I had another couple of goes at starting the car whilst it was at Harry Harpic's, but it was still not ready to start. One problem I did resolve was that I had fitted the wrong coil. I had fitted an MSD one from a late Mini and thought that a coil was a coil (as it was i the good old days), but the Mini one actually runs coil on plug so effectively half the coil function is in the coil and half is in the plug-lead cap. Swapped it out for a Ford ENDIS coil which is what Emerald recommend and tried to start it again. This time my laptop would not connect to the ECU and I couldn't communicate in any form, so gave up at that point and handed it over to the professionals. Once at Emerald they quickly found I had only got 2 things wrong: I had the timing set 40 degrees out (likely to have been me playing with it when I was trying to get it started) and I had the wrong spark plugs installed and they did not have the resistors on them as used in modern cars. Emerald got is started in no time at all and then put the car on the rolling road and gave her a good tune up. This is the Printout of the rolling road and I am very happy with the performance figures as I was hoping for 120BHP....
20200320_162552 by
Rob Neal, on Flickr
Back home again and we are now in COVID 19 Lock-down, so stuck at home, but I have plenty of work on so not got much time to work on the car, but did take it out for a cheeky spin round the block on some all but deserted roads to see how shee drove.....
First Video was filmed by my daughter in the passengers seat through a very dirty windscreen.
VID-20200324-WA0062 by
Rob Neal, on Flickr
Second one was by my neighbor who filmed me coming up the road.....
1585083256383_VID-20200324-WA0065 by
Rob Neal, on Flickr
I was really pleased with how the car drove, the fuel injection meant that it pulled really cleanly from relatively low revs and the engine has bags of Torque and drives much more like a modern car than an old car with carburetors. The 3.44 diff was also evident as with a relatively powerful engine and loads of torque the acceleration was rapid and although I only got into third gear I feel that it will sit well at motorway speeds without being at 5000 revs.
Suspension felt good too, steering not too bad although the turning circle is rubbish, but I can live with that as it only really effects maneuvering at low speeds.
So now on to the final list of things to do before it goes for IVA...but cant really spend much money on the car at the moment as my wife's business is on hold with the Covid 19 issues, but fortunately there is plenty I can do in the meantime to get lots of the little things sorted.
Things to do List
1. Refit accelerator pedal as it wouldn't allow full throttle due to the pedal hitting the bulkhead, think this should just be a case of pushing the pedal mount back a little....
2. Refit door frame on passengers side as it is not quite back far enough.
3. Refit door frames to doors using different mounting brackets.
4. Make and fit inner door strengthening panels.
5. Fit internal door handles
6. Fit door top capping's internal
7. Fit door capping's and window scrapers external
8. Fit spacer washers under seats to stop the seat-belts rubbing on seats
9. Measure wheel circumference and document evidence for getting speedometer calibrated
10. Resolve oil pressure gauge problem as it indicates oil pressure goes down when the engine revs.
11. Check operation of oil temperature gauge to ensure it works
12. Fit drivers side kick panel
13. Fit speakers into kick panels
14. Fit sound deadening throughout the car
15. Fit foam protection around roll-bar
16. Fit heater blower pipes
17. Fit door seals around doors
18. Fit under bonnet seals
19. Fit engine lid seals
20. Fix small oil leak on oil cooler fittings
21. Refit all engine tinware
22. Get speedometer calibrated
23. Fit speedometer cable
24. Make inner door panels
25. Make permanent fixings for the dashboard
26. Fit cover panel for center of dashboard
27. Find out why vacuum pump for servo is not working
28. Fit DAB Radio
29. Bleed brakes
30. Sort out gutters to see if I can make them round enough to pass IVA
31 Fit ashtray to dashboard