Feb 09 (Pt 2)

Day 10

Managed to find a few hours to work on the car today.

After MNR sending lots of different bolts to fix the front brake discs to the front hubs as the original ones they supplied did not fit, and none of the ones they had been sending actually fitting.  After 2 weeks of me emailing them pictures showing that none of the bolts fitted they realised that the hubs had not been helicoilied before leaving MNR (to reduce the thread size), so I had to send them back to MNR

They arrived this morning and as I had been waiting so long to get the front end sorted, I went straight into the garage.  After bolting the front end together and putting the wheels on I dropped the car onto the floor a major milestone I had been looking froward to.

 

Once on the floor I was able to get the steering rack fitted, firstly I had to cut the holes in the bodywork to allow the rack to fit into place.  I had to remove the radiator again to allow us to drop the rack in from the top through the hole on the passenger side and then back through to the drivers side.

When it was in position we secured it with the bolts supplied and the packers below the rack to give a tight fit, the only problem we have is that the rack extensions are too long as they make the wheels have permanent ‘toeout’.  It is possible I have been sent the incorrect extensions, but I will have a look tomorrow to see if I can cut these ones down to save loosing anymore time (again!!!!!!!)

 

Day 8 & 9

After waiting for the missing bits to arrive from MNR I had a really exciting morning when a parcel arrived filled with nuts & bolts, unfortunately that excitement didn’t last very long (again!!).  I had all the bits for the rear suspension but all the bits for the front where wrong, cue more emails and photographs to MNR.

As I had the correct bits for the rear I set about getting that fitted, once it was all built up it felt great like I had really made some progress for a change.

 

As you know if you have been reading my Blog due to continually waiting for bits, I have been jumping around a bit with the build and this day is no different.  I decided to complete some of the stuff that would usually be done later in the build, at least it will save me time later in the build (hopefully!!!)

I did a final loose fit of the interior panels so that I know they will just slide in when the time is right, I also marked up the tunnel for the savage switches and will hopefully get the holes cut this week.  I also marked up the scuttle for the clocks and savage switches and have started drilling the scuttle, something I had been dreading as you only get one chance. 

 

 

The fan was fitted to the radiator and just needs connecting to loom, while working at the front of the car I dug out the headlamp bar and headlights and fitted them – lots of small jobs but at least they are now complete.

 

As day 9 is to be spent working on the electrics I wanted to get the engine plumbing and fueling completed, so that once we believe the electrics are finished we can try and fire her up – they will have to wait for another day as I never got round to doing it!!!!

 

Well Day 9 started and it was the day I have been least looking forward too, the R1 Loom I have is in a bit of a state as it has previously been chopped around with wires just cut and spliced into others (not what Yamaha would of done).

I was told by Malc that it was in a bit of a state but that everything that was needed was in place (the loom was not supplied by Malc)

We started by taking out sections of the loom that would not be required as we are running all the car lights and switches from the MNR loom.  This was just a case of working through the wiring diagrams and tracing the wires back then cutting / pulling them through.

One of the main areas we where worrying about was the wiring around the main starter relay and ECU,  all of the blue / white wires had been cut and put into various connector blocks and did not seem to go to the correct sensors etc (as per the wiring diagrams)

We spent hours putting them in different combinations trying to get the clocks to switch on and to get the engine to turn over but it would just not go!  Greg and Dave from Winchester who are in the process of building 2 MK’s came over today to see how my build was getting on and ended up helping us with the wiring, eventually they went home to look at their wiring so that they could call us from their cars and run through the wiring.

After speaking with Dave we identified that the ECU and starter relays where not receiving any power and therefore stopping anything from working, we started tracing the power feeds for the ECU and starter relay and found that they had all been previously cut and bodged back together.  For some reason the connection was not allowing the current to run through or there was a break in the wire further up the line, so we chopped out the section of wiring we thought was the problem and hey presto she turned over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next week we go for the 1st start!!!!

 

 

Day 7

Well at last the correct suspension arms arrived with some additional bolts and fixings I had been waiting for.

The plan for the day was to get all the suspension arms on & all four corners fully built up so I could drop the car on the floor.  If I didn’t get this done this weekend I would be behind schedule and could possibly miss out on SVA and have to go for IVA.

First we started with the front NS corner and found out straight away that we only had 3 fixings for each side and not the 4 that are required, also the front lower fixing has to be a lot smaller than the other 3 due to the chassis rails being in the way and we didn’t have that bolt.  We decided to just put a spare long bolt in place and replace it when the correct one arrives, so we moved onto mounting the discs in place but then again found we didn’t have any fixings for them so this is where we left the fronts

So we moved onto the rears, firstly we mounted the suspension arms in place as we had all the fixings for these and got the OS completely built including drive-shaft in place, again we came across the age old problem of not having the correct or any fixings at all – we tried to mount the rear calipers only to find we didn’t have the mounting screws for the sliding bolts

We then moved onto the the NS rear and where gutted to find that the threads had gone in one side of the upright, we still mounted the side to ensure we had all the fixings, but as per usual we are missing the top and bottom bolts for the shock mounts, as per the fronts we have used incorrect bolts to mount the the suspesion whilst I wait for the correct bolts to arrive.

MNR have reacted very well to the defective upright and have asked me to send the defective one back and they will try and get a repaired one back to me for the weekend, at least if I can get the required parts before the weekend I may be able to get all four corners sorted before the weekend, but unlikely

By the end of the day I was not a happy man and was wondering why on earth had I bought a kit and that I should of just gone out and bought a built car, at least I would know that I would have all the fixings etc!!!!

But to try and chill myself out I set about mounting the exhaust downpipes and collector (I knew I had these bits!!!!!!) and afterwards I felt much better!!

Then to keep the theme of good things going I fitted the front sections of the interior panels which I had cut previously