Brooklands January

I got a long day in the garage today with the prospect of another tomorrow, although we have still to negotiate
that one :-)) It looked a little bleak as true to form, over breakfast this morning the "D" word was mentioned.
Why is it women get the urge to "D" immediately after Christmas? Anyhow, I pointed out that "D" takes a lot
of planning and she should start to look at paint samples and choose what she wanted.

So, today was fiddly but worthwhile. I finished trial fitting the front bulkhead, including the siting of the
pedal assembly and master cylinder. At the same time I also trial fitted the steering column to see how that
fittred and spent some time re-assembling it. Once everything was comfortable the holes were all drilled,
sealant was added and the whole lot rivetted. Finally I fitted the bulkhead top.

This sounds quick, but when drilling through two sheets to aluminium, the back of bothe sheets gets burrs, so
after drilling in every case the panels have to be removed for de-burring before being re-assembled with
sealant and then finally rivetted. This all takes time. It doesn't help that the some of the flanges are
guesswork as the plans are slightly larger than the laser cut panels.

Been in Helsinki, got back last night. If thought it was cold here, you should try -30C - brrrrrrrrr. Last
Sunday I got some time in the garage and made up and fitted the glove box and also re-attached the fuel tank.
Whilst away I had a chance to think about what comes next. Logically the next item is the dash panel and
gearlever front panel, however I don't really want to do the dash panel until I know what instruments I'm
going to fit, so I'll do the gearlever front panel next. After that I'll finish the rear by doing the rear wiring
loom and running the fuel pipes, and alos connecting the rear brake pipe to the master cylinder - once this is
all done I can take it off the axle stands whenever I'm ready.

After that it looks like the front wiring loom, battery tray and then the engine and gearbox, a step which
seems much closer than I expected.

It was my daughters birthday this weekend so I didn't get
much done as I only had a couple of hours. I managed to
complete the rear brake line and mate it up to the master
cylinder. This wasn't ideal as the pipe had a lot left over
and as I don't have the tools for making the ends up, I
had to run it a long way around the chassis tubes to fit.

I should also mention the space heater that I got for
Christmas - makes the garage a warm place to work in the
cold weather!

Another few days in Helsinki. It's not related to the car but I'll tell you anyway, whilst I was over there I
went out to a cabin in the woods with a couple of colleagues for an evening sauna besides a lake. We (OK,
Tuomo) cut a hole in the ice and we had an ice hole to get into after the sauna. It was a great evening with a
full moon and no clouds, beer and good company. Despite the 40cm of ice on the lake, getting into the ice hole
was great. It felt right over there, but somehow I can't see it working on Rutland water..... Thanks Tuomo and
Velu, a great evening.

Anyhow, back to the car. Got an hour in the garage this evening and ran the fuel line in front to back after the
axle stands had been moved and connected it up to the fuel pump. Next item is front to back wiring (or
possibly back to front if I don't read the diagram correctly.....). I'm around this weekend and in the UK next
week so there is a good chance of some progress.

I had a close look at the loom on Saturday, checking the labels
(NB post '85 wiring diagram is a supplement item in the Haynes
manual, and isn't a true schematic). I need to order some bits to
get any further so I'll ring Vehicle Wiring Products on Monday. I
did manage to get the rear loom seperated and run through conduit
ready to fit, but the connectors are corroded and so I'll fit a
multi-plug.

The next item was to complete the conversion for the gearbox to
engine by fitting the flywheel and clutch, and then mate them.

The first step, which isn't that obvious, is that the end of the
crank has a plate on it with a raised nodule. This plate looks for
all the world like it is part of the crank, but in fact it comes off -
without that the whole thing just doesn't fit. Removing this plate
leaves a well between the side of the crank flywheel fitting and
the rear oil seal - the modified flywheel has a raised flange that
fits into this well to provide sealing (see first photo)

Once the flywheel is fitted, access to the oil pump is blocked, so I took the opportunity to check
clearances (it was fine) and also replace the rear seal and pump cover O ring. Fitting the ring-gear,
flywheel and clutch (standard 2CV) was striaghtforward.

The most nervewracking part was grinding off the lugs/tube at the rear of the block "tail" to allow the
gearbox to mate. (see the difference between pictures 2 and 3 above), and mating the box to the engine
required some "fettling" to provide clearance, especially for the clutch release arm which fouled the
central rib on the "tail" (see picture 4 above). In the end I didn't get them mated, I think it is just a case
of getting the splines aligned, but as the clutch is new it is a tight fit (and yes, I did test the clutch plate
on the gearbox primary shaft before I started). Normally this wouldn't be a problem as you rotate the
gearbox slightly to align the splines, in this case you can't because of the "tail" on the block.

One further point - make sure you fit the clutch release cable before fitting the box, there is no access
afterwards.

Ha ha - got them mated. As usual, walking away from a problem resolves it.
I called Phil at Pembleton just to confirm I wasn't being a pratt, and he
said aligning the splines against a new clutch is an art. In the end I
loosend the release mechanism so the plate would move, but with friction
there, inserted the gearbox and bingo, in it went. Removing the gearbox
carefully left the plate in the right place, tighten up the release mechansim
and install the gearbox for the (hopefully) last time.

One trick here, you have to remove the end of the gearbox input shaft,
make sure that the remaining end has a heavy chamfer to pass easily
through the flywheel.

After that I started to make a spacer block as the gearbox will foul the
front bulkhead, more photo's of that later.

Did some bits and bobs last week and over the weekend, with a target to having everything in place to allow
the fitting of the engine and gearbox on Monday evening. I made up the spacer plates, drilled them and then
welded them together to create a laminated block - went to fit it and realised the hole centres were wrong and
there wasn't enough metal to widen it out. Don't ask me why, lets just say senility is an all age disease! I also
fitted the engine mount to the bellhousing adaptor plate as the engine "hangs" from the chassis.

So, made the plates up again and fitted the gearbox mount after tapping the holes from M7 to M8 (and
breaking my tap handle into the bargain) - Citroen seem to have a thing about M7 which is a pain as nobody
else does, so I'm trying to standardise on M6 and M8 where I can safely change things, and I'm using A4
stainless nuts/bolts etc. I get them from Namrick, a mail order supplier, who do all of the types (standard,
allen, dome) in all of the metals (8.8, 10.9, A2, A4 etc) plus other odds and sods.

I then looked at the loom. The rear loom is connected via 6 (or 7?) bullet connectors, so I removed these and
re-made it with an 8 way muti-plug connector which allowed me to wire in the fuel pump wire - of course,
careful labelling was needed first. The rear loom was then run through convoluted tubing and attached to the
chassis rails using rivetted saddles and cable ties. I also need to replace the fusebox and a number of other
connectors on the loom - I ordered all of the bits from Vehicle Wiring Products which arrived last week so I
can do it as and when.

Finally, I fitted the handbrake remote and started the handbrake ratchet. I have a friend joining me
tomorrow evening when we will attempt to install the engine and box.

The engine and box are in! Mark came to help (he of the awesome
Tiger Super 6 Zetec) as the engine and box makes a heavy unit,
although not enough to need a crane. Fitting took all of 10 minutes
once we had done the "staring it into submission" routine. I had fitted
the top engine mount at the weeknd, so it was just a case of lifting it
into position.

A couple of points here. It is very tight behind the gearbox (see
photo), and I would recommend grinding down the captive bolts on the
steering rack leaving 1mm proud of the nyloc before fitting. Secondly,
I spent a lot of time measuring the spacer plates for the gearbox mount
and cutting down the spacer tubes on the gearbox bolts accordingly.
This saved me loads of hassle on the night, so really think this one
through.

One worrying point is that the engine mount tube fits perfectly
between the mounts, but it is 12mm dia whereas the rod that slides
through the lot is 10mm. It may be OK when it's tightened, but as it is
there is a lot of vertical play on the mount tube.

Having done that, we decided we were on a roll, so fitted the brake
discs and drive shafts either side although all of the bolts need
tightening. We then played with the gearlever to see how that worked,
moved the chassis stands so that I can finish off the rear cable runs
and checked how the clutch cable runs.

Finally we attached the handbrake to the plate under the dash and
then called it a night.