Small but important jobs

Loads of small jobs to do. Feels great to knock them off the list!

Coil packs

Re-fitted the plug leads and coil packs today. I have fixed the brackets to the rocker covers using M6 16 mm button head screws. The holes in the rocker covers that were not used had M6 12 mm button heads inserted to finish them off.

Coils and plug leads fitted

Exhaust clamps

I was not happy with the front and middle exhaust clamps. They hung down too low and so would reduce ground clearance and the exposed threads were an invitation to make contact with the road. Even if I twisted them around, I couldn't gain much ground clearance without coming into contact with the chassis. As we have quite high speed bumps on our road (higher than the legal limit of 4"), I needed to make sure that the ground clearance was as high as possible.

Standard brackets hang down too far

I bought four Mikalor exhaust clamps from Westfield Fasteners to replace the standard clamps. Not cheap at £18 plus p&p, but worth the outlay. The photo above shows the before view and below shows the after views.

Almost flat clamps (Mikalor)

Front clamps fitted

Gearbox mount bolts

Replaced the two bolts gearbox mount bolts with 10.9 grade bolts. The others had lost there edge from being put in, thread locked and taken out a few times.

New gearbox mount bolts

Brace bars and cooling

I refitted the front brace bars, the radiator support frame and the radiator. This should have been really easy, but for some reason the bolts took some inserting in the brace bars, before fixing with nyloc nuts.

Brace bars, radiator support frame and radiator in place

Once the radiator support frame was in place, I trial fitted the header tank and hoses. This was an easy job and very intuitive. I have used black silicone hoses with W4 clamps (stainless steel). I replaced the supplied air intake zinc plated clamps with four 100 mm W4 clamps. The radiator will have to come off for the fan to be fitted.

Hoses and header tank trial fitted

Idler pulley

The idler pulley is not used on the GD, so I removed the bracket and pulley.

Idler pulley on right

Idler pulley removed

Transmission tunnel cover

The transmission tunnel cover needed a hole cutting out for the gear shifter. First I marked this out by measuring the position of the shifter, then drawing a circle 65 mm in diameter. My chassis is a Euro, so the sponge rubber was in place, therefore the hole was cut from the bottom side of the panel.

Put away the Dremel for this job. I broke a cutting bit. The hole was cut out using a jig saw and then tidied up with a half round file.

Hole cut in transmission tunnel cover

Clutch hydraulics

A smear of Loctite 572 was applied to the clutch pipe connectors (there are four surfaces to be treated) before they were connected to the block. The block was dismantled to allow the pipe connectors to be nipped up. The rigid brake pipes from the chassis were already in place.

From left to right clutch bleed, clutch feed, brake pipes x 2 

The two braided clutch pipes were strapped together with a couple of plastic tie wraps.

So a load of easy/small jobs done and out of the way.