Radiator

Got the radiator in, bit of a faff as its off a nissan 200SX. The rad has tanks top/bottom as opposed to side/side in the dax tank. The nissan tank had some mounting posts with a thread tapped on them, sticking out the bottom but if I used them then they would poke out under the oil cooler scoop which is pretty low as it is. Also due to the height of the rad I've had to angle it backwards, and the mounting cradle fouled on the inside of the scoop so I couldnt angle it back very much if using the mounting posts. So - off they came.

Instead I used the two drilled lugs on the back of the radiator, then bolted through the cradle with some rubber washers on. There is an added benefit of easy access to the drain plug. I then discovered that these lugs are a bit bendy so I beefed it up with a bit of angle firmly butting against the lower tank. I may get a second opinion on this but have the option of adding in some more angle under the rad itself as belt and braces peace-of-mind solution. When the rad was finally installed the upper mounts take a bit of the weight and its all pretty stiffly mounted so it should be fine. TA nice few bends of silicon hose will take up the movement between engine and rad.

The top mounts were the standard Dax mounts, just shortened slightly and bent a bit to suit, not too difficult. The rad is pushed as far over to the near side as it will go so that the lower outlet doesn't foul on the offside lower wishbone. This also helped the clearance on the entry with the bonnet hinge, which is another reason for the rad being angled back otherwise the hose would have to go straight through the hinge. Filler cap is accessible but rendered useless by the header tank, I'll blank off the outlet.

Anyway, enough words, pictures below explain it better.

Lower hose clearance with wishbone, and cradle.

Top bracket and clearance to bonnet hinge (I've checked it with the bonnet closed)

Front view - no rad/cradle showing outside of oil cooler, I feel a lot happier about attacking speed bumps! (although it does mean the next thing in the firing line will probably be the drain plug on the sump)

Edit - I did later take the radiator to a local engineering company and for £30 got them to blank off the cap and replace the rather bendy lower mounting tabs with some much stiffer studs. Post: Radiator Continued

Brake Pipe securing

Almost finished of securing the brake pipes. As you can see below the newly painted stealth matt-black brake servo is attached through the footwell bulkhead to the pedalbox. The clevis pin is the wrong size but that's not hard to sort. (beats £150 from Dax anyway)

Attaching the p-clips to the wing was made simple by the wonder of rivnuts. I cant believe I've only just discovered them. Rivets, with a thread in the middle! Who would have known?! Clearly in that picture there is some more clipping to do along the chassis but that's for another day. Also note my shiny new brake master cylinder (£18, cant remember where from) is also fitted and all solid brake lines are fixed in. Also I admit the brake lines themselves aren't perfect but I don't have a proper pipe bender and elected to use sockets and other handy round things. At least this bit of work is done now and we are at last making progress

Bonnet Fitting

The bonnet is now attached -

Not too difficult, the hinge bolts onto the inner wing so we did lots of measuring. I stood the bonnet off the lip with a bit of blutak just to get it lined up nicely then bolted the hinge brackets through.The front of the bonnet did catch very slightly on the lip so a bit of light sanding there and job done.

Pedal Box

Still saving for the engine so installed the pedal box last weekend which has been lying around for a while. Offered the pedal box up with the clutch pedal removed to make it a bit easier and marked all the holes. Then did a lot of drilling, pic below was taken from within the engine bay looking back at the front of the footwell and shows the cutout for brake servo with slotted holes (ahem - intended!) for adjustment.

The braket for the clutch master cylinder sits ontop of the footwell. Installed pedal box shown below. You can also see the U-bolts for the column on the scuttle hoop above, and the SLFL25 RHP bearing (from RS) fitted ready to take the steering column. This replaces the dax part and is much firmer and prevents the column wobble that some kits using the sierra column can suffer from. The guidance for fitting this is as high and as close to the centreline of the car as possible. It also says to beware that the column could foul on engine/exhaust parts so you need to be sure of where everything is before you fit it. Initially this worried me as it will be a while until we get the engine and exhaust during which time I wont be able to do any dashboard work without a steering column. I then remembered that we will take the car to Gary at Sidepipes who will be making us custom sidepipes and will bend the exhaust to fit around whatever is in the way so I could whack the steering column in and bo**ocks to whatever might clash with it.

The Dax manual says to mount the pedal box as high up as possible, you'll notice mines dropped 1cm or so. This is because the manual also says the lower part of the pedal box bolts through to plates on the chassis on the other side of the footwell. If the pedal box is at its highest then the bolts dont come through the plates, they are too high. Therefore I lowered the pedal box a bit so it all located properly. The only side effect this has is that the pushrod of the clutch master cylinder is at a slightly increased angle but it still operates smoothly. One thing to note is that the pedals are pretty high off the floor. We'll either have to put larger pedals on or raise the floor a bit so its comfortable for Naomi, mind you she is just sat on the floor with no seat.

As far as the steering goes, the column height is of most importance to me so I can get my legs under the steering wheel. The sierra wheel is 14" but I plan to use a 13" momo wheel eventually. I could have got the bearing a little further inboard but would have lost a bit of height on that mounting point which would make the steering wheel sit more at an angle and given a less comfortable driving position.

Clutch master cylinder can also be seen attached to the pedal, theres a slot in the top of the footwell to allow the pivot off the top of the clutch pedal to come through. Got a brake servo from a 1998 1.8 TD escort van off ebay for £18 as opposed to £150 from Dax. That just needs painting then it will go on with a new master cylinder (£15 ebay).

Lights

First post in what feels like ages, what with the micra needing a new timing chain (took us nearly a week!) and trying to make the best of the weather so the garden doesnt look like a jungle. We were planning on doing nothing else until we saved for the engine but thats far too boring.

Bought some rear lights - Lucas L594, Landrover lights and fitted them with LED bulbs. What a difference to the rear it makes, it actually looks like a car now. These lights required an earth wire from the bulb holder to work on a fibreglass bodied car.

Loads of stuff arrived in the post, radiator (200sx S14 off ebay), pedal box, fuel filler assembly. Also on order is a fuel tank and wiring loom.