1st – 7th June 2025
Slow progress at present as I try to get to the point of dropping the car down onto its own wheels on the garage floor. Due to working in a very small garage, there’s no room to put an engine hoist at the rear of the car to lift it off of the rear-most trestle, and its way too heavy to lift on my own. Neighbours who might be able to help are away so necessity is again the mother of invention. I ended up building a platform from dense concrete blocks (and a few ratchet straps) to raise my trolley jack nearer to the underside of the diff, making the the lift a lot more stable. The front of the car was also ratchet strapped to its trestle, to make sure it didn’t slide off.
Before dropping the car down some other jobs to do first – fit the rear tub (temporarily) and fit the new and shiny 13mm hub centric spacers on the front hubs so that the wheels can be fitted. The first job went much better than expected, the second less so. The Hub Buddies spacer kit (here from Demon Tweeks) was very nicely made and came with 8x long hub studs but these were way too long (73mm – the standard is only 40mm). I ended up using the original studs for now and in order to fit the wheels, removed the Wilwood calipers. These need to come off anyway to fit the brake pads, and the wing stays.
The car is still in the air until I’ve cut down the 73mm studs to 55mm, and whilst I’m at it (and because I’ll have the M12 die out to clean up the threads on the studs), I’m also going to shorten the two lower ball joint horizontal bolts as like the rears, they are far too long. Here are some pics!
8th June 2025
Spent today cutting down the front wheel hub studs and lower ball joint horizontal bolt, which all went very well.
Then decided to cut the hole for the exhaust pipe exit from the engine bay. After measuring thrice and cutting once, all went well albeit that the ‘U’ channel put up a robust defence against being fitted!
13th – 14th June 2025
Tidied the garage having rolled out the car to make room for gearbox paint and engine paint / fettling. First time I had to use the key in earnest, to release the steering lock. I have to add that compared to the MX5, this car is seriously light albeit there’s no engine and gearbox installed yet!
Gearbox was painted with two coats of grey etch primer followed by two coats of POR-15 Top Coat Glossy Clear.
19th – 20th June 2025
Engine ancillaries stripped off and engine now ready for cleaning, servicing and paint.
Whilst dismantling the ancillaries, I also took some time to note what the connectors were for at the front of the engine, next to the upper timing cover. Here’s what I found:
Some of these might be relocated / deleted when I get to putting the loom into the engine bay – we’ll see!
21st – 23rd June 2025
Quick update on the last few days build activity:
- Painted the oil sump / pan and camshaft cover. I used three coats of VHT primer followed by three coats of VHT ‘Cast Iron’ engine enamel.
- Refurbished the gearstick / shifter turret bushes with a kit from BOFI racing. Used this excellent YouTube video as a guide.
As ever, here are some pics:
