Build day 6

Diff

I have been a bit concerned that one of the seals on my Subaru diff was cut and there was a matching ding in the faceplate; I guess the diff was dropped at some point... When I tried to take the plate off the diff the bolt snapped leaving the bolt shaft in the body of the diff. Maurice from the OzClubbies forum, another Birkin owner here in Brisbane, had left me a post about the diff so I called him and he gave me a contact who specialises in Subarus. I dropped in on Robin Berardo at PerFOURmance Motorsports in Slacks Creek and he was happy to repair everything and expected to have it ready in a week.

Steering and Pedal Box

To allow for the new location of the top steering bearing I have had to make a new front panel for the pedal box (to seal the foot well). This took me most of the morning to measure and cut. It's interesting how long each job is taking; like installing the handbrake cables took just as long as the wishbones and upright for any corner.

Front harness and rear harness

I have also loosely installed the front and rear wiring looms to get an idea of the placement and any additional parts I need (like p-clips and adhesive cable ties). So far I have three things I'm thinking about:

1. The best place for the rear harness to enter the transmission tunnel. I can see where on the harness; after the wires for the hydraulic fluid level sensors but before the two grey (slate) wires for the reverse switch which connect near where the gearshift is attached, but I need to work out the best place in either the firewall or transmission tunnel to drill a hole and feed through the harness.

2. The tray in which the relays and fuses are mounted fits tight into the hole in the shelf above the engine bay however it fouls against the harness going forward to the engine bay and back to the dash. I am making a bracket for the relay/fuse chassis to avoid this and this will also give me somewhere to mount the ECU.

3. The harness in the engine bay seems a little close to the headers. I am thinking of thermal lagging the headers as this will protect the battery and the harness.

Harness through firewall into engine bay

Front to rear harness connection

Wiring colours

When I were just a lad and Noah first discovered girls, I was an apprentice telecoms tradesman with Telecom. When we weren't working 27 hours a day down t' mine, our instructors would drill us on the wiring colour code; blue orange green brown slate blue-white orange-white green-white etc. This way each individual pair of a 50 or even 100 pair cable could be identified. Slate because grey could be confused for green and also violet because of purple and pink so you could identify a colour with a single letter. (but then why black, blue and brown?) The resistor/electronics code uses a similar rule. Anyhoo, I'm just wondering why it seems the auto electrics trade does follow this rule.

Build day 5

Warning: Todays's blog will contain several retractions of smugness.

Lower rear wishbones

Continuing on the rear suspension I installed the lower wishbones. This time (given I've done six wishbones to date and these were the last - doh!) I checked the bolts in the chassis mounts first and used a rattail file to open up any that were interfering. It was still a struggle with the engineer's hammer seeing plenty of action. Regardless unless someone convinces me otherwise it seems to me the quality of the Birkin is still reasonable.

Rear Uprights

From here it was onto the uprights.

Upper rear wishbones

This was straight forward until I realised that I had oriented the left upper wishbone on the position of the stabiliser bracket which was for a RH unit (see yesterday's post for an image of the wishbone). I thought I had installed both wrong so I took them back out.  However once I had them out I realised I had two with the stabiliser bracket located on the same side. So I flipped one bracket and refitted them and the uprights.

Handbrake

It was here, fitting the handbrake cables to the uprights with circlips that it came to me that I hadn't fitted a circlip when I installed the handbrake short cable. So I disengaged and loosen the cables to the uprights and removed and replaced the short cable the right way so the circlip holds it in place. So much for my "grommet" smugness yesterday.

Diff

With the uprights in place I started to prep the diff and quickly worked out the the threaded shafts had to come out to fit the bracket from the chassis. This is why I try to concentrate on not being too eager; I took to a shaft with adjustable pliers and broke the pliers.

So I got myself a brew and mulled over the problem. This is my solution - I hope it is not too violent for a public blog.

I drilled through the shaft and used a center punch and hammer to unscrew the shaft. Then I fitted the chassis bracket.

At this point I shut up shop as I had a movie date with the missus.

Build day 4

Steering column

Started with some clean-up from last weekend, fitting the blanks over the holes left from moving the steering column,

the top steering bearing with new rivnuts,

and pop-riveted on the footwell steering seal.

I was going to refit the pedal box but I need some 1mm aluminium to make a new front plate to suit the new position of the aforementioned footwell seal so I got started on the rear suspension which itself starts with the handbrake.

Handbrake

Below are the handbrake components.

First I fitted the handbrake unit itself to the chassis on the transmission tunnel, then the triangle to the chassis base plate in the back and then fed the short cable from the back to the cockpit and fitted it to the triangle and the handbrake. 

Feeding the short cable is a bit of a puzzle until I took the grommet out of the chassis, fed the cable and its boot through the grommet and the chassis holes in the channel under the car and then once everything else was in place, refitted the grommet.

It was about here that Jeff popped in to see what I was up to and show off his neat little roadster. Thanks for the spin, Jeff.

Fitting the longer cables was also a poser...remove the boot and one nut from the shaft, feed the cable through and into the collar and voila.

Fit both to the triangle and handbrake dealt with!

Upper rear wishbones

Next the upper wishbones:

I had a some difficulty fitting these until I had loosened all the bolts in the rear chassis which made it awkward but possible with much threatening of violence (but only a small amount of your actual violence).

Around here I started banging on my fingers (the actual violence) so I decided it was "mistake time" and called a walkout.

Build day 3

Steering column

Today I drill/cut the holes to re-locate the steering column for the Zetec engine. I disassembled the two halves of the bearing housing on the firewall/footwell wall and removed all the steering column apart from the shaft which fits through the dash.

I used the housings to work out dimensions and found the outside holes for the bolts are 9mm, 60mm apart and in line with the centre of the 40mm hole for the bearing which is located 30mm from each outside hole.

I then cut a new shim for the new hole and two blanks to cover the inside and outside of the old one. I tried to  use a holesaw to cut the 40mm hole and struggled with it, vicious bloody thing, I ruined two shims before I gave up and used a hand jigsaw (so call me old school).

Bottom left is the original

I was a little concerned with the stability of using the holesaw when it came to the car so I made myself a guide/template from scrap ply which worked well.

I worked from the engine bay side because I felt it was much more accurate to measure out on the aluminium than the fibreglass. Also I used the top of the sheet as the reference which is why the old location probably looks a little canted.

So with my new holes cut, I re-installed the bearing, shim, and housings to the new location and re-assembled the whole column.

Inside the footwell looking up

You may notice the steering rack is not installed completely; the rack mounts were missing from the pack so I am waiting for these mounts to finish the steering. I also need nutserts to move the bearing between the dash and the footwell bearing; a visit to Trade Tools I think.

Diff

I am still working towards the rear suspension installation so I got out the wire brush and cleaned the diff and painted it.

Good news...tempered

I submitted an Application to Modify to the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) a couple of weeks ago as prompted by Earl Gilchrist at Autotechnica Qld; he's the local Individually Constructed Vehicle (ICV) subject matter expert. Yeesh! I thought the defence industry was acronym mad...

Today I received initial approval to construct my ICV.

I can certify my vehicle under Queensland's Code of Practice - Light Vehicles only until 30 April 2013, after that it comes under the National Code of Practice for Light Vehicles Construction and Modification.

Can't see me having a completed vehicle by the end of the month so I guess it's the National Code.

Build day 2

Today I've installed the upper front wishbones, the stabiliser bar, the callipers to the front uprights, the uprights to the upper and lower wishbones and the steering assembly to the installed uprights. I've also removed the fuel tank in preparation for installing the rear suspension and the diff, and disconnected the steering and removed the housings for the steering column ball joint to cut the new holes in the panel to allow for the Zetec engine.

Upper front wishbones

The upper front wishbones were pretty straight forward. Some persuasion was required to install the rear bolt through the small free chassis frame and the bracket but nothing violent.

Front stabiliser

The stabiliser bar was also undramatic...although I had to loosen it off to get one locating boss in position past the upper wishbone bracket.

Front uprights

Next the uprights; after fitting one and then realising I had to fit the callipers which meant removing the wheel arch frame, for the other one I removed the frame from the uprights and fitted the callipers and reassembled at the bench and then installed...much easier. It is in the Birkin manual but I missed it flipping back and forwards between the old and new revisions.

Steering assembly

As you can see in the previous photo I've also fitted the the steering assembly. I had a bit of a "doh" moment where I tried to feed it in short end first...

I have also disconnected the stabiliser bar since that photo as without the dampers (I think anyway) the stabiliser bar linkage hits on the steering assembly. 

Day one...I suppose

Paint

The chassis is back from Smash Attack. A beautiful job; the finish is high gloss and deep with no overspray onto the black space frame.

Lower front wishbones

As recommended, I started with the front suspension and the lower wishbones. Below are the supplied components. They look a little different from the documentation with a larger bracket to attach the damper and the stabiliser bar.

Also the rear attachment point is different with a right angle plate with a hole for the M12 100mm bolt as well as the tube welded through the space frame.

I noticed on some of the other build diaries that getting these bolts in place with all the required washers was awkward and these were no exception. I finally got them in using a screwdriver to hold all the washers in place and then sliding through the bolts with some encouragement from an engineer's mallet...still was a bit of a mongrel.

Also for the rear attachment I figured the larger washer went closest to the bolt head outside the right angle plate.

So my first day of construction...