Light At The End Of The Tunnel

[Guest robinj66]

My car was SVA'd in October but has yet to make it to a single show.

 

First I bashed the sump and had to shorten it - a steep learning curve but a worthwhile exercise. The hardest part for me was trying to shorten the oil feed pipe an appropriate length.

 

Next the car decided to dump coolant out at a rapid rate - all within about a mile or so of starting out. this is omething that quite a few people seem to suffer from with various engines. Lots of reading on the the forum brought up lots of suggestions.

 

Fitting an expansion/overflow tank only seemed to delay the inevitable . I removed the thermostat which made no real difference ; I changed the rad cap for a higher rated one but to no avail and i changed the rad thermostatic switch for a lower temp one ; I removed and checked the water pump (not so easy on the Cologne engine as you have to remove the crank pulley in a very tight space and I ended up stripping threads on the thermostat housing so that had to be repaired ) only to find out that I have a limited edition water pump for which there is no gasket available

 

I finally took the sensible approach (something I usuially try to avoid ) and took the rocker covers & rockers off so that i could attack the head bolts. Strangely the haynes manual has 4 stages of tightening down the heads and of course, in my hurry to get OTR and registered I hadn't completed stage 4.

 

So, today, in between the rain showers, with heads duly torqued, water in the rad and holding my breath - I took her for a lengthy road test and no water lost!!!! The electric fan has cut in & out, temp gauge has gone high up the scale but basically I seem to have done it.

 

 

Lesson for today - RTFM

 

Now all I have to do is fit a sreen, wipers and washers, raise the rear ride height and possibly fit longer springs. Then think about wet weather gear and a permanent rear boot-lid.

 

Oh and make it to a show in my car. Unfortunately it won't be at Newark - Bl**dy family members and their birthdays

[Guest pwlcarz]

Congratulations on finally sorting it out.

 

I'm intrigued and impressed that you've got your Stainless S7 through SVA.

 

I've got an S7 in Stainless but fortunately it was built/completed some time ago, as looking at it and some of the problems others have recounted with SVA, I would have thought it would be horrendous on this model to get it to an acceptable standard.

 

Well done again.

[Guest robinj66]

I did have a few problems at SVA, mainly due to the fact that I saw three differents sets of testers - each had their own ideas about what would pass.

 

The main problem area was the rigidness of the mounts for the steering column and the pedals/master cylinder - there was definitely some movement and I had to use a lot opf angle iron to create an over-engineered subframe. At least it allowed me to practise my very poor welding.

 

I also put in an extra bearing on the steering column - may be overkill but steering/ braking is very firm.

[Al Milton]

Finally got there then Robin, a great task of perseverance

 

Just have to make sure you have enough fuel in the tank for the future

 

Al

[Guest robinj66]