The bonding on the nosecone has set nicely, securing the grille in place. Today I got the new tyres fitted on the transporter trailer, and the springs for the brake pedal, and one of the new exhaust silencers arrived. I installed the brake pedal spring and it seems to work great. Will try to get more done tomorrow.

no idea what happened to the last post, it was all nicely laid out before I published it. With this being a blog, I can't edit anything that's already been published, oh well.

Had a look at the braking system and it turns out that the stickinh brakes are being caused by the brake pedal not returning to rest properly. This also explains why I was having difficulty finding the pedal when test driving it. All I need to do here is fit a spring to help the pedal reset after every use, I've ordered some springs and it should be a fairly simple job. I've installed the tonneau cover, looks good too. I've re-wired the lambda sensors so that the wires now pass through the side panels, as they were catching on the trailer when loading /unloading the car. I've removed the nosecone and fitted a mesh grile I made, bonded that on today so the glue should be nicely set tomorrow. I replaced the fan belt with a slightly shorter one and so far it seems to be working well. Still left to do then: replace missing thermostat oil and filter service re-fit nosecone modify brake pedal add an extra silencer to each exhaust replace the tyres on the transporter trailer buy a set of wheel strops to lash it down properly. oh, and give it a good clean. One more thing, I was contacted today by Ian Stent of Complete Kit Car magazine to pay up for their track day in May. So it's now official, it's booked in to go on track on Saturday May 14th.

Well since the big high of Saturday when I drove it, I've now made a new list of things to do to it.

1. Replace sticking rear brake calipers
2. Replace fan belt with a shorter one (it's squealing a little)
3. Modify Brake pedal (I just can't find it quick enough)
4. Fit a mesh grille to the nosecone.
5. Install the tonneau cover
6. Modify the exhausts to quieten them
7. Charge the battery.
8. Replace the transporter trailer tyres.

So all in all, not too bad of a list of jobs to do, to be honest I'm quite happy with it. I'll get it all done over the next couple of weeks and then run it again.

People, today is a BIG day. Today, I drove it for the very first time!

Stormy came over and helped me get it out of the garage and into a large deserted private car park where I drove it up and down slowly in first gear to make sure everything works as it should.

Oh my goodness it's FAAAAAASSST!!!!! Brakes are ok, but need bedding in to improve. That was, until the the rear brakes stuck on. Not sure why, but at a guess I'd say I need new calipers. It's also too loud, I need to find some way of quietening it down a bit, or no track is going to let me run it.

Stormy and then got it loaded onto my home made transporter trailer (see my other blog) after some playing around to work out a procedure for doing it. A car running this low to the ground is difficult to load, but we got there. Below are a couple of pics:

I had a practice tow of the trailer as well, got about 400 yards before one of the ancient tyres on it blew out. Not too bothered about it as there's no damage to the rim, and the tyres have to be changed anyway.

This morning I installed the mirrors, and gave the speedo some attention. After speaking with digital speedo's, who sold it to me, I was informed that my setup wasn't quite right. So after re-making the sensor's mounting bracket, and fitting the sense magnets into the rear drive shaft by drilling small holes for them, it's working - sort of. It picks up speeds up to 34mph then for some reason it goes back down to 14, then 9, then 0. Not sure what's wrong now.

I also marked out the vinyl for the tonneau cover and gave it to Yvonne to sew up for me, she informs me she will do it for me tomorrow.

Stormy is coming over on Saturday to help me get it out for the first time and test drive it.

Picture time again!!!

Here's the seats I made.

Here it is with the bodywork re-fitted, looking good isn't it?



And one more, just to prove the front indicators are now working:

Well it's one of theose few occasions I can say - mission accomplished. This morning I fabricated a bracket to replace the fan belt tensioner spring and installed it, and got the belt nice and tight.

I then proceeded to fit the nosecone and the front indicators, and it's looking great. I'll post up a pic or 2 tonight.

So here's the list of things left to do:

Install mirrors
Make and fit tonneau cover
Get the speedo working
Fit back wheels and put it back on the ground
test drive - and test it's transporter trailer

I'm sure the test drive will throw up a few problems that need sorting before I take it out on track, but that's a list I'll come to later.

Getting excited now.

Had my usual few hours in the garage yesterday. I polished up all the painted bits with the new mop head on my grinder. To be honest, I'm not very happy with my efforts on the paint. It's got runs, there are pinholes in it, grit in other places, and it just doesn't look great. I think once i've run the car over the summer, I'll take them all off and give them to a bodyshop to be professionally re-done.

Anyhow, I've refitted the arches, and despite the shoddy painting, they actually look good, the metallic blue against the aluminium bodywork. I'll take some pics when the nose is back on.

Yesterday I also did some odd jobs on th back axle that have been waiting for ages, I fully welded the bottom shock mounts and fitted high tensile bolts and locknuts to them too.

This morning I popped to halfords and bought a shorter fan belt for the front of the engine. This is to remove the power steering pump for the drive, it's not connected to anything and will seize up if i run it for any length of time. I left it on the engine to give me the option of using it, but for now I've decided against it. So anyway, I got a decent belt, and re-routed it, but I now need to modify the tensioner pulley as it's spring is now working against the belt in it's new position. I'll remove the spring and replace it with a solit bracket, there will still be some adjustment in it's mounts. Hope to get that done tomorrow.

Once that's done, i can refit the nosecone and install the front indicators, and crack on with the last few jobs i need to do to get it finished!!!!

Had another good session on it on Sunday, got the harnesses fitted - they really hold you in there!

I also removed the rear wheels and arches and prepped the arches for paint, giving them, their first coats of plastic primer in readiness for some colour.

I need to pop to my local mchine mart to get a polishing mop for my angle grinder, so I can polish all the painted bits now.

Had a great day on it today, gave the nosecone and front arches their final coat of laquer today, then went on to completely make the seats. I glued foam over the bases and back, then covered them all with vinyl and mounted it all in the car. I'm really happy with them, they look good and are very comfortable. The driving position is good too.

Ok picture post!

Here's the bonnet folded and fitted, not quite happy with the gap you can see down the side of the nosecone - hope to sort that soon.

Today I started to make the seats, plywood bases mounted on some 25mm SHS steel.


Here you can see the detail of the steel supports under the seat bases.

And here's the nosecone after 2 coats of colour - I finally settled on Peugeot Aegean Blue. After this pic I applied 2 coats of clearcoat and it's looking really good. A few hours of polishing and it'll look great. Also painted the front arches at the same time.