Wiper Motor

With the dash connected back up, I was able to test the wiper motor function. The good news was that it worked. The bad news was that the motor parks the wipers the wrong way and it made a hell of a noise.

Reversing the park isn't a major issue, its more of a pain as the whole thing has to come back out.

With the motor on the bench, its a case of removing the retaining cir clip, popping the motor over onto its back and undoing the securing screws. This gives access to the motor mechanism. There is a little white plastic bit that has to be taken out and put in the spare hole 180 deg opposite where it is currently fixed. Swap it over, grease it all up and refit in reverse order.

Note White Plastic 'Stop' in opposite position

Greased and ready to go

Before fitting back into the car, I greased the whole length of the spiral gear wire to try and eliminate and noise and i made sure the bends in the bundy pipe are as smooth as possible.

I also double checked the wiring of the wiper stalk and noticed there were a couple of wires incorrectly connected. This probably explains why when I did the original test that the slow speed didn't work. There is also some confusion over the wire for the horn and the washer which I need to clarify with GD.

Bonnet Strut

 The worst thing about this build as it nears completion, is that I am faced with all the jobs that I have been putting off because I didn't fancy doing them any earlier for one reason or another.

The next item on this list is the boot and bonnet struts. Having had a good look at a factory car that was on the GD stand at Silverstone Classic, I felt somewhat more confident and decided to take on the bonnet strut first. Andy said he could supply a bracket for the boot strut, so I will leave that again for now.

So on to the bonnet strut. I had originally planned to fit gas struts but because I have fitted a stainless header tank for my washer bottle, I don't have the room to do this now.

The standard strut has a bracket at both ends. One of these needs removing as it bolts straight through to the inner wing.

Note bracket removed from one end of top strut

The bracket is removed as the lower mounting is simply bolted onto the inner wing

Positioning of the strut is critical as you need to ensure that you get the maximum amount of opening but without the strut actually fouling. The lower mounting position is fixed first. This is broadly in line with the chassis cross member that supports the header tanks. I drilled a hole and then fitted a Rivnut and bolted the lower mounting loosely in place.

A bolt runs through the strut as is locked in place against the rivnut using a plain nut. A washer is then fitted between the locknut and the strut and a further washer sits between the bolt head and the strut

I put the strut in its closed position and then opened it back up about 10mm to allow some free play. I then put some masking tape on the bonnet and wing and marked the centreline of the upper mounting bracket onto the tape.

Centre line of upper mounting bracket

Centre line transferred to bonnet

Before doing any drilling, and remembering that mantra about "Measure twice, drill once", I used some duct tape to test fit the bracket in place and check the operation. Once satisified this was all ok I drilled the holes to take the rivnuts.

Centre line transferred to underside of bonnet and hole drilled for Rivnut

Rivnuts fitted - they don't sit flat as the bonnet reinforcement is curved

Dome heads finish the job nicely

Voila!!

Horn

Another small task that has been dragging on is the fitting of the horn.

I bought a really loud horn at Stoneleigh and given the position of the oil cooler thermostat, the logical position to fit this would be on the front right hand side of the chassis. Most people seem to go for this location even though the standard loom terminates on the near side.

The horn comes with a fixing bolt that is intended to run through some sheet metal then the horn body bolts up tight against it. As I didn't want to mount it on the body, I needed a bracket that could be fixed the the square box section of the radiator mounting frame.

As luck would have it, I had a piece of exhaust mounting bracket which I was able to bend into shape and cut to length.

All fitted, looks neat and sound loud.

Job done!!

Steering

As the dash is back out, its important I get all the various bits and bobs in and around this area sorted before doing the dash final fit.

An area that was left really rough for Blyton was the steering wheel/shroud set up. Ive been using an old Vectra steering wheel while the car is still in build and I had planned to just cover over the centre boss with padding for IVA as I have a nice wooden Mota-Lita replica wheel to go on once everything is finished - for some reason you cant have a wooden wheel for IVA - but I'm seriously thinking about buying a leather trimmed wheel for use on track days. If I go with this option I will use this for IVA rather than the scruffy old Vectra one.

Old Vectra Steering Wheel

For Blyton, I had fitted the column shroud in place without trimming in leather and it was a bit of a tight fit so I have opened up the hole for the ignition barrel and the deburred the apertures that have been cut for the wiper/indicators stalks. I also had to cut an opening for the column rake adjuster. It looks like GD have enhanced the shroud lately as some of the earlier builder seem to have had to cut all of the holes out.

Note aperture at rear left for the steering column adjuster stalk

In order to trim the shroud, I taped the joins together and then sprayed all over with contact adhesive. I then lay the leather (starting at the bottom so the join wouldn't show) onto the shroud then slowly wrapped it around. I then trimmed the edges where they met and waited for it all to dry before fitting the stainless facia to see what it would look like

A slight concern I have now is how i actually fit this over the column with it all in situ :( Oh well a problem for another day..

Talking of problems, another one identified at Blyton was with the way I had fitted the dash and steering column there was no room to allow the column to tilt and as a consequence the wheel was sitting much too high and partly blocking the driving view. This will be rectified by putting spacer washers between the steering column and screen support bar. The aperture for the steering column in the dash will also be opened up by cutting a lower bottom edge of the opening before doing the final trim. 

Electrics

A couple of electrical problems that came to light at Blyton were that the Charge Warning light wasn't illuminating on the dash and when I switched off the ignition the car was still running until I removed the key from the barrel.

I was pretty confident that the wiring was all done right but decided to double check the whole of the front section of the body loom, the connections to the dash loom and the engine loom connections.

The steering column shroud was a pretty tight fit and rubbed a little on the ignition connector block so I removed this and connected directly to the ignition terminals making sure that all the connections were fully insulated. This has given much more space and allowed the loom to route along the actual steering column and back to the dash support bar.

The engine loom was wired correctly with one exception which I am hoping will fix the charge warning light problem. There is a separate section to connect between the alternator and the starter. It appears I have got the the connections at the alternator end the wrong way round.

I'm hoping to get the dash back in the car in the next few days so all will be revealed then.

One other issue I have is that there is a white wire coming from the GD engine loom which is meant to connect to the Coil + terminal but as I'm using an MSD box the coil connects directly to the coil. At the moment this white cable isn't connected and the car seems to run ok. Waiting for an answer from Andy at GD about this.