dreaming.

GAITERS AND PORK PIES

Firstly I would like to thanks Peter, Carol, Dejavw and Sean for their congrats on my first engine start up, as moments go, they don't get much better, well, related to building a kit car that is.

Call me selfish or self indulgent, but I did find the time to finish connecting up the handbrake. I needed to order a nipple from CBS and whilst I was doing that I thought I might as well add onto the order, leather gaiters for the gear leaver and the handbrake. And whilst I was doing that I also ordered a pair of rear lights from Stafford Vehicle Components.

I didn't have the confidence in my soldering abilities to actually solder on a nipple to the handbrake cable, so I compromised and used a screw clamp nipple. Having tightened down the screw onto the cable as tightly as possible, I splayed out the wire as it exited the nipple and using plenty of flux and good old fashioned non fluxed solder, I applied it using just the flame from my mini gas soldering iron. The solder ran down between the the wire strands back into the nipple. For good measure I applied more solder into the hole opposite where the screw fits. I trimmed back the excess strands, and I now have a belt and braces job and am confident that the nipple will hold fast.

I finished of the job by P clipping the outer cable back to the chassis, ensuring that it would not foul the caliper or the swing arm as the suspension moves up and down.

The leather gaiters fit very nicely, they both need 3mm countersunk bolts to attach them, but I have yet to decide whether I use riv-nuts or regular nuts on the underside. Although more of a faff initially I think riv-nuts will make them easier to fit as now there is as not much movement to the handbrake lever to slide the whole top cap complete with gaiters into place.I do beleive that a nice wooden gear knob will be in my Christmas stocking on the 25th.

The rear lights are a reproduction of a Lucas pattern and were always referred to as Pork Pies, obviously their shape might have something to do with that. They will fullfill all my need as they incorporate indicators and number plate illuminations. I have already connected a length of cable to the loom with a six way connector block and now just have to route the cable to the back of the car in readiness to connect to the lights when fitted.

CONTACT, IGNITION

I was going to title this post, BLEEDING BRAKES, but events have overtaken the blog.

Well the brakes have been bled and the pedal travel is minimal, great! My new, one man brake bleeding tool arrived as well as the 12mm banjo for the back brake. The tool was only partially useful. but this was because almost every joint leaked, so initially I was sucking air rather than brake fluid down the pipes. I then pumped the brake pedal to push the fluid down the pipes and when I started to get a bit of pressure fluid started to spurt out of the T junction to both front brakes, I had to disconnect and move a few pipes and cables so that I could get a 10mm spanner to the T and tighten all three connectors, then it started to leak from from the left calliper, another half turn there and all was tight and leak free.

The back brake was easier with just the one calliper and Alan of Triking had previously advised that I remove the calliper from the wheel and turn it so that the bleed nipple was at the top. Good advise, the air bled out easily and apart from mopping up the spillage the job was done.

I connected the cable to the handbrake leaver, but there is too much slack in the cable, so I will have to cut off the nipple at the calliper end and solder on a barrel one at the correct distance. I also need to buy some P clips so that I can fix the brake cable firmly in place.

Having got as far with the brakes as I could, I removed the bonnet and engine cowling, which allowed me access to the right side carburetter. I think the leak from the carb was because the bottom of the float chamber wasn't fully tightened, certainly I couldn't blow air passed the float needle when I lifted the floats. I put it all back together, refitted the carb to the engine, turned on the ignition and the pump started to make its whirring noise and no petrol leaked out.

I couldn't resist it, although the car is still on trestles, with a fire extinguisher in hand, I pulled out the choke, and pressed the starter button, there was a pop from the left carb and a cough. I pressed the starter button again and with a little pump of the accelerator pedal the engine sprung to life and settled down into a steady tick over, fortunately it seemed quite stable on the trestles.

It was noisy at the back end, in fact one of the fish tails dropped out of the silencer as I hadn't tightened it properly and it will definitely need some stuffing in the silencer boxes. The garage quickly filled with exhaust gas, so I switched of the ignition and waited for the garage to clear. I started it again, first prod of the starter button this time and a quick check of the warning lights and instruments showed me that all was as it should be. The only warning light still glowing was the green neutral one.

Yippee!!!What a result, almost a bit of an anti climax really, as it was so quick and easy, but that made a good change. I have decided to leave Marjorie on the trestles whilst I finish off connecting the hand brake and wiring up the rear lights, but I have still got to ordering them yet and with Christmas fast approaching I don't expect to get much more done until the New Year.

Aplogises for not having taken any photos of the first start up, not sure how that would have worked anyway, but I am sure there will be plenty on launch day, in the meantime I can relax in the knowledge that Marjorie has the power to go and the ability to stop.