Hello chaps. Took an annoyingly few pictures this weekend, but i'll do my best to explain a rather busy couple of days.
I got to Gareths's (where the cage was being done) at about 11am Saturday and had a bit of a catch up. Gareth had a few people in, but I got to have a chat to a couple of people i'd not met before and drank a few coffee's.
I'd had texts of various people over the week saying they'd sat in the car and it was fantastic. I was itching to get in, and sure enough the seating and steering position was spot on. I couldn't have asked for better! Gareth was relieved!
Whilst Gareth was off sorting an MOT for a customer the dent guy showed up to sort another car out. We got chatting and a small time later he was removing a nasty crease in the Clio's driver door. He did a cracking job. We both chuckled at the bootlid dent but I explained I had a new one at my parents, he said it was beyond repair anyway.
Gareth got back and freed his time up a bit after another car didn't need anything doing on it. We quickly set about getting the dash in place and a large hacksaw was taken to both parts of the dash. Satisfied it was in place and in a resonable position we called it a day as my friend Rupert had arrived to trailer the car back. I bugged Gareth to help fit a solid lower engine mount i'd bought, which has eliminated one of the Clio's achilles heel, engine movement!
With that done we got the car on the trailer, said our goodbyes and off we went.
Back at home we unloaded the car and drove it into the garage. The car had developed a high pitch sqeak from the engine, but nevermind, first job was to sort the leak.
Off with the bonnet and we began to strip the engine down, the aim was to replace the seal behind the inlet pulley that was leaking. About 90 mins later, engine locked with the special tools, and far more undone than we ever remembered it was time to remove the offending 'dephaser' pulley.
Anyway, turns out someone had put an exhaust pulley seal in the inlet...
Cut a long story short, the diameter of both seals is the same, so when Dad put the engine together it was a simple mistake to make. What he didn't appreciate is that the inlet seal doesn't actually seal anything, its only when the pulley is in place does it all seal up. The wrong seal had stopped oil getting into the dephaser pulley and instead it was leaking out.
We cleaned everything up as best we could, put in the new seal, checked all the pulleys and timed/tensioned the new belt up again. It was now getting quite late so we bolted it all back in place fired it up, let it idle and went to the pub.
The next morning we went to move the car outside and the sqeak i mentioned earlier was still there. After a lot of faffing I worked out the dephaser pulley was causing it. Where the wrong seal had been used before the pulley had been starved of oil. It'd only run for about an hour like this (and not gone more than half a mile) but the pulley was junk (these are
£150+!!) Anyway i'd had the foresight to chuck in the dephaser off of the spare engine. We then spent the whole of yesterday morning doing the whole bloody lot again. I'm pleased to say though it's now all fine, not leaking and running very smoothly! Finally got there!
The engine problems means we've made next to no progress on anything else and the list of jobs to do before Rockingham is massive.
I'm only south once more between now and March so i'm not sure what state the car will be in when it gets to Rockingham, but we will be there.
Thats an odd coloured bonnet?
Just want to say a public thanks to Gareth at Ace Engineering, he's done a cracking job on the cage and mounting the seats. The quality of work and attention to detail have been first class and the coffee isn't bad to. I can't recommend him highly enough. Cheers.
. I'm mechanically minded as im a fitter/turner by trade but I am no car mechanic. Is it hard rebuilding a F4R? My usual work is on rotating equipment but I do know a little bit about car engines. I'd like to have a separate F4R lump on a engine stand to build accordingly then swap from the PH1. I want to have a go at building it myself and learn the hard way
