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.

Tyres and wheels

The tyres and wheels arrived the other day and they are frankly beautiful. The alloys were supplied by Performance Alloys in Northern Ireland and the guys there were very helpful indeed. Not just in their advice when sorting out the correct offset and PCD etc but also by sending us real pictures of the alloys to help in decision making. Manufacturer's images are so artistically lit that you can't tell at all what the wheel really looks like.

The alloys themselves are OZ Ultraleggera in Matt Graphite Silver and are now sitting in our spare room along with sundry bits of bodywork. The tyres are Toyo R888 GGs which should be a nice compromise between track and road use. Did we mention that they are beautiful? Can't hurt to say it again. They are beautiful.

Body loom and relay box

This caused more head scratching as there is no set way to install the loom. We fashioned a bracket for the relay and fuse box from sheet aluminium, padded the back with strip foam and bolted it into a likely looking hole. Once we had decided on a route for the wiring to take, we enlarged some of the internal holes and covered the edges with rubber stripping to prevent rubbing - the external holes into the engine bay already had grommets.

The wiring for the gauges and switches was cable tied behind the dash as suggested by previous Birkin builders and the front end wiring tied along internal chassis tubing to the left of the engine bay

Rear Uprights

The half shafts and rear uprights have been bolted on in the last few days, along with the rear brake lines. We decided to change the rubber hoses for braided metal ones - both for improved pedal feel and ..... they just look cool. The rear anti roll bar was installed at the same time and put up little fight.

We've also attached the front callipers to the uprights. There was a spacer included in the kit which we didn't realise was unnecessary until after we had thread locked the first one in. Mental note - don't get carried away with the torque wrench until after you've dry fitted everything.

Rear Suspension Arms

Fitting the arms caused a lot of head scratching as the spacer washers are a very tight fit. A compact mirror was useful to view the progress and it also helped to pass the bolts through first a few times to ease passage later.

Sandwiching them in place as you offered up the arm seemed to work well - with a few episodes of them pinging off across the garage at the last minute.....boundless joy with cold fingers!

We used Phillips screw drivers to roughly position and hold the brackets, arms and washers in place, but even so it was very hard to get alignment good enough as the washers are so tightly clamped. A pair of needle nosed pliers gently tapped with a mallet proved the solution to getting the spacers exactly aligned and at last the bolts were in position.

Rubber mallets - what can't they solve?