It's been a few days since my last update, so here's a fairly big one for ya!
As promised, here's the finished extended clutch release pivot. Not my tidiest welding....
Pushes the release arm forwards by a good couple of inches ;D Just a small extension to the release bearing itself, to stop it from moving too far, and falling off the release arm.
I did a small job whilst I was waiting for it to stop raining, of fitting the fuel return line. Salvaged the steel pipe from the XM, and re-bent it to suit the scimitar. But it also needed a feed into the tank - easiest way to do this, was via the sender unit. Weirdly enough, I picked up a sender with a pickup line from a carboot the previous week, for £1! Re-bent the float arm to give the correct range of movement, then swapped over the senders
Made a start on the gearbox mount after that nice little job - unfortunatly, the main bolt sheared on the LDV gearbox mount!
That meant, re-using the LDV mount was now out of the question... jolly pain in the backside.
So, had a look at the V6 mount, and figured out a way of using that instead. Turned out to be quite a good option!
Now I didn't have to try and make the LDV crossmember fit the scimitar (would've been...interesting) I had to modify the scimitar crossmember, as the new support was 10cm further backwards. Got 2/3 through it, and ran out of chuffing gas!!I forgot how little work you can do with the disposable bottles...
Still one side to properly weld up, and finish the side bracing (made from the removed sections of scimitar crossmember, 3mm thick steel!)
So, the next day, I fitted the welder with nasty-nasty gasless wire (yuck!) and finished welding the gearbox mount. Using gasless wire is so damned ugly - everything gets covered in spatter, and just looks naff!!
I had to slightly reduce the length of the clutch release arm pivot, as I'd slightly over-estimated how far it needed to go. It was stopping the engine bolting upto the gearbox!
So trimmed down the spacer (a bit of PVC pipe) and all was good to go!
But after lots of trimming of the bulkhead, even more measuring, something unfortunatly had to go....
So, when it runs, it'll only be a measly 40-ish bhp
But, should be damned economic! lol
Something that's not really a "mod" but it made moving the car over the crane/working under it SO much easier:
Just swapping the front and rear wheels over!
Gave enough clearance for the crane to move underneath,without the help of bricks, and also meant I could quickly clamber underneath, without the aid of a hydraulic jack and axle stands! ;D
The engine bay needed a bit of "clearancing" to let the engine sit back far enough - nothing too drastic mind you, just a bit of trim really
The exhaust tunnel however, did need quite a substantial chunk taking out
After chopping out those chunks, the engine satquite nicely!
Just getting the engine
IN, and lined up enough to have the gearbox mount, bolted up to the chassis, took literally an entire day!! Did make me realise how much of a monstrous task I'd attempted to undertake...
The nextday, I loosely bolted the propshaft up, and bolted the gearbox to the mount - thankfully, my research was right, and the propshaft was exactly the same fitment! ;D The massive hole in the exhaust tunnel made this much easier than normal, as I was sat in a rather comfy chair, rather than scrabbling around on the floor, with bits of 40 year old crud falling in my eyes. With it held in the correct position, I Made a few more measurements, ummed and ahh'd for quite a while, then got the grinder and welder out. A few hours later produced this:
The standard upper-mount came with a form of side-steady, which would've been rude to not use again
The lower mount will also be brought into use, but the intermediate driveshaft bearing support needs to be lopped off for clearance first....
The passenger-side V6 mount had to be lopped off too, as it interferred with the oil filter...and put a large hole in it whilst I was fitting the engine up
Ah well, lesson learnt there
I'd also managed to destroy one of the coolant pipes too... who the hell makes them out of brittle plastic anyway?? As this was above the flywheel, and there was no way I was taking the goddamned engine out again, I spent the best part of an hour and a half to get the damned thing off. A steel plate was made up to replace it, but I've misplaced my instant gasket atm
It was at this point, I made a horrible realisation. The engine had no vacuum pump!
The XM used its own hydraulic system for brake assistance, not a brake servo. So, nabbed a quicklift with my dad to the local scrappy, and came back with an assortment of coolant pipes, and a throttle cable and alternator off a Rover 220! The throttle cable was woefully short on the Scimitar, and the one off the Rover is now actually a bit too long, but it works fine! But the alternator has a built-in vacuum pump, to aid my braking woes!
But...
The Rover alternator, is easily 3-4" longer than the XM item, and there simply wasn't enough space to mount it anywhere! So, I started stripping it down...
Then a bit more....
And after employing a 9" grinder (my dads) to cut the centre section down, for the internal splined shaft, a bit of filing, more bashing and grinding later..
I'd made an electric vacuum pump! The damned thing worked too!!!But alas, the drag was too much for the motor, and it was clearly straining - I doubt it'd last more than half an hour before frying itself to death. I suppose a more powerful motor would be a solution - but a quicker solution (and cheaper, and easier!!) is to just remove the remote servo entirely..
Besides a bit of extra plumbing of fuel and coolant, that's pretty much as far as I've got - with one day to go!! But my dad's taken pity on me, as for the past 4 days, I've been leaving at 9am, and coming back at about 10:30pm - doing nothing but the car! Not even stopping for lunch/dinner/snacks. It's not been nice - so he's decided to let me rest, and is instead giving me a lift to Manchester fromNorfolk on thursday! Load all my stuff up into his car, then drive back
Then do it all over again the week afterwards, whilst I stay up north with the other half in Sheffield, to move all my stuff into the new house ;D
So, the car's gonna sit 90% finished for a couple of weeks, whilst I faff around 'oop North. It's nice knowing I don't have to rush it all now
Oh yeah, and the "new" doors, have decided they don't want to stay attatched to their hinges... Thankfully, I'm beyond caring with aesthetics, so the outer skin will be chopped off over the hinge mounts, a new chunk of metal will be reintroduced, and then a bit of the old skin, screwed over the hole. Balls to it! ;D