The period after Christmas is always pretty busy in our house as we have a number of family birthdays, this year was especially heck-tick as we had an 18th and two 80th's. But I did manage to get out in the garage this weekend for a few hours. The big event since the last post is that I have had the Engine Mounts welded up and painted so they have gone on nicely and the engine is hopefully now in its final resting place (almost). I have yet to drill the angle brackets which will be bolted to the chassis but this is the last job to do and then the engine and gearbox will be in. I also got the engine mounts removed from the cross member to give more room for the exhaust and also the oil filter, so that went back on and the front running gear is all now in place. As I have reduced the length of the TCA's I think once I get wheels on I may have to shorten the steering rack ends by about 20mm on each size as well.
Another couple of odd jobs that I have got finished over the weekend have been to re-mount the throttle bodies on the adapter plate and also shorten the hand brake lever.
When I originally mounted the throttle bodies I did it on the engine, bolting the adapter plate on first and then the throttle bodies. When I came to try and manually balance (using the wire feeler gauge method) I found that the throttle bodies were all at slightly different angles and by the time I got to the the forth one there was no adjustment left. So, I have now stripped it down, re-mounted the throttle bodies so they are all straight, re-bench balanced them and they are ready to bolt to the engine once the engine mounts are done.
When I originally mounted the throttle bodies I did it on the engine, bolting the adapter plate on first and then the throttle bodies. When I came to try and manually balance (using the wire feeler gauge method) I found that the throttle bodies were all at slightly different angles and by the time I got to the the forth one there was no adjustment left. So, I have now stripped it down, re-mounted the throttle bodies so they are all straight, re-bench balanced them and they are ready to bolt to the engine once the engine mounts are done.
When I had mount the engine and got it in place relative to the cross member and the gearbox was on its mounts I found that when in fourth gear the gearstick was fouled by the hand brake. So after a bit of head scratching I shortened the hand brake so it will all now work together.
Final item for this post, I managed to pick up a late model Mini heater (2 speed) on ebay, so that will be going in at some stage when IO get round to doing the plumbing.
Final item for this post, I managed to pick up a late model Mini heater (2 speed) on ebay, so that will be going in at some stage when IO get round to doing the plumbing.
