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:

I did say I would add a picture of the instrument cluster with the rubber seal. I am quite pleased with how it covers up my hamfistedness cutting out the aperture.

I mounted a small alloy bracket to the scuttle and with a Tie Strap the cluster stays in place.

I have also added pictures of the reinforcing for the bonnet catches and the rear view mirrors. I wanted to make sure the mirrors were mounted solidly and didn't vibrate. 

I had fitted the binnacle and bulkhead some time ago but left the instrument cluster fitting as I struggled with how I was going to get it to fit into the right place whilst getting a good finish in the opening I needed to cut out. This was my solution. With a small disc cutter I cut out a large part of the area where the cluster would go and then with a file, sanding blocks and the disc cutter I got what at best could be called a good fit. The reality is the opening I had formed was pretty ropey. Although the instrument were all visible it just looked scruffy. I saw some "D" shaped soft rubber door seal on one of the stands at Stoneleigh so I had a length. I split this down the curved section and put it on the binnacle and pushed the instrument cluster against the flat section.This looked much better. With this done I took of the rubber strip, wrapped the cluster in cling film and holding it in place Filled the area around the cluster with expanding foam.. Once dry this gave me a "tube" the cluster would slide in and with the rubber strip back in it makes a reasonable job.

I will add a photo of the front when I can find it...