an earlyish start put me heading north on the m5 with a freshly burned copy of daft punk’s ‘discovery’ in the cd player.
rolled into raceshack (via herberts bakery for the best almond croissant and pain au chocolat to be had in bristol) and got on with it.

attacking the bus i started with the wiring and ran armoured cable through the conduits under the bus for the tach sender, oil pressure, oil temp, 5th injector for cold start enrichment on the k-jetronic, power etc etc. then got it onto the ranp and ran in fresh hoses for the chargecooler radiator. The radiator now sits in the space vacated by the spare wheel carrier just behind and slightly lower than the main radiator with teh pump next to it. i got this all plumbed in and did the electrics for the pump and the fan on the radiator.

then onto other things. I got the gauges all wired up and working, then ran a vacuum hose the full length of the underside of the bus and fixed up the boost gauge prop[erly. added in the wiring for the 5th injector. this sits at the base of the the throittle body and adds extra fuel for cold start. it needs to be switched and conor kindly donated the old fuel pump switch from his racing trekker. The switch originally came from a lynx helicopter so I am very honoured !
then on with more twiddling. when we fitted up the fuel pipes last friday one on the tank return side split and was leaking so…
….drain the tank (which took hours…) and strip and replace. it turns out that we got some of the pipes on the pump-filter-accumulator round the wrong way so they need to be done and it seems that the pump is weeping fuel out of the side.
i haven’t investigated the pump leak yet but i’m hoping that it’s a simple gasket fix as i don’t have a replacement pump available…

as the evening wore on i got into an extended cleaqning and tidying session and even cleaned the wheels and got the hole saw out and cut a hole in the <thing-that-isn’t-a-dashboard> for the cigarette lighter socket. and i evenm made suer that it lights up with all the other instruments (except for the boost gauge becayse that ‘s a wierd electro-luminescent gauge and I haven’t added the control box bit to it yet – but it does regsiter boost !!)</thing-that-isn’t-a-dashboard>

and then i came home and had a bath…

and i’ve still got flu.

but i didn’t do the two important jobs

drop the engine and

-put in the new stage2 KEP clutch

-lift the head on number 1&2 cylinders and clean and replace the gaskets & seals

I’m dreading these two tomorrow. well actually i’m dreading lifting the head. wasserboxer engines have a reputation for having head corrosion problems and head stud corrosion problems…
…it could all go very wrong tomorrow… infact the engine could turn into scrap before my very eyes. the head studs corrode inside the case and snap easily. if they snap the engine needs to be completely torn down to get them out. given that its over ?100 just for a gasket kit it could blow the budegt completely and i don’t reall;y have time to find another second hand 2.1DJ engine…

doh. watch this space.