Muhammad came round to give me a hand last night & we bled the brakes. Once bled Muhammad stood on the brake pedal (with the handbrake on as well) & I wellied up the rear hub nuts as much as I could. Even with the brakes on the rear wheel still started slipping round on the garage floor! Anyway they're as tight as I can get them so, hopefully, they'll be ok.
We also got the rev counter working. This was simple & only needed the rev counter wire in the SS1 loom (white/black) connecting to the wire in the Megajolt loom (can't remember the colour unfortunately). So I now have a clean fully lit instrument panel with a full complement of working instruments.
Next job before packing it in for the evening was to check the headlights - only one flipped up & worked as it should but the fault on the other was soon traced to a loose wire in the relay connecting block. This was easily sorted & both headlights now work as they should. All in all a good evening
Jobs to do this weekend (if I get chance) are: Refit the interior - centre console, arm rest, drivers seat etc. Fit the passenger's side wing mirror. It'd be nice to finally get the boot box back in as well - it'll start looking like a car again soon
Last Edit: Sept 21, 2012 7:57:06 GMT by pauluspaolo
Bled the brakes last night & just had to go for a little drive on the quiet roads round our estate It's a good job they're quiet as the car has no bonnet, no boot lid, no number plates & not enough air in the tyres - it goes (quite well in fact), steers fine (despite the flatttish tyres) & stops (locked the brakes up - oops). Result ;D
Last Edit: Sept 28, 2012 10:06:01 GMT by pauluspaolo
Micro update: I've fitted a pair of Spax coil over shocks to the rear of the car. These came fitted with a pair of 9" springs. The shocks had come off another SS1 so I thought that the srings would be ok. Unfortunately - as I found out on the little unplanned test drive I went on the other night - the springs are too short & the tyres rubbed on the arches
To remedy this I bought a pair of longer (10.5" )springs from Rally Design & I fitted them last night. I had to use spring compressors - which I hate - to get them on the shocks but it wasn't too bad a job really. I've not taken it for another drive but the new springs seem to have cured the problem in that there's now some clearance between the arch & tyre - not much but enough. I'll leave the car to settle a bit & will check in a couple of days (we're away so I won't be able to do any work on it this weekend ) Hopefully that's another job sorted
Not sure really. I've got a couple of theatre shows coming up so my evenings (during the week) will probably be occupied with set building - my weekends should be free though. I need to put the car back together & try to get all the little jobs sorted first. I'd also like to get it tuned (mobile tuner probably) so the mixture, idle, emmissions etc are where they should be.
So jobs still to do: Put proper clamps on exhaust. Buy air filter. Check suspension nuts & bolts for tightness. Check tyre pressures. Change oil & oil filter. Re-assemble car - exterior & interior. Get mobile tuner in. MOT. Insurance - might only insure it for the summer though so this might wait until next year. Tax - possibly the same as insurance.
Last Edit: Sept 28, 2012 10:00:56 GMT by pauluspaolo
I spent the weekend finally putting the car back together. So boot liner in, battery fitted, boot lid on & all is well I tackled the front then – the bonnet’s a bit awkward for one person to manoeuvre so my wife very kindly helped move it into position(thanks love). No real problems but once the bonnet was fitted it wouldn’t shut meaning I had to move the whole lot (bonnet & hinge assembly) forwards as far as it would go. No biggie really as it's all secured by six M8 bolts; once these are loosened it can all be moved forwards or backwards fairly easily & it now opens & shuts fine. It clears the engine too (with a 1/2” or so to spare) which is something of a relief.
After that I tackled the headlamp panel & nose cone which proved more awkward. They’re on but I’m none too happy with the fit. I haven’t managed to get nuts on the two stupidly inaccessible captive bolts, at either end of the headlamp panel, so it may all pull together when everything’s finally nipped up. The panel fit on SS1's is notoriously bad though - probably more so on an early car like mine - so it may be somethinng that I have to learn to live with.
Needless to say it’s not actually finished: * The centre console, column surround & instrument cover all need reassembling/refitting. * The coolant needs changing as it’s just plain water at the moment. * The engine needs servicing (plugs, oil & filter change) & then setting up – mixture, emissions etc. * The heater fan/blower needs sorting out. Plus there are also a few electrical/lighting problems to sort out: * The passenger’s side front indicator doesn’t work from the column switch; it works fine when the hazard warning light switch is pressed though so the bulb’s fine. * The passenger’s side front side light doesn’t work. * The driver’s side rear light doesn’t work. * The front fog-lights need refitting – I can’t remember if these ever worked so I’m not sure if the wiring is present for these or not. * The rear fog doesn’t work either.
I didn’t have chance to look into any of the above in detail but I don’t think any of will take much to sort out. I can then think about MOT, insurance & tax. It’s all come at the wrong time of the year though as I’ve had to pay the insurance on my daily car (Alfa 156 diesel) which I’ve also got to tax next month; then it’s ruddy Christmas. The SS1 may have to wait until the New Year unfortunately
Anyway have some photos:
The 2 pics below show a repair I made to the front mounting panel – it’s the first time I’ve used pop rivets on the car as I wasn’t sure how secure they’d be given the thickness of the fibreglass panel - they seem to work fine though.
Many thanks for looking & for your support - more when there's more to report
Hi all, it’s been a while since I’ve had time to work on the SS1 but theatre work’s finished for the year so I should have a bit more time to spend on it now. Anyway I had a mobile tuning chap (Hometune) come round to tune the car the other day. Despite the fact the interior's still in bits with only half a centre console & wires/switches hanging everywhere I thought it'd be nice to get the engine tuned so that I knew the car stood a chance of passing the emissions part of the MOT test at least. Initially I thought the (actually very nice) chap was a bit negative about the car – why didn’t I stick with the Mondeo/Escort injection/ecu set up or buy an MX5 instead etc etc - but he eventually started warming to the car (though I don’t think he actually liked/approved of it) once he'd found out that it’s not a complete bag of nails/deathtrap & it’s something a bit different & only really going to be used as a bit of fun. Besides which what's it got to do with him what I do with my car?! My car my way!
Anyway he’s managed to get the car running very nicely indeed despite not being able to check/set everything he'd have liked to due to various complications (see below). What he did manage to do is adjust/set the CO (carbon monoxide) to a decent MOT passing level. Needless to say there are some issues, most of which shouldn’t be too difficult to rectify, but one may prove to be rather more problematical.
The 4 easy(ish) problems first: 1.) This one is already cured – he discovered whilst trying to adjust the mixture that the idle jets were fitted the wrong way round I.e. the idle jet for the primary choke was in fact the idle jet for the secondary choke & the idle jet for the secondary choke was the idle jet for the primary choke. This resulted in massive over fuelling with a hydrocarbon reading of 11,000 when he was expecting see a reading of 300(ish). Once he’d swapped the jets round the idle improved immediately & adjusting the mixture screw actually had some effect – with the jets fitted incorrectly screwing the mixture screw in fully had no effect & the engine continued running when it should’ve stalled. 2.) Another problem that’s hopefully cured - he went to check the colour of the spark plugs after a little drive round the estate but found that the plug holes were full of oil - to the extent that you couldn’t see the spark plugs! Oil conducts electricity & as the plugs are paired in holes on the Zetec engine this could have been leading to a slight misfire the car has. I removed the cam cover after he’d left & found the cam cover gasket had broken, I’ve replaced it so, as I say, hopefully that’s the problem cured. 3.) There’s a slight leak from the coolant hose under the alternator. Not had chance to look at this in detail but it shouldn't be too difficult to sort & I’ll try & have a proper look at it tonight/at the weekend. 4.) Whilst tuning the car he had it pointing uphill slightly & found a petrol leak – I never noticed/smelt a leak whilst the car was sitting level in the garage so I’m thinking that it may be leaking past the sender gasket.
Problem number 5 might well be more difficult to solve: 5.) He discovered an air leak on the joint between the inlet manifold & cylinder head. I’m hoping that the gasket’s given up the ghost for whatever reason (it was new when I fitted it). I suppose that there might have been a bit of old gasket left when I fitted everything but I have my doubts about this as I’m sure that both the inlet manifold & head were clean. Worst case scenario is that the inlet manifold face isn’t entirely flat so it isn’t sealing properly. If this is the case then I’m not really sure what can be done about this apart from getting it skimmed flat or using gasket gunk to try & fill/seal the gaps. Can anyone tell me if I should have used gasket sealant when fitting it all together? I always thought that inlet manifold gaskets should/could be fitted without sealant?
To be honest despite the above problems & that he couldn’t fine tune the car as much as he’d have like to I consider it to be money well spent if only for him discovering & rectifying the idle jet problem alone (I'd never have found it). I took some pics of the oil filled spark plug holes but I’ve left my camera in the garage (numpty that I am) so I’ll have to post these tonight/tomorrow.
Opinions welcome as always
Update of an update: Just in from the garage - started the car & checked for leaks from the cam cover gasket - no leaks. I also tightened up the hose clip on the hose under the alternator - no leaks now. I also checked the tightness of the inlet manifold nuts & managed to get a 1/2 turn or so on each one, I then tried some WD40 on the gasket & the engine didn't try to stall so it might be that I've cured it (hope so!). I've also uploaded the photo I took of the oil filled spark plug holes - as you can see there's no sign of the spark plugs at all & it took a lot of loo paper to soak up all the oil
Oil filled spark plug holes – no sign of the spark plugs themselves I’m amazed the car ran as well as it did to be honest!
No reason for this other than it’s a good view of the SS1 – maybe it’s not such a bad looking car after all …. from some angles at least!
More when I've done more
Last Edit: Nov 23, 2012 8:37:56 GMT by pauluspaolo
Apologies for the quality but I took this video (approx 1 min long) of the car running & sounding quite nice over the weekend - no massive clouds of blue smoke & a nice even idle
Last Edit: Dec 10, 2012 13:22:25 GMT by pauluspaolo
Quick update - the car's taken a back seat over Christmas/New Year but I haven't lost interest in it & I have done the occasional job on it. All the lights (except the front/rear fog lights) are now working - one step closer to getting it through the MOT - & I still get a buzz when I start it up & I need more petrol now I've taken it out for a couple of quick trips (5 mins max) & it drives well without any major faults that I can detect.
As my friend keeps telling I need to make one last effort (a weeks work at most he reckons) to try & then I can get it MOT'd! Gulp!
Well for the first time in ages I've managed to get some time in on the car - a bit too cold to spend all day on it but I've fitted a choke cable (which makes starting the car much easier), refited the instrument binnacle surround & steering column surround ......... which now doesn't fit properly. I'm not sure what I've moved but it doesn't fit anything like as well as it did - not that it fitted that well in the first place! I've also adjusted the fit of the bonnet but it still catches slightly on the headlamp panel when opened (it's loads better than it was though & will do for now).
I've also refitted the headlamp panel after making some some hidden fixings. I drilled & tapped (M5) down the centre of a couple of allen headed flange bolts. I then ground the head of the bolt down but left enough of an allen key hole to get an allen key in so that I could tighten the bolt up. These then screw into captive threaded inserts on the end of the L/R armatures & hold the bumper in place. The M5 bolts screw into the M8's & help to hold the headlamp panel in place, along with the 7 (6 in my case) x M5 bolts in the trailing edge of the panel & the 3 x M6 hidden bolts accessed through the radiator opening. I hope that makes sense? It's difficult to describe & I didn't take any photos - both the headlamp panel & bumper seem secure & the panel fit isn't that bad for an SS1 (though it's still pretty bad). The headlamp panel needs tidying though as I've scratched it in a couple of places & there are some hole to fill - I'll post some photos of it all when I get chance.
I also washed the car (so it can start rusting again) for no other reason than it was nice to get rid of 4 years of garage muck & dust.
I've got a busy April (we've couple of weekends away & I'm best man at my friend's wedding) so I can't see me being able to spend much time on it until May. Hopefully the weather will be better then & I can finish the various little jobs off
Not sure if this link to the latest viideo of it running works or not - apolgies for the rubbish sound quality:
Today I put the SS1 through the MOT & it passed first time with no advisories :-)
The car's a hoot to drive - goes & handles well with very direct steering - but it's noisy (I expected it to be to be honest) & you can feel every ripple in the road, so there's some fettling still to be done :-)
but it's noisy (I expected it to be to be honest) :-)
Even the standard SS1 was quite noisy, so I can imagine yours would be more so? It's great to listen to your engine note instead of music when your in such a fun car though.
I booked last Thursday & Friday off work. Thursday was spent finally putting the car back together, with the MOT booked first thing on Friday. This would give me the rest of Friday & the long bank holiday weekend to rectify any faults the MOT threw up.
Well I’m happy to say that the long weekend wasn’t really needed as the car passed first time without any advisories So the weekend was actually spent gardening & doing a few minor jobs on the car – like refitting the headlight surrounds (one of these still needs painting so isn’t fitted yet), tidying up the interior & sorting out a leaking headlight washer bottle.
I tried taxing the car straight after the MOT but the lady at the PO wouldn’t accept my insurance certificate so I went home & did it online meaning that I can’t drive the car until the tax disc arrives. The tax disc in the car now ran out in 2009 so I don’t want to risk driving the car until the new one’s arrived. All a bit frustrating really but it’s taken me 4 years to get this far so waiting another week or so isn’t a biggie really.
Have some photos:
Last Edit: May 29, 2013 9:15:52 GMT by pauluspaolo
Well I had quite an interesting day on Monday. My friend Matt & I took the SS1 to be tuned on Dennis Vessey’s rolling road over in Barnetby, near Brigg, on the east coast towards Hull (about 60/70 miles away from where I live in Leeds). It was a pretty boring trip down on the motorway & I took it quite gently as I wasn’t sure how the car/engine would behave at speed. The fun started after we’d pulled off the motorway & missed the turn we should have taken. We soon realised our mistake, stopped to check where we were & I turned the engine off while we checked the road map/fired up the sat nav. When I tried to restart the car we were greeted with nothing but a click. Oh B*99*R!! The starter motor’s jammed against the flywheel (again) & no amount of tapping/clouting it with a hammer or rocking the car whilst in gear would free it off! I rang Dennis & he said he’d send one of his mechanics out as we were only a couple of minutes up the road. After a seemingly endless wait - probably no more than 30 mins - said mechanic turned up & he couldn't freee up the starter motor either. He ended up towing us to the garage which was terrifying as the tow rope was far too short & he was doing 35/40mph - I'd have had no chance of stopping in time if he'd had to brake suddenly! Anyway we got there in one piece but he had to finish the job he was doing on a Lotus Elite before he could start on my car. All of which meant that the rolling road session was somewhat delayed. Apparently I need to fit some spacers between the starter motor & the engine to reduce the throw of the starter pinion.
Anyway the SS1 was eventually repaired - as soon as he'd removed the bolts & started taking the motor off you heard the pinion snap back into position - & the car was reversed onto the rollers. The ignition map I'd installed (for a 1600 cross flow - the only map I could find for a single carb'd car) was junked & a new 3d map written over it. It all seemed very simple but even so I didn't understand half of what I was being told! Having said that pressing computer keys is pretty simple & it’s obviously the knowledge/experience/expertise of the operator (programmer?) behind the key pressing that makes all the difference. Dennis pronounced the engine fit & healthy (phew) &, despite the rubbish map I'd used to get there, not far off from where it needed to be; though he did fit a different main jet & emulsion tube to the carb. He thought the single Weber suited the car & said that it made a nice change to see a Zetec without twin 40/45’s or a set of bike carbs on it. Once he'd fitted the different jet & emulsion tube, he set it all up on the engine analyzer/rollers before asking me if I wanted him to do a power run. They actually call them no-power runs as the results seldom match the expectations of the owner! To be honest I was more concerned with getting the car running right than knowing what the power was but I said yes all the same! The max he got after a couple of runs was 108bhp (87bhp at the wheels) with a nice flat torque curve. Obviously this is nowhere near the 130(ish)bhp I’d been told to expect from this engine but Dennis said that was about as good as he could get it with the carb & exhaust I was currently using. He said a better exhaust manifold might free up a bit more power but for what I wanted the car for (road use) it was about there.
The upshot of all this is a much snappier, free revving engine & a much faster, more responsive car - it just feels so much more together now & is much, much nicer to drive. On the way there 70mph had seemed more than fast enough but on the way back I was often overtaking stuff & 70mph felt far too slow. The maximum I saw was 95(ish) but sanity, & the wish to keep my licence, prevailed & I backed off to a more sensible 70/80 – at these speeds the car felt absolutely fine with plenty in reserve but it had also felt like this at 95.
I like the car very much & it reminds me greatly of Matt’s Westfield – he drove the SS1 yesterday & said the same except that it felt a bit heavier (it is) & the suspension was more compliant than it is on his Westie (it probably is). The SS1 has a boot, roof & doors with wind up windows so in that respect it beats the Westfield hands down. If there’s a downside to the SS1 it’s the noise (especially at speed) & the heat build up in the cabin. Having said that we did nigh on 200 miles in the car yesterday (including the rolling road mileage), could still hear each other at 70/80 on the motorway & got out at the end feeling fine and, apart from the starter motor incident, it didn't miss a beat.
So would I reccommend Dennis Vessey? The answer is an unreserved YES! He's not exactly a people person (maybe he was having a bad day) but he did a great job, was interested in the car (though nobody seemed very impressed with the megajolt software) & obviously has vast knowledge about how to get the best out of a car. All the mechanics I saw/met/talked to were friendly, helpful & genuinely interested in the car (especially the inlet manifold - they all asked me about that) & just cars in general. They also seemed to love old motors & there was all sorts of interesting suff being worked on - Lotus Elite, Triumph TR4 (I think), Triumph Vitesse (sounded fantastic), Ginetta G27 (built & owned by the mechanic who rescued me & powered by a Triumph straight 6) & when we left a Rolls Royce was just being put on the rolling road for a tweak/tune up. Outside were a couple of rally cars (Focus & Nova I think) as well as a Mazda RX8. It wasn't a particularly cheap day but I do consider it money well spent & part of what I had to pay was due to the recovery & repair of my car; if you can get there without having to be rescued it should turn out to be a fair bit cheaper!
what a great thread, keeping me motivated to get my SS1 finished off, its a 1986 so has the galvanised chassis so not half as much work to do as yours but enough for my first project!
what a great thread, keeping me motivated to get my SS1 finished off, its a 1986 so has the galvanised chassis so not half as much work to do as yours but enough for my first project!
Excellent stuff Annie - the weather's just about perfect at the moment for a soft top so hurry up & get it done Is yours a 1600 or 1800ti? Mine feels a lot faster than it did with the 1600CVH in it but I doubt if it's as quick as an ti - having said that I've never driven a ti so can't say for sure.
I took the hard top off to drive into work this morning (don't have a decent enough soft top to replace it with at the mo) & my wife didn't like it She'll just about tolerate the car with the hard top on (it gets very warm though) so if I want to go to the coast in it I'll have to go on my own I think! Unfortunately my daily driver (Alfa) has failed its MOT & is out of action so I'm "forced" to use the SS1