Chassis
After what has seemed like forever, I have eventually finished all the welding up and grinding down of the old rivet holes!! Woo Hoo!! :-)
Now that the chassis was ready for paint, I decided to press on with painting the chassis using the POR15 paint I decided to use (www. por15.com).
I have only done part of the chassis but what I have done looks OK and should look a bit better once I put on a top coat of chassis black or similar (POR15 isn't UV stable so needs a top coat).
Engine
I've decided that I am going to make my own engine mounts so that I can position the engine exactly how I would like to clear the bonnet, etc.
The plates that will secure the engine to the mount were mocked up using some MDF to get the right shape and hole spacings. Now they are done I will make them out of steel plate (3-4mm?)
While I was at it, I thought I may as well swing the engine into the bay and make sure it matched up with the extensions I have made to the original mounts and whether the positioning of the new injection system would cause any problems. All seems well which is a relief but I suppose I'll need to do this a few more times as things progress with the rebuild.
I also managed to get the bottom end of the engine back together and fit the Scholar sump I had bought from a friend in EATOC so thats another job to tick off the ever increasing list.
A new 1.8 Zetec water pump (spins in the opposite direction from the 2.0 version) was also fitted to compensate for the change in the routing of the auxiliary belt with the removal of the power steering pump.
The alternator for the Zetec is now sorted as well. Using the grooved pulley from the big heavy Zetec unit and a bit of filing, I managed to modify the smaller unit I had fitted to the Pinto so that it could be pressed into service and save me a bit of cash in the process.
The alternator's mounting plate was also mocked up in MDF ready to be now made in steel.
All in all, not a bad weekends work!
