Where was I? Ah, the satchshift was buggered. It was installed, and looked bawss, but didn't do much in the way of engaging gears which was sort of annoying. I poked it a bit, then harassed Blackie on facey for a few hours. The problem essentially, was that even when it was back in say 4th, pulled towards you, the pivot point of the stick was too far forward in the hole down through the transmission tunnel for you to have enough forward throw to get 1st, 3rd or 5th.
That was in 4th gear.
A new day and a fresh pair of eyes showed that I was indeed, as expected, a retard, and I'd bolted the lower part of the Satchshift bulkhead gubbins "in front" of the bottom arm brace bars, rather than "behind it".
This meant that the whole thing was pulled forward by a quarter of an inch and didn't work. Once resolved, it took a couple of minutes to set it up and get all the gear selecting nicely.
With a nice bit of weather, it seemed like a good time to pull it outside and attempt to solve the starting problem.
Basically, there was 2 earths I'd forgotten to connect, and once these were connected, the alarm unplugged, and the coil pack connected, it spluttered into life, making generally apoclyptic squealing noises. After I'd quickly turned it off and changed into some new shorts, it became apparent that the alternator had well and truly seized up over the last 5 months, so I whipped the belt off and that solved the problem for the short term.
Next I turned my attention to fitting the exhaust to appease the neighbours, and some sort of cooling system so it didn't melt. The coolant system proved to be a pain, as while I had all the hoses, I also had this:
5 months ago, I put the retaining clip in such a safe place, I doubt I'll ever find it again. A local chap came to the rescue and hooked me up with a spare he had, what a hero. I say local, I live in a field so it was still a 35 mile round trip.
Now that I had coolant, I addresses the lack of exhaust. It turns out the Pugsport system is a very snug fit with a satchshift, so I decided to heatwrap the front part so that if it does knock slightly under harsh engine movement it should damp the noise slightly.
This fitted, I popped the back box on for a trial:
Looks more awesome than it is, as my Pugsport doesn't have S1 shell hangers, FML. Every step of the way something goes tits up man. See what I mean here:
It's simple to sort, I'll just clean the paint off, whip that hanger off and weld it into the correct place, happy days all round. The other 2 hangers and poly bushes are keeping it in place fine for now.
As a quick easy job, I fitted my remote central locking units and looms to the doors, and whipped the extra un-needed bits off while I was on, weight savingzzz.
Just call me minimal gainzzzz.
Now I needed an Alternator, Deano kindly donated a spare, and refused to take any cash, so I lashed him a crate of beerzzz, and fondled his awesome dawg:
The rest of the weekend slowed considerably as we had the wifes nephew to stay, but I pressed him into child labour and decided to blitz the garage and clean it up. I also lashed down some carpet I had spare, so now all the oily bits are pretty much done I can tinker on in a bit more comfort:
Along with the garage speakers and beer fridge it's a happy place to be now.
I refitted the bonnet and front wings for the first time in 5 months as well, looks almost car ish:
THe ride height is pretty much bang on where I wanted it tbh, the rear sits about 20mm higher than the front, so the car sort of 'points nose down'. The wider track VTS disc beam fills the arches nicely width wise, and the front are sat right out in the arches also:
The bottom arms are almost exactly level as well, which is spot on:
I've tidied up the bay a bit wiring wise, and fitted the ECU cover and VTS fusebox etc
The DVLA also sent me back my new logbook with the plate assigned finally, huzzah:
And I'm being reet organised, so I've popped a white board up in the garage, complete with 'Anti-Death 106 List'.
Just the wiring issue to sort out, and the other 20 odd bits on the list, and it's road ready! Ish...
Mick 'Big Duck' Swan
Linear Mode
