Got the engine back in with the sump finally fitted. So hopefully everything else can be fitted back together pretty quickly and the car prepped for Germany.

I leak tested the sump with some screen wash. I mainly just wanted to leak test the hose fittings which are an O-Ring seal. They are the weakest point really.

The leak test was a go – no problems with the sump. In fact, nothing at all leaked, so hopefully this sump will actually be dry!!

No problems with leaking here! So after the leak test I made the hoses up. It surprising how much room JIC hoses can take as the minimum bend radius is quite large and the fittings are huge. But after a while I came up with this:

So long as the sump misses the cross member and steering rack, and the hoses miss the cross member, and engine mounts it should be good. They only way to find out is to fit everything onto the actual engine and get it in position to find out if anything interfere’s…

et Voila! Nothing appears to be interference fit. It is also pretty close though! I call it precision engineering, but other’s might refer to it as luck! Anyway, the engine mounts are fitted and it appears to all line up okay. Just got to fit the spherical joint spacers in the mounts and I can start fitted everything else that was removed for re-painting the engine bay. Seems like there is quite a lot left to get done before Germany!!! Got to get this thing MOT’d again soon.

Been doing some more work on the new dry sump pan. Namely, I welded on the scavenge channel, which went pretty well. It’s definitely sealed! The welding went really well

Machining

I machined the scavenge channel out of the flat plate:

Also changed the scavenge fittings from hose + jubilee fittings over to be -10 JIC/AN fittings:

The dry sump pan main section is now fully welded. All I need to do now is test for leaks in this part of the welding, and then I can weld the scavenge channel on and machine the pan so that the scavenge channel will actually receive oil!!

I have been working a bit on the new sump. This time round I gave the sump a bloody good de-greasing and the final stage will be an acid dip before welding.

I bought some 4mm aluminium plate to weld on as the base, so I started profiling it so that it’ll fit. I’m leaving the material in place this time which sits in front of the flywheel. It’ll offer it some protection. Previously the flywheel was easily visible and could easily take a battering!

On the bottom of the sump will be the channel that I milled out to perform the scavenging…

So really the next step is a bit more profiling of the plate, maybe a bit of bending too in order to get a slope into the scavenge channel (I didn't have that in the last sump) and then it’s just a case of weld, weld, weld…

Finally got round to painting the engine bay. This time it went a bit more successfully!

I started painting the engine bay, but I mucked up the paint mix so it’s a miracle it didn’t go completely wrong. All I need to do is another mix and another load of paint and give the bay one more coat, then all should be fine!

I also started work on the new dry sump setup, which hopefully will be leak-free! The old sump pan always leaked a bit. Well, weeped really, but it’s still annoying!
I milled out the main scavenge channel, which took a while to do manually! Oh how I wish for a CNC mill! But the result is pretty good. All I have to do now is machine off some excess from the bottom (under the channel) and the holes needed for the scavenge pipes.

So I had the engine in for a bit to make sure the sump fits as it is now 5mm deeper to get some more space between the crank scraper and the main sump plate.

The frame did fit, but some things were in the wrong place and the cross bar was very close to the crank alternator pulley

So I put a whoop in the cross bar to get some more clearance, and moved the dry sump tank (to get it higher). I’ve also moved the dry sump pump about an inch and a half lower to help the gravity feed from the tank

Then I took the engine back out so I can start prepping the engine bay

Then, the backstreet garage touch-up spray prep begins…

I should have been painting the engine bay, but I couldn’t be arsed to go up the garage and do the messy work, so instead I’ll just put the engine and box back in without painting to enable me to finish off the frame and mounting of everything and then take it back out to finish everything off and re-do the sump.So today I put the gearbox back together properly and put the now-flat bellhousing back on along with the clutch release bearing.

So tomorrow I’ll try and get the clutch on, and the engine and box back in place to finish re-mounting everything.

Did some more:

Tested it again in the engine bay. Next I’m going to have to sort the engine bay out and put the engine back in to be able to do any more work on this frame. I was looking at it, thinking “I’m sure the oil pump is meant to be there…, and I’m sure the alternator should be there along with the front pulley!”. So chances are it’ll need modifying quite a lot when I have the engine in place! lmao Doh!

I started milling down a new sump pan to replace the old dry sump pan, which always leaked! This time around I am thinking of making the scavenge channel out of solid ali and machining it out. The previous pan was made of folded ali and was never really the right size. Both scavenge fittings leaked in the old pan – no matter how much sealant I used!