| EVO Civic Evolution History | |
|---|---|
| EVO 4 - June 1999 | |
| 01/06/1999 | ...Damn a chain block makes a lot of noise at 3am!!!!! Got the engine, gearbox and driveshafts in and all bolted up. Stuck the extractors on (took about half an hour to do one of the bolts up as it's a bastard to get to). Stuck the front sway bar on and tightened up all the bolts that looked like they should be tight. Got out the slightly bent gearshift mechanism and beat it back into shape...had to make a new shift rod. It seems to go into all the gears. Dropped the radiator in. Hooked up all the various cables, pipes and wires to the engine and stuck some oil and water in it and some oil in the gearbox. Put the doors together (minimum trim to make them work) and put them on. Bolted on all the various ancillaries like bumpers, grille, guards etc. Bolted in the driver's seat, bodgeyed up some mounts for the passenger's seat. Put the battery in and tried the lights...blew a fuse straight away...many fuses later tracked the problem to the link wire that connects in the rear number plate lights...was wired up backwards. Got all the lights and other electrical things working. Stuck some fuel in it and tried to get it to go. Needed a jump start but eventually it kicked over and we got the timing good enough to make it run. Stuck the bonnet on. At 4pm I started it up, stuck it in gear (hoped that the motor wouldn't blow up, I could change gear and that the brakes worked) and took it off to get a pink slip. Damn guy at the garage said it was too late...come back tomorrow...not looking good as today it's 3 months out of rego and after this will need a blue slip...looks like I was a bit slow. Driving to the garage it felt like all four wheels were loose...damn it handled badly...quite dangerous actually!!! When I got home both front wheels where smoking...it had about 60mm of toe-in at the front...I'll fix it tomorrow. Went to bed after being up for around 40 hours... |
| 02/06/1999 | Did a quick wheel alignment and got it handling reasonably well. At least it feels like all the wheels are pointed in the same direction now. Went running around trying to get a pink slip with no luck...bugger!!!!! Looks like it's going to be blue slip time, which is a real pain! Oh well, I'll get one somehow...
There's still quite a bit of work to be done (buff up the paint, put all the trim and the doors together properly, build the new engine and gearbox...). I'll do all that sometime soon... I don't suppose it was such a bad effort getting a car from a completely bare shell to being up and driveable in 4 days...still would have been nice to get it registered as well... I suppose I'd better say thanks to Dave and Michael who helped quite a bit in the last few days. Dave did a bit of the wiring up and tracing wiring problems while I was fiddling with other things and both helped a lot bolting things on and getting it back together and onto the ground. Oh yeah and Jeff who I'm sure tightened up a bolt or two and pulled on a couple of wires... |