First part fitted to the chassis is the differential. This thing has taken the longest and been the most painful donor part to de-rust and clean up, so it's with some satisfaction that I now have it attached to the car. I had to drill 3 holes in the top bracket in line with the plate on the chassis. It sits slightly below the mounting plate and needs to be packed out with washers when fitted which made marking the holes tricky. I got it just about right and only needed to file a little bit around each one to make it fit. I may need to look at the underneath of the bracket to ensure there is enough contact between the washers and the bracket for it to be secure. Right now it is solidly on there, but i have noticed that I missed a bit when painting it - no-one could ever see it but I'll know it's there... Do I take it off and re-paint it? Or leave it on and try and forget it? I think I can forget it.
The kit contains all the suspension wishbones and associated bushes and crush tubes. Given my complete ignorance of many mechanical engineering principles prior to the start of the project, I don't mind admitting that I didn't know the real purpose of the crush tubes and had assumed that these should fit tightly in the bushes and the movement was on the bolts. Not so. The crush tubes are there to be 'crushed' into the bracket on the chassis and remain rigid while the nylon bushes rotate around them. It all make perfect sense now of course, thanks to Richard from GBS for pointing it out.
I had spent at least a day putting in all the bushes crush tubes, only to take them out again a couple of weeks later to drill out the bushes so the tubes rotated inside them. They are still a tight fit and you can't turn them by holding them with your fingers, but if they are clamped in a vice they can be seen to stay still while the bush rotates around it. Another lesson learnt, I wonder how many more there are to come.
I don't have enough room in my tiny garage to put all the suspension parts on the car just yet so they are all ready to install when I have the space. the engine and gearbox are taking up a lot of room along one side of the garage so I should think that when I get that installed I will be able to put these parts on.
Further work on the wheel hubs and uprights have now seen them painted nicely in gloss black. I am surprised how well they have come up actually, and they will look good on the car. I tried to fit a wheel bearing - WARNING: a 3 minute video on youtube is not sufficient training to undertake this sort of activity without the help of someone who knows what they are actually doing. I got one rear bearing half in before it stuck solid. I can confirm some colourful language was used at this point, along with several threats to sell everything and move to Australia. However, a local garage has kindly agreed to fix the problem and fit the other bearing properly. Nice people.
Further on and I have started fitting the brake lines. This really signifies the start of the main part of the build and it's good to see some sort of real progress at last. As lines leave the master cylinder and spread out around the chassis, the rear line needs to cross over with the front ones which is only really practical as they enter the tunnel. I have made the routing as neat as I can, but still having them cross there is a little untidy. When they are all secured down I think it should be OK. The clutch cylinder is very close to the brake cylinder so the rear line needs to route around it which makes for some interesting bends. At the recent Donnington kit car show I collared Simon from GBS to talk about how best to go about running brake lines. Turns out the tools I bought to supposedly bend brake lines neatly are not as good as gently forming the bends by hand. I have taken his advise and am very pleased with the result. Many thanks Simon.
I have just put in a big order with Kit Spares so I have shocks, fuel tank, fuel lines and other fuel system components on the way. I also went to the factory on Friday to test drive the factory built Mazda based Zero... Review of that coming in the next day or so, but suffice to say if you are thinking about buying a kit car - get up there and drive it. Your decision will probably make itself.
