Water works

A minor update today, but as a milestone has been met, I figured it was worth posting about; finally the water cooling system is complete.

I posted earlier about switching to a bespoke radiator and that meant reworking the pipework at the front and making some custom brackets. The facilities at work came in handy again for the brackets as they have a proper machine to apply the 90 degree bend that I needed rather than me just twatting it with a hammer until it fit. So many thanks to Steve for sorting that.

The pipework was fairly easy too, luckily I had enough spare bits now to do the necessary joins.

At the rear, the pipework does get awfully close to the exhaust manifold, looking at some pics I notice that others have wrapped theirs, but there's no way I'm getting that bastard off again to do that, so I'll see how it goes and maybe fashion some sort of heat shield in the future. 

I did have to move the rear pipework to make way for the fuel system, but it was only changing the angles a little so that worked out ok.

So there we have it, another milestone complete. I'd have finished the fuel system too if the place I ordered the clips from had sent the right amount, god bless eBay.

I now look forward to 4 years in the future when I can finally fire up the engine and put some heat cycles through it all and play spot the leak.

The final engine mount...

Today I'd like to talk about one of the engine mounts, which turned out to be a lot more of a struggle than it should have been. The mount in question is the one highlighted in red in the picture below. You'll notice that it's one of the larger mounts and one of the first to go in...

I know, it needs a clean...

As you may recall, getting the engine in was a bit tight, and the bolt was put in place then, but as it involved a lot of brute force and grunting at the time I just wanted them in place and I'd fit the necessary spacers afterwards. Mistake number 1.

You see once the engine had settled everything got even tighter, so when I pulled the bolt out into the position in the pic above, the engine moved just a millimeter or two. I'd taken it out to put the correct spacer in as that plastic one in the pic is clearly not the right size. This is where mistake 2 comes in. You see, due to the length of the bolt, it fouls on the chassis meaning you can't actually get it out without moving the engine which I'm never going to do again. So that meant, if I couldn't take the bolt out, I couldn't fit the spacer.

Oh well, I'll just pop it back in again and add it to the list of worrying things to fix later. No, wait, the engine moved didn't it, that means that the bolt won't go back through. Plus, because the chassis is there, no matter how mad you get, you can't hit it properly with a hammer.

So I got my Dremel out, only my Dremel isn't like the nice mains powered one I borrowed from work, mine is a wiener little crappy battery powered one that cost me about £8 from eBay. 

Sometime later, I'd shaved the paint off the chassis and just about made enough room for the mount to slip back through. I then cut some spare rubber hose, slotted it around the part where the spacer should go and tightened it all into place. It's not perfect, but the hose is squeezed so tight it'll absorb any movement, I'm sure it'll be fine.

At last, all engine mounts in place.

Not the most exciting story I know, but these are my daily struggles, one bolt can take an hour!

In my last post I mentioned that the throttle cable that I have is way to short, well after reading some useful build logs on the Tr1ke forum, I urm have to admit that the cables I have aren't exactly throttle cables. In unrelated news though, I now know how the handbrake cables attach. Now to order a throttle cable...

If anyone is reading this who isn't on the MEV forums, then I'm currently hunting for a helping hand. I'm based in Birmingham and am quickly running out of things that I can actually do myself. So if you fancy giving a hand, either just advice or mucking in, then drop me an email at mark.connop@gmail.com.

April 2015 Update

It's been some time since I last posted, but don't worry, you haven't missed much, I'm still some way away from sticking it in a gravel trap just yet...

Progress has been slow, very slow, way way too slow. The problem is that I have no clue how to do stuff, so it's been a lot of pottering around doing not a lot and then a break of a month and so on.

So what have I done? Well, the cooling system is mostly complete, I changed my stance on this pretty close to completion. I was originally going to use the bike's radiator and then realised I'd need a header tank to actually fill up the water as the rad sits quite low compared to the engine. I ordered a custom header tank and went with a slightly higher than standard pressure cap (I should refer to some science at this point as to why I did that, but really it was down to Googling and a shrug of the shoulders). This meant that the pipework involved now no longer matched how it was on the bike. I needed a diagram.

Plan A: Using the 'Busa's radiator

After checking this out with the forum lurkers, I carried on with this plan, and pretty much had it all complete, however after reading other people's experience and noticing that every car that RTR had at their place didn't use the 'Busa rad, I decided to swap the radiator out for something a little more upmarket.

I chose the Radtec alloy radiator and after a quick call to their HQ some money changed hands. At the time of writing, I don't have it yet, so that's still to be done, but the rest of the cooling system is all in place. Time for a new diagram:

Plan B: Now with less lines!

Some incomplete pipework, I've been just as lazy at taking pics
as I have been writing this blog.

There are extra bonuses to this plan, I no longer need the small pipe running the length of the car, so that frees up some tunnel space and saves me a bit of weight, plus it makes the system a little simpler to understand. No doubt I'll have fun making the brackets to get the radiator to fit, but how hard can that be, right?!

Other than the cooling system, last year I decided that I was never going to fit in the nice lightweight moulded seats that comes with the kit. Now I quite like being shoehorned into a car, but those seats were just not going to work unless I spent 40 hours a week watching exercise videos starring the cast of TOWIE and then having a double hip replacement. Instead I went to see the good people at GSM Performance near Nottingham and spent a bit of time in their showroom with the staff there. I have to say, they were very helpful, and I decided on the Cobra Monaco Pro seats that a few people have in their Tr1kes.

The front wheels are on to weigh down the front end.
At some point I'm going to have to think of a way to get the
car off the stands.

These have now arrived, I fit in them, they fit in the car, I just don't quite know how to fit them. Ideally I'd put them on the chassis, but if I do that I'd have to go without fuel tanks. If I move them forward, then I'd have to mount them on the floor, and I'm pretty sure the floor wouldn't like that. So I'm probably going to have to make some extensions to the seat bracket so that they can fit to the chassis. Just don't tell the FIA.

Now I know roughly where the seat is going, I found a place for the handbrake, that's now in place, although not cabled in because, you guessed it, no clue how that stuff works.

Fuel next. That's got to be easy, a couple of tanks and a pipe to the pump, right? Getting the tanks in wasn't too bad actually, although some of the holes I needed to drill were impossible to get my drill into, so I borrowed this rather handy right handed drill (it works in your left hand too).

More tanks than a Brad Pitt film

After a few more holes to allow pipes through, the tanks were physically in place. And this is where I'm at with the fuel as I've no idea how to pipe them all together. The schematic for the fuel system on the 'busa isn't much use as it doesn't have twin tanks, and I need breathers, and swirl pots? More research needed.

Some little things; I decided that I should put the throttle body back on the engine and then I could fit the air box. The throttle body was a little tricky at first but overall, it was ok once I'd loosened off all the fasteners. The air box could then go on, but there was no point until I'd cabled up the throttle cable, so I just tried it on, then put it back where it had been sitting for the last 18 months.

So the throttle cable, how does that work then? I received two cables in the kit, I assume one is the throttle, the other the clutch? But neither are even half the length I need? I can't see anywhere to attach the cable to the pedal or retain it even if I drilled a hole myself. Looking at some photos, I still don't have a clear idea, but could have a go at attaching it to the pedal, but what's the point as it isn't long enough, should I be attaching it to the Busa's cable to make one super cable? Plus I seem to remember there being several (3?) cables on the bike. Two for the throttle, one for the choke? Not sure there, best leave that.

I'm sure there are lots of other things, such as the removable steering wheel boss, brake calipers and so on, but that'll do for today's update. I'm hoping to have another play tomorrow (especially if that rad turns up), maybe start hacking away at the nose cone.