Build diary for my first kit car: an Aries Locoblade (http://www.ariesmotorsport.com/) that I will be building in Portugal for the next months (or years).
Started another night session by marking the position for the fire extinguisher on the tunnel top. Removed the top, drilled, fitted the holder with a couple of bolts and job done! Put some Dural 50 (threadlock) to be sure the nuts would not fall into the tunnel.
Then I tried holding a spring I had to the throttle peddle to stiffen it a bit. Seemed to work.
Placed the charged battery on the car and it fired up 2nd time. Lapped the garage 3 times. Did some hard (relative, since I'm driving 20Km/h in 1st) stops and the brakes are finally good! No sponginess, no having to pump twice... It just brakes!
In the end, the throttle peddle spring made its work but is already breaking up. I have to see if I can find a nice proper spring before Saturday.
Today went with the wife to the car so that she could help me bleed the brakes. Cutting more than an hour of work in few words... The front brakes are great. The rears had one nut not well tightened on the "T" piece that splits the pipe to the rear wheels. It was dripping. After tightening we bleed it more and seems to be good. Could not test because I failed to get the engine going. It was unused for some two months and the battery died before I could get it to run.
Also placed the Aries symbols on the hood and rear.
And defined where I'll be attaching the newly acquired fire extinguisher. It will be on the tunnel top, behind the handbrake. Handy but not in the way.
I guess this week I'll be working on the car every night until the track day. And it's a go, by the way. Put my name down last Friday.
Track day on the Estoril track (where F1 ran when there was a Portuguese GP). 7th February.
The front left wheel wobbliness had to be solved. It was because two of the stubs had the initial threads broken and thus the wheel nuts wouldn't fit adequately and the wheel was a bit loose.
Bought a tap and die set and, after almost 3 hours, fixed the two stubs. One of the nuts was garbage, the other was fixed with a tap. Good I had an extra nut around! In the end each stub lacks the 2 initial threads. But the four nuts now tighten properly and the issue is solved.
I'm in contact with a recovery truck company to get a confirmation of availability. I have to buy a fire extinguisher. And find a way to strap it to the car on the passenger's seat. I should try to bleed the brakes better. Will this be the 1st time the car sees daylight?
After much postponing, I went to do the oil change. It was one of the jobs I liked the least, mainly because I don't like greasy stuff on my hands. But I hate wearing gloves. But let's get on with the details...
First I swapped the rectifier with the new one just arrived from the UK. Plugged the battery in, started the engine and tested the voltage. The Digidash still reads less than 12v when I turn on the lights... So the problem is not with the rectifier. I'll have to research what other components may be causing this. At least I now have a spare for a part that usually fails.
While the engine was warming up the oil, jacked up the car so that the pan would fit under the engine. Having the car up a bit, the Digidash was reading 22º for the oil temp. Should be more but having the temp reader on the end of a pipe is known to not be the best solution. When I untightened the drain plug, after turning the engine off, it SURE was hotter!
All oil drained, removed the oil filter. And made a mess of my garage floor. Forgot to put some newspapers under the car and the filter contained oil that was then spilled. Cleaned the mess, placed the newspapers and then closed the drain and moved the old oil from the pan to 2L Coke bottles. I now need to find a place that can take them to be recycled. There was almost no deposit on the pan, just 3 or 4 "flakes", almost like bits of paint. I hope this means I have a strong gearbox! To reach the filter, removing my side panel wasn't enough. Had to unbolt and take off the nosecone too.
Unpacked the new filter, smeared the seal with the new oil and fitted it. Then used a funnel to feed the remaining oil into the engine. I wanted to follow Andy's (from AB Performance) instructions but ended up just putting the whole 4L of oil inside the engine. It should be good as the Haynes manual said the engine would take 3,7L if I changed the filter.
I didn't recall the PSI figures when the engine was running. So I cranked with no spark and relieved a bit the filter. PSI rose to 7, I thought it should be enough. Added the spark and cranked the engine. It fired into life at around 40PSI... Ups :)
Left the car on stands because next task will be to fix the wobbly front wheel, that will imply removing the wheel. After that I should really take it to a track. Even without fixing the electric issues and the battery charging...
After pressing the small nipples of the spark plugs on the bench and using a wrench on the plugs, the nipples came off. 5 minutes for 4 sparks. Fit them on the car and went for a ride. Actually, lapped around the garage for a bit over one hour. The wife drove a bit too. Took her around, drove the kid and also the mother-in-law. Great afternoon.
On this photo it is clearly visible that the full lock on the steering makes the tires hit the headlights that, fortunately, are not fully tightened.
Another photo and a video.
Used 2nd gear for the first time. By the end of the hour, the brake peddle was sticking midway and would brake a lot further down. Wonder if it was tired from braking a lot or some other problem.
Water temp rose to 99º. Turned the fan on (minimum) and it went down to a stable 84º. Couldn't use max speed because the rectifier is really broken. With dip beam the battery does not charge. Running lights and fan at max speed and the battery warning light would light up!
When I stopped the car, no liquids dripping on the floor! Great!
Next I have to replace the oil and the oil filter... And take care of the wobbly front wheel!
After a month, I'm back at the car. The idea was to service the engine and maybe take care of the issue with the front left wheel.
Spent loads of time removing the spark plugs, setting the spacing on the new ones and trying to fit them. In the end had to remove the new ones from the engine because they have a "fat thing" where the leads connect to and the leads don't fit. Probably those things can be removed but I applied some strength with pliers and failed. Before applying more force, decided to look online, so left the car with no spark plugs.
The old plugs are NGK CR9EH and the new ones are the upgraded NGK CR9EIX Iridium ones. The old plugs all had the dark colour from the photo. From the guide on the Haynes manual, it means probably too rich, idle screw problems or blocked air filter. Probably all... Otherwise it can be oil on the chambers and that is more problematic. But since the engine does not seem to lose oil, I guess it is not that.
Then swapped the air filter. Removed an original Honda and placed a HiFlo equivalent. Quick and easy job.
Next time I hope to fit the spark plugs so that I can start the engine to heat up the oil a bit. Then get the car on stands to remove the oil and replace the filter. Being realistic, the front wheel will be another session.
Well... All the parts I had are now fit to the car. It is actually finished. After 4 years and 2 months, what I thought would take less than a year is done!
Of course, I still need to fix the stuff I did wrong, service the engine, fit some needed mods... But... I have nothing more inside boxes. All is fitted to the car...
Today's session was to fix the tonneau. It was just a slow process of putting masking tape, marking a hole, drill, rivet the button in place, fix the tonneau, mark another hole, repeat. It took me a couple of hours. The buttons are a bit loose because the pop-rivet pliers could not hold the rivet correctly inside the button. Just as I was getting to the end of it (2 rivets to go) I noticed Steve from Aries had packed a bit of tube along with the buttons and rivets for this job. Putting the bit of tube over the rivet shaft allowed the gun to fix the rivet correctly in place and break the rivet cleanly. The last two are fixed as all should. Maybe one day I'll drill the others out and rivet them again properly. Maybe not... But another praise to Steve, he thought of these things and his attention to detail still amazes me.
Once the tonneau was fixed in place I decided I'll not cover the car again. So I took out the remaining bubble-wrap I had on the roll bar to avoid scratching. Vacuum cleaned the interior of the car and the dirt on the fiberglass body (that would not go out with a cloth due to static electricity).
Now I should take care of lights, no? Well... Let's fit the battery. This time I used the proper nuts and bolts that came with the battery instead of the temp ones I was using and were getting rusty. And sanded the terminals on the car loom. I wonder if the problem with the car was bad connections to the battery due to rust and incorrect bolts... Turned the key and... First time!
OK... Lapped the garage over 10 times. Like a kid. With a new toy. :)
After these laps I identified or confirmed a couple of problems to tackle.
With no lights or running lights, the battery gives 13v to 14v, which means the alternator is charging it. On low beam the battery drops to 12v. I'm not sure if it charges at all at 12v (with the engine idling). I'm unsure if this is a problem or not...
Brakes do need bleeding, although not much. For effective braking, I need to pump once to get the peddle hard and then it works correctly.
The front wheel, driver's side, wobbles a bit. It needs tightening...
The headlights are not tightly bolted and so they move. Which probably is good because when I turn the steering completely to one side, the outer wheel hits the headlamp and moves it inside. When I finished my laps seemed the car was looking to something on the tip of its nose. Must find a way to reduce the turning radius of that steering.
I want a spring on the accelerator peddle to give me more feel and help the cable return.
Some 10 minutes after I turned the car off, the radiator leaked a bit. I'm not sure if this was because I didn't leave the fans working a bit after I turned the car off.
Next session will be engine service and tightening the front wheel.
