So after a few months out of circulation I can finally get to provide an update.

The car is now road legal after a painless but expensive IVA test.

I had the car booked in for its test on the 17th February. So I loaded the car on its trailer and set of nice and early for the test station (Leighton Buzzard). All was going well until the A421, jack knifed lorry.. so sat for an age, missed my slot (08:00) by a mile. Just enough time to pay a further £450 for the next test. I was far far from happy.

However, the next test day (10th March) was a perfect run down to be there very early! I was taking no chances.

The actual test was really interesting and went very quickly. We were all done by 10:30 to be informed that if I filed off the edge of the upper ball joint lock nut I could have a pass certificate! So less than 10 minutes later I was sitting in my car with said certificate. I could not have been happier. All that stress from the previous day fell away!

At this point I need to say a big Thank You to Steve O'Mara. He sent me a detailed email regarding registration and on taking his advice the car sailed through the hands of DVLA. So, 1st of May 2015 all taxed and insured with an age related plate.

Its been a journey to say the least. Very few lows and a huge amount of pleasure. The kit is very good, it builds well and with few difficulties. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anybody thinking of having a go.

All I have to do is now move house (26th June) and then the fun can start.

Pictures to follow.

So, I have a date for the IVA. 17th February in Leighton Buzzard. My expectations are low so hopefully I will be mildly pleased. I will update you as soon as I have an outcome.

Since the track day I have worked through the list of issues. The LSD had in fact failed. That was a good buy...... A new one is on the bench being prepared ready to go in post IVA. The oversteer looks likely to be the issue as I only did it with a couple of straight edges and a tape.

The Michelin Pilots did not survive the day so they have gone and been replaced with Toyo R1R's.
I wanted a good 1b list tyre so these hopefully will be fine.

Irrespective of the IVA outcome I have another track day booked at Rockingham on the 28th of February. Might be interesting if is snows....... Peterborough Motor Club members get a good deal at Rockingham, open pit lane for £115.00.

This will be the final shakedown for the cars first proper competitive debut at the BARC's sprint again at Rockingham. It will need to be road legal so there is a possibility we wont make it. Time will tell.

Once again months seem to have passed. However, I did manage to get the car out for a track day at Rockingham on the 12th October. My main objective was to gets some miles on the clock, bed in the brakes and generally let the car settle down. This it did with only a couple of errors on the part of the driver.

I cam away from the day with a number of issues which need sorting out: Brake bias adjustment never gave much in the way of rear brakes, the LSD doesn't seem to work (the inside wheel was always spinning), far too much oversteer ( I think this is an alignment issue) and the Michelin Pilots really do not work....

Since the track day I have left most of the issues from the day and concentrated on IVA items to give me a reasonable time in the hands of the tester. All the forms, pictures etc have gone of (8th January)
so I now wait for a test day. Aside from Royal Mail confirmation of receipt they have cashed the cheque so something is happening. I think......

From the last post you will have guessed I am not far away from completion. I have had the car out on closed roads to set the brake balance etc and to deal with a misfire issue which was a faulty camshaft sensor. So the car currently looks like this:

 

 I will be booking the IVA in the next week or so so Steve O'Mara may have a few emails as I work through the documentation.

All being well I should be road legal soon!

I just looked at the date of my last post. I am not sure where the time has gone however, some of it has clearly been in the workshop.
One of the jobs I was less keen on doing was the front wheel covers. The brackets which came with the kit don't give a great deal of confidence and reading recent posts on the GKD Owners Club site I am pretty sure I have trouble ahead. I decided to push on without modification and just get the job done. One aspect I did want to ensure was mini-missing the weight of the cover. I bent the bracket  over the tyre using wood spacers. Inside the cover I used 50x25mm alloy extrusion to space the cover away from the tyre. I then made up the wiring loom for the indicator and side repeater. The pictures tell the story:

I have used M8 bolts to hold the cover in place. these go through the cover, space and into the bracket to which I welded a nut. The spacer and cable bases are held in place with Sikaflex.

After fitting the boot floor I needed a break from alloy sheet so moved on to cast iron. The front brake calipers needed to be cleaned up ahead of a rebuild and re fitting. I had seen on You Tube a guide to electrolytic rust removal. Simple really, put the item into water, spoonful of baking soda and wire it up to a battery charger and a day of so later item comes out looking like new. Nothing to it, dead easy and works every time. The reality is it does!!! It worked so well I did mine twice. On the first attempt the caliper came out looking like it went in and just wet. I then set about it with a scrapper and wire brush and all the rust fell away so easy leaving a clean surface ready to paint. I did mine again just to see if I could get a couple of patches of rust which were difficult to get to to come clean.

So, a few pictures to show how it all went:

Once I had done all the parts I painted them with black Hammerite and rebuilt the calipers with new seals and covers. and then assembled them on the uprights. Very happy with the result. 

As for the process it is so simple yet very effective.

Next job to complete was the "boot" floor. I had fiddled around for ages trying to work out how I could get the floor fitted, and still have access to the fuel pumps and filter. In the end I plumped for cutting the supplied floor into three pieces. Two "ends" and a middle removable panel. This helped with the fitting and after a very enjoyable few hours it was done. I sealed the edge of the floor with Sikaflex and made up a seal with Sikaflex for the removable panel to screw down onto.

Not the best set of pictures but it looks like this: