| LIFE OF A GT |
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 | |  | February 1, 2009 - The plastic engine is back in the car.
I clamped a piece of plywood to the bottom of the framerails to ensure the bottom of the engine will not protrude below. And it's looking pretty good. It needs to come back 1.5" from the current position to put the shifter in the correct location, which will place the right head almost up against the leading edge of the footwell. I can make a little more room there if need be.
On the driver's side, the head sits slightly forward so there's more clearance there. But it does hit this protrusion at the bottom of the footwell. A bit of poking around revealed an odd thing - there's a significant amount of footwell in front of the gas pedal at WOT. Space you simply can't use. Is it left over from RHD versions of the car? That useless space is exactly where I need more room in the engine bay, so this is working out nicely. So nicely, in fact, that it appears very little work will be needed to stuff this giant drivetrain in place. Work beyond rebuilding the frame from the firewall forward, of course. But passenger compartment intrusion will be minimized. Amazing.
entry 165 - tags: footwell, clearance, engine | | |  | February 2, 2009 - Remember the steering crossmember that really should have been 2x2?
Well, it's getting closer. To ensure as much oil pan clearance as possible, I had to take a chunk out. Right about an inch at the back and nothing at the front.
entry 168 - tags: steering, frame, clearance | | |  | September 7, 2010 - I was hoping to get a lot of work done on the car over the long weekend, but life got in the way.
Lots of other jobs to do. But I did sneak down to the garage and solve one major problem.
As part of cleaning up the garage - I had to pull the Seven out of the trailer in preparation for a track day, and this meant I needed an extra parking space - I dropped the MG hood on to the car. This reminded me that I needed to do something about the oil filler neck interfering with one of the ribs on the bottom of the hood. Without much time to spend in the garage working on it, I turned to Google. That's where I discovered that the neck is simply clipped in to the valve cover. When removed, the stock filler cap will screw right into its place. Perfect!
It's possible to force this part off, but you'd break a locking tab that keeps it in place. The clever way is to remove the valve cover and pull back this little tab (visible in the picture) so the neck can be removed. That took all of five minutes. And voila, problem solved! The hood now clears every part of the engine.
If only all my problems were that easy to fix.
entry 390 - tags: clearance, oil filler | | |  | November 15, 2010 - The top of the diff disagrees with the bottom of the car at full suspension compression.
It's due to the extra bracket on top. So I made a little house for it. I haven't checked to see how the rear seat will sit on top of this, some further creativity may be required.
entry 452 - tags: clearance, rear axle | | |
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