Hydraulic hose bracket.

I actually made this a few weeks back but only just reached the position where I could fit it.

I started out with a length of box section.

From which I cut a section designed to cup the hydraulic hoses which go from the resevoirs to the master cylinders.



I used an off cut to make a leg and drilled some holes for mounting and allow me to "puddle" weld the two together.

Welds finished and ground smooth

I painted it black with some POR-15 and bolted it to the steering column support using the same U-bolt that holds the column itself. To finish, a couple of zip ties holds the hydraulic hoses in their place. Quite proud of this !

Brake Light Switch

I took a look at the pedal box today with a view to fitting the brake light switch. While I was at it I also took the opportunity to "persuade" the pedals in a vice to give me a bit more clearance for my size 9's. The brake light switch mounts on a bracket supplied by GD which bolts onto the face of the pedal box and holds it in position against the brake pedal itself. This gave me an idea for the circuit I'm putting together to control the reverse lockout solenoid. I've posted about it here "click". I'm planning to use a second brake light switch mounted against the clutch pedal to make the reverse lockout circuit "live" when both the brake pedal and clutch pedal are depressed. The theory being you'll only want to put the gearbox into reverse whilst you've got your foot on the brake and the clutch depressed. This also gives me a circuit to control the neutral safety switch which I'm going to wire so the clutch has to be depressed before the engine will start. Hopefully this will help avoid any mishaps which might occur trying to start the engine in gear ! Anyway, I made bracket, the same as the GD one, to hold a second brake light switch for the clutch pedal. Just got to get a second switch now and we should be away!



One area that give's me a little concern is that when placing the brackets on the front face of the pedal box I didn't look to see what clearance I had behind. Where the holes come through doesn't really leave enough room to fit the nut and washer on behind. I had a feeling this might be the case after drilling the pilot holes so I made the final hole a little smaller than needed for the bolts to pass straight through and cut a thread into the pedal box instead. It all bolted up nicely and seems OK I'm just not 100% sure on the strength of cutting a thread into cast aluminium. I guess time will tell!

Handbrake

The handbrake lever has been fitted before but now I've connected it up to the handbrake cable. I had to do a little fettling to get this to fit. Firstly the clearance between the bolt heads which hold the bracket to the side of the car interfered with the bolts which hold the handbrake to the bracket so I had to re-drill one in a different location. Secondly the handbrake as supplied is designed to use a different fitting to the cable so I had to drill out the locating pin in the handbrake lever and replace it with a bolt which passes through the end of the fitting supplied on the cable. The lever itself is a little close to the side of the cockpit so I might have to bend away a little to give more clearance. The bolts which pass through the floor go through a steel plate I've made which bolts up against the underside to spread the load. Forgot to take a picture so I might add one at a later date.

Getting sidetracked

This is one of the reasons why this build is taking so long. With all the nice shiny bits under the bonnet, a plain old aluminium mounting bracket for the brake fluid reservoir just wasn't going to do !

Original on the left, mirror polished stainless steel one on the right.



It was made up from some stainless I bought off ebay, bent in a vice, drilled and then polished up a little.



I think deep down inside, there's a part of me that doesn't want this build to end, I keep finding things to change or improve on before it's even on the road. I'll tell you what though, the part of me that wants to drive this thing is getting pi55ed off with it !

Anyway, enough self analysis and on with the build.

Testing hydraulics

I noticed a small pool of fluid sitting on a chassis cross member which appeared to be coming from a brake union. As the brake system isn't under any pressure this had me a little confused. Having bought a rolling chassis it led me to consider if any of the brake fittings had been tested before I took delivery. Common sense would tell you even if they had it made sense to check them myself so I set about mocking up the pedal box asssembly in order to apply some pressure to the system. You'll see from the pictures, I basically made a wooden frame to mount the pedal box and master cylinder and then used the supplied pipes and fittings in a tempoarary fashion to connect it all up to the chassis.

Once it was all connected and I'd bled the fluid through the system I tested it with a few pumps and finally held the pedal down for as long as my leg muscles would stand. There were a few leaks, nothing horrendous and a quick tweak with the spanner was all that was needed. I used a Gunson's Easibleed to bleed the fluid through the system and it worked flawlessly, thoroughly recommended.