Assembly 2 Following on from engine/gearbox fitting

I was now at the stage of a rolling chassis with the engine and gearbox in together with the rear brake lines and fuel tank/fuel line fitted.

The next step was to fit the drive shafts. I had cleaned and refurbished these and it was just a matter of putting on the brake discs to the flange from the gearbox, placing the drive shaft into position and tightening up the bolts. The splined drive was slipped through the wheel hub and all bolts were fitted and torqued up. This went smoothly but I did have to find a couple of 5mm split pins to fit the front hubs so a trip to a local nut and bolt place (Avon Fasteners) secured these. Avon Fasteners is an odd place, if you get anyone but the owner serving you a good deal can be struck for the odd nut and bolt. The owner is a different matter - he wants to fleece you and is a surly character, swings and roundabouts I guess.

The picture shows the drive shafts in place. As the suspension arms have been lengthened the shafts do assume a strange position as they come forward at an alarming angle. Other people have driven with this arrangement so I assume all is OK but I can't help wondering if the CV joints wear quickly in this position.

Having the engine and gearbox fitted meant I could now consider where to fit the gear lever. The previous owner had made the glove box bigger than necessary and had built it such that it covered where the mounting bracket for the gear lever was. This meant I could mount it under the dash as some have done or fit it within the glove compartment. I did toy with the idea of mounting under the dash and read all I could on the Pembleton Forum - however I was not keen as it meant shortening the gear lever and generally not knowing how this would affect the gear change. I went for fitting inside the glove box. This had the advantage of giving me somewhere to support the distal end of the gear change shaft necessary to stop lateral movement. If it had been fitted as it should have been then a bracket needs to be made to accommodate this. I simply cut a hole in the bulkhead part of the glove box and fitted a nylon block cut from an old small chopping block. The bracket to support the proximal end of the gear change was made from a piece of 25mm angle iron and drilled to allow it to be fitted to the gear lever support. The following pictures illustrate what I mean

This arrangement seems to work well. I fitted the gear change linkage and the gears seem to go through their full range with no problems.

The next step was to fit the front brake lines and callipers (I had replaced and fitted all seals). Using the kit from Bonapart this was really straightforward. All the lines are cut to fit and fitting the callipers should present no difficulty to anyone. It is important to fit the brake pads correctly but again they presented no problem.

In the above pictures you can see I have temporarily fitted the starter motor but this was purely to find a place for it. I need to remove it to fit the Guzzi exhaust balance pipe at a later stage.

Next came the fitting of the handbrake cables. Both cables acquired with the kit when I bought it were in very good condition and I did not think replacing them was necessary. They are a bit fiddly to fit but as long as you get them in the correct order - there is one short one for the near side and a longer one for the off side - they present no difficulty. Setting up the hand brake is a different matter and I will do that once the brakes have been filled with LHM and bled.

The above shows the cables in place. I am a little concerned that the Guzzi exhaust balance pipe runs under the starter motor next to the O/S handbrake cable and hope the heat does not cause any problems.

At this point I moved my attention to the problem of the seat belt fitting. The chassis I bought was constructed in 2002 before the additional strengthening to the central hoop was introduced. This means I have to weld in some tubing to pass the MSVA. Having looked at Phil Gs set up I had a reasonable idea of what to do. Then I read a post on the forum that some poor soul had been turned down at the MSVA with such a set up and was told he needed extra bracing at the back of the hoop. Although discussion followed as to whether or not this extra was needed I decided to incorporate it anyway as I didn't want to have to dismantle the rear cover to fit anything retrospectively.

I found a small company just a few miles away in Bidford that would supply small amounts of steel and bought myself some 3mm steel plate, 25mm square tube and 20mm round tube. The chap was very helpful and I acquired the lot for £5. I set about cutting the pieces to make up a 'T' piece to fit from the floor just in front of the floor upstand to the top of the hoop and then two struts to brace the hoop and the 'T' piece from the rear. The pieces are shown below cut and ready to weld into place.

A guy I met at a local Am-Dram production, when my wife and I sat at a table where we didn’t know any of the others, will do the welding. We started talking and it transpired he has a small garage business near us and not only built his own single seater but races it at various hill climbs. He was most interested in the project and comes over occasionally to see what progress I'm making. He offered to do the welding (at a cost) and as I cannot weld it seemed a good idea. Strangely when we first talked about the frame he suggested the rear bracing and the problem of getting it through MSVA before we had heard anyone else having a problem.

In the mean time I went over to see Phil Gregory (combining this with a trip to Whitley Court - recommended if you're going that way) to pick up the PMC made Guzzi exhaust headers. These are not cheap at £120 + VAT but are made to measure and are of the correct tuned length. The kit comes with the balance tube - this is a flexible tube that lies across the car sitting just under the starter motor and above the bell housing. One has to use your own exhaust clamps which slip over the end of each of the exhaust tubes - needless to say they don't fit directly and the flanges need to be filed gently for them to slip over. The clamps have an internal diameter of 44mm and the tubes supplied to me were about 45.5mm. Some gentle filing keeping the whole thing round enabled me to fit them successfully.

The above pictures show the clamp on the header together with the supplied collars which enable the whole thing to be clamped up tight to the cylinder head.

I then temporarily fitted the headers to give me an idea as to where the pipes would fit. I already have a set of the long exhaust pipes that came with the kit but they, of course, were intended for the 2CV engine. Phil tells me that they are OK in general but would need some further bending to achieve a good fit. In the end I sold the pipes and bought, from Phil, some that were intended for the Guzzi engine.

Anyway here's a picture of the headers temporarily fitted.

Returning to the seat belt frame or whatever one wants to call it, Jeremy came over and welded up the relevant bits. This should give a strong triangulated frame that I hope the powers that be at the MSVA think is OK.

These two pictures show how the frame sits. (As an aside at this point I wished I had also added a further hoop in front of the one to which all this was fitted as we shall see later).