Rear Number Plate Revisited

As promised, rebuilt the back number plate mounting so now it is as low as I can get it and even more of the 'tiger' is exposed.

Stamford Car Show

Took her to the Stamford Car Show today.   Managed to get 7 other hoods along as well.  And first outing of my new Club Banner. 

It seems it rained everywhere in Lincolnshire except in the middle of Stamford.  My reputation for laying on good weather for Robin Hood Lincolnshire events was even more enhanced   Although she got filthy on the way home with all the puddles.  

 
We were positioned between the Corvette Club and the Italian Replicas Club

Reposiion Tyre Pressure Gauge and Voltmeter

Decided it was time to let the central power socket revert to being a phone charger.

so moved the Tyre Pressure Monitor to the top right of the dash and also put a voltmeter in just underneath it.

Third Brake Light

Having put the daylight running lights at the front, time to look at the back.   Most cars now have the high-level 'third' brake light so time to join them.   Love it !!

The wires go through the tube so they are hidden.  Thanks goodness for Ruth's crochet hook 


Later:   A friend pointed out that by mounting it on top of the roll bar I couldn't use the wet weather gear.

 Simple answer was to remount it underneath the roll bar.

Redesigned Rear Number Plate

A bit of cosmetic work this morning.

I love the 'Tiger' spare wheel cover, but the design of the rear number plate meant that the bottom half of it was obscured.

So I removed the luggage rack as I use it only a couple of times a year, and it was out with the grinder, drill and riveter and after an hour or so we now have this:




Much better.   I may look at dropping it a bit more but I ran out of time today.

More on the Cooling System

Interesting experiment today.    Having fixed all of the cooling system so that she runs at just over 90C, with the fan kicking in at about 95C and stopping at 90C she is now a pleasure to drive and I don't have to keep checking the temperature gauge.   But the only 'niggle' was that she was taking quite a long time to warm up to temperature.   

Here is a screen shot from a couple of weeks ago and you can see it took almost 12 mins to get to 80C


 The general consensus was that this was caused by a rather odd design of the cooling system by  the designer.    He had taken a pipe that went to the heater in the original Rover design and taken it across the top of the engine. via a stainless steel pipe,  to the top of the radiator.   None of us could figure out why he did that except that it helped prevent air locks when you were filling the system via the expansion bottle.    The problem is that meant there was always a circulation through the radiator even when the thermostat was closed.

So now i am in the position where I don't need to refill the system (Last time I added any water was back in 2015) I decided to try removing the pipe and see what happened.    In good kit car fashion I just blocked the hose with a 'widget' made from 18mm dowel. 

And even I was surprised by the result.   Here is a screen shot from today's trip:

This time it was less than 5 minutes to reach 80C.  More than twice as fast as before.  A dramatic improvement, so from now the pipe stays off the car.
 

I shall probably carry the pipe and a screwdriver around for the next few trips just in case there are any unintended consequences, and I need to find a better solution than the dowels to block the pipes as they are not 100% watertight.   I guess a rubber plug would be better.   We'll see if the Club have any suggestions.


Later:   Now fitted some much nicer aluminium bungs

Hot Exhaust

One of the disadvantages of the external exhaust system is it makes getting out of the car a bit dangerous.  At least with the Superspec it is the passenger who gets burnt and not the driver (other Robin Hood models tend to have the exhaust on the other side,

But after the latest casualty I decided it was time to fit this.  Hopefully it will prevent any further problems.

MOT

Feeling rather pleased with myself.   She just sailed through the MOT with no advisories.

Quite chuffed, as I have put a fair amount of effort this year in making sure everything was right.  Apparently the MOT chap was very impressed with my indicator notification system (high intensity LED and industrial strength buzzer), said it was the best he had seen on a kit car.
I was slightly worried about the noise level as the exhaust is a bit noisy, but apparently all he said was "sounds like a real sports car".
And the big test, of course, was the emissions check, where she has either failed or been marginal for the last few years.   Well it exceeded all my expectations.   CO2 was 0.018 (max allowed 0.2), HC was 23 (max allowed is 200)  and the lambda sensor was 0.999  (range allowed is 0.97-1.03, perfect is 1.0)  which is as close to perfection as I could ask.
Now that everything works properly I can go back to cosmetic tinkering , having eased off a bit after I had got her ready for the MOT.