New Years Eve 2007

Well, motion under the car's own power will be a 2008 event although Neville and I tried very hard to get her going yesterday. I started by tidying the engine bay, refitting the battery tray, the airflow meter mounts etc. Then I connected the radiator fan to the Mazda wire and earthed it, using a "plug" rather than a crimped joint in case the radiator needs to come out in the future. That got me to the point in the photo below - if you click on the picture to enlarge it you can just see the short piece of silicone hose and a bolt, a trick which we learned on on Alistair's car, to close off the vacuum pipe exit at the back of the plenum chamber that normally serves the brake servo.



Now I needed to fit the triple hydraulic reservoir for brake and clutch. That has been mounted directly above the red battery isolator switch in the lower left of the photo, on the firewall and the flexible pipes led via holes drilled in the top of the side pod alongside the isolator and round to the 3 master cylinders on the face of the pedal box. Once that was done it was time to involve Neville again. He has a superb pressurised brake fluid bleeding system with a tank, a mandrel to go on the cars reservoir and a pump. Of course the triple reservoir I now have to accommodate the Mazda hydraulic clutch was a different fitting from any in his mandrel kit so we had to go back to the twin master cylinder Saab unit supplied by Fishers when I collected the brake pipe kit. The first discovery was some pipe connectors not done up properly but once that was done the system pressurised well and we were able to bleed the brakes. The rears started working pretty easily but the fronts (calipers rebuilt by yours truly) needed a lot of pumping to start working. I had visions of having to strip them again but eventually they came to life.

Nev then gave me a tidying up job to occupy me so that he could have full access and fabricate a throttle cable and mount (which we have lost in the build). We then re secured the petrol pump which was the last job to be done before she could go mobile

Excitement mounted as we turned to the clutch hydraulics which should be easy. But first we found that the circlip holding the piston in the clutch master cylinder had come loose, then after an hour involving gyrations to extract the cylinder for repairs (try upside down head first in a tiny footwell and pedal box!) we got pressure out of the master cylinder but no action on the clutch master cylinder. About this time David Hall, who owns the racing Lotus Cortina and Firenza Nev maintains arrived to take Nev out for a drink. For a bit of an ending we kept the car on the hoist, started the engine and I selected 2nd without the clutch. The wheels turned! albeit 2 feet in the air. The engine runs really well and the exhaust sounds great, although she was very reluctant to idle still - it may be simply the last very small inlet, which links to the purge control system I'm not using on the plenum chamber that is still open needs plugging but I also need to spray the plenum inlet with cleaner as recommended in the manual.

So she is going to be a 2008 baby!