So now we wait...

Hello everybody

So the application for a first licence / registration certificate has been sent off... just over 2 weeks ago now!!! Given the weather at the moment (which if you're not in the UK, is glorious sunshine and warm, sunny all day every day) it's incredibly frustrating to just sit there and look at it!!!

In the meantime I decided to have a look at the few post-IVA mods I wanted to do. Largely driven by the ignition barrel failing spectacularly and the key getting jammed in the lock. I'd left it in permanently whilst I was going through IVA because it started to get a bit stiff - lucky I did because it failed completely on the way back from the re-test. When I tried to remove the key I just heard a "crunch" and a "snap". So the first job was to get the wretched thing out.

There's a neat trick with a bobby pin that allows you to get the ignition barrel out in about 10seconds (if you have the key); Steve from Tullinge has literally just done the same -  but alas, that just wasn't working for me, something was pretty badly broken in there. Therefore, the only option was to drill, hammer and chisel it out. Made a right mess, which will have to be covered up at a later stage.

no pic because it took forever and left me hot, bothered, and looks a complete mess! I also removed the steering lock in the process, as once the ignition barrel is deleted, you have to be careful the lock doesn't engage accidentally whilst driving. I'm not going to post that here because it's alarmingly simple to defeat one of the OEM security features - but there are a scary number of youtube videos which tell you how to do it!!

I wanted to fit a kill switch as a matter of urgency - these things have saved my skin on a number of occasions over the years - Once stopped some car thieves dead in their tracks (because there was no power) and allowed me to save a Land Rover that developed an electrical fault and was half on-fire! So I set about getting all the bits:

 I re-used the original battery cable from the E36 (there's tons of the stuff, the battery was in the boot) and went to a local battery place who crimped on some ends. I also bought a "MEGA FUSE" (awesome name) as I didn't like the idea of battery cable with unlimited amps crossing back and forth through bulkheads without any protection. Now it will blow at 225A.


Stuff from the battery shop - crimped cables, isolator switch and mega fuse

I also sourced a switch with a "top-gun" style missile flick cover - you'll see that in a minute. I already had the Engine Start switch on the scuttle switch panel; but not wired in.

So that's all the bits, next I had to work out how to wire it all in.

I wanted the kill switch to provide +12V power, the ignition to be switched on the "missile" switch, and the engine to start on the button. I'd also need to include the AM antenna from the original key housing, and have the key present to authorise the EWS each time you start the car.

With the ignition switch dismantled, and looking at the wiring diagram I figured it out:
 

Red is +12V live, green and violet go together and they operate the iginition and the car accessories, the yellow and black sends a signal to the EWS module and then onto the starter motor. Other 2 wires are redundant and related to ignition position 1 (not used, e.g. for radio etc.)


So having figured that out, it was time to design and make something. First, mocked   in card:



 

 

 

Looking something like it. Next, get the manly 12" grinder out and go nuts:


 

After much metal bashing later, transferred my card design into steel:

 

And tested all the components for fit (which they did).

 I used steel for two reasons, basically it was what I happened to have in the workshop; plus I thought I might have to weld a few features on to attach it to the  car. As it happens I could have used ally because I riv-nutted them and they worked fine. A bit annoying in the end because it's actually quite a lumpy weight, but not to worry. Can always change it later.

At the same time as this process I decided to lengthen the wiring to the switches - the loom is a bit short and at the moment you have to connect 21 delicate wires to the dash switches with the scuttle virtually fully installed - it's akin to painting your hall stairs and landing via your letterbox... time consuming and fiddly. So I took it all apart again

Annoyingly, at the same time I managed to short out the indicator flasher unit (which was very annoying because it's a gucci electronic LED version and fairly 0xpensive for what it is) and the LED on the switch for the headlight. Expensive (£40) mistake all for the want of unplugging the battery. (another reason why kill switches are brilliant!)

Taking shape - the blue wires are the switch extension leads








So next, spray painting the console. Now, I haven't actually picked up my spray gun for just over a year, so what follows next is perhaps not surprising. I left on the Sunday evening with the 4th and final coat of orange (8 in total including the primer) and everything was looking hunky dory. But on Monday evening I arrived to this: 

err... oops?

Not great! Suffice to say there was a bit of a rookie mistake. After much soul searching I realised that what I'd done is mix the wrong activator for the primer - using a polyurethane activator on an epoxy base. D'oh! Only answer was to rub back to bare metal and start again:





First 3 coats of primer, with the CORRECT activator this time

Much Better this time! After 4 coats of orange gloss

24hrs later, all dried and edge trim installed

What you can't see is all the wires (particularly the high-power ones) are wrapped and double wrapped in industrial-grade anti-chafing insulation, and lots of thick rubber is stuck to all the pinch and chafe points. Whislt the fuse is there to stop any major disasters, I'd rather not have one in the first place!

And finally, the finished product:

With the keys in and switched on and working - note the green LED next to the ignition switch









So all done - very happy with the result. No dodgy ignition barrel to go wrong, increased security (removable steering wheel AND 2 keys required to start) and the safety of being able to cut power if required. Plus the little ceremony of button presses and key turns required for each engine start also makes me smile. 

One of the other finishing touches was the stick-on rubberised foam for extra "comfort". They certainly look the part and do make the seats marginally more comfortable; but they rob me of valuable leg room; so we'll have to see how I get on with them.

 

So there you have it... keep checking the doormat and hoping!!!

The Post We've all Been Waiting For...

That's right - IVA is now passed!!

I took the clockwork orange back for its re-test earlier this week. After all the hard work involved in getting to this stage, it's fair to say I was a bit nervous. I needn't have been though!

I knew from my appointment that it was going to be Keith from the Kidderminster VOSA station; so like any good "enthusiast" (that's right... not stalker) I did my homework on google. I discovered that he had been quite fair to other builders of many different kits over the years. In my opinion he certainly was that!

In typical fashion it was absolutely chucking it down when I got there, so as soon as I pulled in he came bounding over to me and another chap with an MEV Exocet on a recovery transit who had pulled up for the re-test slots at 4pm (him) and 5pm (me). He was extremely friendly and helpful and told us to both to bring the cars inside quick so we don't get our beloved machines too wet!

After a quick intro I decided to let the other chap go first, as I suspected my test would take a bit longer as It would have involved a brake test, and his was mostly just edging trim and such like.

I was still unloading mine from the trailer when he wandered over and said "all done" after only  5minutes! Crikey I thought - he's had it easy... So I pulled mine in, not before adjusting the handbrake up a few turns and testing it against the slope of the trailer...

Pulled in and waited... Looking at Mr Exocet driving off into the sunset with his glorious bit of paper

Waiting...

Still waiting...

After what seemed like hours, Keith emerged from the office and grinning handed the other chap his IAC giving him a well practised "well another deathtrap on the road"; and so he skipped off laughing into the sunset. Then it was onto mine...

I had taken the liberty of printing a little portfolio of "before" and "after" pictures for my failure points, which I took him through. I think he really appreciated that - not least of all because a) I was the last appointment in the day, b)he was clearly desperate to get back on the road for the 200mile journey home as most of the station was already partially locked up and he had his coat on and c) they were relatively trivial points in the first place. He looked through the book and seemed delighted I'd taken the time to do this and thanked me for saving him the effort of putting it on the ramp or having me dismantle loads of panels so he could see.

I was just about to offer to put the car on the brake roller... when he said "alright, all done then!"...

I said, rather sheepishly, "handbrake OK then"? 

He said "yeah it clearly works I saw you got out of the car when it was on the trailer with the engine running"

Hooray. A degree of pragmatism from a VOSA employee. I could positively hug this man. Of course, I refrained.

So that was it! £90 re-test, over in less than 5 minutes. Most definitely NOT complaining, but it does make you wonder about the whole process. I then put the car back on the trailer (seriously, putting it on and off the trailer took about 40minutes, test was less than 5... crazy) And just when I'd finished with the last strap he came bounding over with a big grin and without even flinching said "oh well, another death trap on the road then"

So after just over 2 years of building... I've done it... Built a safe and road-legal car in my own shed, with basic tools, and I have to say - enjoyed every second of it.

Individual Approval Certificate - Exceptionally happy

Still happy, despite various onlookers

So there you go - one hurdle down... albeit the biggest and toughest one! Just need to start wrestling with the DVLA paperwork now - started that today but yet another quagmire of bureaucracy awaits me. Does make you wonder why all this couldn't be joined up into one process!! Dangerous thinking there... might be far too efficient for a Government department.

As a footnote: I decided to leave the ignition key in for the last couple of weeks just to get me through this test, and lucky I did - when I got back to base I took the key out and went to move the steering wheel and it looks jolly like the ignition barrel/lock has finally given up the ghost as the lock went "crunch" and the steering is now jammed.... Marvellous. But fear not, I have a plan for this.

Soon be on the road!!

IVA Remedial Work Part 2...

So the previous post was about all the easy fixes. This one... not so much.

So the few days leading up to the third MoT, the left cycle wing fell off. Not ideal, and lucky it happened whilst only in the workshop because you can't remove it completely until you split the top wishbone, which you can't really do at the side of the road very easily!

Once I'd got it off the car you could see what happened -all the jiggling around had caused a fatigue right on the join, at the end of my finger here:

With it cleaned up by the grinder you could see where the cracks were, not much material left holding it together:
 

Still, no problem for me and my trusty welder:

Good as new, if not better

 I welded the other side as well as that was showing the same signs of failure; then gave them a coat of hammerite and put them back.
 
So they're back on the car, but I'm still not happy with how they are sat or how strong they are. Plus they both have twisted slightly during the process (even though I was careful to keep the heat down so they wouldn't distort) and generally don't look too clever. So I think a re-design is in order once all this IVA business is out of the way.

Another job on the to-do list is to do away with the ignition key - it's started the whole E36 ignition-barrel-key-death-problem and sometimes won't turn and gets jammed in the lock. I have a cunning plan involving the push-button start, but more on that later. 

So off to my friendly MoT station again for the third time. I booked an hour slot at 8am solely to sort out the handbrake - I thought it would be just adjustment and a quick check on the rolling road, so an hour should be fine... how wrong was I !!!?

Enjoyable trip getting there though:

Arrived. Car looking good and I was of course still beaming. Yes I know the headlights are cross-eyed they keep vibrating loose! Need some spring washers on them.

Didn't get too many pics after this point, when you're using someone else's garage and their time, can't waste it by pratting around with a camera.

Before I continue though, let's talk braking efforts and efficiencies. I've learned a lot about them in the past week!!

The brake rollers measure/display kg (I'm assuming they actually measure or convert to kgfm e.g. kilogram force-metre which is a measure of torque), and they tell the operator how much torque or resistance the brakes are generating when applied.

The kg of braking effort can then be related to the weight (in kg) of the vehicle, which determines how much momentum the brakes have to stop. So with everything in the same units, the calculation is relatively straightforward to get braking efficiency

brake eff. [%] = TOTAL braking effort recorded [kg] / Gross Vehicle Design Weight [kg] x 100

My Legend GVDW is 1,000 kg so the calcs are nice and easy.

On the first IVA the handbrake efforts were 80kg and 85kg, so

brake eff = ((80+85) / 1000) * 100 = 16.5%.

Remember, 18% is the pass criteria for IVA (16% for an MoT annoyingly, and the handbrake seems to work fine in "normal" driving conditions)

So, we need to achieve at least 90kg on each side to get a pass. Not too difficult, or so I thought...

The night before this attempt I took the pads out and roughed them up with some 180grit  glass paper, and did the same on the discs with the car spinning them idling in 2nd gear - it was clear they were nowhere near bedded in as the discs still had their factory machining marks on and the pads were glazed - that's hardly surprising because everything is brand new and I've done the grand total of about 20miles in the thing.

So, on the rollers, first try, for a baseline reading, it was 74kg and 79kg for each side. So, actually worse than IVA result, not great.

First off we tried just adjusting up the cable, as the lever was getting close to max travel. It came up a bit, low 80's, but still not great.

Then the MoT chap pointed out that the handbrake lever, although perfectly centred in the chassis, was pulling one of the cables unevenly and it was flexing and "splaying" outwards - so I would be losing a bit of effort via that. So we re-positioned the handbrake in the chassis to pull the cables better, instead of pointing at the gearstick at 12 o'clock it's now about 20past 1; but that's OK beacuse it should work better.

With this mod, still no real improvement. And that point his next appointment turned up so it was time to draw stumps. He was fully booked that day, but he said that if I hung around we could get it sorted, albeit using the gaps between tests. Better than trying it on your own, plus I needed the brake rollers to test for efficiency anyway; so I agreed. 

The next thing we did, pulling the car on and off the ramp in the 15min gaps between MoTs, was to take the actuator arms off the callipers and move them round a few splines - adjusting the cables to be tight was only taking the slack out of the calliper mechanism and pulling on the handbrake meant it was hitting its stops, so not getting the full effect of the travel. I did take these off when I painted the callipers originally, but I was careful to mark everything with punch holes, but perhaps they could have gone back wrong.

Once more, no real improvement in efficiency; but now a lot more feel to the handbrake - we might be getting somewhere.

When they finally closed at 1pm the tester (who is a lovely guy) pledged to stay on and give me his full attention. He really wanted me to drive out of there with it all sorted, and has been following my progress since the start, after this I owe him a beer or two for all his help.

After closing time - the only car in the garage

So we set to it - the last obvious improvement was the lever itself - in fairness, it didn't look that strong; it's only made of 2mm pressed steel and was flexing quite a lot. So we took it right out of the car and drilled out the big rivet in the pivot point and put an M12 bolt and some huge penny washers in there. It did stop it flexing which was great. We then put it back together de-greased the discs just in case there was any contaminant on there and put it back on the rollers.

Adjusted up the cables and:

Nearside:
 

95kg...

135kg

 90+135 = 22.5%. Great! Or was it...?

We re-tested it straight away to be sure, and it was back down again to mid 80s. Plus,  I wasn't convinced that the pads weren't binding - so we jacked it up and they did feel quite stiff.

So after all that effort, pretty much back at square one...

This was about 3pm now, and I felt really bad about taking up his time; so for one last ditch attempt we put it back on the rollers and spun them both up with the handbrake half on - trying to bed in the pads.

I then slackened everyting off, adjusted up the cables until the rollers were just able read a dragging force; and by pulling quite hard, I was just about able to get 90 for both sides on the dial, and two 90's means 18%, or a pass. That would just have to do then.

Somewhat dejected, I left; and despite all his effort he only charged me an hour's labour. What a thoroughly nice chap and if anyone wants the name of a diamond-geezer MoT inspector in Plymouth, let me know. 

So I to cheer me up a little I thought about taking the long way home. That was until I started to smell brake pads!!!! Disaster; the pads were binding and got quite hot - scorched the discs and even the wheels themselves were warm to the touch. Luckily I had the requisite tools with me, and so pulled into a petrol station and slackened them off a few turns. This is not going well!!

To try and salvage some sort of fun out of what was quite a miserable day, I stopped off at home on the way to the workshop and picked up Emma, and we went out for what was quite a cheeky semi-legit 20min drive around the lanes. 

It was worth it because I did feel a bit more love for the car after it caused me a day's worth of grief!! Not really done any fast B-road driving in it up until that point, but WOW it was awesome. I don't believe I've driven anything that handles as well as that, it is literally perfect. Really can't wait to get it finished!!

Legend 6 vs my Evo X - both very fast but vastly different experiences!

Well then, the re-test is on Wednesday, so we'll see what that brings. I've left the gaiter off the handbrake, and my plan is to just put it on the rollers, see what happens, and if it's low on efficiency screw it up a few turns...


For reference, I found out the weight earlier this week, had to do battle with VOSA once more, who were only prepared to fax (yes that's right, fax... what's that now?) me the data sheet with the weights on. But on its own its kerb weight is 740kg (370+370, perfect 50/50 weight distribution) and with me in 840kg (395+445) and I know that's correct because I do weigh 100kg exactly!

Let's see what happens later this week then... The only place left from here is a complete re-think on the handbrake, perhaps using a different lever and cables? Maybe the setup from the car that the callipers are from? (Golf mk3)

IVA Remedial Work Part 1

Hello all

Thought it was time for an update. I've just about fixed everything now (see part 2 for the one thing that's caused me a lot of grief!)

So to recall the things it failed IVA on were:

1) Mirrors x 3 didn't give correct field of vision
2) Lock nuts on brake and clutch rods loose
3) Handbrake efficiency 16.5% achieved, needs to be 18%
4) N/S/F cycle wing bracket sharp edge
5) Rear upper seat belts sharp edge
6) Headlamps out of alignment (already passed at station)
7) O/S/R suspension wishbone lock nut insecure
8) accelerator lock nut loose
9) Bolts too short on steering column bush
10) Wiring chaffing with fuel pipe


1) Mirrors x 3 didn't give correct field of vision

 The interior mirror needed some sort of wedge shape to make it sit level on the sloping scuttle. So I made one out of epoxy GRP and bolted it on with slightly longer bolts



 

Wedge shape (left) longer bolts and mirror right

That, of course then meant the lovely chromed mirror sat ever so slightly above the 10mm sharp-edge projection limit, so to finish off I covered the whole thing with self-adhesive foam and insulation tape. Looks dreadful, but it should pass. And might fall off after the test

Exterior mirrors just needed moving upwards a bit. Many thanks to Dave Rodgman who sent me the equivalent photo from his car to give me a hint as to where they need to be.

Works like a treat now - all 3 mirrors have great visibility, although they do stick out a bit like rabbits ears - I remember now why I had them down low. Ah well, maybe I'll get used to it, or perhaps get some different mirrors in the future.  

I did the full test from the manual, that's cones at the height of themirror 10m offsite, 20m nearside, and 60m from the rear of the centre; and you can see everything you need to which is great.


2) Lock nuts on brake and clutch rods loose

Easy enough - 5mins with the spanners and the paint pen and they were all sorted.





3) Handbrake efficiency 16.5% achieved, needs to be 18%  

See blog part 2!!

 4) N/S/F cycle wing bracket sharp edge

Again, another easy one, just some edging trim glued and zip tied on. only the nearside was picked up, but I've done both sides the same in case the next examiner decides to be funny about it!

 5) Rear upper seat belts sharp edge

Dubious one this, but as it's a relatively easy one, not worth the argument. Nut covers were already there, but glued on some edging trim. Quite tricky to fold it into that shape, but with some fettling it was achievable.

 6) Headlamps out of alignment (already passed at station)

Sorted

 
7) O/S/R suspension wishbone lock nut insecure

Another easy one with my 19mm spanner. This one I blame the 4 wheel alignment place for!!! Although my fault for not checking the "professional's" workmanship.

8) accelerator lock nut loose

See pic 2).  came under a different failure category on the sheet hence the bullet point.




9) Bolts too short on steering column bush

Mustn't have taken a pic of this, but instead of using M8 x 35mm I've just M8 x 60mm. A bit overkill but that's all I had in stock, and they can't fail it for being too long.

 
10) Wiring chaffing with fuel pipe

Again, a bit picky I think, but wasn't too difficult to sort out. 

Before:

After:

 Note that before the pipes and wires were clipped together, they're now seperated, inside
  conduits, and secured seperately.

Now see part 2 for the less easy bits!!!!