Oil Catch Tank

I'd been meaning to fit an oil catch for a while.  Then a new OBP one came up on eBay locally and the price was absolute bargain.  A guy had bought it for his Lancia Statos build, but had changed his mind; he no longer wanted a 1 litre tank and was going to use a 2 litre tank instead.

Mounting the tank was relatively straight forward, but before the pipe from the crankcase could be connected, the internals needed to be removed from the Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PCV) valve.

The valve itself just pulls out of the rubber bung in the crankcase.  To get the internal of the valve out I ran the angle grinder around the end using a very thin metal cutting disk, 0.8mm I think.

The internals were then discarded and the valve reinserted into the rubber bung in the crankcase.

Here is the catch tank with the crankcase and camshafter cover pipes plumbed in.

Then finally an air filter was added to the top side exit.

Cooling System Updated (Again!)

1. As advised by Tiger I originally ran the car with no thermostat and no bypass plumbing.  I understand this is a fairly standard set up for race cars.  However, if quickly became apparent that the engine was being over cooled.
2. My next configuration had a thermostat with a 3mm hole in it as a bypass.  This worked very well all summer - the engine stayed at a constant 88oC, unless the fan needed to cut in.
3. Once the cold mornings of autumn arrived the engine started to run cool again.  Things were fine at lower speeds, but once there was a significant air flow through the radiator the coolant temperature struggled to maintain 80+ oC.  So I decided to introduce a full bypass pipe and fit a thermostat with no bypass hole.  To do this I had to fit a thermostat housing from an earlier Silvertop Zetec.  This was necessary in order to fit the coolant temperature sensor in a place where it would get a reading prior to the thermostat opening (as the Blacktop Zetec housing has no sensor holes and I'd previously had the coolant sensor in the main pipe to the radiator).  This set up generally worked very well, but there was one problem: somehow air from the expansion tank would make its way to the top of the radiator, which is higher than the pipe that feeds it from the thermostat housing.  A little bit of air would get trapped there each time the engine was run until there was sufficient air there for the flow of coolant to break down - not good.
4. So one more modification and hopefully the final configuration.  A 8mm hose barb was welded on to the top of the radiator and plumbed into the pipe joining the thermostat housing to the expansion tank. Now all works well.  Any air can return to the top of the system and an added bonus is that the hole coolant system is now self bleeding, which will help when I come to renew the coolant at future services.

Here is a schematic of my final cooling configuration:

8mm hose barb welded in to the top of the radiator.  It is just above parallel with the ground.  This is to allow it and the pipe to fit under the curvature of the nosecone.

Full routing of the new pipework (apologies for the poor quality mobile phone pictures, must use the proper camera next time).

C-shaped brackets were fabricated from aluminium strip.  These were fixed under the camshaft cover bolts and rubber lined p-clips were riveted to them.

Front Lighting

The IVA test requires that the front indicators are no more than 400mm from the outside edges of the car.  On the Avon this would be measured in from the rear wheel arches (being the widest part of the car).  The rear arches are 1750mm in width so the indicators need to be no less than 950mm (1750 - 800) between their outside edges.  As with most sevens the indicators needed extending on stalks.

I found a plastic waste overflow pipe at B&Q which is the perfect fit to hold the motorcycle indicator units.

To create a fixing to the nose cone of the car I used a 22mm copper pipe blanking cap with a M8 bolt.  An 8mm bolt was used as this is the same as the indicator unit bolt.  The centre of the bolt was drilled out to allow the wires to pass through.  A length of rubber sleeve was used inside the bolt to prevent chafing on the edge of the hole.

As well as using glue a couple of 3.2mm rivets were used to lock the bolt in place and prevent it spinning when tightening the nut.  Finally, prior to fitting, a quick coat of black paint was used to cover the copper and rivets.

To allow more clearance on the cycle wings I've changed from the 5 3/4"  light units to the smaller 4" Dominator motorcycle units.  Being smaller they should reduce drag (a little) and boost the top speed (a little).

The wires needed extending and protective sleeving added.  The colour scheme for the wires was very bizarre.  I had to trace each one to the bulb holders to work out what was going on.  After the bullet connectors were attached I labelled each one to prevent future confusion.

Being a motorcycle light the Dominator has a flat beam pattern, with no kick-up to the left.  This is fine for the IVA test, but to help it pass the MoT the light unit is best rotated a few degrees to give the required kick-up.  To do this a second locating cut-out was filed, to the right of the original one.  This causes the whole light unit to be rotated anti-clockwise when viewed from the front of the car.

Front indicators and headlights mounted and wire in.  I'll replace the bullet connectors with soldered connections after the IVA test.  I've ordered some proper two pin connectors from Ebay for the front indicators.  This will make it easier to detach prior to removing the nose cone.

I had some black card handy in the garage so I thought I'd use it to check the beam patterns.  Here is the dipped beam.  Hot spot in the centre and kick-up to the left.  Hopefully good enough to please Mr (or Mrs) MoT tester.

And here is the full beam.

These are small light units and are mounted quite low.  As such their beam will be masked partly by the front cycle wings.  This should not be too much of an inconvenience as they will really only be used to get home around dusk.  I don't plan to be making too many long distance trips at night.