Topic

Well done, really well. It's a pleasure to read your description.
Thank you very much!

Saturday 5th April
I noticed that the exhaust silencer wasn’t hanging straight; the right hand hanger was not at 90⁰ to the body, so I got a ruler out and made some checks, and was then confident something was wrong.
Having checked the down pipe was aligned correctly and the sub-frame was straight in the body I concluded that the strap bracket was causing the problem. So I opened up the holes:-

And refitted.

It looked a lot better, not at 90⁰, but then the bracket on the silencer is not at 90⁰, the exhaust pipe was however horizontal.

The gap between the silencer and CAT was only 1mm!

Then it was time to refit the heat shield. Fitting the missing bracket for it was no problem, but I couldn’t get the heat shield on with the silencer there , so off it came again. The first attempt didn’t go well, because the repair brackets I made didn’t quite align to the mounting holes on the underside of the car. So they were opened out from 6mm to 8mm, and went back on OK.
So third time round the silencer finally all done.


Next up was the air filter box modifications. I had decided I wanted both air feeds to come from the passenger side vent, so once the air-box was out of the way, 1m of induction hose was routed from the side vent, over the hand brake cables

The rear pipe was removed from the air-box, and screwed into the induction hose.

And the air-box lower down over it

Once the air-box was manoeuvred into place the rear pipe was secured, and then the standard front hose was routed to the side vent and connected to the front of the air-box.
The new ITG filter was fitted…

..and then the top went on, followed by the hose between the air-box and throttle body.

April 6th – 27th
It’s been a while since I updated the thread, mainly because I’ve either been driving the TF, or doing some of the DIY jobs that had been on hold for 6 months. So what’s happened?

Well Sunday the 6th was the day of the final assembly.
The rear bumper went back on only one snag, it’s a bit fiddly on your own, and I couldn’t get both the bolts to the crash cans in. Turned out that my little efforts to straighten and strengthen the bent tabs weren’t quite accurate enough , so I had to relieve one edge of the hole in the bumper to get the bolt in. But with that done it was fine. Incidentally all the bolts, nuts and screws used were stainless items.
Then the Daytona tail pipes went on. I choose to have them stick out slightly less than the bumper, so that if anyone does make contact in a minor “parking incident” the back box won’t get damaged.
With that done the insulation and boot carpet went back in, and the rear lamp covers were fitted. Followed by the engine cover, sound deadening, and the carpet.
On went the wheels and it looked like this.

All done!
With the car back on the ground it was time to take it for a short test , but I couldn’t engage reverse. So jacked the car up again, the lower cable was disconnected and rotated 1 complete turn anticlockwise, and it was connected again. Reverse was then working
With light fading I took the car for a short gentle drive to test everything was operational. The breaks felt a bit soft, so they were bled again. Everything else was ok. So I went for a longer test drive.

On Monday 7th I booked it in for an MOT test and to have the sill welded up. It didn’t need the MOT until mid May, but I figured that if I’d missed anything they would spot it, and either sort it or advise me.
Well it passed with 2 advisories. 1) clutch pedal rubber was missing (been meaning to replace that since last year, ), and 2) engine management light was on. That was a little maddening as I’d told them about that on arrive. It had come on during my test drive, so I hooked up to my cheap e-bay reader, and it told me the Evap canister was not connected. I’d disconnect and moved the Evap canister whilst fitting the rear induction hose, and forgotten to reconnect it . Despite several attempts at clearing the MIL it kept coming back.
Anyway the guy apologised and sorted it there and then. Whilst busy with that he paid me some compliments about the amount of work I’d done, so I went home happy!

I’ve done quite a few short journeys since, nothing more than 15 miles. The engine temperature has been stable, though I have had to top up the coolant a number of times. I also found some mayo on the dipstick, which gave me a panic, but having checked the oil regularly it’s not getting contaminated, so I think that was just down to some moisture in the system. I can’t find any leaks, and I'm getting plenty of heat from the heater, so I’m hoping the top ups were just a bit of air working it's way out of the system. As a precautionary measure Russell has been booked to have a look in May.

As the weather forecast was not good this weekend I resolved to finally paint the sill repair as the bare metal was starting the attract the dreaded tin worm. I spent an hour cleaning up the welds until it looked like this

I then applied some seam sealant, and after a couple of hours drying time some zinc primer to any exposed metal. Over the course of the week I will spend an hour each evening going through the usual paint steps, so that it’s finished in time for the weekend, when I hope we have some better weather!

Friday 2nd May
Having popped out each night during the week to apply primer, top coat and finally lacquer the sill repair is all done


left a little bit of masking tape on.

So Russell came on Monday 6th May to checkout the occasional loss of coolant, and to give him an extra challenge the starter motor had decided to fail on the Sunday before.
On went the pressure tester, good pressure and no sign of a leak. At this point I had to go in to join a conference call for work, but I could watch through the window.
Within 10 minutest the starter was fixed and the car was running! All done without removing the engine cover.
By the time my call was finished (about 45 minutes later) Russell was in his van, waiting to go to his next job!
He'd found a very small leak where one of the front hoses connects to the under floor coolant pipe.
Tightening the clip up stopped the leak.
It was a bit annoying as I had not touched the front end hoses during the rebuild project, but at least I can relax now that I know the leak has been found and fixed.
The problem with the starter turned out to be a dirty connection.

I've now done 300 miles since I MOTed the car at the beginning of April, and am looking forward to a nice warm and dry summer so I can do a lot more

So here ends the tale, hope you enjoyed it!