A Riveting Weekend

Hello! Update from that extra "stolen" day thanks to the Bank holiday, and then work done this weekend

The B/H was put to good use, in so far as drilling, sticking, riveting and putting a cable tie in; around 100 cable tie bases. Not fantastically exciting, but necessary. Results as thus:

Many, many hours to achieve this

 The next was to remove the diff and refit it - as I said previously I wasn't happy with the way it was sat, so I made up some M12 spacers to fit in the BMW diff bushes. Essentially, what was happening, was when tightening the M12 mounting bolts there was a gap between the bush and the chassis, so it was squidging up the bush in very peculiar ways and making it sit uneven. With the spacers, it now sits lovely.

So then onto the next couple of days, and I used that time to clean and prep the engine and gearbox for install.

First off, clean off the gearbox of all grime. Did this using a wire brush attachment to the drill, a small wire brush, and then finally engine degreaser. 
Clean down:

wire brushed and then degreased

Next, seperate engine and box and retrieve clutch

Hmm, fairly thin and pressure plate not looking too hot. Looks like a replacement is in order, makes sense to do it now rather than later!

Checked the dual mass flywheel and that seemed to be OK - gave a bit of movement and some firm resistance. My mechanic chum Leads me to believe that's what they're meant to do, so that can stay then.


Engine without 'box attached

Next up, get the gearbox on the bench and finish off the cleaning. Then get the paint out :-) this time I opted for the air compressor for spraying paint, first up 3 coats of primer:

And then some lovely black gloss

mmmh shiny

Quite pleased with the result on that. 3 coats of primer and 4 top coats, it's looking great and should be quite hard-wearing. I appreciate that it's quite opulent and extravagant really (painting bits that aren't really going to see daylight), but if truth be known, I'm almost creating work for myself whilst I save pennies to buy the next set of components from GKD, and as I already had the paint and the gearbox on the bench, it was rude not to.


I also did the same trick on a few of the brackets sat around on the shelf:

Before...

Painting...

Home made paint rack from a clothing hanger. Don't tell the missus!

And the results to be shown next time as they weren't dry when I left!


I then turned attention to the engine, and used the wire brushes / degreaser to achieve this

Unsure whether to paint the engine, as it will get quite warm - especially on the exhaust manifold side. Might price up some VHT paint and see it if it's worth it. Otherwise, it looks quite good in clean bare aluminium.


The rest of the day was spent sorting through a few things to list on eBay. The front windscreen fetched a measly £7... thought it would get more than that, but at least someone's gotten a bargain I 'spose.


I'm beginning to realise that I'm running out of jobs to do now with the components I've got, and looking through the build manual, I may end up creating more work for myself in the long run by doing things out of sequence. So that means I have to crack on and get some more bits sold and generate funds to buy the next chunk which is the suspension components. Realistically I believe I can fit the engine and gearbox, and then the project might be in need of an influx of materials!


At this point I am still enjoying it though, the promise of open-top motoring in a powerful and light sports car is a very good motivator of course! But thankfully, even the dull job of drilling something like 90 holes and pop riveting them wasn't too much of a chore.




Thanks for reading, see you next time!