Wheels!

A big day today. With the help of Brenton from Meridian, who very kindly lent a hand, we lifted the car off the build table and fitted the wheels. Once we got over the excitement of pushing the chassis up and down the garage we raised it onto axle stands so we can start fitting gauges and working on the ancillaries.

 The more observant will notice the tyres are not all fitted correctly - we only spotted this when we got them back from balancing. However the garage that did it are more than happy to rectify the situation and it won't be long before the treads all face the right way.

Steering and Transmission

After wrestling with the slave cylinder position we needed some fun so we've attached our steering wheel. It's a 300mm Sparco with suede covering. We've also gone with a detachable mounting which will make getting in and out easier and hopefully add a bit of security. The boss was welded on by Meridian and as ever they've done a fantastic job.

Fun over, we bolted on the clutch, which has a slightly uprated pressure plate and is pink. Why, I don't know, but it looks mean all the same. That done we finally bolted the gearbox to the engine and now we have a form of propulsion. Almost.....

Gearbox and Flywheel

We're using a Sierra Type 9 gearbox courtesy of Eurospeed Motorsport. It's a close ratio 'box with a low range first plus a few other upgrades. We also went for the short shift lever which has a great action and finally couldn't resist adding a billet gear knob.

They have also supplied us with a lightened flywheel which is dwarfed by the original dual mass item. As a result our clutch slave cylinder needed bringing forwards on spacers which precipitated repeated assemblies and dismantling, but eventually we got it right. We also needed to widen the aperture in the bell housing with the trusty Dremmel to allow for the repositioned clutch hose and bleed pipe.