Pete's S4

[Pete Clayton]

The car arrived yesterday after a bit of hassle getting it moved from Scotland. It looks solid and a good base for a project but as usual there is more work to do than originally planned.

The main jobs are, the brakes need freeing off, hardly any of the electrics are working, pedal box needs bracing as it flexes horribly, track control arm to replace, rear wheel bearing, cooling system to look at and fan to fit. The front bodywork has some bad cracks that need repairing. On the good side, i've had it running and it sounds sweet and I moved it in to the unit under its own power.

[Adrian Southgate]

I think they do the job quite nicely, different to RS 4 spokes or wellers.

If they are from a 'recent' westie then they will also be set up for a Sierra diff and rear end , hence the odd offset.

Got any fouling on lock up front?

[Pete Clayton]

Not sure on lock at the moment but they are slightly fouling the front shock spring at the second. The car had a pair of spacers on the rear when I got it, i'm going to try them on the front and rear and see how it looks and clearance. I think the reason i'm undecided is because of how much they are tucked in the arches currently, i'll get a better idea with the spacers on. If I like it i'll get some hunbcentric ones.

[James Doulton]

My wheels on the Legerra have an ET of 36mm. Because they are also 6" wide then I have had to move them 11mm further out so that they don't foul the springs. So I have ended up with 47mm of hub-centric spacers on the front. If the wheels had an ET of -12mm then I'd not need spacers at all. Some people have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to spacers but there is nothing wrong with fitting spacers to cure the wheel offset, apart from the extra weight. Oh, and the cost of course.

[Dave Adams]

the problem i have with large spacers is the weight especially on the front. (the spacers my S1 had as supplied by Dutton were made from 1" steel.....they were very heavy) so where possible i would prefer to get correct offset wheels.

i looked at alloy hubcentric spacers but the cost of them rapidly approached the cost of new wheels.

[Pete Clayton]

I tried the wheels again today but with some dodgy 30mm cosmic spacers, looks much better. I also found the offset stamped on the wheels ET46, no wonder they sat in so far the Wellers are ET12.

I also had a look at mounting the seats. The drivers one is now fitted and on runners but needs raising about 5mm just to clear the harness eyes.

[Pete Clayton]

I ended up selling the wheels as I wasn't happy with the fit.

I did a bit of tinkering yesterday. I've been going over the electrics and although messy they aren't actually too bad. One of the front indicators was broken inside so I bought some replacements, rather than go for the original style I bought some of the landrover defender style ones with removable bulb holders. I removed the original indicators and then put a hole cutter on the drill to make a hole for the body of the light to slot in and then screwed the new ones in place.

I changed the bolts on the windscreen surround for some dome head hex bolts. Everything has been assembled with those horrible guttering bolts in a variety of lengths!

Bottom bolt is one of the new ones

This is what I removed!

I bought a power cap yesterday to replace the SFI box and try make a little more space in the engine bay, just waiting for it to arrive. I stripped the timing belt cover off to see whether I needed square or round tooth, as I thought its an early round tooth engine. As you can see in the picture the water pump has been leaking.

[Pete Clayton]

I will be there in the S4! once the cam belt and water pump have been replaced the only major job is the pedal box and column bracing. I do have a list of other jobs but we'll see how far I get with those!

[Pete Clayton]

The powercap arrived at the end of last week, I had a bit of time this evening and went down to see how it fitted

With the SFI box

With the powercap (still need some bolts and a gasket)

[Pete Clayton]

Braved the cold for a bit this morning. Fitted the new o/s headlamp with the retaining ring from Daryl and removed some odd redundant brackets. Whilst I had the back end up in the air I found some accident damage, the rail that runs across the rear has a big crease in it, will probably need cutting out and a new one putting back in,

One of the other rails it bowed but looks like it has been done on purpose?

Interesting way of mounting the fuel pump and filter!

Think i'll get some thing like this to mount them properly http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fuel-Pump-Mounting-Bracket-Single-Filter-...

[Pete Clayton]

This morning was spent wrestling with the crank pulley. It needs removing in order to get the back plate out to fit the new water pump. There was a mismatch of bolts, 3x hex ones and 3x of the 12 point splined ones. First job was to take the radiator out to get better access. I thought impact gun would be the best bet on the bolts, the 3x hex ones came out no problems but the other 3 splined ones just rounded when I tried to undo. Lots of swearing drilling and knocking in different hex heads 2 came out and the head sheared off one. I had to undo the steering rack to get the pulley off and then the thread of the sheared one much to my surprise unscrewed with my fingers.

[Pete Clayton]

A bit of work done today. Aub came down the unit and we did the water pump and cam belt. Bit of a pain in the back side doing the water pump as it meant the crank pulley had to come off and also the cam sprockets to get the back plate out.

Got the new pump fitted and the belt with a new roller and tensioner. Drilled out a bolt someone had sheared at some point that was one of the fixing points for the cam belt cover and re-tapped it. Cover re-fitted, crank pulley back on, fan belt back on and steering rack bolted back in with new bolts and nylocs.

Next on the list is to mount the new radiator and make up the pipes and then it's on to bracing the pedal box.

[Pete Clayton]

Big smiles today, drove the car for the first time all be it only round the compound. It's going to be a weapon! I did find another job though, clutch is dragging hopefully can be sorted by adjusting the cable.

I finished most of the new coolant plumbing, just waiting on some 8mm hose for the two bleed pipes to arrive so ignore the blocked off bleed on the radiator.