Cracking on

Playing catch up as ever, today has been one of running around, making things, collecting things and fixing things. Its not a lot to talk about but quite a lot to do, if you know what I mean! Richard O’Donovan is here again, along with Mike Latimer. Cheers lads.

Oil pump (number one on the list), was stripped and rebuilt by the manufacturer at ZEN this morning. A simple pinched o-ring was soon set to rights. On dropping the oil from the tank, Tim found ally swarf. Despite being cleaned 3 times, we clearly had not got the tiniest last bits out of the tank! So, off with the tank and all the lines to be re-cleaned, checked and cleaned again. A slow but absolutely vital process. Although the pump had been turned over, the medical grade filter inserts in the pick-ups ensure that no nasty debris can get any further. Amen.

Next was speccing and ordering the turbo oil feed line and speccing and manufacturing a washer to keep the oil pump drive belt in place (a simple off the shelf item that despite plenty of advanced notice ordering, was still not available from the supplier!) Next the remade exhaust manifold had to be wrapped (no time for ceramic coating which would always be our first choice) and then start getting everything re-assembled and back on.

Exhaust manifold on - a mix of ceramic coating and wrapping

Turbo is on

Space at a premium as ever!

Super tidy engine loom via David Wallis

Talking of which… David has done a thoroughly tidy job on the loom. He has been texting me quite a lot these last couple of days. Variations on the theme of ‘is the engine running yet?’, ‘has it fired yet?’ and of late just simply ‘now?’ He is like an expectant father stuck away from home! I keep telling him I will let him know when it is up and running. I’m sure I can have some fun with that

Its 6:30pm now, so about 36 hours until we definitely need to be well on our way to Snetterton for the final showdown. Here is the to do list, slightly smaller than the one I posted this morning…

36 hours to go!

I am off out now. Hopefully when I get back, the car building fairies will have popped by I will leave you with a funny quote from someone working on the car…

‘Cars? I fookin hate em. Horse and cart, that’s the way forward! If anything goes wrong, shoot it through the head and sell it for glue!’