Now Ive settled in to Melbourne I am kind of hoping I can make a decent start on the car and bowl it over in fairly quick time. A recent visit to the local race meet at Sandown Park has inspired me to get a wriggle along (as if i needed extra motivation!)

I decided to change the dashboard layout again. The problem I was having is that I didnt like the speedo/tacho in the centre so Ive decided to take to the scuttle with an angry (sic) grinder and put in a bulge I bought from the Westfield Agent in Queensland.(Reinhold Scholz- Whitepointer Fibreglass). I bought the bulge on the off chance I might use it, and didnt know whether or not I would actually use it! I can tell you cutting a perfectly good scuttle was almost more painfull for me than it was for the Westfield!!

One I trimmed the scuttle bulge it was a reasonable easy task to fit the fibreglass into the scuttle and fair up the surface. The result is great. I now have enough room to fit the 5" gauges above the steering column in the conventional manner. The idiot lights also fit between the main two gauges and neatly finishes off the cluster.

I then rearranged the other gauges to the left hand side ready for the sender units from the engine to be hooked up.

The final thing undertaken for the dashboard was to set up a horn switch that would operate from the steering wheel horn button (I am not using the Toyota steering column fairing so lost the normal horn arrangement). This process involved manufacturing an alloy bracket from a piece of square tube that mimicked the moulded plastic arrangement from the Toyota item. I have to admit the horn button work was mere procrastination to avoid the task of wiring the ECU.

Another task underatken at this stage was the fitment of the wing and centre mirror. The wing mirror was just a suitable item from a wrecked car, nothing particularly flash or unusual. The centre mirror idea I stole from a westfield owner at the Sandown meet. (A bloke in a yellow westfield whom I cant remember?, but he has an ideal address, GREAT OCEAN ROAD!) The centre mirror comprises a Holden LX Torana centre mirror, complete with attachment bracket (which theoretically detaches in an accident). The arm on the bracket is cut short with the grove recut in the arm and the whole arrangement mounted upsidedown on the scuttle (I am not mounting my windscreen at this stage). This fits very neatly, with the standard westfield groove in the scuttle even mating nicely with the mirror attachment points.

The final cutting of the scuttle comprised the fitment of the side amber repeaters. On my drives around I called into the local Kia wreckers and purchase a pair of repeaters from a 1998 Kia Mentor for a princely sum of $20 the pair. These then finished off the job.

The dash pad problem was also solved at this point. I borrowed a rubber pad from a car which had already passed registration and then had the moulding removed. My car will now go through rego with exactly the same moulding (and subsequently have it removed.)

The next ECU wiring avoidance tactic was to insert a series of louvres (also purchased from "White Pointer Fibreglass") to allow for heat to be dissapated from the exhaust side of the motor. Bouyed by my success with the scuttle I approached the side of the bonnet with more confidence and cut the long rectangle out, to insert the pre-formed louvres.

As I only had a FWD manifold I neaded to locate a rwd manifold. John Henderson the NSW Westfield agent came to the rescue, and I had fun carting this item back through Sydney and Canberra airport depature gates with the security gaurds wanting to know what the hell i was doing with 5kg of cast iron in my ruck sack!! It didnt fit the image of the guy with a suit on Im sure!

Once I fitted this up to the engine temporarily, I noticed that the rwd and fwd flanges were the same, so I will not need to get another flange laser cut. That will save a couple of bucks anyway (at this stage who is counting anyway).

Well at this time I spend a couple of nights chatting with like minded individuals and picking up all the ideas that I needed to get through the next stage of the build. Not to mention get myself a ride in the next car rally and ensure my place in the grid at the GoKart challenge :-)

After some discussion with Lee Gardiner, a fellow Westfield buider a a similar stage to me, I decided to tackle the external thermostat housing and associated plumbing. Using Lee's ideas word for word (from his photos) I arranged the thermostat housing under the plemium chamber and routed all the plumbing as appropriate. One useful tip was to block off the heater joints as I was not planning on useing these in the short term any way. This simplified the process significantly and made the plumbing look alot neater.

While essentially the plumbing is complete - I still run the risk of airlocks forming in the water hoses as the radiator cap is not at the highest point in the system. To alleviate this problem I am going to install a car tyre valve in the aluminuim tube which passes across the front of the engine. It will then be a process of releving the air from this high point as the water goes in. It will also tell me when ALL the air has been expelled. Apparently an alternative to this is to fill the car with the nose elevated (up a ramp etc) so that the radiator cap is at the highest point in the system.

Another problem is the cable as it passes through the pedal box. The design of the cable makes it impossible to remove the locating nuts from over the ball end on the cable, and the only alternative is to slot the pedalbox - not a desirable looking result. My solution was to cut the ball off the end of the throttle cable and put a screw clip on the cable after threading it through the pedal box. This gives process gave me the right result. The only other thing required is to bend the pedals so that my size 11 hooves can actually use the pedals one at a time!! (- for another day)

Well I actually havent done anything to the handbrake (given it up as a bad joke!), but Rick Hargraves visited during this time and offered a workable solution. That was to weld some A shaped brakets to the backing plate of the rear drums and then attach the cable to those. After a little bit of thought it looks like this will be a possible solution and I will undertake this once I have access to a welder. Also I looked through the Ron Champion book and noticed that they welded a piece of angle onto the axle housing. So it will be once of these which becomes the ultimate solution.

All the discussions I have had with people on the clam shell guards was that the task was a real ball breaker. In actual fact the task was relatively easy, just a case of using the wife to hold bits and pieces and then measuring up. I temporarily fixed the clam shells to the body with rivnuts through the fibreglass sides and then attached brakets to the underside of the clamsheels to attach the brakets to. This saved me drilling holes through the clamsheels and should give me a cleaner look on top of the guards. To stop the guards flapping in the wind I have added a second braket about 40 cm back from the main stay to add a bit of a stiffening to the wings.

Once I removed the body it was then a process of removing the clamshells from the body and pulling the nutserts out of the fibreglass, and fibreglassing a 40mm wide strip the full length of the clamshell attachment points. This then provides the reinforced section into which the final rivnuts can be attached. I stole this idea from John Henderson (The NSW Westfield agent)

To enable the wiring to be fixed neatly to the chassis and so that I can fix down the brake lines etc, I have had to remove the body section. Prior to removing the body section I ensured that all the body was lined up - centred over the rear wheels, square across the back of the car and with the inner lip of the front of the body section lined up with the chassis tubes, I drilled all of the attachment holes with a 5mm drill as a pilot for the nutserts when the body is removed.

The body section can be removed single handed at this stage, as the fibreglass is extremely resiliant to bending. I am amazed at how flexible it actually is. It would be a different matter once the car is painted however as far greater care will need to be taken not to damage the finish.

Once the body was off the next task was to remove the temporary rivnets and fibreglass in the reinforcing aluminium strip. I also reinforced several locations that looked like they may crack (near the scuttle etc) while I had the opportunity(and a brush full of fibreglass resin). Once this was done the body was tied to the ceiling out of the way.

To alleviate the problem with fuel surge in the standard westfield tank, I had a sump welded onto the tank about 50mm deep, into which I have put the fuel pickup. This should solve the problems of fuel surge, and will provide me with an extra 1.5 litres of fuel capacity.

The only remaining problem I have is that I am unable to calibrate the Holden Commodore fuel guage sender with the triumph gauge, so I am in the process of locating a triumph sender unit to install in the tank. (Complete with a low fuel warning switch.)

Well I ran out of other tasks and the inevitable was at hand. THE ECU!!!!!

So sat down with the soldering Iron and the 3 DIFFERENT wiring diagrams (all for the same ECU) that I had and commenced the joining of wires to the sensors. As it turned out the wiring of the computer to the sensors wasnt too bad. The connections between the sensors also was fairly easy, and it was just a process of taking my time.

The biggest problem I had was that I grounded the starter motor to earth!! I was stumped as to why I couldnt get the starter working and I fiddled with wires trying to get the starter to function as its supposed to. I eaven got to the point of asking Peter Rebbecchi to call in one evening - and he spotted my mistake instantly. I felt like a goose at the time, but like all problems its always something stupid which brings you undone.

At this point in time the car now has spark at the distributor, and all I need to do is to put the fuel pump in a bucket of petrol and itll go!! Thats now likely to be next weekends pleasure (or anguish).

The engine cranked twice and started. I was very! happy and sent this message to the "Sevens Mailing List".

G'day Clubman listers This note is sent to you guys as you are the only group that can appreciate how stoked I am feeling today! Finally about 12 months behind schedule my clubman fired into life today for the first time. No exhaust - and how sweet the raucous sound was to me :-) I simply hooked the tank up to the engine filled it with fuel, turned the key the pump whirred into life and two coffs later it fired and ran. And whats more it stopped when I turned the key off (a bonus really) I jumped on the phone to tell a few people and Peter Rebbechi informed me that I must buy my wife flowers as a celebration of her tolerance of the last few months of our life. I thought that thats sounds like a complete waste of time (and resources which I could spend on the westfield) , so I bolted the passenger seat into the clubman and her reward was the "privedge" to experience the first ride around our suburb. Complete with no bodywork, bonnet, screens, seatbelts, scuttle nosecone or exhaust we went for a 2nd gear "blast?!" around wheelers hill. Much to the amusement of some of my neighbours who peered through their lounge windows trying to work out the noise. And of course I had to do the obligatory burnout - It was SOOOOO easy. My wife was only soso impressed, but who cares I now have the silly grin plastered on my dial. Cheers Brett Oates Melbourne Australia (previously Canberra)