Bianca Ratlye

[C2K]

Well then, set about doing the driveshaft seal that was leaking such that I could drive it, and so that it stopped leaking oil on the driveway!

Got the seal out no bother (had to be the long shaft didn't it). and then couldn't get the roller wishbone to go back in the hole it came out of. Cue much swearing! Anyway, new driveshaft seal and gearbox oil done and onto the engine oil. Time for a new filter and some Fuchs Titan. Life started poorly when the sandwich plate for the oil cooler rotated instead of the oil filter.... ended up removing the radiator to get my mitts on it, and the front end to tip the oil cooler up and do the change properly. With that done and rebuilt, onto the coolant and thermostat.

That didn't go well either when I hamfistedly managed to snap the plastic elbow, having only just fitted my spare when i rebuilt the head. Off to Peugeot for a new one, thankfully only £14, and convenient that Peugeot is about 100 metres from work. New coolant and a new thermostat and good to go. As a courtesy, a new supercharger belt went on and new sparks.

So I've basically just been driving this and she's lapping it up. Really pleasing to have it working well I must say, with no major niggles. Managed to make it water and oil tight and i'm really pleased with it. This is the culmination of a lot of hard work since returning from South Africa. Many times i'd thought about giving it up, but I wanted to finish it. I need to get some trackdays booked after the wedding, i've identified a couple of potentials and i'll see how I get on. I'm running short of holidays and would rather avoid Saturday trackdays when i'm basically just going to kill my tyres on purpose.

Managed to lose the steering clonk. It turned out that the steering rack was shuttling on the bolts on the subframe. One of the bolts moved maybe 1/8 of a turn, and the other one seemed to go about 2 turns at the same level of tightness before going FT. I'll have to keep an eye on that, i'll pick up some new square section nylocs if that happens again, can only assume I overlooked torquing them up when I built it all the way back at the start of the project (seam welded subframe). Having been at the long driveshaft to change the box seal, I must've reseated the brake disc a little better as the little wobble I had on the first few uses has gone.

Here she is tucked up in her new home.