Revisit the steering coupling

A very nice chap called Angus had a look at my steering couplings and offered the opinion that it may foul the inboard suspension cantilever. After much angst I had to agree with him so I spent the next day modifying the steering so the shaft now comes out into the front foot well where the designer intended. It involved fairly extensive mods to the foot well, lower bracket and lower bearing position.

The plate illustrated below was uprated to 3.5mm and hung upside down.

 The coupling now exits in it's original position as designed but needed a repair to the footwell.

This is as low as the steering shaft can go so if it is wrong now then that would be a problem.

References

Contents http://sylvabuild.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/sylva-j15-is-kit-car-designed-by-jeremy.html

 

Header tank

The header tank posed more of a problem than envisaged. I put a post on the Locost forum and some very straight forward advice was given as usual. I am not the conventionalist however so I decided to consider the design problem perhaps the solution was not as simple as it seams.

* The header fluid level must be above the thermostat housing (or in this case the temperature sensor as the thermostat is in the return path in a Ford Sigma).
* The rear hood/bonnet slopes away at the back reducing the available height for locating the header tank.
* The air filter is in the top near side in a Sigma as installed in a J15.
* The capacity must be adequate, at least a litre
* It must NOT be mounted on the engine support as vibration could destroy the tank.

The Ford Focus ST MK1 tank is ideal all you need is a support bracket that took 4 hours to fabricate.

References

Contents http://sylvabuild.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/sylva-j15-is-kit-car-designed-by-jeremy.html

Trial engine fit

Trial fitting the engine

Decided that I need to trial fit the engine in the unpainted chassis:
* Reduce the bodge marks on the chassis paint
* Solve any bracket problems
* Solve the aux belt pulley problem
* Fit the exhaust
* Check the Racing Puma Plenium fit

I bought an engine crane and a balance bar attachment, this aided single handed engine fit. The biggest problem was a device that stuck out the bottom of the gearbox, called an indent spring that totally prevented fitting. The Sigma engine has two of these one for forward gears and another for 5th gear apparently.






The other problem was with the offside mount that needed extensive surgery to make it fit and still be able to get the alternator off.

The problem with the Sigma belt system is I want to remove a) The PAS pump and b) the Aircon pump locations. This hardware adds considerably to the weight and it is complications a kit car can do without, just like Airbags, electric windows, alarm systems, electric everything etc etc. Identification: 1)belt, 2) Idler wheel, 3) Alternator, 4) PAS pump, 5) Engine pulley, 6) Water pump 7) Tensioner

The issue is the engine is 15 years old and versions without PAS pump are few and far between. The only car I could find without Aircon was on a pile 3 high in the scrappy. I looked on ebay but it was hard to identify the bits. So I made a replacement bracket for the Tensioner as the existing one was a heavy steel casting and originally housed the Tensioner and Aircon pump but without the Aircon pump the tensioner was in the wrong place. The PAS pump was to be changed into an idler wheel from a Transit.

 The Tensioner bracket was fabricated in cardboard first then welded up in 6mm mild steel plate from the patterns produced.






The (replacement PAS) v pulley idler shaft was fabricated/turned in the lathe and attached to the fabricated body.

The exhaust is important at this stage, if I want to run up the engine that was restored by Sitec. With a piece of luck I found the original exhaust from the westfield SEIW that I run about in, it has a built in cat and fits ideally to the Sylva. I got Graden of Stainless Creatrions to make me some pipework to connect up to the Sylva supplied manifold.

References

Ref: Stainless Creations: http://www.stainless-creations.co.uk/products.htm

Contents http://sylvabuild.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/sylva-j15-is-kit-car-designed-by-jeremy.html