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Previous Build Diaries

October 2003
November 2003
December2003
January 2004
Febuary 2004
March 2004

Handy Links

MK Engineering
These guys make high quality chassis and bodys.

Locost Builders
This forum is fantastic for anyone building a kit car, someone, somewhere has already answered all your questions!

MK Owners Club
One day I hope I will be eligible for membership....

Which Kit Car
Good kit car reading, they even have an MK Build ongoing at the moment. 

NISe7ens
Northern Ireland Sevens car club (Caterhams, Westfields, Locosts etc)

The picture in the logo was taken by Richard Crowe on a wet day at Nutts Corner on the 24th of Febuary 2004.

29 April 2004

I've been doing some work correcting the SVA fails.  Here are some pictures.

This shows the rubber strip I've had to put along the bottom edge of the back GRP panel where a slightly rough finish was ajudged to fail for too small a radius.

The plastic strips along the edge of the transmission tunnel are too 'sharp'.  Could have an eye out there!  I shall cover the entire tunnel with the same material I used to cover the dash.

The raised 'bump' on the track rod end were adjudged to be a danger to the general public so will have to be covered.  The locking nut on the steering arm extension was covered (as required) but I've been told to have it not permanently covered - as the tester didn't believe that I had fitted a locking nut - so he can check that a locking nut is really fitted!  In England cars have been failed for not having this fitted permantly.
I'm also making arrangments to have the tappets set by Allens Autos in Portadown to try to help the emmisions problems.  Once that is done I'll return to Brian Quinn's to try to set up the emmisions again.  Fingers crossed.
I have a date for the SVA retest - it's Wednesday the 12th of May.  Fingers crossed I can get all the work done in time.  I 've already got about 4 of the 13 items sorted - it's the one's I can't do myself (like the emmisions) I'm worried about.

23 April 2004

First off sorry for the lack of updates, as you can imagine it's been pretty hectic in the run up to the SVA.  Unfortunately she failed yesterdayfor a few points, none of which should be that hard to fix, with the possible exception of the noise limit - however I think this is failing because of a leak in the exhaust.  I hope.  Amongst other things that failed were radii on the back GRP panel, the plastic transmission tunnel edging and two lugs on the track rod ends.  The track rod arm was fouling the cycle wing at full lock (I hadn't spotted that to be fair), the rear fog light was wired as a seperate light not off the dipped headlamps or sidelights.  The wiring to the horn needs a protective covering and no side indicator repeaters.  Altogether looking at it with a days persective it could have been worse and most of the fixes are resonably straightforward.  The whole test took 8 hours and was very grueling on me never mind the car - I was up at 5:15am in order to make sure I was there in time, and was exhausted by 4:45pm when it was over.  It took so long I wasn't able to book a retest there and then - the office had closed - so I won't know the new date for a while - I hope it's sooner rather then later, however I have a nasty feeling it'll be perhaps a month away.

At least I got to drive Lucy home - what a blast, just the thing to cheer me up after the test!  I was able to give her a bit of tap  (up to 60mph - your honour - honest) on the roads I knew well closer to home - she really is great fun - and is the centre of attention everywhere you go!

I'll try to get some pics of the failing points to act as a bit of help for other builders soon.

13 April 2004

Today I worked on making the dash a little more SVA friendly.  Hopefully I'll get it finished tomorrow and I'll post some pics.  To be honest it looks pretty bad, but if it's required to be street legal then it'll do! 

I've also been told by Bill there should be no problem getting a cat, so hopefully that'll be OK for next week.  Mind you we'll see what the crack is, because I've heard MK are having trouble getting them sourced as well.

Just to keep moral up I'm posting links to a few videos from Kirkistown courtesy of Richard Crowe.

Video 1 1.4Mb Me (and Jay) on the starting line.
Video 2 1.6Mb Starting off.  
Video 3 1.0Mb Driving round the hairpin.

They're all WMV Windows Media files.
 
9 April 2004

Well it's two steps forward and one step back!  I woke up this morning to find that Bill had left the wheels for me!  So I got down to work adjusting the front wing stays so the cycle wings could accomodate the slightly wider wheels.  While I was doing this I noticed one of the wheels had been scraped in the tyre changing process!

The same mark appears on all 5 spokes on one wheel.  It appears to have removed the shiny powder polish coating and left a big black mark.  I'll try to clean the black markings off it and hopefully it won't be so noticable.

Ah well the full effect still looks pretty neat!
  

You might notice the cycle wings aren't fitted.  I'm going to ring Newtownards SVA and ask them about the positioning question.  Some cars have been failed for having them set too far back - some have passed OK.  I figure I'll try to get the full low down on it from the source - I can't see any mention on the manual itself.  Also you can see from pic two I did get a little frustrated, so I shot the car.  Six times.  Well it's easier repaired than burning it!
Bill did come through with a set of racing tyres though.  Apparently they're a set of intermediates from a rally car.

  
I'm looking forward to giving them a bit of tap around Kirkistown.  Just by pressing your thumb into them you can feel how soft the rubber is.  Should be sticky.

This is the intial stages of the 'safer' dash I'm cutting and fitting.  Hopfully I'll get more work done on this over Easter.

 
7 April 2004

Some days just want to make you cry!  I was talking to Richard Key - a fellow car builder - he has a catalytic converter for a blade engine he's hiring to me.  He has recently put a couple of cars through SVA, and he tells me the delay between a test and a retest is upwards of a month!   I was hoping that if I failed the SVA I'd be able to get it sorted in a week or so, and therefore would have the car on the road for the start of May, and my mate Ger's wedding in Galway.  It is enough to make you cry.
As if that's not bad enough I went on Monday to get my new wheels shod and racing tyres put on the old wheels at Bill Adair's.  Bill's wheel tyre changing machine developed a leak, so I had to leave without the tyres.  Bill promised he'd drop the tyres down This morning on his way to the airport.  Anyhow I got up this morning and guess what - no wheels!  I did at least get 1 wheel shod and took that back home with me, only to find that it doesn't fit the front cycle wings. 
I'm going to have to modify these at some point.  It would break your heart sometimes.  Anyone want to buy an unfinished project????

  
The only wheel I have in place - but it does look good and is a very tidy fit on the back.  It looks a little funny because the whole car is jacked up.  The second pic shows poor lucy without any boots on!

4 April 2004

A new month and as per usual I've stuck the previous month's diary on the menu on the left.

My new alloy wheels arrived on Friday.

They look pretty well, I reckon.  My next job is to get in touch with Bill Adair and get 4 slicks off him and get those fitted onto my Ford wheels, and get the Pirelli tyres stuck onto these.
Hopefully I can get this done this week, although Bill can be a very difficult man to get a hold of!

I have also ordered some foam and some vinyl with which I'm gonna cover the dashboard.  I've also ordered more 19mm nut covers as I've used up the ones I got already - and there are still a lot of nuts to cover.

Three weeks until the SVA and there are a lot of small jobs to be done.

To go to my music page that used to be here, click HERE

Alister Jackson  |  No Rights Reserved