Build Day 28

Radiator

I fitted the radiator with the front brake line brackets; a bit fiddly with all the spacers, washers etc.

Mixer unit and accelerator cable

I have modified the accelerator cable bracket at the rear of the intake butterfly valve to the air mixer unit and fitted the carbon fibre chamber to checked for clearances beneath; all OK.

I have also had a bit of an experiment with making my own collar to fit the cable to the butterfly valve assembly. I know, it's a bit of an abortion but I at least know my idea will work and I'm on the right track; just need to increase the length slightly and take more care bending for the next iteration.

I have also drilled the pedal box cover for the cable.

Oh by the way for all the cynics and sceptics out there; I sat in the drivers seat to try out the accelerator pedal and I can't even touch the front of the foot well but I think I will have to try and find moccasins or some such as there ain't a lot of boot room in the pedals.

Distributor

I went to fit the distributor assembly only to find that mud wasps had made a nest in one of the bolt holes hence the WD-40 and muddy cotton buds.

 

Build Day 27

Mixer Valve

On the Birkin there is a chassis member that runs between the engine block and the air mixer unit and it fouls against the motorised mixer valve mounted to the inside of the unit. As one of the mixer unit bolts is up against the drivers foot-well, the mixer unit has to go into the engine bay with the engine. 

I filed out the bolt holes in the mounting flange of the valve to mount it slightly offline and cut a gasket as directed by the Birkin documents. 

Let us just say that I had a fine old time re-mounting the valve on the mixer unit. So after many dropped bolts and  a very uncooperative gasket I was just about to tighten the mixer unit in place when I remembered that I hadn't tighten the top bolt of the valve. Bugger.

So started taking the mixer unit off again...I had one of the underneath bolts almost off when I realised the back of the socket wrench had come hard up against the aforementioned chassis member. Couldn't flip the wrench to re-tighten (and get the wrench off) and because of the location couldn't get at anything to screw the bolt back in. At this point I became most eloquent in my use of language and let us say voluble.

In the end I spent quite a few hours and two hacksaw blades cutting the head of the bolt off and recovering the wrench...

...and so my plans off documenting the process with photographs also went south with the exception of the following.

Front and rear uprights

Torqued the remainder of the upright nuts up including the big rear ones that require 180Nm. I left these nuts as castellated and applied a split pin.

Wishbones

So finally I was able to get the car on the ground and torque the wishbones. The front mounting for the lower front wishbone is recessed and doesn't fit a socket so I had to wedge a large screwdriver in for this one.

ON THE GROUND!

Build Day 26

Rear Uprights

Today I started work on torqueing all the suspension up. I've sourced Nylocs to replace the supplied castellated nuts; a bit of a trick as the rear lower nut on the rear upright is a M10 x 1.0 thread unlike the M10 x 1.25 for the remainder. I had to remove the brake calipers and shockies to get at them.

The front lower nut on the passenger side rear was hard up against the upright casting so I had to loosen the camber adjustment at the top to fit it.

I discovered I'm going to need a 22mm ring spanner to do up the lower nuts on the front upright, there not a lot of spare space.

Build Day 25

Alternator

The alternator I purchased is supplied with a v pulley which I replace with a multi-v type.

Serpentine belt

The engine actually came out since my last post, thanks to Jeff, and back in again thanks to Stewart. I've fitted the alternator, idler pulley assembly, brackets and belt...

...and the starter motor...

...the water rail...

...and the drive shaft.

Build day 24

Engine

The following sequence is composed of frames from a video my father-in-law Stewart took of us dropping the engine into the car. (I'm the one in the grey T-shirt.)

We fitted the engine mounts after their bolt holes had gone below the chassis rail on the driver's side. (The chassis rail on the passenger's side was unbolted and removed for this.)  The mounts will foul to some extent on the rail so I think this worked pretty well for us 

I had removed the ZETEC's air unit to simplify the job but found that its bolts aren't all accessible with the engine in. So you will see that we raised the engine enough to refit the air unit. Then we found that the mixer valve under the air unit fouled on the rail. I removed the mixer valve and re-fitted the air unit and proceeded.

I wanted to fit the engine on the ground however my engine crane wouldn't fit under the car so I put it back up on stands.

Otherwise with some care and attention the engine slid into place pretty straight forward.

Build day 23

Wheels

I took delivery of my wheels and tires just before Xmas. Birkin have set up the car to have wheel nuts on the front hubs and bolts on the back. The holes in the wheels were just a little tight for a standard 17mm spanner and I wanted security anyway...Autobarn had keyed SAAS wheel nuts to suit and after a couple of days I found Keith 4 Wheels had hex socket wheel bolts.

Starter motor

Fitted the gear box  to the engine only to find the starter motor didn't fit due to the web on the front of the Raceline sump. I burred the web back a bit, made sure the starter would fit and tried again. All good!

Flywheel, Shyster, Clutch, Clutch plate and Gearbox

I used a flat blade screwdriver on a bolt I temporarily stuck in the bellhousing-engine matching plate to hold the flywheel while I torqued the bolts for the flywheel and then the clutch cover plate.

As I had the engine on the bench I centred the clutch by eye and feel; gearbox went on reasonably easily.

Engine, flywheel, clutch, clutch cover plate and gearbox all assembled; ready to drop into the car.