Oil Leak, mud guards, mirrors

Following on from the shakedown tests I decided to look into the oil leak more and prepare for what I thought was going to be a headgasket issue. So  started the strip down of the engine.

Im getting extremely quick at getting the intake system off now! However the rocker cover and cam cover needed to come off as well as the shield. This is made hard by the engine cover stay, shown in the pic above. I think following completion of the car ill make a change in this area to make working on the car easier.

So a little tip, because I needed to remove the cams and belt tensioner I wanted to help myself with setup and not have to do the timing again. So I moved the crank to TDC (Top Dead Centre) and cable tied the belt to both cam pulleys.

this made putting all back together easier...anyway So i whipped it all off and found a weeping camseal. Enough to potentially cause the oil leak as this area of the engine isnt high pressure but none the less during running would leak and so would match my oil leak as it would run down the head to the gasket and then run along that and behind the alternator bracket, so I removed the weeping seal first....

As you can see it came away well! So it had gone past its best, so I replaced them both, these were probably the only two seals I didn't replace when rebuilding the head of the engine...why...I don't know! So I put it all back together and will see how I get on but hopefully it will be fine now and much better then doing a headgasket! Getting the timing right was easy and it all went together easily.

Next was some replacement mirrors the new ones were not just too small and dangerous but also the glass brought objects closed like a zoom so had a smaller view. Some slightly bigger mirrors and a glass (convex) to open up the view and it feels much better. to put it in perspective. I could hold the two mirrors next to each other and in one see my nose and eyes, the others could see my whole head neck and around it.

Next was to work on the mudguards and I was able to do the drivers side fully.

Passanger side will need to wait as the filter is in the way partly so I've brought a 70mm 45 degree hose to move it out of the way, I will just cut a hole in the  mud guard for it to pass through if required. This will also bring it closer to the cold air feed hole in the bodywork so benefit all around.

Hydro Dipping / Hydro Graphics Explained

I've had a few people email regarding the bit I put on Hydro dipping and what I was going to do with it, so rather then keep replying Ive done a quick post.

Well first of all hyrodipping is like putting an ink print on to an object. we've all seen motorbike fuel tanks with skulls all over it, there's a good chance that was done by hydrodipping. So for this project, I did want to do the whole car, but it turns out that was a step to far.

What ill be looking at getting dipped in a carbon fibre weave print are parts like, headlight covers, door handles, dash pieces and maybe the wheels, I think Carbon looking wheels will look good against a colour of the right choice!

You can get DIY kits, which is why I've used the video below to give you an idea of how it can be done at home. You can see in the below video the film breaks up which it shouldn't do yet still gets good results.

People hydrodip a lot of things, gun replicas, xbox controllers etc... hence ill be using it in this project. I hope that explains it more for the people who were asking.

The carbon weave print ill be going for I've seen in the flesh and it looks very good and not fake at all even looks like the texture exists under the lacquer. Hopefully the video below does a bit more explaining on the process.